Shen Rongjun, a member of the Chinese Writers Association and a member of the Plenary Committee of the Sichuan Writers Association, has representative works such as the collection of essays and essays such as "Azure And Other Smoke and Rain", "The Natives of the Fallen City", "Spotted Like Pottery", "Inner Flowers" and so on. He has won the Bingxin Prose Award, the Sun Li Literature Award Prose Award, the Dapeng Ecological Literature Award, and the PresenceIst Prose Award. The novel "Pisces Blue and White" was selected as a key work support project of the Sichuan Writers Association.
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"Happiness is like pottery - let the soil stand up", "Song Shi flowers fragrance - the sound of flowers arrives at the morning and dusk", "Su Ma li qing - a dusty mood", "Guan Kiln beauty - sister wants to be legendary"... Reading these chapters of Shen Rongjun's new book "Sky Blue and Other Smoke and Rain" is like reading a poem, ancient and antique, listening to a book, and shooting a case of surprise.
Shen Rongjun regards "Azure and Other Smoke and Rain" as a transformation of personal writing. "Whether it is Wei Jin or Song and Yuan, whether it is Sichuan ancient pottery or Yuan Ming Qinghua, these objects are read as daily life things of that era. Of course, this also sets a difficult problem for yourself, how to look back through the temperature of the vessel, and touch the details that are vivid and carry the emotions of the ancestors. This may require the reversibility of imagination and thinking. Shen Rongjun said, "Reversible writing attempts are difficult for me, because every time I lift my pen, it is a challenge to remove the obvious 'living in the moment' consciousness of myself, and of course, it is also a hedge against my own dissatisfaction every day." ”
"If you want literature and art, you also want to live." This is Shen Rongjun's creative and life attitude. In his mind, how the ancient sages treated literature and art and life, and how Shen Rongjun lived and wrote according to his own ideas, the reporter had a dialogue with Shen Rongjun, the author of "Sky Blue and Other Smoke and Rain".
Poetic dwelling
Reporter: Life is noisy and diverse, and you are fascinated by the "beautiful relationship between utensils and people". Why did you pay attention to this subject and use it as a "transformation" of your prose creation?
Shen Rongjun: The fashionable saying is called "poetic dwelling". One of the models of the "poetic dwelling" of traditional Chinese scholars is "the beautiful relationship between utensils and people", which can well solve the problem of coldness and roughness of daily life. In a sense, this is an ideal or belief about the aestheticization of everyday life. To live without faith is to fall. At this point, I was deeply influenced by Ma Weidu.
I love writing and ancient ceramics, and I have read all of Ma Weidu's ceramic essay works. He told the aesthetics of Chinese ceramics into a story of elegant and popular appreciation, such as "Yuan Qinghua Ghost Valley" and The "Chicken Bowl Cup" of the Chenghua Emperor, which is very disseminated, which is his contribution to Chinese ceramic art. Many of the non-fiction essays we see now are more directly exposing and interpreting historical figures and events, and pay little attention to the relationship between people and artifacts.
In fact, this world has made writers keep the unremitting impulse to imagine and narrate, in addition to people and people, but also people and things. "Dream of the Red Chamber" is typical of people and people, but people and things can be seen everywhere, the whole Grand View Garden is the sum of people and things, girls chanting flowers of the four seasons in it, such as stones, jade plates, golden locks, golden unicorns are also anthropomorphic, there are a large number of antique utensils in the book, so that the details of the characters' activities have company, suddenly vivid. We see Cao Xueqin's spiritual sustenance in the relationship between people and things. Because of people and people and things, the tragic significance of "Dream of the Red Chamber" has been magnified a lot. In the early years, I wrote a lot about the countryside. In recent years, my writing has focused on the aesthetic experience of traditional Chinese scholars, with characters being one series, ceramic artifacts being another, and possibly writing about calligraphy and painting in the future. Before that, he was a writer of traditional prose. The aesthetic interpretation of ancient ceramics, which began ten years ago, seems to be a transformation of personal writing.
Reporter: It is not uncommon to combine prose creation with the aesthetics of utensils, what is special about your book?
Shen Rongjun: The aesthetic integration of prose creation and utensils, which is commonly referred to as cultural essays, essays with this appearance like to interpret "relationships", such as the relationship between people and utensils, if they are more refined, they can be called art essays. There is a sinologist in the United States named Gao Juhan, who has written a book called "The History of Chinese Painting", which is an art history work with traditional Chinese painting as the aesthetic object, which adopts the "narrative history" brushwork that many scholars or aestheticians can't look at at all, and reads like a novel, easy and full of mysteries.
"Azure and Other Smoke and Rain" generally follows the path of Gao Juhan from the method. It's just that the object of my dialogue is an ordinary daily vessel, which is not quite the same as the complete metaphysical Chinese painting, but it is also an aesthetic historical relic that exists in time and space. Whether it is Wei, Jin, Song and Yuan, Sichuan ancient pottery, YuanMing Qinghua, these objects are read as daily life things of that era. Of course, this also sets a difficult problem for himself, how to look back through the temperature of the vessel, go back to the past, and touch the details that are vivid and carry the emotions of the ancestors.
In the "Happy Figurines" series, I tell the story of chicken soup, restoring some vivid scenes and warm details reflected in the Han Dynasty pottery figurines, such as seeing several figurines wearing "rings" and chrysanthemums in the museum, thinking of women's marriage, trying to find our optimistic and open-minded happiness code from their smiles. Such a search may require the reversibility of imagination and thinking, not innovation. Artifact essays, grab a big handful, I just write more literary and warmer than the experts, more professional and closer to the daily life than the writers.
A journey back in time
Reporter: If anyone questions whether the lyrical imagination of artifacts will deviate from the general meaning of historical relics symbols. How do you see this?
Shen Rongjun: Originally, I was also disgusted with lyricism, but I wrote poetry and prose. Sometimes, when you touch those old objects, there is a kind of time back, similar to the wonderful sense of crossing the novel, touching the scenery, can't help but jump out, pull a few throats, it is considered emotional.
For example, when I write the series "Song Shi Hua Xiang" and "Su Ma Li Qing", I often have a lot of observations and comments on reversing time and space. The reason why Chinese ceramics make the world obsessed is that it carries the millennium of time and plays the role of cultural messengers of Sino-Western exchanges, you see it as a living historical figure, there is no problem at all, and our praise for it is also the dignity they deserve. The utensils are not only cold in volume, but also in temperature, the temperature of the craftsman, the temperature of the owner, which is the lyrical tone.
Many years ago, I once found three Yuan Qinghua garlic head bottles on different occasions, the pattern is the moon shadow plum, especially the plum blossom, like the crown of the ink plum, the wind and bones are rugged, and I feel a lot, which makes me think of the resentment and resentment in the hearts of the Han intellectuals in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, so I have a feeling and write "Moon Shadow Plum". Interestingly, in my novel "Pisces Blue Flower", I later named three female characters after "Moon", "Shadow" and "Mei", representing different female figures in my mind. The objective meaning of historical symbols does not change because of the author's sensationalism. What I can do is to be as restrained as possible, more or an aesthetic grafting, trying to approach the experience of the times of ancient artifacts through lyrical or narrative techniques, aesthetic feelings, aesthetic thinking, and literary and artistic tones. Regarding the aesthetics of the utensils, whether this is obscuring or revealing, I think the reader has his own say.
Reporter: The frequency of "reading people" and "students" in "Azure and Other Smoke and Rain" is very high, and it seems to have hidden expectations and distinctions for the readership. How do you deal with this in your creations?
Shen Rongjun: This is not only the context in "Sky Blue and Other Smoke and Rain", but also in a series of essays about traditional Chinese scholars and masters. The role of "reader" and "student" or modern tragic aesthetic individual is the norm. Regardless of whether the real characters are three or nine streams or various, "readers" and "students" should become symbols of perfecting self-knowledge, at least there should be such a complex in their bones. The Song Dynasty book business was very angry, the Yuan ming scholars gradually became rational, and the Qing Dynasty scholars were introverted and tolerant. In their own way, they enter daily utensils and harvest aesthetic pleasure from the relationship between people and utensils. A "book reader" and "book student", whether it is a celebrity, a businessman official, or a citizen Tian Fu, does not necessarily have to hold a book every day and make himself a lifeless nerd. In the essay narrative, the continuous strengthening of this identity symbol is more of a self-improvement, and there is also the meaning of communicating and discussing with the reader, which can be understood as feelings, rather than deliberately distinguishing the reader group.
Reincarnation of faith
Reporter: The column on the shelves of "Azure and Other Smoke and Rain" is "Collection, Ceramics, Appreciation", which seems to imply that the artifacts are approachable, how do you build a "thing I" exchange with the reader?
Shen Rongjun: I recognize what you said about the "thing me" exchange. The existence of this book is the transmission of aesthetic experience in the era of ancient Chinese ceramics. The aesthetics of the times in my writing may be different from other cultural scholars, who emphasize the "speaking" in the comparative sense, and I care more about the context of the individual writer's "this moment", that is, the communication of "things and me". The text that the reader sees may be more of a state depiction like a novel, a gentle narrative like prose, an academic sublimation like a thesis, and an emotional exaggeration like poetry, which is also what distinguishes my artistic essays on artifacts from other essay readings.
Reporter: The writing of "Sky Blue and Other Smoke and Rain" is said to be your cultural preparation for the upcoming novel "Pisces Blue Flower". In your opinion, what is the relationship between prose and fiction creation?
Shen Rongjun: "Pisces Blue and White" is a long story that I have just completed and is going through the publishing process, and the main element is ancient ceramics. The so-called cultural preparation is actually the confirmation and migration of an aesthetic expression. Of course, not only culture, but also emotional entanglements, official and business life, and the city. On the surface, the novel is about the encounter of a national treasure artifact in the human world, but behind it is still revealed that people's faith follows and the cycle of fate.
From prose essays to novels, in addition to narrative and structure, the biggest difference is the author's sense of role. The "I" in the prose essay is the explicit narrator, and the "I" in the novel is not only the narrator, but also the character, even if it is the third person, which is everywhere. It is difficult to distinguish the "me" of a novel so clearly from other people, but the "I" of the novel is certainly not just a person, but a synthesis of many, who exists in the relationship between instruments and things, in the cycle of time and space, is a kind of existence that can be felt but ambiguous. There are many wonderful stories about people and utensils in the novel, such as Taobao leak picking, auction making, playthings, etc., most of which have life archetypes, but it is not easy to use essays to express, so it is put into the novel.
In addition, the novel actually answers the question of how much the relationship between people and utensils can transfer our emotions when we are disappointed in the relationship between people? Answering no, he turned around and finally returned to the self-redemption of spiritual beliefs.
The imprint of interest
Reporter: In your essays and novels, you raise the current problem of writers' creations - "to literature and art or to live". In your opinion, how should the relationship between literature and art and life be reconciled?
Shen Rongjun: Compared with life, poetry, prose and even novels are gray. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, scholars and doctors competed to restore daily details with notes. With the richness, vividness and breadth of the perch, there are vibrant Song and Yuan notes and scripts. With the poetry of pure faith, there are happy song words and yuan songs. The poetic dwelling of scholars and doctors should become the ideal of life for today's people. Life is not only eating and drinking Lasa, chai rice oil and salt, but also piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, flowers, birds, insects and fish. Whether they are blind or sensory stimuli, they are all things, things outside the body, and their existence is only the premise of life, not meaning. We cannot go beyond this premise and talk about the everyday, about poetry, about faith.
"To be literary and artistic, but also to live", it means to remind yourself to keep the bottom line of writers and readers, and to keep the last bit of happiness. Life is the spice of literature and art, and literature and art are the sublimation of life. Reconciliation is not about compromise and mud, but about loving everyday life with one hand and writing according to your own ideas on the other. Writers who love life and live according to their own ideas are happy.
Reporter: Regions seem to have an indelible influence on the growth of writers. Since ancient times, Sichuan has been known as the "Country of Heavenly Capital". Your hometown of Meishan is also the hometown of "Sansu". Regionality or what other factors have influenced your creations?
Shen Rongjun: My hometown is Meishan, Sichuan, and it is the hometown of Chinese prose. One side feeds the other. The nutrition given to me by the sages is more of a life inspiration, including the attitude of daily writing. Early writing is more of a hometown relative. At one time, he participated in the discussion of new prose, original prose, and textual controversy of present prose. Recent essay and fiction writing has been biased towards a return to traditional culture. The normalization of writing often needs to find a point of convergence, related to life, and seems to have a brand of interest, just I like traditional Chinese scholars, like ancient ceramic art. To speak of influence, Su Dongpo is of course the foundation. Contemporary writers Ma Weidu, Zhou Lunyou and Zhu Yong have more or less influenced me. In terms of the emotions of people and utensils, I admire Cao Xueqin and Wen Zhenheng more.
Some time ago, I attended the Sichuan Provincial Congress and listened to Chairman Alai's speech, and I gained a lot. Alai's "Dust Settled" was once the lofty ideal of our generation of literary youth, and his "Record in the Clouds", "Mushroom Circle", "Chengdu Phenology" and so on interpreted the confusion of our times with nature and all things. Alai is a naturalist, and his obsession with the plants of the Gannan grassland and basin, as well as his attitude towards nature, touched me and strengthened my creative direction.
Source: China Youth Daily client
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