"White Deer Plain" won the Mao Dun Literature Award, which was almost unanimously approved by the jury. Such a masterpiece was opposed by the then secretary of the Writers Association in the publishing process, and even almost "aborted". Let's walk into Bailuyuan together and explore Chen's spiritual world.
Born in Bailuyuan
Chen is from Jiangcun, Bailuyuan, Shaanxi. On the vast loess plateau, Chen began to contact the world. The sky is blue, the ground is yellow, and the Qin opera floating between the hills is full of passion. ...
He grew up from a child to a teenager, no longer satisfied with touching the world with his senses, but wanted to describe what he saw and thought with his own pen and his own language.
In junior high school, he published poems and essays in the local newspaper. When Chen was born, children didn't have to study, but fortunately, his father was the only one in the village who could write.
In a cave with a slight cultural flavor, Chen realized the importance of learning from his father. He finished high school and regretted missing the university, but the teacher admitted to the town took part in the work at the age of 22.
At this time, Chen has reached the level of literary creation. The appearance of Bailuyuan seems to have little to do with Chen's young experience, but Chen's roots are rooted in Bailuyuan, where he has special feelings for people and things. The utopian countryside shown in White Deer Plain is exactly where Chen often haunts.
A coincidence
When it comes to Bailuyuan, Chen first thinks of it, but there is another person whose name has to be mentioned, and he is He. He Qizhi was the editor of a magazine at that time.
He saw the article published by Chen in Shaanxi Literature and Art and was deeply attracted. So he sent an invitation to Chen to write a long rural novel.
Many years later, He still remembers what he said to Chen: "You must write a long story and send it to me when you finish!" With this simple agreement, Bailuyuan began to breed quietly. From 65438 to 0988, Chen began to formally prepare Bailuyuan.
In order to truly restore the living conditions of Bailuyuan people from the late Qing Dynasty to the 1980s. Chen spent two years consulting materials and visiting Bailuyuan.
From food, clothing, housing and transportation to customs, Chen Dou recorded it in detail. He didn't write casually because he grew up in Bailuyuan, but he held high respect for history.
Art comes from life but is higher than life. Although it is a novel creation, once it is divorced from historical events and real life, it will become a pile of nonsense.
1989, the drafting of Bailuyuan began. During the four years from 1989 to 1992, the masterpiece Bailuyuan with 500,000 words was basically completed. At the age of 44, Chen began to make up his mind to write White Deer Plain, and at the age of 50, White Deer Plain came out.
Chen, who is nearly half a century old, spent six years in his life completing such a masterpiece, so that the world will always remember Chen who lived in and wrote about Bailuyuan.
My manuscript is my life.
Twenty years later, he finally waited for Chen's novel. This novel is White Deer Plain.
He was very excited when he just learned that Chen was going to start writing, but when he calmed down, he realized that it would be a long process. Both Chen and himself should have enough patience to wait for the completion of a work of art.
Chen Wenbi's preciseness is beyond ordinary people's imagination. It took him a whole year and a half to draft White Deer Plain, and the basic framework of the novel was set up. Chen began to fill it with blood and meat instead of reinforced concrete, which was a historical wave, even the Shaanxi opera on the Loess Plateau.
One character after another, who was originally a frame, became flesh and blood. Their emotions, joys, sorrows, love and hate are all over the text. After the completion of White Deer Plain, Chen handed the 500,000-word manuscript to He at the station.
He Qizhi thinks that this 500,000-word manuscript weighs as much as 1,000 yuan. At that time, a writer devoted his whole life to his thoughts, his blood and his life.
"I gave you my life" stuck in Chen's throat for a long time, and he finally shed two lines of clear tears. In the winter in the north, the iceman shivered, but that sentence finally failed to come out of his mouth, and later he knew it.
The twists and turns almost "aborted"
Once White Deer Plain was published, it aroused strong repercussions in the society. Rural life in the northwest, the changes of characters' fate under the changes of the times, and a lot of explicit descriptions ... all stimulate readers' nerves.
It is these bold and direct descriptions that pierce the ills and contradictions of the times and make Bailuyuan encounter great setbacks in the selection of Mao Dun Literature Prize.
In the selection of the Contradictory Literature Award, White Deer Plain successfully passed the examination of the expert group, but there was great controversy in the jury.
The judges' opinions can be roughly divided into three categories: the first category judges think that works like White Deer Plain are too extreme to support the selection of Mao Dun Literature Prize by White Deer Plain; The second kind of judges think that "White Deer Plain" is still very readable, but it should be deleted according to the characteristics of the times and the acceptance of readers. The third kind of judges showed great love and support for Bailuyuan, and thought Bailuyuan deserved it!
As one of the judges, Chen Yong, a famous critic, approved Bailuyuan, and the support of such a highly prestigious critic played a great positive role in winning the Mao Dun Literature Award for Bailuyuan.
Finally, in order to weigh the pros and cons and comprehensively consider the opinions of the judges, the jury contacted Chen and expressed their own suggestions, hoping that Chen could delete and revise White Deer Plain.
After consideration, Chen agreed to cut the works. According to statistics, the revised version of White Deer Plain is about two or three thousand words less than the original version, most of which are the most controversial sexual descriptions and political struggles.
Chen and "White Deer Plain" achieved each other, and finally, in 1997, Chen boarded the podium of the Contradictory Literature Award. Even after the dust settled, the controversy about White Deer Plain did not stop. Taifeng Zhai, then secretary of the Writers Association, was even more angry when he heard that "White Deer Plain" won the prize.
Of course, there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand readers, and good works can stand the test of the times.