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Xu Zhiqiang's interview | reading is a gift for ordinary people

What does literature mean today?

People are busy brushing short videos and exploring the clear meaning of life, and few people have the energy to open the classic novels of the last century. However, in the view of Xu Zhiqiang, the ideal speaker, literature has an irreplaceable significance.

Perhaps, rather than looking for meaning and answers, re-experiencing clean expression in literature, and experiencing that "inner strength and aggression", people can feel the pure vitality of life.

Some time ago, Professor Xu Zhiqiang talked to his students about things related to literature, and the following is the complete content.

May literature be your companion in the troubled days.

Xu Zhiqiang x Zhou Aiyuan

01.

A gift for the "general reader"

Zhou Aiyuan: Hello Teacher Xu! It is a great honor to be the interviewer for this interview, and first of all, congratulations on your new book "Part of Poetics and the General Reader" being named "Criticism of the Year" by the One Way Street Bookstore Literary Awards!

Xu Zhiqiang: Thank you. Once again, I would like to thank One Way Street Bookstore for awarding this award.

Zhou Aiyuan: Speaking of this work, what impressed me was that Mr. Xu's literary criticism focused on judging the "attributes and scale" of the work, and the discussion was carried out in a way similar to the contrast between light and shade and light and shadow, so this judgment was very subtle, and the things we vaguely felt in the work were excavated by means of carving. Is this what you're deliberately looking for?

Xu Zhiqiang: Thank you. This is an interesting observation. "Attributes and scales" is really what I'm focused on. As for the writing style, I should be the conventional way of writing literary criticism. The chiaroscuro method you summarized, I did not expect. Maybe it's true. Your statement is interesting.

Zhou Aiyuan: Although the title of the book is "Ordinary Reader", this book is a highly professional academic work, so how does the concept of "ordinary reader" explain your critical view and critical perspective?

Xu Zhiqiang: The concept of "ordinary readers", which I use to counter the over-theoretical tendencies of literary criticism, is not the main thrust of this book. My critical perspective should belong to the category of literary elitism.

Zhou Aiyuan: Recently, Teacher Xu is still watching the ideal launch of the audio program "20th Century European and American Classic Novels", which is very different from professional literary criticism in style and characteristics.

Xu Zhiqiang: Yes. The portrayal of the form and details of the novel has increased greatly. It's not the same as when I usually give lectures and give lectures.

Zhou Aiyuan: The classification of the syllabus is very distinctive, should it be the crystallization of your teaching?

Xu Zhiqiang: The unit classification contains some thoughts and summaries of my years of research. My students have never seen this syllabus. They only hear a small part of it in class.

Zhou Aiyuan: Do you think that doing a show will limit your academic education and interests?

Xu Zhiqiang: At the beginning, I had this concern. The restrictions on doing programs are relatively large, and the capacity of each episode is limited, and it cannot be too complicated. However, there are also unexpected gains. How to tell a work well and tell its literary characteristics needs to be tried. Storytelling is a kind of pampering, a way to touch the essence. I now feel like it's a more reasonable way. Academics value analysis and interpretation, and my program is an attempt to restore, without extracting appearances and flesh and blood. Maybe it's only through programming that I think it's a better way to get to the heart of literature. All in all, very interesting to do.

Xu Zhiqiang's interview | reading is a gift for ordinary people

"Wild Pear Tree"

Zhou Aiyuan: In the show, what kind of group of "ordinary readers" are you targeting?

Xu Zhiqiang: This is my gift to the "ordinary reader", for all those who read literature. The program is positioned for non-professional literature lovers, and I hope that professional and non-professional readers can come and listen. Listeners who are not familiar with what I am talking about, I hope that after listening to them, they will be able to know about the works of these writers and be interested. For the original audience, lovers of European and American novels, including young people who are interested in creating, I hope that they will be inspired by listening. Professional researchers will also benefit from my classification and explanation perspective. No matter what type of audience, you can get something. I think that doing this show is really practicing the concept of "ordinary readers". I think storytelling is a more comfortable way for me, more humble and natural.

Zhou Aiyuan: From the initial idea to the final presentation of the show, has your way of telling and thinking undergone some kind of transformation?

Xu Zhiqiang: Yes, there have been changes, changes have changed many times. Listening to the launch and the first unit, I felt that it didn't look like my own style. Not the style I write. The original publication words are like a concise article, point to point, and the words are interspersed with unspoken meanings, which is the style of writing, not the style of telling. The program team made different requirements. This requires a run-in. I remember there were three or four final editions of the publication. The first unit of "Dubliners" and "Small Town Deformity" are all products that have been repeatedly run-in, and are created according to the attributes and characteristics of audio programs. Audio programs demanded fluency and silhouette clarity, and I had to relearn and change the way I worked. The program team and the editor-in-charge helped me a lot. I thought that doing the program was the same as lecturing in school, and I, an old teacher, could do it in minutes, where did I know that the run-in would be so difficult.

Zhou Aiyuan: "20th Century European and American Classic Novels" has a hundred episodes and more than 40 works, which can be said to be a huge project. Judging from the first unit "Small Stage and Big World", the gray tone of "Dubliner" and the "deformed" image in "Small Town" are very "twentieth century", compared with "The Growth of the Earth" and "Ah! Although "Pioneer" embodies the theme of modernity, the writing rules are relatively traditional, and the scale of breakthrough is not so large. So, how did you come up with the choice of writers and works, and why did you choose them to share?

Xu Zhiqiang: You listened to the program with your heart, and the problem hits the nail on the head. Indeed, "The Growth of the Earth" and "Ah! The Pioneers are written in a more traditional way, which at first glance seems a bit incongruous, which I realized when I was doing the outline. This outline is generally biased towards modernist literature, and I include postmodern literature. Twentieth-century literature is undoubtedly dominated by experimental methods, which I have outlined in my publication. However, twentieth-century literature has other techniques of creation, including traditional realism. I think realism should also be said that the creation of different themes and themes should be reflected. It is inevitable that any outline will be missed, and I am distressed to talk about this, because many writers' works should be talked about, but they still can't be put in, and the length is not allowed, and a hundred episodes can only talk about some writers. I feel guilty not for the audience but for the writer's work that was missed.

Zhou Aiyuan: So which writers did you not put in the program and also want to recommend to readers?

Xu Zhiqiang: Too much. If the current program outline only retains seven or eight writers, and the rest are replaced, the lineup is equally strong. This is not an exaggeration. I remember that just before the show went live, I replaced four works in the outline: Muzier's "The Man Without Personality", Celina's "From the Castle to another Castle", Pavic's "Khazar Dictionary", and Rulfo's "Pedro Paramo". It's still a shame. After repeated consideration, I felt that it was not suitable to talk about it.

02.

Back to the work, back to the specifics

Zhou Aiyuan: At present, the program has been updated to the second unit "Growing Pains", as a loyal audience and fan, I think an important reason why Mr. Xu's programs can always touch people's hearts is that you can always bring the audience to a "spiritual atmosphere". For example, when you talk about "Dubliner", you say that "disillusionment is a revelation of the truth of life", when you talk about "Miguel Street", you say that "comedy also means creating and inventing life in a worthless, humble and poor place", and when you talk about "One Hundred Years of Solitude", you say that those details are written about "the fear, confusion and the boundless depth of silence of loneliness". There are many similar languages with spiritual penetration. Combining this insight with an elaborate structure protects and nurtures the reader's curiosity and reading experience, while enlightening people in understanding and intellectually. What have you done, or made it, over the years?

Xu Zhiqiang: I think it is openness. It was reached gradually through opening. Literature is a subjective thing, and as long as you read it, you will inevitably produce judgment, so it is inevitable that there will be arbitrariness and prejudice. But I think critics should eliminate prejudice as much as possible, leaving room for their own "judgment" that they can't do for the time being, rather than being satisfied with the pleasure of criticism. That's what I call openness. I think the critic should be a special species that can have a chemical reaction with a wide variety of creative personalities. Each work is different, and if you take them seriously and experience their uniqueness, it will naturally produce a "spiritual atmosphere". Reading, like eating, should be something that everyone can do, but in fact, this is not the case. Literary reading is a skill that needs to be honed.

Xu Zhiqiang's interview | reading is a gift for ordinary people

"Wild Pear Tree"

Zhou Aiyuan: So in your opinion, how should we hone our ability to read and protect our experience?

Xu Zhiqiang: We should breathe with the characters in the work and share the fate, we must learn to carefully observe the creative intentions of the writer, and remain sensitive to language and rhetoric. We read a book, to what extent, of course, with cognition and experience, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" read in the teens and read in their thirties, it is definitely not the same, because knowledge and experience are different, but literary experience has its own particularity, not equal to the usual experience and cognition, it requires a special investment and concentration, it needs to imagine the displacement, it needs the power of the mind, and it is the same as hormones, not with age can grow, and the degree and title is not proportional, To a large extent it has to do with fantasies, feelings of vulnerability, conscience, and fanaticism. If the ability to experience declines and the mind is no longer innocent, then no amount of knowledge is useless.

Zhou Aiyuan: You said that reading is the same as eating, everyone knows, but in fact it does not seem to be so. So, does this mean that reading is a craft that needs to be taught?

Xu Zhiqiang: Yes, it is true that guidance is needed. Dostoevsky's "Basement Notes", after reading the first sentence without laughing, it means that the tone of the work is not understood. It's a bit like our Haipai Clearance, a monologue with a performative nature, very funny, and this feature is usually overlooked. Once I read the first page aloud during a lecture, there was a facial expression, and they all laughed. Tossian humor is an important element of this work, and critics (including Nietzsche) hardly take it seriously. Such cases abound. These days the show is playing "Big Mona", and over the years I have been communicating with different friends, and my experience is that there don't seem to be many people who can appreciate its wonders. The narrative of this work is very elaborate, and every sentence needs to be tasted. We should read novels from the small incisions set by the writer, and be good at understanding the color, elasticity and tonality of the sentence.

Xu Zhiqiang's interview | reading is a gift for ordinary people

"My Genius Girlfriend"

Zhou Aiyuan: That is to say, to develop the habit of perusal, so as to hone the reading skills?

Xu Zhiqiang: I think the whole concept of reading needs to be changed. The problem is not in perusing, the problem is that we do not seem to be "reading" the novel, but "thinking" about the novel, thinking about what can be summarized in the novel in large chunks, as if the principle of usefulness and uselessness has been established in advance, and everything that cannot be transformed into meaning is useless, that is, a secondary existence. Is this a meaning anxiety disorder? Critics suffer from this disease, there are occupational diseases, so why should the average reader do the same? Is there something wrong with our literary education, corrupting normal reading?

Zhou Aiyuan: Teacher, the meaning anxiety disorder you mentioned is indeed a particularly popular problem among our professional students, and it can also be said to be a kind of essay anxiety disorder. However, listening to your program, I feel that you still pay more attention to the hints and summaries of meaning.

Xu Zhiqiang: Yes, I will take care of the audience and friends when I do the program, and I will design some meaning grips in the process of telling, so that people can feel at ease, because people need to summarize and need meaning grips. I'm not saying that this is necessarily unimportant, but I want the reader to pay more attention to the experience and feel the work. Feeling is the first, it cannot be used merely as the basis and material of rational speculation. The feeling has to go back to the work repeatedly, back to the specific details, which is an act of penetration and entanglement. If the feeling is removed or dried up, what is left of literature? Literature is not a social science, but in fact many people regard it as the object of social science research, and simply equate the two. I would say that this is not right.

Zhou Aiyuan: You mentioned that "repeatedly returning to the work, returning to the specific details, this is an act of infiltration and entanglement", which I also deeply experienced in the process of listening to the program. Probably starting from episode 1 of "The Growth of the Earth", compared with before, you have fewer explicit prompts to the audience, more enlightening guidance, and you begin to guide the reader to feel the writer's intentions from the details of "personal experience". Including episodes 2 and 3 of "One Hundred Years of Solitude", the taste begins to be different, and you "loosen" the conclusions, especially the narration of the character of Colonel Aureliano, especially the description and feeling of the details and characters.

Xu Zhiqiang: The second and third episodes of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" taste different, and this feeling is right. Because the writing time is different. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" originally made three episodes, which had long been written, recorded, and handed over to the editor-in-charge for post-production, but before the show was about to air, my thoughts changed, so I said to the editor-in-charge, sorry, three episodes I want to increase to four episodes, except for the first episode unchanged, the next two, three, and four episodes all have to be redone. The first episode that the listener friends heard was made before, and the next few episodes were recently made, and the taste was definitely different. The general approach of the show will not change, but there will be adjustments in the production process, and from the beginning of the family novel, I try to increase the concentration and density a little, which I dare not do at the stage of "Dubliner" and "Small Town Deformity". Many of my friends in the audience were quite professional, and the comment area message made me realize that I could not limit the program to an easily digestible level, but could actually express it more fully. Speaking of Colonel Aureliano, I would like to add a point that is not said in the program, and the success of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" also depends on the shaping of the character image. There were many writers who experimented with literature in Latin America during the same period, including Cortázar, Infante, Vargas Llosa, Lesama Lima, and so on, all of whom were great, but may not have created such memorable characters as Márquez.

03.

Literature has never been a rationalization

Zhou Aiyuan: During the show, did you also reread these works, or the key clips in them? Did this reading produce new feelings and thoughts that were different from the previous ones? Can you share and "spoil" some with us in advance?

Xu Zhiqiang: Yes, to reread. But there are exceptions, some works I seem to be too confident, I think I can still tell without reading, such as a short story in "Dubliners" "A Floating Cloud", which turned out to be a little wrong. Listeners listened to the show to see the work, and they couldn't find the details of the protagonist going home to spank the baby's ass, and they suspected that the translation was different. I saw the comment area message, I went to check, the original text does not have this detail, I am wrong, the original text is much more wonderful than I said. This is a lesson that cannot be taken for granted. In the past two days, I have been revising the audio transcript of "Portrait of a Young Artist", re-reading this novel, and I have a new feeling and evaluation, I seem to like this work more than before, I found that it has all the characteristics and advantages of Joyce's work, but it has a stubborn and childish beauty, and rereading it makes me appreciate this feature. So I rewrote one of the episodes and I'll be able to share it with you after a while.

Zhou Aiyuan: During the program update, I noticed that the comment area was also very active: there were many "class representatives" who expressed themselves concisely, iron fans who had to check in every time, and lyricists who were good at association... Can you talk about it, and do you have any comments that impressed you? What do you think of the feedback from your listeners on the show?

Xu Zhiqiang: I am very interested in seeing these messages. Thank you all for your presence, some are just a simple greeting, a testimonial, all of which are precious to me. I hope that listeners and friends will leave messages in the comment area more often, interaction is a kind of communication, which is helpful for my work. There are many impressive comments, which make me feel that everyone is listening attentively, which also gives me the motivation to do the show.

Zhou Aiyuan: In the comment area, more than one listener friend left a message saying that after listening to your "One Hundred Years of Solitude", I almost doubted whether I had read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" before. You've given you new perspectives and perspectives, which is very interesting.

Xu Zhiqiang: To be honest, I don't want to provide a new interpretation. I'm just selectively restoring the look of the work. I'm talking about what's in the work.

Zhou Aiyuan: Some listeners said that they listened to the program while washing dishes and cooking pots, and your program has requirements for the attention of the audience. What do you think about that?

Xu Zhiqiang: As far as I know, many listeners listen while driving, on the way to and from work. It doesn't matter when you listen, what matters is whether you want to listen again after listening to it. I hope you'll listen to it a few more times.

Zhou Aiyuan: The works selected in the program, such as "Dubliners", "Miguel Street", and "One Hundred Years of Solitude", are all very popular classics, and there are also some works that listeners and friends have not read, and often listen to a new "planting" work. Reading with the rhythm of the program update, the density is larger, I don't know what the teacher suggests in this regard?

Xu Zhiqiang: Yes, yes, most of what I am talking about is a long novel, and if every work has to be read, it is really a bit difficult to keep up. What the show offers is a longer-term reading plan, and I don't think it's necessarily reading right now. The function of audio programs is to provide everyone with a learning channel that can be harvested by not reading works for a while and only listening to programs. My account is also designed with this in mind.

Zhou Aiyuan: If you leave aside your identity as a school starter and critic, as an ordinary reader, starting from your literary instincts and experiences, what is your favorite writer?

Xu Zhiqiang: Alain-Fournier. I have already expressed my love on the show. He wrote small works. He was wonderful. He was witty, ingenious, and funny. Such a work ("Big Mona") will not be available again.

Zhou Aiyuan: In the speech, your views resonated with listeners and friends, "Novels are not used for research, they are used to influence and enjoy, and they are used to experience and immerse themselves." But does research necessarily mean rejecting experience and enjoyment?

Xu Zhiqiang: I am also listening to other programs of the ideal, including history, economy, medical treatment, archaeology, etc. There are many high-quality programs. I have found that the reading ethos of this era is to pursue cognition, not to pursue feeling. The audience's interest in literature is usually also cognitive. I wanted to inject something a little different into the literary program.

Zhou Aiyuan: In your speech, you mentioned the "three forces", that is, imagination, observation and sensitivity. I have such an experience, in the company, in the university, the world belongs to the chart, belongs to the PPT, belongs to all kinds of analytical models. In an era of Anglo-American technocracy domination, literature does not occupy the center of culture like the 19th century, and seems to be more and more inclined to a personal inner experience, so what can literature and art and "three forces" bring us at the moment?

Xu Zhiqiang: The question is well asked. For academic research, model analysis is necessary, you said that my article is mainly to make "attribute and scale" judgment, which contains the meaning of model analysis. But we also know that literature does not fall entirely into the realm of epistemology. I think literature has never been a rationalized thing, it stems from the inherent demands of human intuition, dreams, desires, etc., it is destructive, it rejects classification and self-stability, it pursues the wholeness of life rather than the systematization of logic. Modernist literature, I think it's good because it has this inherent strength and aggression.

Zhou Aiyuan: Is it true that modernist literature will give people less sublimation power?

Xu Zhiqiang: Some people think that literature is a kind of purification and spiritual sublimation, which is correct. But I think literature is also a kind of destruction, it is destructive, rejecting stereotypes, rejecting tediousness and mediocrity, rejecting the assimilation of mainstream values. If literature is alive, then literature, like all living things, is irredeemable, that is, it is accompanied by death and self-destruction, and I think Beckett's work highlights this tendency. Nineteenth-century writers, such as Hugo, represented another tendency. The difference between Beckett and Hugo is that Hugo pursues immortality, while Beckett focuses on death and mutilation. Being alive is a mutilated phenomenon. All living things are irredeemable. So, from this point of view, the vitality of literature is related to centrifugal force, marginality, self-exile, is it so important to be in the center? Isn't it good to be on the fringes? Isn't it nice to talk to yourself?

Zhou Aiyuan: So is the "three-force doctrine" a necessary means to balance the influence of science and technology culture?

Xu Zhiqiang: I think that "three-force doctrine" is a necessary cultivation in life. It's not just literature people who need imagination, observation, and sensibility, anyone else needs to. Today's cultural life is fragmented, perhaps more and more flattened, more and more subject to the language of technological monopoly theory, so I am afraid that it is more and more necessary to explore existence from the dimensions of imagination and emotion, not from the perspective of scientism but from the standpoint of organic experience, including the existence of the self, the existence of the other, the existence of objects, and so on. This is actually a phenomenological point of view, a Heidegger view. We are all aware of the threat of technological culture to spiritual life, but it is precisely in this threat that we are deeply aware of the value of literary culture, including the so-called "three-force doctrine."

Xu Zhiqiang's interview | reading is a gift for ordinary people

"My Genius Girlfriend"

Zhou Aiyuan: You talk about writers of the 20th century and before the 20th century in your classes and programs, and as far as you are concerned, are there any contemporaries who have also inspired and inspired you when you grow up?

Xu Zhiqiang: Beidao and Gucheng's "obscure poems" are my growth education. Cui Jian's music creation has a particularly great influence on me. I was educated in modernist poetry written in Chinese, including Chinese rock music pioneered by Cui Jian. I remember listening to the album "Rock on the New Long March Road" for the first time, and a very big shock was the excellence of the production, this kind of music is made in a very delicate space of possibilities, driven by the repeated dismantling of language. Cui Jian's music is a good art education, seeking novelty and seeking perfection. Indeed, the people around me, the contemporaries, will have a more direct inspirational significance for me growing up. By the way, Cui Jian recently did an online concert, did you listen?

Zhou Aiyuan: Listened. Great!

Xu Zhiqiang: It's a sensation. A friend who makes music in the UK said that he was surprised to watch the show, these people are so skilled and in such a good state! Yes, Cui Jian shows the significance of art culture in this era. Regardless of the environment in which we live, we should all be as free as possible to express and live.

Zhou Aiyuan: Finally, let's assume a real situation, if an enthusiastic listener is isolated at home for 14 days and wants you to do a foreign program for him, which work will you talk about? Why?

Xu Zhiqiang: Fan Wai? Fan Nei is a bit overwhelmed. In the comment area, there are constantly requests from listeners and friends, and I think I can only wait until the show is finished. A hundred episodes is long enough. You said you wanted to do a special episode, so could you pick one of the upcoming episodes? This show seems to be suitable for listening to during the quarantine period. I told the editor-in-charge that I have two meanings in doing the program, one is to spread literary knowledge, to share my decades of accumulation with the majority of listeners and friends, I can feel the significance of doing this, and the other is that I will not go to class after retirement, I want to leave something for the children who will go to school in the future, they can understand the literary works that should be understood through this program. Now, I think there is a third meaning, that is, in this extraordinary period, I hope that this show can bring comfort to everyone, and I want to get through it with everyone in the show.

Not long ago, The Ideal App launched a new literary program "20th Century European and American Classic Novels", the main speaker is Xu Zhiqiang, a professor at the Institute of World Literature and Comparative Literature of Zhejiang University. In the program, he interpreted 37 famous writers and their works for us, taking us to truly understand the European and American literature of the 20th century, welcome to listen.

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