As we all know, Shen Congwen is a famous modern novelist. 100 years ago, in 1922, after this young peasant from xiangxi province "North Drift" came to Beijing, he broke into the literary world with a number of novels with a distinct imprint on the rural areas of western Hunan and became one of the most important writers in the 1920s and 1930s.
When New China was founded in 1949, Shen Congwen was only 47 years old, which was the age of prosperity and energy. In the eyes of many people, Shen Congwen can just step into another creative peak like Lao She and become a respected and beloved "people's artist".
Unexpectedly, however, Shen Congwen never wrote novels after 1949 except for a few occasional essays, and disappeared from the literary world. After that, Shen Congwen transferred from Peking University to the Chinese History Museum and the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he was engaged in the study of cultural relics and ancient costumes for a long time, and eventually became a scholar of costume archaeology from a writer.
The reason why Shen Congwen stopped writing novels after 1949 was related to an article by Guo Moruo.
One
The past has to start in 1930.
In 1930, Shen Congwen went to teach at National Qingdao University (the predecessor of National Shandong University). Here, Shen Congwen spent 8 years. During this period, he created a large number of weighty novel works, which established his position in the literary world and his prestige grew day by day.
Earlier, a group of writers from the Creation Society and the Sun Society played the banner of "revolutionary literature" and announced that the writers of the "May Fourth" generation had fallen behind and were abandoned by the times. Guo Moruo is the main general of the Creation Society. Shen Congwen, as a representative of the "May Fourth" writers, began a fierce debate with them.
In 1930, Shen Congwen published "On Guo Moruo" in the first issue of The First Issue of Sunrise Magazine, which directly criticized Guo Moruo for "failing to create". Shen Congwen further commented, "Looking at his novels, we will not get anything in words", "In terms of artistic valuation, Guo Moruo's novels are not completely better than many of the novels of young people at present", "In short works, it is not because of the short length of the length that the inappropriate description is subtracted from its length"...
Although Guo Moruo entered the literary world with poetry, he also wrote many novels. Shen Congwen devalued his novel creation to the point of almost uselessness, which naturally made him feel angry.
In 1931, Shen Congwen again severely criticized Guo Moruo, saying in the article: "Among the three people (Yu Dafu and Zhang Ziping), Guo Moruo did not have much achievement in his creation. But when writing a novel, the worst of the three. Guo Moruo's exaggerated appearance with heroes sometimes makes people laugh. In Shen Congwen's eyes, Guo Moruo's novels are worse than Yu Dafu and Zhang Ziping.
Two
Guo Moruo's reply seemed to be a little late, but it was more forceful.
On February 10, 1948, on the eve of the founding of New China, Guo Moruo published an article entitled "Rejecting Reactionary Literature and Art". In this article, Guo Moruo criticized in a stern tone the five kinds of "reactionary literature and art" of "red, yellow, blue, white and black". Shen Congwen, as a representative of "Peach Red Literature and Art", was swept away by Guo Moruo with a large pen. Unlike the literary criticism in Shen Congwen's "On Guo Moruo", the tone of "Rebuke Reactionary Literature and Art" is fatal.
From this moment on, Shen Congwen had a premonition that drastic changes would take place in the literary world, and wrote a letter to a young writer: "China is about to enter a new era. The traditional way of writing attitude, I am afraid that I have to be determined to give up and learn to engage from a new beginning. People are nearly middle-aged, the concept is solidified, the habit of using the pen is not easy to reverse, coupled with misunderstandings, after a long time, they are not forced to put down the pen, and finally have to put aside the pen. This is the inevitable result of people our age. ”
At this time, he germinated the idea of "shelving the pen".
In January 1949, the dust of the times finally fell on Shen Congwen's head. This year, Guo Moruo's article "Rebuking Reactionary Literature and Art" and a slogan denouncing Shen Congwen appeared in the poster of Peking University. Shen Congwen could not bear such a great pressure, once cut his wrist at home to commit suicide, fortunately was found by his family, timely treatment, to save a life. But shen Congwen was discouraged after that, writing in a letter to his wife Zhang Zhaohe: "I have no premise, just hope for a less embarrassing ending." No one understood, and they all went away. Completely in isolation. Isolated and desperate, I had no illusion of survival. ”
But in any case, you still have to survive. At best, it's a different way of surviving. In the general environment at that time, Shen Congwen could no longer continue to engage in novel writing. Through the mediation of his friend Ding Ling, he transferred his job from Peking University to the Museum of Chinese History and later to the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He buried himself in the pile of old paper and immersed himself in the study of cultural relics from thousands of years ago, not asking about the world.
On the other hand, this is not necessarily a good thing for Shen Congwen. He escaped some disasters and achieved impressive results in a whole new field. Shen Congwen, who no longer wrote novels, became a scholar of costume archaeology and published the weighty "Research on Ancient Chinese Costumes". In 1966, it was according to Shen Congwen's instructions that the cultural relics workers presided over the restoration of the country's first piece of gold and jade clothing restored to its original form.
Echoes an old saying: "Blessings depend on misfortunes." ”
Interestingly, in 1981, when Shen Congwen's "Studies on Ancient Chinese Costumes" was published by the Commercial Press, it was Guo Moruo who wrote the preface himself.