□ Reporter Zhu Ziyu and Li Mengxin
Our correspondents Diao Chunhui and Wang Pengfei
Although Pu Songling, an outstanding literary scholar of the Qing Dynasty, lived in a remote area for a long time, had a humble life, and suffered from the pain of falling behind, he was able to lead a new trend in the creation of traditional novels with his unruly talent; with his imagination beyond the imagination, he opened a new chapter for Qing Dynasty literature.
"Liaozhai Zhiyi" is an important work that condenses Pu Songling's life's work. The interpretation of this classic work has always been that the benevolent see the wise. To sum up, there are three kinds: one is to look at it as history and care about the political and social implications in the novel, which is a level of "looking at the facts"; the second is to look at the story and pay attention to the twists and turns of the novel, which is the level of "looking at the hilarity"; the third is that when the article is read, you can see the beauty and deep meaning contained in it, which is often said to be "the insider looks at the doorway, and the layman looks at the liveliness".
So, how to capture the essence of such a legendary novel? In response to the above questions, Li Guikui, distinguished professor and doctoral supervisor of the College of Literature of Shandong University, visited the social science forum of Shandong Normal University and gave a wonderful explanation on the issue of "Pu Songling and Qing Dynasty Literature"——
I don't read many ancient books, and I don't know the magic of "Liaozhai"
The successful literary and artistic creations of ancient and modern times have either been obtained by reading thousands of books, or by traveling thousands of miles, or by combining the two or being biased. Pu Songling, of course, is partial to reading ten thousand books. His living space is limited, and his travels are mainly in his hometown of Zichuan. During the imperial examination, he went to Jinan many times, and to the east, he went to Laoshan in Qingdao. The farthest trip was when he was thirty years old, at the invitation of his friend Sun Hui, he went to Baoying County, Gaoyou, and Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province.
Although he could not do it "walking thousands of miles and half the world", he still created a "Liaozhai Zhiyi" by reading more than 10,000 volumes. Pu Songling's life has an indissoluble relationship with books, falling under the pen, and there are many characters in "Liaozhai Zhiyi" who are obsessed with reading. The protagonist Of "Bookworm" Lang Yuzhu, day and night, regardless of cold and heat, only reading in life, almost became a nerd; in the two articles of "Bai Qiu Lian" and "Lady Liu", Mu Toad Palace and Lian Sheng still did not forget the books even after doing business... It is difficult to say that this is not the projection of Pu Songling's own experience.
Persistence and obsession with reading is the most normal state of life in Pu Songling's life, he is trapped in the field house, can't stop, the examination is not smooth, but perseverance, repeated defeats and battles. He has a poem: "Three years after three years, all hope is empty." After five nights of smelling chickens, the ashes are revived. "Dao did his best to pursue the merits of the imperial examination.
It can be said that "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is a melting pot that gathers literary and historical knowledge and allusions, and there are the Four Books and Five Classics necessary for the examination of the imperial examination, as well as the use of the popular Eight Strands of Literature; there are the integration of "Zhuangzi", "Liezi", "Shiji", "Li Taibai Collection" and other "sub-history", "history" and "collection"; and it is also often easy to grasp many "Pangxue Miscellaneous Books" such as Gan Bao's "Record of Searching for God", Zhang Hua's "Natural history", Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng's "Golden Bottle Plum"; and cross-genre dialogue with Qu Yuan, Du Fu, Li Bai, Li He and other poets, melting without revealing traces, and has a very cultural background. Feng Zhenluan, a commentator of the Qing Dynasty, said: "I don't read many ancient books, and I don't know the magic of Liaozhai. In other words, only a well-read book can grasp the magic of the text of "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
After the "Liaozhai Zhiyi" was written, it was circulated in the form of a manuscript. After reading it, Ji Yun, a great talent during the Qianlong period, said: "Liaozhai Zhiyi was popular for a while, but the pen of The Talented Son is not the pen of the author. It is believed that this novel is "one book and two bodies", that is, it has both "biography" and "novel", and its authenticity is questioned. In fact, Pu Songling's cleverness lies in letting go of his imagination. In judging literary works, authenticity is often an important criterion, but "truth" is at the aesthetic level, "reality" is in the historical essence, and the essence of the text should be realistic. Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi" pays attention to the illusion as truth, follows the norms of historians, but does not stick to the chronicle-style account book narrative; writes novels with the tone of history, injecting humor and imagination when it is at a certain distance from history, so it is worthy of being the pen of talent.
Ink and ink with "Conveying God"
The risk of redeeming "legendary"
History is valuable in "transmission of letters", and fiction is valuable in "legends". The fundamental feature that distinguishes the novel from the history book is that it travels through time and space to legend. The legendary nature of "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is achieved by crossing time and space.
Pu Songling borrows mysterious thinking such as ancient myths, folk beliefs, and religious legends, and integrates various anecdotes and strange things with his whimsy and imagination, making them legendary. In the fantasy world of "Liaozhai", yin and yang are connected by ghosts and lights, people can go up and down to the yellow spring, can swim in dreams, and can set foot in a strange country. Demons and fairy ghosts, flower demons and foxes can also transform into adults and dabble in red dust. Humans and foreign bodies coexist and parallel, jumping and interspersing with each other, dazzling and dizzying.
There is a story that spans space such as "Peng Haiqiu" in "Liaozhai Zhiyi", the immortal Peng Haiqiu "sees thousands of miles and still households", invites famous prostitutes from the West Lake, and then takes a boat from Penglai to the West Lake, the space switches back and forth; there is also a story like "Lian Cheng", which transcends life and death, Qiao Sheng and Lian Cheng have gone through all the hardships but have always loved each other, even if the world is separated from hell, even if they are separated from life and death, they cannot erase the loyal love of the two mortals and ordinary fetuses, and finally spend the world together; there is also a love like the underworld written in "Sunset Xia".
But the strange and magical absurdity is only the appearance of legend, not its essential prescriptiveness. Blindly running in the grotesque direction of the story to seek "legend", the novel has the risk of going to the occult, and even endangers the life of the novel genre because the potential energy of "legend" is eventually exhausted. And Pu Songling used the "transmission of god" pen and ink to redeem the risks brought about by excessive "legend".
The most typical embodiment of "Conveying God" in "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is to write the laughter of the characters, at least seven intoxicating "Yanran a laugh", such as Xiao Cui's "Yanran Zhan Laugh, True Immortal Product", Hu Sijie's "Yanran Smile, Charming", Hua Guzi's "Yanran Smile, Not Shy", Bai Qiulian "Morbidity, Qiubo Flowing". Slightly cross-examined, Yanran smiled" and so on.
Specific to the "Baby Ning" article, there are all kinds of laughs, and I do my best. From "smiling" when he appeared, to "laughing and picking flowers" after meeting the prince again, he wrote his "sneering laughter", "laughter can't be contained", "standing with laughter", "laughing", "laughing wildly", "smiling and stopping", "laughing and ignoring", "smiling and laughing" and so on.
A smile is the most agile moment of the character. In Lessing's view in Laocoön, it is "the most pregnant moment", this moment of instant transmission, although like a flash in the pan, but connected to the past and the future, the most stimulating imagination, has the best way to fill in the blanks. "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is such a common way to turn beauty into beauty and write dynamic beauty, although this flattery is fleeting, but its text effect is tireless.
If legend guarantees the readability of the novel, then the divinity guarantees the readability of the novel. The two support the classicism of "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
Dreams and love are inseparable "twin brothers"
The reason why poems and articles have been passed down for thousands of years and are immortal is not only because of the gorgeousness of their words and the subtlety of the plot, but also because they convey emotions through words and express their chest directly. The Tang Dynasty Shen Jieji's "Biography of Ren" has a saying: "The beauty of writing articles is to convey the feelings of contemplation." The same is true of "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi". In the text, the author uses a large number of pages to write love and dreams, effectively making the novel play a role in communication.
In people's minds, the best people in novels, operas, and dreams are naturally "Peony Pavilion", "Hall of Eternal Life" and "Dream of the Red Chamber". In particular, Cao Xueqin directly pointed out the proposition of "dream love", although "Dream of the Red Chamber" is named after dreams, the main purpose is to talk about love. Among them, "love" contains all kinds of human feelings, and dream love is an extremely important part of human feelings. In this regard, "Liaozhai Zhiyi" belongs to the mainstay, playing a role in inheriting the past and enlightening the future, and there are more than 100 dreams described in it, which shows the weight of its weight.
In the world of "Liaozhai", we feel that Pu Songling is penetrating the world's hot and cold. In the face of insurmountable reality, Pu Songling often makes his characters try to "fight for a breath". In "Fengxian", a young man who loves cleanliness, Liu Chishui, marries a fox spirit named Fengxian. One day, the three sisters of Fengxian each took their husbands to wish the old man a happy birthday, but the old man treated the rich and powerful second brother-in-law Ding Lang differently, and snubbed the poor Liu Chishui. Although the eldest sister was kind and round, Feng Xian was "not happy in the end", and on the way back, she said to Liu Chishui: "Junyi husband, can't you breathe for the bedside person? The House of Gold is in the book, and I wish it to be good. That is, to warn her husband that he should not "have good sex" every day, and that obtaining meritorious names through hard reading is the right way in the world.
After speaking, Feng Xian took out a mirror and said to Liu Chishui: "If you want to see a concubine, you should find it in the books; otherwise, you will see each other indefinitely." Fengxian used the mirror image method to encourage her husband to read. When the husband reads hard, the shadow in the mirror of the Phoenix Immortal is happy; once he slacks off, the Phoenix Immortal in the mirror only shows the back shadow. "Two years like this, in one fell swoop." Inspired by Feng Xian, her husband took the meritorious name as he wished, and raised his eyebrows.
In this way, the realistic emotions in "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi" are extremely rich. Pu Songling's poem "Writing Eighty Rhymes of Dreams for Friends" shows a very romantic story of men and women through dream writing. Mr. Zhao Lisheng commented that it was "first written in the form of poetry to try it out, and then written into a novel." In Pu Songling's eyes, dreams and love have always been inseparable "twin brothers".
There is a lot of emotion in the strange, and there is allegory in the illusion
Pu Songling once sighed: "Most of life is not satisfactory, and it will be a game to say anything." "Behind the seemingly game-colored legendary story of "Liaozhai Zhiyi", it actually uses fantasy brushwork to express the feelings of life, both literary and the author's whimsy. The flower demon fox charm is full of humanity, but there is animalism among humans. The dislocation of the two makes the novel more emotional in the strange, and the illusion is allegorical.
Fantasy is through the spanning and crossing of time and space, coupled with the creation of illusion and illusion, of which "illusion" can make the most impressive impression. Moreover, the dream itself is an illusion, such as "Continuing Yellow Liang" is essentially to write a dream.
"Illusion" comes from the heart of man. In the thirteenth episode of journey to the West, it is said: "The heart is born, all kinds of demons are born; the heart is destroyed, all kinds of demons are destroyed." "Liaozhai Zhiyi" also said: "Illusion is from life, this kind of talk has a way." Man who has an obscene heart is born in a blasphemous state; man who has a blasphemous heart is a state of terror. Bodhisattvas enlighten foolishness and perform a thousand illusions at the same time, all of which are automatically heard by the human heart. Therefore, in the world of these two kinds of literary works, demons and lustful hearts are the embodiment of demons.
In the artistic world of "Liaozhai Zhiyi", the illusion is a magnificent and colorful realm, from which the reader can glimpse the author's real inner emotional world. In "Painting The Wall", Menglongtan and Zhu Xiaolian of Jiangxi live in the capital, accidentally enter a temple, and see the murals in the temple, "the eastern mural scatters flowers and goddesses, the inner hairdresser, smiling with flowers, cherry lips want to move, and the eyes will flow." Zhu Xiaolian gazed at it for a long time, felt that his mind was in a trance, fluttering like a cloud, and unconsciously entered the illusionary realm in the painting. It is precisely because Pu Songling's depiction of the illusion in the painting is very lifelike and full of interest, which causes Zhu Xiaolian to come out of the illusion and "never even remember how he came from the body". The author expresses the concept of "illusion by life" by writing illusion, and conveys the psychological activities and mental process of the parties.
For example, in the past, it was generally believed that "LuochaHai City" used to use the topic of illusion to deny reality by depicting the adventures of the protagonist Ma Ji sailing to the kingdom of Luocha, which was like a fairyland. But in fact, this is Pu Songling imagining the business life path that he cannot personally practice through imagination, and imagining his mental journey of going through tests and challenges, showing his other way of life. In the novel, the love and affection between Ma Ji and the dragon girl are another life imagination that the author cannot reach but yearns for.
Pu Songling said: "The flowers are greeted, and the world is like a ghost." "Life is like a drama, and real life can be mirrored, can be directly illuminated, and can also be reflected." In "Dream of the Red Chamber", the Zhengzhao Fengyue Baojian is punished, while the Reverse Mirror Fengyue Baojian obtains some kind of vigilance. In addition, the well-known chapters, the beauty and ugliness contained in "Painted Skin", the punishment and miserliness contained in "Planting Pears", and the self-scolding of thieves contained in "Scolding Duck", etc., are all within it and are reasonable.