Chapter 735 Isn’t it really unfair? !
Due to well-known reasons, the last Mao Dun Literary Award has extended the selection year by one year, and selected works from 1985 to 1988.
According to convention, the selection year for the fourth Mao Dun Award can be extended to 1989 to 1993, and the selection work will be conducted in 1994.
However, this work was repeatedly delayed and was not launched until 1995, so the selection year had to be extended from 1989 to 1994, a span of 6 years!
The selection of "White Deer Plain" is also full of twists and turns, with many different opinions, but now Fang Minghua can witness what this history is all about.
On May 6, Fang Minghua said goodbye to his wife and children early, packed his travel bag and boarded the train to Yanjing. He rushed to Yanjing the next afternoon and checked into the Ziyu Hotel.
When the Writers Association holds meetings, it likes to arrange members from all over the world in this hotel. Fang Minghua stayed here several times.
The first meeting of the jury was held the next day, but this time the standards were quite high. It was not held in the Federation of Literary and Art Circles Building of the Agricultural Exhibition Hall, but in the conference room on the second floor of the XUA Department Building in Chaoyangmen Nei Street. , participating judges arrived one after another.
The selection committee consists of 23 members. The chairman is still Palladium. However, Palladium is old and in poor health and rarely appears in public. He is the deputy chairman. Hosted by Chen Changben.
Fang Minghua is sitting in the back row.
He saw the committee members entering the venue one after another, Ding Ning, Liu Yushan, Jiang Xiaotian, Chen Yong, Li Xifan
General readers may not know it, and their names are not as famous as those of popular writers, but Fang Minghua knows that these talents are the real talents in the literary world. The boss has the absolute right to speak!
Most of them are over fifty years old. Fang Minghua, a "young man" in his thirties, stood out in the conference room.
However, everyone greets each other kindly, just like in normal meetings. As long as the organizer does not put out table cards with names written on them, participants usually sit with people they know well and whisper in low voices. chat.
Fang Minghua really doesn’t know many people.
After all, there is a generational difference in age. Apart from meeting Fang Minghua every year at the Writers Association meeting or at individual literary seminars, he rarely interacts with her.
At this time, a man greeted him with a smile, called "Minghua", and sat in the empty seat next to him.
Radar! Fang Minghua, deputy editor-in-chief of "Chinese Writers" and a famous literary critic, met him at the symposium on Lu Yao's "Ordinary World" in 1988.
Most of the participants criticized the novel, but Radar supported it, leaving a good impression on Fang Minghua.
Later, I met him in several work seminars and became quite familiar with him.
Seeing the other party sitting over, Fang Minghua moved to the side and replied with a smile: "Hello, Chief Editor Lei."
"Minghua, when will you return to Lanzhou University to tell the students How many classes?" Radar asked with a smile.
Go back to Landa?
Fang Minghua was slightly surprised.
He did give a lecture at Lanzhou University. At that time, Fang Minghua and Wu Tianmin were filming "Into the Dust" in Minqin, Gansu Province. Because he wanted to write a literary review about the stream of consciousness, he went to Lanzhou University to check the information. Ke Yang, then director of the Chinese Department of Lanzhou University, invited me to give a lecture on stream-of-consciousness literature.
But that was 14 years ago in 1982.
Now I suddenly hear the old story of Radar being brought up again, which is a bit surprising.
“I am currently serving as a doctoral supervisor in modern and contemporary Chinese literature at the College of Liberal Arts of Lanzhou University. I have brought several students with me. I invited you to give lectures to our students. You published it in Tianya magazine. The society’s theory on modern poetry is very good,” Radar explained.
That’s it! "Okay, it's better to obey your orders than to be respectful. I'll go when I have the chance." Fang Minghua replied.
The two were chatting. At this time, someone loudly said that there was a meeting, and the conference room suddenly became quiet.
“Comrades, the meeting is now.” Chen Changben sat on the rostrum and said:
“Last November, through the unremitting efforts of 23 members of the reading class, the preliminary evaluation work was completed. We selected 30 works from the 111 novels, and then selected 20 works from the 30 works and provided them to the jury for your reference. The work of our jury The purpose of this work is to select the best and most representative works of literature of our time from these 20 novels! "
"Comrades, the general catalog of the 111 recommended works from various places that participated in the preliminary evaluation will be announced after the meeting! The staff will also send it to every member of the jury, so everyone can check out any works at any time. It’s up to you to find out whether there is a hidden gem in the ocean.”
Everyone laughed after listening to it.
Immediately afterwards, Comrade Zhai Taifeng expressed his opinions on this award evaluation work. The most important thing was to discuss the first draft of the "Award Plan for the Fourth Mao Dun Literary Award."
The first draft is placed on every member’s desk.
Fang Minghua has already read it, and what interests him is that there is such an article:
Out of the 20 titles, any judge has the second opinion of two other judges. You have the right to propose other works for the jury to read to ensure that no works worthy of attention are missed!
This is interesting
In other words, among these 111 works, even if they did not enter the scope of the 20 works initially evaluated by the reading class, now as long as they are nominated by three judges, they can directly enter the jury's discussion list and compete with those 20 works for Mao Dun. award!
This power is powerful enough.
Of course, Fang Minghua didn’t have any objections to the first draft of the plan. Many of the judges here are judges who have participated in the second and third Mao Dun Awards and have rich experience. It’s a newbie here, so it’s better to keep a low profile.
This plan was discussed throughout the day. At the end of the discussion in the afternoon, everyone’s opinions were handed over to the judges’ office for revision.
The meeting continued the next day. This time, the jury office listed the 111 participating works and the list of 20 novels that had passed the preliminary evaluation by the reading class.
Fang Minghua picked up the catalog and looked at it carefully.
"White Deer Plain" is included!
"War and People" is also here!
"The White Gate Willow" is also there!
The award-winning "The Autumn of Turmoil" is not there!
In other words, "The Autumn of Turmoil" did not make it into the 20 list of films in the initial review. Was it recommended by someone later and added to it?
Look at the other 20 works on the list:
"Zeng Guofan", "Emperor Yongzheng", "Business World", "Aristocrats of the Century". There is also Wang Meng's "Mobile Transformation"!
Oops, Wang Meng’s work was eventually deleted as well!
Fang Minghua was slightly disappointed after reading the list of 20 novels in the preliminary review.
Historically, the four award-winning works announced by the 4th Mao Dun Literature Award were all concentrated in traditional realism and traditional historical novels, while new historicism and avant-garde novels were completely wiped out!
From this list of 20 novels alone, there are very few shortlisted novels in the latter two categories.
Let’s not talk about Jia Pingwa’s “The Wasted Capital”, which is quite controversial.
What about "Edge" written by Ge Fei? What about Wang Anyi's "Documentary and Fiction"? What about Liu Heng's "Ode to Xiaoyao"?
What about Su Tong's "Mi"? What about Liu Zhenyun's "My Hometown and the World's Yellow Flowers"? What about Zhang Wei's "September Fable"?
Also, what about "Alive" by Yu Hua? !
In recent years, the popular books have not even made the list of 20!
Holy shit!
This
Isn’t it really unfair? !
(End of this chapter)