As an immersive experience, reading helps a lot in turning the reader's mind into a tourist action. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, cultural exchanges have been deeply affected, and in the case of temporary inability to achieve outbound travel, by reading the stories and landscapes told by writers from various countries in literary works, you can not only understand the scenery of various places, but also see the development and changes of the same region in different periods, which is a necessary homework for "post-epidemic" travel.
Writer's guide on the map
Dang Yunfeng text/photo
The modern writer Yu Dafu said: "Jiangshan should also be praised by literati, and Di Liu is still surnamed Su." "When a place is associated with writers and works, it becomes a spiritual landmark, fascinating, and even inspires the idea of traveling." After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, it has been staying in China, especially in the recent days of home isolation, "charging" time, interested in the places involved in the book, will open the map, according to the description of the book to a trip on the map. Of course, some fictional places can only be used as the home of the family.
The writer is both a tour guide to the fictional world and a guide to the real world, as Dante said: "You'd better follow me, and I'll be your guide/ I'll take you out of here and into the Land of Eternity." "But the personalities of these tour guides are too strong, resulting in many places having different temperaments under the pen of different writers." The writer's hometown has a magical aura, and when I know more and more about the writer, the writer's position in my heart changes, and his hometown changes with it. For example, Dickens is different from Woolf's London, Tolstoy is different from Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg, and Kafka is even different from Kundera's Prague. This difference is not something that can be experienced on several trips, and perhaps the information learned by reading books will be more. The model of the imaginary city should be similar to the Italian painter Raphael's "School of Athens", or the American director Woody Allen's film "Midnight in Paris".
As Shakespeare's birthplace, stratford town is a tourist destination for many. After watching the British writer Tie Yi overturn the case for Richard III in the novel "Daughter of Time", I began to sympathize with him, and wanted to go to the town to see shakespeare when he first wrote "Richard III", and by the way, to comfort Shakespeare who failed the exam in the American writer Asimov's novel "The Immortal Poet". Slightly southwestern from stratford town to the seaside, is the Hardy House in Dorset, which is not far from the English Channel, surrounded by holiday parks, art parks, marine life parks, hardy who wrote "Nature's Daughter" Tess, and the scenery of his hometown will not be bad.
In 1912, the German writer Thomas Mann visited his sick wife in a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, which became the opportunity to create "Magic Mountain", and later this work also became an advertisement for Swiss tourism, especially the "Snow" section in the sixth chapter is a famous article in literature, the speed and passion in the snow, so that I was affected by the epidemic and could only watch various ski scenes at the Winter Olympics on the screen. This place is not suitable for young people who are struggling, because the book says that the "mountain villa" nursing home in the Alps is a "magic mountain" that will make people forget the time and linger here, and will change from small residence to permanent residence, so it can only be written down temporarily and waited for some years.
From the pioneer flag bearer to the return to tradition, Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata has always been the spokesperson for the walking Japanese attractions, from "The Dancing Girl of Izu" to "Asakusa Red Troupe", from "Ancient Capital" to "Snow Country", Yasunari Kawabata has many attractions. Yasunari Kawabata said: "Kyoto is the hometown of Japan and my hometown. "According to the description in "Ancient Capital", it is very interesting to take a spiritual walk in Kyoto. Travel to Japan also depends on the recommendation of Yasunari Kawabata, who recommended that he say: "Izu is the hometown of poetry, and people in the world say so." Izu is a microcosm of Japanese history, one historian put it this way. Izu is a model for the southern country, and I would like to add one more sentence. Izu is the gallery of all the mountains and rivers, so to speak. ”
Dadiomila, Isidora, Dorotea, Zaira, Anastasia, Tamara, Zola, Tessina, Gilma... These cities, named after girls, are inspired by the Novel "The Invisible City" by the Italian writer Calvino, which attracts people to San Lemo, Italy, to see Calvino's hometown. He also wrote about his early years in The Way of St. John. In particular, the fairy tales collected by Calvino make people feel that this is a magical land, which makes people fascinated.
The Portuguese writer Saramago's novel Chronicle of the Monastery tells the story of the construction of the Monastery of Mafra. The book's designer, Dovessé, says: "The earth is a church, a monastery, a place of faith and responsibility, a place of seclusion and freedom." "This book shows the lives of the mortals who forged glory, who are no longer the numbers in the historical record. The seven suns Baltasar and the seven moons Brimunda flew over Lisbon in the 18th century, looking down on the silhouettes of the king's palace and monastery, perhaps the first flight of mankind. The monastery, built by King João V of Portugal to pay tribute to the Church for the birth of his daughter, was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2019.
Many people have never been to China, but they have written a lot of works with Chinese cultural elements, and I want to go to the hometown of these writers and bring the latest information with me. My imagination is bound to be biased, and I think my imagination of a foreign tourist destination may be similar to that of the Argentine writer Borges in China. Borges never visited China, but the protagonist of his novel masterpiece "The Garden where the Path Splits" is Chinese Yu zhun, who also interprets Chinese history and ancient books in the essays "The Great Wall and the Book" and "Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber". Borges wrote in Lacquer Cane: "I looked at the cane and felt that it was part of the infinitely ancient empire that built the Great Wall and created a magical world. I looked at the cane and remembered the Zhuang Zhou who dreamed of becoming a butterfly, but when he woke up, he didn't know whether he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamed of becoming a man... I don't know if the craftsman is alive or dead... We will never meet. He disappeared among nine hundred and thirty million people. However, there is a certain connection between us. Of course, you can also go to Argentina to feel Borges's emotions in the poetry collection "Passion of Buenos Aires". The collection begins with this: "They [the streets] are rooted in my lines of poetry, like flying war flags. ”
Since there are places that you want to go after reading books, of course, there are also direct dissuasion, and some places written in books have left a notoriety. For example, the Novel "Moby Dick" by the American writer Melville is great, but I will never go around the world with the protagonist of the book, Captain Ahab.
"I haven't felt the summer breath in a long time"
Lu Xu Text/Photo
It's been almost 3 years since my last trip abroad. In 2019, using limited holidays and limited savings, two trips abroad were arranged: a trip to Vietnam at the beginning of the year, where the family enjoyed the sun and sea breeze during the day and ate in the commercial streets or alleys of the city at night; in the summer, they drove in Germany, shuttling between cities, villages and castles.
At that time, the trip to Germany fulfilled the dream of the "pilgrimage" of the Munster Tank Museum as a military fan, challenged the various and distinctive roller coasters of the SoltaoHeide Park, and also visited cologne, Heidelberg, Dresden and other historical and cultural cities.
Speaking of Heidelberg, it is said that Goethe "lost his heart there" and that Mark Twain was "the most beautiful place ever visited". For me, my first impression of it came from the novel "The White Tower" by Japanese writer Toyoko Yamazaki. The novel tells the story of Goro, a surgeon in the struggle for the professorship at Nagastay University, who neglects to treat patients because of the Heidelberg International Medical Conference, which has his heart in mind, resulting in serious medical accidents. For Heidelberg, the book reads: "Quiet and beautiful, is this the feeling of the German cities? "No, this quiet and clear beauty is Heidelberg's patent." Although there are only a few words, the symbolic qualities of Heidelberg's history, culture, science and so on have been deeply implanted in the mind.
▲ Overlooking the ancient city of Heidelberg
The serenity of Heidelberg is not excessive, we arrived on the weekend, the streets were empty, not only were the shops closed and closed, but even the parking spaces on the side of the road were free because it was a weekend. Heidelberg, a cultural and university town on the banks of the Neckar River, is the epitome of romantic Germany, with winding and secluded alleys connecting the castle and the river, full of poetry. Located on the throne hill on the banks of the Neckar River, the castle is a reddish-brown castle that is the site of an ancient imperial palace. Founded in 1386, Heidelberg University became the center of European science and culture as early as the 16th century.
From the white-walled and red-roofed Heidelberg Ancient City complex, stroll through the ruins of the castle carved with historical vicissitudes, follow the audio guide of the Chinese, and encounter the bronze bust of Goethe and the stone seat carved with the bird of Daisy, a symbol of love, in the garden. Legend has it that in the summer of 1814, Goethe and his lover Marianne von Villema dated here and drew inspiration for their creations.
Sitting on a stone chair and listening to the romantic anecdotes about Goethe in the audio guide, the novel "Affinity" that I once read could not help but come to mind. The work was composed by Goethe in his old age. In the winter of 1807, at the age of 58, Goethe fell in love with the 16-year-old girl Mina Hertzlib at first sight, but knowing that the age difference was very different and that good things were difficult to achieve, he had to hide his pain and leave. In the midst of unquenchable fanaticism and creative impulses, Goethe completed this novel twice as long as The Troubles of Young Werther in just 7 weeks.
The novel "Affinity" uses the phenomenon of affinity in chemistry as a metaphor, surrounding the emotional entanglement of the four protagonists, depicting the contradiction between marriage and love and the inevitable tragedy caused by it. Whether it is "The Troubles of Young Werther" or "Affinity", Goethe, who has been amorous all his life and struggled with marriage, seems to use artistic images in the novel to justify his theme of "unconditional love".
Perhaps because of my trip to Germany, I became somewhat interested in Goethe's work, but many of the readings were abandoned or hastily ended, and I always knew nothing about his works. In this regard, I stubbornly believe that sometimes it is not necessarily that you have found good books, but that some good books will naturally find you.
In fact, I am a particularly lazy and unlearned guy, sometimes caused by interest, a series of "nibbling" several books, but most of the time is to watch movies, play games, waste time. However, because I often travel for business, I always bring some of my favorite books with me. I always take my favorite books to read repeatedly, for example, when I am in a low mood, I will hold Haruki Murakami's "And Listen to the Wind", and I can constantly find myself and know myself from the book; when I am not sober and confused, I will take Calvino's "Invisible City" or "Cold Winter Night Walker" with me, because the schedule of the business trip is always a bit upside down, and after concentrating on completing the work, I will lazily appreciate the whimsical, suspenseful and abrupt storylines in the book and the philosophical fables. These are the ones that give me the most inspiration and a clear head.
On a business trip, I read a small story from "The Invisible City" on the plane: a city called Lyonia, people are keen to update their products every day, resulting in an increase in garbage, as the city grows larger and larger, the height of the garbage heap becomes higher and higher, and finally the collapse of the garbage heap annihilates the city... Getting off the plane and jumping out of the news that a 100-meter-high muck and garbage heap had collapsed, leaving dozens of buildings buried or damaged, made me realize that there seemed to be a metaphysical meaning between travel and reading.
Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, going out has become a luxury, and even daily business trips have been greatly reduced. People are self-contained in their own information cocoons, and the information they obtain is ultimately the product of active or passive choice. Perhaps only by truly starting out, measuring with your feet, and understanding with your heart can you slowly have a deeper understanding of the world.
I look forward to an early end to the epidemic and a return to normal as soon as possible, but the epidemic has changed the world after all, as Haruki Murakami wrote in "And Listen to the Wind" -
"I haven't felt the scent of summer in a long time." The fragrance of the sea tide, the distant whistle, the feeling of the girl's body, the lemon smell of the shampoo, the evening japanese wind, the ethereal longing, and the summer dream...
However, all this is like a moved copy of the paper, and there are little but irreparable differences in the original position. ”
"Dongdu" in the bookstore
Pan Chao text/Photo
Hindered by the epidemic, he has not hiked for a long time. To paraphrase "nonsense literature", the last trip was still in the last time. I have always been lazy, but I am also bored, and I often think about the distance.
Good thing I had a room with a view. Staying in a small study, traveling through time and space in a book, wandering around, quite interesting.
Recently, I stole a few days of leisure and "Dongdu" in the writings of three Japanese writers to visit Kyoto, which has been worn out for thousands of years.
The Tale of Genji
Written in the Heian period, The Tale of Genji is the pinnacle of classical Japanese literature, written by Shishibu at Lushan-ji Temple in Kyoto's Kamigyo Ward, and the legendary story of the protagonist Hikari's life begins at the Kyoto Imperial Palace, where he was born.
The book involves many old kyoto places, where a group of idiot men and women start a love-hate entanglement full of the beauty of material sorrow. "The twilight of the mountains is separated, and the distant look at Anzhi is XiYan?" Xi Yan is a thin-lived woman in the Tale of Genji, who fell in love with the Hikari clan for a short time and was killed by the curse of the soul of the six concubines. The Light Source clan was grief-stricken, and rushed to see her last side in the night, in the silent empty mountain, "only Kiyomizu-dera could see many lights." Kiyomizu-dera Temple, the oldest temple in Kyoto, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1994 and is now Kyoto's famous cherry blossom viewing and maple viewing spot.
Located in Arashiyama, Kyoto, Nomiya Shrine is a place where King Sai, who used to serve is the Emperor's service to Ise Jingu Shrine, praying for the blessings of the king. In the "Tale of Genji", "Yang Tong", the Hikari clan visited the six concubines here. Here, the writer depicts the shibagaaki, itaya, and log archway inside and outside the shrine.
The last ten episodes of the book are about the love affairs of Kaoru, the son of the Hikari clan, in Uji, now Kyoto Prefecture. Here, Hashime, Floating Boat and others are the heroines of the story. It is worth mentioning that the only museum in the world with the theme of "The Tale of Genji" is in Uji City.
"Ancient Capital"
Yasunari Kawabata's "Ancient Capital" is the perfect book to promote Kyoto, and it is permeated with the natural beauty and traditional beauty of the ancient city of Kyoto. Led by the heroine Chieko, the reader can glimpse a "old" Kyoto.
In the first chapter of "Ancient Capital", "Spring Flower", the writer introduces the era festival of Heian Jingu, and then writes about Chieko and Mizuki Shinichi who likes her to come to Heian Shrine. "As soon as I entered the entrance of the shrine, a blooming red weeping cherry blossom came into view, as if even my heart was full of flowers." Ah, this year it's spring in Kyoto again! She sighed in admiration and stood there watching. ”
Kiyomizu-dera, the "witness" of the Light Clan and The Tale of Genji, which is separated from Yukie, is also mentioned in the Koto. In the chapter "Spring Flowers", Chieko and Mizuki Shinichi leave the Heian Shrine and go to Kiyomizu-dera Temple. "The dim Great Treasure Hall has been lit up. Chieko did not stop on the stage of the main hall, and walked straight over, past the front of the Amitabha Hall, and walked all the way to the backyard. ”
Nomiya Shrine also appears in The Tale of Genji. In the second chapter of the Koto, "The Nunnery and the Lattice Gate", his father, Sada Taijiro, hides in the nunnery of Mount Saga, and Chieko goes to visit and then "strolls along the path leading to the Nogu Shrine".
"Chieko is in love with Kitayama SugiMura." This is what Chieko's mother said. There, two small holes in a maple tree are divided into two purple-flowered diding trees, pinning Chieko's reverie about her own life. Kitayama Sugi Village is located in the Kitayama area of Kyoto, where the fir forest is famous for the "Ancient Capital".
In addition to the scenic spots, folklore scrolls such as Gion Festival, Era Festival, and Bamboo Harvest Festival are also depicted in "Ancient Capital". What is particularly impressive is that at the Yasaka Shrine where the Gion Festival is held, Chieko and her twin sister Naiko, who has been separated since childhood, unexpectedly meet. "I want to know my sister's whereabouts... You are my sister. It was the gods who made us meet. "The scene is very moving.
Compared with "The Tale of Genji", "Ancient Capital" is really not very long, and I have read it in a flash. Cherry blossoms in Heian Shrine, cedar forests in Kitayama, Nanki in Shoren-in Temple, big character lights in Kurama Mountain... It's all in front of you.
Kinkaku-ji Temple
Yukio Mishima's Kinkaku-ji temple is actually not too long, but because the author has put a complex sense of beauty, it is bound to slow down and slow down again.
Fortunately, it is a reread, and not a first reread.
Speaking of Kinkaku-ji Temple, many "post-80s" are presumably no strangers. In the cartoon "Smart One Hugh" that we watched as a child, Ichigo often fought with the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu at this temple. In the film, the general is narrow, a break is alert, one big and one small two people, often hilarious when it comes to recruiting.
The world-famous Kinkaku-ji Temple, originally known as Luyuan-ji Temple, was originally built in the 14th century by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, located in the north of Kyoto City. In 1950, the Kinkaku was burned down by trainee monk Hayashi Seung-hyun (the current Kinkaku was rebuilt in 1955), and based on this incident, the writer Mizumi wrote the novel "Gobancho Yugoku-ri", and Yukio Mishima created "Kinkaku-ji Temple".
This re-reading, leaving aside the philosophical meaning of beauty and destruction that the writer poured into it, read it shallowly, in order to more deeply feel the beauty of the Golden Pavilion in different seasons, different times, and different angles.
"Since I was a child, my father often mentioned the Golden Pavilion to me." The novel thus begins, and Mizoguchi's Kinkaku Dream and the reader's dream of kyoto are also unfolded. For Mizoguchi, when he had never seen kinkaku, its beauty was illusory. In the valley of Maizuru, he saw that the mountain was not a mountain, and the sunset on the mountainside and the gilded glow of the fields could remind him of the Golden Pavilion, "I always see the Golden Pavilion standing in the sky from the golden light of the rising sun in the mountains."
"The Golden Pavilion is so ubiquitous and far from reality." With the narration of Mizoguchi, the reader can't help but follow his heart, looking forward to seeing the Golden Pavilion earlier. Finally, the protagonist is on! Mizoguchi followed his father on the train from Nishi Maizuru Station to Kinkaku-ji Temple, and the reader quietly followed him to "buy a ticket to get on the train.".
When I first saw the Golden Pavilion, the mouth of the ditch looked at each other across the water, and his father said: "The first floor is called the Fa Shui Yuan, the second floor is called Chaoyin Cave, and the third floor is called the top of the end." After contemplating "beauty" and "not beauty", the protagonist asks his heart: "The beauty cultivated in the dream, once repaired by reality, in turn stimulates the dream... There is nothing more beautiful in heaven and earth than the Golden Pavilion. ”
The second time I saw Kinkaku, Mizoguchi officially went to the temple as a trainee monk. As the plot unfolds, a mysterious and honest Kinkaku gradually reveals himself layer by layer in front of The Guzoguchi. When it snows, "the beauty of the Golden Pavilion in the inclusion of snowflakes is completely incomparable." This skylight building, allowing snowflakes to blow into it, the pillars are still slender, still jade bone ice muscle. On a moonlit night, "when the pillars of the pavilion bathe in the moonlight, they look like strings, and the Golden Pavilion looks like a huge strange instrument."
"The enchantment that the beauty of the Golden Pavilion has given me has made a part of me opaque and freed me from all other intoxications." At this time, Mizoguchi should have achieved the reconciliation of the sense of appreciation and happiness mentioned by Yukio Mishima in the article "Journey Scrolls", and the reader was also immersed in it.
"Between me and life, there is always a golden pavilion." Later, Kinkaku evolves into "the consciousness of beauty that shackles me", causing the protagonist to flee and eventually burn it. "The sky above the Golden Pavilion is like a sand of gold." At the time of the burning, kinkaku left its last glory in the night sky, but it was immortalized in The Heart of Mizoguchi.
Although reading the scroll does not fully agree with the protagonist's aesthetic view, reading in an immersive way can deliberately change its psychology from time to time. Such a "trip" of ups and downs is beyond the reach of a field trip.
Writing this, I suddenly remembered a sentence at the end of Yukio Mishima's other masterpiece, "Spring Snow": "I will definitely meet again, under the waterfall." ”
We will definitely meet again, at Kinkaku-ji Temple, in Kyoto.
April 2, 2022 China Culture Daily
Special reports were published on the 4th edition
"In the text, look at the scenery in a different posture"
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Haining