Recently, the famous writer Zhang Jie passed away, Zhang Jie has twice won the Mao Dun Literature Award, and his representative works "Love, Cannot Be Forgotten", "Heavy Wings", "The Person Who Hurt Me In the World Has Gone" are familiar to many readers, but the most familiar to everyone may be "Digging Vegetables" and "Picking Ears of Wheat" that have been selected for language textbooks.
Zhang Jie once said before he died: "After I die, first, I will not give an obituary. Second, say goodbye without remaining. Third, there will be no memorial service. Please also, friends, don't write articles in my memory. ”
If this is the writer's intention, then today's "Night Reading" chooses to remember in this way: to calm down and read her works, to remember the words she wrote.
She writes about affection
The man who hurt me the most in the world went
"The Person Who Hurt Me the Most In the World Went" is a long essay created by Zhang Jie, which details the last eighty days and nights of her mother's life. The People's Literature Publishing House says that this work is the heaviest mourning of the death of the mother; it is a poignant and deep ode to the mother's love; there are few such unforgettable long self-descriptions; it tells the story of life, love and soul.
01
Although Mom is not a weak person, she is weak because of love. In this world, whoever loves more will inevitably become weak and be hurt.
02
With her there, I would never feel like I had nowhere to go and nothing to rely on. Even now, I look strong enough, self-reliant, and independent. Only Mom knew that this was just a look.
03
Mom knows that I am dependent on her in all aspects, without her, what else can I rely on in this world? In my long and short life, no matter who gave me support, I could not be as poor as she was, nor could I be at my side all the time like she was.
04
Mom's denial, concealment, and explanation always contain a vague sense of guilt. It seems that she not only can no longer help me, but instead leaves me alone, leaving me alone in this life that is really not much fun, and even miserable to continue to trek and struggle, which is a kind of betrayal of me.
05
I think about others all day long, but I rarely think about my mother, I always feel that "it is too late, too late", my mother's days are still long, as if my mother will always accompany me... I even absurdly felt that my mother was still young. Although I know that no one will live forever, it is not possible to materialize when it is mom's turn. The so-called consideration for others is nothing more than sacrificing one's own mother and operating an impeccable reputation for oneself. I now even doubt everyone who can sacrifice their loved ones for others.
06
I don't know if every child's birth, survival, and growth is a disaster for the mother. What mother doesn't spend her life squeezing the last drop of blood out of her child? And my mother was even more so.
07
Mom's hand shook violently in my hand, and I lost my mind in a panic in this shaky jolt. I held her hand in confusion, like a gossamer thread that was tied between me and my mother or between my mother and the world, and no matter how careful I was, I could not guarantee that it would not fly away at any time.
08
After my mother died, no one listened to the weather forecast for me anymore, asking me to pay attention to adding or subtracting clothes, or going out with an umbrella.
09
In fact, it is much more painful for a person to be orphaned at the age of fifty-four than to be an orphan at the age of four.
10
The human world is a process that can neither be rejected nor retained.
Excerpt from 丨 "The Person Who Hurt Me the Most In the World Went"
People's Literature Publishing House
Photo from/Visual China
She talks about literature
My pain is actually my wealth
Zhang Jie has twice won the Mao Dun Literature Prize, but compared with many other writers, she embarked on the path of literature a little late, and she only published her debut work at the age of 39. Although in the land of literature, her cultivation was somewhat "too late", but because of "the love of literature that refused to die", she persevered.
Twenty years after graduating from college, the monotonous, non-independent thinking, and so on life can polish anyone's imagination. Only the love of literature, which refused to die, gave me a glimmer of hope. But hobbies don't equal "being able to."
In literature, a land where there were ancients before and those who came later, I began to cultivate too late.
Before becoming a professional writer, I could only write in my spare time. I had only one house, and at night I wrote on the cutting board in the kitchen so as not to disturb the rest of my mother and daughter. I was doing the laundry, or on the way to work, and I slowly integrated my first book.
When I first handed over the money to my mother, I said to her, "Mom, we finally have money, you don't have to sell popsicles and milk anymore." The mother cried.
Because I couldn't make ends meet, I was busy with the office work during the day, and at night I had to sew gloves for the factory and copy lecture notes for the engineers to compensate for the lack of wage income. It was because of her old age that my mother retired from her position as a primary school teacher, but in order to help me support the family, I had to sell milk for the milk factory, sell popsicles for the cold drink factory, and at the age of nearly seventy, I had to work hard under the wind, sun, and rain.
As I rubbed my first roughly bound and poorly papered book, I realized that my pain was actually my wealth.
Excerpt from 丨《My First Book》
She's about life
Life is like the seasons
Zhang Jie said that life is like four seasons.
Spring ploughing, summer rain, autumn harvest, winter looking back.
Life is like the seasons.
In the spring, on this land, I use my thin arms to hold on to the rusty and blunt plow. Roots and stones buried deep in the dirt, stumbling on my plow, consuming me exponentially. I was sweating profusely, my limbs were shaking, and I was eager to lie down on the dirt that I was going to reclaim. But I knew that I had no right to escape, and that God had given me life and responsibility at the same time.
There is no need to ask why, no need to think about whether there is a result; no need to lament the hardships of life, nor do you have to pity yourself for the misfortunes of fate: why did you give me such a barren land. I can only grit my teeth, suffocate my head, and squeeze all my strength into my plough, and I don't have to expect anyone to replace me, everyone has a piece of land that must be cultivated by himself.
On a dry summer day, I stood on the ground and looked anxiously at the clouds that were blowing rain from the wind from the south. What kind of eyes are you looking through? Waiting, the wind was blowing. But the wind was stronger, blowing the cloud carrying the rain over and onto another piece of land. I wanted to jump into the sky, cling to the cloud, and beg it to give me a drop of rain—what kind of delusional is that? I finally understood that this delusion was like trying to pull my hair out of the earth. So instead of delusional, he went on the road to find the spring.
In autumn, I harvest like everyone else, looking at my dry grain, my heart gushes with bitter and sweet joy, not discouraged because my own grain is more dry than others. I held them in my hand, close to my heart, as if they were a newly born me.
I have loved, hated, laughed, cried, tasted, realized... When I think about it carefully, I know that there are more sunny days than rain, more harvest than labor, as long as I have lived seriously and paid without shame, no one has the right to laugh at me as a fool who cannot make ends meet, and there is no need to use his scale to measure whether I am worthy or not.
In winter, at the twilight of life, is there nothing else to do? Just looking through the window at the falling snowflakes, the lonely fields, or the jackdaws on the branches?
No, maybe it is possible to add a few pieces of wood to the stove to make the house warmer, and by that stove I will calmly examine myself, why I failed; what I missed; whether I still owe someone else anything... I wish it was just someone else who owed me.
Excerpt from Zhang Jie's Collected Writings: Essay Volumes, People's Literature Publishing House
Her farewell
Zhang Jie said goodbye
This article (excerpt) is Zhang Jie's speech at the "Zhang Jie Oil Painting Exhibition" in 2014. Perhaps, by then, she had already said goodbye to us.
In our texts, we often use the word "forever", but it is always impossible... "Flowers blossom and fall sometimes" "The waves behind the Yangtze River push forward the waves"... It is the right thing to retreat at the right time. I had been looking forward to a formal occasion for me to say these words solemnly, but this opportunity was really hard to come by.
[This exhibition] is said to be a painting exhibition, and for me, it is indeed a farewell performance.
Many years ago, I wrote a short article in which I said that when I left this world, I wish I would only remember the good ones and forget the bad ones.
That's easy to say, but it's not easy to do. Just seven or eight years ago, when I slept until midnight, I would sit up, yell at the darkness, and then lie down again, but now I really let go.
I would often sit on a long chair under a tree, and the wind in that corner was not directed, and I felt that the wind blowing from different directions gradually blew away bad memories of hurt, insult, rumor-mongering, slander, etc., leaving only memories of my friends' love, warmth, concern, help, and so on. At the same time, I also met a puppy named Lucy, whose eyes were extremely clean, and who often tilted his small head and stared at me for a long time. When it looked at me with such clean eyes, I felt like it was washing my soul.
Finally, I would like to say that I left a will at a good law firm: after I died, first, I did not give obituary. Second, say goodbye without remaining. Third, there will be no memorial service. Please also, friends, don't write articles in my memory. As long as you remember in your heart, it is enough to have such a friend as Zhang Jie.
Thank you again to all the guests, Zhang Jie said goodbye.
From Guangming Daily, October 31, 2014
In 2006, Zhang Jie followed the doctor's advice,
She started painting when she was in her 60s.
With a passion,
She worked tirelessly in this completely unfamiliar territory.
In the twilight years of life,
She found new ways of expressing herself outside of writing.
At the end of today's Night Reading,
Present some of Zhang Jie's oil paintings.
Look at this writer outside of the "black and white words",
More "colors".
Photo/CCTV News "Night Reading" reorganization
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