Chinese New Year's Eve, got up and looked out the window, the sky was overcast, dense and broken snowflakes, quietly falling in the clear air.
I did not expect that God would end the Year of the Ox in such a solemn and romantic way. Looking at the snowflakes in the sky, I suddenly thought: Is it time to take a good look back at the back of the years that are about to pass, and comb through the chaotic thoughts like snowflakes, so as to carry on the past and open up?
Combing, from the following three aspects.
First, read the book
Fragmented reading is still the main posture, and the interest is the same as in previous years. Although he majored in modern Chinese literature, he liked to cross borders in many humanistic territories. Of course, in addition to interest, there are also the following considerations:
In today's era, various literary and artistic forms are becoming more and more restless, going door to door, talking intimately and even marrying. According to the American scholar Hillis Miller, today, "literature is only one of many cultural symbols or products, studied not only with film, video, television, advertising, magazines, etc., but also with the habits of everyday life that ethnographers have investigated and understood in non-Western cultures or in our own cultures."
This kind of opinion prompted me to shift my focus from more familiar literature to other artistic territories, and to grasp their life rhythms as a whole in cross-reference.
Although it is fragmentary reading, the gaze still has choice. From the perspective of content classification, film and television, cultural theory, aesthetics, prose and poetry are mostly. From the perspective of the author's region, both the city and other provinces and cities can attract attention, of course, the former has invested special attention, because most of them I know or are familiar with. Reading their words, it felt like they were standing next to me, smiling and talking to me. It was a warm and intimate rustic sound.
However, I also concentrated on reading some books, and the system paid attention to several issues that I thought were more important.
For example, the rise of visual culture. In the past 20 years, in China, with the reform of media technology, the army of visual culture has marched forward heroically, the situation of the domination of text culture has been disintegrated, and the twin peaks of text and image have stood together, becoming a gorgeous landscape of contemporary culture. I've been staring at it for a long time, in the Year of the Ox, and my eyes are still focused. At the theoretical level, several classics have been re-read, such as Benjamin's "Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Bell's "Imperialist Cultural Contradictions" and so on.
At the practical level, we still pay attention to film and television art. Film and television dramas with high Douban scores, such as "The Age of Awakening" with a score of 9.3 and "Mountains and Seas" with a score of 9.2, are all within the field of vision. I deeply feel that they not only make the viewer's heart surging in emotion, but also, the exquisite aesthetic labor, so that countless people find a reason to be willing to jointly guard the silver screen, obtain beauty, poetry and life meaning in light and shadow, and find the basis for film and television art to be immortal.
Another example is the establishment of a Chinese-style discourse system of "non-fiction literature". I have always been interested in this question. Although there are many controversies in terms of the conceptual connotation, theoretical and practical origins, and stylistic characteristics of "non-fiction writing", they are carried out in a relatively gentle way. It seems that the times have woken people up from the nightmare of the life-and-death struggle, and all sides of the opinion have pressed the overriding bullying atmosphere that dominates the world. The progress of history is gratifying.
What is even more gratifying is that writers know that it is a foolish humanistic loss to spend all their energy on theoretical games, so they devote their efforts to creative practice. In the stunning array of words in each section, the aesthetic expression of "non-fiction writing" such as "presence", "action", "reality", "experience" and so on, like a spring breeze, brings people a real picture of the current Chinese society: the historical transmutation of the difficult march, the strange survival status quo, and the tenacious national spirit.
I read a lot of these great works, and that feeling is both a reboot of the mental window and a different reading experience.
In addition, I have approached and always observed the exploration of the current trend of Chinese poetry, the criticism of the chaos in the poetry world, and so on.
2. Travel
Reading thousands of books and walking thousands of miles is an exaggerated declaration of survival by ancient readers. Although there are many different interpretations of this by later generations, for me, the enlightenment significance is already clear: go out after reading, be healthy in body and mind, and increase knowledge and wisdom.
In the Year of the Ox, my travels have two directions. In the province, in the most ideal two months of travel , May and October , I went to Dongyi Town in Rizhao, Zhuquan Village in Tongjing Town, Yinan, and Ardor Town in Zangma Mountain, Jiaonan. At the end of the year, I hurriedly visited Longyue Lake on the shore of the Bohai Sea.
The town's biggest impression is the rows of antique buildings that have been painstakingly made old. Pavilions, carved fences, small bridges and flowing water, shops and liquor stores, trance, in front of the eyes of a piece of old style, the soul is suddenly stirred, but after a little calming, secretly laughing. These imitations are actually difficult to shock from a perceptual point of view. Symbolism, and the instrumental purpose of awakening the imagination, seems to be its main value. But I still tried my best to convince myself that this was what it was like in the old days.
However, Longyue Lake, although it is also a man-made object, has gradually exuded a primitive wild atmosphere with the natural infestation in recent years. The sky is vast and vast, the water and the sky are colorful, and the reeds are in the sky. Standing next to it, the heart will suddenly become vast, as if this is the only way to accommodate this 8 times the Waters of the West Lake.
Zhuquan Village is not large, but the original form of the antique is purer than Longyue Lake. Walking into this ancient village deep in the Yimeng Mountains, there is a real sense of going back in time. Surrounded by mountains, the villages are surrounded by springs and waters, and the water's edge is surrounded by dense bamboo forests. Pushing open the firewood doors, you can see the houses made of mountain stones, and on one side of the door are stone mills and messy agricultural tools. Think of those days, these cramped farm yards, chickens and dogs barking, cooking smoke, exuding the atmosphere of simple farming China?
Outside the province, the footprints are concentrated in South China. In March, Wuyuan, Jiangxi; in May, most of Guizhou; in September, the land of Bashu.
Wuyuan is the punching place for rape flowers. Unfortunately, I listened to a misleading sentence: Strange flowers are flourishing, but they can slowly go away. However, after getting off the plane from Nanchang, I got a warning from the tour guide: It's late! The yellow elves, because of the seasons, have fallen like flowers and water. When I heard this, my heart suddenly darkened. The tour guide seemed to see my frustration, and Wan'er smiled and added: "However, there are still a few residual flowers near the top." The voice was not loud, but like a beam of light, it shone brightly in the heart.
Most of the journey is clear, and even if it rains, it is the kind of drifting oblique wind and drizzle. Walking in the alley paved with bluestone slabs, looking around at the powder wall of Dewa, the crystal water droplets dripping under the eaves, I suddenly remembered Dai Wangshu's "Rain Alley". However, most of the people who pass by are groups of strangers from the north: or young people with wide waists and round waists, or old people with long lines, women with grudges like lilacs, and their eyes are wide-eyed and looking for them, which can only be imagined.
Walking through the Qiangui Fang Domain, which lives in the south of the great river, it feels completely different from Wuyuan. The rain is still thick. 10 years ago, I went to Guizhou to teach, and when the plane landed at Guiyang Longdongbao Airport, it was raining at night, and the airport became a vast water boundary. This time, the plane also landed at night, although the sky did not use the heavy rain to greet each other, but the ground was wet, there was water everywhere, brightly reflecting the lights of the airport, the air was wet, as if reaching out would grab a handful of water. Obviously, it had just rained.
Although it was only a few days of travel, it seemed that God's daily work was rain. The weather forecast said it would also rain in the coming days. In the face of this situation, it is difficult to sigh. Fortunately, the attitude of the rain is not bad. Gentle and feminine, watery and draining, not big, like cow hair, like brocade thread, wisps, entangled, and you are guarding, snuggling, talking. It seems that there is no end to the confidant, saying that when you are tired, you will stop and rest for a while, and then I will do my own thing.
In September, I turned to the trip to Bashu. What impressed me the most was not the daughter city of Enshi Qiliping Tujia Town, nor the light rail through the city on the banks of the Jialing River in Chongqing, nor even the "natural museum" hidden in the karst terrain of the canyon, but what has been in mind so far is the countless tunnels hidden in the abdomen of the lofty mountains.
It is said that the Laoshan Tunnel is currently the largest of the Daocheng Mountain Ridge Tunnels, with a length of 4580 meters. However, compared with the mountain tunnel hidden in the mountains and mountains of Bashu, it is a small witch. Our station wagon has been driving on the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway many times, and the tour guide said that tunnels above 5,000 meters abound, and the longest one is 3 5,000 meters. The car entered the tunnel, as if forgetting the exit, and kept speeding in the shadows.
In addition to the long, there are many more. One by one, they came out of a tunnel, stepped onto a bridge, and before they could look at the peaks on both sides, they plunged into another tunnel. They are like parents and siblings who are pulled tight by the hand of a bridge, a truly tunnel family. The work of the tunnel is to make the mountain graben a pathway. Shu Dao is difficult, it is difficult to go to the qingtian, and it has become an eternal historical chant.
3. Writing
Write and become cautious. TiBi recalled Lu Xun's criticism of Yang Zhensheng's "Jade Jun": "Her birth is also death." Although I do not agree with mr. Judge's judgment, I am afraid that the work of haste will suffer the same misfortune.
Therefore, the words that I try to write are many locked in the deep boudoir. Of course, this kind of disposal also has the consideration of the current information explosion era, lest it be hastily wasted the reader's energy. Those who can be shown are as follows:
(1) I am the deputy editor of a series of eight volumes with a total word count of 1.2 million words and have written the first volume. It took 3 years, and the Year of the Ox was finally completed. In May, he was also commissioned to write a "preface" for the project, hoping to be completed as soon as possible.
(2) In order to welcome the 30th Qingdao International Beach Festival, I thought that a large-scale festival spontaneously by the people of the city has entered the year of ups and downs, and as a witness, I have the responsibility to pay her a lofty salute with words, so I wrote a recitation poem "Ode to the Beach Festival", but the draft was read several times and was very dissatisfied, so I had to ignore it.
The autumn wind is rising again, the beach festival is approaching, and in a hurry, it hastily made modifications and "married" it nervously. I was about to accept the cold trial, but I didn't expect that a friend of Wenyou called to encourage and said a lot of praise, which made the suspense a little more relaxed.
"Sparrowhawks Singing on the Beach" is a disobedient essay. Wang Lei is a person who does not forget to be grateful, and every devotee of the beach festival is grumpy and asks me to write the head of the music section, and I gladly agree. There is also a small article "That Beach, That Piece of Love", which is a casual work.
Third, this year, I also wrote a lot of "reviews", about 50 or more. For this reason, my own writing is often interrupted, but there is no regret, and I have two ideas:
One is to pay tribute to those who create and give. I know very well that the writers in the circle of friends are working hard every day. Each poem is adding a touch of blue to the cultural sky of the island city. Their efforts are arduous creations, but also selfless dedication. A hundred-word review, as a tribute to these creators and devotees, is a matter of course.
The second is to learn from the predecessors, give people roses, and practice goodness.
I can't forget that on the muddy road I walked, I don't know how many people helped me in the wind and rain and guided me out of the confusion. A novel I wrote in the 1970s, "Stone", was carefully revised by wang Anyou, the author of "Li Erjie's Remarriage" and a famous writer. My graduate thesis was also the result of the famous writer Liu Zaifu, who let me go to his home and point out face to face.
Therefore, when I often receive wenyou poems and read them carefully, it is as if I see those pairs of eyes staring at me with deep affection. I understood that in those flickering eyes, there was a great expectation, which was the hope of "hissing and asking for his friends".
Therefore, I did not dare to be sloppy, and I did not dare to be perfunctory, and I used large and inappropriate language to smear at will. Reviews are like sparrows. Although the sparrow is small, it is complete. It should involve the intention of the article, the perspective of the narrative, the means of expression, the expression of words, etc., and the writing should be in one sentence. It's about reading, thinking, and finding language that feels concise and comfortable.
Therefore, sometimes, a review of 1200 words, because to find out the background of the work, find information, and repeatedly consider the language, it takes 3-4 hours to write. I wrote it at midnight, and the next morning, I felt that some places needed to be corrected again, and the "two days" situation occurred from time to time.
Tomorrow, the beginning of the tiger year, I will embark on a new life, do not want to make a grand wish, just quietly move forward, more understanding, tolerance of the world and human affairs, do what I can, do something useful, in order to harvest the meaning and happiness of life.
(Author: Sun Baolin, former professor of Qingdao Institute of Education)
2021-1-31 First draft, 2022-2-14 revision