Zhao Lihong
Original Edition, Shanghai Literature, January 2022
Man, where are you
"I walked to the end of the language / I understood the chirping of the birds / I went to the end of the color / I saw the essence of the flower / I walked to the end of my life / I dreamed of a baby born / I walked to the end of love / I met my mother" . This is one of the group poems that Mo Yan recently sent me, titled "The End.". Seemingly bland words and images, but the meaning of life, the aesthetic mystery and human feelings are expressed so uniquely and deeply.
At such moments, reading such verses, I am very touched and resonate. The COVID-19 pandemic has been spreading around the world for two years, and it has not yet heard the end, and its duration has exceeded expectations. The invisible virus constantly mutates to threaten mankind, making many people full of sorrow in the face of the future. Yet life goes on, and the literary man's observation, contemplation, and creation never stops. The text that Shanghai Literature has presented to its readers over the past year is a testament to that. Excellent literary works, in difficult times, can soothe the soul and give people strength. Literature is useless, this is a sincere sentence with a slight sadness and helplessness, and it is also a ridiculous word. Writers may be very small, but their sincere attitude, wise thoughts, insightful eyes and unique control of words can make the world soar, illuminate the heart, and cause a long echo in the human world.
Last year, Shanghai Literature published a number of popular works, including a column by a non-professional writer that received special attention. Many readers who did not read literary periodicals before, because her column was interested in literature, have subscribed to "Shanghai Literature" through the micro-store, so that the editorial department is overwhelmed. This columnist is Chen Chong, a film actor living overseas. Chen Chong has made many movies, "Youth", "Little Flower", "The Last Emperor"... The characters she created on the screen once left a deep impression on the audience and became a memory of the times. Her column is a recollection of her own life experience, as well as a review and reflection on the times she has experienced. In her memories, she uses a large number of real details to tell her personal encounters, her childhood, family, relatives, friends, her physical and psychological growth process, and the tortuous footprints of her artistic career. These narratives show the times she experienced with great vividness. Reflections on human nature and reflections on history are blended in simple and vivid words, which seem ordinary, but they are fascinating, thought-provoking, and have a shocking power. The basis that makes up these works, and the most important reason why these words are touching, is because of the author's sincere attitude, which is a large number of real details that reveal the soul.
Chen Chong put it this way in her opening remarks: "Memory, like a soft intaglio on the pillow after the lover's parting, is the evidence that he has existed in your life." You seem to be able to feel the temperature there and can't help but reach out and touch it and press your face against it. When you lift up again, you find that the intaglio has gone out of shape and lost his traces. The memory is also like a crime scene, you go there again and again to check, but instead trample on those handprint footprints, losing the truth. Our minds are constantly logicalizing, rationalizing, glorifying, or scandalizing fragments of memory, and each visit seems to make it a little further away from the original impression. I have been interviewed by reporters from all walks of life since I was very young, and many past events have been repeatedly narrated and turned into reproductions, and even I can hardly see them as they are. Perhaps, the only way to keep the original memory is not to touch it. One day, completely unprepared, I suddenly returned to a memory that had not been invoked too much by myself, some just vague impressions, some as clear as yesterday. I tried to write them down, so that maybe people could see the intaglio I had left on the pillow. Chen Chong's memory is not a "remake", let alone a "remake of a remake", but a real original. Her columns, without fashionable topics or deliberate showmanship, impressed readers with her sincerity and made everyone constantly look forward to reading her next article. This is the power of reality and the charm of literature. Reading Chen Chong's text reminds me of a passage by Belinsky: Realist literature "is characterized by its frankness without pretense, its nakedness to the point of shyness, and its exposure of all the terrible ugliness and all the solemn beauty, as if cut open with a scalpel." By "realism" by Belinsky, I mean that the author observes the reality of life and the objective world, and also refers to the author's sincere attitude, Chen Chong's column, which is exactly such realism.
In the January 2022 issue of Shanghai Literature, the opening work is Mo Yan's group poems. Mo Yan is a novelist and a poet, and his new work", "The Bronze Statue of Neruda", is a tribute to a great poet and reminds me of some unforgettable past events. Mo Yan is a master of storytelling, and his poems also hide stories. The trigger for Mo Yan to write this poem was the bronze statue of Neruda in the Beijing Normal School. On a spring night, Mo Yan was alone in the hall facing the bronze statue of Neruda, and there was a spiritual dialogue between the poets. He wiped the bronze statue of Neruda with a "flannel cloth stained with water", remembering Neruda's poetry and life, and also recalling his visit to Chile and the visit to Neruda's former residence. In Mo Yan's meditation, Neruda is not a bronze statue, but a poet who still radiates passion, and he and Neruda's bronze statue strangely exchange identities in the poem:
I hear you sneer when you bend over
You look up with a smile
It's as if I'm a bronze statue and you are
The craftsman who cast the bronze statue
It's not me wiping your face
It was you who ignited my heart
I have not seen the bronze statue of Neruda in the Beijing Normal School that triggered Mo Yanshixing, it must be a statue of the poet's charm. In the bookcase in front of me, there is also a bronze statue of Neruda, which I brought back from Neruda's Black Island house three years ago. Mo Yan's poem also reminds me of my visit to Chile three years ago. Neruda's Black Island House sits by the sea and is a peculiar ship-shaped building. Neruda's love of life, his outpouring of the ocean, his contemplation of the world, and the poet's love and talent froze in every inch of the Black Island's former residence. Colorful shells, sculptures, paintings, wine bottles, works of art from all corners of the globe, reflected in the corners, bedsides, stairs, window sills and closets, and the smiles and contemplations frozen in black and white photographs are countless footnotes to Neruda's psalms. In a small restaurant facing the sea, I found that the wooden beams on the roof were engraved with letters large and small, which were the names of Neruda's poet friends around the world, and he often missed his poet friends at the ends of the world on black island, and when he missed urgently, he used a knife to engrave one unforgettable name on the beam of the room... The most memorable time of my visit to Chile was at the Black Island House in Neruda, where the Chilean Foundation hosted a poetry reading for me. Listening to Chilean poets recite a poem Chinese in Spanish amid the unceasing waves of the Pacific Ocean is a fantastic sight.
The bronze statue of Neruda that I brought back was a small relief, a silhouette of the poet scurrying away. It is based on a photograph of Neruda, which I have seen on Black Island, of a tall and stout Neruda wearing a large trench coat and a beret, facing the sharp sea breeze, walking on the beach in front of his ship-shaped residence, a silhouette of a contemplative. The bronze statue of Neruda, standing quietly in the bookcase in front of me at this moment, in the book behind the bronze statue, there is Neruda's autobiography "I admit, I have gone through all the vicissitudes", I like this book, in the process of reading, from time to time moved by his narration, the reason is because of his sincerity. After experiencing the vicissitudes of the world, he still retains the heart of a child, frankly like a young teenager, bravely shining his soul to others. This is the character that a great writer should have. At this moment, I remembered a few poems by Neruda, and quoted them as the end of this article:
Stones are rocks; man, where are you?
Air after air; man, where are you?
Time after time; man, where are you?
Xin Ugly Winter Moon in four steps fasting