The Unique Meaning and Value of "Time"——Reading Xia Lijun's "Time Can Speak"

□ Li Yiran

Time Can Talk is Mr. Xia Lijun's fourth collection of essays, published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House in November 2019. This collection of essays is another masterpiece dedicated by the author to the contemporary literary world after "The Pressure of Time" won the Seventh Lu Xun Literature Award. The book is divided into three parts: the first series, "Life Has its Original Intentions", tells about the nostalgia and anecdotes engraved in childhood and adolescence; the second series, "Time Speaks", interprets some representative ancients from the pre-Qin to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties; and the third series, "Toes Want to Be Free", looks back at the humanistic scenery and life realizations traveled by the western branch teachers.

Record the original intention of life, send sincere and far-reaching feelings

Most literary creations are inseparable from the homeland that nurtures themselves, which is both the origin of life and the source of creation. For the author, the hometown is the small village located on the bank of the Yi River in the hinterland of Yimeng Mountain, which nurtures and carries the precious original intention of life, and becomes a mellow treasure condensed in the time unit.

The first series of 11 works, the author truly recorded the poverty and backwardness of Yimeng Mountain at that time, in the form of a story to recount their past with their relatives and neighbors, in order to survive, in order to live well, they naturally have an endless desire for life, and through the inner energy to highlight the meaning of life, reading can not help but be moving, mainly manifested in:

1, the author's mother raised seven children in her life, she was weak and sick from a young age, but for the sake of the children for the sake of the family, she has lived tenaciously to the age of 87, writing a life of "humble, sincere, noble, and simple"; the author's father is comparable to the mountains in the hearts of his children, and in the hearts of the villagers, he has "been able to do", and has lived a "honest and frank, open-minded and sincere, and live without confusion and details"; the author's second uncle has left an unusually industrious life mark although he is stupid; and so on. These characters living in the rural environment are a true portrayal of the simplicity and kindness, hardship and hard work of many rural elderly people.

Especially in the author's mother, there is more of a beautiful humanity illuminated by words: when she learned that the mischievous third child trampled on the ants with her feet, she complained that her son should not trample the ants; when she learned that there were newborn little swallows in the bird's nest under the eaves, she instructed the three children not to scare the old swallows, for fear of scaring the old swallows and leaving the children alone; when some families in the village ruthlessly turned the beggars away, she used the small meals in the family to send beggars and communicate with the beggars. She gave her most sincere kindness to a beggar she never knew. In those poor and backward years, how many families were stretched thin? In that self-absorbed situation, the author's mother's behavior is truly admirable. This ordinary rural woman, who was regarded by the villagers as "incompetent", looked foolish, and humble to the point that she was ashamed of herself even with a few pieces of pods before she died, but left a precious spiritual wealth for future generations. These virtues are as dazzling as the stars, illuminating the path of children's growth, so it is not difficult to understand why the author gave food to beggars and desert tigers, why he sang for the rivers and trees that were not looking good, why he stood in front of the tomb of the young hero Xia Wanchun, and why he took the initiative to ask for help in Kashgar, Xinjiang. The so-called "emotion in the middle and form in the outside", with conscience and compassion, the inner energy acts on the society, which is the far-reaching starlight that human beings should refract.

2. For the young author, he has tasted the suffering brought about by poverty, but this does not hinder the pursuit of ideals in his heart, but prompts him to strive to pursue the direction of life and the goal of life with a hidden and powerful emotion, thus building a self-improvement personality charm. The author frankly said in "The Original Intention of Life": "My pursuit of life is based on beggars. In the heart of the author at that time, when a beggar walked into the street, he could not only get rid of the nightmare of hunger, but also see the big world outside. When he saw that the fourth brother went to Jiehu and Linyi outside the mountain for medical treatment because the soybeans in his ears had sprouts, he also stuffed a soybean into his ear, but he was hit by his father's two feet, so he had to throw the side of his head with the beans on the sand dune, and the fall was swirling before he threw the beans out. Through the vivid and touching descriptions of the works, readers can feel the rushing heart that longs for the big world. It is this galloping heart that inspires the author to "be poor and strong, not to fall into the ambition of qingyun", after years of hard work, he as the only teacher in the village out of the mountains, and then trekked from Yimeng Mountain to the distant Kashgar, and then trekked to the coastal city of Rizhao, until he became a respected writer, and finally realized the literary dream he set up when he was young.

In the author's many years of wandering career, the daily scenery of those old days has long been condensed into nostalgia that is difficult to give up, transformed into words that fill the unit of time, including the affectionate depiction of the river at that time ("The River in Life"), the interesting writing of the childhood world and the living world ("The Comedy of a Soybean", "Crickets Under My Bed"), the deep nostalgia for relatives ("Mother Uses Her Shadow", "You Are My Grandfather", "The Second Uncle of the Fool"), and the detailed description of the rural Spring Festival customs ("The Door God Carries the Big Knife"). These tear-filled affectionate memories are given a special meaning by the author: although the hometown is closed, poor and backward, it is also the spirit of happiness, warmth and dreams, and the hometown is the eternal root.

Adhere to the hometown of the spiritual field, pay attention to the reconstruction of reality and culture

Liang Xiaosheng once said, "People should have two hometowns, one is the hometown of real geography, and the other is the spiritual hometown." The spiritual homeland is established through self-search and self-construction, and only by living a good spiritual life can a person maintain the unity of thought, soul and spirit, which is a rare awareness. In "Time Speaks", the author strives to expand the breadth and depth of the spiritual homeland, examine the specific qualities of the self in time, let history and modernity blend in a unique cultural concept and aesthetic spirit, and treat the reconstruction of reality and culture with a more open, grander and more rigorous attitude.

First, regard historical and cultural documents as the spiritual hometown, and in a pure love, present the adherence and innovation of traditional Chinese culture. Since childhood, the author likes to read history books, often read his brother's textbooks, and often borrow books from zhiqingdian in the village, and those pamphlets of "Primitive Society", "Slave Society" and "Feudal Society" have opened the earliest spiritual path to literary dreams. This hobby, developed since his youth, accompanied the author for half of his life, immersing himself in the study of historical figures and expressing them in a literary way. Although some of the words in the work seem to be quite abrupt at first reading, as long as you read it patiently, you will find that the more you read it, the more flavorful it is, and you will even like this unique thinking and unique atmosphere.

"One sand, one world, one flower and one heaven", a good work must have a different soul, and the same is true of the 10 works in the second series. This group of works highlights a unique historical significance and intellectual brilliance:

First, on the basis of drawing on the research of the predecessors, "doubting the doubts of the predecessors, trying the untested by the predecessors", blazing a new trail, writing in the depths of human nature, touching, dismantling and reconstructing things in the subtleties, full of systematic and pioneering. For example, the author cuts from multiple angles, describes the life encounters, personality characteristics, spiritual pursuits, and ideological conditions of representative figures such as Li Bai, Tao Yuanming, Qu Yuan, Cao Cao, Sima Qian, and Xia Wanchun, evaluates the aesthetic characteristics and historical influences of these celebrity poems, and deeply excavates the secrets of human nature and the sadness and joy of fate that lie in history and culture.

Second, dare to highlight the imperfections and defects of survival itself, reality itself, and history itself in the said time unit, and then glimpse the strengths and shortcomings of the history of human civilization, spiritual history, and aesthetic history. For example, the author dared to boldly reveal and criticize Qu Yuan and Li Bai's "concubine mentality", the thousand-year tradition of "belittling Li Yangdu", the unfair treatment of Cao Cao, the evil of the imperial system and the evil of human nature revealed by Li Si, and strive to "inherit in criticism and develop in inheritance". For another example, several of the characters depicted in the work are deeply desperate, including Qu Yuan's despair of the reality of his homeland, Li Bai's despair of the path of fame and fame, and Sima Qian's despair of the crippled body, but they all resist despair in their own ways, which is in line with the core concept of "resisting despair" in Lu Xun's philosophy. It can be seen that the author has extraordinary artistic courage, which is not only a brilliance that shows the power of criticism, but also a flame that shows the power of innovation, and truly shows the practical significance of the docking of the ancients and the present.

Second, regard nature as the spiritual hometown, rejuvenate the passion of writing in the arduous trek, and show the life experience of the candlelight of the soul.

Qian Yong of the Qing Dynasty said in the "Luyuan Congshu": "'Read ten thousand books, travel thousands of miles', the two must not be abandoned." The author is deeply impressed by this. In order to climb the peak of literary creation, he was willing to endure the hardships brought about by the "ten thousand miles", especially in the three years of the western volunteer teaching, in addition to teaching, the rest of the time was almost all spent on the journey: he once walked alone through the desolate Gobi Desert, once rode through the oasis alone, once approached the treacherous canyon under the snow peak of Muztag, once wandered alone by the East Lake, once piled sand alone for sleeping in the wilderness, once stood alone in front of the tomb of Xia Wanchun's father and son, and let out a cry of sorrow to reminisce... This scene is deeply admirable.

Reading the 10 travelogues of the third series, these works, on the basis of inheriting the characteristics of the original genre, style, technique and asana of western prose, integrate the argumentative color and lyrical color in prose writing, and especially give the sense of reality, life consciousness and humanistic connotation, such as: vast, plump, pure and thorough desert ("Huaisha"),red willow with family unity and perseverance spirit; poplar with tragic warrior spirit ("Root")," and the beautiful and romantic grassland placed on the earth ("Narathi") With its virginal appeal and seductive power, Mai Ji Shan ("Mai Ji Shan") and so on, so that the work has not become an annoying travel junk, but has become a spiritual food for interest.