Wang Anyi has a unique perception and understanding of the art of novels, and defines novels as a "spiritual world" built outside the real world (this is a profound inspiration for understanding other art forms). The lecture notes include theoretical explanations and analyses, as well as comments from the perspectives of creation theory and appreciation theory, providing an in-depth analysis of the creative motivations, approaches and art of the novel. I often wonder, what are people like us, people like us who write novels, doing? We were in a very strange position for quite some time. When there are political movements, especially in the period when political movements were frequent after 1949, we often become guns, or targets, objects of criticism, or tools of criticism. This is always an inescapable effect. In historical movements, writers have become an ideological tool. Whether it is positive or negative, it is difficult to get rid of it, although we have spent a lot of time and used many methods to get rid of it. After the Cultural Revolution, when the Gang of Four fell, we became the mouthpiece or voice of the people. When the people felt they had something to say, we were the first to say it. Many people now regard that period as the golden age of Chinese literature. So many people read novels, and almost every novel will cause a strong response. Many words are said through literature, such as the drama "In the Silent Place", One of your Fudan alumni, Lu Xinhua, wrote the novel "Scar", Chen Guokai's novel "What Should I Do", etc. Looking at the award-winning works in 1978, they are all works that said what the people wanted to say but didn't know how to say it, and they couldn't say it well but didn't dare to say it. The works produced at that time were very enjoyable and enjoyable, and they deservedly became the mouthpiece of the public. Today, we novelists are also given the function of a kind of psychiatrist. I am afraid that every writer will be asked by readers: I hope you can answer my questions and the problems I encounter in life. In this case, the role of the writer is somewhat similar to that of the sociologist. It seems that the writer must be responsible and answer the many questions in this society. In this situation, I often wonder: Who are we? What do we do? Today, under the situation of reform and opening up, the market has taken a dominant position in various fields. What does the market say? It aroused deep thinking among intellectuals and writers, who sometimes resented this market-oriented society because the practicality of the market devalued the intangible value of ideas. But I personally think that marketization has simplified and essentialized many problems. The market summarizes the needs of the majority of the people. This need is relatively close to their own personal needs, daily needs, rather than ideological needs. We might as well look at it from a market perspective: which types of literary works and which types of novels sell better? That is to say, it is more needed by people. Seeing the requirements of the market clearly may help us see something clearly. In the market context, the two most popular categories of works are: one is documentary works, and the other is romance, martial arts, and mystery works. In other words, the former is completely true and the latter is completely false. These two types of works actually satisfy people's curiosity for novelty. Since the former is 100% real, our requirements for its "strangeness" are accordingly lowered, and we will not require it to have a special or overly bizarre form. Ordinary things become strange because we know they are real. The second category of works is romance, such as Qiong Yao's novels, martial arts such as Jin Yong, reasoning and crime solving, science fiction... It is better to understand its function of satisfying people's dreaming psychology. Life is so dull and boring, almost every step is step-by-step and arranged, without any surprises, this kind of works provide a dream. In the final analysis, Qiong Yao's novel is a Cinderella story. A girl from a poor background finally finds her Prince Charming and becomes wealthy at the same time. The approach of her novels is in line with the psychology of most people. Because most of us do not come from a special class, but we all have a hope of encountering miracles. The characters in martial arts novels are even more bizarre. They are all superhuman and alien species, which satisfy people's heroic and adventurous hearts. Mystery novels are also very exciting. They allow people to experience the pleasure of horror, suspense and the pleasure of finally revealing the mystery. It is also a challenge to ordinary life. Through the demand of the market, I saw a certain true face of literature and began to get closer to the thing itself. The market turns literature into something enjoyable. We can criticize the market for its low style, and we can say that this tendency is not good because it caters to the vulgar psychology of the common people. However, when it turns literature into a thing for enjoyment, the writer takes off a coat, a piece of clothing. In the guise of sociologists, we become producers, making novels. As for what kind of novel to produce is another matter. However, the thing suddenly became clear and simple, that is to say, it tells us: you are not the medicine of life, nor the mouthpiece of the people, you are just the creators of something. . And then: what should we do when we make literature, and what kind of things we make. Things have become clearer, and another situation has emerged, which tells us that literature is a specialized profession, not a special function. Talking about literature is not just a performance report given by a person with special functions. Perform and enlighten strange functions, not so. Literature is a specialized profession with its own principles, specific skills and techniques. I would like to talk about the technical issues involved now.
I am not afraid that others will be offended by my question. I will say it directly. What I am talking about here today is a technical issue. The difficulty lies in the fact that the techniques and materials of novels are very, very close to our daily lives. I will give a special class to talk about this. I think the difficulty with it is that it is too close to our daily lives. The language used in the novel is our daily speech. How do we distinguish between what we usually say and not what is said in the novel? We need stories in our novels, that’s for sure. I think novels must have plots and stories. We have to give these stories a human face, because they are definitely not a heavy tale, not a folk legend, they are novels, and they require a realistic face, a human face, so it is very easy for them to get mixed up with our real lives. , it is very difficult to distinguish its independence. I think there are very big difficulties here, but what I want to do when I come to Fudan is this matter, I want to sort it out. This would require a semester-long course rather than an enlightening lecture. Now I just want to get down to business. Let's get back to this topic. Novels, what are our general requirements for novels, and what do we often think of novels in our hearts? We often think that, in fact, it has become a relatively long-term understanding that novels reflect reality and reflect reality. So, I was thinking, if what novels do is to reflect truth and reality, then why do we have novels? There are already history, political science, sociology, psychology, there are already so many disciplines that directly describe reality, why do we need novels? We often comment on a novel and give it a high evaluation, saying that it is a long scroll of history. It reflects our history for decades or even hundreds of years. We often use the name "epic" to give it What we think are the best novel names. But why is fiction not history? To put it another way, does it mean that novels reflect history in a concrete and vivid way? If this is the case, then how do we determine the value of a novel? From which side should we test its value? It lies in the profound, broad and long-lasting historical significance beneath the vivid appearance. Why don’t we study history directly, but use novels? If the value lies in its vivid appearance, then what is the content of this vivid appearance? This sentence goes around and around and back again. What is a novel? When I raised this issue today, I was really forced to go out of my way. Why do you say that? Because for a long time, we have thought that truth is our goal, especially after literature has gone through a long road of hypocrisy. We attach great importance to truth, and truth is our ideal. Literature, as if its ideals were real. We have spent a lot of effort and cost to strive for the truth of novels, but today I am very confused as to whether truth is really the ideal of novels. Zhang Yimou's movie "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit" is really real. It uses local people as actors and speaks the local dialect. He makes the big star Gong Li desperately close to life. It has mastered the reality of vivid appearance. If we say that novels use vivid features to reflect profound history, Zhang Yimou, in any case, is very real in terms of vivid features. He cannot be more real. The material of the movie is much more concrete and real than the novel. So what else can we do? Next, so many documentary works were released, and I think the impact was also very big, such as "Maomao Complains". This documentary was produced by the "Documentary Editing Room" of Shanghai TV Station last year. I think it is really real, and I think it has real value. Its truth has eliminated many of our hypocritical things, fake things, and wrong judgments. Everything was overthrown. For example, the woman it followed and photographed, Maomao's mother, came to Shanghai to work as a part-time worker, had a relationship with a disabled man, and then gave birth to a child. The man refused to acknowledge the child, so she hugged him. She came to Shanghai to look for her child, and she had to make sure the father of the child recognized her. I immediately thought of the image of the so-called rural nanny in many of our novels and movies. There was once a movie that won the "Golden Rooster Award" called "The Girl from Huangshan Mountain", which depicts That girl, so docile and virtuous, endured humiliation and hardship, and finally returned to the countryside to get the happiness she deserved. The girl in "Maomao Complains" is completely different. She is very brave, she is risking her life, she doesn't care about her image, she just wants to demand her rights from the city and fight for her own interests. "Maomao's Complaint" tells us that many of the "truths" we do are wrong. You see, the historical facts are presented in a vivid way, and other documentaries are as real as this. What else can we do? At the end of the day, it’s still the same question: What exactly is a novel? What exactly are we going to do? If what we do does not necessarily reflect reality, then what should we do? We are not creating hypocrisy or falsehood, that is clear, but we are not creating truth either, so what exactly are we creating? So now I want to describe the world of this novel from the front, or define the novel. I first want to use other people's words to say it. Using other people's words does not mean that they are authoritative, but what they say is better than what I say.
First of all, I would like to quote the words of the Russian exiled writer Nabokov (author of "Lolita" and "Dark Fire"). He has a work "Lectures on Literature". I recommend that everyone read it. You don't have to read so much. , he later analyzed many famous works, and his analysis method was different from mine. But there was an article he wrote earlier that was not long, about a few thousand words in translation, and the title was "Excellent Readers and Excellent Writers". I think this article should be read thoroughly. This article is very interesting. One of the sentences says: "There is no piece of art that does not create a new world." This sentence is a double negation. The following paragraph is only transitional and not very important: "So when we study, the first One thing is to study this new world as carefully as possible. "The important thing is to treat it as a new thing that has no obvious connection with the world we know." I think there are two important points in this sentence: the first is "it has no obvious connection with the world we know"; the second is "brand new". Next, there is another sentence in the article, which is somewhat definitional and relatively simple. You might as well write it down as a prerequisite for future research. It says: "In fact, good novels are good myths." This is Nabokov's definition of novels. His definition was very important to me, and I thought he said it very well, so I used his words. There is another person who said similar things. This person is a contemporary Chinese critic named Li Jiefei. I think you will be familiar with it. He commented on one of my works. In the fifth issue of "Contemporary Writers Review" in 1993, the title of the article was "Wang Anyi's New Myth". He also talked about Nabokov's "Good novels are all good myths" meaning, and trying to explain what myth is, I also used his explanation. I think he explained it very well and it fits my point of view. What he said is this: "Novel should be constructed, expressed and understood according to the novel's own logic." That is to say, it should have its own logic. I think the phrase "the novel's own logic" is very important. We can say that the next few classes will be studying the novel's own logic. Li Jiefei also said: "The essence of myth is actually a rebellion against nature, reality, and transcendental logic." He proposed that it is anti-nature and anti-reality, "It refuses to accept this kind of 'reality' that is given at birth. "This sentence is a bit convoluted, but it is still understandable. "It" refers to myth, "It refuses to accept this reality that is given at birth. And time, people and destiny all happen or exist in another way..." This passage mentions the essence of myth, which is still the same as the previous sentence. It has its own logic, its own time, people and destiny. This time, people and destiny are all contrary to our current nature and what we think of as the natural reality. "This world exists with its own values, logic and reasons. You cannot experience it, but you can feel it and experience it. The authenticity of your feelings tells you that the existence of this world cannot be denied." This is another one. It is very contradictory. First of all, it means that this world is obviously not a real thing. You cannot experience it, but you can feel it, and your feelings are real. "The authenticity of your feelings tells you the existence of this world." It cannot be denied. "There is a contradiction here. First, he emphasizes that it cannot be experienced, and second, he emphasizes that when you feel it, you have a sense of reality. That's the difficulty and the beauty. This is my description and title of the novel using other people's words. So what is my own name for the novel? I named it "Spiritual World", it's very simple. Why do I call it "spiritual world"? Because I think its creation belongs to one person, absolutely, absolutely. Unlike other things, such as movies, it combines many factors. As a product of modern science and technology, it is inevitably subject to the requirements of society, the public, the market, etc. I think novels are an absolute spiritual world. Of course, I am referring to good novels, not bad novels. What I mean is that the novel is absolutely created by one person, an independent person, and is his own inner vision. It is entirely based on one person's experience. So it must be one-sided. This is its important feature. It must first belong to one person. The second point, and the important point, is that it has no function. It does not mean that there were no chairs in the world at first. People invented chairs for the need of sitting, and then in the process of using them, their rationality was tested to make them more and more suitable for use. The novel is definitely a non-functional thing, it has no practical value. I remember once having a discussion with a painting friend about why so many good artists in the world are gay. Of course there are many explanations. This friend has an explanation that I find very interesting. He said it was very simple, homosexuality was a fruitless, useless lust. Unlike men and women who can have children and form families, the feelings between homosexuals are the most useless, and art is the most useless. His explanation may not be factual, but it points to the impractical nature of art. Therefore, I think the novel must be incomplete, not objective, and unrealistic. In other words, it is very subjective. But I don’t like the word subjective. It seems too scientific and too calm. I prefer something more related to human nature. I named it a "spiritual world". This is my personal name for it. Now I have told you about this world, but whether I can actually explain it and convince you, I don't know. I just told you that there is such a world.
Our basic understanding of this world is that it has no obvious relationship with our real world. It is not a counterpart to our world, or a replica. That's not the case, it is another existence, an independent one, completely determined by itself, promoted, developed and constructed by its own regulations and principles, and this world was created by one person. It can be said that man has a relatively closed nature, and he slowly builds it successfully in the world of his soul, the production field of his soul. It is not correct to say that it is closed, because this person's mind must be affected by his experience. What I mean by closed is that the process of making it and the moment of making it are closed and belong to him alone. It has strong spiritual characteristics, that is, completely personal spiritual characteristics. What kind of person you are, what kind of temperament, and character will be reflected here, and it is definitely only yours. There is no truth or reason in you as an individual, there is no right or wrong that everyone can recognize, there is no right and wrong, and it cannot be tested by everyone using scientific things or social ideology. Regulations and measurement, there is no such thing as this, it is entirely up to his personal decision. There is an unnatural quality to its existence. It is not identical with nature, just like the sun rises in the east in the morning and sets in the west in the evening. This is nature. It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way at all. It has its own rise and fall. So it is also anti-reality and must be something else. We must understand this. When we see something that is exactly the same as our real life, why bother to make such a replica of life? We have to doubt its artistic nature. Now even if we know that it has its own rules, nature, reasons for its occurrence, the logic of its development and its own destiny and ending, what shape does it take? I now use the word "morphology". First of all it is in the form of storytelling. It is not poetry, nor is it prose. What the story should be like is another matter for discussion. Some people may say that this is a story and that is not a story. This is another question. But there is no problem with this, it has a story, and it must be in the form of storytelling. Then it uses language as its material. It does not use color lines as its material like pictures, nor does it use rhythm notes as its material like music. It uses language as its material. This brings up a big problem. I just said it by the way. There is a big contradiction here. First, I said that it is a world that is anti-nature, anti-reality, and independent of the individual mind, but now I say that the material it uses is language, and its form is story. There is a big contradiction here. What is this contradiction? The language of novels is what we use in real life, and we must use the language we speak and use to express it. We have no other tools, and I think poets are more convenient. Poets can use some anti-realistic language, but we cannot. We cannot use the kind of poetic, lyrical recitative language. We can only use the most everyday language, and I personally think that the best novels should use the most everyday language. For example, if I say you should eat, then I have to say "you should eat" anyway and cannot use other words. This is a very fatal thing. So the material we use, language, is very realistic. The contradiction here can be seen. Our world is spiritual, independent, exclusive, and closed, but its materials are so realistic. First of all, its language is the language we usually use. Secondly, the language must be turned into a story, and the logic and development required by this story are also realistic. We are not myths after all. "A good novel is a good myth" is a descriptive description, but in fact, the novel is not a myth, and everyone knows this. It just has certain characteristics of myth, but in form it is not myth. Next, another question arises: What is the relationship between this spiritual world and our real world? Perhaps the main thing we want to answer in these lessons is, what is this relationship? I think it makes sense in theory. What is the principle? It’s the relationship between materials and architecture. This realistic world, that is, the world we live in now, actually provides materials for our spiritual world. It is a material. It provides a kind of blueprint, bricks, structure, and technology. Use its realistic materials to create a spiritual world. Herein lies the difficulties and traps. Then I quote Nabokov again, still in "Lectures on Literature: Excellent Readers and Excellent Writers". This sentence is very good. He said: "The materials in our world are of course very real (as long as the reality still exists)", he first admitted that the materials of our world are real, and "our world" refers to the world of novels, "but it is not the generally recognized whole at all, but a mess, and the writer has no understanding of it. The messy things spread out shouted "start", and in an instant, the whole world began to glow, melt, and reorganize. Not only the appearance, but also every atom was reorganized. The writer was the first A person who draws a map of this wonderful world, and every plant and tree in it must be named by him. "This passage solves two problems. One is that it helps me confirm the idea that our real world is. Providing materials for that spiritual world, I think the relationship between this material and architecture is certain.
The second very important thing is that this material world is a mess of things. In our eyes, it is not orderly and logical, but messy and isolated. It is composed and restructured by the writer himself. A world of the mind as I call it. In this way, the issue has been roughly explained theoretically. We live in a real world, and as long as we admit that this reality still exists, of course we must use real materials. Nabokov, he also agreed with using real materials, using materials from our world. Our question then is: what is the value of this so-called spiritual world. This is also a question that we will answer in future courses, a question that I will analyze and prove with some famous works. Now, what I can explain in language is only a very simple sentence, which is to open up spiritual space and build a spiritual palace. Let us use the phrase "good novels are good myths" to trace the past and look at the world through the eyes of primitive people, which may help us understand something. The world in the eyes of primitive people can be said to be a pile of "chaotic things." They do not have the experience of their predecessors to generalize and summarize. They see the world with their bare hands and only rely on their personal emotions, feelings, and mental illusions. Their thoughts are particularly free and they can do everything. And because they don't understand this world, the world is full of divine power in their minds. They hold a supreme sense of holiness and are full of lofty respect for this world. And this kind of freedom and holiness are based on unreality. They provide us with an unreal world, which is full of incredible spiritual constructions and soul activities, opening up another space field for us. In fact, when we look at the creations of primitive people, what we are looking for is an unreal world, where there are logics, rules, origins and destinations that are unknown to us. Our hearts are filled with another completely different experience and emotion, which is the real creation, the real creation. It expands our existence, extending the context and foreground of the real world. However, the interesting thing is here. When primitive people painted those deformed birds, beasts, and characters in caves, they turned out to be exploring and finding the true face of the world. They walk towards reality from generation to generation, leaving their footprints, what we call civilization. After a long journey, they finally came out of the fog. Supermen and heroes with supernatural powers gradually disappeared after the discovery and invention of science and technology. The world has become clear and clear, and art is moving towards realism step by step. The real restrictions are becoming more and more strict, and even the slightest difference cannot be hidden from our eyes. People first drew what they "knew", so the figures and animals on the side also had two eyes and ears; then, when people realized the error of things, they drew what they "saw", and the technique of perspective also formed ; Then, a more demanding revolution came. It was not enough to just "see", but to express a more precise "seeing", that is, a certain moment seen under the ever-changing light and color. Therefore, don’t look at Impressionist works as vague and ambiguous. In fact, they are closer to the truth of the world. Well, art is about creating reality. The novel was actually produced under such a scientific and democratic background. It is a product of modern times, and realism is its unbreakable coat. By the 20th century, almost all "good myths" had disappeared, replaced by truth. In fact, I think modern writers are troubled by the reality of fiction, and they try every means to distance fiction from reality. They looked for ways from various theories, from psychology to look for abnormal manifestations of human nature, or from the theory of relativity to find the basis for time and space chaos. The explosion of Latin American literature revealed the weapon of "magic", which motivated writers They rediscover treasures in lost myths. However, reality is a world that is maturing day by day. How many people live in it and contribute to it out of necessity? It is so solid and has great power. It binds people's imagination more than people think. fixed. Therefore, under all the deformed and abnormal appearances of modern novels, there is actually a realistic heart. Let me give you a recent example, which is a novel "One Day" by Shanghai writer Chen Cun. The novel tells about a man named Zhang San, who spent his whole life working and living in one day from starting to work on the assembly line until retiring from the assembly line. This is an unreal story. No one can expect to live decades in one day. It has the characteristics of a myth, but unfortunately it is only an external characteristic. In fact, it is an allusion to the pale monotony and boringness of life in the large-scale industrial production method, and is a depiction of reality. Writers in the 20th century always find it difficult to escape from allusions and symbolic descriptions. We are really entangled too tightly with reality. And we may find that in modern literature, those who make greater contributions are often writers on the margins of reality, such as Jews, women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and the disabled. This may be because their positions are different from those of Because reality is kept at a certain distance, they are freer and can indulge their imaginations and betray reality and nature. Let’s go back and talk about the value of this spiritual world. We already know that its value cannot be determined by its authenticity, so how do we define its value? For example, in the Olympic Games, American athlete Lewis set an extremely fast sprint record. This record should be said to be unnecessary.
Because there are trains, planes, and very advanced means of transportation in this world, why do we need this speed? Moreover, this speed is very much achievable by humans and can only be achieved by a few individuals, so it can be said to be an impractical speed. Its significance is to set a high standard in the world, or to set an ideal, the ideal of human speed. It may be useless, but it illuminates our ordinary world and shows its divine power. Another example is the Goldbach's conjecture in mathematics, which Chen Jingrun studies. It is also a useless thing. It cannot be quickly put into production to create wealth and create useful things. What is its value? It also symbolizes a kind of divine power, a kind of divine power of human thinking, showing what height human wisdom and logical thinking can reach. I think art is the same. It sets a very high realm. This realm is not based on authenticity or practicality. It is just a human ideal, a human divine realm. This is what "a good novel is a good myth" means. But I feel that this kind of reasoning is still not very clear and not very convincing. I need to give some examples to prove it. This is what our future courses will do.