A famous modern essayist and educator, Wu Boxi
Wu's prose was highly regarded in the 60s and 90s of the last century. Various textbooks and anthologies of essays include his works. For example, "Mountain House", "Nan Lao Spring", "Orion" and so on. As early as 1966, "Remembering a Spinning Wheel" was selected into the teaching articles of correspondence schools, and in 1977, it was selected into the textbook of Central China Normal School; in the 1980s, "Song", "Vegetable Garden Notes" and "Morning" were selected into the textbook of junior high school "Language"; in the 1990s, "Nanniwan", "I Have Not Seen the Great Wall", "Cave Scenery" and so on were selected into the textbook of "Language" in middle schools. For more than 30 years, the work of an essayist has been selected into textbooks many times, which is rare among modern writers.
In 1980, Wu Boxiu was in Beidaihe
If Yang Shuo is written with poetry as his writing and his words, Liu Baiyu writes with scenery and is imposing; Wei Wei writes with love, and passion and poetry reflect each other; then Wu Boxi's prose is to see the truth in plainness, which is completely different from other essayists. Wu Boxi wrote many times in his prose about "figs", figs are simple and unpretentious, seemingly unattractive, but can produce sweet fruits. This can be used as a metaphor for Wu Boxi's prose: in the simple words, the bland narrative, it will definitely leave you with sincere spiritual reflections.
Wu Bozhen (front row, center) and the poet Gongmu and others
Wu Bozhen, whose original name was Wu Xicheng, was a gardener from the Wu family in Laiwu, Shandong Province. In the 1930s, Wu Studied at Beijing Normal University. Mental distress led him to keep writing, publishing a large number of essays in newspapers in Beijing and Tianjin. In the era of wars and chaos, how to find a bright path spiritually is a subject that Wu Boxi often ponders. His debut work was "Day to Night", and later he wrote essays such as "Night Street", but unfortunately, when Wu Boxiu prepared to publish the essay collection "Night Street", he lost all the manuscripts in the 9/18 Incident. After graduating from the normal school, Wu Bozhen went to Qingdao University to teach, and created essays such as "Words of the Old Capital" and "Night Talk", which were later collected into the "Book of Feathers". Wu Boxiu explained: Yushu is a chicken feather letter, to tell each Chinese, and to unite to eliminate the enemy from the central plains. This is Wu Boxiu's cry to darkness, his call to light.
Wu Boxiu
In 1938, Wu Bozhen went to Yan'an. He first studied at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, and then went to the front line to participate in the propaganda of battlefield culture. In the face of the changes in life, Wu Boxi's thoughts and feelings are also changing, and his prose shows two completely different styles from his previous creations, showing more spiritual bitterness and emotional nothingness in the past, although he has hopes for the future, he still shows the slightest doubt. But after coming to Yan'an, Wu Boxi's thoughts and emotions were elevated to a new realm, and a golden avenue appeared in front of him, and he no longer mourned and mourned like a young man, but had a grand ambition to transform the world. "Battle Rich Nanniwan", "Starting Point", "Night Touch Constant Victory Army", "Thoughts on horse", etc., full of passion for battle.
After graduating from "Kang Da", Grandpa Mao encouraged Wu Boxiu's inscription
After the founding of New China, Wu Boxi's prose entered a new realm. Both technically and emotionally, it has reached the level of pure fire. The transformation of the old era has been completed, and the construction of the new era is beginning. Doubt and sorrow are gone, the passion of battle is no longer the result of external and internal interaction, and his beauty and love of life are based on his own inner experience and self-realization. At this time, he created famous articles such as "Remembering a Spinning Wheel", "Difficult Old Spring", "Vegetable Garden Notes", and "Hunter". In particular, "Vegetable Garden Notes" and "Orion" have become classics for students to recite. In the tone of the eloquent speech and the bland narrative, it truly reaches the natural artistic realm, flowing with the yearning for a better life in the heart.
Former residence of Wu Bozhen in Qingdao
Wu Boxiu's prose embodies 3 qualities:
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > first: simple and unpretentious style, good at finding beauty in plainness</h1>
Wu Boxi's prose is written about small things. Even if "Thoughts on horse" writes about Commander-in-Chief Zhu De's prose, it does not describe Zhu De's image clearly and majestically, but only regards him as an "ordinary person" loved by soldiers and kind in language. This is the exact opposite of Yang Shuo, Wei Wei, Liu Baiyu, Qin Mu and others. Yang Shuo wrote a lot of poetic prose, but he also wrote combat novels such as "Three Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and the poetry of the apricot blossom spring rain and the poetry of the Jinge Iron Horse were closely linked; Wei Wei described the volunteer army fighting side by side with the Korean people, how grand was the theme? Liu Baiyu enthusiastically praised the great rivers and mountains of the motherland, the clouds steaming and fog, and the scene of swallowing mountains and rivers. Qin Mu crisscrossed the ancient and modern times, lamenting the changes in the world. Their descriptions are very specific, making people feel a kind of "big" spirit. But here in Wu Boji, you don't see too many emotional descriptions, he just describes "a spinning wheel", "a vegetable garden", "a cave", an experience of visiting Lu Xun's former residence. The vegetable garden in "Vegetable Garden Notes" is so ordinary that it is impossible to find any surprises, but there is a real taste of life in the plain: "In the late spring, at noon, stepping on the seedlings or hoeing grass cultivation, the warm sun shines all over the body, the fresh earthy smell, the fragrance of plain vegetables, and the refreshing spleen." "Garlic is smoking, cabbage is curling cores, coriander is emitting a veining fragrance, everything makes people feel a real pastoral pleasure."
True life and pastoral pleasures must be unremarkable; true prose must also be the truest expression of inner emotions. Compared with other essayists in the 70s and 80s, the reason why Wu Boxiu's prose continues to this day, and still has a strong vitality and resonance, is that he has reached the realm of "plain and nearly natural". This is not easy to do. In the era of passionate fighting, the Jingo Iron Horse is certainly more inspiring than the "small feelings" in personal life, but we must not forget that the purpose of any Jingo Iron Horse is for a better life for mankind, which can be said to be a fundamental, a foundation. Often this is the case, when we experience the dazzling skills and ideologies in life, as well as a variety of mixed artistic trends, we look back and suddenly realize: the original plain life is the real life, the more simple and unpretentious things are more precious!
Wu Boxi and His Wife
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second: sincere and implicit feelings, expressing lofty ideals</h1>
"Orion" wrote about dong kun, a hero who fights tigers. But Wu Boxiu described the autumn scenery with great emotion: the late autumn sun, the soft and fading grass, the ripe sorghum, the stacked crops... A harvest scene. Writing About Dong Kun, he wrote about "Hundred Elderly People" and "Second Uncle Shang", went to the forest farm and wrote about the scenery of red stone rock: paulownia, wubai, locust... Wu Boxi is a master of white painting, and the simple and unpretentious language will soon portray a landscape to the fullest and present it to your eyes, which is indeed a great talent. It was not until the end of the prose that I met Dong Kun, and the theme was sublimated: whether it is a wolf, a leopard, or a paper tiger, we all fight, and if we want to fight, we must destroy all the beasts and robbers! This is an impassioned phrase that rarely appears in Wu Boxi's prose, but it is certain that it must be an outpouring of the author's true feelings and express a very broad mind. At the end of the article: "The sky is clear, the sun is very good." "A thrilling hunting story, and wrapped up in the dull sun and everyday life, the author walks into the world in the sun's rays.
"Morning" is another famous work of Wu Boxi, and has also been selected for the high school "Language" textbook. It recounts the author's visit to Lu Xun's old days and his feelings about the "early" word that Lu Xun carved on the desk. "Early" is the theme of the article, which is the sublimation point. From this article, we can see that Wu Boxiu seems to be very restrained from the flow of his emotions, but in the calm narrative, he cannot hide a kind of enthusiasm in his heart. And this emotional characteristic can actually summarize his entire art of prose writing, that is, under the bland narrative is the author's hot heart. This is the greatest feature of his prose: the writing is very subtle and restrained, but deep down is his passion for ideals!
Wu Boji (first from right) during his visit to Europe
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third: use skillful white painting techniques to immerse the reader in the scene</h1>
In the essay "Forgetting the Year", Wu Boxi began by writing: "Old Zhang, let me still call you like I did forty years ago, although many comrades have already called you 'Zhang Lao'." The change of title indicates a change in status and identity, but Wu Boxi still regards "Zhang Lao" as "Lao Zhang", which is a process of identity "reduction", that is, restoring the original face of life, recording life and emotions in a white painting technique. This emotion is very simple and simple, not mixed with anything else, so it is pure and sincere.
Whether in writing scenes or expressing emotions, Wu Boxi is very skilled at combining "love" and "scenery", scenery is a scene with strong feelings, love is a love with accurate white depiction of scenery, which conveys a strong message to the reader: use true feelings to pull the reader into the artistic atmosphere created by the author, let the reader immerse himself in it, using the current terminology is to have a "sense of substitution", as if the reader jumped into the ocean of words created by the author and took a bath, giving people a feeling of happiness and immersion. This is a very high writing style, because there is a "gap" between the description of most writers and the reader's experience, and they can't immerse themselves in it for half a day and don't feel it.
When talking about the artistic conception of literary works, Wang Guowei put forward the following three criteria: "What is the meaning of the artistic conception? Writing love is refreshing, writing scenery is in people's eyes and ears, and narrative is like coming out of its mouth. In this way, the three aspects of a literary work, such as ideological feelings, scene descriptions, and narrative language, are clearly summarized. Wu Boxi's prose can be said to have reached such three high standards: the literary language is simple and unpretentious, there are sincere and strong and pure feelings, and the portrayal of scenes can give people an immersive feeling, just like a person chatting with you about home.
Wu Boji (front row, first from left) attends literary and art conferences in Europe
From ancient times to the present, prose can be roughly reduced to these three forms: 1 is a small essay, such as the prose of the Wei and Jin dynasties, the prose of modern Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun, Wang Zengqi Jia Pingwa and others; 1 is a large cultural essay, such as the prose of the contemporary Yu Qiuyu Zhuyong and others; 1 is a prose that is directly expressive between the small essay and the big cultural prose, most of which are the last form, that is, not sketches, not "big prose", but "ordinary" prose, the number is huge, can not be classified, and the final value is not much.
Wu Boxi's prose can be boiled down to the "sketches" of thought and emotion. The so-called "small" refers to the small "volume", which describes the authentic taste of daily life, which is divorced from the taste of an era. Because times always change, and in that era it was the highest standard, in which it may not be recognized, and many opportunistic artists have shown this with action. True art is not limited by time and space, and even if it is buried for a while, it will be rediscovered, because the essential taste of human life has never changed. Just like the fig he praises: there is no high purity of the pine, the uprightness of the bamboo, the elegance of the chrysanthemum, but the fruit it produces is very sweet in the mouth!