Reading | Liu Xiaobo: "Color" of "Searching" —— Comment on Zhao Yi’s "Searching: Dimensions and Signs of Literature"
"color" of "looking for"
Comment on Zhao Yi’s Searching: Dimensions and Signs of Literature
Text | Liu Xiaobo

Zhao Yi’s Search: Dimensions and Signs of Literature (hereinafter referred to as Search) shows the sharpness and tolerance of young people’s critical writing, such as unique and novel perspective selection, fashionable issues of concern, sharp writing, wise views, and sometimes a sharpness. These characteristics are the background color of criticism and the true nature of critics. As a young critic, Zhao Yi pays more attention to contemporary writers who are both young people, forming a typical contemporary criticism. Zhao Yi’s writing is also cross-border. She is not only engaged in criticism, but also writing novels. At the same time, she is also a literary editor. She has a multi-faceted identity and her academic background is also cross-border. All these make her critical writing have a solid foundation, broad vision and more rich texture. The "thing" of "looking for" can be described as the content and ambition of bo literature, while the "color" of "looking for" is the background and true color of criticism.
Youth edge:
Well-founded "reckless"
From the title, "Looking for" has revealed a unique edge of youth criticism, which is also a simile of its criticism itself. Young critics certainly have the unique characteristics of young people, such as unique and novel perspective selection, fashionable issues of concern, sharp writing, wise views, and sometimes a sharpness, which is fully reflected in Zhao Yi’s Looking for a Job. Zhao Yi’s criticism pays attention to the frontier issues, closely follows the present and the times, and pays continuous attention to the new literary phenomena. His sense of criticism is extremely keen and his critical perspective is unique. Almost all the articles in the "Horizon Phenomenon" section are centered around the literary hotspots in recent years, expressing his unique observation and thinking about the new phenomena in the current literary world.
Zhao Yi’s literary criticism has a broad vision, often starting from the big background of the times, and combining the inside and outside of literature for systematic analysis. Micro-writing and micro-reading are carefully combed in the article "Micro-novel and micro-reading", and micro-writing and micro-reading are exactly the new literary images caused by media changes. Zhao Yi’s point of view is launched from the big background. In her view, the rise of new media has shaped the literary concept, the existing form of literature and the way of literary production, dissemination and acceptance, which has had a direct and far-reaching impact on literary creation in the traditional sense. One of the symbolic appearances is that literary creation is increasingly developing towards miniaturization, portability and mobility with the media terminal technology oriented to user experience and functional requirements, and literary styles and modes of communication are showing a trend of "micro", which has brought the prosperity of "micro" art based on information. And this generalization has actually become a general description of the background of the current literary development. For example, in her research on the post-90s literary phenomenon, she also cut in from the media perspective: the current post-90s literary production is the participation, deduction and display of virtual reality scenes under the all-round digital media ecology with the Internet as the core, and the writing of new media is exported through sub-cultural ways such as audio-visual and network. This kind of thinking is still based on this basic background of the times. Zhao Yi also spared no effort to pay attention to other new literary images. The problem of "correcting the name" of online literature from the perspective of Xianxia tradition pays attention to online literature.The choice of incision is small: Xianxia tradition, but the problem discussed is very grand: the problem of "correcting the name" of online literature. The Orientation of Adaptation and the Scale of Animation pays attention to China’s animation and thinks about the future of China’s animated films. These questions are very fashionable and fresh, and they all have a certain sense of problems. Fifteen Random Thoughts on Literary Phenomena seems to be just a few words, but in fact it shows a kind of fluidity and meticulousness of thinking, which is unique, sharp and cutting-edge. Each random thought involves a more important proposition. These random thoughts are directed at the essence of the problem, and they seem to be independent of each other, but in fact they have their own internal logic.
In the reading of orthodox literary texts, Zhao Yi also has her own unique views, and many texts even gain new vitality and glow with different colors in her interpretation. The "viewpoint and scene" part is the continuous attention to the current creation, and makes a meaningful interpretation of the new works of mature writers. The possibility of flowers is difficult, Mo Yan’s new drama: be strong and sing, and even enter a bowl of sorghum wine! The latest works of Mo Yan, Alai and Jin Yucheng are interpreted in detail in such chapters as The Wind: Reality and Fantasy in Zhou Xiaofeng’s Star Fish, Sounding with solemn compassion-The persistence and success of Alai’s Story in the Cloud, On the Long Paradigm and New Discovery of Going North, etc.
Zhao Yi’s critical style is sharp, wise and even sharp, which is unique to young people. Sometimes, compared with mature critics, it is obviously more open. Wang Binbin once mentioned in an interview, "I have never been completely reckless. When I was young, I had a lot less scruples, but now I have a lot of worries. I despise myself more and more. " Mature critics are full of worries, while young critics rely on youthful exuberance and have no scruples. This kind of freedom is not a "cool comment" to gain eyeballs and brush traffic, but a well-founded "no scruples" by daring to discuss problems, break down the barriers of the circle, and find the internal logical basis through careful logical analysis.
Contemporary criticism:
Peer Friendship and Critic’s Ruthlessness
As a young critic, Zhao Yi pays more attention to contemporary writers who are both young people, forming a typical contemporary criticism. The so-called contemporaries are "contemporaries who were born in the same period and have common historical experience, thus showing similar spiritual structure and behavior patterns". Because of the similarity of physiological structure and the convergence of spiritual structure, Zhao Yi pays great attention to the creation of his contemporaries, which shows the friendship between peers and the merciless side of critics. In her critical writing, we can find the bright spots of the younger generation, and there are also many flaws in the creation of the same generation, so as to improve the writing of young people.
A lot of content in Looking for a Person is concerned about the same generation. There are both interpretation of individual cases and analysis of phenomena. An interesting phenomenon is that many contents in the book are directly related to post-90s writing. The article How to Open the Writing of the Post-90s systematically combs the writing of the Post-90s, and The New Media Literary Life of the Post-90s pays attention to the creation of this group from the media perspective. Many other chapters also discuss this topic, forming an interesting "post-90s" criticism of "post-90s". There are also some articles that discuss the individual writing of young writers. From "Channel Tide" to "Tide", why does Ban Yu look like a logo? This paper presents a panoramic view of the creation of young writer Ban Yu. Examination and circumstantial evidence: from the witness to the space-time body-reading Zhou Kai’s Moss and the future book of detective novelists interpret Zhou Kai’s two works, both of which are in-depth case studies.
As a peer, the author can better understand the creation of young writers, and can also fully demonstrate in criticism. This not only reflects the inclusiveness of contemporary criticism, but also reveals the shining side of young writers to the greatest extent, and also has the "heartless" side of critics, who will never be soft in the face of shortcomings and direct problems. In How to Open the Writing of the Post-90s, there is a detailed analysis of the creation of various literary genres of this group, pointing out many existing problems, such as "the writer’s works are extroverted and the readers have great repetitiveness", "some young poets have given up the stylistic dignity of their poems and the completion of their stylistic spirit" and "exposed some deficiencies in comprehensive cultivation", and so on. The article "A Brief Analysis of the Lack of Lu Xun’s Literary Spirit in Youth Writing" points out the major problem of the lack of literary spirit in youth writing. There are still many articles that point out the shortcomings of Chen’s creation from the phenomenon, and many of them take young writers as examples.
The criticism system constructed by youth criticism is not only more systematic and professional in academic level, but also has a tangible flesh-and-blood connection between literature and reality established by the younger generation. Zhao Yi is not only practicing it himself, but also trying to find the common experience of one generation from the same generation, which is the unique value of contemporary criticism.
Multi-life writing:
Various dimensions and marks of literature
Zhao Yi also shows a cross-border between writing and criticism. She is a typical multi-faceted writer. She is not only engaged in original writing, but also engaged in criticism. She is also a literary worker in important positions such as Lu Xun College of Literature, People’s Literature and China Writer. Therefore, Zhao Yi has great enthusiasm for the literary scene and presided over columns in many publications to promote the development of youth criticism. For example, she once presided over the column of youth criticism in Contemporary Literary World, and invited several authors to discuss the same topic in each issue, which almost included all the young critics who were active at that time in China, and paid attention to the cutting-edge topics. In a word, the author of this book is the witness and witness of the literary world, and these experiences are the symbol of its various literature and the source of its various dimensions.
His varied writing experience makes his critical words more familiar with creation, literary scene and the essence of criticism. So far, Zhao Yi has created many novels, and this cross-border will have a far-reaching impact on his criticism. She also has a clear understanding of this phenomenon itself. In the article "Cross-border Writing: Thinking, Creation and the Orientation of the Heart", she takes Zhang Ning’s creation as an example to systematically discuss the value and significance of Zhang Ning’s novel writing as a scholar, and comprehensively observe Zhang Ning’s novel creation. Its complete literary theory system can be seen in the centralized turn of expressing thinking. And she herself has gradually moved along this cross-border path.
In addition, Zhao Yi’s literary criticism has a classical flavor, which is related to her academic background. She studied classical literature. Disciplinary barriers divide literature as a whole, and the research after opening up will encounter different scenery. In fact, Zhao Yi implied a classical perspective in his criticism, and cherished the tradition, which gave his criticism a kind of connotation. The title of the book "Looking for" is derived from the classic work of classical criticism "Wen Xin Diao Long". The so-called "looking for a move, the heart also shakes". Not only the title of the book, but also as a critic who studied China’s classical literature, the "Horizon Looking Back" part of the book mainly pays attention to China’s classical literature, and its discussion categories include Cao Zhi’s letters, Wang Bi’s metaphysics and aesthetic thought, Canglang’s poetry talk, Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Liu Yi’s poetry talk and so on. Zhao Yi can often find out the present value and significance from classical studies. For example, when discussing Ouyang Xiu’s Poems on June 1, she pointed out that "Poems on June 1 gives some inspiration and response to the question of how literature should be positioned and treated in today’s society. Literature is not just literature, but a way of life." These classical criticism practices are not only addicted to "old paper piles", but more importantly, she has brought this classical atmosphere into contemporary literary criticism, and there are classical shadows in many articles. For example, the criticism of the current new literature phenomenon "micro-literature" is mostly related to the classical tradition; The problem of "correcting the name" of online literature from the perspective of Xian Xia’s tradition also connects the research of online literature with China’s literary tradition. This treasure of tradition makes her criticism more profound.
Zhao Yi’s criticism targets are extremely wide, ranging from novels, essays to poems in genre, from literature to culture in content, from ancient times to contemporary times, and from domestic to foreign countries in space. This broad vision makes her criticism highly transitive, and it is also the embodiment of the critical creed she has always believed in: literary criticism should at least have certain academic principles and origins, keen insight and problem consciousness, be full of sincerity and goodwill, resonate with herself in the context of the times, and at the same time be desirable. In the preface of the book, Qiu Huadong said, "The significance of this collection of comments can not be ignored, because it, like the author, is a writer and witness of contemporary spirit, and it is a vivid witness of literary life. It is manifested in rich reading and multi-angle observation. It is conveyed through various discourses, and it provides a stylized study mode related to knowledge production and material research. It highlights the literary vision of young people and dares to express their opinions. The key words of witness, witness, agility, stylization, and young people are the precise summary of a young critic who lives in many places.
Searching: Dimensions and Signs of Literature

Author: Zhao Yi
Publishing House: Sichuan People’s Publishing House
Publication date: January 2022
Zhao Yi: Ph.D. student in Chinese Department of Tsinghua University, engaged in literary research and novel creation. She has won the short story nomination award of the Young Chinese Writers Award, the outstanding new work award of Beijing Literature, the literary criticism award of the Long March Literature Award, and the popular novel award of Selected Novels.
The author of this article is Liu Xiaobo: critic and deputy editor of Contemporary Literary World.
Original title: Reading | Liu Xiaobo: Color of Searching —— Comment on Zhao Yi’s Searching: Dimensions and Signs of Literature
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