In the history of world literature, 1899 was an absolutely important year, in which three literary giants were born, two of whom won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and they all chose to bid farewell to the world in an unusual way.
Lao She
Lao She, born on February 3, 1899, was originally named Shu Qingchun, the character Sheyu, and also had pen names such as Xiao Qing, Honglai, and Non-I. Because Lao She was born in Lichun, his parents named him "Qingchun", which probably contains the meaning of celebrating spring and having a bright future. After going to school, he changed his name to Shu Shiyu, which means "abandoning yourself", that is, "forgetting myself". Beijing Manchus are red flag people.
Chinese modern novelist, writer, people's artist, Beijing renyi screenwriter, the first writer in New China to win the title of "people's artist". Representative works include "Camel Xiangzi", "Four Generations Together", the script "Tea House" and "Dragon Sugou".
On August 24, 1966, due to attack and persecution, Lao She sank to the Taiping Lake in Beijing. In September 2017, the classic novel of modern Chinese literature,"Four Generations Together", was published and listed by the Oriental Publishing Center. This is the first time since its publication that the work has been published in full form. In 1978, Lao She was rehabilitated and restored to the title of "People's Artist". On the tombstone is engraved a sentence from Lao She: "A conscientious pawn in the literary and art circles, sleeping here." ”
Character evaluation: Hu Feng: "Shiyu is a person who has gone through the sweet and bitter background of life, and is deeply familiar with people, but his bottom 'true' is not only not obliterated by these, but appears more prominent, more difficult and cute." Therefore, his bottom is really not straight, not forgetful, but a fruit set off by complex branches and leaves. He was polite and polite, talking and laughing, and often had to jump out of the humor that did not know whether it was the truth or the joke. Now probably everyone understands that there is a shining truth about his life, but he sometimes has to shed tears for the affairs of the state, for the public cause, for the friendship, which is probably rarely known. ”
"Shiyu is a very happy person to make friends and is the most gregarious, but at the same time he is also an artist who can be lonely."
"He did his duty, he worked hard when he wanted him to work hard, he stood up when he wanted him to stand up, he asked him to seek perfection when he asked for perfection... In particular, the effort to aggriev himself for public purposes, as far as some facts I have seen, are only secretly impressed by his self-denial in his humble words and deeds. ”
Shu Yi, son of Lao She: "Fathers in life are completely contradictory. He didn't speak for most of the day, sullenly thinking about writing. Very serious, very closed. But as soon as someone comes, as soon as they hear a friend's voice. He was immediately active, approachable, warm and thoughtful, and very talkative. Thinking about it carefully, my father was also contradictory. Because he is very serious and diligent about life and writing; on the other hand, he is particularly interesting and loves life. ”
Zhu Guangqian: "According to the world literature information I have come into contact with, the only new Chinese writers recognized in the world are Shen Congwen and Lao She. ”
Fan Jun commented on humor to Lao She: "In a sense, without humor, there is no Lao She, let alone his achievements and status in the history of literature. ”
There are 3 former residences of Lao She, which are located in Beijing, Chongqing and Shandong.
Former residence in Beijing
Lao She Memorial Hall
Located at No. 19, Rich Hutong, Dengshikou West Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, the former residence is where Lao She lived after liberation, and it is an ordinary courtyard that Mr. Lao She bought at his own expense after returning from the United States in 1950. Lao She created more than 20 plays such as "Tea House" here.
In 1984, the former residence was listed by the Beijing Municipal People's Government as the third batch of cultural relics protection units in Beijing. In 1998, Mrs. Lao She returned to China to donate some of Lao She's calligraphy, paintings and antiques, and in the same year, she donated the former residence of Lao She to the state for a fee, and the next year, with the approval of the State Council, the Lao She Memorial Hall was officially built on the original site of the former residence.
Former residence of Chongqing
Located at No. 63, Tiansheng New Village, Chongqing, Lao She and his family, who had just undergone cecum surgery in 1943, began to settle here, where Lao She completed novels such as "Cremation", "Confusion" and "Famine". Almost all of the eight-year Anti-Japanese War Lao She is in this house in Chongqing. In 2012, the former residence was officially renamed the "Memorial Hall of the Fourth Generation" and was opened to the public.
Former residence of Shandong
Located at No. 54 Nanxin Street (now No. 58 Nanxin Street), Lixia District, Jinan, Shandong, Shandong Former Residence is the most famous former residence of Lao She in Jinan, during which he gave birth to his eldest daughter ShuJi. In this hut, Lao She wrote the novels "Divorce", "The Legend of Niu Tianqi", and most of the short stories included in "Catch the Collection".
Located at No. 12 Huangxian Road, Shinan District, Qingdao, Shandong Former Residence was rebuilt as the "Camel Xiangzi Museum" in 2010, where Lao She lived from 1936 to 1937 and completed the "first shot of his writing career" - "Camel Xiangzi".
Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata was born in Osaka on June 14, 1899, and graduated from the University of Tokyo. A leading figure in The Japanese literary world, he is a famous novelist. In 1968, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his three masterpieces of "Snow Country", "Ancient Capital" and "Thousand Cranes", and was the third person in Asia to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. (The first Indian poet, Tagore, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali.) The second was the Israeli writer Samuel Joseph Agnon, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966. ）
Born in Osaka on June 14, 1899. Graduated from the University of Tokyo. When his parents died at an early age, and his sister and grandparents died one after another, he was called "a celebrity who attended the funeral". After a long life of travel, a bitter and melancholy mood, and gradually formed a sentimental and lonely character, this inner pain and sorrow became the literary background of Yasunari Kawabata. He wrote more than 100 novels in his lifetime, more short and medium stories than long ones. The works are lyrical, pursuing the beauty of sublimation in life, and are deeply influenced by Buddhist thought and nihilism. Yasunari Kawabata is good at using stream-of-consciousness writing to show the inner world of the characters. He became famous for writing "The Dancing Girl of Izu".
Yasunari Kawabata's name has long been recorded in the rosters of the Kikuchi Prize (1944), the Academy of Arts Award (1952), the Noma Literary Award (1954), and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Prize (1961). In 1953, he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts, the highest honor institution for Japanese literature and art. In 1961, the Japanese government "described the symbol of Japanese beauty with its own style and strong feelings, and completed a creation that had never been created before", and awarded him the highest reward, the 21st Cultural Medal, and became a hero of Japanese culture. In 1957, he was awarded the "Goethe Gold Medal" by the West German government. In 1960, he was awarded the Order of Arts and Culture by the French government.
On April 16, 1972, Yasunari Kawabata suddenly committed suicide with a gas pipe in his mouth and passed away without leaving a paper suicide note. He said as early as 1962: "Suicide without a suicide note is the best." A wordless death is an infinite life. ”
Character evaluation: In 1968, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his three masterpieces of "Snow Country", "Ancient Capital" and "Thousand Cranes". In his acceptance speech, Anders Osterling, Executive Director of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters and Chairman of the Nobel Prize for Literature Selection Committee, highlighted:
Mr. Kawabata was clearly influenced by modern European realism, but Mr. Kawabata also clearly showed this tendency: he faithfully based himself on Japanese classical literature and maintained and inherited a purely Traditional Japanese literary model. In Mr. Kawabata's narrative technique, a poetry with a delicate charm can be found. ”
"Mr. Yasunari Kawabata's award is of two significance. First, Mr. Kawabata expressed his cultural consciousness of morality and ethics with his outstanding artistic techniques; second, he contributed to building a spiritual bridge between the East and the West. ”
Anders Osterling concluded by reading out the inscription of the award: "This award is intended to recognize you for expressing the essence of the Japanese psyche with your superior sensibility and with your novel skills." ”
Ernest Miller Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, where he was awarded the Silver Medal of Bravery during World War I, a Pulitzer Prize for the old man and the sea in 1953 and a Nobel Prize for Literature for The Old Man and the Sea in 1954. In 2001, Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" and "Farewell, Weapons" were listed by the American Modern Library as one of the "100 Best English Novels of the Mid-20th Century."
On July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, at the age of 61.
Hemingway's feelings in his life are complex, he has been married four times, and is a representative of the "lost generation" writers in the United States, and his works show confusion and wandering about life, the world and society. He has always been known as a tough man in the literary world, and he is a spiritual monument of the American nation. Hemingway's works marked the formation of his unique creative style, which occupies an important position in the history of American literature and even in the history of world literature.
As President John F. Kennedy's message of condolence put it, Hemingway's assessment of suicide: "Few Americans have had a greater impact on the feelings and attitudes of the American people than Ernest Hemingway." ”
The Nobel Prize-winning Colombian writer Márquez wrote a commemorative essay titled "Meeting Hemingway" to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Hemingway's death: "All of Hemingway's works are imbued with his sparkling, but fleeting spirit. This is understandable. An inner tension like his is the result of a strict mastery of skill, but skill cannot be tormented by this tension in the grand and adventurous length of a long novel. This is his character trait, and his mistake is to try to go beyond his limits. This shows why all the superfluous things are more striking in him than in other writers. Like short stories of varying quality, his long stories are all-encompassing. In contrast, the essence of his short stories is to give the impression that something is omitted from the work, or rather, what makes the work full of mysterious elegance. ”
The famous American literary critic Willard Thorpe gave Hemingway a high evaluation in his Twentieth Century American Literature: "Hemingway is one of the greatest naturalistic writers of our time. He dared to break through tradition and create new styles and techniques that did not meet the needs of the subject matter. ”
Character Evaluation: The New York Times commented: "Hemingway himself and his characters have influenced entire generations or even generations of Americans, and people are vying to imitate him and the characters in his works, who are the embodiment of the American spirit." ”
"Lonely and self-assured, there is no dust in sight." The American writer Saul Bellow points out Hemingway's character: "Hemingway had a strong desire to try to impose his own views on things in order to create an image of a tough guy... When he longs for victory in his dreams, there will be complete victory, great battles and happy endings. ”