Women's Gossip Chronicle

Author: Lin Bai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: A groundbreaking work by renowned female writer Lin Bai, hailed by critics as a "bold and daring experiment." An oral history-style investigation into the lives of rural Chinese women, with case studies analyzing rural social relationships. A hazy and mysterious life, intricate gender dynamics, and ordinary joys and sorrows.
To myself, I said, The Chat Record of Women is the most simple, realistic, colloquial, and connected to the pain and of the world, and also the most interesting work I have written. It has a different literary ethic and a different view of fiction. Thinking this way, my heart felt at ease, and I just felt it was good. If it didn’t reach what I believed it should be, I still thought it was good. It warmed me.
For many years, I isolated myself from the world, with a dark and cold inner life, filled with anxiety and unease, and a strong distrust of others. I closed the bridge between myself and the world. For many years, I only loved life on paper, overlooking many things. To me, writing was everything, and the world didn’t exist. I didn’t know that one day, I would suddenly hear others’ voices, and everything in the world would surge forth from that voice, carrying the full vibrancy and liveliness of secular life. It swept me away, taking me to a vast and bright world, where I could once again feel the mountains, rivers, sun, and moon, and the vastness of a thousand lakes. All whispers and calls came like this. What I heard and wrote were all real voices, colloquial language—rough, sluggish, repetitive, and monotonous, yet at the same time vivid and simple, full of life and enthusiasm. They were the intertwining of human voices and divine voices, untouched by the harm of literary refinement. I liked it, and I was willing to learn more from folk language and more from life.
The earth is so vast, and the human heart is vast too. What I first needed to do was to rescue myself from paper, to give myself a lively life.