Chapter 795: On par with George Orwell
New York, Chinatown, old apartment buildings.
Cheng Danqing hung up the call from his friend in China, with some doubts in his heart and a look of confusion on his face.
"Danqing, what does the country want to see you about?" Li Quanwu asked.
Today is another gathering of the international student community in New York. Everyone gathered together. There were a few old faces missing, but a few new ones.
"Yenching Youth Daily is looking for me."
"Yenching Youth Daily" is quite famous. Those who come to the United States to study are all students from well-known domestic universities, and many of them study at Yenching. Of course, everyone is familiar with this name.
"Looking for you to write an article?"
In the past few years, some domestic publications have tended to invite international students studying abroad to write travelogues and other articles, which have been very popular among domestic readers. Wang Xiaobo has written some such articles.
Cheng Danqing hesitated and said, "I can't really say."
"Can't explain it well? What do you mean?" Li Quanwu asked.
The others also looked curious.
Cheng Danqing replied: "They asked me to help collect reviews and reports on Lin Weimin's novels in the United States. If there are any reviews and reports on other domestic writers and works, they also want them."
Hearing this, everyone showed similar expressions to Cheng Danqing.
Li Quanwu thought for a moment and asked, "Are they going to reprint these articles?"
“That should be it.”
“Why do they reprint these articles?”
"Isn't what you're asking nonsense? Of course, we want to let the Chinese people see what foreigners think of these writers and their works!"
"Instead of doing this kind of stuff, it's better to reprint more of the latest foreign works."
"You don't understand this, do you? Huacheng used to often reprint information about foreign literature, but reprinting foreigners' feedback on domestic writers and works will definitely attract more attention from Chinese people!"
"is that so?"
"certainly."
While everyone was chatting, Cheng Danqing walked to the corner of the apartment's living room, where there were many magazines piled up. He flipped through the various reports and reviews about Lin Weimin and his works that he had read before.
He never imagined that these publications that were gathering dust could have such a wonderful use.
Cheng Danqing had close contacts with people in China in the early years, but in recent years the frequency of contacts has become increasingly sparse.
The reason for this, apart from the fact that he has been in the United States for too long, is mainly because he himself is not doing well.
When he first came to the United States, he would write letters to his relatives, friends, classmates and colleagues in China to brag about his experiences in the United States. But as time went on, he always talked about these things and didn't talk about others, and even he found it boring.
Besides, everyone could understand that he had not been in the United States for long and had not made a name for himself. But it has been so many years and he is still like this. It would be so embarrassing if someone asked him this question when we contacted him!
Cheng Danqing flipped through those magazines, many of which contained reports and comments about Lin Weimin.
His acquaintance with Lin Weimin was entirely accidental and their friendship was not deep, but Cheng Danqing had a very good impression of Lin Weimin.
When he met Lin Weimin in New York in 1986, Lin Weimin was not well-known in the United States. Now, ten years have passed, and Lin Weimin's fame in the United States is no longer the same as it was back then.
But Cheng Danqing always believed that he and Lin Weimin were the same kind of people.
This kind of people refers to talent, not anything else.
Because of this mutual admiration, Cheng Danqing paid special attention to various reports and comments about Lin Weimin published in the American media.
He counted the newspapers and magazines he had picked out. Over the years, without realizing it, so many American newspapers and magazines had reported on Lin Weimin.
This is what a great writer with international status is, Cheng Danqing sighed in his heart.
After the salon ended, he came to his desk and began to translate a recent commentary article on "God Bless America".
This review article took him more than a day to complete. After Cheng Danqing finished translating, he stood up and rested for a while, then picked up the translation manuscript and looked at it. He felt unsatisfied and wanted to make some revisions.
Halfway through the revision, he stopped writing, feeling that something was missing.
Doing this would completely defeat his own purpose, so he decided to change his approach.
After thinking for a moment, he picked up a pen and wrote a title on the paper. Cheng Danqing decided to write down his experience of meeting Lin Weimin.
The interview article about Lin Weimin reprinted in Newsweek by Yenching Youth Daily spread throughout the domestic literary circles and readership in a short period of time, causing the fierce debate in the domestic literary circles and the literary community about Lin Weimin and God Bless America to become unbalanced in a short period of time.
Faced with the sudden backstabbing from the American father, the pro-American factions that had been clamoring before collectively lost their voices, and a great debate that had gone back and forth seemed to end in a whimper.
Fortunately, these people reacted quickly and found a new angle.
——Without the open social atmosphere and cultural environment of the United States, Lin Weimin’s “God Bless America” would not have achieved such outstanding results - "The openness of the United States has made “God Bless America” a success", Wenhui Daily, December 8, 1995.
It has to be said that the angle chosen by the pro-Rica faction is very tricky, and their argument is actually accepted by quite a few readers, which seems to have the tendency to tip the originally tilted balance of public opinion.
But just when this group of people thought they could rest easy, the Yenching Youth Daily published two more articles.
One article is "The First Encounter between a Writer and a Painter in New York" written by Cheng Danqing, a painter living in Milan. It tells the story of how the author Cheng Danqing met the writer Lin Weimin. The article is delicately written, describing how two talented young people met, got to know each other, and appreciated each other in a foreign country. Many readers couldn't help but feel envious and longing after reading it.
The other article is a translation. The original text comes from the famous American literary magazine "The Atlantic Monthly". The article is titled "The Gains and Losses of American Democracy from "God Bless America"."
At the beginning of the translation, the author's background is introduced in detail.
Harold Bloom was born in New York on July 11, 1930. He is a critic and literary theorist of the "Yale School". He graduated from Cornell University in 1951 and received his doctorate from Yale University in 1955. Bloom has taught at Yale University, New York University and other well-known universities, and has published many literary criticism works. He is known as one of the four major critics of Yale along with de Man, Hartman and Miller.
The article "The Gains and Losses of American Democracy from God Bless America" is quite long, with more than 15,000 words in translation alone. It is a long article for a review article. Harold Bloom, a well-known American literary critic, used such a long article to review Lin Weimin and his works, which in itself proves Lin Weimin's influence.
What's more, Harold Bloom spoke highly of the author Lin Weimin and his novel in his article, making many readers feel relaxed and happy after reading this imported review article.
After the two articles were published in the Yenching Youth Daily, they quickly attracted the attention of the literary community and readers.
No one expected that Cheng Danqing, a painter who once dominated the domestic art scene but fled to the United States, would return to the attention of the Chinese people and the cultural circle in this way. What was even more unexpected was that the Yenching Youth Daily would reprint the commentary article on "God Bless America" again after reprinting the exclusive interview article from Newsweek.
You don’t even care about your face anymore!
For a while, public opinion, which had been balanced, once again turned against the pro-Rica faction.
These people didn't even have time to catch their breath. In the next half month, the Yenching Youth Daily reprinted a number of commentary articles on "God Bless America" by heavyweight American literary critics.
Every time the Yenching Youth Daily reprints these articles, it will introduce the publication's fame and influence, as well as the academic status and achievements of the authors of these articles at the beginning of the article.
All the articles come from the top literary critics and literary magazines in the United States. The contents of the articles all give extremely high praise to "God Bless America", and many critics use quite explicit words.
An article titled "On the Hidden Nazism in God Bless America" in Book Pages magazine commented: Lin Weimin is a writer destined to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The New York Review of Books magazine, in an article titled "A Brief Analysis of the Political Figures in God Bless America," commented: He is a great writer from the East who has contributed an unparalleled masterpiece to us.
The New Yorker magazine commented in an article titled "Is Western Democracy at the End of Its Road?": "This is an undisputed masterpiece, a pearl among political satires, and his achievements are comparable to those of George Orwell...
Several commentary articles completely crushed the pro-American faction in the country's attempts to discredit Lin Weimin, causing them to be completely defeated in this war of public opinion, and also gave Lin Weimin's reputation in the country a leap forward.
China has always had the habit of "foreign monks chanting sutras". Chen Yong praised Lin Weimin as "the person closest to the master", and a group of people caught him and scolded him.
However, when many American critics called Lin Weimin a "great writer" and "on par with George Orwell", this group of people remained silent and no one said a word.
The domestic cultural and literary circles' four-month-long campaign against and condemnation of Lin Weimin and "God Bless America" was completely defeated by the "chanting" of many "foreign monks".
Not only did it not have any negative impact on Lin Weimin, but it also created a golden image for Lin Weimin.
This incident allowed many Chinese people to truly see Lin Weimin's influence in the United States and even in the world. In the Chinese literary world, no other writer has been able to achieve this level.
Many people look at Chen Yong's praise for Lin Weimin again and feel that it is not so exaggerated. Not only is it not exaggerated, it also feels appropriate.
The debate that lasted for more than four months finally came to an end at Christmas this year. The pro-Rica faction, who had failed at the last hurdle, was disheartened, but Lin Weimin, the person involved, was not at all happy.
Firstly, he didn't take the matter seriously, and secondly, he was busy with work and had no time to take care of these things.
December 24th is Christmas in the West. In recent years, the habit of celebrating foreign festivals has gradually emerged in China. Lin Weimin has no objection to celebrating foreign festivals. For the working people, it is not important what festival to celebrate. What is important is whether you can get double salary and whether you can take vacation.
However, today is also of some significance to Guowen Press. The movie "Party A and Party B", invested by Wenhua Film and Television, directed by Feng Xiaogang and written by Wang Shuo, was officially released today.
A few days ago, Yu Dong went to Guowen Publishing House and handed out movie tickets to everyone he met, under the pretext of asking the leaders of the publishing house to examine the work results of Wenhua Film and Television in the past year. Several leaders of the publishing house, including Cheng Zaochun, spoke highly of the young general manager that Lin Weimin had found for Wenhua.
After work that evening, Lin Weimin returned home, picked up his wife and children, and took them to the movies.
The movie tickets that Yu Dong gave to the people in the community were all for the screening hall of the Capital Cinema, and there was also the premiere of the crew here today.
Everyone came early today. There was still half an hour before the premiere started, and colleagues were chatting with each other.
"Hey, Teacher Lin, have you read the newspaper I gave you?" Yu Hua asked.
A few days ago, Yu Hua went to Lin Weimin's office and took out a few copies of the Yenching Youth Daily, which contained articles by Cheng Danqing and many American critics.
Lin Weimin said: “I’ve seen some.”
"Are you really that close to Cheng Danqing?"
Lin Weimin glanced at Yu Hua and asked, "Does it matter to you whether it's good or not?"
"I'm just asking."
"Stop asking questions!"
Yu Hua frowned and felt a little depressed, but he was still curious. According to his recollection, Teacher Lin had never publicly mentioned that he met Cheng Danqing in the United States, and his relationship with the other party could not be that good. It was more likely that Cheng Danqing was flattering himself.
If Yu Hua could think of it, Lin Weimin would naturally understand it.
His relationship with Cheng Danqing was not as familiar and tacit as portrayed in the article, but they knew each other after all, and Cheng Danqing had a good relationship with Acheng, Huang Anyi and others, so it was not easy for him to say anything.
While everyone was chatting, the premiere of "Party A and Party B" began. The only actor who could be considered a "big shot" in this movie was Ge You.
There was nothing interesting about the premiere. It was mainly for publicity so that reporters would have material to write about. This was part of the publicity.
After the premiere, the movie was officially screened, and Ge You's iconic voice appeared along with the black screen at the beginning of the film.
At the beginning, Yao Yuan, Zhou Beiyan, Qian Kang and others staged a "war" scene to help Ban'erye, who runs a bookstore, fulfill his dream of becoming General Patton for a day. Qian Kang, played by Feng Xiaogang, was sitting in a jeep and asked General Patton, played by Ban'erye, for a Coca-Cola. Ban'erye's words "Let the five-foot building be airlifted to us" triggered the first laugh of today's movie.
There was laughter in the screening room. Hearing the laughter, Feng Xiaogang, who was sitting in the front row, felt relieved.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
