Chapter 107: The Lack of the Sublime in Contemporary Chinese Literature: The Popularity of The Littl
Chapter 107: The Lack of the Sublime in Contemporary Chinese Literature: The Popularity of The Little Prince
Professor Zhong Junmin was at ease, holding the teacup in a steady hand. "Then please give us your thoughts on the causes of the literary phenomenon of The Little Prince's sudden popularity and the current state of contemporary literature that it has triggered. No less than 800 words."
"Uh... Professor Zhong, is this the question for your final exam?"
"No, this is a subjective question I gave you on the spur of the moment. Please answer it within the time limit."
To be honest, Ning Chunyan didn't know how she suddenly got to the topic of the Little Prince, which she was most reluctant to touch (especially in front of Zhong Junmin). She just came over and briefly mentioned the essay contest of the Xihe Literary Association, and before she even mentioned the person involved, "Wang Zixu", the topic returned to China at the speed of Germany's blitzkrieg against Poland, and turned to this topic in a flash.
She came here with the mentality of curing illnesses and saving lives, and she imagined that she would be a lobbyist like Kong Ming crossing the Yangtze River. Unexpectedly, Professor Zhong pushed her into the examination room leisurely, and the professors in front of her lined up in a row, just like a defense scene. Professor Zhong and the boy behind him stared at her, which made her panic.
"Professor, we are here to talk about something else..."
Zhong Junmin interrupted her: "I know, but let's not talk about your business first, let's talk about mine first."
Ning Chunyan said: "But my matter is also very important, how about we confirm the intention first, and then discuss your matter in detail..."
Zhong Junmin glared at her and said, "Isn't the little prince important?"
"The Little Prince is important, but..."
"It's important enough, so let's talk about it one by one, starting with my case." Zhong Junmin said arbitrarily, in an extremely undemocratic way. "Let's talk about the little prince first. Oh, Qingluo goes first. I've heard a little about Xiaoning's ideas."
Ning Chunyan was sweating. Chen Qingluo had only come to accompany her to boost her courage, but suddenly she had become the main force in the defense. She had been sitting aside, daydreaming, with her eyes unfocused. When she heard her name mentioned, she opened her mouth slightly and whispered, "Ah?"
"Don't you need me to repeat the question?" Zhong Junmin sat up straight. "Today, we must first clarify the academic literary issues, and then talk about the real literary issues."
Seeing Professor Zhong Junmin's serious expression, Ning Chunyan finally believed that he was serious.
Having been in the group for so long, she already knew that Professor Zhong was a die-hard hater of the Little Prince. During the period when the Little Prince became popular, he and Professor Huang Xinghuo would have such an argument in the group almost every two days, and the others in the group were no longer surprised. Moreover, the viewpoints had changed from the initial "literature carries the message" to the continuous iteration later, and now it had entered a profound realm that she could not understand at all.
Yesterday, she secretly glanced at the chat history, and immediately felt dizzy and turned off her phone. Those terms and the authors they cited were becoming more and more "cold, biased, and hard". Just by looking at them, she could feel that she was being crushed in terms of knowledge. This was just a quarrel in the group. I wonder if he and Professor Huang have inspired anything new in their offline confrontation.
Ning Chunyan secretly glanced at Chen Qingluo, wanting to remind her to say as many bad things about the little prince as possible in an effort to win Professor Zhong's favor. As long as she could make Professor Zhong happy on academic issues, he would definitely be better at speaking on worldly issues.
Chen Qingluo came back to her senses as if waking up from a dream, and said slowly: "I feel that the little prince should be a bald 40-year-old man."
Hearing this, Ning Chunyan felt as if his head was exploding, but what he didn't expect was that after Professor Zhong and the boy looked at each other, their eyes glowed with gold. The boy took out a small notebook and sat down opposite him, pretending to write something.
Professor Zhong said: "This is an interesting new idea! Please elaborate on it!"
Chen Qingluo said, "Sorry, let me sort this out first. I'm a writer. As we all know, most writers are not good at speaking because the language area of their brains has been occupied for a long time and they are not very good at expressing themselves in words."
Professor Zhong said: "It's okay, you speak slowly and I will listen slowly. If necessary, I can provide you with the conditions for handwriting input."
Ning Chunyan bit her lip, stretched out her little hand and pulled the corner of Chen Qingluo's clothes, twice heavy and twice light, implying that she should be equally good and not say anything that Professor Zhong didn't want to hear, but she didn't know if Chen Qingluo understood it.
Chen Qingluo stretched out her fair hands to comb her hair at the temples. Her dark, bright eyes flickered twice, and she spoke very sincerely:
"I look at the issue of The Little Prince from two perspectives. One is that it is not a special case in the context of the third cultural transformation, in which multiculturalism has completely collapsed and transformed into a 'broken' culture after the popularization of the Internet. The other is that I look at the Little Prince, a male text, from the perspective of feminism, female writing, and female texts, through the opposites between the two sexes...
"…The former originated from the prevalence of consumerism. The literature of the Little Prince is first of all a kind of consumer literature, born from a certain commercial operation. In other words, it is manipulated by an invisible hand, and the Little Prince is the best among them. He dances on this invisible hand and challenges it. In this grand celebration of consumption between the sexes, he frankly and accurately points out the existence of desire like a sociologist, and attacks the sensitive crux of the problem. He uses his profound accumulation to lead a public carnival…
"…On the other hand, I take myself as the starting point. As a woman, I can also get some pleasure from examining these texts from a detached perspective without losing my gender identity. The text of the Little Prince is an undoubted male text, but his choice of words and sentences when guiding his inner impulses is poetic, pure, and pious. It is not piety to the object (that is, women), but more to literature. This, to a certain extent, resists the erosion of the soul by lust and money…"
Ning Chunyan was stunned by what he heard.
Chen Qingluo is worthy of being a doctor of literature, she has maxed out the skill of speaking freely. Ning Chunyan knew very well that her best friend had not read much of The Little Prince's Love Letters, and she only read a few chapters reluctantly after her constant pestering, and finally came to the conclusion that "this guy must not be married, and he doesn't even deserve a girlfriend", but now facing Professor Zhong Junmin, she can actually talk about so much.
She first started with the background of the times, showing the excellent and magnificent vision of contemporary professional writers, then transitioned from the background of the times to the background of literature, and from the background of literature to the small background of the text. Finally, from this small background, she walked into the author's heart, analyzed his heart, and finally concluded:
"This person is a bald, oily-haired, slightly plump middle-aged man in his 40s."
After listening, Ning Chunyan looked at Professor Zhong Junmin's expression and it seemed that he was about to applaud.
"Very good," Professor Zhong said, and then turned his gaze to Ning Chunyan, "Xiao Ning, you come and talk too." "I..."
Ning Chunyan breathed hard, and after a tactical retreat, he stood up and said, "Professor, could you introduce this boy first?"
Professor Zhong turned his head and glanced at the young man who was writing furiously with a pen, and said, "He is not important."
"But I was frightened by his stare. I couldn't calm down."
"Oh, he's my graduate student, Zhao Peilin, and the title of his paper is "The Lack of the Sublime in Contemporary Chinese Literature: Taking the Popularity of The Little Prince as an Example."
Ning Chunyan paused for a moment, then suddenly he gathered his emotions, put his hands on the table, and said in the tone of a speaker:
"Professor Zhong, regardless of whether The Little Prince symbolizes the lack of nobility in contemporary literature, he has been recognized by the market and has already made a fortune. What deserves our attention now is the serious literature that is in danger! Serious literature needs our rescue!"
Professor Zhong finally looked up: "What do you mean?"
Ning Chunyan was thinking of a point of entry when Chen Qingluo beside him suddenly took out a stack of manuscripts from her bag, slammed them on the table, and pushed them in front of Professor Zhong.
"This is……"
"Please take a look," Chen Qingluo said firmly, "You will know once you take a look."
What she handed over was the manuscript that Wang Zixu had submitted for the essay contest.
……
"Hey, Director Gou, hello, hello, is Wang Zixu, who is participating in the essay contest this time, from your unit?"
Gou Yingbiao switched hands to answer the phone to show his attention: "Is this Director Zhang from the Propaganda Department? Hello. Wang Zixu is from our unit. What can I do for you?"
Zhang Qian said, "You know, the essay collection of Xihe Literary Association is never an easy job, let alone the preliminary selection, which is very offensive. Every year, we have to screen hundreds of manuscripts. These are not hundreds of manuscripts, but hundreds of authors. Rejecting their manuscripts is equivalent to offending hundreds of people. And we are involved in this work every year. Can you imagine how much pressure I am under?"
Director Gou smiled and said, "Only a man like you who is firm and impartial can hold this table and ensure the orderly progress of the first round of the preliminary selection. I understand your difficulties and admire your courage. The leaders must trust you to give you this job. So, what does this have to do with Wang Zixu?"
"Wang Zixu from your unit is quite capable. The other losers, the good ones just complained at home, while the bad ones came to our unit to make trouble. Wang Zixu, on the other hand, found a big shot to put pressure on me and insisted that I change the results of the primary election. I said that the results of the primary election cannot be changed once they are finalized, but he refused to listen..."
As Gou Yingbiao listened to Zhang Qian's voice in the microphone, his expression changed from worry to relief, and from relief to ecstasy. He held the phone to his lap and listened as if he was talking on the phone for a long time.
The feeling of grievance, unlike other emotions, will gradually dissipate with the passage of time, especially for some people. Grievances are like wine, the longer they are brewed, the more fragrant they become, and when they are released, the neighbors will smell it and hold their noses as they pass by.
Zhang Qian's grievance was of this kind. After she told her bestie about it, her anger did not subside, but instead grew more and more intense. So she called everyone who was related to Wang Zixu and Ning Chunyan one by one to denounce them, and within a few days, the incident became a hot topic.
After Gou Yingbiao finished talking to her, he called in the office director Xu Shichao and, with a serious expression, talked to him about three points of view.
First, the Xihe Literary Festival is a project that the leaders attach great importance to. On the day of the festival, all employees in the unit must participate in the event, watch the commendation ceremony, and participate in activities as much as possible to make the atmosphere lively.
Second, we must do a good job of handling those who were not selected in the essay contest. They are strictly prohibited from being dissatisfied with their failure and going to the organizing committee to cause trouble or petition. This is simply a disgrace to the unit. Once discovered, they will be dealt with seriously.
Third, Comrade Wang Zixu, who has already caused trouble, should be taken as a typical case and reported to the entire unit for criticism and study.
After listening to what the leader said, Xu Shichao walked out of the office sweating profusely and greeted Zhang Cangnian who was coming towards him.
If he did as the leader thought, not only would he feel very offended, but he would also find it difficult to strike the right balance in carrying out the leader's intentions and caring for his comrades. There would also be a question mark as to whether Comrade Wang Zixu could return to work as usual.
In addition, life was getting worse and worse, especially for Wang Zixu. During his absence, the world was full of rumors about him, and they were very bad.
Rumors are scary, I just hope he can stay out of the spotlight for a while and come back to work after the literary conference. It's a bit embarrassing, but it's better than being laughed at in person.
(End of this chapter)