Chapter 469 Stream of Consciousness Science Fiction

Seeing several people coming in from outside talking and laughing, Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It seems that the performance satisfied you."

Yu Hua laughed, "Haha, Xiao Fang specially asked the orchestra to play a whole song for us. Yue Lin was also there, and the conductor was arranged. Of course we are very satisfied."

"It's mainly because he is satisfied, because he satisfied his motivation to show off." Liu Zhenyun still didn't forget to make fun of Yu Hua.

Zhou Yan smiled, "The orchestra didn't practice this song for a long time, and the overall presentation is not good enough. Listening to it again after the New Year will feel different."

"Don't be too modest, it's already very good."

After entering the office, Yu Hua gave a circle of cigarettes, and then asked Zhou Yan, "Is Editor-in-Chief Zhang coming today?"

Zhou Yan glanced at Shi Tiesheng and knew that it should be Shi Tiesheng who told them about the morning.

"He said he would come in the morning, but I don't know when he would come. They have a meeting in the afternoon, and it's still a long way from there. It may be quite late."

Zhou Yan looked at his watch. It was only half past three, so it was still early. Even if Zhang Shouren wanted to come, he would have to wait for a while.

Zhang Shouren will definitely stay for dinner when he comes tonight.

"I'll ask the canteen to arrange a table in the private room tonight. You can order whatever you want to eat."

Yu Hua smiled and said, "I'm fine with anything. I'm not picky."

Mo Yan and the others were also very polite, saying that Zhou Yan would just watch and arrange it.

"Okay, I'll let the canteen watch and arrange it." Zhou Yan nodded and asked, "Are you going to continue playing cards?"

Yu Hua shook his head and said, "No more cards."

"If you don't play cards, what are you going to do?"

"We're going to read a book."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Okay, then I'll take you to the reading room, but I've told you that smoking is not allowed in the reading room. If you want to smoke, you have to go to the smoking area..."

"We're not going to the reading room."

"Not going to the reading room?" Zhou Yan was a little confused: "Do you want to read here?"

There are also books in Zhou Yan's office, and there are quite a few. Before, Yu Hua and Shi Tiesheng came here and often read books in his office.

Sometimes, they would go to the lounge downstairs to read books. There were also many books in the lounge downstairs, but most of them were music books.

"We'll read here, but not on that wall. We want to read..."

Yu Hua cast his eyes on the drawer of the desk, and Zhou Yan immediately understood that they wanted to read the manuscript.

Knowing what they wanted to do, Zhou Yan did not hesitate, and directly opened the drawer and took out the manuscript of "Don't Let Me Go".

Although it was not finished, the manuscript was also quite thick, with two or three hundred pages of manuscript paper.

Seeing Zhou Yan take out the manuscript, Yu Hua went up and took the manuscript.

After getting the manuscript, he didn't care about other people, and sat down on the sofa by himself, ready to start reading.

Shi Tiesheng said anxiously, "Why don't you care about us?"

"I didn't care about you. I'll read it first, and then I'll show it to you. Everyone should take turns."

Shi Tiesheng disagreed, "No, you read the manuscript too slowly. Letting you read it first will slow down the progress. Let me read it first."

Liu Zhenyun immediately raised his hand, "Although I don't write fast, I read it very quickly. Let me read it first."

Mo Yan was unwilling to fall behind, "Not only do I write fast, but I read it even faster. Let me read it first."

"Let's draw lots." Yu Hua directly took out A234 from the table and looked at the four cards, letting everyone draw.

The final result was that Mo Yan was first, Shi Tiesheng was second, Liu Zhenyun was third, and Yu Hua himself was fourth.

When he saw that he was fourth, Yu Hua was a little unwilling. He was about to say something, but Mo Yan directly grabbed the manuscript in his hand, "Comrade Yu Hua, you have to be willing to admit defeat."

"Yes, if your playing skills are not good, you have to keep your character." Liu Zhenyun followed up with a knife.

Yu Hua curled her lips, "You guys look, I'll go make some tea."

"Okay, make some for me too." Mo Yan said.

...

After Mo Yan got the manuscript, he quickly read it.

"My name is Yang Kebei, I'm 31 years old, and I've been a nurse for eleven years..."

Probably influenced by Latin American literature, similar beginnings often appear in novels in recent years.

For example, the first sentence in Yu Hua's "To Live" is "When I was ten years younger than I am now, I got an idle job and went to the countryside to collect folk songs and ballads."

Some people will think of Gu Hua's novel "Sister Village" published in "Harvest" in 1982 when they see the beginning of "To Live" and the identity setting of "I".

The "I" in "Sister Village" is also a specialist who went to the mountain village to collect folk songs and polls.

And the first sentence in "Sister Village" is: When I walked into Sister Village, the sun had already set in the embrace of the mountains.

From this, we can see that in the early 1980s, domestic literature had been influenced by Latin American literature and European and American literature, but by the late 1980s and early 1990s, these influences may have been deeper.

Seeing such an opening, Mo Yan subconsciously thought that this novel might be about the past, that is, this novel might be a flashback.

Mo Yan guessed correctly, the following story is indeed unfolded in a flashback.

However, it is different from the general flashback method. The narrative perspective is interspersed back and forth in several time periods. "I" talks about the present, the past, and the past.

Seeing this narrative method, Mo Yan thought of Marcel Proust's novels, such as the world-famous "Remembrance of Things Past".

In other words, Zhou Yan's novel has a bit of a stream of consciousness feeling, and the development of the story depends entirely on memories.

When Liu Zhenyun saw this novel, he had more thoughts in his mind than Mo Yan, because he himself graduated from the Chinese Department.

In terms of literary criticism, his professionalism is stronger than that of several people present.

The West believes that memory is a psychological mechanism, and recollection is not only a reproduction of past experiences, but also an aesthetic mechanism with a deeper poetic origin and aesthetic character.

Plato once wrote in "The Republic" that if the soul can recall the knowledge of virtue and other knowledge that has been possessed, then we don't need to be surprised.

Heidegger regards memory as the source of poetry, the mother of art, such as comedy, music, dance and poetry, all of which come from the nurturing of the goddess of memory.

What he held in his hand was obviously not an ordinary science fiction novel. In fact, he didn't see where the science fiction was for many pages in the front.

However, as "I"'s memories go back more and more, and further and further, the story really begins to unfold.

At the beginning of the novel, "I" seems to throw out an answer.

"I" was a student of "Haier Xiangshe". The students of "Haier Xiangshe" are all special, but why they are special was not explained at the beginning.

So the answer thrown out by "I" is vague.

Setting up suspense is the basic skill of writers, which is not surprising, but the suspense setting in this novel is more like the suspense in "A Pre-announced Murder Case".

From the beginning, tell you the result.

However, the result given by Zhou Yan's novel is not as clear as in "A Pre-announced Murder Case".

What is a donor?

What is Haier Xiangshe?

In order to figure out these things, they have to follow "I"'s memory to explore.

When reading this novel, Liu Zhenyun was a little strange at first, because this novel is not quite the same as Zhou Yan's "Tree Hole" and "Death of the Mayor".

But then he suddenly thought of "The Knife in the Clear Water" and thought that this might be Zhou Yan's style.

The narrative style in "The Knife in the Clear Water" shows signs of this.

Mo Yan reads manuscripts very quickly. He finished reading a manuscript of two or three hundred pages in just over an hour.

After reading the manuscript on hand, Mo Yan looked at Zhou Yan who was working seriously, "No more?"

Zhou Yan looked up and smiled, "You have finished reading."

"Yes, I have finished reading. Your manuscript is very neat and it doesn't look like it took much effort."

Zhou Yan's manuscript is indeed very neat. First, his handwriting is very neat and not very sloppy. Second, there are not many places where he made corrections in the middle of the manuscript. Even if there are places where he made corrections, he left enough space so that it would not be a black mass due to the small space.

"The novel is definitely not finished, but there are only so many manuscripts."

"Ah?" Mo Yan was surprised. Shi Tiesheng had not told them that Zhou Yan's novel was not finished before.

"Why didn't you write? Did you encounter any problems while writing?"

Different writers have different ways of writing.

Some writers like to make a very detailed outline before writing.

Some writers have a complete story in their mind before they start writing.

Some writers don't have a specific story in their mind at all. They start writing with a general idea. As for the story, they just think about it while writing.

Mo Yan is not familiar with Zhou Yan and doesn't know his writing style.

If Zhou Yan belongs to the third type, it may be that he hasn't thought about how to write later.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "In fact, I didn't encounter any difficulties. On the one hand, I was a little busy and didn't have time to write. On the other hand, the enthusiasm for writing this story at the beginning gradually faded."

Mo Yan couldn't understand Zhou Yan's explanation at all.

If you say you are busy, can't you just work overtime at night?

If he has a novel to be completed, then he can put down everything at hand and concentrate on writing the novel.

And in his opinion, Zhou Yan is not so busy that he has no time to write this novel.

For example, they were still chatting together yesterday, and this morning as well.

Zhou Yan also watched them playing cards. Couldn't they use this time to write?

As for the second reason, he couldn't understand it even more.

This novel has already been written for tens of thousands of words. Just because the enthusiasm has faded, will they stop writing? What about the ones that have been written? Will they just keep collecting dust in the drawer?

And in his opinion, this novel is obviously well written.

Since it is so well written, why did the enthusiasm fade?

Also, since the manuscript is not finished, what manuscript did Zhang Shouren come to see?

"Are you still going to write?"

"It depends on the situation."

Shi Tiesheng, who was reading the manuscript over there, said, "Don't look at the situation, you must write it. No matter how busy you are, you must finish this manuscript."

Hearing Shi Tiesheng's words, Mo Yan laughed, "Yes, you have to finish the novel, otherwise you will screw us over. How much space is left?"

Zhou Yan thought for a while and said, "Probably two-thirds."

"There are still so many?" Mo Yan was a little surprised.

The manuscripts he had read had at least 50,000 words, and he estimated that there would be 60,000 to 70,000 words. If there were two-thirds left, the whole novel would be about 200,000 words.

A novel of 200,000 words is not very long. After all, his "Big Breasts and Wide Hips" published last year had 500,000 to 600,000 words.

But he didn't expect that there would be so many left.

There are still hundreds of thousands of words left. How long will it take to finish it?

The main reason is that Mo Yan doesn't know Zhou Yan's writing speed. If Zhou Yan's writing speed is the same as Yu Hua, then this novel will probably take another year to finish.

If Zhou Yan's speed is the same as his, then it will be fast.

After all, he wrote "Big Breasts and Wide Hips" for more than 500,000 words in just over 80 days, less than three months, and wrote an average of 7,000 words a day.

Mo Yan actually wanted to ask about the story behind the novel, but he held back.

Then he sighed, "I wouldn't have read it if I had known."

Hearing his sigh, Zhou Yan smiled and got up, ready to add some water to his cup.

However, just as Zhou Yan stood up, the office door was knocked.

"Come in."

The door was pushed open, and Xiao Li at the front desk said with a smile, "Boss, there is a Mr. Zhang looking for you."

Zhou Yan had already seen Zhang Shouren standing next to Xiao Li, and he smiled and stepped forward, "Editor-in-Chief Zhang, please come in."

Hearing that Zhang Shouren had arrived, Liu Zhenyun and Yu Hua, who were reading the manuscript, also stood up and greeted him.

Zhang Shouren thought of Yu Hua and Shi Tiesheng, but he didn't expect Mo Yan and Liu Zhenyun to come too.

Seeing the manuscript in their hands, Zhang Shouren's eyes lit up, "Is this..."

Shi Tiesheng smiled, "It's Zhou Yan's manuscript."

"Are you already reading it?"

Mo Yan smiled, "I've finished reading it."

"Why..."

Zhang Shouren almost wanted to ask Mo Yan how he was, but he held back.

Since he was already here, he didn't need to ask others about the manuscript, he could just go and read it himself.

"Come, come, show me the manuscripts you have read."

Yu Hua was the last one in line, and all the manuscripts he had read were in his hands, so he handed all the manuscripts in his hand to Zhang Shouren.

Zhang Shouren weighed it for a while, and said nothing more, and found a place to start reading.

Zhou Yan didn't expect Zhang Shouren to be so anxious, he wanted to say a few words to Zhang Shouren.

Seeing that Zhang Shouren had already sat down, Zhou Yan went to pour him a cup of tea and added water for others.

After about half an hour, Yu Hua also finished reading all the manuscripts, and ran to the side to chat.

Several people gave full affirmation to this half of the novel, and only Yu Hua mentioned a shortcoming: "It's a little long-winded."

When Shi Tiesheng heard Yu Hua say it was long-winded, he disagreed, "This kind of narrative style is to be a little long-winded, which is in line with people's state when tracing the past, and the perspective is a woman, which is even more normal."

Liu Zhenyun nodded and said, "It's not long-winded, but there are more details described, and many places are trivial daily life. For an impatient person like you, it is a little long-winded."

Mo Yan smiled and said, "Isn't your "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" long-winded? It writes about the same thing over and over again."

"That's different." Yu Hua paused, "I still think it's a little long-winded, but it doesn't prevent it from being a very good novel." (End of this chapter)