Frenetic character

Author: Zhou Nan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-09-01
Features: The preface was written by Chen Jiangong for Self-Portraying Youth, and the fact itself is not "youthful." Self-Portraying Youth needs a preface? Does anyone read the preface of Self-Portraying Youth? Anyway, if it were me, I wouldn't read it. Facing the figure of youth, instead of letting them showcase their talents, we first send an early-gray-haired person to ramble on endlessly—how annoying. As someone who wrote novels for a living, I have no other skills except for a slight ability to guess people's thoughts. To be honest, letting me do this annoying thing is really forcing me. Good kids, just make do. Consider me your beloved principal. Stand at attention! At ease! Now, please allow the principal to speak—The principal is very ashamed to see the books you wrote. At 16 or 17, the principal was involved in the Cultural Revolution. The principal didn’t write books, but the principal burned books. The principal burned books and was sent to dig coal. Suddenly, the principal discovered the value of books and started stealing them to read. Kids, at 16 or 17, you wrote so many books—truly impressive! You’ve reached the age of the principal—how remarkable! The principal is very happy to see the books you wrote. Don’t think the principal doesn’t sometimes speak insincerely when scolding you; at 16 or 17, the principal was also a mischievous kid. Mischievous kids write novels, while good kids go into politics. Good kids are considerate, while mischievous kids are interesting. Your novels make me think they’re so interesting. If you make a living writing novels in this life, it seems you’ll have quite some capital. The principal has a few pieces of advice after reading your books: First, don’t think you’re superior—there are plenty of people in the world who write better than you. Everyone holds the pearl of the snake and the jade of Jingshan. No matter whether you become writers in the future, you must always maintain a sense of reverence for all kinds of people in the world. Both being overly successful and being prematurely mature are equally pitiful. The principal read a hint of being overly successful in some of your books; please don’t be foolish like that. Second, don’t be too harsh. The people who annoy you in the world also have their own history of the soul and the basis of their character. Similarly, no matter whether you become writers in the future, you must always maintain a sense of forgiveness for all kinds of people in the world. Don’t think you’re a mischievous kid—you’re using the fall of your character and the sentiment of tolerance to contribute bricks and mortar to the treasure trove of national emotions; you’re also doing your part for the progress of human civilization. Third, keep writing. The 21st century will be an era where everyone can write about themselves. When you have more experiences and wisdom, you will have second and third Self-Portraying Youth books. When you also become like the principal, an early-gray-haired person, there will be Self-Portraying Middle Age and Self-Portraying Old Age. You will find that being called a writer isn’t a happiness; but being able to roam and create in the world of imagination is truly a happiness! Alright, I won’t say more—otherwise, I might really become a principal. Stand at attention! Dismissed!
1999.7.10 Jean Valjean, caught stealing bread, ran away, became the mayor, resigned, raised Cosette, and died. If this were the summary of Les Misérables, would you be satisfied? Of course not. Therefore, I don’t want to use the "simple introduction" format for the summary of the book I’m writing, Characters in a Mad Stream, so as to avoid the feeling that a newborn baby is handed a death certificate waiting for a doctor’s signature, and there’s no point afterward. In fact, this novel is really very similar to real life. If you count from the beginning, it starts from the "madman’s" first encounter with a computer. That was in 1993, which is the "six years ago" mentioned in the book. Then, it jumps three years ahead—please allow me to be so "bold," because those three years in real life had nothing to do with computers, so in the novel, they just became an unwritten "growth process" of the "madman." Anyway, this is after all a book about computers. Then, not only did the time change, but the space also changed greatly—it jumped from the northern region to the southern frontier. At this point, the "madman" had already entered junior high school and was in the same class as "Huang Haojiang" and "Tao Xiaofeng," which could also be considered the official start of the "madman’s" computer career. And so, it went on for another three years, then high school, where the "madman" met "Yi’er," and "Huang Haojiang" went to Hong Kong—events that just recently happened. Many scenes are still vivid in memory, especially when writing the novel, sometimes even giving the feeling of writing an "autobiography." These three years were all spent in school, so there might also be a sense of a school novel. Adding some absurd elements, my god, it’s already "neither fish nor fowl." Next, I don’t even know how to say it, because the time has already reached the "present" in real life, and I don’t have the ability of the ancient Israel prophets. The remaining part can only be written temporarily detached from reality. As for the time span—such an explanation can you understand? It can be considered a very short night, or it can be considered a very long year. I know such an explanation is overly forced, but as just said, if everything is revealed at the beginning, won’t the story that follows make everyone feel boring? Therefore, as for the stories that come later, I’ll leave it for everyone to "research" themselves. I hope you’ll try reading these somewhat immature words, perhaps you’ll find your shadow in these "immature words," a shadow that is both your own and yet madly passionate—if you, like me, are fond of computers. This is the original intention behind writing this novel.
Afterword: Finally, I’ve finished writing this novel, and I feel so exhausted—especially because I used the computer to type everything, and I was too lazy to learn Wubi input, so I typed pinyin every day. On average, each character required six key presses, and with the revisions for typos, I’ve probably pressed at least 900,000 keys to write this novel. Originally, the keyboard was brand new, but now a few keys have lost their elasticity. So, the one I feel most guilty about is my own fingers, which have been aching for the past two days. However, I think that if I can eventually reach a speed of over 60 words per minute with pinyin input, it will be a worthy reward for all this effort. The second thing I feel guilty about is the prototypes of the characters in the novel, including "Father," "Mother," and "Tao Xiaofeng." "Huang Haojiang," "Yi’er," and so on, were all given the names "retarded" and "idiot." I don’t know if this counts as "life imitating art." My father and mother were the earliest readers, reading one chapter at a time. For now, besides occasionally complaining about how I portrayed them as so "retarded," they haven’t taken any drastic actions, such as cutting me out of their lives. So far, Huang Haojiang (the prototype of Huang Haojiang) and Wen Lingjing (the prototype of Yi’er) have only read chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Huang Haojiang didn’t say anything but was both laughing and crying. At that time, since "Yi’er" hadn’t appeared in the novel yet, Wen Lingjing still happily took it home to show her mother. Tao Xiaofeng (the prototype of Tao Xiaofeng) was even worse. So far, he still doesn’t know that there’s a novel in the world with a character who shares his name but a different character. Of course, Tao Xiaofeng in real life isn’t like that. I really don’t know what kind of attacks I’ll face when the book is published—haha.
What I wanted to say is my feelings about writing this novel. This is my first attempt at writing something this long—when publishing this book, the content consisted of essays, poems, and short stories, and the time span was also quite long, from age 11 to 14, all fragmented thoughts rather than a complete concept, so I didn’t feel the same kind of pressure as writing this book from age 15 to 16 and a half. But our life journey is filled with countless firsts, countless cries, countless walks, countless words, countless falls and getting back up—processes are difficult and long, but the results are pleasing. In the process of writing the novel, I originally planned to write 30 chapters. Unfortunately, when I reached chapter 29, I realized that I had gone off track from the outline. In other words, one chapter’s content had been "evenly distributed" among the other chapters during the writing process. Additionally, I was too limited and overly reliant on the existing outline, so I didn’t think of adding other chapters to it. By the last 29 chapters, I had to "summarize the dream of the mortal world." Thinking back in history, from the scriptures brought back by Tang Sanzang to the armless Venus to the incomplete Dream of the Red Chamber with 30 missing chapters, they were all "incomplete" but "perfect." Although my novel is far inferior to the art mentioned above, let’s use this as an excuse for why it only has 29 chapters instead of 30.
There’s also Chapter 5. If I followed the original plan, I was supposed to write it in the form of a "meeting record." Unfortunately, I kept wanting to portray the characters’ actions and expressions, but every time I tried, it ended up being like a low-quality script. So, I had no choice but to ruthlessly delete it. As a result, until Chapter 29 was finished, "Chapter 5.doc" was still an empty file with only the title. In the end, I had no choice but to write it in a conventional way, which was a regret.
When writing the novel, I always used the first-person perspective, but when referring to myself, I didn’t call it "I" but used "the madman." So, some parts were a bit tricky, especially in the later chapters, where I felt like I was writing in the third person. I hope this doesn’t confuse readers during the reading process. It’s worth mentioning that this writing style caused a side effect—sometimes, when I wanted to say "I," I almost said "the madman." Is this also a state of "art and self merging"? Haha.
Regarding the writing experience of this book, it started in December 1998, which was the first half of my freshman year in high school. At the same time, I was also writing another novel, but both novels only reached about the third chapter before coming to a halt. Next, I had to focus on final exams. Even after the exams ended, I didn’t relax, because I was transferring to another provincial key high school, so the entire winter vacation was spent studying hard. The only two holidays were New Year’s Eve—of course, this was to be spent with my parents and the whole family—and Valentine’s Day, when two teenage boys, Huang Haojiang (haha, the one I mentioned as the prototype of Huang Haojiang), and I cycled over 20 kilometers from Shekou to Shenzhen city for an afternoon of sightseeing. That’s all there was to my winter vacation. However, the final result was still gratifying—I was able to enter that provincial key high school. In the first few months of the new school year, I was busy adapting to the new school and still hadn’t started writing. It wasn’t until after April Fool’s Day that this novel truly began. With both studies and the need to finish the novel within a month (considering my situation, the publisher’s teacher had already extended the deadline to its limit), there was naturally no time during the week. Only the four weekends were available, with an average of about 10,000 words to type each day—this was a real torment for my eyes. My eyes, which had never needed glasses from all the time I spent on computers, now had 5.1/5.1 vision. And the other novel, sadly, died mid-way. It was supposed to be rewritten, but not only was it to make way for this novel, but also to make way for studies. There wasn’t enough time, so I had to put it aside for now.
In the end, I still want to thank all sectors of society for their strong support in publishing this book. This will be the driving force for me to move forward fearlessly on the path of literature. This is also a new beginning, a new first. But I believe that as long as there is a first, there will definitely be a second, and even more.
Zhou Nan
May 2, 1999