The first snow fell behind
The whole old city became more solemn and solemn
But the hustle and bustle also arises in this extremely cold environment
From the beginning of the waxing moon, the new spring season is welcome
Every house is lit up
The streets and alleys were filled with shouting
This is the spring mood in Peiping
And Mr. Lao She, Angelica Beiping
Lao She was born on February 3, 1899 in Beiping, just in the 23rd day of the lunar month of the Year of Penghu, and the next day was "LiChun". His parents named him Shu Qingchun, which means "celebrating spring". He also seemed to come out of this human firework, the humor of the pen was profound, and it burned with lush vitality in plainness.
On the third day of the Lunar New Year, on the 123rd anniversary of Lao She's birth, the third issue of the Spring Festival will take you back to the traditional seasons in Beiping and the warmth of the city under the grand curtain of "Four Generations Together".
Caricature portrait of Mr. Lao She (by Song Qinri)
Wang Zengqi once described in detail Lao She's residence in Beijing in the article "Mr. Lao She":
"There is a small courtyard in the rich hutong of Dongcheng Naz Province. When I walked into this small courtyard, I felt particularly quiet and unusually bright. The yard seems to be often covered with sunlight. There were two small persimmon trees in the courtyard, full of flowers, and the courtyard, under the porch, and in the house were full. Changed seasonally, all look very energetic and moist. ”
Former residence of Mr. Lao She, Beijing
Lao She loves flowers. There were more than three hundred chrysanthemums in the yard, all of which were taken care of by him and his wife. When the weather is good, a pot is moved out to bask in the sun; when it is windy and rainy, another pot is "rescued" into the house. Life is "fragrant and colorful", even with the pen is more spiritual head, Wang Zengqi commented that he is "handsome to flowers and branches to help", the article is full of natural interest.
Mr. Lao She with flowers
He also loves tea. All day long, there must be hot tea cooking, gentle and elegant atmosphere together, you can "observe everything quietly and self-reliantly". During the New Year's Festival, friends gathered together, and tea was not enough to soothe the wind and dust, so he drank. With purple-black bitter old wine in the belly, the wine was drunk after the three rounds of banquets, and he sang a Peking opera with pride, and he had the freedom and open-mindedness of "the article is the life of the wine for the soul".
Mr. Lao She and friends
Born in Beiping, the Manchu Zhenghong banner people, "Jingweier" is engraved in his blood. He has not left his homeland, and in more than sixty years of his life, he has traveled to London, Singapore, Chongqing, Tianjin and other places, but Beiping often let him have a concern. In 1936, during the war-torn years, he wrote "Thinking of Beiping" in Jinan, Shandong Province, "from the dragonflies in Shichahai after the rain to the tower shadow of Yuquan Mountain in the dream", Lao She took it as its root, and the words were full of affection for his hometown.
In the middle of the summer of 1958, Mr. Lao She took a nap at a lotus pond in Beijing
"Lao She belongs to Beijing." He represents the literary scene in Beijing, speaking in Beijing dialect and talking about Beijing affairs, but more importantly, it is his fit with the city's temperament. The narrative is magnificent and flat, like soaring above the history of dynasties, but finding the true meaning of the times in the city. Between grandeur and smallness, it seems to be contradictory, but it is like Lao She has replaced the elegance of the literati poetry and wine camellia with a simple tone, which is light in the ups and downs of generations.
"Lao She's Characters and Markets" theme exhibition
Lao She's works are also the history of Beiping's world, and "Four Generations Together" is the most iconic one.
The novel takes the Small Sheepfold Hutong as the background and depicts the social group portraits of the Qi family, the Qian family, and the Guan family in the occupied area of Beiping. This is not a novel work with a relaxed look, the courtyard in the 1930s and 40s was in turmoil, several major families fell apart, the tragedy of the eight-year War of Resistance was presented from the exile of ordinary people, the lively New Year began to become silent, and the whole of Peiping was weeping.
"Four Generations Together"
But Lao She still left precious integrity and warmth in the story.
Mr. Qian was originally a reader who only knew how to appreciate flowers and drink, ten fingers did not stick to oil and salt, and lived a life of "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence". After the Lugou Bridge incident, his wife and children both died, but he did not succumb to the arrogance, but picked up a pen and fought. The gentle gentleman of the past became depressed, but his eyes were still sharp as a torch, and he said, "I will eat whatever I get; wherever I go, I will sleep." Stripped off my clothes, I could see myself more. This is a great wisdom to find "simplicity" under suffering, "naked" has nothing to do with age, and "romance" has nothing to do with circumstances.
Chang Er Ye represents the small people at the bottom of the hutong, speaking and doing things bluntly and simply, with a kind of innocence of working hard to live and trying to find happiness in life. The book describes that he was "a little old man with a dry and stubborn temper and a very good heart", and he appeared with joy. Carrying a rice bag, he stomped his feet when he entered the door, and then made a big swing "through the sky", which was a small citizen stained with mud, but he swept away the haze of many times with "sincerity and cuteness".
"Four Generations Together" drama performance
Brick by brick, flower by grass, Lao She does not skimp on the meticulous depiction of Beiping's daily life. He wrote that in the autumn of Beiping, the sky was high and bright, and "the blue color of the Western Mountains and the Northern Mountains has deepened a little." He also wrote about the street stalls, champagne and begonia papayas, arranged neatly and beautifully, so that passers-by could not help but add a little drunkenness. That bit of warmth, countless times in his memory, contrasted with the desolate chaotic world. But it is like a wake-up call, and in the midst of hardship, we still have to have the hope of the sun.
In addition to "Four Generations Together", "Tea House" and "Camel Xiangzi", Lao She also has some works that are not so "familiar". On the occasion of the New Year, I recommend several of Mr. Lao She's "unpopular book lists" for everyone, hoping to bring you a new understanding of life in 2022.
A collection of essays. The book contains 67 essays by Mr. Lao She, talking about life, art, and nature, he draws inspiration from simple civic life, and tells the end of his understanding of all things. This book magnifies Lao She's humor to the extreme, self-deprecation, ridicule and ridicule can be seen everywhere, and it is hilarious to turn to one article at will, but it provokes deep thinking after the hilarity. There is no trace of Mannerism between the words, no carving, but better than nature.
He talked about the experience of sitting in the car, saying that taking the car after dinner was the most "risky", sitting for three consecutive days, and those who were not sick would get gastroenteritis. He talked about "going out to escape the summer", it is better to "squat at home", it is better to move than to be quiet, the things that are applied are at the fingertips, and there is a wind to cool and no wind to hold the fan, so it is also comfortable.
For him, the world's sour, sweet and bitter have their own unique true meaning. In his prose, Lao She put aside the criticism of society and the lament of history, and completely returned to himself. Words are human, interesting and vivid, and full of revelation.
"The True Fun of The World"
Although Lao She's pen is full of people's livelihood, "The Legend of Niu Tianqi" is the first time he has written a biography for "ordinary people" in the true sense. The novel depicts the old man of the merchant Niu and his wife, who are old and childless, and one day they pick up a boy at the door and name it "Heavenly Gift". Niu Tianci was pampered from an early age, and later formed his own outlook on life and personality under the influence of the deformed education of his adoptive parents, the "cultivation" of three private school teachers, and various social opportunities.
The growth experience of "Niu Tianci" is also the growth experience of thousands of children around us, carrying family changes and changes of the times, which has a strong inspiration for the current concept of education. There are also detailed descriptions of traditional etiquette in the book, and the language style of Beijing dialect is very intimate to read.
Unfortunately, because of the turmoil of the times, this book was not finished. But the open-ended ending gives the reader more room for imagination, falling in the wave, or starting from scratch, and there are countless possibilities for the story of each ordinary person.
The Legend of the Cow Heavenly Gift
The only love-themed work in the novel created by Lao She tells the love tragedy of a young man and woman from a first-person perspective. The plot of the novel follows the classic love bridge section, the male and female protagonist Qingmei Bamboo Horse secretly has a love affair, and then because of the sudden change of the world, the two have to be separated, and when they meet again, they love each other and cannot keep each other, and finally the heavens and people are separated forever.
But what is special is that the novel is adapted from the story of Lao She and his first love, and perhaps because of this, he poured out very full of emotions in the text. The style of writing is different from the humor and humor of other works, and it also completely abandons the casual and plain nature of the past, but uses the beautiful and delicate brushstrokes of prose poetry to depict, using symbolism to outline a hazy and distant artistic conception.
"Micro God"
A long science fiction novel with ironic overtones, the travelogue-style line is very similar to an adult fable. The story begins with "I" flying off Earth and being taken to "Cat City" by a group of aliens with cat faces. In the difficult extraterrestrial life, I met all kinds of people and experienced a period of adventure. In the past five hundred years, the cat country people killed each other and the civilization fell, so it finally ended with the invasion of the dwarf country and the destruction of the cat country.
Under the strange pen, it is not difficult to see Lao She's irony of modern Chinese history. When writing this novel, the smoke of war in September 18 suddenly rose, the Japanese army invaded China, and lao she saw that the society after returning to China was in ruins and broken, so he wrote "Cat City" with a sad mood to attack the insatiable invaders and reflect on the current situation of national decadence.
Allegedly, because of this work, the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature was originally intended to be awarded to Lao She, but it was abandoned because of his death. The unprecedented work in the history of Chinese literature is not only due to the magic of words, but also because of his compassion for reality.
Cat City Chronicles
Lao She's novella collection, "My Life", is one of the representative works of the same name. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the people, social turmoil, small people in the tide of the great era of ups and downs, there is nothing to rely on.
The protagonist in the text is an ordinary criminal policeman, an apprentice in his teens, but the craft he learned has been eliminated because of social changes; after his wife eloped with his friends, he became a criminal police officer with a small salary, but he could not be promoted. Then he lost his son, and the jokes of life continued.
Lao She extends his brushstrokes from the fate of the nation to the fate of ordinary people, and reflects the times with the ups and downs of ordinary people. The connection between the country and the family cannot be severed, the style is humorous, but the words are cone-hearted.
"My Life"
Write at the end
Friends who like drama may wish to do so in the Year of the Tiger
Once again, we will review the classics
Information on the existing performances of Lao She Works in 2022:
Drama "Four Generations Together" - produced and performed by the National Theatre of China
2022.3.25-2022.3.27 19:30
Shanghai Shanghai Cultural Square