Yesterday, I met with Mr. Zhang, Cultural Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Algeria, to discuss the repeated deletion of Lu Xun's articles in middle school textbooks in recent years that have been hyped on the domestic Internet.
Lu Xun designed the "Peking University Emblem"▲
For example, the junior high school Chinese textbook deleted "Kite" and retained "From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Study", while the high school textbook deleted "The True Story of Ah Q", "Medicine", "For the Memory of Forgetting", etc., and retained "In Memory of Liu He Zhenjun", "Blessing", "Takeism", etc. There were even rumors that Mr. Lu Xun's articles would be deleted.
"Lu Xun and Contemporary China"▲
Those who like Chinese literature will probably know Lu Xun, his works, his profound thoughts have been washed over the years, and they have become clearer and more awe-inspiring.
The author has been to Shaoxing several times. Naturally, every trip takes the trouble to look at Lu Xun's ancestral house and the bed he has slept in; Look at the Three Flavors Book House, the Hundred Herb Garden, and the Awning Boat.
As for Lu Xun, he read some novels, essays, and essays when he was young. His fiery words reappear from time to time, and his face sometimes seems ambiguous, but because of this, it always shakes in my "real" life.
Xianheng Hotel▲
Shaoxing - a typical water town in the south of the Yangtze River. The stone bridge of the aqueduct, the whitewashed wall of Daiwa, and the bluestone slab path at the end are wandering among the weeping willows and various miscellaneous trees.
When I first visited in the 80s, it rained on a gloomy day. It didn't rain much, but soon it was misty and wet. Groups of tourists all walked quickly with umbrellas, and some simply ran to dodge, but the small square in front of the big wall in Lu Xun's hometown was vacated. The cold and steep autumn rain makes the surrounding old buildings more time-sensitive, and more in line with Lu Xun's world of words.
On September 25, 143 years ago (1881), Lu Xun was born in a small room in this courtyard. He spent his childhood and adolescence in this area until 1898, when he went to study in Nanjing. He studied in Japan in 1903. From 1910 to 1912, Lu Xun also lived here when he returned to his hometown to teach. After that, in 1919, he returned to his hometown several times and lived here.
Sanwei Book House▲
Lu Xun's hometown not only includes the former residence, ancestral residence, Sanwei Study, and Baicao Garden where Lu Xun lived, but also restores a number of old mansions and historic sites related to Lu Xun, such as Zhoujia Xintaimen, Shoujiataimen, Tugu Temple, and Lu Xun's Style Garden.
On that day, due to the rainy weather, the courtyard and the room suddenly showed a lack of light, and the rain dripped from the Daiwa bunches, and an old mildew was like water. Following the less crowded crowds, I paid special attention to the corners where Lu Xun might hang out as a child and teenager: a hundred-year-old tree, a moss-scarred stone bench and stone table under the tree; The herb garden is full of fresh and green vegetable fields; his rectangular desk in the Three Flavors Library; His bedroom, with a bed with mosquito nets hanging on high legs, and a table in the room, was completed on this table where his first literary novel, "Nostalgia," was completed...... Visitors march solemnly, surrounded by the breath of Lu Xun's relics, but after a hundred years, it is no longer easy to piece together his daily life. Perhaps in the Hundred Herb Garden, the heart of a teenager close to nature is cheerful, and when he grows up, especially when he returns from Japan, that time and space, that atmosphere, I am afraid that he is more hesitant and depressed.
Sanwei Book House Indoor ▲
Each person is a unique individual, but they are not independent and uninhibited, and there is inevitably a projection of the historical era. All kinds of specific contacts and interactions between people and places have an impact on the shaping of thoughts and life choices.
In 1903, deeply feeling the "wind and rain like a dark homeland", Lu Xun followed the trend of the time and went east to Japan to study, and has just passed two Jiazi so far. Not only him, but also his neighbor Qiu Jin and Xu Xilin, who lives in Dongpu Town, are not far away. For the dawn of New China, Qiu Jin and Xu Xilin sacrificed their young lives as "I recommend Xuanyuan with my blood" in Lu Xun's "Self-titled Portrait". Their fall, the long shadow projected in Lu Xun's subsequent life trajectory.
Shaoxing Town▲
As a great writer of modern China, Lu Xun not only enjoys a high reputation at home, internationally, and among overseas Chinese, but also influences several generations of literary youth.
Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese writer Nobel laureate in literature, said reverently: "In my lifetime, I hope to get closer to Lu Xun, even if only a little closer." This is my greatest wish in literature and life. "Perhaps, this is the moment I am closest to Lu Xun, do I understand him better because of this? He was still on that big wall, and we stared at each other through the autumn rain.
Leaving Lu Xun's former residence and walking through the damp land of Shaoxing, a small canopy boat swayed under the stone bridge, as if it was steaming here and there filled with misty water vapor.
Lu Xun's hometown▲
"In the past, I went back, and the willows were still there. Now I think about it, the rain and snow are falling. At the beginning of Lu Xun's short story classic "Hometown", such a scene jumps in front of you.
"I" braved the cold to return to my hometown that I hadn't returned to for 20 years, and my heart was sad in the face of the bleak landscape. "I" went back to sell the house, took my mother to move, and met my childhood friend Runtu, the son of a part-time worker in the family.
"I" recalled the leap earth when I was a child: "When the leap earth came, I ran to see it. He was in the kitchen, with a round purple face, a small felt hat, and a bright silver collar around his neck, which showed that his father loved him very much and was afraid that he would die, so he made a wish in front of the gods and Buddhas and covered him with a circle. ”
Runtu seems to be "caught in a circle", such a character is bound to the soil of his hometown, but at first Runtu is "my" mentor, telling "me" the names of flowers, birds, trees, and fruits, how to play in the village, and which beasts to pay attention to, "There are endless wonders in the heart of Runtu". Reunited many years later, the playmates who used to call them brothers and sisters, because "I" lived outside and had "noble eyes", Runtu called "me" "master" as soon as they met, and asked his son Shuisheng to kowtow to "me". The sense of distance between the beauty of memory and reality makes "me" feel emotional.
Mr. Lu Xun and Mr. sculpture ▲
The above novel was published in the May 1921 issue of New Youth, Vol. 9, No. 1, and was later included in the collection The Scream.
How should a 21st-century reader interpret this 103-year-old novel? Reading the classics will be a kind of feeling that "I" is not with the leap land and the hometown? What is the relevance of the characters and experiences of the novel to readers in the 21st century?
Personally, I think that rereading is a journey of discovery, and reading Lu Xun and understanding Lu Xun not only allows us to get closer to modern China, but also allows us to see ourselves, no matter where we come from or what era we live in. For example, his short story "Hometown" published in 1921 was set in the countryside of Jiangsu and Zhejiang at that time, and had an autobiographical and realistic component, but it also told the story of modern people looking for a spiritual home.
Lu Xun's profundity requires us to reread his works again and again to be experienced, just as the Italy writer Calvino said, each rereading is like the first reading, a journey of discovery, and even the first reading, it seems to be revisiting the books that have been read and already familiar, this is the power and meaning of the classics. ”
Lu Xun's former residence▲
The first time I went to Shaoxing, I cut and pasted a poem, "Written in the Former Residence of Lu Xun in Shaoxing", which I can still remember. Because it was written in my heart and resonated with my feelings.
"From the Baicao Garden to the Three Flavors Study
More than seventy years have passed
I miss sir
Didn't hold a bouquet of flowers
A tear
Just look at it quietly
It's like looking at an old father with the backbone of China
Finally, "from the Baicao Garden to the Three Flavors Study".
Walked into the Hundred Herb Garden and the Three Flavors Book House"
Baicao Garden▲
The current middle school textbooks have reduced Lu Xun's articles, and the expert's explanation is that the ideas expressed in Lu Xun's articles are still not readable by middle school students, or what Yunyun, but when I was in middle school, I thought that I had a rough understanding of Lu Xun, whether it was "Diary of a Madman", "Medicine", "Blessing", or "Hometown", and of course, "From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Library". It may be half a century closer to the Lu Xun era!
Mr. Lu Xun wrote in the "Preface to the Scream": "I had many dreams when I was young, and I forgot most of them, but I didn't think it was a pity. The so-called remembrance, although it can make people happy, sometimes it can also make people lonely, so that the threads of the spirit are still holding the lonely time that has passed, what is the meaning, and I am suffering from not being able to forget it all, and this part of it cannot be completely forgotten has now become the source of the "scream". ”
"Has anyone fallen into trouble from a well-off family, I thought that on this way, I could probably see the true face of the world......
The old tree of Lu Xun's former residence ▲
What is Lu Xun shouting? Reading several articles in "The Scream", it can be seen that for example, "Kong Yiji" in "The Scream" is to wake up those old readers in the shout, and the cry in "Medicine" is to awaken the Chinese people——— Xia Yu's blood-soaked steamed buns were "eaten" into the stomach by Hua Xiaoshuo, "but they all forgot what the taste was", ———and the people who were as ignorant as the "Hua family" were not only "eaten" themselves, but also "eaten people" at the same time; And the one who is "eaten" is the enlightener of the "Xia family". That is, the result of enlightenment is to be eaten alive by the object of enlightenment. The enlighteners hope to awaken the ignorant people, but they become the objects of "being eaten". "A little thing" was also selected into "The Shout", Lu Xun's original intention was to shout the awakening of those little intellectuals. It is said that Mr. Lu Xun wrote "A Little Thing" under the influence of Tolstoy's "Resurrection", advocating the awakening of small intellectuals.
"The True Story of Ah Q" is to some ignorant people, "mourn their misfortune and work hard." "The cry of 'hometown' is to awaken the people like the leap earth, and also see hope in the next generation. For 'hope is what it doesn't matter, and what it doesn't matter.' This is like a road on the earth, but there is no road on the earth, but when many people walk, it becomes a road. ’”
Critics say that Lu Xun's essays are like daggers, like knives and guns, and the "In Memory of Liu He Zhenjun", which was selected into the middle school textbook, was selected from Lu Xun's essays. In this article, Lu Xun wrote: A real warrior dares to face the bleak life and dare to face the dripping blood. What kind of mourner and happy person is this? However, creation is often designed for mediocre people, using the flow of time to wash away the old traces, leaving only a pale red blood color and a faint sadness. In this pale red blood and indifferent sorrow, it gives people a temporary life, maintaining this seemingly inhuman world. I don't know when such a world will come to an end! This passage is a bit difficult for today's middle school students to read.
Lu Xun's former residence▲
Still in "In Memory of Liu He Zhenjun", Lu Xun wrote: I have always deduced the Chinese with the worst malice. But this time it was a surprise to me. One is that the authorities are so cruel, and the other is that the gossip is so inferior. The first is that Chinese women can be so calm in the face of difficulties——— this is a knife and a gun, and it is a dagger.
I have read Lu Xun's essay "Sui Xianlu XXV" several times, and each time I read it, I have a deeper understanding of Lu Xun's painstaking efforts, such as Lu Xun wrote in "Sui Xianlu XXV": Chinese children, as long as they are born, no matter whether they are good or not, as long as they are more, no matter whether they are talented or not. He who gave birth to him is not responsible for teaching him. Although the phrase "a large population" can be conceited with closed eyes, but this large population only tosses and turns in the dust, and when he is young, he does not treat him as a person, and when he is older, he cannot be a person.
In this way, it seems that there is no sense of disobedience, and there are still people in today's country who give birth to children like this, do not take the responsibility of education, and when they are young, they don't treat him as a person, and when they are older, they can't be a person. Some of the problems now are made by things that can't be human, and are still called "people".
In "Sui Xianlu 38", Lu Xun said: "Chinese has always been a little arrogant——— but unfortunately there is no 'personal arrogance', it is all 'gregarious patriotic arrogance'. This is the reason why after the failure of cultural competition, we can no longer see the improvement of vibration.
'Personal arrogance' is uniqueness, a declaration of war against the mediocre. In addition to psychiatric exaggeration, this arrogant person is probably a bit of genius - according to Nordau (Nordau, Hungary politician and writer), etc., it can also be said to be a little crazy. They must feel that their intellectual knowledge is higher than that of the mediocrity, and that they do not understand it, so they are cynical and gradually become misanthropes, or 'enemies of the nation'. ”
Woodcut Lu Xun ▲
Isn't this what those big Vs are now? Lu Xun painted portraits of them back then, or portraits of such people. The development of society has not thrown such people into the dustbin of history, where they bark and accuse those who have worked hard to move forward.
From this point of view, Lu Xun's articles are indeed incomprehensible to some people, or those who are called "people" cannot read them.
From this point of view, it is easy to understand the reduction of Lu Xun's articles in middle school textbooks.
Lu Xun's former residence▲
It has been more than 100 years since Lu Xun wrote "Diary of a Madman". Lu Xun and his works still have classic significance, but the medium of modern fiction is becoming more and more niche in the context of media changes.
The history of the emergence of modern fiction in Europe is only two or three hundred years, and its development is closely related to secular society and print culture. In the 21st century, movies, television, computers, mobile phones and other forms and carriers have developed, and people can no longer concentrate on reading novels as they did a hundred years ago, and even movies are not easy for some people to watch with peace of mind.
Lu Xun's former residence▲
Entering the former narrative space is the key to understanding Lu Xun, and I feel that this is a normal phenomenon.
An era will always find a way to tell its own story, and there will always be its own innovation. In addition to innovation, we should also have the ability to understand and appreciate the various ways of storytelling, such as modern novels, such as legends, scripts, ballads, epics, etc., which in my opinion is also the meaning of humanities education, that is, to cultivate our interest in cultural accumulation, and to train our ability to open and enter the narrative space of the past. When we can wander in that space, our innovation will surely have more layers. ”
"Untitled · Wanjia Ink Face No Artemisia Lai" - Lu Xun
Wanjia ink face is not artemisia,
Dare to sing and mourn.
The heart is vast, and even Guangyu listens to the thunder in a silent place.