"Craftsman spirit" is a topic that has aroused heated discussion from all walks of life in recent years, and has gradually entered our daily life from the professional field, and even become an incision for us to re-examine and interpret cultural traditions.
Recently, writer Ge Liang's latest novel "Tile Cat" was published by the People's Literature Publishing House. The book "Tile Cat" is also about craftsmanship, which involves three traditional craftsmen of ancient book restorers, barbers and potters, spanning three cities and three places, from Nanjing, Hong Kong to Kunming, from Jiangnan, Lingnan to Nan, and the time span dates back from the contemporary era to the "Southern United University period", showing a variety of narratives and meteorology. Taking "craftsmen" as the introduction of the story, Ge Liang is still looking for human dignity, persistence and faith, and when the times are open and changing, people's encounters and changes, scales and flames, are passed on for craftsmen.
The writing stemmed from the manuscript rescue of my grandfather's writings
The origin of this book is that Ge Liang participated in the rescue work of the manuscript of his grandfather Professor Ge Kangyu's book "According to Several Previous Views". Ge Kangyu was a famous art historian who completed his monograph "According to Several Previous Views" in Jiangjin, Sichuan Province, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and is still regarded as a guideline by researchers of ancient Chinese painting and calligraphy. Because of his grandfather's damaged manuscripts, Ge Liang came into contact with the profession of "ancient book restorer" by chance, and personally experienced the whole process of a book that can be completely restored. Every detail is unpredictable; every piece of work is specific and subtle. The hardships are not necessarily completed by relying on modern science and technology, and only experienced masters can overcome them. This experience infected Ge Liang and inspired him to write the first "Bookmaker" in the "Craftsman Series".
Ge Liang's grandfather Ge Kangyu
When writing "Northern Iris", Ge Liang lamented the reason why Cao Xueqin wrote the "Waste Art Collection". "Waste Art Collection" is a book of "joining the world", talking about the art of making a living, gold stones, weaving, printing and dyeing, cooking, gardening, etc. The reason why Cao Xia wrote this book is to teach the "wasted disease" to "seek the way of self-support". The reason why craftsmen are not afraid of changing times is because they have a skill. The craftsman learns the craft, and in the body, he becomes one with the experience of life.
The attribution of the "Northern Iris" is the fragment of the "Manuscript of the Waste Art Collection", "Southern Harrier and Northern Iris Examination Work Zhi", which is a Cao Gong manuscript
As a result, the writing proposition of the "Craftsman Series" is formed, and the technique is not only the way to make a living, but also the integration of the craftsman's life experience. The inner spiritual character of the craftsmen draws Ge Liang and constantly approaches the core of their destiny. In the following years, Ge Liang searched deeply for craftsmen from all over the world, and successively completed works such as "Flying Hair" and "Tile Cat".
After the "Craftsman Series" novels were published in magazines, they immediately ranked among the major literary lists such as the "Harvest Literature List" and the "October Novel List", and were reprinted by publications such as Xinhua Digest. Among them, "Bookmaker" was selected as the reading question of the 2020 National College Entrance Examination Language Examination Paper, which caused widespread discussion on the Internet and received great social repercussions.
Scales and flames, all self-handed
When Commenting on "Water Margin," Mr. Jin Shengsi said: "A flower, a petal, a hair, a scale, and a flame are all very small in between." It is about the beauty of the details of the novel, and when applied to the craftsman, it means the meticulousness and meticulousness of the skill. Shoucheng is unchanged, time shift is easy, is change. Change and invariance, dynamic and static phase source, cycle repetition, is a dialectical relationship. Nowadays, the identification of craftsmen is changing, and in the rescue work of participating in his grandfather's writings, Ge Liang has a new understanding of the "craftsman spirit".
He said of himself: "When I come into contact with them, there will be a kind of youth that has nothing to do with posture. In terms of looks, that is from the heart. One of them is that they still maintain a wealth of curiosity. In some positions that are at odds with modern science, they need to solve new problems through old methods, so as to explore clever means and ways. This is actually a kind of care and defense of traditional willfulness. For example, when I wrote Lao Dong in "The Bookmaker", without the help of instruments, he copied the official engravings of the Yongzheng period in a constantly trial-and-error manner. ”
Ge Liang interviews non-hereditary heirs of Macao's wood-carved Buddha statues
In a sense, the novelist is also a craftsman's skill, and wandering the world on paper requires concentration, patience and constant curiosity. The material of this book is the result of Ge Liang's visits to various places over the years and the investigation of folk craftsmanship. The interweaving of non-fiction and fictional techniques in the novel once again proves the novelist's excellent ability to use and control materials. Like the ancient book restorer in the book, Ge Liang does the work of restoring time, carefully pruning and molding the branches hidden under the historical fabric and presenting them to the world.
This book is a problem-breaking work, the novel "Tile Cat", the prototype space is the southwest ancient town of Longquan. From the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, Longquan Town was not only the place where potters and craftsmen made folk sacred beasts and tile cats, but also the gathering place of many famous scholars of Southwest United University under the background of the Anti-Japanese War, and the site of the restoration of important research institutes such as the Institute of History and Language of the Academia Sinica, the Tsinghua Institute of Liberal Arts, and the China Construction Society. In order to properly reconstruct this literary time and space, Ge Liang made a large number of detailed investigations. Through this novel, readers can not only appreciate the daily demeanor and personality charm of Master Figures such as Wen Yiduo, Feng Youlan, Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin, Jin Yuelin, etc., but also feel the special historical period, on the axis of the Chinese tradition, the spirit of craftsmen and elite cultural concepts and patriotic feelings.
Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin Inside the Former Residence of Longtou Village in Longquan Town This is one of the scenes of the story of the novel "Tile Cat"
The title of the book, the introduction to the novel, comes from the poet Szymborska's poem "Museum", "Metal, pottery, bird feathers / Silently celebrating oneself over time." These three objects correspond to the three types of craftsmen in this book. This is also the historical view and time view of Ge Liang's "Craftsman Series" novels, and the reason why people create things is the recognition of past time.
Continuing Ge Liang's narrative aesthetic
Although the three novels in "Tile Cat" all describe the ingenuity of craftsmen, they have their own emphases. "Bookmaker" is the similarity and similarity of the restoration of ancient books in China, focusing on "not encountering good work, preferring to store old things"; "⻜Fat" is a struggle between inheritance and change, persistence and innovation; "Tile Cat" is more involved in the fundamentals of the craftsman - I follow the material nature and imitate the heart with my hands.
It can be seen that the book is discussed by the "craftsman", which is also the tacit understanding between people and things. Time shifts easily, with things as a witness. The ups and downs of the individual in the era also take things as one important node after another. "Good work" and "old things" complement each other, and they have become two sides of the current body that we examine cultural traditions and re-recognize the importance of the craftsman's spirit.
At the same time, as a representative of the "neoclassical novel", the book "Tile Cat" continues Ge Liang's lyrical aesthetics, the language is elegant and diluted, and the narrative is warm and peaceful.
Writer Ge Liang
The story in "Tile Cat" has the debate between "old" and "new", which is the conservation of man, and the novelist's translation and innovation between classical and modern is not the reproduction of this old and new debate. In the "Bookmaker", it is mentioned that a calligrapher inscribed four words for the ancient book restorer Jing Yi: "Cherish the old cloth new", which is actually the core essence of Ge Liang's creation.
Chinese literature has a long history, and since the beginning of modern literature, the language dispute has been long and long, how to continue the classical traditional context, and on this basis to break through innovation, is actually a problem left to contemporary Chinese novelists.
As the Nobel prize winner Mo Yan said in his evaluation of Ge Liang's novels: "Ge Liang is consciously inheriting the tradition of Chinese novels, the strength of language and the grasp of proportions. His characters, even in difficult times, the idea of benevolence and righteousness has not been extinguished. The most splendid part of traditional Chinese culture is reproduced in these characters. ”