Su Tong: Have I ever had a real betrayal of avant-garde novels?

2022-02-25 20:37:11

Su Tong appeared in the literary world in the mid-1980s. Back then, this young writer who came out of Suzhou with a childish atmosphere had just stepped out of the school gate of Beijing Normal University, but the advent of a number of short stories such as his "Flock of Wives and Concubines" and "Red Pink" and other novellas and adapted into film and television works suddenly made him popular. Later, his novel "Rice", as well as a series of novels set in his "Maple Poplar Hometown", until "Why Snakes Fly" and "People's Fish", let us see that Su Tong's creation is maturing and constantly surpassing himself.

This article is transferred from China Writers Network

Impressions about the writing posture

Su tong

I talk about this because in a recent conversation with a journalist friend, he repeatedly mentioned the avant-garde posture of my previous writing. It was also in the process of talking with him that I suddenly realized that there was a vague criticism of me between his words: you betrayed the avant-garde novel.

He talked about "Rice," and he loved "Rice," and I know that many of my friends love my long-form debut more than I love myself. Most people like something that is fleshy and strong, and the sword is on the side, even if it is rough, even if it has serious flaws. The so-called "avant-garde" is, of course, only a literary representation of it, and in essence, it is a concern for the writing of young blood. Years later, I struggled to recall the state and scene of my writing when I wrote "Rice", and all I can recall is that I resemble a crab that runs amok. I remember that I was very hot-blooded, and at the same time very cold-blooded, almost like a literary extreme experience, I had a destructive desire and a desire to subvert, in an unusually reckless and ruthless way to advance the story of a family as an almost hellish story, I want to destroy and subvert too many things, the identified human, moral, ethical framework, can be broken. I even felt that my writing state at that time was a bit like the state of jumping gods. In addition to the narrative language and narrative structure, "Rice" probably deepened my avant-garde impression among readers. Looking back at this novel now, its advantages are obvious, sharpness and strength; the disadvantages are also obvious, the whole work involves the space of human nature, but what I am dissatisfied with is precisely this human space, which is too sharp and loses its elasticity, and a space that should be rich and multi-layered is inevitably a little narrow and monotonous.

Long story short, I want to pop up the point I want to make. After twenty years of writing practice, I have gradually come to have a deep experience that no writing posture is inherently advanced, and no writing posture established in advance can establish the writing height and quality of the work. As for the avant-garde position, my attitude towards it seems to be becoming more and more ambiguous. I am ambivalent, on the one hand I appreciate all the unique anti-secular writing; on the other hand, I feel that the preconceived "avant-garde" gesture is harmful, and that it damages, like a virus, the physiological organization of a healthy and natural work—if a work has physiological organization. I understand "pioneer" to understand it more as a writing posture, if the literary field is an arena, the pioneer is probably a runner with a special running posture and a different pace than others, he will be eye-catching, but the question will also follow, does he run fast? Are his grades good? No one can be sure. At this time, of course, I was also at a loss. So I think it may not matter whether the vanguard is not pioneer, just as the Wan River rushes into the sea, the question is not what color and what flow of the river you are, but whether you are a river or a stream or a pond, the question is whether you have allowed yourself to run like a river.

I think that perfect writing is writing without presuppositions, in a sense betraying the avant-garde itself is a kind of avant-garde, and the impetuousness of the writer's oath of allegiance to the avant-garde is as harmful as the conservative trite of declaring allegiance to traditional realism. Literary discourse should also be wary of hegemony, and should not succumb to the discourse of power from the avant-garde, as important as resisting the hegemony of realism from conservative and even alienated. The so-called unique literary character is always the most fascinating dream, it is difficult to distinguish one's own breath in the noise, and good writing habits are not so much an action as a gesture of listening, talking to oneself in listening.

I don't know if I've ever had a real betrayal of avant-garde fiction, or if I've ever betrayed myself in my long life of writing. In the literary field, betrayal may be apostasy, it may be revolution, and I may not really care about such a suspenseful struggle, and after making a firm promise to one's soul, everything can be changed, and the only thing that cannot be changed is the posture of the rushing river, which is the unchangeable posture of a writer.

Su Tong: Have I ever had a real betrayal of avant-garde novels?

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