Written by | Pan Wenjie
Edit | Yellow Moon
<h3>The Collected Fairy Tales of Hesse</h3>
Hermann Hesse's first novel was the fairy tale Two Brothers, which he wrote at the age of ten with the shadow of Grimm's Fairy Tales in the text, and his last novel, Chinese Legends, which he used to respond to avant-garde literature and cultural activity of the 1950s, using Zhuangzi's metaphorical style.
From the age of 27, Hesse tracked and commented on almost everything that could be collected in translations of oriental books, whether philosophical classics or poetic novels, which he enjoyed reading. In his Nobel Prize-winning "Glass Ball Game", symbols such as Chinese music, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest, the I Ching and The Spring and Autumn of Lü's Spring and Autumn appear repeatedly. In the fairy tales of the Hesse Fairy Tales Collection, he also skillfully used Chinese elements. In addition to "Chinese Legends", the "Zhou Youwang - An Ancient Chinese Story" in this book is a fairy tale based on Chinese historical stories, "Pictaw's Metamorphosis" uses the yin-yang dualism handed down from ancient China, and "The Poet", "Di Meng" and "Alice" are influenced by the ancient Chinese fable collection Liezi.
Hesse's fairy tales are characterized not only by the incorporation of Chinese culture into writing, but the epilogue to the book notes that Hesse has shown a concern for the issues of his time in a number of fairy tales. Alien News looks at a warlike planet from a peace-loving planet, accepting war as a "natural disaster without human fault." In The Europeans and The Empire, Hesse speaks of the causes of war: technological perfection, the arrogance and greed of colonial policy, the intellect and industrial superiority of "Europeans" in defending their newly acquired interests with armaments, because "the rich love to guard their money with iron walls"; "Empire" is the epitome of German history: from the state of partition, bismarck's establishment of the empire to the surrender of the First World War. Hesse not only created a fairy tale world, but also showed his personal thoughts under the great changes of the times.
<h3>"Only He Knows Everything"</h3>
This month, after a violent incident in a primary school in Beijing, an article by LiuShenlei Leilei, "Scum who preyed on a child, don't listen to the story behind him," was widely circulated in the circle of friends. Today, understanding the bitterness behind "scum" often seems to point to sympathy, forgiveness, and forgiveness, and is contrary to anger, accusation, and punishment.
The novel "Only He Knows Everything," which won the Irish Book Award for Best Crime, may provide a perspective for us to think about this. In the novel, the writer Oliver and his wife have been in love for many years and have co-created many excellent children's books. But just after a pleasant dinner, Oliver knocked his wife to the ground without warning. He even revealed his heart: "The first time I hit her, I expected her to have more reactions..." The sudden domestic violence became the key to Oliver's past life, and then one by one, people related to Oliver - classmates, brothers, mistresses, and lovers began to tell the past, revealing Oliver's life, and the Oliver in their mouths was similar to each other, but different. These protagonists, passers-by in life, show his dark secrets from different perspectives, and the childhood shadows behind these secrets. In the past, Oliver was a boy who never received his father's approval and love; now, step by step, he has become a master of playing with women, a liar, a thief, a murderer. Repeated injuries have worn away his humanity, trapped under a mask, evaded responsibility again and again, and even broken through the bottom line of law and morality. "No matter how hard you try, people will never forget the bleakest moments of their lives. Over the years, I've been hoping to change what has happened all the time. "However, the mistakes made in the past are irreparable, and only the love for his daughter saves him from sinking and completes his self-redemption."
<h3>Innocent People: Murder and Injustice in a Small American Town</h3>
A wrong sentence can destroy a person for 12 years, or a lifetime.
American author John Grisham has nearly a decade of practicing law, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. During his writing bottleneck, he focused on a murder and grievance that took place in a small town in Oklahoma. Ron Williamson, a promising baseball star, had to return to his hometown because of a setback in his baseball career. In 1982, a young girl was murdered, and in the absence of evidence, prosecutors and police joined forces to convict him. Moreover, Williamson is a bipolar affective disorder who lacks the right understanding of reality, but even when he loses his mind, he constantly shouts his innocence in prison.
John Grisham spent a year and a half interviewing Williamson's family, coaches, fellow inmates, and the judges, prosecutors, and lawyers involved in the case. "Every visit, every conversation, takes a new twist in the story." He sought to uncover why the innocent Williamson had been wronged, and in this case of miscalculation, he pointed out that miscarriages occur every month in every state: the workload of forensic technologists is staggering, which makes it difficult for them to maintain professional standards of procedures and behavior. In small towns, the police are untrained and unrestrained. People need justice, and justice needs to happen right away. It is believed that the government will act in accordance with the law. And when the government doesn't do that, it can ruin a person's life. Improper investigative work, misguided science, liaring witnesses, irresponsible defense lawyers, arrogant prosecutors... Step by step, innocent people are pushed into the abyss.
<h3>"Living in The Land: A Hungarian Life"</h3>
The Hungarian writer and Jew Dzerj Konrad went through the adventures of two regimes and a great revolution. When he was 6 years old, World War II broke out; when he was 12 years old, the German army occupied Hungary, he and his sister went to Budapest to join their relatives, and the day after he left, all his classmates were sent to concentration camps and killed; at the age of 24, the Soviet army entered Budapest, and as a student, he participated in the Hungarian Revolution. After graduating from university, Conrad worked in a variety of professions: teacher, editor, translator, factory worker, child welfare supervisor... These experiences also became the material for his future writing. Subsequently, he began to engage in urban sociology research. Some commentators have compared his essays with the works of Milan Kundera, Wenceslas Javier, Chesław Milosz, and Danilo Chez, among others. As an important paver of Hungary's democratic transition, Before 1989, Conrad's writings were underground publications in Hungary.
In "The Stranger", he uses his own experience to connect the key events of Eastern Europe in the 20th century, recreating how a precocious child in turbulent times grew up in poverty and joy, how he fled with dignity under pressure, how he faced censorship and imprisonment, and how he thought about personal and ethnic identity. The whole book is divided into two parts: "Departure and Return" and "Eclipse Time, Independent Hill", which restore the era of war and revolution in chronological order, and tell their departure and return. The introduction of the book is also a new focus on the experience of Eastern Europe in Sanhui Books after Danielo Chies and Miklosh Halazti.
<h3>The Vanishing Ancient City: Memories of Daily Life in Chengdu in the Late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty</h3>
Regarding the social and cultural development of Chengdu from the 19th century to the 20th century, Wang Di, a professor and historian at the University of Macau, has published a number of books. In His book Street Culture: Chengdu's Public Space, Lower Classes, and Local Politics, 1870-1930, Wang Di explores the street culture of Chengdu's public spaces, the interaction between the lower classes and local politics in the half-century from the Western Affairs Movement to the Unification of the Kuomintang. In the book "Tea House - Chengdu's Public Life and Microcosm, 1900-1950", he starts from the microcosm of the tea house and explores how national culture affects local culture, and how local culture represented by tea houses resists and resists the invasion and infiltration of national culture. "The Vanishing Ancient City" still starts from the perspective of microhistory, telling how the city of Chengdu has entered the modern era from traditional life to modernity in the past century of modernization and urban revolution.
"I like the smell of the monk street behind the Daci Temple in the past, but now it has become Taikoo Li. Taikoo Li doesn't have a taste of Chengdu, but young people like it. It is this new thing that is eating away at tradition, but it may also be the taste of Chengdu in the eyes of young people. He wrote. He saw that class, education, economic status, region, ethnicity, and age could all cause people to have different feelings about the "taste" of the same city. Here in Wang Di, he recalled the taste of Chengdu in the past and felt a hint of nostalgia and pity. In his pen, Chengdu in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty was full of vitality, temple fairs, festivals, street politics, reform and revolution were staged here in turn, beggars, prostitutes, coolies, fortune tellers, shaved heads and other three religions and nine streams made a living here, and the city at the turning point of history also ushered in innovation and great changes.
<h3>"Too fashionable! 》</h3>
So stylish! Too contrived! It's out of date! In the eyes of Mark Boge, editor-in-chief of Society magazine and columnist on clothing, whether it is the devil's body or bloated, whether it costs a lot of money or spends very little money, a person can dress very elegantly or very dirty. Everyone can make mistakes in wearing, and those popular outfits may also be minefields that we shouldn't have touched; some very popular ways of wearing may reflect a bad aesthetic. Your friends may be wearing worn-out jeans, sneakers to suit, fluorescent clothing, and you may think it's fashionable to keep the polo collar upright. But have you ever wondered why people dress like this, and whether there will be any problems in dressing like this?
In "Too Fashionable! In the book, the author Bo Ge not only explains the 50 kinds of misguided outfits that are quite characteristic of the times with witty words and rich illustrations, but also analyzes the cultural background and logic behind them. The author said that behind every dressing prompt, there is a history, a skill, a psychological hint, which may also be a social product or a market guide. Behind every wrong taste, people can understand where the wrong taste comes from, and use this as a clue to review the fragments of the fashion process of the past fifty years.
<h3>Whimsical Naturalist: My Pliny</h3>
The Naturalist by the ancient Roman writer and scientist Jayeus Pliny Sekundus (also known as Pliny the Elder), together with Aristotle's Zoology, is widely regarded as an abuse of Western naturalism. The Naturalist is an encyclopedia of nature by Pliny the Elder, covering the entire universe to the earth, from the earth to its products— from animals, plants and minerals to agriculture, forestry and horticulture, language and writing, and political management produced by human activities. But because of the sheer volume of content, limited observation, and Pliny Sr.'s own penchant for adding some imaginative and banter elements to the content, The Naturalist does have many obvious errors in the eyes of today's readers.
The Japanese writer Ryuhiko Shibusawa, known as the "Master of Dark Aesthetics", once introduced Japanese readers to writers such as Marquis Sade, Batayer, and Aalto, and he also loved to write fantasy literature full of dark colors. In this book, starting from the "classic of the classics", he selects more than twenty themes such as labyrinths and sundials, Ethiopian monsters, sex and diaphragms, sea hares and animals in the sea, herbs and poisonous weeds, chameleons and salamanders, etc., presenting the image of Pliny the Elder with its side-quest and humor, and also leads the reader into a world of strange styles. He claimed to have used quotations and comments to "point out Pliny's lies." Seemingly stern, but in fact, his heart is full of yearning for the rough and mysterious world of Pliny Sr., saying that "it is also my fun to find out if he is talking nonsense." Even Ryūhiko Shibusawa envied Pliny Sr. himself for the way he died by sucking in toxic volcanic gas while observing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Douban netizen Yahiko pointed out that in fact, Shibusawa Ryuhiko himself also wrote "The Voyage of Prince Takaoka" and conceived a new book "Jade Worm Story" on his hospital bed, and died of carotid artery rupture while reading. Both were knowledgeable and whimsical, and both ended their lives in a way that "suited" them, perhaps this is a distant acquaintance.
<h3>The Enlightenment of The Present: A Defense of Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress</h3>
Steven M. Thompson, a former professor of psychology at Harvard University, said that he would not be able to do so. Pinker cites a poll in late 2015 that most people in the world today feel that the world is going downhill, "getting worse" and "worse than before." But he believes that this pessimistic view of the state of the world is wrong. In fact, nowadays, it is no longer unusual for a person to live to be seventy or eighty years old, all kinds of drugs can eliminate the pain of disease for us, boys do not have to be sent to the battlefield, girls can walk on safe streets... All of this was a glorious triumph left to us by the Enlightenment, but today we often take these advances for granted.
What is Enlightenment? In 1784, Kant wrote that enlightenment meant "the liberation of man from the immaturity imposed on himself" and from the state of "rules and precepts" of "laziness and cowardice" subject to religious or political authority. Generally speaking, the Enlightenment refers to the last 60 years of the 18th century, but it can be traced back to the scientific revolution and the era of reason in the 17th century, or down to the heyday of classical liberalism in the first half of the 19th century, when reason, science, humanism, and progress became the main themes. In Pinker's view, because the triumph of the Enlightenment has been unrepresented, its intrinsic spirit of reason, science, and humanism has not been valued. But these seemingly antiquated truths are in fact far from universal knowledge, and today's intellectuals are indifferent or suspicious of them. In this book, Pinker uses 75 charts to demonstrate why the Enlightenment was able to achieve great things and how well-being it could bring to humanity around the world, singing an uplifting hymn to human progress.
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