Ordinary World by the late Chinese author Lu Yao has been adapted into a TV series. The novel was first published nearly three decades ago, and a previous attempt to bring the story to the small screen in 1989 failed.

The 56-episode series has been aired on four channels since last month. It reportedly cost its makers 120 million yuan ($19.2 million) and took seven years to complete.

In 1991, Lu's most famous work earned him the Mao Dun Literature Prize, one of China's most prestigious literary awards. In the next 20 years, almost 5 million copies of the novel were sold.

Ordinary World took Lu six years to write, and he is said to have extensively researched Chinese newspapers printed from 1975 to 1985, in a bid to make his book reflect the realities of the time and also add as much historical context as possible.

From the perspective of two brothers' struggles, the novel mostly shows the lives of people in rural China from the mid-1970s to the 1980s.

The book also draws from the author's own experiences of rural life in his native northwestern Shaanxi province, where he once was a poor farmer's son. Lu's rise to national prominence as an author was fairly dramatic following the success of the novel, but he couldn't enjoy fame for long. He passed away at age 43, leaving his family to deal with an unpaid debt of more than 10,000 yuan.

That his marital life might have been in crisis too, was reportedly revealed later, when his brother told the media that the author had signed a draft agreement for divorce with his wife three months before his death, but the couple failed to make it legal owing to Lu's poor health.

The TV series, however, still proves that Lu remains one of China's favorite storytellers. A recent survey shows the book as the "third-most borrowed book from college libraries", media report. As many as 31,000 short reviews connected to the novel are posted on Baidu Tieba, a popular Chinese online forum.

"I always ask a question before starting a new script. 'Will the drama give something valuable to my kids?' Ordinary World is definitely such a classic work. If I didn't take the job, I would be a fool," says Wen Haojie, the TV series' scriptwriter.

Wen has previously written scripts for All Men are Brothers, a hit TV series adapted from the ancient Chinese classic Outlaws of the Marsh.

Wen says that some TV professionals had warned him not to take up the project as the book's subject was "too difficult to win audience ratings" today.

Poor reviews and ratings followed the 1989 broadcast of a 14-episode TV adaptation of Ordinary World.

In China, as most well-received TV shows these days revolve around themes such as urban romance and war, investors are slow to put in their money on productions that depict farmers and factory workers.

"I wouldn't fail Lu's painstaking work. For millions of Chinese who grew up during the tough times, it's (novel) an ensemble of memories," the TV series' director Mao Weining says.

"The fate of a classical work should be remembered and talked about for generations."

Mistaken as a native farmer by the locals of Shaanxi, where most of the new series was shot, Wang Lei, the lead actor, who usually plays savvy urban roles on TV, says as the shooting neared its end, Sun Shao'an, his character from the Ordinary World series "grew up from an infant to an adult in my heart".

"The era was tough and poverty-stricken, but the people never stopped pursuing their dreams," the 33-year-old actor says of the setting in Lu's novel.

Xufan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 03/12/2015 page9)