| Editor's Note |
Shu Yi spent 8 years to write the book "Writer Lao She" to recall his father's life, poured a lot of effort to collect information, detailed research, affectionate memories, and showed the most important moments of Mr. Lao She's life in detail. These words pay attention to detail, are reborn and peaceful, do not say empty words, and are subtle and touchable. Through these words, which contain pain, joy and eagerness, we see a living Lao She.
What is Mr. Lao She's favorite book? Among the poets, he liked the poems of Li Bai, Lu You, Su Manshu, and Wu Meicun. In classical novels, he likes "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Golden Plum Bottle". Among modern writers, he admires Lu Xun the most. At the Chongqing commemoration of the second, fourth, sixth, and ninth anniversaries of Lu Xun's death, he was either elected as chairman or promoted to a member of the presidium, and he spoke and recited "The True Biography of A Q" twice in public, once in the second chapter and the seventh chapter, which was warmly welcomed. At the 20th anniversary of Lu Xun's death in Beijing in 1956, Mr. Lao She delivered an opening speech.
Mr. Lao She is a reader and a book writer, and has been dealing with books all his life, leaving behind a lot of stories related to books, which are quite interesting and worth talking about.
Writers (Mr. Lao She always calls himself a writer, not a writer) can not do without a dictionary, Mr. Lao She's desk always has a dictionary, it is estimated that he often uses it in the writing process. This is a dictionary that looks up the beginning of the department by pronunciation, and it is old-fashioned, according to the "勹攵冂" kind. This kind of dictionary is very useful for writing, first knowing the sound, and then looking up the word by sound.
The earliest Lao She book found now turned out to be a "Lexicon", with his inscription on the title page. It is written very sadly, to the effect that I can't afford to buy most of it, so I finally have a part of my own. This passage can be regarded as the "source" of his collection of books, with the bitterness of his life.
After graduating from normal school, Mr. Lao She's first reading climax was during the British period, that is, during 1924-1929, when he was 25-30 years old, he was working as a lecturer at the Oriental College of the University of London, teaching the British to speak official language and read the Four Books and Five Classics. In order to learn English well, I began to read a lot of english originals.
The way of reading in that period was clearly divided into two stages: the first stage can be called "scribble reading", and the second stage is "selective key reading", also known as "systematic reading" or "one representative masterpiece for one person".
For the "scribble reading" style, it is easy to understand, that is, to catch what to read, no plan, no claim, no choice, among which there are famous works, and there are also waitresses who marry the crown prince and other messy things. "Scribbleed reading" is not all professional books, for him most of them are still literature, there are a small number of science fiction books, such as wells and Huxley's works. "Scribbleed reading" also has a very positive factor, among the earliest readings are Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goth's Faust, and Dickens's David? Copperfield" and other famous articles. Mr. Lao She liked Dickens, felt that it was very suitable for his stomach, regarded him as a teacher of writing, and wanted to imitate him, and tried it himself. Scholars of comparative literature have said playfully that, in terms of Lao She's literary achievements, they can be compared to Dickens in England or Chekov in Russia. Such a metaphor is not without any truth.
In order to learn English, Lao She began to read famous works, and they were read systematically, starting from Greek tragedies, of course, only in English translation. According to his own account, it is very hard to read, because some famous works are not easy to read, and they are boring to read. Don't be afraid, Lennon, die!
The so-called systematic reading is orderly, first reading European history, then reading ancient Greek history, and then Greek literature and art, ancient Roman history and ancient Roman literature and art. Ancient Greece began with the Iliad, followed by Homer's Odyssey. Unfortunately, I don't like it. After watching the three greek tragedians, and then watching Aristophanes's Greek comedy, I think the comedy is more in line with his tone, and the novel he is writing, "Zhao Ziyue", is also very similar in style, love to joke ah. He liked the Greek short poems the most, and they enchanted him. He was also sullen by the things of ancient Rome, including the poems of Milton and Virgil, who experienced the greatness of Rome only from the majesty of Roman prose. After reading this, it is time to read the works of the Middle Ages, he read the epics of Northern Europe, England, and France, and he did not know much. He was very fond of Dante's Divine Comedy in Renaissance Italy, several translations were collected, and he also read about Dante's treatises, and became a "Dante fan" for a while, thinking that the Divine Comedy was the peak of genius and effort, which made him understand the true depth of literature and art, saying that in the Divine Comedy there is not only a human world, but also heaven and hell, so that he understands the relationship between the body and the soul, and literature should pay attention to the soul.
He had a good feeling for the retro-ism of Europe in the seventeenth and eighth centuries, and felt that the text should first seek conciseness and clarity of thinking, and then say something else, which is very instructive.
Finally, when I read the modern English and French novels, at this time, it was probably 1928-1929, and he had already begun to write the novel "Erma". He first inquired about the first-class writers of the past thirty years and the representative works of each writer. A plan was made to read at least one book for each writer. Unfortunately, there were too many novels and famous books in that era, and often after reading a masterpiece, I couldn't help but read his other masterpieces, and the plan was frustrated. The novels of Wells, Conrad, and Meredith in England, Flaubert and Maupassant in France all take up a lot of Lao She's time, as if they have fallen into the novel array. These novels had a great influence on him, making him understand that modern novels should use fascinating methods to publicize a certain thing, to have a realistic attitude, and a sharp tone, to become a textbook of life and a guide of society, not only for entertainment, but not for editorials and preaching, to be healthy, noble, and true. Reading more and knowing more forms can help you find the most appropriate form of writing, but you should not deliberately imitate the style of a certain school.
After returning to China in 1930, Mr. Lao She read many nineteenth-century Russian works and felt that they were the "greatest" of the great literature and art. It is now clear why a man without a formal university degree dared to open several literature courses in two famous institutions of higher learning after returning to China. This is because Mr. Lao She has read a lot of books on this subject in the five years in the UK, and he has goods in his stomach. Mr. Lao She has successively taught the following courses at Qilu University and Shandong University: "Introduction to Literature", "Literary criticism", "Literary and Art Thought", "Novels and Practices" (also known as "Novel Practices"),"World Literary Masterpieces", "Outline of European Literature", "Advanced Compositions", "General History of Europe" (also known as "General History of the West")
Of course, these classes are held according to the rules of the university to write the lecture notes themselves, which are engraved and printed by the school and distributed to the students. Mr. Lao She was very serious about preparing lessons, hiding in the library during the day to read and write lecture notes, and did not have time to write long novels. Taking shu sheyu's "Lecture Notes on Introduction to Literature" of Qilu University as an example, which is now discovered, he directly quotes the expositions, works and views of as many as 140 ancient and modern Chinese and foreign scholars and writers in this book, which can be described as colorful, circumstantial evidence, and solid evidence. As for his novels, although they are written once a year, they are all written in the summer vacation of "playing with their lives", and they will never be sloppy in studying hard during the teaching period, and they will never mistake people's children.
This formed his second reading climax, a reading climax centered on lesson preparation, with a clear purpose, as evidenced by his lecture notes.
Mr. Lao She bought a book collection from the United Kingdom. At the time, his annual salary was quite low, only £250 a year, equivalent to a bursary for a local college student. Three years later, after an application, it rose to £300. He also had to send a portion of his salary back to china to support his widowed mother. Because he often did not have enough to eat, he was in a state of semi-hunger, his body was too thin, and he suffered from stomach sagging. But he was still very calculating and saved money to buy books. When he returned to China, he brought back many books, the most precious of which was the original complete works of Shakespeare.
When I went to Jinan and Qingdao to teach, there was also a manuscript fee in addition to the salary, and the living conditions were greatly improved, and I began to buy books on a large scale, and there were many bookshelves in the bookstore, and by the eve of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was a considerable collection of books.
In 1937, the "July 7" incident broke out, and Mr. Lao She's family moved back to Jinan from Qingdao, and books were also shipped to Jinan. By November, the situation suddenly changed, and Mr. Lao She was forced to leave Jinan alone and go south to join the torrent of the War of Resistance. The lady and the children, as well as the books, remained in Jinan. Before he left, he packed books, calligraphy and paintings into boxes and stored them in the library of Qilu University. A year later, after the opening of the Yellow River Jinan Railway Bridge, the lady returned to the fallen Beiping mother's house with her children, and stored the furniture in Jinan, bringing only some carry-on clothes. Since then, the whereabouts of the books, paintings, furniture, and letters have not been known. Later, I heard that the Japanese army had entered Qilu University, and the school's assets had been looted. Mr. Lao She was very sad about this major loss, and especially wrote an article in Chongqing in 1943 called "The Four Great Voids". The last sentence of the article is "Don't be sad about the loss of books, to preserve the culture, you must overthrow the Japanese warlords!"
Since then, Mr. Lao She basically stopped buying books, so as not to be too sad after losing them. I was afraid to lose my books.
His tragedy was also a common tragedy for all Chinese readers at that time, and no one was spared by the times.
After 1949, Mr. Lao She began to store books again, but he did not really buy a lot of books, most of them were donated books. When the new edition of the Complete Works of Lu Xun was published, at the first time, he sent his children to the Xinhua Bookstore to queue up to buy a set, neatly placed it on the shelves, and sandwiched in a certain volume of the "Complete Works of Lu Xun" the letters sent back from the United States from the presidium of the First Literary Congress inviting him to return to China on the orders of Premier Zhou. Unfortunately, during the "Cultural Revolution" raided the home, even the books and letters were copied. At the time of its return, the Complete Works were no longer the original books, and the whereabouts of the precious letters were unknown.
On the shelves there is a set of new literary and art books in the Liberated Areas, about forty or fifty. He used the title of this set of books to rewrite a traditional cross-talk in early 1950, "Article Society", which was a cross-talk work, handed over to the artists of the cross-talk improvement group headed by Hou Yichen and Hou Baolin, and let them rehearse in the popular music art club and perform formally on the upper floor of zhengyang Gate, thus opening the prelude to cross-talk improvement.
Since then, Mr. Lao She's collection of books is basically related to his writing, which is directly in the service of his creation, and belongs to the creation of materials, for example, he has a large number of historical books of the Boxer Rebellion, which were specially collected for the creation of the drama "Divine Fist". There are also relevant historical materials of the Kangxi Emperor, which Chairman Mao specially sought to read after he suggested that he write about the Kangxi Emperor, but this topic was too unfamiliar to him, and he did not write.
What is Mr. Lao She's favorite book?
Among the poets, he liked the poems of Li Bai, Lu You, Su Manshu, and Wu Meicun.
In classical novels, he likes "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Golden Plum Bottle".
Among modern writers, he admires Lu Xun the most. At the Chongqing commemoration of the second, fourth, sixth, and ninth anniversaries of Lu Xun's death, he was either elected as chairman or promoted to a member of the presidium, and he spoke and recited "The True Biography of A Q" twice in public, once in the second chapter and the seventh chapter, which was warmly welcomed. At the 20th anniversary of Lu Xun's death in Beijing in 1956, Mr. Lao She delivered an opening speech.
He translated Schopenhauer's works in English and translated the long essay "Dante" written by R.W. Church. Translated F.D. Bereford's fantasy story The Hermit. He also translated Algernon Blackwood's novel The Guest. In george bernard Shaw's memory, he translated his two-act play The Apple Car.
In 1935 he wrote a treatise entitled "My Favorite Writer" entitled "A Creator of the Greatest Realm and Personality of Modern Times— My Favorite Writer - Conrad."
In 1943, in the nineteenth issue of The Human World magazine, in response to the "Books I Loved to Read in 1943", Mr. Lao She's answer was: "(1) "(1) The Autobiography of Congwen ;(2) Epic and Romance by W.P. Ker; (3) The Life and Reflection of The Great Philosophers of Ancient and Modern Times.
From the above incomplete list of translations, papers and inquiries, we can also see the interest and diversity of Mr. Lao She's reading, as well as the depth of his learning; although, it is only a small corner of the panorama.
【Article source: "Writer Lao She" by Shu Yi]