In the midst of the epidemic, it has become a luxury to travel with friends and talk about candlelight at night. The accumulated loneliness of the heart and the difficulty of facing the world allow us to return to the spiritual life. The pandemic has not only changed the real world, but also our inner world. When we witness history, we occasionally seek self-consolation in the details of life, or re-look back at historical coordinates, or listen to whispers in front of the past.
When history collides with their own circumstances, Chinese readers are often accustomed to re-entering the study, both to seek solace and to re-imagine; Both to seek an explanation of the present moment and to adjust the mind and body. Revisiting the pages of books you have read in the past may also find some new explanations and understandings; The mood and words of those ancients outside the pen seem to have another sympathetic connection with us at this moment. And reading in the present seems to give us a rare sense of history - between the past, the present and the future, our encounters are not unique, and human beings sometimes have similar escapes and liberations under the burden of similar spirituality.
Independent scholars Yan Bugeng and Wang Xiaoyu, in the case of being blocked from different places and not being able to meet, shared their life and reading experiences with each other through ancient letters. Without the drunken ear heat between old friends, the distance in space and the lack of timely reply also make their communication add a serious thinking; Also because of the casual style of letter writing, the idea of life and reading is also more emotionally frank. Revisiting the ancient way of communicating has another fun in the present; In any case, they present their mood and thoughts, reflecting their emotions and reason. Maybe you might have that resonance too?
Brother Xiaoyu:
I am ashamed to say that the "Four Great Masterpieces" have not been carefully read so far, and the rebellious psychology since I was a child has kept me away from many yuan classics and created the reading habit of books that are good and cold. At times, james Wood's words are used to comfort one's ignorance and blankness: "Academic literary criticism is, in the final analysis, a belated institutional usurper." ”
Of course, occasionally in his free time, reading the classics in depth can also achieve the kind of spiritual pleasure that Nabokov called through the "spine" and "shoulder blades". Just as my brother re-reads Water Margin's new reading experience, great works invite us to observe more and more closely, and they also invite us to participate in the transformation of the subject from metaphor and imagery, so that all the details regain the vitality it has. Just like the details of Ruan Xiao's five-fold pomegranate flowers on the sideburns, let you re-gaze at the pomegranate blossoms downstairs in the passive home life.
The English critic Christopher Ricks once gave this analogy about classic judgments: the best way to test literary value is to see whether the person's sentences or images or phrases can make you wander along the streets without being summoned to your mind; Or they allow us to examine all the deductions and disguises of the self, fear and ambition, pride and sorrow. The length of life in the details of life, or the present, or the memory, or the inspiration, is whether we can be saved from the daily quagmire of gags, numb jokes, and forgetting and neglect that surround or threaten us.
Mark Chagall, "Solitude"
The details of life that are saved, like secret narratives of infinite reproduction, can always grow new stories from the story, multiply themselves in our bodies, and bring greater density values to life. Even, the inner life sometimes collides with the outer life because of this, and the inner self speed and the external rising and falling speed always form a huge tear. These inner shames and contradictions constitute the self-revolution of daily life, so that you and I can be like conspirators, through which to obtain more possibilities, just like my brother said: "Looking at the black and white light and shadow, the red and white durian flowers, for a moment there is a little trance, I don't know if this body is for me?" ”
I remember that at the beginning of the epidemic, I was trapped in a poor rural area because I could not return to Beijing, and I always liked to run to the back eaves of the house every day after waking up, visit the two Luo Han pine planted by hand in previous years, and seemed to want to see how these little beings could grow up in the night every day. After this epidemic, they have become one of my worries when I am wandering outside. The growth process of these little lives, like all the small things I have experienced in the past, is more and more important to me. As we get older, it seems that this importance becomes more and more important, not that they are more important than others, but that it is more and more important to understand that many things are becoming more and more important. Even, at a time when these many things are becoming more and more important, it seems that they will grow a little bit more every day, and they will become more and more important...
Under the dual experience of reading details and feeling the details, nothing seems to be unforgivable, but it makes itself more and more unforgivable, and occasionally it becomes an inner regurgitation that is difficult to get rid of. Because they can make us aware of how we unconsciously defend or betray ourselves. This crisis of life, which is forced at home and abroad, becomes, upon scrutiny, what Guy Debogh calls a "permanent scandal", like a firecracker poured down from the rain; Fear of learning to forgive yourself easily has made every day a daily exercise in a sense. Intermittently, I would always silently read DuoYu's poem "Mom, Don't Be Sad".
These feelings are derived from life experiences, but they are also accurately distilled by James Wood. His "Novel Machine Zhu", "Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and Fiction", "Breaking the Rules: Thesis Science and Faith", "Private Goods", "The Closest thing to life", "True Look", were introduced by the publisher Yang Quanqiang and was able to meet Chinese readers. James Wood says the ambition of two decades has been to forge himself into a triple critique of writers, journalists and scholars: to talk about skill like a writer, to be energetic like a journalist, and to channel scholarly criticism so that there is a two-way exchange between inside and outside the academy.
British critic James Wood, former chief literary critic of The Guardian and senior editor of The New Republic, is currently a Columnist for The New Yorker and a professor of literature at Harvard University.
Before reading James Wood's declaration of ambition, after a period of lewd book review writing, I was, as he said, that book reviews were just shells that I needed to use, and what I really wanted to say was always outside of book reviews, those implicit words related to our life experience, although sometimes dismissed as pretentious. Sometimes, the quotation is also to correct that sentimentality, or it may be to comfort itself? In any case, before choosing a book to read or write, it is often the choice of books that can put us "in front of things that challenge common sense" – Calvino, in his interview "I was born in america", believes that important literature is to be able to challenge common sense and constantly offend life.
Whether I am sitting at my desk writing or lying in bed reading a book, I am often confronted with some kind of moral law-like spiritual regurgitation, which always pushes me into an embarrassing situation, both self-fear of the future and reactionary regret of the past. Perhaps Calvino's words in a 1973 interview are apt: "Prudence, in addition to being a basic virtue, has always been a means of survival for species; But perhaps for the mind, indiscretion is the real virtue, that is to say, the real means of the survival of the species is not the idea of prudence, so that everything can be fully and deeply considered, so it is not surprising that the real prudence of the species is the idea of not being cautious. ”
As a result, Susan Sontag's words in her diary are often recited: "If I can give up the life of thought, I would rather live an emotional life", because "thought breaks the blandness of life" and constantly offends the quiet and boring life. Or, to piece together Calvino's interview words: "A person systematically wastes his life to protest the waste of life", allowing himself to live a "joy that no one sees"?
Recently, liberalization has begun to resume social mobility. The other day, when I went out to dinner with my editor's friends, two people cried on the spot, or cried because they recalled the depression they encountered in their childhood, or wept because of the guilt of being away from their children. Although the two are not sentimental people, and they have more gags or tones every day, this occasional stinging sensation makes the banquet so quiet that it is terrible, and I, who are often troubled by regurgitation, even warn the two people: "Life occasionally needs to cheat, but you can't learn to forgive yourself easily." "Looking back, looking back at yourself, it's a bit ironic.
"Han Liu Tang Collection" Author: Chen Yinke Version: July 2015 Life, Reading, And New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore
People of my generation of the same age have more or less finally reached the embarrassing age of facing all kinds of life. Somehow, intermittently like to read the diaries of the past, the years are like galloping, the wind and dust are exhausted, the age is different and the mood is different, and the preferences are different, just like the brother gladly gained a new understanding when he re-read it. It is like last weekend before going to bed on the windowsill to reflect the moon, when the curtain was pushed to invite the moon into the house, "Remembering the Night Tour of the Heavenly Temple" was just eighty-four words, suddenly arriving, the words in the middle, the situation in between, it was really not the age, it was difficult to enter the situation, and it was a little difficult for students to choose primary and secondary school textbooks.
When it is difficult to sleep, it seems that idly flipping through the diary of a close person seems to be a kind of escape from the noise of the world, and it is also a kind of compensation for the self? The times are too big, the distance is too far, and there must be some whispers in small corners that can communicate with each other at any time. As Chen Yinke said in the "Preface to Giving Jiang Bingnan": "One day, I even checked the old books on the shelf, saw that there were nine subsets of Yi Tang, took it and read it, did not like its text, but deeply envied it." I think that the sons of Wei Qiu, on the occasion of the Ming and Qing dynasties, can still be brothers and friends to protect the same place, and calmly talk about literary theory at the time of Qiansha Kunqi, which is not a great blessing for the world. ”
Speaking of Jiang Youcuiwei's nine sons, they also spent some time on them. After graduating from university, he was not immediately employed, and for many years he was in the awkward role of freelance writer; In fact, if she is excluded from society, the success of those around her often highlights her own embarrassment. Even, there was a time when my parents almost gave up on me, but they imposed their expectations on me because of the gossip of the village. At that time, reading Yi Tang Jiuzi was actually to feel the tragic encounter of Wei Zi having an old mother to feed and no rice to cook: lying in a rock cave, reading and cutting, traveling from the heart, but it was difficult to stop the embarrassing situation of the worldly body...
This occasional cheating mentality, or the method of empathy with people, may be able to resist the arrogance of time, in order to salvage the "frightening body" under the long ditch and the moon, and occasionally cheat in a posture, escape the fate of drowning, and find a new sunny, right? For example, in the glory of the king and the stranger push the tower end nest; For example, I am a little pretentious at the moment, and my brother is mixed with these some of them...
Strict step cultivation
2022-05-21 Recreate the image of Khotan outside the window
Brother Yan:
Near good! Thank you for sharing Mr. Chen Yinke's statement on the "Nine Sons of Yitang": "Brothers and friends gather together to calmly talk about literary theory at the time of Qiansha Kunqi." "It is also a comfort for brothers to cry with friends and songs. Usually busy with life and survival, only now reply, please forgive me.
The biggest change on my side is that I am finally out of the community after eighty days apart. At midnight on June 1st, life seems to be back. I heard that many citizens waited for that moment in the countdown. Outside the outer ring where firecrackers can be set off, there is a crackling sound in the evening. How can there be so many people with firecrackers? Saved for the New Year? Do you have a hunch that this will be useful?
I couldn't stay up late, went to bed early, slept well, and didn't wake up early. When I woke up, I suppressed the idea of taking a walk immediately, and I was worried that once I went out, I would no longer have the heart to read that day. I opened the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, read a few pages, and pretended to work hard.
The Zhonghua Bookstore edition of the twelve-volume Book of the Later Han Dynasty, reading the fifth volume last autumn, had gastrointestinal malfunctions affecting daily life and could only be put down. After recovery, after reading other books, it has been shelved to this day. I picked it up again this time because I read Mr. Wang Zengqi's "Four Essays". Mr. Wang said that after he "took off his hat", he was sent to the potato research station in Guyuan to draw potato atlases, and the book he carried had a set of lead copies of the Commercial Press's "Four Histories": "You can't paint at night - the color is not correct under the lights, I read these books." Since I became an adult, the most attentive reading was in the period of selling the source. ”
Book of the Later Han Dynasty by (Song) Fan Ye Edition: June 2015 Zhonghua Bookstore
Reading through the "Four Histories" seems to be the basic skill of readers in the old days. I had only read "The Chronicle of History", and I couldn't help but feel weak, so I was making up lessons. Reading the Chun Yu Gong part of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, this "old gentleman" (not necessarily old, but he likes "Lao Tzu", can also be called "old gentleman") has an orchard at home, some people swing to grab the picking, not only did not stop, but also helped to harvest, may move a ladder to carry a basket or something; Someone sneaked to cut his family's grass, but when he saw it, he was worried that the other party would be embarrassed, so he quickly hid in the grass and patiently waited for the family grass to be moved before getting up. ("The house has a mountain field fruit tree, and people or thieves, help for harvesting.") See also the thief of the grass, and be ashamed of it, because in the grass, the theft is the beginning...")
Reading this, I remembered that Wang Zengqi wrote about Mr. Jiang Miaoxiang in "Anecdotes in the Art World", someone "snatched him up on the road and flew away", and he shouted the other party back, "I still have a watch here, do you want it?" Later, when talking about this matter, Jiang Miaoxiang said: "He is not easy either. This kind of writing should have the meaning of the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" in the pure and respectful part. Every time a character is written in the "Anecdotes of the Art World", there are "praises" and four-character praises at the end of the chapter, which is also consistent with the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty".
I like the way of directly fighting back in "Water Margin", but I also like Chun Yugong's behavior that is close to "opening the door and stealing", which seems to be contradictory. Chun Yugong, as I understand it, is not incapable of fighting back, but I just don't feel the need, or I have too many fruits to enjoy, or those who come have to suffer. In particular, the "stealers of grass", if forced by survival, Chun Yugong "weak when weak", almost righteous.
The book of the Later Han Dynasty's record of Chun Yugong is too brief, and it is difficult to judge how he "encounters strength": is he "strong when strong", or "weak when strong"? Wu Song is "strong when it is strong", but sometimes it is "strong when it is weak". The blood-spattered slaughter of the Mandarin Duck Tower has been talked about by previous people. Drunkenly beating Jiang Men Shen for a while, Jiang Men Shen is certainly hateful (what is the difference between Jiang Men Shen and Wu Song's benefactor's grace needs to be discussed), but Wu Song threw Jiang Men Shen's wife into the wine tank, if there is a live video circulating, I am afraid that the evaluation is a different scene. The Water Margin writes about this detail: "Poor woman is being thrown straight into the big vat. "Water Margin" has a "misogynistic" plot, and the word "pitiful" here is kept at a distance from Wu Song.
The ideal situation is "strong when it is strong, and weak when it is weak." If it is difficult to do "strong when strong", "weak is weak" seems to be less difficult, right? But in reality, in addition to the strong insulting the weak, it is also the norm for the weak to be embarrassed. The weak do not transfer their failures and resentment in the face of the strong to the weaker, and the weak do not praise the strong who insult themselves or others.
During the sealing period, you can often see photos of potato flowers. Many people hoard potatoes because of germination, can not eat, unfortunately lost, can only let it sprout and flower. The advantage is that there are often flowers in the home, and the flower pots are saved, and most of the pots are changed to onions. Unfortunately, the potato map drawn by Mr. Wang was destroyed by the "Qin Fire", otherwise you can see the map. My brother planted two Luo han pines in the back of the house, which was a luxury, and I could only plant a few shallots with glass bottle water.
After reading a few pages of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, I finally stepped out of the door of the community. I had heard that the outside world was too strange to recognize, and I was mentally prepared. However, "the market is still too peaceful". It seems that overnight (and should be more than overnight), the garbage has been cleared, the trees have been trimmed, the baffles have been removed, and most of the shops have opened, as if more than two months of closure have been in vain. There have also been some changes, and in some places there has suddenly been a long line, and at the end is a new nucleic acid testing point; Some communities have blue tents at the entrances, which read "men's locker room", "women's locker room" and "storage place for outgoing personnel". The seal remains at the door of the business door, which is still closed, and it is with the Spring League "Wind And Luck" and "Tiger to Fulai". The glass door of a wonton shop was closed, and inside there were four plastic baskets of spring onion roots, and some new stems were pulled out with force, and they withered away again. Along the way, some styrofoam boxes are often placed near the wall, filled with soil that I don't know where to go, and the green onions are still planted.
What is said here is only what I have seen; Whether this is universally the case in the city is not up to the question. During the period of confinement, I read "War and Peace". I've been wondering, who can write about the complexities of this era? Thinking of many writers, it is Mr. Lev Tolstoy who has the most such pen power. Tolstoy is good at presenting the ships and people in the sea of history, how it is when it is calm, how it is when it is stormy, and this is nothing; The most difficult thing to write, the undercurrent before the wind, the calm of the storm eye, the surge after the calm of the wind and waves, are not difficult for him. His discussion of the philosophy of history is often empty and pompous, like the folk philosophers of the 80s; Returning to the specific scene, even more sensitive to the details than those who witnessed it: "The end of Moscow has arrived." It was a clear, pleasant, autumnal day. It's a Sunday. As on the usual Sundays, the bells ring in each church for worship. (Liu Liaoyi's translation) a few sentences, the skill is self-evident.
Stills from the 1956 edition of War and Peace
There is a row of pomegranate trees near the residence, and under the tree is a bush of hypericum. Recently, the flowers are slowly falling, the durian flowers are as fresh as blood, the hypericum is brilliant like golden nails, the two petals are staggered, the blood is redder, and the golden armor is more brilliant. Suddenly remembering that your birthday is just around the corner, "time is always flowing." This time first write here, brother take care!
Xiaoyu
June 10-13, 2022 in Shanghai
Author/Yan Bugeng, Wang Xiaoyu
Editor/Yuan Chunxi
Proofreader/Yang Xuli