preface
A few days ago, I wrote a film review of "The Mistake by the River", and mentioned Lu Xun's influence on Yu Hua in passing.
There is a "madman" in "Mistake by the River", and the most famous "madman" image in the history of modern literature is probably the "I" in "Diary of a Madman". Many of Yu Hua's works, such as "Mistakes by the River", "1986", and "A Kind of Reality", have the shadow of "Diary of a Madman" for the horrific brutality and the chaos of the real world.
Then let's talk about "Diary of a Madman".
body
Diary of a Madman: Now I don't know three questions
1. How did a madman go crazy?
I don't know.
The novel opens like this:
Tonight, good moonshine.
I have not seen him for more than thirty years; I saw you today, and my spirits were very refreshing. I knew that more than 30 years ago, I was all faint; However, great caution is required. Otherwise, why did the Zhao family's dog look at me twice?
Yu Hua said: Lu Xun is amazing, he wrote a person crazy with just one sentence, that is, "Then the dog of the Zhao family, why do you look at me twice?" - To normal people, a dog is a dog, but a madman can see through that this is the "Zhao family's dog", and mind that it "looks at me twice". Many writers describe a person's mental disorder in a variety of words, but in the end it is still normal, not as good as Lu Xun's skills.
But think about it carefully: what Yu Hua said is not right. "The Zhao family's dog looks at me twice" can only show the degree of madness, not the beginning of madness-the dog is not the cause of madness. And the image of the dog is very common in Lu Xun's novels, such as "beating the water dog", Ah Sui in "Sadness", "The Dog Lying in the Road" in "The Lonely"... I don't see anything to do with madness. As for "The Dog's Rebuttal", the "crazy" ones are simply people, not dogs.
The fact is that the madman was already crazy before he met the dog:
"Tonight, good moonshine."
- The seemingly ordinary opening sentence is actually quite a story.
The well-lived madman suddenly discovered one day that such a bright moonlight had been "seen for more than 30 years", and he suddenly felt "extremely refreshed", but at the same time he realized that the previous years were "all faint" - this is not a kind of epilepsy-like madness!
There is a special English word to describe mental disorder or insanity: lunacy. The root of the word is luna. What is Luna? She is the goddess of the moon in Roman mythology.
In the Western literary and artistic tradition, the sun is given a rational symbolism, and the moon is often mysteriously associated with madness, madness. Think of the legend of turning into a werewolf on a full moon night that you and I are all familiar with. Shakespeare's Othello and Bertha Mason's madness in Jane Eyre are also closely related to the phases of the moon.
Of course, this is "Western culture", the moon in Chinese culture is not so unbearable, "the moon is born on the sea, the end of the world is at this time", "I wish people a long time, thousands of miles together", the Chinese moon is always accompanied by beauty and blessings.
As a result, the madman went crazy when he looked at the moon?
Then do you mean that Lu Xun means: because you madman was seduced by "Western culture" and reduced Chinese civilization to a useless "cannibal feast", you are a madman in the eyes of other Chinese!
Logically, it seems so. Otherwise, why did Lu Xun write "moonlight" at the beginning, from a narrative point of view, this is nonsense, and directly saying "the dog of the Zhao family" is more concise, which does not affect the next expression at all.
But it could also be that I'm thinking a little too much about myself...
Because the lonely evidence does not stand. You say that moonlight can make people crazy, so how to explain this sentence in "Hometown":
In the deep blue sky hung a full golden moon, and below the sand by the sea, all planted with endless green watermelons, among which there was a young man of eleven or twelve, wearing a silver ring around his neck, and holding a steel fork in his hand, and stabbed at a horse with all his might, but the man twisted his body and fled from his crotch.
Can this be interpreted as a teenager going crazy under the moon? ——Compared with the young man who is alive and well under the moonlight, the adult leap soil who opens his mouth to be "master" and "hard and numb" is called "crazy".
You say that the leap soil is a typical Chinese peasant symbol, and he has no Western-style education, what is he crazy about? And what about the end of "The Lonely"? ——
My heart was relaxed, and I walked calmly on the damp stone road, under the moonlight.
Wei Lianzhen in "The Lonely" is a "madman" who struggled to resist and finally surrendered - "going to a certain place to wait". What Lu Xun revealed at the end is: Compared with Wei Lianzhen, who "died" himself in the end, the "I" who continued on the road was a more sober and pragmatic one. I can't say that the last "relaxation" of "I" was "crazy" like Wei Lianzhen under the stimulation of the moonlight...
So: whether the madness of the madman can be blamed on the moon is still a question.
How the hell is that madman? Or how did you wake up? - You should ask Lu Xun this question.
Some people may think, why take it so seriously! It's like a person who suddenly wakes up for no reason, just like the medieval philosopher Augustine: one day when he was walking in the garden, he suddenly cried bitterly, and felt that something was wrong, and since then he has changed his mind and become a new person?
Yes. But this leads to another question: "Is a person's sudden awakening" possible?
2. How can a madman awaken?
I don't know.
Let's look at this paragraph:
I went to this thought, and I was relieved to do things, walk, eat and sleep, how comfortable. It's just a threshold, a juncture. They are fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, wives, friends, teachers, students, enemies, and people who don't know each other, all forming a group, exhorting each other, holding each other in, and refusing to take this step even if they die.
A person does not exist in isolation, but is always in the grid of his own social relations, and there are always "fathers, sons, brothers, couples, friends, teachers and students, enemies". The same goes for madmen, of course. Now the question is: if everyone around you is restraining each other and "forming a gang" to eat people, and what you have seen and heard since you were a child is also cannibalism, then as a member of the crowd, what you "understand" must be based on everything that cannibalism has established, how can you awaken? Why?
It's my brother who eats people!
I am the brother of the cannibals!
I myself have been eaten, but I am still the brother of the cannibals!
The madman is the "brother of the man-eater", is the madman so innocent? If you are not innocent, what is the qualification to "awaken"?
A place that has been eating people for 4,000 years, I only understand today, and I have been mixing in it for many years; The eldest brother is in charge of the housework, and the younger sister is just dead, so he may not be in the meal and secretly give us food.
I may not have unintentionally stopped eating a few slices of my sister's meat, and now it is my turn,...... With 4,000 years of cannibalism experience, although I didn't know it at the beginning, I now understand that it is difficult to see real people!
Because the madman has also been "mixed for many years" in this cannibalistic society, and the madman does not know for sure whether he has eaten or not, the madman is not a "real person".
It seems that Qu Yuan's "the whole world is turbid, I am alone, everyone is drunk and I am sober" is strictly "illogical": all people's cognition is given by the "world", and people's self-awareness is also generated in the interaction with "everyone" - people are not "alone", how to "be alone" and "awake"?
Think about the metaphor of the famous "dark gate", which comes from people's own "burden of attack" - at least you have a share, so the "dark gate" is also on you, how do you carry it? Can a man lift himself up? ......
The greatness of Lu Xun lies in the fact that he never "picks" himself from the mediocrity, and does not make high-minded accusations and preaching as intellectuals, whether it is Ah Q, Kong Yiji, Xianglin's sister-in-law, Shan Si's sister-in-law... are all part of Lu Xun. As the so-called "mourning its misfortune and being angry with it" - not only emphasize the "warrior" side of "anger", but also see the premise of "anger": "mourning" that puts oneself in the position and goes deep into the bone marrow, "mourning" is sympathy, and sympathy is love. Actually, I don't know if anyone loves Chinese more than Lu Xun:
Some of them have beaten the magistrate, some have slapped the gentleman, some have taken possession of his wife, and some have been forced to death by creditors; Their faces at that time were not as frightened as they were yesterday, nor were they so fierce.
The madman thinks that he was shackled to the magistrate, slapped the gentleman, took possession of his wife by the officials, and Lao Tzu Niang was forced to death by the creditor... It's not right to treat them like this, but all of them think it's "not right" for the madman: you should join the sequence.
Because "we ourselves have already been arranged, there are high and low, big and small, up and down." You are abused by others, but you can also abuse others; Eat yourself by others, but you can also eat others. Level by level, I can't move, and I don't want to move. Because if you move, although it may be beneficial, it also has disadvantages. ”
"There are ten days in heaven, and ten degrees in man. The lower is so the matter, and the upper is so the common god. Therefore, the prince and the minister, the minister, the doctor, the minister, the servant, the servant. ”
But "Taiwan" has no ministers, isn't it too bitter? There is no need to worry about him, but there is a wife who is more humble than him, and a son who is weaker. Moreover, his son is also very promising, and as he grows up and rises to the rank of "Taiwan", he will have a more humble and weaker wife for him to drive. In this way, each has its place.
The words of "Writing Under the Lamp" explain the reasons why "it has always been like this", "exhorting each other, holding each other in, and refusing to take this step even if they die". Don't move recklessly because you can move the whole body with a hair, not to mention that the whole body can't move, so there is no need to pull the "one shot".
When a madman, or an awakened or enlightened person is faced with such a situation, the first thing that cannot be solved is the "isomorphic relationship" between himself and the "other", which is constantly cut and sorted out from the "other" - as mentioned above. Secondly, it is impossible to resolve the "heterogeneous relationship" in which oneself is incompatible with "others" and cannot communicate and dialogue. This brings us to the second point.
"Diary of a Madman" is great not only because of its profound thoughts, but also because of its exquisite layout. The same text, telling two different stories at the same time - just ask you what other novel has you seen like this?
From the standpoint of a madman, this is the story of an enlightener, a story that penetrates the fog of history and penetrates the truth of the world.
But from the standpoint of everyone, this is a story of neurosis, a story of a person with "persecution paranoia" who makes up everything by himself.
The most typical is this paragraph:
The old man stepped out of the door, and after walking a short distance, he whispered to the eldest brother, "Hurry up and eat!" The eldest brother nodded. It turns out that there are you too!
Note that Lu Xun's wording is quite clever: "Hurry up and eat" – a pun and ambiguous phrase. Dr. Ho's meaning may be: "Hurry up and eat (him)" or "Hurry up and take (medicine)", depending on whether you are a madman or a madman.
In fact, this is the feeling of reading the whole book. There is no absolute boundary between "madness" and "normality", and if there is, you must presuppose a position: or, the madman is sober, and the crowd is a chaotic and evil crowd; Or, a madman is a madman, and everyone has no intention of harming him.
Just look at the "evidence" that the madman has that will eat him, all of which are unaccustomed to the heart-wrenching arguments of others "looking at him". In addition to the "Zhao family's dog", there are:
When he went out carefully in the morning, Zhao Guiweng's eyes were strange: he seemed to be afraid of me and seemed to want to harm me.
- The word "afraid" shows that Zhao Guiweng is afraid of the "neurosis" of "me"; The words "harmful" show that Zhao Guiweng and his gang are addicted to eating people.
Who exactly is neurotic? In fact, "I" myself is not sure, so I can only use two "seemingly" in a row.
To be sure, the incessant gaze from the spectators greatly worsened the madman's "condition":
There were seven or eight other people, talking about me one after another, with their mouths open, and smiling at me.
A group of children in front of me were also there talking about me; His eyes are also the same as Zhao Guiweng's, and his face is also blue. I think I have some kind of enmity with the child, and he does. I couldn't help but say out loud, "You tell me!" "They're just running away.
The strangest thing is that the woman on the street yesterday hit his son and said, "Lao Tzu! I'm going to have to bite you a few times before I get angry! But his eyes were on me. I was startled, and I couldn't hide it; The group of people with green faces and fangs all burst into laughter.
There was a group of people standing outside the gate, and Zhao Guiweng and his dog were also inside, and they all probed their brains in. Some of them do not see their faces, as if they are covered with cloth; Some are still green and fanged, pursing their lips and smiling. I know them as a bunch, both cannibals.
At this time, the eldest brother suddenly showed a fierce appearance, and shouted, "Go out!" What's so nice about a madman! ”
It is in the process of being watched by others with bad intentions that the madman who has been repeatedly stimulated gradually understands the truth of the world and the mysteries of history:
I opened the history and checked, this history has no age, and the words "benevolence, righteousness and morality" are written on each crooked page. I couldn't fall asleep horizontally and vertically, and I looked carefully for half the night, only to see the words in the cracks, and there were two words written all over the book that were "cannibalism"!
But the problem is that the bunch of ill-intentioned "watching" listed above is actually the same as "seems to be afraid of me and seems to want to harm me", which can be explained in two ways:
Whether it is "talking about each other", "talking", "probing the brain" or "running away", you can understand that this is just everyone's curiosity and fear of a mentally abnormal person.
The woman who beat her son accidentally saw that "me" was just a coincidence, and it was me who was surprised. can't hide it", which caused everyone to laugh.
All those "smiling with their lips" are either out of politeness to avoid them, or they are purely "see how a madman goes crazy" mentality, and the madman insists that they are "complicit" and want to eat people is really a "persecution paranoia" attack - even if the truth of history is like this, but at this moment, the madman's experience is not like this.
Can it be understood in this way? Of course.
Thus, confusion arises: even without considering the question of the "awakening" qualifications of the madman as to stand out from the crowd, this "awakening" alone is full of self-doubt and aimlessness:
These days, I have taken a step back and thought: if the old man was not an executioner, he was really a doctor, and he would still be a cannibal.
The house was dark and gloomy. Both the beams and the rafters shivered on their heads; After shaking for a while, it grew up and piled up on me. It was so heavy that I couldn't move; He meant to kill me. I knew that his heaviness was fake, and I struggled out, sweating profusely.
"Take a step back and think" and "I know his heaviness is fake" both illustrate the inconsistencies in the madman's disordered heart.
An incomplete "awakened person" who is always talking to all living beings is considered enlightenment? What is the use of such "enlightenment"?
Speaking of which, we might as well talk about the origin of "Diary of a Madman": Lu Xun in 1918 was no longer the hot-blooded young man who "recommended Xuanyuan with my blood", but a middle-aged man who shrank in his apartment all day long, relying on banknotes and ancient monuments to pass the time of boredom, eating and waiting for death. It can be said that from the very beginning, he was not optimistic about the "enlightenment", because "I have seen the Xinhai Revolution, the Second Revolution, Yuan Shikai as emperor, and Zhang Xun's restoration.
But Lu Xun didn't stop Qian Xuantong's "flickering" after all, Qian Xuantong said: "What's the use of your money? Lu Xun said: "It's useless." Qian asked him again: "Since it is useless, what is the point of you paying it?" Lu Xun replied: "It's not interesting." So Qian Xuantong encouraged Lu Xun to "make some articles", and Lu Xun presented his famous "iron house" metaphor:
"If an iron house is windowless and indestructible, and there are many sleeping people in it, who will soon suffocate to death, but from slumber to death, they do not feel the sorrow of death. Do you think you are worthy of the cry of the more sober men, and the irremediable suffering of this unfortunate few? ”
How did Qian Xuantong refute this century-old insight? He said:
"But since a few people have risen, you can't say that there is no hope of destroying this iron house."
So, Lu Xun was moved, and then there was the earth-shattering "Diary of a Madman", not only that, but after many years, it was out of control, and an outstanding literary genius was born.
However......
Qian Xuantong was able to persuade Lu Xun, not by appealing to emotion, reason, or faith. He seized the logical loophole in Lu Xun's language, as Lu Xun himself said:
"Although I have my own convictions, when it comes to hope, it cannot be erased, because hope is in the future, and it must not be convinced by the proof that I am indispensable."
Alas......
"Logic" is a good thing: "Although I have the certainty that I can survive today, I can't erase the possibility of being hit by a car when I go out later, because that is the future, as long as people cross the street, the chance of what happens is also the chance" - this is also "logic".
After talking about this story, do you still think that "Diary of a Madman" is a desperate and courageous battle story? If you think that Lu Xun is a soldier who has no distractions, you probably never know Lu Xun.
Please keep in mind the fifth point of Lu Xun's last words:
When the child grows up, if he has no talent, he can find some small things to live, but he cannot become an empty writer or artist.
Think again about the last sentence of "Diary of a Madman":
"Save the child..."
The one who wanted to save the child was Lu Xun's so-called "empty writer or artist" - that is, himself. But when children grow up, they must not be "empty writers or artists". It is more important to "forget me and take care of your own life." Again, this is saying: the child does not need to be saved by me.
This is all Lu Xun's opinion.
3. How did the madman recover?
I don't know.
Just like why a madman "got sick", Lu Xun didn't say.
In short, this person is suddenly "crazy", inexplicably and "good", he really came and went in a hurry. Nan Ke is the same as a dream.
If the cause of "madness" can be traced back to the moon, then eighty percent of the good reasons come from seeing through. Because the madman is so resistant to Dr. Ho, I don't believe he would take the medicine prescribed by the latter—and there is no explanation in the novel.
Then you can only "figure it out" after "seeing through".
"Seeing through" does not refer to seeing the world of cannibalism, but the logic of cannibalism - one is also a link in this ancient food chain:
A man who has eaten his sister and will be eaten by his brother.
After seeing that he was not a "real person", the madman issued a deafening cry of despair:
Save the kids
However, the first half of it has been ignored by many people:
Children who haven't eaten people, or are there any?
This is an interrogative sentence. The meaning of the interrogative sentence, I don't need to say more, right?
If children can also eat people, is the child worth saving? - Let's not care about how to save it.
At least in "Diary of a Madman", the child and Zhao Guiweng are "together", what can you do to save such a child?
If you refer to Lu Xun's other novels, the situation is even less optimistic: Xianglin's sister-in-law's Ah Mao was eaten by a wolf, Bao'er of the fourth sister-in-law died, the son of Hua Lao Bolt was helpless, and the Shun aunt who liked to cut velvet flowers mentioned in "In the Restaurant" also died, as for the protagonist Lu Weifu's "little brother" who died early, there was not even a hair left, and the coffin was empty, as if it had never existed...
It is said to be "saving the child", but what we see from Lu Xun's novels is often: it can't be saved.
Considering the big debate between "I" and Wei Lianzhen about the nature of children in "The Lonely", think about the sentence "A very small child took a reed leaf and pointed at me and said: Kill!" ", the nine-pound old lady's "generation is not as good as the generation", and then recall this passage in "Sui Xianlu Twenty-five":
The children of the poor are unkempt and turn around the streets, and the children of the broad people are squeamish and squeamish at home. When they turn big, they all turn around in society in the dark, the same as their fathers, or even worse.
However, this large number of people only tossed and turned in the dust, and when they were young, they did not regard them as human beings, and when they were older, they could not be human beings.
It seems easy to conclude that the child is not worth saving.
The greatest irony is that when the madman used his last strength to say "save the child...", his "illness" was completely cured, and then he "went to a certain place to wait".
The "preface" of the "alternate" is written in classical Chinese. Although "Diary of a Madman" is China's first vernacular novel, and it is radiant and extraordinary as soon as it is released, this preface is a literary style with no literary brilliance to speak of.
What does that mean?
Although it is the "preface" of the outline, it is the real ending of the story: a quasi-official regards himself as a "madman" who once harbored ideals, and names his hoarse "scream" "Diary of a Madman":
As for the title of the book, I will not change the title after I have done so.
The diary of a madman in the vernacular represents the New Culture Movement, the hope, and the "partial door" of the novel, while the preface of the classical Chinese is the literary "orthodoxy", "mainstream" and the real premonition of future developments deliberately selected by Lu Xun.
After reading the whole text, I turn my head and look back at this preface: it dissolves all the meanings of the following vernacular texts, including "save the children...". The whole novel becomes a dream, and the whole enlightenment is reduced to a farce. In postmodern parlance, this is called deconstruction.
Qian Xuan invited Lu Xun to contribute to the New Culture Movement, and "Diary of a Madman" is the result of all his efforts – however, it is also a slightly vicious joke and a fable of extreme sadness.