I believe you have seen a lot of stories or picture books with animals as the protagonists. In times of uncertainty, many people also fall in love with the soft and cute little animals. But have you heard of these animals? Bench Tiger, Time Bear, Dream Fox, Baby Hippopotamus, Wind Chime Lion, Volcano Rabbit, Glass Mammoth, Weather Bath Leopard...
They are all animals that Fan Ye captured in Time Bear, Mirror Tiger and Invisible Kitten. They are not only literary fantasies, but more of a consolation and identification with the way of being. For example, when we doubt that we always mess things up at work, whether it is really very much a failure, we will see the "bad bear" slowly passing by, and everyone who sees it will shout "bad" and run away, even the bad bear himself does not know why. It seems that we have met a kind of person who can be embraced. In the embrace of these fantasy animals, at least we no longer feel the loneliness of ourselves, and we know that any state of life can find a companion in this world.
Fan Ye is best known as a teacher at Peking University and a translator of Spanish literature, translating Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Bolaño's The Unknown University, Cortázar's One Thousand Fires, Sernuda's Poet to the Future, and Infante's Three Sorrowful Tigers. And "Time Bear, Mirror Tiger and Invisible Kitten" is his first literary book, in which he creates all kinds of strange and cute little animals and their wonderful stories. The writer and painter Gu Xiang drew illustrations for him.
In Fan Ye's own view, this is a book that is difficult to define, "Some people say it is fantasy literature, some people say it is fairy tales or pseudo-fairy tales, which makes sense." The book is divided into two parts: Animal Manual and Invisible Kittens and Other Stories. In the "Animal Handbook", the author has fictionalized more than 40 kinds of animals such as bench tigers, weather bath leopards, and time bears according to modern zoological classification methods, and has also carefully compiled Latin names for them. In "Invisible Kittens and Other Stories", the author is more willful and arbitrary, telling strange stories, the storyteller is serious nonsense, and the listener is satisfied to accept it all. And these seemingly innocent imaginations also reveal complex and warm emotions. Let us in the moment full of uncertainty, as if we have received a big hug.
"Time Bear, Mirror Tiger and Invisible Kitten", by Fan Ye / Gu Xiang, Edition: Century Wenjing| Shanghai People's Publishing House Time Bear Culture May 2022
Animals have a special meaning (with the exception of insects) for both children and adults, and their presence in works of art often implies a release—we long for another world outside the rules of human society, and the world represented by animals is often simple—whether it's the world of cute rabbits and cats, or the world of dark underground snake caves, we know the laws of it at a glance.
Even the fiercest animals in nature are usually simple images in the creation of literature and art, especially compared with the human nature we encounter in life or work, what life can provide simple comfort than animals?
But of course, the image of animals also encounters a problem, that is, it is difficult to change the impression that snakes are cold and evil, tigers are ferocious and violent, pigs are clumsy, etc., and we cannot directly deny that these views are stereotyped, even if writers such as Jan Martel have tried to make the image of animals out of the traditional perception in novels, and Latin American novelists will have evil rabbits and cowardly leopards in their pens, but the tone of the animal image has been determined by the state of nature (not just fables). Many times, this established image no longer meets our needs.
For example, we expect in life to have a cute animal, like a plush toy, to accompany us, but can provide warmth, and has a furry texture of the animal, the bear, in the natural state and the established impression can not be so intimate with humans, so we need fantasy to fill and even recreate the image of a bear, so that it appears in the vision of our inner desire.
In Time Bear, Mirror Tiger and Invisible Kitten, there are many such fantasy animals. Some of them read like fairy tales for children, such as the eye salt swallow, a creature that can explain why children cry and cry and don't cry; There are some animals with a slight philosophical color, such as the mirror tiger, it is not afraid of anything, very brave, but only afraid of one thing - the mirror, it is afraid that one day in the mirror is not himself, but another tiger that knows all his secrets, this story seems to be able to explain the image projected by many people in real life, including those who seem to be fearless, people who like to talk big at work, leaders who seem to have a very commanding temperament, To what extent their image comes from the construction of the unreal self, and how easy it is to collapse when they touch the real self, but outside the story, I prefer to believe that if the mirror tiger really collapses one day, then the first thing they do should be to destroy the mirror.
Mirror Tiger
Bench Tiger
There are also bench tigers who can explain love relationships. Their bodies were originally maverick tigers in the wilderness, and they became benches because they wanted to provide a place for someone to live. However, this practice of self-repression is difficult to continue forever, and one day, the bench tigers who used to behave very docile will lose patience, and at that time, the people sitting on it may be surprised that you are not like this before. There is nothing wrong with this accusation, but there is also another fact: the bench tiger is not what it is.
At present, the bench tiger is on the verge of extinction, "almost all the bench tigers have died of hunger", which is very in line with the situation of modern society, especially when both parties in modern love emphasize independent self and personality - in fact, when compromise and sacrifice appear in love, it also has noble significance, but time will always destroy the meaning it shows, people sitting on the bench will not think of the hunger of the bench tiger, the bench tiger will not think that he occasionally needs some time to get up and walk around, It is better to show the contradiction between man and tiger from the beginning. It's easier and more natural to do so, but the imminent extinction of bench tigers is a very sad thing.
The other fantasy animals are more of a projection of our living conditions.
Silent Bear
Including the silent bear that seems to have a sense of social fear, "wherever there is silence", the insomnia bear who can't sleep, the sleeping bear who likes to travel in bed, the magnet rhinoceros that will be attracted to each other if you see it, and will never be separated again... These animals will appear in our lives, even, and some of them are ourselves.
Author Fan Ye: Doctor of Literature, teaches at the Department of Spanish-Portuguese Languages at Peking University. Friends of felines. Translations include García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Cortázar's One Fire, Invent's Three Sorrowful Tigers, Sernuda's The Poet of The Future, and Bolaño's The Unknown University. He is also the author of "The Poet's Slowness" and so on. The Time Bear, The Mirror Tiger and the Invisible Kitten is his first fantasy literary work.
Painter Gu Xiang: Writer and painter. He graduated from the Department of Drama and Literature of Shanghai Theater Academy and the Master of Journalism department of Moscow State University. He is the author of the essay collection "Zhao Qiao Village", "Good Kitten", "In Russia", the short story collection "For Unhappy Joy", the long novel "West Heaven", "Safe Exit" and so on. He has held solo exhibitions, designed T-shirts, and painted many book covers. Time Bear, Mirror Tiger and Invisible Kitten is her first fantasy literary painting.
The author Fan Ye said that some of the earliest stories in this collection were written in Mexico and Spain more than ten or twenty years ago, and there was no intention of writing a book at the beginning, but it was gradually accumulated under the love and encouragement of friends. In the future, he plans to rewrite some of the stories again, but the names of the animals remain the same, and new fantasy animals will be added.
As adults, these fantasy animals are worth cherishing, because one day they may disappear from your world or become endangered in social life. Taking advantage of the fact that we can still capture the existence of these animals with the naked eye, we also asked Fan Ye questions about certain fantasy animals, looking forward to learning more about the whereabouts and living habits of these animals. But before that, I would like to share a small poem from the book, which seems to be the planet inhabited by all fantasy animals:
"Growing Up"
The fish tank grew up, but the tropical fish did not.
The car grew up, and the wheels didn't.
Stories grow up, storybooks don't.
The racket grew up, the table tennis didn't.
The glasses grew up, the eyes didn't.
The air conditioner grew up and the air didn't.
Flying saucers grow up, the universe does not.
The red light grew up, the green light didn't.
The stairs grew up and the feet didn't.
The door lock grew up, and the door didn't.
The other guy grew up and I didn't.
"Kitten Series"
Ask the author
Miyako/Wen
Liu Xiaofei/Cartography
Walk/edit
Proofreading/Lin Zhao