Cao Wenxuan thinks his new book The Book of the King is a breakthrough and turning point among many children's fantasy works.

When I received Cao Wenxuan's new book "The King's Book" (the first "Yellow Glass"), I casually asked: "What are your profound feelings about writing a book for your children for so many years?" "Writing this kind of book is very nutritious." Cao Wenxuan answered without thinking, followed by a series of laughter.

One afternoon in April, in the Italian-themed restaurant in Tuscany, a new urban area of Zhengzhou, Cao Wenxuan began with his latest book, The Book of the King, and told his creative process and thoughts on children's literature step by step.

I am not a qualified writer of children's literature.

I have always thought that I am not a particularly qualified children's literature writer. When talking about his children's literature creation, Cao Wenxuan put forward a slightly unexpected point of view. Cao Wenxuan doesn't consider himself a writer of children's literature. "Because first of all, I still have a lot of works that are purely traditional literary works. Furthermore, I think literature has nothing to do with category. I just wrote some works that children can read. So someone asked me if I was writing children's literature in the pure sense, and I didn't care much. As long as children like to watch, it doesn't matter what it is. " So there are his "Grass House" and "Bronze Sunflower", which adults and children like to watch.

Interestingly, Cao Wenxuan's children's literature works are often read by adults and children. In school, teachers recommend it to students after reading it, and students spread it to each other after reading it. "This is different from other children's literature writers. Other people's works are often children's favorite, and teachers will look for them again. The circulation process of my work is just the opposite. " Cao Wenxuan is interested in this special phenomenon in the acceptance of his works. Because he has spanned two generations at the same time, it is in this sense that Cao Wenxuan can ignore his status as a writer of children's literature.

I'll write it in the past.

Cao Wenxuan's works, such as Straw House and Bronze Sunflower, mainly focus on the life in the 1950s and 1960s, and rarely involve the life of children at present. "When I went down to give a speech, a child asked me,' Teacher Cao, why don't you write about our children's lives today?' "Cao Wenxuan recalled. For this problem, Cao Wenxuan thinks that this is the realistic literary concept of adults at work. He emphasized that "because some people think that a work's concern for reality is reflected in its concern for today's things", these concepts are further instilled in children. In people's inherent ideas, realism is to write about what is happening now, which is wrong. Realism has nothing to do with writing yesterday or today, so realism has nothing to do with writing reality, and realism is not equal to reality.

So in Cao Wenxuan's place, the past life has not depreciated. "past lives has no hierarchy. There is no reason to say that life now is more valuable than life in the past. " When the reporter asked if the current children could understand their past lives, Cao Wenxuan said confidently: "I heard many parents give me feedback, and their children were in tears when they watched Bronze Sunflower." Cao Wenxuan then delved into the deeper reasons. "We should see a basic premise that the basic human nature has not changed; This is why people today can still read A Dream of Red Mansions and appreciate Lu Xun's works. "

Lu Xun's image behind the works

Lu Xun is the writer who has the greatest influence on Cao Wenxuan. Talking about the writers who influenced his creative process, Cao Wenxuan said: "Now, in my works, there may be no trace left by Lu Xun. What we can see more is that there is a little bit of Shen Congwen's things and a little bit of Kawabata Yasunari's things. In fact, the writer who has the greatest influence on me is Lu Xun. Because there were few books to read when I was a child, the best book I saw was Lu Xun's works. Of course, when I was creating today, due to various factors, I couldn't see the traces of Lu Xun clearly, but he always stood behind my work as a huge and powerful figure. "

Talking about Lu Xun's influence on specific aspects of his works, Cao Wenxuan felt that although his works were beautiful, his sadness, concern for natural scenery and attention to language were all related to Lu Xun. "Lu Xun's influence on me is not only spiritual, but also gives me some understanding of literature and art. Even I learned some novel writing skills from Lu Xun. For example, Lu Xun's sketching skills are very good. If my work has any characteristics in writing techniques, it is that I like or am good at sketching. "

Cao Wenxuan also talked about the difference between him and Lu Xun. "Our difference is that Lu Xun looked at the darkness of society and the cruelty of human nature with cold eyes; What I describe in my way is more vivid and vivid, which has something to do with the times and my growth. "

An indispensable description of natural scenery

The description of natural scenery is a major feature of Cao Wenxuan's works. For this, Cao Wenxuan unequivocally affirmed that he even had the impulse to brand his works. "My work is my work because one of the most important elements is the landscape element. From the perspective of writing, it is very painful and almost impossible to describe me without the scenery. "

When talking about the serious lack of description of natural scenery in some children's literature works, including other literary works, Cao Wenxuan talked about his own views on why there are not too many descriptions of scenery in many works today: "Description of scenery can best reflect writing skills. It is very difficult to describe the natural scenery in an unconventional way and integrate it with the artistic conception, atmosphere and characters' situation of the works. When I was a child, I copied a lot of clips describing natural scenery, which benefited my writing today. The benefits I got from it can't be expressed in words. Without these implants, my work today would never be so different. Nature is so vast that it constitutes an Upanishads. Natural scenery is nature and an important part of my works. I think it is very bad for children to read works without scenery. "

The disadvantages of the depth dimension of contemporary literature

From the topic of the loss of landscape description in literary works, it extends to the evaluation criteria of literature. Cao Wenxuan thinks that the evaluation standard of contemporary literary works is single, and the classical standard of China is seriously lacking, so there is a phenomenon that literary creation does not pay enough attention to literariness and artistry. "What we emphasize today is more about the profound content and ideas of a work. Profound has almost become or has become the only dimension of literary works. This dimension is given by western culture, not developed by our culture since ancient times. For example, our value system is elegance, artistic conception and so on. We ancients have always attached great importance to art forms, and profound thoughts are not our standards. "

"At the same time, there is an illogical logical relationship hidden in profundity, which is not based on beauty, but on ugliness and evil. Nowadays, works like to write evil because they take profundity as the standard. Such a logical inference is formed between ugliness and depth. " Cao Wenxuan deeply regrets the lack of a single, classical and traditional literary evaluation standard. He hopes that contemporary literature can inherit the classical things and make the evaluation criteria of literature more literary care and humanistic consciousness.

Let fantasy be full of literary color

Cao Wenxuan's latest work, The Book of the King, is a large-scale work, which is quite different from the trend of aesthetic style in previous children's literature. Cao Wenxuan's explanation is that "the thatched cottage with flowing water and the warm bronze sunflower have nothing to do with the magnificent, romantic and even violent book of the king". Actually, it's not like this, because I wrote a fantasy work "Root Bird" before, and so did several other short stories. In fact, the book of the king and the thatched cottage are still on the same aesthetic platform. "

Facing the endless stream of fantasy children's works in China, The Book of the King attempts to reopen the concept of "fantasy literature". In Cao Wenxuan's view, fantasy literature now pays attention to fantasy, but not to literariness. The whole fantasy literature is not perfect, some are good, but most of them are not literary enough. "I am a particularly extreme person, emphasizing literariness. So I think fantasy must also be placed in a literary framework. If there is only fantasy, it is not my pursuit, nor my choice. There can be works that only write fantasy, but what I like is the perfect combination of fantasy and literature. I advocate that fantasy must be built within the framework of literature. What I want to write now is not fantasy, but fantasy literature. This is what I call a new direction. " In this sense, Cao Wenxuan thinks his new book The Book of the King is a breakthrough and turning point among many children's fantasy works.

Cao Wenxuan tried to find the "original illusion" and convey its charm when he was writing "The Book of Jun". "I think there are quality differences in fantasy. There are good fantasies and bad fantasies, and fantasies are valuable. The real fantasy of human beings is in the early days of human beings. When I was writing the Book of Kings, I seriously realized the fantasies and experiences of our ancestors through the research and archaeology of anthropologists. "

In the continuous exploration of children's literature creation, Cao Wenxuan has gained more than just works. "Writing this kind of book is very nourishing and will be very touching; I think a person who can be moved often is a very important aspect of maintaining a good living condition. " Cao Wenxuan expressed his deepest feelings for many years.