Chapter 45 Eating "red" endlessly

Just because I don’t know any foreign languages, when I read translations of foreign writers’ works, I read the works of two people—the foreign writers gave me characters, scenes, stories, atmosphere... and maybe ideas, and the translator gave me My sense of Chinese language.Reading a translation can absorb a lot of nutrition, but it is unlikely to absorb the essence of the language of the original.Because I am engaged in writing, I am more and more aware that since literature is the art of language, the most important source of nutrition in my reading can only be the classic works of authentic Chinese classic writers; The era of vernacular Chinese, so among Chinese classical works, classic vernacular works are more easily absorbed than classical Chinese works; based on this understanding, in recent years I have especially

Don't be eager to study. It seems that the ancient Greek sculpture Venus in the West displayed in the Louvre in Paris, France, was once complete, or basically complete, but it has not been handed down completely.However, the Venus de Milo does not lose its beauty because of the broken arm, and even if there are a thousand carefully thought-out plans for us to look at it calmly, no matter how the current sculptors "restore" it, I am afraid we will always Difficult to agree.In the same way, because there are only 80 chapters of the authentic version handed down to today (strictly speaking, it is less than 80 chapters, no precise statement is made here to avoid tediousness), and its unique charm is not lost; although it has nothing to do with Cao Xueqin at all, compared with Cao Xueqin was born more than 20 years later, and Gao E was written more than 20 years after Cao Xueqin passed away. His last 40 chapters are now widely circulated, and some people appreciate them, but they are actually contrary to the purpose of the first 80 chapters. , many readers like me are not "cold" at all; the rest of the sequels can't even attract widespread attention.

The texts of the first eighty chapters have become my daily spiritual food and the most important channel for me to absorb the essence of Chinese culture.From a writing point of view, the text itself has given me a lot of inspiration.The square Chinese characters formed not only have a beautiful sound and rhyme when they are connected into sentences and paragraphs, but also, the shape of the characters themselves is like a series of small pictures, which arouse my rich imagination and thoughts. "Plum Blossom Snow" (this chapter is based on the Gengchen version, not according to the current version, the same below), it is written that Miaoyu took out two precious tea sets, one is 爮爮斝, and the other is apricot rhinoceros. Please appreciate it That glyph, how interesting!How can phonetic writing produce such an effect?In Western literature, such as Joyce's "Ulysses", some pages have no punctuation marks at all. Some people on our side are amazed. In fact, Chinese literature in the past has never had ready-made punctuation marks. Needless to say, classical Chinese. That is, why do you need any punctuation marks? The reader just needs to punctuate the sentence while reading.Ambiguity often arises in sentence breaks. For example, in the twenty-eighth chapter, several drug names were mentioned. Sixty taels is not enough. Turtle is big Polygonum multiflorum” (such as the annotated version of the Institute of Dream of Red Mansions of the Chinese Academy of Arts published by People’s Literature Publishing House), but in fact, I’m afraid the correct sentence should be “humanoid with leaf ginseng; three hundred and sixty taels is not enough tortoise; Big Polygonum multiflorum".It is a great pleasure to read China's own classics, punctuating sentences while reading.Square characters can also produce the effect of "folding characters", such as "since a lonely tree was born in two places, causing the soul of Xiang to return to his hometown", this is a sentence in the episode "Twelve Beauties of Misty Twelve Beauties" that hints at the ending of Xiangling, "Two "Earth grows a solitary tree", folded into the word "Gui", and Xiangling died in the hands of Xia Jingui, a vicious woman. People seem to have no ambiguity about this.However, there are different opinions on how to understand the "one obedience, two orders and three people" that hinted at Wang Xifeng's ending.This variety of understandings and controversies has also enhanced the interest in reading.Making full use of the characteristics of square characters that can be both "homophonic insinuation" and "graphic hint", as well as "chain metaphor", creates rich images. "Sea", "Fangchun Mountain", "Sending Fragrance Cave", "Thousands of Reds and One Cave" tea, "Wanyan Same Cup" wine... words that touch the eye and heart; the whole book is particularly good at using "grass snake gray line, volt Narrative strategies such as "Extending Thousands of Miles", "Two Crows with One Strike", "Fu Fen on the Back", "Darkness of the Golden Needle", "Knowing the Words of the Liu Zang Parrot" and other narrative strategies fully unleash the infinite charm of our ancestral Chinese characters. It still fascinates readers today.

What has been said above is of course just scratching the surface.Often eat "red" meals, the nutrition obtained from its square characters is of course more than these "trace elements".Not to mention the extensive and profound Chinese culture contained in the novel, it is really remarkable in terms of its use of concise and vivid words to create characters.Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and other characters use a lot of ink, so it is not easy to use it as a "succinct" example, but recently I re-read the part about Miaoyu in the first eighty chapters, and I was shocked-in which Miaoyu appeared directly, There are only two and a half episodes. The second half of the seventy-sixth chapter "The Poetry of Aujing Pavilion is Sad and Lonely", the protagonists are Lin Daiyu and Shi Xiangyun. Later, Miaoyu came out to finish the couplet poem for them. It can only be regarded as a "Miaoyu" If you want to talk about "Miaoyu's true story", there is only the half chapter of "Qicui'an Tea Plum Blossom Snow", and the text related to Miaoyu is only 1325 words (the same number of words in all extant manuscripts), in which Miaoyu said In just a few words like this, a female image with a wild and eccentric personality has jumped out of it, making readers unforgettable.You need to know that this is not classical Chinese, but a vernacular novel. Ask yourself: Can a character be vividly written in 1325 characters of vernacular?The answer is: not yet.Since you can't, then you should think about it carefully: How did Cao Xueqin do it?

As far as I am concerned, in this life, I have to eat "red" endlessly, and I have to chew slowly and chew the cud back and forth, so as to get the most nourishment from this most important food source.This certainly does not mean that I do not read other texts, including translations, and it does not mean that I think other writers must read, and it does not mean that others must appreciate it as much as I do.