During World Book Day 2024, Toutiao launched an activity called "In the Name of Books", launching an exclusively planned and filmed video - the micro-documentary "I Carry Books with Me", following Liang Hong, Liu Liangcheng, Jiang Fangzhou, and Cheng Yongxin with the camera, recording their "books with them", reading, creation and daily life. Each of the four documentaries has its own theme, and it also has different styles depending on the identity of the guests, which is quite interesting. In the film, when they tell the story of literature, writing, reading and their own lives, it is also very moving.
"I Carry My Books with Me" poster
Liang Hong: Literature connects life and death
"Finding the passage between life and death, feeling joy, this is the joy of creation. ”
The theme of Liang Hong, a professor at the School of Liberal Arts at Chinese University, can be summarized as: life and death. When Liang Hong recalled writing the fictional novel "Four Elephants" in 2020, she said that in the process of writing, she found a channel between herself and her deceased father. In 2015, Liang Hong's father passed away, which made her personally experience the cruelty of the world, and also gave her a different understanding of life. She always remembered her father's weakness and strong desire for life before he died, "I feel that this person still wants to live, which is an instinctive human desire to live."
In the documentary, we follow Liang Hong through the Henan braised noodle restaurant and Xiaohe that she goes to every day, reviewing her from literary childhood to adolescence, youth, and middle age, and reading has always accompanied her growth. As we all know, Liang Hong's hometown is in Liangzhuang, Henan, when she was young, Liangzhuang, like most rural China, could hardly see books, and could only look forward to her father, who went out to do business, and every time he came back, he could bring back a few villain books. Because of the scarcity, she cherished it very much, and because of this, she fell in love with reading and books.
Liang Hong
Reading and books also changed Liang Hong's fate, allowing her to leave Liangzhuang, become a university professor, become a writer, and publish the "Liangzhuang Trilogy" - "China in Liangzhuang", "Out of Liangzhuang" and "Ten Years in Liangzhuang". Liang Hong said that writing about your hometown is a natural impulse, "whether it is an academic paper or literature, a good work must be related to your emotions." Emotions and reading work together to drive Liang Hong's writing.
Liu Liangcheng: Writing is a homecoming of language
Liu Liangcheng, a writer who wrote works such as "One Man's Village" and "Hometown on the Earth", has always lived in the countryside. The documentary takes us into Caizigou Village, Mulei County, Xinjiang, where he has been living for more than ten years. In this magnificent and beautiful countryside, Liu Liangcheng and his wife raise chickens and geese together, pick up branches and bark, and make fires to cook. He said that when he happened to pass by here and saw this dilapidated village, it was as if his ancestors had lived in it from generation to generation, waiting for his arrival.
Liu Liangcheng said that time is the eternal theme of writing, and this village is a relic of time. Every day, he writes for a while, and when he is tired, he goes to do some farm work. And so on and so forth.
It can be said that Liu Liangcheng is a writer who is particularly close to the earth. The land and the countryside are his books, the source of inspiration for his writing. The scenes in his novels and prose also really happened around him. "Maybe the bugs were crawling past me at this point, and in the next hour it crawled into my words and became the worms of the literary narrative. ”
Liu Liangcheng
The documentary is poetic and full of philosophy, in daily work and life, Liu Liangcheng inadvertently said those words full of life philosophy. For example, if he prunes the branches of an apple tree, if the master of the fruit tree comes, he will trim off all the idle branches that do not bear fruit, but he will not. "The idle branches on the trees are like idlers in our crowd, and a few leaves may grow in this year, and the wind will come and shake a few times, and the year will pass. We can't let every branch of a tree be full of fruit, then the tree will be tired, there must be some idle branches, and then there will be leaves to face the wind, just like there must be some idlers in our crowd to appreciate the busy life of these busy people. ”
At the end of the documentary, Liu Liangcheng talked about how he was doing land art, "painting" human faces on the hillsides. He comes from the earth, draws nutrients from the land, and ultimately gives back to the earth.
Jiang Fangzhou: Middle age is worth living
For Jiang Fangzhou, a genius girl who became famous very early, reading and writing not only accompanied her growth, but also helped her face the difficulties and pains of life. "Literature won't help you alleviate your suffering, but it can enrich the language you use to negotiate with it. ”
Jiang Fangzhou
For her now, books and reading may be more of a midlife crisis, and she says she may always be that girl. Since she was a child, she has been determined to "be a female student who is not poor", and she is still determined to do so when she is middle-aged. "The so-called female students are always in the process of learning, not being swayed by that kind of particularly utilitarian and worldly things, and constantly adjusting their works and the adaptability of the times. ”
Jiang Fangzhou, who grew up with doubts and praises, said that in his growth, Zhang Ailing had a particularly great influence. Her work has been used throughout her reading history and has influenced the building of her relationships with others. She didn't have many friends, and she didn't like that particularly deep relationship. Her life was simple, she went to a café every morning to write, six days a week. The environment of the café is noisy, but in the midst of this noise, she feels comfortable. "What exactly is the type of writing I have, this kind of thing can't be imagined by imagination. So when I go to the café, I need people next to me, and I hear them talking about everyday things, but it establishes my connection to the world, rather than just staying in my environment. ”
Some people will question her pretend, she thinks about it for a while, and feels that she can't change other people's opinions of her, but she can change her own understanding of pretending. If this kind of pretending is a positive and positive one, why not do it? From the documentary, it can be seen that Jiang Fangzhou lived a thorough life, and that reading and writing were the solid world she had constructed.
Cheng Yongxin: Give your heart to writers and readers
"The shattered past / Like a lighthouse in the dark night / From a distant place / Winked at me / When I sat in the room where the north wind beat on the window lattice / Light a cigarette / The brightest bright spot on the chaotic sea/ Flew in / Quickly enlarged / Soon illuminated my memory. ”
In the documentary, Yongxin, the chief editor of "Harvest" magazine, recited such a poem. With his narration, we return to the eighties and nineties of the last century, the era of literary fanaticism. From 1982 to the internship of "Harvest" to today, he has worked here for more than 40 years, witnessing the birth of a group of writers such as Yu Hua, Ge Fei, and Su Tong. Today, he still keeps the correspondence with these writers, discussing literature, writing, and the small things of life. For example, when Wang Shuo submitted a "Pork Belly" to "Harvest", Cheng Yongxin felt that the novel was well written, but the name was too cheesy, and they discussed renaming the novel in the letter. This is the later "The Stubborn Master".
Wang Shuo's letter
Cheng Yongxin said that he was greatly influenced by his mother in reading, and his mother liked to read novels, and as long as Cheng Yongxin was sick in his childhood, his mother would tell him stories. When I was studying, "I basically didn't listen to the teacher's lectures, and I was reading novels." So during the college entrance examination, even though his family was against it, he still applied for the Chinese department.
As a literary editor for more than 40 years, reading has become Cheng Yongxin's main business in life. In his view, a good editor should be like a talent scout, digging out particularly talented, creative, and imaginative young authors. Cheng Yongxin believes that excellent editors know the author by reading the text, deal with the author, give the heart to the reader, and at the same time give the heart to the writer.
Cheng Yongxin
Not long ago, Cheng Yongxin, Yu Hua and Su Tong were guests in Dong Yuhui's live broadcast room, chatting about "Harvest" magazine, literary writing, and bringing goods for "Harvest". Times are changing, and Cheng Yongxin said that maybe some young people don't watch "Harvest" anymore, but they start watching programs like "I Read on the Island". He believes that as long as we give really good literature to readers, no matter how the times change, reading and books will always be noticed and will be carried with everyone.
Just like Toutiao, it has been deeply engaged in the field of cultural reading, outputting a lot of high-quality cultural content and driving a lot of topics. On this World Book Day, Toutiao not only launched a series of micro-documentaries "I Carry Books with Me", but also invited historian Xu Zhuoyun, Japanese sociologist Chizuruko Ueno, media person Hong Huang, well-known scholar Yu Shicun, writers Shuangxuetao, Hao Jingfang, etc. In February this year, they also launched a micro-documentary "I Am Clumsy in Love with the World", capturing the stories of amateur writers such as Wang Jibing and Fan Yusu, presenting their lives and poems. The program "I Read on the Island", which has been broadcast for two seasons, has invited writers and poets such as Yu Hua, Su Tong, Xi Chuan, and Ye Zhaoyan to go to the "Island Book House" to live, read and write together, and enjoy the fun of reading.