Last year, there were several heavyweight special exhibitions in the Beijing Cultural And Expo Circle, one was the exhibition of "Huaxia Zhihua - The Essence of Ancient Civilization in Shanxi", and there was also an exhibition of "Dongliang - The Document exhibition of the 120th anniversary of Liang Sicheng's birth", all of which caused the heat of brushing screens in the circle of friends. Instead of making this hilarious, I went to see the New Handiwork Exhibition to Commemorate the 125th Anniversary of Mao Dun's Birth, which was launched by the Museum of Modern Literature at the end of the year. Compared with the fiery and overcrowded people of the previous two major exhibitions, the quiet Mao Dun handprint exhibition is difficult to hide and cold. However, the exhibitions in the Literature Museum have always been niche, and the exhibition of writers' manuscripts needs to be quietly and slowly for immersive appreciation, and the slightest noise will destroy the leisurely elegance created by the paper and ink. Every time I catch up with such an exhibition environment, I feel very grateful in my heart.
Today, there are probably fewer and fewer people who still read Mao Dun, and his manuscripts must be rarely asked, and it is unknown how many people can attract this exhibition to come to see. In fact, it seems that it is a little late to launch the handwriting exhibition commemorating Mao Dun's birthday at the end of the year, and it may be more appropriate to put it around Mao Dun's birthday on July 4. It was the hottest month of the year, and the humid Jiangnan water town gave birth to the lingxiu and handsomeness in Mao Dun's bone marrow. To this day, people still have the privilege of appreciating the texts of this literary giant in elementary school in his personal memorial. That is the legacy of the policy left by the old-style private school education, and it is also the earliest ink manuscript of Mao Dun so far. In addition to the essayist's neat xiaokai and the teacher's praise and high expectations at the end of the text, the circle comments of the teacher throughout the text are like the notes made by the ancients when reading, which vividly interprets the idiom of remarkable points. About eighty-nine times out of ten mao dun manuscripts on display were written with a brush from right to left, and the ink pen writing habits of his youth almost ran through Mao Dun's life.
An in-depth understanding of a literary artist, the work is only one aspect. His life, photographs, manuscripts and places of life are all important. When publishing a collection of writers' essays, it is almost customary to attach the author's photographs, handwriting, and chronology to the front and back of the book. Readers need to better understand the author's pearl text and the sentiments behind it through the various side information attached above. Many ordinary readers often just rush into the work to pursue a piece of happiness and parting, and the ignored information is actually a window that can help us reach the author's heart. Manuscript handwriting is a window into the writer's spiritual world. There has been an anecdote about Mao Dun's writing. When Mao Dun took the graduation examination of middle school, he applied for the preparatory department of Peking University, and the admission letter he received was written with Shen Deming's name. Later, it was verified that because mao Dun's name Shen Dehong wrote on the examination paper was too sloppy, the Hong character was mistaken for a singing word. This incident greatly touched Mao Dun, and he developed a neat and refreshing writing habit. I didn't have Mao Dun's memoirs at hand for a while, and I couldn't verify the veracity of this rumor. If this dramatic anecdote is true, then at least it can be said that Mao Dun's current manuscript writing has consistently rigorous roots and deep young workers. In fact, I didn't like Mao Dun's words very much before, thinking that it was too slender and lacked strength. It wasn't until I saw the photo of Mao Dun and his friends that I suddenly realized that Mao Dun's words were almost indistinguishable from his thin and weak figure. Even compared with his wife Kong Delan, Mao Dun's figure also appeared to be clean and slender. Zhong Lingwen of Wuzhen gave birth to a talented artist like Mao Dun, and also more vividly interpreted the true meaning of the metaphor of Wen Ruqi.
Many historical and cultural celebrities in modern China have suffered the fate of losing their fathers at an early age, and Mao Dun is unfortunately one of them. When Mao Dun's father, Shen Yongxi, died of illness when he was ten years old, Mao Dun and his brother were raised by their mother, Chen Aizhu. In the big family they lived in at that time, there were many relatives and complicated relationships, Mao Dun's mother warned him from an early age to be cautious in his words and deeds, and Mao Dun's taciturn and calm personality formed after he became an adult was deeply influenced by his mother, and many times gave people a distinct mark of being sensitive to words and being sensitive to deeds. For example, when the Commercial Press had just taken over as editor-in-chief of Novel Monthly, Mao Dun was full of ambition and wanted to make bold innovations. After leaving office, the former editor-in-chief Wang Chunong asked the young new editor-in-chief how to plan the next issue, and he only asked the leaders not to interfere, completely led by themselves, but the specific measures were not too much. As a result of careful speech, he often resorted to paper and pencil for the waves of thoughts in his heart, and writing became the best way of life for Mao Dun.
The first page of the manuscript of Mao Dun's novel "Midnight" is exhibited in this handwriting exhibition. The manuscript paper is written vertically in 36 lines, each line is about 36 words, the handwriting is clear, and the whole text is meticulous. On the original manuscript paper entitled "Sunset", there are many traces of the author's alterations and corrections, and it can be seen that the writer's words are carefully considered and carefully carved. This kind of manuscript can be used for people to compare the differences between before and after the finalization of the work, and to peek into the evolution of the author's thinking when writing. However, this is the work of professional researchers, for ordinary visitors seem to be unable to easily appreciate its true value, fortunately, the largest number of letters in the exhibition is handwriting, from which you can intuitively feel the deep friendship between Mao Dun and friends. Compared with the cautious writing of the novel manuscript, these letters are almost all written into chapters, rarely modified, and the writer's letter and leisure can be seen behind it, as if the opposite of the letter is a friend's kind eyebrows that have not been seen for a long time. The exhibition is notable for a short letter written by Mao Dun to the writer Ke Ling in May 1956. The letter reads as follows:
Comrade Curling:
Chenghui donated the masterpiece "Remote Night Collection", thank you. I would like to attach a copy of it to the reward of throwing a hand. Gyìviyna. This ode
healthy.
Shen Yanbing
May 1956
The whole letter is only more than fifty words, more like a note, put in today's mobile phone text message to solve, and Mao Dun chose a frame of chrysanthemum paper, neatly written letters. The reason why this paper book is remarkable is that the combination of flower notes and letters reminds people of the ancient scribes' gifts and singing exchanges. The unique texture, texture and color of the flower note are not only the bearers of the handwriting of the letters, but also a fine art in themselves, coupled with the enhancement of the ink and pen text, it is really elegant to the bone. In the past, the love and righteousness between the old-school literati was mostly based on a letter to the sun, just as the so-called paper is short and long, and the distant landscape barrier can be maintained by a letter. There is often no shortage of books donated to each other in the maintenance process, and both sides pay attention to the exchange of courtesy and reciprocity, and return each other's masterpieces with their own clumsy works. This kind of literati custom of "throwing me a papaya and repaying it with Qiongju" is still inherited today, but the meaning is greatly reduced. Although e-mail is fast, it is difficult to have the temperature and charm of a paper letter, and it is even more difficult to see the cultivation and nostalgia of the writer. China has always had a tradition of "taking letters as texts", and there are quite a large number of ruler styles such as the "Baoren Anshu" in ancient texts. In modern literature, there is also a habit of "replacing literature with letters", which makes the intellectuals of the Republic of China generation pay special attention to the return of fish and geese, and even in many cases letters are better than meetings and conversations, and they are also better than more advanced telephone and telegraphs.
Another interesting letter from Mao Dun to Kong Luosun in 1978 is interesting (above). This interest does not come from the content, but from the epistolary style. In the letter, Mao Dun stated his distress in life when he was disturbed by various visitors, and the handwriting of the letter was suddenly interrupted between the vertical lines of the text, supplemented by two small columns of words. This is a very unfamiliar way to write in the eyes of many young audiences today who have not experience in reading the ancient texts in a straight line. It is very interesting that the full letter has both the punctuation of the function in the Western grammar of quotation marks and brackets, and the supplementary instructions for the function in the ancient texts. Mao Dun's generation of May Fourth literati, even if they received more western civilization, could not escape the Confucius Mengshili instilled in their childhood private school education, and they still could not lose the set of rules of traditional Chinese writing when they wrote letters in their twilight years. This is a writing habit that is inadvertently revealed. The small letter between the lines of the letter also became more and more charming the more I looked at it at this time. Mao Dun once commented on calligraphy in a letter to Shi Jingcun in 1979. He said: "My words are not in any form, thin gold has seen, not learned, when I was a teenager, I once visited the Dong Meiren Monument, and later scribbled." Recently, there have been many people who have asked to write book titles and journal titles, and they can't put it off, and they write boldly. The words were full of self-effacing words, and Mao Dun's ink characters could indeed see the influence of the thin gold body under careful reading, coupled with the fine practice of the "Epitaph of Dong Meiren", his calligraphy was thin and hard, and he became more and more popular in his later years.
Mao Dun, who moved into the Hutong of Houyuan'en Temple in the late twilight, has become the Mao Gong in the mouth of many people, and the life in the spacious and sparse courtyard is becoming increasingly single. No official body light, Mao Dun is not close to antiques, and even refuses to exercise physically, in addition to pacing in the backyard room every day is to read and write, he began to write the last big book of his life, which is a memoir that he has never forgotten. The last part of the exhibition also lists some handwriting of Mao Dun's memoirs. It was only at this time that the manuscript paper was wide and sparse, and the writer also changed the tradition to a hard pen horizontal writing. In his later years, Mao Dun's eyesight declined, his left eye was blind, his right eye vision was only 0.03, coupled with his physical weakness, his wrist strength was not enough, and he was gradually unable to continue to hold a brush to write. For Mao Dun, this is just a change in form, and the stubbornness of living to the old writing still shows a little persistence in the hearts of the old-school literati. Mao Dun spent his life cultivating Yantian, and his complete works reached 42 volumes, ranking among the best in the number of works of modern Chinese writers, preserving the literary heritage and spiritual wealth of the next work. Although the exhibition is separated by glass plates, the viewer cannot help but feel that the ink on the timeless codex text is overflowing, these yellowed manuscripts are like yellowed scrolls, after years of precipitation, what cannot be erased is a piece of paper flowing with fragrant ink rhyme, and under the handwriting of Junxiu Juanli is Mao Dun's gentle and elegant manners and elegant cultivation. The end of the era of handwriting has made writers' manuscripts more and more rare, triggering a reverence for words and literature in today's people. The old-school literati wrote history word by word, and also retained their vitality. Seeing the words like a meeting, showing the letter and looking at the writer in the air, has made the manuscript have a lot of moving poetry.
At this point in the exhibition, people seem to be tempted to write a few lines with a pen. The exhibition carefully arranged interactive sessions, providing blank antique notes for viewers to write testimonials. I read the few pages of comments posted, most of them are real but less interesting, and people are a little distant from the era of handwritten letters, and the elegance of vertical writing is gradually drifting away.
2022.2.4
Author: Shi Ning
Editor: Xie Juan
Editor-in-Charge: Shu Ming
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.