One
I am a book, and the title does not need to be mentioned.
Compared with the Chinese and foreign masterpieces I will mention, I am nothing more than a firefly under a group of stars. Supposedly, I'm not qualified to bubble up, but since today is World Book Day, I'm not willing to fall asleep on the shelves.
It is said that four hundred and six years ago today, Shakespeare and Cervantes died together– and although this is not true, people are willing to believe it, just as they are willing to believe that Hamlet and Don Quixote were born in the same year.
Speaking of which, I can't help but think of an old man who was proud of himself.
It has said that whether a book can survive for a long time is crucial to who the author is. In its opinion, Shakespeare can do it, and Cervantes certainly can, but children make choices, and adults have both.
This predecessor is Cardaneau, a play adapted by Shakespeare from Don Quixote, which was a sensation after being staged. Today, however, shakespeare is absent in the complete works.
It eventually disappeared and became a stifling legend in literary history.
Shakespeare and Cervantes
This incident made me understand that even if a book is as deep as the starry sky and as brilliant as the sun, it is often vulnerable to the blow of time, and it can be destroyed at any time by a small two-way foil.
For example, Su Shi's "Analects of TheOry", which influenced several generations of scholars in the Song Dynasty, now only fragments of broken sentences remain; for example, Zhang Ruoxuan's poetry collection, with a "Spring River Flower Moon Night" to suppress the whole Tang, now only two surviving.
The list goes on and on.
As a masterpiece in the history of aesthetics, Aristotle's Poetics only remains in the upper part, and the lower part is a mystery, followed by "On the Difficulties in Homer's Epic" and "Drama Record". By the way, Umberto Echo designed the suspense labyrinth of "The Name of the Rose" based on the mystery of the second part of "Poetics".
The Poetics still has an upper part, while the Book of Music no longer exists. This founding work of Chinese aesthetics, together with poems, books, Yi, Rituals, spring and autumn, is called the "Six Classics", which belongs to the "Classics" of the "Classics" who came out as classics and debuted as the peak. But even so, the Book of Music did not wait until the Western Han Dynasty, and it was lost in the vast torrent of time.
You might argue that liberal arts books are easy to lose precisely because they are not practical. In contrast, science books are more vital, and even Qin Shi Huang, who burned books without a word, was merciful to the "Book of Medicine and Tree Planting".
In this regard, I just want to weakly ask: the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic still exists, and the Yellow Emperor's Outer Classic is safe?
Two
I am a book, which means that I will always face the doom of the book.
These misfortunes are varied and strange, far beyond the "five misfortunes" and "ten misfortunes" summarized by the ancients. In fact, accepting the doom of death by fire and destruction by war is the most basic sense of survival as a book. But the doom I'm going to talk about next may be beyond the understanding of ordinary human beings.
When medical works were mentioned earlier, we must talk about Hua Tuo. Veteran Three Kingdoms fans know that Hua Tuo gave his medical manuscript to the jailer before his death, but the jailer did not dare to accept it, so he had to burn it.
To be honest, what happened to this book deserves sympathy, but it's not bad in comparison. At the very least, the author destroyed it purely by force, and the real culprit was Cao Cao, a severely paranoid sufferer of persecution.
And for some of the more unfortunate books, the biggest existential crisis comes from the author Buddha-figure.
For example, "Li Changji's Song and Poetry Collection" put on a rare author of a thousand years - Li He. In addition to writing poems and not dying, this ghost poet also has a very impolite bad habit - "or sometimes there are books, and discard them", which means that while writing poems, he loses them, like a bear breaking a stick, not a poetry god possessed can not do this kind of thing.
After being born into the world, Li Changji's Collected Songs and Poems faced a more sinister fate. This matter should start with a man named Du Mu. That's right, it's the great god who wrote "Afang Gongfu".
Li He and Du Mu
One night in the autumn of 831, Du Mu received a letter from his friend Shen Ziming.
The letter said that when Li He was dying, he entrusted the surviving poems to himself, but for various reasons, the poems were lost... It was not until today, fifteen years later, that it was found in a broken box, and now ask Brother Du to help write the preface.
Du Mu opened the poem and was instantly stunned...
This is probably the most thrilling scene in the history of Chinese poetry. That autumn night, I must have been frightened by Li He's poem of seeing the sky again, "Stone breaking the sky to tease the autumn rain".
Then again, in terms of self-destructive works, Du Mu is also a demonic being. According to the New Book of Tang, Du Mu did two things when he was dying, one was to draw up his own epitaph, and the other was to burn his own article.
Du Mu burned the manuscript, presumably a performance art that mocked life and events; Gogol burned the second part of Dead Souls for a very simple and crude reason—it wasn't written well enough.
There are many more writers of this kind of "tiger poison eater". For example, Kafka, on his deathbed, gave his manuscripts to a friend and instructed him to burn them; for example, Pessoa, who published very few works during his lifetime, hid the manuscripts in inconspicuous boxes.
These works, including The Trial, The Castle, The Book of Restlessness... Imagine how bleak twentieth-century literature would have been if they had since disappeared along with the writer himself.
Fernando Pessoa and Franz Kafka
Three
I am a book, and whenever I think of these cruel people who destroy manuscripts, I can't help but shiver.
Lu Xun experienced the "danger of being a man" from Ah Chang's story, and I felt the "danger of making a book" from the story of the book. However, people can still control their fate with their will, and books can only be at the mercy of fate.
The loss of the second part of The Poetics mentioned earlier is not surprising. In fact, Aristotle's work can be passed down to this day, and the probability is almost equivalent to buying a lottery ticket to win the jackpot.
After Aristotle's death, the manuscript was passed down from generation to generation by his disciples. Passed around like a whispering fax game. Later, someone found them in a cellar and sold them to an African billionaire. When they were sent to the Roman library, it was already three hundred years after the death of Aristotle...
There is a longer and more winding story behind the ellipsis. These stories are even more thrilling than Zhang Wuji's intrusion into the valley to discover the Nine Yang True Scriptures, and I can't help but sweat for Aristotle.
Raphael's Academy of Athens
Fortunately, I remembered more books with a rough fate.
For example, in "Laban Sauma and Maxi's Journey", the author traveled from China to Asia and Europe in the era of Kublai Khan, which can be called "retrograde Marco Polo". But it wasn't until 1887 that the manuscript of the book came to light.
Another example is "City of Light", the author arrived in China from Italy during the Southern Song Dynasty, recording the prosperity and ideological controversy of Quanzhou, the "City of Light". But it wasn't until the 1990s that the book was first published.
These book legends have taught me that there must be countless books buried in the dust of history. Lu Bi's suicide note is a lucky accident, the Dunhuang testament is a great miracle, and more books can only silently accept the bad luck of being lost.
In 1907, the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave and the scripture scrolls placed on the Yongdao passage of the cave
As books, our mission is to carry knowledge and ideas, but only if we survive. It is difficult for modern people to understand how fragile a book really is. Pascal's famous quote about human beings is more appropriate for us: "Books are the most fragile things in nature... One breath and one drop of water is enough to destroy it. ”
Imagine how much luck a classic takes to beat time.
When it dissolves from the author's mind into many words, when it changes from the state of manuscript to the state of publication, when it is copied from silk bamboo to Cai Lun paper, when it passes from the hands of the ancients to your hands... This in itself is a miracle.
Therefore, as a book, I would like to give readers a heartfelt word on this special day: every book is not easy to inherit, and every classic is as precious as gold. For readers, to read is to earn, a book can be profitable - this is the only business in the world that is stable and profitable.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News, Yangcheng Pie, Golden Sheep Network
Text | Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Xie Yangliu
Edit | Shushu
Proofreading | Li Hongyu
Review and sign | Zhou Lerui