"When I met Bruno Schultz's Crocodile Street, there was a very intense chemistry. In this sense, I am particularly grateful for reading. Because I think reading has a magical power, it can transcend time, beyond space, let you find the channel and guidance of your life. The essayist and poet Hei Tao said this when talking about his new work, Listening to the Secret Words of All Things Alone in the Attic.
Schultz was a Polish-born Jewish writer who was shot by the Nazis in 1942 and left a limited number of short stories in just 50 years of his life. He is also rumored to have a long messiah, but there is no trace of it. Listening to the Whispers of All Things Alone in the Attic is a tribute and polyphonic chant by Black Potter to Bruno Schultz, and it is very interesting that one writer inspires another, and one text inspires another.
On December 5th, Hei Tao, together with the famous poet, critic and translator Wang Jiaxin, the editor-in-chief of World Literature, the famous translator and poet Happy and the famous writer Wang Kailing, and the host of the "Light Reading" column Zhou Wei, jointly visited Beijing skp rendez-vous, taking Bruno Schultz's language art as the starting point and bringing readers a unique literary interpretation from a professional point of view.
The scene of the new book sharing meeting. From left: Zhou Wei, Hei Tao, Wang Jiaxin, Gao Xing, Wang Kailing
Schultz's imagination was astonishing
"Listening to the Secret Words of All Things in the Attic - The Poetry of Bruno Schultz" is a 29 short stories of "Crocodile Street" translated by Hei Tao from the translator Yang Xiangrong, such as "August", "Holy Manifestation", "Bird", "Tailor's Rag Doll", "Little Hunter", "Cinnamon Shop", "Crocodile Street", "Book", etc., refined and created 128 poems, each poem marked with the source of the novel. Black pottery excavated and refined from the translated works, selected the sentences and words into poems, did not add, did not change, but deleted, spliced, divided, and assembled into poems, forming this unique poetry collection.
In the trek to the book, Black Potter says: "As an eccentric writer, Bruno Schultz was the writer of his literary code. I, just using poetry, made a subjective decryption of his complex and profound literary universe. ”
At the new book sharing meeting, Black Tao said that Schultz was a great poet who excavated the universe of his personal mind inward. Artists can be divided into two major types, one is to dig inward, such as Borges, Chopin, and the other is to seek outward, such as Neruda, Beethoven. Schultz has a highly developed sensory organ, his eyes are like a microscope, and his ears have a super-strong ability to capture subtle sounds, which is evident in his novels.
Wang Jiaxin believes that the name of the book "Listening to the Secret Words of All Things Alone in the Attic" symbolizes a kind of intimate reading product, full of intimacy and mystery, and the use of poetry to explain the feeling of reading the classic work "Crocodile Street" is also unique and innovative.
Wang Jiaxin said: "Schultz surprised me, first of all, because he had an unusual imagination. He wrote about his father, turning him into a crab. Does a Chinese writer dare to describe or imagine his father in this way? Wang Believes that Schultz's imagination is similar to Kafka's, but his metaphors are more lifelike and more tragic and shocking to read. Similar to the painter Chagall, but more ruthless and more "evil" than Chagall.
Mo Yan said in an interview that what we lack is not thought, but imagination. This kind of imagination is not a wild thought, but an insight into life, providing a special perspective for the reader. Wang Jiaxin said.
Black Potter captured Schultz's poetic essence
The author of the preface to "In the Attic" is pleased to say that "In the Attic" is an original tribute book, and the black pottery captures Schultz's poetic essence. The content of the book resonates with joy, and the condensed and profound language encompasses several key words, namely walking, reading and understanding Schultz, which reflects the sensitivity of a poet and writer.
"Black Potter and we are so far apart, and have a chemical reaction to a Polish writer who died a long time ago in 42 years, a chemical reaction of the heart, which is a wonderful thing that only literature, only poetry can bring. And black pottery captures the essence of Schultz. Schultz's identity is mainly that of a novelist, and his identity as a middle school picture teacher, which means that a novelist may also be a poet at heart, and Black Potter accurately grasps this point. This text is peculiar in that it has a kind of intertextuality. Happy to say.
Wang Kailing described the feeling of sitting on the same stage with the guests in an interesting metaphor, describing himself as if he were a Muggle in Harry Potter, sitting next to a group of wizards. Poets are wizards of language, and they connect language and spirit into spells and magic. In "In the Attic", Black Potter pays homage to Schultz, as if a wizard pays homage to a distant wizard.
At first glance, the language of "Crocodile Street" is full of sloppiness, poverty and chaos, but if it switches to a juvenile perspective, it is full of infinite charm. Translator Yang Xiangrong once said: "Schultz always uses the scale of a teenager's psychological aesthetics to express his living environment. Wang Kailing said that if the title of the book "Listening to the Secret Words of All Things Alone in the Attic" should be preceded by a subject, it must be "youth".
At the same time, he also believes that Schultz expresses a delicate triviality, which is the magic of language, and he can turn the chaotic imagery into a rainbow with colors and light. In his opinion, the relationship between Black Potter and Schultz in "In the Attic" is not a tribute relationship, but more like a partnership relationship, and the two complement each other. The kaleidoscopic language of Crocodile Street recreates a world of senses, and Schultz's writing is not about contributing to literature, but about being true to one's own feelings and saving the ordinary.
Host Zhou Wei mentioned a detail in the book "In the Attic": "In the pure darkness, only this window is still lit, like a gray quadrilateral", this poem brings us infinitely closer to reality. Such details abound in In the Attic. Life in the attic is lonely, but it is imbued with a sense of loyalty, which is also reflected in Black Potter's interpretation of the Schultz spiritual universe.
This is as Black Potter wrote in a poem based on Schultz's loneliness: "I have been able not to worry about yesterday or tomorrow, and I finally have a great sense of relief in my heart." I often sit on the edge of the world, and the slightly warm, silent sky is my only favorite reading. ”