Today, 25 years ago, in the early morning of April 11, 1997, Wang Xiaobo collapsed at home due to a sudden heart attack. Before his death, he was still writing The Black Iron Age.
In May of the same year, Wang Xiaobo's era trilogy , "The Golden Age", "The Silver Age", and "The Bronze Age" – was officially published by Huacheng Publishing House, and in the nearly ten years since then, a wave of "Wang Xiaobo fever" has arisen among readers.
Today, from Li Yinhe's memories, we reread Wang Xiaobo's sensitive and interesting soul.
The original excerpt is from Li Yinhe's "Childhood, Qinxian, Xiaobo", Flower City, No. 3, 2015.
Wang Xiaobo and Li Yinhe
The Green Haired Monster is a manuscript novel
Strictly speaking, I am a matchmaker with Xiaobo
After graduating from college, I worked at Guangming Daily, went out as a reporter, and came back as an editor. In Guangming Daily my department is the History Group. During this time, I wrote an article about China's backwardness in modern times. I scoured the data room for a while. I remember that the article was published almost a full page. Later, when I went to Shanghai on a business trip, I suddenly found that many of the units I visited hung the batch of materials in my articles on the wall in different forms: histograms, pie charts, bells and whistles. I guess some propaganda department in Shanghai sent this batch of data to all units and asked them to carry out modernization education: At that time, the "Cultural Revolution" had just ended, and everything was in ruins waiting to be rebuilt, and modernization was the most appealing slogan in the whole country at that time.
It was in this year that I met Wang Xiaobo. I saw his manuscript novel "The Green Haired Monster" from a friend we both knew separately, and I had this person in my heart. Although not only is it a "water monster", but also has "green hairs", and there is psychological discomfort at first glance, the beautiful soul of Xiaobo that appears in the novel has a great attraction to my soul.
"Green Hairy Monster"
It was later published in Flower City, No. 1, 1998
The manuscript novel "The Green Water Monster" is strictly a matchmaker for me and Xiaobo. The first time I saw it was with the one we had in common. The novel is written on a horizontal grid with a beautiful cover, and the handwriting is dense, leaving no blank space left or right. The novel is about the love affair of a young boy and girl who have just opened their hearts. Although it was still quite childish, something in it deeply tugged at my heartstrings.
We felt as if we were at the bottom of a pond
From one moon to another
In the novel, there is a plot in which Chen Hui (the male protagonist) and the demon (the female protagonist) talk about poetry:
It rained during the day, but at night it was very cold and there was no wind, and the result was rain and fog. It was getting dark early. The windows of the buildings along the street sprayed with a cloud of white light. On the street, mercury lamps illuminate the sky with a white mist in the middle of the day. People and cars appear and disappear in shadow. We walked to the bus stop 10. Under a few dim street lights, people felt like they were underwater. As we walked wordlessly, the demon suddenly asked me, "Look at this night fog, how do we describe it?" ”
I ghosted God to make a poem and read it out at once. You know, I didn't think I had a talent for poetry at all.
I said, "Demon, you see, what does that mercury lamp look like?" Large clumps of dandelions floated on the river of the street, swallowing soft needle-like light. ”
The demon said, "Good. So what about us walking on the sidewalk? What about this dim street lamp? ”
I looked up at the street lamp, which cast its dim light all the way to the ground through the hazy fog.
I said, "We seem to be at the bottom of a pond, walking from one moon to another." ”
The demon suddenly cried out in surprise, "Chen Hui, you are a poet!" ”
From these few poems, Xiaobo's poetic talent has been revealed. Although he later wrote few poems and more novels and essays, he had the temperament and talent of a poet. However, what made me fall in love with him at that time may not be his talent for writing poetry, but more of his poetry.
Wang Xiaobo's "Times Trilogy"
Published by Flower City Press
Another detail in the novel that surprised and frightened me was a book that the protagonist loved—Dostoevsky's lesser-known book, Nedochka, Netskyova. Xiaobo wrote in the novel: "I read this book and remembered the first half of it for the rest of my life. I still think it's the best book, topped by a tome. I think people should miss Dostoevsky forever for it. "Before I saw The Green Haired Monster, I happened to read this book, and I was extremely impressed, and I always felt that this was a secret in my heart. I didn't expect to see such a similar feeling in Xiaobo's novel, and at that time, there was a feeling that my inner secret was seen through.
At that time, I had just finished reading this novel, and something in it touched my heartstrings. The main characters in the work are some fantasists, whose fantasies encounter a cold, decaying, and dirty reality, and have a fierce conflict with reality, and finally can only end in a tragic ending. The work is characterized by the author's neuroticism, and in some places the feelings are too strong to be unbearable. The love between Nedozica and Lord Kaga in the book is extremely impressive, and I remember the scene where two people kiss and swell their lips. This is a story about the warm and pure love affair of two little girls who have just opened their hearts.
Xiao Bo wrote in the novel (the male protagonist is first-person):
I firmly believe that the demon is the lord of Kaga, my closest friend, and the only regret is that she is not a little boy. I told the demon, and she complained that I wasn't a girl. The result is that we think we are friends anyway and will always be friends.
Because Xiaobo's feelings about this book in "The Green Haired Monster" are surprisingly similar to my feelings, which resonates strongly, we have discovered the similarities between the two people's hearts, and since then we have a feeling of "having a spirit in our hearts" for him. I remember thinking in my heart: This is a person who is in touch with my heart, and sooner or later something will happen between me and this person. I was right about this instinct, and when we both got to know each other, our hearts were very close.
He and I are the story of a reverse Cinderella
The first time I saw him was with the friend who went to his dad to ask questions about teaching. At that time, I had already left a heart to see where this Wang Xiaobo was sacred. At first glance, I felt that he looked really ugly, and I was secretly a little disappointed in my heart. Later, when I was first in love, once I proposed to break up, it was because I thought he looked ugly, especially compared to my first love, which was not a little bit worse. That time Xiao Bo was half dead, and wrote a very poisonous letter, angry and corrupt, remembering that the beginning of the letter listed a lot of wine names, saying, you must be able to smell the second pot head, Wuliangye liquid, bamboo leaf green from this letter paper... The taste, how to relieve worries, only Du Kang. Later, he said a sentence that made me happy, and he said: You are not so good-looking. The knot opened and we went on to get along again. Xiao Bo also found the back account in a letter, he said: It is recommended that men and women wear sunglasses when they fall in love in the future, so as to prevent their looks from becoming an obstacle.
Wang Xiaobo's fierce offensive was difficult for anyone to resist. It was our second meeting, and the first time we've met alone. The location is Hufangqiao Guangming Daily Newspaper Office. The excuse is to return the book. I remember it was a novel that was circulating in small circles at the time, written by a contemporary Soviet writer called The Story of Manager Pronchatov, which, though unknown in title, was still valuable at the time. As soon as Xiao Bo saw me, he told me with an embarrassed face: the book was lost on the way there. This man can do it.
Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo are in the United States
Then we started chatting, all over the place, and of course more about literature. As we talked, he asked fiercely: Do you have a boyfriend? Shortly after I broke up with my first love, I told the truth. His next sentence almost startled me, and he said: How do you see me? This is the first time we have met alone. His words were both a bit of a rogue, but also showed his aggressive confidence and incomparable innocence, which made me immediately impress him.
Xiao Bo is a person who is romantic to the bone, so he can dismiss all the worldly so-called "conditions" and pursue me directly by feeling. We began to fall in love formally, although by secular standards all the "conditions" were quite unfavorable to him: at that time, according to the world's perspective, it was impossible for the two of us to come together: I graduated from college (although I was only a "worker, peasant, and soldier cadet", but barely went to college), he did not graduate from junior high school; I worked as an editor in a newspaper, he worked as a worker in a street factory full of old mothers and disabled people; my parents had been "liberated" to resume work, and his father had not yet been rehabilitated I was already famous for publishing an article on democracy and the rule of law that had been reprinted in major newspapers across the country, and he had not yet published anything, obscurity. But as Xiaobo later said: True marriages are made in heaven. The classic romance story is that the two people are very different, otherwise what is the romance? He and I are the story of a reverse Cinderella. I have long seen that this "Cinderella" of mine is naturally beautiful, he has an incomparably sensitive and beautiful heart, and he is also a literary genius. Sooner or later he would stand out, just sooner or later. After falling in love for a while, I asked Xiaobo, how many streams of writers do you think you will become? He thought about it and said, "First-class and half-way." At that time, he was not particularly confident in himself, so once he asked me: What if I don't succeed in the future? I imagined the future and said to him: Even if it does not succeed, only our happy life is enough. He listened with relief.
Flower City, No. 3, 2015
Published Li Yinhe's "Childhood Qinxian Xiaobo"
Later, Xiaobo launched a love letter offensive, and when I went to the south for business, he wrote me a lot of unsent letters in a big book. It was the "original call" that was later included in the love letter collection. Since he was studying at Renmin University, I worked in the Research Office of the State Council and could only see him once a week, so he came up with the idea of writing his thoughts about me in a stave book, and my reply was written in the blank space. This anecdote later turned out to be a love classic: once I accidentally saw a cross-talk actor who said: In the past, a writer wrote love on the stave... That's our story.
We quickly fell in love. I remember that at that time, my family lived in the west of the city and often went to the Summer Palace. There is a hidden place on the west bank of Kunming Lake, which is a desolate island with lush greenery and shade. We played on the hillside and lingered. This small island was named "Happy Island" by us. Unfortunately, high-end houses were built on the island and were closed off to tourists.
After XiaoBo's death, a group of young friends asked me to go out for a walk, and one of them told me that Xiaobo's "Green Haired Water Monster" was with him. I was overjoyed: it was still there! I thought I had lost it forever.