No single word can summarize the reading experience of Wanfang's new book "You and Me" in isolation. Because this is the work of a rich heart that allows us to see more of the rich mind. As a daughter, Wanfang, starting from her own spiritual island and relying on the memories of her parents, has left one trace of life after another for readers in the endless time and space of the universe. At the same time, Wanfang, as a living individual, also began a journey to know himself and find the best self.
▍ Wan Fang's new book "You and Me"
This is an effort to face the truth of history. History is a complex, and in the complex process of constructing it, the memory of the witness is an indispensable foundation. However, no matter how perfected, there will always be some parts that have been ignored or forgotten, obscured or rewritten, leaving some black holes. But that may be the fascinating thing about history. It is these black holes that constantly arouse people's interest in exploring, filling, and illuminating. With a writing purpose close to reality, Wanfang adds the history of the family, family and era to his memories of his parents. Memories are difficult to write, and it is difficult to reach the truth. It is especially difficult to write words about remembering relatives because it is difficult not to hide them for relatives, elders, and the deceased. Besides, memories are always accompanied by the pain of cutting flesh from the heart? So it wasn't until 2018, 44 years after the death of his mother and 22 years after his father's death, that Wan Fang began to write. And once the pen is written, the frozen history of parental love and literati life is revived into a flash of moments.
Parental Love: Presenting reality, right or wrong
Parental love is an important part of "You and Me". How to repeat and evaluate the obstacle that the father already has a family when he knows the mother, the ten years of waiting for the mother, the fierce opposition of the grandfather, and the emotional rift between the grandfather and the grandmother? Aside from the well-known facts, what perspective and emotional details can be offered as their flesh and blood relatives? Wanfang tries its best to present only the facts with the calmness and sincerity of the intermediary, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. For the first time, she made public correspondence when her parents fell in love "underground", and these letters were the source of her book. Because she found another mom in the letter, a strong, brave, powerful mom she didn't know. The correspondence between two young people in love is indeed like a dazzling light, white hot and intense, so that people can see the simplicity, sincerity and enthusiasm of human emotions above the moral law.
▍ Cao Yu and WanFang's mother when they were young
This is not the whole of love, and there are many parts of love that even a daughter cannot see. Therefore, the sister reminded Wanfang: "What you know is not the truth at all, just some broken beads." "But Wanfang insists on finding the truth in the broken beads, and the search itself is also a kind of truth." In the search, in addition to the bright white light, there are so many dark moments: the cruel and ruthless youth that can play happily after losing their mother, the pathological dependence of parents on sleeping pills... So many disturbing memories, so many scenes of the author's resistance, are bravely displayed in the text. It is precisely with the attitude of facing history and facing the truth of history that the seeker Wanfang has conducted a spiritual dialogue of "you and me".
Family History: A Feast of Flow, a Map of Culture
In "You and Me," the family history as a vision inadvertently presents a cultural map. Whether it is Grandpa Wan Dezun, who has a bad career and lives a negative life, or the third duke Deng Yijing, the ninth aunt Fang Lingru, who rebukes Fang Xun, or the good uncle Deng Jiaxian of the Two Bullets, and of course, more importantly, Cao Yu, the father of "Shakespeare of China", are all figures who have broadened their horizons and grown up through reading, and have made achievements in different stages of history. From this, we can find the cultural inheritance and personality cultivation of modern intellectual families. Their friendship is another vigorous and healthy atmosphere. In the list of partners who share the same smell as the three gonggongs, there are Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Liang Shiqiu, Yang Zhensheng, Wen Yiduo, Zhao Taiyou, Xu Zhimo, Feng Youlan, Ding Xilin, Zhu Ziqing... In the cultural early morning of the May Fourth era, talking about heavy drinking is the posture and right of youth, and it is also the free and open spiritual life of cultural people. Borrowing the title of Hemingway's memoirs, Wanfang also presents readers with a "feast of flow".
When Grandpa, Yang Zhensheng, and Zhao Taiyou lived together at Qingdao University, the happiness of my mother and good aunt going to Yang Bo's house in Beijing in the summer, learning of Cao Yu's voice and crying when Jin Died of Illness, the sad back of that dark afternoon, and the long-lasting friendship between Cao Yu and Ba Jin, all of which reproduced the friendship and character of generations of cultural people. Although these are not the focus of "You and Me", such a sincere emotional state and way of acting has become a cultural ideal. History, in the meantime, has been given a meaning to the present.
When a series of prominent figures flash through the depths of history, what kind of attitude should a writer who has had some kind of intersection with them take? The great thing about "You and Me" is that the author does not mend the history of these characters, but treats them as individuals in history, people in history. Therefore, she did not indulge in the history of these great figures in order to "have honor", but concentrated her pen on daily life itself, only to let them out where necessary.
Cao Yu: The father in the eyes of a daughter, another writer in the eyes of a literary artist
It is based on such a historical and human relationship positioning, Wan Fang's father Cao Yu is also a living individual, a "person" who suffers in the universe, in emotion, in art, and in reality.
▍ Wanfang with parents
"You and I" provides readers with a richer perspective on Cao Yu. Here, Cao Yu is a playwright and artist of natural talents, the dean of the Beijing Renren Art, a parent who is both casual and responsible, a teacher who is sought after by students, a depressed and depressed teenager, a man who rolls in a coma in the fire pit of emotions, an old man who is slow to move and is still full of curiosity about the world, a patient who is gradually moving towards weakness and death, a painful soul who always embraces the desire to recreate and fail to realize, and an orphan who cannot get rid of the shadow of losing his birth mother for life... Perhaps, as the author says, God used too many of the same materials for her and her father when he created man, and she and her father have a sharp mind, so she is the one who can understand and perceive his father the most. It was a rare resource and a precious happiness, and it was because of the same sensitivity and richness that she gained a different perspective on her father and the ability to get close to his heart. She captures the moments when her father is immersed in her own world, and understands his father's thoughts, timidity, worry, and despair. Therefore, she gives the reader a more complete Cao Yu, a Cao Yu who is full of sincerity, reverence for art, love for creation, wandering in the abyss, and has a passion for love. This is a multi-faceted individual who has made various compromises in the context of the times, but he has always had the ideal of flying, the extraordinary artistic sensitivity and the ability to constantly introspect.
▍Wan Huan, Fang Rui, Cao Yu, Wan Fang (from left to right)
It is precisely because of the understanding of the father that Wan Fang also has a unique and in-depth interpretation of the father's plays. She proposed that Xuan Yi is the embodiment of the author, Chen Bailu and Cui Xi are the expression of the author's "pain of life", and every man in "Beijinger", Such as Zeng Hao, Zeng Ting, Wen Qing, Jiang Tai, etc., has the author's shadow. For his father to love and remarry, Wan Fang combined his father's love in reality with his feelings for the characters in the play, she said: "He loves women, like a dry soil that needs water, he needs love and needs to pay love, Xuan Yi, Huan Fang, Chen Bailu, they are his heart tip, he cherishes them, hurts them, how many men will love women like this!" These women have entered his life, and perhaps a really good writer should be a hermaphrodite. This is both a daughter's understanding of her father and a writer's understanding of another.
"I" gaze at "you", gaze at the world and myself
Perhaps only the minds of the same material will understand each other so thoroughly, will find the passage from the soul to the soul between the big history and the small individual, and will have similar questions when facing the vast existence with individual life. In the process of spiritual dialogue with his parents, in the re-understanding of the spiritual dilemma and freedom yearning encountered by his father, Wanfang did not only make a narrative reduction of the old life, but also constantly discussed spiritual topics beyond the daily life. About the understanding of reconciliation of all things, about the innate pain, about the inexplicable happiness, about the freedom of lifelong desire, about deception and forgetting, about life and death, about the change and immutableness of the world... These are the spiritual problems that man needs to solve in the face of existence and himself, the source of the explanation of the complex emotions and actions of human beings, the way to explore the truth of the world, the place where one's soul is placed, and the basis for creating nobility with limited resistance to infinity and humility. Therefore, this is no ordinary memoir. It does not only contain the daughter's remembrance of her parents. Moreover, its purpose is not to meditate, but only to leave the imprint of life for the "you" that has existed and the "me" that has existed. Therefore, its object is not only "you", but also "I".
▍ Wanfang with father
Wan Fang also said: "I did not write this book to introduce a playwright, I want to write about my father and mother, I want to explore carefully, get to know them well, and I want to recognize myself through them." In this sense, "You and I" is both "me" staring at "you", "I" staring at the world, or "I" staring at myself. And such a gaze requires the author to be strong enough. Now it's time to leave the judgment to the reader. In order not to miss or miss any detail, a wisp of emotion, a judgment in this gaze, please find a quiet time to read slowly and carefully.
Source: Beijing Daily client | author Gu Haihui
Editor: Jiang Baojun
Process Editor: Wu Yue