World Book Day Album No. 1
Author: Shi Hang (screenwriter, planner)
Respondent: Zheng Yuanjie (famous writer)
Fu Guangming (Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Capital Normal University)
Yuan Yidan (Associate Professor, College of Liberal Arts, Capital Normal University)
Editor's Note
April day on earth, the most beautiful time to read.
On the occasion of World Book Day on April 23, Beijing Youth Daily Daily Supplement launched the "Questionnaire • Third Season", hoping that in the era of fragmented information, people will not give up paper reading; under the trend of electronics, they still maintain their love for paper books.
Different from the questionnaires of the previous two seasons, this season specially invited Shi Hang, Zheng Yuanjie, Xiao Fuxing, Tang Xiaobing, Fu Guangming, Li Dongjun and Yuan Yidan, seven old friends of the "Daily Supplement" and senior book lovers as the "question writers" of the questionnaire, they put their thoughts on reading into the title, in the high-quality questions and answers, readers can appreciate the joy and power that reading brings to mankind.
Reading is the investment behavior with the highest return rate in the world, and I hope that this version of the questionnaire can enlighten and moisten the hearts of every book lover.
On World Book Day, do you think you should double your reading or take a day off?
Zheng Yuanjie: Since I only have a fourth-grade primary school education and lack of confidence, for me, every day is "World Book Day". Schooling may give students the misconception that they will graduate with a diploma. In fact, there is only one graduation diploma for people, and no one can see it, that is, the death certificate. Knowledge is updated so quickly that people can only live to learn from the old and learn every day.
Fu Guangming: I now often use the four words "days are like flying" to lament that time is fleeting, so I would like to double my reading every day, for twelve simple reasons: the more I read, the more I feel shallow; I feel that in the face of knowledge, I will always be just a primary school student. Therefore, if World Book Day has any special significance for me, it is more important that it is Shakespeare's birthday and death day. In the past ten years, because of the natural relationship with Shakespeare, the new translation of Shakespeare, and the translation and research are one, after translating one, writing a guide, almost every day with it, it is really hard, but it is bitter and happy, and it is not tired. So, I really hope that the day of "Reading Day" can be rested. Books can't be read, and I would like to say that "doubling" means to express the thirst for knowledge.
Yuan Yidan: World Book Day seems to have no special significance for scholars who are trapped in the book city every day. Reading is both a rest and a daily labor, and there is no need to deliberately pick a day to read or not to read. Pursuing an academic career sacrifices some of the fun of miscellaneous work. Under the pressure of scientific research, stealing a day and a half of idle books has become a luxury. Reading idle books is a necessary respite and escape in academic life, and it is also a reward and reward for oneself.
If someone lists "No Reading List", would you be interested in clicking to take a look? Do you have a "no-need to read list" yourself? Can I list three?
Zheng Yuanjie: I don't think there is any book in the world that everyone must read. People and people's genetics are not the same, the growth environment is not the same, the quality of education is not the same, the hobbies are not the same, the best talent area is not the same, how can there be a must-read book suitable for everyone? For me, any book is beneficial to open the book. Even if you read a garbage book, you can enhance your self-confidence in writing.
Fu Guangming: Because there is a "no need to read list" listed by Professor Yan Feng of Fudan University, I am naturally interested in clicking on the exhibition. Looking back on these decades of reading life, especially in the precious youth years, I did read a lot of yan Feng brother's "no need to read books", and it was too late to regret it. A laugh. This is also the price of growth. Of course, not everyone lists a "no need to read", I am interested in clicking. Therefore, I will not list it myself.
Yuan Yidan: In the 1920s, the Beijing News Supplement organized a "must read for young people" activity, and famous scholars such as Hu Shi, Liang Qichao, and Zhou Zuoren opened their own must-read lists, and Jiang Shaoyuan handed over a white scroll, saying that he did not believe that there were ten books that could give young people a minimum amount of intellectual knowledge.
Opening a "no need to read" bibliography is more risky of self-exposure than opening a "must-read" book. At present, there is no shortage of soft and popular rankings in the publishing industry, and what is lacking is the critics or professional readers who dare to tell the truth and have taste. I don't give people a "no need to read a list", and occasionally read a book that is unappetizing, like a melon seed sniffing moldy, quickly read a few pages of good books to change tastes. I would follow a look at a book like Jonathan's new book and pull some books into the blacklist based on his spit.
Is there a writer or work that you used to like but would be very disappointed to reread?
Zheng Yuanjie: I have not yet met a writer or work that was negative when reading in the early years and then read yin to yang. This may also indicate that my aesthetic is still stuck in childhood. I measured my mental age a few years ago, and it was six.
Fu Guangming: There is more than one such writer. The name is not said, for fear of offending people. I just want to say that as a person who likes to read, learn and strive to spend your limited time and energy on books that are really worth reading, and the sooner the better.
Yuan Yidan: The writers I used to like, like the old friends who talked about everything when they were young and knew the roots, it is best not to reunite after the passage of time.
If you could spend an hour with a deceased writer without thinking about language, which one would you choose? What is the name of a foreign chinese?
Zheng Yuanjie: I want to talk to Cixi and ask her a question: How does she, who does not write as a profession, occasionally write such an age-old famous sentence as "poor parents' hearts in the world"? Does writing belong to "deliberately planting flowers and flowers, unintentionally planting willows and willows"?
Fu Guangming: I hope to talk to Shakespeare for an hour, and ask him to answer himself: whether he went to a Latin grammar school for eight years, who the "black girl" written in the sonnets is, what is the relationship with the Earl of Southampton, "To be, or not to be" is not Hamlet's own "life, or not to live", when he first wrote the play, whether he was bent on making money, buying a house and land, never thinking about leaving a name in qingshi, being canonized by future generations, is it super cool in his heart? And so on and so forth. Hopefully, it will be delayed by ten minutes.
Yuan Yidan: Among foreign writers, I will choose the Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo to talk to him about how to find the "deep river" in life, wash away my dirt, and be liberated by faith. The background music for our chat was Leonard Cohen's Suzanne, and I particularly liked this segment: And Jesus was a sailor/ When he walked upon the water / And he spent a long time watching/ From his lonely wooden He said All men will be sailors then/ Until the sea shall be free them (until the ocean liberates them)/... And you want to travel with him / And you want to travel blind / And you think maybe you'll trust him / For he's touched your perfect body with his mind. (because he touched your beautiful body with his thoughts)
Among Chinese writers, I will choose Zhou as a person. I wanted to ask him about things he didn't want to talk about, such as the inside story of his brother's discord, and the psychological impact of the Shooting on New Year's Day in 1939. I think he will most likely repeat the old saying of "one thing is customary", but these puzzles that linger in my mind still want to verify it with the person in person.
Wu You can still remember the middle school Chinese texts, can you say the title of an article?
Zheng Yuanjie: I'm sorry I only went to elementary school. If this question can lower the threshold, the primary school Chinese text I can name is "Liu Literature". Impressed, Liu Wenwen sacrificed his precious life to protect the property of the People's Commune.
Fu Guangming: "Hongmen Feast". The teacher spoke passionately, energetically, and in his head, unforgettable. In recent years, whenever I give a "oral history" class to graduate students, I will take the "Hongmen Banquet" as an example: Why is the most brilliant character portrayed in "Hongmen Banquet" Fan Duo, not Xiang Yu and Liu Bang? It turned out that Sima Qian and Fan Duo's descendants were iron brothers, and the reason why Fan Duo was the most vivid in "The Feast of the Hongmen" was that Sima Qian personally heard it.
Yuan Yidan: Those memories have been overwritten or automatically formatted.
If Lu appears in a film and television drama with a close-up of the cover of a book, will you pay special attention to what kind of book it is?
Zheng Yuanjie: No. I watch film and television dramas without being a member, and I will pay attention to advertisements. Because the advertisement is better than many film and television dramas.
Fu Guangming: There is no such opportunity now, and I have long stopped watching film and television dramas. If there is, I think it will.
Yuan Yidan: Although books are only props or decorations in film and television dramas, it can be seen that the director or screenwriter has a degree of awareness of the times. The cover is the reader's first impression of the book, and the information it conveys is no less important than the specific content of the book. Not only the cover, but also the material form of the book, such as folio, layout, horizontal and vertical, segmentation, punctuation, font size, paper, illustration, inscription, binding, cutting edge, and even thickness and thickness, will affect the reader's overall cognition of the book.
Intentional authors not only provide the text content of the book, but also participate in the binding design and text arrangement of the book to varying degrees, such as Lu Xun. The material form of the book is the basis for the generation of textual meaning. Author intent, publication strategy, and reader expectations are all intertwined in text form. This is one of the reasons why e-books currently cannot replace paper books.
If one day you were invited to a reading party to read an article or a piece of work in less than 10 minutes, who would you choose to write what?
Zheng Yuanjie: I was once invited to recite by the Beijing Drum Tower West Recitation. On August 28, 2021, at the Beijing Gulou West Recitation, I recited my court statement at the Beijing Intellectual Property Court hearing the case of infringement of my intellectual property rights by the trademark "Lu XiXi". This is the first time someone has recited their own court statement at the famous Drum Tower West Recitation. In September of the same year, I received the final judgment of the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, which ruled that the "HaloXixi" name "Luxixi" was infringing and the trademark "Haloxixi" was invalid.
Fu Guangming: I must read "King Lear", one of Shakespeare's "Four Tragedies" for ten minutes, and read several characters: old Lear, who went mad in the storm, Gloucester, who became blind, Edgar dressed as a crazy beggar, and Kent disguised in disguise, and it was fun to think about. Look forward to this moment!
Yuan Yidan: I will choose to read the family letter written by Shen Congwen in the early 1950s when he went to Neijiang, Sichuan to participate in the land reform work. These family letters are more memorable than the "Xiangxing Shujian" he wrote when he returned home in 1934. What I admire is the intricacy of scenery and personnel, and how Shen Congwen skillfully uses the dialectics of stillness and movement to hint at changes in personnel and history in a particularly calm natural background.
The scenery of the Bashu region depicted in the family letter often evokes my homesickness, such as: "But I see the four wild hills, and everywhere there are brown soil and pale green sugarcane forests. The air is transparent, while the slight bands are damp... There are people on the slopes everywhere who are ordering peas, and people in the distance are as small as rice dots, white cloth wrapped in blue robes, and they can see clearly. ...... The mountains and hollows are all paddy fields, and the layers return to the bright light. Some of the fields are pale green and some are light purple. The endless sky gradually turned into a green mist. ...... Everything is quiet, but in this natural silence, there are changes in personnel that have not been seen in history. ”
If I were with a more intimate young friend, I would share with them some passages from Rilke's Ten Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Feng Zhi, such as the sixth letter, on the benefits of dwelling in loneliness: "If there is no harmony between man and me, you try to get close to things, and they will not abandon you; and the night, and the wind—the wind that blows through the woods and across the fields; in the midst of things and in the animals, everything is full of things that you can share." ”
Another example is Rilke's seventh letter: "Love, very good: because love is hard." This is perhaps the most difficult and important thing given to us by people, the final experiment and examination, the highest work, and everything else is nothing more than preparation for this. ”
Guest recommendation
Recommender: Shi Hang
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"Two Hearts on earth" (by Xu Haofeng): Xu Haofeng is a writer who is not easy to classify, and he is also a screenwriter and director who is not easy to summarize.
I have read his books, watched his movies, followed his blogs and microblogs, attended his boot ceremony, talked to him, and read his film criticism articles or forewords several times at the Drum Tower West Theater Reading Conference. In the past few days, he has also indulged in reading and rereading, and has rushed to the eight new books that Guomai has produced for him.
"Samurai Kai" and "Kokushukan" are equivalent to rewrites, so I am reading it against the old version, so that it is really interesting.
"Two Hearts on earth" is his latest novel, evil and arrogant, calm and crazy, you think he is revealing the secret, he is just using history as an equation.
None of Xu Haofeng's novels I have read and understood once, and none of which I have been willing to read only once. People here all talk about rules, but rules are traps, half of them stand outside and talk, and half of them fall inside and talk. As spectators, we actually have to choose sides: either listen carefully to what the one inside is going to say, or don't believe that this trap is real, and complain that we wasted time looking at a double reed. The latter is determined to make the whole world busy, but there are many people in the same way, and everyone praises each other to understand people.
Xu Haofeng always brushed aside those who understood the people who were gathered and patted the idiot in the middle of them on the shoulder.
"One Day and Three Autumns" (by Liu Zhenyun): The story of the nameless people salvaged from the hundreds of families in Yanjin, dipped in philosophical brown sugar, the bitterness of fate, and the last case is classified as emotion and vastness. The author clarified this time what is the hometown and what is the joke, and the two are actually synonymous.
Draft/Reporter Guo Jia, Wang Mian, Zhang Jia