Stephen King loves Lao Jin the most in his life.

It all started with the movie version of The Shawshank Redemption. I watched it at least five times and wrote a long film review-The Shawshank Redemption: Don't smoke if it's poisonous!

I didn't know Lao Jin at that time, but I was fascinated by his works. I heard some stories about Lao Jin intermittently. One day, Baidu told me about Laojin's life. My friend told me that his college classmates stayed in the library for four years and read all his works.

At that moment, I was sure that the love of my life was Lao Jin.

So, I looked for Lao Jin's works everywhere, and neither Dangdang nor Amazon could find his complete works. Finally, I bought The Shawshank Redemption and The Shining, and I plan to read them first. Sharping got it, and all the other books he was reading were put aside. It took him less than five days to finish reading. At that moment, I became more aware of how attractive Lao Jin's works were to me.

Now I am reading The Shawshank Redemption translated by Shi, Zhao Yongfen and Qi published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House. Fu Yuean's preface made my blood boil and tears filled my eyes.

Stephen King has been in a state of anxiety since she found herself in love with writing.

Why is Lao Jin anxious?

1954, seven years old, dropped out of school due to illness. Encouraged by his mother, he created a four-page story about magical animals and got a dollar reward from his mother. He realized that life opened a door of possibility, but anxiety began with it.

On the other hand, in China education, will parents encourage children to do "such useless things" in story writing? Will your manuscript get a dollar? Will you shut this door without mercy?

At different stages of life, this anxiety about writing appears in different faces.

Rejection is an anxiety, but it is not serious. /kloc-at the age of 0/4, the nail hanging on the wall could not bear the weight and fell down. You are very talented in such courses as "well written, but not suitable for us". Work harder! "He was greatly encouraged by the comments on the manuscript rejection, and he was deeply hopeful and promising.

All the nails on the wall have fallen off, which shows how hard he has made to keep up with Laojin.

What really makes people anxious is that he didn't respond to the "spirit-lifting" book Snow White since he was a child. On the contrary, he forgot to eat and sleep for Martians, vampires, zombies, grave robbers, the living dead and the gorgon witch. The bloodier and scarier he is, the more excited and satisfied he is. Educators regard these as "inferior" creations that are not suitable for children.

196 1 year, Stephen King rewrote the colorful horror film Trap and Pendulum, which he saw and thought was the most wonderful, into a novel, edited and printed it, and took it to school for sale. He sold 36 books in one morning, and now he has earned nine yuan, which has become his "first best seller" and is also encouraged by this poor child. Later, he was called to the principal's office. The headmaster asked him to refund his money and gave him a lecture: "I really don't understand, Stephen, why do you always write such rubbish and waste your talent?" Stephen returned the money in shame, but he didn't give up. That summer vacation, he wrote, edited and printed The Story of Alien Invasion, which was very popular. However, I still feel ashamed that the headmaster's words keep popping up in my ears:

Why waste your talent? Why waste time? Why do you write such rubbish? For more than 20 years, these words have become the lingering shadow of Stephen King.

This is what really worried Stephen King at that time: wasting talent, wasting time and writing rubbish. There will always be people who kidnap us with their own prejudices. All we can do is act and persist.

"Writing is a kind of graffiti. Each of us is like a sieve, and the size and size of the net are different. What doesn't flow through my screen may flow through your screen without any difficulty. Your screen won't flow in, but it may be unobstructed in my screen. It seems that each of us has an innate responsibility to transform these dross that block our ideological filters and eventually develop a certain talent. "

After becoming famous, Stephen King once explained his writing hobby like this. It is his nature that his thoughts can't flow through the filter, so he loves to write and almost only writes "horror novels". The love of life is horrible, which sounds a little morbid. Many people think that this is Stephen King's rhetoric after he tasted the sweetness and earned hundreds of millions of wealth by scaring people. It's just grandstanding nonsense.

However, as Confucius said: "Being rich and expensive is what people want; If you don't follow the path, there is nowhere. Poverty and meanness are disgusting to people; Don't go if you don't get it by the way. If a gentleman goes to benevolence, he will be famous all over the world. If a gentleman has no final food, he will violate benevolence and will do it again. " If we use "horror novels" and "writing" instead of "Tao" and "benevolence", and then use this passage to describe Stephen King's life, it will not be far off.

What does this passage mean?

Rich people and dignitaries, this is what everyone wants; If you can't get it with a horror novel, Laojin won't accept it. Poverty and meanness are disgusting to everyone. If you can't get rid of it with horror novels, Laojin can't escape. How can Laojin deserve the name Laojin when he leaves writing? Lao Jincan can't even eat without writing. When he worked part-time to raise a son and a daughter, and when he was ill in bed due to a car accident, he still insisted on writing.

In my opinion, "terror" is neither morbid nor terrible. What is terrible is stale ignorance, and what is terrible is the arbitrary assertion of people and things that you don't understand. In The Shining, you can not only see Lao Jin's "scary kung fu", but also his incisive description of psychology, insight into human nature and the charm of the devil's possession of the shadow. The action of wiping his lips has been engraved in my mind and in my words. Fuck the garbage. What flows through your filter is not necessarily "garbage", but also "gold".

1973: Stephen king graduated for two years. He is 27 years old, married and has a son and a daughter. I finally found a high school teaching position, but I couldn't make ends meet. I worked in a laundry factory during the summer vacation, and my wife worked as a waiter in a doughnut shop. The whole family lives in a trailer, and the phone is disconnected, so they can't afford to repair the broken Buick. I worry about extra bills all day, and teaching and administrative meetings also bother me. "This is not the life I should have!" "Stephen King was overwhelmed by life, but he couldn't see the dawn of any change.

Some scenes and plots of The Shining should also be based on this. Life is full of material things. Later, it was mentioned that Lao Jin wrote an incident between himself and the reader as material in the novel.

However, he is still writing, contributing articles and writing horror novels, and there are five or six unfinished manuscripts lying in the drawer at any time. During this time, the old headmaster's words should have surfaced in his mind, but he was too busy to pay attention. Sometimes "garbage" is hired, and he will use the extra money to take the whole family to a big meal, buy more daily necessities, and take his daughter with ear problems to see a doctor who should have seen it long ago.

What he is really worried about is whether he can become a writer and make a living by writing when he sees the coming era.

His wife Tabitha always thinks that Stephen King is very talented, and writing is by no means a waste of time. She always encourages him to spend more time on writing. If she hadn't picked up the erased draft of Carrie from the wastebasket, shook off the ashes, spread it out and said to her husband intimately, "That's a good idea, you can do it!" " Whether Laojin can be a blockbuster is still unknown.

1974, The Witch Carrie was published, which made Lao Jin soar and created one of the most important best-selling writers in the history of American literature. Next, it took him 30 years to create a reading type of "social horror novel" with his hands.

For anyone, the real pain is the time to support the family and raise children, because the weight of life will torture everyone's ideals; For writers, this kind of poverty is particularly fierce, because choosing a career as a writer is equivalent to signing a contract of life and death, whether to yield to fate or persevere. Stephen King gave us a textbook demonstration, and his wife Tabitha gave him the encouragement and support he needed most-the support that could change his fate.

Carrie the Witch only paid $2,500 in royalties in advance. After selling well, only the paperback copyright sold for $400 thousand, and he got half of $200 thousand. Finally, he can do what he loves without worry and focus, and be more diligent. For the next 30 years, Lao Jin insisted on writing, and only stopped writing on National Day, Birthday and Christmas every year. Later, he admitted that he only said this to find a topic. He's crazy. He's written correctly in these three days! I insist on writing because it is the best thing I can do. Some people spend 20 years doing psychological analysis to understand why they have certain interests and feelings. I just indulge them. " "I know how serious I am sitting in front of the typewriter." Lao Jin said this in an interview.

1982, in just eight years, he wrote 10 novel, and his book sold for money. 1985, the speed is even faster. 15 months, published four new works in succession, among which "It" is as thick as 1 138 pages, which is a taboo in the book market, and it is still "quack" and ranks first, with sales exceeding one million copies. During the period of 1988, he had four novels on the best-seller list at the same time, becoming an unprecedented master in the American publishing industry. Throughout the 1980s, according to statistics, in this decade, he alone accounted for seven of the 25 best-sellers in the United States, which was unprecedented!

Another part of Stephen King's wealth comes from film and television income, and almost every novel will be put on the screen. According to private statistics, in the autumn of 1990, in less than a month, Lao Jin had a novel broadcast on TV, two novels were shown in the cinema and the other was being filmed.

However, despite his fame and fortune, he seems to be anxious again. He likes to drink two glasses. At 1985, he was addicted to alcohol and drugs, not only drinking alcohol, but also taking cocaine. Why?

Sharping's alcoholic writers' signature mouth-wiping action comes from this. What is cocaine? I wonder if I didn't see it. Laojin is also a master and a mortal.

The gain and loss of "fame syndrome" and the pressure of regular publication may be the reasons, but as far as the quality of his books is concerned, it is not a problem. Hidden at the bottom of the subconscious,

"Why do you want to spoil talent? Why waste time? Why write such rubbish? " I'm afraid the curse of the old headmaster is still at work.

1982, Stephen King wrote Land of Salem, The Shining, Night Watch, Dead Zone, Fierce Fire, and Kuqiu the Rabies, but they all lost to this one.

The Shawshank Redemption. The book consists of four novellas, the first three of which have little to do with horror, and the last one is quite scary, but it is nothing compared with the previous one. About this book, Stephen King later revealed:

"I have spent more energy on this book than any other book." "Maybe I will never publish an identical book again in my life." Why?

The answer is in this book, and I suddenly think of Xiao's sentence "The way to salvation lies in it".

In Xiao's postscript, Lao Jin recalled that after he published Carrie the Witch, he wrote Land of Salem, and the editor worried that he would be "stereotyped" as an expert in horror novels. The Shining sells well, and the editor is worried about "stereotype" again. Then, The Shawshank Redemption came out. The editor was worried that the novel was "not scary", but Lao Jin never cared. From worrying about "terror" to worrying about "not terror", it clearly shows that market forces are "shaping" laojin step by step. However, it also shows that even if the love of his life is horror, even if he wrote ten novels in eight years, he still has some doubts after the bestseller. He is not sure whether he is writing garbage, wasting his talent or wasting his time.

Gordon, the narrator who is recognized as the incarnation of Stephen King in The Body, said clearly: "Many book critics say that I wrote shit, and I often think that they are right ... My story is too like a fairy tale and looks absurd. ..... I wonder if what I have done is really meaningful? What kind of world is it that a person can make a fortune by writing fictional novels? "

I want to say to Lao Jin: meaningless, happiness is the greatest meaning, if happiness is also meaningful. Make yourself happy, make readers happy, happiness is priceless, and writing is priceless. This is a fair world, and some unknown things are beyond our control. As long as we stick to our life creed and walk happily on the earth once, that's enough!

Book critic, the most respected person of Lao Jin, the mainstream literary world always thinks that he is grandstanding and blindly making money; Always criticize his writing as rubbish, no matter how much money he earns, is it still "rubbish"? If the most important thing for a writer is to "be true to yourself", then he must have done it. But why can't mainstream literary circles be sure of him?

Because they are jealous to death! Because scholars despise each other! Because they are trite and ignorant! Because of human narcissism!

This kind of anxiety later became an obvious feature of Stephen King's literary creation. He often took best-selling writers as his writing objects, such as the one who was kidnapped by fanatical female book fans among the top book fans and the one who was crushed by the writing bottleneck in body bags. The most remarkable and symbolic is The Other Half of Darkness, a middle-aged writer who devoted himself to serious literary creation but achieved nothing. He accidentally played games and wrote several horror novels, which made him famous and famous. Because the more he wrote, the more uncomfortable he felt, and he wanted to stop.

Blabla, please read the original text. The end of the story is that "serious literature" finally defeated "popular literature" and drove "he" back to the dark world where "he" belongs. Lao Jin is still worried about this problem after all.

There is a thought-provoking passage in the book: "Any man or woman who makes a living by creating must do so. One person lives in the normal world ... and the other creates the world. They are two people, at least two people. "

Most writers are like this. Without dual personality and quadruple personality, there will be no "role-playing substitution", and without imagination, it will be abolished. The real Lao Jin is obviously on the "dark" side, and I don't know why Lao Jin executed "black gold". Because he is an obsessive-compulsive Virgo? Have a mental cleanliness? Is it to prove that you can also write "serious literature"? Or did the old headmaster bring him too much childhood trauma? Only the last two explanations are the most reasonable. Think of the story that my primary school teacher told me, "The child's brain is unresponsive, the child is serious, and the child is honest." Fortunately, "this child" was not killed, so I am now.

Reality is really cruel. Lao Jin, like the upstart of American literature, can only admire himself. The National Book Foundation, which represents the mainstream, has never taken him seriously, let alone invited and awarded prizes. Laojin refused to accept, publicly gave up horror novels, and turned to science fiction and fantasy novels that have always affirmed his efforts (at this time, he has won Hugo Award, Lucas Award, Lokas Award and World Fantasy Award, representing the highest honor of these two kinds of novels).

But the "golden fans" are not satisfied, not to mention the people who rely on him to eat in the film and television. Finally, the elbow failed to break the thigh. For various reasons, Lao Jin wrote and wrote back horror novels.

1978 published the number one fan, and was later put on the screen and renamed as unusual love for ten days. The best-selling author was kidnapped by fanatical female book fans, forcing her to write as she liked, which reflected the inner feelings of Laojin at that time to some extent.

When did the misunderstanding of the best-selling author begin? How many people start to criticize without reading the works of Han Han, Jing M.Guo and Tang Jiasan? Don't you know that it is your own "filter net" that filters out some writers' works? When I was a child, I also read millions of words of online novels, as well as ghost blowing lights, tomb raiding notes, Twilight, Huo Ying, slam dunks and so on. The impression is what others call "dirty garbage". When I said it, I felt it was "garbage" a little bit, and I had to drag some profound connotations to feel comfortable. Now, having fun and looking cool are two concepts. The needs of readers are different, so are the needs of readers in different periods. Burning incense and taking a bath every day is also very tiring. What do you get from reading best-selling works?

Back in Laojin, he was kidnapped. In addition to being more delicate and paying more attention to creative skills, he is more "human psychology" and less "violence and blood". In addition to more "ordinary people" and less "special functions", he also picked up short stories. (1996 won the "O 'Henry Award" representing the highest honor of short stories with "Men in Black")

Later, Lao Jin always argued with people that "popular novels" are by no means synonymous with "garbage", and popularity is not necessarily a good literature!

Later, the two factions of "popular literature" and "serious literature" choked up, as if they were fighting with the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. Laojin also fought with Ursula Palin:

"Some of their works are sometimes or often full of literature, and they are all good storytellers. This keeps me away from the boring life ... and enriches my leisure time. This kind of creation, in my opinion, is always upright and decent, even noble. "

"There are only good and bad novels, and there is no difference between serious literature and popular literature."

Well said! Of course, the problem here is more complicated, involving the replacement of literary paradigm, the evolution of literary history and so on. The difference between "serious literature" and "popular literature" is just a representation, just like today's new media and paper media, network literature and traditional literature, it is not uniform. As Lao Jin said, articles are only good or bad, and there is no difference between new media and old media. As long as it can inherit culture and literature, it is good. Besides, good or bad is never absolute, so Charles Munger's "Poor Charlie Collection" in business also brings us the most advanced concept-interdisciplinary is a good thing. Literature has no disciplinary boundaries, literature is an encyclopedia, literature has no national boundaries, and literature belongs to all mankind.

I'm even thinking that it's interesting to add emoticons to online slang. It is more colloquial, shorter, more direct, more intuitive, more effective and more popular. Just like dialects in China, aren't they all banned? So there is nothing wrong with eclecticism. Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.

1999, Lao Jin was killed in a car accident. The publication of "On Writing" in 2000 is quite meaningful, laying the final foundation for one's life and paying it to future generations. Later, there were rumors of macular degeneration blindness. It seems impossible that the master is eager to set up a monument in the history of American literature to prove to the old headmaster that what he wrote is not "rubbish".

At this moment, the National Book Foundation of the United States announced that he had won the "Lifelong Achievement Award" of the National Book Award in 2003, on the grounds that his works "inherited the great tradition of American literature that pays attention to plot and atmosphere, and reflected all kinds of beautiful and tragic moral truths in the depths of human souls."

Lao Jin took the stage to receive the award, and the cauldron of American literature was once again blown in half.

Hey, here's the thing. My feeling is the same as when Mr. Yu's "Cultural Journey" first came out. People who took the opportunity to watch the fun and make money gathered together.

Even so, on the day of the award ceremony, Lao Jin dragged his sick body and sincerely called for "building a bridge between the so-called' popular novels' and the so-called' serious literature'". However, Shirley Herzad, a 72-year-old writer who won the novel award for writing The Fire, refused to buy Lao Jin's account and was humiliated in front of the media and 900 guests.

Fuck the "popular" and "serious" literary wars.

Laojin finally calculated an account for the old headmaster. As a writer who devoted his life to writing, he wrote 40 novels and 200 short stories in 30 years, and his works were translated into 33 languages and distributed 300 million copies. He was praised as "every American family obviously has two books, one is the Bible, and the other is 80% Stephen King's works". It is far-fetched to say that this is not a "lifelong achievement".

As Baldwin, president of the National Book Foundation of the United States, said when announcing the Stephen Gold Award, "We should look at what literature is from a broader perspective." If we broaden our horizons, do not insist on "the death of the author" and take "writing attitude" as the most basic element of literature, then the world of literature will be more diverse, rich and approachable. And this passage in the preface of Stephen King's Four Midnights (1990) is even more meaningful:

Introduction: I have worked in power enterprises, home improvement and new media, and have passed the master's degree in translation, with a little knowledge of arts and sciences. I am curious about the world, and take writing and reading as my lifelong belief. I am a book fan, a fan, a music fan, a gold fan, a Jay fan and a fan. It seems that this is also a mystery.

Message: I don't know where I'm going, but I know it's a wider world. I'm just obsessed with the world.