Chapter 522 521 Director of the Chinese Prose Society
The Chinese Prose Society is not a copycat organization. It was founded in 1984. It is a national first-level literary group and a national literary professional group. It accepts the business guidance of the Chinese Writers Association. Jia Pingwa is A member of the society, he became famous for his prose works such as "The First Record of Shangzhou" and "The Second Record of Shangzhou" and became one of the directors of the society.
The president of this term is Lin Fei, a famous scholar and writer in my country. He has made many achievements in Lu Xun research, prose theory and prose creation.
Fang Minghua got the letter, thought about it for a long time, and wrote a reply.
The general idea is that I am very happy to join the Chinese Prose Society, but due to insufficient qualifications and abilities, I may not be qualified to serve as a director of the society. I urge President Lin to choose other outstanding writers.
Fang Minghua has his own clear understanding.
The "Cultural Journey" I wrote is expected to contain about 256 articles. It is enough to publish it as a collection of cultural essays, and I cannot repeat the mistakes of Yu Qiuyu.
Some people in later generations commented on several of Yu Qiuyu's books:
"I was shocked when I read Cultural Journey. Later, when I read Notes on Mountain Residence, the shock was mixed with a hint of aftertaste. For China There is still a certain value in cultural reflection. Later, when I watched Thousand Years of Sigh and Walker Without Borders, I felt that it was just kneeling down to foreigners, which was not interesting. "
Moreover, this kind of prose is prone to falsification of historical facts (i.e. cultural flaws) and has been criticized. It is said that someone published more than 120 points in the book "Cultural Journey" back then. Of course there is nitpicking in this.
Is it not related to Yu Qiuyu's excessive high profile after becoming famous?
It’s better to keep your head clear.
I may write prose in the future, but it may not necessarily be cultural prose.
Although Fang Minghua repeatedly refused the position of director, the personal reply from Lin Fei, the president of the Prose Society, is also very interesting. He excerpted four articles written by Fang Minghua in the "Literary News" by the famous critic Radar. Comments on this essay:
“We are now in an era where the development of contemporary Chinese prose is facing a new crossroads.”
"There were two important literary events before this: the re-evaluation of Yang Shuo's prose and the completion of Palladium's "Random Thoughts". The accumulation of changes in literary trends has been completed, and what is urgently needed is the ability of writers to tell the truth. It is a work with independent personality and aesthetic characteristics of prose art. Fang Minghua's prose appeared under the requirements and calls of such a literary era."
Mr. Lin wrote the reply himself, and Fang Minghua had no choice but to accept it.
Okay
I have another title of director of the Chinese Prose Society.
Fang Minghua spent the whole of May and June checking information and writing articles.
Originally, Fang Minghua wanted to hurry up and finish writing, but he received a notice.
Notice from the Chinese Prose Society that as one of the directors of the Prose Society, he was going to Zhengzhou to hold a prose writing seminar.
You have just been elected as the director of the Prose Society, and you are notified to attend a meeting? !
Fang Minghua is really helpless.
Aren’t you going?
Isn't this simply not giving face to the chairman of the People's Society?
Go ahead, there will be more literati anyway.
This is common sense. Fang Minghua has to go out for three or four meetings every year. In this era of lax management, meetings are also a trip.
The Prose Society held a meeting. In addition to Fang Minghua and Jia Pingwa, the directors from Qin Province went there together.
Still, the meeting place was Zhengzhou, which was not too far from Xijing. The two of them each carried their travel bags and boarded the eastward train.
The journey was long and boring, but luckily we were on a sleeper berth, so the two of them lay on the berth and chatted. "Minghua, although this prose writing seminar did not specifically mention what will be discussed, as far as I know, as long as the discussion is centered on a few cultural essays you wrote, the appearance of your essay collection is like a spring thunder. , shocked the prose world.”
Jia Pingwa’s words are a bit exaggerated, but they illustrate a fact.
In the past 1980s, when literature was at its peak, novels and poetry both advanced by leaps and bounds and made remarkable achievements. However, prose was relatively bleak, and its creative achievements were far inferior to those of novels and poetry, and it produced less social sensation. Influence, prose talents are in short supply, prose concepts are too broad, etc.
Influential essay collections include Palladium's "Random Thoughts", Chen Baichen's "Reminiscences of Yunmeng" and Yang Jiang's "Six Notes on the Cadre School", as well as essays by Sun Li and Ding Ling.
Basically, they recall the past and reflect on history.
Until the great cultural prose flourished.
In fact, there is another person who cannot be ignored, that is Jia Pingwa herself, who is also a master of prose writing.
Now when Fang Minghua heard what Jia Pingwa said, he also smiled and said: "Brother Jia, don't just talk about me, talk about yourself. You wrote "The First Record of Shangzhou" and "The Second Record of Shangzhou" "I admire you so much,"
"What I wrote is outdated, outdated." Jia Pingwa shook her head.
I don’t know whether it was modesty or because she really felt that what she wrote was outdated. Since then, Jia Pingwa rarely wrote prose, but wrote novels one after another.
Also, in this era, novels are what people pay the most attention to, because of the Mao Dun Literary Award.
Departed at noon, arrived at Zhengzhou in the afternoon, and checked into Zhongzhou Hotel. It is said that before the reform and opening up, this place often received Chinese and foreign guests, and there were sentinels standing guard. However, in the late 1980s, it was opened to the public and the sentinels disappeared. .
In addition to the directors of the Prose Society, the conference also invited Jia Baoquan, editor-in-chief of Tianjin "Prose", Chen Xianfa from Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, Zhang Ruoyu, editor-in-chief of Zhengzhou "Selected Prose", Guo Lihong from Guangzhou "Essay" and other magazine publishers. Editor, this is a relatively big meeting.
Sure enough, as Jia Pingwa said, at the meeting, all the delegates at the meeting highly praised Fang Minghua's prose, and even believed that cultural prose poetry would be the future development direction of prose.
"Now, Comrade Fang Minghua, director of the Prose Society, director of the Chinese Writers Association, and vice chairman of the Qin Provincial Writers Association, will come to the stage to speak and talk about his creative experience. Everyone is welcome!"
The audience burst into warm applause.
This is not a difficult task for Fang Minghua. He had given such reports in the West Auditorium a few months ago, but this time, he was facing people in the prose world.
Fang Minghua’s brain is awake.
“Thank you to all the leaders and colleagues for your affirmation of this collection of essays. I am also happy to share with you the creative concepts and techniques of cultural prose. However, I believe that cultural prose is not the future development direction of prose. In other words, it is just a branch of the development of prose." Fang Minghua stated his point of view clearly.
"Cultural prose has its own shortcomings. I have already explained this issue similarly in the article "The Heart of Sandan: The Theory and Practice of Cultural Prose Writing" published in "Yanhe" magazine, and I will not discuss it here. Repeat. "
"What I want to talk about now are some of my personal and superficial views on the development direction of prose in the 1990s. ”
(End of this chapter)