In 2024, China Writers Network will launch a special column called "Short and Long Books", inviting readers to dialogue with new literary works in the form of letters. "Short and long books" are willing to start from the work itself, long if there are words, and short if there are no words, and also willing to touch on the current literary symptoms from the dialogue, which can not only seek beauty but also find faults. In this form, we hope to make a close reading of the literary scene and explore the real problems of literature with concrete and tangible sincerity.
Emma has always exercised prudent restraint in the proximity of her life. After living in Qingdao for 20 years, she said that she was finally close enough to Qingdao that she could "write". "Guanxiang Mountain" focuses on the rhythm of daily life, going to work, getting off work, cooking, reading, and seemingly calm and repetitive life looms slightly. The key in the ups and downs contains our irregular emotional structure, and beyond this, it is a writer's insistence on faith, kindness, and love. As she put it, "I trust in the big events, in the torrent of history, in the details of ordinary people's daily lives." In the 5th issue of "Short and Long Book", we welcome young critics Li Yang and Yin Lin to come to the foot of "Guanxiang Mountain" to observe the world and the life of the audience with us.
——Column host: Chen Zeyu
Discussed in this issue
"Guanxiang Mountain", written by Emma, published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House and Qingdao Publishing House in December 2023.
Shao Jin bought a beer, watched the seagulls on the beach for a while, and went home a little later than usual. Walking downstairs, she looked up at her balcony, Fan Songbo was smoking on the balcony, saw her look up, waved at her, and there was light smoke between her fingers. Shao Jin often goes to an old beer house near his unit to buy beer after work, usually buys a bunch and carries it home in a plastic bag. Now she and Fan Songbo often sit opposite each other for drinks at dinner, like a pair of old drinking friends. ”
In the eastern coastal city of Island City, under the seemingly calm living water, the woman Shao Jin and her husband Fan Songbo have their own concerns. Heavy emotions, old friends who are no longer sober, and lay monks who copy the Tibetan scriptures by hand...... The mountains, the sea, and the temples hovered like a dark grid of the past, while constantly folding, there is no way to ask. "Guanxiang Mountain" is a novel drama about how people establish dignity, order, and inner ethics, and a work that depicts the difficulties of ordinary people's lives.
About the Author
Emma, novelist. He is a native of Li County, Hunan Province, and now lives in Shandong. He has published a collection of novels "White-eared Night Heron", "Daydream", "Floating Life", "Who is Passing by", and novels "Four Seasons" and "Guanxiang Mountain". He has won the first Moutai Cup "Selected Novels" Annual Ranking Award, Shandong Taishan Literature and Art Award, Pu Songling Short Story Award, Chinese Writer Ordos Literature Award, Wang Zengqi Literature Award, and the first Shanghai Short Story Biennial Award. In 2022, the short story "Mustard Seed Inn" was nominated for the 8th Lu Xun Literature Award.
Short and long books
Li Yang
Li Yang, Ph.D., editor of Yangtze River Literary Review, has published many articles in academic journals such as Lu Xun Research Monthly, New Literary Historical Materials, Modern Chinese Journal, Contemporary Literary Circle, Contemporary Chinese Literature Research, and International Sinology.
Brother Yin Lin:
Seeing the words as they are, how are things going these days?
Last time, Jinan said goodbye in a hurry, and I haven't had time to ask you for more advice. I just take this opportunity to share my reading experience, and I look forward to having a collision of ideas and views with you.
The title of "Guanxiang Mountain" borrows the "Guanxiang Mountain" on the seaside of Qingdao, and replaces "Xiang" with "Xiang", which has the meaning of "the appearance of the audience" as the Buddhists say. In the book, the world is winding and secluded, and the branches are intertwined, and most of the "sentient beings" choose a path when reading, and factors such as their own life experience and knowledge background continue to play a role, and they unconsciously become "self-like". Here, Emma's few strokes about Shao Jin's work made me sink into it, and I was worried about it for a long time, trying to collage and combine it to restore the iceberg under the lake, of course, it may be a "mountain" that I can't cross by myself when I am deeply trapped in "self-grasping".
Shao Jin served as the deputy editor-in-chief of the Peninsula Social Science Forum, overseeing the work of the journal and was also responsible for the "editing and review of the legal review column". Academic journals that set up legal research columns are divided into comprehensive and professional types, and the sponsors are usually universities, the Academy of Social Sciences or the Law Society, and the Peninsula Social Science Forum can be classified as a comprehensive type and is sponsored by the Municipal Academy of Social Sciences. Through the narrative gap, we can see that Shao Jin's work includes reviewing, co-ordinating, signing and printing, holding academic forums, and giving lectures. What is not involved in this is Shao Jin's scientific research work. As an editor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, paper publication and project application are important contents of Shao Jin's work, and they are also important indicators for completing assessment tasks.
In fact, Emma, who graduated from a doctor of law, understands the complex ecological environment of the academic world very well, and the related plot design also has a sharper realistic direction. "Although the journal is not a core journal, it has a limited space, and it takes a year and a half for famous authors to publish their manuscripts", which shows how difficult it is for young scholars to publish their results. In Shao Jin's lecture, the narrator even used the student's mouth to raise the problem that academic journals do not pay attention to free manuscripts, and the experience of switching to core journals not only illustrates the strict hierarchy of journals, but also shows the narrowness of the living space of this "luck" success. Another student did not recognize the differences between the laws of China and foreign countries, as Article 24 of Chapter 4 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that "for personal study, research or appreciation, the use of published works of others" and "without the permission of the copyright owner" is "permitted". In other words, the reviewer can conduct research and study without consulting the writer, and such a discussion is obviously inconsistent with the background setting of the characters in the law major, and is more satirical about the lack of criticism and self-criticism between the researcher and the research object.
In addition to the struggles of young scholars, academic journals also have their own difficulties, and Shao Jin "feels more and more difficult to run a magazine, and her heart can't help but be heavy." On the one hand, this difficulty is manifested in the weakening of foreign academic exchanges vaguely revealed in the new academic trends, which will undoubtedly affect the academic value of the issues discussed, and the academic quality of journals will inevitably be affected. On the other hand, it is related to the construction of the editorial team, and young editors "may only value the editor", lack academic accumulation and academic enthusiasm, and it is difficult to devote themselves to the work of the journal. Here, issues such as the funding of the journal and the source of manuscripts are not reflected, and the "tight spell" of evaluation, which is composed of impact factors, reprint data, and selection, does not seem to have had an impact on the Peninsula Social Science Forum. From this point of view, Shao Jin's thinking on the problems presented by the Peninsula Social Science Forum focuses on the journal itself, and does not involve the constraints and considerations of the academic evaluation system on the journal, as well as the external factors that maintain the operation of the journal, which also limits further discussion on the pressure and difficulty of running the journal.
A detail worth pondering is that the dean did not say a word about Shao Jin's plan for the forum, but "pondered" on the cloth bag used in the meeting, and suggested that the printed "know yourself" should be changed to "think about everything". "Thinking about everything" is the eternal proposition of academic research, discussing the general direction of scientific research, and implementing it to every individual engaged in research, "knowing yourself" is the starting point of writing and exploration, and it is the inexhaustible motivation to choose the research direction and continue to explore. It can be seen that the continuous breakthroughs made by the academic community in "thinking about everything" may be said to be based on the "know yourself" of every researcher. In the past few days since I've been writing to you, I've been wondering, how exactly are we going to do academics? Teachers who are trapped in assessment indicators such as papers, topics, and professional titles, are in a hurry, "thinking about everything" all the time, but have long lost the energy to "know yourself", are such academic achievements really what we need?
Recently, Nanjing is not suitable for travel, wearing a mask, riding between Wutong Avenue, the flying flotsam rolled in the wind makes people can't open their eyes, I don't know what the climate is like there? There are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people, and a thousand "selves" are embodied in those thousand Hamlets, what do you see in the process of reading "Guanxiang Mountain"?
Looking forward to your reply, good luck!
Li Yang
May 20, 2024 Yunanjing
Yin Lin
Yin Lin, born in 1992, is a researcher at the School of Liberal Arts, Shandong University. He is engaged in the research of contemporary Chinese literary journals and literary history, and is also engaged in criticism, writing novels and poems. Some academic articles have appeared in "Literary Review", "People's Daily", etc., and literary works have appeared in "Poetry Magazine", "Chinese Writers", etc. Contracted writer of "Chinese Campus Literature".
Brother Li Yang:
The randomness of life is bright and dark, and fate is a bright color. Last year, I saw the blessing of the night rain, talked very happily, and knew that my brother was generous in his chest, and his words were vertical and horizontal, almost not like the southern students, but some northerners were arrogant. This time, I received a letter to discuss the "Guanxiang Mountain" by Emma, a writer who now lives in Shandong, and talked about this work in the previous little regional "prejudice".
To put it mildly, perhaps it is related to pragmatic ideas and more masculine provincial impressions, Shandong writers have a natural advantage in my eyes, that is, clarity of expression. Even though since the reform and opening up, the literary fashion has been as wonderful as Sichuan opera, with different shapes, but Shandong writers have hardly given up this advantage. Just like Mo Yan's unbridled style, it will definitely give people a different kind of freshness when reading, and the sentences of many writers in Shandong are like a good wind blowing in their faces, which can bring people to things. Whether it is Mo Yan, Zhang Wei, Jiao Jian, Wang Runzi, or young writers in recent years, they have all retained this style.
I have always had the idea that I may have "stole" a famous theorist invisibly, that is, style is the expression of ideas and positions. Think about it, the lyrics of the script, the history of the barnyard of romance, and the problem novels of "May Fourth", and the writing in the mountain towns since the founding of New China, isn't it because of the two-way choice of style and concept? So if I deepen my regional "prejudice", I have to find a "concept" that can represent Shandong writers. In my opinion, this is to face the major problems and complexities of life, to deeply cultivate the joys and sorrows, love and hatred of ordinary people with a sincere attitude, and to express the sense of the world through the changes of the past and the present. Does that hold up? I think there is at least one aspect of the truth. The day before yesterday, I went to Shangluo to open the Jia Pingwa International Symposium, and when I spoke at the conference, I pointed out that the witchcraft and other writings in Jia Pingwa's novels were influenced by a certain Chu style, and some were "surreal". If we compare with writers such as Han Shaogong and A Lai, you will find that Shandong writers are more pragmatic in comparison. Even Mo Yan and Zhang Wei, who have high achievements, continue to enrich their writing with culture, but they often have a core of novels that face reality, such as "Sandalwood Punishment", "Frog", "Ancient Boat", etc.
Shandong people are kind, simple, and a little heavy. This is the root of Confucianism, which has both a gift and a bond. The realism of Shandong writers is to write about real things, realistic situations, and realistic roads (the general road of event development), and there are not many pretentious elements of emotion. After saying such a big circle, I actually want to put Emma on the land of Shandong, although she was born in Hunan. However, in terms of the style, stance and aspect of her novels, I think she has been influenced by Shandong culture in many ways, and she writes authentic "Shandong stories".
The reason why I am so anxious to see Emma as an authentic "Shandong writer" is because in the era when "fictional writing" was so popular, I was deeply impressed by the authenticity of Emma's novel writing. Compared with most of the current novels that play routines, her novels have a very obvious sincerity in story polishing, and the structure is natural, and the rhythm of the development of events will not make readers feel difficult.
In your letter, through Shao Jin's identity as a "social science editor", which is of course also your identity, you pay attention to the current living conditions of young scientific research workers and the problem of "involution", and then ask the question of how to do and where the scientific research work we are engaged in together should be done. I have always thought about problems through the comparison of "potential energy". When we pity scholars, including ourselves, we should think of the feathers faced by people from all walks of life. After the hustle and bustle, even young students like you and me, who have enjoyed many literary and artistic trends, have begun to return to reality. Is this very similar to the turn of "new realism" in the light of the light after a performance in the 1980s? Indeed, reading Emma's "Guanxiang Mountain", I thought of "Troubled Life", "Sharing Difficulties" and "Chicken Feathers in a Place" - but not exactly, there are no two identical works, after the preparation and accumulation of the predecessors, "Guanxiang Mountain" still has richer writing and deeper questioning.
Reading "Guanxiang Mountain", on the surface, you can read a modern atmosphere, and even a little "sexy" mood, but the more you read it, the more you feel that your heart seems to be boiled like a "boiled frog in warm water". Emma's ability lies in entering the "personal history" behind each person through a delicately wrapped "mediocre" narrative, which is like a grain of life nerves, colluding with each other, using random and coincidental "electrons" to activate the complex and subtle connections between the entire large society and small groups. In such a life, helplessness and pursuit are two equally indispensable forces, on the one hand, to give people a "sigh", on the other hand, to make people full of longing. In this sense, Emma is a writer who has her heart in mind. This kind of heart is exaggerated and a little "Confucian", but only when we have a heart can we find that "truth" is the highest standard of literature, and only then can we dare to write about life and the bits and pieces of life in this way, not to participate in the hustle and bustle, but to trickle down.
Just as now that you are in Ning, I am in Ji, and I will reply to you, you may be writing something else. We each finished writing what we had at hand, and there were other things, we handed in this topic today, and filled out that form tomorrow. Day after day, year after year, some are literary debts, and some are literary wishes. It is also between pressure and vision that life has come step by step. After all, in a good era, writing means having a lot of spare energy.
I wish you good luck in work, life and culture!
Yin Linfu
May 21, 2024 in Jinan
Editor: Liu Ya
Second trial: Zhang Junping
Third trial: Wang Yang