About Zhai Bozan, Yuan Shuipai: Wang Yeqiu and the Chilean poet Neruda (The Disciple of the Good Book)

My son bought a few idle books from the Internet and gave them to me to take a sneak peek. All of them are from the Zhonghua Bookstore, and they are all about the theme of buying books and collecting books. Among them, there is a book "The Disciple of a Good Book", the author of chen Xiaowei, this book I have never heard of. With the experience of reading the first few books, I thought that this book would not be very famous. Unexpectedly, I couldn't put it down at first glance. The book tells the story of the book buyer who wrote the book and bought the book based on the author's own experience of buying good books. The language is concise, the concept is clever, and the sentences are on the point. Although they are all trivial things, they are very readable, so that many ordinary people do not know the past, as if in front of their eyes.

When it comes to Zhai Bozan in the book, I only know that this person is a literary and historical master, who once held a high position and was very authoritative, and committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution. In this book we know the other side of him. He used to be so high, so privileged, living alone in a small building, and his mount crushed the children in the courtyard, and the parents did not dare to express any dissatisfaction. The professor of the school wrote the book, and the name he wanted to sign had to listen to him. Of course, this is not a reason for him to be persecuted. That is to say, although his final encounter is very sympathetic, it does not mean that he is completely infallible.

Another is Yuan Shuipai, also a far-left figure, who was the vice minister of culture when the Gang of Four was a vice minister of culture, and after the fall of the Gang of Four, he was detained and examined. I have read many articles and have been quite critical of this. The book says that in his early years, Yuan Shuipai worked in the financial industry, was a beautiful teenager in a suit and leather shoes, and published a collection of poems at the age of 20. He was the first of the literati to sing the leader's ode. As a result, he was immediately transferred to the Central Propaganda Department to participate in the historical investigation of martial arts training. Yuan's collection of poems when he was young was brilliant in literature and was a true poet. He was depressed in his later years and died of depression at the age of 66. Interestingly, his friend Xu Chi from his youth published a book of poems for him three years after his death, with a cover designed by his friend Yu Feng. Although Yuan Shui's success was when the two friends fell, the friendship eventually restored their dreams when they were young.

Speaking of Wang Yeqiu, the supreme leader of the cultural relics industry after liberation, a person of high moral character and who insisted on engaging in the work of professional cultural relics of the state, he personally did not engage in collection, he set an example by example, and did what he said. Although he has handled countless valuable national treasure-level cultural relics, he has never had a single collection. At this point, Zheng Zhenduo, a former vice minister of culture, could not do it. He was so collecting that he couldn't control it. I thought that when I was young, I had read Wang Yeqiu's novel "On the Qingcheng Mountain", which was very literary and artistic, and I liked it very much, and that book said that it was a novel, but it was very much like personal experience. Not at all as high-end as his later position.

Then there is Chen Mengjia, a literary master, a collector, and his Ming and Qing dynasty furniture is the treasure of the Shanghai Museum. This poet and collector died during the Cultural Revolution, taking sleeping pills before dying, and then hanging himself, determined to die. His wife, Zhao Luorui, is very long-lived, but they have no children. After Zhao's death, many collections went into exile, and the author found two books. After watching it, people sigh. It might be better to think they're going to have kids. Of course, this is not the case, such as Ji Xianlin, for example, some descendants are unfairly distributed to the court.

There is also an article about the visit of the Chilean Communist Party poet Neruda to China. It was the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and few foreign friends came, and the standard of hospitality was very high, almost at the level of head of state. He had to go to the store to sell a pair of socks, and there was not a single customer in the whole department store, so he was alone. The most interesting thing is that in the Soviet Union, Soong Ching Ling won the Stalin Peace Prize, and at the award banquet, Neruda and Soong Ching Ling shared the same table, Soong Ching Ling was beautiful and gentle, smiling and talking to the poet. I saw her take the cigarette from the cigarette box and light it, the cigarette box was very delicate, studded with diamonds and precious stones, and the poet took it and admired it for a while, and then returned it to the owner. Unexpectedly, after a while, Song's face sank, and he asked me what about the cigarette case? The poet said that he had just given it to you. Song didn't seem to believe it, and looked for a while, but fortunately finally found it in his pocket. The poet said he almost never laughed.