The Surging News reporter Luo Xin
Lü Shuxiang (1904-1998) is a famous linguist in China, who studied both Chinese and Western studies and wrote books. Many people are relatively unfamiliar with him, but they should all remember the Modern Chinese Dictionary, which was almost hand-held when he was a student. The Modern Chinese Dictionary has so far reached its seventh edition, and the early editor-in-chief of its first edition was Lü Shuxiang.
Although Lü Shuxiang's main research direction is in linguistics, especially Chinese grammar, he is also very concerned about language education. In addition to his major works "Outline of Chinese Grammar", "Problems of Chinese Grammar Analysis", "Collection of Essays on Chinese Grammar", "Eight Hundred Words of Modern Chinese" and the translations of "Primitive Society", "Civilization and Barbarism", and "Desert Revolution", he has compiled a "Selected Reading of Notes and Texts" for young people who are just learning literature.
Lü Shuxiang
The manuscript of "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts" dates back to 1943, when Lü Shuxiang was invited by Ye Shengtao, editor-in-chief of the "Chinese Language Magazine", to serialize "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts" in the magazine. He selected a total of nine kinds of notes, such as "The New Language of the World", "Supplement to the History of the Nation", and "Mengxi Pen Talk", and carefully selected a number of articles in each of them, each of which had "notes" and a "discussion". In the preface written in 1943, Lü Shuxiang said: "The author of the notes does not deliberately write, but when there is something to write, the essay is written, it is a 'quality wins' text, the style is relatively simple and natural, the language is closer, and it is easier to learn." If modern youth still need to learn to write a little bit of literature, I am afraid that this way of writing and ink is more useful. I hope that this book will have a slight complementary and corrective effect in both the subject matter and the text. ”
Since its first edition, Selected Notes has been well received by many readers, and three editions were printed by Wenguang Bookstore in the 1940s. Since then, it has been published by the Classical Literature Publishing House, the Shanghai Editorial Office of the Zhonghua Book Company, the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, and the Language Publishing House. In July this year, the new edition of "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts" was launched by Yiwen Zhi 丨 Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, which was typeset according to the ninth volume of the 2002 edition of "The Complete Works of Lü Shuxiang" of Liaoning Education Publishing House (the base version is the 1992 edition of the Chinese Language Publishing House), and has been revised. The publication notes read: "This publication, in the language publishing house edition of the survey, in case of differences, then compare with the January 1950 edition of Wenguang Bookstore, the September 1955 edition of the Classical Literature Publishing House and the July 1979 edition of the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House. ”
On October 30th, Yang Yan, professor of the Department of Chinese of Fudan University, and Huang Dehai, deputy editor of Sinan Literature Anthology, visited the Shanghai Ancient Books Bookstore and launched a wonderful dialogue on "Interesting Reading of Ancient Texts" from the "Selected Readings of Notes". Xiao Haiou, the editor-in-charge of the new edition of "Selected Notes and Readings", hosted the event.
On October 30th, Yang Yan (middle), Professor of the Department of Chinese of Fudan University, Huang Dehai , Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Sinan Literature Anthology (right), and Xiao Haiou (left), Responsible Editor of the New Edition of Selected Notes and Readings, visited the Shanghai Ancient Books Bookstore and had a wonderful conversation about "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts". Courtesy photo: Wu Mei
Re-reading Selected Notes
"In the field of linguistics research, Mr. Lu Shuxiang is a great master. At the same time, he has always been very attentive to the teaching of chinese among young people. Yang Yan said that Lü Shuxiang also co-edited a series of language readings with Ye Shengtao and Zhu Ziqing, such as the "Enlightened New Edition of High-level Chinese Language Reader" and "Enlightened Chinese Language Reader", which were very popular at that time." In fact, Mr. Lu Shuxiang has a lot of experience in compiling and selecting. Today, when we re-read the "Selected Notes and Texts", we can still see a lot of places worth studying well. ”
Before coming to the event, Yang Yan turned over his family's "Selected Readings of Notes", which was the 1979 edition of the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, which said that the new edition printed 100,000 copies for the first time. "A hundred thousand copies of a book are printed at once, which is unimaginable to us today." He said, "But there are still many missing contents in this edition of the Selected Notes and Texts, which cannot fully present the original intention and good intentions of Mr. Lu Shuxiang when he compiled this book. ”
He specifically mentioned that if we compare the "Selected Readings of Notes" published in different eras before, we will find some very interesting places, such as the various editions of "Selected Notes" published in the 1950s and even the 1990s, compared with the first edition in the 1940s, the articles have been deleted. For example, the 1979 edition of the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House deleted eight pieces of content; for example, the various editions of "Selected Notes" printed from the 1950s to the 1970s deleted the "Discussion" part of the appendix after each selected text. But the 'discussion' part is precisely the part that Mr. Lu Shuxiang has spent a lot of thought and worked very.
The new edition of "Selected Readings of Notes" launched by the "Art and Literature Chronicle 丨 Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House" has added the "Discussion" part. Huang Dehai, the book's contributing editor, wanted to write a publication note while looking at the proof: "We compared five or six different editions, and each edition changed. We will explain what the base book used this time is, and compare the differences between the different versions and the base book. I myself compared which eight articles were deleted before and after, and then which five were restored, and when I finished comparing, I saw Teacher Yang's article compare the deletions of each version in detail, and regretted that I was right again, because it was equivalent to you redoing it yourself, but the results were the same. In the middle, we still made a little mistake, and finally completely deleted the three articles that I was going to make an appendix, but then I still didn't put them in. When it comes time to reprint, these three articles may be added. ”
In addition, in the process of editing, Huang Dehai also found that the Wenguang Bookstore edition of "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts" had a preface by Mr. Ye Shengtao, which provided a meaningful reading perspective, but somehow several subsequent editions did not include this preface. In the new edition of the Selected Notes, Ye Shengtao's preface is listed as one of the appendices.
"Selected Readings of Notes is an enlightening reading for us to enter ancient texts, or a small doorway." Huang Dehai said that the book is very thin, but every annotation and discussion contains Mr. Lu Shuxiang's rich learning experience, "He is everyone in the field of academic research, but he is willing to give up some time and energy to serve the young generation, and even tell everyone about the detours he has taken." In the past, we ancient people talked about moral articles, so like Mr. Lu Shuxiang, Mr. Zhu Guangqian, and Mr. Zhu Ziqing, they are all models of moral articles, and we can learn a lot from them. ”
In July this year, the new edition of "Selected Readings of Notes" was launched by Yiwen Zhi 丨 Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.
Get close to the ancients and understand the ancient texts
When it comes to chinese language, many people's first reaction is to recall the reading comprehension in the language test of the student era. Among middle school students, there is such a slip of the tongue: one is afraid of literature and speech, the second is afraid of Zhou Shuren, and the third is afraid of writing.
"Everyone has been trained in the sea of questions in the middle school era, and those literary and literary excerpts are now a bit hateful when you think about it, most of them are some classics and historical articles, mainly biographies of characters, always telling you some of the great truths of the Eight Classics, and then when doing the questions, you are asked to summarize some grand but empty things from a paragraph of text." Yang Yan stressed that the "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts" is different, it is not much the same in terms of material selection, "What is Mr. Lü Shuxiang concerned about? It's fun. ”
"Especially later, he revived the 'discussions' that he had spent a lot of effort on in his early years in that edition of the Language Publishing House. We will find that the topic of his 'discussion' is not to give you a lesson, to instill in you any truth, but to guide you from this excerpt very equally, to connect with some of your previous reading experience, or something that can be confirmed by your current life experience. That is to say, although you have selected some fragments of literary texts, through his 'discussions' and extensions, you will feel that the distance between you and these ancients and these texts and texts will be slowly shortened, and you will become more and more interested in these works, which is a very remarkable place for Mr. Lü Shuxiang. Yang Yan said.
In Huang Dehai's view, the "Selected Readings of Notes and Texts" provides a very good example for the "selected texts": "Whatever can be found in the dictionary, he does not note; where there is any doubt, he repeatedly pushes; everything that cannot be solved for a while, he is vacant." This is the best duty of a scholar. If he didn't figure it out completely, he would only guess and not draw conclusions. And in some places that he thought could be made clear, he would write in great detail. ”
Huang Dehai remembered that Lü Shuxiang chose Su Shi's "Night Tour of The Chengtian Temple", and the "Discussion" section specifically analyzed why Su Shi called himself an "idle person": "Su Shi demoted the official Huangzhou at that time, if this official had a duty, he could not be idle; if this official was to be supervised by a local official, he could not be idle. Therefore, when he is an official and does not give him a job, and there is no one to supervise, he is really idle. Mr. Lu Shuxiang explained that Su Shi's 'idleness' of 'but less idle people like my two ears' has an emotion, and it is enriched at once, otherwise we usually think that we are also very idle. I'm sorry, we don't have the qualifications to be 'idle', and we don't have the experience of being degraded. Su Shi's 'idleness' contains a lot of emotions, but there is no complaint, and the whole measure is particularly moving. Because of Mr. Lu Shuxiang's interpretation, we can deeply appreciate a work. Many times we read books and think we understand, but in fact, we only read a superficial meaning. ”
Too Many Books (Updated Edition). This book selects more than 40 of His articles on reading, writing, governing, and dealing with the world from Lü Shuxiang's life's writings, and is divided into three series: "Too Many Books", "Language Talk", and "On The Memories of Learning".
Why do we still have to read ancient Texts?
In addition to the "Selected Readings of Notes", Yang Yan and Huang Dehai also recommended their own favorite ancient texts and readings. Yang Yan recommended Ma Maoyuan's Selected Poems of Tang, Yu Pingbo's Selected Interpretations of Tang and Song Poetry, Wu Xiaoru's Selected Readings of Ancient Texts, Huang Dehai recommended Qian Zhongshu's Selected Notes on Song Poems, Shi Jingcun's Hundred Words of Tang Poems, Jin Kemu's Reading The Book, and Zhonghua Bookstore's Edition of Reading and Appreciation.
"When it comes to selected manuscripts, there is actually a lot of debate. On the one hand, the selection of books certainly provides a lot of convenience for everyone. There are too many books, and one person has limited energy and no way to read so many books. If someone helps you pick out the best things, it's certainly a good shortcut, so why not? Yang Yan said, but there is another problem here, "Mr. Lu Xun wrote an article, very much against such a kind of excerpt criticism, the nature of the selection is actually similar. You are often subjectively influenced by the editor, who inadvertently restricts you when reading his selections, so there is no way to see the whole picture of the original."
He believes that the way to compromise a little may be to find a better selection, or to trust a better-eyed and unique candidate. "There are many books on the market, how do you choose?" Is it possible that after you read it, you will be aroused to be more interested and further deepened? These are all important. ”
Some readers also mentioned on the spot that many children do not like ancient Texts, how do the two guests face the question of "why do we read Ancient Texts"? Yang Yan responded that the learning of many things is not practically useful, but it is a process that can cultivate a certain aspect of temperament or ability. "Why should we learn literature and literature? We all speak modern Chinese, right? But modern Chinese itself is a continuation of ancient Chinese, and it is in the same vein. We still have a lot of words and expressions today that actually came from antiquity. ”
More importantly, when we read the works of the ancients, we can sometimes get an unexpected comfort and touch, as if we are facing a friend who can speak from the heart. "In his later years, Mao Zedong repeatedly recited YuXin's "Endowment of dead trees", and many people speculated about the meaning of it, but in fact, I think it is a sentence of 'This tree is fragile, and the business is exhausted!' Sometimes, you will find that the mind of a thousand years ago or even two thousand years ago is exactly the same as the mind of your present moment. Huang Dehai said, "When reading Western classics, there is no problem when the state is good, but when it is necessary to comfort, it seems that there is a bit of a gap, and it is necessary to use the brain to communicate with the classics, but if you are slightly familiar with the classics, such as taking out the "Book of Poetry", reading it several times, you will be reconciled on the spot, so euphemistically and thoughtfully solved." This is a Chinese psychology, something left in the blood, and a Chinese soul in the depths of cultural genes. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang