1978 Synthetic Writers - Chapter 500 Jiang Xian's "Youth Trilogy"

In 1923, Lu Xun delivered a speech at the literary and artistic conference of Beijing Women's Normal College.——"What Happened After Nora Left"

The character Nora in this speech is inspired by the play "A Doll's House" by Norwegian playwright Ibsen.

In "A Doll's House", the heroine Nora originally had a happy family with a gentleman and loving husband and a group of lovely children.

If nothing unexpected happened, Nora might have continued to live in this seemingly peaceful life.

In Western society at that time, women did not have the right to serve as loan signatories.

However, in order to pay for her husband Helmer's medical treatment, the heroine Nora forged her father's signature without telling her husband and applied for a loan from Krogstad, thus committing the crime of forgery.

After her husband survived the danger of his life, she took on the consequences of the loan and did heavy copying work to pay off the debt.

Afterwards, Nora's husband recovered and was promoted to manager. Nora asked her husband to find a job for her friend Mrs. Lin Dan. Nora's husband had been afraid of his subordinate Krogstad for a long time, so he fired Krogstad and let Mrs. Lin Dan take over Krogstad's job.

The conflict of the story begins here.

Before Nora's forged signature was exposed, her husband Helmer was a gentleman and a good husband who loved his wife. He was full of sweet words to his wife and even said: "Nora, you don't know, I often hope that something dangerous will threaten you, so that I can risk my life and sacrifice everything to save you."

Ironically, Helmer immediately changed his attitude after the incident.

When he found out about this, he flew into a rage and called Nora a "bad thing", a "criminal", and a "cheap woman", saying that his future had been ruined by her.

He did not think that Nora did this for him and risked her life, and that such a husband was not worthy of Nora's love.

Nora was very disappointed. It turned out that her husband was not the noble and responsible man she thought he was. He took the opportunity to fire his subordinates because he was afraid of their abilities, and sent away his dying doctor friend because of his own selfish desires. Now, facing danger, he even ignored the relationship between husband and wife. In the final analysis, he was an extremely selfish person.

A sincere and brave woman like Nora could not tolerate the fact that the husband she once admired turned out to be a hypocritical and petty villain. From then on, the great image of her husband Helmer collapsed in Nora's heart.

Even when the crisis was over, Helmer immediately resumed his sweet words to Nora.

She realized her status as a "doll" subordinate to her husband in the family, and eventually left.

A Doll's House ends here.

The door slammed and the play ended.

What will happen after Nora runs away?

In Lu Xun's view, poets like Ibsen do not write to raise questions for society and provide answers, but are like the oriole, who wants to sing himself, and so sings not to make people listen to him in an interesting and beneficial way.

Mr. Lu Xun analyzed that Nora had only two choices after she ran away: "either fall into depravity or come back."

"Because if it is a little bird, it is not free in the cage, but once it leaves the cage, there will be hawks, cats, and other things outside; if its wings have been paralyzed by the cage and it has forgotten how to fly, it will have no way to go.

There is another way, which is to starve to death, but starving to death means leaving life behind, so there is no problem, so it is not a way either. "

Yan Gang is worthy of being a literary master. His article is very insightful. From Jiang Xian's "Variations without a Theme", we can not only see Fang Hongjian in "Fortress Besieged", but also keenly capture Jiang Xian's thoughts on the issue of "Nora".

Jiang Xian's thinking is to abandon the revolutionary passion, to use debauchery to fight against the lost passion and the widespread vulgarity, and to replace debauchery with mediocrity to fight against vulgarity.

Change your mind and be a new person.

This is the first time that such a look has appeared in Chinese novels.

"It turns out that there is such a deep meaning hidden in Jiang Xian's article. I didn't see it when I read it."

"Yes, Fortress Besieged. I have read this novel before. I was wondering why this "Variations without a Theme" has a familiar flavor. It turns out that the origin of this novel comes from here."

Xiao Zhang from the editorial department was surprised. "After reading these literary reviews by masters, I feel like I read this novel in vain. Tell me, why didn't I read these when I read it myself?"

"That's normal."

"Wonderful!"

An editor couldn't help but applaud, "I really feel that Jiang Xian's writing now really carries a bit of Mr. Lu Xun's thinking in it."

"Yes."

Another editor agreed, "I saw someone mention in a review before that Jiang Xian wanted to create a classic character like Ah Q in the image of Old Q.

Although the words “Contemporary Lu Xun” were shocking, they were still agreed by many editors present.

"You say so, but Mr. Jiang Xian never intended to use the title of 'Mr. Lu Xun' to promote himself."

An editor said, "Here, this is the creative talk that Teacher Jiang just sent."

"Creation talk?"

"Let me see."

This sentence was like a stone that caused a thousand ripples, causing a huge sensation in the editorial department.

Old Zhou was quick-witted and quick-handed. He was the first to get the creative talk sent by Jiang Xian. He spread it on the table and took a look at it.

“The story of the creation of ‘Variations without a Theme’!”

He said he was born in Beijing and was a native of Beijing. Later, he went to work in the countryside, where he had to eat potatoes endlessly because there was nothing else to eat. He ate all the potatoes he had in his life and he can't eat them anymore.

After coming back, he became an "unemployed young person", looking for work everywhere, working for a few days when there was work, and resting for a few days when there was no work.

Jiang Xian said that this kind of work was quite comfortable, but gradually, he was stimulated by some of his friends, or "childhood friends".

Because no one had time to rest at that time, everyone was either preparing for the college entrance examination or attending night school, and it seemed like they would be letting someone down if they didn't go to school.

But Jiang Xian didn't think there was anything wrong with what he did.

"Everyone has their own value of existence. Why should we be the same as everyone else? Why should we use other people's values ​​to judge mine? I have been doing what I like to do, reading and writing. Is this degeneration? Is this inferiority? Do we have to divide all kinds of people into different levels?"

Jiang Xian said that from then on, the story of "Variations without a Theme" has always been in his mind.

But at that time, the whole society was filled with works like "Scars" and "Reflections". He did not have the courage to publish such a novel, nor did he think that anyone would like to read such a novel.

He had written the novel "Variations without a Theme" in a hasty manner at the time and had never shown it to anyone. Later, after he became famous, he simply put this matter aside, feeling that he had too many more important things to publish.

"Variations without a Theme" is an article that has many shortcomings from a literary point of view and is really not worth showing off.

However, in recent years, seeing that on the one hand there are young people in society who are at a loss, and on the other hand there are spiritual mentors who are "swindling" and "morally blackmailing", Jiang Xian suddenly felt that he should take out this article and make it public.

Others are saying, "Today's Chinese youth have no right to be cynical."

But he just wants to tell young people:"Everyone has their own social position in life, and it is difficult to measure each other. What matters is not what others say about you, but how you feel."

"My friends who were rushing to school are now busy making money. It's not that I don't want money. I also want to wear nice clothes, live in a house and drive a car."

"I am a little bit ashamed to say this now, because I am very lucky to have these, but in my opinion, if I had to pay and sacrifice what I think is most important to me, that is, that little bit of freedom and leisure, I would never be willing to exchange it."

"."

Editor Lao Zhou was so excited when he saw it.

"When I published "Going on a Long Journey at the Age of Eighteen", didn't everyone say that Jiang Xian was the writer who understood young people the most?"

"In my opinion, this is absolutely true. This is absolutely true!"

"In my opinion, Jiang Xian's "Going on a Long Journey at the Age of Eighteen" and "You Have No Choice", together with this "Variations Without a Theme", can form a series called the 'Youth Trilogy'!"

"good idea!"

Su Chen, the editor-in-chief of Huacheng, stood nearby and listened for a long time. When he heard this proposal, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Well, let's get ready. I'll go talk to Jiang Xian about it. Let's do a special issue in the next issue to publish Jiang Xian's 'Youth Trilogy'. We'll publish the full text of these three novels and sort out some important comments on these three novels from the literary world."

"Then this special issue of 'Youth Trilogy' will definitely set a new wave of distribution records!" an editor said excitedly.

On the other hand, Jiang Xian soon received a call from "Huacheng" and heard about the "Youth Trilogy".

"Youth Trilogy?"

"It's interesting."

For any famous writer, there seems to be his own "trilogy":Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy: Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth.

Balzac's "Illusions" trilogy: "The Two Poets", "Paris of the Great Provincial Men", and "The Inventor's Grief".

Maxim Gorky's autobiographical trilogy: Childhood, In the World, and My University.

Ba Jin's Torrent Trilogy: Family, Spring, and Autumn.

And his love trilogy: "Fog", "Rain" and "Lightning".

Unexpectedly, this time by accident, "Huacheng" would create such a "Youth Trilogy" for him.

Looking at the entire contemporary Chinese literary works, these three novels are also the most suitable ones to form the "Youth Trilogy".

There is really nothing wrong with calling them the "Youth Trilogy".

Because entire generations of young people have drawn inspiration and strength from these three novels.

Of course, he understood that if he made the "Youth Trilogy" a special issue of the magazine, he would earn much less money than publishing a series of books under the "Youth Trilogy".

But for Jiang Xian today, after calculating his current assets, he no longer cares about this royalties.

Just like he is publishing novels in magazines now.

He could have made more profit by publishing it in print, but he insisted on publishing it in a magazine.

There is no doubt that the fame-boosting effect of publishing works in well-known publications is greater than that of publishing them alone.

Publishing a novel in a publication not only enhances the credibility and authority of the work, but also brings wider recognition and influence to the writer himself.

This benefit cannot be bought with money.

(End of this chapter)