According to Deutsche Welle, 2018 coincides with the European Year of Cultural Heritage, and in order to promote the sense of identity of young people in EU countries to the EU, young people who have reached the age of 18 in that year can apply to participate in the "Discover the EU" program, and the selected candidates can take free trains, ferries and buses, and their own food and accommodation are required to pay for themselves. Don't envy them, it's just a "koi" benefit, with only a few tens of thousands of people winning the lottery before and after, no better than the train ticket discount we have generally enjoyed since we were 18 years old when we went to college.
At this moment, after enjoying the "May Day" holiday, you must be on the way back. What kind of stories will you read on the round-trip train? Today, let's talk about the little history of trains and reading.
Dickens almost died of a train derailment
In the Spring Festival of 2007, a Guangzhou Abel with full hair and yellow robes, claiming to be a descendant of Dolgun, made a big fuss at the railway station because he did not buy a train ticket, and said that other passengers and railway workers were "all slaves", and it was not only this "Wang Ye" who had opinions about trains.
In the 1850s, the British art critic John Ruskin
（John Ruskin)
Indignantly, he wrote: "By train, I cannot regard it at all as a journey; it is just being sent to another place, no different from a parcel." This well-educated artist from Oxford University could not accept groups of rural buns "packed" by the black monster of the train to point at historical monuments and art treasures.
The artist is still following the travel style of his predecessors such as Goethe and other nobles, accompanied by servants everywhere, self-employed in cars, horses, boats, and boats, and naturally staying in the ancient castles of the rural nobles, rather than flea bugs, and overzealous fat girls serving and eating in small hotels.
The Liverpool-Manchester train opened in 1830, painted by A.B. Clayton.
But there are always people who can stand at the tide of the development of the times and see clearly the direction of history. Heine, who loves to take the train, in "The Horse and the Donkey"
(Horse and donkey)
The nobles and commoners are compared to white horses and donkeys, respectively, in the face of the speeding and roaring train", "the horses sigh deeply and cry / The donkey has been in this / Calmly / Eat two thistle grass bulbs", the nobles Mather shivered, worried that he would be replaced by trains and driven by humans, lose food and grass, and be eliminated by society. Civilian donkeys are calm and idle, do not care, let the world change, and can always earn bowls of rice and food by labor. Mark Twain on the American continent in "The Fool Goes Abroad"
(The Innocents Abroad, translated by Zhan Hongzhi as "The Book of The Buns And Puts the Ocean")
Zhongda praised this invention that allowed the countrymen to enter the city at a cheap price to visit the Crystal Palace and open their eyes.
No matter how much the nobles did not want to see this iron fellow, the train spewed smoke and roared into the world of literature. Dickens, who had no affection for trains, almost died in 1865 due to a train derailment, and this unpleasant experience drove him to write the short story "The Signalman"
（The Signal-Man）
, which became recognized by far as one of the best horror stories ever recorded. Dickens saw the train as the devil that devoured everything and wrote the long story "Dong Bei Father and Son"
（Dombey And Son)
。 The Great Russian Writers Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, respectively, in the work "Idiot"
（The Idiot）
and the Cruz Sonata
（The Kreutzer Sonata）
Arrange a long-distance train to kick off the story. But Tolstoy never expected that the final curtain of his life would also be related to the railway—at the age of eighty-two, he ran away from home to escape his wife and eventually died at the railway station.
The Travelling Companions (1862) by The British painter Augustus Egg depicts a train in a first-class carriage as it passes through the south of France.
Woolf saw the train as a symbol of the new literature
As Anna Karenina stared at the other passengers on the train to St. Petersburg and wondered: What am I? Am I myself, or some other woman? When we sit on the train and see the picture composed of successive moments, we become sentimental, or think of the humor of the past, or complain about the hatred of the woman, or study the past and future of human beings, or think about the existence and nothingness of life. When we see the buffalo farmer in the field by the railway, the old man who is eating at the door, we often think, did he see me? What was he thinking? Did he know I was watching him? Years from now, will I remember the eye contact that flashed out of the car window? At some point, I realized that what was constantly receding out of the car window was not only the scenery, but also the life we were passing...
The thoughts triggered by this constantly changing flowing scene are aligned with the taste of the stream of consciousness. In 1923, Woolf published a manifesto about the modern novel, "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown", after pointing out that realism could no longer meet the expressive needs of the people at that time, and made a paradigm for the new literature: one night, she was catching a train, and there was an old man sitting face to face in the carriage, let's call this old lady Mrs. Brown! If the reader, in the company of Mrs. Brown, hears intermittent conversations, then a thousand thoughts come to mind in a day... For Woolf, the train seemed to be a symbol of the new literature.
Train travel spurs new reading needs
Long journey, the beautiful scenery outside the window will also make people feel bored, in the speeding train, if there is no travel companion chat pastime, and do not want to communicate with strangers, the only thing you can do is to close your eyes and pretend to sleep, in order to avoid the awkward gaze of the passengers opposite.
German scholar Wolfgang Schifferbüsch
(Wolfgang Schivelbusch)
In his Journey to the Railway: The Industrialization of Space and Time in the 19th Century, passenger complaints about this situation were collected, and one passenger submitted a letter to the Railroad Times.
（The Railing Times）
Asked for a modified seat: "Speaking of the internal arrangements of the railway carriages... I earnestly... It is recommended to the public that in each car it is possible to fit together some carriages so that passengers can sit back-to-back ... This would be much more comfortable than sitting for three or four hours in a row studying the faces of others and finding no better pastime."
The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Space and Time in the 19th Century, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, translated by Jin Yi, Century Wenjing | Shanghai People's Publishing House, July 2018.
The self-proclaimed "enemy of debt imprisonment and travel imprisonment" did not achieve his goal, but the subway was later changed to parallel seats, but everyone still looked at each other face to face. Unlike in our days, when people put on headphones and immersed themselves in their phones, they were basically isolated from the people around them. At that time, the British, who were still in the age of innocence, were accustomed to the calm and peaceful countryside, living in a village centered on churches, walking on the endless meadows nourished by the climate of the west wind belt, watching the snow-white sheep rolling, a picture of the life of a country pastoral, and did not know how to naturally and comfortably coexist with strangers in a narrow and closed carriage, let alone add WeChat to sell masks and the like after three words and two words.
Therefore, during the journey, a book suitable for entertainment is a must, and a new reading demand arises.
Keen businessmen sniffed the opportunities, the first of which was W.H. Smith
(W.H. Smith)
The company was founded in 1848 at The Ustown train station in London
（Euston Station)
The first railway station newsstand, the full name W.H. Smith Book and Newspaper Subscription Library, was opened
(W.H.Smith&Books Subscription Library)
According to the page advertisements circulated, the sales scope of elite books and newspapers includes important works such as art, biography, travel, novels, poetry, and technology, as well as mainstream magazines and reviews.
W.H. Smith at a newsstand at King's Cross Station in London in 1910. Image source: The Evolutionary History of the Book.
Based on a 1861 german novelist Ernst Philip Karl Langey
(Ernst Philipp K. Long)
Under the pseudonym Philip Galen
（Philip Galen）
Written "The Madman of St. James"
（The Madman of St. James）
For example, there are many types of new book information before and after the book, the best writer and the best work sales list, and the back cover is a promotional advertisement for Dumas's novel. According to the book branch, with the laying of the railway in the Uk, there were already more than 160 chain newsstands at that time. It also develops overseas business, with a branch in principal railway station in Dublin, Ireland.
W.H. Smith's success has drawn the lead from others, publisher Rodridge
（Routledge)
This was followed by the creation of the Rodridge Railroad Library
（Routledge's Railway Library)
，
Carry out book sales and rental business. In the 1850s and 1860s, it was its glory period, when the Yellow Book series was issued
（Yellow back)
Includes the work of 120 writers, from Jane Austen to Edmund Yates. In 1853, the company bought Edward Bouvel Lipton for twenty thousand pounds
（Edward Bulwer Lytton)
Distribution rights for the cheap edition of the work, the first year only "Edward Novels Anthology"
（My Novel）
Twenty-six thousand copies were sold, writers and publishers were well profited, and the railway was credited with it.
The Selected Works of Edward Novels, published by Rodridge, is priced at two shillings in the upper right corner. Image credit: British Library.
In France, in 1852 Louis Achte founded the Library of Railways
(Railway Libraries)
of bookstores, and with the permission of the French government, monopolized the book business in the national railway station, and to this day, Achet still holds the chain book newsstand "Herey"
(Relay)
。
Mystery writers are keen to render cramped uneasiness in the carriage
The high-speed rail has made everyone realize the wish to go away, but you can't prevent the hegemonic doctor who said that he wouldn't move the nest if he didn't move the nest, and Ren Er sat with the ticket, and I didn't move. There is also the big mother who forgets the self-singing song; the outgoing brother who is enthusiastic about sharing the episodes; the live broadcast party that imitates Hong Kong and Taiwan... The train journey is like a box of chocolates, and the moment you get on the train, you never know what "weird" is sitting next door to you. Victorian train passengers, on the other hand, may be more frightened than you are, because they also have to deal with manic patients who are constantly occurring – and perhaps even themselves.
The Railway Station, William Powell Frith, 1862. Two detectives in top hats on the far right caught the suspect who was trying to escape by train, and although he was neatly dressed, the mud on his shoes showed flaws. The painter divides the foreground of nearly 90 figures into three large groups, each with its own class, personality, different destinations and, of course, different stories. Image credit: Royal Holloway, University of London.
At that time, some doctors believed that the fast-moving and shaking carriages were detrimental to health and could easily cause mental mania. From the 1860s to the 1870s, newspapers and magazines began to report on the strange behavior of train passengers, usually describing people who seemed calm after boarding the train, suddenly out of control, had a manic attack, and even had to jump out of the window. Medical journals at the time were very concerned about this phenomenon and wanted to find ways to detect potential train maniacs; the media was also quite enthusiastic about fresh sensational news and began to report on it in large volumes, allowing the story of the "British Train Madman" to fly across the ocean. An "American traveler" then took the train with a revolver for fear of encountering a madman.
Some people have manic attacks on the train, of course, there are also petty thefts, and there are conspiracies to murder. Reading detective novels in such an environment must be very exciting. Speculative writers will not give up this excellent material, desperately adding oil and vinegar, exaggerating the cramped uneasiness of this unfamiliar environment.
An illustration in The Illustrated Police in 1889 depicts a passenger who has a manic episode intending to jump off a train. Image credit: British Library.
The most outstanding speculative novelist Agatha Christie, her "Murder on the Orient Express" is a classic of train reasoning stories, driving to the thousand-year-old capital of Istanbul's luxury bus, seemingly unconnected passengers, strange death booksellers, the great detective Poirot's meticulous reasoning, originally thought that the truth was about to be revealed, but more and more confusing, everyone has alibi evidence, everyone is suspicious.
Just as the cases in speculative fiction often occur in seaside towns, deserted villages and castles, these places, like carriages, are closed spaces far from mainstream society, temporarily avoiding the legal and moral supervision of mainstream society, and crime is easy to breed. It is precisely this environment that allows a retired and untapped detective like Poirot to free his hands and feet and swim between the boundaries of law and morality. At the same time, this situation is also far away from advanced technology, and the detective's subtle observation and meticulous logic have become the main tools for solving the case, and the plot is more fascinating.
In "The Mystery of Her Blue Train" and "Murder on ABC", the train is an important clue. Arthur Conan Doyle's train travel is also often the place where crimes are staged, and "The Hound of Bashkeville" is typical of trains used to reveal or hide evil. In the Copper Beech Case, Holmes asks Watson to check all the train records in britain in the month of the crime, and the crime and the handling of the case are affected by the train. In many of Wilke Collins' stories, the train also plays a heavy role.
In "Murder on ABC", the "ABC Rail guide" that runs through the case is a popular railway travel manual in the 1930s.
Closed carriages help writers expose humanity even more
The TV series "Moscow Action" broadcast in 2018 allowed the audience to understand the horrific criminal activities that occurred on the Sino-Russian international train in the early 1990s, and many parents once again taught the children who worked outside the home the ancient adage that "the heart of prevention is indispensable".
Unlike the great uncertainty of the entry and exit of the railway station and the coming and going of people, although the carriage is moving, it is relatively closed for a certain period of time. Once the train enters Mongolia in the "Sino-Russian Train Robbery", it is in an extralegal place without police supervision; or in an emergency, such as desert derailment, deep mountain mudslides, wasteland blizzards, etc.; or a zombie invasion like the movie "Busan Trip", it is easy to form a moral and legal "no man's land".
Mark Twain's "Cannibalism on the Train" describes a group of American gentlemen in straight suits, on a train that has been stopped because of a snowstorm, in order to solve the food problem, after a strict democratic process of inscription, reconsideration, revision of proposals, free discussion, voting on amendments to the vote, and then elected as companions - they themselves have the right to participate in the vote, in the face of these foods, everyone comments on whether it is delicious, and naturally there are victims of poor meat quality who are rejected. After reading it, it is creepy and frightening. Although the author intends to mock American-style parliamentary democracy, he can't help but remind people of the words on the Lu Rong fishing boat No. 2682 eight years ago: "If the rest of the people want to survive, they must be stained with blood." In addition, Thomas Mann's "Train Accident", Ryunosuke Wasagawa's "Orange", and Huang Chunming's "Days of Watching the Sea" are all masterpieces of human characterization in the carriage.
Cannibalism on the Train, published in Broadway Annual in 1868. Image source: Word Press.
A social picture in the carriage
The smooth and smooth high-speed railway not only symbolizes the amazing speed of China, but also carries the pride of Chinese. Looking back at history, in modern times, Chinese's feelings about the railway are quite complicated. From the demolition of China's first railway after being redeemed by the Qing government and the horse-drawn train on the Tangxu Railway, to Zhan Tianyou's design and construction of the Beijing-Zhang Railway to save national dignity. From the Baolu Movement that led to the overthrow of the Qing government by the Wuchang Uprising, to Sun Yat-sen's "Strategy for The Founding of the People's Republic" and the revitalization of the railway. In this way, the train is entangled with the politics and society of modern China.
Although the train as an advanced technology was expected by the sages, the owners of this technology are also the great powers that bully us, and of course there is emotional resistance. For example, in Wu Zhaoren's "After the Stone", the old and young people in the "civilized realm" made great accusations against the timely start of the train, believing that it was inhumane and could not go with people's needs. Punctuality and punctuality are the necessary guidelines for people's lives under industrial civilization, and it is precisely to ensure the punctuality of the railway, and the clocks between places are also unified. The Wu Zhao people, who pursue progressive civilization, call it a "barbaric method" through the mouths of old and young people, and as Chen Jianhua said, "there is still a cultural resistance mentality." Chen Diexian's "New Wine Traces", Sun Jungong's "Travel" and Feng Yuanjun's "Travel" present the symbolic significance of the train in social change and women's liberation, respectively.
"New Wine Traces", by Chen Diexian, serialized in Novel Pictorial, 1917. It is described that the old "Shanghai drifter" Zhao Boren, who did not make a name for himself in Shanghai, took the train back to Hangzhou to "run to save the country" in order to gain benefits in the chaos of the Early Minchu. The train departed, and there were shameless and braggarted politicians, prostitutes posing as students, asshole old wives who claimed to be heroes of Xinhai, as well as newspaper editors, businessmen, xiangshi and other characters, forming a realistic drama of the early Minchu society. The illustration shows that Zhao Boren was reluctant to throw down the two-dollar newly bought toilet, and then moved it to the carriage and brought it back to his hometown in Hangzhou.
After the reform and opening up, different social groups began to be estranged because of economic and cultural differences, in Acheng's novel "Sleeper", the kind and simple Henan soldiers who longed for culture, the female Wenqing who read the poetry collection but coldly disrespected people, the enthusiastic rural uncle, and the "I" of the cadres on business. Although they are in the same carriage, they are clearly four groups that cannot understand each other, especially the conflict between Henan soldiers and female Wenqing, which shows that the gap and misunderstanding between different groups are increasing, and the warmth of the once agricultural society has disappeared.
The poet Yu Jian's prose "Train Record" is very wonderfully portrayed, which is really the most vivid description of the train ride in Chinese the 1980s and 1990s before the high-speed rail was popularized. Panic before buying tickets, excessive nervousness in parents before departure, chaos at the station, complicated interpersonal relationships after boarding the train — unwarranted enthusiasm can arouse suspicion, but excessive alienation can cause isolation, and the consequences are even more serious: if someone blatantly ignores the protection of this sense of security and refuses to join the party of these six people
(Refers to the six people in the sleeping car)
If he is self-proclaimed, then the man will immediately become a public enemy and be isolated; the car selling lunch at noon will come, without reminding him, and he will fall asleep hungry; someone will rummage over his property and pretend not to see it; he will go to the toilet, he will carry the property, and no one will be willing to take his eyes for him... In an occasion far from fellow countrymen, acquaintances, colleagues, leaders, and never fixed, always on the move, man could have gone his own way, only to find that he still could not let himself go, and that his separation from the masses anywhere would have disastrous consequences. The characters, scenes, and emotions described by the poet are so direct and so real. It is estimated that every reader who has experienced green cars will be praised and recall the booming social development and slowly changing human society in the great changes of reform in the 1980s and 1990s.
Reading on a Train, by Edward Clark, 1949. Image courtesy of LIFE.
Reading is like a rail journey
As an airplane passenger, trapped in a narrow seat at an altitude of 20,000 feet, it is too "off the ground" and difficult to say the real feeling of "sticking to the ground"; the ship will isolate you in the boundless ocean; the bus will trap you in the traffic of the road traffic, and owe the possibility of withdrawal.
So, today, we still think that the train is always the best metaphor for the reading experience. Because the train is close enough to the ground, people can enjoy the scenery outside the window, but also maintain a moderate safe distance. Just like the reader's relationship with the book, no matter how much you invest, you don't have to take any responsibility for the role. Many writers also pursue this kind of distance when writing, locking themselves in their rooms and developing an intimate relationship with their characters. Woolf's 1919 short story "Condolences"
（Sympathy)
, this delicate relationship is accurately described:
On an express train, I saw hills and fields, and saw a man with a scythe, looking up through the fence as we passed, and a couple of lovers lying on the grass, staring at me without hesitation. Some burdens were lifted and some obstacles were removed.
Author Beijing News reporter He An'an intern Wang Saibei
Edited by An Ye and proofread by Xue Jingning