Liquor interests me very much; I've thought long and hard about the relationship between it and culture. The chapter ‘Sorghum Wine’ in my novel gives a pretty good picture of my thoughts on the subject. I've long wanted to write a novel on liquor, and making the acquaintance of a true-to-life doctor of liquor studies like you is the great good fortune of three lifetimes. Ill probably be bombarding you with questions from now on, so please stop referring to me as ‘Sir.’
'I've read both your letter and the story ‘Meat Boy,’ and have many thoughts to share with you, in no particular order of importance. I’ll start with your letter: i. In my view, the human traits of arrogance and humility are contradictory and interdependent at the same time. It’s impossible to say which is good and which is bad. The truth is, people who appear to be arrogant are in fact humble, and people who seem to be humble, deep down are quite arrogant. There are people who are arrogant at certain times and under certain circumstances, but extremely humble at other times and under different circumstances. Absolute arrogance and life-long humility probably do not exist. Your ‘drunken arrogance’ is, to a large extent, a chemical reaction, and no fault can be found in that. So your feeling of self-satisfaction after you’ve been drinking is fine with me, and a couple of well-placed curses toward Citizens9 Literature don’t break any laws I’m aware of, especially since you didn’t include any slurs against their mothers or anything. All you said was. If they decide not to publish it, they must be blind.’
2. Mr Li Qi had reasons for writing his novel the way he did, and if you don’t like it, just toss it aside and forget it. If you run into him someday, give him a couple of bottles of Overlapping Green Ants, then make yourself scarce. Do not – repeat, do not – make the mistake of adopting the revolutionary-romantic tactic of giving him ‘the verbal fight of his life.’ This fellow is closely connected to the criminal underground. His meanness is matched only by his brutality, and he’ll stop at nothing. There’s a story going round about a Beijing literary critic who wrote an article critical of Li Qi’s literary offerings one night, after putting away a fine meal, and published it in some newspaper. Before three days had passed, this literary critic’s old lady was kidnapped by Li Qi’s men and taken to Thailand, where she was sold into prostitution. So take my advice and stay clear of this individual. There are plenty of people in this world God himself wouldn’t offend. Li Qi is one of them.
3. Since you say your mind is made up to devote yourself to literature, I’ll never again advise you to play the prodigal son, if for no other reason than to keep you from loathing me. If a person inadvertently provokes someone into loathing him, there’s nothing he can do. But if he does it intentionally, it’s like ‘rolling your eyes up to look in a mirror – a search for ugliness.’ I’m ugly enough already, so why would I roll up my eyes?
You saved your strongest language for those lousy bastards’ who want to ‘monopolize the literary establishment.’ I couldn’t be happier. If there are lousy bastards out there trying to monopolize the literary establishment, I’ll curse and yell right alongside you.
I was an instructor at the Baoding Officer Candidate School more than ten years ago, and several hundred students took my classes. I seem to recall two named Liu Yan. One was fair-skinned and always glowering; the other was dark-skinned, short and fat. Which one works with you?
Where having harsh words for Wang Meng is concerned, I really can’t recall, but I think I did read his essay urging young writers to engage in a little cold self-evaluation, you know, size up the situation. It’s possible I felt it was an attack on me, which likely made me very uncomfortable. But it’s unlikely I’d launch an attack on Wang Meng in a class in which I was promoting communism.
If you want to know the truth, I’ve never tossed away my beggar’s staff, and if I were to toss it away someday, I’d surely not go out and ‘beat up a beggar,’ would I? But there are no guarantees, since people can’t dictate the changes they’ll undergo throughout their lifetime.
Now for your story: 1. You call it grim realism.’ Can you tell me what that means? I can’t say for sure, although I have an idea. The contents of your story make me shudder, and all I can say is, I’m glad it’s fiction. There’d be big trouble if you’d written a journalistic essay with the same contents. 2. As for publishability, normally there are two standards that apply: ideological and artistic. I can never figure either of them out. And I mean just that. I’m not pussy-footing. Fortunately, Citizens’ Literature has a fine crop of editors, so let them decide.
I’ve already sent your story to the editorial department of Citizens’ Literature, and as far as hosting a dinner or sending gifts is concerned, I’m afraid I don’t know enough about either to even try. Whether that stuff works with big publications like Citizens’ Literature or not, that you’ll have to find out for yourself.
Wishing you
Good luck,
Mo Yan
IV
Meat Boy, by Li Yidou
A late autumn night; the moon was out, hanging in the western sky, the edges of its visible half blurred like a melting ice cube. Cold rays of light danced in the sleepy village of Liquor Scent. Someone’s rooster crowed from a chicken coop. The sound was muffled, as if emerging from a deep cellar.
Muted though the sound was, it still roused the wife of Jin Yuanbao from her sleep. She wrapped a quilt around her shoulders and sat up, feeling disoriented in the surrounding mist. Pale moonbeams slanted in through the window, stamping white designs on the black quilt. Her husband’s feet stuck out from under the covers to her right, icy cold. She covered them with a corner of the quilt. Little Treasure slept curled up on her left, his breathing deep and even. The muffled crows of roosters from even farther away came on the air. She shivered and climbed down off the bed, throwing a jacket over her shoulders as she walked into the yard, where she gazed up into the sky. Three stars hung in the west and the Seven Daughters rose in the east. It would soon be dawn.
The woman went inside and nudged her husband.
‘Time to get up.’ she said. ‘The Seven Daughters are up already.’
The man stopped snoring and smacked his lips a time or two before sitting up.
Is it dawn already?’ he asked, with a hint of confusion.
‘Just about,’ the woman said. ‘Get there a little earlier this time, so it won’t be a wasted trip like the last time.’
Slowly the man draped his lined coat over his shoulders, reached out for a tobacco pouch at the head of the bed, filled his pipe, and stuck it between his lips. Then he picked up a flint, a stone, and some tinder to make a fire. Angular sparks flew, one landing on the tinder, which caught fire when he blew on it. The deep red flame glowed in the dark room. He lit his pipe and took a couple of quick puffs. He was about to snuff out the tinder when his wife said:
‘Light the lantern.’
‘Are you sure you want to?’ he asked.
‘Go ahead and light it,’ she said. ‘A tiny bit of lantern oil can’t make us any poorer than we are now.’
He took a deep breath and blew again on the tinder in his hand, watching it grow brighter and brighter and finally turning into a real flame. The woman brought the lantern over and lit it, then hung it on the wall, where it cast its feeble light throughout the room. Husband and wife exchanged hurried glances, then looked away. One of the many children sleeping next to the man was talking in his sleep, loudly, like shouting slogans. One of the others reached out and rubbed the greasy wall. Yet another was weeping. The man tucked the one child’s arm back under the covers and nudged the weeping child.