I would like to share with you a few books that I have been reading recently.
A few years ago, I bought a complete collection of Mo Yan's novels, a set of 11 books, for various reasons, has been shelved, and recently began to read.
The first "Red Sorghum Family" has just been read, this novel was written in 1986, when Mo Yan was in his early thirties, but the book was really well written, and he read the Douban score, 8.9, a very high evaluation.
Everyone is more familiar with the film based on this novel, "Red Sorghum" directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Jiang Wen and Gong Li, which eventually won the International A Film Festival Award.
The movie is good, but the original novel is more exciting, absurd, bizarre, mysterious, thick, and the words pour out the author's genius-like Kit Kat ideas, flowing with wild hormones that are spewing out, full of sad and desolate heroism and rogue arrogance.
The novel is divided into five parts, which completely disrupts the previous linear narrative structure in terms of plot, and at first reading it is a bit confusing, but it is soon attracted by the author's carefully woven folk anti-Japanese deeds in Gaomi Northeast Township.
The biggest impact of this novel on me was that I didn't feel like I was reading a novel at all, I thought I was reading a local chronicle sprinkled with blood, and I also believed that the author was going to use the pen in his hand to set up a monument to the hot land tree that nourished him.
The bloody struggle on the bridge of the Ink River, the tired white bones in the sorghum field, the saltwater mouth that was destroyed... They are all telling the sad and bitter anti-Japanese past, Yu Zhan'ao is a bandit, but also a hero, a king and a bastard, but also a good man.
Uncle Luohan who was stripped alive, Qian'er's sister and brother who hid under the dry well, the insulted second grandmother, the incense officer who was killed by the bayonet, the jiu'er who fell on the way to deliver the meal, the old Geng who was stabbed eighteen times and did not die... Every ordinary person is telling that tragic history with his life.
I think that in the next part of this year, I will read the remaining ten long works of Mo Yan one by one. He's been winning the Nobel Prize for ten years, and it's time for me as a reader to read through his book.
Recently, I also read a "Biography of Children's Heroes", also known as "Jin Yuyuan", the author of this book, Wen Kang, is the grandson of the Qing Dynasty University Shi Lebao, in the book, self-proclaimed "Yanbei Idle People", from time to time to appear to say, to make a large statement, like the hard stone in the dream of the Red Chamber.
It may be that the "Dream of the Red Chamber" is more familiar with it, although this book is a combination of martial arts + romance, but in the language style and story line, it seems that there is always a shadow of the Dream of the Red Chamber, and the original text also directly talks about the Dream of the Red Chamber more than once. And directly quoting the sentences in the dream of the Red Chamber is even more numerous.
The reason why this book is also called "Jin Yuyuan" is because the two female protagonists of the story, one named He Yufeng and the other called Zhang Jinfeng, eventually married the male protagonist An Long Media, one outside the main and one inside the main, which is a very happy ending.
Is this persona a bit familiar? Yes, the author must also be familiar with the People of the Red Chamber, and even felt its tragic ending, so he wrote a book of "Golden Jade Edge" and drew a perfect end to the story.
He Yufeng is a chivalrous woman, known as "Thirteen Sisters" when walking the rivers and lakes, somewhat similar to the combination of Daiyu and Xiangyun, while Zhang Jinfeng is a lady, such as Baochao, who has a good character. The two looked alike, like twin sisters.
The plot of this book is very simple, the language is also a flat and direct narrative, there is not much dog blood, there is no ups and downs, bizarre twists and turns, just like the parents are short.
One of the chivalrous celebrities mentioned in this book, Deng Jiugong, is renamed Deng Jiugong in the "Fengshen Yanyi", and in the Fengshen Dynasty, Deng Jiugong has a daughter Deng Chanyu and marries Tuxingsun, and Here Deng Jiugong also has a daughter, who marries Chu Yiguan, the brother-in-law of Hua Zhong, a servant of the An family.
In the guest room prepared by Deng Jiugong for Lord An Shuixin, there is a book called "Green Peony", which is not fiction, it is a novel published at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the author Is Wu Shan, a dramatist of the Ming Dynasty, "The Tale of the West Garden" was written by him. This book is also worth a look.
The series of Chinese classical masterpieces, I had to buy a long time ago, directly a large box, dozens of copies, thinking of putting them in their own study later, slowly enjoying the satisfaction and novel experience brought by reading. Today, I have read several books, and the end is wonderful.
Then there is the book related to the Dream of the Red Chamber that I have been reading, "The Red Chamber Dazzling Red", which is the masterpiece of Mr. Zhou Ruchang, a giant of red studies, and its predecessor "The Red Chamber Is Different Red" is a sister article, which is a very good poinsettia collection.
The earliest commentary and research monograph I read on the Dream of the Red Chamber was taught by Mr. Zhou Lao, who almost turned over a "Zhou Ruchang Revised Batch Book" at that time.
Mr. Zhou Lao can be called a master of red studies, and has published many monographs on red, such as "New Certificate of The Dream of the Red Chamber", "Little Lecture of the Red Chamber", "The Twelfth Floor of the Red Chamber", "The True Story of the Dream of the Red Chamber", "The Biography of Cao Xueqin", "The Red Chamber Is Different Red", "The Red Chamber Is Dazzling Red" and so on.
"The Red Chamber Dazzling Red" is a collection of essays on the red chamber reviews, a total of more than 100 articles, short and concise, quite insightful, and often new ideas, each reading also has new inspiration.
As we all know, Mr. Zhou's favorite and respected figure in the Red Chamber is Shi Xiangyun, who is also a firm supporter of Bao Xiang's marriage after eighty times. I don't refute this, but what I have a little bit of a criticism of the old man is that he dislikes Daiyu.
The old man's dislike of Daiyu can be seen by clear-eyed people, and it can be seen everywhere in his writings involving Daiyu. I'm a little angry about this. I like Daiyu, and I like Xiangyun, but why doesn't the old man look up to Daiyu?
Of course, this does not affect the quality of the book, and the flaws are not hidden. Who likes who doesn't like is everyone's right. Don't look at the collection of essays, this book is not suitable for fast reading, because every time you read a few articles, you always have to stop and feel and digest, and even have to write a few articles to sort it out, which is very helpful for reading red research.
Over the years, because I wrote the interpretation of the Dream of the Red Chamber, I have successively bought many famous interpretations, Hu Shi, Wu Shichang, Yu Pingbo, Zhou Ruchang, He Qifang, Zhang Ailing, Li Xifan, Liu Xinwu, Jiang Xun... I have been reading very slowly and have benefited a lot.
Finally, about reading, I often see people sharing books they have read, and some can even read hundreds of books a year, I can only be ashamed of myself, this speed I am afraid I can't catch up with by high-speed rail.
According to my normal reading speed, it is not a big problem to get rid of the daily work and read one book a week, so that a year is about fifty books, and if you count various uncontrollable factors, it may be very good to read twenty or thirty books a year.
I've written hundreds of book reviews in the past. Later, because I was busy with work, I read less books, and the book reviews simply abandoned, and every time I read a book, I directly opened the next one. At that time, there was a desire to express, but after three or five days, it was commonplace.
As the saying goes, good memory is not as good as bad writing, reading or to think more and take more notes, not just like the middle school excerpt classic quotations so simple, but to digest into their own things, the process is very painful and long, but insist on it, but also very painful to enjoy.
I hope more people can put down their mobile phones and pick up books. In the book, meet a better version of yourself.
Author: Xi Si Shao, this article is to read less of the original works of the Red Chamber.