Zheng Zhenduo took "Border City" to the editorial office of "Novel Monthly" for discussion.

Generally speaking, the editor-in-chief of a journal has a great deal of power to determine the style of the journal as a whole.

Just like Zhou Shoujuan for "Freedom Talk" and Yan Duhe for "Happy Forest".

Shen Yanbing's "Novel Monthly" has a distinctive style, which is a position of realist literature, sparing no effort to criticize the old school literature such as the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, until they are cleaned up from the literary world.

It can be said that during this period, the goals of the Literary Research Society and the Creation Society were the same.

The counterattack of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly faction, and the intervention of people within the Commercial Press, led to the delay in the finalization of the August issue of "Novel Monthly" and the inability to typeset and print.

The manuscript selected by the editorial office was rejected by the staff of the Commercial Press, and the editorial department of the manuscript selected by the Commercial Press did not want to publish it, and the two sides often quarreled over a manuscript.

What they are fighting for is a position, whether it is conservative or innovative in the style after "Novel Monthly"?

Zheng Zhenduo played a coordinating role in this, he was not as radical as Shen Yanbing, and understood that if he wanted to keep the "Novel Monthly" in the hands of the Literary Research Association, he had to make certain compromises.

Especially in this stalemate, this is not a retreat, but a strategy of struggle.

"Fiction Monthly" is published on the 10th of each month, and there is not much time left for the editorial department.

The appearance of "Border City" attracted the attention of the editorial department and the staff of the Commercial Press, especially when they saw the author of the novel, they were all surprised, is this Lin Zixuan?

Lin Zixuan rarely submits to other publications, and he has his own newspaper and bookstore, with the only exception being Happy Forest.

This is very understandable, Yan Duhe has the grace of knowing him, and it is normal for him to publish novels in "Happy Forest".

With Lin Zixuan's fame, it's not that no one asks him for a manuscript, but he rarely gets a manuscript, at most one or two literary criticism articles or essay essays.

As for the novel, no one has ever succeeded.

Therefore, Zheng Zhenduo can get Lin Zixuan's latest novel, which is a reflection of strength and connections.

Everyone took turns to roughly flip through the novel, and the staff of the Commercial Press had no opinion, this novel did not have any radical ideas, and it had nothing to do with the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly Pie.

It should be Lin Zixuan's own unique style.

The Literary Research Society hesitated, "Border City" is indeed a realistic novel, or a rare masterpiece in vernacular novels, but they always feel weird.

It is completely different from the Lu Xun-style vernacular novels they have read in the past, can such novels represent the direction of new literature?

They can't make up their minds.

In the end, Zheng Zhenduo made a decision to publish this novel, after all, this is the manuscript he invited, even if he is the acting editor-in-chief, he has the right to make this decision.

The two sides agreed on this issue, and the next thing to discuss was where to place the novel.

In this day and age, the ordering of articles in newspapers and magazines is very important.

In a magazine, whose article is ranked first and whose article is ranked second, this is all exquisite, and cannot be arranged casually, otherwise it will cause contradictions between authors, and even the author's dissatisfaction with the magazine.

Generally speaking, the order is based on the size of the author's fame.

For example, Zhou Shoujuan's "Saturday" editor-in-chief, he ranks his articles first in each issue.

This is related to his status in the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly faction, and he doesn't want other writers to compete for this position and cause contradictions.

I'm the first, don't fight for the ones behind you, what's coming at me, it's very domineering.

In Lin Zixuan's "Popular Fiction Weekly", the first edition is "Smiling Proud Jianghu", the second edition is "Gone with the Wind", and the third edition is Zhang Jishui's novel.

Ping Ban Ya would never get this order wrong, although Lin Zixuan didn't care.

In order to recommend Pingjiang Buxiaosheng's "The Legend of Jianghu Heroes", Lin Zixuan even gave the first edition to "The Legend of Jianghu Heroes", of course, only that issue of the newspaper.

Even if he is a big boss, it is difficult for him to break this unwritten rule.

Yan Duhe's "Happy Forest" was placed on the last page when "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" was first published, and then moved to the middle, and finally moved to the front.

This is a change based on Lin Zixuan's fame and the popularity of the novel.

Lin Zixuan's new novel "Dragon Babu" has just been serialized in the first edition, and other writers can't say anything.

Back to the magazine "Novel Monthly", if there are articles by Lu Xun and Hu Shi, it is natural to rank them first, and then rank them one by one according to the columns of the publication and the fame of the author.

For this "Border City", they are quite difficult.

Lin Zixuan is very famous, and he has the title of "Three Masters of New Literature", but he has never written a novel of the new literary genre before, if he is ranked first, what will other veteran new literature writers think.

Some people may not care, but there will always be people who will.

Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, why is there such a title as "the first swordsman", because there are always people who like to compete for the first.

But if Lin Zixuan's novel is ranked last, what will Lin Zixuan think, will he think that he has been neglected? What will other writers think, will someone use the topic to play and use this to satirically attack Lin Zixuan?

There are all kinds of people in this world, and there is nothing strange about it.

The staff of the Commercial Press supported Lin Zixuan in the first place, they knew that Lin Zixuan's reputation in Shanghai, and if this issue of "Novel Monthly" used Lin Zixuan's new novel as a publicity stunt, the sales would definitely increase a lot.

The people in the Literary Research Society are more ambivalent.

There are also several literary reviews in this issue of "Novel Monthly", all of which are drafts by writers who are more qualified in the new literature, and they have finally invited manuscripts.

For this kind of problem, Lin Zixuan once thought of using the first letter of the writer's surname to sort according to the Lin's Hanyu Pinyin scheme, but this is unfair to those writers whose surnames are lower.

For example, Hu Shihui has always been in front of Lu Xun.

Or use the first letter of the first word of the article name to sort it, but in this way, will the writer start with the word "A" when naming the article in the future?

Of course, he just thinks about it when he's bored, and doesn't mean to break this tradition.

The editorial department of "Novel Monthly" finally put "Border City" in the first article at the insistence of the Commercial Press.

In this way, they also have a reason to shirk, not that we don't work hard, but that the Commercial Press is too domineering.

In this way, in the midst of repeated ridicule and debate, the manuscripts of Volume 13, No. 8 of "Novel Monthly" were finally arranged.

Zheng Zhenduo couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and he told Lin Zixuan the news published in "Border City".

Lin Zixuan is not surprised, "Border City" is Shen Congwen's representative work, and it can also be said to be his best work, and it is strange that "Novel Monthly" is not published.

Later, in June 1999, Asia Weekly launched the "Top 100 Chinese Novels of the 20th Century", ranking the top 100 novels written in Chinese around the world in the 20th century.

The voting for this ranking are all well-known scholars and writers at home and abroad.

In this list, the novel collection "The Scream" ranked first, and "Border City" ranked second.