Grand and Shocking—A Summary of the Black and White Sharing Session

Cao Zhenglu-Liu Jiming Research Center · 2023-10-23 · Source: Wuyouzhixiang

On the evening of October 21, an online sharing session for the novel Black and White was successfully held. Famous writer Liu Jiming, along with guests including Guo Songmin, Lao Tian, Zhang Yongfeng, Tang Liqun, Hongbei, Sishui Nongfu, Fu Xinyu, and nearly a hundred online participants attended the event.

The first segment of the sharing session consisted of participants reading excerpts from Black and White. Li Haixu, Huang Mengni, and Bao Chunqiao read aloud chapters including "Spiritual Orphans," "Li Hong's Monologue," and "Tian Fang's Diary."

The second segment featured guest speakers.

Guo Songmin (renowned literary critic and senior researcher at the Kunlun Policy Research Institute) said in his remarks: I felt tremendously震撼 [震撼 = shocked/deeply moved] after reading this novel. In a certain sense, it fills a void in Chinese literature since the 1980s and rescues Chinese literature. Just as one should read Dream of the Red Chamber to understand the history of Chinese feudal society, read works like The Red and the Black to understand 19th-century Western capitalist history in Europe, and read The Builders, Bright Sunny Sky, and The Golden Road to understand New China's socialist history, one should also read Black and White to understand the history since the reform and opening-up of the 1980s. This novel is very grand, depicting many characters. From my reading experience, it is an illustrated intellectual history, describing how those born in the 1950s and 1960s have walked step by step from the 1980s to today. For example, a character like Wang Sheng is very typical. Wang Sheng is from the post-60s generation, as am I. Seeing Wang Sheng, I see my own shadow. In the Black and White trilogy, Wang Sheng roughly experiences a left-right-left process. Here, I borrow an expression from Teacher Zhu Dongli, who couldn't attend today's meeting—he believes our generation experienced three periods: red, blue, then back to red. Wang Sheng's thinking underwent these three changes, as did mine. This ideological transformation is vividly and authentically displayed through Wang Sheng's character in Black and White. Therefore, I believe that if a reader wants to understand how Chinese people born in the 1950s and 1960s came through from the 1980s, how they were educated in real life, Black and White provides a very vivid cognitive channel—it is an imaginative intellectual development history since the 1980s. Without understanding this intellectual development history of that period, we cannot know where we came from or where we're going. So I feel the significance of Black and White is very great. The author uses some methods of socialist realism to truthfully recreate history and life. As time passes and grows more distant, the significance of this novel will be recognized by more people. Of course, it's a magnum opus, and I only hastily read it once. In the future I'll read it again, and after reading, if I have new ideas, I'll share them with everyone again.

Lao Tian (independent scholar) said when speaking: When I read Teacher Liu's book, I had a very intimate feeling—many characters described in the book, I could find prototypes in reality or history. For instance, the character Zong Da reminds me of Qu Qiubai, Wang Ming, even our old university president Li Da, and many place names in the book's Dongjiang University like Fengyuan and Guiyuan. Overall, this book is very震撼 to read. From the title Black and White, I believe we all have a sense of "two heavens between the old and new (black and white) societies." These "two heavens" are reflected in the work through typical environments, typical characters, and their circumstances. Due to time constraints, I'll discuss two particularly deep "points." The first "point" is "qualitative change." Both Teacher Liu and I are from the post-60s generation, and we both feel this "qualitative change" deeply. We know that worldviews and qualitative change have mutual relationships. If the world undergoes "qualitative change," people's worldviews change accordingly. If they don't change, you'll be eliminated. There are many such people in the book—like Tian Fang, Wang Shengli, and the old university president—who in the past were very positive, even sublime figures who should have been promoted as model figures, like the Wang Jinxi and Chen Yonggui we're familiar with. They're the same type as the old president and Tian Fang. If such an era still existed, these people should be rewarded and elevated, various resources should tilt toward and serve them, so that their direction becomes the mainstream and progressive direction. Beyond this type of person, Teacher Liu also created another type of negative character, such as the quack doctor Wu Bozhong and his actual biological son Du Wei, and to a certain degree including those who straddle officialdom and business (like Lang Tao). Someone online said that nowadays many officials don't solve problems but instead solve the people who raise problems. Why has this abnormal phenomenon become universal? To a certain degree, it's due to "bidding farewell to revolution" and "completely negating the Cultural Revolution." After "complete negation," the logic of handling problems is very different. Chairman Mao said in "On Contradiction" that contradictions exist at all times and everywhere, contradictions are divided into principal and secondary contradictions, and "officials" are the principal contradiction while "the people" are the secondary aspect of the contradiction. When analyzing responsibility, officials' responsibility is primary and the people's responsibility is secondary. Chairman Mao once said: "Say all you know and say it without reserve," "Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words." Chairman Mao's meaning was to protect those who dare to speak, who dare to raise problems. This kind of logic forms a striking contrast with the "qualitative change" of history and reality depicted in Black and White. What's very powerful about the novel is that it uses the concrete to express the abstract, uses the individual to express the universal. We can see from it how this society step by step changed from the past into what it is today. Additionally, I want to discuss another point I feel particularly deeply about, related to the character Zong Da. It actually involves the question of the relationship between intellectuals, revolution, and the masses. We know that starting from 1935, many intellectuals joined the revolutionary ranks. During the Yan'an Rectification, quite a few worker-peasant cadres who had come through the Long March looked down on these intellectuals, believing they were blown in by the "democratic wind" and viewing them as an alien force. As Black and White reveals, later, intellectuals' status underwent a 180-degree turn—from marginal to mainstream group, mainly concentrated around Yanhuang Chunqiu, called the "true at both ends" group. They became a very important force in China's rapid transformation, to a certain degree even more right-wing than America, which has much to do with this group controlling ideology and thought culture. Black and White doesn't make clear whether Zong Da betrayed or was kidnapped by the enemy, but he wrote a "Confession." Qu Qiubai also wrote something similar to a "confession" called "Superfluous Words." During the Cultural Revolution, Premier Zhou said Qu Qiubai was a traitor. After the Cultural Revolution, Ding Ling said that although Qu Qiubai's "Superfluous Words" had a very low tone, it was very authentic. This actually also expressed Ding Ling's own true psychology, because among intellectuals who participated in revolution, many didn't handle well how to deal with their relationship with revolution and the masses, including Qu Qiubai, Ding Ling, and also Zong Da in the novel. The Left often says that the reason socialism failed is mainly that it didn't cultivate its own cadre team. On this point, Black and White provides us with a new cognitive perspective.

Zhang Yongfeng (Professor in the Chinese Department at Dezhou University and Visiting Researcher at the Cao Zhenglu-Liu Jiming Research Center) said when speaking: I just finished reading Teacher Liu Jiming's Black and White today. This 1.2-million-character work is extremely rich in ideological content—the reading experience and thoughts haven't had time to be organized and require serious reflection. Here I can only very roughly discuss some impressions after reading. First, I feel this work's writing approach is a panoramic style that connects revolutionary history with current reality. This writing approach is novel and unique, especially viewed from the current state of literary creation. In the past, people said Lu Yao's Ordinary World was panoramic writing, but Ordinary World mainly focused on rural youth—the work didn't gather "typical characters from all social strata, from the highest court centers down to grassroots common people." Although Ordinary World depicts mid-to-high-level leaders represented by Tian Fujun, and the era that produced Ordinary World was busy bidding farewell to the revolutionary era, busy turning revolution into history, Ordinary World, like the mainstream literary narrative at the time, can be said to have been dedicated to creating a rupture between revolutionary history and current reality. It couldn't, like Black and White, tightly combine reshaping revolutionary history with reflecting on current reality. I feel that not only compared to Ordinary World, but compared to other works since the new period, Black and White is also novel and unique. I feel this writing approach precisely implements Teacher Liu Jiming's writing perspective or his advocacy for novel writing.

The second reading impression I want to mention is that what Black and White presents is the issue of revolutionaries' descendants and revolutionary legacy. Actually, regarding this question, Teachers Guo Songmin and Lao Tian just gave very profound analyses. Here I'll just make a rough textual sorting of the novel. The revolutionaries' descendants in the work are mainly divided into five types. The first is the privileged class born as high cadres' children, or representatives of crony capitalism—typical characters are Hong Taixing, Yan Bei, Lang Tao, and Song Xiaofan. The second type is the high cadre's child who inherited revolution's excellent family tradition and executes the mass line—Chen Yimeng, in whom certain ideals are entrusted. The third type is the combat hero's child who re-identifies with revolutionary tradition—Wang Sheng. Behind Wang Sheng there's also support from Luo Zheng, the combat hero of those years, and the "old university president," a revolutionary orphan. The fourth type includes Gu Zheng and Zong Tianyi, whose revolutionary family backgrounds are unclear but gradually come to recognition. The fifth type is youth who inherit revolutionary thought inspired by new reality, such as Liang Tian and Tian Qingqing. Perhaps someone will say Tian Qingqing isn't a revolutionary's descendant, but actually she can be considered one, because Tian Qingqing grew up under the care and education of the old university president and her aunt Tian Fang. In the work, Hong Taixing is the first type of revolutionary descendant's representative. He cooperates with Bai Wen, son of the Kuomintang military intelligence spy chief Bai Shou, seeking enormous profits in the "New Marshall Plan" represented by Western capitalism through Bai Wen. This very clearly symbolizes betrayal and destruction of revolutionary legacy. This connects with the enemy's "Trojan Horse Plan" during the revolutionary war period. From "Trojan Horse Plan" to "New Marshall Plan," it reveals an important reason why revolution encountered crisis. This crisis lurks within revolutionary ranks—as Teacher Lao Tian just analyzed, within revolutionary ranks, intellectuals born into exploiting classes, like Song Qiankun's contained problems, are particularly profound and enlightening. I won't say more here. The opportunism embodied in Song Qiankun is also clearly manifested in other characters in the work such as Wu Bozhong, Du Wei, and Ba Dong. Actually, the name Wu Bozhong has a certain metaphorical color. "Bozhong" [伯仲] means "equal/comparable," and "bozhong" sounds like "bowing" [播种 = sowing seeds]. In the work, using treating infertility as a front, he has many illegitimate children—meaning his descendants are very numerous. And Du Wei, as his descendant, is a typical opportunist who pursues profit and curries favor with the powerful. The work very profoundly reveals how, following the trajectory of market economy reform from the 1980s to the 1990s, forces represented by Du Wei rose. Another female character in the work, Song Xiaofan, is also a typical opportunist. Her romantic idealism is actually romantic philistinism. The men she commits herself to in different periods—whether Cheng Guojun, Li Xin, or later Bai Wen—are all people who were very influential at that time. Compared to this, Yan Bei still has a bit of romantic idealism, though of course Yan Bei's romantic idealism is built on the foundation of her privileged class and realistic conditions. The work's character with particularly typical significance is Wang Sheng. As Teacher Guo Songmin just analyzed, he embodies the intellectual development history since the new period. Of course, from the work's perspective, the hope for inheriting and developing revolutionary legacy rests on Wang Sheng, who has experienced hardships and ideological transformation, as well as on youth like Liang Tian and Tian Qingqing. At the same time, it shows that the inheritance and development of revolutionary legacy still relies on the maintenance of family bonds, hoping more young people will join. In sum, Black and White is very significant for helping more young people clearly understand reality and the significance of revolutionary legacy.

Tang Liqun (Associate Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University) said when speaking: I'm very moved to participate in this sharing session today, because everyone participating in this sharing session came out of some kind of common concern and interest, without any other support. From the very beginning with participants reading aloud to the scholars' comments, everything was actually based on this kind of concern and enthusiasm. And because of the meeting room's capacity limit, many people couldn't get in. This is what particularly moved me. I'm actually quite ashamed—I haven't actually finished reading this novel yet, having only read the first few chapters. As a guest coming to share and comment is inappropriate. But within a small team, we also share a certain common concern—for example, a common concern for Chinese revolutionary and socialist history. Within this team, quite a few people have read Teacher Liu's novel. So I feel I can actually share some views from our internal discussions, which don't represent me personally. I can briefly mention just a little feeling from only the few chapters I've read. One strong intuitive feeling: this is a big thing. Teacher Liu has presented us with a very large work. Then, from the few chapters I've read at the beginning, depicting campus societies in the 1980s and their discussions about literature, I had an immersive feeling. Like Teacher Guo Songmin's resonance just now when he said he saw in Wang Sheng people born in the 1950s and 1960s and their growth experience—that familiar atmosphere of university campuses in the '80s and '90s, what books were popular then, what kinds of issues everyone was exploring. In this kind of description, I already felt that Teacher Liu Jiming's writing style is completely different from contemporary literature's narrative—for example, scar literature and reflective literature's perspectives. In mainstream literary narrative, even to this day, there's still a positive, comprehensive criticism and negation of the Cultural Revolution. But Teacher Liu, through the protagonist's dialogue, presents different dissenting views. Beyond this, later there's a section depicting their fathers' generation—the Red Guard image of those years is also completely different from works depicting the Cultural Revolution now. In the later second and third parts, there may be further depictions of the Cultural Revolution, because this is such a grand framework depicting the revolutionary period before the founding and the socialist construction period and later reform era. I believe Teacher Liu's narrative completely subverts mainstream perspectives on the Cultural Revolution. So I feel that in the contemporary novel series, Black and White is at least unprecedented. Its unprecedented nature lies not in its volume or spanning different eras' social presentations, but in its literary reshaping of history, which inevitably constitutes a powerful challenge to mainstream literature. This challenge exists in academic circles—especially since the new century, academic perspectives on the Cultural Revolution and socialist history have undergone some changes compared to the 1980s. Previously there was complete negation, so-called reflection and criticism of revolution. But these changes are more in academic research, not in literary circles. That is to say, our contemporary writers' understanding and response to some social and historical issues are particularly dull and lagging. Against this background, Teacher Liu is a rare and valuable existence. Actually, Teacher Liu is also a scholar, so when he presents history's retelling, re-criticism, and re-reflection in literary form, he possesses an ideological depth, height, and breadth that many writers find difficult to achieve. This is what I'm willing to say despite not having finished reading yet—a little feeling.

Sishui Nongfu (independent scholar) said when speaking: Teacher Liu Jiming said in the afterword to Black and White: "This novel is an unexpected harvest for me. Without the experiences of recent years, there would be no Black and White. I created an artistic world richer, broader, and more complex than The Human Realm. When I wrote the last word and realized I had to say goodbye to the characters in the novel, my heart produced a feeling of reluctance to part. I created them, and they also created me. I made myself one of them and experienced a kind of enormous happiness. For a writer, this is undoubtedly the best reward, once again proving that social life is the only source of literary art—an unshakeable truth. Therefore, I want to say: thank you, life." He also said in "After Black and White, Every Word I Write Will Be Superfluous—Answer to Mars Editorial Department": "This is a state of free writing that has broken free from the new period's pure literature tradition. Through this novel, I constructed an artistic world completely belonging to myself. At that moment, I felt myself completely merged with Black and White." How well Teacher Liu said this! He repeatedly emphasized that Black and White is an unexpected harvest, because some experiences in reality gave him creative inspiration and material—that is, the original meaning of art originating from life yet rising above life. Regarding that special life experience, Teacher Liu once solemnly declared in the essay "To You": "When my enemies threw ladles of dirty water and poisoned arrows at me, I knew the time had come for me to part ways with their literary world!" And issued this declaration: "When I finished writing The Human Realm several years ago, I had the idea of stopping writing from then on, but I've now changed my mind. Since writing is a kind of battle for me, I have no reason to flee from the battlefield." Just like that, Teacher Liu, like the characters in his work, achieved complete transformation—from a professional writer within the system to a left-wing intellectual with distinct political orientation. More precisely, he has become a brave warrior who, like Mr. Lu Xun, uses the pen as a weapon to fight. We see that the characters' growth in the novel almost overlaps one-to-one with the writer's experience, completely consistent with the writer's ideological determination. From the writer's background and experience, he carries both the working people's class imprint and the intellectual's social identity, possessing both Wang Sheng and Ma La's sensitive character and the idealistic temperament of Murong Qiu and Gu Zheng. The fusion of both constitutes the writer's unique artistic style and ideological inclination. As commentators have noted, marked by Black and White, Teacher Liu Jiming entered a new realm of his creation and even his life, transforming him from a writer in the traditional sense into an action intellectual. Precisely because of this transformation, we have Black and White, this outstanding work of people's realism. Fundamentally speaking, Teacher Liu uses literary and artistic forms to shape the soul and summon the soul for a sunken class—a call to return to revolutionary original aspirations. Ideals are immortal, original aspirations undying, revolution imperishable, the people eternal!

Fu Xinyu (former chief editor of Mao Zedong Banner website) said when speaking: I read Teacher Liu's novel Black and White with intense interest. I feel this work cannot be read or understood without half a month, because the novel's time span is very long—from the 1920s and '30s of the last century right up to now. It has both grand narrative and, like a suspense detective novel, is tense and twisting with strong visual sense, tightly interconnected character relationships, intricate details, and very full plot that opens and closes dramatically—very gripping. In the novel, black and white are everywhere, which requires us to experience in careful reading. Actually, I read every day, even wanting to speed-read like the Great Leap Forward, but I discovered that one-glance-ten-lines reading method really fails this novel, because if you read like the Great Leap Forward or skim like looking at flowers from horseback, you'll miss many wonderful plots. I've only read two and a half parts, with a bit remaining unfinished, so let me talk about some shallow understanding. I feel every skilled novelist has a skilled magic converter, constantly switching scenes, switching time and space, forming circuits like series and parallel connections from complex specific plots, gathering into vivid, full individual characters—this is the typical character in typical environment expression method. Historically, many outstanding novelists have reflected their eras in this form. Good novels truthfully display history and use artistic power to let readers find answers themselves. Another reason I particularly like the novel Black and White is that it has both beautiful writing style, allowing readers to enjoy pleasure while also producing deep reflection, and detailed character portrayals that make protagonists lifelike—every scene unfolds vividly before readers. Reading this novel is like watching a TV series—if you don't read to the end, you can't guess the outcome and can't understand the profound meaning the novel wants to express, thus producing deep resonance between readers, author, and the novel's characters. Beyond this, Black and White can be seen as a microcosm of reform and opening—a criticism of criticism, an overturning of what was overturned, a negation of negation. The novel narrates major historical events in reform-opening history with one clear thread: after reform and opening, people's lives underwent earth-shaking changes, ideology also changed with changing circumstances, and every day of reform-opening saw many people in chronic suicide. Reform-opening overturned revolution, also containing many weak people's resistance and strong people's awakening. The character Zong Tianyi in the novel is very interesting—originally a wanted criminal, after his mother was harmed, he used a red-tasseled spear to gouge out Principal Gong's eye, then from wanted criminal transformed into a prominent commercial elite, but at life's endpoint began seeking roots and ancestry. In his final letter to Wang Sheng he said: "I don't fear death itself but fear those people's ugly behavior and evil becoming forever unknown with my death. If that's the case, it's a hundred times more terrible than death itself. Sadly, I was once one of these people. Every time I think of this, I feel death is the punishment I deserve, but it cannot redeem my inner debt unless those people receive due punishment. Even if they don't receive due punishment, being exposed and lashed is also good." Logically speaking, Zong Tianyi was originally a beneficiary of reform and opening, also a reform pioneer. His first bucket of gold started from his father-in-law's small coal mine. After his business grew, he abandoned his wife, rode the wind and waves, until life's endpoint when he returned to basics. Only in reform's soil could such a person be produced. But isn't Zong Tianyi also reform-opening's burial sacrifice? Additionally, the two characters that impressed me most—teachers just discussed them—one I call the "lonely minority" Wang Sheng, and the "revolutionary turncoat" Song Qiankun. Wang Sheng's original name "Wang Cheng" was given by his father using the name of the heroic figure in the film. When he went to Chuzhou for teacher training, he felt his name was no longer appropriate, because in the early reform-opening period, "evading the sublime" and "bidding farewell to revolution" had already become clamorous and become mainstream ideology. His name became an object of classmates' ridicule. He sensitively realized a new era was coming, and this name became a stumbling block preventing him from entering the new era, so he had to add a "sun" radical to the "cheng" in "Wang Cheng" to adapt to the era's tide. Wang Sheng wasn't originally enthusiastic about politics, but due to his father's influence, many era's heroic figures had long lurked in his inner depths, like a saw pulling back and forth. On one hand, he had to cross into the new era's threshold; on the other hand, he was constrained by idealistic original aspirations. He thus step by step lost himself. In the 1980s' atmosphere of evading the sublime and bidding farewell to revolution, this kind of faith loss was a very common phenomenon. Therefore, Wang Sheng could only passively accept mainstream molding and education. This is the era's inertia—on the era's train, the vast majority of people are just passengers rushing along, especially in an environment where "if you don't change your thinking, we'll change people." Not adapting means you still have to live. This itself is a battlefield. We commonly understand war as divided into war with gunpowder smoke and war without gunpowder smoke—it's hard to say which kind of war is more cruel. Wang Sheng was always suppressed by some inexplicable spiritual shackles. Although superficially he didn't care about politics, once a political storm arrived, his latent original aspirations would instantly be activated—this was also the psychological foundation for his participation in the 1989 storm. Wang Sheng's initial ideal was to become a scholar. In researching Zong Da, he discovered an earth-shattering secret, following the vine to unearth the turncoat Song Qiankun. In his persistent pursuit, he also discovered the Kuomintang's "Trojan Horse Plan." This "Trojan Horse Plan" played an enormous role in the era's transitions, its power no less than Dulles's "peaceful evolution." Because Wang Sheng reported the charlatan Wu Bozhong online, he was sentenced to three years in prison—such a result is truly lamentable. In reality, those suffering such fates also include some rebels and Red Guards, like Luo Zheng and Cheng Guojun in the novel, marginalized by the era, becoming madmen and remnants in the eyes of perpetrators. There's another important character image in the novel—Song Qiankun, who appears as an old cadre. In his youth he studied in Yan'an, became Zong Da's security staff officer, after liberation worked in Beijing, later was transferred to Dongjiang as vice governor, but because old soldier Luo Zheng kept reporting him for decades, his official career was affected. Song Qiankun's original name was Huang He. He fell in love with his father Huang Yaozu's young concubine. Huang Yaozu was a member of the "Blue Shirts Society," predecessor of military intelligence. After Song Qiankun joined the revolution, he personally led the Red Army to infiltrate the Huang residence, captured his father Huang Yaozu and had him executed by firing squad. So we have reason to suspect Song Qiankun's joining the revolution carried strong opportunism—he might even be a chess piece laid by the "Trojan Horse Plan." Although Song Qiankun was criticized during the Cultural Revolution and imprisoned, after reform and opening his spring arrived, right up to his life's peak. Song Qiankun's essence cannot be separated from his own class—old opportunist cadres like him have quite typical significance. But I believe what's white is white, what's black is black, because black can never be washed white.

Hongbei, former webmaster of Mao Zedong Banner website, had someone read aloud her written remarks titled "Thoughts Inspired by the Character Song Qiankun."

In the sharing session's third segment, internet participants including Lao'er, Zhiyao, Qiao Xiaokun, and Zuolun discussed their respective feelings about reading Black and White. Finally, Teacher Liu Jiming answered participants' questions (to be published separately).

The sharing session, hosted by Sun Xiaoyu, assistant researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, lasted over four hours, consistently filled with warm and lively atmosphere.