The first time I learned about the writer Jia Pingwa was when I read "The Wasted City", which was banned in China for 16 years but gained a reputation abroad and won the French Femina Literary Prize.

Since "Abandoned Capital", Jia Pingwa's novels "Qin Opera" and "Selected Prose of Jia Pingwa" have been unopened on the bookshelf for reading. This echoes the old saying: Read borrowed books quickly, but read your own books later. I have read several collections of Jia Pingwa's essays, all of which were borrowed from the library. This book "About Prose" is no exception.

"About Prose" contains fifty-five articles, mostly responses to letters and prefaces to works, including memories of Lu Yao, reading Zhang Ailing, Sun Li's essays, my calligraphy and painting, etc. Jia Pingwa's writing seems to have a magical power that allows me to read it with peace of mind, not just at a glance but ten lines at a time, but word by word.

The reason why Jia Pingwa’s writings are so attractive for reading is because he mastered good literary language. In the book "About Prose", he explains what "good literary language" is from 7 aspects.

That is: good literary language can accurately express the emotions of characters. How to express emotions accurately? Need to match. Special attention should be paid to the fact that punctuation marks are part of literary language and play a great role in the collocation process.

Be textured. Just as tree bark feels like bark, silk feels like silk. This feeling should be visually comfortable. Some words look comfortable when paired together. This is the flavor of language. Taste is the Chinese people's affirmation of something. Something unique can attract attention. Good literary works are those that have mastered the unique taste.

Chinese characters are hieroglyphics. Some characters have their own texture, some are light and some are heavy. At this time, you need to pay attention to the matching. First, you must grasp the emotion, and then consider the words and phrases you choose. You can't use a bunch of words that are too light together, and you can't use a bunch of words that are too heavy together. This is like listening to music, you need to hear the rhythm.

When I saw this text, I felt a lot of emotion. A successful writer must have his own method of success. In order to present better literary language, a lot of effort has been put into the matching.

What is gossip? It means that the person and thing you want to say have already been explained, and the part that still needs to be said one or two sentences is gossip. How to use gossip? It requires imagination. Imagination is the most basic and important in literature.

Literature, in other words, is fictional writing. You have to understand and master two things: one is to be able to tell stories, and the other is to be able to use details. A story is a good plot. The plot can be arranged arbitrarily, but the details must be as real as possible. With real details, no matter how bizarre the story is, people will believe it. Without details, no matter how real the story is written, no one will believe it.

"Zhang Ailing's works often describe the complete story and a lot of gossip to be said afterwards. These gossips supplement the previous words from another angle, just like floating on the lake, one float after another. In the past, when people said someone was talented, they meant gossip, because when the water filled the cup, it was the gossip that overflowed. ”

Language should be remembered and seen. To be bright, you need to speak very accurately, talk about people and things at once, and use the most common words or metaphors to express a truth. In language narration, you should use the shortest words to make things clear.

In literary works, idioms are often used, which is called student accent. Literary works need images rather than generalizations, and writers need to restore idioms, such as a thousand purples and a thousand reds. Only by writing about ten thousand purples and a thousand reds can they be fresh and vivid.

There are many good folk languages, which need to be collected carefully. There are many folk dialects scattered in Shaanxi, such as "huanshi", "punfan", "shouhuo" and so on.

Language is endless and unpredictable in structure, rhythm and feeling. The work should be written with chaos, not the chaos of words, but the chaos of meaning. The more plain words can express the image of chaos.

Literary language is a big maze, which needs to be experienced by oneself when writing and when reading.

“A person who stands on the first step does not understand what is happening on the third or fourth steps; a person who stands on the third or fourth step cannot go back to the first step. Read The most important thing in prose is to read feelings and wisdom, and great feelings are simple, and great wisdom is daily.”

Jia Pingwa’s simple language can always easily move me, has it moved you too. Although the book "About Prose" does not have a strong storyline and each article seems scattered, when you read it carefully, you will always be moved by a seemingly casual passage. For example, at the end of the book, he wrote: There is an old professor who is over seventy years old and has a bright face. He can publish several books every year. I asked him how he did it. The old professor said that he makes a plan for himself every year. The plan is very detailed. He has already set it to be 130 years old. Even though he knows that he will not live to be 130 years old, he still needs to let God know that he is very busy. At least Coaxing God won't make you die quickly. The same goes for writing, keep setting goals for yourself.

You must have confidence in yourself, have plans, goals, and things to do. Even if the plan cannot be completed, you may still be able to live longer, so you might as well give it a try.