"I read your Chengdu Business Daily every day." The first sentence of the exchange with the reporter was said by the famous writer and publisher Li Zhi.
On March 17, the city was hot and dry, but Li Zhi's home was cool and quiet.
At the age of 93, he is full of crane hair and spirits, wearing black-rimmed glasses, a smoky gray shirt with a suit vest, down shoulders, and an authentic Chengdu dialect.
He kindly beckoned the reporter to sit down at the table, where the tea books were clean.
A fat black and white cat walked leisurely by, and Li Zhi smiled, "It doesn't have a name, it's called a cat." ”
Recalling the four fathers Ba jin, recalling his past events when he was the editor-in-chief of the Sichuan People's Publishing House, the deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, and the chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature, Li Zhi's memory is clear and organized.
In 1929, Li Zhi was born. At that time, China was full of wind and rain. In Chengdu, Sichuan, the Li family, a large and declining feudal family, is facing a crumbling fate.
The prototype of Gao Juexin in Ba Jin's masterpiece "Home" is Li Zhi's father Li Yaomei. When Li Zhi was more than one year old, his father committed suicide.
"I didn't fully understand my father in the past." Li Zhi said frankly. It was only when I went to middle school and read Barkin's novel "Home" and the essay "The Man Who Begs big brother" that I understood my father.
"I don't usually like to say that I am Barkin's nephew. I don't want to put this title on my head as a halo. He quoted a media person as saying, "'Li Zhi's fame is not because of Ba Jin's relationship. It's all because we've produced good books that have had an impact throughout the country and even overseas. ”
The poet Feng Zhi said to him, "You are not a publisher, not a publishing official, but a publisher." This sentence, he still remembers vividly.
The fourth father, Barkin, is the "happy prince" in his mind - in the pen of the British writer Oscar Wilde, the "happy prince" always sacrifices himself to help others. He believes that Barkin is such a person, "I believe in Barkin's proposition: the meaning of life is to give, not to take." ”
Photo by Li Zhi Peng Li
A piece of ice heart in a jade pot
Red Star News: Before you turned eleven, you didn't see the fourth father, Barkin. When I first saw him at the age of eleven, was it different from the imaginary Barkin?
Li Zhi: In 1923, Ba Lao and his third brother left Chengdu to study in Nanjing. Eighteen years after leaving his hometown, Ba Lao returned to Chengdu for the first time in 1941. At that time, the original extended family had collapsed; coupled with the Japanese invasion of China, the three fathers in Tianjin could not send money to their hometown in Chengdu, and life was very difficult, so my step-grandmother and mother each took their children back to their mother's house to live. Ba Lao came back and stayed in our little home. I was eleven years old, and I didn't have a deep impression of Ba Lao, and I remember that he used to take my sisters to watch movies, saying that I couldn't understand it, giving me money to buy stamps, and I liked stamp collecting since I was a child.
Since childhood, I have been "inherited" to Barkin. I analyzed that my mother gave birth to an older brother, but died of illness around the age of 4. Later, I gave birth to four sisters and me, and I was afraid that I would not be able to live, so I was "adopted" to my fourth father, Bajin. That's why I callEd Barkin "Daddy." Ba Lao is more of a teaching for me. Bacheu's lifelong belief: The meaning of life is to give, not to take.
Red Star News: You mentioned many times that in 1942, Mr. Ba Jin returned to Chengdu for the second time to write four sentences for you: "When you read, you study hard, when you play, you can play with confidence, you have to tell the truth when you speak, and you must be a good person." "After many years, why do you still remember these few words?
Li Zhi: Since Ba Lao returned to Chengdu in 1942, he began to bear the living expenses of the whole family and provided me and my fourth sister with middle school. In 1942, Ba Lao came home for the second time, stayed for more than four months, and I slept with him in a big bed. During the day, in addition to going to school, I always play outside, and even eating, adults have to "arrest and arrest". Ba Lao joked, "I'll change your name, not Li Guohui (my original name), but Li Guofei."
Ba Jin and Li Zhi (right) According to the interviewee
At that time, many young people asked Ba Lao to write an inscription, and I also took a book and asked him to write. He wrote me four sentences with a brush: "Read hard when you read, and play with confidence when you play." To speak the truth, to be a good person. When I was a child, I didn't understand these words deeply, and the most supportive one was "playing with confidence when I played", because my grandmother asked me to "read when I have time". As I grew older, I learned more, and these four sentences have influenced me all my life, and I have used them to educate my children and grandchildren. Usually, our family has such a tradition: if you make a mistake, as long as you tell the truth, you can be punished lightly or exempted from punishment. In the words of my grandson, it's called "be honest and if you tell the truth, you won't be beaten," even though I've never beaten my children.
Red Star News: According to media reports, Professor Qian Liqun once said, "Some universities are cultivating some 'exquisite egoists'." If 'refined egoism' is not uncommon, can Mr. Barkin's "telling the truth" still be understood by most contemporary youth?
Li Zhi: It's hard to say. Telling the truth, it is not easy to do this. Now it is a market economy, and some people, if the truth is detrimental to their own interests, they will not tell the truth.
Red Star News: You said that the best way to honor Mr. Barkin is to read his book. In the age of fragmentation, literature may be more lonely. Are you worried that this will have an impact on Mr. Barkin's work?
Li Zhi: I think there may be, why? First, the times have changed, not only Ba Jin, including Lu Xun, young people have a certain distance from the things of that era. Again, a lot of people read novels on the computer now, so I guess it may be a little (impactful) for me.
The light boat has passed through the Ten Thousand Heavy Mountains
Red Star News: Do you still pay attention to the "Harvest" magazine that Ba Jin's daughter Li Xiaolin has been working on for many years?
Li Zhi: Now my eyes look difficult. It turned out that when Li Xiaolin was the editor-in-chief of "Harvest", he sent me every issue, and recently he did not send it. It turned out that at that time, the Sichuan People's Publishing House was among the best in the country. There was an important reason why our publishing house was doing well at that time. We work with Harvest magazine. I remember that in 1982, we also held a pen meeting for Harvest magazine in Leshan, Sichuan. At that time, Wang Anyi and others were still very young girls. Moreover, many works published by "Harvest" were published in Sichuan.
Red Star News: Some people may think that you have borrowed the name of Mr. Barkin as a well-known publisher.
Li Zhi: I am Ba Lao's nephew, but more importantly, I am his loyal reader. I grew up under the influence of the new literature of "May Fourth". I love reading Ba Lao's books and respecting his character. I believe in his claim that the meaning of life is that giving is not taking. This "identity" of Ba Jin's nephew can not bring anything, it is Ba Lao's articles and character that educate me.
I don't usually like to say that I am Barkin's nephew. If you write it, you should first write, this is a retired cadre of the Propaganda Department of the Sichuan Provincial Cpc Committee and now the honorary chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature, and then you will talk about my relationship with Ba Jin. Now some reports, first of all, say what Barkin's nephew is.
Red Star News: You don't want that?
Li Zhi: Of course, this is an objective fact, but I am not willing to wear this title as a halo on my head. For example, my publishing work is doing very well, and some people are not happy that we have done a good job, so they say, Li Zhima, in the name of Ba Jin, take a "pocket", call an uncle and uncle, and pick up the manuscripts of others. Of course this is an individual, not everyone. I've come into contact with a lot of writers because I'm the editor-in-chief and I'm going to do the paper myself.
Ba Jin (left) with Li Zhitu according to the interviewee
Red Star News: Do you mind these criticisms?
Li Zhi: There is nothing sad about it. There is an editor-in-chief of the Hong Kong magazine "Wide Angle Mirror" named Li Guoqiang, who wrote an article praising our publishing house. There is a special passage in the middle of this, saying that Li Zhi's fame is not because of Ba Jin's relationship, but entirely because we have published good books, and have influence in the whole country and even overseas. For example, Yan Wenjing, you know? I've been in contact with him for a long time. Once, Zang Ke's family invited Ba Jin to dinner and invited me there. As soon as he said it, Yan Wenjing said, Oh, you are Ba Jin's nephew! So we didn't mention Barkin at all, so why should I say this?
Red Star News: When composing a manuscript, what do you rely on to impress the other party?
Li Zhi: First, look at our topic; second, look at our author. We came out of Ba Jin, Mao Dun, Lao She, Cao Yu, Ai Qing... The book, we began to understand, this is called the brand effect; third, look at our binding design, our binding design is very good. Rely on these to impress people.
For example, in the 11th issue of "People's Literature" in 1978, Cao Yu's historical drama "Wang Zhaojun" was published. I flew to Beijing and proposed to Cao Yu to publish Wang Zhaojun, but he was hesitant. I immediately took out the works of famous writers such as Guo Moruo, Mao Dun and Ba Jin that had just been printed by the Sichuan Publishing House, and the binding design and printing of the books were very beautiful. Three months later, we published "Wang Zhaojun", who was very satisfied and said that he wanted to "live and die" with Sichuan Publishing House. Later, Sichuan also published the "Cao Yu Drama Collection".
Red Star News: In the early 1980s, you worked as the editor-in-chief of the Sichuan People's Publishing House, and the "Towards the Future Series" published by you was very influential. What was the impetus for publishing this set of books at that time?
Li Zhi: In 1983, Zhang Liqun, then director of the Youth Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote to me after being politely rejected by another well-known publishing house, hoping that Sichuan would publish a series of books "Toward the Future". Two comrades were immediately dispatched to Zhang Liqun, who was holding a meeting in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, to discuss publication matters. This series of books, a total of 74 books, systematically introduces new ideas and concepts in the field of social sciences and natural sciences abroad, and is welcomed by contemporary Chinese intellectuals. On the 30th anniversary of reform and opening up, Southern Weekend recommended ten theoretical series of books that played a major role in reform and opening up, and twenty-three critics who participated in the recommendation unanimously ranked the "Toward the Future" series of books as the first.
Red Star News: The poet Feng Zhi gives you a sentence: "You are not a publisher, not a publishing official, but a publisher." "What do you think of his evaluation?"
Li Zhi: Feng Zhi is called China's first lyric poet by Lu Xun, and we published his Selected Poems of Feng Zhi. He commented that the Sichuan People's Publishing House "is a publisher, not a publisher, nor a publishing official." This word of praise has become our goal of struggle, and we are determined to serve the author and readers and shoulder the heavy responsibility of building spiritual civilization.
Wind and rain like a rock dark old garden
Red Star News: You once said that when you were in middle school, you read Barkin's novel "Home" and essay "The Man Who Be a Big Brother" to understand your father.
Li Zhi: He has a very good personality. Mainly because our family was bankrupt, he felt sorry for everyone, and he committed suicide himself. In fact, Barkin said, he is still too face-saving, if you don't lose the face of a gentleman... I didn't fully understand my father in the past. I feel that you are dead, you leave my mother and a few of our children behind, I feel too irresponsible, this is my own opinion. I also debated with Ba Lao for this reason. Ba Lao showed me the only four remaining letters that my father had given him, and only then did he come into contact with his father's heart.
Red Star News: Have you changed that view now?
Li Zhi: Now I don't approve of it either. It is not that he does not love and linger on life, nor does he avoid contradictions and abandon his relatives. He read New Youth magazine, loved Dickens's novel David Goldfell, and listened to the American record Sonny boy. The family went bankrupt, and the father felt sorry for the whole family and tried to commit suicide, because he was reluctant to give up his family, wrote a suicide note three times and destroyed it three times. The last suicide note reads: "Forget it, if you live, it is a lie... I don't have to bury anything after I die, I can just cut up the body, or I can listen to the beast eat it. Because the sin I deserve involves my family in this pain, I hope to punish my corpse severely..." (this is what I read later).
More than twenty days before his suicide, his father used his birthday to invite the whole family (including the maid) to watch the play to show goodbye. On the night my father committed suicide, he came to visit my mother and a few of our children several times.
The next morning, the whole family was in disarray. My second sister, third sister, and fourth sister were still young and did not understand things, but the eldest sister was in pain. She desperately called out to her father, and repeatedly pulled her father's eyes open with her hands, hoping to wake him up, but at this time, she had "called out every day and the earth was not good."
Ba Lao once said: "There is still our eldest brother in the family of my hometown." He loves us and we love Him. He is our only connection to that 'home'. "Ba Lao told me many times that what the three brothers have in common is that they are willing to think more about others and pay a little more." The two older brothers helped me a lot and I wanted to help them, and it turned out that there was no chance. I may not be forgotten, and I hope that both of them will be remembered. ”
Not all the Yangtze River rolls in
Red Star News: Your work not only records your own mental journey, but also records the changing times.
Li Zhi: Influenced by the new literature of "May Fourth", from 1946 to 1948, I published nearly 100 study works in Chengdu and other places. In 1949, Ai Wu edited "Half Moon Literature and Art" and published my "Two Prose Poems". In 1960, when I was the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Red Scarf", I was ordered to co-write a reportage with two other comrades, "Chairman Mao's Good Boy Liu Literature".
In 1991, I retired from the Propaganda Department. In 1993 my wife fell ill. Whether she's hospitalized or recuperating at home later, as long as she's resting, watching TV or reading, it's a good time for me to write. Looking back on my decades of life, the times have changed several times. Many unforgettable people and things appear in front of you from time to time, and these personal experiences are also some refractions and microcosms of the times, which are worth recording. I didn't have any "grand" plans, and I drew up a general topic, "Essays on the Past", to write about my life.
Since 1993, I have published articles in magazines such as People's Literature. In 1995, my first collection of essays, The Past, was published. Later, he published works such as "Retrospective", "The Past", "My Fourth Father Barkin", and "The Man Who Remembers".
In 2012, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House published "Li Zhi and Sichuan Opera"; in 2013, Sichuan Education Publishing House published "Li Zhi and Publishing"; in 2014, Tiandi Publishing House published a three-volume series of "Essays on the Past" for me; in 2019, Sichuan People's Publishing House brought together all my works and published "Li Zhi Wencun", a total of five volumes and six volumes.
Red Star News: You owe a lot to the revitalization of Sichuan opera.
Li Zhi: In July 1982, the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Sichuan Provincial Government issued a call for "revitalizing Sichuan Opera" and set up a special organization, the Leading Group for the Revitalization of Sichuan Opera, to coordinate and coordinate the joint work of the relevant departments of the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government. At the end of 1982, I was transferred to the Propaganda Department of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, in charge of literature and art and publishing, and concurrently served as the deputy head of the Provincial Leading Group for the Revitalization of Sichuan Opera, responsible for the daily work of revitalizing Sichuan Opera.
When Li Zhi was young, the picture was based on the interviewee
When I was a child, my aunt used to take me to watch Sichuan opera, and I only liked to watch martial arts. In 1952, a number of Sichuan opera plays such as "Liu Yin Ji" performed in Sichuan were held nationwide, which were very popular. "After watching "The Tale of Willow Shade", I have loved Sichuan opera ever since", I belong to this kind of person. Of course, I am fully committed to the revitalization of Sichuan opera.
To revitalize Sichuan opera, Sichuan put forward the "eight characters" policy, that is, "rescue, inheritance, reform, and development", and determined the purpose of revitalizing Sichuan opera: to make people play and win the audience, especially to win the young audience. At the first Sichuan Opera Show, through the Provincial Education Bureau, we organized hundreds of college students to watch "Bashan Xiucai". At first, the students took watching Sichuan opera as a task assigned by the school, and had to go, but they didn't expect to like it very much after watching it. This practice was praised by the Ministry of Culture.
In the summer of 1985, the Sichuan Provincial Sichuan Theater was invited to perform at the Horizon International Arts Festival in West Berlin. The traditional drama "The Legend of the White Snake" is extremely sensational, and it is difficult to find a ticket. The enthusiasm of the audience was high, and the opening ceremony of the first performance lasted fourteen minutes. He also toured the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy. Everywhere they went, they caused a "Sichuan opera fever", and in Frankfurt, Federal Republic of Germany, the curtain ended for twenty minutes. Newspapers and periodicals around the world have published many positive reviews.
In May 1987, at the invitation of the Nippon Cultural Foundation, the Provincial Theater performed "The Legend of the White Snake" in Japan, performing a total of 24 performances, eighteen performances in Tokyo alone, with excellent results. In May 1990, Xindu County's Furong Huachuan Opera Troupe's "Hibiscus Flower Fairy" was invited to perform in Japan, with a total audience of 60,000 people.
Performances in Europe and Japan have expanded the influence of Sichuan opera overseas. Whether it is a performance in Jinjing or these several performances abroad, the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Party Committee has designated me as the head of the troupe. I also take this opportunity to make friends with Sichuan opera people and serve them.
In 1991, I retired from the leadership position of the Propaganda Department, but I still maintained friendly relations with the Sichuan opera community, and they still treated me as a "leader" and even more when I was a friend, and many troupes invited me to see the play. I also said that I would spend my life as a Sichuan opera drum and a whistle.
Red Star News reporter | Peng Li
Edited | Duan Xueying
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