In the history of Chinese literature, which writers are well known to the public but most misunderstood? Lu Xun, Zhang Ailing, and Wang Xiaobo are afraid that they will not be able to escape this list.
Lu Xun is like a mountain, on the surface is "the most correct, the bravest, the most resolute, the most loyal, the most enthusiastic literary hero", although it makes people look up to him, but his true value is hidden in the shadow of the mountain.
Zhang Ailing is like a river, but people see the trickle of her children's love, but they do not see the depth of her thoughts, and write about the vanity and absurdity of human nature.
In most of the years of silence, Wang Xiaobo pierced into the heart of civilization with words, and only those who lived soberly and painfully could see its value and walk with him.
These three writers have always had the deepest connection with our readers, but they are often between being mythical and misunderstood, and very few people really understand them, and even today there are misunderstandings about them circulating.
Lu Xun is the mountain, Zhang Ailing is the water, and Wang Xiaobo is the thorn
Lu Xun is like a mountain: a must-read writer who can't get around
In China, the word Lu Xun is mentioned like thunder, and no reader does not know. But most of those who have gone to school have suffered from Mr. Lu Xun's "bitter head": in the current seven junior high school language textbooks, the average number of Lu Xun's works selected is 6.57, and his words are often the topic of reading comprehension, and some fragments even have to be memorized in full, and even written after reading.
However, when they were young, children who were recited the whole text of "Kong Yiji" and "Hometown" by head would probably not think that when they entered the society, they would still meet Lu Xun everywhere.
After the Internet era, Mr. Lu Xun became more popular. In the message areas of various social hotspots, in the chicken soup literature of major platforms, Lu Xun's quotations can be seen everywhere; whether they are on the side or not, "Lu Xun once said" is there.
Therefore, when it comes to Lu Xun, people today seem to be very familiar. However, is this really the case?
Lu Xun is a mountain of Chinese writing
Among the large number of people who pursue Lu Xun, very few people have really read Lu Xun's works, and there are probably very few people who really understand the value of Lu Xun. People only know that Lu Xun is great and call him the backbone of his nation, but they do not know why.
The poet Lin Xianzhi said that Lu Xun died in the twentieth century and lived in the twenty-first century. To this day, his voice still rings around his ears.
Why did Lu Xun suddenly become popular in today's era?
Because the social "scars" he unveiled 80 years ago are still "bleeding pus". As a result, his insights are still thunderous to this day. For example, when talking about stay-at-home mothers and marriage freedom, Lu Xun said:
For "Nala", money - elegantly, is the economy, the most important. Freedom is not something money can buy, but it can be sold for money.
Human beings have a big disadvantage, that is, they are often hungry. In order to remedy this shortcoming, to prepare for the non-puppetry, economic rights are of the utmost importance in the present society. First, there should be an equal distribution of men and women at home; second, equal power should be gained in society.
Talking about "keyboard man", Lu Xun commented:
If there is another person who spits on the side of the road, crouches down on his own, and watches, he will soon be able to surround a bunch of people; and if there is another person, who shouts for no reason, pulls out and runs, and at the same time everyone can flee. I really don't know what I heard, what I saw and went", but I was dissatisfied and called his inexplicable object "fucking"!
His book is full of profound insights into Chinese society. Compared with today's reality, I feel that Lu Xun's greatness is not in his fame, but in his profound insight into national nature.
Reading Lu Xun's works is not reading other people's things, distant things, but things here and now; the problems that Lu Xun wrote about a hundred years ago are still problems that happened to us.
Every adult should read Lu Xun again. Those questions that still haunt us, Lu Xun has already given answers in his works.
Among all the novelists who write in Chinese, Lu Xun's writing is still the best
People superficially praised Lu Xun for his greatness, but behind his back, they respected him and were reluctant to read his works, as if his writings were extremely old-fashioned and boring. There was a saying circulating in middle schools across the country: one is afraid of literature and speech, the second is afraid of writing, and the third is afraid of Zhou Shuren. This is a clear proof of Lu Xun's "yin and yang violations".
However, Lu Xun's writing is actually the best. Especially in the field of short stories, he is several ranks higher than the writers of his generation.
Take "Hometown" as an example: after many years of absence, Lu Xun returned to his hometown and met his childhood intimate playmate, Yan Tu.
For the first meeting between the two of them this reunion, Lu Xun wrote:
I was excited, but I didn't know how to say it, just said, "Ah! Brother Yan Tu,—— you're here?" ”
Then I had a lot of words, and I wanted to gush out like beads: horned chickens, jumping fish, shells, russ... But I always feel as if I am blocked by something. Single swirling in the brain, spitting out.
He stood still, a look of joy and desolation on his face; he moved his lips, but did not make a sound. His attitude finally became respectful, and he clearly shouted, "Lord! ......”
"Excited, blocking, whirlwind, spitting out, standing, rejoicing and desolation, moving, finally, clear", the emotional tension contained in these dozens of words alone is enough to make people turn over the river and the sea for a long time.
Today's writers, whose vocabulary can only depict the skin of the human heart, is not subtle enough to reach the subtle. The syntax used is also like a winter snake, and there is no dynamic. Nouns only vaguely suggest, do not describe them precisely. The verb suffers from hemiplegia and is unable to make the sentence turn.
Writers who can write with great power and shock people are as rare as black swans—there is, Lu Xun is one of them.
Yu Hua said that he had not read Much of Lu Xun's works when he was in school, but when he read them carefully again as a writer after he was a few decades old, he was stunned:
That evening, I began to read these works under the lamp that I knew most and were also the most unfamiliar. The first novel I read was Diary of a Madman — I've completely forgotten what it was about.
At the beginning of the novel, when the madman felt that the whole world was abnormal, he used the following sentence: "Otherwise, why did the Zhao family's dog look at me?" I was shocked and thought to myself, this Lu Xun is a bit powerful, he only used one sentence to make a character insane.
For more than a month after that, Yu Hua immersed herself in Lu Xun's works and became mesmerized. He said: "Lu Xun's narrative is so rapid when it reaches reality, like a bullet passing through the body, rather than staying in the body. ”
In this era, there are more and more fragmented expressions, more and more buzzwords, and more and more flooded emotions. Behind it is a terrible phenomenon - all the languages of the Internet age make us lose more and more beauty, depth and imagination, and become simple and rough stimulation pinholes.
It is no exaggeration to say that the degeneration of language is a precursor to the degeneration of the ability to think, and the pathological spread of toxic language is creating a superficial generation.
Everyone who still thinks about this era should actually take a good look at Lu Xun's works, immerse themselves in the master's writing brushwork, and learn not the kung fu of embroidering legs and chewing words, but the profound insight to the point, which is the lesson that should be made up most in today's environment of entertainment to death.
Zhang Ailing: The most unique writer in the history of literature
Mention Zhang Ailing, people will suddenly have a little retro, petty bourgeois mood, as if Zhang Ailing belongs to a specific era, describing a specific group of people writers.
But this is a big misconception. In fact, in the entire history of modern Chinese literature, Zhang Ailing cannot be classified by any genre, she is a very unique writer.
Writers of modern literary history can be roughly divided into three categories:
The first category is to worry about the country and the people, and to use literature as a weapon to transform the country. Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Mao Dun and other writers all belong to this category.
The second category can also save the country, but first save itself. Writers in this category include Zhou Zuoren, Yu Dafu, Lin Yutang, Liang Shiqiu, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo and others.
The third category, no one saves, how the text sells well, how to write, everything to the needs of readers as the first, this is the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect.
And Zhang Ailing, as Professor Huang Ziping said, she is a "writer who cannot be placed in mainstream literary history."
The most popular, but also the most misunderstood
For a while, Zhang Ailing became a petty bourgeois consumer in China, and anyone knew Zhang Ailing. The public does not necessarily know Shen Congwen, or even care about Lu Xun, but they know Zhang Ailing's maxims, such as "Fame should be made early", which is typical of zhang Ailing's beauty and does not know her profundity.
Lu Xun is the mountain in the writer, and Zhang Ailing is the big river. Lu Xun faced politics sharply, so he satirized and condemned, which was the Confucian spirit of joining the WTO. Zhang Ailing, on the other hand, pulled literature back from politics back to the folk. She sees through people's imperfections, but tolerates them, which is closer to the Buddha.
Zhang Ailing is not a self-pitying and neurotic young female writer, she understands the absurdity and hypocrisy in human nature, but she does not show it in a fierce way like Lu Xun.
She said: "Life is a gorgeous robe full of lice."
But when most readers today face Zhang Ailing, they can only see her beauty, but they can't see the depth of her thoughts.
In this day and age, shallow innocence. Shallow reading has even become a fad. When people have become accustomed to shallowness, language activates biological instincts, people's understanding of various problems is becoming more and more simple and extreme, and emotions have become shallow and rough.
Reading Zhang Ailing as pastime literature is not only a misunderstanding of Zhang Ailing, but also a submission to this shallow era.
The spirit of compassion in her words is precisely the medicine urgently needed in this era of "chorus", but sadly, Zhang Ailing is too unique, and perhaps only a few people are destined to become her companions.
Break down women's prejudices and return to true humanity
Writers since the "May Fourth" write about the love between men and women, the basic model is that men talk about culture and awaken women, while women are very innocent and kind, infected by men's style, and fall into love. There are also women who surpass men, and some women are separated from men, but they are all clean and pure and believe in love.
Many people regard Zhang Ailing's works as such popular literature, because Zhang Ailing's depiction of male and female love is very outstanding.
However, just staying at this level is a great misunderstanding of Zhang Ailing.
If Zhang Ailing's "First Incense" is written by Zhang Hexhui, it will become a popular story, the heroine degenerates in front, and is punished later, and karma is repaid; instead, Cao Yu writes, it is a story of class oppression and social darkness; but in Zhang Ailing's pen, it becomes a story of human nature.
Zhang Ailing is on the level of human nature, and popular writers have opened up a huge gap. As a female writer, she never favors the female characters in the book, but restores their calculations and reality very realistically. In Zhang Ailing's eyes, whether it is male or female, it is ultimately necessary to return to humanity.
For example, she wrote white tassels in "Love in the Fallen City", the penmanship is extremely realistic, and if you look at it today, this is clearly a modern female soul anatomy map.
It can be said that reading Zhang Ailing not only understands the underlying psychology in the living world, but also understands the deep human nature hidden in the background of modern civilization.
Wang Xiaobo is a thorn in the times
It is a writer that only a few wise people can read
Before Wang Xiaobo's death, his talent had never been recognized by the public, and he was just writing alone. When he died, overwhelming nostalgia suddenly came unexpectedly, and people put laurels such as "genius" and "interesting soul" on his head, as if it were a late apology.
However, looking back from the 21st century, if Wang Xiaobo really has a fire, he should be obsolete. In fact, the maverick mind is still a scarce commodity of this era, the interesting soul can still walk alone, and the silent majority still does not look at his works.
Wang Xiaobo was lonely before he was born, and he is still lonely after death, he is like a thorn in the heart of modern civilization, and only a very small number of brave and sober people can recognize his value and walk with him.
In the boring times, be a person who loves wisdom
In this world, most people are laymen. The longer you live in this world, the more you will find that most people's lives are like sleepwalking. This is the aesthetic, the reading is so, and so is life.
They have spent their lives chasing more tickets, bigger houses, better cars, more beautiful wives, more sons, and more decent days.
And people like Wang Xiaobo, who have loved wisdom all their lives and pursued an intellectual life, will probably always be a very small minority.
What is Aizhi? In Wang Xiaobo's view, Aizhi is the pursuit of independent thinking, on this basis, living kindly and uprightly has a sense of pain, and does not do the silent majority.
Silence only fuels the evil of mediocrity. A person either destroys his own conscience position in silence, or suddenly explodes in silence and becomes an accomplice to the foolishness of the group.
When Wang Xiaobo wrote the book, he wanted to seriously talk about these seemingly simple but profound truths. Although today's public has long lost the patience to listen to others' reasoning, it is precisely because of this that reasoning has become more and more meaningful; this is not an era suitable for Wang Xiaobo's survival, and reading Wang Xiaobo has become more and more urgent.
Although Wang Xiaobo was lonely before his death, he still had confidence in a small number of people, saying:
One day we will all die, and there will be people walking the path of wisdom. I can't see what happens after I die, but when I'm alive, I feel happy when I think about it.
In the age of self-limitation, feed a free soul
Nowadays, it seems that the word soul is no longer used – people are becoming more and more material and more utilitarian. There are fewer courageous people and more realistic people. There are fewer rebels and more people kneeling and licking. There are more people clapping, and fewer people are reflecting on why they applaud.
Spirit, ideals, freedom, independence, novels, poetry, literature, art, are not worth a copied, uncreative, full of business terms PPT.
But this was not the case, China once had a vigorous era, everyone did not talk about money, power, only to see who lived more dashing, who has more posture, and Wang Xiaobo was the most free soul in that era.
Some people say that Wang Xiaobo's characteristics are interesting, but in fact, Wang Xiaobo's characteristics are confrontation, he opposes time, and mediocrity, and life. He was completely instinctively resisting something, defending something, letting the slightest speck of dust have its own weight.
Why did Wang Xiaobo resist? Because he experienced an era of "Animal Farm", and later people, even if they lived in Brave New World, were often tame like a flock of sheep.
The era of material scarcity has long passed, and the biggest problem today is the depletion of the spirit. After the explosion of ideas in the 80s, we are facing a wave of mental decline.
40 years ago, no matter how high or low the education, everyone loved to write poetry. Today, the thrill of something new doesn't last more than half an hour, and people are all bored.
40 years ago, people debated fiercely on stage, and privately they were still brothers and sisters, but now a private conversation is secretly recorded and videotaped and posted online for trial.
In this era, it has become more and more difficult to be a person with an independent mind and a free spirit, and Wang Xiaobo is like a thorn, stuck in the pathology of this era, only those who live with pain can soberly realize his great value.
Lu Xun can't go around the mountain and uses extremely heavy words to penetrate the various ills of Chinese society; Zhang Ailing is a self-contained river, writing through the greed and calculation in human nature, but also exerting compassion; Wang Xiaobo is a thorn in the heart of the times, wanting to awaken the silent majority, but doomed to be lonely.
Looking back at the present, if these three writers have been truly understood by the Chinese people, then they should be outdated today.
However, we still need Lu Xun's critical spirit, Zhang Ailing's compassion, and Wang Xiaobo's free spirit so much now—which shows that we have repeatedly misread and even ignored these three writers.
To this day, most people still blindly follow the trend, but there are very few people who can think independently; most people often raise bars, insult, and report when they disagree; and there are still very few people who know how to seek common ground while reserving differences; the vast majority of people draw a prison in their minds, and very few people really have a free soul.
The writers who have passed away will not lose their readers; but the living people, ignoring and misreading these three writers, may be the loss of the whole society.
THE END
Source: Qunxue College
Author: Prophet Bookstore
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