The snow and ice in early 2008 still didn't seem to melt.
On those cold days, I took the unfinished "John Christophe", a thick two-volume book, from my hometown of Xinning to Dong'an to take a train and return to the place where I studied in Changsha. The green-skinned train, dangling around, arrived at Changsha Railway Station eight hours later, but I was still immersed in the world of Andonard.
More than ten years later, in July of last year, I found the yellowed set of "John Christophe" from the bookshelf for no reason, and hurriedly took the high-speed train from Changsha to the Dong'an County People's Hospital to see my father. At that time, my father, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the late stage, had been fighting the disease for more than two years, and in the words of the expert in charge of surgery at Xiangya Second Hospital, my father had created a miracle.
I can't forget that day, my mother came home to deal with something, and I took her over at my father's bedside, and when he went to sleep quietly, I opened "John Christophe" again and read a passage of familiarity. Those words once touched my heart, and I believe they still bring some peace.
Later, the father's miracle did not last long, and last August the father went to the eternal kingdom of heaven with a sense of serenity. My father has always been the pillar of my soul and the object of my ideals in life. I remember the morning before my father fell ill, when I got up, I found my father wearing glasses and carefully reading the 10,000-word articles I had published in the magazine, and he had read so intently all his life as a farmer. That scene, at that time, was only ordinary, and now things are not human, and it is no longer difficult to achieve wishes.
For a long time after my father left, I often shut myself in the study, looked at the mountain of books and wept several times, and asked myself how much meaning there was in reading? Once taking books as a life, now I suddenly feel that these books in front of me have long since become things outside the body. How many times have I closed the study door, not to read quietly, but not to let my family see me crying, I lost my father, and it seems that I have lost the idea of continuing to pour the value of life into the book.
Just as "even the greatest people can't live alone, and living in isolation does not reflect the value of life", let alone such a small individual as me. This is true of John Christophe, and it is true of us ordinary people.
In The Choice Beyond Life, Sartre says, "I was born and raised in the book series, and I will probably die in the book series." What I want to say is that in the glitz and glamour, the person who loves to read is always the same, he will be like returning to his own back garden, rekindling a passion for life, and this is not just to seek happiness for himself. So, Roman Roland's John Christophe, in the last moments of his life, still issued a powerful cry: One day, I will be born again into a new battle...
Sometimes I fell suddenly and was injured, but I was able to see the road under my feet better.
Later, I found that the Works of Foucault, Popper, Hobbes, Habermas, and most of the philosophical and economic works I had read before seemed far from my own life. Perhaps it is still not deep, the skill is not enough, there is no reading and reading, and there can be some grounded "practical use in the world", just wrote comments before, citations and transformation of some views.
Although I still mainly read "esoteric theoretical works", I slowly made some changes later, and I read more human fireworks.
When I opened "The Last Reading Club of Life", I followed the author to relive his loving days, and there was too much empathy. The author is a publisher, and the protagonist of the book is his mother, who has pancreatic cancer. On the day of her mother's illness, one of the last reading parties of her life was warmly carried out, dissipating the original sad atmosphere. Mother and son use books as a medium to express some words that may not be easy to say in ordinary times, through the exchange of reading experience, free and full of charm of life. In other words, reading allows relatives to find emotional comfort.
Reading and reading, I sometimes opened my mobile phone, found the number that my father had used before, and dialed it again and again like before, listening to my father's voice and asking about the latest situation. This feeling also stems from the trigger brought to me by reading "The Last Reading Club of Life".
I once had a plan, and I also contacted some village sages, rural entrepreneurs, township cadres, and some experts who studied rural revitalization, and wanted to write a series of stories about the evolution of rural society based on the life of my father.
So I gritted my teeth and spent two whole years intensively reading the works of Xiao Gongquan, Fei Xiaotong, Dong Shijin, Yi Laoyi, Cao Jinqing, Chen Xiwen, Pan Wei, Liang Hong, He Xuefeng and a number of other scholars. Although the reading theme focuses on rural Issues in China, it is also very mixed, involving examining rural development from different perspectives such as politics, history, literature, economy, and society. He has written many book reviews, such as Mr. Cao Jinqing's "Rural Socio-Economic Changes Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties: History, Theory and Reality" (three volumes), Mr. Xiao Gongquan's "Chinese Countryside: Imperial Control in the 19th Century" and other books, all of which have written tens of thousands of words of experience. I just think that these seemingly immature words have also been dusted in the folder of the computer.
This project to create rural themes had to be interrupted after his father's terminal diagnosis of cancer.
In fact, for this purpose, I also read the American Al Babi's "Methods of Social Research" and made a lot of preparations. I would like to be like Mr. Cao Jinqing, through various relationships, through various kinds of field visits, talking with farmers, county and rural cadres, to describe the current situation of rural society in China, to present a worry about rural development, and to write a book similar to "China by the Yellow River". I also want to return to my hometown where I have lived for more than 20 years like Professor Liang Hong, return to the beginning of my life with literary brushwork, feel the earth again, and write down the tenacious vitality of life behind the desolate scenes of the old garden.
To this day, I still think that this is a worthwhile thing to do, even though I have no initial motivation to do it, even though I know that my thinking is far from enough. Of course, one day in the future, I may rekindle this passion, but I don't know.
These are just some of my reading experiences. I agree that reading is a private matter, and the so-called private, not only because everyone has different interests, but also because reading is your unique life.
But reading this matter, even if the will is firm, there will always be moments of wandering and confusion. Some will continue to insist, and some will shift their interest and say goodbye to the book they once loved. Roman Roland's John Christophe says that most people die in their twenties and thirties, because after this age they are only shadows of themselves, and the rest of their lives are spent imitating themselves, day after day, more mechanically, more pretentiously repeating what they have done, thought, loved and hated in their lifetimes.
Roman Rolland stood on the river of years and explained how a man could become idle and no longer have any illusions about the days to come. If there is really a way to change these things and reverse this fate that is difficult to escape, I think this way can only be reading. Whether reading will make some waves or even disappear because of your life node, reading will eventually be the only way for a person to redeem himself.
At this point, I remembered that the little prince had a rose that belonged to him alone, and he said such a meaningful word for this:
"You are beautiful, but you are empty." The little prince was still saying to them, "No one can die for you." Of course, my rose, an ordinary passerby thought she was just like you. But she alone is more important than all of you, because she was watered by me. Because she was the one I put in the flower hood. Because she was protected by me with a screen. Because the caterpillars on her (except for leaving two or three to become butterflies) were eliminated by me. Because I have listened to her resentment and self-praise, and even sometimes I have listened to her silence. Because she is my rose. (Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince)
Yes, at least for me, reading is the rose I would like to water with my life. Because of the many unique meanings and the painstaking efforts that have been given, reading this rose of mine has become so important. Sometimes, it is the bittersweet and sorrow that you have experienced along the way that makes it even more delicate. All you have to do is water it at the right time, and she blooms in season, and that's it.