Preface to Selected Works of Wang Shuo

Some works in the anthology were selected to form a new anthology under various pretexts. The original intention is to save readers some energy and make pirated comrades more convenient. When the old anthology is completely collected, it will inevitably be overused. It's like a fish served on the table without washing its internal organs, which makes people pay the price of the whole fish and makes people sick if they are not careful. This is the middle part of the fish, and some bones and bones have been removed. People who have bought collections should not buy them. If the family life is difficult, the laid-off and unemployed people who rely on the help of Project Hope can forget it. Keep the money to live. I'm too busy doing business to quadruple my income, so I don't have time to waste your time. If you are determined to study and have an extraordinary ideal, don't pay this money, and I will surprise you in the future. I hope that the buyers of my book are those who are unlucky, bored and have no ideas and hopes every day; It's better to be someone who hasn't been scared and hasn't seen my stuff at all. So I have no sympathy for anyone.

two

I chose these articles because these things more or less contain my own personal feelings and have a mottled shadow of the past. When writing about people and lives that once existed, be careful when writing, and the expression will be more accurate. Especially those romance novels, most of which were written more than ten years ago. You see, when I wrote these things, I was still very pure. I mean, the brain is not confused by all kinds of radical or reactionary ideas, but still believes in something and smells human. These qualities have been lost to me today. I will never write anything like that again. Actually, I stopped writing novels after 1992. A change that is harmful to myself makes me a different person as soon as I pick up the pen, a person I once hated.

I have no formal higher education, which is a good thing. I thought that the liberal arts education in China universities was nothing more than training a group of knowledge slaves. Look at the articles written by professors and their high flyers. No matter how smooth they speak, one sentence is clear, and that is to defend morality. This kind of work done by middle school teachers makes them enjoy it, and they are serious enough to doubt their ideological ability. Some people say that I have nothing to do and love to throw dirty water on intellectuals because I have never been to college myself, and my inferiority complex has caused me trouble. Let's just say that he is right. I did have some childish performances on this topic at the beginning. But now it seems that everyone is too vulgar to say so. I once vowed not to be that so-called intellectual. This reason probably stems from the bad impression left by my teacher when I was in middle school. They are so unreasonable and conceited because they think they have knowledge, and knowledge has become the capital to bully the weak and fear the strong. In the process of growing up, I saw that too much knowledge was abused, superstitious and used to distort human nature, which led me to distrust, dislike and even hate anyone who claimed to be an intellectual. I also know many respectable intellectuals, who make me aware of my narrowness and prejudice, but whenever an intellectual just frees me from prejudice, another intellectual will immediately appear and push me back to my original place with his words and deeds. I believe this is a weakness of human nature, just as having a few dollars can corrupt people, and mastering knowledge can also make people deliberately deceive the world. I used to treat knowledge and intellectuals differently. I fantasize that I can avoid vulgarity and keep my simple nature while increasing my knowledge. It turns out that I was wrong. A prostitute can't keep her virginity in her flesh-and-blood career, and eventually she will get syphilis. What I want to say is that I have become an intellectual in these years of writing. This change makes me feel uncomfortable and helpless.

three

For me, the process of understanding is a conceptual process, from a living person to a machine.

From the beginning of 1984 to the end of 199 1, I have been writing professionally for eight years, day and night, except for writing and reading. Away from the crowd, away from the society, going to the streets occasionally is like watching the fresh through a glass fish tank. All discoveries and feelings are not life experiences but books. Those seemingly vivid and vivid word concepts, because of their eloquent eloquence and profound meaning, are easily accepted and firmly established as the essence of life in their minds. Thinking seems to be broadened, expanded and clear through reading. Fast progress along the cognitive shortcut formed by books gives people a sense of promotion. Secular pleasures and desires are driven into the category of contempt for human beings by reason. Over time, I lost my enthusiasm for life itself and even despised it. I am used to thinking and considering some deeper problems, but I don't know that the stairs leading to these problems are all piled up by concepts. Once you set foot on it, you can never get out.

Concepts have their distinctive characteristics, that is, they only respond to concepts, but are indifferent or unable to cope with life and those things that cannot be defined. Another feature of this concept is that it consists of many great words. Frequent use of these words will give people a strong hint that they have entered a realm that ordinary people can't reach and are closer to the truth, and then they have a strong desire to explain and tell the truth. If you don't do it well, you may even misunderstand that you are the spokesman of God. It is impossible to write a serious and formal novel. Every time you write a dialogue, an action will have a concept rushing out to impose an abstract meaning. Of course, this can make a sentence diverse and even meaningful, but it is impossible to complete even a natural paragraph. If you write it down hard, it will be meaningful. After a thousand words, you don't know what to say. Later, he simply despised conventional novels and thought that only one Bible in the world could be called literature. Take some of your own bullshit as a revelation of justice.

The third feature of concepts is that each concept can be solved in many ways. The more certain you are, the more controversial it is. Conceptualized people are as ignorant as idiots. The simpler, the less you understand. Arguing with another conceptual person will be like playing poker with the same cards, and you will find that everyone supports the same idea and opposes the same thing. Why the two are so separated, people have to suspect that the whole argument is intended to attack people. This is the fourth characteristic of the concept: the curve drawn by the concept is all the way down and finally reaches the downstream.

Some smart people talk about China literature, but no one talks about it, because China writers are too smart. Some idiots say it's lack of passion. My tragedy is to lose myself in front of knowledge. I couldn't resist the temptation and played a role in the palace of knowledge. As a result, I became a eunuch like everyone else. People who are completely tamed by concepts can't write good novels. By good novels, I mean those novels that can reproduce the face of life to the greatest extent. The novels shamelessly touted by intellectuals themselves are actually novels from concept to concept, and we know how simple and easy it is. I destroyed it. My language is finished. Look at this preface, you can see at a glance how awkward and confusing my current language is. I don't know how to get rid of the control of ideas and whether this trend can be reversed. I feel sick of my intellectualization from thinking to writing. I once tried to stop myself from falling by saying a few rude words and standing up and cursing. Interestingly, when I scolded intellectuals, I found that only by standing on the side of intellectuals did I scold very hard. This is really boring. I can't think of a good metaphor. I don't know what else to blame, and it will become as magical as an intellectual.

Therefore, if I still have disrespect for intellectuals, it is not for anyone, but out of disgust for myself.

four

There are few serious comments about my early creation, and a popular frivolous saying is "riffraff literature". This statement first came from a dirty director in a film factory. This man is a southerner and knows nothing about life in Beijing. He is a gentleman. He doesn't like some behaviors of young people, so he blurted out. At first, I didn't care. You are so emotional that any old lady in the street will say it several times a day. Later, this statement spread more and more widely, and critics who lacked originality frequently borrowed it as their own opinions. Ordinary readers often ask me this statement, which makes me quite impatient, because I can't explain why I am a hooligan. This should be explained by critics, it is their invention. After that, the word turned many smart people into fools, and the word became a thinking obstacle. A very fluent and reasonable article stutters and gets angry when it comes to this word, and then incoherently lowers itself to the level of a poster. I am no longer amused to see so many poor scholars suffering from aphasia. When some readers said that they didn't quite understand why those commentators acted as if they had personal enmity with me, strong sympathy forced me to make some explanations for them: conceptually, the word rascal is just a comparison with other words such as "hypocrite" and "nerd", and whether it is praised or not depends on what. In fact, it is called "riffraff literature", which only emphasizes that such works have great personality. Considering the Taoist features of China literature for a long time, it is almost a compliment to call it that. You shouldn't be laughably called "pure literature" or "serious literature". Stubborn readers often ask, "Do you admit it yourself?" I have nowhere to hide, so I have to nod and admit it. I look solemn and stirring, but I feel that I have won the championship in my heart. I want to explain a few more words. I also have aphasia. Fortunately, when this language came out, everyone was satisfied and no longer asked. If you keep telling others that, you really convince yourself. If this is the only way for people to talk, so be it. Obviously, the concept has its necessity, which can make our life a little simpler.

There is also an obvious misunderstanding that I want to explain to readers. Because I live in Beijing, many confused people compare my things with Lao She's and call them "Beijing flavor". This comparison is stupid. It doesn't matter if southerners talk nonsense. They don't know Beijing as much as we don't know them, and they can only comment on each other in one province and one city. Some Beijingers are not Lao She's sons. Speaking of "Beijing flavor", it seems that Beijing has never been liberated, and it is still the old Peiping 50 years ago. Take this old scale with 16 two systems as an example. Nothing is enough on it. It also makes people feel like talking to a stranger.

Anyone with common sense knows that after 1949, the new central government followed the crowd and Beijing became an immigrant city like new york. I don't know how many immigrants there are. Anyway, Haidian, Chaoyang, Shijingshan and Fengtai are basically composed of new immigrants. Let's just say that not many people took part in the revolution in old Peiping before liberation, so there was no one in the Central Committee. How many people in the party, government and military departments even have cadres and their families? Not less than one million. When I was a child, I lived outside Fuxingmen, and that large area was simply called "New Beijing". As far as I'm concerned, all provinces in China are Chinese, even Koreans and Vietnamese, but there is no old Beijing. I was in Sanlihe area in Xicheng when I was in middle school. All the students in Shanghai in my class speak Shanghainese and eat glutinous rice balls. I have known since I was a child that Mandarin is not Beijing dialect. The first time I went to school in Dongcheng, I heard people all over the street say that some words in Beijing dialect, such as "pancreas" and "taking a lamp", were completely incomprehensible. I think that's not only the language difference, but also the cultural background of the whole lifestyle. I don't think I have anything to do with the Beijingers of Lao She's time. I cut out the customs and cultural traditions of the ancient capital with Manchu color. My attitude, manners and way of thinking, including language habits, are more influenced by a new culture. Call this culture "revolutionary culture" for the time being. I thought that after the founding of New China, it produced its own culture, especially in Beijing. Before his death, Chairman Mao said this sad thing: I haven't changed anything, just a few areas near Beijing. I think this change should refer to the change of people. I feel that I am one of these people who have been changed or shaped. This is the passerby I wrote about. Maybe my writing is not good enough, which makes these words illegible. In addition, I overestimated domestic scholars, so I made some jokes about calling a deer a horse. The author of the novel will finally jump out and confess his original intention, which is also the failure of the novel. This kind of confession is unnecessary when we think of the fate that we will never understand each other. It is not so much a so-called "Beijing flavor" as a "rascal"

five

One guy relayed another guy's evaluation of me, saying that I am just a flea of this era, but unfortunately I can't jump higher. This guy is a little depressed at this. My provocative answer is: you deserve to see something that jumps so high. A kinder answer is: I'm not the only flea jumping, there are better ones jumping higher behind. In Walter's words, everyone alive can see it.

At the end of the century, fleas that have been jumping happily since the new period are at a loss. Stick to the old wrist of taking off in place, and the more you jump, the more ugly you get. The rookie who goes on stage next is not as good as a crab, and even more crazy than jumping. There are no fresh cheers in the newspapers and periodicals, but more sympathy visits to some dying beauty heroes. A lively era is coming to an end. Cleaning the battlefield, I am also ashamed that I only found this collection and called it the essence. China people's short artistic life and low fertility often make me sigh romantically. After sighing, I no longer have the ambition of that year. A popular saying recently is: ignore it and don't give it a chance. This is very bold and confident. I wonder if it represents the atmosphere of the coming new century. I want to encourage readers.