Long live the sound of youth echoes

Author: Wu Bo

Recently, Wang Meng's latest novel "Monkeys and Teenagers" was published. This is a book of wisdom that runs through the past and the future, and it is the echo of long live youth.

Synopsis: "Monkeys and Teenagers" tells the life of a ninety-year-old foreign literature expert, Shi Bingyan, through the perspective of novelist Wang Meng. In 1958, the young Shi Bingyan came to Da walnut Shuyu Village, Luoying Township, Beiqingshan District, and began different life experiences, experiences and reverie. He met a young Hou Changyou who had a wonderful fate with the monkey "Three Young Masters", and in his decades-long interaction with Changyou, he could glimpse the changes in the fate of the times and characters.

"Monkeys and Teenagers" by Wang Meng, Huacheng Publishing House

The protagonist of the novel, Shi Bingyan, is not afraid of difficulties, has the courage to accept challenges, bravely assumes the responsibility of the times, is calm and determined, knows his destiny, and is frank and frank. The fiery labor made Shi Bingyan change his living method and change his body, so that he has always retained his fiery heart and faith, and the encounter with the teenager makes him feel deeply happy in retrospect decades later.

In Wang Meng's pen, the past is always alive, youth is still long live, and old age is boundlessly beautiful. Wang Meng wrote in the afterword to the creation of the novel:

At that time, I could not have imagined: what state should a writer who is about to turn eighty-seven years old, from the memories of sixty-three years ago, appear at this time? What kinds of blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, hormones, tear glands, ECG and EEG? Isn't it a little dizzy, dizzy, dizzy...

There are also memories of sixty-three years ago, of course, memories of a more distant era than sixty-three years ago.

Along with tears in the memory are more and deeper love and closeness, happiness and gratitude, humor and smiles, and perhaps the flapping of flying wings.

Along with the distant and the vague are exceptionally clear, prominent, three-dimensional, distinct, relief and steaming.

What is gradually separated from the gradually distant is more and more cherished, the fragrance of the aged Maotai, the rarity of the cultural relics of the advanced age, and the narcissistic mood of telling the children about the ancient.

Along with innocence and some mistakes is alive and kicking, it's fun, it's the splash of youth, it's wine and ridiculous rotten eggs, it's a happy one-hundred-and-eleven macaque, memories create joy and sorrow, and monkeys.

Thirty years ago, in Season of Revelry, I wrote about 1+1 cats. Thirty years later, in Monkeys and Teenagers, I wrote about 1+N monkeys. The name of this monkey is "Third Young Master" and "University Scholar". They are favorites in my fictional works. (Wu Bo)

【Book Review】

Wang Meng gave me a triple shock

Professor Wen Fengqiao, director of the Wang Meng Institute of Literature at ocean university of China, said: "If you want to understand China's ancient literature, read 'Dream of the Red Chamber'; if you want to understand China's modern literature, read Lu Xun; if you want to understand China's contemporary literature, read Wang Meng. When I opened "Monkeys and Teenagers", the first impact on me was "time".

In 2021, shi Bingyan, a foreign literature expert born in 1930, recalled his different life experiences since 1958. He talked to his little brother Wang Meng about his experiences and various reverie. He was quite excited. ”

This is the beginning of "Monkeys and Youths", Mr. Wang Meng listening to the story of Shi Bingyan, who is four years older than him, the memories of an old man who is old, presented in the pen of an elderly writer, reading with respect.

I don't remember where I saw the saying, "Spend some time every day with the elderly over 70 and the children under 6, you can get more wisdom in life, more innocence." Reading "Monkeys and Teenagers" seems to meet these two conditions at the same time, in the book, Shi Bingyan's youth, prime-age, middle-aged, old age, one by one, in an inseparable environment from society, recalling, telling, interpreting, tasting, hoping that readers of "children" and "grandchildren" can listen to the words of "old people" and see their own way. From this point of view, I think that "Monkeys and Teenagers" can be classified as a children's literature sequence, although children may not be able to read and understand, but the expression of "monkeys" "physical fitness, action lightning, cliff climbing, desperate life, flashing and moving, climbing branches and jumping branches, gambling fruits" is not exactly the nature and photography of children?

Time is fair to anyone, children, teenagers, youth, prime-age, middle-aged, old age are fleeting, yesterday is today's history, today is tomorrow's history, when these histories become words, they are preserved in the long river of time and the memory of history. When we accompany children to read, when we tell stories to children, are we not also reminiscing, thinking, comparing, and improving?

The second impact of "Monkeys and Boys" on me was "language". If you don't immerse yourself in it when reading, there is a feeling of "vocabulary accumulation", but think about it carefully, from 1958 to 2021, from Shi Bingyan's twenty-five to ninety years old, a nail is still five years more, how many stories and experiences this old man has to tell us about these descendants, such "excitement", perhaps only the elderly can feel empathy. The humanistic nature of literature is bitter and chattering under Mr. Wang Meng's pen, although he modestly said: "Bingyan old man, I am very touched by what you said, but I tell you, such a story, I am not good at writing..." But he still wrote it out, and wrote it back to the earth.

In Mr. Wang Meng's language arrangement, the third impact of "Monkey and Youth" on me is "philosophy". This is a literary scholar who loves philosophy and mathematics, and the novel is full of philosophical brilliance and mathematical rigor.

In the article, "There is a sadness in the world that gain is loss, including all achievements and possessions, but it is not as good as age and age", inadvertently, and it fits with a sentence on the cover of the book: "Steaming with the times, this is the echo of long live of youth." ”

Reading it inevitably reminds me of Mr. Wang Meng's very famous novel "Long Live Youth", which was the youth he began to write when he was nineteen years old, nineteen-year-old people can't understand the youth of eighty-nine years old, and eighty-nine-year-old people don't seem to be embarrassed to talk about nineteen-year-old youth, but youth talks about not talking, writing or not writing, everyone has experienced it, at that time, that person,perhaps traced back to the ancestor of human beings "monkey", the elderly man easily wrote out the youth story of the old man with the naughty and clever "monkey", what a cute story What an intriguing narrative, what an expression full of wisdom.

"Monkeys and Teenagers" came to the readers of the "children" and "grandchildren" with innate kindness, naughtiness, and wisdom, and that was the person's thing at that time, and it was also this person's matter at this time. (Yuan Yun)

Source: Guangzhou Daily