On the evening of January 7, the press conference of the new version of one of Mo Yan's representative works "Life and Death Fatigue" was held in the Douyin live broadcast room. In the two-hour live broadcast, Mo Yan, together with his classmate and friend writer Yu Hua and poet Nishikawa, opened a dialogue with literary giants to discuss the details of the creation of "Life and Death Fatigue", reveal the characteristics of Mo Yan's writing and the formation of language styles, and share their creative experiences when they were young. That night, more than 2 million people watched the live broadcast online.
"Life and Death Fatigue" is one of the most important masterpieces in Mo Yan's creative career, and even had a certain impact on Mo Yan's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012. First published in 2006, the book tells the historical development of rural China over the 50 years from 1950 to 2000, from 1950 to 2000, from the perspective of a wronged landlord who undergoes six cycles of reincarnation into a donkey, cow, pig, dog, monkey, and finally rebirth into a large baby with a congenital incurable disease.
Looking back on the creative process of "Life and Death Fatigue", Mo Yan still remembers it vividly. In the autumn of 2004, Mo Yan bought a second-hand house in Changping, Beijing, where he completed the creation in one go. "It's quiet in that courtyard, and you can occasionally see planes flying overhead, and 43 days is a full-time work." Mo Yan recalled that at that time, after using a period of computer writing, he re-wrote on manuscript paper, and more than 900 pieces of manuscript paper of 500 words were piled up on the desk.
Wrote 550,000 words in just 43 days? Such a fast writing speed, once met with readers' doubts, worried that the quality of the book is not good. Yu Hua joked in the live broadcast, "Although it only took 43 days to write, it took Mo Yan 43 years to conceive the book. Yu Hua particularly emphasized that Mo Yan has the enviable speed of creation of writers, and once he starts, he can quickly enter a state of intoxication.
In fact, writing "Life and Death Fatigue" took 43 days and conceived for 43 years, which is not a joke. During the live broadcast, Mo Yan reviewed the complete creative process of "Life and Death Fatigue". He introduced that "Life and Death Fatigue" is the image of the character first, and then the formation of some long novels, "like the old carpenter who works with drawings, plus using a pen and paper to write, the work is very fast." ”
Before creating "Life and Death Fatigue", Mo Yan visited a temple in Chengde with six murals of reincarnation on the wall. Originally, the story of the landlord Ximen had been brewing in his mind for a long time, and this mural immediately inspired the idea of the structure of the novel. Among them, each image comes from Mo Yan's life experience.
Writing about the great changes in Chinese society from the perspective of animals, Yu Hua bluntly said that this book is not fatigued to read, and it is fascinating to read, which is a great novel. Yu Hua said that "Life and Death Fatigue" is a book that gradually dissolves hatred, and most of the time reading is joyful, but seeing the death plot of cattle and donkeys, the details of the story make it easy to shed tears and make themselves tearful. Referring to the passage where the pigs fight, Yu Hua laughed and said: This pig named Pig Sixteen must be the most cattle pig in the history of literature.
In the live broadcast, Mo Yan, Yu Hua and Xi Chuan specifically discussed the characteristics of Mo Yan's writing language. Nishikawa commented, "One side of Mo Yan's language is gluttony, that is, 'eating the sea and drinking' (mouth like a hanging river); however, there is also a side of 'no food and no drink' (refining and rigorous). He still combines these two things. 'Eating the sea and drinking' is like a hanging river, Li Bai is a hanging river, and the representative of foreign writers whose mouth is like a hanging river is Shakespeare. Among them, there is imagination, freedom, and galloping. For Nishikawa's evaluation, Yu Hua believes that "this is the most appropriate metaphor for Mo Yan's language." Mo Yan said that the "customary" parts of his writing come from the folk, and that culture has a deep influence on him.
In addition, Mo Yan, Yu Hua and Xichuan also answered many questions raised by netizens during the live broadcast. Some netizens asked, "How to win the Nobel Prize in Literature", Mo Yan believes, "The quality of writing is the first, writing ten novels of average quality is not as good as writing a novel of good quality." Taking Yu Hua's "Alive" as an example, tens of millions of copies have been published, and Yu Hua writes novels easily without shooting, and has originality as soon as he shoots, and has been polished repeatedly for a long time.
It is understood that in addition to the new version of the "Life and Death Fatigue" conference, this live broadcast is also the grand finale of the douyin "Knowledge New Year's Eve Season" series of live broadcasts. Douyin's "Knowledge New Year's Eve" activity invited knowledge creators in various fields and more than ten knowledge masters such as Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Hao Jingfang, etc., to accompany netizens to the New Year's Eve with a knowledge feast through short videos and series of live interactive methods.
Previously, as a co-producer, Douyin exclusively broadcast Luo Zhenyu's 2022 "Friend of Time" New Year's Eve speech, bringing a four-hour knowledge feast for netizens. Yu Minhong, Zhou Guoping, Hao Jingfang, etc. also brought a number of live broadcasts with themes such as "The Road Traveled by the Good Books I Read in 2021", "Discovering the Beauty of Life to a Higher Place", "Zhou Yu Gossiping about Life", "Metaverse Folding - 15 Soul Tortures about metaversm" and so on. (Wang Lei)
Source: Guangming Network