I have known Wang Guoxiang for decades, watching out for each other, sharing hardships and hardships, the ups and downs on the road of life, because of the two working together, we can always resist the past, but in the end with the death of the disease, we went all out, but we failed. This is a passage from Mr. Bai Xianyong's words in the Tree, commemorating the kingdom of Xiangjun, a deceased friend. From young acquaintances to middle-aged parting, they have worked together for thirty-eight years.
The book I recommend to you today is Mr. Bai Xianyong's collection of essays on "Trees Like This". This book is both about people and about love.
Mr. Bai said: I write because I hope to transform the unspoken pain in the human soul into words, and use literature to write about human nature. Most people do not know Mr. Bai Xianyong, and it is probably widely known that he and Wang Guoxiang have a heart-to-heart relationship. In fact, Mr. Bai Xianyong is a famous contemporary writer in Taiwan. Not only that, he is also a Bowen Chair Professor at the University of Chinese, Hong Kong, and the Honorary Director of the "Kunqu Research Promotion Project". His work "TaipeiEr" was selected as one of the top 100 novels Chinese twentieth century. He also won the Uddhav Prize for Fiction.
On a spring day, I sat on a chair in the garden, tasting tea and reading newspapers, accompanied by a hundred flowers, and temporarily enjoying the instant prosperity of the world. The fly in the ointment is that when you look up, you always see the west corner of the garden, and between the two remaining Italian cypress trees, a stunned blank space is revealed, and in the gap, it reflects the clear sky, the leisurely white clouds, which is a heavenly fire that the Nuwa alchemy stone cannot make up.
Mr. Bai Xianyong wrote in the text that after reading this passage, I was silent for a long time. This is the same as the "loquat tree in the garden, planted by my wife in the year of her death, and now the pavilion is like a cover". How similar. The so-called good scene in the world, but there is no king.
In the tree, he expressed his emotions very frankly. He may recall his friends bit by bit, or describe his life, or express his feelings, or explore and discuss art, in fact, history is written in the root. Mr. Bai Xianyong used his perspective to write about the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, Chinese history.
"In the past, willows were planted, and the rivers were planted in the south of the river; now look at the rocking and falling, and the rivers and pools are miserable; the trees are like this, how can people be embarrassed!"