Border City (Shen Congwen's masterpiece)

【Editor's Recommendation】

1. One of Shen Congwen's representative works, it is written in the excellent language of the prosperous years to reproduce the poetry and purity of the Xiangxi world.

2. Beauty is a word! The beauty of words, the beauty of scenery, the beauty of love, the beauty of human nature.

3. Beautifully bound, play a pastoral pastoral song of truth to purity and perfection.

【Introduction】

Border City is Shen Congwen's prestigious work, which established his place in the history of modern Chinese literature.

It is an idyllic masterpiece. In this novel, Shen Congwen depicts a border town like a paradise, and a pure, beautiful and faintly sad love story. In his pen, Xiangxi's simple and natural human nature, wild and free life forms, and clear and pure human nature are all laid out one by one, graceful and sad. Shen Congwen's aesthetic ideals of "love" and "beauty" are fully reflected in this novel.

In addition, this book also includes representative novel works of Shen Congwen such as "Three Three" and "Xiao Xiao", which basically includes the essence of Shen Congwen's writing and comprehensively shows the master's literary style.

【About the Author】

Shen Congwen (1902-1988), a native of Fenghuang, Hunan, was a 20th-century writer. In his early years, he joined the army and began to engage in literary creation in 1924. Representative works include novels such as "Border City" and "Long River", as well as essays such as "Xiangxing Sanji" and "Autobiography of Congwen".

Shen Congwen has twice been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Had he not died prematurely in 1988, he would have most likely won that year's Nobel Prize, thus rewriting the history of Chinese literature. 【Media Review】Coming to Yuanling, the scenery is getting better and better, and sometimes it is quite suspicious that there is such a figure as Cuicui!

--Lin Huiyin, a talented woman of the Republic of China

Shen Congwen's writings about the Xiangxi people have a wide range of symbolic significance in the field of history, and can be read as fables of the entire Chinese nation.

——The American sinologist Kim Jie-fu

This ("Border City") is an indelible pearl.

—Literary critic Kengo Lee

【Part of the content sharing】

From Sichuan to Hunan, there is an official road to the east. When this official road approached the border of western Hunan to a small mountain town called "Cha Tong", there was a small stream with a small white tower by the stream, and a single family lived under the tower. There was only an old man, a girl, and a yellow dog.

The stream flows down, around the mountain, and about three miles joins the great river of Cha Tong. If one crosses the creek and crosses the hill, one will only be one mile away from the edge of Cha Tong City. Streams are like bowbacks, and mountain roads are like bowstrings, so there are small differences between near and far. The creek is about twenty meters wide, and the riverbed is made of large stones. The quiet water may be so deep that it cannot fall to the bottom, but it is still clear and transparent, and the fish in the middle of the river can be counted. The creek is a channel between Sichuan and Xiang, the water often rises and falls, limited to financial resources can not build a bridge, so a square head ferry was arranged. The ferry, with its men and horses at a time, could carry about twenty passengers across the river, and when the number of people was large, it came and went repeatedly. A small bamboo pole was erected at the head of the ferry, hanging a movable iron ring, and the sinks at both ends of the creek led to a section of waste cable, and when someone transitioned, hung the iron ring on the waste cable, and the people on the boat led the hand to climb the cable and slowly led the boat over the other side. The ship will come to shore, and the person in charge of the ferry, while shouting "slow down", jumped on the shore and pulled the iron ring, so the people, goods, cattle and horses all went ashore, and they turned over the hill and disappeared. The head of the ferry is owned by the public, so the transitional person does not have to pay for it. Someone was uneasy in his heart, and when he grabbed a handful of money and threw it on the board, the person in charge of the ferry picked it up one by one, and still stuffed it into the palm of the man's hand, as if he was serious when he quarreled: "I have a mouth, three buckets of rice, seven hundred dollars, enough." Who wants this! ”

But no, everything to seek peace of mind, the strength is not rewarded who is good, no matter how someone still put the money. But the boatman was not in love, and for the sake of peace of mind, he entrusted these people to the tea house to buy tea and grass tobacco, and hung the high-grade grass smoke produced by the tea house on the side of his belt, and whoever needed this thing in transition would be generously given. Sometimes, when it is estimated from the spirit that the distant passerby has attracted considerable attention to the grass smoke around him, he will stick a small bundle of grass smoke into the person's baggage, while saying, "Don't smoke this, this is good, this is wonderful, the taste is quite good, and it is also suitable to send people!" In June, the tea leaves are put into large vats and soaked in boiling water to quench the thirst of passers-by.

The man in charge of the ferry was the old man who lived under the tower. He lived for seventy years, and from the age of twenty he stayed by this stream, and for fifty years he did not know how to ferry the boat to and from several people. I'm so old. He was supposed to rest, but heaven forbade him to rest, and it seemed as if he could not leave this part of life. He never thought about the significance of his position for himself, but quietly and faithfully lived there. In place of the heavens, he felt the power of life when the sun rose, and when the sun fell, he did not think that the girl who died at the same time as the sun was the girl who accompanied him. His friends were a ferry boat and a yellow dog, and his relatives were the only ones.

The girl's mother, the only daughter of the old boatman, had an affair with a tea soldier fifteen years ago, and secretly had an affair with the loyal father behind her back. With the child, the sergeant wanted to ask her to flee downstream. But from the act of escaping, one who violates the duty of the soldier must leave the lonely father. After some consideration, the soldier saw that she did not have the courage to go far and it was inconvenient for her to destroy the reputation of being a soldier, and he thought to himself: It is impossible to gather together to live together, and to die together when no one can stop it, and first took poison. But the woman was concerned about a piece of meat in her belly, and she couldn't bear it, and she couldn't make a claim. The matter has been known to the father, who is a ferryman, but the father has not added a weighty word, just as he has not heard of this matter, and still lives a very peaceful life. The daughter, ashamed and pitiful, remained by her father's side, and when the child in her womb was born, she went to the stream and ate a lot of cold water and died. In a near-miracle, this orphan had grown to adulthood, and in the blink of an eye he was thirteen years old. In order to live in two mountains and many bamboos, the green color forced people to come, and the old boatman casually picked up a close name for this poor orphan, called "Cuicui".

Cuicui grew up in the windy day, turning the skin black, touching the green mountains and green water, and a pair of eyes were as clear as crystal. Nature has nurtured and educated her, and she is innocent and lively, like a small beast everywhere. People are so well-behaved, like the yellow chamois on the mountain, never think of cruel things, never worry, never move. Usually, when a stranger on the ferry paid attention to her, she stared at the stranger with her light eyes, making a spirit that could escape into the mountains at any time, but after understanding the inorganic heart of people, she calmly played by the water's edge.

The old boatman, rain or shine, will stay at the bow of the ship. When someone transitioned, he bent slightly, drew a bamboo cable with both hands, and crossed the boat across the creek. Sometimes tired, lying on the rock of the creek fell asleep, people on the other side of the wave shouted transition, Cuicui did not let his grandfather get up, he jumped off the boat, very agile for his grandfather to cross the creek, everything slipped in the line, never missed. Sometimes he was on the boat with his grandfather's yellow dog, and in the transition, he and his grandfather started to work together, and the boat was close to the shore, and when the grandfather was greeting the guests: "Slow down, slow down", the yellow dog took the rope, jumped up first, and as if he knew how to do his duty, he tied the rope to the shore of the tugboat.

The weather is windy and clear, no one transitions, the town is idle, and grandfather and Cuicui sit on the big rock in front of the door to bask in the sun. Or throw a piece of wood from a high place into the water, and make the yellow dog jump down from the rock and bring the wooden title back. Or Cuicui and the yellow dog both open their ears and listen to their grandfather tell stories about the war in the city many years ago. Or grandfather and Cuicui two, each made of small bamboo vertical flute, teasing the mouth to play the song of greeting relatives and sending women. The transitional man came, and the old boatman put down the bamboo pipe and followed him alone to the side of the boat, crossing the creek, and one on the rock, when he saw the boat moving, he shouted sharply:

"Grandpa, Grandpa, you listen to me blow, you sing!"

Grandpa sang happily in the middle of the stream, and the dumb voice and the sound of bamboo pipes vibrated in the silent air, and the stream seemed to be lively. (In fact, the back and forth of the song makes everything more silent.) ）

Sometimes the transition is from the east of The River to the calves of the tea pass, it is the flock, it is the bride's palanquin, cuicui must be regarded as a ferryman, standing at the bow of the boat, lazily climbing the cable, letting the boat slowly pass. After the cattle and sheep palanquin came ashore, Cuicui would follow, stand on the hill, see these things go far, and turn the boat around, leading the boat close to the shore of his home. And the low school lambs who are low alone cry, the cows who learn to bark, or pick a wild flower and tie it to their heads and dress up as a bride alone.

Chatong Mountain City is only one mile away from the ferry, when buying oil and salt, when grandfather has to drink a glass of wine every New Year's Festival, grandfather does not go to the city, and the yellow dog accompanies Cuicui into the city to prepare things. When I arrived at the shop that sold groceries, there were a lot of vermicelli, a large vat of sugar, a cannon fight, and a red candle, which made a deep impression on Cuicui, and when he returned to his grandfather, he always talked about these things for half a day. There were also many uplinking boats along the river, and the hundred and ten boatmen were busy picking up and unloading department stores. This kind of boat is much larger and more interesting than the ferry, and Cuicui is not easy to forget.