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Tang Chengnan's name was given by her father, and whenever people asked why they were called this name, she always joked that her father was too prescient and even took the legal number for her.
Over the years, Tang Chengnan has successively written some texts and collected them into books, in addition to the recently published novel collection "Moonlight Treasure Box", as well as "A Big Tree Wants to Fly" and "Mr. J".
Tang Chengnan was originally an architect, but she insisted that she could not focus on two things, "writing and architecture, you must give up one."
Apparently, she gave up on the latter. Of course, her determination to leave the construction industry is more than that.
For example, every time she goes down to the construction site and sees workers living in temporary sheds, she feels distressed. At the same time, she is also uncomfortable with the current state of the construction industry, which is "keen to destroy, reset, and zero everything out".
But at heart, she loves architecture. Her long-term experience in the industry also makes her feel indescribably intimate about drawings: "The architecture profession makes me full of interest in structure, spatial thinking, and the force between objects. I think these must be helpful for writing. ”
After becoming a full-time writer, Tang Chengnan's writing time is not fixed, and even the time spent on writing is very small, and she spends most of her time reading and thinking wildly. In her opinion, she writes six or seven short stories a year, no more and no less. She joked about her laziness: "I call my laziness a caution and reverence for words. ”
The theme of Tang Chengnan's novels is nothing more than loneliness, search and growth. After carefully thinking, summarizing, and summarizing, she found that they could be summarized into one, that is, loneliness. Tang Chengnan did not think that he needed to be alone. Loneliness, in her broad and narrow sense. The former, as Zhuangzi said, "communicates with the spirit of heaven and earth alone", and it enables her to maintain herself and contemplate her heart.
Soup into difficult to enjoy.
The years that can't go back
The opportunity for writing "Moonlight Treasure Box" stemmed from a news that Tang Cheng was difficult to read.
Through the perspective of a child who grows up with monkeys, the novel writes about growth, suffering, and the disappearing group of monkey people.
"This is the news of 2014. Later, I found some photos on the Internet about monkey people, monkey people carrying monkeys, walking in the snow and wind, frowning slightly, and looking gloomy.
I was moved by the photos, by the intimacy between people and monkeys. I think of my childhood, a time that now seems warm and with a touch of sadness that can never go back. ”
Tang Chengnan wrote in the creation talk: "Monkey play, Qi Tian Dasheng, Moonlight Treasure Box, childhood, there seems to be some kind of secret connection between them, it is difficult for me to explain. ”
The term "Moonlight Treasure Box" does not appear in the entire work, and if you have seen Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West", you must be familiar with this word. The Supreme Treasure uses the Moonlight Treasure Box again and again, hoping to turn back time, but it can never go back to the exact moment in the past, just like we can't go back to childhood.
Tang Chengnan named the collection of short stories after the "Moonlight Treasure Box", which contains 17 novels written in various periods.
Whether it is the shoe repair master Lao Zhang in "A Big Tree Wants to Fly" who lost his son at the door of the department store in the early years, and then spent the rest of his life looking for it, and finally found that his son had become the scum of the injured party and was hit hard; or the peasant father in "Running Rice Field" who was still at the age of fifty and had a fairy tale pursuit of his ideal of growing rice; or the couple in "Winter of Republican Road" who married because of heroism and finally lost to daily life; and "Old Hu Ji" Hu Dajiang, the owner of the beef cut by hand who writes poems, Wang Xiuying, who likes to tell the story of "others" to relieve his bitterness; and the literary and artistic young uncle who is tossed by life and is unable to do so in "We Still Have Fish Here"... Tang Cheng could not poetically write about the daily humility of these little people.
Those worldly warmths mixed in "a place of chicken feathers", those joys and sorrows that are still full of thirst for light in the midst of forbearance, are the daily living conditions of ordinary people.
These novels were written by Tang Chengnan between 2017 and 2020.
In those years, she was obsessed with the theme of "suffering", as if to complete the spiritual redemption of real life with words.
"Seriously, it feels both noble and incredibly frustrating. Novels related to suffering earn readers a little tear, and likewise, I often cry during the writing process, unable to figure out whether it is for the characters in the novel or for myself. The more difficult life is, the easier it is for people to be moved, so I think about Lu Yao, think about Carver, and feel that I am one step closer to the great novelists. I mean poverty. ”
Now, compared to before, Tang Chengnan has changed a little and no longer writes about suffering. "It's all a sign that the days are better. For example, I began to have dreams, and to be honest, I didn't dare to touch the dream thing before, and I always thought that it was a luxury for a few people. ”
Tang Chengnan has his own standards for good novels: "I divide good novels into two categories, one is very realistic, the texture and plot of the novel are natural, like a drama with a rigorous structure and a moving plot, you watch offstage, follow the fate of the characters on the stage wholeheartedly, you will forget the time, forget the noise around you, and forget yourself."
When the light comes on and the curtain closes, you rub your eyes to find that there are already tears on your face. And another kind of good novel, you will be amazed by the imagination of the author, they provide readers with a new way of thinking, in the novel space constructed by the author you will feel a kind of breadth and vastness, you are led off the ground by them. They are high-ranking performers, masters of magic. I prefer the latter and try to move closer to the latter because they are heterogeneous. ”
Afraid to say something that seems honest but useless
Tang Chengnan's dream is to herd sheep in the grassland.
To this end, she went out of her way to learn about pastures and yaks: grazing requires winter pastures, summer pastures, and pastures. The annual rent of winter pasture is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan for cattle and sheep to eat grass from January to April; the summer pasture does not cost, for cattle and sheep to eat grass from May to July; the annual rent of grassland is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, and the grass that grows vigorously in summer in the grassland is harvested in August and September, which can be used by cattle and sheep to spend a long winter.
The growth period of each yak is two years, after which it can be sold for 8,000 to 10,000 yuan; the growth period of sheep is one year, and after one year it can be sold for about 2,000 yuan...
"You imagine that in the vast steppe, people do not need to speak all day, even those who shout at cattle and sheep are blown around by the wind of the steppe.
Especially in winter, the words and phrases are frozen in the mouth and cannot be dissolved for a long time. People occasionally have to grit their teeth when they talk, as if they have to crush a piece of ice to release every word. ”
"I am a person who does not have a high pursuit of material things (the direct reason for the pursuit of not being high may be poor), especially easy to satisfy, do not buy brand names, shoes and clothes are very cheap.
There was a tough time when I left the construction industry to write full-time and I experienced both material and spiritual dilemmas. Later, it slowly got better, less tight, and the days got much better. ”
The idea of "going to the grassland to herd sheep" has always been tang chengnan.
She was born and raised in Yangzhou, a city with small bridges and flowing water. It is this city that has fascinated countless literati and inkers from ancient times to the present, making it difficult for young Tang Cheng to love and hate.
At that time, she had just returned to Yangzhou from studying in other places, and regarded the laziness, ease, comfort, and small wealth of people living in the city as lacking ideal ambitions of people living in the city who "wrapped water in the morning and water foreskined in the evening". "I always want to get rid of something, to get rid of some kind of inertia in my body."
At that time, she liked the vast and vast scenery, and would travel to the plateau that was completely different from Yangzhou.
She likes a simple life, simple people and things, but at the same time she misses her hometown and misses Huaiyang cuisine.
Gradually, Tang Chengnan began to like her hometown, and she felt that Yangzhou had the temperament of forbearance, introversion, tolerance and endurance. And those emotions born of hometown also appear in Tang Chengnan's characters.
Over the years, Tang Chengnan has become accustomed to hiding her emotions or thoughts in fictional characters, while in real life, she is "more and more afraid of talking, afraid of greetings, afraid of politeness, afraid of saying something that seems to be frank but useless."
Tang Chengnan said: "I often take a taxi, in order to avoid the driver to talk, after getting on the bus, I will tell the driver the destination in the form of notes and gestures.
The driver thought the passengers were dumb, and apart from turning on the music and occasionally looking at me with regret in their eyes, it was very quiet throughout the trip.
As long as you're not dumb, on certain occasions it's not right and impolite for you to talk less or be silent. Speaking is a physical task for me, and I often feel immobile and tired. It is said that if ninety-five percent of what a person says every day is nonsense, then the person's happiness index is very high. Based on that, I'm not too happy. ”
One day, Tang Cheng was difficult to pick up her children from school, and looking at the endless crowd, she was suddenly very sad.
She sat on the road teeth and thought: Is this the life we should have? Is this the so-called way of life of humans that distinguish them from other animals?
Everyone is like a clockwork toy that never stops, and human beings invent and create countless machines, and eventually turn themselves into a machine, but we are not satisfied and happy because of it.
Tang Chengnan once went to Mount Everest alone, and when passing through those desolate and desolate places that seemed to be the end of the world, she would often see one or two rooms, made of stones, and there were several sheep and a person near the houses.
"This sight makes me reflect on myself.
A person doesn't need much, there is food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to sleep, which is enough. But what are we doing? ”
Milan Kundera wrote at the end of a play where two people walked together, and one of them asked his companion: Where to go? Companion answered: You go forward. The person who asked said: Which is the former? Companion Answer: This is the oldest joke of our human beings, wherever you go, you go forward.
"I don't know what kind of way and state of human beings are right to live, there is no solution to this problem." Tang Chengnan just felt that with the development of mankind, "the two wheels of material civilization and spiritual civilization that should go hand in hand seem to have deviated, one is advancing in a straight line in an accelerated manner, and the other is circling up at a slow speed."
(This article was originally published in New Weekly)
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