Yu Hua: 10 Short Stories That Influenced Me New World Publishing House recently published "10 Short Stories that Influenced Me" jointly launched by the four most powerful novelists Yu Hua, Mo Yan, Wang Shuo and Su Tong novel". With the insight and understanding of first-class novelists, the four writers selected the novels that had the greatest impact on their creations after decades of hard reading and practice. Readers can see the sympathies or similarities between writers, the vast differences or coincidences between writers, and gain a better understanding of the personal literary characteristics of these four writers. Several writers have made very profound and perceptual analyzes of each of their chosen works in the "prefaces" to their respective books. This newspaper has excerpted part of the content for the benefit of readers. Yu Hua: The warm journey "Herring" (Duquesnes), "In the Penal Colony" (Kafka), "The Songstress of Izu" (Kawabata Yasunari), "South" (Borges), "Fool's Gempet" "You" (Singer), "Kong Yiji" (Lu Xun), "Tuesday Nap Time" (Marquez), "The Third Bank of the River" (Rosa), "A Boat on the Sea" (Stephen Crane) , "Birds" (Bruno Schulz) I often put the names of Kawabata Yasunari and Kafka together, not that they should be together, but out of my personal habits. I can’t forget the scene when I first read “The Songstress of Izu” in the winter of 1980. I was 20 years old at the time. I met Kawabata Yasunari in a dark apartment near the Yongjiang River in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Five years later, also in winter, also by the water, in a house facing the river in Haiyan, Zhejiang, I read Kafka. Thank God I didn't read them both at the same time. I was young and ignorant at the time, and if the confrontation of literary styles was too intense, it would make my reading overwhelming and overwhelming. In my opinion, Kawabata Yasunari is a symbol of infinite softness in literature, and Kafka is a symbol of extreme sharpness in literature; the gaze in Kawabata Yasunari’s narrative shortens the distance between the soul and things, and the cutting in Kafka’s narrative expands this distance; Kawabata Yasunari is the labyrinth of the body, Kafka is the inner hell. Our literature accepts such two completely different testaments, and at the same time implies that the vastness of literature sometimes lies in some hidden consistency. Kawabata Yasunari once described the feeling of a mother staring at her dead daughter: "The daughter's face was put on makeup for the first time in her life, and she really looked like a married bride." Examples of similar resurrections from the dead can also be found in Kafka's works. When the doctor in "The Country Doctor" examines his patient's festering wound, he sees a rose-red flower. This was my first experience of reading, life emerging after death, flowers growing on festering wounds. As far as I know, Lu Xun and Borges are symbols of clear thinking and quick thinking in our literature. The former is like a mountain rising out of the earth, and the latter is like a river sinking into it. Both men pointed out the clarity of thinking, and at the same time It also shows two different ways of thinking. One is the shuddering day in literature, and the other is the uneasy night in literature; the former is a warrior, and the latter is a dreamer. The "Kong Yiji" and "The South" chosen here are both examples of narratives that cherish ink as much as gold, and are both as lean as bones in literature. In "Kong Yiji", Lu Xun omitted the description of Kong Yiji's first few visits to the hotel. When Kong Yiji's legs were broken, Lu Xun began to write how he came. This is the responsibility of a great writer. When Kong Yiji's legs were intact, he could ignore the way he arrived, but when his legs were broken, he could not avoid it. Thus, we read the swan song of literary narrative. "Suddenly I heard a voice, 'Warm a bowl of wine.' Although the voice was very low, it was very familiar. There was no one around when I saw it. I stood up and looked outside, and I saw Kong Yiji sitting under the counter facing the threshold. "The voice came first, and then the person was seen. This kind of narrative is already extraordinary. When "I warmed the wine, took it out and put it on the threshold," Kong Yiji took out four coins, which was a chilling description. appeared, Lu Xun only used a short sentence, "Seeing that his hands were full of mud, it turned out that he came here with these hands." (Excerpted from "The Warm Journey", by Yu Huawen.) Su Tong: The Brilliance on the Pillow " "Wakefield" (Hawthorne), "Vanka" (Chekhov), "Ball de Suif" (Maupassant), "The Fool" (Singer), "A Rose in Memory of Emily" ( Faulkner), "Araby" (Joyce), "The Third Person" (Borges), (Hongluan Xi) (Zhang Ailing), "Christmas Reminiscences" (Capote), "The Horse" Bridle" (Carver). When it comes to short stories, there are masters at home and abroad who have left immortal voices in this field throughout the ages. Sometimes I feel that the original motivation of fairy tale writers is to write for children to go to bed, while short stories are like night stories for adults, best read under the lamp, preferably one read every day before going to bed, and pondered three times. In five minutes, you may be moved, or smile knowingly, or feel sad, as if there is a bone stuck in your throat. If you read it with such a taste, it means that this short reading time is not wasted. Cultivating such a habit will make the day's life begin. How good that mediocrity ends in brilliance! Of course, the premise is that there are so many good short stories to keep by your pillow.

Zhang Ailing is the only Chinese writer in this anthology. What needs to be clarified is that I do not think she is the only one who has left a mark in the history of domestic short story creation. I chose "Hongluan Jubilee" because this work is very Chinese. The literary tone, the simple vernacular, every detail is subtle and critical, and every metaphor is as painstaking as Li Bai's poetry. Just like the two sisters-in-law Erqiao and Simei in this article, they carefully selected their outfits for their brother-in-law's wedding. However, Zhang Ailing said that although everyone thinks that they are the most important role in the wedding, "for Erqiao and Simei, Qiao, Simei, and (the bride) Yuqing are the last white characters of "End" shown on the screen, and they are the wonderful previews of the next movie. "The most powerful thing about Zhang Ailing's novels is such clever and witty metaphors. I have always felt that this kind of work is something made in China. It is more casual than poetry and more rigorous than vernacular. It becomes a novel in the process of getting closer to a novel. ...(Excerpted from "The Splendor of the Pillow" by Su Tongwen.) Mo Yan: The Room in the Keyhole, "The Lighthouse Keeper" (Sienkiewicz), "Southern Highway" (Cortázar), "The Dead" (Joyce), "Officer Prussia" (Lawrence), "The Old Man with Giant Wings" (Marquez), "Justice" (Faulkner), "Plain Steppe" (Turgenev), "Country Doctor" "(Kafka), "Sang Boy" (Mizuki Mizuki), "Forging a Sword" (Lu Xun) I think a good short story should be the product of a mature writer. Reading such a short story, you can feel the uniqueness of this writer. Just like you can see the entire room through a small keyhole, just like extracting cells from a sheep's body, you can clone a sheep. I think the maturity of a writer should mean that a writer has formed his own style, and the so-called style should mean that a writer has his own unique narrative tone that is not confused with others. This unique tone does not just refer to the language, but to the unique atmosphere created by all factors such as the type of story he is used to choosing, the way he handles the story, the form he uses when telling the story, etc. . This atmosphere may be like a smoky tavern, or a coffee house with flickering candlelight, or a noisy Sichuan teahouse, or a five-star hotel with music, or a highway, or a horse-drawn carriage shop. Like a river ship, like a waiting room, like a sauna... in short, it should be different. Even if two mature writers tell the same story, the atmosphere created will never be the same. The first time I read Lu Xun's "The Forging of Swords" from my brother's Chinese textbook, I was still a relatively innocent young man. After reading this novel, I felt chilled all over and filled with horror. There was the banquet master in black who was like a piece of cold iron, the ruler between the eyebrows in green clothes, the king with a gray beard pouting on his chin, the steamy golden tripod, the pure green and transparent handle The sword and the three human heads singing, dancing, chasing and biting in the boiling water of the golden cauldron all came alive in my mind. When I was an apprentice pulling bellows for the master blacksmith on a bridge construction site, I saw the steel turning from red to white and from white to green in the fire, and I thought of that pure green and transparent sword. Later, I worked as a boy in the commune’s slaughtering team. When I saw the pig’s head rolling in the soup pot, I thought of the three human heads chasing and biting each other. Once I entered this association, I felt that real life was far away from me. I got carried away in the singing of the man in black in my imagination. I often sang loudly involuntarily: Ahuwuhuxiwuhuwuhu - Lu Xun in the front. The original text; what follows is my creation - Wuliwalaxilimahu. When I grew up, I lost count of how many times I re-read "The Forging of Swords", but every time I read it, I had new feelings. Gradually, I confused the man in black with Lu Xun, and since I was a child, I had imagined myself as... Wearing Tsing Yi Mei Jian Chi, I know that I can't become Mei Jian Chi because I am a coward who is afraid of death. It is impossible for me to chop off my head just because of a word of promise from the man in black like Mei Jian Chi. ...(Excerpted from "The Room in the Keyhole", Mo Yanwen.) Wang Shuo: They once made me empty "The Story of Yingying" (Yuan Zhen), "The White Snake Forever Towns the Lei Feng Pagoda" (Feng Menglong), "The Station Master" ( Pushkin), "A Story for Esme" (Salinger), "Concern for the Country" (Yukio Mishima), "The Hairless Mexican" (Maugham), "A Friend by the Cut" (O. Henry), "Three Sayings About Judas" (Borges), "Plucking Wei" (Lu Xun), "They Are Not Your Husbands" (Raymond Carver) Basically, when I am empty, I want to To feel even more empty, I read novels. In an era when there is no pop music to comfort us, novels are almost the only thing that guides me to escape from reality and indulge in fantasy. It can always satisfy my desire to caress myself mentally and not panic when I am not with others. My emotional development was completed through novels, which brought me into contact with another world, which transcended ordinary life moment by moment. In general, I read novels not to live a better life, to find teachings, to obtain philosophical guidance for life, but on the contrary, to make myself more pessimistic. Beautiful things are often easily destroyed in novels. The more you read them, the more you will doubt the reality.

Daily life is very dull, and the experience of heartbreak usually comes from reading. Once I get used to it, I feel that it is a rare enjoyment and safe. Then I feel that happiness is a superficial emotion, especially those grand and glorious narratives that flaunt victory and success. I feel that most of them are Nonsense, self-deception, who is not struggling desperately, who wants you to encourage them? I don’t want to become a beast. To a large extent, I rely on beautiful novels to protect my humanity, so that even when I have no worries about food and clothing, I still have the opportunity to feel gloomy, desperate, and tearful. When I think about myself, I feel that I am kinder, more sensitive, more sentimental, and better than others. deep. Many times, I thought I could discover the truth of life from novels. This is what I enjoy reading, absorbing the courage to fall and the power to resist life from novels. The words are a bit big, and it seems that the novel is used as a weapon again. In fact, it is just a close friend. If you need it, you can talk to someone. If you don't need it, you can't think of making a call for a long time. The ten short stories selected here are all ones that have made me feel something. Those who know me can see that my preferences are nothing more than mourning and ridicule. "The Legend of Yingying", "The White Snake Will Forever Town Leifeng Pagoda", "The Station Master", "A Story for Esme" and "Worry About the Country" can be considered Sadness, "The Hairless Mexican", "The Cutting Away", "Three Sayings About Judas", "Plucking" and "They Are Not Your Husbands" are mostly ridicules, Carver is a little more serious, and Borges plays it relatively deep. (Excerpted from "They Once Made Me Empty", Wang Shuowen.

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