The Talent Doesn't Dry Up

Zhang: The alienating nature of your works, their impermeability, nearly closed a literary era and started a new age of narration. From early on you were pursuing a special, difficult kind of writing. Is it because you purposely want to make the reader work?

Yu: Just as you say, when I started writing, that I didn't win the national literary prize for three years actually saved my literary career. When someone first starts off on a trip, they can't grasp themself. Giving them setbacks at that point is good, but you can't finish them off with one blow. I have a writing habit where I essentially refuse to write fiction without hardship. If a place has hardship, I will write about it and with zest and enthusiasm. Speaking of alienation in the 80's, you could say that nominally, I was actually seeking out difficulty. "To Live" was the result of that exploration, and was written in the simplest language possible. I virtually didn't use any idiomatic expressions. From this I slowly learned the true significance of the "narrative challenge". In "Brothers", I wrote more freely, essentially not needing to consider this because "Brothers" is "our" narration. It is not a specific, concrete "me". In it there may be beggars, local politicians, intellectuals, and perhaps very vulgar people. Only in using the narration of "us" can that resulting revelry be realized. Ten years ago how could I dare use so much ink to write about a pageant of virgins?

Zhang: Violence and punishment are among the core of your early fiction. In "A Kind of Reality" for example, ther exists that kind of continuous, cyclical, violence that even happens amongst relatives. From where did you come out with this focus-- is it based on a judgment and criticism of history? Or is it a prosecution of universal, general elements of humanity?

Yu: Hong Zhigang helped me calculate how many have died, how many have been tortured... I can't remember the exact numbers now, but I didn't think much of it then. Oftentimes, something's significance only becomes apparent after it is repeatedly explained by others. "Violence and punishment" is tied to the Cultural Revolution. I personally experienced the Cultural Revolution. At age seven and eight I had already seen people beaten to death. That chaos and violence in history lasted from 1967 to 1969.

Zhang: That is the first memory for people of our generation.

Yu: When we were young we were especially afraid of hooligans; gang fights on the street was a common occurance. In the ten years from age seven to seventeen I experienced the Cultural Revolution, and it's impossible for it to not have affected me. Rationally speaking, I don't identify with violence, but when I write I become extremely stimulated. The later part of "Brothers" is like this. Perhaps this is a kind of conflict, knowing that a man is bad but in one's heart still liking him.

Zhang: It's said that from "A Shout Through the Rain" you changed direction towards more "real" descriptions, or realism. Do you agree with this interpretation?

Yu: I believe that formally there is a change, but if you want to say it's realism, than "1976" is actually already like that. An author's writing will not, without reason, take a sudden turn. When they experience a change, go consider their works again and you will find that it still possesses the same elements as before. It's like a kite; no matter how far it flies, the string is still attached to a hand. By writing "To Live" I understood something-- that when a certain subject attracts an author, the author shouldn't use their previous writing style, but instead search for the most suitable form of expression. Perhaps it's precisely because of this that I don't stop changing.

Zhang: "To Live" received numerous literary prizes and the lasting favor of readers. Where do you think the success mainly stemmed from? What do you imply when you say that you wrote a "high" work? How is it related to what you have previously called "hypocritical works"?

Yu: "Hypocritical works" take a different form of expression from a different time, that's all. In truth,"hypocritical works" are based on the premise of China just emerging from the Cultural Revolution and there were only eight model theater plays and Hao Ran's fiction. In the 1980's, the post-Cultural Revolution "sear" and "reflective" literature used a fixed pattern. So I urgently wanted to use a new style. It seems unrealistic but it expresses reality. During the 80's I wanted to use a kind of un-real form of expression, but according to convention, today's real way of life is actually not real, we live in a place that isn't reality, and to express that directly is sufficient enough.

Zhang: "Xu Sanguan Selling his Blood" is a work that people from all walks of life can read. The story's simplicity and humour is contrasted by its richness and pity. What urged you to write this kind of work? What inspiration? Was it personal experience, were you personally drawn to it, or was it something else?

Yu: I was first inspired with "feelings of pity" by the line from a John Donne, "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Hemmingway quotes that in "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which I read while I was still a dentist. That really has influenced me my whole life... I know that in life it's possibly going to be very difficult to become this kind of person, but I try hard to invent world's in order to become this kind of person, to convey this "highness".

When I read James Joyces' "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", I felt that an entire novel could be written in dialogue, to the point where it makes you feel that fiction actually should be written this way. At that time I had a strong desire to, and since then I've written this way whenever I have the opportunity. When I had written more than 10,000 characters of "Xu Sanguan Selling his Blood", I realized I could write this way myself. The conditions were ripe for it.

Zhang: I always thought that in writing "Xu Sanguan Selling his Blood" your impetus was a response to not wanting to part with a detail from "To Live"-- the scene where You Qing dies giving blood to the county magistrate's wife. Maybe you thought that this was an exceedingly metaphorical and productive point, whereas through this he could become something very large. At that time, according to Chinese people and Chinese society, giving blood and fate were both very important.

Yu: Exactly. This is something I'm unwilling to talk about. When I wrote of You Qing's death then, I was shaking. That was something that actually happened in Jiangxi province. I wrote it so long ago, but all these years I've known that if something very special happened it would unfold again in the future. There's one other thing... I once saw someone in Wangfujing with tears streaming down their face. This became the chapter where Xu Sanguan can't sell his blood. In this kind of place, seeing an adult cry shamelessly is hugely tragic. My wife and I saw it at the same time and we discussed this, and came up with blood sale. I grew up in a hospital and know much about buying blood. But after writing about You Qing dying in the transfusion it felt as if this was the first time, taking and selling blood.

Zhang: Why didn't you write a novel in the ten years after "Xu Sanguan Selling His Blood"? Was it because, as people suggested, that you had used up your literary talent? Or was it because it was difficult to surpass these literary boundaries?

Yu: It's not that complex. You can put it like this: I have more than one or two unfinished novels because I can only write if I'm inspired. When I finished writing "Xu San Selling His Blood", after writing tens of thousands of characters, Wang Hui wanted me to write an essay for "Study". After writing a longer piece there is not that much urgency. After someone has success, there are two situations that may spur them on: one is the voice of praise, where everyone tells you you're good and you just go on writing; the second is that everyone opposes you but you don't mind them and continue anyway, with no reaction whatsoever. As for using up one's literary talents, I've never felt this way. I'm now over 40 years old, but I still won't say that even when I'm 80 years old.

An Intellectual?

Zhang: You have a saying that affected me very deeply. You say that intellectuals that don't like China don't know what they want. I've considered this for a very long time, it seems to be intentionally equivocative. I'm curious, what does it mean?

Yu: I certainly love workers and peasants, the positive characters in my novels are all workers and peasants, and occasionally one or two intellectuals will appear for satirical purposes.

Zhang: Like the author Liu and the poet Zhao in "Brothers",

Yu: China's intellectuals are especially bad in one place, that is, they have excessive dissatisfaction in material things, but very little in the mind. The will never know what they want. Workers and peasants are very simple, when they don't make much money they only blame themselves for not being clever enough. The peasants only look forward to next years crop being a little better.

Zhang: Today, "intellectual" oftentimes is just an identity, an occupation and not an undertaking. Do you think of yourself as an intellectual?

Yu: No.

Zhang: Then do you think you are intellectual?

Yu: I was once. From the 80's to the 90's.

Zhang: Then what could you have been classified as?

Yu: The most difficult thing is giving oneself a place, mine is constantly changing.

Zhang: Isn't an outstanding author an intellectual in the truest sense?

Yu: That depends on how you define an intellectual. It might be like this, that I've lived in this group of intellectuals too long, know too much, and from the 90's until today, with the many ugly performances of China's intellectuals, you could say this is a break out period.

Zhang: Because of this you don't want to associate with them?

Yu: It's because "intellectual" is still merely a beautiful word.

Zhang: According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, intellectuals don't just possess and use knowledge, but throughout are critics of society. An outstanding author is surely a critic of society, right?

Yu: Of course.

Zhang: Then you don't feel that you are an intellectual?

Yu: Now you're just playing with words here. I can call you an intellectual too.

Zhang: Mo Yan also opposed my saying that his works were intellectual. I think both of your works carry the tradition of Lu Xun, whose writing criticized society, recognized absurdity in individual life, and focused on the poor. His later period of illogicalism and irrationalism was very dense. Intellectualism is multi-layered. I believe you and Mo Yan are fundamentally intellectual writers.

Yu: An intellectual is someone who has at least graduated college! I haven't.

Zhang: What do you do now?

Yu: I'm preparing to write my next novel.