Zhong Tianlong reads Lei Xuegang's prose collection "On the Water Side"

A song of heart

——Reading Lei Xuegang's prose collection "On the Water Side"

Lol Chongqing

Recently, the author received a new work "On the Water Side" from Mr. Xuegang, and I read it carefully and felt a lot. I also read the commentary "Being a Soldier and a Writer" written by Professor Zhou Yong, executive deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Municipal Party Committee and doctoral supervisor, and gained a deeper understanding of the author and a deeper understanding of his works.

I didn't know Mr. Xuegang before, because I was a judge of the 9th Chongqing Minority Literature Award, I was fortunate to read his essay "Into Lugu Lake", my eyes lit up, and I was shocked by his strong and beautiful pen words, and my heart was very excited. Later, I met him at the 9th Chongqing Literature Award Minority Literature Award Ceremony, and I hated seeing him late, and then we had in-depth contacts and became good friends.

"On the Water Side" is a collection of essays following the poetry anthologies "Chu Feng Yu Yun" and "Jinlan Xinxuan", which includes 67 essays written by the author from January 2020 to the end of March 2023, with nearly 160,000 words. From the depths of the soul, the thickness of the soul, the height of faith, the breadth of art, and the social dimension, the author's devotion and adherence to ideals, beliefs, and beliefs, the persistence and love of literature, the interpretation and practice of family, friendship, and love, and the love and gratitude to the motherland, the people, and the times are expressed from multiple perspectives.

The author used his youth and wisdom to compose a touching song of the heart, which cannot but be gratifying.

One

"On the Water Side" conveys full of positive energy to readers and inspires people to forge ahead.

Han Yu said, "The text carries the Tao". The "Tao" here refers to universal values that are conducive to self-cultivation and the improvement of people's moral standards. Literary works should express thoughts and emotions, but the ideas expressed must be healthy and uplifting, inspiring people, and giving people wisdom and strength; the feelings expressed must be elegant, sincere, and touching, and able to cultivate sentiments, sublimate the soul, and urge people to forge ahead. This requires that literary creation must carry forward universal values, eulogize truth, goodness and beauty, and lead people to goodness and beauty.

Literature is the torch of the national spirit, the clarion call for the people to forge ahead, and the most beautiful star in the sky, which should become the sustenance of the people's soul, the fashion of society, and the symbol of the times. Writers are the engineers of the human soul, and they should lead the fashion of the times, consciously undertake the sacred mission of carrying the Tao with words, spreading voices with words, and cultivating people, casting a spiritual foundation with cultural self-confidence, and depicting the spiritual genealogy of the new era with true feelings.

As the saying goes, "Literature comes from character". The future and destiny of an individual are always linked to the future and destiny of the motherland. The harsh reality of the Russia-Ukraine war tells us how happy it is to grow up in a strong country and stay away from war, but it is difficult to be happy in a weak country, such as the Ukrainian people displaced by the war. History has proved that only when politics is clear and the country and the people are safe can we realize our ideals and aspirations. A person who does not pay attention to the motherland, the world, and human progress, and does not have a heart of fraternity and good qualities such as loyalty, filial piety, kindness, and diligence, no matter how profound his writing skills are, will not be able to create works with profound divinity.

The author is a tireless military writer and a leading Tujia writer. The author always pursues the ambition of "establishing a heart for heaven and earth, establishing a life for the people, continuing to learn for the saints, and opening peace for all generations" and the creative criteria of promoting truth, goodness and beauty, and criticizing fake and ugly, and exalting the main theme of the times, and striving to sing for the times, praise the people, empower social and economic development, and add color to the people's better life.

As the saying goes, if there is sunshine in the heart, there will be angels on the way. As the author said in "On the Water Side": "Everyone should have their own sea of stars." He is willing to be a person with his own sunshine and calmly face the past clouds of life. In this way, happiness will come like a breeze, and happiness will come knocking on the door. People must be full of positive energy at all times in order to have an optimistic attitude. ”

The author knows that a writer must have a noble personality charm, have a bodhisattva-like loving heart, and silently contribute to society without seeking fame and fortune; be wise and foolish, believing that "it is rare to be confused" and "suffering losses is a blessing"; be humble and upright, simple and humble; be willing to be a ladder for others, be happy to make wedding clothes for others, sincerely hope that the blue will be better than the blue, and be truly happy for the success of others, in order to write excellent works.

The author uses life practice to prove that maturity depends on adversity, and success depends on desperate situations. To be a man to be content, to do things to know the insufficiency, to do knowledge to be not content. To be a human being, you must be like a person, and you must not be too much like an official. Leave tears for the person who hurts you the most, and leave a smile for the person who hurts you the most. People should develop the good habit of accumulating virtue and doing good, strive to open up a new realm in life, and constantly climb the highest peak of personality. With good thoughts, the mouth spits lotus flowers, gives roses to others, and has a lingering fragrance in the hands. Don't harm people's hearts, because, "The whispers of the world are like thunder, and the dark room is like electricity." "The road of life is very long, and it is not necessarily full of songs and flowers: maybe the sun is smooth, maybe the thorny road, maybe the wind and rain. Despite this, you can't waste your time, or even get drunk and dream to death. Because, the beauty of life is not in the purpose, but in the process, but in having a clear conscience. As long as you have worked tirelessly for a beautiful ideal all your life, no matter whether you succeed or fail, you will have no regrets.

Reading Mr. Xuegang's works, I can't help but be infected by his full positive energy.

Two

"On the Water Side" is full of a strong breath of life, "down-to-earth", "dewy" and "sweaty", exuding the fragrance of earth.

Life is the only source of creation, and the singing of life made by literary works is first and foremost dedicated to life. All the most beautiful and moving works in the world are the imprints of the most beautiful and moving landscapes in the life course of the writer (personality), and the imprint of the most beautiful and moving scenery in the life course of a generation (common), and the aesthetic image of the projection of the times and the blending of emotional colors.

In the depths of the author's soul, he is deeply in love with a "water side" The goddess, for this reason, he is willing to read thousands of mountains and rivers, he can go against time, just for the encounter in this life; he opens his long-closed heart, accompanied by the Tang wind and Song rain, and the person he likes to see the splendor of summer flowers, together with the quiet beauty of autumn leaves; he wants to stay away from the hustle and bustle of the mortal dust for her, with a sunny attitude, to drink into a fairy; he wants to cross the distance of time and space, just for this love in the past and present life; he also deeply knows that even if things change and time goes back, the beautiful woman in his heart will always be "on the water side". Isn't this a kind of beauty?

He believes that the secret to going deep into life is to seriously perceive life. If you are self-contained and do not communicate with others, you will embark on the end of creation. There are many ways to feel life, there are direct feelings, that is, personal experience or personal hearing and witnessing, there are indirect feelings, such as interviews, reading, reading newspapers, watching TV, etc., can also be both, the best way is to chat with masters, the so-called "listening to your words, better than reading ten years". However, whether it is something that is directly felt or indirectly felt, the writer must select the most valuable materials that deeply move him to create, and at the same time mobilize his life accumulation and knowledge system to enrich and improve the subject matter, and on this basis, he must think carefully and conceive carefully around the "literary eye", "poetic eye" and "red line", so that he can write excellent works. It is not to write about mountains when you see mountains, write about water when you see water, and write about cattle and sheep when you see cattle and sheep, but you must be typical and representative, and you must have trade-offs and artistic ideas, so that you can see the big from the small and see the sun with a drop of water. If it is just a journal, it is at most an essay, but it is by no means literature.

Literary works are the light and dreams of human beings, the imprint of the most wonderful feelings in the writer's life course, and at the same time the swan song of "everyone has it in their hearts, but everyone has nothing in their pen". The author grew up drinking Qingjiang water, singing "Dragon Boat Tune", being good at singing and dancing, and obsessed with writing. In that season of fragrant osmanthus flowers, with his nostalgia for his hometown and the fragrance of his homeland, he threw his pen from Rong and went to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the "roof of the world", and the Northeast Plain, which is full of soybean sorghum, and then traveled to the ancient city of Xi'an, the capital Beijing, and the mountain city of Chongqing, and tempered and forged 20 spring and autumn in the green military camp with straight lines and squares. The army is a great school that cultivates his distinctive personality of bravery, masculinity, integrity, and enterprising. Many experiences make his works not only vividly and heartily demonstrate the ambition and heroism of contemporary soldiers, but also lose the elegant and handsome style of humble scholars. From the text, we can know that the author is a person who loves life, a wise person, a person with a sunny mentality, a well-read person who loves literature, and a person with chivalrous tenderness. In life, he pays attention everywhere, and depicts what he does, thinks, and understands with a wonderful pen, and each text is a masterpiece of scene blending and tasting the philosophy of life. His works highlight his nostalgia for Lichuan, Hubei Province and his deep love for the mountain city of Chongqing, highlight his love for the army and the great rivers and mountains of the motherland, interpret his understanding of life, love, family and society, and show his thinking on the prosperous world, love and hatred, joys and sorrows, birth, old age, sickness and death, natural phenomena and the laws of history, culture and society, and are full of philosophical thoughts and life interests.

Three

"On the Water Side" is a song of the soul, full of deep affection.

Literary affection. Love is the life of the article. True, extreme, wild, depressed, noble, magnificent, delicate, majestic...... The so-called text is emotional. All the works of true feelings are exciting. Legend has it that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che and Chen Ajiao have been childhood sweethearts since childhood, and they are very good. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, he canonized Chen Ajiao as the empress. But later Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had another new love and kept Empress Chen claustrophobic in Changmen Palace. In order to make Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty revisit the old feelings and change her mind, Empress Chen deliberately took 100 catties of gold as a gift and asked the writer Sima Xiangru to write a "Changmen Fu" for her and present it to Emperor Wu. Sima Xiangru is very sympathetic to Chen Ajiao, and the endowment she has made is full of emotion and sincerity, with blood and tears, tearing her heart. After Emperor Wu read it, he really remembered the old love and reconciled with Empress Chen. It can be seen that the emotions are strong and sincere, and the life of the text is also real.

He said that the essence of literature lies in lyricism, which is the language of the heart, the trembling of life, the cry of the spirit, and always belongs to those who are full of passion and deeply feel happiness and pain. Lyricism is not only to express one's own special feelings, but also to express the emotions of a class, a nation and even human beings. The whole anthology is full of strong emotions, and it is heartwarming and touching to read.

The author attaches great importance to the role of emotions in literary creation. He believes that all great works are forged with blood and tears, as well as youth and life. Only when we have great sorrow, great joy, deep feeling and imagination, can we write good works. Only when a writer enters the realm of selflessness and jumps out of the narrow circle of "self" can he create immortal classics and become the spokesperson of a class, a nation and even mankind. If a literary work does not have a "human touch", it is not much different from a rigid and boring mathematical, physical and chemical formula. Therefore, there is a strong emotional power infused into the creation, and the words contain sincere and deep feelings, without the "Taoist spirit" of hypocrisy. Based on his own life experience, he describes his love of life, his hatred of ugliness, and expresses his sincere feelings, which are in stark contrast to those works that moan without illness and are in vain form.

Four

The author understands very well that art is endless, and only by reading a wide range of books can we continuously improve our artistic accomplishment.

He believes that a person's IQ is directly proportional to their vision. In order to cultivate a broad vision, it is necessary to have profound knowledge. If a writer does not have profound language skills and artistic accomplishment, it is difficult for him to write excellent works, no matter how perfect his personality is. This requires that writers must extensively collect all the outstanding cultural achievements of mankind, especially the broad and profound excellent culture of the local people, be accommodating in knowledge, conscientiously perceive history, seriously examine real life, carefully choose creative themes, and constantly pursue artistic innovation, so that it is possible to create epic chapters. All outstanding writers and artists are generalists, and can do everything to the extreme, such as Su Shi, poetry and songs, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, every subject of learning has been done to the extreme, and he is also proficient in geography, medicine, and food (invented Dongpo elbow, Dongpo pork dice) and so on.

He said that reading and writing are the best exercises and one of the secrets of longevity. Because, mental work equals an exponential amount of physical exercise. Many scientists have proven that the real secret of longevity is not physical exercise or eating habits, but a good attitude and continuous pursuit of goals. For example, great writers such as Ba Jin, Bingxin, and Ding Ling all lived to be 100 years old, Ma Shitu lived to be 110 years old, and Qian Zhongshu's wife Yang Jiang lived to be 106 years old, and she completed the long-form documentary literature "We Together" in a few years between the ages of 102 and 105. When Qi Baishi was 75 years old, he drifted north to Beijing for the third time, struggled for ten years, and finally succeeded at the age of 85, with a painting worth hundreds of thousands of yuan or even millions of yuan. Despite his success and abundant food and clothing, he still insisted on painting two paintings a day, writing a poem, reading a book for two hours, planting flowers and grass for two hours, and drinking tea and chatting with visitors in the evening. Every day, every day, fighting, lived for more than nineties.

In fact, all outstanding writers and artists are well-versed in the past and the present, have studied both Chinese and Western, and are very proficient in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, such as Wang Wei, Bai Juyi, Wang Anshi, Ouyang Xiu, Su Shi, Master Hongyi and so on. Practice has proved that it is impossible to achieve much in creation if you only read Confucian books and do not study the classics of Buddhism and Taoism and excellent foreign literary works.

When the author was in the army, no matter how hard and busy he was in his studies and training, he insisted on reading and writing. He said that life is short, and life expressed and celebrated with a pen is infinite. Everyone can't grasp the length of life, but they can expand the breadth of life. He is a delicate, sensitive and gentle person, who understands character, life, the meaning of struggle, the fate of life, the grace and gratitude, and the essence of spring, summer, autumn and winter and life in many works.

The author has always insisted on reading more, reading good books, being good at reading, loving to listen to lectures, and enriching his mind with the wisdom of others. He knows that with books as a companion, he can appreciate the wonderful interest of "having poetry and books in his belly", and feel the true meaning of "knowledge is wisdom and power"; Reading can change fate, can be icing on the cake, can improve temperament, change thinking, open up the pattern, and make people better. Even if there is no golden house in the book, there must be a better version of yourself. He said that in order to acquire profound knowledge, it is necessary to master the methods of seeking knowledge, so as to draw inferences from one case and integrate the knowledge and touch the others. If you want to read a book, you must read classics, works by local writers, and literary and historical materials. The thickness of reading determines the height of life.

He believes that literary creation is very skillful. The reason why it is called creation, just like the invention and creation of scientists, requires inspiration, passion, rich imagination and association, and vivid language to express. To write poetry, you must have a "poetic eye", you must have a "word eye" when writing words, you must have a "literary eye" when writing prose, and you must have famous sayings and aphorisms to write articles in a word, so as to have taste. The golden sentences in his works abound, such as: "No matter how big the world is, it is no bigger than a heart; no matter how far you go, it is far from a love" ("Morning Awakening Heart") "The four seasons of nature, each with its own scenery, have a mission, giving people infinite reverie and enlightenment" ("Winter Perception") "Time is a long river of gold, cleansing the elegance and vicissitudes of life" ("Time is like a river"), "Grace allows human beings to release great love, and gratitude makes humanity shine" ("Grace and Gratitude)" The past is gone with the wind, only the legend of classics and love will remain in the bottom of my heart" ("On the Water Side"), "The value of life lies in continuous creation, and enjoy the fun of success and failure in the process of creation" ("Reverie on the Spring Equinox") and so on.

Of course, this does not mean that his works have reached a high level of artistic perfection and that there is still room for improvement. Because, there is no end to learning, and there is no end to art.

Five

How big the heart is, how big the stage is. From the moment of birth, a person enters the countdown to life. Time is fleeting, youth is short, and life is precious. Only by pursuing hard and living up to youth can life be in vain. If you want to be excellent, you must put in a hundredfold effort. He said that the mission of writers is to create more masterpieces, and writers should not only come to this world, but also light up the world with their own works.

The passage of time is fleeting, and anyone who has a dream wants to grasp something eternal in order to be immortal. In the history of mainland ethical thought, there is a very classic proposition called "three immortals", that is, "virtue", "meritorious service" and "speech", which has become an eternal value of the mortal world that people with lofty ideals in ancient and modern China have diligently pursued. "Virtue" means establishing lofty morality; "meritorious service" means making meritorious contributions to the country and the people; and "establishing words" means writing books and sayings to be passed on to future generations. In the "Three Immortals," "Virtue" depends on the evaluation of the outside world that is difficult to reconcile, and "meritorious service" requires being among the monopolistic and risky officialdom, which is beyond the ability of a scholar. As a result, "Liyan" has become a unique form of the ancient sages who transcended material desires to pursue spiritual satisfaction, and transcended individual lives and pursued immortality. This is because the pursuit of the immortal name behind the death can inspire the individual's life to release an incomparably huge amount of energy, work hard and forge ahead, and make meritorious achievements, while those who ignore the reputation behind their lives will inevitably end up in wine bags and rice bags, walking corpses, and even become villains, thugs, and lone thieves.

Once upon a time, society was full of short-term behaviors of chasing fame and fortune, not to mention the moral show of false benevolence and false righteousness in the aspect of "virtue", the moral show of external honesty and internal greed, the "image project" and "political achievement project" in the aspect of "meritorious service", that is, in the aspect of "standing words" regarded as life by the ancient sages, what many authors and writers pursued was no longer immortality, but quick success, and naturally it was inevitable that it would perish quickly. The author is furious about this. He said that the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxu's works that were passed on to future generations were only two poems, among which "Spring River Flower Moon Night" was praised by Mr. Wen Yiduo as "a solitary piece covering the whole Tang Dynasty". The Tang Dynasty poet Jia Dao wrote a poem, "Two sentences for three years, one chant and two tears." The allusion of "scrutiny" comes from him. Cao Xueqin did not finish "Dream of the Red Chamber" before her death, and only wrote the first 80 times, but left a glorious page in the history of Chinese classical literature. Therefore, we must not only try to do knowledge, but also have a strong sense of quality, not only to be responsible for readers, but also to our own reputation. The author empathizes with this.

It is hoped that the author will take this as a new starting point, continue to work hard, and strive to create more works with profound divinity to add luster to the contemporary literary gallery.

About author:Xiao Chongzhong, formerly known as Zhong Tianlong, Tujia, member of the Chinese Writers Association, the Chinese Prose Literature Association, and the Chinese Poetry Society, vice president of the Chongqing Prose Literature Association, and chairman of the Qianjiang District Writers Association. He has published poetry collections "Love River", "Silent Love", poetry and essays "Dream Halo", prose collections "Eternal Perfection", "Vicissitudes of Stars", "Eternal Human Heavenly Teacher", the novel "Heavenly Conscience", the main creator of the TV script "Qianjiang Girl", the song "Bizka's Hometown", etc., and edited and published more than 10 literary monographs and 3 popular science books. His works have won more than 10 literary awards at or above the provincial level, among them, "Qianjiang Girl" won the second prize of Sichuan Province Excellent TV Literary Script, the essay "The Aura of Dreams" won the second prize of Sichuan Province "Me and the Movie" essay, "Bizka's Hometown" won the second prize of Chongqing original song, the prose "Water Rhyme" won the second prize of the Ministry of Water Resources, the cultural essay "Eternal Perfection" won the 7th National Bingxin Prose Award, the poetry collection "Wordless Love" won the first China Tujia Literature Award, and the cultural essay collection "Vicissitudes of Stars" He won the 8th Chongqing Minority Literature Award. Some works have been translated into English.