"The Hormones of History 4: The Persistence and Hesitation of the Ancients" was recently officially published by changjiang literature and art publishing house. Different from the general style of historical and cultural books, the style of this set of books is based on historical facts and reality, and uses a sense of humor with a "sense of network" to make serious historical celebrities vivid and vivid, flesh and blood. Recently, the author "Prisoner of History" was interviewed with his new book "Hormonals of History 4: The Persistence and Hesitation of the Ancients", telling the story behind his creation of the "Hormones of History" series.
"The hormones of the ancients can stimulate the hormones of today's people"
The author "Prisoner of History", whose real name is Cheng Yifeng, is a native of the Jianghan Plain, graduated from Wuhan University, has a doctorate in history, and is now a historical writer. The popular "Hormones of History" series, the "5 Minutes of Hilarious Ancients" series, and the "Chinese History in Chat Groups" series that are popular all come from his pen, including many interesting historical books written for young readers. On the online self-media platform, "Prisoner of History" has become his IP exclusive label. Some people think that this name is not very good, but he prefers this special pen name: "The origin of the prisoner of history is that from the perspective of space, the heavens and the earth are cages, and my generations are prisoners, and we can never go out." In terms of time, there are too many mysteries in history, and some of them are deliberately glorified or ugly by writers, and it is difficult for us to have a true and definite answer. So I think that the people who came after me were prisoners of history. ”
In the interview, Cheng Yifeng said: "My original intention has never changed: to explore the highlights of the ancients to motivate themselves, but also to motivate readers. That is to say, the hormones in the ancients can stimulate the hormones in the present. ”
In his view, the challenges and dilemmas encountered by the characters in "Hormones of History 4" may still be encountered by us now, so their choices and experiences can still be used by us. For example, Su Dongpo has been degraded again and again, encountering adversity again and again, but laughing at life, we should also learn from his attitude towards life now. The series pioneered a unique humorous dialogue - "Ancient Face to Face", which opens up the communication between today's people and ancients. "Fan Zhongyan: A bad hand, he beat him into Wang Bomb", "Wang Anshi: Instead of being a human being, it is better to become a universe of his own", "Di Renjie: In fact, the old man is an undercover"... Each character story in the book is like a mirror, taking history as a mirror and inspiring today's people.
Presenting the "big times" in history
"Hormones of History 4" is a continuation of the first three series of the "Hormones of History" series, mainly focusing on the persistence of the ancients. The characters in this series, each of them has their own identity attributes, namely "famous king", "famous courtier", "famous scholar" and "celebrity", and the author uses this as a standard to tell the story of various characters in chapters. These characters serve as key figures in various historical periods, and their stories or works reflect personalities belonging to a particular era. Talking about the relationship between literature and history, the "prisoner of history" said: "The historical figures in textbooks are only the tip of the iceberg, and they have a lot of stories and spirits waiting for us to excavate and speculate. Literary books are better than history books because they are more lively in form of expression, but they are not in fact an antagonistic relationship. ”
Hormones of History 4
Author: Prisoner of History (Cheng Yifeng)
Publisher: Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House
Conversation Author:
"Humorous words are probably the highest level of words"
Q: Your writing has a stalk and is very popular on the Internet. How does this kind of writing balance fun with the seriousness of history? What materials do you have to collect for a character tweet, and how long do you write?
A: I hope that in my writing, the core of history is infinitely close to the truth, and there are many sources of information to confirm each other, and on this basis, the expression can be interesting and vivid. Before writing about the relevant book boxes and characters, I will buy some related books, but there are some more credible characters and historical events, and I will speculate more. In general, if you are fast, write an article in more than an hour, and a slow one may take a few days.
Q: In the fourth series, you have a kind of identity attribute for the characters in the work, namely "famous kings", "famous courtiers", "famous scholars" and "celebrities", and use this as a standard to describe various characters. Why do these people become the center of gravity of your writing?
A: History is miserly and desolate, and it is difficult for ordinary people to leave traces in the history books. Relatively speaking, famous kings, famous courtiers, celebrities, and celebrities are the key figures in various historical periods. Their works and stories reflect the great times of that time. That is to say, that kind of person, that kind of personality, will only produce in that era, and by exploring the spirit of those characters, it is also an effective entrance to that era, which is a very interesting thing. For example, the history of Tang was officially compiled, and some of the contents are doubtful, but combined with the works of Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and Wang Wei, the Tang Dynasty is three-dimensional and much more visible.
Q: Do you have any writing plans for the future? If so, can you tell us what the theme is?
A: At the moment I have a total of 5 series of books running at the same time. One is the hormonal series of history, the second is the 5-minute hilarious ancients series, the third is the ancients chat series, the fourth is the ancient story series, and the fifth is the ancient poetry series. The above series is mainly based on children's books.
Q: Are you writing full-time now? Or do you write while you work? There are also many authors who write history, what do you think is unique about you? Can you share the secret of writing history with a contemporary sense and making it popular with contemporary people?
A: At present, I still have a job in my own work, writing for two hours in the morning and 4-5 hours in the evening. Not necessarily unique, last year my children's book was on the first place in the Jingdong best-selling list, and it was printed several times in a month, I think the reason why everyone recognizes it is that my text is more interesting. There are many books on the market, but there are too many people who convey knowledge and very few who convey emotions. I am still more serious about writing history, teacher Yi Zhongtian said not to write in order to write a sense of modernity, write slippery and vulgar, I have always remembered it. There is also a netizen named Young Fury Horse who said that the Internet meme I used in the book will become obsolete in a few years, and I am also alert, and now continue to explore, humorous text may be the highest level of text.
Text/Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City Reporter: Sun Jun
Photo/ Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City Reporter: Sun Jun
Correspondent: Fu Lin
Video/Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City Reporter: Sun Jun
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Li Yani