"If Shen Congwen Saw Huang Yongyu's Article", by Zhang Xinxin, Edition: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, August 2021
If Shen Congwen saw Huang Yongyu's article, this hypothesis had extremely realistic importance, not for the deceased, but for the living, for the living and the writing. - Caption
One
At the book launch of Shen Congwen and I (Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2015), Huang Yongyu talked about what would happen if his article was read by his cousin. "I don't know what he's going to say about me, but I'd be happy if he said I was good. My aunt once said a good thing about me, and she said: Your article is scattered, I don't know how to take it back, and as a result you take it back. This is what my aunt said; he didn't know how it was, and he didn't see a word, which was a pity! ”
In fact, Shen Congwen said Huang Yongyu's article, but not to Huang Yongyu. In the period when the literary scholar Shen Congwen was "unearthed" like a cultural relic, in 1980, the "Flower City" literary and art series in Guangzhou published a "Shen Congwen Album", published three articles written about Shen Congwen, and recited for a while, the authors were Zhu Guangqian, Huang Miaozi and Huang Yongyu, and Huang Yongyu's article was the long article "Scenery Under the Sun". Shen Congwen was obviously satisfied with these articles, and he once told people in his letter that the article of his old friend Zhu Guangqian was "only a thousand words, but it can be written with great weight"; and then he said, "Huang Yongyu's article is unique, and it is advisable to read it with one of my woodcut articles introduced to him in "Ocean Literature and Art" published in Hong Kong last month, and you will understand that the relationship between our two generations is more and more profound." ”
"Unique", as far as Huang Yongyu is concerned; then he said that he wanted the two people's articles to be "looked at together", and his own article referred to "A Legendary Skill", which was also a long text. Li Hui's compilation of "Shen Congwen and I" brings together Huang Yongyu's writings on Shen Congwen and Shen Congwen on Huang Yongyu and his family lineage into one volume, which is exactly the meaning of Shen Congwen's suggestion of "looking at the same view" in those years.
Shen Congwen (left) and Huang Yongyu
Two
"Landscapes Under the Sun" was written at the end of 1979, and "These Melancholy Crumbs", which is more than twice as long as this one, was written after Shen Congwen's death in 1988. Always spread out the style. The previous two generations of clear, interesting, and even long setbacks can also be likened to: "Tying our two relatives to a small cultural rope, like two ridiculous grasshoppers, making a kind of funny jump on the rough road." The latter one is extremely melancholy, full of sorrow, but it has the sharpness and power to pierce something.
"For more than thirty years, I have always thought that Uncle Wen will die." Who could write such a touching sentence? Sad, sharp, real to terrible degrees. How much of this sentence can and can't be said? To appreciate the weight of this sentence, we must clearly and understand the second half of Shen Congwen's life. Huang Yongyu is a witness and a relative around him, and his deep pain is only this one sentence, which makes people shocked beyond words.
Huang Yongyu himself is also a person who came from that period of history, he understands that the times and his cousin are incompatible, to put it simply, that is, a big vernacular: "Everyone is so busy, who has time to pay attention to your meticulous feelings?" ”
It is precisely for this reason that those "meticulous feelings" that are incompatible with the "epic era" appear to be "magnificent and fierce".
The word "fierce" is probably difficult to use shen Congwen, and the word that appears in Huang Yongyu's article does not mean that Shen Congwen; however, I really think that it is also particularly appropriate to use shen Congwen.
Huang Yongyu wrote about the friendship of the older generation, saying that Yang Zhensheng, Ba Jin, Jin Yuelin, Zhu Guangqian, Li Jianwu... It was difficult for them to get Shen Congwen here, came to a cup of tea, sat for half a day, elegant, euphemistic, "but often make me, the younger generation, feel the grandeur of their friendship fierce." In those times, their respective situations, these warm comforts, are not "heroic and fierce."
Huang Yongyu
Three
In June 1971, Huang Yongyu, who was stationed at the Junken Farm in Ci County, Hebei Province, unexpectedly received the novel "Who Came?" from Shen Congwen, who was sent to Shuangxi in Xianning, Hubei Province. And a letter. Neither the novel nor the letter is included in the Complete Works of Shen Congwen. This novel of more than 8,000 words is written in the prequel to the Huang family, an unknown mysterious part of Huang Yongyu's family lineage, as the introduction to a large work. This great work was not written, and the relevant information and the old man's idea can be clearly seen from the letter:
As your previous letter suggested, try to write some "family history and local history" part of the time to see... But this introduction, you so adults, will also be surprised, "Is this true? "The main point is true." Fortunately, the following is not the focus, the focus will be on the tragedies of the localities in the past hundred years and the tragedies that are close to comedy, because it is very realistic, that is, nearly 10,000 hometown people have died in this historical process. You and I have a share at home.
In the first five chapters, the first chapter, "Pangu Opens the Heavens and the Earth," begins, "from the excavations of physical objects in recent years, and writes down"; the second chapter is why this small stone city was built two hundred years ago; the third and fourth chapters describe why there were so many people in such a small place, the governor, Dao Yin, Hanlin, the prime minister, the Japanese non-commissioned officers, Baodingsheng, and many temples and many ancestral halls; the fifth chapter describes the social variety before Xinhai. Suppose you can write sixteen to twenty chapters. Nearly seventy years old, in the decentralized environment, Shen Congwen himself did not have the certain confidence to complete such a huge idea.
Four
Over the years, Huang Yongyu has devoted himself almost entirely to writing the autobiographical novel "The Wandering Man of the River Without Sorrow", which can be seen in a sense as a continuation of the Huang family history and local history works that Shen Congwen made his debut in the Cultural Revolution, and also a continuation of the earlier "A Legendary Skill". Shen Congwen wrote "A Legendary Skill" after the War of Resistance, originally to introduce Huang Yongyu's woodcut, but the main thing he wrote about was the historical events of Huang Yongyu's parents and hometown, and there was not much narration about Huang Yongyu. Then, then— with a gap of decades — Huang Yongyu wrote about himself.
This long writing process is also a long dialogue process with my cousin. Again and again, he expressed infinite regret what would happen if his cousin could see it. He imagined that his cousin would annotate, would change, that the annotations and rewrites would be long, long, longer than his own words. Writing is also a way to call back your cousin to talk to yourself.
Brodsky once said flatly that when a man writes, "his most direct object is not his contemporaries, still less his descendants, but his forerunners." It is those who give him language, it is those who give him form. The connection between Huang Yongyu and his cousin certainly goes beyond language and form.
If Shen Congwen saw Huang Yongyu's article, this hypothesis had extremely realistic importance, not for the deceased, but for the living, for the living and the writing.
This hypothesis is not to have an answer to solve this problem and thus end this hypothesis. Rather, the living unfold it, unfold it with writing, and continue to accompany it. It becomes the inspiration, promotion, support, supervision, and dialogue of writing, and it becomes a special and important factor in the dynamic mechanism of writing.
In the days after Shen Congwen's death, Huang Yongyu wrote "These Melancholy Detritus" in Hong Kong, which is not an ordinary work of mourning, he said again and again, "From The cousin died", "The cousin is really dead", but the melancholy crumbs presented in his heart to his pen resist death and disappearance. From then on, he began to miss his cousin who could not stop.
Last August, on huang Yongyu's ninetieth birthday, Li Hui took me to Mr. Huang's residence in Shunyi to attend a small party, and as soon as we met, Mr. Huang said to me: "I know most of the things you wrote about Shen Congwen's "The Second Half of Shen Congwen's Life", but I still can't stop, I can't stop, I read it until dawn, and I finished reading it. ”
—— In the nostalgia of "can't stop", his writing becomes a way to recall Shen Congwen. Whether it is writing Shen Congwen, writing about himself, or writing about others, the most direct object of his imagination is his predecessors, one after another figure in front of his eyes, in his heart, in the bright place of his consciousness or in the hidden depths, among them, his cousin Shen Congwen.
The author | Zhang Novelty
Excerpt from | Zhang Jin
Editor | Zhang Jin
Introduction Proofreading | Zhao Lin