I see, I want, I argue: A Collection of Q&A with Liang Xiaosheng

Author: Liang Xiaosheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-10-01
Features: The contents collected in this volume include "filler" pieces written for some of Liang Xiaosheng's novels, as well as several film reviews. The rest are lectures given at universities over the past 20 years or answers to journalists' questions on certain topics. The content is clearly somewhat disorganized, yet it is also relatively straightforward, all centered around the themes of literature and film creation.
Author's Self-Introduction: The contents collected in this volume include "filler" pieces written for some of Liang Xiaosheng's novels, as well as several film reviews. The rest are lectures given at universities over the past 20 years or answers to journalists' questions on certain topics. The content is clearly somewhat disorganized, yet it is also relatively straightforward, all centered around the themes of literature and film creation.
First, the "new" part—all of which were written after I moved to Beijing Language and Culture University and have not yet been published—are the lecture notes from my classes. I don’t usually lecture from a script, and my courses don’t have any pre-existing systematic textbooks. I don’t like to "deconstruct" writing as a purely "methodological" act. Moreover, the course I teach is not one on applied writing but on literary writing. All my insights are highly personal—just my own experiences. They cannot be presented as universal truths to students; they are merely critiques of students' works and discussions. However, I do have outlines for the main topics covered in each semester and each lecture—the notes are roughly organized based on these outlines. To preserve the original spoken style, I avoided polishing the wording during the editing process. Even if they are superficial or biased, they remain as they are. I teach writing to third-year students, covering general writing knowledge with the premise of being easy to understand. I don’t shy away from superficiality but rather avoid complexity. In fact, I’ve never believed that writing is a particularly profound endeavor.
During the "SARS" period, the classroom was moved to the university’s sports field. I sat opposite the students on the ground, without a blackboard, so the so-called "peer evaluations" became the focus. The students were receptive to this approach.
As for the other pieces similar to this part, they are "byproducts" from my early university lectures. When discussing a topic, if any recordings were made, students would later organize and publish them in their school magazines. Later, when these pieces were sent to me, I found them not entirely without merit, so I decided to keep them. These writings are particularly shallow. Yet they reveal how I, as a writer, thought about writing back then. Relationships between people and events begin with innocence for everyone. Including these reflections in this collection also serves as a meaningful purpose.
As for the "filler" pieces, they were written in response to requests from Novel Monthly and Short Story Selection. Both publications required authors to provide short essays alongside the selected novels. There was a hint of self-expression in them. In China, novels are sometimes not written entirely as originally intended. It’s like scooping water from a river with both hands into one’s own bowl—the gaps between fingers, no matter how tight, will inevitably "leak" some of the original intent. Thus, authors themselves don’t actually object to such self-expression.