Cover news reporter Zhang Jie Intern Zhang Yaoyin
In the contemporary literary world, the cultural critic Zhu Dake has always attracted much attention. Regarding movies, literature, cultural psychology and even music and American dramas, many thought scenes can hear his distinctive voice of cultural criticism.
In 2014, Zhu Dake published the cultural and historical work "The Ancient Gods of Huaxia", which he spent 20 years sharpening a sword. Unlike most academic scholars who study a certain point more, Zhu Dake, who has always been sharp in speech and does not take the usual path, uses a variety of Western academic tools such as mythology, anthropology, history, semiotics and phonetics, including local philology and other disciplinary tools, to draw some relatively novel conclusions about the origin of ancient Chinese culture, especially the origin and flow of myths, which arouse the recognition and support of readers who love knowledge.
After a gap of four years, in August 2018, Zhu Dake launched a series of fictional works that reinterpreted classic myths and legends, "Ancient Chronicles". In this series, Zhu Dake broke through his identity as a researcher and interpreter and entered the field of fiction creation, which attracted the attention of the literary world.
Turn more than 20 years of research into stories from the academic results of ancient mythology
Zhu Dake
In the "Ancient Chronicles" series, Zhu Da used three works, "Character Creation", "Divine Mirror" and "Qilin", to make a new story interpretation of ancient mythology.
"Character Creation", "Divine Mirror" and "Qilin" correspond to the classic stories about Cangjie Zhaozi, Li A's Goggles, and Zheng He's Journey to the West.
Zhu Da can use the novel to cover these 3 legends with a layer of magical and eerie colors: the invention of Chinese characters hides the secrets of people's hearts, how to use characters to make up for this dangerous world, a character war about human destiny has begun; Li A's mirror has the effect of inception space, the holder of the mirror can freely cross the mirror surface and master the cosmic secrets of space transformation; Zheng He brought back the Qilin from the West, witnessing the feud in the deep palace of the Ming Dynasty...
In the new interpretation of these stories, the sense of time and space quietly recedes in the true restoration of human nature, and the sense of psychedelic is generated, which should be said to be the most charming texture of Zhu Dake's novel creation.
Zhu Dake's fantasy novels can be regarded as the ideological flowers that his knowledge of literature, archaeology, history and other fields have been watered together. This makes his novels based on the smooth construction of knowledge, which is the root of Zhu Dake's fantasy novels that are completely different from the popular cross-over stories.
Readers who have read Zhu Dake's critical writings know that Zhu Dake's words are magnificent and changeable and full of penetrating power. His language, known by critics as the "Zhu language", is a rococo arrow studded with precious diamonds, gorgeous and precise.
In the writing of "Ancient Chronicles", Zhu Dake still runs through his label-style discourse style, whether it is the confusion and doubt of Cangjie's characters, or the confusion of Li Ajingjingjing, or the absurdity and bizarreness in Qilin's eyes, all of which have been smoothly and stretched in his words.
Some people may find it strange: Why did Zhu Dake start writing novels?
Zhu Dake does not think of it as a transformation, "I used to write novels. It's just very little written and most of the time is spent on cultural studies and cultural criticism. I only realize now that I have gone wrong in the past and gone astray. I was supposed to write a novel. A lot of people will have this experience, and at a certain age, you suddenly find yourself doing what you should be doing. ”
Moreover, Zhu Dake's writing of novels is in line with his literary criticism and mythological research.
In the "Ancient Gods of Huaxia", Zhu Dake tries to make a tentative inquiry about the origin of the 8 main gods and 12 auxiliary gods in ancient China, in order to find out the identity secrets of the gods such as Pangu, Nuwa, Fuxi, Yellow Emperor, Yan Emperor, Emperor Zhao and The Queen Mother of the West.
He tried to explain that the essence of the Chinese cultural spirit is highly open and absorbing pluralism, "In my opinion, a high degree of openness and eclecticism are the great nature of the Chinese cultural spirit, and the main reason why it stands on the top of world civilization." Without this vast atmosphere of connecting with the world, the cultural prosperity of the pre-Qin dynasty would be incredible. ”
Moreover, Zhu Dake believes that we should not only have a human cultural community formed by the homogeneity of Africa, but also an Asian cultural community. "The common cultural genes from Africa, coupled with the large-scale exchanges promoted by the 'Silk Jade Road', contributed to the birth of an 'Asian cultural community' in ancient times. The geographical scope of this community, from the west coast of the Pacific Ocean in the east to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the west, includes the Chinese civilization, the Indian/Iranian civilization, the Central Asian civilization, the Mesopotamian civilization and the Syrian civilization. The degree to which these civilizations communicate, learn, and integrate with each other is far beyond the banal imagination of people. ”
This book is a combination of Zhu Dake's 20 years of research. However, Zhu Dake felt that it was not enough to write research works, "I have to turn them into stories." To me, the mythological story seems to be an outward reflection of my inner dreams. So I decided to rewrite the myth in a fictional way. ”
Zhu Dake's vision is very keen, he grasps the archetypes of myths and legends, and regards them as an intrinsic principle of writing, "In the archetypes, the most secret desires of the people are often condensed." We are so powerless in real life that we long for such miracles to change our lives. The story of Cinderella is an eternal archetype of the human spirit. ”
When literature meets history, the charm it exudes is very attractive. Zhu Da can describe it as "nostalgia." This kind of writing, which weaves literature and history together, can "heal his soul." Myths have a strong healing function. It has a special kind of beauty, and this beauty is completely different from the beauty of reality, from the texture of reality. It evokes very intense mental pleasure."
"Seeing reflections on the nature of writing and civilization in the space of imagination"
Lee Kyung-taek
Can the talents of critics and scholars and novelists be in transition with each other?
Li Jingze has also been pondering, "Once, novelists, essayists, critics, had a clear division of labor. But now, in recent years, it has become more and more a phenomenon: scholars and critics are writing novels. I think that's a very interesting thing. What's the point? That is to say, you really don't think you're a good diner, you're a good cook. Therefore, it is easy for critics to cook into a car accident scene. After half a day of a tip to see, not good, said so well, when sitting here, your world's delicious dishes are clear, you cook to try, it seems that it is not good. Novelists in particular are waiting to see this hilarity, waiting for this moment, looking at jokes. You have criticized us for half a lifetime, and now you finally can't stop cooking yourself, now bring it out to see, but Err. I think novelists are especially looking forward to solving this gas. So, sometimes we do have to admit that this talent is not so easy to convert. ”
With this thought, Li Jingze read Zhu Dake's "Ancient Chronicles" and expressed deep admiration, "I am also a critic, and I always think that in fact, I can do it!" I'm also eager to try. See they don't write well, I'll come. But now that I look at it, I've watched this series of Dake Teacher, and I'm still quite crushed. I don't think there is a scholarly novel or a critic's novel in this world, there are only two kinds of novels in this world, good novels or bad novels. ”
For the "Ancient Chronicles" of "Character Creation", Li Jingze felt that it was "very worth reading." Teacher Da Ke has a deep study on this issue, in fact, this is really an eternal mystery for Chinese culture, and it is never clear how words come from. Up to now, when it comes to Chinese archaeology, archaeologists have fought hard for their lives, and now we only trace it back to the Shang and Yin Ruins. Further on, who can say where to push forward and find empirical evidence from archaeology. so. The great master of archaeology is waiting to make him a man. The fundamental mystery about our Chinese culture cannot be said to have been solved, it has not yet been solved. But precisely because it is a fundamental mystery, it gives us a huge imagination space, and in this imagination space I can see Teacher Dake's thinking on the words themselves, on the essence of words and civilization. ”
"Divine Mirror" made Li Jingze feel, "It may be a little closer to legend, because the Tang Legend also has "Ancient Mirror Record", which is a legendary thing, almost taking our Chinese mirror, about the bronze mirror, the ancient mirror all the brilliant scattered things scattered in the notes, very scattered, very fragmented things, here to give him a holistic light to illuminate it, so that it becomes a complete thing, a complete about this mirror. ”
In the writing of "The Mirror of God", Zhu Dake adopted a structure of dictionary style and ancient notes, which made Li Jingze feel "very interesting".
After reading the "Ancient Chronicles", Li Jingze felt that he was full of a "feeling of frustration." I have the same intellectual interests as Mr. Dake, and like remote, knowledge-archeological things, naturalistic things. Because you have the same interest, you are both amazed and frustrated when you watch it. People write it, and they write better than I do. I really feel that something like this is needed in our time, and I'm sure readers will love it too."
Imagination is not wild imagination
Instead, let the clues of the world and the gray line of grass snakes make a connection
Although "ancient events" are a narrative method of story and full of imagination, there is still a huge difference from the general sense of fantasy novels.
First of all, in Li Jingze's view, "imagination is not the ability to think wildly. Imagination first of all implies a huge knowledge, a connection between all kinds of different things, between all kinds of different things, the clues and grass snake gray lines in this world, making connections here, this is a truly great imagination. ”
It is precisely because of this knowledge-based imagination that Chen Xiaoming, a professor at the Department of Chinese at Peking University, pointed out that "Ancient Chronicles" is not a novel in the ordinary sense, "his characters change and change, and they are uncertain." The storyline is also broken and jumpy. Of course, there is no problem with avant-garde novels, it is indeed avant-garde novels. As soon as I looked, I said you're the old avant-garde. But he really formed a super-stylistic style. ”
Chen Xiaoming
Chen Xiaoming also linked to Li Jingze's historical writing, "Li Jingze's new style, which has the basis of some historical texts, restores a historical situation, and is a kind of historic writing. It contains an understanding of history, an understanding of traditional Chinese politics, a new allegorical understanding. So you can see that his style seems to be an essay, but this kind of essay stuff contains a very rich range of other genres, essays, impressions, diaries, miscellaneous notes, historical narratives, etc. Like Mr. Zhu Dake's works, you can say that he is related to the mythological body, the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and "Liaozhai", and these styles, and can also be said to be prose style, you can also say that it is a fictional novel, but it can also be said that he is imitating mythological writing, or that he is a new allegorical writing. ”
For a long time, when people talked about literature, they would feel that fictional literature had the highest status. Nobel Prizes generally only evaluate fictional literature, and writers of documentary works rarely win Nobel Prizes.
In the long history of literature, fiction has indeed played a very important role. But in recent years, things have changed a bit.
Chen Xiaoming even argues that fiction "faces unprecedented challenges, even though our 10 or 20 years are also a period of China's peak." During this period, we had a few great writers, but their level had reached a top. To a large extent, it can be said that many young people now do not read fiction literature, do not read classic literature, and do not read what we call traditional literature. Because there's so much to read now. And this change in reading, in turn, will inevitably change the writing. 'Literature' had to become 'writing', into something richer. ”
Chen Xiaoming believes that today, many people read and no longer care about a complete story, nor do they care about recreating it. "Fiction literature certainly still exists, and there are a few classicizations that inherit a culture, and the education of our entire literary classics, and the survival of our mother tongue. So of course it exists. But I would say that writing has become very diverse now, including online writing, documentary writing, prose style writing, and super-stylistic new writing like Zhu Dake and Li Jingze. From this we can fully appreciate the wisdom, the game and the fun. ”
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