China News Agency, Beijing, December 10th, title: Wang Anyi: The Expresser of "Oriental Civilian Ways of Living and Values"

　　"China News Weekly" reporter Li Jing

　　At the end of August 2022, Wang Anyi's new book "Five Lakes and Four Seas" will be published.

Wang Anyi has been writing all the time. Since he entered the literary world in the early 1980s, he has published more than 100 works.

"Educated youth literature", "root-seeking literature", "Shanghai-style literature" and "women's literature" have been placed in front of her works, but none of them seem to be her.

Her novels have a variety of themes, but they all have a distinctive Wang Anyi style, and are known as the expression of "the way of life and values ​​​​of ordinary people in the East".

"Five lakes and four seas"

　　In recent years, Wang Anyi is a bit like a documentary director, looking for people and events in the era that she is interested in describing.

Therefore, each work has a new scene, and the camera is aimed at new people, just like the new work "Five Lakes and Four Seas".

The opportunity for her creation came when she went to Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung in 2014 to participate in the "Master Class Project" hosted by Yu Guangzhong.

It is surrounded by mountains and sea, and there is a ferry outside the school gate. Residents eat seafood, and their livelihood is always related to water. Ferries, Tin Hau Temple, fish market, fishing gear, food stalls...

Photo source of Wang Anyi: Visual China

　　The industry of "ship breaking" entered Wang Anyi's field of vision.

It is said that after the end of World War II, the garrison withdrew and sank the ships and ships, so shipbreaking yards were opened everywhere.

　　Why are you moved by "ship breaking"?

"The reason is actually vague." Wang Anyi recalled, "It probably has something to do with the weather at the ferry, which has an ancient meaning." Of course, for novels, emotion alone is not enough, it needs more concrete support.

　　Wang Anyi said that she is not particularly keen on "low life", but stays more in the study.

Therefore, her way of making up for it is to "look more, think more, and search for information".

In preparing for "Five Lakes and Four Seas", the biggest difficulty is the isolation of the ship breaking industry.

Wang Anyi has been to shipyards, visited the operation of ocean shipping systems, and inspected maritime courts as a representative of the National People's Congress, but these fields are too grand.

　　And she was determined to write about shipbreaking for almost "naive" reasons—wharfs, ferries, boats, people on board, and even the place names of Linshui—Mohekou, Xiaoxi, Xiangshui, Guazhou, Linshui. Huaiguan... These things attracted her strangely.

　　Shipbreaking is not popular in marine life, and this is also reflected in the scarcity of materials - I found a mimeograph booklet with only eight pages in the search. Several accidents were self-compiled and distributed promotional materials within the industry, but they are the only written records related to shipbreaking on the book-buying website. The price is 12 yuan, and only one copy remains.

　　Looking at the whole "Five Lakes and Four Seas", there is indeed a sense of haste. Some plots are rushed before they can be unfolded, so that the lives of the characters seem to never really land.

Wang Anyi said, "The main reason is that I didn't do better."

　　Some commenters lamented her lack of contact with the real rough stuff.

Wang Anyi admits that she is very envious of Mo Yan and Yan Lianke. They have rich lives, and they only need to dig out a corner of their lives when writing. Compared with them, her "life source is relatively single, so the lack of materials is an obstacle."

"Five Lakes and Four Seas"

Exploration and Breakthrough

　　Wang Anyi's mother, Ru Zhijuan, is a well-known writer, and her father, Wang Xiaoping, is a well-known playwright and director.

When Wang Anyi was in elementary school in Shanghai, she often participated in district and city children's song writing competitions and poetry meetings.

　　At the age of sixteen, Wang Anyi left Shanghai and went to the countryside of Huaibei, Anhui to jump in and settle down.

She later recalled, "The life in the countryside is really bleak", "I still can't adapt to the countryside, I can't get along with the countryside, and I always feel depressed."

　　Ru Zhijuan suggested to Wang Anyi: When you feel lonely, write down what you see and write to me.

So, writing letters to her mother lying under the kerosene lamp after a day's work became Wang Anyi's most enjoyable time.

　　Ru Zhijuan recalled: "The ordinary life scenes she wrote are vivid and friendly. It is like seeing the person and hearing the voice, making people unforgettable after reading it. Some things she wrote, I still remember until now." Wang Anyi later The most important feature of writing - the realism of the details of life, the dense and delicate technique like fine brushwork, has already taken shape when writing letters to my mother.

　　During the two years of jumping in the queue, Wang Anyi did not go deep into the most sinking part of life when she was honing her writing skills in letters. Instead, she "only cared about being immersed in her own emotions and didn't have the mind to pay attention to other things."

Many years later, she reflected: "This is a big loss. I have neglected life, and only this poor social experience has been blocked. At this time, I found that there is a serious shortage of writing materials."

　　In 1972, Wang Anyi was admitted to the Xuzhou District Art Troupe in Jiangsu Province. After a few years, he returned to Shanghai and worked as an editor for "Children's Times" magazine, officially starting his writing career.

1983 was an important juncture in Wang Anyi's creation - that year Wang Anyi and his mother Ru Zhijuan participated in the "International Writing Program" of the University of Iowa in the United States.

Previously, most of her creations were extracted from her own life experience and reflected artistically.

　　Months of traveling in the United States and training in writing skills have transformed the pattern of her novels.

Among them, one person must be mentioned——Chen Yingzhen, the writer known as "Taiwanese Lu Xun" also participated in this writing project. Some conversations between him and Wang Anyi brought great influence to her spiritual growth and literary development. There came a strong impact.

　　Not long after returning to China, Wang Anyi published a landmark work "Little Baozhuang".

In the novel, the traditional and ancient Xiaobao Village is about to step into modern civilization.

The "benevolence and righteousness" representing Xiaobaozhuang's human nature is very complicated, including kindness and loyalty, but also hypocrisy and conservativeness.

This is a work that has brought countless reputations to Wang Anyi.

Excavating and reflecting on the accumulation of national culture and its positive and negative factors, "Xiaobaozhuang" was classified as a representative of "root-seeking literature" in the mid-1980s.

　　Wang Anyi did not go too far on this road.

She successively published the novellas "Love in the Barren Mountain", "Love in a Small Town" and "Love in the Splendid Valley". With bold and breakthrough love descriptions and writing about women's situation and mentality in the relationship between the sexes, she was classified as " Women's Writing".

　　Wang Anyi does not seem to be satisfied with writing about human relationships and appearances of life. She tries to constantly change and explore in the spiritual core and art forms, seeking breakthroughs.

For example, "Document and Fiction" and "Sad Pacific".

Such explorations continued until the publication of her most famous novel.

Wang Anyi's work "The End of This Train" won the 1982 National Excellent Short Story Award.

Photo by Luo Xiaoyun

"Do as much work as you want"

　　Wang Qiyao is probably one of the most touching female images in the history of literature. She has experienced 40 years of ups and downs in her life, swaying out of the old Shanghai, and has gone through movies, dramas and more than one TV series all the way, becoming the most well-known in Wang Anyi's works figure.

In 2000, the fifth Mao Dun Literature Award was announced, and "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" published in 1996 won the award. Wang Anyi had a more widely known masterpiece.

　　The detailed description of old Shanghai in "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" made Wang Anyi once known as the successor of Shanghai School of literature after Zhang Ailing.

Wang Anyi can understand, but she wants people to understand the difference between her and Eileen Chang.

In Wang Anyi's eyes, Zhang Ailing lived in the gloomy last days, but she "lived in a bright universe".

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that she endows the characters in her works with a more high-spirited attitude in the atmosphere of fireworks in the city.

Writer Wang Anyi listened to college students reading his works in Wuhan.

Photo by Sun Xinming

　　"My life experience is the shallowest and most ordinary among our generation." Wang Anyi talked about his writing dilemma in "Six Lectures on Fiction" published in 2021.

But it's not unsolvable.

Wang Anyi put forward an interesting point of view, that is, he hoped that “the materials of Shanghai can be used to create a place that is not Shanghai”.

Therefore, she has always emphasized that she is a strict realist.

Wang Anyi believes that writing is actually an inwardly demanding labor. "The subjective world may determine your possession of the objective world to a greater extent. Otherwise, how can you explain that people with living resources are not necessarily novelists."

　　The relatively mundane life experience may also make Wang Anyi interested in a wider range of subjects.

After "Song of Everlasting Sorrow", "Sister Head", "Fu Ping" and "Tao Zhiyaoyao" all continued to unfold the stories of Shanghai women. Taking men as the narrative breakthrough, "Tianxiang" shows embroidered women... Although the subject matter is diverse, these novels have formed a distinctive Wang Anyi style in terms of spiritual connotation, writing techniques, structural methods, and language forms.

Wang Anyi signed the work "Heroes Everywhere" for the readers.

Photo by Wu Mangzi

　　The rationale for serial writing stems from sensibility, from pleasure, and from a desire to create.

Which subjects to "write down" are related to rationality to a certain extent. Wang Anyi explained: "The external life must be related to your inner life. This relationship is very subtle, as if sneaking into a secret passage. It cannot be determined by reason, but it cannot be separated from it." Apart from rationality, sensibility is limited and superficial after all.” In Wang Anyi’s opinion, literature does need talent, but the help of rationality is equally important.

　　Wang Anyi knows herself well, and she has chosen a suitable creative path for herself—not conceited about the burden of the times, and not inclined to grandeur.

A painting friend once told Wang Anyi that the size of his paintings is mostly within the range of the flexion and extension of the arms. Wang Anyi thinks this is also very suitable for her: "I think there is a limit to the size, and there is also a limit to the ability of personal control. Yes, do as much work as you want!" As for the limitation, she has already accepted it, not to mention that the limitation "determines to some extent that you are you, you are you".

(Finish)