Chapter 73 Lu Xun four

Lu Xun had a strong interest in Western medicine and achieved good grades in all subjects.This is also like his strong interest in geology and biology.He has always studied both arts and sciences, and can see both matter and spirit at the same time, seeing the fusion of the two and the boundary between the two.Modern Western great philosophers have many examples of turning from natural science to the field of humanities, such as Husserl and Russell, who were originally excellent mathematicians; like Freud, who turned from a doctor to the founder of psychoanalysis, claiming that the whole society is his patient.Lu Xun did not agree with Freud, but he had similarities with Freud: All kinds of people in society are sick, but the degree of illness is different.

In Tokyo, Lu Xun and Xu Shoushang often discussed: What is the most lacking in Chinese national character?What is its root cause? Such discussions and questioning are rare. In Japan at that time, due to the Sino-Japanese naval battle in 1894 and the later Russo-Japanese War, the number of militants increased sharply and militarism was rampant.Lu Xun was regarded as a "China student" by his Japanese classmates in Sendai.Good grades are ridiculed and doubted: how can a Chinese person get good grades in bone science, neurology, angiology, anatomy, and bacteriology? A Japanese student wrote to Lu Xun, saying at the beginning: You repent!

This is equivalent to saying: Tell me, how did you cheat? Lu Xun showed no sign of "repentance". The classmates in the class looked at him sideways, and some people deliberately provoke him. He lived in a low-level hotel next to a prison, and his emaciated body suffered from mosquito bites.Mosquitoes fly around in winter.No mosquito net.Rough food. Sometimes I slapped mosquitoes all night and got blood on my hands... Physical and mental suffering.True gold is forged in a raging fire. On this day, the school showed a documentary film about the Russo-Japanese War. In the film, there was a Chinese who was executed by the Japanese army for being a Russian spy.The Chinese compatriots onlookers were all strong but numb. They were watching the commotion and the decapitation, stretching their necks like ducks, and turning their eyes like dead fish with some kind of excitement.Lu Xun was taken aback.The Japanese students were cheering and whistling.

A Chinese with a strong physique but a dull look... Lu Xun was deeply impressed by this because he continued to question the national character.Thoughts lead to feelings.Feelings lead to more feelings, which in turn disprove thoughts. He made an instant decision: abandon medicine and follow literature. Medicine cannot penetrate the soul.The walking dead are running around the streets, "It is not unfortunate to die of illness or death." ,, "The True Story of Ah Q", made a three-point description of the numbness of the people.Numbness is a big word, it derives many forms, including self-deception, complacency, concealment and deceit, cannibalism and being eaten, including the famous "spiritual victory method"...

All the efforts of a good writer are deeply human.In Lu Xun, it is to go deep into the national character and the inferiority of the nation.In other words, he examines human nature historically. Lu Xun is sensitive.Only a highly sensitive person can see a high degree of numbness, just as a solid individual can perceive a group like a loose sand. Ye Shengtao said: "Among his contemporaries, Mr. Lu Xun is indeed more sensitive than others. There are many things that others have a little hazy feeling about. He has already thought about it, and he thinks deeper than others." Lu Xun was a forerunner, and he was also a forerunner in terms of "ideological facts". The "three firsts" belong together.He was the pioneer of the intellectual revolution.

Mao Zedong called him "a great writer, thinker, and revolutionist." He thought deeply, so he went far.He goes far, so he is alone. He examines human nature, tortures the soul, and never lets himself go.He appreciates Dostoyevsky's torture of the soul and his relentless pursuit.In a specific historical situation, he opposed Confucianism and Confucianism.However, "returning to oneself" and "introspecting myself three times a day" are one of the core values ​​of Confucian culture.Confucian culture, some scholars simply call it shame culture.Shame has something in common with the Christian theory of "original sin".As a vital and open cultural system, Confucianism makes it not difficult for people immersed in this culture to understand Tuo's inquisition on human nature.

Chinese feudal society became more and more closed in the late stage, which was caused by the extreme operation of power.Extremism means: only this kind of extremism can maintain the operation of the increasingly corrupt power system.China's political system lags far behind that of the West, but China's traditional culture can overlook the culture of other languages.It can be seen from this that traditional culture is not attached to feudal society.The essential power of culture penetrates social formations.This point can be roughly seen today, and traditional culture has her constant value.

When the country first opened in the late Qing Dynasty, scholars generally felt anxious about strangeness.And outstanding scholars, moving forward in anxiety, opened a road full of thorns.Lu Xun's ability to be strongly drawn by Western culture has something to do with his "Chinese studies" foundation.This issue is very important and will be discussed in detail later. To grasp "Lu Xun is Lu Xun", one must grasp the outline, and the outline can be established. When Lu Xun thought about something, once he figured it out, he would do it immediately.The so-called "thinking" here may only take a few minutes.This is roughly the "instant decision" advocated by Xi Zhe.This is not to say that a few minutes is an instant. Sometimes, a few years may also become an instant in history.

Xu Shoushang persuaded Lu Xun, saying: Didn't you study medicine well?Why give up? Lu Xun replied: How can Chinese idiots be cured by medicine? There are plenty of reasons to give up medicine. Lu Xun went to his teacher and stated the reason for dropping out of school. Mr. Fujino understood it as soon as he heard it. Although he loved the only Chinese student very much, he did not persuade him much.He gave Lu Xun a photo and silently wrote two Chinese characters with a brush: Farewell. Lu Xun took the photo of Mr.Since then, I have hung Fujino's photos on the wall.When he was tired from work and wanted to be lazy, he looked at the photos and started working at his desk again.

In Sendai, a bustling metropolis in southeastern Japan today, there are monuments to Mr. Lu Xun and Mr. Fujino... In the summer of 1906, when Lu Xun returned to Tokyo, life was still difficult.Eat poorly and think a lot.This remarkable brain works almost around the clock. "Go to halls, go to bookstores, go to rallies, and listen to lectures." After mastering Japanese, he also learned Russian and German, and eagerly read Russian and German literary and philosophical classics. The warrior of the spiritual world is ready to go. Looking at it today, intellectuals in Russia, France, and Germany have more influence on the world than Britain and the United States.

Lu Xun devoted all his life to social criticism and civilization criticism, while Kant already had "Criticism of Critical Power", one of the "Four Criticisms" in the nineteenth century.Chinese scholars in the late Qing Dynasty may not understand the criticism of critical force. Mao Zedong once pointed out in "Talks with Music Workers": "In modern culture, foreign countries are higher than ours, and we must admit this." Lu Xun's rise was aimed at the cultural gap.He leaped into Western culture, greedily breathed the heterogeneous air, and looked back at Chinese traditional culture, "seeing" traditional culture—its essence and its hidden ends. He can defamiliarize homogeneous things. This also includes the art of Chinese that he will develop.His novels, from, to, almost have a style, and his ability to transform art has surprised many people.He does not deliberately pursue the form, but instead obtains a "significant form"... Lu Xun looked at China because he absorbed the strength of Chinese and Western elite cultures. Only elite culture can give people insight into history and the present. Man is a thinking reed... During the eleven years from Nanjing to Tokyo, Lu Xun gave people the impression that he was thinking nervously every minute.Learn, think, learn again, think again.He doesn't seem to care about food, clothing and housing, including dating.The spiritual ascension is accompanied by the physical "sinking". And this type of great philosopher is common in the modern West.Think Spinoza, Marx, Kant, Nietzsche. This is not to say that great men and philosophers are indifferent. Life is too short.Lu Xun's famous saying: Do it quickly. He worked hard in Tokyo to publish "New Life" magazine; he translated "Extraterritorial Fiction Collection" with "exquisite ancient characters".One side wants to be reborn, but the other side uses ancient characters, which is very meaningful. "Don't lose the inherent blood", know it, and then do it. Lu Xun became a disciple of Zhang Taiyan, a master of Chinese studies.Zhang Taiyan was a well-known revolutionary at the time. He worked in a prison of the Qing court. After he was released from prison, he moved his forum to Tokyo, Japan, where he fought fiercely with Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei, leader of the reformist and royalist faction. Lu Xun listened to Zhang Taiyan's "Shuowen Jiezi". Mr. Taiyan sat on the ground, waving his arms, speaking Chinese characters vividly, often a few hours passed by.The students listening to the lecture sat around the low table, and they had to hurry up when they went to the toilet, for fear of missing the highlights.There was one Qian Xuantong, who was so obsessed with listening to it, that his eyebrows were beaming every time he was in class, and he moved forward unconsciously, and moved in front of his teacher.During the teacher-student discussion, Qian Xuantong talked the most.Lu Xun was slightly dissatisfied with Qian Xuantong, so he nicknamed him "Climbing Around". Later, Qian Xuantong became a paleographer. In the 1920s, Qian Xuantong advocated restoring ancient ways, and Lu Xun wrote articles criticizing him. When Lu Xun wrote "Two or Three Things about Mr. Taiyan", he also gave a little encouragement to Zhang Taiyan, who is a master of Confucianism, but the tone of this article is kind and nostalgic. Lu Xun ran the "New Life" magazine, read Western classics wildly, and listened to Zhang Taiyan at the same time.A thinker and writer with a broad vision is in the making.The incomparable Chinese art is being honed.But this layer of Lu Xun was once overshadowed. The reason why the fighting Lu Xun was able to fight was that his cultural vision was the decisive factor. His fellow countryman Xu Xilin assassinated En Ming, a member of the Qing court, and the whole country was shocked.The revolution is going on in various forms, and people with lofty ideals emerge in endlessly.Xu Xilin was executed and disemboweled, and his heart, liver and lungs were served as an appetizer for Enming's soldiers.The Qing Dynasty was dying and fought back frantically.Not long after, another fellow of Lu Xun's hometown, Jianhu heroine Qiu Jin, also died under the butcher's knife of the Qing court's executioner in her hometown of Shaoxing. Before he was alive, Qiu Jin carried a short knife with him. Lu Xun also had a short knife, which was given to him by a Japanese friend when he was in Sendai. At night, he looked at the knife and gestured. He is not an assassin.This is a scalpel for the soul. Lu Xun looked at the knife, looked back and forth, and "read" the essays in the style of throwing spears and daggers in the future. Yu Dafu said that Lu Xun's essays "can kill with an inch of knife". Yu Dafu usually leaves people with the impression of a romantic and talented man, but he highly admires Lu Xun's essays and counterattacks Liang Shiqiu who despises essays.Mr. Liang Shiqiu did a great job in translating Shakespeare, but maybe he went to the extreme of "elegance". The characteristic of essays is that laughing and cursing are written in words, which is quite good. Mencius also wrote articles to scold people. Wang Guowei, Zhang Taiyan, Gu Hongming, Guo Moruo...who doesn't curse? Swearing is in a broad sense, not a personal attack. "Insulting and intimidating are never fighting." Lu Xun returned to Tokyo from Sendai and stayed there for another three years.Calculating on one's fingers, he has been in Japan for more than seven years. Seven years of refining into real gold. The previous four years in Nanjing and more than ten years in my hometown in Shaoxing laid the foundation for these seven years. Today's Sendai people once proudly said: Shaoxing is the hometown of Zhou Shuren, and Xiantai is the hometown of Lu Xun... In 1908, Lu Xun lived in an apartment "Fushimikan" in Tokyo. He was almost twenty-nine years old, and he had a little beard on his lips.He still doesn't want to go back to China, which means starting a family.To start a family means to live an old-fashioned life, to have children in Shaoxing, and to be a teacher or a friend. His mother sent a telegram urging him to go back.In Shaoxing, there was a girl named Zhu An waiting for her. She was slightly older than Lu Xun.Lu Xun didn't want to marry her.Similar marriage tragedies also happened to Hu Shizhi and Guo Moruo.Tragedy is doomed between new thinking and old marriage customs.Today in the 21st century, it seems clear at a glance, and it is really not worth nagging and entanglement. The mother sent another telegram, saying that she was ill in bed.Lu Xun hurriedly set off. In fact, his mother was not sick, so she urged him to go back and get married. Lu Xun agreed inexplicably, and held an old-style wedding with Zhu An in Shaoxing. It turned out that he had a compromise solution: he welcomed back a daughter-in-law for his mother, but rejected a wife.He refused to share the bed with Zhu An, and provided Zhu An with living expenses for the rest of his life.Zhu An once promised others that she lived in Zhou's house in order to avoid an arranged marriage, and suffered Lu Xun's marriage-style escape.According to Shaoxing customs, if Lu Xun did not marry her, she would probably never be able to marry, and even her livelihood would be a problem.