Modern Express News (reporter Zheng Wenjing Zhang Wenying) Recently, the famous writer Ye Zhaoyan made his online live broadcast debut, sharing his decades of reading and writing process with many netizens, and bringing his new works, "The Road to Father" launched by Yilin Publishing House. This book is a literary journey of Ye Zhaoyan's exploration of the relationship between father and son with more than 60 years of life experience, and it is also the book that he first confronts, pays tribute to, and reflects on the life of his father with his novel style.
△ Live broadcast scene (middle is Ye Zhaoyan)
"I want to write about some Chinese father and son"
In the history of Chinese and foreign literature, the relationship between father and son has long become an eternal literary motif. "The Road to The Father", a novella of more than 40,000 words, continues Ye Zhaoyan's consistent narrative style, plain and objective, like gossip and homely, not hurried, slowly coming, writing the era memory of three generations of intellectuals in a family.
Shortly after the protagonist Zhang Zuo was born, his mother remarried his father and married another woman, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents since childhood. Under the cultivation of his grandfather, Zhang Zuo practiced a beautiful hand of calligraphy, and also developed a temperament of following the encounter. His grandfather Wei Ren, his father Zhang Xiyi and his three generations were father and son or master and apprentice, with kindness, as well as affinity and closeness.
In Ye Zhaoyan's view, everyone wants to get close to their father, but the result of approaching his father is nothing more than two, one of which is to want to become a person like his father. He confessed that the work was "wanting to write about some Chinese fathers and sons", and the protagonist Zhang Zuo wanted to get close to his father, but "the road to his father was too long, and Zhang Zuo found that he had never really approached Zhang Xiyi, and sometimes the closer he went, the farther he felt." ”
"Lu Xun talked about Mr. Zhang Taiyan, my grandfather (Ye Shengtao)'s generation talked about Mr. Lu Xun, my father talked about his grandfather's generation, and then it was me, talking about my father and his friends. In a word, we have all become the descendants of Mrs. Jiujin, history seems to have been written long ago, doomed to a generation is not as good as a generation, we who are not xiao descendants, it seems that it is impossible to surpass our fathers. Ye Zhaoyan said.
The path to fatherhood is the inheritance of spiritual blood
Ye Zhaoyan told that the plot of Zhang Xiyi's cattle breeding in the new book is derived from the experience of his uncle Ye Zhishan.
"This passage is actually a story between my uncle and our grandfather (referring to Mr. Ye Shengtao). My uncle, like the father I wrote in my novel, raised cattle in a cadre school, and he proudly got up every night to pee for the cows. My grandfather went around the bookstore to find books for him to raise cattle. They mentioned this in their correspondence a lot, how good the cattle were, and how they were doing in the cattle pen. ”
Ye Zhaoyan was born in a cultural family, and many dazzling stars in the history of modern literature are regular guests in his family, and the special experiences of his grandparents and fathers have had a profound impact on his life. For him, the road to his father is not only connected by the blood of the flesh, but also the identification and inheritance of the spiritual bloodline.
"I can't help but think of the naïve idea when I was just preparing to write a novel, planning to write a long volume like "War and Peace", aimed at several generations of Chinese intellectuals, starting from Zhang Taiyan's generation, and then transitioning to our generation, about five generations of cultural people. This ambition did not materialize, and at best I found a little clue in my later series of prose essays. This series of prose essays is Ye Zhaoyan's most classic set of non-fiction essays, including "Old Characters", "Old Things", "Miscellaneous Peanut Trees", "Warblers Flying Around", and "Sincerely Knowing That Everyone Hates Everyone Has It".
This set of books is actually a big book, recording the spiritual journey of five generations of Chinese intellectuals from Zhang Taiyan, Lu Xun to Ye Shengtao, etc. It has a beginning, but it has not yet ended. The unfinished part, Ye Zhaoyan wrote in "The Road to Father", "This is a book I have always wanted to write", it is about this childish idea and unfulfilled ambition.
It is worth mentioning that Ms. Zhao Yun, a well-known literary painter who has created illustrations for literary classics such as "The Legend of Hulan River", was also invited to draw illustrations for "The Road to Father". In the book, the number of stone steps of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in the illustration of "Climbing the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum"; the mark of "serving the people" on the clothes, buttons and envelopes of the postman in the illustration of "Postman Delivering Letters"... All accurately restore the real era scene.
(Courtesy of publisher)