Chapter 26 Talk about literature with the aunt who holds the onion

My favorite author of 30 centuries, John Updike, died the other day. He was called the "decathlon champion" of American literature, a master of tender and dissolute existential tragedies, and versatile, from From creation to criticism, it is omnipotent. Metaphorically speaking, it is like four parts of Su Dongpo and six parts of Du Mu.This man is on my wavelength, a writer's lyricist, and I just happen to think that a man who isn't a lyricist in some way is hardly worth living.In the movie "The Graduate", Dustin Hoffman just graduated from college, wandering around all day, not good at practical work, his parents asked him, what do you really want?He replied, "Be different." When I think about Updike's life's work, that's exactly what I say: This is what life is like.

Sometimes you have to feel that people are more dead than others, and goods are thrown away. Compared with people like Updike, how can I live myself?It's like someone has realized the dream of filling the Bird's Nest stadium, and you are still talking about a small box.But what can be done?To put it mildly, I'm just a cynic in a country that no one knows on the literary map.I have watched Brazilian kids play football on online videos. They are not as tall as a coffee table, and they play like a flower. But our national football team did not commit suicide en masse.We are a great country, and we only compete with others in table tennis.This is our style.Didn't Yu Hua have a movie that was highly praised, just because there was a person in it who was struck by lightning and lived no matter what.

I don't think there's any good in a story about being alive and not experiencing the joys of being alive.My grandma is almost illiterate, nearly ninety years old, and in poor health. She knew that she was about to die, so she was confused about existence. She asked me, "What's the point of a person's life?" I couldn't answer her, I had to encourage you to say, you have to make up your mind not to die!She said that she would do what I said, but I think it was just perfunctory.She can't be "different" and doesn't desire to be reborn on the other side, but she can't resolve the loss of disillusionment.

That is why the best novels are the gift of civilization to us.They allow you to fully immerse yourself in the small space that can be illuminated by the lamp at the head of the bed, and block out the noisy world. You know almost nothing about yourself, but they let you understand your loneliness and your sadness. Know your own small place in eternity.Normally, when science students ask "what's the use of liberal arts students", it may be difficult for you to answer, but in the dead of night, when you can't put down the book, you will find that all the efforts to approach true knowledge in the world have a unique core, which is the understanding of existence The true inquiry of the most outstanding works of literature and the most outstanding studies of astronomy or physics are in fact one and the same, and their immensity of beauty makes our souls fear and rest.

Qin Hui also has three friends, and I am also indebted to the wrong love. Occasionally, my friends ask me why I don’t write more.What they mean is, don't waste your pea-sized talent.My answer is always: I don't write because I don't know how to write. I think there are only two things in this world that are really worth writing about. One is major practical issues, such as potential dangers in society, and the other is our soul.I can't write either of these things, so there's hardly any need for composition.One thing that puzzles me is why so many people who are more mediocre than me write so much and are complacent?I feel like a fish among blue algae, smothered by the chatter.Sometimes I almost want to sign an agreement with them: Let’s all tune in together, okay?

Hemingway is smart enough, but when he wrote "A Farewell to Arms", he revised the last page 39 times.I think the problem people have with us here is really not being smart, but being too unwilling to suffer. So my only remaining ambition is to reaffirm common sense.Paine wrote a book called "The American Spirit" based on this pamphlet.Some time ago, a plane made an emergency landing on the Hudson River, and no one died.I hope that when our plane crash-lands in a river, no one will be killed.Common sense will help here, after a long and roundabout logic.This may seem like a grand ambition, but it is not.The real grand ambition of writing articles should be that words are as beautiful as deep streams and flowing water, and promoting social progress is only the duty of those who can read and write.Then why should I swim against the current and talk about literature, since I know that your interest in literature is not much stronger than that of the aunt who took the onion?I'm just going to be a little cliché, yes, our age underestimates true value.Or to put it more bluntly: our seething life is ridiculous.Poor Cuo embraces a yellow-faced woman who claims to be lustful, which cannot be called romantic and suave; the people are keen on small profits, and scholars are greedy for fame, which is not called the rise of a great power.