Lu Xun
"February 2 sunny,Get A shin;B coming."
"It rained on March 3, collected C school salary X yuan, and replied to D letter."
This is what Lu Xun himself said about the contents of his diary.
As far as the writings left by Lu Xun are concerned, I am afraid that only his diary can best record his "real life", but at the same time it is the most "boring and boring". For researchers, Lu Xun's words can be described as auspicious, however, the 24-year diary left by Lu Xun in his life (from May 5, 1912, when he moved north with the Ministry of Education to October 18, 1936, the day before his death, except for the loss of the diary in 1922), such a "huge" lu Xun self-recorded daily activities of the first-hand information, but for the average reader, even researchers, "nothing to see", "not very useful".
A "memo" diary, who wants to read it?
To be honest, his diary reads, or simply dull, tastes like chewing wax, or in the clouds and fog, inexplicable, so it is often discouraging and far away. It is said that it is so dull and tastes the same as chewing wax, because it is recorded in its diary, almost the same flow of accounts, the content is mostly for the daily life of letters, silver money exchanges, visitors and friends, etc., there is little emotional expression and judgment. It is inexplicable to say that its clouds are in the fog, because its diary is like gold and extremely simple. A pile of bones, almost no flesh and blood. Not to mention the sometimes use of various pronouns, "hidden languages" that only he "understands" more, or even only he himself can understand.
The first page of Lu Xun's diary manuscript
What makes Lu Xun's diary so impatience?
Lu Xun once said that there are two schools of writing diaries. One school is "written for oneself", there is no need to empty the shelf, from which "the true face can be seen", this is the "authentic school" of the diary. In fact, most people's diaries are exactly like that. For example, Hu Shi's early study abroad diary, Ji Xianlin's diary, etc. "To be honest, watching women play basketball... It's looking at the thighs. Attached middle school female classmates doubled their thighs black, only to watch the half-time return. From this, we can see the true face of Ji Xianlin when he was young. One school is "writing in diaries" and "those who are determined to make statements, intend to praise and deprecate, and want to be known and afraid of others", which we call "other sects". His compatriot Li Ci remembered the diary like this, in fact, like the late Qing Dynasty Guo Songtao, Xue Fucheng and other envoys to Ouxi diaries, but also mostly for the purpose of writing.
His own diary, however, is different from the above two, more like a "memorandum" for "memorandums". "The writing is a letter exchange, the receipt and payment of silver money, it does not matter the face, let alone whether it is true or false." He said, "My purpose is only to write down who has written a letter in order to reply, or when it has been replied, especially the salary of the school, the percentage of what year and month it has been received, sporadically, always unclear, there must be an account to check, almost two nonsense, I also know how much debt I have put outside, in case I want to become a small rich man after the future is paid off." Besides, there is no ambition. (Lu Xun: "Immediate Diary") It can be seen that his diary is exactly such a kind of "memorandum" for himself. In fact, it is. Of course, it is not only Lu Xun who keeps a diary like this, but also Xu Shichang's diary, and Xu's diary is even more tedious to the point of almost "uniformity". Of course, today, we see a kind of diary of Lu Xun", and we do not have to regret it, because his feelings, thoughts, creations and scholarship are all embodied in his various writings, and there is no need to write in the form of a diary.
As a diary of this "third genre" of a memorandum nature, Lu Xun's diary can be said to be "only his own". First, he wrote it "for himself", and not only did he not have the heart to make it public, but he also excluded people from reading his diary. When he discovered that che Gengnan, a distant relative who had lived in his home in Beijing, had secretly read his diary, he took it back to Shanghai in 1932 when he went north to the province. Sometimes to prevent accidents, when referring to some sensitive people and events, he even used all kinds of "blindfold methods", even if outsiders saw it, they could not see why it came, which showed his intention to refuse people thousands of miles away; second, because his diary was of a "memorandum" nature, and the record was quite simple.
Such a diary is spread out in front of people's eyes, who wants to see it? Who can understand it?
However, although Lu Xun's diary belongs only to himself, Lu Xun is a celebrity after all, and once he dies, his diary does not belong to him in form, and everyone can look at it openly and honestly, and there is no need to secretly turn it over like Che Gengnan, which is impossible and unnecessary before he died. The problem is that although everyone can see his diary, in terms of content, because of the nature of the "memorandum", in essence it still belongs to himself, only a few words, this is just a "thread", after the thread, what is written, to the "outsider", is not very clear, or even "dazed".
This is a difficult problem left to the world by Lu Xun's diary.
How to pull out the "story" behind this "thread", or even "secret"? If Lu Xun was alive, none of this would be a problem. The question is, Lu Xun is dead, what to do?
Annotate Lu Xun's diary
Recently, I read a new book by Mr. Wang Xirong published by the People's Literature Publishing House, entitled "Lu Xun of the Diary", which is a work that interprets the diary of Lu Xun that makes ordinary readers and researchers stay away.
Such a book cannot be said to be written only by Mr. Wang Xirong, at least Mr. Wang is one of the very few people who are most suitable for interpreting Lu Xun's diary. He successively participated in and presided over the diary annotation work of the Complete Works of Lu Xun in 1981 and 2005. In 1976, the State Administration of Publications held a working conference on the annotation of Lu Xun's works, and Fudan University in Shanghai was responsible for the compilation and annotation of Lu Xun's diary during the Shanghai period (October 1927 to October 1936), and Wang Xirong, who was a worker at the Shanghai Fifth Iron and Steel Plant at the time, participated in the annotation of Lu Xun's diary. In order to complete this annotation work, they searched for all the historical materials of the people and events mentioned in Lu Xun's diary, and visited the relevant figures who were alive at that time, and rescued many living historical materials from them. I am afraid that this annotation work has also laid a solid academic foundation for Mr. Wang's growth from a "steel worker" to a Lu Xun expert who specialized in Lu Xun's research later. Such opportunities are unattainable, and these achievements are finally reflected in the 1981 edition of The Complete Works of Lu Xun. Later, Wang Xirong served as one of the leaders of the diary annotation work of the 2005 edition of the Complete Works of Lu Xun.
Today, more than 40 years later, he took out a copy of "Lu Xun of the Diary", which can be said to be a natural thing. Without these work as a foundation, without 40 years of Lu Xun's research efforts, such a book could not be written. Therefore, such a book cannot be said to be the "only" candidate, at least the "only two" candidates.
The story after pulling out the "thread"
As mentioned earlier, the difficulty of Lu Xun's diary lies in its brevity, because it is too concise, it is simply dull, full of threads, full of bones, and sometimes there are all kinds of "blindfold methods". Therefore, in the face of Lu Xun's diary, the most important thing is to be able to pull out the story after the thread, to plump the flesh and blood on the bone, to feel strong feelings in the objective narrative, and even to find a "word" in the "wordless" and "cause trouble" at the "nothing".
As the author said, "When you first read Lu Xun's diary, you may feel monotonous and tasteless, but if you know the stories behind many diaries, you will find that Lu Xun's diaries are very flavorful." In the simple and silent record, there is a wealth of content and a strong emotional color. In Wang Xirong's eyes, Lu Xun's diary, every person, every thing, every book title, every message has a story. That's the kind of work he's doing, and he's doing it.
Here, taking the use and "disclosure" of some "hidden words" in Lu Xun's diary as an example, let's take Wang Xirong's wonderful interpretation work.
In Lu Xun's diaries, especially when it comes to left-wing politicians and activities, Lu Xun mostly uses hidden words, borrowed words, and allusions to record them for security purposes. For example, he often uses pseudonyms, pseudonyms, and even pronouns to record some left-wing figures. For example, in his diary, he often recorded Feng Xuefeng as "Xie Fang", "Xue Fang", "Duan Ren" and "Le Yang". These pronouns, "even Feng Xuefeng himself may not be able to understand." For another example, in his diary, he recorded Qu Qiubai, a leading figure of the Communist Party of China, as "Wei Ning", "it", "doubtful ice", "suspicious", "Ninghua", and "Wen Yin". On July 5, 1933, Lu Xun's diary recorded "Doubts and Wen Yinxin, and a copy of the manuscript". The 2005 edition of The Complete Works of Lu Xun annotated the "manuscript" as "referring to the manuscript of the Liberated Dong Quixote, translated by Qu Qiubai". There is no comment on the "doubtful" that is, Qu Qiubai. However, why is the "suspicious" Qu Qiubai? Wang Xirong analyzes us in his book, saying that the name "Wen Yin" is the pen name of Yang Zhihua, the wife of Qu Qiubai, "仌" (the ancient "ice" character) is another way of writing "冫", "Doubtful" is the dismantling of "condensation", and "He Ning" is the pen name that Qu Qiubai once used. In this way, a Qu Qiubai who was hidden in Lu Xun's diary appeared in this way.
Of course, there are also some that cannot be fully explained. On February 7, 1931, when the five martyrs of the Left League were killed in Longhua, Lu Xun wrote in his diary on that day: "Collect 450 yuan from the Shenzhou Guoguang Society, and donate 100 yuan to redeem Huang Hou. From the 450 yuan manuscript fee, he suddenly took out 100 yuan to generously redeem a person named "Huang Houhua", but who is this "Huang Houhua"? The 2005 edition of "The Complete Works of Lu Xun" has no annotations, And Wang Xirong's new book says that he began to speculate that this was a pronoun for the five martyrs of the "Left Alliance", but there was no basis, this problem was difficult for generations of researchers, and later Mr. Sun Yong pondered hard, and suddenly thought of a sentence of "painting after the fact", that is, when painting, it is necessary to sketch first, and then color. It seems that this "yellow post-painting" can be interpreted as "flavin". "And Huang Su was exactly the name of a member of the Left Wing Drama League who was arrested at that time," "He was arrested in the autumn of 1930, when relatives and friends were trying to rescue him." Although there is no 100% evidence for this conclusion, according to Lu Xun's custom, this explanation is possible.
Mr. Wang also told us that in Lu Xun's diary, books related to Marxism-Leninism, Lu Xun omitted these "sensitive" words at that time. For example, "Marxism and Jurisprudence" is recorded as "Jurisprudence", and "Marx's Economic Concept" is recorded as "Economic Concept".
As for "inviting Roushi to eat noodles in the Happy Forest and then to the Church of law" was actually For Lu Xun to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Great Alliance of the Chinese Freedom Movement, and "going to the Juelu Hotel with Xuefeng" was actually Lu Xun's meeting with Li Lisan, the supreme leader of the CPC at that time. Such a bland record contains some major sensitive events.
Wonderful statements like these are everywhere and abound.
The story of Lu Xun's diary after only a few words, if not analyzed and pointed out by Mr. Wang Xirong, is difficult for ordinary readers to know. Of course, not all the records of Lu Xun's diary can be deciphered, and some of the contents still make people scratch their heads, I am afraid that only Lu Xun himself knows. When can Mr. Wang write an "undeciphered diary of Lu Xun" to list the contents that are still inexplicable and have been taken underground by Lu Xun.
It's all small questions, off-topics, and strange problems
"Cracking" is the basic and premise of reading Lu Xun's diary, "Lu Xun of the Diary" is not only cracked, on this basis, Wang Xirong is doing research and exposition work, but his research is different from the monograph with a solemn and grand topic, a serious and restrained form, this "Lu Xun of the Diary", including the preface and afterword, has a total of 50 questions, with a simple diary as the scripture, with the knowledge of the vast and miscellaneous knowledge as the latitude, from the eyes of ordinary words to get the title, digging the spirit in the ordinary trivia. Such as Lu Xun's diary clerical errors, special language, emotional catharsis, "nothing" and "memory", "closed doors", attitude to uninvited guests, donations, collections, prices, food tastes, New Year's Eve, insomnia, debt, etc., are all irrelevant small topics, unnoticed partial topics, tricky and strange problems, but can be seen in a small way, unpopular, untouched. The reason why he was able to navigate academically was due to his more than 40 years of cultivation in the fire of Lu Xun's research.
Some words and phenomena, if viewed individually, have limited information and are not unusual, but if the "similar items" in all of Lu Xun's diaries are summarized and co-written, their meaning will be presented.
That's what Mr. Wang Xirong did. He summarized some phenomena that we are accustomed to and do not pay much attention to, but in the entire Lu Xun diary, it is very interesting to examine in detail, for example, lu Xun called "master" and "sir" in the diary? He sorted out the characters that Lu Xun called "shi" in his diary, including Shou Jingwu during the enlightenment period of Shaoxing, Yu Mingzhen during his study in Nanjing, and Zhang Taiyan when he studied in Tokyo. Among those who call him "Mr." Xia Zengyou, his immediate boss at the Ministry of Education, Cai Yuanpei, the educator Cai Yuanpei, the scholar Yu Quyuan, the Japanese doctor Sudo 503, and the eldest brother Xu Shouchang of his friend Xu Shoushou, were ten others. Wang Xirong used Lu Xun's clue and angle of the titles of "shi" and "sir" in his diary that he did not intend to show people, and "concentrated" these teachers and friends that Lu Xun truly respected. Another example is That Lu Xun participated in the Ministry of Education's confucius sacrifice activities. The author will sort out the situation in which Lu Xun participated in the sacrifice of the Confucius in the Guozijian between 1913 and 1924, when he was the chief of the first section of the Department of Social Education of the Ministry of Education, which not only shows the helplessness and coping of Lu Xun's duties as an employee of the Ministry of Education, but also shows Lu Xun's "lamentation" and disgust for the sacrifice. For another example, buying books, reading books, and collecting books is a major hobby of Lu Xun, and Lu Xun's diary has recorded a lot in this regard, and Wang Xirong has concatenated the diary contents of Lu Xun's visits, readings, book tasting, book signing, and copying books, and reveals to us Lu Xun's mentality, interests, and the relationship between reading and his works.
"Lu Xun of the Diary" by Wang Xirong
Published by People's Literature Publishing House in January 2019
In this "Diary of Lu Xun" by Wang Xirong, we can see the story literally in the "memorandum" diary left by Lu Xun, and encounter novelty in the ordinary.
Author: Chen Zhanbiao
Editor: Wang Qiutong