According to Wenjin Publishing House, Zhang Guruo's daughter and translator Zhang Ling died at 0:06 on November 1 at the age of 86. Zhang Ling's last book and the one she cared about the most, "The Wind and Snowflake Moon of Cloth Father: Translator Zhang Guruo and His Century" (hereinafter referred to as "Cloth Father's Wind and Snowflake Moon") has recently been published by Wenjin Publishing House. Zhang Ling once said, "When this book was conceived in my mind, body and mind, it accompanied me to visit my father, mother, family and friends again, it made me taste the bitterness and sweetness of the past again, and let me live again for a lifetime." ”
Zhang Ling (1936-2022), translator.
According to the data, Zhang Ling was born in Beijing in 1936, was admitted to the Chinese Department of Peking University in 1954, began to publish poetry and prose during her studies, and served as an editor and reviewer of the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and an honorary Chinese advisor to the Dickens Museum (London). Zhang Ling has edited and reviewed large series of books such as "Foreign Literature Theory Series", "Foreign Literature Research Materials Series", and "20th Century European and American Literature Discussion Series", and is the author of "Yuzhai String Sound", "Free Association of Travel", "Hardy", "Great British Novelist - Dickens", "Biography of the Painter Zong Qixiang", etc., and her translations of "Wuthering Heights", "Pride and Prejudice", "History of Priest's Love", "Lonely Abyss", "Mayor of Custer Bridge", "A Tale of Two Cities" and other editions have become the research objects of many translation papers. In Other Words, a summer 2008 issue of the British literary translator magazine, featured her as a "highly successful female translator."
In "The Wind and Snowflake Moon of Daddy in Cloth", Zhang Ling fondly recalled and depicted Mr. Zhang Guruo's mixed life, rich and delicate inner world and independent and rigorous academic spirit, and looked back at her father again with the perspective of "a middle-aged daughter who has been adrift for more than 20 years and has returned to her hometown".
The following content is excerpted with the permission of the publisher from "The Snowy Moon of Cloth Father", and the content is the preface of the book "Mountain and Sea Festival". The illustrations used in the text are from the book.
"The Snowy Moon of Cloth Dad: Translator Zhang Guruo and His Century", by Zhang Ling, Wenjin Publishing House, October 2022.
Original author丨Zhang Ling
The car travels north along the motorway, from London to Edinburgh. For more than ten weeks, he has traveled to England, heel wirelessly, watching, listening, collecting, thinking, for himself and for his father at home in Beijing. Our ninety-year-old father, who is now in bed, did not like to travel in his old age, and every time we traveled on business, we always brought back as many calligraphy and paintings, handicrafts and souvenirs as possible for my father to enjoy. In the United Kingdom, a country that has a lifelong teaching, research and translation career, every detail must not be omitted.
We have traveled to more than a dozen cities and have written back home with some of our observations, especially at the Thomas Hardy International Biennial Conference in Dorchester, England. Because Hardy was the earliest and most laborious writer of his father; Because the annual meeting has a better understanding of the contributions made by my father and his peers and juniors to Hardy in the past 70 years, and gives high praise; It is also because my grandson and I Zhang Yang, as representatives of China, received unprecedented warm courtesy at the meeting. Edinburgh was the last stop on the visit. In the car, browsing the green hills, beautiful water, cattle and sheep, and church spires that flashed by the roadside, we discussed in a low voice what to do for my father and other relatives and friends before returning to China. The terrain is getting higher and higher, Edinburgh is getting closer and closer, and the excitement in my heart is getting more and more frequent, as if one foot has stepped on the way home.
Before we arrived in the city center, Grace had already run out and waited for a long time. After a long farewell reunion and emotional pleasantries, she took out several letters that she had been waiting here, one of which was a family letter from Beijing. The plain and thin handwriting of my sister on the envelope seemed to have a little more strength, and a trace of uneasiness suddenly passed through my heart, and I hurriedly opened the letter, and the blood all over my body suddenly froze: "Dad died at 10:58 a.m. on August 18..."
We, in the picture, Zhang Ling and her parents.
The gaze wanders in this line repeatedly, but it is always unable to transmit it to the brain. The consolation of my friends in Edinburgh was only enough to make me hold back the tears in my eyes for a while. Late at night, under the white cover, they rush like open water. It was then that I felt the cold of early autumn in Edinburgh and the bleakness of Grace's Georgeian stone house.
Is my father really dead and never to return?
In just over a month, he will turn ninety-one years old, which can be regarded as the end of his days. Since 1992 Chinese New Year's Eve he suffered a sudden stroke, and although he was carefully treated and conditioned, he never improved. Before we left home to visit the UK, we had anticipated what might happen. But at the moment of his death, the children who stayed with him day and night were not around, which is indeed an irrevocable resentment!
If in the past twenty months, I was not busy with various tasks, but could put more effort into him...
If we could rationally recognize in advance that he had indeed entered the final journey of his life, and cancel this long journey to the country...
If......
Deep hatred brings with it all kinds of delusions that are contrary to the facts.
"Your father will be proud of what you have done, and this is the greatest comfort he will receive on his deathbed."
Friends who wrote or called from all over Edinburgh and England echoed this in unison.
Yes, he persevered in the torment of Beijing's unprecedented heat, and finally waited for the good news of our flight over Guanshan before he passed away.
As early as the beginning of the new year of 1993, we received a letter from Mr. Swan, the executive chairman of the Hardy Annual Conference, and invited us to speak and lead the discussion. Faced with my father, who was in the hospital, I hesitated again and again, but finally did not refuse this hospitality.
I know it's not an easy climb. This is the most authoritative international Hardy academic forum to date. Past speakers have been among the leading academics in the UK and around the world. In 1988, I was the first Chinese scholar to attend the annual conference; This time, like on stage, I will be the first Chinese scholar to give a formal speech. This is not all for myself, but also for my father and for Chinese scholars. Father, as well as some intellectuals of our nation, walked on the remnants of the last century, diligent and persistent, but too humble and reserved, and when they found a proper starting point in their desperate search and hardship, they plunged headlong into the thick soil of knowledge, only caring about cultivation and asking less about harvest; The fruits they cultivate with sweat and hard work are little known even at home, let alone overseas! It was only after the 80s that it began to emerge. Now that our international counterparts want to know more, we should respond. I knew I belonged to the "wasted" generation, far less profound and extensive than my parents. But for the sake of the descendants made of their blood, I should not fail them; And I am convinced that with all that they have generously given since I was born and with all the energy that I have tried to muster, I will succeed.
The torment of a long illness for more than ten months often made my father dissatisfied and angry, and also caused my unhappiness and complaints. But whenever I told him that while serving and caring for him, I had to prepare speeches and do other writing and editing work, he always nodded his gray-haired head vigorously, like an obedient child. I went on two business trips last spring and autumn, and when I said goodbye to him before leaving, he could still shake his still strong hand, nod his head and say, "Safe journey." "Before leaving for England this summer, I stood in front of his hospital bed, close to his ear and read aloud to him the news of our speech in the Hardy Hometown newspaper, and he still nodded his head on the pillow with all his might, and then watched us walk to the door of the ward. Who knew that this was the last impression my father left on me.
Zhang Ling and her father Zhang Guruo in the courtyard of the alley.
The bad news received in Edinburgh was like a heavy cannonball, which shattered the hearts of the sojourns and made it difficult to contain. Although my sister has taken care of the aftermath according to the family customs, I still hope to fly back to my hometown as soon as possible. However, reason whispered in his ear: "How can a hard-won long-distance study trip return halfway!" I repeated these words again and again, swallowed the tears that sometimes swore in my eyes, and finally gathered my spirits and spent the last two weeks in Edinburgh. However, in these two weeks of colorful life, no matter day or night, rain or shine, there is always a gray curtain in front of you.
We climb the castle that the city bears its name, the highest point in the city center, and from its top you can see this ancient and beautiful city with mountains and waters. My father also loved climbing. Zhifu Island, Yantai, Shandong, where he was born, also has such beautiful landscapes. His mother said that he was born tall and strong-footed, and since he was a child, he liked to climb the cliffs of his hometown facing the sea alone, and entertained himself by reading in the woods. He is the son of the gentle climate, the abundant sea, and the fresh woods of his homeland. When I was in elementary school, he still liked to take me after dinner to climb Baita Mountain in Beihai Park near my home in Beijing. He took my little hand and walked all the way, often writing strings of English letters on the back of my hand with his fingers, and reading the awkward words in English with words in his mouth. When you reach the top, you can look up at the night sky, point to the constellations, and tell beautiful legends about them. At that time, he was already an associate professor in the university's English department, and in addition to his own major, he also loved astronomy, geography, history, art, folklore, biology, chemistry, especially traditional Chinese calligraphy, painting and opera. He writes beautiful letters, grass, and letters, and likes to play the flute and sing Kunqu opera in his spare time...
Mom took Zhang Ling and her sister.
Christie took us to the sandy beaches of the North Estuary of the River Forth east of Edinburgh. The desolation here is very different from the beaches of my father's hometown. When I was four years old, my father took me back to my hometown and went to sea for the first time. The buoyancy of the sea was so great that I was swaying and standing unsteadily in the water like a hollow leather doll, and my father put his hands behind his head and asked me to cross his upper arms and lead me step by step to the deep water. My father was not very watery, so he just took me to experience the comfort and saltiness of the sea. When I was a little older, I was left to learn to swim on my own.
It was in this way that he brought me into the sea of life...
We have visited Edinburgh's famous National Library and Art Gallery many times to check out materials and admire the collections. It is also common to walk into the bookstores lining the street to choose a variety of books. My father loved calligraphy and painting all his life. Browsing, purchasing, reading, annotating, and even re-tinkering and binding are important contents of his life, and in his later years, his wife and relatives and friends of the same age have successively passed away, and he has accompanied him by calligraphy and painting. In his final years of semi-paralysis, he still stretched out his still moving left hand on the hospital bed, put on the sleeve of his warm sweater, and read and admired the paintings and calligraphy. His memory is more than ordinary, and he still remembers the classic passages in Chinese and English that he memorized as a teenager. This is also the source of his rich translation and writing. Like some traditional Chinese literati, he was focused on his studies and was not good at practical matters. However, it is very active in the construction of library materials and education in the school...
On Sunday, Grace and Liz took us to visit Walter Scott's house. The hall facing the back garden in this grand castle-like manor house is most nostalgic to me. Before his death, Scott moved under the window of this hall to watch the blue grass and the gently flowing Tweed River pass away. The most revered thing about this colourful Scottish writer is his hard work. The British writers to whom my father devoted himself were also dedicated to his life.
His father himself was only a scholar and a translator, but in the small territory where he diligently, he was the same. While still a college student, he had completed the first draft of Hardy's "Homecoming" in addition to work-study. In the busiest years of teaching and raising a family in young adults, he translated Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbers" and "Jude the Nameless", Dickens's "David Copperfield", as well as Shakespeare's poems, Shaw's plays, and did English translations of Tang and Song poems. In the process of translation, in order to properly deal with some difficult sentences, allusions, notes, punchlines, slang, and jargon, he sometimes wandered for days, slept restlessly, tried in every possible way to find information, consulted with his peers, and asked for advice from the three teachings and nine streams. His translations were widely circulated at home and abroad and won deep praise, but he was never self-satisfied, and after the publication of a book, he always had to revise it repeatedly, almost becoming a fetish. If you occasionally accuse falsehood, you will get the greatest treasure; For some misunderstandings and misjudgments, we must be foolish and stubbornly defend, and we will not hesitate to offend others. At the end of the decade, he lived in a barren alley and fighting room, where the future of the country and his personal education were uncertain, and he was still like a bookworm, using a small pen to revise his already frequently praised translations. Because of this, as soon as the opportunity came, he had a revised translation published; Because of this, his translations have been continuously improved.
Zhang Guruo translated Shelley's poems.
In the 80s, he returned to school for the rest of his life at a truly old age, publishing David Copperfield and Fielding's History of Tom Jones the Outcast, two masterpieces of nearly a million words each. Although the former translation is old in the 60s, a considerable part of it was destroyed by violence, and he used the same energy as the young man to make up hundreds of thousands of words and revise the remaining parts; The latter, most of which was translated between the ages of eighty and eighty-five, was spent about 1,800 mornings in these five years, whether hot or cold, or holidays. This spring, my father, who had been ill for many years, barely held the sample book sent for the first time by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, and although he was no longer able to read it word by word as usual, he still said to us in a weak but clear voice: "I have not lived in vain in this life..."
In the 90s of last century, Zhang Ling and her father Zhang Guruo were at the south gate of Peking University.
My British friends said that my father would be proud of me, which made me both comforted and ashamed. It should be the father who is proud of himself. He is rich and natural by nature, benevolent and benevolent, values reality and lightness, cherishes friendship and family affection, and pays attention to the inner quality of life and self-feeling without pretentiousness; In the world, he is clumsy and does not worry about personal gains and losses; But he never hesitated to the grand events he wholeheartedly identified as morality, integrity, and articles. Between good and evil, he always makes the right choice. As children, we should be proud of him.
Edinburgh is separated from Beijing by the ocean, and there are many mountains, and I was unable to see me off when my father was forever. But in this big round block on which we dwell, a thousand mountains and veins, connected by ten thousand waters, my heart will be electric, riding the mountain wind, and relying on the tide of the sea, I will be able to catch up with my father's undead spirit. You know I'm catching up, and everything in the past is not enough; In the future, I want to make you truly proud, Father!
Original author/Zhang Ling
Introduction author and excerpt / He An'an
Editor/Luo Dong
Proofreading of the introduction part / Li Ming