Abstract: According to Tong Ming's preface to "Leopard Change", "Leopard Change", which was planned to be published according to Mu Xin's lifetime, is a "short circular novel", that is, a long novel composed of short stories that are independent of each other but connected to each other.
At first glance, the content of each short story is far apart, and the creative style is also different, so in what sense does the short story form an internal connection?
Tong Ming gives some hints in several directions in the preface to "Leopard Change", and this article further expounds the view that "Leopard Change" is an autobiographical novel of the spiritual growth of Mu Xin from the perspective of text analysis, and analyzes the spiritual world of Mu Xin.
Keywords: Wooden Heart "Leopard Change" Spiritual growth history
"Leopard Change" is a collection of short stories published after Mu Xin's death, by his researcher and close friend Tong Ming, who compiled Mu Xin's old works. However, in the preface written by Tong Ming, it is clearly stated that "the sixteen articles presented in the present order are a complete novel", or more accurately, a "short circular novel". Simply put, the sixteen novels in the collection are independent, but in some secret place, they form a certain connection with each other.
The sixteen novels in this collection are not related to each other in content, nor are they arranged in the order of writing time, and are scattered in different collections when they are first published, which means that when the author created these works, he did not have a complete theme in mind, nor did he deliberately create some connection between these novels. So why did I choose these novels to end up as a whole, and these novels are connected in secret places that authors may not have noticed when they were creating them, and this is what I was most interested in when reading The Leopard Change.
According to Tong Ming's preface, the publication plan of this collection actually began in 1993, and the selection and order of these sixteen novels, including the name of the novel collection "Leopard Change", were already determined by Mr. Mu Xin before his death. This fact means that, in organizing his work, the author has discovered a connection that he was not aware of at the time of creation, or that the author deliberately expresses a certain theme he wishes to present through the selection of these works, which is explained in the title "Leopard Change":
The title of the book, "Leopard Change", is derived from the "I Ching" Revolution: Adult Tiger Change, Villain Leather Face, Gentleman Leopard Change. ...... But the change of a gentleman is long and arduous, comparable to the change of a leopard. ...... In addition, "gentleman leopard changes, its wen wei also", "wen" and "pattern", just the colorful color of "leopard change".
Obviously, this passage clearly points out the intention of Mu Xin's choice of these novels to form a "short circular novel": it is these novels with colorful colors and different textures that present Mu Xin's exploration and thinking in literary creation, showing a long and arduous journey of an artist's spiritual and creative growth and maturity, thus completing the "change of a gentleman" of the self.
As a collection of short stories, although it cannot be said that each novel is unique and exquisite, it can also be said that each one has its own characteristics. The language is either plain or elegant or gorgeous, changing as it pleases; stylistically some are like novels, some are like prose or poetry, free and uninhibited; in terms of creative style, they also show the characteristics of constant change, such as the traditional narrative of "Childhood Goes Away" and "Xia Mingzhu", there are narratives like "Round Light" and "The Sobbing of People in the Same Car", there are narratives that intercept a certain fragment of life, there are meta-novel attempts in the style of "Empty Room", and there are also stream-of-consciousness creations like "Tomorrow Will Not Walk". Looking at the whole book, it is indeed worthy of the texture and color of each article, and these novels are combined together to form the overall appearance of the colorful and gorgeous "Leopard Change". The author seems to be a child who is full of curiosity about the world, tirelessly trying various possibilities of creation, and after a long and arduous exploration, he finally completed the "leopard change". The texture of each novel in "Leopard Change" is the growth mark of the writer of a certain period, and these marks run through it to form a history of growth, and it is in this sense that "Leopard Change" is also a long novel, an autobiographical novel about the personal spiritual growth of the artist.
I. Temporal and spatial clues of spiritual growth
As mentioned earlier, "Leopard Change" has a specific meaning in the order of the novel, so Tong Ming emphasizes at the beginning that "presenting in the current order" is "a complete novel". Readers who are familiar with Muxin novels can clearly understand that the order of these novels is obviously arranged according to the time and space order of the author's life experience, and each novel also has a "me" or loom or appear. Except for "SOS", which is similar to the preface of the novel (this novel shows the core problem of Mu Xin's entire spiritual world, thus summarizing the general theme of the entire novel, which will be discussed later), the next "Childhood Goes Away" "Xia Mingzhu" corresponds to the author's childhood before World War II and his adolescence in war, "Empty House" is the post-war youth era, "Fangfang NO.4" "Basement Notes" is from 1949 to 1966-1976, and "Xi Linzi" is 1976 Later works, "Eighteen People in a Car" and "The Sobbing of people in the same car" do not clearly indicate the time background, but from the perspective of the work and life scenes described in the text, it should be speculated that it was a domestic country in the early 1980s. Up to this point, the sequence of works corresponds almost perfectly to Mu Xin's personal experience, showing the growth and thinking of the individual in the era. In these novels in this one sees an image of an individual who insists on resisting this era. From the beginning of World War II to the 1980s, the history of the past half century was vigorous and changeable, and how many people stood on the tide of the times and were drowned by the tide, but in these novels of Mu Xin, different "I" were also wrapped up in the times, but they always maintained the observation and contemplation of the times, refusing to dance with the tide of the times. This is why we can see the shadow of the times in these works but do not feel the strong characteristics of the times.
Starting from "Quiet Afternoon Tea", the background of the novel is placed in the West, and from the author's personal experience, it seems to echo the background of his going abroad. But it is worth noting that from here, the clues of time and space are no longer so clear, the author seems to get rid of the shackles of time and space, began to freely shuttle between the various eras and corners of history and the world, a moment in the British style of the old-school gentleman's family, a sudden trip to the 19th century to visit Goethe, a time to recall the old domestic affairs, a moment to look at passers-by on the streets of New York, especially the last two "walking" forms of novels, but also freely travel between the East and the West, galloping between history and reality, the intersection of various civilizations and art , dazzling.
If the "long novel" of "Leopard Change" is regarded as a spiritual autobiography about the author, then the first eight novels, except for "SOS" as a preface, clearly present the molding process of a primitive embryo of the self-spiritual world, which is formed between the shaping of the times and the pull of individual resistance. The last seven novels show the self-dispersion and reshaping of the individual after getting rid of the shackles, in which the author gradually overcomes the influence of the times on him, so that he can pursue the perfection of his spiritual world in the entire human civilization.
Second, the core issues of the spiritual growth process
The process of individuals seeking the perfection of their own spiritual world inevitably involves all kinds of confusion and contemplation. "Leopard Change" clearly presents a core question that an artist repeatedly ponders in the process of spiritual growth: What is a person?
All other questions are derived from this question, and thinking about culture, religion, and art is ultimately about solving this problem, and every novel in Leopard Change is an answer to this question. The author grows in constant questioning and answering, and his works seem to begin a journey of spiritual exploration before the eyes of the reader. The opening "SOS" has a unique place in the whole work, according to Tong Ming, this novel plays the function of a prologue in the novel, hinting at the theme of the whole book. If we analyze it carefully, we will find that the way this novel is written is also very unique. Compared with the other novels in "Leopard Change", there is no "I", only abstract "he" and "she", no time and space background, only a sinking ship that does not know where to drift, this writing is full of metaphors and symbolism, implying that the author is thinking about the fate of mankind as a whole. In this metaphor we vaguely feel that the author's view of the human world is full of Hamlet-like hesitation: the world will eventually be destroyed but the will to life cannot be extinguished, or vice versa, the fate of human beings who are struggling to reproduce but ultimately inevitable destruction. The former leads to transcendent existence and the latter to total destruction.
This is the question that Mu Xin asked himself, and it is also the background of each of his novels in "Leopard Change", all the depictions of human nature, the thinking of civilization, and the revelation of all beauty and darkness need to be understood in this background.
"Childhood Goes With It" Slowly opens the prelude to growth with the loss of a sky-blue kiln, and the mother gently says "... There will be more of this kind of thing in the future", as if it is a prophecy of human destiny, and human beings constantly lose beautiful things in the process of development, which makes people feel the meaning of existence and development.
In the works that followed, the author repeatedly explored and presented various aspects of the human world in different ways, as if to find the basis for survival or destruction.
The whole book of Leopard Change, with the exception of SOS, is narrated in the first person as "I". In the first eight novels, "I" observe and narrate the stories of others, speculating and contemplating the possibilities of human nature. This exploration and thinking objectively enables the narrator to transcend the reality of the times with a bystander posture, even in the "Basement Notes", "I" itself becomes the victim of the times, but "I" still thinks transcendentally in the reality of suffering, and in thinking, "I" has actually become a bystander of the reality of "I". At this point, in fact, we can already see that the individual self-spiritual world is taking shape, and in the exploration and thinking of the human world, the self is gradually established.
In the next seven novels, "I" is obviously no longer satisfied with observing and narrating the stories of others, but incarnates the self in others, in the history and civilization of mankind, so as to gain a broader experience of human nature and truly complete the answer to the question of "survival or destruction".
The novel "Round Light" offers two reasons why the world is worth it: love and beauty. A little bit of true affection before Master Hongyi's death, and a little artistic persistence of the prisoner in despair, all make people transcend this cruel world and gain the glory of divinity in an instant. The following several articles have been repeated and hesitated, but finally confirmed the power of love and beauty.
In "Road Worker", the author describes sentient beings with a fraternal vision, reminiscent of the "Passerby" in "Basement Notes":
My involvement with the world has been degraded to the lowest level of the road, I have no relatives and friends to remember, only "passers-by", constantly walking in the streets and alleys, men and women who are better than good and evil...
Compared with Master Hongyi's recitation of "human affairs, family affairs" before his death, Mu Xin had no "family affairs" to remember, and life was inevitably miserable, but in the end, he gained transcendent happiness with his love for "human affairs", and at that moment, Mu Xin's head should also have a round light.
Love and beauty belong to art, Mu Xin once said that "it is easy to be martyred with death, and it is difficult to be martyred with immortality", and the "Tao" that Mu Xin wants to be martyred is art, because of art, Mu Xin chooses "not to die". Although "this is clearly the most popular one hundred years of ruthless and indiscriminate affection" is the wrong era of "the nobles fell and broke the gorgeous, and the commoners climbed and abandoned the simplicity", in the end, there were flowers wafting in the wind, there were drums stirring in the ears, and the constantly flipping of the shengding confirmed the love and beauty that belonged only to "people", all of which allowed Mu Xin to find the transcendent meaning of individual existence.
Although the opening "SOS" shows Hamlet-style hesitation, the wooden heart that is brewing and publishing "Leopard Change" is a mature wooden heart, and each novel in "Leopard Change" is the imprint of Wood Heart's thinking, and one by one, in order, it gradually shows the author's complete thinking process and final answer.
Third, the relationship between art and life
In Mu Xin's thinking and answers to the above questions, we can see that art constitutes the meaning of Mu Xin's life, and can even be said to be the pillar of Mu Xin's entire spiritual world. On the one hand, this obsession with art is related to the family upbringing of Mu Xin itself, and on the other hand, we can also see the profound influence of Nietzsche's philosophy on Mu Xin. Mu Xin once described his relationship with Nietzsche as his relationship with The Butterfly, saying that Nietzsche was "my spiritual lover." Nietzsche's use of aesthetics to fight against the nothingness of life and art to give meaning to life give the most important inspiration to the wooden heart. Even if life is a tragedy, human beings still have to indulge in this tragedy and enjoy the magnificence and happiness of the tragedy, which is the spirit of Dionysus, which is the indelible "will to power". Apparently, the wooden heart derived great spiritual power from Nietzsche's philosophy.
Of course, Mu Xin did not have such great ambitions to expect art to save mankind, he said: "Art originally wanted to save mankind, but it could not be saved, but it turned out to save the artist himself." ”
As the author of the excerpt from Elizabeth Baylor's notes, both true and false, in The Basement Notes, said: "... The upbringing of art for me at this time is the will to life, my relief. The outside world went crazy, I didn't. ...... There are more dead martyrs, which are sympathetic and respectable, while I chose 'life and martyrdom' – seeking eternal life in despair. Mu Xin affirmed the meaninglessness of life with a positive nihilistic attitude, saying: "Life is good in meaninglessness, so that each can tolerate its own meaning." "Mu Xin gives life the meaning of artistic aesthetics, and believes that this is the best meaning that life can get. It is the obsession with art that allows Mu Xin to save himself from despair little by little, and to establish a powerful self-spiritual world, using the power of art to resist the pain and absurdity of life.
What Mu Xin disagrees with Nietzsche is that he believes that "the relationship between man and art is the relationship with the sun god: clarity and contemplation" and "the spirit of Dionysus cannot be put into art", so Mu Xin's attitude to art is "obsessive and keeps mingzhe", and in his works he cannot see the indulgence and ecstasy of Dionysus, and he is not Maugham's strickland who uses primitive irrational life force to impact the order of real life. Wooden hearts are healthier, and perhaps too healthy for art. He walked, meditated, played, and for the tragedy of life, he chose to be a spectator, while transcending real life with artistic aesthetics, while soberly telling himself that this was just an illusion created by the sun god. This also caused the characteristics of his writing, passion is calm, deep affection with coldness, infatuation contains sneering, he can use very gorgeous language to write a very pure and cold feeling, such as "Weimar Early Spring", can also use very calm language to write the love and affection of the world, such as "Windsor Cemetery Diary". Perhaps this is just as Mu Xin himself said, he wrote novels with one of the eyes of a debater and the other the eyes of a lover.
Mu Xin once used the myth of Icarus as a metaphor for the relationship between the artist and art: the artist flew out of the labyrinth by the wings of art, but the wings were made of wax, and if they flew too high, they would be melted by the sun and fall to their deaths. Icarus was fascinated by the feeling of flying, preferring to fly high and fall to his death. But the wooden heart from the oriental culture adheres to the middle way and carefully flies in the middle layer.
Mu Xin has a strong sense of self, through art, he builds himself and saves himself, but he does not allow himself to be enchanted by the ecstasy of Dionysus and sacrifice himself. Perhaps, from the beginning of losing the beautiful Yue kiln in childhood, Mu Xin gradually realized that life and art can only keep a distance, and can only look at each other.
He regards the whole life and the whole world as an aesthetic object, contemplating, tasting, contemplating, enjoying without intoxicating. If you want to use the metaphor of the gods in Greek mythology, then the wooden heart is not the flying Icarus, but the Narxos at the water's edge, who appreciates and tastes the reflection of life as art, and then spends his life in the obsession with art.
IV. Conclusion
Mu Xin has always believed in Flaubert's words of "showing art, retiring the artist", and repeatedly emphasized that the "I" in the novel has nothing to do with the author, but Georges San said to Flaubert: "You hide your heart, but the love and disgust in your heart, who can't read it?" ”
Mu Xin also knows this, so he said, "Artist, is a fake pocket with real things"l. Although each "I" in "Leopard Change" is fictional and cannot be equated with the author's experience, the work hides the real thing that the author wants to express. The growth, thinking, transformation and completion of the spiritual world of Muxin are presented as a whole in this work, and "Leopard Change" as a "complete novel" is a spiritual autobiography of the author, a history of the spiritual growth of an artist.
Tong Ming: "Leopard Change" Generation Sequence
Mu Xin 'Leopard Change》: The life of a gentleman is a process of changing from weak to strong
Once Upon a Time Slow Music: Jiang Ming - Once Upon a Time Slow
Wen | Jiang Xu
Many people know Mu Xin because of Chen Danqing's admiration, or from the circulation of the song "Once Upon a Time Slow". Before that, he had been writing, painting and living in the cold and cold.
What kind of person is Mu Xin?
The Greeks born in Wuzhen, the exiles with roots, the outsiders of literature, the people who snow in the dark, the people who have a deep friendship with mankind, the musicians, writers, painters, and later painters and writers who conspired to murder the musicians, are also a person with a heart of mudor.
These are all mu xin's perceptions of himself.
The book "Leopard Change" is the work of Mu Xin in his later years, and its publication is also mr. Long-cherished wish. When he was alive, he proposed to his friends that the title of the book should be used. These two words are derived from the "I Ching": "Adult tiger changes, villain leather face, gentleman leopard changes." "The so-called leopard change is a slow process from weak to strong.
Reading "Leopard Change", we can understand the history of an artist's spiritual growth, and we can also learn the idea of a person changing from ugly to beautiful and from weak to strong.
This book is a wooden heart "mixed-race child"
"Leopard Change" is a book with a unique style, and its uniqueness is first expressed in style.
It is a novel, and it is a short circular novel. The book is a collection of 16 short stories, each independent and interrelated. This form of text in which there is a combination of points and a part of the part brings a new aesthetic experience and activates the biased aesthetic thinking.
Although short loop novels are rare, there are examples to follow, and the ancient "One Thousand and One Nights" and the modern "In Our Time", including Nietzsche's proverbs, belong to the representatives of this genre.
The 16 short stories collected in "Leopard Change" have their own emphases and temperaments. For example, "SOS", which is placed in the first part, is full of the atmosphere of prose poetry, and it is like a movie section with a tense plot of disaster theme; for example, "Childhood Goes Away" placed in the second part, "Xia Mingzhu" placed in the third part, writing a person's psychological growth, time passing, cold and warm in the world, and turbulent times in a plain tone and white painting technique; the later "Eighteen People in a Car" also uses white painting techniques to expose all kinds of ugliness in people's hearts, reminiscent of the movie "Car Forty-Four"; "Quiet Afternoon Tea" integrates the past with the present. Through the emotional contradiction between a couple of twilight couples, the arrogance and paranoia in human nature are exposed; for example, "Weimar Early Spring", with the style of poetry and mythology and the delicate brushstrokes of gong strokes, depicts the beauty and mystery of the grass and trees of heaven and earth...
At the same time, they use uninterrupted emotions as the meridian and keen and aesthetic philosophies as the wefts, weaving a history of the spiritual growth of an artist.
This artist, which we easily default to As Mu Xin himself, may as well be seen as any person with a poetic heart and the courage to change the leopard.
In short, each one is a beautiful article worth savoring and slowing down. After the sample of the manuscript came out, Mu Xin held it in his hand, excited, calling them his "mixed-race children".
Some people refer to Mu Xin as the wild rose, and his writing brings to literary lovers "the style of exception, the emotional way of exception, the expression of thinking of exceptions." ”
His arrival, like the morning wind, awakens the memories of the ocean and the forest, refreshing and refreshing.
In 1987, Mu Xin celebrated his 60th birthday at Chen Danqing's home in New York
Cough beads spit jade words, ceiling-like aesthetics
The words of the wooden heart, the golden sentences jumping, word by word, read intriguingly.
Tong Ming, the translator and compiler of "Leopard Change", a professor at the University of California, made this comment on Mu Xin's literary style:
"The text of the wooden heart is like a rainstorm washed away, concise and quiet. Deep emotion, cold into sentences, shouts are also as light as whispers, the tone of the pen is plain and solid, but it is winding and quiet. He is good at irony, good at paradoxes, good at fragments, good at the ambiguity of poetry, good at all kinds of Western avant-gardes, using seemingly idle writing techniques to say serious things, associating people and things that are not related, ripples in the ordinary, the leisure and elegance of Chinese prose, the calmness of Montaigne, and the integration of relevant genres and traditions in world literature. ”
In my opinion, the exposition of various types of books in ancient and modern China and abroad has enabled Mu Xin to gain the skill of coughing up beads and spitting jade and falling from the sky in the control of words.
In his childhood, his mind was sensitive, and the study was in his eyes: "The dark study is the endless rain, the sunny day." ”
In my youth, I had my own unique view of love: "I must love a charismatic person." Ugly and cute is beautiful, and couples are nothing more than a pair with unique eyes and hearts. Even, I feel that 'others can't see, only I can see', proud and stable, and what is happier. ”
During the catastrophe, Mu Xin was imprisoned in the basement for ten months, and in the darkness, he was ordered to write confessional materials all day, and he was also broken two fingers, physically and mentally devastated. There is a shadow of this experience in the "Basement Notes", which also reflects Mu Xin's open-mindedness: "As long as I can practice all year round in the cellar, as long as I can resist the temptation of the inner illusion, I can purify for a period of time, knowing that the storm will rise again, the criminal service will continue, and the future I will have to reminisce about this period of time and call it a carnival." ”
For the heavens and the earth, the grass and trees, Mu Xin's feelings are extremely keen, and the description is extremely extreme: "Spring is not so easy to come, very much like a person with a graceful face and a weak manner." It is also because some people have a deep addiction that is very similar to spring. Temperate coastal plains, march solstice, the ground is dark, the morning white fog is misty, late to Zhuo Noon to rise into a large cloud, in the air by the sun does not move. Toward the evening, the horizon was pasted again, and what was willing to be glued was getting closer and closer. The fields were confused and confused, and the farmhouse church Lin Xue was immersed in milk for the first time, and the night could not be darkened on time. Later, when the full moon was empty, there was only a faint halo. The reticence of The Khan, the exquisite doubts. ”
Because of its unique and eclectic style, reading Mu Xinwen is like reading novels, prose, poetry, fairy tales, and tasting a cup of sweet tea.
The depth may not be mellow enough, the breadth may not be grand enough, and in terms of the beauty of the text, it is enough to make you dizzy and appreciate.
Wooden Heart in New York's Central Park
An excellent life is a process of leopard change
Regarding the title of the book "Leopard Change", Mu Xin himself once made such an explanation: "The leopard's fur is very beautiful, he knows that it is not easy to come by, he loves it very much, rainy days, hot sun, he just hides and refuses to come out." ”
The so-called leopard change is self-reliance, self-sustainment, self-love, self-improvement, and slowly transforming itself in time.
The life of Mu Xin is the life of the leopard.
Wuzhen, a corner of the south of the An'an River. Mu Xinben is the son of a rich family here, with a wealthy family and good clothes.
However, the early death of his father caused the family to decline quickly. Under the turmoil of the times, he was forced to clean the toilet, suffered from prison disasters, the fingers playing the piano were broken in prison, and heard the news of his mother's death in prison, and for a while he "cried and couldn't wake up."
In that situation, Mu Xin still drew black and white keys on the paper and played Beethoven and Bach. Art gives him the courage to live.
A person, not defeated by suffering, he will draw growth and strength from suffering.
Twenty years later, Mu Xin became the Robinson of Literature and went into exile. During this period, he spent five years explaining the history of world literature to a group of artists such as Chen Danqing. Later, the lecture was compiled and published by Chen Danqing as a "Literary Memoir".
In the year of ancient rarity, at the warm invitation of his hometown, Mu Xin returned to Wuzhen, which had been separated for half a century. Most of his life, as he himself said: "Starting from China, going into exile to the world, thousands of mountains and rivers, the ends of the earth, all the way to the motherland, the hometown." ”
Once exiled overseas, the leaves eventually fell back to their roots.
In 2006, Mu Xin returned to Wuzhen
After watching a video, Mu Xin in his later years, sitting in the evening qing xiaozhu and recalling the past of the sea, he said: "Resistance is not direct resistance, but fundamental. You want me to destroy, I don't! ”
At that time, the elderly Mu Xin's eyes were burning, the cigarettes were rising between his fingers, and there was perseverance and innocence in his eyes.
When I saw this paragraph, I felt admiration in my heart. At that time, he should have completed the leopard transformation. This leopard change is recorded in "Leopard Change".
Throughout the current era, the world is impetuous, and materialism is still good. It is gratifying that no matter what, in the end, there are always people who are walking on the road of pursuing truth, pursuing goodness, and pursuing beauty.
And the literary world, "fortunately, life is here, Chinese is there, and writers like Mu Xin are enough for us to taste 'beautiful and mysterious'." ”