Author: Wen Rumin (Professor, Department of Chinese, Peking University)
Scholar's biography
Wu Fuhui (1939-2021) was born in Shanghai, and his ancestral home is Zhenhai, Zhejiang. Literary historian. In 1978, he was admitted to the Department of Chinese of Peking University for a master's degree in modern literature, and graduated in 1981 to work in the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. He used to be the deputy director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and the executive vice president of the Association for the Study of Modern Chinese Literature. He is the author of "Shanghai School Novels in the Urban Whirlpool", "History of the Development of Modern Chinese Literature (Illustrated Edition)", "The Biography of Sha Ting", "Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature" (co-author), etc.
Time flies, and it has been three years since the famous literary historian Mr. Wu Fuhui left us. He passed away at his home in Canada in the spring of 2021, and now he takes up the pen to write this memory, still very sad, and his eyes are full of the mottled shadow of this old classmate.
I remember that a month before he left for Canada, I also visited him in Panjiayuan, when he had been suffering from intestinal disease for many years, becoming thinner and thinner, and was rummaging through boxes and cabinets to pack up his house in Beijing, preparing to go to Canada to spend time with his son. I said that I am so old, and I still toss? He explained a few words, but smiled wryly and silently. We went to Dongsi to eat at the restaurant again, and he had a good appetite and was in high spirits again, saying that he would come back to see it in the future. I guess that's going to be hard. Once in Canada, there is very little contact with each other. We have a WeChat group of classmates, and Lao Wu occasionally "bubbles". I didn't read WeChat very much, and it wasn't until a few days after his death that I learned something from the "group".
After he went to Canada, he still suffered from intestinal diseases, and had 1 major surgery and 3 minor surgeries, and his condition improved slightly. At the end of 2020, on his 81st birthday, he also took a photo, standing in front of a door frame, with his hands crossed on his chest, and the smile he showed did not seem to be as bright as before. He also wrote a poem "Zishou Poem", which was sent to his old classmate Zhang Zhong: "At the beginning of the eighties, I was trapped in Kacheng, and I knocked on the doors of thousands of new households. The snow ridge pine is straight for two degrees, and the flat house pen is idle and spring. The dog barks in front of the window, and the rabbit runs to the starry sky under the moon. The wall fire is like a silk winter warmth, and the old days are full of flowers. "This is Lao Wu's masterpiece? Think how much he misses the old days in a foreign land! We can feel his mood!
Since I was a graduate student in 1978, I have been friends with Lao Wu for 43 years. Now that he has been gone for three years, what else can I do for my old classmates? Just write some words. In the past two days, I have flipped through all the books that Lao Wu sent me, combined with the feelings and impressions I usually accumulate, and "studied" this old man.
One
Wu Fuhui did not go to university, and after graduating from Anshan No. 10 Middle School and High School, he stayed in school to teach middle school, taught very well, and later became an "official" to the director of teaching. Wu Fuhui is extremely smart, and he reads a lot and miscellaneous. Later, he recalled his "reading history", and when he was a teenager, he dabbled in a large number of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literary masterpieces. This "magnitude" of extensive reading cultivated his love of literature, as well as his figurative thinking, including intuitive thinking. His artistic sensibility is very strong, which is related to the "aimless" reading of a lot in his teenage years. I myself have had a similar experience, and the feelings and perspectives cultivated by this kind of "miscellaneous view" of "envy and nowhere to return" are not something that can be achieved by professional training. The "miscellaneous" experience of the "literary youth", the fact that he really likes literature, and not only because of the needs of his profession, these are all good foundations for Wu Fuhui to take literary research as his career in the future.
Wu Fuhui's rich life experience also projects and facilitates his research. He is a native of Zhenhai, Zhejiang Province, and grew up in Shanghai. When he graduated from elementary school, his father was transferred to the northeast to support industrial construction, and the family moved to Anshan. He speaks an authentic and mellow Northeast dialect, and if he meets a fellow Shanghainese, he immediately speaks pure Shanghainese. The various texts he wrote did not involve much in the Northeast, but about Shanghai, and there was an endless stream. It can be seen that the memory of his childhood life in Shanghai has been very deeply imprinted in his soul, because he has been away from Shanghai for a long time, which has become more and more a strong contrast of impressions. Wu Fuhui wrote an article "The Depths of the Alley is My Home", which very delicately and truly recalled the life of his home in Sishou Village, Aiwenyi Road, near Jing'an Temple, when he was a child, and even the sound and smell seemed to be felt. Wu Fuhui later read Zhang Ailing, and paid special attention to the life of old Shanghai written by Zhang Ailing, and also wrote 70,000 or 80,000 words of "Seeing Zhang" - "Cultural Map of Shanghai in the Old Times", what residences, markets, shops, food, clothing, entertainment, tea fields, weddings, etc., the narrative is soaked with Lao Wu's strong nostalgia, although this "township" is the "city" of Greater Shanghai. Why did Lao Wu study "Shanghai-style literature" so much later? Why pay special attention to citizen popular fiction? It is related to the accumulation of his life experience when he was a child and his later "amplification" due to migration. It is said that Wu Fuhui is "a southerner and a northerner", and Shanghai has always been his hometown haunting his dreams, which has become the source of his literary research. To borrow the words of Lu Xun's "Morning Flowers and Sunset", many of Lao Wu's research stems from "homesickness".
Wu Fuhui lived a relatively prosperous life in Shanghai as a child, but later moved to Anshan, where he lived, went to school, and taught in the suburbs of this medium-sized city, and most of his classmates were children of miners or farmers. As a result, he felt "left behind", but he also benefited from it, and he felt more closely what life was like in grassroots society than many literary researchers from school to school.
Lao Wu loves freedom, rich feelings, loves to play, eat, travel, make friends, and collects all kinds of strange stones, and literary research can only be said to be one of his many hobbies in life, in which he can get a unique sense of achievement and fun. In a message of condolence to Wu Fuhui from the Department of Chinese at Peking University, he praised him for being "upright, witty, affectionate, flowing, and benevolent." I think it is appropriate. Lao Wu is loyal, amiable, and low-key, which is reflected in his research, that is, there is very little kind of saber-rattling criticism, and he does not care much about "meaning" and "value", but it can be seen that he is enthusiastic and interested in life. He studied the "Shanghai School" and the "popular literature of the people", both focusing on the appearance and texture of life, showing tolerance and understanding.
Lao Wu also has a unique condition, that is, to work in the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature for a long time. In the past few decades, he has been in contact with a lot of first-hand information, and has met and interviewed many veterans and famous artists in the literary and artistic circles. Many of his articles are casual and free-spirited. For example, "The History of the Development of Modern Chinese Literature (Illustrated Edition)", which everyone has praised, would not have been able to write it without the rich materials of the Literature Museum and his well-informed background. He actually completed this masterpiece by himself. The book has a rambling structure that suits his free personality, like a tour guide who takes the reader on a journey through the "geography" of modern literature, full of historical materials, anecdotes, and details. Everyone has never seen such a casual and interesting literary history, and this is Wu Fuhui's success.
Another point in particular is that most of Wu Fuhui's works do not belong to any projects, nor are they funded, so he does it himself. For example, "The Biography of Sha Ting" and "The History of the Development of Modern Chinese Literature (Illustrated Edition)" were completed after four or five years. I have written an article criticizing the current academic world for being difficult and irritable because many people are tied up in projects and plans, and are in a state of "project-based survival". How many topics are really interesting to you? It's just to "win the bid" or to operate for some practical benefit. Lao Wu took advantage of this point, and his research was basically "optional actions", not planned "projects". Studying Wu Fuhui, as well as scholars of Wu Fuhui's generation, should consider this factor.
Two
Next, let's talk about Wu Fuhui's academic contributions, I think there are four aspects that are very prominent, and they will be remembered by later generations.
The first contribution was to participate in the preparation for the establishment of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. Wu Fuhui was assigned to prepare for the establishment of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature after graduating from graduate school. At that time, there was no trace of the modern literature museum, and they first worked in the earthquake shed near the old Peking University Red House on the beach. I heard Lao Wu say that at first there were only 4 people, three old comrades, and only Wu Fuhui was a "professional". Later, after Ba Jin's appeal and Hu Qiaomu's coordination, he borrowed the Wanshou Temple on the edge of Zizhuyuan Park as an office for preparation, and the personnel also increased Yang Li, Shu Yi, Liu Lin, Dong Bingyue, etc. one after another. Lao Wu lived in the monastery and was busy visiting writers all day long, collecting and rescuing materials. Sometimes I go to see him, especially at night, when the stars are shining, the wind is sharp, and the dilapidated courtyard is particularly lonely, but Lao Wu is very able to calm down and write his articles one by one. It was his busiest period, and it was the peak of his writing. With his academic strength, Lao Wu later served as the deputy director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, and also served as the executive vice president of the Chinese Modern Literature Research Association and the editor-in-chief of the "Modern Chinese Literature Research Series", becoming one of the most active characters in the modern literary circle. Later, the Literature Museum moved to a new location in Chaoyang District. Lao Wu has been in the Literature Museum for more than 30 years. Whether it is a literary museum, a society or a series, he is a veteran, and his contribution is enormous.
In particular, I would like to talk about the years when he first went to the Literature Museum, and he edited a "Dictionary of Modern Chinese Writers" with Yang Li and others, focusing on writers before the founding of New China, a total of 708 people, each writer has a short biography, attached to the bibliography of the works. At that time, almost everyone who was engaged in the study of modern and contemporary literature had a book, which had a great influence. Young scholars may not understand that the revival of modern literary studies after the reform and opening up actually began with the compilation of a "writer's dictionary". Before Wu Fuhui's dictionary, there were already teachers from the Beijing Language Institute who compiled the "Dictionary of Chinese Writers", which also included many modern writers. Lao Wu's dictionary focuses on modern writers and is very detailed. The work started almost from scratch and was very difficult. Using the form of "dictionaries" to re-evaluate a large number of misunderstood and buried writers is in itself a "reversal of chaos". Now it seems that this book was only a reference book, and it was actually very useful at the time.
Wu Fuhui (right) talks with young scholars.
Wu Fuhui's second contribution is the study of "Shanghai School Literature". "Haipai" is a huge existence. It is not a literary genre with a relatively consistent direction, but a literary trend that has emerged in the special environment of the metropolis of Shanghai, which has a diverse appearance and shows some common characteristics. In the 30s of the 20th century, there was a controversy between the "Beijing School" and the "Shanghai School" in the literary circles, and Shen Congwen, who paid attention to literary interest and moral sense, once named some writers in Shanghai "Shanghai School", believing that their characteristics were the combination of "celebrity and talent" and "commercial bidding", and even classified the left-wing "Revolutionary Romantic Tik" literature at that time into the "Shanghai School", which later caused a controversy. Shen Congwen viewed the "Shanghai School" from the standpoint of the "Beijing School", which was obviously biased, but he obviously stated the fact that the "Shanghai School" existed at that time. However, the literary history of the fifties and sixties of the 20th century did not mention the "Shanghai School" at all, and the most popular literary history of the eighties did not have a place for the "Shanghai School". It was not until the end of the 80s that Yan Jiayan did research on the genre of novels, named the "New Sensation School" for the first time, and argued in a special chapter that part of the "Shanghai School" became an "unearthed cultural relic" and was excavated. Wu Fuhui judged the situation and began his special study of "Shanghai School" novels almost during this period. His "Shanghai School Novels in the Urban Whirlpool" is the first work dedicated to the study of "Shanghai School" literature, and there have been many comments in the academic circles, so I will not talk about it here. Wu Fuhui's study of "Shanghai School" literature is not necessarily the earliest, but it is the most systematic and comprehensive, and since he began, the term "Shanghai School literature" has "entered the room" in literary history treatises.
What people may not realize is the greater influence of the "Shanghai School" literature is the relevant part written by Wu Fuhui for "Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature". The 1985 Shanghai Literary Edition of the book gave two sections to the novels of the "New Sensation School" and Xu Ji and Anonymous, and carefully named them "Western-field novels". By 1998, the book had been greatly revised, and it was specially branded as a "Shanghai-style novel" and given a special section on it. It outlines the secularization and commercialization of "Shanghai School" novels, and the transitional depiction of the city, and discusses the writers of the New Sensation School, such as Shi Yucun, Liu Naou, and Mu Shiying, as well as Zhang Ziping, Ye Lingfeng, Zeng Xubai, He Jin, and Black Baby. Since then, the "Shanghai School" has officially occupied a place in the history of literature, and this part was written by Wu Fuhui. Later, there was more research on "Shanghai School" literature, and it can be said that Wu Fuhui took the lead, and his research on "Shanghai School literature" not only led the way, but is still a benchmark for this research.
Wu Fuhui's third contribution is the study of popular fiction of citizens. The base camp of research in this area should be Soochow University, and Mr. Fan Boqun is a leading figure, and was the first to call for popular literature to be written into the history of literature. His History of Modern Chinese Popular Literature was published in 2000. However, in 1997, when "Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature" was revised, three chapters were devoted to "popular novels", which involved the old school novels of the Republic of China, the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, martial arts novels, and so on. This is the first time that "popular novels" have been integrated into a comprehensive literary history, and have been given a certain status in literary history. This part of the work was undertaken by Wu Fuhui. In 2016, the book was revised for the third time, and there were many changes, some chapters were almost rewritten, among which the most changed were the three chapters of "Citizen Popular Novels" written by Lao Wu. Lao Wu put a lot of effort into it, and he himself attached great importance to it, and also received the rewritten three chapters into his "Shizhai Traces of Words II". I know that many teachers do not include "popular fiction" in their teaching plans when they use this textbook, but as a complete history of modern literature, the organic integration of "popular literature" is a very important measure. In fact, these three chapters are very difficult to write. There are so many works of popular literature that it takes a lot of effort to choose from them and to comment on them.
Wu Fuhui's fourth contribution was to put forward the concept of "great literary history" and try to write "The History of the Development of Modern Chinese Literature (Illustrated Edition)". Literary history can be constantly rewritten, and literary history may and should be written in different ways at every historical stage. More than 10 years ago, there was a reflection on the writing mode of modern literary history in the academic circles, and they were generally dissatisfied with the narrative mode of literary history in the past: that is, the common mode of starting from around the "May Fourth" period, taking time as the "classic", style and writers' works as the "weft", and highlighting the criticism of representative writers. This way of writing is mainly based on the consideration of the function of textbooks, and I want to write a "canonical history" of literature, consciously or unconsciously. Inspired by the "new historicism" in the field of history, this kind of "dissatisfaction" has aroused a new imagination, hoping to highlight the various relationships between literature and life, literature and history, and literature and power discourse in the practice of literary criticism, and to change from the deconstruction strategy of literary works around a single "center" in the past to a polycentric or uncentered narrative of historical states. At that time, various ideas emerged about the way literary history should be written. Such as "Theory of Literary Ecology" (Yan Jiayan), "Theory of Elegant and Vulgar Wings" (Fan Boqun), "Theory of Pioneer and Normality" (Chen Sihe), "Redrawing the Map of Literature" (Yang Yi), "Literature of the Republic of China" (Li Yi, etc.). These ideas have different angles and their own rationality, the question is how to implement them? It's not that simple to operate. So there was Wu Fuhui's bold attempt, and he put forward the concept of "great literary history" very inclusively. He advocates a "synergistic" literary history, which is regarded as a history of literary change in a multi-faceted and symbiotic cultural field. He also borrowed Mr. Wang Yao's statement that there are two ways to do learning, one is to focus on one point of view, like a record turning around and making a sound; The other is to narrate multiple points of view, divergent, like knitting a sweater, knitting stitch by stitch, and then connecting piece by piece. Wu Fuhui adopted the method of "knitting sweaters" and spent three or four years writing "The History of the Development of Modern Chinese Literature (Illustrated Edition)".
This literary history is refreshing to everyone, because they have never seen such a structure, nor have they ever seen such a rich content. The publication, publication, dissemination, and reception of literary works, as well as the living conditions, migration, and mobility of writers, as well as the activities of social schools, are all included, narrated one by one, laid out piece by piece, in an attempt to constitute the "original ecology" of literary occurrence. Coupled with the rich list of materials, the placement of famous anecdotes, the list of chronology and memorabilia, especially a large number of illustrations, it makes people read a bit like visiting a museum.
This literary history is a "scattered narrative", de-"centered", and deliberately downplaying the analysis of the writer's work.
Later, Wu Fuhui also cooperated with friends to compile the "Chronicle of Modern Chinese Literature", which used literary advertisements as clues and used the chronicle style to structure the historical context of literary development, providing a new perspective for the narration and evaluation of literary history. In any case, Wu Fuhui's "change of law in his later years" did not sit and talk about it, nor did he rarely confront people in theory, so he worked hard and wrote it with the strength of one person, and finally wrote the "illustrated book", a "great literary history" with a myriad of weather and a very good look. You may be able to pick out this and that "shortcomings" in this book, but it is a good read, and I have to admire it.
Wu Fuhui was a solid, brilliant and low-key scholar who made great contributions to the study of modern literature, and later generations can benefit greatly from his writings. He left this world at the age of 82, and died on the other side of the ocean, in that snow-covered place, and he was still so "low-key". According to his family, Lao Wu died of a sudden heart attack in his sleep, which can be described as a "good death". For those of us old classmates, this is a bit of a relief.
Courtesy of Liu Tao, a professor at the School of Liberal Arts, Henan University, and Wu Chen, daughter of Wu Fuhui
Guangming Daily (2024-08-05 Edition 11)
Source: Guangming Net-Guangming Daily