A corner of the bookstore. Photo by Xi Xi
Text / Chen Pengju
A friend sent me a cover image of a book. The cover is a red background, a large geometric black tree, and a few yellow birds. Simple three colors, very pleasing to the eye. Qian Junzao once told me that the cover is at most three colors, and more is not good. It can be seen that it is everyone's words. This is the first book I wrote, tens of thousands of words of reportage, and the title is Barkin and the Child in Search of the Ideal. Thirty-five years ago, I was thirty-five years old and wrote with Zhilin.
Can a book be written back and forth with the letters of a group of primary school students and Ba Lao in Wuxi Qianqiao? Zhang Qiulin, the president of the Children's Publishing House at that time, asked Gao Yunsheng, the editor of the children's publishing house, to accompany me to Qianqiao to have a look first. I saw the group of elementary school students and felt that I could write. Gao immediately contacted the president, mainly asking him to remit some funds so that we could stay for a few days, and after the interview, we could also drink a small drink at the stalls everywhere.
Gao is a wonderful person. That night, when he was drunk, he secretly and secretly announced that there were three major poets, He Jingzhi, Guo Xiaochuan, and gao Yunsheng. I said that the first two daimyōs were like thunder, and the fate was on the same side. The predecessor is the daimyō Xisheng, and it is a great fortune to have the opportunity to see it! So I made a drink for each of them. In that hurry, I don't know if the seniors can be okay now? Zhilin and Ba Lao are acquainted. In this book he wrote the Ba Lao part, I wrote the children part. He and I knew each other's writing, wrote each other, and put it together, as one person did.
He Jingzhi and Ke Yan and his wife. Xinhua News Agency
Xianghong, an old classmate, saw these words and told me that Gao died five years later at the age of sixty. Jin Sheng also gave me a phone call, saying that the two replies from Ba Lao mentioned in the book, he had seen it with his own eyes, and also sent me pictures of the original letter.
Speaking of Ba Lao's reply, my colleagues Jin Gen and Zhou Bin also received them when they were young. Jingen's topic was about the article "We Met Commander Peng Dehuai". Ba Lao replied with two letters. Zhou Bin asked for advice on reading and writing. Ba Lao also replied. I read all these letters later. The intuition is that Ba Lao looks at the horizon and holds the heart.
At the time of writing this book, I had not yet met Ba Lao. Some years later, the "Chaohua" supplement was five thousand issues, and I visited Ba Lao with Zhilin, Shen Yang, and Jingen. Ba Lao is not good at talking. Not much, talking about some of his association with "Asaka". When I got back, I recorded what he said from memory. I lined it up in lead, printed it out, and sent it to him. This is the article "My Congratulations" that was later published on the commemorative edition of the 5,000th issue of "Asahi" and signed "Ba Jin".
The year before, go to the picture above to see student Chen Ying. She said that at an internet celebrity shop on the corner of Hunan Road, ice cream was delicious. We walked past, not wanting to be near the Barkin House. The second time I walked into that courtyard, I stood for a long time. Fast forward more than twenty years, the pre-step herbs are still there.
Shanghai Barkin Former Residence, open to the public. Xinhua News Agency
In the mid-1990s, I was commissioned to start the "Wenbo" edition and write a column entitled "Wenbo Assertion". A few years later, Lu Xiaobo of the Education Publishing House contacted me and asked me to publish a collection of "Wenbo Assertions". Xiaobo is Lu Yifei's son, and we didn't know each other before. I reminded him that the "Wenbo" edition had a number of good authors and good articles, and proposed a set of "Wenbo" series of books. The publisher quickly agreed and appointed me as editor-in-chief.
There are six books in the series. The authors are Liu Danzhai, Jiang Hong, Cai Guosheng, Pan Yifu, Gao Ashin and me. Liu bu shi, Jiang is a famous man, insight and writing natural forest high. Cai apprenticed to wen play, he wrote articles, used to sandwich the pen between the middle finger and the ring finger, which is amazing. Yifu is a native of Wenzhou, whose home is on a snowy mountain on the outskirts of Lucheng. It is said that Yu Qiuyu's "Notes on Mountain Residence" was written at his home. He lingered in calligraphy and painting, and his articles were well written. At that time, Ashin was also setting up a stall on Dongtai Road Antique Street. He wrote porcelain research articles, and every word was self-contesting. I watched him for a long time and knew he was an ambitious man. The book design and title inscription are Liu Gongzi Tianwei. He liked the Monument of General Pei, which was written in an atmospheric manner.
Education Publishing House pays attention to the standardization of words. I have a few words that the editors feel a bit troubled. I explained that some of the words in the vernacular seemed to be acceptable. Fortunately, the editors opened up to me.
At that time, Xiaobo spent more than a dozen days and nights hand-pasting out page by page for typesetting. Where there is a mistake, it has to be cut word by word and re-spliced.
Inscribe the typeset. Xinhua News Agency
On the night of seeing the new book, xue peihua and Xiaobo, as well as Jiang Hong, Tianwei and me, made an appointment to sing a song. Similar in age, and thrown in the towel, for a while to say too much better than singing, quite crazy. Outside the window, Fuxing Park is cool as water at night. Peihua was drunk, clenched his fists and pounded my knees, and kept saying that we were good friends. Tianwei has always emphasized etiquette. That day he clutched the bottle and just poured himself a drink. Thinking about it he was more drunk.
The next day, A asked everyone to eat dumplings. Tian Wei attended on behalf of his father and came to the Gao family early. Ashin spoke up straight, and raised a glass to Tianwei on the spot, saying, "Today is mainly to please you." It caused a lot of laughter.
At that time, I did not know that Liu Danzhai wrote in the series of books was the only art notebook in his life. The weight of this series of books turned out to be very heavy.
At the turn of the century, Liu Danzhai planned a copy of "Fifty Families of Haipai". Fifty thousand-character texts in the book were written by Xu Jianrong, Lu Fusheng, Jiang Hong, Mao Shi'an and Zhou Yanggao, each of whom was selected and written. Later, I wrote the preface and I became the editor-in-chief. In the preface, I said an idea: the "fifty" in "Fifty Schools of The Haipai" is not an ordinal number, but a number. In the face of art and history, all the crowds are bound to disintegrate, all the helpers are elegies, and only the lonely individual is left to compete for glory.
Of the thousand-word essays in the book, two of which I wrote about the seal engraver. One wrote Chen Julai. In the early 1980s, I met him at the China Painting Academy in Shanghai. He was small, with small feet, but his head was huge, and it was unforgettable to see. One wrote About Wu Zijian. He and I had no difficulty with each other, and I could not stop Mr. Liu Danzhai's passionate persuasion and wrote it. Last year, my student set off to get acquainted with Zijian, and I inadvertently turned to my old article on the Internet. It feels like a cause. Specially arranged for my first meeting with Zijian. At this point, the old text has survived for twenty years.
The responsible editor of the book is Still Xiaobo. Book design is also well done. The inner page has the feeling of a silk bar, traditional characters, with calligraphy and painting print masterpieces, thick and atmospheric, since it is a heavenly breeze.
There is also a book "Amazing: Chen Shi Zhang Painting", which was co-authored by Zhang Guiming and me. Zhang and I are both Xiao Rabbit, and Zhang is one round older than me. When I was in my thirties, I first met him in the academy and had eye contact. He said he was going to give me a painting, and I immediately thanked him. Cao Yongping smiled at the side and said to me, I will look after Gui Ming and let him draw it as soon as possible.
I was in my fifties, that day at the Zhang family. Zhang asked me, "Would you like to co-author a book, my paintings, your poems?" I felt surprised and said, "Sir lifted me up." He smiled and said, "It's a wish of mine." And he said, "You said yes, just do yours." I'll arrange the next publication. ”
We drafted the title of the book. Think of the word "stunning.". He was silent for a moment. Later he said that the word "Yan" was his daughter's name, would he "surprise" her? I said, which one? It will only surprise her. He laughed. I said to add the words "Zhang Painting Chen Poem". He said yes, but to change the order, "Chen Shi Zhang Painting." I said, "Sir is the elder, it should be in front." He said, "'Poetry' must be placed in front of 'painting.'" ”
He wrote more than fifty paintings, and I wrote more than fifty poems. Originally, it was said to look at a painting and write a poem. Later, I found that all his paintings, put together, looked like a big painting. My poems seem to be the same. Having seen his paintings, I recorded my poems in a book of old flowers from Duo Yunxuan, trying to match his paintings.
As a preface to the book, we collaborated on a painting. He painted, I inscribed poems. I proposed that I write first, and then he would draw. Sure enough, it worked well. This collaborative painting, he asked me to keep. I asked him, "My poems, do you like it?" He said, "Of course I like it." "I framed all the poems in a single piece, integrated them into a box, and asked him to save them."
I was grading colors at the printing house that day. When he went out, he suddenly said: "My paintings can be accompanied by poems, and no one should say that my paintings are not Chinese paintings in the future." "That sound and smile, can't forget."
Some people have always said that Zhang is "China's Miro". In fact, Miro came to Japan and saw ukiyo-e, and only then did he become the Miro we know. Japanese ukiyo-e originated in China. In this way, Miró's paintings are like the grandchildren of Chinese paintings. Great painters understand this truth. Huang Yongyu and Shi Hu both mentioned Zhang to me, and Wu Guanzhong also wrote articles praising Zhang. And these three people have no contact with Zhang. Zhang is a Chinese painter. His gift of color and sense of space is rare in the world.
Visitors see the ukiyo-e works on display. Xinhua News Agency
Zhang asked Yuan Yinchang to design the book. Yinchang is also a chic person. For example, the word "stunning" on the cover, at his request, I wrote a "surprise", Zhang wrote a "yan", suddenly put together, so chic. The book was soon published by Zhu Junbo,000 publishing houses that zhu Junbo presided over at the time.
Speaking of Anpu. That year, one of the things he did before he retired was to promote the "Color Pictorial" edition of the "Liberation Daily" to introduce "Amazing: Chen Shizhang Painting" with full-page graphics. This glory, for Zhang is ripe, for me is very unexpected.
The last time Zhang and I met was in the car from Jiaxing back to Shanghai. A few days earlier, I had said that his paintings had three characteristics. One is that each painting is different, the second is that each painting is like a part, and the third is that each painting cannot be remembered clearly. He said he thought about it for a few days, and he asked me, "Do you mean my paintings are good, or are they bad?" I said, "Yes. ”
Not many days later, Zhang died. At the memorial service, a video made by my student Shuangqiang a few years ago was played, and it was an old article I wrote, entitled "Bright Colors Weigh the World."
By some measure, he died seven years after the publication of "Amazing: Chen Shi Zhang Painting". By this year, it's another seven years.
(Published in Jiefang Daily Chaohua Weekly on November 11, 2021)