Berlin, which belongs to the time zone, has a seven-hour time difference with Beijing, and this time difference is subtracted by another hour during the nearly seven months of daylight saving time each year. Because of these six or seven hours, the interview with Haruki still went wrong, ** She had already fallen asleep when she called as scheduled, and she woke up to reply to the message saying that she had miscalculated the time.
It's really funny, I was stunned that day, but I didn't expect to make a mistake again. When she finally successfully connected, she laughed at herself first, and said that only every time she watched the Spring Festival Gala, she could accurately calculate the time difference: "I love to watch the Spring Festival Gala, I always like to watch some programs, and I also want to understand the situation this year (in China)." Of course, there was a period of homesickness in the middle, and I felt that (the Spring Festival Gala) was relatively close to my previous memories. ”
This is an unpredictable opening, after all, no one can take the initiative to associate her with the Spring Festival Gala. Since the age of 21, the name "Haruki" has become a symbol of the "post-80s", symbolizing the rebellion and otherness of a generation. Even in the past 20 years, the teenagers who were on the same road have gone their separate ways, and the literary trend of the past has long since disappeared, Haruki still seems to be the one with the heaviest traces of youth, her words are still so self-talking, and life is still so rampant, and even reckless and casual that even she will laugh at herself as "lonely overseas, stormy".
In fact, I used to have this kind of **, but I don't seem to have the opportunity to express this side. Haruki apparently sensed the dismay caused by this unexpected topic, and she immediately made a self-replenishing explanation, but then quickly gave up: "I think I express a lot, but basically it is not noticed or taken seriously, because it may not really match me." ”
In 2016, Haruki was at his home in Beijing. Figure chunshu
No one lives to be 21 all the time
In 2019, Haruki signed a contract with a domestic publishing house to republish his past works in the form of anthologies. After several years of procrastination, the first four books of this set are only coming out this year.
Standing on the threshold of 40 years old, Haruki found that although she "hated the adult life" and had been "trying to live as a child", she was indeed no longer young. "I have to admit that those things can no longer be copied, that kind of blood, that kind of temperament has changed, and the emotional power of most of the early works is very full and casual, and that kind of writing now feels extravagant. ”
This is not the first time this perception has appeared. In 2010, when she was still rejoicing that she had "finally escaped puberty", she did not realize that this was just the beginning of another dilemma: after that, her motivation to write collapsed like a hormonal plummet, she could not write long stories again, she was not satisfied with any short stories, and even the poetry that she had always used to be comfortable gradually grew bored. It is true that she is "not dead and not crazy", but for a young man who has been wantonly publicized, dumbness and loneliness may be more cruel than death and madness.
Of course, there are reasons behind this that have to do with the creation itself. Since the famous ** work "Beijing Doll", Haruki's ** has always been called autobiographical, and her "self" has always been eye-catching, no matter how the story and characters are changed, it does not prevent a monologue from blowing in her face. "I don't seem to be as interested in the world or in other people as I am in myself. Haruki is well aware of her own bias and inertia, so she is eager to break through and try to learn how Xi use fiction. But no matter how hard she tries, the result seems to be in vain, and the dependence on experience and experience follows her as if it were nature, and she just can't get rid of it.
If you can't get out of the narrative path, it will be difficult to expand the space for writing. Beyond the stage of expressing her sorrow in words, she no longer wants to express herself piecemeal, she wants to touch on a more meaningful proposition: "It must stand up in literature, especially in this state where the work is responsible for itself." ”
In addition to the mystery of creation, the roots of the dilemma are also deeply rooted in the mire of life. "If it's hard for a person to handle himself, it really reflects on his writing. In the past ten years, Haruki has married, gone abroad, given birth, and divorced, although the process is not completely chaotic, but there are too many moments full of twists and turns: she learns German intermittently, she doesn't know many people in Berlin, and alienation and loneliness often come to the fore;I thought about returning to China many times, but the child was stuck again;Parenting is time-consuming and laborious, not only physically and mentally exhausting, but also depressed ...... in the middleEverything is like those annoying stretch marks on the stomach, even after applying all kinds of anti-marking oils, they are still ugly and tenacious.
When I was about 20 years old, I was very sure about life, and at least I trusted what I trusted, so I could write with confidence. Later, when I was skeptical, it was very troublesome, and I couldn't write it at all. When you are a teenager, there are a lot of support points in life, and when you get older, these support points will change, and some of them will be gone, and your thoughts on life will not be as optimistic as they used to be. Haruki said.
On another level, the trajectory of this life also overthrows the literary illusion built up with youth from the very beginning. When people still expected her to be like Time magazine wrote, "break the existing programs and rules, and seek self-liberation of individuality", but in a blink of an eye, they found that she fell into a seemingly traditional and ordinary life. She wrote down the uproar and disappointment that followed: "I remember when I first got married, some readers were like mourning, why did you ......get married?"And when I had a baby, they said, "It's unbelievable that you have a child of your own." At first, she would fight back and argue, but then she figured it out: "Together with my readers, I have created an illusory world, and like myths, myths are bound to be destroyed." ”
Sometimes Haruki also thinks about the old days, but only because no one can live to be 21 years old all the time, and she has not moved the slightest thought of staying: "I am a real person, and I want to continue to move forward." She doesn't regret all the choices she made, and even if they made her embarrassed, she still feels lucky enough: "I always wanted to avoid being completely knocked and changed, and I encountered it relatively late, and many of my former friends suffered early and said goodbye to their ideals." ”
Haruki series. Figure provided by the interviewee.
Rebellious youth cannot be sustained
We post-80s generation is a rare generation, and we especially hope to take a new path. Haruki still firmly believes in the true colors of her generation, just as she has never denied the description and evaluation given to her by Time magazine at the beginning, even if it inevitably has a little Western imagination amplification: "Although it is not all of me, it must be a very important part of my characteristics, there is no doubt about it, it is absolutely true." ”
In the 2004 report, Haruki and her peers were defined as "the new radicals," and in the eyes of American journalists, they were like the hippies and the Beat Generation, who were looking at an alternative and rapidly expanding their group. At the same time, the article also puts forward another conclusion: in China's emerging consumer culture, this alternative has become a major growth point.
In the years that followed, this judgment was fully confirmed. These young people in their twenties have indeed grown into dazzling forces, attracting a frenzied following of young boys and girls like idols, creating one cultural spectacle and business myth after another. In this process, in addition to the attention and discussion that fuels the fire, the operation of the publisher is also an important role in escorting. Behind almost every literary teenager stands a shrewd publisher, Guo Jingming has Shi Xiangxuan of Spring Breeze Literature and Art, Jin Lihua of Yangtze River Literature and Art, Han Han has Lu Jinbo, and when Chunshu came out with his first book, Shen Haobo, who sharpened iron, suggested that she wear a belly pocket to appear at the signing party.
It's just that it's only been ten years, and this strange scene has come to an end. Before and after Haruki fell into a creative trough, all the changes gradually surfaced: Guo Jingming, who had built a business empire, began to turn his focus to film and television, Dean became the protagonist of the Writers' Association seminar, and Zhang Yueran appeared on the three-foot podium ...... universitiesMany others quietly faded away, turning into fleeting meteors. A storm of youth literature swept through in such a hurry, and it didn't seem to leave much trace.
Haruki feels that this result is not unexpected: "The times have allowed such an image to exist for a short time, but this rebellious image cannot be sustained, because if (rebellion) goes deeper, it must involve more things." So you have to get dim and either go the particularly commercial route, or go into the literary establishment, or be ignored. Other than that, I couldn't find a better way to survive. ”
In her view, life choices are largely determined by early values, and they are a group that has always been separate and individual, although they are treated as a group. So she even understands those who have left completely: "Literature and life are not an absolute contradiction to things, but the older you get, the greater the pressure of life, and the more you will find that it takes a lot of time for literature to be pure." Our writing can't save our daily lives – I thought it could, but when they found out that writing couldn't save their lives, they had to abandon writing if they wanted to live a better life. ”
She doesn't have the feeling of being "separated", no matter what, there are always people who are still writing, and there are post-80s generations who are appearing in new ways. "For example, the three writers in the Northeast (Shuangxuetao, Ban Yu, Zheng Zhi), there was a long time between us, but in fact, the age group is the same, we liked to write about the youth campus at that time, they wrote directly about the society, we like to write about our own generation, they wrote about the first generation of parents, just when it was the turn of the post-80s generation to start nostalgia, there are many people who love to watch. ”
Of course, it's not that there is no loss. "I only found out a few years ago that several people who have a particularly good life are actually 'Wen second generation', why was I so naïve before, I thought they were because of luck, and it was indeed because of luck - on the other hand, luck. "In Haruki, it's not so much a question of fairness or not, it's ridiculous and pathetic. Ironically, the logic of the world is still not on the side of talent and will;Sadly, such a world is not the future they had imagined before – "at least not the future I thought I had when I was a child".
However, even after seeing these naked truths, Haruki no longer plans to put on a sabre-rattling posture like before, because "this world is too absurd, so absurd that it is not worth taking seriously". At the age of 17, she felt that "real life should be fighting, and real life should be sharp".Now she only feels that if a person takes life too seriously, sooner or later it will collapse.
Haruki. Figure chunshu
Give yourself an account
Despite the mess of life and the predicament of creation, Haruki still picked up the pen again. She slowly came to accept the reality that instead of self-doubt, she should first look through the ruins to see what else could be written, or what she had neglected and not written.
In 2019, she finally handed over her new full-length work "Baby Teeth" after nine years. This is the first time she has not been able to complete a work in one go, both because she can only create it late at night when her children are asleep, and because she has to deal with a middle-aged experience that she has never written. But she persevered, and she needed to prove that she could still write: "Literature makes me happy, and if I can't write anymore, I feel sad." ”
Previously, almost every book of Haruki would have been called a transformational work in the packaging of the publication promotion. However, for herself, "Baby Teeth" is the real connection. Although the sorrow and resentment of the past are still remnants in this 170,000-word narrative, peace and relief have been revealed between the words. It is like a paving stone connecting the yesterday of youth and the future of life, and more potential possibilities can be vaguely seen, just like a sentence in **: "I am like a blind man who has just recovered from a serious illness or regained his sight, or a war survivor, and has a new perspective on the things around me." ”
At the end of "Baby Teeth", "I" smelled the smell of milk on my son's body and coaxed him to sleep, and when all the nursery rhymes and pop songs were sung, old songs suddenly poured out of my mouth, and those songs were so old that I couldn't remember the lyrics or even they didn't belong to "my" generation in the first place, but they were really familiar melodies from childhood. This is a hidden design, it is not only an ending, but also an unfinished introduction, because in the next work, Haruki has decided to write about childhood, about the countryside of his hometown in Shandong from the 80s to the 90s - "This is an explanation for myself. ”
In many places, she described the village in almost identical terms: "The terrain of my hometown is half plain and half hilly, undulating. Surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the road on the other side, go out and walk a long way, which is the sea. When I was a child, I thought it was far away, but then I got a car and built a road, and it only took more than an hour to drive from the village to the sea......In these years of foreign wandering, in addition to Beijing around the millennium, this land surrounded by mountains on three sides often appears in the nostalgic dreams of spring trees. In a larger sense, the rural life that is or has disappeared can also become a common nostalgia for everyone, so Haruki hopes that the future book can be written as deep as possible through the trendy surface.
At the same time, the writing will also include those women in the village who are elders, which may be mothers, grandmothers or grandmothers, third aunts or aunts, or third aunts. They once brought family affection to Chunki, a childhood who lacked the company of her father, and also became a window for her ** female identity and fate after Haruki became a mother: "Me and my friends are still too niche, they are the most ordinary majority." ”
It is only in these female elders that Haruki confirms that there is a real state of life that can be trusted. More often than not, she feels that she Xi used to constantly monitoring the loopholes of others, and finding the inconsistencies of those unsuspecting lives. This habit seems peculiar, but it is not necessarily a bad thing, at least it shows that she still maintains a pair of literary eyes, and is far from the "last moment" of a creator.
Issued in 202312.11. The 1120th issue of China News Weekly magazine.
Magazine title: Spring Tree Forty.
Reporter: Xu Pengyuan.
Editor: Yang Shiyang.