Show the life history of ordinary people and depict the magnificent picture of the country's development

  ——A dialogue about the novel "The World"

  Panelist: Liang Xiaosheng (the winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, author of the novel "The World") Wang Xueying (a reporter from our newspaper)

  Since the launch of the 2022 Chinese New Year drama "The World", it has set a new high in the average ratings of a set of TV dramas on CSM's entire network in the past three years.

The 58-episode TV series is adapted from the novel of the same name written by Liang Xiaosheng, the winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award.

Liang Xiaosheng created more than 100 characters in a long scroll of 1.15 million words, and wrote the life history of the common people for 50 years; the TV series shows the history of social change in China with rich and vivid audio-visual language, allowing the audience to feel the "little stories" of the Zhou family. Change China's "big events", third-tier construction, going to the countryside, restoring the college entrance examination, returning educated youth to the city, opening to the outside world, going abroad, going to the sea, reforming state-owned enterprises, revitalizing the economy, transforming shanty towns, fighting corruption and upholding integrity... "The World" will The times have merged into the daily life of the characters and even the turning point of fate. The interlocking contradictions and conflicts, and the unified narrative method of the family and the country have successfully attracted audiences of all ages and formed a family chasing drama model.

  What triggered Liang Xiaosheng's original creative intention?

Let him mobilize his rich life accumulation and real life experience to create a magnificent long scroll full of the texture of the times; what the writer diligently seeks is to ask: how can people who are born universal and destined to be ordinary go hand in hand with the word "respectable".

Through the in-depth dialogue between critics and writers, readers can better understand Liang Xiaosheng's creative thinking and viewing experience.

 "My family is a family that supports each other and overcomes difficulties together"

  Wang Xueying: This year's Spring Festival has a lot of "new year flavors", including the laughter of the Spring Festival Gala, the nostalgia at the dinner table, the excitement of the Winter Olympics, and the warmth of the family watching the TV series "The World".

After the filming of the TV series, have you watched it before the broadcast on CCTV?

Are you chasing dramas at night now?

Which episodes particularly touched you?

What are the differences between the TV series and the novel?

  Liang Xiaosheng: Before the broadcast, the director invited me to watch the 68 episodes of the first cut. The director and I are also friends. He wanted to hear my opinion on "starting the cut", mainly on the lines.

I'm also like a film reviewer, jotting down an idea every time and reporting it to him.

From episode 68 to episode 58, some episodes were re-edited, so now I watch it every night, otherwise I don't have a say.

  I have made it clear that I will never interfere with the adaptation, so I have not read a single line of the script.

In the original book, Hao Dongmei's father died in those turbulent times, and he lost the opportunity to return to work; Bingkun also met a third party, but not Sun Chichao's sister; Bingyi helped deal with the situation during the Great Northern Wilderness. The matter of "returning to the city" and the relationship between the characters are different from those in the original book; in the original book, Zhou Rong is written more and more characters, and she reflects the mental journey of the new generation of intellectuals.

It should be noted that for the adaptation, I think the original content is just a pile of building materials, bricks, stones, sand, cement and wood.

The director is the chief architect, the screenwriter is the draftsman, and the actors and the entire crew are the embodiment team.

The original work is a puzzle structure, and the TV series has a main line, so it is very difficult to adapt.

The plot that reflects the fate of large groups of laid-off workers touches me even more.

  Wang Xueying: "The World" takes the life trajectories of the three brothers and sisters of the Zhou family, the "light characters" in the civilian community in northern Chinese cities, as the plot context, describes the struggles of three generations, and unfolds a point-to-face story based on the northeast region. The changing picture of the national era.

You once said: "My biggest dislike in life is to feel guilty for my parents. I hope young people will understand how their parents and grandparents came from China..." Please tell us about the origin of this novel.

  Liang Xiaosheng: The original intention of writing novels stems from my personal emotions.

My father used to be a worker in the third line of junior college, and my younger brother used to be a worker in a soy sauce factory. When my elder brother and I went to the countryside, our elder brother suffered from mental illness, which made my younger brother’s stay in the city even more difficult than Bingkun. He and his The friendship of the workers is like the "six little gentlemen".

And my mother recognized many young people who stayed in the city as godsons and goddaughters, and they still call me second brother today.

Both my parents and younger brother have passed away, and it is one of the motivations for my creation to leave a written record of this precious folk affection.

  Wang Xueying: Character building is an indispensable and important factor for the success of a novel. "The World" is a huge and long volume with many characters.

The family affection and mutual love between the parents and children of the Zhou family, and the growth experience of the three siblings, do you have your real life experience and emotional experience?

You and the "three brothers and sisters" are contemporaries, familiar with their experiences and understand their choices. Please tell us about the relationship between your characterization and life experience. Does Zhou Bingyi have the shadow of your growing up?

Which character in the novel did you find particularly successful?

  Liang Xiaosheng: My family is a family that supports each other and overcomes difficulties together. Brothers and sisters love each other very much, and our brothers and sisters also feel sorry for our parents.

In the original book, elder brother Bingyi and elder sister Zhou Rong also love their younger brother Bingkun very much; but the younger brother who stayed in the city has more concentrated family responsibilities and more direct pressure, which is impossible.

The relationship between my family is not as complicated as it appears in the original book, but at a certain period it was more difficult than the Zhou family's life. Two younger brothers, one younger sister, five of the three couples were laid off and had no income. There was also a perennial patient in the family. My brother who is mentally ill, the housing is still a problem, and he can hardly remember it.

Fortunately, I still had some manuscript fees at that time. It was ten years when I helped the poor with a pen, and the bitterness was only self-knowledge.

So I write about the lives of laid-off workers without knowing the situation.

Bingkun has the shadow of when I was an educated youth, which is loyalty.

Zhou Rong has the shadow of me becoming a writer, which means Qing Gao.

Bingyi has the shadow of me when I wrote "The World", but he is not flattered by humiliation, and has almost no edges and corners. He just wants to live in peace with life.

Cai Xiaoguang is my favorite character, so I made him the later Zhou Rongzhi's flower guardian.

"Be a clerk of the times from the perspective of a writer"

  Wang Xueying: "Human World" describes the fate and choice of several generations of Chinese people, and depicts a realistic picture of all beings in society.

You are a peer of the Republic, and this long volume of urban life spanning 50 years should have fully mobilized your life experience and demonstrated the vitality of realistic creative techniques?

  Liang Xiaosheng: In 1977, after graduating from Fudan University, I was assigned to the Beijing Film Studio.

In the following two years, the director's office often organized visits to the Film Archive.

From the beginning of the film, I watched a lot of foreign films, so I was exposed to other ideas and genres of film and literature earlier.

But I still prefer the style of realism, or I prefer to create realistic themes.

I will not deny that the persistence of this style really stems from the concept of "Writing to convey the Tao".

But today's realism has actually borrowed a lot of nutrition from other schools, so it is also the most obvious "borrowing".

Many people think that realism is a reflection of how people are in reality, which is good but incomplete.

Another point is that I later realized that realism must also reflect what people should be and how they should be in reality, and only reflect what they are. That is the function of a mirror, and it varies from person to person, perhaps a concave-convex mirror.

What should be done, what can be done, to make literature more literature.

After realizing this point, revisit the famous works, and find that the works of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Hugo, Hardy, and Dickens all have the same theme. The keynote is also found in "Jane Eyre" and "The Scarlet Letter", and it is not the idealism of human nature, but the comprehensiveness of the realism's eyes.

Realizing this point has inspired my later creation; if this point is not taken into account, realism will be one-sided.

These experiences I have integrated in the writing of "The World".

  Wang Xueying: What are you particularly concerned about in this realistic novel?

The true feelings of common people, they face the perseverance of self-improvement in life, the struggle to change their lives and destiny, and realize their yearning for a better life?

  Liang Xiaosheng: Director Li Lu has folk feelings. Folk is a way of saying when I communicate with him and Comrade Hailing, which generally refers to the most common people.

We believe that in times of national crisis, the sons and daughters of them have always been able to overcome the difficulties together with the country. If we move the era forward to the period of resistance to Japan, most of the sons and daughters in the "light-print" and most of the workers in the military factories, All will be the strong backing of China's resistance to Japan.

The children of the Zhou family and their children will definitely uphold the patriotic spirit of "the rise and fall of the country, the responsibility of every man".

If there are any obstacles for the country in the future, they will still overcome with the country tenaciously.

In a word, most heroes and martyrs are not the descendants of the gods in Greek mythology, but some good sons and daughters of the people, Dongmei's parents who became high-ranking party officials, Ma Shouchang and his wife were born in the people, and so did Bingyi.

In times of peace, people's children are very ordinary, but in times of war, they will become heroic warriors who defend their families and the country without hesitation.

Based on such an understanding of the people, the director regards paying tribute to the tenacity of the people as the ideological theme of the whole play, which is reflected in the actors, and the tenacity is fully explained by them.

  Wang Xueying: Audiences who follow the drama every day have seen the group portraits of people with strong vitality in the "world". Zhou Bingkun, who is self-reliant and tenacious, has a group of people who dare to be sincere, stubborn, and attach great importance to friendship; the mature and stable Zhou Bingyi tries his best to do practical things for the workers and the people; his personality is straightforward Zhou Rong of Zhou Rong has her own idealistic brilliance and artistic temperament; Chunyan, who is fiery and enthusiastic, has a personality that dares to speak and act; Zheng Juan, who is in adversity, has tempered her understanding of forbearance and strength, and exudes a gentle and meticulous character charm... Director Li Lu called several leading actors in the TV series "four beams and eight pillars". How do you evaluate the leading actors' understanding, grasp and interpretation of their roles?

Did they perform the image you had in mind?

  Liang Xiaosheng: As an audience, I think that the Chunyan couple, the National Day and catch-up couple, and Zheng's mother, although Guangming is not the protagonist, they all performed extremely well, and I give them full marks.

Although they each have their own personality flaws, they are not worth three words just by virtue of their tenacious and vigorous will to survive and try their best to be a good human being.

They all lived to a certain extent not to be overwhelmed by difficulties, and this is really a precious general character of the Chinese people.

The whole crew will take the ordinary and imperfect biography of them as their own responsibility.

  Wang Xueying: Although they encountered the hardships of life and the ups and downs of fate in the "human world", they struggled and grew up in the course of history and supported each other in the tortuous and adversity. The warmth, the brilliance of humanity, the confidence and strength to live a good life attract audiences of different ages to immerse themselves in it.

"The World" makes us feel the power of literature to soothe our hearts.

What do you think is the meaning and value of literature?

What is the message of your tireless literary creation over the past 40 years?

  Liang Xiaosheng: "Cultural world" is a characteristic of Chinese culture, which of course makes culture a great responsibility.

Literature is an integral part of culture. For a long time, dramas and novels have also shouldered the obligation of "humanizing". They are all kinds, but the "humanizing" faction has never been absent.

  I have long passed the age of proving my talent through novels, not to mention I have no talent, and I have long since given up the attempt to "show profound".

The world has been flattened, who is less profound than the other?

Therefore, I only ask myself to try my best to be a clerk of the times from the perspective of a writer.

If you want to do well, you have to grasp a little meaning, even if others don't believe it, you must believe it yourself.

What I have repeatedly conveyed through literature is nothing more than this kind of inquiry: in terms of xinxing, what should a person be, and what can it be like?

Especially for people who are born universal and destined to be ordinary, how can their life go hand in hand with the word "respectable"?

  Wang Xueying: "The World" creates a very charming "epic sense". Among the many praises it has received, "epic sense" has become a high-frequency word.

As a writer with rich creative experience, how do you understand "epic sense", is "epic sense" also what you pursue in the creation of "The World"?

  Liang Xiaosheng: "History" refers to the sense of age, and "poetry" refers to the nature of the human heart. The combination of the two is indeed what the director and his creative team are pursuing.

The last thing I want to say is that I am only the original work. The TV series "The World" is a project created by CCTV, Tencent Pictures and Xinli Pictures. It is a work that the director and his creative team have worked hard to complete. The beneficiaries of their efforts are the appreciators and sharers of their successes, like many viewers.