△ Shen Congwen took a photo after returning to Beijing from Hubei Cadre School in 1972 (Photo: Republic)
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Shen Congwen's choice
Text / Sun Yu
△ "Border City", "Husband", "Xiao Xiao"
Shen Congwen's novels have a primitive legacy, and human nature is all in its own tone, and it rarely exists in a mixed way. "Border City", "Husband", and "Xiao Xiao" all have painful coils, but they contain beautiful beauty, unfortunate life and true love are gathered on one stage, and people's spirit has not been rough in the end.
Sensing the depravity of urban life, Shen Shi competed with the pure spirit of the countrymen. He wrote about the countryside of western Hunan with poetic brushstrokes, paying little attention to the social struggles of the time. However, from the perspective of human nature, it is not a perspective to guess the deep-seated problems of society. He felt that there was some distance between urban life and the essence of people's existence, so he made a piece of pastoral song, blowing the fresh wind, and the local atmosphere of culture had a different kind of storage. His works also have the beauty of serenade, and the afterglow of singing and sighing is sufficient.
It is a blessing in cultural ecology that one or two characters like Shen shi slow down other paths and leave alternative texts.
△ Shen Congwen in 1981 at Stanford University in the United States
He also wrote about country tragedies, even tragic. For example, "Vegetable Garden" describes the killing of the Kuomintang, which is quite frightening. However, he does not advocate magnifying the blood color in the novel, thinking that it will affect the judgment of human nature. Therefore, many of his novels exude the charm of human nature.
Even in the face of the darkest things, he still maintained a quiet look in his heart. He felt that shining a poetic luster on the surrounding darkness was also valuable. This view was recognized by Zhu Guangqian and others. Writing about the world's hot and cold with meditation may also be a path into the secrets of human nature. The passage to the Spiritual Temple is by no means a single one.
Shen talked about novel writing before his death, thinking that he was building a small temple in Greece. He believed that it was the spiritual contemplative side of Greek culture that produced philosophy and epic poetry. So, although he may not have fully understood the nature of Greek culture, he longed for the image of contemplation.
△ Shen Congwen (right) and Wang Zengqi (left)
Wang Zengqi was fascinated by Shen's temperament, spiritual direction, stylistic and aesthetic characteristics, and said many good things. Wang Zengqi thought that Shen's writing had the atmosphere of six dynasties, and those words with white and white created an ethereal and wonderful atmosphere. The literature of the Six Dynasties and the literature of Greece may have different roots, but there are certainly similarities.
Ba Jin also admired Shen Shi, saying that he was quiet and calm, which was appropriate. But Barkin took the path of radicalism. A radical literati who can be in the company of a quiet and calm admirer proves that the non-impulsive emotion is still alive and has a specific spiritual value.
Shen believes that super-utilitarian contemplation is more than impatient thoughts, and more peace than radicalism, so that you can objectively reflect on your own body. This kind of way of thinking is the least easy to get. Calm thinking, jumping out of the entanglement of individual grievances, big difficult things also. He felt that maintaining a distraction and peace was an antidote to the diseases of popular culture. Shen focused on his own experience, where there was something that the radical literati lacked.
In one article, Shen said that his fiction writing was nothing more than "the gymnastics of emotions", which was an interesting metaphor. "My article does not scold anyone who satirizes whom, I lack this harsh interest in people." His peaceful attitude has been misunderstood by many people. It is said that Nie Cyan crossbow did not take this seriously, and criticized it, and there were many micro-words. Later, when the two met, they were relieved of their former suspicions and became good friends.
△ Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe in their apartment in 1981 (Photo/Republic)
When I read Shen's writings, I was touched to see his respectful expression of the nature of human nature, the ultra-utilitarian contemplation and peace. He devoted himself to building such a spiritual temple in an alternative way, and there was a strange atmosphere between the ups and downs of the words. After Lu Xun, there are not many great writers who are unique in the novel, and Shen Shi can be counted as one.
Today's writers rarely have that kind of cultivation. At the time when utilitarianism was prevalent, Shen Congwen's choice could warn of something.
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About the Author
Sun Yu
Dean of the School of Literature of Chinese Min University, Yangtze River Scholar, member of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese Writers Association. He has long been engaged in the study of Lu Xun and modern and contemporary literature. Editor-in-Chief of Lu Xun Research Monthly and Associate Editor of Modern Chinese Literature Research Series. His major works include "Scholars and Doctors in the Revolutionary Era - A Record of Wang Zengqi's Idle Thoughts", "Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren", "Lu Xun and Hu Shi", "Lu Xun and Chen Duxiu", "Zhou Zuoren and His Bitter Rain Zhai", "Zhang Zhongxing's Biography", etc.; the editor-in-chief of "Looking Back at Lu Xun Series", "Looking Back at Zhou Zuoren Series", "Falling to Lu Xun's Balance", "Blasphemed Lu Xun", "Suffering: Records of Strange Masters in Modern Chinese Culture", etc.