This is the second installment of the series A Fiction About Lu Yao. This series is fictional writing; any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental. Recap of the first installment: A Fiction About Lu Yao: The Man Who Had That Long Talk in the Cave Dwelling.
Jia Pingwa once wrote an essay, "In Memory of Lu Yao," in which he said: "Lu Yao was a man of grand ambitions. Literature may not have been his first choice in life, but whatever he set his hand to, he would have succeeded. His literature was like fire, blazing forth with a searing, brilliant radiance." That essay was written with great care. The opening lines went like this:
Time flies—Lu Yao has been dead for fifteen years now. In these fifteen years, I have often thought of him.
I think of a hilltop in Yanchuan, where he pointed at the county town below and said: Back then I wore a tattered cotton jacket, but I turned this place upside down—believe it or not!
I think Jia Pingwa knew what Lu Yao's "first choice" in life was, because Lu Yao had already made that first choice in 1966. What Lu Yao proudly recounted to him in his memories was precisely this first choice. There is a famous line in Jia Pingwa's essay—every version I've found reads as follows:
He was an outstanding writer. He was a man of magnificent force. But he was Kuafu, who collapsed of thirst on the road.
What a pity—this passage, which could almost serve as Lu Yao's definitive epitaph, is missing the most essential sentence. Jia Pingwa's original text read: He was a brilliant politician.
If we regard Lu Yao as a work of art completed upon the earth, this statement is perfectly apt. But on a practical level, this is indeed the kind of line that would be deleted from a published version. The fate of this sentence is practically Lu Yao's fate itself.
In 1966—that year of thunder and upheaval you all know—Wang Weiguo was seventeen. He had just graduated from Yanchuan Middle School's junior division and had not yet become the legendary Lu Yao. But even before Lu Yao, he had already made the name Wang Weiguo ring out. He threw himself into the "world-turning" rebel movement, becoming the commander of the middle school rebel faction "Jinggangshan." Wearing his tattered cotton jacket, he displayed the same "magnificent force" he would show throughout the rest of his life, becoming the publicly elected leader of a coalition of mass organizations, appointed commander of the "Yanchuan County Red Rebel Fourth Field Army." In 1968, after Yanchuan County implemented the "Three-in-One Combination" of military representatives, veteran cadres, and rebel faction leaders, Wang Weiguo became the Vice Chairman of the Yanchuan County Revolutionary Committee.
Yes—the same position Tian Fujun held in the original Xixian County in Ordinary World. It is said that Lu Yao, in his time as rebel leader and Revolutionary Committee vice chairman, showed great respect for and protected the veteran cadres—and Tian Fujun was precisely the kind of "veteran cadre" Lu Yao would have respected and protected. Starting from the vice chairmanship of the Revolutionary Committee, Tian Fujun's and Lu Yao's "political careers" diverged dramatically—one soaring to heaven, the other plunging to earth. And that, of course, is exactly why Lu Yao wrote Tian Fujun. Tian Fujun's life is the "first choice" Lu Yao wanted to become. When you see Tian Fujun's magical power on the political stage, make no mistake—Lu Yao was exercising the author's prerogative.
Tian Fujun was overthrown at the start of the Cultural Revolution—that was the era when rebel vanguards like Lu Yao were riding high. It was precisely the Lu Yaos of the world who toppled Tian Fujun. After 1970, Tian Fujun served continually as vice chairman of the Xixian County Revolutionary Committee, and later, during a political turning point, his career found new momentum. Lu Yao's political career, however, died in the very years Tian Fujun was making his comeback: in 1969, as military representatives and veteran cadres struck back nationwide, Lu Yao—tainted by his rebel origins—was stripped of his post and sent back to the countryside as an "educated youth." In truth, Lu Yao's fate wasn't the worst—many rebel leaders were executed, while he merely returned to rural life. This perhaps confirms the rumors that Lu Yao had indeed protected the veteran cadres. But his prospects were undeniably bleak. There was a real danger of "rotting away" in the countryside. It was probably around this time that his Beijing-born girlfriend, Lin Hong, dumped him. Even after he later began seeing another Beijing-born educated youth, Lin Da, he reportedly never fully recovered emotionally.
By the time the Cultural Revolution ended, Lu Yao was in even worse shape. He was unmistakably one of the "Three Types of People"—blacklisted, never to be employed again. Yet Lu Yao fought his way out. In the early 1980s, he won a national award with a novella, then wrote Life, which shook the nation. You know the rest. Lu Yao wrote a wonderful essay—Morning Begins at Noon—describing how, with six years of grueling labor, he completed Ordinary World. Although critics were initially cool, the novel was picked up by China Central People's Broadcasting Station for serialization before it was even finished, sweeping the nation, and in 1991 it was awarded the Mao Dun Literary Prize.
Literary success seemed to sweep away the shadow of Lu Yao's political origins. It is said that in 1992, the Shaanxi Provincial Committee had decided to make him Chairman of the Shaanxi Writers' Association, but he died before he could take office. In 2018, Lu Yao was "awarded the title of Reform Pioneer by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, presented with the Reform Pioneer Medal, and recognized as an outstanding writer who inspired hundreds of millions of rural youth to join the reform and opening up."* If Lu Yao had lived to the present day, becoming a national leader like Tie Ning would have been a highly probable outcome.
Of course, such a path might not have been Lu Yao's ideal. Lu Yao's ideal was to become Tian Fujun—to ride the great waves, turning the world upside down, climbing to the summit of power and fame while also possessing the moral legitimacy he could boast of, just as depicted in Ordinary World. An extreme hunger for glory, an extreme self-respect, combined with an extreme pursuit of moral and spiritual achievement in the universal sense—that was Lu Yao. Lu Yao was successful in worldly terms, dazzling—famous, prize-winning, married to an outstanding woman, wanting her to be both Tian Xiaoxia and He Xiulian. Yet even all this wasn't enough—not enough to console the boy within.
He had too much reality and too many dreams to write about. A successful politician, like the one he'd met in that cave dwelling. A proud young man who never presumed to court the city girl. Another proud young man, more precocious than himself, richer in spirit, maintaining humor, self-respect, and faith in love despite an enormous gap in social standing.
He wrote about women too. Tian Xiaoxia's letter to Shaoping did not disappoint—her diary passionately called out to "the coal-mining man." But there were women who sent breakup letters at a man's lowest point! He wrote Liu Qiaozhen, who told Gao Jialing: "I'll provide for you." You think Lu Yao was writing a Mary Sue? This was something a real woman actually said to the man then still named Wang Weiguo—the real version was probably even more saccharine. He wrote He Xiulian, who though she grumbled a little, still supported Shaoan and let him prop up his wretched family. Lu Yao's own wife, Lin Da, was apparently not so "understanding." And he wrote Runye—how she suffered, married to a man she didn't love. Wasn't that the very Lin Hong who had abandoned him?
He had to write. Writing was partly for worldly achievement, but worldly achievement alone wasn't enough. He needed to write his ideals and his regrets into the work, into the various fates he extrapolated. Only this way could he soothe the wounds Lu Yao had suffered from poverty and deprivation, and only this way could he justify the pain he'd endured and the self-respect he'd sacrificed for those youthful collisions of the heart inside the cave dwelling.
This is what "damn it all to hell, literature" means. This crude expression was reportedly what Lu Yao said to his younger brother when going to Beijing to accept the prize (the Mao Dun Literary Prize)—the immediate cause being poverty; his brother had scrambled to borrow money to cover his travel expenses. But even in poverty, wasn't he still going to do it?
After winning the Mao Dun Literary Prize, he once described how receiving the award made him feel: "I've trampled them all beneath my feet!" This was said in private. In his public acceptance speech, he said: "The people are our mother; life is the source of art. The great tree of the people's life is evergreen through the ages, and perching upon its branches, we cannot help but sing. Only by never losing the sensibility of the common laborer can we grasp the mainstream of the historical process, and only then can we create works of art that are truly valuable. Therefore, immersing ourselves wholeheartedly in life, and comprehending the grand realm of human existence and art through the laboring masses who build great history, great reality, and a great future with their own calloused hands—this should be our lifelong pursuit."
I believe both statements are completely sincere, completely self-aware. When delivering each passage, Lu Yao knew absolutely what he was saying—knew exactly what shape he was sculpting his life into. This is precisely what makes Lu Yao, as a work of art, so breathtaking.
(To be continued)