Chapter 50 Remembering Hu Shizhi

In the autumn of 1954, I sent the book to Mr. Hu Shih in Hong Kong, and wrote another letter without leaving a draft, basically saying that I hope this book will be a bit like the "plain and close to nature" he commented.The reply letters I received have been carefully kept, but they have been moved too many times over the years, and finally lost.Fortunately, a friend copied a copy for her, and she still keeps it, as follows: Ms. Ailing: Thank you for your letter of October 25 and for your novel!Please forgive me for not writing to you for a long time. I have carefully read your book twice, and I am very happy to see this work of great literary value.What you said yourself is "a little bit close to the ordinary and natural state", I think you have achieved a lot of success in this aspect!This novel, from the beginning to the end, is about "Hunger"—maybe you have thought of using "Hunger" as the title of the book.

You wrote about Yuexiang's first meal of "thick porridge" after returning home, which is very touching.Later, you added a Mr. Gu who came from the city and couldn’t bear the hunger. I really admire you when you wrote about him stealing and eating things brought back from the town.I admire you the most when you write about him going out to throw egg shells and jujube stones, and the paragraph "I never noticed (the sesame cake) squeaks and squeaks so loudly when I eat it".These paragraphs may still be easy for some people to appreciate.I'm afraid that readers may not be able to understand it after reading it.

You are also very meticulous in writing human feelings, and you can also achieve the realm of "plain and close to nature".For example, the quilt written on pages 131-132, and the quilted jacket written on pages 175 and 189 were all very successful. The section on padded jackets on page 189 was really well written, and I was very moved. "Bland and close to the natural realm" is hard to be appreciated by ordinary readers.It is a good example that has been buried for a long time.After your novel was published, what kind of comments did you get?I'd love to know a thing or two.

I will pay special attention to your English version in the future. Can you please send two or three more copies of the Chinese version, I want to introduce it to some friends. On page 160 of the book, "his father is eighty this year, and I am eighty-one", which is too far from "sixty-eight" on page 205, which seems to be a small mistake. Page 76 "Lighting a Candle Under the Bed" seems to be deleted. What I said above is the nonsense of a person who has never done literary and artistic creation, please don't laugh at me.I read what you said in your letter in October, "A long time ago, I read your "Awakening Marriage" and the textual research. I was very impressed. Later, I found these two novels to read. Over the years, I have read them before and after. How many times have I thought that I have gained a lot of benefits.”——I read these few sentences and your novel again, and I am really happy!If the effect of my advocacy of these two novels has only produced yours, I should be very satisfied.

What other books did you write before this novel?I'd love to see it when it's convenient. Congratulations hastily Safety Sincerely, Hu Shi 1955, one.twenty five (the day after New Year's Day in the lunar calendar) Mr. Shizhi's encircling seems to be dual-purpose, sometimes it is to encircle a good sentence, and sometimes it is to accentuate the tone, like adding a hyphen under a Western character.When it comes to adding bars, the punctuation in the 1920s and 1930s was originally a straight line on the left side of the person and place name, which was very eye-catching. I don’t know why it was abolished later, and I have always regretted it.It's not like other languages ​​can be capitalized.This letter is still Yuexiang.The title of the book is a line of curves added to the left, and later the general quotation number.Mr. Shizhi used quotation marks, but later forgot, and still used a line of curved lines.In my opinion, they are all traces of the era of the "May 4th Movement", which is "too low to return".

The draft of my second letter was also kept by that friend, so luckily it is still there: Mr. Shizhi: It is a great pleasure to receive your letter.What I am most grateful for is that you read it so carefully. You pointed out that the paragraph describing Sha Ming's past on page 76 can be deleted, and it should be deleted.That whole chapter was barely filled out.As for why it should be added, the reason is very complicated.In the beginning, I struggled to write it in English just because the story was too bland to suit the tastes of Chinese readers—especially those in Southeast Asia.This is doubly difficult for me, because I have never written anything in English before, so I really worked hard.After writing, only two-thirds of what it is now.I sent it to my agent and thought it was too short, thinking that no one would publish such a short novel.So I added Chapters 1 and 2 (the original text starts from Chapter 3, Yuexiang’s return to his hometown), a chapter on the past history of Comrade Xu Wang, and a chapter on killing pigs.The last chapter was rewritten later, but I didn't have time to add it when it was translated into Chinese.

On page 160, Aunt Tan claims to be eighty-one years old, but on page 205 she says she is sixty-eight years old.I should explain it in the book.You asked about the reaction of the critics here.There have been two criticisms, both focusing on the anti-communist aspect, and not paying much attention to the story itself.I sent five copies of Science Songs.I didn't want to send other works because they were really bad--not to be polite, but really bad.But since you asked, I still sent it, you can just look through it, and throw it away if you can't read it.A collection of short stories written ten years ago and republished in Hong Kong last year.The collection of essays "Rumours" was also written before. When I left Shanghai this time, I was in a hurry and didn't bring a copy.Another book was written later, because I had to take into account the interests of ordinary readers in Southeast Asia, and I was very dissatisfied.Although the sales are not as bad as they are, they are not necessarily good either.I've found that the accommodating thing tends to be like this.

"Awakening Marriage" is written thickly and lightly, but they are also the best realistic works.I often complain about them, and always feel that they should be world famous.While not without flaws, like not finishing and not beginning is not a flaw.The nature of the defects is different, but in any case, it is not a complete work.I have always had a wish to translate "Awakening Marriage" into English in the future.The tone of the dialogue is very difficult to translate, but it is not absolutely impossible to translate.I didn't want to mention it here, because you might worry that I took things too easily and spoiled the original work.But I just have such a wish, and I still want to write more things right now.If one day I really plan to implement it, I will definitely send a half-translated translation first, and let you see if it works.

best wishes Eileen Chang February 20 In November of the same year, not long after I arrived in New York, I went to see Mr. Shizhi, and I went with my Ceylon friend Yanying.There was a row of white concrete cube houses on that street, with stairs in the door openings. They were completely Hong Kong-style apartment houses. I was in a daze in the sun that afternoon, as if I was still in Hong Kong.When I went upstairs, the interior furnishings also looked very familiar.Mr. Shizhi is wearing a long robe.His wife has an Anhui accent, which sounds more familiar to me.Her beautiful round face can be seen from the past, standing on the ground with her hands clasped, her attitude is a bit jerky, I think she may always be Mr. Shizhi's student in some ways.Reminds me immediately of what I've read about them as examples of the rare happiness of old-fashioned marriages.They both liked Yanying very much and asked where she was from.

She answered in Mandarin, but she had been away from Shanghai for a long time, so she was not good at speaking. Drinking the green tea brewed in the glass, the feeling of overlapping time and space that I had before entering the door intensified.The "Hu Shi Wencun" I read is on the desk under my father's window, side by side with less decent books.I dragged out his "Xiepu Tide", "Great Changes in People's Heart", and "Overseas Colorful Records" one by one to read, while I sat at my desk and read "Hu Shi Wencun".It seems that my father bought it after reading Hu Shi's textual research. I made an exception and asked for four yuan to buy "Awakening Marriage".After buying it, my brother was reluctant to let it go, so I suddenly became generous and showed him the first two books first, and then I started from the third book, because I have read the textual research, and I already know a little bit about it.Several years later, when I was an air defense officer during the Hong Kong War, I was stationed in the Feng Pingshan Library and found a copy of "Marriage Awakening the World".The anti-aircraft guns were installed on the roof and became the target of the bombing. Bombs fell one after another, getting closer and closer.I just thought: at least wait until I finish watching it.

My aunt once borrowed books from my father to read, and then the siblings fell out and did not get along. My father once grunted with a wry smile: "Your aunt has two books that I haven't returned." My aunt also once She was a little embarrassed and said: "This "Hu Shi Wencun" is still his." There is also a "Saint Joan of Arc" by Bernard Shaw, which was published in Germany. She likes the beige pocket book very much, and said: "This set of his Books are good." She and my mother played cards at the same table with Mr. Hu Shi.There was a picture of Hu Shi returning to China in the post-war newspapers. She couldn’t remember whether she got off the plane or the boat. She was smiling like a cat-faced child, wearing a bow tie with a big polka dot. She laughed and said, "Hu Shizhi is so young!" After my visit with Yanying that day, Yanying went to inquire and said to me, "Hey, your Dr. Hu is not well known, and he is not as famous as Lin Yutang." I have repeatedly found that when foreigners do not understand modern China, Often it is because they do not know the impact of the May Fourth Movement.Because the May 4th Movement is internal, external is limited to imports.I think not only our generation and the previous generation, but even the next generation on the mainland, although many young people don’t know what they are opposing when they oppose Hu Shi, I think as long as there is such a thing as the psychologist Jung’s so-called national memory, Experiences like the "May Fourth Movement" cannot be forgotten, and no matter how long they are buried, they are still in the background of thought.Rong is as famous as Freud.It is unavoidable to think of Freud's research that Moses was killed by the Israelites.Afterwards, they confessed to themselves that after a long time, they still believed in him the other way around. I went to see Mr. Hu Shi again later. I was sitting in the study, and there were bookshelves lining the entire wall. Although they were also very simple, they seemed to be custom-made, and they were almost as high as the ceiling, but there were no books, and there were stacks of folders. , Most of them are messy and reveal a piece of paper.The time and effort required to sort it out made me palpitate when I saw it. Talking to Mr. Shizhi, I am indeed like a god.To be more specific, it is like stopping and looking at the blank sky outside the window when writing something, just wanting to be closer to reality.Mr. Shizhi talked about the mainland, saying that "it was purely a military conquest".I paused and did not answer, because since I read books in 1930s, I have felt the pressure of the leftists. Although I am instinctively disgusted, and like all trends, I am always outside, but I know its influence is not limited to Leftists like the West were limited to the 1930s.As soon as I was silent, Mr. Shizhi immediately turned his face down and changed the subject.I only remember these two paragraphs that I was too bad at speaking, so I stuck to my heart.He also said: "If you want to read books, you can go to the Columbia Library, there are many books there." I couldn't help laughing.At that time, although I often went to the municipal library to borrow books, I was not in the habit of looking up books in large libraries, let alone sightseeing.When Mr. Shizhi saw it, he immediately went elsewhere. He said his father knew my grandfather, as if my grandfather had done his father a small favor.I don't even remember this little story, it seems too absurd.The reason is that our family never mentions grandfather.Sometimes when I heard my father talk about "our old man" with guests, many names were always involved. If I didn't know the political situation at the time, I couldn't keep up, and I couldn't listen to it after a few sentences.I became interested after reading it, and when I asked my father, he completely denied it.Later, I heard him talking loudly with a relative, arguing that it was impossible to bump into Dong Weng's daughter in the signing room, and she did not write the poem.I think that's just a detail.Ask him about other things about his grandfather in the next day, and he said angrily: "It's all in my grandfather's collection, go and read it by yourself!" I went to the study and asked the teacher to find it out for me, and moved to the dining room to read it alone. .There are many allusions, countless names, and the letters are all commonplace.Several sets of thread-bound books made me dizzy, and I couldn't see what was going on behind the scenes.I am also embarrassed to ask the teacher, as if I like to talk about my family background. My aunt was still young when my grandfather died, she didn’t know anything, and she asked with a slightly embarrassed smile, “Why do you think of asking this?” Because it’s not democratic to say such things to children.When I hit a wall a few times, I probably developed a psychological disorder. I immediately remembered the unofficial history about my grandfather when I saw it, and had no impression once it was included in the official history. Mr. Shizhi also mentioned that he saw my grandfather's complete works on a bookstall not long ago, but did not buy them.He also said that he was writing an article for "Foreign Affairs" magazine ("Foreign Affairs"). He smiled a little embarrassedly and said, "They all have to change it here." I wanted to read the issue-by-issue of "Foreign Affairs". Did you log it out? I was busy with work, so I didn't read it. On Thanksgiving Day, Yan Ying and I went to an American woman’s house for dinner. There were a lot of people. We ate a roast duck until dark, and we walked out to the street filled with lights and windows. Cute and totally like Shanghai.I was very happy, but when the wind came back I vomited.It just so happened that Mr. Hu Shi called and asked me to have a Chinese restaurant with them.I told him that I just vomited after eating Echo, and he let it go. It was originally because of Thanksgiving, and he was afraid that I would be alone.In fact, I don't have any Thanksgiving. Someone Yanying knew lived in a dormitory for professional women, so I moved there.It was run by the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army is famous for helping the poor. Anyone who hears it will laugh, even the girls who live there will sneer at the mention of it.There is only an age limit, and there are also a few fat ladies, probably related to the church, who seem to be planning to die here.The old lady in charge is called Lieutenant and Major.In the cafeteria, the homeless men who passed out in The Bowery were serving coffee. They took in temporary alcoholics. There was a little old man with blue eyes and white pounds, who stood weakly leaning on the coffee stove. One day Mr. Hu Shi came to see me and asked him to sit in the living room. It was dark inside, as big as a school auditorium, and there was a podium with a piano on it, and some old sofas were empty under the podium.There were no people, and the officers encouraged everyone to have afternoon tea every day, but no one would go.It was also the first time I went in, and I had no choice but to smile when I saw it.But Mr. Shizhi directly praised this place as very good.I thought to myself, we Chinese still have self-restraint.After sitting for a while and coming out, he looked around all the way, still saying yes, not like perfunctory words.Maybe it's because I don't think I have vanity.I didn't figure it out at the time, but I immediately remembered what he wrote about when he was a student in the United States, and one night he went to the bonfire party of the Revivalist sect. I was sent outside the gate and stood on the steps talking.It was cold and windy, blowing from the Hezhen River across the street.Mr. Shizhi looked at the empty gray river surface at the corner of the street, and there was fog on the river. He kept looking at it with a smile for some reason, and was stunned.He was tightly wrapped in a scarf, his neck was tucked into a half-worn black overcoat, his thick shoulders, his head and face were quite large, and he was condensed into a bronze bust.I suddenly felt a sense of awe, thinking: It turns out that it is really as people said.And I have always believed that all idols have "clay feet", otherwise they will be untenable and untrustworthy.I didn’t wear a coat when I came out. The heater inside was too hot. I only wore a summer coat with a large scoop collar, but it wasn’t cold at all. I just felt windy after standing for a long time.I also looked up to the river and smiled, but there seemed to be a sad wind blowing out from the depths of the times thousands of miles away, making it hard to keep my eyes open.That was the last time I saw Mr. Shizhi.I moved to New England in February and had no news for several years.In 1958, I applied to live at the Henghenton Hartford Foundation in Southern California for half a year. It was an art workshop run by the descendants of AP Supermarket. It was a charming place in the seaside valley. When I closed the door, the newspaper said that I had lost half a million yuan.I wrote to ask Mr. Shizhi to be surety, and he agreed. By the way, he sent me back the copy I gave him three or four years ago. He circled the whole article and wrote an inscription on the title page.I was so shocked when I saw it, I was so grateful that I couldn't speak, and I couldn't even write. After writing a short message to thank him, I don't remember when I read the news of Hu Shi's return to Taiwan.After a while, when I saw the bad news, I was only perplexed.Is it because they are already historical figures?I just thought at the time that I was really blessed to die suddenly after giving a speech at a banquet, which is what used to be called an undisturbed death.It is also appropriate to take him as a human being. It was not until last year that I wanted to translate, and a few years earlier, I could not only ask Mr. Shizhi to help introduce, but also I think he would be happy, that I really felt that Mr. Shizhi was gone.Often when I think of it, the back of my eyes will feel hot, and tears will not flow out.If I hadn't had the opportunity to translate this book now, I wouldn't have written this article at all, because the panic and horror were too great, and I didn't even want to think about it. The most obvious reason for translating seems to be to jump over the Wu dialect barrier, but Wu dialect dialogue may not be the biggest reason why it is not accepted by readers.The Yadong edition comes with a few pages of dictionary. When I first read this book, I didn't understand Shanghainese at all, so it didn't take much effort.But the 1935 Yadong edition is out of print like the 1894 original.Probably still a relationship of interest, too short of legendary, not sentimental①.British and American readers also have their preferences, but their critics have a greater influence, and there are many people who read books, so it is easier to meet people with knowledge.Not many people know about the novels of the nineteenth-century British writer George Borrow—and I can’t read them—but so far, people in the United States often say that they are all fans of George Borrow, and they are happy with each other. If you tell them that China's achievements in novels in the past are no less than those in painting and porcelain, no one will show an air of disbelief.When it comes to Chinese poetry, it is still a bit unpredictable.Some people say that poetry cannot be recited.The novel is only a representative work, and there is no naive folk literature element.Most of them only read the outline of the story, most of them are Gao E's, and the love triangle of the big family is also very common.To give it the international status it deserves, the only way is to treat it as an incomplete work of art, remove the forty chapters, and maybe add the textual research of the ending of the original work.I read it for the first time when I was twelve or thirteen years old. It was a lithographed edition. When I saw eighty-one episodes of "Four Beauties Fishing and Swimming", suddenly the sun was dark and everything became dull. After that, it was a completely different world.The strangest thing is that Bao Dai's meeting was so stiff that even they themselves felt that it was very unpleasant.It was only after many years that I found out that it was continued by someone else, so I could sympathize with the author's thorn in his back, find some excuses to explain why their attitudes changed, and then hastily ended the conversation.It will be easier to wait until Baoyu goes crazy.At that time, I never thought that it was written by another person. I just knew that I would rather turn to the front to see the part of the poem that I skipped.When some people in the United States heard that it was published in 1894, they were taken aback, saying: "It's so late...it's almost a new literature and art!" They also pay attention to the year like buying antiques.In fact, it is the most typical one of the old novels developed to the extreme.The most conceited structure of the author is common to Western novels.It is characterized by extreme economy, which reads like a script, with only dialogue and a small amount of action.Dark writing, line drawing, and understatement without leaving traces, weaving into the texture of ordinary people's life, rough and dusty, many things "didn't realize it at the time".Therefore, although the subject matter is a Shanghai prostitute's house eighty years ago, it does not have a sense of glamour, and among all the books I have read, it has the flavor of daily life. Mr. Hu Shi's textual research pointed out that the fault of this book lies in the middle section of the meeting of celebrities and beauties.I think the author is not only trying to insert his own favorite poems and drinking orders, but also to show that he will also write about the scene like the Grand View Garden.Any good social novelist—social novels are later reduced to shady novels, and perhaps they should be rated as "lifestyle novels" according to the novel of manners—can appreciate the subtle differences in the tone and behavior of different classes, and they are particularly sensitive to these places. So sometimes the concept of class is very deep, that is, a bit snobbish.The author treats the wealthy Qi Yunsou and the upright officials of the Qi Mansion differently, and writes that they are superior to others in every way, which is not true. The person in charge, Xiao Zan, is not only to insert a chrysanthemum poem, but also like a "poetry maid", indirectly writing about his family's wealth and romance.In addition, only the 53rd time Qi Yunsou caught Xiao Zan having a private meeting in the garden, but he didn't see who it was.Looking back, it was revealed that they were a couple, but there was no further text since then. Only in the postscript that "Xiao Zan and Xiao Qing escaped with money" in the future, I realized that it was Xiao Qing, the maidservant of Su Guanxiang, the prostitute of Qi Yunsou.Ya Tou followed around, but it was just a name, and it was not written enough.The author uses the method of hiding and flashing, and repeatedly borrows the memory to remind him, the subtlety is measured, and the deduction is extremely accurate. This is the only example of failure.My translation has deleted several times, including this section, and it is still patched up according to the original texture. There are too many girls like Zhao Erbao, who have fallen for fun and competition.And she still becomes a high-level tragic figure.The cowardly Wang Liansheng was so angry with Shen Xiaohong that she finally gave up because of her concubine, but she didn't live up to it, so she returned to her for a while.And the last elegant stroke raised this matter to the realm of shattered dreams.Although the author is secular, his point of view is completely modern and cosmopolitan outside of the times and nations, which is really rare in old novels. But even China, which has advocated simplicity since ancient times, has not been as simple as his, which just runs counter to the tradition of Western novels.They have always explained in detail. Many people wandered around all day with blurred faces. After their names were translated into English, even their gender could not be discerned.Our "Three Character Classic"-style names, they immediately become dizzy after reading a few times, unlike our own, the text itself is visually colorful.They are not used to reading articles between the gaps, and sometimes they just need a Jin Shengtan to comment and comment sentence by sentence. Can Chinese readers accept something that they have rejected twice?As I was doing this work, I couldn't help but face these problems, and I always felt that Mr. Shizhi was gone.