Figure "Interstellar").
Li Jingrui's memories of the lost youth, love, indelible reality, nowhere to put the past, and the uncertain but still hopeful future, slowly spread out in her own **, after all, writing is freedom.
Written by Duan Zhifei
Before an interview called "Chat" began, Li Jingrui had just returned home to Beijing after her last book launch in Shanghai. 7 consecutive high-intensity offline activities in many places constitute her latest.
Previously, Li Jingrui published"Shen Yu Tang".When she returned to her hometown in Zigong, Sichuan, she did a readers' meeting by the way, and she felt that it was not necessary for a writer to really meet readers. This notion has been shattered after three years of the pandemic.
At the end of 2023, Li Jingrui's short story ** collection"The Jupiter Hour".After the publication, some readers brought all the books she had published before to the event site to ask her for autographs, and discussed the details of the books with her very seriously, which moved her so much.
Jupiter Moment" by Li Jingrui.
Shanghai Beibet |Guangxi Normal University Press, 2023-10
In the past, when I wrote things alone, I often had no direction, but this time I really felt that someone was reading my own things, and that feeling was really different. Li Jingrui said.
Li Jingrui still finds it difficult to classify herself as an "accomplished writer", she has always felt that she is just lucky, and everything she writes has been published. Her over-low-key makes readers who are not familiar with her more surprised after seeing "Jupiter Moment" and searching for it - there is such a post-80s female writer who has published five or six ** and essay collections, and has a good reputation and strength.
Li Jingrui. (Photo provided by the interviewee).
In fact, Li Jingrui has been a legal reporter for 8 years, and she has long been accustomed to dealing with people, but she said that she has not solved the problem of "social fear" psychologically, so much so that she quit her job as a reporter in Beijing in 2012, got rid of the heavy psychological burden, and officially started writing.
In this way, Li Jingrui has been writing for 10 years, living in Beijing for 15 years, and she has a warm family of three by the Wenyu River in Tongzhou, with 20,000 books piled up at home. According to her, the old determination to flee from one city to another and leave now seems to be a thing of the past. After returning to her family, she had a certain life that was difficult to exchange.
In the fall of 2023, the child will go to primary school, and there is no Beijing hukou, so he needs to go through extremely complicated procedures. ”
Picture: "More than Endless").
When the reporter asked Li Jingrui if she felt that she was trapped, she decisively denied this speculation: "I am not trapped, but I am carrying more and more things, and my life is getting heavier and heavier." I think what she said "heavy", in addition to the 20,000 books, there may be some parts that are unbearable in real life.
"I believe that moment of lightning shining through the sky, and that the moment that belongs to Jupiter is coming. ”Li Jingrui wrote in her **. Jupiter actually represents generosity and tolerance, which is also her blessing to this world.
As for the lost youth, love, indelible reality in Li Jingrui's memory, the past with nowhere to put it, and the uncertain but hopeful future, it can only be slowly rolled out in her own **, after all, at least, writing itself is still free.
Every escapee needs a little bit of good luck
New WeeklyIn fact, according to the interview process, I have to prepare an interview outline in advance, but after reading the book "Jupiter Moment", I am a little resistant to the outline, because the ** you wrote seems to have a effect that can amplify the senses. Why don't we just talk about it?
Li Jingrui. Yes, it's better to be casual, but I'm sorry to make the reader feel that way. The name "Jupiter Moment" is actually because of the first **, there are two people who want to escape, they need such a free moment in their lives, and when they really take this step, I hope they will have a little luck, because Jupiter means auspicious in astrology.
Figure "Interstellar").
New WeeklyIn fact, it's not just the first article**, read each of the following articles**, it seems that you can establish a connection with what you said about "escape", isn't this very close to your state in real life?
Li Jingrui. Recently, in December last year, I went on a trip abroad. Thinking back to the last time I went was Christmas 2019, it was the first time I went out in four years, and it felt very different than before. When I used to be a journalist, I traveled abroad a lot, and I lived in Japan and New York for a long time, but this time I felt different.
Later, I got married, my husband is from Zhejiang, and we are both "North Drifters", but he had many opportunities to study abroad at that time, so I urged him to apply for a program in the United States, and finally I finally quit my job at the age of 30 and ran away with him. It was a very fluid state, and I felt like I could squander my time at the age of 30.
In December 2023, Li Jingrui and her family traveled to Japan.
Figure @茨威格死于昨日世界Weibo account).
New WeeklyIt's like the one you wrote in your book: "The Wenyu River is still burning, and I have cleverly escaped from every fire, but there are still people who are desperate to throw their shadows into the fire." So is it more of a smart move to quit your job and move to writing?
Li Jingrui. Actually, it's my own luck. After I resigned, I didn't seem to be idle, and there was a ** who asked me to write a column for them, and as soon as I opened the column, a publisher asked me to publish a book, which was all some inexplicable luck.
In fact, I wanted to write ** from the beginning, but my editor told me that the first ** topic was not good, and the essays were easier to sell, so I listened to the editor and published the first essay collection.
After 2013, I returned to Tongzhou from New York, returned to the Wenyu River, and started writing naturally. I really didn't think about being a writer all the time, I just thought that when the money was almost gone, I would have to find something to do quickly, and then I wrote it until now.
What you write is determined by your own heart.
New WeeklyIn previous interviews, I asked some writers what writing means to them, and it turned out that many people use it as a mirror to look at society as well as themselves. How would you answer this question?
Li Jingrui. If I only look at society, it would be good if I wrote non-fiction, but ** is really different, there can be both the part where I record reality and the part that I can't reach in reality.
In short, I feel that I still have that impulse, just because I like to write ** and like the truth in fiction, so writing is still a relatively happy thing for me, and I definitely can't do it if I'm not happy.
Of course, it is impossible to be happy, it is the same as any job, there are anxious parts, but the difference is that other jobs may still know where the growth is, and the writer may not be able to know the direction, and may not be going uphill, but already going downhill. After all, what you write is decided by your own heart, and you will only go deeper and deeper the more you write, and the more you write, the more lonely you become.
A collection of short stories by Li Jingrui.
Northern Avenue was published in 2017.
New WeeklyThe depths of your heart can actually be reached through your **, such as the short-term beauty and suffocating reality in "Sparks", which gives people the feeling that the heroine always wants to grasp something, maybe a certain life, or just something definite. You also unfold two parallel planes separated by 100 years, which seems to be saying that the situation of women has not changed much in the past and now?
Li Jingrui. I found that every time I do an offline event, someone asks about this**. In these two time and space, the story of the ** period is the history ** "Shen Yu Tang" written before, it is no longer just a story of being forced to go to a road without choice due to broken love, but it has become a heroine who wants to take the initiative to make a choice, but love has become a shackle. This is a bit more complicated than the original ending.
The modern version of the story is about a so-called independent woman, but when she meets a man with good conditions, she still subconsciously wants to catch it, she wants to give birth to a child and hide in the identity of mother and wife, because at that time, it seems relatively easy to rely on others.
What I'm actually trying to say is that life doesn't seem to be that simple, and freedom isn't that easy. Over the years, my perspective on life has also changed, and I feel that it is in the nature of a person to want to be free, and it is actually common for a person to want to retreat to a safe place.
On January 6, 2024, Li Jingrui attended in Hangzhou.
The Big Roof Bookstore was held.
Jupiter Moment" new book sharing session.
Figure @茨威格死于昨日世界Weibo account).
New WeeklySure enough, "the price of freedom is higher", and "the value of love" seems to be diluted. I actually like "Schubert on No. 957", because you hide love in regret, in youth, and in Zigong, so it makes people feel very special.
Li Jingrui. In fact, on the contrary, I want to talk about the impossibility of love. When the characters in the story move forward in the real world, love becomes impossible, because there are so many things that cause people to despise love, and the only person who retains love is the one who has just come out of prison and is still alive 20 years ago.
From a practical point of view, I also feel that it seems to be more and more difficult for young people to fall in love, even if they don't regard marriage as the destination of love, people nowadays care very much about matching, not like I used to be as "love brain".
I took the third place in our small city in the college entrance examination, but I didn't fill in Peking University when I filled in the volunteer, because the boy I couldn't love back then filled in the university in Beijing, and I felt that I couldn't go on with such a crush anymore, so I changed to another city and filled in Nanjing University, and now I think about it is bloody and ridiculous.
Picture: "More than Endless").
No city is perfect, and no life is not worth living.
New WeeklyI specifically looked up Jupiter before, and it also represents women, so what I want to know is: do you care if literary critics classify your ** in the category of women's writing? But in "Wenyu River", the first perspective you use is male.
Li Jingrui. I really didn't know about this beforehand, but it's a coincidence. I don't know what other people think, because I'm a woman, so most of my ** involuntarily will be a female perspective, which is nothing to discuss.
I remember when I first started writing, I was asked about women and male writers, and I was really repulsed at that time, and I remember that there were female writers at that time who took "writing like a male writer" as a compliment, which showed that everyone's gender consciousness was completely different at that time than it is now.
I've been focusing on some of the more classic works lately, like Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Chekhov's Three Sisters, The Seagull, and even Uncle Vanya. But in fact, I think women's writing is more of a matter of narrative power, and women can write women's stories as well as men's stories. It is more important for a woman to hold a pen in her hand and tell all the stories she wants to tell.
Picture: "All the time").
New WeeklyI also see some superimposed shadows of women's growth in your **, taking root in Zigong, lingering in Beijing, stepping out of the small world, and entering the bigger world. The "bigger world" is so huge, this part of the perception of the city should be brought to you by Beijing?
Li Jingrui. Before I came to Beijing in 2008, I stayed in Guangzhou for a few years, and when I first arrived in Beijing, I liked it a lot, because it had a great cultural atmosphere and a more open feeling. After starting a family, my life became more complicated and my demands on a city became higher. What kind of rest place can a city provide is a question that we often think about and face.
In the summer, my husband and I used to go out for supper in the middle of the night, and Beijing was full of roadside stalls until the winter of 2017, when those supper stalls disappeared. I'm inDeath Notewrote about this frustrating event, and as a writer, it feels like a responsibility.
Li Jingrui Weibo.
The recorded "Jupiter moment".
Figure @茨威格死于昨日世界Weibo account).
New WeeklyIt seems that staying in one place for a long time requires an obsession, whether it's just for a pleasure or for a certain purpose. What's your reasoning?
Li Jingrui. I think that a person's value does not have to be reflected in work, and the value of life is also very important. I like my home in Beijing, and I especially like to toss around the house, for example, if it's old here and needs to be replaced, and if it's broken and needs to be repaired. It's just that today's society doesn't recognize people who value the value of life, and most people's definition of success is still relatively simple.
In the past, the general direction of my life has always been very mainstream, I have been a good student since I was a child, I went to a good university, and I had a good job. But now, I don't even have a formal job, it's a completely free choice, but it's hard to say that freedom is necessarily happiness, provided that you pay for it. So I don't persuade young people to get into the system, nor do I persuade them to leave the system, because everyone is willing to pay a different price.
As for why you ask me why I want to stay in Beijing all the time, it's actually hard for me to answer, after all, there is still a life I built up here with my own hands, and there are many friends. Although I have a sense of instability in my spirit that will never be bridged, if a writer is so stable, is it good or bad? It's also hard to say.