Reading "Outside the Words of Flowers", we seem to enter the tunnel of time and space, the poetry, life, and one of the individuals in the classical period, out of the dusty history, come to our lives, and with us, feel the flowers, plants, all things, the vicissitudes of the world.
In the narrative of Gentle Yali, the author Liu Qiong has written us a genealogy about life, poetry, and nature. In this genealogy, poetry, rhetoric and the emotions they express are not things that have passed away and have disappeared, on the contrary, as the lives of those characters in the long historical space - Li He, Li Shangyin, Li Qingzhao, and Naran Sex de reappear in front of everyone, we can feel their temperament and encounters concretely and slightly.
Poetry and life, poetry and people are completely integrated, amiable and perceptible. This makes "Outside the Words of the Flower" have a very distinct presentness and openness, and also allows us to see the possibility of reopening the spiritual space inside the Chinese.
"Outside the Words of Flowers" by Liu Qiong, Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House
A history of life and emotion
When classical poetry meets modern life, when the poems about a certain plant and a certain mood come to the actual daily life, you will find that the poetry contained in those poems can illuminate the ordinary and trivial things, a flower, a road, an emotion, all have a historical context and aesthetic meaning, at the same time, it also gives contemporary people a certain spirituality, time is reunited, history continues again, the falling plum is not only the falling plum, the guqin is not only the guqin, but also a symbol that has been gazed by countless pairs of eyes for hundreds of years. Naran Zhide walked out of history, standing in front of the author Liu Qiong, standing in front of plum blossoms, high mountains and flowing water, zhiyin is difficult to meet, poetry and song are endowed, and they are told.
"Grass snake gray line, thousands of miles of veins", we usually use it to describe the way of writing novels, but in the prose collection "Outside the Words Between the Flowers", we can also feel the beauty of the gray line. Liu Qiong did not reserve the clues of the story like the novel, but with the kung fu of intellectual archaeology, carefully combing through the knowledge buried in the old paper pile, wild history, poetry, examination notes, essays, stories, etc., in the end, those seemingly unrelated things, across thousands of mountains and rivers, met and knew each other, and showed meaning. Knowledge is no longer just knowledge, but the carrier of history, carrying codes and information, weaving a history of life and emotion for us.
In the chapter "Zhengmi Durian Flowers Out of the Short Wall", the author writes from Iran, where pomegranates were introduced, writes about the spread of pomegranate trees and the change of names, writes poems about pomegranates in the Li Bai period, views the scenery of Chang'an at that time, then examines the "An Pomegranate Endowment", and goes deep into the "Taiping Guangji" and "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" to find the earliest text that records pomegranates. Writing here, the author swings the topic away, talks about the relationship between the legend of Chinese Zhiwei and the novel, and finally, he returns to the "fan" of "guava", and back to the mid-autumn moon appreciation of Chinese, the covenant of pomegranate. In these short paragraphs, the author not only involves history, plant archaeology, poetry, classics, guqin songs, but also tells us a personal story, from Wang Zhaojun, Li Bai, Cai Wenji to Princess Xixi, and then to the "I" who went to Xi'an in his youth to appreciate the durian and lost his wallet but ate delicious fire crystal persimmons, past and present, history and present, knowledge and life, integrated, it is interesting to read, full of mouth. There is both sensual beauty and rational gain.
Enter the promenade of classical culture
Classical poetry is not just rhetoric and literature, it is the expression of the spiritual qualities we once possessed, it speaks of emotion, life and aesthetics, a humanistic spirit. Plants, poems, utensils, etc., any tiny thing in life, projects human emotions and human destiny.
There are twelve chapters in "Outside the Words of flowers", each chapter is based on a plant, an image as the theme, and others, touching the bypass, the text is clean and transparent, even if it is a bumpy fate and fireworks in the world, it is also transformed into the nature and nature between heaven and earth. The author writes from his own observations and experiences, childhood home, parents' past events, friends' homes, begonias on his own window sill, study life, etc., giving the article a very vivid sense of reality, integrating his own life understanding, literary understanding and ideological emotions into it, classical knowledge and its related set of cultural and emotional ways are not only traditional, it has also become a part of modern life, and is a part of modern Chinese emotions and spirits.
As a doctor of literary and artistic aesthetics, Liu Qiong is also a profound connoisseur of poetry and an expert in classical literary and art theory. She can convey to the reader a very accurate, rich and interesting poetic analysis, while at the same time integrating her own understanding and cognition. There are a large number of poems and ancient classics in "Outside the Words of flowers", these poems and classics are not isolated cases, they are all used by the author for a certain theme, and they have a strong correlation with each other, which shows the author's amazing knowledge reserve and ability to use. Along her quotes and combing, we seem to enter a corridor of classical Chinese culture, a poem and a book, and the author has come and gone, as if they have always been there, waiting for us to pick them up.
"Yue Zhi Shu", "Huainan Zi", "Huiji Customs Endowment", "Shaoxing Dizhi Narrative", "Confucius Family Language", "Huijizhi", "Qunfang Genealogy" and other local historical records and supplementary remains that we rarely read in daily life are everywhere in the text. Carefully woven by the author, they are connected by hidden threads, transcending time, space, history and language, and coming together to have new vitality and new meaning.
What is presented is a cultural memory
Each poem mentioned in the text, the author gives a very unique interpretation, from which you can also glimpse the author's literary and historical views. In the chapter "But the Begonias Are Still The Same", the author examines in detail Li Qingzhao's life, marital status, the chaos of the times, and the changes in life, and concludes: "The Qingzhou period is probably the most beautiful period, leaving behind the 'East Hedge after the wine is dusk, there are dark incense sleeves. Mo Dao does not lose his soul, the curtain rolls in the west wind, people are thinner than yellow flowers, "Night to indulge in late makeup removal, plum calyx cutting stumps." The wine wakes up and breaks the spring sleep, and the dream is far from returning' and other lingering words. Using wine and flowers to accompany poems, writing thoughts and feelings, making good use of synaesthesia, wonderful imagery, beautiful and bright, this is the characteristic of Li Yi'an's early euphemisms, most of which are written at the time of rich and comfortable life. "'Three glasses and two light wines, how to oppose him late and the wind is urgent', writing about the climate, talking about the times and personal encounters." This rapid wind was the change of Jing Kang, and the Northern Song government completely collapsed. "From the perspective of poetry, from the perspective of people, the author sees the vicissitudes of the world and the impermanent fate contained in the poems, extends classical literature from aesthetics to life, and goes back to the historical context, so as to have more flesh and blood feelings."
However, "Outside the Words of Flowers" is not an appreciation of ancient poetry, it ultimately shows an ideal of life and aesthetic ideals of the author, a kind of cultural memory, and an attempt to internalize cultural memory into the spiritual form of modern people. In the chapter "Spring into the Plains of Cauliflower", the author writes: "Knowing people on poetry, I deeply believe it. As a result, in Liu Yong's hand, the word rose became a sword that killed countless enemies in Xin Shuyi's pen. In the hands of Xin Renyi, the words are a basket full of tricks, without the binding of form and content, not only singing 'think of the year, jingo iron horse, swallowing like a tiger', but also whispering 'leaning on the east wind, smiling yanran, turning to the flowers to fall', and also singing 'the most joyful children are rogues, the creek head lies on the lotus canopy'. This is all the realistic care of Xin Abandoned Disease. The author sees the patriotic feelings of Xin Abandoning Disease from the ever-changing poetic imagery of Xin Abandoned Disease, and also feels the daily joy of a poet. Passionate and gentle are not incompatible, which is the embodiment of the richness of human nature.
People in different time and space talk to each other
There has always been a poetic tradition within Chinese life, and the literati pursue the unity of humanities, and people, even ordinary people, yearn for knowledge and simple human order, in order to achieve the generation of "etiquette". This is both a way of life and an appearance of a spiritual form. When Wang Wei chanted, "Sit alone in the fence, play the piano and whistle for a long time." The people of the deep forest do not know that the bright moon comes to take care of each other"; Li Shangyin wrote that "this situation can be turned into a remembrance, but at that time it was already confused", Li Qingzhao sighed that "when it is warm and cold at first, it is most difficult to rest", nature and human beings, the present world and the future, this and the other are completely integrated. Such a state of mind has a transcendent beauty, and it also makes man eventually transcend existence itself, from living to life, from reality to aesthetics.
How to return classical knowledge and spiritual temperament to the interior of Chinese life and become an important way to broaden the spiritual space and dimension of contemporary people is a very important contemporary topic. After hundreds of years of cultural conflicts, most people realize that the so-called conflict is actually how to continue the Chinese tradition that has been "broken", and within this tradition, there are Confucianism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Western learning, universal harmony, Yazheng and mystery, freedom and order, and so on. However, if we look at it from a concrete practical point of view, we will find that whether it is literature, music, sculpture, drama and other art forms, they are always continuing history in their own way. In this sense, "Outside the Words of Flowers" is not just an elegant, highly informative prose work, in the large opening and closing and specific and subtle description, in the history and the present of the return, the author let us see the consistent beauty of the Chinese spirit and the beauty of language, no matter how the times rise and fall, under such a spiritual gaze, the flowers and trees are still sentient, the words are still active, and people across different time and space can still talk to each other and understand each other.
(The author is a professor at the School of Liberal Arts, Chinese Min University, and is the author of "China in Liangzhuang", "Out of Liangzhuang", "Ten Years of Liangzhuang" and "Sacred Family")