Back to 80: My Literary Life

The next morning, Fang Minghua arrived at Harvest magazine early in the morning and met Xiao Dai, the deputy editor.

Xiao Dai was very enthusiastic and told what happened again, and finally said:

"Comrade Xiaofang, we will not publish in China for the time being. Please understand."

"Understand, understand." Fang Minghua said.

Originally, my goal was not to go to the mainland.

Besides, this year is 1983. In addition to the mass arrests, there is also a campaign to clean up mental pollution at the end of the year.

Palladium always says it won’t be published, so it’s best not to be published.

"Xiao Fang, let's go to Palladium's hometown with me. He said you were here and he wanted to see you." Xiao Dai said again.

Going to meet the Palladium?

Fang Minghua subconsciously adjusted the style buttons of his clothes.

Someone commented on Palladium this way: Just as everyone has his own basal body temperature, every writer has his own basal body temperature. In modern Chinese literature, the writer with the highest basal body temperature may be Palladium.

"Random Thoughts" he wrote is considered Palladium's most important prose work, and is known as "a writer's conscience" and "a big book that tells the truth".

When meeting such an old man, of course one must pay attention to his image.

There was still a long way from the magazine office to Palladium's residence. In this era, there were no buses to the magazine office, so the two of them squeezed into the bus and rushed to Palladium's home on Wukang Road.

Knocking on the door of this quiet courtyard, Fang Minghua and Xiao Dai followed the nanny into the living room on the first floor. Fang Minghua saw Palladium sitting on the sofa.

At this time, Palladium was almost eighty years old, wearing a gray tunic suit, and his hair was completely white.

After the two sat down and the nanny brought the tea cup, Palladium looked at Fang Minghua and suddenly asked:

"Xiao Fang, do you know Mr. Lu Xun?"

learn?

Fang Minghua thought he had read several books written by Lu Xun, but how could he dare to say he understood the old man in front of him who said, "Mr. Lu Xun will always be my teacher"?

He then said:

"Mr. Palladium, I have only read a few books written by Mr. Lu Xun, such as "The Scream", "Morning Blossoms Plucked at Dusk", etc. They are just for study, not understanding at all."

"Then why does the language style of the "The Legend of Wukong" you wrote look a bit like Mr. Lu Xun's style?"

No way?

You think the language of "The Legend of Wukong" is nonsense like Master Xing, but I believe it. How can it be connected with the serious-faced Mr. Lu Xun?

Fang Minghua was a little confused.

Suddenly something occurred to him, and he asked tentatively: "Mr. Palladium, are you talking about the collection of "New Stories" written by Mr. Lu Xun?"

"you saw it?"

"I have seen it. The language changed from his usual spicy style and became very humorous. In "Flying to the Moon", where he wrote about Chang'e flying to the moon, he wrote this:

"Hmph!" Chang'e raised her eyebrows, stood up suddenly, and walked out like the wind, muttering: "It's the crow's fried noodles again, it's the crow's fried noodles again! Go and ask whose house it is. Are you someone who only eats crow meat noodles all year round?"

After Fang Minghua finished speaking vividly, Palladium laughed and said to Feng Mu next to him: "Old Feng, did I tell you before? He just reads a lot!"

"When Mr. Lu Xun was teaching, everyone gave us the impression that he had an erect beard, scowl, and was serious and boring. In fact, he was very humorous." Palladium talked about Lu Xun with great interest.

"In the Republic of China at that time, I remember Mr. Xu Zhimo and others. Love-lorn poems such as "Ah yo yo, I'm going to die" were very popular.

Mr. Lu Xun couldn't stand it, so he wrote a limerick called "My Broken Love", making fun of Xu Zhimo and other poets:

"My love is on the mountainside. I want to find her. The mountain is too high, and I can't lower my head to shed tears on my robe. My lover gave me a butterfly scarf. What to say in return to her: an owl. From then on, she turned her back and ignored me. I don't know why it frightened me."

"When I read this, I almost laughed to death. Comrade Xiaofang, your article has quite the style of Mr. Lu Xun." Palladium finally said.

"Don't dare, don't dare." Fang Minghua was very frightened after hearing this.

It turns out that now he understands that Mr. Lu Xun is the true master of nonsense in the literary world.

The younger generation are all left over by playing with others.

A few people chatted for a while. Returning to the topic, Palladium said again: "I heard Editor Xiao said that you promised to write a pioneering novel on the phone?"

"Yes, it's written. Please review it." Fang Minghua took out a stack of manuscripts from his yellow satchel.

"Really? Let me take a look." Palladium took it with interest and put on his reading glasses. Xiao Dai, who was sitting next to him, also leaned over to take a closer look.

After the two of them read it, Palladium asked Xiao Dai: "What do you think?"

"The writing method of stream of consciousness, there is also a shadow of magical realism in it, which I think is good."

"Then make arrangements to publish it as soon as possible." Palladium said, turning his head to look at Fang Minghua.

"Sure enough, some people say that you are the representative of avant-garde novel writers in our domestic literary world. I think this statement is true." Palladium said.

"Don't dare, Mr. Palladium, I'm just trying to attract others." Fang Minghua was very modest.

Ma Yuan, Mo Yan, Su Tong, Yu Hua, they are the ones

After chatting with Palladium for a while, Fang Minghua and Xiao Dai said goodbye and left, going directly back to the magazine. Xiao Dai told him that he was going to contact Sanlian Publishing House in Xiangjiang and that some parts of it still needed to be revised.

Fang Minghua spent three days in the magazine before revising the plot and language in some places.

In the original manuscript, Tang Monk disappeared after being beaten to death. Xiao Dai felt that it was a bit unreasonable that such a key and great person suddenly disappeared and never appeared again.

Fang Minghua suggested that Tang Monk should appear one last time. Readers will know that he is still on the long journey, searching up and down.

At the end of March, Fang Minghua returned to Xijing from Shanghai.

I went to Yanjing in mid-March and spent more than half a month traveling back and forth between cities. It was quite tiring.

The most important thing is that Shencheng's food is really not used to it.

The seafood is not as good as Lao Qin’s mutton dip, and the fried fish noodles are not as good as Lao Qin’s fried noodles.

Finally, I can enjoy the gourd head and sour soup dumplings to my heart’s content.

In the "Yanhe" magazine, Lu Yao's "Yellow Leaves Falling in the Autumn Wind", Chen Zhongshi's "Kang Family Courtyard", Shi Tiesheng's "My Distant Qingping Bay", etc. were published one after another. These excellent novels were immediately carried by the magazine Come to huge popularity.

Monthly magazine sales began to pick up, which made President Huang happy.

Or is this young man Fang Minghua a smart guy? He has many contacts and a thick skin. How about we stop burdening him?

Forget it, let's take it easy.

Wait until Lao Zhang retires.

The article "Roadside Picnic" was published in the April issue of Harvest, which naturally caused another controversy, but this time it was much smaller than that of "The Sun Also Rises".

Readers have gradually become accustomed to this young writer named Fang Minghua's unconstrained writing style, which is outside the mainstream realist works.

Now Fang Minghua is waiting for the Xiangjiang Joint Publishing House to talk about the publication of "Harvest", but he didn't expect that the news he got was pornographic.

The other party did not quite approve of this method of magically modifying "Journey to the West".