Xu Zidong
This video is a lecture by Xu Zidong on Lu Xun, Zhang Ailing and the 20th Century Chinese Novel. Lu Xun is a mountain, while Zhang Ailing is a river, and in the lecture, Xu Zidong summarized three different places about Lu Xun and Zhang Ailing.
15:32
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Xu Zidong on Zhang Ailing and Lu Xun (15:32)
The first thing to point out is that I have no intention of comparing Lu Xun and Zhang Ailing, and their status, influence, role, function, and future position in Chinese history are completely incomparable. Don't misunderstand that [they are] the double peak of modern literary history, and that's what I'm going to explain.
My teacher Qian Gurong also told me that Lu Xun was a great writer, while Zhang Ailing, Lao She, Ba Jin, and Shen Congwen were outstanding writers, which meant that the status of literary history was clearly divided.
My last book was called "Xu Zidong's Modern Literature Class", and the cover of the ideal country took a sentence from me, which probably means: Lu Xun is a mountain, and modern literature has many mountains, all of which are covered by Lu Xun's shadow; and Zhang Ailing is a river. I said that. In terms of artistic achievements, from the influence on Chinese culture and Chinese history, Zhang Ailing has no way to compare with Lu Xun. And these two writers, their differences are too obvious, their similarities are difficult to find.
I tried to summarize their biggest difference: Lu Xun was a typical Chinese scholar-doctor tradition called Feeling The Time worries about the country. Why do I say that Lu Xun is a mountain, the shadow of this mountain obscures a lot of mountains, because Modern Chinese literature is a mountainous area, the mountain is mainly to see the mountain, the highest mountain is the most eye-catching, such as Shandong Taishan, to Sichuan is Emei Mountain, everyone cares most about the highest mountain. Many writers are following the path of Lu Xun, Lao She and Mao Dun are like Lu Xun who feel worried about the country and enlighten the country, but they are not as influential as Lu Xun.
Why is Zhang Ailing a river? When Zhang Ailing's novel was first published, Fu Lei wrote an article praising "The Book of Golden Locks" and criticizing "The Love of the Fallen City", and Zhang Ailing wrote an article called "His Own Article": "The wife is the good of others, and the article is his own good." "It means I'm going to defend myself." What is Zhang Ailing's defense? She said that most of the writers of "May Fourth" were writing about superhuman, and I was writing about ordinary people; most of the writers wanted to save others, and I wanted to live in peace; most of the works had to be revolutionary and fight, and I wanted to harmonize society. Those supermen want revolution, they want to transform others, they want to fight for the cause of men, and women want to live well. At the end of the day, isn't fighting over a fight to live a good life? Isn't it about a harmonious society? This is the theory of the river.
According to academics, Lu Xun's concept is a grand narrative, (for example) we read about the mainstream values, freedom, democracy, and common prosperity. But there is another kind, called daily life, which is also an important ideological trend in the West, that is, the grand narrative is the nation, the state, and politics, but the daily life of ordinary people is also an important thing. Sometimes I think, if you read Zhang Ailing's works and look at her later revised edition of "Legend", the first one is "Mercy", which is written about a very vulgar life, and put it in the first part, which is a kind of self-confidence. Only one sentence in the whole novel is shining - "Born in this world, there is no feeling that is not full of holes", but in the end, Mr. Mi and Dun Feng still hold hands and love each other and walk home. The novel is very small citizen, a woman in her thirties, married to a man in her fifties or sixties for a meal ticket, but is there any love among them? There is also the last one, titled "China's Day and Night" with a grand narrative, I think Zhang Ailing also came to the grand narrative, the people in this river are also going to climb the mountain, a look, it is about the People who buy vegetables in Shanghai are in the vegetable market, full of patches, buy a dish here, buy a meat there, and then she said patches and patches, this is China's future, very patriotic main theme. Explaining the so-called daily life, she wrote as a grand narrative, the daily life of each ordinary person, the happiness of food, clothing, housing, and transportation, including the crisis and hope of marriage, emotional problems, is a grand narrative.
Cover of Legend (Revised Edition), published by The Mountain River Books Company in 1946
We see the first layer of differences, both depicting China's suffering and China's prospects, but the former (Lu Xun) advocates revolution, fighting, and overthrow, while the latter (Zhang Ailing) is daily life and the fun of small citizens, and the idea behind it is still the people, and only the people are the driving force for creating history. Zhang Ailing's harmonious society, the general comments, including those in the mainland, treating it as a small citizen, completely ignored her political intentions, which is the first difference.
The second difference is that Lu Xun's entire creation still has local feelings, whether it is "Scream" or "Wandering", the main characters are still rural people and intellectuals, which is also the challenge point of my book "Rereading the Chinese Novel of the 20th Century". Academics generally believe that the most successful characters in modern literature are two categories, one is intellectuals and the other is peasants. And these two types of character images, the most prominent is Lu Xun. If you want to give an example, there is a work, such as "Hometown", when two boys who played together when they were young, when they grew up, they called "Grandpa" to "Me", and just like this "Grandpa" drew a huge historical gap between the two people.
In the novel, the leaping soil is turned into a very bitter peasant, and "I" am an intellectual who goes to the countryside and originally wants to find the memory of his hometown, but he cannot go back to his hometown. Lu Xun lived in the city most of the time, either Beijing or Shanghai, but it is clear that the main characters Lu Xun wrote about were peasants. Zhang Ailing is writing about the city, and she is the most urban sense. There are many writers who write about the city, and Mao Dun writes about the city, but these writers are all critical.
Third, Lu Xun is male, Zhang Ailing is female, and more importantly, the male perspective and the female perspective.
The male perspective of Lu Xun's novels, the superficial reason is very simple, the "May Fourth" time of the love novel, the first layer is a love story, the second layer is education, the third layer is the theme of salvation. Lu Xun wants enlightenment, so in the symbolic sense of using women to symbolize the vast number of poor and weak people, using men to represent themselves, "I" am an intellectual, and "I" am saving others. So the romance novel was written, so that this woman said, "I" is "my" own, no one has interfered with the rights of "I", Juan Sheng said, seeing the dawn of the new century, Chinese women are not so incurable. Lu Xun's novels connect the success and failure of love with enlightenment and education, which is an obvious male perspective.
Stills from the movie "Wounded Death"
What method did Zhang Ailing use to "subvert" the male perspective of Lu Xun's generation of writers? The most typical example is "Love in the Fallen City", the male is overseas Chinese, rich, the female is 28 years old, the husband is dead, the mother's family can't stay, risk out and play with him, this is called fighting scumbags regardless of their bodies. But what to do if you lose, if you lose, go back and be the stepmother of a few more children, there is no way back. The man bought her first class cabin and the ship came over. Zhang Ailing said that I should not write about 30 years old, I think I should be more than 30 years old. At that time, how determined, the boat fare was paid by the man, to Hong Kong, the hotel was booked by the man, what is this love, everything is ready, this is a very unfair and abnormal beginning. So that night dancing, the man said I want you to know me, the woman bowed her head and said I know you, and the woman herself said a paragraph, saying that she was willing to try anything within a certain range. In fact, that night was a very big test. After the two of them ate, they went for a walk in Repulse Bay, the birds were singing, and the climate was very good, which was normally kissed at this time, but the man took her to a broken wall. Fan Liuyuan is a playboy, he must have a lot of women overseas, more money, and illegitimate children, but at this time, he suddenly thought that he helped the woman out of the boat money, out of the hotel money, invite her to dinner, at this time if it is kiss, it is not a victory. But what to do? Learning the tradition of "May Fourth" - sunshine culture, money is available, the body can also be, but can not rely on these alone, so take the woman to a broken wall, memorize the "Book of Poetry" - the earth is desolate, the hand of the son, basically Zhang Ailing "subverted" and deconstructed the "May Fourth" love novel. But "subversion" here is not enough, because the man said that she looked good, under the moonlight, the woman always looked down, and she did not want the man to say anything, she thought that the way I looked down in the moonlight must be very good-looking. The man saw it and said: Your advantage is to bow your head, but after looking down for a long time, your neck will wrinkle. So that day the good drama can not continue to sing, the woman changed her face, the man sent the woman home. The most wonderful thing is that after sending home, the woman has a monologue, and my comment is: This monologue is a major step backwards in the consciousness of women in modern literature, but it is a great progress in women's literature. She said this: When you meet a person who is in a spiritual love, it is good, physical love often passes quickly, and spiritual love can only be married. There is a bad thing about spiritual love, that is, I can't understand the words, but it doesn't matter, what to talk about now, let him say, come to find a house in the future, these things are not my master? When she thought about it, she was relieved of this little misunderstanding in front of her, and slept peacefully in the seaview room. This passage is Zhang Ailing's salute to Lu Xun, and also Zhang Ailing's "subversion" of Lu Xun.
Stills from the movie "Allure of Love"
In Zhang Ailing's view, when Lu Xun looks at women, he only thinks of women as objects of psychological induction and enlightenment and salvation. Therefore, Ding Ling and Zhang Ailing gave make-up lessons to male writers, Ding Ling made up more directly, and Zhang Ailing was more realistic. So I say that this is a big step backwards in women's consciousness, a big leap forward in women's literature.
Therefore, I talked about the difference between Lu Xun and Zhang Ailing, the first is the historical view of enlightenment and saving the country and small citizens, the second is the feelings of the countryside, the tragedy of the peasants and the urban senses; the third is the difference between the male perspective and the female perspective of consciously or unconsciously.
Editor-in-Charge: Gu Ming
Proofreader: Yan Zhang