Love Everything and Know What It Loves- Reading Gao Hongbo's Essay Collection "Good Dog High Gas Drum"

In December 2020, Jiangsu Phoenix Children's Publishing House published a collection of essays by Gao Hongbo, a "literary all-rounder" and a children's literature writer, "Good Dog High Drum".

At first glance, this book can easily be seen as a popular collection of animal stories for children in the book market, or a "short biography" of animals. In fact, it can be called a "meaningful 'meaningless'" children's literature work, as Zhou Zuoren said in his evaluation of Zhao Yuanren's translation of Alice's Wanderings in Wonderland, "But this meaningless is by no means meaningless, and his work is really of philosophical significance." In this way, this book reminds the reader, what is a true writer of children's literature?

A writer of children's literature should first and foremost be a "believer in language", as the writer Alai put it in his lecture on "The Homeland of Language". Where is the home of language? For Gao Hongbo, language is in daily life, in natural life. Starting from daily life and natural life, arriving at language, and then returning to daily life and natural life through language, he constructs a children's literature world that belongs to him alone. Further, Gao Hongbo's humorous joy, witty and funny tone, and relaxed sentences on the outside and burning heat on the inside are different from the European vernacular language in the history of Modern and Contemporary Chinese literature, and also different from the classical vernacular language in the history of Modern and Contemporary Chinese literature, but are a Chinese vernacular language that leads to daily life and natural life. In this sense, children's literature writer Gao Hongbo can also be called a son of a Chinese. Therefore, from the title of the book to the subtitle, to the words, sentences, and detailed descriptions, "Good Dog High Gas" is rooted in daily life and natural life, showing the natural flow of modern Chinese language, charm and asana. Leaving aside the fact that the title, table of contents and the opening chapter all have the breath of daily life and natural life that come to the fore, just to say that many words, sentences and details of this book are often filled with the sense of daily life and natural life of the Chinese language. For example, in this book, the author uses words, sentences, and details to describe the origin of the protagonist's high-spirited "laurels", with a sense of situation and déjà vu: "Guzi is a dog girl, when she first arrived home, her legs were weak, and even standing seemed to be quite difficult, but when she grew up, she was beautiful and outstanding, and the proverb of daring to love 'female eighteen changes' is not only applicable to humans." Because it is getting better and better, Guzi has a love to call 'four-legged haired girl', also known as 'the first beautiful dog in the community'. Millet is very adapted to these laurels, and as soon as it is called, it will wag its tail and sprinkle joy. "Words, sentences, and details are described with exceptional simplicity, but with an unusually dynamic feel. It is not difficult for the reader to appreciate that the author's language expression in this book is not to make chinese more jerky, more esoteric, and more serious to read, but to be more natural, more vulgar, and more humorous. Moreover, the language of this book contains the tenderness, liver and heart of a Chinese son. According to this, the language of this book is deeply rooted in the "simple and concise" of Chinese on the one hand, and full of warmth and strength of Chinese on the other hand.

Second, children's literature writers are believers in love. When Chinese modern and contemporary writers talk about children's literature creation, they always regard "love" as the life belief and writing belief of children's literature writers. For children's literature writers, love can be either the "philosophy of love" in Bingxin's children's literature works - "natural love, maternal love, children's love", or Ye Shengtao's love for the universe with children's eyes - "everything is considered to have an inner life", or it can be the human love that Lu Xun said "infinite distance, countless people, all related to me". It can be said that the philosophy of "love" that children's literature writers believe in is simply all-encompassing. Therefore, this book tells a variety of ironic and touching stories between "me" and my family and pet dogs, but the core of the story is the belief and reinterpretation of the philosophy of "love", the motif of children's literature, thus pondering the forgetting of the philosophy of "love" in our time. Because of this, readers will encounter many philosophical sentences that embody "love" in this book: "The 'hukou' I am talking about is actually a group of small lives in the family, called small beings." "My phone once took a picture of it and the grain, and it was captured." "It is only natural for a dog to know and approve of one or two masters in his life, and they are always energetic and happy, and it is natural for them to contribute their loyalty unreservedly to their approved masters." And when the reader encounters these philosophical sentences that contain "love", it is easy to be struck, because we humans and these little creatures are in the same world, but we humans are often solipsistic. We then can't help but ponder our own world and the world around us: Am I still me? Where do we live? Where are we going? Although the author of this book cannot provide the reader with a clear path through a high-profile "biography", it still helps the reader to regain the possibility of rediscovering beauty and love. As the book writes: "At this moment, I suddenly felt that this was a wonder of nature, a special beauty created by sunlight, water, and glass, which was displayed in front of me with the help of the appreciation scene of the grain. "It's rare for a puppy to run freely on a vast meadow, especially on an empty field in the city; if this picture adds to the puppy's ball and kicks the ball to let it chase its owner, such a special combination is even more wonderful!" Images like these are realistic and at the same time metaphorical—if human beings are connected to all life, they are likely to acquire a new human imagination.

Third, good children's literature writers are all people who know their loved ones. Omnipotence is only the emotional power of "love", and knowing what it loves is the ideological power of "love". Gao Hongbo, as a writer with particularly mature thoughts and emotions, in this book, although he is well versed in the wonderful secrets of how to tell the story, the story of this book is vivid, vivid, and has a strong sense of substitution, as if it were a melodrama with a strong sense of scene, but he always abides by the rules of reminiscence narrative - moderation and rationality. It can be said that in this book, how unforgettable and affectionate "I" am for gao qi in the process of recall, and how restrained and rational the reflection on human beings themselves is. However, the rational gaze built into this book is not an aggressive and critical gaze, but a gentle, restrained and compassionate gaze. In particular, the author's reflective gaze on humanity's own pathology does not bypass the author himself, but begins by gazing at the author himself. In this book, "I" accept the high-spirited drum at the beginning is not without psychological obstacles, but a psychological change process from resistance, contemplation, curiosity, to closeness, companionship, and deep love. In particular, it is worth noting that when "I" refer to the high-altitude drum as "the first beautiful dog in the community", it means not only that "I" love everything about the high-altitude drum, but also that "I" know and love the high-altitude drum, that is, "sympathize", understand, and respect all the habits of the high-altitude drum. In the sense of knowing what they love, the "high drum" is a metaphor for reflective modern philosophy—a mirror image of how modern people can re-recognize themselves and be saved.

All in all, reading Gao Hongbo's "Good Dog High Drum", what attracts people is the story, what moves people is emotion, what nourishes people is language, and what shocks people is the philosophy of "love". So, what is a children's literature writer? I think that Gao Hongbo's essay collection "Good Dog High Gas" has explained this fundamental issue related to the development of children's literature creation, that is, children's literature writers should be such writers--with roots, life, and style, rethinking the symbiotic coexistence between human beings and all things at the philosophical level, loving all sexual and spiritual life, and at the same time knowing what they love.