On the evening of January 3, the famous writer and scholar Xu Zhaoshou's new book "The Journey to the West" held a sharing meeting in Beijing's one-way space, which was attended by Professor Yang Qingxiang, vice dean of the College of Literature of Chinese Min University, writer Ah Yi, Li Weichao, executive editor of the "Chinese Modern Literature Research Series", Yi Hua, researcher of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, teachers and students of Peking University, Chinese University, Beijing Normal University, Lu Xun College of Literature and other colleges, and more than 100 customers of Beijing Intention Bookstore. The event was hosted by Beijing Radio host Jin Qiao.
The scene of the new book sharing meeting
Professor Yang Qingxiang, a young critic, a judge of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, and deputy dean of the College of Literature of Chinese Min University, believes that in writing about the west, Zhang Chengzhi, Chang Yao, and others grew up or worked in other places and later went to the west, so the west is a kind of content and spirit that they "discovered" or wrote, and they can be called the adopted sons of the west, while Xu Zhaoshou and Ye Zhou are real concubines, writers who were born, grew up in, and wrote in The west. Xu Zhaoshou is different from the above writers in that he wrote about a cultural west and believed that it was the source of living water of Chinese culture, so his "western trilogy" could be called new western writing.
A B, a representative writer after the 70s, believes that "Journey to the West" is a big book, a big book of time, a big book of space, a book that only writers with university questions and great ambitions can write, and a book that can cure modern diseases. He believes that modern technology has ruled mankind, people live in various diseases, Xu Zhaoshou's "Journey to the West" just provides us with a path to walk towards ancient times, to experience the traditional Chinese culture of the unity of heaven and man, it can make us re-understand people and the world.
Li Weichao, a young critic and executive editor-in-chief of the Journal of Modern Chinese Literature Studies, said her daughter saw the book and asked her if it was about Sun Wukong. She felt that her daughter's feelings were also justified. She said that some people say that Xu Zhaoshou's western writing is similar to Zhang Qian's chiseling the western region, so Xu Zhaoshou's westward journey is also similar to the westward journey of Zhang Qian, Xuanzang and Sun Wukong's four masters and apprentices, which is to re-find the spiritual home of mankind. She said that the literature of the western region is an indispensable space for Chinese literature, just imagine what the picture of Chinese literature would be without Zhang Chengzhi, Zhou Tao, Chang Yao, Ma Lihua, Yang Xianhui, Liu Liangcheng, and even Lu Yao, Chen Zhongzhong, Jia Pingwa, Alai, etc. Now, Xu Zhaoshou has continued to write, especially the "Ask the Question Trilogy" to enhance western literature from the cultural space, which is a literature that is difficult to bypass the past. She believes that Xu Zhaoshou's many conjectures about Chinese culture in this book deserve the attention of scholars.
Yi Hua, a well-known scholar and researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the western region is an important field in Chinese culture and archaeology today, and the ancient exchanges between China and Central Asia and West Asia can be elaborated from at least ten aspects. He said that in his field of vision, in terms of cultural prose, Yu Qiuyu was an early writer who wrote about western culture, which had a great influence at that time, but today it seems to be somewhat sloppy, and the discussion of history itself is mostly, while Zhang Chengzhi and Xu Zhaoshou went to the depths of the west with deep emotions, beliefs and even life, and even did a lot of solid academic research and archaeology in this regard, so it is more textured to read and has more resonance.
Yan Wenke, an education publisher and executive director of Liberal Arts Innovation Education Technology Co., Ltd., was the guest who took the initiative to ask for a speech, and he said, I have listened to everyone define Xu Zhaoshou as a western writer, I don't think so, I think his writing of traditional Chinese culture and care for the culture of the whole world are rare today. Although others are in the West, they should not be confined to Western writers.
Tian Xiaoshuang, editor of the Writers Publishing House and editor-in-charge of "Journey to the West", said that when she read and edited the book, she had several tears like rain and could not cry. She said that few cultural essays have such power and emotion, and "Westbound Enlightenment" has, "Westbound Enlightenment" is a book of sincerity, a book of capital letters, a book of self-confidence about Chinese culture.
At the sharing meeting, doctors, masters and university students from Peking University, Chinese Min University, Beijing Normal University, lu xun college of literature also recited excerpts from "The Journey to the West" and talked about their feelings about reading the book. The event was originally scheduled for two hours, but was extended to three hours.
Xu Zhaoshou signed for readers
At the end of the sharing meeting, Xu Zhaoshou thanked many guests and readers online and offline, and also shared his understanding of the Tao. He said that before the age of forty, he was almost a believer in Western culture, and the papers he wrote at that time rarely quoted example sentences of classical Chinese literature, but in his in-depth study of traditional Chinese culture in the past decade, in the process of constantly walking westward, and at the same time in the process of teaching "Chinese Cultural History" and "World Cultural History" for more than ten years, he recognized the ancient culture of Chinese culture, Chinese culture has a macroscopic holistic theory, but since the Qin and Han Dynasties, it lacks microscopic theory. In his world, at the beginning, the two cultures were opposed, and slowly, the two cultures gradually merged, in other words, Western culture gradually made up for the shortcomings of Chinese culture at the micro level, so that the macro theory of Chinese culture was further consolidated and had the unspeakable truth power.
In this decade of exploration, he has studied physics, geography, astronomy, biology and other aspects, and his understanding of western culture has become deeper and deeper, his understanding of Chinese culture has become more and more intense, and he has naturally and intrinsically raised a cultural self-confidence. He will tell some of these takeaways in four books to be published next year.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian