Recently, the Douban annual reading list "Midnight and the Sun" was released as scheduled, and the famous writer Liu Zhenyun's 2021 new work "One Day and Three Autumns", under the praise and recommendation of readers, was selected into the Annual Chinese Literature List of Douban, becoming the best book of the year in the minds of many Douban netizens.
On January 23, Douban's annual reading list series of dialogue activities ushered in the final closing dialogue, Douban and the Yangtze River New Century invited Liu Zhenyun, author and famous writer of "One Day and Three Autumns", Zhao Dongmei, professor of the History Department of Peking University and cultural scholar, and Shi Hang, a famous screenwriter, planner and film critic, to chat with readers about the laughter and tears at the intersection of literature, philosophy and history. Literature and history, literature and philosophy, Song Dynasty and contemporary, fate and people's hearts, these topics travel through ancient and modern times, but they become concrete and perceptible in the dialogues of the three guests.
Shi Hang, Liu Zhenyun, Zhao Dongmei
The scene of the event
Liu Zhenyun's "One Day and Three Autumns" begins with "The Legend of the White Snake" and ends with the heroine crossing back to the Song Dynasty. This has a great relationship with the Song Dynasty, why should the Song Dynasty be used as the potential background of this novel? What is the meaning of this? In this regard, Liu Zhenyun humorously replied: "Because returning to the Song Dynasty is more convenient for me and for my characters, because our village is more than 40 kilometers away from Fengfeng, and when it is placed in the Song Dynasty, our village is the suburb of the capital." ”
The "crossing" in Liu Zhenyun's work is not the first time, in his old work "Hometown Noodles and Flowers", the people inside are also constantly returning to the Song Dynasty. Just like Zhao Dongmei's "Human Fireworks", the Song Dynasty's human flavor is stronger and more pyrotechnic, and literature needs the nourishment of this kind of human fireworks. The Song Dynasty had a peaceful era of no war for a hundred years, which had a profound impact on the development of materials, Liu Zhenyun quoted the scene in Meng Yuanlao's "Tokyo Dream Record", the kind of prosperity and the bustle of the city on earth, which was next to Liu Zhenyun's hometown of Yanjin. Liu Zhenyun also joked: "Next time, I will write a "I am Master Li" to see how far away she is from our village."
Liu Zhenyun
Zhao Dongmei
Shi Hang
Liu Zhenyun spatially interpreted the distance between his literary works and the Song Dynasty, and the guest of honor Zhao Dongmei felt the charm of the Song Dynasty from the perspective of time. She mentioned that she had been invited to Kaifeng City, Henan Province, where she found that there were still dog fighting, chrysanthemum festivals and other folk customs of the Song Dynasty, and people here liked to dance and ink, and still maintained a strong cultural atmosphere. Kaifeng is not the same as Hangzhou, hangzhou is still an important city in China after it is not the capital, but after Kaifeng is not the capital, as the capital moves south, the city that once prospered by the canal is gradually forgotten. However, the people of Kaifeng, Henan Province, have a very strong pride in their hometown, and Zhao Dongmei is very touched to see the pride of Liu Zhenyun, a "suburban of the old capital". She quoted Mr. Chen Yinke as saying that "the six dynasties and the Tianshui dynasty have the most free thinking", saying that "the Song Dynasty was the most humane and creative era, but I love the Kaifeng of Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi." It was well worth it for Teacher Liu to let the cherry cross back to the Song Dynasty, but as a modern person, I didn't go back because I was obsessed with modern material civilization, such as flush toilet water heater air conditioning. ”
Shi Hang summed up Liu Zhenyun's work in four words: "The entrance is the transformation". "His works have a universe of hundreds of family names, he has a lot of surnames, male Xiaolin, female old Joe, personal titles are divided into three parts: age, surname, gender, he summarizes the characters with the most simple three words, you feel rough, but in fact, the most effective. This way slowly became his "a sentence top 10,000 sentences" only surname and no gender, leaving people like Old Zhao Laolu. Why? In fact, people are such a surname, the people, not the world of names. Whether we are connected to each other or not, our ancestors decided for us. The surname is fixed, everyone is together, naturally together, without the unity of the day after tomorrow, so he wrote the story of the universe of hundreds of families. And in "One Day, Three Autumns", Liu Zhenyun invited "foreign aid" Hua Erniang, and when a work of intermediaries and non-people became roles, the work grew at a speed visible to the naked eye. Therefore, compared with "One Day and Three Autumns" and "One Sentence top ten thousand sentences", it is not more people, but more levels. Literary works are expensive in writing that "everyone has something in their lives, but often they don't have it in their hearts", Shi Hangqian said that these ten words are the goals he set, and Liu Zhenyun has already done it.
The philosophy of life that "everyone has it in their lives, but often has nothing in their hearts" is also the bottom line and hope of Zhao Dongmei's historical research and writing, she said: "Once the text leaves the author, it exists independently." Traditional history is storytelling, there are people, and now historical research can probably see the structured crowd, see the times, but can't see the people in the structure, the people in the times, and I hope to give a relatively multi-meaning text through my writing. "One Day, Three Autumns" is also multi-meaning, legendary, realistic, gendered, traditional and modern, between people and times, is multi-faceted, life itself is complex and rich, I hope that the text I give is historically based but rich. I write subjectively, and I hope you can still know when reading, which is my subjective creation that pursues objectivity as much as possible. You can try to get close to that objectivity through me when you read it. "
Liu Zhenyun, born in May 1958, Han ethnicity, Henan Yanjin people, graduated from the Department of Chinese of Peking University, and is a professor at the School of Literature of Chinese Min University. He has written novels such as "Yellow Flowers in the Hometown", "Hometown Together and Circulating", "Hometown Noodles and Flowers" (four volumes), "A Cavity of Nonsense", "Mobile Phone", "My Name is Liu Yuejin", "One Sentence Top Ten Thousand Sentences", "I Am Not Pan Jinlian", "Children of the Melon Eating Era", etc.; the short and medium stories "Tappu", "Recruit Company", "Unit", "Chicken Feathers in a Place", "Wen Gu 1942" and so on.
"One Day, Three Autumns" is Liu Zhenyun's new novel, and it is also another breakthrough in his realist literary creation in the past 30 years. Similar to the familiar saying that he made "chicken feathers in one place" 30 years ago, "One Day, Three Autumns" gives the meaning of "one day and three autumns" renewal.
Nandu reporter Zhu Rongting intern Tan Wanying