Among the modern writers of the last century, many who are related to Suzhou can make a long list. Among them, Shi Jingcun, Qian Zhongshu, and Yang Dai are somewhat special. Shi Jingcun was born in 1905, Qian Zhongshu was born in 1910, and Mr. Yang Dai was born in 1911, in addition to similar birth years, they have another common point, that is, they were all born and raised in Jiangnan, Wuyu District, and lived or studied in Suzhou in their early years.
Mr. Shi Jingcun spent a long period of his childhood in Suzhou, this travel and food career partly shaped his early novel creation, the Republic of China generation of first-line writers have such an experience, it seems that he is the only one, from Mr. Shi Jingcun's old texts can see that he and his works are inextricably linked to Suzhou.
Mr. Shi Jingcun (1905-2003), a well-known novelist, essayist, poet, translator and editor at home and abroad since the "May Fourth" in China. He is known as the "Master of New Chinese Literature" by the literary circles at home and abroad, and his literary creation has a wide range of acquaintances so far, and is a research hotspot that has been flourishing in modern Chinese literature and international sinology for a long time.
After entering the university to teach, he became a generation of famous professors with rigorous academic discipline and unique creativity, and achieved outstanding achievements in the fields of poetics, lexicology, comparative literature, ancient book collation, golden stone inscriptions and cultural relics, as well as foreign literary translation and research, and won the "Outstanding Contribution Award", the highest award of the Shanghai Literature and Art Award.
Written by | Ma Mingqian
I have a strong feeling for Mr. Shi's literature (especially novels), and I have always regarded him as the target of tracing in creative practice, and relatively speaking, I know a little more: because I have read the "Chronicle of Mr. Shi Jiecun", I later managed to contact Mr. Shen Jianzhong, the compiler of this annals, and we had a pleasant meeting in Shanghai after several postal messages; three years ago, I personally checked dozens of foreign documents hidden by Mr. Shi at the "Li Oufan Library" of Soochow University, and according to this batch of books, I wrote "Last year" Shi Jicun Foreign Language Collection Discussion" article. In addition, in recent years, I have become acquainted with Mr. Shi's eldest grandson, Brother Shi Shoujue, and I often have contacts with Brother Shoujue in Suzhou and Shanghai, and from him, I have also heard many details of Mr. Shi's life in his later years. Therefore, he wrote a special article on the connection between Shi Jicun and his works and Suzhou.
Memories from The Floating Miscellaneous Arias
Does Mr. Shi Jingcun have any autobiographical information about his childhood in Suzhou?
The standard autobiographical is not, but he wrote the equivalent of an autobiographical "Floating Miscellaneous Verses" group of poems. This group of poems began to be serialized in the Guangming Daily supplement "Dongfeng" in early February 1990. In the "Introduction", Shi Jicun said that the purpose of writing is to "write trivial matters", that is, to collect and record fragments of past lives.
Almost all of the dozen or so poems at the beginning of "Floating Miscellaneous Songs" recall Suzhou's childhood. Each song is followed by a self-annotation, which can be treated as autobiographical material. The second poem is written about Suzhou:
The attendants traveled to Wumen, and wuqi bridge west temporarily totogen.
I remember that in Shen Yuan's home, wisteria flowers were full of decadence.
Self-note: The family name is also zheng, the word is second to, a student of Renhe County, Zhejiang. With Ma Sulun and Huang Gao, he studied together and became friends with him. Even if you quit the examination, you will lose the rank of entering the body. The family was lonely and poor and could not enter the university hall. So he earned a living by teaching apprentices, and gradually became known to Lu Gongmian with writing and calligraphy. Lu Gong served as the supervisor of the Liangjiang Excellent Normal School, invited the family Junsi Wenmu, and was also in charge of the collection of books. So he moved to Suzhou, and initially lived in the Shen family house in Wuqueqiao Lane, and now he no longer remembers it. But remember that his home has wisteria, and the flowers are very blooming.
Shi Yizheng's ancestors were all Confucians, and his father, Shi Yizheng, was a Xiucai of Renhe County, Zhejiang In the late Qing Dynasty, who was friends with Ma Xulun, the founder of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy (Minjin), and Huang Gao, a politician of the Republic of China and a brother of Chiang Kai-shek. In 1905, the late Qing government abolished the imperial examination and implemented a new system of schools, and Shi Yizheng lost the rank of entering the body, so he started teaching at Chen Xia, a member of the Wang clan in Hangzhou, to earn a living. Mr. Shi's mother' surname is Yu, and her name is Tiaomei, and she is from Suzhou. Therefore, if Shi Jingcun is half a Suzhou person, it is no problem.
In 1904, Luo Zhenyu founded the Jiangsu Normal School based on the Suzhou Ziyang Academy, serving as a supervisor, and the Japanese Fujita Toyohachi was the chief teacher. In 1906, Luo Zhenyu was transferred to Beijing and was succeeded by Lu Maoxun. Lu Maoxun was a scholar in the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898), and had previously served as the superintendent of Qiushi Academy and the Zhejiang Higher School.
In 1907, Shi Yizheng began to associate with Lu Maoxun in writing and calligraphy, and was soon invited to Suzhou to help. In 1908, Shi Yizheng and his family moved to Suzhou, and initially rented a house with the surname Shen in the west of Wuqueqiao Lane. This year Shi Jicun was four years old.
At jiangsu normal school, Shi Yizheng served as a literary clerk and concurrently served as the head of the library (library director). Shi Yizheng was fond of reading and managed the library, and there were books inside and outside the home. Shi Jingcun believes that his love of books is inherited from his father. Of course, there are genetic factors, but they are mainly the result of hearing about it. In his later years, he published an essay in the "Book News" entitled "My First Book", which traced his father's collection of books:
My father had twelve book boxes, which contained the books he usually bought with thrift and clothing, and there were all subsets of the history of the scriptures... There are several books about words in my father's book box, such as "Baixiang Lexicon" and "Caotang Shiyu", which I have also read and learned to fill in. At first, I thought that these books belonged to the songwriting, but later I learned that words and songs are two literary forms.
From this point of view, it is these poetry books of his father that have planted the roots of love for classical literature in the heart of the young Shi Jicun. In his later years, he sorted out the collection of words and specialized in lexicology, which seems to have a lot to do with this reading experience in his early years.
In 1909, the following spring after moving to Suzhou, the Shi family moved to Vinegar Warehouse Lane and rented three new houses facing south. See The Floating Miscellaneous Verses part III:
Bu Lin asked the house to move home again, and the furniture was few and dissatisfied with the car.
The new house in vinegar warehouse lane is good, and the south window is scribbled day by day.
Self-note: Ju Wu Que Bridge less than a year, and then moved to the vinegar warehouse lane Zhao's new house. There are three rooms in the south-facing house, and there are double laurel trees in the garden, and the flowers are full of fragrance in the courtyard. In 1954, he went to the Soviet Union to look for old traces. The doors and alleys are still the same as in the past, but the houses have withered away.
In a later article, "Crows", Shi Jingcun also recalled the crow's nest on two laurel trees in the courtyard of Vinegar Warehouse Lane, "I observed the life of crows, I probably began at that time. ”
It also writes about a neighbor who behaves strangely:
Around the room groaning Oh endlessly, the scoop is not set as a conspiracy.
The unenlightened talents were unknown, and the Dao was the poisonous head of the East Chamber.
Self-note: There is Mr. Shen in the east chamber who lives together, and he goes around the room all day long, and does not cure production. The neighbors all called it Shen Poison Head and did not think it was a. After Yu Weak Crown, he knew a little about Wuzhong Humanities. One day, even for the adults to say, Suzhou has Shen Xiu, the poetry is very ancient Mao. The Adult Qu Ran said, "This is the Shen Poison Head of that year." "Repair the character Suicheng, taste the museum in Jiaye Hall." Died in the twentieth year of the Republic of China. Tongyi Wumei published his posthumous text, known as "Unen garden collection". Zhu Gu micro-publication "Xinjiang Estate Series", Shen Xiuwei wrote the preface. Suzhou people call nerds "book poison heads".
"Shen Poison Head", whose real name is Shen Xiu, is an introductory disciple of Chen Yi, the "Old Man of Nanyuan", who is fond of books, general history, gong poetry, and fine words. In the last years of Guangxu, he taught at the Cungu Academy, and befriended Ye Changchi, Tang Wenzhi, Sun Deqian and so on. Mr. Ye Shengtao's real name is Ye Shaojun, and it is said that the word "Holy Tao" was taken by Shen Xiu.
When Shi Jingcun was in his thirties, he also wrote a reminiscence article, "Remembering a Poet", which also wrote about this neighbor:
Until I had the ability to appreciate literary and artistic works, first of all, I happened to see an article and some poems titled "Biography of Li Ren" in the old "Novel Sea" magazine, and I thought it was good, and later I read an inscription with the title of "Eight Voices of Ganzhou" at the beginning of Wu Mei's first engraving of "Nuanxianglou Miscellaneous Drama", and I felt better, which deeply remembered the author's name. That name was Shen Xiu.
I remember one day, my father flipped through my books on my desk, and casually opened the "Warm Xiang Lou Miscellaneous Drama", and he told me that this Shen Xiu, the number Xiu Wen, was the "poisonous uncle" in the house in Suzhou Vinegar Warehouse Lane. Father also seemed to remember that this "Warm Xiang Lou Miscellaneous Drama" was probably also given to us by him.
In the autumn of that year, Shi Jie existed in Suzhou for the Chongyang Festival. Later, he wrote an essay "Gossip Chongyang", recalling the festival customs at that time:
I remember when I was a child, every Chongyang Festival, the market always had to sell Chongyang cakes. Although this Chongyang cake has a variety of very elaborate methods according to the records of ancient books, all that can be eaten in our small city is ordinary glutinous rice white sugar cake. Together with lard and washed sand, it is already the most expensive. I love cakes, but what I love most is the flags planted on the cakes. Chongyang cake is no different from the cakes sold usually, and the only feature is that there is a flag on the Chongyang cake. These triangular cut-out colored paper flags used to be my childhood gifts, and after playing with the bunting flags on the Mid-Autumn Festival Douxiang, I looked forward to playing with the Chongyang Flag.
What is the "Douxiang" mentioned at the end of the article?
This is the Qing Dynasty Jiangnan region (mainly Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Shanghai area) popular moon customs, the practice is to paste paper for the bucket, burning incense, generally tall can be two feet (the highest has more than one person tall). Because it resembles a pagoda-like incense bucket, it is called "bucket incense". There are also incense buckets made of incense sticks and horse dung paper, with three circles of colorful paper on the periphery and golden paper-cut characters such as "Full Moon Life" in the middle. Inside the incense bucket are wood chips, and in the middle is a large main incense made of sandalwood, called "dragon head incense", which is inserted with paper-tied kui stars and colorful flags.
Buy incense bucket in the "Picture Daily" at the end of the Qing Dynasty
It is said that on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon rises at the beginning of the next month, every household will set up an offering platform in the courtyard and patio, and douxiang will be placed on the stage, accompanied by various lamps, as well as accompanied by singing the southern lyrics, and the atmosphere is lively.
By 1910, the third year of moving to Suzhou, Shi Jingcun was six years old. His father, Shi Yizheng, was still working at the Jiangsu Normal School. February 24 is the Lantern Festival, on which his father held an opening ceremony for him in the vinegar store lane house. The guest hall of the house was covered with a red carpet, a pair of red candles were lit on the table, And Xiao Shi Cun wore a new robe, a black coat, and a newly made red knot melon skin hat, and first prostrated the divine position of confucius, the most holy ancestor, and then, his father, who sat in the chair of the Master, taught him to recite "Heaven and Earth Emperor's Master", recited it three times, drank "Harmony Soup", ate the Dingsheng Cake, and completed a solemn ceremony.
The next day, Shi Jingcun entered the private school of his neighbor, Old Master Xu. After performing the worship ceremony, follow the teacher to read the "Thousand Character Text". At that time, the situation was also recorded in the essay "My First Book" in his later years:
After the big gift of worship, Teacher Xu assigned me a window seat. I sat down and took out from my newly made flower cloth bag the first Chinese reading book I had ever read: "A Thousand Words". The teacher reads one sentence first, and I read it the same way. He read four sentences and ended the day's homework. The rest of the whole day is when I read these four sentences aloud: "Heaven and earth are yellow, and the universe is flooded." The sun and the moon are rising, and the Tatsuya column is Zhang. "The teacher only taught me to pronounce the words, not the meaning of the words. I can recite these four sentences well before I finish school at noon, but I don't know what they mean.
The fifth account of the "Floating Miscellaneous Verses" describes the activities of the children in the streets and alleys after the private school:
The noise of the sunset urges, and the children in the alley return from school.
Keju Fei was too busy to carry the horse bell across the bridge.
Note: After school in the afternoon, children play in vinegar alley. When the horse bell bearers come, they flock to the burden and buy food or toys. The candy sellers tie a string of horse bells to the burden, and when the bell rings like a horse, it is called a horse bell bearer. When children hear it, they stop playing and compete for it. It sells spiced beans, sautéed salt and golden flowers, vegetable dumplings, frosted plums, etc., all of which are popular with children.
The so-called "horse bell burden" is the cargo lang burden. By the 1970s of my childhood, when elementary school was out, I could occasionally see vendors carrying burdens in the streets or by the bridge, and even the kinds of snacks sold were similar.
In the meantime, his father once took him to Tiger Hill to see the Greeting God Race. See The Floating Miscellaneous Verses, part VII:
Tiger Hill Mountain is busy, and Qingxiao comes to occupy the place first.
When the gods came and went, they were shocked and turned back to peek at the good lady.
Self-note: Shangyuan Zhongyuan and Tiger Hill have both Yingshen Tournaments. The seven-mile mountain pond female group, there are people who go to the tea house at dawn and occupy the tea house, which is called "occupying the place". The eyes of the gods can be left and right, and welling is fearsome. Children do not dare to look, and instead look at the Lido of women, Wu Zhong'er Lang calls beautiful women "good bridesmaids".
In 1911, Shi Jingcun was seven years old, and the family was still living in Suzhou. During this period, his father once took him out of the city to play, first visiting Lingyan Mountain, and then visiting Hanshan Temple. The Six Chapters of the Floating Miscellaneous Verses:
The front of the ringing gallery is full of flowers and branches, idly listening to the old folk saying Xi Shi.
When he returned, he entered the Hanshan Temple and recited the Fengqiao Night Poem.
Self-note: Travel with the adults to Lingyan Mountain, Zhixi Shi Story, tour Hanshan Temple, read Zhang Jifeng bridge night poems, for the beginning of reading Tang poems.
Shi Jingcun was particularly impressed by Hanshan Temple, and when he compiled the poetry collection in his later years, he also had the same memories in the "Self-Introduction to the Poems of Beishan Lou":
When Yu Zongjiao was in the corner, the attendant toured the Hanshan Temple, saw the stone carved Fengqiao Night Poem, the adult pointed it out, recited it, and stole a good heart.
Shi Jingcun's contact with Tang Shi began with this trip to Hanshan Temple, and when he was a little older, he began to read Du Fu, Li He, Li Shangyin, and Wen Tingjun. His lifelong love of classical poetic literature enabled him to write "Hundred Words of Tang Poetry" in the future (although Mr. Zi humbled that this book was "not up and down", that is to say, neither like serious research nor like a popular reading). Coincidentally, when I was in high school, my family moved to Sanyuan Er Village, which is close to Hanshan Temple, and I often walked or cycled to play. The hanshan zi poems that I bought from the circulation office in the temple are one of my favorite collections of Tang poetry, and my love of classical literature is also related to Hanshan Temple.
"Shi Jiecun Complete Collection: A Hundred Words of Tang Poems", by Shi Jingcun, East China Normal University Press, February 2011
In October of that year, the Xinhai Revolution took place, which was the season when the old and the new were intertwined. Affected by the trend of the times, the Jiangsu Normal School was reorganized, the old people were all dismissed, and his father Shi Yizheng also lost his position in the school and lived idly at home. On February 15, 1912, the Qing Emperor abdicated. By the spring, the old lord Lu Maoxun had invested 20,000 yuan to set up a hosiery factory in Huating (i.e., Songjiang), and Shi Yizheng was invited to participate in the preparations, serving as a manager and chief accountant. In the autumn, the factory affairs were arranged, and the family moved from Suzhou to Songjiang (before and after, living in Suzhou for five years). When I went to Songjiang, I didn't take the furniture with me, but only brought twelve book boxes, which were transported by boat. At that time, the Shi family rented three rooms in the Kim's residence at No. 405, Fuqiao South Street, Songjiang County. During this time, the father and son had traveled to Shanghai, and Xiao Shi felt that the underground tunnels of the New World were not as long as the tunnels of Suzhou Railway Station.
At the beginning of 1913, Shi Jingcun was admitted to Huating County No. 3 Elementary School, graduated from primary school in 1918, and was admitted to Jiangsu Provincial No. 3 Middle School (now Songjiang No. 2 Middle School), after graduating from middle school in 1922, he was first admitted to the English Department of Hangzhou Zhijiang University, and a year later transferred to Shanghai, where he studied Shanghai University, Datong University and Fudan University, and began his literary creation and translation activities in Shanghai.
Interaction with Suzhou literary colleagues
After leaving for a few hours, did Shi Jicun ever return to Suzhou?
When he was in middle school, it coincided with the first boom period before the rise of the new cultural movement in the early Republic of China, and not only a large number of foreign literary works were translated and introduced, but also the vernacular literary works of local writers were published.
When he was in the third and fourth grades of middle school, the teenager Shi Jingcun read a lot of foreign novels translated by Lin Qinnan. After reading the translation of Turgenev's "Hunter's Diary" published in the "Novel Monthly" in the second semester of the third grade, he made up his mind to engage in literature and tried to write new poems, novels, essays, and essays, and submitted them to the "Current Affairs New Newspaper", the "Awakening" supplement of the "Republic of China Daily" edited by Shao Lizi, the supplement of "Declaration" "Free Talk", and the literary and art publications of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect in Shanghai (such as "Saturday", "Half Moon" and "Zhou Tianxiao" hosted by Bao Tianxiao).
With the fresh literary air, literary associations in various places have gradually expanded. On August 29, 1922, Zhao Mianyun, Zheng Yimei and others initiated the establishment of the "Star Society" in Suzhou. At that time, after Shi Jingcun was enrolled in Zhijiang University, he soon organized a literary society "Lan She" with Dai Chao'an (Dai Wangshu), Dai Kechong (Du Heng), Zhang Yuanding (Zhang Tianyi), Ye Weiyan (Ye Qiuyuan) and more than a dozen other students, and at the end of the year, he began to organize the social journal "Lan You".
According to Wang Shoufu's article "Mentioning Shi Ji Cun" published in the 3rd issue of Cosmos magazine in 1946, the initiator of the organization and association was Shi Ji Cun:
Hangzhou Lanshe, organized by him, as its president, and Suzhou Star Society, Changzhou Yunshe Dingding, specially produced a kind of humorous joke-telling sketch publications, wrote several mourning novels of Nannong and Lang Ye, the most proficient.
In September 1923, Shi Was transferred to the Department of Chinese of Shanghai University. About before entering Shanghai, he and Dai Wangshu came to Suzhou to visit the literary colleagues of the "Star Society", and at that time, they also held a two-day party at lumen restaurant and Wuyuan tea room. Mr. Shi later recalled in the "Preface" the situation of returning to the Soviet Union to visit friends:
In the early twenties, a group of young people in Suzhou organized a literary society called the Star Society. Fan Yanqiao, Cheng Xiaoqing, Yao Gengkui (Su Feng), Jiang Yinqiu, and Zheng Yimei are all the backbone of this literary society. At the same time, there was also an association of literary youth in Hangzhou, called Lan She, whose initiators were Dai Mengou (Wang Shu), Zhang Wuyi (Tianyi), Ye Weiyan (Qiu yuan), and Dai Diyuan (Du Heng), all of whom were from Hangzhou. I joined a year later, when I was graduating from Zhijiang University.
The young people of both societies wanted to squeeze into the Shanghai literary scene with literary creations, first creating a local momentum, and then submitting articles to the Shanghai newspapers and periodicals. At that time, the influence of the new literary movement was still limited to the circles of some colleges and universities in Beijing, and did not promote it to Shanghai. Shanghai's literary circle is still the world of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect. Therefore, the members of these two literary societies can be said to be members of the Youth League of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect, and the drums are corresponding and the sounds of each other are exchanged. Wangshu and I also went to Suzhou to visit the Star Society, and held a two-day party at Lumen Restaurant and Wuyuan Tea Room, at which time Yimei and I began our friendship.
And Zheng Yimei also has the same memory in the article "Star Society with a Long History":
Hangzhou Lanshe, such as Shi Qingping, Dai Mengou, Ma Juan soul, Zhang Wuyi, etc., also communicated with the Star Society, Suzhou and Hangzhou, and Celebrated, and Qingping gave his book "JiangganJi" to the members of the society.
Shi Jingcun's pen name at the time was Shi Qingping (indeed a "Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect"), and the Jianggan Collection was the first collection of short stories he had recently published at his own expense. According to Shuying, who participated in the Collection at that time, in the article "Shi Jiecun's Literary Novels", at that time they were also in the Fan Yanqiao Yaji on the Wen family bank of Linton Road.
Zheng Yimei sent a letter to Shi Jiecun
After returning to Shanghai, Dai Wangshu signed "Dream Gull Sheng" and published "Two Days in Suzhou" on September 26 in the World Tabloid No. 222, remembering the gathering of the Suzhou-Hangzhou Literary Society. There is also a small episode later, when Xu Bibo, a member of the Star Society at the time from Suzhou (who later went to Shanghai and joined the film industry as a screenwriter), also published a "Romantic Talk" in the Tabloids at the end of the month:
Qingping Dream Gull went to the sea, it was already half a month, and when it was on the verge of traveling, the Soviet Party members had asked to see the address of Yu Shen, and they could communicate with them. Up to now, not a single letter has been sent to the Soviet Party, Nor has it been written to Qiye. It was the second king who came to Su slowly, so Er'er also. (No, they probably look down on the Soviet Party.)
Earlier, when parting, Suzhou Wenyou had instructed Shi Jingcun and Dai Wangshu to go to Shanghai to complete the enrollment procedures and write a letter to inform the correspondence address, and then there was no follow-up, and the two of them did not have further contact with suzhou.
However, Shi Jingcun has maintained a friendship with Zheng Yimei, one of the members of the Star Society. In their later years, there were also many correspondences and gifts of poetry between them.
Suzhou elements from early novels
Shi Jingcun's novel creation was mainly concentrated during his residence in Songjiang, and this peak period is also known as the "Fifteen Years of Songjiang". In August 1929, he published his fourth collection of novels, Shangyuan Lantern, at the Water Foam Bookstore, which included 10 short stories. In his later years, he attached great importance to this short story collection, and in his opinion, this short story collection was his real literary beginning.
Reading the chapters in the collection carefully, we can find that three of the ten are directly based on his childhood life in Suzhou, which are "Fan", "Shangyuan Lantern" and "Old Dream".
These three short stories can be seen as a group of works with the same style: they are all based on the childhood life during their stay in Suzhou, and they are all based on specific objects to unfold the plot (respectively, tuan fan, yarn lamp and toy lead soldier), the character settings of the three articles are also similar, and the other is to pay attention to portraying the hazy and green love desire in the bud of boys and girls.
The beginning of "Fan" directly mentions Suzhou, mentioning the rental house in Vinegar Warehouse Lane:
I was only nine years old when my father moved to Su for the teacher training school. In the first month after arriving in Suzhou, I remember very clearly that I hid in the rented house in vinegar warehouse lane all day and did not dare to go out, because I could not speak Suzhou dialect, people spoke, and I did not understand.
The novel is led by a tuan fan depicting beauty in ancient costumes and writing poems, describing the secret love of the young protagonist "I" for the girl next door.
The young girl is the "Zhenguan" of the Jin family, named Jin Shuzhen, and she has a younger brother "Xiguan", named Shuyu. Jin Shuzhen is the same age as the protagonist "I" and is in the same grade of elementary school, and "I" have thought that Jin Shuzhen is "the first girlfriend in her life" since she was a child.
The plot is not complicated, roughly for the protagonist "I" from the bottom of the cabinet drawer to pull out a fan painted with a beautiful woman in costume, remembering the hazy love affair of the previous teenager. In order to encourage "me" to do well in the graduation exam, the young girl Shuzhen plans to give the tuan fan as a prize to "me", "I" was reprimanded by Shuzhen for secretly taking the fan, and when she returned, Shuzhen gave the fan to her. Obviously, the inscription was taken from Du Mu's poem "Autumn Eve" (the verses in it also appear in the novel).
Shi Jingcun superimposed the imagery in this Tang poem with his childhood memories in Suzhou and then wrote this "Fan" with literary imagination.
In contrast to the two characters of Shu Zhen and Shu Yu, the records in the eighth song of the Floating Miscellaneous Verses are:
Nine officials thick eyebrow work drama, eight official pear vortex often spoiled.
Green plum bamboo horse old traveler, one person day several city dynasty.
There is also a self-note: the daughter of the neighbor Qian Guanying, the eight officials named Shuyu, the nine officials named Shufeng, all of whom were childhood friends, went to Suzhou and stopped sounding. Twenty years later, the Su people who inquired about it, Wen Jiuguan unfortunately died prematurely, and the eighth official did not know how to be comfortable.
When Shi Jingcun lived in Suzhou, the neighbor did have two good little girls. However, he made some changes in the novel: Shuzhen's name was newly created by him, the two sisters became two sisters and brothers, and at the same time increased the age of the protagonist "I" and Shuzhen, setting the time when the story occurred when he was in elementary school (Shi Jiecun's elementary school was read in Matsue).
From the self-note, it can be seen that Shi Jingcun has always been obsessed with these two friends of green plum bamboo horses, and he has deliberately inquired about it when he returned to Suzhou twenty years later.
The concept of "Shangyuan Lantern" is also similar to that of "Fan", except that the objects of sustenance have changed from tuan fan to lanterns for the Lantern Festival. The age of the protagonist "I" and the girl next door , "She" is also similar to the "I" and Shuzhen in "Fan".
The plot also revolves around the Shangyuan Lantern: the "Yulou Chun" lantern tied by the neighbor girl originally promised to give it to "me", but unexpectedly gave it to the girl's cousin, so "she" led "I" into the bedroom and gave her cherished light green gauze lamp. The silent affection between the boy and the girl is simply a copy of the previous "Fan". The difference is that Shi Jing has made a new attempt at narrative structure, using a diary style and dividing the short stories into three paragraphs: "Thirteen Days", "Fourteen Days", and "Fifteen Days".
In addition, like "Fan" borrowing Tang's poetic interest, the "Shangyuan Lantern" article also uses the sentence "The bead foil floating lamp returns alone" in Li Yishan's "Spring Rain":
Lying in the new year white robes, the white door is rare and disobedient.
The Red Chamber looked at each other cold in the rain, and the bead foil lantern returned alone.
The long way should be sad and late in the spring, and the remnants of the night are still faint.
Yu Yu Zhen Za He Yu Da, Wanli Yun Luo a goose flying.
The beginning of the later novel "Old Dream" also directly prompts the time and space background of Vinegar Warehouse Lane:
In July of 1927, I went to Suzhou because of an incident, and I once sneaked to the old residence of Vinegar Warehouse Lane to have a look. The five rooms we had lived in had been rented out to a petty officer who served in the Public Security Bureau. The two large laurel trees in the yard are still very luxuriant, which reminds me of my childhood, in the middle of the strong aroma of osmanthus flowers, A low stool, sitting under the tree and flipping through my father's huge "German National Map". The owner of the house is still the family name Zhang.
The protagonist "I" is "a micro-official who moved to Songjiang seventeen years ago", returns to the old mansion in Suzhou many years later, and re-encounters Zhifang, who was a young plum bamboo horse, who was "a beautiful girl I have been in love with since I was a child". Seventeen years later, she was married and had children, and she contracted an opium addiction with her gambling husband. Like the sustenance technique of the previous two articles, Shi Jingcun once again uses objects — the nine small lead soldiers given to Zhifang in the early years — to connect the plot, and the gifts given to Zhifang are now the toys of Zhifang's children.
The difference from the previous two articles is that the before and after comparison of the characters' lives is added, so the part is full of nostalgia. There are not only the remaining shadows of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly School, but also the use of new literary techniques.
At the same time as he was working on the short story collection Shangyuan Lantern, Shi Jingcun happened to be translating the novels of the Austrian writer Schnitzler, and he tried to learn Schnitzler's psychoanalytic technique and took a powerful step. After the publication of "Shangyuan Lantern", it was well received, and Kong Yijing's 1935 book "Modern Writer's Book" contains a letter from Ye Shengtao to Shi Jingcun on December 28, 1929, in which he praised the fresh style of "Shangyuan Lantern":
The feeding of the sea bass, that is, the late food, according to the signs, is delicious. Before tasting this in Matsue, it was braised and garlic, so it was common. The family is very delicious and very generous. Tune Fu, Zhen Duo, and so on. This morning, I got a must, and the book was a treasure. The red cheek treasure is three points, and it is held as a soup with small drunk. The taste is fresh and fresh, and the Junwen is recited in the "Shangyuan Lantern".
Shen Congwen also spoke highly of the collection, believing that "Shangyuan Lantern is a clean and clear poem, written for readers to read."
These reputations made Shi Jingcun gain spiritual motivation, "want to go alone in creation to take a new path, want to write a little better work out", after that, he broadened the subject matter and vision of experience, continued to collect in the daily life of the world and historical texts, and wrote many famous works such as "The Night of the Plum Rain", "Spring Sun", "Kumo Roshi", "The Love of Shi Xiu", "The Head of the General", "Master Huang Xin" and so on. We can say that it is these three short stories in Shi Jingcun's early novels that write about Suzhou's childhood experience, which pave the way for the development and grandeur of his later novel creation. This is a point that can be noted with labeling.
In addition, these three early novels already contain two important features of Shi Jicun's later novels: one is the infiltration of classical literary situations, and the second is the use of Freud psychoanalysis and the sexual psychology of Phyllis, which we can already see in "Fan" and "Shangyuan Lantern".
Why can the two be combined? In my opinion, this is still related to Mr. Shi Jingcun's early interest in classical literature. His aesthetic taste is especially influenced by the poems of Li Changji and Li Shangyin of the late Tang Dynasty and Wen Tingjun' words, which have the same hidden and delicate characteristics in the poems of these three Tang people, who have also dabbled in the theme of youth dreams, and their writings also have a certain color of imagining women.
Shi Jingcun's creation is a good example of the integration of classical literature and modern literature.
Suzhou fate in his later years
In 1994, Shi Jingcun had a more frequent interaction with Zhu Heng, the editor of Suzhou Magazine at the time (the details are published in Zhu Heng's "Review of Editors - Angu Su of the Old Man's Soul of Beishan" published in the 2004 issue of the magazine, which is briefly excerpted here).
In July of that year, Shi Jingcun recommended to Zhu Heng an article published in Guangming Daily, "Gu Su Bone", and suggested that It be reprinted by Suzhou Magazine. Zhu Heng asked if he could add a recommendation, and soon, Shi Jingcun, who was ill, added a manuscript and attached a text message.
Later, when Shi Jicun read an article about the past customs of Suzhou published in Suzhou Magazine called "Fake Mud And Ma", he felt that "most of the things described in this article do not conform to the actual situation, and the author is probably not from Suzhou", and on September 6, he wrote a letter from a reader, telling the reality of the "Zai Mud Model" that he remembered. The letter was published in the fifth issue of the magazine that year:
The "mud molds" I played when I was a child were all bought by my father from Shantang Street or xuanmiaoguan... Often play with the neighbor children to play the game of "jai mud mold", first throw a square stool in the guest hall or patio, the "mud mold" is arranged in the upper position, and then put on the small basin, small bowl, small incense burner candlestick, all are red wood products, we call "small family students". Put some peanut rice, spiced beans, and zongzi candy in the bowl of the pot, and after offering it, everyone prostrates and bows down, and also chants "Amitabha Buddha" a few times, which is called "Jai mud mold".
Shi Jicun discussed the letter of "Zai Mud Mold"
After such a long time, Shi Jingcun still remembered the details of his childhood life so clearly. At the end of the letter, he also thanked the author of the previous article:
Thank you author, this article makes me recall the life of children in Suzhou, more than 80 years!
Since then, Shi Jingcun's connection with Suzhou Magazine has not been interrupted. In 2002, before his death, Suzhou Magazine also published an article titled "Luo Hong, His People and His Works" in the 6th issue of that year, which was the preface to Luo Hong's novel "The Years of the Lonely Island". Earlier, he had a close friend in Songjiang called Zhu Wen, who graduated from Soochow University in Suzhou and taught at Songjiang Middle School before the War of Resistance. Luo Hong was Zhu Wen's wife.
According to the content of Zhu Heng's reminiscence article, it is assumed that around April of that year, Zhu Heng had sent Shi Ji three bound copies of Suzhou Magazine, and then there was the above-mentioned interaction.
On June 16 of that year, Shi Jicun sent Zhu Heng a postcard.
Zhao Qingge is a well-known female writer, publisher and painter in Shanghai, with whom Mr. Shi has been associated for decades. In order to celebrate zhao Qingge's eightieth birthday, he selected Zhao's painting "Pan Xue Visiting Meitu", specially asked Hong Kong friends to make a thousand exquisite postcards, and then sent this set of postcards to new and old friends at home and abroad.
The one sent to Zhu Heng had a text message written on it, in which Shi Jian mentioned the purchase of a tomb at Lingyan Mountain:
Comrade Zhu Heng:
Chenghui Zun collected three volumes of "Suzhou", received it for two months, the body is not healthy, did not thank you early, very sorry.
Today, I have checked the honorable journal again, and I am glad to read it, and I respect this Cambodia and thank you.
Suzhou is where I grew up in a small age, the friendship of the general horn, most of them have been born, the former old wife bought a cemetery under the Lingyan Mountain, after a hundred years, the soul is still back to Suzhou.
Greetings
Regarding this matter, I later asked Brother Shi Shoujue. He told me that he had indeed bought a cemetery at Phoenix Hill Cemetery. However, after Mr. Shi's death in 2003, the family decided to bury him in Fushouyuan in Shanghai, where Mr. Shi's wife, Ms. Chen Huihua, was buried in Phoenix Mountain after her death in 2001 and has since moved to Fushouyuan. The phoenix hill cemetery is currently vacant.
In any case, we have learned of Mr. Shi's desire to return to Suzhou. In his wish, we can see his long and deep affection for Suzhou.
The author | Ma Mingqian
Editor| Zhang Jin Shen Chan
Proofreading | Lucy