Tie Yang talks about the pillow book

In the 1950s, you read in Chinese opera, and "Selected Reading of Famous Works" was a compulsory content. Can you talk about what's included here? Did the teacher at that time have any guidance for reading these masterpieces?

Tie Yang: There are two compulsory ways, one is to score the exam, and the other is to examine, and only pass the pass. The first form of teaching is the teaching of the tutor, such as Shakespeare, which is taught by Mr. Sun Jiaxuan. Mr. Sun was one of the few people in the "Sha Xue" community in China at that time. Mr. Zhang Junchuan is also a famous scholar of Shaxue. I remember that Mr. Zhang's lectures also included Greek tragedies and even the works of the Italian comedian Goldoni, and as for the prevalence of Chinese Yuanqu and late Qing opera, mr. Zhou Yibai, a famous opera theorist, taught. Mr. Zhou was the first person in China to write a complete work on the history of opera. The other is Masao Aoki of Japan. In addition to the personal lectures of several gentlemen, the school will also arrange a large number of Chinese and foreign masterpieces for you to read. Read books such as Russian, German, British and Chinese. The classroom teacher will open a large number of books for you, and read them within a time limit. Feel free to check and ask questions. During this period, he also invited famous writers and theorists such as Cao Yu and Tian Han to give lectures, as well as writers from the Liberated Areas, Sha Xin, Mr. Shi Ding, and some young classroom teachers to guide the reading.

From Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Tolstoy in Russia to Gorky and Sholokhov in the Soviet era... Do you like it all? Are there any famous books that you can't read?

Tie Yang: Reading the works of Russian (to the Soviet Union) writers is, of course, the greatest amount of reading. But Balzac, Hugo, Romain Rowland, Maupassant, and Dickens are also in the "Elective Course". Of course, reading these works, not all like, some belong to rational understanding, if Gorey and so on. As you know, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Balzac and Maupassant were the ones who were most interested, and some of their writings left me with a lifelong impression. For Dostoevsky, there are times when I can't read it, such as "The Brothers Karamazov", but I will not give up. From another point of view, such as re-understanding from a historical background, even if it is rational, because it is impossible to read the writer's work without understanding his time. Read other writers as well. There are also those who give up. I have experienced that there are three forms of reading, and in the face of a large number of reading materials, only different ways are treated. One is research, the second is reading, and the third is translation.

Today's middle school students also have a bibliography of extracurricular reading, which is mixed and derisive, would you like to ask for your point of view?

Tie Yang: At the university where I am at the moment, this phenomenon is not surprising. I think some students can't even talk about the praise and criticism of famous works, because praise and depreciation must be understood first. I did experiments and asked questions in lectures, and most of the students knew that Sun Wukong was a "character" in Journey to the West, and a small number of students knew that the author of Journey to the West was Wu Cheng'en, but they thought that Wu Cheng'en was a Song Dynasty person. If you ask Jia Zheng which book is a character, no one raises his hand.

If the students here are interested in Balzac and Dickens, how can it be? How to deal with the current phenomenon of "poor reading" is a problem in the current education on the mainland. From the professor's point of view, only the details of a certain work can make them interested in the whole work, just like telling a story to a kindergarten child. That's the only thing I can do at the moment. For example, I said that there is a Taoist monk in "Liaozhai" who plants a seed in a pear pit in the ground in public, grows into a tree in an instant, blossoms and bears fruit in an instant, and there is a fox who becomes a human and can fly up to the sky on a bamboo pole with a person... In this way, I may be able to guide them to understand "Liaozhai", which I have told Chekhov's "Wanka" countless times, and at present I can only use this method to stimulate the students' interest in reading. But I felt that I had little effect. At present, the aesthetic education we advocate may also enable young students to attach importance to cultural accumulation, so that they attach importance to reading as an important form of cultural accumulation.

Reading Guan Hanqing and Kong Shangren is also a compulsory course in Chinese opera, and Pu Songling and Luo Guanzhong are what you can't get tired of reading for a long time. Can you elaborate on why? Why do you have a special love for Pu Songling and Luo Guanzhong?

Tie Yang: As a student of Chinese opera, I may have treated Shakespeare, Brecht and even Goldoni, including the Russian masters, with a "research" perspective. China's Guan Hanqing and Kong Shangren are China's "drama saints", and they are also paying attention to "research". Of course, I am not yet a theater historian and acting theorist. As for Pu Songling, I like that he is based on two points, one is that he can write foxes and ghosts as Chinese foxes and ghosts. The characteristics of those who are kind, cunning, have heart eyes and lack of heart eyes are all Chinese. A world of ghosts and foxes can coexist naturally with human society. Second, I often mention that excellent literary works are based on two factors, one is the strict selection of the topic, and the other is the depth of excavation. Every time I give lectures, I talk about "Growing Pears," a little story of only a few hundred words. Pu Songling's selection and excavation in this work is a model of literary works.

As for Luo Guanzhong, from the story of the Three Kingdoms he told, we can see the state of existence of Chinese, which is formed by the personality of Chinese. Liu, Guan, and Zhang's Taoyuan Alliance: Not born in the same month of the same year, but wishing to die in the same month of the same year. Guan Gong's "hanging seal seal gold" and "thousands of miles to ride alone", Zhuge Liang can kill Zhou Yu. Huang Gai, as an old minister of Eastern Wu, was willing to be beaten by Zhou Yu... It's all Chinese stories that happen between Chinese. Secondly, I agree with the logic of Luo Guanzhong. Logic is the basis for the success of a work. The logic in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is an important feature of the work's attractiveness, transmission, and long-term reading. From the Battle of Guandu, the Battle of Chibi, and especially the Battle of Chibi, we can find the rigor of Luo Guanzhong's logic.

Have you ever bought Chekhov Thesis – how was it influenced by Chekhov?

Tie Yang: I bought Chekhov Thesis in 1960, the year I graduated from college. This is a new book published by the People's Literature Publishing House in December 1959. The price of the book is 2 blocks, 1 corner and 5 cents, a thick one. Chekhov, who was so "obsessed" during school, just saw this thick new book of more than 400 pages, such as a treasure. Most of the book is Chekhov's letters and diaries. I like that Chekhov certainly didn't start with this book. But everything in the book belongs to Chekhov's artistic claims. I have drawn a lot of "red lines" in books. Think it's an aphorism. Whenever I pick up a pen that belongs to literature, certain aphorisms will ring in my ears: "Literature is called art because it describes life according to its original appearance." Their task is unconditional, straightforward truth. ”

Of course, Chekhov gave me more than that, his greatness lies in his sense of responsibility for Russia, in the severity of humor. Which book is amazing to you? Are there any books worth reading again and again?

Tie Yang: The Book of Poetry, although my understanding of it is only a few words. The books that I read again and again are Chekhov and other exquisite short and medium stories, such as The Invisible Collection (Zweig), Balls of Mutton Fat (Maupassant), Precious Dust (Paustowski), The Captain's Daughter (Pushkin), The Fate of the Young Drummer (Gaidar), and Hazemurat (Tolstoy).

What is your pillow book? What kind of pillow book do you like?

Tyjan: It's hard to cite a book that I've read over and over again, mostly biographies of writers and artists, such as Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence, Owen Stone's Van Gogh biography, Tchaikovsky's My Musical Life, and Romain Rolland's Michelangelo biography. There are also essays by Japanese writers Yasushi Inoue and Haruki Murakami.

If possible, which artist or writer would you most like to talk to?

Tie Yang: Or Chekhov and Pu Songling. What I want to talk to them about is: What are the standards of literature? When you conceive of a story, do you think they are already literature? What is the difference between the ordinary and the vulgar, and how do you get rid of the vulgar?

Can you recall your childhood reading? Do you have a favorite character or protagonist?

Tie Yang: Childhood reading is in contact with some popular juvenile books. For those "model" characters in the book, they are just rationally worshipped, and they don't like it much. Such as "Cao Chong called the elephant", "Li Mi hung the horn", "Sima Guang smashed the cylinder"... But for readers of "head overhangs and cone-spiked strands," I don't approve of that kind of abuse.

What was your favorite book as a child? When your daughters were young, did you guide them to read?

Tie Yang: When I was in elementary school, there was a copy of the "Practical Chinese Language" compiled by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China at that time, although it was not very precious, but I liked its half-literary style, the text skillfully woven together with the vernacular text, the text was concise, the grammar was rigorous, it should be my enlightenment of the literary style. In the middle of the text, there are natural sciences and even geography and history. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is also a must-read book for family education, and some of its chapters are to be memorized throughout to become family traditions. For example, the chapter "Heroes of Ome Boiling Wine" has been recited by generations of my family.

Guiding children to study is the proposition of every family to be a parent.

What are the characteristics of your private collection? Are there any books that surprise you?

Tie Yang: I am a painter, most of the tomes of literature are given away by others, and the books I buy are all my favorite, and it is effortless to read. Of course, I am a painter, and there are not a few albums in the collection, and the albums often have the painter's self-descriptions, and some of them are also very beautifully written. The surprising book you mentioned, I have a line-bound, uncbridged, illustrated "Golden Plum Bottle", maybe it can make people "surprised"?

What is the biggest charm of creation for you?

Tie Yang: You can forget the trivialities in front of you to open up a whole new world. Of all the writers you've ever met, who impressed you the most?

Tie Yang: I have met many writers, but most of them are not here to communicate with me. I'm a painter, just a greeting, and I can't be impressed. He and Mr. Sun Li only hurriedly, but they left an impression on me. At that time, I went to Tianjin to visit Li Li, a district governor who often lived in my house during the War of Resistance. He later became one of the heads of tianjin daily. He and Sun Li lived in the same courtyard, in a tall old house on Racecourse Road in Tianjin (half a person). When I walked into the courtyard, I saw Mr. Sun Li standing under the porch, looking up at the heights, obviously thinking about something. I asked restrainedly, "Is it Mr. Sun Li?" He asked me, "Are you looking for me?" Are you..." He asked, looking at me. I told him that I had come to see Comrade Li Li. He patted himself as if he were going to pat off the dust on his body (it was early winter, he was wearing an old dark cotton pants and cotton jacket), and shouted to the other side of the house: "Li Li, someone is watching you." Li Li came out from the other end of the house, recognized me, and said to Sun Li, I was the head of the children's regiment under his leadership, a native of Zhao County. It was about the head of the children's regiment and Zhao County that brought me closer to Mr. Sun Li. He raised his voice and said in a thick rural voice: "During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhao County belonged to the sixth sub-district and bordered Shen County. I almost went to the sixth district, maybe to Zhao County. Mr. Sun Li said and looked directly at me, with great surprise in his eyes. A few more slaps at his cotton coat.

I didn't communicate much with Mr. Sun Li anymore, just thinking that I had just read his novella "Ironwood Prequel". Probably only a writer like Mr. Sun Li, a writer who stands under the porch and slaps the dust on his body (or maybe there is no dust on his body), can write books that belong to the living conditions of our nation and are readable.

If you could take three books to an uninhabited island, which three would you choose?

Tie Yang: Aesop's Fables or (Krylov's Fables), Golden Rose, Modern Chinese History.

Let's say you're planning a banquet where you can invite a living or deceased writer to attend, who would you invite?

Tie Yang: Aesop, Shen Congwen, Haruki Murakami, Sun Li, Wang Zengqi, Husseini, Fabre, Chekhov, Maupassant, Pu Songling. Aesop was an important guest because he knew what was good and what wasn't.

There were no contemporary writers among them, and the contemporary writers were in another invitation, because the contemporary writers were a huge group and my table could only accommodate ten people. (Songzhuang)

Source: China Reading Daily