Back to 80: My Literary Life

After dinner, Fang Minghua carried a net bag with kombucha dates and apples in it - he bought the apples himself. Since he was visiting his elders, he couldn't go empty-handed, right?

Wang Meng lived in the family building of the Municipal Writers Association, located near Jinsong Road in Chaoyang. Fang Minghua took the bus and rushed to the neighborhood. He asked around while walking and finally found this community.

Inside was a red brick building that was popular in this era. Fang Minghua went to the third floor of the middle building and knocked on the door on the right.

The person who opened the door was an aunt about fifty years old. Wearing glasses, she looked like an intellectual. She seemed to be Wang Meng's wife.

"Who are you?"

Wang Meng's wife, whose surname is Cui, is a teacher at a middle school in Yanjing. She looked at the young man standing at the door and asked.

"Hello, my name is Fang Minghua. I am an employee of Yanhe magazine in Xijing. I came to Yanjing for a meeting. I was entrusted by the editor-in-chief Dong Mo to visit Chairman Wang.

"Oh Dong Mo." Teacher Cui showed a smile on his face and warmly greeted Fang Minghua into the room, saying that Wang Meng would be back after he passed.

Fang Minghua looked around the room.

The area is not large, about fifty or sixty square meters, and the furniture in the room is also very simple. The only thing that looks fashionable is the 14-inch TV placed in the living room.

Sitting on the cloth sofa, he quickly took out the jujubes and apples from his pocket and said that the jujubes were brought here for Dong Mo and the apples were bought by himself.

"Comrade Xiaofang, why are you so polite?" Teacher Cui took the fruit with a smile and said, "The same goes for Dong Mo. He brings some jujubes to Lao Wang every year. He knows he likes to eat them. The old man of more than ten years has We have become friends, and this is still the case.”

It seems that the relationship between the two is quite good.

"Comrade Xiaofang, what do you do in the magazine?" Teacher Cui asked while peeling the apple.

"I'm in the security department, and my main job is to guard the gate."

"Look at the gate?" Teacher Cui stopped and looked at Fang Minghua a little surprised: "The leader sent you to Yanjing for a meeting?"

"Actually, it's a personal matter of mine. The magazine "Contemporary" held a poetry seminar." Fang Minghua briefly explained what happened.

"Oh, I really can't believe that you actually won an award for writing poetry?! Teacher Cui praised me.

"Just a little poem." Fang Minghua was very modest.

"That's not easy either. It's really not easy to win the Essay Award organized by "Contemporary" magazine and be tied with Bei Dao and others. No wonder Dong Mo values ​​you so much."

Teacher Cui's meaning is very obvious. If it weren't for this relationship, Dong Mo wouldn't let him bring jujubes for him. Wouldn't he send them?

Although Teacher Cui teaches physics, he is also very interested in literature. Hearing that Fang Minghua is also a literary young man, he immediately started chatting about literature, and the two of them had a great time chatting.

Not long after, Wang Meng came back. While changing his shoes, he saw Fang Minghua and his wife sitting on the sofa, and said with a smile:

"Ruifang, I heard you chatting so enthusiastically about literature with someone outside the door. It turns out that Comrade Xiao Fang from Xijing has come over. This afternoon, Dong Mo even called me specifically."

"Hello, Chairman Wang." Fang Minghua stood up quickly.

"Sit, sit," Wang Meng greeted, and then asked, "Is the poetry seminar over? What are your thoughts?"

"I think what they said is very good and optimistic."

"Oh? Listening to your tone, you are more pessimistic?"

"How should I put it? Anyway, I am not as optimistic as them." Fang Minghua answered truthfully.

"Tell me your reasons?" Wang Meng leaned towards this side, looking serious.

Fang Minghua originally said some points at the poetry seminar, but was afraid of causing an uproar. Now if Wang Meng asked this question, he would not say it if it were another writer, but the other person is Wang Meng.

A rare enlightened writer in the literary world, he is also an enlightened leader in the future.

He thought for a while and said, "Chairman Wang, you study Russian literature. You must have heard of the "Silver Age", right?"

"I heard it. It was proposed by the Russian scholar N. A. Ochup in an article entitled "The Silver Age" published in the Russian magazine "Number" published in Paris in 1933."

"He refers to the golden age of Russian literature that is different from the golden age of Russian literature created by literary giants such as Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, with Blok, Bely, Gumilev, Represented by writers such as Akhmatova, their overall literary achievements were inferior to those of the Golden Age, so they were called the "Silver Age."

"Chairman Wang, you are so right!" Fang Minghua flattered him a little, and then said:

“In my opinion, poetry in the twentieth century, especially in the first half of the century, is the most glorious golden age in human history. It broke through the boundaries of national race and language, and gained an unprecedented international vision and corresponding international influence. It is in this sense that there is so-called international poetry.

“This golden age of poetry is undoubtedly related to the Industrial Revolution, the ‘Death of God’, revolution and autocracy, two world wars, Nazi concentration camps, the Great Purge, the atomic bomb, that is, the deepest darkness in human history.”

“Great poetry is like a schizophrenia releasing a huge energy, its rumbling echo reaching us through the mists of time. Perhaps due to excessive consumption, poetry has begun to decline around the world since the end of the Second World War.

The mediocrity of middle-class life is killing imagination; consumerism brings entertainment and destroys passion...

A famous physicist once said that the first half of the twentieth century was also the golden age of physics, followed by the silver age. I guess there will be an era of scrap metal after that. "

"We in China have experienced that special period. Poetry has been booming since the late 1970s. Now a large number of outstanding poets have emerged, represented by Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, and Shu Ting. I think Chinese poetry has entered its golden age."

"Listen to what you say, we are about to enter the Silver Age?" Wang Meng asked rhetorically.

"Yes, although the golden age is gorgeous, it will eventually come to an end. With the development of society, culture, and economy, especially the economy, I think the creative trends of poets will become different."

"What is the main aspect?"

"First: Poetry will accommodate more complex social experiences, and anti-sublime and anti-ideal will gradually replace the current sublime, greatness, and ideal promotion."

“Second: Poetry shrinks towards personal experience and feelings, becoming more personal, life-oriented and colloquial.

Fang Minghua talked eloquently, and the more Wang Meng listened, the more serious his face became.

After he finished speaking, he asked: "Xiao Fang, did you express these views at the seminar?"

"No." Fang Minghua shook his head.

"That's right. If you say it in public, it will cause an uproar and may cause some unnecessary trouble."

Wang Meng's words are profound.

Of course Fang Minghua understands.

The other party is not an ordinary writer. He has insight into world affairs and has a very high political acumen.

"Xiao Fang, if you are so pessimistic about poetry, will you still write poetry in the future?" Wang Meng asked again.

"I prefer writing novels to writing poetry."

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