"Of course." Yu Hua then said, "The premise is that I can read the second half of the novel."
Liu Zhenyun nodded, "I hold the same opinion as you this time, and the sooner I can read it, The later part, the higher my evaluation will be."
Shi Tiesheng asked with a smile, "What song is the song with the lyrics 'Don't Let Me Go' mentioned in the novel?"
"That's a fictional song." Zhou Yan laughed.
"Don't Leave Me" also appears in Kazuo Ishiguro's original work. Zhou Yan really doesn't know which song it is from, but he only knows that it is a jazz song, which seems to be a reinterpretation of the song by Dashun Nishiko. A jazz song from the fifties.
"It turned out to be a fictional song..." Mo Yan raised his eyebrows, "I thought it was an old song."
"Because the novel has been writing about memories, it gave you this feeling. "Shi Tiesheng smiled, "In fact, this novel does not have a specific time point."
"The background should be the 1990s, and the 1960s and 1970s are mentioned in it," Liu Zhenyun guessed." I mean, when the protagonist is thirty-one, it should be the 1990s. "
"Apart from the time, I was more curious about where this Haierxiangshe School was. At the beginning, I saw that the protagonist's name was Yang Kebei. When I read it, I thought it was in China, but when I saw it later, I felt like I was in Europe. Some places gave people a British feel, and some of the descriptions of the buildings had a British style," Yu Hua said.
“Yes, there is no school in China called Haierxiangshe.” Mo Yan nodded.
Kazuo Ishiguro's original version actually describes a British seaside city, but Zhou Yan made some changes in this version.
He combined several cities he had visited to create an integrated city.
The surroundings near Haierxiang House are all cities that Zhou Yan has experienced. For example, the farmhouse mentioned in it was fictionalized by Zhou Yan based on the scenes he saw in Plymouth, Devon, England.
Some of the buildings that appear inside may have echoes of cities such as Houston and Dartmouth.
The world in this novel is completely virtual and is a combination of many countries from the East and the West.
Another point, Zhou Yan made some improvements, is the knowledge of "cloning".
After all, Kazuo Ishiguro is not a real science fiction writer. He has very little understanding of cloning technology.
But Zhou Yan is different. Zhou Yan has experienced the era of "cloning fever" and "GM fever", as well as the era of information explosion. Although he is not a relevant professional, he knows more about cloning than Kazuo Ishiguro has more.
Of course, improvements in this area are limited. After all, he is not a person in the relevant profession.
And this is not a popular science book, or even a real science fiction novel. Writing these things in too detail will cause problems.
"The environment here is all made up by me based on some cities I have visited." Zhou Yan said.
“What about time?”
“Cities are fictitious, does time still matter?”
Mo Yan nodded, “Zhou Yan is right, readers are reading this When writing the work, I will definitely think that the background is the current era, and I can feel the emotions conveyed by the characters more deeply."
Liu Zhenyun pondered for a moment, "What will Yang Kebei and the others face next? What to donate? ”
Zhou Yan smiled and said nothing.
He didn't speak, Liu Zhenyun didn't ask any more questions, and the others tried not to talk about the rest of the story. Maintaining this sense of mystery is a kind of respect for the subsequent reading.
If I spoil it now, it will be much less interesting when reading later.
Many things are more interesting if you explore them yourself.
“You said that song is fictional, are you going to write it yourself later?” Shi Tiesheng brought the topic to this song again.
Before Zhou Yan could answer, Mo Yan smiled and said, "Tiesheng, why are you so interested in that song?"
The reason Mo Yan was confused was because in the manuscript they saw, "Don't let me "Go" only appears once, the length is not large, and there is not much description of the song. After all, only one sentence of the lyrics appears.
Shi Tiesheng smiled and said, "I always feel that this song is very important."
Mo Yan looked at Zhou Yan, "Is he feeling right?"
Zhou Yan nodded with a smile. , "Yes, because I originally planned to name this book "Never Let Me Go"."
Hearing Zhou Yan say the title of the book, several people looked at each other. They all thought the title was a bit ordinary.
In fact, few domestic writers nowadays give their books titles like this.
But at this time, they are not entangled in the title of the book. Besides, what can they do even if they are entangled.
Works are like children to writers. Naming the children is the author’s own business. How can others easily comment on it?
“Since this song is so important, should I write it out later?” Mo Yan asked.
Zhou Yan smiled, "I'm not sure whether this book will be published, let alone the songs."
Yu Hua rolled his eyes, "You want to say that you don't have time for the hundreds of thousands of words that follow this novel. Writing, I can still believe you for the time being, but if you say that you haven’t had time to write a song, I don’t believe it at all. I dare say that if I give you a piano now, you can play that song. "
Seeing Yu Hua's certainty, Mo Yan asked in surprise, "Is it really that fast?"
Yu Hua nodded affirmatively, "In this regard, he is so fast. "
Liu Zhenyun turned to look at Zhou Yan, "Is he right? Are you fast?"
Zhou Yan couldn't help but rolled his eyes. When Liu Zhenyun said this, he always felt that something was wrong.
“If you just want a melody, it really won’t take too long. Popular melodies are very simple. Of course, I can’t guarantee whether the public will accept it.”
< br>"You are too modest."
Shi Tiesheng said, "It is better to write a song. I feel that this novel should be accompanied by a song."
Yu Hua also nodded. He said, "Well, the way this novel is written has a bit of a musical narrative feel."
Liu Zhenyun opened his mouth, "Yu Hua, when did you start to study narrative methods, and what is this musical narrative? Can you explain it to me?"
"Anyway, this novel has one A sense of polyphonic counterpoint ”< br>
Even Zhou Yan was surprised now, "Do you even know polyphonic counterpoint?"
"Of course."
Zhou Yan nodded and looked. Lai Yu Hua did spend time studying music theory.
He looked at Zhang Shouren, who was still reading the manuscript carefully, and said with a smile: "I don't know when Teacher Zhang will finish reading the manuscript. I have to go and tell the canteen about the time for the food to be served."
At this moment It was already early five o'clock. If Zhang Shouren was slow to read the manuscript, they would have to eat later.
Originally Zhou Yan asked the kitchen to start serving food at 5:30, but now it seems that this may not be possible.
Yu Hua said with a smile, "I guess he can finish reading it in less than an hour."
Mo Yan also nodded, "Absolutely." Since they all said that, Zhou Yan nodded. , "Okay, I'll tell the canteen and ask them to start serving food at 5:50."
Mo Yan waved his hand, "No rush, let's wait for a while, wait until Editor Zhang reads the manuscript."
Zhou Yan raised his eyebrows. This is the first time he has been in contact with Mo Yan until now. This is the first time I offer my opinion.
He didn’t ask why and nodded in agreement.
……
During the rest of the time, everyone suddenly stopped talking about the novel manuscript.
The main reason is that they only watched less than half of it and couldn't talk about many things.
It is very uncomfortable to read halfway through a novel. The key point is that this novel sets up a vague suspense from the beginning.
What do these students at Haierxiangshe do?
What exactly does "I" mean by donating?
In the book, those children have been in a vague stage of "both knowing and not knowing" about their future because of the ideas they have been instilled since childhood.
They know they have a special mission, but they don’t know what this special mission is.
Mo Yan and the others could guess that something bad was going on, but they couldn't figure out what it was.
Like the students, they are also in an intermediate state between knowing and not knowing.
If readers read this book more than twenty years later, they are likely to find clues from the clues in the text and guess that these students may be clones.
The so-called donation should be donating organs to the prototype of the clone.
Because this kind of plot setting often appears in later novels and literary works, there is a movie "Escape from Clone Island" dedicated to this.
But it is now 1996. Regarding cloning, people's ideas are completely different from those of later generations. For no reason, it is difficult for Mo Yan and others to have the idea of cloning in their minds.
In fact, they may not even know what "cloning" is.
……
About forty minutes later, Zhang Shouren on the sofa suddenly exhaled a long breath.
He exhaled loudly, which attracted the attention of others.
Yu Hua smiled and said, "Editor Zhang, have you finished reading?"
Zhang Shouren nodded, "You have finished reading."
"How is it?"
< br>
Zhang Shouren pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Is this a science fiction novel? What is the point of science fiction?"
After reading the manuscript, Zhang Shouren was very confused about what science fiction was in this novel.
He also thought that science fiction was in the later part.
But the question is, can a science fiction novel not contain science fiction elements in the first tens of thousands of words? Can such science fiction be called science fiction?
When Zhang Shouren asked this, several others couldn't help but nod. When they were discussing it just now, they didn't regard this novel as a science fiction novel at all.
They discussed the novel purely as a serious novel.
Zhou Yan smiled and replied, "The elements of science fiction are at the back."
Zhang Shouren held the manuscript, looked at the others, and suddenly said to Zhou Yan, "Zhou Yan, is there a place for us? Can you take a step to speak?”
Not yet. Yan answered, and Yu Hua stood up and said, "Don't borrow a step, let's go out and leave the place to you. I just want to go to the recording studio and watch them rehearse."
After saying that, Yu Hua He went to push Shi Tiesheng's wheelchair, and Mo Yan and Liu Zhenyun followed him out.
After they went out, Zhang Shouren said, "Zhou Yan, your manuscript is too short. I'm afraid I won't be able to serialize it in our magazine. There must be many more to this story."
These words are very important. Zhou Yan was a little confused. He didn't say that he would put the manuscript in "October".
Zhang Shouren also said before when he came here that he just wanted to read his manuscript as a reader. What is the situation now?
"Teacher Zhang, actually I..."
As soon as Zhou Yan started speaking, Zhang Shouren interrupted him, "But, I want to talk to you about the following story, so that it will help I judge. In fact, I am very optimistic about this manuscript. At first I thought it was a bit long-winded, but after reading about 20,000 to 30,000 words, I suddenly felt that this long-windedness was just right. If what I read today was a complete story, then I think "October" will definitely play it."
Before Zhou Yan could speak this time, Zhang Shouren continued, "It seems to me that you have no intention of finishing the manuscript. This is of course your personal wish, but as an editor and a reader, I think it is a pity."
Zhou Yan pursed his lips and said, "Editor Zhang, is this novel suitable for your magazine?"
< br>"What's not suitable?" Zhang Shouren smiled, "You don't want to send this novel to science fiction magazines, do you? I'll tell you the truth, just send your novel to science fiction magazines. It’s impossible for anyone to want a magazine.”
What Zhang Shouren said was very direct, but it was also true, because the science fiction flavor was too shallow.
Not to mention the first half, even after reading the entire novel, I will not feel that it has a strong science fiction flavor.
And now domestic readers’ understanding of science fiction is basically spaceships, robots, or “talking computers” and the like.
If "Never Let Me Go" is placed in a science fiction magazine, no one will read it.
"What about the length?"
"October" generally only includes novels below the novella length.
“It’s not like we haven’t serialized novels. Although we are not as good as Harvest and other publications in terms of novels, we have also serialized some well-known novels.”
Zhou Yan was silent for a while, and then said, "This novel is mainly about cloning."
"Clone?"
Zhou Yan thought Zhang Shouren didn't know what cloning was, so he was going to give it to him To popularize science, "cloning is..."
Zhang Shouren said Waving his hand, "I know, it's just copying, right? This is not a new concept. It has been around abroad for a long time."
In fact, it also exists in China. For example, in July this year, "Science Fiction World" published an article titled In the novel "Clone City", cloning is certainly not a novel concept for science fiction fans.
"Well, it's cloning. This is also the science fiction element in this novel."
"Oh, what I should have thought of is that the protagonist is indeed a clone imprisoned in Haierxiangshe? So, what is the point of the novel? In the second half, did the protagonist resist?"
Zhou Yan shook his head, "No."
"I should have thought of this, otherwise Yang Kebei wouldn't have thought of it. She has accepted her fate by becoming a caregiver. Your novel has a dystopian feel." (End of Chapter)