Long live youth - Wang Meng

At the time of the publication of the "Organization Department ......", my novel "Long Live Youth" was also completed.

I wrote a prologue to it:

All the days,

Come all the days,

Let me weave you......

That's the main feeling, and writing is all about weaving these wonderful days. Especially after 1949, like pictures and photos, like green leaves, like flower petals, like musical notes, like smiling faces and flashing rainbows, this is the days of the first generation of young people in New China, there is no happier than spending such days and weaving such days, in the excitement of weaving days, I realized that writing is the real spiritual enjoyment of life, is the peak of this enjoyment.

I don't play any instrument, but my writing is a real instrument. Writing "Long Live Youth", I felt that I played a piano and drove a small band, flickering, high and low noise, flowing water dingdong, ten thousand sounds in unison, lightning strikes and lightning, breeze and drizzle, high carnival, never leaving. Writing "Group" is a violin, ascending to heaven and earth, kneading and plucking, echoing the loop, such as crying and complaining, like a song and a poem.

I don't know about performing arts, but my writing is like performing a drama on the stage, writing about the mood and words of a character, I can't help but silently and even aloud to learn the tone of that character, reciting words, self-directing, self-appreciation, self-judgment, and sleeplessness.

I'm writing a novel, but I feel more like writing a poem, chanting and reciting, with tears streaming down my face. I feel like I'm singing a song again, high-pitched, low-pitched, so many heart songs, lingering sounds. I feel like I'm performing gymnastics, jumping and somersaulting, stretching and bending, pursuing posture and bodybuilding, pursuing fun and pursuing precision.

Indeed, for a beginner author, the first novel is a project that is more difficult than the creation of the world, where is the light, where is the shadow, where are the people, where are the things, where is the time, where is the space, how the seasons run, how the joys and sorrows alternate, life and death, blessings and misfortunes, ups and downs, crying and laughing, opportunities and catastrophes, all the power is mine. My power is too great, the mansion in the air, all depends on the convenience of the king, on the other hand, the clothes are fine, the big rivers and small sands, should be prevented from failing, if it becomes a tofu scum project, the responsibility is yours, the sin is on you, I can't forgive: I'm too tired, tired to death.

Now, the world I've created is finally what it looks like.

I also have an experience, I don't know if it's close to bizarre, I believe that there will be no second person in ancient and modern China and abroad who wants to say this. When I wrote "Long Live Youth" in the early 50s, I especially felt that writing a long story required a quality similar to that of being a "leader": mind, realm, talent and means. The art of leadership, the art of fiction, and the art they all have something in common. You need to take care of the big picture. Thou shalt not neglect one or the other, and make it clear to others by its faintness. You need to know people well, just in time for the meeting, you can't put on a crown and Li Dai, Qiao is too chaotic to point out the mandarin duck spectrum. You need to be confident, you need to behave steadily, you can't just talk nonsense. At the same time, you have to deal with the sudden and the accidental, the spontaneous, the flying, the eclectic, and the sometimes genius. You have to tell the truth sometimes and do a thorough job of the article, and at other times you have to point to the end of the other characters and other plots, be subtle and calm, cherish ink like gold, and leave room for it. Sometimes you chase after the details, sometimes you see the flowers in the fog, the moon is hazy, and the birds are hazy. You have strategic and tactical considerations, long-term and immediate arrangements, do something and do nothing, write something and leave it unwritten. Sometimes you need to get straight to the point. Sometimes it is necessary to attack the east and west, and surround Wei to save Zhao. Sometimes it is necessary to change the wind and clouds, it is not easy to get out of it, and it is unprepared, and sometimes it is to throw stones to ask for directions, shake the tiger across the mountain, and make the foreshadowing sufficient. Sometimes you need to fight hard, fight head-on, not avoid abruptness, sometimes you want to take the first, want to catch the first, and sell off with readers. Sometimes you have to go up to the top in the face of difficulties, and sometimes you have to go around the reef, lift the weight lightly, draw salary from the bottom of the kettle, and turn the danger into a disaster. It is necessary to maintain the combination of virtual and real. Pay attention to the rapid and slow tempo. It is necessary to balance the image of ingenuity and clumsiness. Keep it deep and easy. Sometimes it is necessary to be ingenious and meticulous, and sometimes it is necessary to use strength to fight, which is intended to be self-evident: the highest skill is to enter the realm, to make art more ordinary and more ordinary, to make the means subordinate to the true feelings, the avenue is unskilled, and the wisdom is not strategic. From time to time, we seize the opportunity, tamp and chisel through, unbreakable, expand the results, extend the field, and fall into the Yellow Spring. Sometimes the net is open, the poor are not chasing, the aftermath is curling, the end of the song is gone, and there are several peaks on the river. From time to time, it knocks on the side, but does not trigger. Sometimes there are storms and rains, and there are ambushes on all sides. You can't procrastinate, grab your eyebrows and mustaches. You have to be ashamed to ask, everything is through, black and white, red and green. You also have to keep a little figure, cherish the feathers, and smile only when you see the twisted flowers. You need to pay attention to the flow of water at all times, the way is natural, reasonable, and you can't force people to make things difficult, and you can't do it with your intentions, and you are blunt. You must be kind and understanding to your subordinates and characters, and you can't reject people thousands of miles away, and you can't caricature and face. Sometimes it can be called discerning, seeing the subtleties, and the eyes can see through such as X-ray B-ultrasound CT. Sometimes it is necessary to make it bigger, laugh at it, turn a blind eye - leniency and moderation, pounding paste and thin mud. You have to combine work and rest, and you can't blindly work overtime and fight tiredly. You have to be careful and let go, you have to be able to shoot and pull back, you have to respect your character, you can't overstep...... Wait a minute. I almost doubt how a person who has never been a leader or an organizer can organize a novel.

Of course, the above statement will cause most peers to resent it. Quite a number of literary authors are more willing to dissociate themselves from the relationship and show critical consciousness and arrogance. All things are connected, yet different. The right to speak is also a kind of right, and the use of power certainly has common laws. Of course, there are differences, and I naturally understand that "too" has been a leader, and writing novels may encounter another more insurmountable threshold.

In the early summer of 1956, the weekly song played on the radio was "Drinking Song" from the opera "La Traviata", and you could hear it everywhere you went"...... The wine in the cup makes people intoxicated, youth is like a bird, flying away and not flying back...... "I went to Shao Yanxiang's house to congratulate him on his new marriage to Ms. Xie Wenxiu. I took the preface, and he changed it for me, and the original text was "How happy this should be" after "Let me weave you", and he changed it to "Weave you with the threads of youth and the golden thread of happiness." He said that it would also look neater. In his letter to me, he also said: "The prologue is a poem, and it is a good poem. ”

Yes, this poem was a success, and on May 4, 2004, the large-scale theatrical evening of the capital's youth to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the "May Fourth Movement" was named after "Long Live Youth", and its preface was recited at the meeting, and all the days are still alive.

I have always been obsessed with the writing of the book "Qing", I can memorize every paragraph, I not only design the characters, plots, scenes, props, but also in the continuous silent or aloud recitation, I weigh the level of each word, the initials and finals, round lips and non-round lips, I ask them to be comfortable, tactful, elegant, clean and bright. I wrote about a group of "active" students going to Suning's house and decorating Suning's room with revolutionary books and artworks, replacing the interesting parts of her original room (such as photos of old stars, Xu Jie's books, etc.), and when I finished writing, I took a step forward and said that "that huge bright world has triumphantly rushed here in the laughter of the girls" - I was really proud.

There is also a narration in the book: "I always seek, a bright and wonderful life...... this is Wang Meng learned from Fadeev, Fa's narration in "The Young Guard" "My friend, my friend ......", and finally in the midst of the flames of war, he used his boots as a container and drank the rich water with the bitter taste and friendship of the warriors that his comrades scooped up at the cost of their lives. Swing back to the bowels, swing back to the bowels!

Indulged in literature, it became my destiny all of a sudden. Thinking about words, thoughtful, and distracted from time to time, not quite like a good party member, good cadre, and good subordinates, like before writing. Inspired by the casual experiences of the day, a small breeze I think is exactly what a certain character feels in a certain period. A light bulb is a bit crooked, how can there be such a light bulb? It happened to be written about another person's home. The rush on the bus inspired me to write to the end of the novel. The laughter of the young people made me feel that the idea of a certain chapter needed to be readjusted. Who knows my writing process? There are pre-planned, random, abrupt changes, and some triumphantly find that there is no room for it in the text. There was a run of a thousand meters and came back and immediately changed. There are people who see a tree suddenly change their mind. The rhythm of life, encounters, triggers, accidental and non-accidental events, weather and food, sounds and smells, emotions and digestion, blood pressure and muscles, mountains and nights, full moon or quarter moon, sunny or cloudy, are all entangled with the writing of the novel, all of which have a wonderful impact on the work and change the face of the work. Blessed are those who write novels! All the experiences of the person who writes the novel are precious. Even meaninglessness is a wonderful novel theme, even failure is the best opportunity for a novel, even embarrassment can become chic through writing, even embarrassment can become excellent humor because of the pen, and even ignorance can become a novel and become a witty sentence: how is life prepared such a feast of Manchu and Han Dynasty, Chinese and Western, every bit of it, dripping ecstasy, used to entertain the author of the novel!

The reason why the novel is a creation is not only that it provides the reader with new scenes of characters and stories, but especially because its creation is an uncertain process, it always gives the author new surprises, which the author may not have thought of five minutes ago - nor dreamed of this paragraph, and after five minutes it flows out of the pen, gushing out, first of all, it gives the author a new impact, makes the author jump eight feet, how can I write so well! I'm absolutely gone! Secondly, it can give the reader an impact. This is certainly a bit ridiculous, and it is a bit easy to cause the author to appreciate himself, talk to himself, and think that he is the best in the world. But on the other hand, if the author of a thing is not moved by itself, can it move the reader? There may not be anyone like Wang Meng who sings about the birth of New China, the vitality of New China, and the first generation of young people in New China. If there is no "Long Live Youth", isn't it a regret of an era?

The book, which began more than half a century ago in 1953 and was finalized in 1956, was in the cold for nearly a quarter of a century. The book was published after 1979. Time has passed, and the book has not received much attention from experts. To this day, however, it continues to be reprinted, on average every three years, without interruption, and more than 400,000 copies have been in circulation, another quarter of a century later. After the founding of the People's Republic of China and the end of the Cultural Revolution, there were many extremely important and wonderful books in the history of literature, but where else could there be other books that could continue to be published without stopping, especially by young people? There are very few of them.

A book that is not without childishness "for the elderly", but it has stood the test of time. For a writer, it should be satisfied.