Chapter 13 On Eileen Chang-2

(three) Once, Eileen Chang told me: "I am a selfish person", and she was apologetic and stubborn at the same time.After a pause, he pondered again and said, "I am not selfish in small places, but I am very selfish in big places." She even doubted her feelings, so poor that she had no sense of responsibility.But she also said: "For example, I am very responsible when writing articles." What is going on?I couldn't tell at the time.But then he was inspired.A few days later, I chatted with a man who had turned from a small party member to a high-ranking official. He advised me in a serious and apparently well-intentioned manner: I should be active, patriotic, and revolutionary.I replied wearily: "All patriotism has been lost to others, and all revolution has been lost to others, so I have no choice but to stop being patriotic and revolutionary."

As Lu Xun said: justice is on their side.What has their justice to do with us?And having said that, some people will stare angrily, because the masses belong to them, and the comrades belong to them, so what do I have?Well, let's just say it has nothing to do with me.So I became an individualist. When I met Zhang Ailing again, I said: "You are nothing more than an individualist." This name is not very good, ╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳ ╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳╳ . (Editor's Note: This is the original text, probably due to inspection.)

Speaking of "no way" and "so-so", I remembered a chat with Shimizu and Ikeda. They were surprised by these two unique Chinese catchphrases.I said that these two sentences have only existed since the Republic of China.Over the past few decades, heroes have come and gone, gearing up one by one, saving the country and the people there.But the people are just watching the excitement, if you ask him to go to the parade, he will go to the parade, and if you ask him to shout slogans, he will also shout.Come back and ask how he is?He said it was "so-so".All heroes, whether they are native or foreign, always sigh in unison, "There is no way" for such a people.Thanks to this "so-so", the people will not be deceived, so that the heroes "have no way" to do evil.

Everyone should take care of themselves.At the same time, you may wish to listen to the principles of the public and the public, and the reasons of the mother-in-law, as a side note. "Shanghainese after all" praises the Shanghainese for their cleverness and almost charming humor, but not playfulness. Such individualism is a cold saboteur, but there are more rebellious ones.It can be reborn or destroyed, but it will not be corrupted.Nowadays, people always regard individualism as something exclusive to the European Renaissance in the fifteenth century, but they don’t know that this is the case no matter which era in history changes from old to new.Whether slave society, feudal society, or capitalist society, when it declines, individuals are drowned by groups, and human beings are drowned by materials.Just like a dilapidated big family, the slave is tired of the master, and the master is also tired of the slave. One corner of life is more indulged in luxury, while the overall life is the poverty of things, which makes people's hearts shrink because of miserliness.Everything became unbearable. As mentioned in "On Writing", there is a kind of "congested sadness", people are also "foggy", and things are also "foggy", and nothing is pleasing to the eye.If you want to live, you have to go out, as in "Go, go upstairs!", "to get close to the sun, moon, mountains and rivers", and drag things out of the dark corners, take them apart, and wash them one by one. It's also refreshing.This is how Socrates and Rousseau wanted to remove the mystery of the "fog number" and appeal to reason.They are all individualists.Rousseau also challenged: "Even if I am not better than others, at least I am different from others."

Speaking of running away, a photo of her was published in the "Magazine". It was sitting by the pond, with a kind of panic in her eyes, looking ahead, as if she was afraid of something chasing behind her.She laughed and said, "I look pitiful, as if I've been hit by a stick." A friend of hers said, "Like a slave, who has been a slave for generations." I said, "It's good that the title is called Runaway Slave. Thinking about it later, it really was her explanation.The escaped female slave is the beginning of life, the world is new to her, and she herself has a kind of rebellious joy.

But she is different from Socrates and Rousseau.Greece in the fourth century BC was just disintegrating, and there was no new era behind it. Socrates' rationality had no real things to cling to, and was then absorbed into Christianity.Rome in the era of Nero also experienced decline and no new life. As written in "Where to Go" by Xian Keweizhi, people were tired of life and satire prevailed, but in the end because the era had no future, the satire gradually became thinner , becoming a harmless epigram that later disappears fruitlessly.If the decline of an era is followed by emptiness, it will not be able to bloom the flowers of literature.

Lu Sao's era had the prospect of a capitalist revolution, so Lu Sao condemned the old era and no longer used satire.He has "Theory of the Civil Agreement" and "Emile", and he prescribed medicine for the times. Today's situation is different.In literature, the development from satire to condemnation, and then to the search for new things often goes through a series of long procedures, but now it is compressed together.For example, Lu Xun, in the works he wrote at the same time, there are irony, condemnation, pursuit, and prescribing.This is because of the continuous revolution and reaction in China for decades.But Lu Xun was wrong about the prescribing, and his participation in left-wing literature was an incomparable loss.He gave up his individualism prematurely.Individualism is the protester of the old age, the legislator of the new age, and it can be dissolved in the harmony of the new age, but it is not what discipline or self-restraint can kill.

Lu Xun’s experience was better than that of Gogol, and Gogol’s irony did not stop. He tried his best to struggle with the emptiness, trying to attribute something to seeking, but finally burned the second half of the dead soul himself.His old age was sad.Lu Xun's irony is seeking, so it can not be attacked by emptiness, and it is in full swing.But Lu Xun ended up no better than Tolstoy or Gogol.Tolstoy was a great seeker, but he became an exhausted pilgrim when he prescribed it.Lu Xun's prescription is Stalin's blindness, which is also tantamount to religion.And in giving up individualism prematurely, Lu Xun and Gogol were similarly sacrificed by some discipline in their later years.

After Lu Xun, there is her.She is a great seeker.The difference from Lu Xun is that after several decades of revolutions and reactions, Lu Xun’s pursuit was the mournful cry of a wounded fighter on the battlefield, while Zhang Ailing was a new sprout, seeking sunshine and air. It seems to be immature, but because it has not been damaged, it is not sick at all. After the long and severe winter, the news of spring is sprouting. This fresh seedling has brought health, clarity, and indestructible vitality to the world. The failure of the Chinese revolution from 1925 to 27 destroyed the creative power of many young writers. Some of the people in the modern magazine office came back from studying abroad in the bright and beautiful southern Europe, and brought some fresh air, as if stained with The dewy flowers, which just dazzle the eye, wither quickly.It is amazing how the darkness of the times has devastated literature.It was Lu Xun who was not broken, but he was supported by Nietzsche-style superhuman anger.

In the past few years, there has been a lot of chaos, making life even more difficult, but the gloom of the times is gradually disappearing.The war and chaos will pass one day, and the traditional scary way of life has finally been shattered and cannot be restored.At this time, people have the peaceful joy after a critical illness. Although they are still limp and powerless, they want to take a look at themselves and their surroundings again.And she is the representative of the new generation of this era. Lu Xun faced politics sharply, so he satirized and condemned.This is not the case with Eileen Chang. In her hands, literature has returned from politics to the human world, and thus has become more intimate.The times are disintegrating, what she seeks is freedom, a real and stable life.

What kind of life rules the world? Cuiyuan in "Blockade" is like a young lady of the church. She knows that she is living a good life, but she is not happy.She was not married, and timidly accepted a man's flirting on the tram, and there was love in her soul, but it became obscene immediately, and she was surprised and confused.That man didn't live well either, he was a bank clerk, he crawled around like a gnat all day long, and had little time to think.With the woman, it was just an occasional dramatic scene, but he remembered something from his own life that troubled him and dissatisfied him. Advanced ones such as the flirting between Yanagihara and Tassel in "Love in a Fallen City" are epigrams, but not a work.Liu Yuan said it right: "Death and life are boundless---hold the hand of the son, and grow old with the son" is a sad poem. The world is desolate and too heavy. His wit and wit are just the blue light of fireflies. Light yourself up in the dark. There are even more low-level ones, such as the kind of life Nixi lived in "Serial Series".Nixi cohabitates with men one after another, like a hungry person greedily munching on the oil-pressed bean cake, although it is also nourishing, it will hurt the stomach. Delicate things are not necessarily great, but people eat beasts Feed the end is pathos. Liuyuan's brilliance will fade after a long time.As soon as the brilliance disappeared, she became Mrs. Liang in the first incense burner of "Agarwood Crumbs".Mrs. Liang's high-level flirting life has become more and more a reality of shallow pleasure. The inspiration has faded, so she has to add greasy and exciting, addicted to herself with a strong taste, and deceive herself as if there is something in it. nourish. The fading of this shaky inspiration is lamentable. The living room of the Jiang mansion in "The Story of the Golden Lock" is gloomy. The men and women in the Jiang mansion are like birds embroidered on the screen for a long time, without singing, and never even have the meaning of flapping their wings.Even if it is greasy and stimulating, it is useless, and the queen becomes paralyzed, just like the father who served fried peanuts in "When You Are Young", the mother who listens to Shaoxing opera, and the vulgar sister. The vocals are wide-plane deadpan, hilarious, dizzy, and unreal.Just like Mr. Zheng's house in "Flowers Withering", it looks beautiful on the outside, but the sisters inside are trying their best for a piece of clothing and a pair of socks, almost returning to the primitive competition for survival, not more civilized than the quarrels of scavengers. What kind of whip beat people into such a pitiful appearance?It's the sad words in the textbook in "When You Were Young" that warned me: "No matter what you do, you can't be careless. No matter what you do, you can't meet your own wishes." There are not even exclamation marks, just cold commas and periods.It is the heavy golden shackles in "Golden Lock".In short, in this world, there are entanglements that make people unhappy, and the ethics of life that is out of style.She condemns these and soothes the damaged and insulted.She washed the world with tears, not sad tears but soft tears.In "Apartment Life Chronicle" and "Road to Eyes", she keeps things in water bowls, like pebbles in a rain flower terrace.Refined, clear and intimate.She dismantled the dramatic decorations, wiped away human emotions, told them about the beauty of clothes and food, and how to listen to the story told by her childish brother: "He hasn't finished talking yet, and I'm already laughing. Kissed him on the cheek, treating him like a bauble." But these are personal.What if we get along as a group? In "Are you a Shanghainese after all?", she praised the Shanghainese for their intelligence, their wit that treats the truth of the public and the truth of the woman as a little thing.But the facts themselves were not as good as her statement.She was otherwise what she was looking for. In "On Writing", she is fascinated by Shenqu: "Looking at Xiaoxing at five o'clock, civil and military officials go to the court, Donghua Longmen civil officials leave, Xihua Longmen military generals walk, civil officials write to secure the world, and military officials mount horses to determine the universe" Times, there is a sentence in Ru Nanxing's prose: "The sun in the courtyard in the afternoon is stable", which really brings tears to my mind.But she cannot prescribe, she stops at the search for greatness. She is individualistic, Socrates' individualism is unreliable, Lu Sao's individualism is domineering, Lu Xun's individualism is miserable, but her individualism is soft and clear.At this point, I suddenly remembered the "Buzhou Mountain" in Guo Moruo's goddess. After the battle between Huangdi and Gonggong, the battlefield became silent. At this time, a group of goddesses came to soften the universe with their caress. She is like this, He is the discoverer of people and discoverers of things. (This article was originally published in the second and third issues of the thirteenth volume of the "Magazine" monthly magazine. It was published in May and June in the 33rd year of the Republic of China [Shanghai]. It is now collected in the book "History of Chinese Literature" by Hu.)