Chapter 698: Don’t engage in personality cult
On November 7, 1993, the first anniversary of the death of American writer Richard Yates, FSG held a press conference in New York and officially published and released "The Collected Works of Richard Yates".
The press conference was an unprecedented success and caused a strong response in the American literary community.
As more and more news media follow up to report on the life of Richard Yates, this writer who became famous in the 1960s and focused on realistic themes is gradually becoming familiar to many people.
Richard Yates and Joseph Heller, who wrote Catch-22, are of similar age and were active in similar years, but the treatment they received in the United States was worlds apart.
Even within half a year after Richard Yates' death, his few remaining works were removed from the shelves in the very few bookstores in the United States.
When some people saw the news media reports, they could not help but be moved by the hardships this writer had gone through during his lifetime and after his death.
At the same time, many media outlets widely publicized the touching and great friendship between Chinese writers Lin Weimin and Richard Yates, making the publication of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" attract more attention from the American people.
Within just seven days of the collection’s release, the first print run of 20,000 sets was snapped up by enthusiastic readers.
This situation caught FSG Publishing off guard, and it urgently printed another 50,000 sets of the collection.
The best-selling of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" finally made Richard Yates, who had been ignored for decades, receive attention and recognition from the mainstream American literary circles and readers.
Many literary magazines rushed to publish and print Richard Yates's works during his lifetime. In a short period of time, a "Richard Yates trend" was formed, sweeping the American literary world and readers. American readers finally witnessed the charm of Richard Yates.
After another book signing session, Lin Weimin's shoulder and arm were sore.
A staff member handed him a bottle of water. As he was drinking it, Roger Strauss walked up to Lin Weimin.
"Lin, look!"
Roger Strauss waved the magazine in his hand and spoke excitedly.
Lin Weimin took the magazine, it was The New Yorker.
"Any new news?" he asked with a smile.
More than ten days have passed since the release of the collection of Richard Yates. In the first week of the collection's release, Lin Weimin has been cooperating with FSG Publishing House's various collection promotion activities, including press conferences, speeches, readings, interviews...
A week passed like this, and there were more and more reports about Richard Yates. Some of these reports focused on Richard Yates' life, while others focused on the friendship between Lin Weimin and Richard Yates, which aroused strong reactions from the American literary community and the public.
The sales of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" lived up to such large-scale media coverage, with sales of 20,000 sets in a week, exceeding 200,000 copies. All of Richard Yates's books combined have never sold so many copies in decades.
Roger Strauss has been particularly excited these days, and the hot sales of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" is certainly one of the reasons.
What makes him even more excited and fulfilled is that he has brought back Richard Yates, an outstanding writer who was almost lost in the public eye, to the public eye and achieved a level of fame and influence that Richard Yates never had during his lifetime.
In the past two days, Roger Strauss would bring two newspapers or magazines to Lin Weimin from time to time, which were basically reports or comments about Richard Yates and him. Lin Weimin had become accustomed to it.
“Not a report, but a review. George Steiner wrote a review in The New Yorker, “Richard Yates Will Survive,” in which he praised your review for The New York Review of Books.”
"The Lost World of Richard Yates" is a 25,000-word long review that Lin Weimin wrote in four nights after he came to the United States. It was published in the New York Review of Books a few days ago.
Founded in 1963, The New York Review of Books is one of the most influential book review magazines in the American literary world and holds a pivotal position in the minds of senior American intellectuals.
In his review, Lin Weimin gave a comprehensive review of the nine novels written by Richard Yates and gave them extremely high praise.
Finally, he did not forget to give Richard Yates a miserable ending.
"His works were long neglected during his lifetime. After his death, nine of his books were quietly withdrawn from the shelves and completely disappeared from the shelves of American bookstores.
It is heartbreaking and regrettable that such an excellent writer has been forgotten by the American people. "
After the publication of "The Lost World of Richard Yates", it caused a huge response in just a few days.
George Steiner was one of the many high-level intellectuals influenced by this review.
He was one of the most famous literary critics in the American literary world in the second half of the 20th century. He was French and became a U.S. citizen in the 1940s. He worked at famous universities such as Princeton University and Cambridge University.
He has written works such as "Tolstoy or Dostoevsky", "The Death of Tragedy", "After Babel", "Martin Heidegger", and "What is Comparative Literature".
He has superb attainments in the fields of literary translation and literary criticism. He has been writing articles for magazines such as The New Yorker and The Times Literary Supplement for many years. He has been widely praised by the intellectual circles in English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. He is praised by many people as "one of the greatest figures in today's intellectual circles" and "a Renaissance giant who came too late."
Lin Weimin was a little surprised to hear the name George Steiner. These days, there have been a lot of reports about him in the American media, including many people in the literary world who have written some commentary articles, but the comments from a famous critic like George Steiner carry a different weight.
Lin Weimin carefully read the article "Richard Yates Will Live On" in The New Yorker. It was a long article mainly composed of reviews. Lin Weimin and his review article for The New York Review of Books were mentioned at the beginning and the end.
"…There is no doubt that Lin Weimin is not only an excellent writer, but also an outstanding critic. He keenly discovered the value of many works of Richard Yates, and was the first in the world to admire and make this writer who had been buried for many years a success.
His friendship with Richard Yates will become the most praised story in the American literary world in the 20th century. It will also accompany Richard Yates' literary achievements and exist forever in the American literary world, shining brilliantly. "
After reading George Steiner's flattery, Lin Weimin felt refreshed, and even the pain in his arms and wrists was relieved a lot.
After returning the magazine to Roger Strauss, he said, "Lin, the article you wrote for The New York Review of Books has a great influence. I think if you don't write novels anymore, you might become a great writer if you write literary criticism."
Compared with George Steiner's flattery, Roger Strauss's flattery seemed a little stiff, but Teacher Lin still accepted it calmly.
In the evening, Roger Strauss invited Lin Weimin and several staff members to dinner.
Lin Weimin's main work in the first week of his visit to the United States was to promote and publicize "The Collected Works of Richard Yates", while his main work in the second week was his own book signing event.
The sales of "Spirited Away" in the United States are gradually approaching 2 million copies. Coupled with the readers he has accumulated over the years, wherever he goes, he is almost always crowded with readers.
Lin Weimin lives in China all year round and appears in the United States very rarely, so many readers cherish his book signing sessions, and some even drive hundreds of kilometers to attend them.
Roger Strauss was full of pride when he talked about the book signing events in the past few days.
Author signing events test an author's appeal among readers.
It is obvious that Lin Weimin's appeal among American readers is top-notch.
In the past, it would have been hard for Roger Strauss to imagine that a foreign writer, especially a Chinese writer, would have such a strong appeal among American readers.
While he was sighing, when talking about this matter, Lin Weimin made a rational analysis and said: "I think this has a lot to do with the fact that several of my works have been adapted for Broadway."
Roger Strauss nodded in agreement and said, "Indeed. In the United States, Hollywood's influence is terrifying. But Broadway's influence is equally huge. And most importantly, Broadway's influence on intellectuals is unique. Broadway's audiences and your readership are highly overlapped."
He then asked, “By the way, the movie Farewell My Concubine will be released after the awards season, right?”
"That's right."
It is less than half a month away from December, and the Hollywood awards season is about to begin again.
Hollywood's awards season is held from December to February of the following year. During this period, awards such as the Golden Satellite Awards, the Annie Awards, guild awards for film professionals such as the Producers Guild, Directors Guild, and Screen Actors Guild, as well as three forms of awards from major film critics associations such as New York and Los Angeles, and even the final Golden Globe Awards and Oscars will be held one by one.
There are many film awards events with a high degree of overlap in judges and the events are held very close together. If a film can achieve good results in the preliminary awards, it means that it has great hope of competing for the Golden Globe Awards and Oscars.
Therefore, even though many of the preliminary awards during the awards season do not have much influence, many films that aspire to compete for the Golden Globe Awards and Oscars will spare no effort to participate in them.
This has created the spectacle of award judging in the American film industry, which takes place over two months every year.
"I bet the box office of this movie will not be less than 100 million US dollars." Roger Strauss said firmly, his expression revealing a strong sense of superstition.
Lin Weimin laughed and said, "100 million US dollars? Roger, you are really joking. This movie is different from "The Intouchables". It is a pure Chinese-language movie. The director and actors are not well-known in the United States. I have never heard of any Chinese-language movie that can create a box office of 100 million US dollars in the United States."
"Why not? Lin, don't forget that Farewell My Concubine has millions of readers in the United States. The play has been performed on Broadway for four years, right? It also has millions of viewers."
"Come on, a movie ticket costs 5 million dollars, and 10 million moviegoers only cost 50 million dollars."
It’s not that Lin Weimin is pessimistic about "Farewell My Concubine", but he is well aware of the nature of this movie and it is not a commercial film.
Movies are mass entertainment. To put it bluntly, the lower the threshold, the higher the box office. "Farewell My Concubine" has inherent deficiencies in this regard.
However, Lin Weimin is not pessimistic. In his estimation, it should be no problem for "Farewell My Concubine" to earn 30 million US dollars.
If he wins a Golden Globe or an Oscar, maybe 50 million won't be a problem, but he doesn't dare to think about more.
However, Roger Strauss was superstitious and certain that the movie "Farewell My Concubine" would be a great box office success. Lin Weimin could only attribute his superstition to blind self-admiration.
Lao Luo is good in every way except this one thing.
Don’t engage in personality cult!
(End of this chapter)
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