Play it by heart

Author: Wang Shuo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-09
Features: Wang Shuo is lonely in our time. It is he who has persistently upheld the tradition of realism in Chinese literature, facing life with a spirit of honesty. Most people are deceived by the superficial playfulness and rebellious tone on the surface, failing to see that he is, at his core, a true enlightenment thinker. They overlook the deep humanistic spirit that permeates his novels, his compassion for the common people, his longing for love, and his desperate pursuit of the value of individual existence. In my youth, I believed there were many important things ahead, and that as long as I kept running, I would see them. When I finally walked through, I realized that what was truly important had already happened behind me and had passed. Moving forward, there was only an endless void. There is nothing to regret about the past, nor is there any coincidence—everything was necessary. I don’t believe a person can have more than one choice. Culture is terrifying, like food. If you don’t eat, you die. If you eat, you are shaped by it. I doubt its core has been encoded into our genes, so it no longer needs to be acquired through education. I feel like I’m swimming in the ocean, surrounded by endless waves. When will I finally reach the other shore? With a mind as clear and innocent as that of a newly emerged primitive human from the trees.
Regarding these books, I personally believe they are a testament to a dark age. To live, to live in self-invented and self-satisfied illusions, is perhaps the fate of a writer. Understanding it is useless. These books were written ten years or earlier. Back then, I was very self-assured, believing in many things and disbelieving in many others. I had strong desires and thought that what I already knew was everything. The people, scenes, and conversations in these books are from my past experiences. They were not extraordinary in life—only because I didn’t know more did I find them interesting and wrote them with pretense. These scenes no longer exist, the people have scattered, and those who are alive have aged prematurely. I no longer speak or view myself the same way, so sometimes I feel I have lost the ability to continue writing.