Chapter 10 Literature Is Immortal - Italo Calvino Talks about the Accuracy of Words (Author: Wu Qiancheng)

After the advent of post-industrial civilization, will literature gradually decline to the point of extinction?Those who clamor or worry about this issue probably think that sound and light media will eventually surpass or even replace language and writing. Can sound or light and shadow really replace words?Those who worry and care about this issue should read the third chapter of Italo Calvino's "Memorandum for the Next Round of Peace and Prosperity" (1988), which was published after the death of Italo Calvino.Italo Calvino's speech is very thought-provoking.In this speech on "precision," Calvino asserts that man's most unique gift, the ability to use language, is currently stricken by a plague which manifests itself in the following symptoms:

Losing cognition and sense of immediacy, it becomes an unconscious automatic reaction, tends to flatten all expressions into the most general, impersonal, and abstract formulas, dilutes meaning, blunts the edge of expression, and extinguishes The sparks burst out from the collision of words and new situations. Italo Calvino, with a generous heart, said he did not want to ask whether the roots of the epidemic lay in "politics, ideology, bureaucratic conformity, the monotony of the mass media, or the way schools spread mediocrity." He said he was interested He believes that "literature, and only literature, can create antibodies against this language plague."

Calvino then pointed out that it is not only language that is infected by the plague and becomes inaccurate.For example, let’s take visual imagery as an example: modern people live in the endless rain of images. There should be inherent inevitability between the form and meaning in the images, but the images presented by powerful media lack this inevitability. Not engrossing enough to be a possible source of meaning.Accordingly, Calvino charges: Most of these visual images fade like clouds and smoke, just like dreams that do not leave traces in memory, only the feeling of alienation and discomfort does not fade.

In Calvino's view, not only images and language lack substance, but the world itself lacks substance.The plague invades the lives of men and the history of nations, and it makes all histories seem arbitrary, shapeless, confusing, and without beginning or end.Calvino said that this form of loss made him uncomfortable, and that the only weapon of resistance he could think of was literature. With his delicate and sharp reading vision, Calvino quotes the incisive insights and vivid examples of poets and writers (including scientific discourses and his own novel creation), and carefully dissects the value of accurate words.Then near the end, two views on writing are summarized.The first view holds that writing is a means to help humans obtain the essence of the world—the ultimate, unique, and absolute essence; writing does not represent this essence, but has an equivalent relationship with the essence. Therefore, if writing It is not correct that it is only a medium to achieve a certain purpose. The text only knows itself, and it is impossible to know the world otherwise.Another point of view is that the use of words is an endless exploration of things. This kind of exploration is not directed towards the essence of things, but towards the infinite variety of things, touching the surface of their endless complex forms.

Human beings are always searching for some hidden, or only potential or imaginary things based on all the clues that appear outside.Our basic habits of mind and thinking have a long history and have been inherited from our ancestors engaged in hunting and gathering in the Paleolithic Age through various historical stages.Words connect visible trajectories with invisible things, things that are not present, things that people desire and fear, like a fragile bridge for emergency escape, thrown over the abyss.For this reason, Calvino emphasizes that, in his personal opinion, the appropriate use of language enables us to approach things (seen and unseen) with deliberation, concentration, and care, and to respect (what is presented and what is not) ) things that are not communicated in words.

Leonardo da Vinci, the great artist of the Renaissance, provides a profound example of how man struggles with language to capture what is beyond his expressive capacity.Da Vinci's manuscripts are full of struggles with language to seek richer, more detailed, and more accurate records of expression.He claimed to be vulgar, his knowledge was unparalleled in the world, but because he did not know Latin and grammar, he could not use words to communicate with the learned people of his time. He believed that he could express himself better through painting and drawing, but constantly I feel that I need to write, to explore the complex manifestations and mysteries of the world through writing, to give shape to my fantasies, emotions and resentments.Therefore, he wrote more and more, and then he gave up painting and expressed himself only through writing and sketching.

In his notebooks, da Vinci recorded evidence for a theory of the growth of the earth.He begins by giving examples of cities engulfed by mud, followed by discussions of marine fossils found in mountains, and especially some skeletons of some kind of sea monster which he thinks must have belonged to primeval times.At that moment, da Vinci's imagination must have been overwhelmed by the image of a huge animal swimming in the waves.He turned his notes upside down, trying to capture the image of the animal, and tried three times to write a sentence that would evoke that grandeur: Oh, how many times have you haunted the swollen waves of the ocean, your dark and rigid back looming like a mountain range, your manner solemn and dignified!

Later, Leonardo Da Vinci introduced the verb "rotate" in order to make this monster more dynamic: How many times have you been in the midst of the swollen waves of the ocean, with a solemn and dignified demeanor, spinning in the sea water, the dark and rigid back looming like a mountain range, overwhelming the sea water! However, he also felt that the word "rotation" seemed to weaken the impression of grandeur and grandeur that he wanted to evoke.Therefore, he chose the verb "plough", which changes the whole structure, giving compactness and rhythm: Oh, how many times have you been among the swollen waves of the ocean, looming like mountains, overwhelming the turbulent waves, and plowing through the sea with your black and hard back, dignified and solemn!

Calvino believes that Da Vinci's capture of the "ghost" is almost a symbol of the majestic power of nature. Therefore, the images presented by these words and their overall transparency and mystery are worthy of long-term memory. , think carefully. Post-modern sound and light media cannot or should not completely replace language and writing, otherwise, wouldn’t most of the human civilization constructed by language be lost?Not to mention continued development. Originally published in "Liberty Times Supplement": 1996.4.24