Author | Acacia Book
Source | Confucius old book network dynamics
When Chen Xianghe was editor-in-chief of Literary Heritage, he had a discussion about Tao Yuanming in 1958. The discussion received more than 250 articles, and by 1961, it was published in a collection, and the articles in the collection accounted for only one-tenth of the manuscripts. The approach adopted by the editors is to extract different academic views or to summarize them as much as possible to reflect the full picture of the discussion. Chen Xianghe liked Tao Yuanming and Ji Kang when he was young, and in addition to organizing this discussion, he also wrote novels "Tao Yuanming Writes Elegy" and "Guangling San". One of the articles written by Tao Yuanming, Bing Xin once commented; the review article was not long, but her joy after reading it jumped on the paper. Contemporary people create short historical novels, and in that era of high-spirited progress, many readers feel surprised and novel.
In the tenth volume of Shen Congwen's Collected Writings, there is an article "Remembering Xianghe", in which Shen recalls his acquaintance and friendship with Chen, reflecting the real life of the literary youth who gathered in Beijing after the May Fourth Movement. When Shen was working in the Xiangshan Kindergarten, Chen rode a donkey to find him, and on the moonlit night in Xiangshan, under the ancient pine, Shen talked about the pipa, and the two poor and happy literary youths were drunk. Chen lived there, Shen went down to the kitchen in the morning and evening to get a few cold noodles and coarse steamed buns, took a few pickle knots, and treated guests with coarse tea and light rice, and his heart was also happy. Shen Congwen is a poet in his bones. He wrote about getting along with friends when he was young, writing about the fragrant hills with the scent of pine trees and the lotus fragrance blown from the Shuangqing Villa, with a deep and quiet mood. In that year, he and Chen both had literary dreams in Beijing, "Xianghe lived in the middle and old hutongs, the economic conditions seemed to be better than those of ordinary friends, there were several bookshelves in the room, there were more books in Chinese and foreign languages, and the new and old books were shelved separately and cleaned up very neatly." Interest is biased towards the appreciation of old and new literature, but there is little interest in creation. Shen Congwen's memories, written in 1980, have passed half a century since the era of their dreams, but his friendship with Chen Xianghe is picturesque and timeless. He also wrote: "My work achievements are soaked with a few friends who are weak and enduring classical friendships and part of the simple temperament personality. With Shen Congwen's innocence and simplicity, people who can make him remember affectionately must not be wrong.
The literary youth of that generation, for the realization of their dreams, even lived in poetry. Feng Zhi said in the preface to "Chen Xianghe's Anthology" that Chen was already studying at Fudan University in Shanghai, and in order to be with a few of their friends, Fudan's student registration was not needed, so he ran to Beijing, rented a house near the beach, and went to Peking University to observe. At Peking University in that era, except for formal students, young people in society could sit by and no one interfered. Feng remembered his friend's habits: "He used to read at night, often when the chickens were crowing and the paper windows were white. Chen read foreign literature directly in English and went to the old book stall to buy cheap books. Feng's preface also reveals the convenience of mailing books between Japan and China in that era. Feng said: "The Maruzen Bookstore in Japan keeps sending bibliographies, just send out a postcard of the order, and in a few days you will receive a notification to take a packet of ordered books out of the post office by using the method of post office payment." Feng Zhi knew this friend of his, knew that Chen Xianghe only learned about society indirectly from books, and several of their friends huddled together to run publications, write articles, and talk about literature, they were happy and safe, but after the friends broke up to make a living, because Chen Xianghe was "sincere in feelings and had no heart, and was not wary of the outside world and easy to feel, he personally suffered a lot of setbacks in work and pain in love." Chen himself also said when talking about the work of the "Shen Zhong Society": "Our union is to have a friendship first, and then we start from this friendship to publish articles together. "The establishment of fandom groups and the compilation of fandom publications, which he considers to be just a manifestation of friendship." As for the future? In terms of life, we have nothing else to do! No matter how hard and difficult and embarrassing and unfortunate the private life is, we just want to achieve a little success in the art itself. ”
Chen's temperament is also manifested in his articles recalling Li Jieren. He and Lee are old friends. At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, they worked together in the Chengdu Literary Association, and he remembered Elder Li's character and deeds, and wrote a very eloquent person who had the ability to do things and the ability to create literature. I have not read Lee's novels and have an impression of Lee.
From several reminiscence articles, it can be seen that although Chen Xianghe is a sincere and heartless person, he also has the ability to do things like Li Jieren. He organized the discussion of Tao Yuanming, which was a big question about how to inherit literary heritage and how to evaluate classical literature and historical figures. If only individuals can write some articles, they are nerds, lack of understanding of academia, and cannot grasp the principles and policies of literature and art, it is difficult to start and end the discussion of Tao Yuanming. The outcome of the discussion, compiled into an episode, is his exploit. After the social stability, his hometown edited and published a personal anthology for him, which included his originally small novel prose creation, which was both a dream mark of his youth and a memorial to him by his friends. He had only lived to be in his sixties, and if he could touch a book he had compiled, a book he had written, he would have smiled with satisfaction.
When I was a child writing essays, I remembered a sentence: "Add bricks and tiles to socialism." "Mr. Chen Xianghe has "Tao Yuanming Discussion Collection" and "Chen Xianghe Anthology" behind him, which really adds a brick and a tile to the society he once lived in.
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