Novel's Stance: Interviews with Young Generation Writers

Author: Zhang Jun
Author Country: China
Editor-in-Chief: Zhang Yanling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: The New Generation of Literature, How Much Do We Know?
We won’t see the kind of writing by Zhao Shuli, Liu Qing, or the vivid storytelling by Jun Qing, the inner bitterness of Wang Meng, or the fierce passion of Zhang Chengzhi—these writers have a clear distinction from the previous generation. They are more focused on the inner world and unleashing imagination: Zhang Jun brings you closer to the new generation writers Bi Feiyu, Xia Shang, and Lin Bai.
Excerpt: The Growth and Sorrow of Youth—Interview with Ding Tian, May 17, 1998. Afternoon. Beijing. Yuanshan Hotel. Zhang Jun, you are one of the younger writers I’ve visited, with relatively fewer works published, but of high quality, or rather, distinctive. I remember you published an article titled "Three Novels, Ten Years of Flowing Water" in the October 1997 issue of Southern Literature. Judging from the title, you have been writing novels for at least 10 years. Please talk about your writing over the past decade.
Ding Tian I haven’t been writing for very long, maybe six or seven years. I dropped out of high school before finishing. The reason was that I didn’t like classes and preferred reading books, mainly novels. I also liked writing, but mostly just dabbled in it. Later, my family thought this wasn’t working and enrolled me in an English vocational college in Nanjing. It was supposed to be a two-year program, but I only stayed for one year. During that time, I spent my days in the library reading novels. What left a deep impression on me was a set of Taiwan-published Nobel Prize in Literature series. That’s when I started getting exposed to many foreign writers. After a year, I returned to Beijing and worked at Huayi Publishing House until 1994. In 1994, I published my first novel in Beijing Literature, and also submitted a middle-length story to Harvest. That’s when I decided to quit. My first novel told the story of teenagers.
Zhang Jun So far, how many words have you written in total?
Ding Tian I’ve published about 400,000 words, and there’s also a long story that hasn’t been published yet.
Zhang Jun In your article "Three Novels, Ten Years of Flowing Water," you said that all the novels you’ve written so far, despite having little textual connection, can be considered coming-of-age novels. They all deal with youth, friendship, and love, and are very emotional. I tend to agree with your self-assessment after reading some of your works. For example, the middle-length story "Feeding in the City" is a coming-of-age novel, centered on youth, friendship, and love, and is very emotional. The entire story is narrated in a carefree manner, more like prose than a novel. But it’s precisely this carefree, prose-like narration that vividly portrays the confusion and sorrow of growing up. Youth is like a dream—a vast, directionless, and bewildering dream, both wonderful and tedious. The love game between the narrator "I" and Lin Xue leaves one feeling hollow. Can this middle-length story be seen as the author’s spiritual or emotional autobiography? The "failed writing" in the story does it have some connection to your own writing?
Ding Tian You could say so. This novel is based on my own life, and some of my close friends are also included. My first novel is more like a traditional novel, with a beginning, development, and climax. But this story is harder to write in that way, because the process would be too messy. My life in those years was hard to organize into a clear story, so I used this prose-like style, which I think works better.
Zhang Jun Do you often feel a sense of sorrow, loss, and aimlessness like the protagonists in "Feeding in the City" when you write? Do you frequently experience this confusion and loss in real life?
Ding Tian Yes, I often do in life.
Zhang Jun In "Feeding in the City," Huang Li stages two disgusting and heartbreaking pranks to prove his friendship with "I." But his hope that his youth friends would never part is still touching. Life is crushing youth and tearing apart friendships, making pure emotions seem cruel and vicious. Thus, the little bit of innocence left deep inside becomes even more precious. Is this novel a call for innocence or an elegy for youth?
Ding Tian I think both elements are present.
Zhang Jun Reading "Feeding in the City," I thought of He Dun’s long story "We Are Like Sunflowers." This is also a coming-of-age novel, where He Dun writes about a generation—the one born in the late 1950s. During their middle school years, they lived through the Cultural Revolution, constantly singing revolutionary songs like "We Are Like Sunflowers" and growing blindly like wild grass. After the Cultural Revolution ended, some were lucky enough to catch the last bus to university, while the majority became useless waste, drifting aimlessly. Thus, various tragedies unfolded. I remember that after Feng Jianjun, the protagonist, was imprisoned for the second time, the narrator "I" recalled a childhood rhyme in a sorrowful mood: "Dong Cunrui, eighteen years old, joined the revolutionary guerrilla army; blew up the fort, sacrificed, and our mission was accomplished." And like that, an entire generation was lost, heartbreaking. Your novel is different from He Dun’s, but they share a similarity in that they both write about another generation—those born in the early 1970s, whose youth was also full of confusion and aimlessness. What do you think is the source of this confusion?
Ding Tian I think this sense of confusion isn’t too tied to the era—every era has its own things that cause confusion and loss. But if you think about it, it does have something to do with the era, because each era has its own specific meaning. I haven’t delved deeply into this, though, because I’m more emotional and sentimental. First, something happens that feels important to me, and then I write about it.
Zhang Jun So, your writing is often a kind of feeling-based writing, or emotional writing?
Ding Tian You could say so. I think these feelings and emotions are meaningful.
Zhang Jun I understand. "Math Class," which won the 1996 Excellence Award from People’s Literature, tells a tragedy of a life cruelly destroyed during growth. Although this tragedy belongs to your generation, I think it’s also a universal tragedy, because such tragedies of youth growing up can happen in any era, and the cruelty and indifference of this world are exposed through this tragedy. The narration is calm, but it’s deeply moving. My question is, did you have a real-life prototype for this story, or was it purely imaginary?
Ding Tian There was a real-life prototype. Actually, when I first started writing "Math Class," it was more like a writing exercise. In this novel, I first wanted to narrate an event and write down everything I saw and heard. After finishing it, I thought it was pretty good, but I didn’t expect People’s Literature to publish it, and the response was quite positive.
Ding Tian This novel is indeed excellent.
Zhang Jun My early writing started in high school. Back then, I felt our education system had some problems, and there was also an antagonistic relationship between minors and adults. This antagonism may manifest differently in different eras, but I think the fundamental aspects are still the same.
Zhang Jun Yes, I think that’s right. For example, in this novel, Li Yuan is a quiet, reserved, and top-performing female student. Just because she didn’t do her homework one day, under the cold authority of her math teacher, she jumped off a building—though she didn’t die, she lost her legs. That’s even worse. From then on, she couldn’t go to school anymore and had to spend her life in a wheelchair. This tragedy of growing up should have been shocking, but in reality, it was quietly diluted by the indifference and cruelty of the world. Occasionally, people remember it—not as a cautionary tale but as gossip, with a sense of schadenfreude (Li Yuan’s neighbor, Fu Yuling, excitedly tells others about Li Yuan’s embarrassing family secrets; the homeroom teacher, Mrs. Hu, uses Li Yuan as a cautionary example to remind the students to study diligently).
Ding Tian Here, what I’m showing is a relationship of control and being controlled. The controllers are, of course, the adults, and no matter how you are, you are always the one being controlled. This inevitably leads to tragedy.
Zhang Jun It seems you like to narrate events that should be shocking in a calm, unemotional way, like in "Math Class," "Reflection," and "Zhang Liguo and Liu Ying." This narration seems calm on the surface, sometimes even a bit tedious, but once you reach the end, it leaves you deeply disturbed. Can you talk about this style of narration?
Ding Tian This narration style might be related to my reading, like Kafka, Borges, or Saul Bellow. In 1993, a few friends and I started a mimeographed publication called "Giving Up." It might have printed 500 copies, but we couldn’t keep it going for two years. The reason was that one friend went abroad, and another got married. The friends who ran the magazine had similar life experiences and writing styles, and we often chatted together, so we started that magazine. I think this narration style was also influenced by that mimeographed publication—we influenced each other.
Zhang Jun This reminds me of one of your essays titled "Talking and Writing." In that essay, you said that writing novels and chatting with friends in taverns were the two great joys in your life, and the main topic of the conversations was also literature. It seems that your writing and your conversations are two sides of the same coin. This reminds me of Hemingway in Paris, when he was writing while also chatting in cafes. That seems to be the standard lifestyle and writing style of a free-spirited writer. Please talk more about this topic.
Ding Tian In reality, the content of our conversations was very similar to the later novels we wrote, so my writing is closely related to my conversations.