【What the Reader Says】
Author: Wang Qingsong (Professor, Shanghai Normal University)
It all starts with curiosity. Ever since one of the primates stepped out of Africa about 120,000 years ago and glimpsed the vastness of the world, the pace of human movement and exploration in space has never stopped. Motivations are ever-changing, the means are varied, and the means of transportation keep pace with the times. Or because of the fear of death, trekking across the earth to seek the way of eternal life; or in order to get rid of slavery, the whole ethnic group embarked on the road of exile; or with the dream of making a fortune, sailed out to the sea, to colonize and colonize distant places; or out of religious piety, step by step pilgrimage to the mountains; or to challenge themselves, trekking through the mountains and wading through the water; or purely for leisure and sightseeing, exploring the secrets and finding victory; or simply making their own strategies, calling on friends and friends, and traveling the world. The road continues to extend, the horizon continues to expand, to the border desert, the cape sky...
At the same time, historical documents and literary texts related to travel and tourism have also slowly survived and accumulated, becoming a rich spiritual and cultural wealth possessed by mankind. However, their genre, style and aesthetic qualities vary. Some are just casual, rambling diaries, the text is simple, and it is true and credible to read; some have been perfunctory, but it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, so that the examiners are helpless; some are from the hands of professional writers, careful observation, exquisite writing, and can be used as objects of independent appreciation; and some texts have always wandered between actual records and fictions, becoming interesting literary-cultural phenomena.
Professor Zhang Deming's new book "Ten Lectures on Travel Literature" can be said to be timely. This is the first introduction to travel literature for the general public in China. Based on the global context and local consciousness, the book fully draws on the resources of comparative literature research and interdisciplinary research, and expounds the newly emerging genre of travel literature from the three aspects of historical evolution, stylistic characteristics and writing strategies, which is an innovative achievement of travel literature research.
1. A literary journey through time and space
Opening the "Ten Lectures on Travel Literature", it is as if following an experienced tour guide, starting from his own study and starting from antiquity, he has made a journey through time and space. The whole book believes that travel literature originated in ancient times, and then went through the Middle Ages, the Age of Great Navigation and the Age of Enlightenment, until the current era of mass tourism, and appreciated many classics of world travel literature with a point and face.
The ancient and modern Chinese and foreign travel literature discussed in the book is dazzling, and there are nearly 100 works (pieces) by more than 80 poets and writers from all over the world. The author tells the stories of the mountains, rivers, seas, customs, and people encountered in the text, as well as his own feelings. There are both large-scale strokes of ink and brush-like ticking and tracing. This is so easy, because it requires deep historical penetration and contemporary vision, and a strong literary potential as a cushion. In the flowing narratives and appraisals, some Shu Yun is scrolling, and some are like walls and peaks, reflecting not only the specific views of individuals on literary history, a certain writer, and a certain work, but also a certain position on the world literary system. All this is not difficult to understand, because Professor Zhang Deming has been engaged in the teaching and research of world literature and comparative literature for decades, and more than a decade ago, the monograph "From Island Nation to Empire - Modern and Modern British Travel Literature Research" came out, so this work can be described as a natural success.
Portrait of Liang Qichao. In 1903, at the age of 31, Liang Qichao boarded a cruise ship and began his journey to North America. He was diligent in observation, sensitive to thinking, and when he felt something, he recorded it in his diary, and after returning to China, he compiled a book called "Travels in the New World". Hand-painted by Zhang Deming
A significant feature of the Ten Lectures on Travel Literature is that it embodies the positions, ideas and methods of Chinese scholars in the study of travel literature in many aspects. The first thing that catches the eye is to comb through the flowers and trees to comb through the ancient Chinese travel literature tradition. The author believes that Chinese travel literature descended from Zhuangzi's "Getaway", through Tao Yuanming's divine travel, the geographical landscape tourism of Li Daoyuan and Xie Lingyun in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, stretching out of the road of Eastern Zhejiang Tang poetry, and to the Ming Dynasty, the spectacle of land and sea travel marked by Zheng He and Xu Xiake, and finally arrived at Liang Qichao, forming an ancient Chinese "intermittent and intertwined travel literature tradition." ”
The book also lists a number of Overseas People's Travel Works in China, which shows the appearance of China in the eyes of the world. "Marco Polo's Travels", Ibn Battuta's Travels in China, Choi Pu's "Drifting the Sea" in ancient Korea, Maugham's "On the Screen of China" by the British Maugham, the contemporary American Peter Heisler's "River City", the British traveler Robert McFarlane's "Ancient Road", etc., can be regarded as a beautiful landscape scroll, "leaving a mirror for China to look at itself with the eyes of others." In particular, "The Record of Drifting Seas" highlights the historical facts and cultural marriages of friendly exchanges in the Han cultural circle.
In addition, most of the works discussed in the book are familiar, but once they are cut from the perspective of travel literature, they have a unique beauty. For example, the great traveler Xu Xiake is well known, while Zhang Deming, based on the texture of the text, skillfully blends personal real feelings and academic rationality, presenting Xu Xiake's personality charm and reverie about the difficulties of the journey. For example, in analyzing the English poet Byron's "The Travels of Childe Harold", he argues that from the perspective of spatial poetics, the summit of the Alpine peak in chapter three and the dome of the Roman cathedral in chapter four constitute "a subtle structural echo, reflecting the pilgrim's soul's desire for spiritual transcendence." This is of certain significance for understanding the main theme and structure of the long poems, exploring the significance of overseas travel to the growth of Byron's thought, and establishing Byron's position in the history of the development of travel literature.
Portrait of Mark Twain. Mark Twain was a traveler in the era of mass tourism. In 1869, his collection of travel essays, "The Fool Going Abroad", was published, which sold well and became a household name ever since. Hand-painted by Zhang Deming
Reading this, some people may wonder: some of these texts are travelogues, essays, poems, novels, why do they all belong to travel literature? The answer to this can be found in the author's "working definition" of travel and travel literature. Zhang Deming believes that travel is "the spatial movement of travelers from the real world to the possible world." And all the texts in the history of human literature that describe such spatial movements can be called travel literature. In view of the "real world" and the "possible world", Professor Zhang does not intend to distinguish between philosophy and logic, but to make metaphorical interpretations. He metaphorically said that our bodies are like sunflower branches rooted in the soil, but the soul can move with the sun like a sunflower disk, yearning for the "unattainable light", and travel is the action representation of the pursuit of the light.
This definition of both poetry and rationality directly determines the criteria for judging an ideal travel literature. An ideal travel literature should provide readers with the opportunity and space to explore, and at the same time lead readers into the external world, the author's inner world, and the reader's inner world. In such travel literature texts, the act of travel is a trigger point, a "way for a person to stand against the world", and what is really important is the inner world and the spiritual world. It can be seen that the author has a high degree of cognitive, aesthetic and philosophical expectations for travel and travel literature. This avoids the cramps of limiting travel literature to an overly narrow definition of non-fiction, and is in line with the historical fact that travel literature is a very broad literary entity. At the same time, this definition also expands the scope of tourism professional textbooks commonly known as "tourism literature" in China, which is more in line with today's travel practices. It contains a breakthrough in the research ideas of travel literature.
2. A set of vivid travel literature writing guides
The next part of "Ten Lectures on Travel Literature" is a set of vivid travel literature writing guides, from the three levels of narrative mode, time and space structure, landscape writing form, go deep into the interior of the work, interpret the stylistic characteristics and artistic charm of colorful travel literature works, find insight into the subtle path for appreciation, and send energy for literature lovers to create their own travel literature works.
Ten Lectures on Travel Literature
By Zhang Deming
Peking University Publishing Company
Benjamin said that travelers must tell stories. So what are the characteristics of the way travelers tell stories? Zhang Deming believes that travel literature usually tells the story of the traveler himself, like an autobiography or memoir, and the first-person narrative is a prominent feature of the travel narrative. Although there are many masterpieces of travel literature that have been used by others in literary history, since modern times, most travel literature has used the first person because of the requirements for the authenticity, reliability, and authority of travel narratives. So how do you judge the meaning of a first-person narrative? The author points out that there are pros and cons to everything, and the first-person narrative is vivid and intimate, with a sense of presence, but also limitations. The first person is a restrictive narrative, where the narrator can only tell his own personal experiences or hearsay, which limits the narrator's narrative. Moreover, the narrative of "I" is not only subject to the senses, but also limited by the level of knowledge, moral concepts, political positions, race, gender, and other identity characteristics. Of course, the pros and cons are not absolute, and the limitation is precisely the space to show charm. Excellent examples abound in literary history, and Conrad's Marlowe is typical of them.
The structure of time and space and landscape writing also bring together the unique charm of travel literature. Many times, people only focus on the novelty and grandeur of the travel destination, and ignore the journey itself. In this book, the author reminds that from the moment of leaving home, even from the time of preparing for travel, the time-space displacement of travel has begun, and the feeling of time-space spanning between different travel tools is also different. In the pen of Robert Grillet, Butor and others, trains, planes, and airports shine with fascinating artistic luster. These "non-places" are no longer short-lived and illusory, but in the slow flow of time, creating "turns" and romances again and again.
The landscape encountered during the trip is not only physical space-time, but also psychological space-time and "social class structure". Travel writing confronts the real landscape, but at the bottom of it is the temporal and spatial body of the mind. The writer Chen Danyan once said, "I don't want to consume the world I witness, I want to depict what it looks like in my own heart." Maugham's "screen" reflects both the corruption and degeneration of the old Chinese officialdom, the pain and hardship of ordinary Chinese survival, and the hypocrisy of Westerners. Levi Strauss saw the filth and garbage of human civilization in the jungles of South America. Steinbeck's travels through the United States bear witness to the illusion of democracy and prosperity.
As a guide to guide literature lovers into the world of travel writing, Zhang Deming broke with the norm and chose the travel text of an unknown college student as an example. This is both unexpected and resilient. It not only highlights the essence of travel literature writing should respect the first feeling, but also reflects the author's unique discernment, and also enlightens countless eager and potential travel writers.
3. A literary research result, a crystallization of life journey
Open this book, you will find more than twenty illustrations, some watercolor paintings, some photographic works, the vast majority of which are by Professor Zhang Deming. I have long heard that Mr. Zhang is good at painting, is a rare great painter in the field of foreign literature research, has independently held art exhibitions, published albums, but after all, it is heard, and now I can finally see the style. These works include portraits of Shakespeare, Liang Qichao, and Whitman, Zhangye Colorful Danxia, Guizhou houses, and photographs taken during travels, such as the Tapron Temple in Cambodia and the American Indian Reservation. They always attract people to stop and take a closer look. They show the multi-dimensional charm of the travel landscape and the text, as well as the author's understanding of the text's travel, the field "gaze" and the way of memory, as well as the words and power relations implied in them. While adding a lot of fun, they are Also Zhang Deming's realistic interpretation of the basic paradigm of travel writing and the strategy of "deep expansion".
Guizhou residences. Hand-painted by Zhang Deming
Presumably, some people, like me, embarked on this literary reading journey with a beautiful vision of travel, but the current unpredictable epidemic has made travel particularly rare. If the pandemic hit the pause button on real-world travel, why not start with text travel? This is a great opportunity to "recharge your batteries", reserve silver two, and prepare for a big job in the future. Of course, before leaving, please bring Zhang Deming's "friendship tips": "Travel literature always reminds us that the world is not in order, as you wish, three meals a day, meat and vegetarian combination, complete nutrition." The world may sometimes have only half a compressed biscuit, a pot of boiling water, but you have to support it for half a day and hike for five hours just to see a sacred snowy mountain. This passage reads lightly and brightly, jingling and pleasant, but it is also a bit of a miscellaneous taste. Yes, travel is a kind of dressing, adjusting, energy storage, exciting, this flowing, smooth and silky travel literature tutorial, more or less let us forget that reading and travel is also a kind of labor, but how not to forget, travel and travel literature also have a lot of "myths".
The author believes that this work is not only a result of Zhang Deming's literary research, but also a crystallization of his life journey experience. How to transform ourselves from a tourist to a traveler, this book guides us out of the myth of travel, but also out of the "threshold space" of the "Ten Lectures on Travel Literature". It reminds us that in the age of the popularization of travel, truly in-depth travel is still scarce; in the age of the popularization of travel literature, truly valuable travel literature is still scarce. It also echoes the author's definition of "travel literature" with the expectation of elevating the spiritual qualities of travel and travel literature in the age of mass culture.
(The pictures in this article are all selected from the "Ten Lectures on Travel Literature")
Guangming Daily (2022.01.13. 11th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily