AFTERWORD

--Liu Jiming, March 28, 2016, Yujishan, Wuchang

The writing of Human境 (Renjing) can be traced back as early as 1995 and 1996. At that time, I'd just published Underwater Village and Going to Huang Village in Shanghai Literature. Harvest, Zhongshan, People's Literature, and other journals also successively published some of my novellas and short stories, attracting considerable literary attention. Before long, I began conceiving a novel. I planned to use the village where I was born and grew up as background, writing about a village called "Longsang" from the 1950s straight through to the late 1990s. I named this novel The Book of Longsang because I really liked that song Walking on Longsang sung by Zhang Mingmin: "I walk across Longsang / Longsang in autumn colors / Golden leaves on branches / Wind comes rustling..." It made me seem to see the familiar hometown scenery of childhood. Additionally, during that period, I was reading a British novel The Book of the Scots—a work full of poetry and local color. Naming my work, The Book of Longsang, also meant paying tribute to this great British novel.

But after writing just over 100,000 characters, the novel stopped. The direct reason causing the writing interruption was my wife Sun Yuan's illness. We'd been married less than a year. Her illness and eventual death made me seem to fall from heaven into purgatory. My entire person changed from inside out in completely unexpected ways. Over a year later, when I tried to restart the novel's writing, I faced what seemed scattered rubble and ruins—completely unable to find the feeling. The indirect reason related to that time's literary environment. The avant-garde faction that flourished in the late 1980s, though gradually declining, was replaced by "New Realism" and "New Generation" (or "Late Generation") creative trends—copying chicken feathers on the ground-like daily trivialities and individualistic lifestyles became the 1990s' writing fashion. They were actually avant-garde variants. Critic Li Jiefu believed "cultural concern fiction" was "in the name of avant-garde, practicing classicism"—perhaps revealing the fundamental divergence between my writing and avant-garde plus new generation writing, from "superficially compatible but spiritually different" to "parting ways." But I hadn't expected to so quickly move from "superficially compatible but spiritually different" with "avant-garde" and the 1990s writing trend to "parting ways." The watershed was The Book of Longsang. I say this because—whether in narrative style or content—this novel differed greatly not only from that period's literary fashion but also from my own writing style already regarded as established by readers and critics. In other words, this was both a challenge to established literary order and a challenge to myself. This required both sufficient courage and sufficient ability. Regrettably, I possessed neither force at that time. After all, I was only in my early thirties—like a soldier rushing into battle without fully recognizing the campaign's arduousness. Failure was destined. Of course, such failure wasn't necessarily bad. Like a woman giving birth—without going through full-term pregnancy, premature babies are often unhealthy, even possessing diseases or congenital disabilities.

The second attempt began in 2002. This conception differed greatly from the first attempt. But I'd just written less than 100,000 characters when Hubei Writers Association arranged for me to work temporarily at the Three Gorges. During the temporary assignment, I threw myself into interviewing and writing the reportage Dam of Dreams, followed by the novel Rivers and Lakes, plus a series of novellas and short stories later called "bottom-layer narratives" by critics. Living environment and writing goals repeatedly diverging made my mood and interests continuously change. Midway several times, including during 2011 living in New Zealand, I'd considered continuing this novel. But trying several times, I couldn't continue. Until 2014, when Tianxia magazine, published less than two years, ceased publication due to circumstances. My body and mind obtained tremendous liberation. Finally, I could calm down to consider next steps in writing. Thus, I obtained another opportunity to continue this repeatedly shelved novel. Unexpectedly, when I picked up the pen again this time, it went much more smoothly than anticipated. After so many years passed, whether my own thoughts, China's reality, or literature—all underwent many thought-provoking changes. When I restarted writing, having new life resources and intellectual momentum, I could escape original conception limitations. Therefore, you could say I was writing an entirely new novel.

Despite this, it still maintained a brother-like blood relationship with that unfinished work. Though appearances and expressions differed, the same blood flowed through. For instance, several main characters from The Book of Longsang survived in Renjing—only "Ma Chuan" became "Ma La," "Zhu Laohei" became "Guo Dawan," "Longsang" also became "Shenhuangzhou." The Book of Longsang only planned writing one village. Renjing divided into upper and lower parts—the upper part writing Ma La's release from prison, returning to Shenhuangzhou to start anew; the lower part with Murong Qiu as protagonist writing urban life at universities and intellectual circles. Including new-type farmers' cooperatives, Chufeng Group pollution incidents, Yangtze Electromechanical Factory restructuring and other plots—these accompanying new contradictions and problems appearing in Chinese society over ten-plus years obviously couldn't have appeared ten or twenty-plus years ago. From this meaning, author and contemporary China's continuously changing reality together co-nurtured this work.

My writing began in the mid-1980s—precisely when thought liberation and New Era literature flourished. From the start I threw myself in wholeheartedly with tremendous enthusiasm. I once described this excited, stirring mood in an essay titled My Age of Passion. Over thirty years passed. China's society and literature underwent earth-shaking changes. I also moved from ignorant youth into middle age full of vicissitudes. Literature, after experiencing numerous dazzling new terms and new trends' washing, seemed to have returned to the initial starting point. Any flashy, confusing outer garments couldn't hide literature's internal pallor and crisis. At the New Era's beginning, we'd been infatuated with Nietzsche's famous saying "revalue all values." Today's Chinese society and its literature seem to again face a new round of departure and new round of release.

The Master said by the river: "What passes is just like this, never ceasing day or night." Like a person, every work has its own destiny. For writers, every work is his child, permeated with his perceptions and reflections on this world—praise and criticism, lingering attachment and farewell. As a novel accompanying me from youth to today on such a long journey, even more so.

The moment I completed Renjing, a strong feeling surged in my heart: I'd written the most important work of my life.

The Author

March 28, 2016, Yujishan, Wuchang