Douban scored only 7.5, Mo Yan's new book is underestimated In 2019, writer Mo Yan visited Shakespeare's former residence with Yu Hua and Su Tong. In front of the statue of Shakespeare, Mo Yan vowed to spend the rest of his life "to complete the transition from novelist to playwr

Douban scored only 7.5, Mo Yan's new book is underestimated In 2019, writer Mo Yan visited Shakespeare's former residence with Yu Hua and Su Tong. In front of the statue of Shakespeare, Mo Yan vowed to spend the rest of his life "to complete the transition from novelist to playwright". He hopes that people will call him a "playwright" in the future, so that he can be distinguished from the two novelists Yu Hua and Su Tong. In fact, Mo Yan has always wanted to become a dramatist. "The first thing I turned into typeface was a novel, but my real debut was a play called "Divorce"." "Divorce" was created in 1978 and has not been published. Mo Yan felt that he had written it poorly, so he burned it. Even after he became famous for his novels, Mo Yan was still interested in writing scripts: "In my past novels, my ability to write dialogues was obscured by too dazzling language, and writing dramas can stimulate my talents in dialogues." The drama "Crocodile" published in June is Mo Yan's latest work. He said that he thus fulfilled his "ambition" of becoming a playwright. In a discussion at Fudan University, Mo Yan explained why "crocodile" became a symbolic plot in the play. He accidentally learned that the crocodile has a special habit. If it is kept in a small space, it will not grow up; but if the water tank where it is placed changes from one meter to two meters or three meters, it will grow rapidly as the tank increases. In his view, this is full of symbolism: human desire is sometimes like a crocodile, if it is not controlled, it will expand rapidly, and there is no limit. In the end, the crocodile became a "character who is not a character that exists on the stage all the time" in the script, and climbed out of the huge fish tank to talk to the protagonist-human desires were imaged. ✎Author | Cao Jili ✎Editor | Tan Shanshan "Crocodile" Mo Yan authored by KEY · Can Culture | Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2023-6 Mo Yan has a new book. Three years after the publication of his last book "Late Bloom", Mo Yan released his new work "The Crocodile". In particular, this is a play. As one of the four major genres in the definition of literature textbooks, play as a pure text has been far away from the vision of most readers for a long time. The content of the four-act play is not too long, but it seems that Mo Yan's desire for "transformation" is entrusted in the form. Perhaps Mo Yan has been successful enough as a novelist, and his vow to "become a playwright" has been repeatedly mentioned. In fact, Mo Yan, who has become a literary symbol, his transformation and thinking cannot but arouse widespread attention. If you only look at Douban ratings, "Crocodile" is currently fixed at 7.6 points, which is quite satisfactory; the number of ratings is nearly a thousand, no more, no less. But Mo Yan and his works obviously cannot be considered only by scoring. For example, in the lecture on the new book at Peking University, Mo Yan held up a fan in the hot classroom, smiled at the audience, narrowed his eyes cutely, and his every move was photographed by the college students at the scene and made into emoticons, which were widely circulated. Mo Yan expression pack. On June 19, Mo Yan published on his personal official account "Emoji packs made by netizens, thank you all!" "In the article, I said, "I have received a lot of emoticons made by enthusiastic netizens. Thank you for your enthusiasm. I will use them in the future", and put a series of my own emoticons in the article. Unsurprisingly, the reading volume of this tweet quickly reached "100,000+". Netizens in the comment area lamented Mo Yan's "groundedness" and discussed the humor of this group of emojis, but few people talked about literature. It is not difficult to imagine that there are more likely to be users of emoji packs than readers of new books. For Mo Yan, who is nearly 70 years old and has his own traffic, this can certainly be an interesting thing; but for the relatively declining literature, this may be the most unsolvable dilemma of the times, just like the fish tank that traps the crocodile in the story. Mo Yan's story is not complicated. The story of "Crocodile" is not complicated: a corrupt official flees to a foreign country with his subordinates, family members and mistresses.It can be said to be a very "Mo Yan" script in terms of wording and sentence making, character setting, and drama structure. For readers who are familiar with Mo Yan's past works, it is not difficult to find some familiar feelings from it. Such as flying wanton language and overflowing imagination. At the end, the long monologue of the corrupt official facing his son and the crocodile stretches like flowing water, seemingly endless, but it faintly follows the theme of the story. The scene where the corrupt official's mistress is holding a ribbon and jumping off the stage, which the author has imagined over and over again, also has the strange feeling that Mo Yan used in his past novels-although this may cause some difficulties for the actors after the story is put on the stage. For example, the local elements that pop up from time to time. Although the background of the story is set on the other side of the ocean, it is obvious that Mo Yan is more comfortable when his brushstrokes reach the countryside. The characters in the play have a discussion about sweet potatoes: "Sweet potatoes are the most delicious food in the world, and they are the food that Chinese people should be most grateful for. Although it took away our appetite for a while, after we ate white flour steamed buns for a few years, we began to miss the taste of sweet potatoes again." It seems to express something, but the meaning is open, and it always involves the common memory of the Chinese people about their hometown. On August 4, 2022, Mo Yan came to Jiangsu Grand Theater to watch the premiere of the play "Red Sorghum Family". /Jiangsu Grand Theatre, for example, is interspersed with black humor and surreal plots. The protagonist's name is "Wujia" (no fear), and his mistress is called "Shouma" (Yangzhou Shouma, a synonym for prostitutes). Straightforward and contrasting naming methods can be found everywhere in Mo Yan's past works. In "Crocodile", even the writer Mo Yan and his work "Frog" often appear in the dialogue between the characters in the play. These "easter eggs" are enough to make readers smile knowingly. As for the surreal plots such as the growing crocodile becoming human-speaking, and the overturned bridge in the dream actually collapsing the next day, compared with the animals that reincarnate repeatedly and retain the memory of the previous life in "Life and Death Fatigue", they seem to pale in comparison. For Mo Yan, turning from a novel to a script, the stage scene is not so much an amplification of his expressiveness, but more like a restriction. For example, the famous Lingchi scene description in "Sandalwood Punishment", the cross-age rural chronicle in "Big Breasts and Wide Buttocks", and the discussion on reproductive desire and policy changes in "Frog", it is not easy to put on the stage in an authentic way. On the contrary, the "Crocodile" in front of me, within the framework of the drama, continues the stylized language, plot and imagination to the greatest extent. From this perspective, "Crocodile" is a mature enough work. The cover of "Sandalwood Punishment" (Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, January 2017 edition). Can we wait for another Mo Yan? "Of course, I always keep in mind that I don't want to write an anti-corruption story on the stage. I think it is still necessary to create a character with personality on the stage of the drama through such an angle and material." This is an expression of Mo Yan's creative mood during the symposium at Fudan University. It is conceivable that the author's original intention must not be to simply write a realistic story about punishing evil and promoting good, and fighting corruption. Then, this "Crocodile", especially combined with the epilogue at the end of the book, seems too realistic and too rigid-the description of the life of corrupt officials in the story, whether it is a mistress who wants a name, a secretary who secretly communicates with the mistress, and the son of a corrupt official who has sunk in a foreign society. There are too many similar shadows in popular film and television works. Take the dialogue between the original wife and his mistress in the play as an example: "I'm going to fight it out, let's read the account book on a donkey—just wait and see!" "Crocodile" inside page. What is the most attractive quality of Mo Yan's works? Or "magic reality", although this is already an overused literary concept, it must be said that Mo Yan has always been the best practitioner of magic reality in the Chinese world. Facing the diverse landscapes, complex reality, and long history of Chinese countryside and society, he is able to reveal the underlying texture more deeply with jumpy plots and dialogues, imaginative language, and surreal structures.Many of his writings in the past have repeatedly proved this outstanding ability. In fact, pure realism is rarely seen in Mo Yan's works. It has never been his pursuit to restore a real character and story as much as possible. Then, looking at "Crocodile" from this dimension, it is really a bit dull, at least it is difficult to bring readers unexpected reading surprises like "Life and Death" and "Red Sorghum Family". In "The Crocodile", the most important image is of course the crocodile swimming in the center of the stage. It is the concretization of the desires in the hearts of the characters in the play. As the fish tank is changed again and again, it grows together with these desires, and finally swallows the ruined protagonist at the end. But such references and symbols are too straightforward, and even taking the concept of "desire" as the core proposition of the whole story seems to lack new ideas. In contrast to "Frog" which uses frogs to describe reproduction and rural areas, "Life and Death" uses the reincarnation of animals to connect history. "Crocodile" lacks a sense of surreal reality, but instead has a sense of triviality and vanity that is too realistic. From this point of view, "Crocodile" can't place too many transcendent expectations. "Frog" (Commemorative Collector's Edition) (Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, August 2020 edition) cover. The reality of Chinese society is complex and complex, and one should not be too immersed in realistic descriptions, nor should one let the perspective of observation and imagination float in the sky, which tests the patience, conscience, writing power and determination of the writer. Mo Yan has contributed the most first-class works and the highest honor so far to Chinese literature. Of course, he should be more tolerant of his transition to playwriting in his later years. We can all hope that Mo Yan can continue his deep insight and precise deconstruction of the world we face today, and be able to transplant his magical reality tradition more proficiently on stage. But what is more worth looking forward to is: Is it possible for this tradition to be widely inherited and carried forward? When Chinese people's living scenes generally shift from rural areas to cities, and living conditions move from pre-modern to post-modern, the magical reality has a wider narrative space. To some extent, this may be the common salvation of literature for both authors and readers, and it is also a kind of salvation for literature itself. In 2019, the unveiling ceremony of the Mo Yan International Writing Center was held at Oxford University, England. Mo Yan is the director of the center, and Yu Hua and Su Tong are writers-in-residence. / Beijing Normal University official website As for the group of writers themselves, Mo Yan represents a group of well-known writers who are used to stepping off the podium and then onto the variety show stage, and are used to being surrounded by applause. How does the crocodile, a symbol of fame and wealth, crawl under the writer's pen? Will the glass fishbowl in the writer's heart gradually expand with desire as in the story, until it bursts? These may be propositions that more pan-literary readers care more about in their hearts—after all, Mo Yan’s most important status in the public mind is still a Nobel Prize winner. In the current era, more readers care about writers than literature, and whether they can write and how to write their own desires may be more sincere than the broader and general desires of writing. Author丨Edited by Cao Jili丨Proofread by Tan Shanshan丨Huang Siyun