Literary Master 1978

The letter just arrived. The sender is Lu Wenfu, whom I met at the National Excellent Novella Award Ceremony.

After the award ceremony, Lin Chaoyang treated the award-winning writers to a meal, and his cooking skills won unanimous praise from everyone.

Some time ago, Liu Xinwu came to Lin Chaoyang to help write a preface for "Longing for Life" and mentioned Lu Wenfu. I don't know what the letter is about.

"Brother Chaoyang Wen: I am glad to receive your letter. I received a letter from Xinwu a few days ago, saying that you should give me a grand reception when I come to Beijing next time. I haven't thanked you for your hospitality last time, and I am really grateful.

After thinking about it, I don't know what to say in return. I wanted to send you some tea, but I thought that it was past mid-spring and it was not the right time. I will definitely send you two pounds of newly fried Biluochun next spring.

..."

Lu Wenfu has the style of a traditional literati, which is deeply integrated into his way of dealing with people. In the letter, he talked about inviting people to dinner and sending tea, and then talked about the purpose of writing this letter.

It turned out that the dinner party at the end of March gave him some inspiration. He also loves food and wants to write a novel about food.

Of course, writing about food cannot only be about food. It must involve social changes, historical development and the pulse of human nature. Lin Chaoyang understands both novels and food, so after having this idea, Lu Wenfu wanted to write to Lin Chaoyang to communicate.

After reading Lu Wenfu's design and ideas about the novel, Lin Chaoyang immediately thought of his most well-known masterpiece "Gourmet".

"Gourmet" is a novella. The timeline of the novel runs through before liberation to after the reform and opening up, but it is not a huge work that reflects historical struggles. Instead, it starts from the details. The protagonist Zhu Ziye has been busy all his life with how to eat and how to make himself eat to his heart's content.

In the old society, he could live a delicious life relying on his ancestral property because he did not smoke opium, gamble, or visit prostitutes. He only had a special liking for food, which made him not affected much in the buzzing.

After the reform and opening up, the times changed, and Zhu Ziye turned from a muddleheaded eater into a celebrity gourmet.

This novel is apparently about "eating", but in a lot of vivid descriptions of eating and drinking, it hides a very profound ideological theme, showing the variability of human nature, historical changes and social development.

After it was published, it quickly received praise from the literary world and caused a great response.

The plot described by Lu Wenfu in the letter has many similarities with "Gourmet" that Lin Chaoyang has read. I think it should be the same novel.

Lin Chaoyang didn't expect that a meal could make Lu Wenfu write a masterpiece in advance. He happily wrote back to Lu Wenfu, affirming his ideas in the letter and encouraging Lu Wenfu to write this novel.

Two days later, the final exams of major universities in Yenching ended one after another. The two sisters Tao Yushu and Tao Yumo had no study tasks, and the atmosphere at home also relaxed.

Tao Yumo was planning to go to Beidaihe during this summer vacation. Lin Chaoyang asked, "It seems that you have saved a lot of money?"

Tao Yumo immediately looked at him warily, like a little squirrel guarding food, "I haven't saved much money."

"As money-grubber as your sister."

"Do you believe me? I'll tell my sister?"

"You little traitor! Do you still want to make money?"

Hearing Lin Chaoyang's words, Tao Yumo's eyes lit up, "Another letter?"

In January this year, "The Death of Van Gogh" was published in the form of a special issue of "Contemporary". After the novel was published, it was warmly welcomed by readers. The final sales of the issue of "Contemporary" that published the novel reached 1.15 million copies.

Simply from the numbers, literary magazines such as "People's Literature" and "Harvest" can occasionally sell more than one million copies, but the difference of this issue of "Contemporary" is that the original sales base of the magazine was not high.

"Contemporary" was founded in 1979. The sales of the first issue were 70,000 copies, and the second issue was 130,000 copies. The sales growth was stable, but there was still a big gap compared with other well-known literary magazines.

In 1980, Contemporary published Lin Chaoyang's novel Lai Zi's Summer, and the sales volume exceeded 500,000 copies at one stroke. Since then, the sales volume of the magazine has been hovering between 300,000 and 500,000 copies.

In recent years, literary magazines have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Contemporary has achieved such results within one year of its founding, which is certainly worthy of recognition.

But the problem is that this publication is backed by the behemoth Renwen Press. Since the day of its preparation, Contemporary has been benchmarking top literary magazines such as People's Literature and Harvest.

Such results are ultimately more than one level behind the two.

Not to mention compared with People's Literature and Harvest, even compared with October and Yanjing Literature, which are also in Yanjing, it is slightly inferior.

October sold 550,000 copies in its first issue. Although Yanjing Literature is not as influential as first-tier literary magazines, its sales volume has always been good.

As a result, starting from January this year, the publication of The Death of Van Gogh quickly triggered a reading craze among readers, bringing the sales volume of Contemporary to more than one million copies.

After this issue, the magazine's sales volume declined, but still reached 700,000 to 800,000 copies, enough to compete with the two top magazines, People's Literature and Harvest.

The terrifying sales volume brought a strong influence. The Death of Van Gogh won a good reputation among readers and also received good reviews in the literary world.

If it weren't for a small group of people who went online to make pan-political criticism of some parts of "The Death of Van Gogh", the evaluation of this novel by readers and the literary community could be said to be perfect.

Due to its extremely high reputation, the editorial department has sent packages of letters from readers at regular intervals in the past six months. Calculated carefully, there are at least 15,000 to 6,000 letters.

Of course, Lin Chaoyang could not handle such a large amount of letters by himself. Most of them were handled by his sister-in-law, a cheap labor force.

In the past six months, Tao Yumo made forty or fifty yuan by helping Lin Chaoyang handle letters.

Tao Yumo stared at Lin Chaoyang with bright eyes and smiled, "Come on, the next novel will be released soon!"

"There's no rush. Even if it's published, it will take more than half a month to get widespread feedback. By then, I'm done."

Tao Yumo asked again: "By the way, didn't my sister say some time ago that you two would also go to the PEN Club during the summer vacation?"

Lin Chaoyang looked unconcerned, "Zhang Dening is not sure what he says. I don't know when."

Lin Chaoyang's words were a bit arbitrary. The day after he said this to his sister-in-law, Zhang Dening ran to the Overseas Chinese Apartment and said that "Yenjing Literature" was going to hold a pen conference next week, and the venue was set to be in Huangdao.

"Where is Huangdao?" Tao Yumo couldn't help but ask after hearing the name from Zhang Dening.

"Huangdao is in Qingdao. It used to be Jiaonan County, but now it has become Huangdao District of Qingdao."

"Oh, it's Qingdao."

Zhang Dening added, "This PEN conference will last about half a month. We will first stay in Huangdao for a few days, and then go to Jinan and Tai'an."

"Half a month!" Tao Yushu pondered for a moment. She was on summer vacation now, so she had time. She spent half a month on the PEN meeting, and she also rushed to learn how to drive a motorcycle when she came back.

Zhang Dening asked Lin Chaoyang: "Is it okay for you to take half a month off?"

"Can."

Now when something happens in the gym, he is picked out as the mascot. This is the case when the men's volleyball team comes, and the same is true when the Chinese University of Hong Kong delegation comes. He now takes leave without any burden. I am not the mascot for nothing.

"Then you guys get ready these days. We will meet at the train station at 9:30 next Monday morning."

"good."

After Zhang Dening left, Tao Yushu was busy packing up his things. Lin Chaoyang said, "There are still a few days left. Why are you in such a hurry?"

"I'll see if there's anything I'm missing first, and I'll buy some while I have some time."

Women always have more trouble than men when going out.

Seeing that her sister and brother-in-law were about to go out, Tao Yumo quickly planned her itinerary. Since she couldn't afford a meal, she might as well go out in style.

Before Lin Chaoyang and his wife could attend the PEN conference, she had already rushed to the train station with her luggage.

"Jianmei!"

From a distance, Tao Yumo saw his classmates and shouted excitedly.

Guo Jianmei, who heard the sound, also waved to Tao Yumo. Tao Yumo ran up to him with his luggage and greeted everyone one by one.

This trip to Beidaihe, they were four women and two men. Three of the six were from the 79th-level law department, namely Tao Yumo, Guo Jianmei and a girl named Yu Hui.

There are two other people, Wang Zhiyong and Li Junling, who graduated from the 77-level law department. They are boyfriend and girlfriend. The last person, Liu Zhenyun, came with his girlfriend Guo Jianmei.

The six people gathered together and everyone walked towards the station.

Summer vacation has just started these days, and Yanjing Station is crowded. After checking in, a few people finally squeezed into the bus, and after putting their luggage away, they sat down panting.

"Ouch, there are too many people!" Tao Yumo complained.

Guo Jianmei said: "You don't often take the train. Every winter and summer vacation, we take the train home like this. We are used to it."

There were seven people in their party, only Tao Yumo and Yu Hui were from Yanjing, and the other five were from other places.

"It's so hot!" Yu Hui fanned herself with her hands.

Tao Yumo took out a magazine from her bag and used it as a fan to fan the wind, which was much more convenient than Yu Hui's hand. When she was feeling proud, she saw Liu Zhenyun take out a fan and hand it to Guo Jianmei.

"Zhenyun is really thoughtful!" Tao Yumo joked.

When she said this, Guo Jianmei and Liu Zhenyun were a little embarrassed. Another couple, Wang Zhiyong and Li Junling, were much more generous than them. They not only wiped each other's sweat, but also shared a glass of water.

The weather was hot, the carriage was full of people, and the temperature was even higher. Everyone was sweating profusely, and everyone drank a few sips of the cold water that had been poured in advance to quench their thirst.

When the train started moving slowly, the breeze came slowly, and finally a cool breeze came from the open window, and Tao Yumo let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, it's finally cooler."

The six people were riding in a green leather hard-seat car with adjacent seats. After the car stabilized, Wang Zhiyong invited everyone to play poker together. Poker is now the best entertainment activity to pass the time on the train.

Several others agreed, but Yu Hui didn't want to play. She picked up the "Yenjing Literature" that Tao Yumo used to fan herself in the car and said, "I'll read the magazine, and you guys can play." "

"You're really disappointing. How can five people have fun?"

Tao Yumo complained to her and voluntarily quit, letting the other two couples play.

"Hey, Yumo, your brother-in-law has another new work?"

Yu Hui glanced at the catalog and found that this issue of "Yanjing Literature" actually contained Lin Chaoyang's works.

"yes."

"Yanjing Literature" is a monthly magazine. This issue has been on the market for two days. Tao Yumo bought this copy at a newsstand when she was leaving home, and planned to use it to kill time on the train.

Now the magazine has been borrowed by Yu Hui, so she can only watch the other people playing poker.

The train was noisy. Tao Yumo's eyes were on the poker cards, but her ears received all kinds of sounds.

"Good! This novel is really refreshing!"

"What novel?"

"Have you read "The Chess Master"? It's published in this issue of "Yanjing Literature". It's Xu Lingjun's new novel. It's really well written."

"I just finished reading that novel yesterday and I don't think it's very good."

"Not good? Why not? I think it's very good!"

"You don't play Go, do you? The things in it are too ridiculous. The protagonist Jiangnansheng defeated nine Japanese national players in a row in Go. It's nonsense. If our Chinese Go had this level, would we have been suppressed by the Japanese for so many years?"

"In novels, the plots are appropriately fictional. Besides, I remember that Wu Qingyuan, who played Go, swept the Japanese Go world back then?"

"Wu Qingyuan won the game in Japan, and in this novel, it was in China."

"What's wrong with that?"

Tao Yumo listened to the two voices arguing. She was not unfamiliar with the content of their argument. It was the plot of her brother-in-law Lin Chaoyang's new novel.

My brother-in-law was right. It has only been two days since the novel was published and there is already controversy about the plot.