Edited by Rong Mo 丨 The joy of reading a "professional reader"

I remember that the Song Ren Weng Sen had "Four Hours of Reading Music", which was about the joy of reading, and there was a question cloud: "What is the joy of reading?" If someone asks me this question before I work, I may answer without hesitation: "There is no end to the fun." But after becoming a "professional reader", if I were asked the same question again, I would probably have to think about it, because the feelings that books brought me were at least bittersweet.

Wen | Rong Silent

Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House

Working in a publishing house, he deals with books all day long, and is called a "professional reader". Reading as a profession is mostly because of interest: interest can be regarded as a profession, others say that it is a kind of happiness, but on the other hand, when hobbies become a means of making a living, it is inevitable that it will destroy interest: because the book itself is good or bad, there are interests and uninterested, out of professional needs, sometimes have to read some bad, uninterested books (manuscripts), but the appetite for books. I remember that the Song Ren Weng Sen had "Four Hours of Reading Music", which was about the joy of reading, and there was a question cloud: "What is the joy of reading?" If someone asks me this question before I work, I may answer without hesitation: "There is no end to the fun." But after becoming a "professional reader", if I were asked the same question again, I would probably have to think about it, because the feelings that books brought me were at least bittersweet.

However, since you are a "professional reader", you have to read anyway, and you will naturally want to have a decent study. The imagination of traditional Chinese literati for the study is often cold, quiet and lonely, Lu Zhaolin's "Chang'an Guyi" has the sentence "Lonely and few Yangziju, a bed of books for years and years", and Du Shi said "Lonely books in the bookstore", which probably means this. Therefore, it seems that the study should be a quiet, lonely, and individualized small independent space. But maybe it was the relationship often I went to the library when I was a student, but I felt that maybe a place like the library reading room was more suitable for reading. Or with questions, consult the materials, overcome difficulties; or aimlessly, wander through the sea of books, and browse at will. From time to time, there will be some readers who are also quiet reading, although they do not know each other, but they create an atmosphere and inspire people. Therefore, my imagination of the ideal study (or a suitable place for reading) is somewhat non-mainstream: like a library, there is a large collection of books, which can be consulted and flipped through at will, and there are all kinds of books you want to read, and it is a relatively open space.

In Shanghai, there is only one bedroom and one living room. Fortunately, the living room is large, and you can set aside a block to settle your own collection of books, and set aside a desk for work and reading. However, I did not completely turn the living room into a study, it also carried the function it should have: a sofa and a TV for rest and entertainment and meetings. Sometimes, when I was doing unscheduled work or reading idle books, my wife also sat on the couch and chatted with me or watched TV, chatting and listening to TV while reading. The traditional study is pure and quiet, which may highlight the difference of the reader, the independence of the deceased, and my reading space is relatively noisy and lively, in addition to the small factor of the housing space (in fact, this is the main factor), perhaps I subconsciously want to be a "grounded", not so different, the independent reader.

To say that some of the books that you have been turning over recently, some of them are closely related to work, such as some literature books that need to be checked correctly when editing book manuscripts, such as "Wenyuan Yinghua", "Ten Thousand Tang Dynasty Absolute Sentences", "Beginner's Record" and some Other Collections of Tang and Song Dynasties, etc. This can only be a search of books, not "reading". (In fact, after work, a lot of time working with books is spent looking up books.) In addition, some of the books translated are also related to work, but can be called "reading": their main job is to edit some ancient books and documents, usually read the manuscript, mainly for the author's collation work to check for omissions and fill in the gaps, so in addition to reading the manuscript, will also turn over the State Council's ancient book collation planning group compiled the "Ancient Book Point Correction Error Collection" to collect the relevant articles in various periodicals that point out that ancient books are missing in the collation point proofreading, for the reference of practitioners, the original is in the form of internal reference, and then published by the Zhonghua Bookstore, a total of six volumes. Some of the articles collected in the book are relatively short, the problems are relatively simple, and even some error corrections are still a bit one-sided; but there are also many good articles, and it is very helpful to pick a few articles from time to time to see, which is very helpful for sweeping away their blind spots in the business.

As for books that are not so related to work, I have recently been reading a few small books written by Mr. Qu Yuanyuan that I found in the old book market. Mr. Tuizhi reads a lot of books and is proficient in all kinds of palms, and can be called a master of palm learning. It is generally regarded as a means for the literati to gossip and entertain after dinner, but it is not easy to talk about it well, talk deeply, and talk about it as a science, because it requires the means of knowledgeable memorization and storytelling. The "Series of Character Customs and Systems" signed by Baan An is a representative work of Mr. Huizhi's study of the past, and he divides some of the fragments he usually reads in his notes into special topics to examine some problems in the history of customs, culture, and system, such as the opening "Taoyuan", which is similar to Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Garden" in the "Guangyang Miscellaneous Records", "Xiangqilou Essays", and "Different Garden", which record that the villagers in China in the depths of the remote mountains have almost no contact with outsiders, and do not know what the situation in this world is, which is similar to Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Garden". Later, during the Republic of China, the "Sanpo" old people's village in Zhuo County, Hebei Province, was considered to be different from the customs and language of the residents here, and although "it is impossible to completely reject the influx of the customs of the times", it was the "small world" formed after the five generations of Central Plains remnants entered the mountains to avoid chaos, and after generations of reproduction, a large number of pre-Song Central Plains relics were preserved. Thus it also proves that Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Garden" is not entirely his fable and imagination, but has a prototype. This is slightly the same as Chen Yinke's "Circumstantial Evidence of Peach Blossom Origin" to examine That Taohuayuan as a "Wubao" in the Hongnong or Shangluo area at that time, and in terms of views, it can be described as a hero's view, but the direction of the examination is only the direction of the examination, one is the examination of the "Peach Blossom Origin" on the facts, and the other is mainly to examine the Three Slopes area of the Republic of China.

"Discussion on the Character Customs and System" is a representative work of Mr. Qu Yuanyuan who integrates his palm into academic research, and the other is the popular book he wrote, "Selected Stories of History", Mr. Qu lived in Shanghai after the founding of New China, and worked as a publisher to compile and write books, which can be said to be a "professional writer". At that time, he wrote a number of popular historical books for the Shanghai Culture Publishing House, including "Selected Stories of History", "Selected Stories of the Book of Han", "Selected Stories of the Book of Later Han", etc. The classic articles in the historical classics "History", "Book of Han" and "Book of later Han" were written in vernacular and stories for the people who were not easy to accept ancient texts. Unlike the full vernacular translation, these texts, although faithful to the original work, are also reorganized and recounted by the editor through storytelling, and the arrangement and detail of the events are also many different from the original. Since Mr. Huizhi is extremely particular about the writing of the palm, "reprocessing" these historical classics, the text is simple and unpretentious but smooth and vivid, taking into account the acceptance and interest of the people at that time, although it is inevitable to carry some of the brand of the times at that time, it is also a good work for reprocessing. If you have a heart, you can read the story carefully according to the original text, and you may be able to see the ingenuity of the old man in writing.

To be ashamed, since the middle of March, shanghai has been seriously affected by the epidemic and the community has begun to close on a large scale. Closed at home office, saving a lot of commuting time, should be more time, is a good time to read, but every day some restlessness, sometimes also have to care about their stomach and "vegetable basket", group buying, cooking, but also pay attention to when to do nucleic acid, when to self-test antigens, rare meditation reading, this is really a negative April "reading month" such a good day. I hope that the epidemic will dissipate as soon as the rain will pass and the sky will be clear, and there will be a truly peaceful "reading month".

Article reprinted from "Bibliophile"