Last week, a friend and I got into a fight over a book.
It was a small book similar to interview records, called Bi Qu Oral. Because the subject matter is quite special, forgive me for not being able to describe too many of the contents of the book, so I can only give a general concept: this is an underground publication.
The so-called underground generally refers to “secret” products that have not been approved by the General Administration of Publishing. Of course, this is an exaggeration, because there are many reasons why the book number cannot be obtained in fact, it may be that it does not comply with the publishing regulations, or it may be due to the lack of the book number of the publisher, the lack of the book number for private gifts, the lack of author funds, etc.
My roommate in college gave me a collection of poems made by him, and of course it didn’t have a book number.
Since none of these books have been uniformly reviewed, the quality is mostly uneven. Sometimes it is quite interesting to pick and choose in it, especially the author who supports it can directly get all the economic benefits, which is somewhat gratifying.
It’s just that samizdat often has many problems compared to books on the shelves of official channels: piracy, poor print quality, overpriced, and so on.
“Bi Qu Oral” is like this. At the end of last year, when I saw the news of this book, I didn’t dare to start directly because of the lack of information on the Internet. It was not until I heard that it would be sold offline at a large book fair nearby that I prepared the money and went straight to the scene. If I wanted to, I would just buy a copy and go home.
As a result, I wandered around the crowded venue for an afternoon before I found the booth, and I was disappointed the moment I got the book.
In fact, the binding and design of the book itself are quite good, but I really did not expect that the book priced at 50 yuan is only the size of a palm and has about 100 pages. After patiently reading a few pages, I was even more disappointed. I thought that what I saw would be the personal observation and unique experience of the relevant industry, but I didn’t expect the actual form to be more like a magic-revised workplace novel.
I understand that for art, opinions and inspiration are sometimes more important than the content itself, but the huge psychological gap still cannot make me accept the reality. In the end, I turned around and went to another booth to buy two volumes of discussion records published by the art museum—only 150 yuan.
I thought this was the end of it, but when a friend brought up the book and thought it was so good, we had dozens of rounds of debate. It’s just that I didn’t read the book, and I became more and more at a loss for words. In the end, I had to agree to wait for me to buy it and read it before continuing the second half.
order while arguing
According to my friend, she read the life force from the dictator from this book, and because I was not interested in my own feelings, the value judgment of “what the best dictation should be” overwhelmed everything.
After calming down, I tried to read the book in its entirety without any expectations. It didn’t contain a lot of content. It took half an hour to read it, and the final conclusion did not change. This is a very good book. The magic-modified workplace novel, but it is still a workplace novel.
When I went back to report to my friend, she probably lost her desire for this debate. She just sighed at the book costing one dollar a page. Why didn’t I buy 200 packs of spicy sticks?
This feeling is really hard to describe. In the years of getting along with friends, I rarely argue with people about something so much that it takes a lot of energy to prove my point. Especially at such a high cost
Will anyone really pay except me?
In fact, it’s nothing, just a bit of a loss. After two or three days of reflection, I also gave up and continued to pursue it. After all, I bought everything, and the debate was ultimately fruitless. It just proved once again the ineffectiveness of human communication.
In the end, this incident will leave me with something of value. There is only a book that can be sold for a small profit, and a lesson to stop impulsive consumption next time.
By the way, I finally gave this book a two-star review on Douban (out of four or five stars), one for hard work and one for my lost 169 yuan.
childish!
When I came home as a volunteer in the high temperature of 41 degrees in Shanghai and encountered such a difficult night talk, I wanted to give up, but considering my good reputation, I still insisted on drawing it!
-CaesarZX
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