"The Chronicle of the Boat": Using a dictionary to dispel the darkness of cognition

Author: Wu Mei

Last Tuesday, the CCTV movie channel was playing the Japanese movie "The Chronicle of the Boat" again.

I say "it's playing again" because I have seen "The Chronicle of the Boat" twice through this channel, plus the subtitle version I have seen on the Internet twice, if I do not change the channel, this is my fifth time of "The Book of the Boat". The story that happened in the publisher's publishing house next to a desk is also the story that happened in the most old-fashioned and boring departmental dictionary editing room in the whole publishing house, and I feel that I can't finish watching it for the fifth time, but in the end I still can't leave Mu Ne's male protagonist Ma Diguangye of "The Chronicle of the Boat" who also recognizes the death of the reason.

In the process of enjoying "The Chronicle of the Boat" for the fifth time, I always think of the American movie "The Professor and the Madman", for a simple reason, both of which tell the story of the difficulty and loneliness of the dictionary compilation process and the persistence and perseverance of the dictionary compiler. If "The Chronicle of the Boat" is compared to the dry landscape in the Japanese garden, "The Professor and the Madman" is the multicolored pond with the smell of sulfur in Yellowstone Park in the United States. Dry landscapes and multicolored pools, which one can add more color to the scenery? They are unequal, with either plain or strong styles, each leading the way.

To really say the difference between the two movies, the characters in "The Chronicle of the Boat" from the big protagonist to the small supporting role, each one is a mirror image of ordinary people in real life. The madman Dr. Miner in the two male protagonists of "The Professor and the Madman" is more like an extraordinary character full of strange faces that the screenwriter has imagined by bringing together the characteristics of the gifted people in life.

One day, James Murray, a self-taught Oxford professor, promised Oxford University Press that a New English Dictionary would be compiled in five to seven years. The world's first computer will not be invented until more than half a century later, when all entries have to be mined out of voluminous books and copied into cards, and at a time when the speed of language development makes it impossible for professors trying to compile dictionaries to catch up, what does it mean for James Murray to take over this huge project? This means that five or seven years from now, or even after the beginning of the bible, Professor Murray's dictionary building may not have been built.

After anticipating this ending, Professor Murray decided to ask the society for help, that is, to consult volunteers from the people and ask volunteers to join the ranks of writing entries, so as to make "100 people can complete things in 100 lifetimes, so that 100 people can complete in 1 lifetime." Professor Murray received a large number of feedback from volunteers, especially a doctor named Meiner, who alone contributed more than 10,000 entries, a workload that would be incredible even for a linguistics professor who specialized in this work.

Dr. Miner's unimaginable completion of the entry aroused Professor Murray's intense curiosity. After learning that Dr. Meyner was a prisoner in prison, Professor Murray decided to visit him: Is it possible for Dr. Meyner to walk out of prison and into his "writing room" to become the backbone of the dictionary?

When Professor Murray saw Dr. Miner, he decided that his idea was frustrated because Dr. Miner was a murderer: Dr. Meyner, who had gone mad after being provoked on the battlefield, shot and killed passers-by because he suspected that he was going after him. There was only a thin piece of paper between the madman and the genius, and Dr. Miner, the UBM, any one of the more than 10,000 entries was likely to force Professor Murray and his assistants into a desperate situation, and Dr. Miner only needed to swing it between the interval between missing his lover and teaching him to read.

The writers and directors of "The Professor and the Madman" insist that the film is based on real events, but I always feel that Dr. Miner gathers the talent of the film's director and even many ordinary people who look up to and look up to genius: God has given them outstanding wisdom, so that they can always do what they want, like Dr. Miner, even in prison, can also save others who have been helpless. If medicine is his profession, what does the painting of a wall in the cell illustrate? Professor Murray and three or five assistants could not solve the word "art", and when it came to Dr. Miner, it was really three times five divided by two. Such a genius, we may not be able to meet it, even if we are lucky to meet, it is likely to pass by because of the fragile nature of genius. After going to prison to have a long conversation with Dr. Miner, Professor Murray thought that Dr. Miner would follow his dictionary to the day he finished the manuscript, but Dr. Miner, who loved and hated him, returned his talent to heaven with a suicide, and completely turned himself into a madman.

In the end, it was Professor Murray and his assistants who completed the New English Dictionary—no one doubted that heaven would come to earth, like Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, and so on in the long river of history, like Dr. Meyner in the movie "The Professor and the Madman". After their ideological flames break through the dark sky and enlighten the world, there must be diligent ordinary people like Professor Murray, who work diligently and diligently day and night, and the light of genius wisdom can become a dictionary in the movie, so that the ordinary people can benefit from the temperature of knowledge. "All great works of art originate from the first gaze into the darkness, but not the return to the darkness," Dr. Meiner said to those who affirmed his contribution when he first met Professor Murray, rather than a self-condition, telling the difference between genius and ordinary people. Professor Murray, the fire-stealer in another sense, grasps the light of wisdom of the perhaps fleeting Doctors Of Mine, unites a group of book editors who are willing to dedicate silently, and uses the dictionary to dispel the darkness of people's cognition until our eyes are full of light.

Dr. Miner and Professor Murray, the two male protagonists of "The Professor and the Madman," have both contributed to humanity. But which one is more worthy of our worship? I think it's Professor Murray. What really changed the world was the Murray professors who dared to follow the spark of genius and were willing to work silently. For example, from this point of view, comparing two films with similar themes, "The Professor and the Madman" and "The Chronicle of the Boat", the best one is probably the "Book of the Boat". Without such a shocking character as Dr. Miner, "The Chronicle of the Boat" can still use the ordinary life of ordinary people to attract us to repeat the undisturbed process of Ma Diguang and "Dadu Hai" over and over again, and I have to say that the choreographer of this film is well versed in the mental process of the dictionary compiler. (Wu Mei)