Chapter 2 Literature --- the reflection of poplar trees in the lake

Why is literature needed?What does understanding literature and being close to literature have to do with our formation of value judgments?If there are a hundred so-called "functions" in literature and I have to choose the most important one, my answer is: there is a very precise German expression, macht sichtbar, which means "to make the invisible visible". .In my own opinion, this is the most important, essential, and core role of literature and art.I wonder if people of your generation are familiar with Lu Xun's novels?His works are forbidden books for our generation.Raise your hand if you haven't read Lu Xun? (About half of the people raise their hands) Lu Xun's short story is about a family whose child has tuberculosis.There is a folk superstition that if a child eats steamed buns stained with blood, his illness will be healed.Or the Xianglinsao in "Blessings"; Xianglinsao is a nagging and almost crazy woman, her child was taken away by wolves.

Let us imagine, if you and I lived in the village described by Lu Xun, what would we see and understand?Mrs. Xianglin is just a lunatic who makes us turn a blind eye or take a detour.And here, we ourselves may be the father or mother who went to buy steamed buns early in the morning and waited to see someone behead them, just waiting to soak that steamed bun in blood to raise their children.Otherwise, we are the biggest intellectuals in that small village, a scholar who can't speak clearly, and at worst expresses a little dissatisfaction with the peasants' superstition. But through the eyes of the writer, there is an artistic distance between us and the life in the village.In it, you not only see ignorance, but you also see the state of human existence behind ignorance, and see the unshakable helplessness and sadness in the state of human existence.In "Blessings", you not only see poverty and vulgarity, but you also see the most respectable pain of "people" under poverty as a prototype.Literature makes you "see".

I think writers are also divided into three types!Bad writers expose their ignorance, good writers make you see ignorance, and great writers make you see ignorance and at the same time recognize your own archetype, and the deepest compassion emerges.These are three different levels. Literature and art allow us to see a reality that is closer to the essence of existence on the back of reality. In this reality, apart from the profundity of reason, there is also an intuitive epiphany of "beauty".Beauty is also a reality closer to the essence of existence. Who... can recite a complete poem?Let’s talk about my favorite poet, Su Dongpo.Who is willing to recite "Jiangchengzi" for us tonight? (Commotion and hesitation, a male student shyly stood up and began to recite)

Ten years of life and death, without thinking, never forgetting. Thousands of miles away, there is no place to talk about desolation. Even if you don't know each other when you meet, your face is covered with dust, and your temples are like frost. Yelai Youmeng suddenly returns home, Xiaoxuan window, is dressing. Looking at each other without words, only a thousand lines of tears.It is expected that the place where the heart is broken every year... (The student forgot the words, hesitated for a moment, and an old man with white hair answered loudly: "On a bright moon night, Short Songgang." Enthusiastic applause)

You said these seventy short words, what does it bring us?What does it do to our value judgments?If you say no, it’s just that in the dead of night, the hesitant words, the vague images in the words, and the hazy feelings aroused by the images make you stop and sigh, and make you suddenly look out of the window The suddenly extinguished street lights make you sit in the dark for a long time, shrouded in loneliness, and face the most hidden self. But what does it do?If Lu Xun's novels make you see the depth behind the reality, then, a moving and profound poem, I think, it provides a possibility of "emptiness", and "emptiness" is relative to "realness".Emptiness is another reality.The reality that is closer to the essence of existence that we usually cannot see.

Suppose there is a lake, of course there is water in the lake, and there is a row of poplar trees on the shore of the lake. Of course, this row of poplar trees is the real world, you can touch it with your hands and feel the texture of its trunk.This is the real world of our usual rationality, but in fact there is another world that we don't call "real" or even notice its existence.It is impossible for a poplar tree by the water to have no reflection, as long as the poplar tree grows by the water, there will be a reflection.And this reflection, you can't touch its trunk, and it is so illusory: when the wind blows, or there are clouds today, it rains lightly, or the moonlight of the full moon floats, or the water waves are like a mirror, making the reflection of the poplar tree It will always appear in different shapes, different depths, and different textures. It is broken, it is round, and it is vague.But you said, is the poplar on the shore the only reality, or the poplar in the water is the only reality.However, in life, we usually only live in one reality, which is the level of the poplar trees on the shore, the level that can be touched by hands and seen by eyes, and we often ignore the "empty" in the water, which is ever-changing at any time. Yes, that level of reflection that is directly observed with our mind.

Literature is just to remind us: besides the poplars on the shore, there is another world that may be more real, which is the reflection of the poplars in the lake.