Chapter 50 Naoki Prize

Deciding to write a novel and becoming a novelist came from an extremely accidental opportunity. It was still in middle school, once I imitated the works of a novelist of the era I liked very much on straw paper (rough Japanese paper), wrote a novel, and gave it to a classmate for appreciation, I still remember it clearly The student had a strange expression at the time. After taking the straw paper I handed over, he quickly buried his head in reading it. To my surprise, he recommended it to other students immediately after he finished reading it in one go. , and gave my debut work a very high evaluation:

very funny! Soon my papyrus novels became the reading materials that many students rushed to read. I have never felt that kind of happiness, so I remember it very clearly. It was from that moment that I realized that I was also Can bring happiness to others. With sweet memories, I stepped into high school. Because other students were too good, I suddenly found that I was a person with no merits. I began to become lonely. In order to appease this loneliness, I only hoped for music and Poetry, and finally decided to move towards the goal of a novelist.But even so, life in high school has become the last thing I want to look back on.

After entering university, I continued to write poetry. In terms of reading, I only liked the works of French poets in translation, and I can say that I was completely unfamiliar with prose at that time.What I remember now is that once I read Hamlet by the French poet Lafarge (translated by Kenichi Yoshida) in the library of the university, I felt very good, and even had a feeling of intoxication, so that I walked out When I was in the library, I didn't go back to the dormitory, but walked unsteadily towards the station in the summer evening breeze.Honestly, it's the only book I've ever had.

At the beginning, I didn't like the unique literary atmosphere in the novelist's writing, so I was relatively indifferent to novels, but when I started to prepare for my own novel writing in the third year of university, everything changed, and I began to intentionally write novels. Look for some high-style prose and novels to read, and extract some beautiful sentences from them to start your own literary analysis. Because in my opinion at that time, as long as the creation of the style can be completed, novels can definitely be written, so I have been sorting out the principles of literary expression. After two years of preparation, I made a decision to divide these principles into simple The judgment of the four styles, I once talked with an editor about these four styles, so I won't repeat them here.In short, I destroyed the original fixed style of the literary world and created my own style of style, but if you want to ask me whether the novel I am writing now is a style created by myself, I don’t think I can make it clear.

Immediately after graduating from university, I started to write novels, or it is more appropriate to say that it is a stylistic experiment.Although my work never caught the attention of an editor, it did catch the attention of a famous novelist. Li Yuan Zhengqiu! He not only began to pay attention to me, but also kindly gave me a lot of guidance in writing novels. If you still have works to come out in the future, please send them to me. If possible, I will recommend good works to the publisher, or recommend them after revision! As a Naoki Prize winner, Masaki Tachihara should be a busy man, but that's exactly what he said.

And he did not break his promise, not only took the time to read my manuscript, but also personally made the necessary revisions on it with a red pen. I have always been indebted to him, however harshly he may have been critical of my manuscript.But once when I opened the manuscripts he returned to me, my face suddenly turned pale, and I even felt very embarrassed. On both manuscripts, he wrote two red words with a red pencil, and added On the emphatic line: stale! I understand that what he meant was not the method of creating novels, but the issue of spiritual life and death.Regardless of whether your writing is ancient, past, modern or future, it may be classified as stale. However, from his comments, I can clearly feel that Liyuan Masaki obviously does not like too stale content.So, what is new?Can't those so-called classical things be updated?

Li Yuan Zhengqiu's words pierced my chest like a sharp arrow, and I couldn't pull it out no matter how hard I tried. Although I thought the style I created was quite reasonable, I resolutely discarded it. I wanted to follow Masaki Tachihara's suggestion to rewrite the new novel, but the key point is that I found that I knew nothing about novels in the new style.After a period of thinking, I realized that there are still many sentences and objects that can be used, and if I don’t think carefully about Li Yuan Zhengqiu’s comments, I can’t understand the new style he said.After understanding all this, I left Tokyo, returned to my hometown, and began to devote myself to writing my novel.

By chance, I suddenly thought of monogatari (legendary novels). Why are the stories of monogatari so attractive?Why can't I sublimate novels of this kind and create my own style?I have been constantly innovating and thinking for several years. It should be said that Tachihara Masaki gave me such a wonderful opportunity to experiment. Can't do this! Although Masaki Tachihara's words are always ringing in my ears, I still want to create a novel that can be praised by him. Now that I think about it, those days were really hard, but thankfully my experiment is finally over . When my novel "Natsuhime Spring and Autumn" won the Naoki Award, Tachihara Masaki had already been buried in the ground. When I came to the tomb of Tachihara Masaki in Kamakura and listened to the sound of the surrounding bamboo forests singing in the wind, I suddenly felt that I was Immersed in "The Sigh of the Wind Tree".