Chapter 25 3. Treasure house of world literature

Not long after school started, there was a book on Shiying’s bed. I picked it up and looked through it. I was immediately attracted and finished reading it in half a day. "Read it in half a day?" he said appreciatively. "Hey, at your age, when you pick up a book, you forget everything!" I told him that this is not true and that I often lose my mind when reading, and he shook his head in disbelief.This is the beginning of our relationship.From then on, he brought batches of books from home and piled them on the bedside table. He read them, and I read them too. I had a little trouble with the physical examination for incoming freshmen.The dean of the school hospital, a thin old man wearing glasses, massaged my abdomen for a while, and wrote down the diagnosis of "liver and spleen big one finger" on the physical examination form.He brought two female doctors and asked them to feel it too, but they said they couldn't figure it out.The thin old man persisted in his opinion and announced to me: both the liver and spleen are enlarged, either he has schistosomiasis or hepatitis, and if these two diseases cannot be ruled out, he will have to leave school.He transferred me to the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical University for re-examination, but nothing was found there, and then transferred me to the People's Hospital, as if he would not stop until one of the two diseases was found.The People's Hospital is in Fuchengmen, and the inspection procedures are quite complicated, so I walked about ten kilometers between Haidian and Fuchengmen time and time again.Every time I came out of the hospital, I would go to an old bookstore in Funei and exchange the money I saved on walking into books as a reward for myself.Shiying suggested to me that it would be good to take a break from school and live in Beijing for self-study, and he provided me with books.In the end, the People's Hospital did not detect any of the two diseases, and the thin old man reluctantly signed my medical examination form agreeing to enroll.So, after half a semester of school, I received my student card and obtained the qualification for formal admission.

The half-semester tossing was not a bad thing for me at all. Since I did not have the formal qualifications for admission, I had the legal right not to attend classes, so I was able to spend a lot of time reading extracurricular books.Once this momentum was formed, it seemed to have inertia, and it continued after obtaining the admission qualification.In fact, during my first year of college, my main energy was devoted to reading novels.I have never been so obsessively immersed in a novel, and it is precisely a foreign novel that I thought I could not read and did not touch.Perhaps intellectual maturity has its seasons, too, and the joy of reading is a signal that the time has come.Seeing that I like reading, Shiying brought me a lot of Russian literature.I guess this may be specially arranged by him. He was obsessed with Russian literature when he was a teenager. Considering my level, he let me get started.

I was immediately fascinated, and I couldn't put down the book every day. I read it very late, often exceeding the stipulated time to turn off the lights.This aroused the dissatisfaction of other students in the same dormitory, and finally a dispute broke out.That night, I was reading under the lamp, and it was coming to an end, and I couldn't bear to let it go, it was later than usual.An Anhui man began to scold me, turning over and nagging on the bed.Seeing that I ignored him, he jumped up from the bed, rushed to the door, and turned off the light.When he went to bed, I went to turn on the light again.He got angry, jumped out of bed to pull the lamp, held on to the cord, and cursed.I felt aggrieved, and while talking back, tears welled up in my eyes.Shiying picked up a book, pulled me and said, "Go, read it in the corridor." From then on, most of the students in the dormitory decided to turn off the lights on time at ten o'clock in the evening.I was really ignorant at that time, I shouldn't hinder others from resting.However, what I can't figure out is that they are all young, why they go to bed so early and don't cherish the best reading time at night.Often when I was fascinated by reading, the light suddenly went out, and I sat in the dark, gazing at the hazy scenery under the moonlight outside the window, with tears glistening in my eyes.I hate the hand that pulls the switch, how cruel it is, it takes away my joy, my time, and cuts off another day from my lifeline.

I started reading Russian literature from Turgenev, and read all the Chinese translations of his novels, including, "Eve", "Noble House", "Luo Ting", "Spring Tide", "Hunter's Notes" etc., and it was the novella that shook me the most.During that time, Turgenev's girls became my spiritual companions, and I fell in love with their elegant and passionate personalities.Then I read Tolstoy. In addition to the three masterpieces, , , and , I also read some short stories.Of course I admire the grandeur of the scenes and the richness of the characters in Toon's works, but what moved me the most was his extraordinary simplicity. He seemed to be just narrating life itself, never intentionally creating drama, but more than anyone else. It profoundly reveals the truth of human nature and life.I think that no matter how different the men and women in his works are from me, I can understand them with my inner experience.I also like his plain and profound thinking about life, and characters who embody this kind of thinking, such as Levin and Pierre, make me feel kind.Then, I read Dostoevsky again. The first book was "Double Personality", which he gave to me when the British family passed away. Then I read "The Gambler", "The Idiot", and so on.Reading Tuo's works is completely different from Tuo Weng's. The nervousness of the characters, the thrilling scenes, the dense conflicts and climaxes make people always in a state of panic and out of breath.Shiying loves Toshi, but I like Toon even more.In addition, at that time I also read Pushkin, Lermontov, Goncharov, Korolenko, Gogol, Chekhov, etc.For me, the first semester of the first grade became an out-and-out Russian literature year.I read very fast, swallowing dates, and can finish a thick book in a day.Works by the Soviet Union are also read, such as Gorky, Fadeyev, and Sholokhov.Gorky's memoirs, especially the one recalling Tolstoy, are excellent.It is made up of some fragments, with a few strokes like a sketch, but it outlines the outline of Tolstoy's mortal body and soul extremely vividly.No one but Toon's own diary has given me such a vivid understanding of this great man of flesh and blood.I also like Baustowski's, which restores art experience and appreciation to the personal soul.Of course, I also read some Western works, such as Hugo, Stendhal, Merimee, and Dreiser, but the number is relatively small.For a while, Shiying was reading Ibsen, and I followed suit. I deeply sympathized with the loneliness and courage of the outstanding individuals revealed by Ibsen in the face of the mediocrity of society, and also appreciated the concise beauty and sharpness of his dramatic language. strength.

In addition to fiction, I often read poetry.What kind of poems I read depends entirely on my mood. In different moods, I am accompanied by poets of different styles.On my bedside are Shelley and Heine, but also Mayakovsky, Neruda and Hikmet.Shiying often opened the "Lorga Poetry Notes" translated by Dai Wangshu and read a few lines. After reading aloud, he gave this book to me.It was from this Spanish balladeer that I first experienced the charm of pure poetry. "What do you sell, restless maiden, to lift your breasts?" "In a drop of water, the child seeks his voice." These sentences are pure and hazy, beautiful to the extreme.

In the second semester of the first grade, Shiying's mood was extremely disturbed.He drew a portrait of Dostoyevsky with a pen and pasted it on the wall beside the bed.He said he was decadent, and began to read decadent works, such as Andreev's "Red Laugh", Alzhibanev's "Shanin", and Baudelaire's.After listening to his praise, I also read these books.He also discovered Hemingway and Remarque. Driven by him, I read Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and some novelettes, Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Arc de Triomphe".Hemingway's language art made me feel fresh and new, but I couldn't really appreciate his revolutionary nature at that time, and I preferred Remarque who retained more traditional techniques.None of Shiying's books seemed to be in his father's collection, and he probably picked them up from a second-hand bookstore by himself.At that time, a small number of western modernist works were translated and published internally. Only cadres of a certain level were eligible to buy them. Shiying often brought them to schools.I also read a few books, including Salinger's, Kerouac's, the absurd play "Waiting for Godot" and "The Chair".Ehrenburg is also Shiying's favorite writer. Because he is regarded as a revisionist, his later works were also published internally. Shiying had read "People, Years, and Life" at that time. I only read it a few years later. At that time, I only read "thaw".At the same time, Shiying was also obsessed with Nietzsche and often talked about it to me, but I only saw a copy of Xiao Gan's translation of "Zarathustra Spoke" on his desk, because it was in classical Chinese, I read it For a moment, I didn't read any further.Once, he gave me an internal document with Sartre's articles on it, and suggested that I read it, so I learned about existentialism.Probably influenced by Sun Jingwu, after Nietzsche, he became obsessed with Freud.I once asked him to borrow this book, but he refused and said with a smile: "You want to read it too? It should be earlier!" If the first semester of the first grade is my Russian literature year, then the next semester is 1963. Half a year can be said to be my modern thought year.Through my own reading and through Shiying's discussions, I have a sporadic and vague understanding of modern Western literature and philosophy.In the political environment at that time, it was not easy. Those things were judged as reactionary, and ordinary students could not get in touch with them. If there was no Shiying, I would not be able to get in touch.

I am forever grateful to Guo Shiying, who was my guide when my desire for knowledge was at its peak, and brought me to the door of the treasure house of world literature.It is true that I have only walked a small corner in this treasure house, but once I walked in and saw the treasures, I acquired the basic appreciation and knew how to distinguish treasures from rubbish.As a philosophy student, it is my luck to devote my main energy to foreign literature.I feel the depth and breadth of humanity from these great works, as if a secret home has been built in my heart.With this home, when I face the rigid environment and curriculum, I can maintain an inner freedom and also maintain a kind of immunity.In the long run, the nutrition given to me by literature will definitely nourish my spiritual growth, which will be reflected in all my spiritual fruits, including philosophical fruits.I always believe that the soil of human spiritual life is unified, and there is no distinction between disciplines. As long as it takes root in this soil, the plants that grow will be strong, no matter how the plants are classified.