Li Yu's name

Author: Chen Shixu

In the early 1980s, I was placed from a small town to a cultural unit in the provincial city to write professionally, in which the Theater Research Institute, learned about Li Yu.

I was impressed by Li Yu's earliest name, the original name xianluo, the word who fan, the number of heavenly disciples - as if it was a prophecy for his life.

In the slightly exaggerated narrative, Li Yu is simply a little peculiar: swaddled and literate, four books and five books are not forgotten; the general angle composition, the next thousand words; the boy tried to become a "boy of the Five Classics" in one fell swoop, and became famous for a while; but the two tried to go to the countryside before and after the establishment without results. At one time, he was a state Sima Muke, and in the Eight Yong Lou where Shen Yu Li Qingzhao successively inscribed the chants, and no one dared to easily write after that, "Shen Lang is difficult to say after he goes, and the wunu is the head of mo to pick the stars", which is praised by people. The Qing soldiers entered the city, returned to their hometown Lanxi, and built the Yi Garden, where they became "literate farmers".

"Welcome to the chicken dog, the mountains and rivers know each other." Since the farmers quit hoeing, the fish throwing rods and fighting each other..." "Return to the Hometown Endowment" seems to come out of Tao Yuanming's "Return to the Word". If this is the case, literary history is at most one more hermit.

However, Li Yu is not "Mr. Wuliu". He advocated the construction of a pavilion, named it "and stop the pavilion", and inscribed it with the inscription "The name is lihu road rushing and resting, and the people who come and go are quiet and stop"; he advocated the construction of water conservancy, the excavation of weir pits in the fields, so that Tian He would have shade, and shiping dam was called "Li Yu Dam" by posterity; he made a covenant on the ancestral hall of the prime minister, and repaired the genealogy, which was deeply respected by the villagers.

The change stems from the verbal litigation with neighboring villages. Li Yu obviously did not have the genes to fight, and his family moved to Hangzhou.

The bustling city, bustling with traffic, should have a relatively open foothold; full of economy, can not "goods and imperial family", used to support the family should be more than enough; no relatives, fortunately, can be supplied to the rich gentleman and the people of the city who are interested in dramatic novels.

The first professional writer in Chinese history who "sold his gifts to make ends meet" was born.

Like all Han disciples, Li Yu once believed that taking the Shitu Economy Guangzong Yaozu as the right path in life. Unexpectedly, the wind and clouds change, and the dream of learning and excellence is shattered. Although "people's tears and peach blossoms are all blood, and paper money and hearts are all ashes", he did not lie flat, but opened up another path that no one had ever walked before.

Fate doomed him to wander and deviate. Li Yu chose the "last skill" of "selling words" that was despised by the orthodox literati and regarded by everyone at the time as a "lowly business". In terms of self-willingness and lowliness, there may be similarities with Guan Hanqing, the founder of meta-miscellaneous dramas.

Guan Hanqing's self-insult of "copper peas" to express his rebellion against traditional norms is, to some extent, a kind of resistance. And Li Yu did not have such arrogance, did not have such cynicism. His choice was purely to go with the flow. He did not care about the secular hierarchy of "seven craftsmen, eight prostitutes, nine confucians and ten beggars", and did not care how the world looked at him, and he frankly admitted that his reputation as the "King of Tang" was exaggerated. If Izumi had known, he would have laughed at the later generations who despised him as a "popular writer." He did not write about the tragedy of weeping blood and breaking his intestines like Guan Hanqing's "Dou E'e Grievance", nor did he write such famous sentences as "Biyun Tian, Yellow Flower Land, West Wind Tight, North Wild Geese Flying South" in Wang Shifu's "West Chamber", and "Chao Fei Twilight Scroll, Yunxia Cuixuan, Rain Silk Wind Piece, Smoke Wave Painting Boat" in Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion". He hid the sharpness of punishing evil and promoting good and condemning Taoism in gentle and smooth, he was sympathetic, he was good at what others liked, only to understand and understand, to appreciate the common customs, men and women, young and old, up and down, all were happy. "In the north and the south, there are all those who know Li Shilang."

Throughout the ancient and modern times, how many people have written books and said that they seem to be deep, and the status of the literary world is high, which can be expected. But what Li Yu gives to the world is a kind of ease and kindness.

Li Yu has never been an official in his life, he is brilliant, his views are trendy, he does not rely on others, he does not repeat himself, and strives to discover "things that have never been seen before", "to imitate unfinished feelings, to depict incomplete states", the number of works is amazing, unique, and has long led the trend of fashion culture.

His novels are "the book of new eyes and ears", which are sold out as soon as they are published; his plays change the script to become the ills of the desk work, "noble and shallow is not expensive and deep"; his "Idle Love and Occasional Mail" created the first systematic theory of drama in Chinese history, and actually included construction, decoration, medicine, health care, cooking, beauty, grooming, etc.; his gardening is exquisite and unique, "Mustard Seed Nasumi", and he is full of Hongru; for publishing, from the selection of topics, engraving to distribution, he is proficient, and the mustard garden books are unique in the forest; he is not a painter. However, he initiated the compilation of the "Biography of Mustard Garden Paintings", so that "all those who paint landscapes in the world have the pleasure of painting landscapes, and do not have to live in the name of painters to get the truth of the tiger's head"; he is a member of the literary association, a friend of the drama, a four-way court, an eight-sided exquisite, circling around the dignitaries and dignitaries, the three religions and nine streams, smoking a lot, earning donations, and being wary of every step; he "focuses his life on the smoke and bamboo stones", "the famous mountains and rivers are ten classics and six sevens", "the people who see the people of one place once, and the victory of one side through one side." And what is not eaten, what is tasted is not tasted"; his class of opera composers, red all over the country, get along day and night, love, friendship, art, love and milk.

After becoming famous, Li Yu gave himself many names: "Kasa Hong", "Kasa Ong", "Kyawse Barnyard Official", "Kasa Doren", "Sui'an Master", "Kasa Ong on the Lake". All of this is flaunted in one sense — the self-proclaimed little man, as if deliberately contrasted with his particularly open-minded, wonderful, and resounding life. The titles given to him by his descendants are dizzying: novelist, poet, playwright, theater theorist, publisher, book dealer, social activist, garden artist, inventor, aesthetician, gourmet, fashion culture advocate, cultural forerunner... And I thought that the title he was most entitled to should be the living family- the unique living family. He lived artistically, and put the art of living into words very artistically, and he was very successful in art and life. He art for life– first for survival, then for enjoyment.

It is because of this that he is far higher than countless pretentious talents.

Li Yu's body gathers almost all the intelligence, talents, dreams, personalities, merits, fetishes and defects of traditional Chinese literati. However, compared to his old-fashioned and restrained peers, he acts in a high-profile style and has a generous lifestyle. He is sensitive and obsessed with the Garden of Flowers, the wine and delicacies, and the beauty of the sound. He was full of passions and six desires, and he lived a life full of fireworks in the world, leisurely and generous, and lifted heavy weights. Countless scholars regard it as a masterpiece of livelihood in his view, but the "idleness" of "occasional memories". He is a talking point for men and also for women to appreciate. He represents an alien culture full of fresh air.

He has been a reader, but he is not bound by the solemn classics; he has fantasized about being an official, but the order of the withered trees cannot tolerate his freshness. Li Yu was too far ahead, at least hundreds of years ahead. He abandoned the name of the scholar, exceeded the conventional track, and lived in the beginning and end of the legendary opera. He reviewed the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and revised the "Golden Plum Bottle", and the proud work of the heyday was a game work, like an out-of-the-box joke. He only writes comedy, "only I fill in the words and do not sell sorrow, and it is my worry that a husband does not laugh." He delighted society and lived like a god himself. Or vice versa, he lived like a god and at the same time delighted the whole society. He was therefore quite self-satisfied: "Although many scholars have the talent of the heavens and the earth, if there is no scroll of ascension to heaven, what can they think?" "He's a legend, a comedy, an enviable garden in his own right. He was like a fairy in his life, how many times was he a Kasa Ong?

However, Li Yu was ultimately unable to avoid a bleak curtain.

He was so successful. As deeply as his influence was, so much his jealousy. Entering the peak of life and career, it is also plunged into the quagmire of human nature. Slander and rumors followed, and Li Yu, who stood on his pen and ink, has been swallowing his anger. He only betrays his talents and does not harm others. He never wanted to live himself well, and had no intention of opposing anyone. His humanity is a beautiful landscape that he doesn't want to get dirty.

Li Yu has both fame and fortune, but he is not a layman in the city. In his old age, he quietly embarked on the road back to the road. A friend of many years wrote eight small words on his hand: "Only high to attract jealousy, things will be reversed." ”

Finally, it came to this early morning, the ancient rare year, the winter of life, the snow flew, and the wind and current of a generation of wind and moon masters were quiet for a lifetime.

His last promised land was the layer garden that he had worked so hard to build. The garden is built on the edge of the mountain, and the "Kasawong on the lake" can enjoy the lake and the mountain between the sittings and bedrooms, "the cumbersome drive people, the old business is thrown into the dust city; the lake and the mountain recruit me, and the whole family moves into the picture".

The Layer Garden loses its original owner and will eventually lose its original life in decay. And the people who give it life will not disappear with it. The sizable number of intangible buildings he had created in his lifetime would have lived much longer than all the tangible buildings he had ever owned.

Guangming Daily (October 22, 2021, 15th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily