Changshengyi new book launch and sharing session

Every night, I walk around the nameless lake near my home. There is an open space occupied by many elderly dancers. They wear white uniforms and follow the rhythm of pop music, dancing with every limb in a regular manner, like some white ghosts, floating between lights, buildings, water vapor, haze and trees, giving this world a weird magical tone.

This kind of "square dance" scene is found in every city in China, and even infiltrates all public spaces. It combines all the characteristics of "loyalty dance", "qigong", "radio gymnastics" and "fitness exercises", and is a strong expression of the desire for fitness, health and longevity. No force can dispel this strong desire.

 

Perhaps because of Taoism and Taoism, longevity is one of the top wishes of all Chinese people. Even when social crisis reaches its peak and human life faces great threats, people still insist on health-preserving activities, such as chicken blood therapy and hand-shaking therapy. They are mixed with the images of loyalty dance and propaganda posters, forming a strong contrast between light and dark. This is a counter-proof of the importance of the desire for longevity. In China, longevity is something to dream about. It covers all people from the common people to the emperor. For me, novel writing is my "longevity technique", a one-person square dance. I will look for the meaning of life in this state.

 

My writing faces a self-divided pattern: the novel must contain classical heroism, but also have weak parody, irony and deconstruction elements; it must express the Confucian spirit of saving the common people, but also convey the Taoist spirit of renunciation and immortality; it must respect historical writing, but also try to break through the framework of the historian's narrative and pay tribute to mythology and fantasy. All these demands have led to the internal schizophrenia of writing.

Of course, I am not worried about this. On the contrary, we live in an era in which division is its most prominent spiritual feature.

 

History and mythology have always been the two areas I pay the most attention to. In my opinion, history is mythology, and mythology is history. Behind their seemingly opposite states, there stands a common nature, that is, the eternal passion of people to find their own mirror image. The desires of the soul are projected into the text, forming the ancient archetype of narrative. From those fictional magical characters, we glimpse our true image.

 

The logic of the gods is the logic of time. The god of time is in charge of this writing. He led me to watch the war between Ju Mang and Yama and record their miracles. For this reason, the book adopts the Zhou Dynasty era and the twelve stems and branches to express the dominant meaning of linear time. Only the time of occurrence of most historical events in the time clues is consistent with the original appearance, and only a few have been moderately adjusted due to the needs of the story. But time is not only the logic of the gods, but also a kind of narrative magic. It projects its brilliance on words and tries to light up their souls.

 

"Soushen Ji", "Liaozhai Zhiyi" and "Dong Zhou Lieguo Zhi" are my writing models. These ancient scrolls bloom like flowers on my desk, exuding a long-lasting fragrance. I am trying to find a suitable container for this oriental desire. This container itself should be immortal, so as to match the desire for immortality. In any case, those ancient novels are excellent samples of modern writing. They not only provide materials, but also provide the most fascinating dreams. They are treasures given to us by the god of time.

 

I would like to thank the publishing house for providing this book with an opportunity to face readers. In the dual world of official values and Internet values, print publishing is struggling to rise and fall, and is full of crises. Every publication is a cultural game. But this has not diminished the writer's passion for writing. There are even more critics who participate in this writing movement, injecting new vitality into the publishing industry. This is because novels are becoming a memory container for people born in the 1950s, an alternative genre similar to "memoirs" (whether national history or personal history). Novels allow writers to be born or reborn in time. In the home of words, the author deposits his nostalgia for the passing years.

 

This is certainly not a sign of literary prosperity, but a sign of fission and self-salvation: on the one hand, it is the rise of youth writing on the Internet, and on the other hand, it is the comeback of middle-aged and elderly writing in print media. But I have clearly seen that whether it is memory writing or youth writing, the law of time dominates literature.

 

Writing a historical/fantasy novel is a tedious task. It requires not only free imagination but also careful historical research. What is even more difficult is to balance the two opposing elements of fantasy and history. In addition, there is another important variable, which is the hybridization of pure fiction and genre fiction. My studio launched several genre novels in 2016 and accumulated some useful writing experience. This book can be regarded as a product of compromise. It has the shell of genre fiction (such as martial arts or fairy tales), but attempts to implant a personal rebellious style.
This kind of tightrope-walking writing is undoubtedly dangerous. It has the danger of double offense—offending both literature and the market. It took me two years on and off, but I am still short of skills and unable to achieve my goal. If there are any mistakes in the book, they should be due to my limited ability. As the title of the book expresses, writing is a long and dangerous game, and I am just a clumsy gambler.

Written in Zhangjiang, Shanghai on September 8, 2017