Only clean eyes can see the soul
Wen | Yu Hua Photo| Network Editor| Liema Green Onion
Life and death are the themes that many great literary works enjoy tirelessly, and they are also the place where the literary imagination runs freely.
Unlike the flight and deformation in the literary works discussed earlier, there is a secret passage between life and death, that is, the soul.
Therefore, when expressing life and death and resurrection in literary works, it is more rapid than expressing flight and deformation. I mean, we've heard about everything in the world of death, so we often get there without having to go through narrative.
The relationship between a person and his soul is sometimes the relationship between life and death.
This is the consensus of almost all different cultures, and the differences are only the differences in expression. And everything has a soul, and art is even more so. When we are deeply moved by a certain piece of music, a certain dance, a certain painting, a certain narrative, we can't help but exclaim: This is a work with a soul.
There are 56 ethnic groups in China, and the expressions about the soul are different, sometimes even the same ethnic group, because of the differences in history, geography and culture, the differences in expressions are obvious.
However, when a person's soul flies away, it means that the person is dead.
In the eyes of the Han chinese, everyone has a soul.
If the person's seal darkens and his face darkens, this is a precursor to death; if the person encounters the baby's fear of dodging, it is also a precursor to death, because the baby's eyes are clean and can see that the person is out of his soul.
Such expressions emerge endlessly in the Han chinese, and different regional expressions are also different. In many places, before people die and go to mortuary, they light an oil lamp at their feet, which is a long light, because the road in Hades is dark. If it is a wealthy family, when entering the funeral, a hat studded with pearls is also a long lamp, illuminating the deceased's long journey in Hades.
The Dulong people living in northwestern Yunnan believe that each person has two souls, the first soul is innate, its body appearance and personality, as well as whether it is smart and stupid, are the same as people. And dress like people, when people change clothes, the soul also changes clothes. It is different only when man sleeps, because the soul does not sleep, and at this time it leaves the human body and goes out to have fun.
The Dragon People's interpretation of dreams is very interesting, they believe that what people see in dreams is the work of souls who do not sleep. When a person dies, a second soul appears, which is a soul that eats wine and flesh, so it stays in the human world and constantly asks the world to eat and drink (sacrifice).
In the Achan people of Yunnan, each person has three souls. After death, the three souls have different divisions of labor, one soul is sent to the grave and sacrificed on the Qingming Festival; one soul is offered to the home; and one soul is sent to the ghost king. This third soul will be sent back along the path of the ancestors, and when they report to the Ghost King, they will return to the ancestors.
The soul has deduced countless interpretations and narratives, and has also provided many employment opportunities, such as wizards and witches, writers and poets, etc., all of which have come to support their families.
Like the ancient Chinese spiritism, necromancy was popular in ancient Persia, Greece and Rome. Wizards dressed in clothes torn from the dead, meditate on the meaning of death, and communicate with the world of death. Like Chinese witches who jump rope and earn by labor, these necromancers summon the undead to earn money. Necromancers are employed by those who seek treasure, believing that the dead can know everything.
According to the ancient Persians, Greeks and Romans, in the first 12 months after death, the soul of a person is in love with the world and lingers near the cemetery, so there is no name for these newly dead people. Of course, the corpse of the too old is also useless. Necromancers believe that a corpse that is too decaying can clearly answer the question.
The description of the soul is colorful, but it is also the colorful imagination.
No matter when or where, imagine a place of departure and then a place of arrival. This is the basis of reality that I emphasized in my previous article, "Flying and Deforming", and it can also be thought that imagination is the desire that erupts from reality.
Necromancers are reluctant to summon answers from rotten corpses, an imagination that apparently comes from the gradual loss of memory as people grow old. Chinese believe that Hades is dark because of the existence of the night; the Dragon Man cleverly starts from the dream and explains the soul that is born and accompanies the shadow; the Achan theory of the three souls can be said to express the wishes of all people. The grave is a place that must be visited, the home is not willing to give up, and the arms of the ancestors are so warm. What to do? The Achan generously give each of us three souls so that we don't have to worry about the trade-offs.
The ancient Greeks said that the soul of Apollo entered a swan, and then there was this legend that the poet's soul entered the body of the swan.
It was a fascinating sight, and when the swan with the poet's soul spread its wings on the water, the poet was driven by the inspiration of the imagination to write a book, and the great psalms poured down like a waterfall on the white paper. If the poet racked his brains and could not write a word, the swan who preserved his soul was likely to fall ill.
This legend does speak of the miracles that often occur in literature and art, and when the creator's imagination is mobilized and he takes off at high speed, his soul may have gone to another place. It's a bit like the dragon people whose souls go out to have fun after they fall asleep.
Based on my own writing experience, I often encounter such wonderful situations, when my writing goes into some kind of crazy state, I feel that it is not what I am writing, but that I am assigned to write something. I don't know if my soul at that time entered the body of a swan, but what I can do for sure is that my soul entered the imaginary body.
Why do we often feel the power of imagination in some works, but not in others.
I think it is not that the latter does not have imagination, but because the latter does not have a soul in its imagination. The imagination with a soul makes us feel the breath of uniqueness and wonder, even the breath of weirdness and appalling, and conversely the imagination without a soul is always mediocre and tasteless.
If we are long-absorbed in the reading of imaginative mediocre works, then when the imagination of the soul comes to us, we may be afraid to dodge, and even angry.
I once said that a great writer should write with a blank heart, and a great reader should read with a blank heart. Only with a blank heart can one attain the soul of imagination.
As described in the Customs of the Han Chinese, why can a baby see the soul fly away from the body of a dying person, because the baby's eyes are the cleanest. Only a clean eye can see the soul, whether it is writing or reading. Reading and writing, which is stained by too many mediocre works, does not see the soul of great works.
About author:Yu Hua, a contemporary Chinese writer, born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, is a member of the Ninth National Committee of the China Writers Association, and is currently working in the Hangzhou Federation of Literature and Literature. In 1984, he began to publish novels, and "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" was selected as one of the top ten most influential works of the 1990s by 100 critics and literary editors. In 1998, he was awarded the Italian Grinzana Carver Literary Prize. In 2005, he won the Special Contribution Award of Chinese Books.
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