Chapter 49 1992 "Cultural Journey"

Genre: Essay Collection Author: Yu Qiuyu First publication: Knowledge Publishing Center (Shanghai) Published: March 1992 (Written by Yang Zao) With Yu Qiuyu, there are too many symptoms of the times. The above sentence is a bit imitated by Yu Qiuyu. As Gao Hengwen said, in every article in the article, "you can read the words of warning that seem too abrupt again and again", like "Yangguan Xue" At the beginning, it said: "In ancient China, one was a literati, but he was insignificant." Another example is the "amazing words": "China has always lacked a ruin culture. The word ruins in Chinese makes people shudder." Gao Hengwen is very strange." How can the author make such a conclusion?" ("Scholar's Shelf", "Literature Daily" No. 822, 1995)

Gao Hengwen's questioning brought out several key points of controversy behind the "Yu Qiuyu phenomenon": (1) the style of "cultural prose"; (2) the dispute over the roles of "scholars" and "literati"; cultural symbols in a sense. "Cultural Bitter Journey" was originally a serial column published by Professor Yu Qiuyu, who studies drama theory, in 1988. After it was compiled into a book and published in 1992, it received a lot of praise. "A New Chapter for Contemporary Prose", "Contemporary Writers Review", No. 1, 1994), Lou Zhaoming asserted: "Yu Qiuyu may be the last master prose writer in this century, and at the same time, he is also the founder of a generation of prose writers." The first poet of the new style." ("Review of Contemporary Prose Trends", "Contemporary Writers Review" No. 3, 1994) Zhu Xiangqian said: "(Yu Qiuyu) not only inherits the legacy of new literary prose, but also opens up a generation of ethos , raising the creation of the entire contemporary prose to a new level." ("Prose" and "Writing" in Prose", Dazhong Daily, September 17, 1994)

However, since 1995, there has been a sharp rebound in the evaluation of the article, and critical articles have continued to appear. With the release of Yu Qiuyu's new works and his strong rejection of criticism, the criticism has also accumulated and escalated. It eventually evolved into a critical offensive and defensive battle that lasted for more than ten years. Books based on reviews include "Feeling Yu Qiuyu" (edited by Xiao Pu, Wenhui Publishing House, 1996), "Criticism of Yu Qiuyu's Phenomenon" (edited by Yushi, Hunan People's Publishing House , 1999), "Trial Yu Qiuyu" (Nie Zuoping, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2000), "Autumn Wind and Autumn Rain Sorrowful People-About Yu Qiuyu" (edited by Xiao Xialin and Liang Jianhua, China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing House, 2000), "The End of the Century Controversy Yu Qiuyu: Cultural Breakthrough" (by Xu Linzheng, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2000), "Outside Court "Trial" Yu Qiuyu" (by Gu Yuanqing, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House, 2005) and so on. Many anthologies at the same time discussed the same author, Although there are many repetitions in the received papers, it is an unprecedented phenomenon.During this period, Yu Qiuyu has also maintained his status as a best-selling author and media star, and because of various controversial statements or expressions, he has maintained a wide range of controversy.

Yu Qiuyu's "open" atmosphere is called "cultural prose", which mainly emphasizes that Yu's prose is a combination of "cultural heritage" and "prose form", just as the content summary describes: "The author relies on the profound literature These articles written by him with his literary skills, rich cultural sensibility and artistic expression not only reveal the huge connotation of Chinese culture, but also provide a new example for the field of contemporary prose.” Most of the praise comments are from this perspective To make an argument: "In the prose classics since the May Fourth Movement, we have not found any precedents: such a long length, such a rich cultural background and historical data, such a huge thought capacity, so close to the theoretical color of academic papers And so full of wisdom and fun." (Sun Shaozhen's "A Debate for Contemporary Prose") "Yu's prose has completely eliminated the traditional travel notes, using travel traces as clues, and changing scenes step by step to model mountains and rivers. Among the mountains and rivers, what to look for and discover is not the beauty of the mountains and rivers but the cultural strengths and weaknesses of our nation." (Ma Yunlong, "Returning to Everyone's Atmosphere: Transcendence of Autumn Rain Prose", "Journal of Central China Normal University", 1996 No. 1, 2009) "The work breaks through from travel prose and scholar prose, allowing us to see a subject image in dialogue with nature, history and art." World Cultural Essence·Yu Qiuyu Volume", Guangzhou Publishing House, 1998)

The problem is, it is precisely "whether or not 'cultural prose' is an innovation of prose" that has sparked controversy.Han Shishan thinks that this kind of title seems to imply that "the previous proses are all uneducated, and only this one is literate". There is no essential difference between "Scholar's Prose" such as Jian Bozan's "Visiting the Ancients in Inner Mongolia".Immediately afterwards, Han Shishan seized on the realistic description in the first "Taoist Pagoda", such as "Wang Taoist gets up very early every day and likes to go around the cave, just like an old farmer, looking at his house. He is very familiar with the cave. The murals inside are a bit dissatisfied, dark, and a bit dizzy to look at. It would be nice to have a brighter hall. He called two helpers and brought a bucket of lime.... After calculating, he felt that there was no need to put more Just paint these few caves, he put down the brush handle philosophically."

Han Shishan questioned: "Where is this writing prose? It is clearly writing novels. If the older generation of scholars write about these places and have historical materials, they will quote historical materials. If there is no evidence in the history, they will definitely not dare to talk like this. What do you mean it was done by Taoist Wang?" ("The Hotness and Coldness of Prose—and the Lack of Yu Qiuyu's Prose", "Contemporary Writers Review", No. 1, 1996) As far as prose is concerned, this criticism is somewhat harsh.Is there an absolute boundary between fiction and prose?The author does not think so, the so-called style of writing is man-made, and the writing style is fictional or non-fictional, which is actually the freedom of the author.However, behind Han Shishan's criticism, there is actually a standard of "scholar's prose".Yu Qiuyu is obviously not good enough in this aspect.

This is not just a question of fiction or non-fiction, but a basic orientation of how to deal with historical materials.Li Shulei criticized Yu Qiuyu, "When he writes, he always deletes the background and various elements very simply, and casts the story so purely that he can express his strong lyrical intentions without any obstacles. And strong lyrical intentions are often It is very weak, and it will disintegrate instantly when encountering even slight non-lyrical impurities, so the author must eliminate these impurities without hesitation" ("Yu Qiuyu Comments", "Sanlian Life Weekly", No. 2, 1995).In a word, Yu Qiuyu disregarded the complexity of the material, and his strong subjective interpretation forcibly connected, rewritten, and collaged the material into a "pure story"——Speaking of this, a familiar smell has come to the face, that is "Bringing history with theory" was once popular in Chinese historiography circles, but later it was strictly prohibited.The "too abrupt words of warning policy" mentioned at the beginning of Gao Hengwen's remarks are also caused by the way of writing "using theory to bring history".

If other people's articles have this disease, it may not be a fatal injury, but Yu Qiuyu is positioned as "Shanghai Higher Education Elite" and "National Expert". He also pretends to be an evangelist and night watchman of Chinese culture. Bitter Journey Preface says: I stood in those positions where the ancients must have stood, and looked at the seldom-changing natural landscape with black eyes similar to those of my ancestors... In the big city where I live, there are many libraries that store ancient books and universities that teach ancient culture. , but the real actions of Chinese culture fall on this vast land with many mountains and rivers.The earth is silent, and as long as one or two savvy literati stand up, its long-preserved cultural connotations can rush out with a bang.

Shanshui has been speechless for thousands of years, but because of Yu Qiuyu's arrival, he bares his mind and covers it as before. What is he not a sage who "continues to learn for the past"?This kind of self-sacrificing tendency is everywhere in the novel, and it has also become the focus of critics' criticism. For example, in the opening chapter of "Storm and Windy Pavilion", it is said that when the author visits Tianyi Pavilion and encounters rain, the accidental weather produces "I know It is extremely difficult for scholars in history to enter Tianyi Pavilion to read books. Perhaps, I will also hold a fierce ceremony under the auspices of the Emperor of Heaven when I enter Tianyi Pavilion today?" One" high-level writing has been criticized as "too self-important" and "to the point of seeing gods and ghosts".

This brings us to the most controversial issue of "flaws" in the "Yu Qiuyu Phenomenon".In the beginning, some readers felt that the common-sense mistakes in scholars' essays such as "Ehuang and Nvying's father was Shun" or "Liu Bannong impersonating 'Wang Jingxuan'" were too loose, so they couldn't help pointing them out.Unexpectedly, Yu Qiuyu and his supporters have shown unusual toughness, not only classifying these mistakes as "minor details", but also maintaining the old ones when revising and reassembling, until all critics are classified as "masked killers" ” or “Piracy Syndicate”.People found that, on the one hand, Master Yu never admits his mistakes, and on the other hand, in his new works, mistakes are still emerging one after another.Opinions can be discussed, and there may be preferences in writing, but why are there so many intellectual errors?Chinese literati have always had a tradition of admiring extensive knowledge and strong memorization, and finding flaws and bridging gaps quickly, and using this as a sharp weapon to check and balance ignorance and groundless chatter.Now that Yu Qiuyu is in the spotlight, and his ego is inflated to the point where he will make mistakes, it is no accident that many critics have caused an upsurge of "finding fault".This craze may have even evolved into a carnival in the name of academics. Its peak was when Jin Wenming, the old editor of "Chewing Words", published "Stone Breaking the Sky and Amusing the Autumn Rain——A Criticism and Analysis of Hundred Cases of Yu Qiuyu's Prose and History Errors" (Shuhai Publishing House, 2003), and With the launch of Yu Qiuyu's new work, this book has also released a supplementary and revised version, which tends to carry "Chewing" to the end.

In fact, it is Yu Qiuyu's self-sacrifice that can continue and make this "flawed" carnival so spectacular—or to put it more politely, he has a tendency to "purify", not only demanding the purity of the stories he writes, but also He also requires his readers to be "pure" and understand his difficulties in remembering and spreading Chinese culture, instead of focusing on the "flaws" he wrote casually.In an interview, Yu Qiuyu made this confession: Don't think that a scholar can write whatever he wants to write and express it however he wants. ... The original intention of my writing this way is to find a historical highlight that can be accepted by modern people and widely popularized overseas from the heavy and dry old papers of Chinese history. Capture them bit by bit, and then develop them in the form of writing articles.Later, after the best-selling, I learned from many letters from readers that their cultural level was indeed very limited.And what I have to consider is overseas readers...they look forward to having modern interpreters who can give ordinary and primary explanations of Chinese history and civilization. (Xie Xiao, "Yu Qiuyu, Walker's Chat", "China Women's Daily", May 12, 1999) Although Yu Qiuyu sometimes uses "we" skillfully, his speech is mostly full of hesitation and complacency without second thoughts.For the goal he identified, he did not hesitate to delete and split historical materials, so as not to affect the spread of his works.His cultural image is obviously also an element tied to the dissemination of his works. Yu Qiuyu does not allow "flawless injuries" to damage the image of his works, and would rather be an ostrich with his head buried in the sand dunes. Yu Qiuyu also chose the strategy of positive denial as "confession" or apology, even if this kind of denial would magnify the original small mistake into a stain that everyone accused, "The reason why Yu Qiuyu was upset (old) Turning from shame to anger is nothing more than the inability to tolerate challenges to one's own prestige, the inability to tolerate that some people dare to break ground on Tai Sui's head, and some people dare not to 'hate him'" (Li Meijie, "Yu Qiuyu's Hypocrisy and Embarrassment", "Our Hearts Are Easily Confused", People's Literature Publishing House, 2006), but this is not necessarily just "celebrity psychology at work", Yu Qiuyu's cultural mentality is very interesting. Yu Qiuyu has been widely criticized for various reasons for more than ten years, but it is an indisputable fact that his works have received widespread influence that no one else can match.In addition to winning various awards on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, it has been reprinted continuously, and has become a bestseller and long-selling book. "Taoist Tower" was selected into the third volume of the full-time ordinary senior high school textbook (compulsory) "Chinese", and this controversial work was officially recognized. In this way, it has become a "classic" text that everyone must read.How did it achieve its charm?This cannot but be the premise of thinking about the fair evaluation of this book. Wang Guowei, the publisher of the book, once summarized the "textual value" of this book into five points: 1. Get rid of the too trivial writing perspective of traditional prose, and take the grand Chinese history and culture as the creative background. In the long history, find the emotional connection point of human beings through time and space, and the selected content themes are closely related to modern people's attention and concern. Events and characters that can establish emotional connections, and give attention and ultimate experience to life's destiny. 2. As prose, each article is relatively long, which is prone to dyslexia and mental fatigue.However, the author has been engaged in the teaching of drama literature for a long time and has a strong ability to tell stories.No matter how long the article is, it is easy to read, and there is never a feeling of being unable to read it. The key is that every prose contains a simple story structure. The characters and events are simple and the context is clear. Some of the characters and events are readers. We all know that the author reinterpreted and interpreted it in his own way, allowing readers to follow the storyline and unfold along the plot, which is just in line with the reading habits of ordinary readers. 3. Pay attention to the description of details, and pursue the truth and beauty of details. In many pages, it is just a very simple experience and story, and an originally simple story has risen to the level of artistic aesthetics. 4. All the writing of the author is based on his own experience and emotional experience. Some events are personally experienced by him, and in some historical stories, he will make up a big "I", from a simple life experience to The major events of a nation are inseparable from the writer's own emotional counterpoint. 5. Yu Qiuyu has a unique language expression and sense of rhythm. His writing is very emotional, which is very suitable for the content he wants to express and the story he wants to tell.It is precisely this kind of language rhythm and storytelling ability that is most likely to impress the majority of readers, especially the general public. ("The Textual Value of "Cultural Journey", "The Beijing News", December 8, 2008) From the perspective of reading psychology and marketing, Wang Guowei's conclusion is quite reasonable.An Boshun, the publisher of Yu Qiuyu's second collection of essays "Fragments of Civilization", expressed early on the idea that "readers are king". It is the trend and fashion of modern civilization", "One of the most important ethical principles of criticism is that you must represent and safeguard the reading interests of the majority of people, and discover or judge the value of reading", respecting the reading taste of the public and discovering the reading value of the public is also like Became "serving the people". ("Who Safeguards the Reading Interests of the Public—I Will Defend the Essayist Mr. Yu Qiuyu", "China Reading News", December 30, 1998) When critics criticized Yu Qiuyu's prose for its sentimentality, sentimental style, and shallow historical thinking, or concluded that Yu's prose was just an "effective assembly line" operating in the mode of "story + poetic language + cultural exclamation", ", they have actually revealed the secret of Yu Qiuyu's business success.As far as the consumer market is concerned, the mechanical reproduction of successful works is not only not a "specimen of the decline of prose" (Tang Yize, "<Cultural Journey>: A Specimen of the Decline of Cultural Prose", "Literature Free Talk", No. 2, 1996), on the contrary it is A safe and efficient type production.This does not include Yu Qiuyu's ability to attract the attention of the media—the public, and to always live under the spotlight—from this point of view, his refusal to admit his mistakes is not a marketing strategy to maintain attention. Only after Yi Zhongtian and Yu Dan’s “Shock Waves of Lectures of Hundred Schools” can we fully recognize Yu Qiuyu’s pioneering significance: he was the first to sensitively realize that the “right to culture and education” was suspended, and the title of “professor expert” Adding "the popular expression of traditional culture" is the ultimate shortcut to grab it.Yu Qiuyu has successfully achieved this by virtue of his intelligence and writing style, and has become a "super cultural symbol" in the mass reading market. Of course, the price paid by Yu Qiuyu is similar to that of Yi and Yu, and he puts himself in a "winner loses" situation, that is, he wins the market but loses the recognition of the academic circle.Because the strategy of popular writing from the perspective of market operation is completely different from or even completely conflicts with the internal norms of the academic community: popular writing requires simplicity and decisiveness, condescendingly instills seemingly complex but one-sided knowledge, and brilliantly conveys seemingly deep but chaotic thinking .Commentators criticize that "a lot of fanciful and plausible ones, but when it comes to historical figures and events, they abandon historical writing and make up fiction on the wall in order to seek novelty", which is the meaning of the topic of popular writing.On the basis of "cultural standard", Yu Qiuyu was criticized as "nothing new", "did not focus on the self under the dual penetration of traditional culture and modern culture, and did not push the scalpel of the soul to himself; did not use his own flesh and blood "Another Kind of Kitsch" (Zhu Guohua, "Another Kind of Kitsch", "Contemporary Writers Review", 1995 Phase 2), it's just like the itch in every corner, and the square and the circle are chiseled. Looking back and reading many criticisms, I found that only Li Shulei's "Comments on Yu Qiuyu" can vaguely touch on this point.At the beginning of the article, I asked the reason why the critics kept silent about Yu Qiuyu, but the author's description still seems true today: Yu Qiuyu reveals the most secret and sacred corners of cultural people in a reckless way, and expresses their pride and dignity in a tone that makes cultural people not without shame.For cultural people, he is both a comrade and a dissident. Whether he praises or criticizes his articles, whether he agrees with him or rejects them, is against the conscience of a cultural person, and moderate comments that are not positive or negative are difficult to accommodate. Yu Qiuyu The intense emotion generated by the article. The reason why we value Li Shulei's comment written in 1995 is also because if we look at the controversy between Yu Qiuyu and him with today's market analysis perspective, we will inevitably fall into the trap of "reversing the movie" by reasoning from effect to cause.After all, as Hegel said, a person cannot get out of his time, just as he cannot get out of his skin.Unlike Yu Dan, who was born in media studies, Yu Qiuyu and Yi Zhongtian were not only the "sons of the Cultural Revolution", but also members of the cultural trendsetters in the 1980s. Their cultural mentality inherently yearned to become cultural heroes. as many listeners as possible.This is why Yu Qiuyu, on the one hand, advocates the publicity of cultural personality, and writes the fate of ancient literati with the ultimate sense of tragedy in a similar way to the "three highlights"; The aggressiveness and openness of the Chinese culture are contrasted with the decline of Chinese culture.This can almost be seen as a projection of the "pain of the 1980s" in the historical narrative, so Li Shulei's comments also carry a little bit of "sympathy": Yu is essentially a literati unwilling to fail in this era of cultural failure.He is not willing to go with the crowd and abandon his literature to go into business, nor is he willing to retreat to a corner to guard his own field. In fact, he has a bit of the character of a cultural warrior, and he wants to rebuild the supremacy of culture. …His writing is not a kind of communication but a kind of proclamation, and he actually launched a single-handed cultural enlightenment in this materialized era. ... Yu Shi is most interested and focused on writing about the tragedy of culture and cultural heroes, and the tragedy of these heroes who resist and overwhelm fate.In this kind of writing, Yu Qiuyu entrusts his pain and anger, as well as his protest and challenge. When "Cultural Journey" was serialized on the Internet as a column, Yu Qiuyu's writing motivation is believed to be driven by this "pain and anger". In 1992, Yu Qiuyu told Bai Xianyong in Taiwan that the elite culture was "especially able to move the later high-level culture", which shows his identification with the elite culture (traditional scholar-bureaucrat culture).This kind of "moving" was even judged by the early critics who held a "progressive" standpoint as "the fundamental drawbacks of Qiu Yu's prose are the atavism of the spirit, the obsolete thinking and the outdated emotion" (Gu Xi, "Getting out of the critical misunderstanding of affirming or denying everything" ——Re-discussing the advantages and disadvantages of Yu Qiuyu's prose", "Journal of Xuzhou Normal University", No. 1, 1998).Therefore, similar to the grand narration of the ultimate proposition in the 1980s, the original intention of Yu Qiuyu's prose writing is not to pursue rigorous academic theory and rigorous citations, but to try to pass this "moving" to more ordinary people. Readers, from this, may understand why Yu Qiuyu does not pay attention to details and precision, and does not hesitate to highlight the lyrical elements in historical narratives, almost making the only goal of Yu's prose to surround and infect readers with emotions. If he lived in the 1980s, Yu Qiuyu might really have become a cultural hero like Su Xiaokang, but he encountered a period of paradigm shift like the early 1990s. It has led high-level readers to reflect on issues such as hollowness, promiscuity, and arrogance-and it may not have included the self-reflection of critics.Here, "Yu Qiuyu" is a cultural symbol that combines the spirit of enlightenment in the 1980s with the law of market best-selling. The critics' comments on Yu's prose, which were a little too radical and messy, may indicate some kind of social spiritual life. turn. Edited by Xiao Pu: "Feeling Yu Qiuyu", Wenhui Publishing House, February 1996 edition Yu Qiuyu: Writer's Publishing House, March 1999 Edition Editor-in-Chief Xiao Xialin and Liang Jianhua: "Autumn Wind and Autumn Rain Sorrowful People—About Yu Qiuyu", China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Press, January 2000 edition Wang Binbin: "Three Families in the Literary World: Jin Yong·Wang Shuo·Yu Qiuyu", Daxiang Publishing House, January 2002 Edition Jin Wenming: "Shi Po Tian Amuses Autumn Rain——A Textual Research on Hundred Cases of Yu Qiuyu's Prose Literary and Historical Mistakes", Shuhai Publishing House, July 2003 Edition