The Museum of Modern Chinese Literature issued an obituary that Comrade Shu Yi, the son of Mr. Lao She, died in Beijing at 14:16 on April 21, 2021 at the age of 86 due to ineffective medical treatment.
Shu Yi, the son of the famous Chinese literary scholar Shu Qingchun (Lao She), born in 1935 in Qingdao, Shandong, is a Manchu, famous writer and literary critic. After graduating from Beijing No. 2 Middle School at the age of 18, he was sent by the state to Leningrad Kirov Forestry Technical University in the Soviet Union to study forestry chemical technology, and engaged in scientific research for many years after returning to China.
In 1978, he began to use his spare time to engage in literary creation, and published a number of essay collections, literary research and criticism collections. He is the author of "Scattered Memories of Lao She", "Lao She", "Father's Last Two Days", "Guan Kan and Hobbies", "My Kite", "Little Green Stick", "Dreams and Tears", "I Love Beijing", "My Thoughts - About Mr. Lao She", "Treasures of Modern Literature", "Song of Family Affection", "My First Sight" and other works. In 1984, he was transferred to the Chinese Writers Association and participated in the preparation of the preparatory work for the construction of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. Before his death, he was a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. In 1992, the essay collection "Lao She's Hobbies and Passes" won the Manchu Literature Prize.
"Lao She's Barriers and Hobbies" by Shu Yi
"Talking to Shu Yi about Lao She's Reading Life"
Published in Southern Metropolis Daily on April 4, 2020
Author: Xie Juan
In September 2014, Lao She's son Shu Yi came to Shanghai to participate in literary activities, and one day the Shanghai Writers Association invited Mr. Shu Yi to lunch, and the author was the editor of a newspaper supplement in Shanghai, who had compiled and distributed several articles by Mr. Shu Yi and was invited to sit with him. Before lunch, there were still a few people who accompanied the dinner, and the author had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Shu Yi. At that time, because the Shanghai Book Fair ended shortly after, we started from the book fair and focused on Mr. Lao She's reading life.
Shu Yi said that Lao She did not say that he was a writer, but called himself a "writer". "Writer" can not be separated from the dictionary, Mr. Lao She's desk always has an old dictionary, which is a dictionary that looks up the beginning of the department according to the pronunciation, this dictionary is very practical, first know the sound, and then check the word according to the sound. Lao She's early collection of books has preserved a "Lexicon", and there is his inscription on the title page, which reads: I can't afford to buy a tome, so I finally have a copy of my own. - The inscription reads a little sad.
After graduating from normal school, Mr. Lao She's first reading climax was from 1924 to 1929, and in 1924, at the age of 25, Lao She worked as a lecturer at the Oriental College of the University of London, teaching the British to speak official language and read the "Four Books and Five Classics". At that time, he was full of energy and had a lot of free time, and in order to learn English well, he began to read a lot of English original works. The reading of Lao She's period was obviously divided into two stages: the first stage can be called "random reading"; the second stage was "systematic reading", which was actually "selective key reading" and reading "one person and one representative masterpiece". The so-called "random reading" means that what is caught is what to read, without planning and advocating, there are famous works and various miscellaneous books. But even if it is "scribble reading", Lao She reads mostly literary books, and the earliest reading materials include Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, Dickens's David Copperfield and so on.
The so-called "systematic reading" is to read in a certain planned and orderly manner, first reading European history, then reading ancient Greek history, and then Greek literature and art, ancient Roman history and ancient Roman literature and art. Ancient Greek works began with the Iliad, followed by the reading of Homer's Odyssey. After reading the works of Greek tragedians, Lao She read Aristophanes' Greek comedies. Lao She has said he prefers Greek comedy.
From 1928 to 1929, Lao She focused on reading modern English and French novels. At this time, he had begun to write a long novel "Erma". He made a reading plan, listing the first-rate writers and the representative works of each writer, and in the past two years, Lao She "seems to have fallen into the novel array", he read wells, Conrad, Meredith in England, Flaubert and Maupassant in France, and Lao She spent a lot of time reading novels.
After returning to China in 1930, Lao She read many works by Russian writers of the nineteenth century, and Lao She considered these works to be the "most" great people in great literature and art.
Lao She is a person without a formal university degree, but after he returned to China, he opened a number of courses in Qilu University and Shandong University, including introduction to literature, literary criticism, literary and artistic trends, novels and practices, European literature overview, General History of Europe, etc. This is because Lao She read a lot of books during his time in Britain, and rich reading gave him self-confidence and confidence.
According to the university regulations, the teacher should personally write the lecture notes, which were engraved and printed by the school and distributed to the students. Lao She is very serious about preparing lessons, and he reads and writes lecture notes in the library during the day to prepare lessons. Taking Shu Sheyu's "Lecture Notes on Introduction to Literature" of Qilu University, which is now discovered, as an example, he directly quotes the discourses, works and views of 140 ancient and modern Chinese and foreign scholars and writers in this book. This formed Lao She's second reading climax, the reading climax centered on lesson preparation, when the purpose of his reading was very clear, as evidenced by his lecture notes.
Mr. Lao She bought a book collection from the United Kingdom. At that time, his annual salary was very low, only £250 a year. Three years later, after an application, it rose to £300 a year. He wanted to support his mother and send some of his salary back to China. At that time, Lao She often did not have enough to eat and was in a state of semi-starvation. Even so, he was meticulous and saved money on books. When he returned home, he brought back a lot of books. Among them, the original Shakespeare's complete works are the most precious. When Lao She went to Jinan and Qingdao to teach, in addition to salary, there was also a writing fee, and the living conditions were greatly improved. He began to buy books on a large scale, and there were many bookshelves in the bookstore, and by the eve of the War of Resistance, there was a considerable collection of books.
In 1937, the "July 7 Incident" broke out, Mr. Lao She moved his family from Qingdao back to Jinan, and books were also packed and shipped to Jinan. In November, the situation suddenly changed, and Lao She was forced to leave Jinan alone, leaving Jinan and going south to join the torrent of the War of Resistance; his wife, children, and books all remained in Jinan. Before Lao She left, he packed books, calligraphy and paintings into boxes and stored them in the library of Qilu University. A year later, the lady returned to Beiping's house with her children, and the furniture was stored in Jinan, with only some carry-on clothes. Since then, the whereabouts of books, calligraphy, paintings, furniture, etc. have been unknown. Later, I heard that the Japanese army had entered Qilu University, and the school's assets had been looted. Lao She suffered heavy losses and was sad.
After 1949, Mr. Lao She began to store books again, but he did not really buy a lot of books, most of them were donated books. When the new edition of The Complete Works of Lu Xun was published, he bought a set for the first time and placed it neatly on the shelves. On the shelves there is a set of new literary and art books in the Liberated Areas, about forty or fifty volumes. He used this set of books to rewrite a traditional cross-talk article, "Article Society", in early 1950.
Since then, Mr. Lao She's collection of books is basically related to his writing, which is directly for his writing, and belongs to the creation of materials, for example, he has a large number of boxer historical books, which were specially collected for the creation of the drama "Shen Fist".
Lao She reads a lot, so which writers and works does Mr. Lao She like the most? Talking about this, Shu Yi said that Lao She likes the poetry of Li Bai, Lu You, Su Manshu and Wu Meicun. In classical Chinese novels, Lao She likes "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Golden Plum Bottle". Modern writers he admires Lu Xun the most. At the Chongqing Commemoration Conference to Commemorate Lu Xun's Death, Lao She recited the chapters of "The True Biography of Ah Q" in public. In 1956, at the conference held in Beijing to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Lu Xun's death, Mr. Lao She delivered an opening speech.
In 1935, Lao She wrote an article on the central topic of "My Favorite Writer", entitled "A Creator of the Greatest Realm and Personality in Modern Times - My Favorite Writer - Conrad". In 1943, in the nineteenth issue of the magazine "Human World", in the column of the reply to the question "The Books I Loved to Read in 1943", Mr. Lao She's answer was: ""Autobiography of Congwen", "The Life and Thinking of Ancient and Modern Great Philosophers". ”
After that meeting with Mr. Shu Yi, in November 2014, I and Mr. Shu Yi exchanged greetings through an email. Later, I heard that Mr. Shu Yi had a stroke and his physical condition was very bad. As a newspaper supplement editor, I worked with Mr. Shu Yi for three years between 2011 and 2014, writing for my editor's supplement, and I carefully edited and distributed his essays and essays. In those three years, before the Spring Festival, I sent Mr. Shu Yi a New Year card, and Mr. Shu Yi gave back a large "Fu" character handwritten with a brush, and the word "Fu" was written in black ink on big red paper, with the joy of the festival. The three "Fu" characters handwritten by Mr. Shu Yi were not willing to post them, and I have been collecting them well. Life is impermanent, may Mr. Shu Yi in the illness suffer less and recover his health as soon as possible!