Puzzles and Fun - Reading Liu Qiong's "Outside the Words Between The Flowers"
Text/He Shaojun
When I got Liu Qiong's "Outside the Words of The Flowers", I thought that what was the relationship with the words between the flowers that were widely popular more than a thousand years ago, was it to lead us to appreciate the gentle and beautiful poems in the "Collection of Flowers"? Not really. It is a collection of twelve essays, each titled after an ancient poem. Although the title of the book is titled "Huajian Words", none of these twelve poems are selected from the Huajian Word School. Could this be the meaning of "outside the words between the flowers"? Looking for poetry other than the flower word? The book occasionally involves the words of Huajian and Liu Qiong seems to be more critical. For example, in praising Naran's affectionate feelings, she believes that many poets "are often either abusive or pretentious when writing about love." Indiscriminate sentiments and pretentiousness are piled up, well piled up, and may be 'flower words'." This is a criticism of the flower word. In another article, it directly evaluates the Huajian words: "Although the "Huajian Collection" and the Huajian Word School were regarded as authentic by the Northern Song Dynasty poets, they were not highly evaluated in literary history. Of course, this direct evaluation is to quote other people's views, as for Liu Qiong's own view, she does not say. She just used it as the title of the book, which made me think straight to this aspect.
More than forty years ago, when I was in college and took a class on the history of ancient literature, all I heard was a derogatory rebuke of the words between the flowers, saying that it was "a turbid stream" in the history of literature, that it was a soft word style, that the content was decadent, and so on. This assessment is one-sided and, of course, not fair enough. In fact, Huajian zi has a breakthrough and innovative significance in the history of Chinese poetry, which makes the word get rid of the traditional concept of "poetry and speech", thus opening up a broad poetry theme of expressing emotions and a fresh and elegant poetic style, which has a profound impact on the future poetry creation. I really think that it is not easy for the poets of the Hanama School to make breakthroughs and innovations in their creation. Liu Qiong is well aware of the consequences of not taking the right path, she said that if you use "Yazheng" to benchmark, the words between the flowers do not have an advantage, she describes them as "Zheng Sheng chaotic Ya", too late. Liu Qiong had something to say. This may be one of the reasons why she used "outside the flower word" as the title of the book, she is suggesting that this time she writes prose, to take a way other than "flower word", but also to have innovation. In addition to the words between the flowers, what a beautiful word, both flowers and words, and these two items are the content she wants to focus on writing.
It is said that Liu Qiong wrote prose with the intention of innovation, not casual speculation. In front of Liu Qiong, there is indeed a "right way" of prose, which can be roughly summarized as "scattered and not scattered". The so-called scattered and divine is to say that the prose is widely free, and the writing can be completely liberalized and unfettered, but there must be a central idea. Liu Qiong's twelve essays in the book "Outside the Words Between The Flowers", letters and horses are reined, the mind wanders, what you think of, what you write, what you think of, is really a kind of writing without a fixed method. It seems that Liu Qiong's nature contains too many factors of freedom, and freedom has to be restrained when working and socializing, and only when writing, the factor of freedom can be released to the fullest. She admires Xin Abandoned Disease because Xin Abandoned Disease belongs to the category of literati who "be honest and be debauched for Wenshu", and these ten words are actually the state in which Liu Qiong wrote the book. "To be honest is to be a person to have principles, and to be debauched for the text is to dare to innovate in writing." Liu Qiong's innovation is to simply subvert the "right way" of prose. When I opened her book, I still read it according to the familiar prose routine, and when I read the first one, I read it and read it in a mess. She wrote that when Liu Hui called her, she was studying lily steamed pumpkin in the kitchen, and I thought that after she said lily, she would tell us what articles Liu Hui had on the phone, who knew that Liu Hui disappeared and it was Hu Shi who appeared. With the experience of reading the first article, I no longer read according to the prose routine, she wrote by the reins, I read the reins, and I followed her train of thought, inadvertently to experience the meaning of her pen. I didn't expect it, it was a very relaxed and pleasant reading experience.
Illustration of "Outside the Words Between The Flowers" By Chen Rudong
"Outside the Words of Flowers" is naturally based on flowers. Twelve articles are twelve kinds of flowers. Liu Qiong loves flowers, and naturally loves to raise flowers. Her small yard has a long strip of flower stands that she says fosters her gardening hobies. Liu Qiong also loves ancient Chinese poetry, flowers are important images in poetry, she talks about the image of flowers in poetry from the gesture of flowers in life; she writes about the emotions of flowers by poets, and talks about the flower marks left by history and reality. Liu Qiong said: "Cultivating flowers is the need of people's spiritual aesthetic activities. "Maybe that's the entry point into our understanding of the book. Loving flowers and loving flowers reveals a person's spiritual temperament and life interest. I marvel at Liu Qiong's abundant knowledge, she mainly writes about flowers and plants, and takes us to appreciate the chapters of poetry that sing flowers and plants. But her writing is not limited to this, and often escapes from the branches, involving the Vientiane Encyclopedia, as if she is at her fingertips. This is obviously the result of a long period of reading. Liu Qiong loves to read, and she has her own opinions on reading. She said: "Reading has no other purpose than two purposes: puzzle and fun. "Some books are intellectual, some books are funny. Liu Qiong wrote this book, not only generously presenting the "puzzle" she obtained when she was studying, but also sharing her "interesting" experience with everyone. Therefore, reading Liu Qiong's book, we get the double harvest of "puzzle" and "fun". If you must establish a theme for Liu Qiong's book, puzzles and fun are its themes.
Liu Qiong's writing is revising our paranoid ideas about prose. Since ancient times, we have all emphasized that "the text carries the Tao", the form is scattered but the god is not scattered, and the Tao is the soul. How to carry the road? We should have "puzzle" and "funny" prose like "Outside the Flower". In Liu Qiong's prose, there is a powerful soul, which is the main spirit of the writer. From this book, we not only read many ancient poets and their beautiful poems, but also met an open-minded, open-minded, and elegant intellectual woman. She is the author herself, in her seemingly endless narration, conveying her profound and meticulous experience and understanding of life, art and life, and expressing an ideal pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty. This is a kind of prose writing with a soul, which depends on the author's profound foundation and spiritual cultivation, and is not something that can be done by any one person.
This article is reprinted from the 3rd edition of China Art News on November 19, 2021
Liu Qiong: Constructing a Chinese-style life as I understand it
Text/Li Jingxuan
Anyone who has had contact with Liu Qiong can feel her heartfelt love for flowers. Living in Beijing, Liu Qiong's favorite place to visit was the Laitai Flower Market... When it comes to flowers, Liu Qiong can be described as a family treasure, "Osmanthus is sweet and fragrant, and plum blossoms are fragrant, which are the most beautiful gifts of nature." Every October, I want to go back to the south, just to smell the osmanthus flowers floating all over the city. ”
Liu Qiong's new work "Outside the Words Between Flowers" is a book related to flowers. "Since ancient times, plants, including flowers, have not only been the necessary external natural environment for our lives and the important material food on which our daily survival depends, but also the projection of our aesthetic objects and the spirit of the subject." In an exclusive interview with a reporter from China Press, Publication, Radio and Telegraph, Liu Qiong said, "The elegance and elegance of writing traditional poetry and the Chinese aesthetics of vanilla beauty explore a way of knowing and understanding the world, thus constructing a Chinese-style life that I understand." ”
The desire to create flowers and words has a long history
In 2020, Liu Qiong was invited by Zhu Hui, editor-in-chief of Nanjing "Yuhua" magazine, under the supervision of editor Xiang Xun, in addition to daily work, his spare time basically revolved around the theme of flowers and poetry, and wrote a column of "Outside the Words Between Flowers" for "Yuhua". "From January to December, I wrote a total of 12 poems every month. When the Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House was published, it used 'Outside the Words of Flowers' as the title of the book. Liu Qiong said slowly.
In Liu Qiong's view, the reason for the name "outside the word between the flowers" focuses on 3 elements, namely flowers, words, and words, and "flowers" and "words" to draw out two clear categories, plus a "outside", from the object image to the image, from the relatively specific flower word culture to the infinite abundance of Chinese culture.
Writing a book about flowers is Liu Qiong's long-standing wish. "A person's writing, especially a woman's writing, is often associated with direct experience. Writing about flowers and words is related to my upbringing. Liu Qiong laughed and said that she had an obsession with plants.
Illustration of "Outside the Words Between The Flowers" Ancient Plum Blossom Pavilion Author: Chen Rudong
Liu Qiong was born in southern Anhui and lived with her parents in Xuancheng until the age of 4. Xuancheng since the ancient poet land, the rivers and mountains are picturesque, outside the window, the mountains are everywhere, within the field of vision, are peach blossoms, pear blossoms, apple blossoms, Yingshan red, orchids and other flowers. "The company of plants for me has become a memory that will last for me at the beginning." Liu Qiong fondly recalled her life at that time, and her mother planted two loofah seedlings on the courtyard wall in front of her house, and the melon vine grew fast, and the yellow flowers climbed all over the courtyard wall. Next to the mother's loofah seedlings, a rectangular flower platform was simply built, sprinkled with flower seeds, and watched the flower seedling arch out of the earth layer, remembering that there were trumpet flowers, "bath flowers", and henna.
Since then, Liu Qiong's habit of raising flowers has persisted, "so when Zhu Hui's editor-in-chief asked me what I was going to write in the column, I said that writing flowers, 12 months, a flower a month, and the festival basically corresponds." This is the origin of the book "Outside the Words of flowers".
Rediscovered in writing
Talking about the most favorite chapter in the book, Liu Qiong said bluntly: "To be honest, I really like these 12 articles. In each article, I try to have some new constructions. Originally written as a column, I was most afraid of repetition, and the more repetition, the reader had no desire to read. Therefore, when writing, I hope that I will also have the impulse to write, and fully enjoy the pleasure of creation. ”
Recalling the creative process, Liu Qiong said that most of the articles were written in one go, "many details were slowly awakened and rediscovered in the writing process." Among them, the one that was written most smoothly was "But the Begonias Are Still The Same", "Written smoothly, it is because Li Qingzhao is in a changing era, and he has rich experience and stories." I also have my own research and understanding of her poems and life experiences. ”
"If you want to say your favorite, it may be the article "Falling Plum Horizontal Flute Has Been Three More"." In this regard, Liu Qiong further explained that first, this song "Huanxi Sha Residual Snow Condensation Cold Painting Screen" is really good, and she really likes it. Second, from word to person, Naranjand is so perfect in her eyes. "Of course, this is also based on the imagination of Chinese aesthetics."
"Outside the Words Between The Flowers" can be said to "reveal" Liu Qiong's true kung fu in poetry. In the early morning, moving a small bamboo chair and reciting Tang poems and Song poems loudly in the courtyard was Liu Qiong's morning class as a child. "The earliest recitation was the 'Thousand Family Poems], and the first poem memorized was 'Remembering Qin'e'e'." This also evokes those memories of Liu Qiong's childhood, "'Remembrance of Qin'e' is a long and short sentence, known as the 'ancestor of hundred generations of song', which is said to have been written by Li Bai. After more than 40 years, the feeling of the outline when I first read this word is still vividly remembered. The boundless distance is calling us, and that may be what it means. ”
Like is the driving force behind persistence in creation
Growing up in a family with a tradition of reading, the only way her parents pointed out to Liu Qiong was to read. "Although I have had the habit of memorizing and learning ancient poems since I was a child, I was able to like them for a long time because of my two elders." Liu Qiong said that from history to literature, from hundreds of family names to thousands of poems, his strong interest in classical culture is because of his grandfather, "quaint poetry has become cheerful, vivid, interesting, and even very everyday in my grandfather's mouth." I remembered it all at once. "The other elder is Liu Qiong's elderly uncle, who was still writing professional literary and art reviews last year." My uncle liked Lao Du the most, and the cultivation of his classical poetry made me both envious and ashamed. ”
"I currently have two writing plans at hand, which are 'accounts' that have been owed for a long time." When talking about the current creative plan, Liu Qiong said that one is about coffee culture, "This is a particularly interesting topic. Coffee, a plant, has special requirements for the growing environment. There is a coffee growth belt on the earth, and China's Yunnan Dehong and other places are in this growth belt. The coffee selection is in a non-fiction form and can be completed next year. The other is a theoretical book on realist creation, which is slowly being written. ”
Reading Liu Qiong's prose is a kind of enjoyment, and listening to her comments on literary works on the spot is another kind of enjoyment. When asked how to find a balance between literary creation and daily work, she said that she was not diligent and slightly greedy, and the reason why she could stick to literary creation was because she really liked it. "Because I like it, something that may seem bitter to some people, I don't feel it at all, I just get pleasure from it." As for time management, increasing efficiency is probably a little bit of my experience. My choice is strict and I don't write perfunctory articles. If you don't read a book well, or if you don't have anything you want to say after reading it, you don't write, otherwise, you are not responsible for the author of the book, and you are not responsible for yourself. ”
This article is reproduced from the eighth edition of China Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Telegraph, No. 7605, November 2021
| Selected | in previous periods
The elegance of traditional poetry, the Chinese aesthetics of vanilla beauty
Book review | "Outside the Words of the Flower": Purity and Idealism under the Photography of the Soul
It's like watching a star grow, but seeing a whole night of light
The chaos and turmoil of the world, the tenacity and vastness of life
"Write a book for a hero"