Chapter 24 drawer full of loneliness

one Friends chatted about Mr. Xu Khan's novels, talked about Mr. Xu's death for more than four years, and talked about the fact that I hadn't written an article in memory of Mr. Xu.I said that several seniors I respect passed away one after another, and I couldn't write a memorial article.It is not easy to write a mourning article; all good articles in the world must have a layout, and once there is a layout, it is inevitable that it will be a bit artificial and a bit fake; to say that the article is written in a true way and that it is written in a way that "sees the words" actually means that the article has a good layout , well faked, well faked, and made fake come true. The mourning mood is real, but if I write it out, I’m afraid I’ll lose my true feelings, leaving only too good words, that’s not good.

I know very well how to write a good article. I always strive for excellence in writing articles. I am afraid that in order to "practice" a good mourning article, my true feelings for the deceased will be "practiced" to death. .In my life, I am most afraid of reading articles that deliberately let go of many emotions and write them.With so many emotions and so easy to express, this world must be much simpler.Writing an article is an intellectual activity, and you should not be too emotional; you should not write an article if you are too emotional.I have always been calm and hardworking when I write articles, and it is very hard; when mourning someone, it is difficult to do such hard work calmly and hard at the same time.

It has been more than four years since Mr. Xu passed away, and the mood of "mourning" him has already calmed down, and the rest is the accidental memory of him."Mourning" is dynamic; "remembrance" is static. Friends seem to be divided into dynamic and static; my relationship with Mr. Xu is "static". two In the late 1960s, when Mr. Xu published "Bi Duan", I submitted a manuscript, and he wrote to ask to meet.The first time we met, we didn't talk about anything. I just remember that he said that the magazine planned to review several British and American writers in installments, and asked me to try writing.I didn't have a fixed job at the time, and the financial burden was heavy, so I agreed to him.After that, I probably wrote several articles for "Bi Duan"; Mr. Xu knew me very well, and introduced me to translate novels in a newspaper, serialized every day, and increased income.We became friends we could talk to.

Once I met Mr. Xu for dinner. He was wearing a black shirt and a white tie. He was so neat and elegant that I thought of Maugham and Maugham's novels for no reason.The text of Mr. Xu’s novels is very fluent and European-style; the ideology of the characters does not have any traditional Chinese taste, and their actions and emotions have a bit of a foreign flavor; Maugham.That day I deliberately talked about Maugham with Mr. Xu, and Mr. Xu said: "I don't see much about Maugham!" Really skillful.Mr. Xu's "Journey to the Rivers and Lakes" is a novel with a Chinese local flavor. Lord David Cecil said Maugham's short stories are all powerful "stories", but Maugham's creative imagination is mediocre, so Maugham has never been able to use his own life experience to bring readers into a "special world" to go.The Dorset village described by Hardy is very similar to the Dorset village, even more real than the real one; Jane Austen wrote the banquet as beautifully as a real one, but she wrote the banquet completely from the author’s eyes, so it is much more than the real one thing.Mr. Xu's creative imagination may not be much higher than that of Maugham, but Mr. Xu imagined the Chinese characters in Chinese society that he saw in his eyes as Chinese characters in Chinese society influenced by Western thoughts, and the stories he wrote always had a strange atmosphere , bringing Chinese readers into a "special world".Therefore, in China, 1943 was the year of Xu Han. Although the text of "A Journey to the Rivers and Lakes" is clean and the story is moving, Xu Han lost Xu Han who made Xu Han successful in this book: Xu Han walked out of Xu Han's world, but he couldn't find Xu Han himself.What can constitute a "whole Xu Khan" in the history of Chinese literature are still "The Absurd Channel", "The Elegy of the Mental Patient", "The Temptation of the Gypsy", "Ghost Love", "The Wind Xiao Xiao", "The Blind Man". "Love" and other works that represent Xu Ze's special and westernized creative imagination.

Writers should not easily get out of the world that they have painstakingly cultivated. "Journey to Jianghu" did not destroy Mr. Xu's established status, nor did "Journey to Jianghu" enhance Mr. Xu's established status: "Journey to Jianghu" became Xu's illegitimate son, and became a lonely book. three Speaking of loneliness, Mr. Xu is very lonely.He is never "old", but he is very "old", "old" is very interesting, like a drawer full of old pens, old envelopes, old wallets, old passports, old lighters, and old photos.He doesn't call people very much, and prefers to write letters; long letters and text messages are very elegant.I like to use free chapters, and a red seal of "Sanbuzhai" is stamped on the letter paper.Of course he doesn't use a ballpoint pen, and he is particularly picky about the nib of a fountain pen, otherwise he wouldn't be able to draw such a unique signature. He likes to design the cover of his own book, and use his own handwriting to make a plate-making "Thrush" as a substrate.It is not hard for him to write vernacular poems, but he reads them with a poetic taste, even if he does not divide the lines, he can read them as poems.The English characters he writes are very similar to the brushwork of European literati, with thick pens, straight fonts, small fonts, and a few consecutive lines are particularly beautiful.

Since Mr. Xu's mood is so "old", the "Remembering People and Thinking Things" articles written in his later years became more and more light.I always think he should live in an old inn in Paris, hide in his room for the first half of the day to write, go to a nearby tavern for lunch, go back to take a nap, go out in the evening to have an aperitif, have dinner, and then go to listen to music and watch an opera , chatting with friends in the cafe until midnight... Mr. Xu is a typical old writer, very private, and likes to open the window to let the loneliness of the street float into his room.Mr. Xu's loneliness is a plot, a layout that he deliberately arranged for his life, and it turned out to be fake, very contagious, like his novels.Writers need the nourishment of loneliness: Mr. Xu is reluctant to clear out the old things that are full of drawers; these things are no longer available, and no one buys them.There are fewer and fewer writers.