A hundred years ago, Lu Xun salvaged forgotten stories in countless ancient books and wrote "Casting Swords", while a hundred years later, Xi Jiu gave shape to this old classic through more than a hundred paintings—and arranging them into a magnificent long poem. When we gaze at these ancient fictional characters, we gain an understanding of the modern world through an emotional intimacy.
Author | Qu Rui
"Casting Swords", original: Lu Xun Editor: Xijiu, Edition: A page folio| Guangxi Normal University Press, July 2021
In Why Read the Classics, Calvino writes: "Classics are books that have a special effect, either in themselves imprinting our imagination in memorable ways, or disguised as individual or collective unconsciouss hidden in deep memory." This sentence tells the inner secret of what makes a work a "classic": the work should have some kind of hidden connection with the culture in which it is rooted, and when we read a classic, on the one hand, the cultural memory hidden deep in us is activated, and on the other hand, we ourselves are reshaped by the work. Whether we realize it or not, this is exactly what happens when we read Lu Xun's novel "Casting Swords".
1
Rooted in the traditional narrative dynamics ("revenge") of monarchical, patriarchal societies, Cast Sword unfolds along a series of grotesque and bizarre plots that eventually become a profoundly allegorical oriental myth. However, the birth of a classic myth is not out of historical accident, but out of long accumulation. Earlier, Lu Xun talked about the origin of Chinese classical novels in his literary history book "Historical Outline of the Chinese Novel" (the advent of this book filled the gap in the study of classical Chinese novels at that time):
"Zhi Wei's works, Zhuangzi said to have Qi Harmonious, Liezi said Yi Jian, but they are all fables, not enough to be trustworthy. The "Han Zhi" is a cloud out of barnyard officials, but barnyard officials, the job is only to collect rather than create, the street talk was born in the folk, so it is not a person who is alone in a certain place, explore its roots, then it is also Utah, lies in myths and legends. ”
It seems to be realized that the "myths and legends" created by folk collectives hide some kind of national secret. By the autumn of 1926, Mr. Lu Xun decided to pick up some ancient myths and legends and create a "New Compilation of Stories". However, for some inexplicable reason, it was not until 1936 (the year of Lu Xun's death) that the New Edition of the Story was finally published. The book includes eight novels, the characters are selected from early myths and legends, almost all of which are familiar to the folk as the protagonists, such as Nuwa, Houyi, Chang'e, Yu, Boya, Shuqi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Mozi... It can be said that it is these mythological figures and their legends that have laid the most original sense of Chinese national identity. With the exception of "Cast Sword", this legendary story comes from the ancient books of zhiwei ("Lieyi Biography", "Search for God", etc.), and Lu Xun has recorded one of these versions in his "Ancient Novel Hook Sink", which is closest to the plot of the later novel "Cast Sword".
Ruler between the eyebrows
Back to the autumn of 1926, when Lu Xun wrote "Cast Sword". This year was an extremely special year in Lu Xun's creative career. Lu Xun was forty-five years old at the time, and had previously established himself as the first chinese vernacular novel with a series of realistic novels. In March 1926, in response to the "March 18 Massacre", Lu Xun published the famous essays "Dead Land" and "Remembering Liu and Zhenjun", so he was hunted down by the government at that time and had to take temporary refuge. Then the Northern Expedition swept across the country, and the Beiyang government collapsed, although this is only an ordinary chapter in China's modern history full of killing and rebellion, and Lu Xun's article reveals a kind of almost disheartened despair.
"The 'death' of the martyrs is the only elixir for the 'life' of future generations, but in a nation that no longer feels heavy, it is nothing but something that is crushed together."
The article "Dead Land" records the endless pain of revolutionaries "going to die in vain" in the dark era of Lu Xun's life, and seems to be able to form an intertext with the theme of "Cast Sword". After all, the ruler and the man in black in "Forged Sword", one for revenge, one to avenge others, and finally both sacrificed their lives.
2
This legend is included in ancient books, and the original version is only a few hundred words. The story focuses on the sacrifice of the characters, giving the two chivalrous romantic sadness. In most versions of ancient texts, the characters in the story don't even have names.
In the novel "Cast Sword", Lu Xun named the legendary characters and shaped their personalities - the ruler between the eyebrows is weak and kind, and always lacks the determination of chivalry; and the black-clad Yan Zhi Ao (and Lu Xun once used "Yan Zhi Ao" as a pen name) is mysterious, like a ghost suddenly appearing from a dim place. The two seemed to have walked out of ancient books and had a living life. In particular, the "Feast of Ao" in the novel, as a clone of Lu Xun, almost directly conveys the author's concept. When Mei Jian learned that the Man in Black was willing to avenge him, believing that the Man in Black was out of righteousness, the Ao of the Feast replied:
"Righteousness, sympathy, those things, which were once clean, are now the capital for the release of ghost debts. I don't have what you call it in my heart. I'm just going to avenge you. ”
And when the ruler between the eyebrows offered the sword and the head as promised, the feaster said:
"Yours is mine; he is me." There are so many wounds in my soul, man I have inflicted. I already hate myself! ”
Here, the feaster transforms into the father of the eyebrow ruler who died, or countless dead people who have been wronged like the father of the eyebrow ruler. A ghost flying above the age, he has the collective memory of mankind and has witnessed the change of the times, so he returns from Hades to take revenge on power. It can be said that the Ao of the Feast, that is, Lu Xun's doppelganger, contains Lu Xun's anger and Lu Xun's despair. And Lu Xun injected his life energy into this old legend, so that this story got rid of the fate of annihilation in the vast ancient books and ranked among the mythological chronicles we are familiar with today.
The Ruler of the Eyebrows and the Ao of the Feast
3
Nearly a century later, Xi Jiu followed Lu Xun's text and adapted "Cast Sword" into an image novel. The eyebrow ruler and the feast of the Ao are given a visual image outside the name - the eyebrow ruler shows an exaggerated childishness, the weak eyes are full of the light of attachment to life, full of human tenderness and fragility; and the man in black is shaped into a mysterious image between the thin ghost and the black giant bird, and his eyes seem to come from two beams of phosphorus fire in the underworld, flashing in the dim background.
In his creative speech, Xi Jiu said: "Each of us has a certain hatred on our shoulders—not a narrow hatred or a dramatic hatred, but more importantly, a responsibility, which may be somewhat foolish, such as making the world a better place, or adding a grain of sand to the castle of human nature instead of destroying it; but we do not have the courage to commit to these responsibilities, and it is sadder that sometimes we are even incapable of taking them." But can we still be brave without great strength? ”
We noticed that the old wine gave the character of the eyebrow ruler a part that was overlooked in many novels. When the picture presents the world of the eyebrow ruler, there is a conscious sense of confrontation: the external landscape (behavior, environment) in the eyebrow ruler is simple, but the scene inside the mind is delicate—it seems to symbolize a fierce collision of a soft heart and a rough reality. He is more like an ordinary person living around us than a person from ancient books. In the middle of the book, XiJiu specially designed a black-and-white pull page for the eyebrow ruler (the eight moments when the eyebrow ruler is dying), and it doesn't matter if the reader turns it directly over it - but just a second we turn the page, an ordinary person bravely chooses to take on his responsibilities and look back on his life with affection. The dilemma of the ruler between the eyebrows, so there is a moving power through time.
When the battle was over, when the Meijian Ruler and the Yan Zhi Ao joined forces to kill the King of Chu, the two heads floated in the Golden Ding and looked at each other for the last time in the water. We see that the eyes of the ruler between the eyebrows are full of blood, which is exhaustion after the battle, and in the golden eyes of the feaster is the relief of the completion of the mission. When these two pairs of eyes jump out of the context of words and look at each other on the paper, we suddenly realize that the ruler between the eyebrows and the Ao of the Feast are like two completely different characters, and like two stages in a person's life. With a pair of childish eyes, he saw the absurdity of the order of power; and the Feaster was saddled with heavy anger and was bound to take action.
If the sacrifice of the eyebrow ruler is full of helplessness, then the sacrifice of the feaster is more like an aesthetic about "sacrifice" formed by the lives of countless dead. Sacrifice, not for revenge itself, but for the reunion of the three heads in the golden dome, for the magnificent battle, so that their own bones become the eternal thorn in the graveyard of power. Only such a sacrifice can become the "elixir" of the living without being destroyed by time; only such a sacrifice can solidify Lu Xun's lifelong literary combat history and become a classic that is constantly circulating; only such a sacrifice can allow two creators who have been separated by a century to look at each other in the same story.
Xi Jiu's pictorial novel is a translation of this literary classic in a visual language. Color is her language: cyan is both the color of the morning and the color of the sword, which seems to allude to the breath of the times and the power of the secret pulsation; black symbolizes death and is used to speak of hatred; red is the color of blood, representing the sacrifice of life; and bright yellow, as a symbol of ancient power, shows the characteristics of brightness and decay. In the bright yellow panorama, the group portraits retreat into the distance, becoming small and even grotesque, as if shrouded in a yellow color symbolizing power. At this point, color, as a metaphor, enters the realm of storytelling. And each color is like a musical track, they travel on their own path, intermittently, wait, reproduce, and join other colors into a narrative river, becoming a symphony on the theme of "sacrifice".
A hundred years ago, Lu Xun salvaged forgotten stories in countless ancient books and wrote "Casting Swords", while a hundred years later, Xi Jiu gave shape to this old classic through more than a hundred paintings—and arranging them into a magnificent long poem. When we gaze at these ancient fictional characters, we gain an understanding of the modern world through an emotional intimacy. We realize that the classic is not a cold monument, and everyone can choose to go a short distance and polish it themselves. While polishing the classics, we also see ourselves.
This article is an exclusive original article. Author: Qu Rui; Editor: Zhang Jin; Proofreader: Xue Jingning. It shall not be reproduced without the written authorization of the Beijing News.