"This question... I can't answer."
Mr. Ba Jin stretched his arms for a few seconds and said such a sentence, which made everyone who was expecting it feel disappointed. It was as if he had not said it.
Seeing everyone's reaction, the veteran comrade explained patiently: "It is appropriate for the award results to be made public, but the award process is the collective wisdom of the jury and involves all aspects, so we cannot tell everyone everything.
However, I want to reassure everyone that our award process is fair and impartial, and there is absolutely no malpractice or abuse of power for personal gain. I can guarantee this with my personality."
After Mr. Ba Jin finished speaking, the scene was silent for a few seconds. At this time, Liu Xinwu, who was sitting among the seniors, suddenly continued what Wang Meng said and asked: "Recently, there are rumors that the last work eliminated by the jury is Chaoyang's " "The Death of Van Gogh".
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Chaoyang could clearly feel that the atmosphere at the scene was stagnant, and everyone's eyes were focused in several directions.
One is Liu Xinwu who said the shocking words, the other is Mr. Ba Jin who is the director of the jury, and the other is Lin Chaoyang, the person involved.
Lin Chaoyang ignored everyone's attention and couldn't help but cast his eyes on Liu Xinwu.
Even though Lao Liu is an honest person, he is really a good material for doing big things in a low voice!
Old comrades know what they mean, but they don't let you ask questions, and they don't tell you anything if you ask them. Isn't it frustrating that you still want to get to the bottom of it?
In the eyes of everyone, Liu Xinwu's question seemed to be a way of defending Lin Chaoyang.
Everyone present is a leader in the industry. Everyone can understand that Lin Chaoyang's two works were submitted for awards. "The Death of Van Gogh" is obviously higher than "The Chess" in terms of artistic achievement. Both "The Chess" can win the award. , then why not "The Death of Van Gogh"?
If there are too many winning works under consideration, and one work must be removed, it should not be "The Death of Van Gogh". This makes no sense whatsoever.
This has caused many people in the literary world to be discussing that the evaluation of this Mao Dun Literature Award is still politically oriented, not purely from a literary perspective.
Therefore, after Liu Xinwu asked this question, many people present were just watching the excitement.
"There is really no way to answer this question." Mr. Ba Jin pondered for a while, and finally adopted an evasive attitude.
The old man also knew that his attitude was inevitably a little unkind, so he said instead: "Since everyone is so concerned about the details of our awards this year, why not ask Comrade Jingzhi to talk about some of our award principles."
Mr. Ba Jin's words pushed He Jingzhi, the general of the Pianzuo faction, to the front desk.
This move immediately aroused the inner excitement of several comrades from the Xichun faction present. It was you, the faction that caused this, and now it’s time for you to make things right.
Several big-name faction leaders were full of criticism and were angry at Ba Jin's lack of martial ethics. Although everyone agreed with the results of the award, when he was scolded, they only wanted to push his colleagues out of the way to block the gun.
But Ba Jin's push for He Jingzhi was not random. In addition to being a poet, He Jingzhi is also the acting minister of the Ministry of Culture, with a high position of authority.
In the face of doubts from peers, it is definitely inappropriate for the jury to insist on not responding. It will only appear guilty, but they cannot speak too clearly.
It is a good choice to let He Jingzhi come forward. His position is biased, but at the same time he has an official status. Through him, he can explain the general ideas and operations of the award. This can not only calm everyone's doubts and injustice, but also maximize the benefits.
to reduce the impact of this incident.
Being pushed to the stage by Ba Jin, He Jingzhi did not panic.
“Everyone is very concerned about which work the jury finally eliminated, but according to normal procedures, it is really inconvenient for the jury to reveal it.
As for whether what some people guess is "The Death of Van Gogh", we have no way to answer, this is restricted by rules.
But since everyone has asked, if we don’t say anything, it seems that our award evaluation is not fair and open enough.
Then let me talk about why the work "The Death of Van Gogh" was not selected and what do you think?"
In fact, what everyone wants to know is whether "The Death of Van Gogh" was the last work to be eliminated. If it is, it can be said to be the biggest regret of this year's Mao Dun Literature Award.
Although He Jingzhi did not answer the question directly like Ba Jin, his meaning was very clear. It was equivalent to responding to everyone's thoughts in disguise, and everyone's attention suddenly focused on him.
“From an artistic perspective, is The Death of Van Gogh good?
good!
I think everyone can see this, and we as judges cannot deny it. After several years of publication, both the evaluation from the literary community and the feedback from readers have proven that this is a good work that can stand the test of time.
During the award evaluation process, many of our reading class members and judges also expressed their love and recognition for this work.
But why didn’t this work make the final list of winners?
The answer is actually very simple. I would like to ask everyone to consider a question:
If we now change the signature of "The Death of Van Gogh" to a foreigner's name, would you think it is a Chinese literary work?"
The question raised by He Jingzhi was like a bomb, leaving everyone present stunned on the spot.
Those who responded quickly understood what he meant immediately. "The Death of Van Gogh" is about the life of Van Gogh, a foreign artist. Both in terms of story background and creative style, it is an alternative among contemporary Chinese literature.
He Jingzhi only paused for a moment, and then continued: "Although we do not set any prerequisites for the Mao Dun Literature Award, the default must first be for contemporary Chinese literary works, with the emphasis on the word 'China'.
The selected works must highlight national characteristics and regional colors, depict the style of the times, and reflect social issues.
From a purely novel perspective, "The Death of Van Gogh" is certainly an excellent work, but if we want to select an excellent work with the above characteristics, such a work is obviously not our target.
I hope my answer can satisfy everyone.”
After He Jingzhi finished speaking, everyone present was still digesting the meaning of his words.
Lin Chaoyang shouted "Wu Cao" in his heart. What a tricky angle the old comrade had!
Frankly speaking, two of his works were shortlisted, and Lin Chaoyang was not greedy enough to think of both works winning the award, because it didn't make any difference to him which work won the award, as he won the award anyway.
But relatively speaking, "The Death of Van Gogh" should indeed be stronger than "Chess" in terms of hard power, so he also understands some of the voices from the outside world.
In the current award results, political stance plays a big decisive factor, and this is something that everyone knows very well.
When Liu Xinwu asked that question in public, he felt a little worried for the judges present. If such a thing were brought to the table, it would inevitably cause a storm in the literary world.
After all, there are lessons learned from the past many years. The most sensitive thing in the literary world now is the involvement of politics in literary creation.
But Lin Chaoyang never expected that He Jingzhi would find such a tricky angle to deny "The Death of Van Gogh".
In his opinion, this reason is too impeccable, because it completely sets aside the usual evaluation criteria of literary awards, and narrates from a higher and grander perspective. Regarding the current doubts,
It is undoubtedly a dimensionality reduction blow.
Even the author Lin Chaoyang felt this way, let alone everyone else present.
After listening to He Jingzhi's answer, everyone was speechless. Even if they felt sorry for "The Death of Van Gogh" in their hearts, in the face of such reasons, no one could say that there was something wrong with it not receiving the award.
However, although He Jingzhi's answer did not directly answer Liu Xinwu's question just now, everyone can also hear from the side that "The Death of Van Gogh" is indeed qualified to win the award.
Otherwise, the judges would not have bothered to give such a reason.
Therefore, He Jingzhi's answer is actually not important anymore, because everyone has already acquiesced in the standard of "The Death of Van Gogh", and it is an "uncrowned king" that has not won any awards.
After the symposium, the Literary and Art Association arranged a banquet for the award-winning writers.
During the dinner, Gu Hua mentioned the tradition of entertaining guests at Lin Chaoyang’s house after winning the National Outstanding Short Story Award every year.
After three years of spreading, this tradition of treating guests has gradually become famous in the Chinese literary world and has been shrouded in mystery.
Zhang Guangnian smiled and said, "Chaoyang, you can't be too kind to one. The Mao Dun Literary Award is also a national award. You have won the award again. You can't lose the tradition of treating guests!"
Everyone also started cheering, and Lin Chaoyang laughed heartily, "Of course you can treat us, it just depends on when you are free."
Zhang Guangnian said very positively, "There will be interviews with several media tomorrow, so why not schedule it for the day after tomorrow? Then I will take everyone to visit you."
Lin Chaoyang looked at him deeply. Old comrades are quite active in eating.
The day after the award ceremony, well-known domestic media such as "Literary News", "Guangming Daily", "China Youth Daily" and "Wen Wei Po" uniformly reported the grand award ceremony of the Mao Dun Literature Award. More than 600 guests from the cultural circles across the country gathered to witness it.
Received the first award of China’s first novel award.
As early as after the list of winners of this year’s Mao Dun Literature Award was released, news media from various places had already reported a round of reports, but the scale was far from comparable to today’s reports.
Such a large-scale report is not only due to the Literary and Art Association’s efforts in contact and communication, but also the influence of the award itself.
Since its inception, the Mao Dun Literary Award has shown its unique influence in the Chinese literary world. As time goes by, this influence will continue to strengthen. Even if it encounters various doubts in the future, its influence in contemporary China will continue to grow.
His status in the literary world is difficult to surpass.
Similarly, such status and influence have also resulted in many works and writers winning this award.
With seven award-winning works and seven award-winning authors, he is not considered unpopular in today's literary world and among readers.
However, due to the popularity of the Mao Dun Literary Award, these works and the names of the writers spread rapidly in a short period of time, and everyone in the country was immediately known, and their reputation spread all over the country.
Another day, Lin Chaoyang agreed to treat the guests to dinner, and he arranged the treat location to be in Mianmian Hutong.
Tao Yushu was pregnant with Liujia now, so it was inevitable to have a noisy dinner party. Lin Chaoyang didn't want to affect her, but she insisted on following Lin Chaoyang to help.
At around nine o'clock in the morning, guests arrived one after another with gifts. In addition to several other award-winning writers, there was also Zhang Guangnian, the leader of the Literary and Art Association.
Lin Chaoyang was busy in the kitchen, and everyone extended their hands to help, so he asked Tao Yushu to go aside and rest.
Zhang Guangnian approached Lin Chaoyang and talked about asking him to join the Literary and Art Association.
Zhang Guangnian had mentioned this matter to him as early as two years ago, but Lin Chaoyang had never been interested in joining an official organization, so he refused.
This time Zhang Guangnian brought up the old story again, saying that he had even won the Mao Dun Literature Prize and was already a leading figure in the Chinese literary world, and he could not continue to be idle like this.
While the two were arguing, Tao Yushu, who was sitting next to him, suddenly frowned with a painful expression.
"Ouch!"
Chapter completed!