Halfway through life (excerpt)
Wen 丨 Mai family
Borges and I
He brought those basic words
Time will put them together in a language
Lifted up for Shakespeare's music:
Night and day, water and fire, color and metal...
— Borges, A Saxon (449 AD)
In 1986, my best thing to show off was my youth and health, and apart from that, I had almost nothing, no love, no passbook, no joy that could not be forgotten, no pain that could not be dispelled, and life did not seem to me to really begin. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away from me, on the land of the star Maradona, a blind writer, what he lacks most is youth and health, and old age and illness are tormenting him mercilessly, constantly ringing the bell of the end of his life to him. When he felt this, he, like the old men who had reached the end of his life, persistently chose his burial place: Geneva. Travel was a great hobby of his life, accompanied by the footsteps of death, from Buenos Aires to Geneva, becoming his last trip in this life.
On June 14, 1986, the old man passed away in Geneva: he was my hero Borges.
No one around me knew that Borges was Argentine—"hot and humid America is my continent." Born in Buenos Aires, argentina's capital, Borges spent time with his parents as a teenager, including Geneva, but as an adult he rarely left the city. Compared to Buenos Aires, I feel that Geneva is just a stopover on his teenage quest, just as many of us had a youth experience studying or making a living out of town. Incredibly, he chose Geneva as his only place to be, not buenos Aires or elsewhere. This became the last secret he had created for us as a "labyrinth maker."
Tell you, I have the honor to unveil this riddle, but I will not tell anyone - I will not tell you, just as Mr. Mo Yan once said in front of a large official and many experts: "I know the secret of making a long novel, but I will not tell you." ”
Because "don't tell you," you can doubt my "frankness." It doesn't matter. What I'm going to say now is that when you know how to doubt, you are like Borges. Because doubt, or doubt, is what Borges is best at and enjoys. Yu Hua wrote in Borges's Reality: "In his poetry, in his stories, in his essays, and even in those prefaces and afterwords, Borges let doubt prevail in his own narrative, so that his narrative often appeared in two directions, which suppressed each other and liberated each other at the same time. ”
It is hard to imagine that without this narrative, Borges's work would feel so vast, so deep, so endless. In fact, in terms of the number of works, his life's works are not as much as those of us around us in a year. Fortunately, literature has never won by quantity, and if this were the case, literature would have been ruined by those people.
I said, just said, that in 1986 I had nothing but youth and health, and this did not, of course, include no literature, and included no Borges. In fact, I didn't even touch a word of Borges during his lifetime. This should not have been my fault, but then because of my excessive reverence for Borges, it became a big mistake that I often scolded myself. I was a little naïve enough to think that if I had met this master during Borges's lifetime, his sudden death would have become a great grief for me, a real grief. A man needs real grief, otherwise those petty fights and even self-inflicted amorous grief will destroy him. The reason why it is difficult for those who come out of the deep house compound to come out of a tough person is because they just live in the "flying of bees".
I mean, they may often be in pain to call daddy and mother, but the so-called pain is just a sting by the sweet little thorn of the bee. In one of Borges's poems, "Later in the Day," there is such a person who is scared to death by a gray poisonous snake, and when he is dying, he can't help but release "silver sweet urine"—someone actually translates it as "white sugar urine", feeling like he is a diabetic, so he is weak and can't help the wind, and he will be scared to death. Haha, interesting mistranslation. Seriously, reading Borges's translated works can sometimes feel like a risky affair, and you have to be ready to beat your chest and stomp your feet at any time. But there's no way around it. Fortunately, we have a great Mr. Wang Yangle, who first brought Borges's works to us. Because he opened his head quite well, the translation of Bohsch's works by latecomers always maintained a relative degree of caution and height.
Seriously, it's a must.
I have not forgotten that the first time I read Borges's novels was in the spring of 1987, at the home of Lu Yang in Nanjing. At that time, Lu Yang was not called Lu Yang, nor was it like the current Lu Yang, who could stay at home, except for a few lessons. At that time he was making a living in a publishing house, and the unit tied him like a rope. On this day, the unit took him away again. Maybe I was too bored at home alone, and before I went out, he pulled out a copy of World Literature (not the month's) from the pile of books and suggested that I look at two of Ford's novels. I watched, but Ford's calm and clean language did not make me like it, so I read several other columns by the way, including a column of "Latin American Literature", a group of Borges short stories translated by Mr. Wang Yangle, and four short stories, including "The Garden of the Cross-Trail", "The Labyard of Mabee", "The Book of Sand" and "The Other Me".
I didn't know anything about Borges at the time, so I started reading carelessly, as if I just wanted to cram something into my eyes to dispel the boredom of living alone in his house. But before I could read a single page, I was shocked, felt its preciousness and wonder, and was as excited as a wanderer who had just seen the land shore. Haha, God knows how hard and excited I was that afternoon! I quickly came to the conclusion that what I was holding was not a work or a writer, but a mysterious and delicate, distant and real world. The world is made of water, but it is made of fire, and therefore it is infinite and complex, it is intertwined by all things past, present and future, and I am as if I were a point, a thread, a hole in the intertwined web. In reading, I deeply felt more than once that I was pulled by this stranger in the black frame into an infinitely mysterious and grotesque, full of illusion and not lacking in reality, like hell and like heaven. Strangely enough, there were so many things outside of my mind that made me lose time and time again, but instead of feeling the panic and fear I deserved, I felt like I was back in a precious memory, back to a friend I had been looking for for a long time.
What is an unforgettable experience? This afternoon was an unforgettable experience in my reading life, which completely changed my understanding of literature and even changed the path of my life.
If it is not too difficult to be intoxicated and moved me for an afternoon, then to be thoroughly intoxicated and moved, to let this intoxication and touching flow day after night, day after night, like some kind of legendary classic love, it must be difficult and difficult, "more difficult than rubbing a rope with sand", "it needs to understand all the high and low mysteries". Now look at Borges is such a man, a man who has understood all the mysteries of the high and low levels, who has fixed and flowed the countless days and nights of my mind in a touching, mesmerizing way. He even changed my image, no longer the unruly whatist, but a worshipper who knew the height of the sky. I dare say that the self-righteous writers around me do not lack this feeling and change, but they prefer to say it in private. So far, I have only seen one person condemn Borges's work, and he said this:
"I don't really like what Borges wrote... He was not a thinker, he was a writer who used philosophical questions as literary material... His work is just a few fragments, some drafts, some wheels, some notes on the idea of the novel and a few lines of poetry... Of the novels he wrote, I liked "The South," "Ulrika," and "The Book of Sand."..."
This means that, apart from that, he can't talk about liking it.
Who's making such a big fuss?
It's him, Borges himself!
This illustrates two problems: first, that no one can stand up to Borges himself and point fingers at his work; second, that Borges may be tempted to see a man who is critical of his work, because there really is none, and he has to invite himself out.
Think about how our writer is afraid of criticism of his work, and even bothers to organize some good words of praise. What does this mean? It doesn't mean that we really became Borges, it only means that we are too far away from Borges, far from real literature.
It's interesting to explore the factors that make Borges's novels glamorous.
Borges novels always seem to be those stories, those scenes, those distant, shadow-like characters. In other words, the materials he used to make novels were limited and uncomplicated: simple stories, ancient figures, and even the same things often appeared. But the feeling he leaves the reader with is infinitely complex, infinitely numerous, often so many that we feel that we can't take it at once, as if he is always providing new things, and those things are always so unfathomable and inexhaustible.
Why does this effect occur? The answer is in his mysterious narrative. His narrative, at first glance, is full of delicate, unfamiliar wording and metaphors that first confuse us and leave us with no time to pay attention to the direction of the story itself. It feels a bit like watching a fashion show, and after the show, what fills your mind is often those strange costumes, not the looks or expressions of the models, although their expressions and even looks very similar, but you just can't remember, because you don't have time to remember them.
And that's not all. If that's all there is to it, then we only have to watch it two or three times to solve the problem. The problem is that Borges's narrative also hides more complex and deep techniques, and the effect he hopes to achieve in his narrative is not a normal attempt to get the reader closer to the story, but rather to stay away. To be precise: close and far away. He always confuses the reader in this way, first trying to make a thing for you with painstaking efforts, and when this thing is impeccable and convincing to you, he suddenly says to you: Oh, this thing is not like this, I may have mistaken it. We cannot grasp anything from his narrative, and we will let go of what we have caught, and in the end our hands will remain empty. That way, the next time he relays the same thing to you, you won't feel like he's repeating it, you'll just feel more intense, it'll feel like you've touched the "fish" that slipped off your hand last time. You thought you would catch it, and it ran again, even farther.
There are also some things that can't run, they're right in front of your eyes, but you still can't catch them, because they can turn around and leave at any time, or always shine on the "other side of the glass." Again, this is the wonder of Borges's narrative, who never pushes anything far so that you can't catch it (this becomes a myth or a fairy tale), on the contrary, he often pushes everything in front of your eyes, and it seems that everything is alive and jumping, as if it is within reach, but it can never be grasped. In the face of this fact, it is understandable that we can describe his novels as magical, mazes, or even games. What is incomprehensible is that he did not know where it came from and where it went.
Frankly, there are not many things in this world that make me feel glorious and happy, and I don't even feel glorious and happy living in love or money. But indulging in Botts books, I did feel glorious and happy. For more than ten years, his outstretched hand across the ocean touched me more and more kindly and deeply, warmed me, gave me all kinds of wishes and strength, and made my life gain a certain stretch and sensitivity. I was like a good tree, growing branches and branches and thick roots and whiskers in the tireless reading and imagination of Bohsch's works. Sometimes I feel that his books are much like that of an elder who has weathered the storm and thus become gentle, kind, and intelligent, far more real, happier, and more possessive of the world in front of him and his inner self than with a startled woman.
The Greek poet Elitis said that everyone has his own hero in his heart. I used to look up to Kafka as my hero, but now I have another hero in my heart, and he is Borges. This blind but still living in the library for many years, although he has a very different style and enthusiasm from the mournful Kafka, I feel that they are a high confrontation, the opposite of something, like the king and the lion, the snake and the sinister woman: they have equal image, equal quality in my mind.
I have three copies of The Joy of Gathering Books.
I am one of those who look for books that bibliophiles love
—Edward Newton
A few years ago, a friend came back from abroad and saw my shabby burrow, but there were a few cupboards of heavy books, which seemed to impress him a little, and praised me from the bottom of my heart, and in addition, he told me the story of a bibliophile, his name was Edward Newton.
Ji Yijin "This is an amazing man, and the strangeness of his collection of books makes it hard for you to believe... Now the whole of Europe is talking about him, and people seem to be more suspicious of him than the surprise and admiration he deserves... People suspect him because what he did was so amazing, just as we suspect that Mendeleev dreamed of the periodic table in the bumps of the carriage... Some books, you may imagine how the writer created and let it be published, but it is difficult to imagine how he, Edward Newton, collected them in his cupboard... There are many books in his cupboard that are unique in the world, and it seems that it is these 'lonely books' that he seems to be interested in..."
That's what my friend said.
One person can win such praise from another, even if it is only one person, only this time, I think it is enough. I became intrigued by this bibliophile, who was almost the same name as the famous physicist (Newton), and my friends' accounts of him became more detailed. Finally, my friend told me that the bibliophile not only collected books, but also wrote books, and that the books he wrote were as remarkable as his books, especially the collection of essays that filled his book collection and pleasure, "The Joy of Gathering Books." I immediately applied: "Can you get me a copy?" My friend nodded reservedly at me and replied, "Yes." ”
About two months later, the postman sent me an e-mail stamped with the postmark of the other side of the Atlantic, and when I opened it, it was a beautifully bound book that made me confused.
It's an English book!
I didn't know a few words of English to know what kind of book it was. Later, I learned from my friend's pedantic that this was the book of Edward Newton's essays, The Pleasure of Gathering Books, which I had asked him for not long ago. Looking at the heavenly book-like text, I complained to my friend: "What you sent me was not the joy of jushu, but a chagrin. "My friend knew I didn't know English, and his move puzzled me and was a little disgusting. Shortly thereafter, I assigned my childish and paranoid personality to Mount Gambara, more than 4,000 meters above sea level in Tibet: close to the sun and close to death. But I didn't die, just disappeared. For two years, I had no contact with the outside world, and many people thought I was dead, and some people thought I was taken to a foreign country by Edward Newton's "exquisite book."
When I returned to my past, draped in sunshine, or finger prints of the sun, I found that a lot of things had happened in my world that I liked, one of which was that my "Book of Heaven" had Chinese copies, and it was said to be well translated. Of course, I had to buy one, but I went to several bookstores and said I didn't. I think that this book may have already fallen on the market, and I can't help but feel a little lost in my heart. So, during my exodus, there were a lot of things that happened in this world, and people bought out what I missed, which is one of them.
Then a long time passed, and once, I was walking on the newly built Second Ring Road, and I came across a stall selling books, only to see a large pile of dejected books, hanging on the ground like dead fish and shrimp, random passers-by picking and choosing, bargaining. This ease also absorbed me, and my eyes were immediately filled with various titles and covers and colors that I hated. I instinctively shifted my gaze, as if pushed away by the bibliography and colors that I hated. However, at this moment, in the process of shifting my gaze, my gaze was touched by a very plain cover, just as the flesh was touched by a delicate hand, the soul was crisp, and the eyes were involuntarily grabbed by this cover: Ju-book-of-Fun... Edward Newton! Hey, I rushed up in surprise and grabbed it in my hand as if someone was going to grab it from me. Looking at it habitually, you can conclude that the book is not fake, nor is there much damage, and the heart is joyful, and the hand is very active and enthusiastic to reach into the pocket.
"How much?"
"Two pieces."
"Two pieces?"
"Yes, two dollars, no bargaining."
There is a resolute and unquestionable authority in the tone of the little bookeller.
I was stunned by this cheapness, and the hand that paid for it stood still. It feels the same way you sometimes get intimidated by some unexpected high price. The bookseller must have thought I was "scared" and made room for me in time: "Well, a piece of five, don't say it." "I was stunned again, but I immediately woke up, paid quickly, pulled my leg and left, lest it be a mistake and others would regret it." "Pleasant" slapped me so frequently within a temporary minute that I had no reason to be unhappy. I hummed a little tune and went home, and Happy followed me home and accompanied me through the day. In the evening, the pleasure still hadn't completely faded, and I happily took a bath, sat down, and began to read the book of Edward Newton, whom I had long longed for.
"A man, or a woman, is the most interesting thing in the world, followed by a book that makes people grasp the core of the secret..."
My mind again felt the pleasure of the flesh being touched by a delicate hand, and this pleasure grew and filled under the guidance of my gaze, and soon covered the pleasure of my daytime book purchase. This is normal, after all, it is a pleasure without communication (and therefore not flowing), a dead pleasure that does not grow up, but only consumes. Edward Newton gave me pleasure like a hand and a hand held together, the mortise and mortise clenched, and thus reached a coherence, the heart and the heart reflected each other. This pleasure is like a flame, it will burn, and it will be like a drop of water, it will gather, flow, and grow. But the more this pleasure fills my heart, the more resentment accumulates in my heart. That is to say, while I have become more and more aware of and affirmed the charm and value of Edward Newton as a writer and this book through reading, the more I have a kind of dissatisfaction and anger in my heart. Why? Because I think that before the book reached my hands, it had been so ridiculed, mixed with a bunch of frivolous goods, lost, cheap, cheap, like an old bustard.
The greatest happiness and pride of a writer is to see his work reverently read, and I have done so, as if I saw Edward Newton smiling happily. But at the same time I saw Edward Newton's face distorted by anger, because his books were being sold down the street like the clothes of dead people. There is nothing more profoundly painful and indignant about a writer than this—not seeing the love and protection that the reader deserves for his work. Such a book, dipped in the painstaking efforts of the writer, was ignorantly spread on the ground and sold cheaply, which in itself has caused unforgivable harm to the writer, and I am actually complacent about a few dollars cheaper. The thought of my stupid and clear "pleasure" during the day filled my heart with scolding myself. Yes, the first thing to scold in this matter is myself. I can't blame others, but I can blame myself. Precisely because you can't blame others, your accusations against yourself become more vicious and ruthless, as if this can make up for the accusations that others can't achieve. That night, I was haunted by endless self-blame into my dreams. In my dreams, I still heard a voice that was harshly accusing me. My accusations against myself were so deep and courageous that my guilt toward Edward Newton became somewhat looser.
However, this is clearly not enough. When I woke up from my dream and saw the book that I had bought with the money of a cigarette, my heart was still uneasy, as if I had seen the contemptuous gaze of Edward Newton. I said to myself: It seems that you have to have to take practical action to make up for the mistakes you inadvertently made. So, during the lunch break on this day, I ran to the second ring road again, found the stall, and bought a second copy of "The Fun of Gathering Books". This time, I did not ask for the price, but "very sophisticated" looked at the original price of the book on the back cover and paid according to the price. I obviously felt the unconcealed joy of the bookseller, and I thought to myself, I hope that my "stupidity" will make the bookeller realize a little bit of the value of this book and its good feelings.
Squeezing books like "The Joy of Gathering Books" out of bookcases, spreading them on the floor, and selling them cheaply seems to be a fierce – increasingly fierce trend of our time. We and I can't reverse the trend, all we can do is take a moment to walk around this stall, and if we are lucky (and unfortunate), we respectfully (don't go to the cheap few dollars) to buy "such a book" home, wipe the dust with a dry towel, and then slowly read it.
Kafka's "lover" and "sinner"
She had a pair of slender hands. She has dark black hair. Her smile was innocent and kind. Her voice "has a talent for acting". Her name was Dora Di Amante. In July 1923, forced by illness, Kafka went to the town of Miritzri on the Baltic Sea and stayed at a Jewish resort. One day, Kafka passed by the kitchen and saw a girl busy killing fish, who seemed to be touched, and said disapprovingly: "What a slender pair of hands, how cruel the work can be!" ”
That's how they met. She's Dora Di Amante.
Dora was a kitchen maid at the resort, and she had previously worked as a small tailor at a Jewish orphanage in Berlin. It gives the impression that Dora is a refugee forced to make ends meet. In fact, she came from a prestigious Jewish family, but only because of her youth and dissatisfaction with her parents' conservative will, she ran away from home and wandered in all directions. At the same time, Kafka, because of the increasingly serious tuberculosis, went to seek medical treatment and recuperation. In this way, two people met like two grains of sand in this resort. It is accidental and predestined. At this point, Kafka had only the last 11 months left in his life. But in this short period of time, Kafka received a warmth and love that he had never received in his life. In this regard, Kafka tells us "happily and sincerely" that this is all given by Dora.
In a sense, Kafka and Dora are both "outcasts of the will of their parents", spiritual wanderers, and at the same time "parasites of literature". As soon as the two met, Dora read Yesenia to Kafka in Hebrew, leaving Kafka "immersed in a beautiful reverie all day." They soon fell in love and lived together in a rented apartment in Berlin, "living a truly pleasant family life". A month before his death, Kafka formally proposed to Dora, but they were greeted not by the wedding, but by Kafka's funeral. Because there is no wedding for her lover, Dora doesn't seem to have the right to own her lover's funeral. But she still insisted on appearing at Kafka's funeral, "crying to death and living" in a sneering and reproachful look. Dora's cries shocked Kafka's relatives, causing them to cry out loud, as if this was the only way to devalue Dora's cries. It can be said that when Kafka entered the tomb, he only heard the cries of one person, that is, Dora's. This is almost the symbol of Kafka's life: only Dora has briefly and sincerely warmed him in this world.
Thinking of Kafka, we always feel that the world is unfair to him, and he has left us such a precious literary legacy, but his life, every day and every night, is spent in extreme hurt and desolation. The appearance of Dora makes us feel that Kafka has paid off a little debt. But at the same time, Dora also owes us a debt, she once burned a large number of Kafka's manuscripts at Kafka's behest, and if she did not burn them, she did not publish them in time, but secretly treasured them, so that they were later ruined by the Gestapo. Personal burning and private treasure are all out of love, love for Kafka, but constitute a "sin" that is difficult to redeem. Kafka always made us feel overwhelmed, felt the "absurdity of existence", which was really helpless.
Agatha Christie's 11 Mysteries
This Spring Festival, I spent time in the world of Agatha Christie's novels, almost one a day, seven or eight books in a row. Polo, Miss Marple, the manor, the travels, the murders, the enclosed spaces, the open time, the sensational plot, the confusing cases, the eyes that want to cover up, the plausible confessions, the intricate relationships, the meticulous logic, the sophisticated reasoning... Like a mist, the water and wind form a "gorgeous world", allowing me to easily pass this New Year festival of cold, haze and disaster that I have not encountered in decades. Out of gratitude, or commemoration, I wanted to write something about Christie. Writing a book review is probably what I'm best at, but I give up. Christie's novel is like a famous park, with an endless stream of people coming and going, and the wise seeing the wise and the benevolent seeing the benevolent. But in general, the changes are constant, and people's feelings seem to be similar in the end – the same destination: intelligence is challenged, curiosity is satisfied. In other words, this is a veritable "theme park", the theme word is unquestionable, and the praise of the advertising word is not nonsense. Some things can be recognized or approved, and dissolution and reconstruction may be added to the snake. I decided that speaking about Christie's novel was thankless, so I firmly gave up.
I decided to tell a little bit about Christie's personal affair, and the material came from interviews and biographies about her. Compared to the sheer number of her works, Christie left behind few "private affairs", she had mild social phobia, and because of this, she did not become a singer. Christie is said to be extremely talented in music, and as a child she dreamed of becoming a singer, but a stage performance at the age of nine completely kicked her off the stage. Christie in his later years told us: "Even two years later, the fear of my father's death was not as great as that performance, and the countless eyes in the audience were blue. ”
At the age of 11, his father died, which was an "ideal childhood" for a writer, as Hemingway said: a poignant childhood is the best training for writers. In 1965, at the age of 75, Christie announced the closure of her pen, and like all old people, she began to wait for the arrival of "another unknown world". The fear of life reduced her fear of death, and she saw death that could come at any time as "meeting her father and mother who had been separated for a long time", and she also had very clear expectations of the way of death: to say goodbye to the world like the Eskimos. The Eskimos refused to say goodbye to the dead, and on a clear day, they would prepare a hearty meal for their elderly mother, and then the old man would walk alone in the snow and ice to the mountains, never to return... Christie said: "We should be proud of this dignified and determined way of saying goodbye to life, and if possible, I wish I could leave you like the Eskimos to meet my father and mother..."
This wish, Christie waited for 11 years and did not come true. In 1976, at the age of 86, Christie died on a warm, comfortable bed like all respected old men, and the ensuing funeral alarmed all Britons, including the Queen, and all her readers around the world. Before dying, Christie repeated one of her favorite words in her later years: Thank God for giving me a happy life and giving me deep love.
When I studied Christie's life, I found that the "happy life" mentioned here should be subtracted by at least 11 days. It was 1926, the year Christie's mother died, and her relationship with Archie for more than a decade was broken. Archie met at a dance party when she was 22 years old, when she was already married, and for Archie she "changed like a person": falling in love that day and dissolving the marriage the next day, as if she were no longer the introverted girl with mild social phobia. Needless to say, the end of the relationship left her in pain. One day in December, Christie was found mysteriously missing and it wasn't until 11 days later that she was found in a hotel. No one knows what she went through during those 11 days, and she refused any well-intentioned and malicious questioning with a claim of "amnesia."
(Excerpt from the essay collection "Halfway Through Life")
Mai Jia is a famous contemporary novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of novels such as "Decryption", "Dark Calculation", "Wind Sound", "Wind Language", "Life Sea Sea", etc., TV series "Decryption", "Dark Calculation", "Wind Language", "Walking on the Tip of the Knife" (screenwriter), movie "Wind Sound", "Wind Listener" and so on. The novel "Dark Calculation" won the 7th Mao Dun Literature Award. Mai's novel "Dark Calculation" was selected into the "New China 70 Years 70 Novel Collection".