Chapter 48 Tell the true story of "Dream of Red Mansions"

——Congratulations to Mr. Zhou Ruchang who has been engaged in the research of "Redology" for fifty years When I was young, I lived in Qianliang Hutong near Dongsi Pailou in Beijing.Crossing the road outside the east exit of the alley, there was a bookstore at that time.Around 1954, when I was twelve years old, I bought a copy of "A Dream of Red Mansions" published by Tangdi Publishing House from that bookstore, and took it home.At that time, my family often "indulged" me in buying books. However, most of the ones I bought home were suitable for me, such as "Anthology of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales" and "Timur's Companion" (the masterpiece of the famous former Soviet children's literature writer Gaidar). that year

age reading books.Buying back and reading "A Dream of Red Mansions" at the age of twelve, and criticizing it objectively out of oneself, is indeed a strange thing, and it is not a lesson.But I did buy it with gusto.I was born in a family where my parents, brothers and sisters like to read and talk.My parents have some restrictions on my extracurricular reading. For example, I am already eighteen years old, and they still don’t approve of me reading it, even if it is a “clean book”.But when I was eleven years old, I took them down from their bookshelves and "flipped them blindly".When I saw the thick copy of "New Certificate of a Dream of Red Mansions" in the bookstore outside the mouth of Qianliang Hutong, I actually didn't even understand the meaning of the word "Xin Zheng". "Imagination of Characters in Dream of Red Mansions" is very strange, it is quite different from the embroidered portraits drawn by Gaiqi on the version of "Supplementary Commentary and Supplementary Maps" of "Master of the Flower Protector" and "Da Mou Mountain Man" in my family its fun.After looking through it a little bit, I saw that the description of Jia She in the book is "unreasonable" because Jia Zheng's prototype is the younger brother of Jia She's prototype. The master of "Rongguo Mansion", he and Jia Mu had no blood relationship, so they were not only indifferent to each other, but also sometimes tense... Jia Amnesty and Jia Mu have no adoptive relationship at all, they are a family from another house , That's why the scholar wrote them as a family, so there are so many "flaws", etc. These textual researches made me feel like I was reading a detective novel, so I bought the book home on impulse.At first, my family accused me of "buying books indiscriminately", but they stopped blaming me when they heard me boast about "Jia She is not Jia's mother's son at all" and read them separately.When I mention this past incident, I seem to be boasting about my precocious wisdom, but the real situation is that I couldn't finish reading this book patiently for a long time afterwards, especially the "chronology of historical materials" part.For a long time, I just maintained a "simple hobby" for love. Even if I read some books about "Redology", I just "watched the fun". What is "Redology" is really at a loss. .

The "New Evidence of a Dream of Red Mansions" that I bought 43 years ago can still be found in my bookcase.It's just that the cover insert and six-sided text are missing in the front, and a few pages and back cover are missing in the back.This is due to the fact that the family and personal book collections have experienced too many social ups and downs and fate migrations.Facing this crappy "New Evidence of a Dream of Red Mansions" now, I am not only deeply moved by my history of "love red" for more than 40 years, but also can't help thinking about the ups and downs of "red studies" in the past half century. . "Red Learning" once became a "distinguished learning", and even caused a "tornado", but when it was most prominent, it often became far away from real learning; in recent years, "Red Learning" seems to be quite "marginalized". Although this may bring the "Redology" scholars closer to the real learning and better understand its essence, it also leads to some new problems.

In any case, I would like to thank "New Evidence of a Dream of Red Mansions", and of course I would also like to thank its author, Mr. Zhou Ruchang.For me, this is an enlightening book.I still don't know how to define the various branches of "Redology" in detail, let alone the factional disputes, grievances and grievances in the "Redology" circle for decades, and even I am still unable to make a rational comment on "A Dream of Red Mansions" , but not other people's other books, but Mr. Zhou and his book, which made me know and believe for the first time: the last forty chapters of the one that is now printed are fake works, and the two books, Cao Xueqin and Gao E It is a great mistake to list the names of the authors together; we should try our best to find out the part that Cao Xueqin has not completed; that is to say, we must get rid of Gao E's random fabrications and continue For the first eighty chapters, try to tell the true story as much as possible.

In the early 1980s, I bought "A New Certificate of a Dream of Red Mansions" that Mr. Zhou had added, and read it eagerly.Of course, Mr. Zhou has his reasons for deleting and revising the old book, but I always feel that in the first edition I bought when I was twelve years old, some texts do not need to be deleted or revised.However, I have noticed that Mr. Zhou, in the new version of "A Dream of Red Mansions", argues that Gao E's continuation book is to participate in a cultural conspiracy planned by the supreme ruler, and his argument has aroused quite a lot of opposition. However, since then, not only has Mr. Zhou not given up on his argument, but he has become firmer over time, showing a valuable academic backbone.I think Mr. Zhou's argument is convincing to a certain extent, but as far as this point is concerned, he has not been able to completely convince him.

Later, I was deeply shocked when I read "The Story of Stone Jianzhen" co-authored by Mr. Zhou and his brother Huchang. This was the second enlightenment Mr. Zhou gave me.It was only then that I deeply realized that the various versions handed down to the world are actually just the products of repeated over-recording, intentional deletion, or unintentional mistakes by scriptures who are far or near from Cao Xueqin’s original manuscript, such as the description of Lin Daiyu’s eyebrows, There are at least seven different texts.Therefore, it is even more important and urgent to explore the truth of Cao Xueqin's original manuscripts, especially the true stories in his lost texts.This is by no means to deviate from the track of "red studies" and "themes" such as the depth of thought and aesthetic connotation, and engage in "tedious textual research". On the contrary, we can accurately and deeply understand the true story told through serious exploration. Its ideological depth and aesthetic connotation.For example, if we think that the story about Li Wan in the current 120 chapters of the current edition is like that, then our understanding of the character Li Wan may not be difficult to simply locate in the " This is a victim of the three obediences and four virtues in a feudal society." In fact, in the true story after eighty chapters, she will present a very complicated living state and character side. , the miserliness and hypocrisy that have been revealed in the first eighty chapters will perform a tragedy of selfishness and narrowness in the end when Jia's mansion is in great decline.This once again shows that in Cao Xueqin's works, there are almost no flat characters and one-way development of fate.Regardless of whether Gao E's sequel is a political conspiracy or not, he "dismissed" the fate of most of the characters in a flat and one-way manner, and even Jia Yun, a character who will visit the prison after Baoyu was imprisoned in Jia's house. , misrepresented as a "treacherous brother" who abducted and sold Qiaojie, and so on, shouldn't he sweep away the smoke and return to his true nature?

After reading "A New Evidence of a Dream of Red Mansions" when I was twelve years old, I began to vaguely know that it can not only be read, but also explored. However, it was in the early 1990s when I was fifty years old that I actually wrote and published articles on It's about time.I wrote some "Corners of Red Mansions" with detailed artistic charm, and wrote a few essays on characters (most of them were characters that previous commentators disdain to discuss or disdain to discuss in detail, such as those of Grandma Huang, Nanny Li, and Qin Xianjia). , Aunt Zhao, etc.), and later concentrated on the study of the true story about Qin Keqing, and was jokingly called "Qin Xue", a "new branch" of "Red Studies"; because my "main job" was writing novels, I also Wrote the exploration of "Qin Xue" into a novella "The Death of Qin Keqing"

" and "The Death of Jia Yuanchun"... What I never expected was that these words produced by me, a poorly educated layman, actually attracted the attention of Mr. Zhou Ruchang. He not only wrote articles to encourage and correct, but also edited Ms. Han Zongyan's Going through the needles, he also asked me to have a meeting, and established a correspondence relationship since then. He discussed with me on an equal footing, and exchanged ideas frankly. China is like a tiger with wings... In the winter of last year, I had the honor to participate in a reading program on the Chinese channel of Hong Kong Phoenix Satellite TV. The theme was to review Mr. Zhou's new book published by Huayi Publishing House.This is a book that uses a popular style of writing to tell the true stories of a book that was lost, distorted, and misread during its circulation.Mr. Zhou said in the program: "I have studied all my life to write such a book!" I was quite surprised when I said this.Mr. Zhou has been engaged in the research of "Redology" for half a century, and he has written more than ten kinds of monographs. "New Evidence of a Dream of Red Mansions" was favored by Chairman Mao Zedong. Although several biographies about Cao Xueqin belong to the same family, there are many different "Redology" authors. The opinions are different, but his skill and literary talent are generally admired by academic circles and ordinary readers at home and abroad. His research on editions, and even the textual research on Prince Gong's Mansion, which may be the prototype of the Grand View Garden, and presided over the compilation of "A Dictionary of A Dream of Red Mansions", etc. Why is it that academic activities are all aimed at writing such a book that omits argumentative annotations, has no "academic face" at all, and is published in "popular commentary" clothes?

After the recording and broadcast of that TV program, I re-read some of Mr. Zhou's monographs on "Red Studies", especially this one, and finally understood his "Master's Self-Taoism".Mr. Zhou said, "Since 1947, I have stumbled into the 'Hongxue' and couldn't extricate myself. I have turned around for fifty years now, and now for fifty years: the wind and rain are dark, the roosters are crowing; autumn is supple and spring is warm, flowers are bright and willows are dark, The experience is very rich, but the merits of learning are not established; the progress is still strong, and the infatuation is not endless." In fact, his fifty years of research on "Red Studies" has already cultivated a strength of character like steel. In Hu Shi, Yu Pingbo , He Qifang, Wu Zuxiang, Wu Enyu, Wu Shichang and other "Hongxue" predecessors passed away one after another. The plot trajectory and the destination of the characters are revealed, like a stream flowing into a river or like a river converging into the sea. In fact, every word, sentence, sentence, paragraph, paragraph, chapter, chapter and chapter condenses and integrates the results of his half-century research on "Red Studies". It shows his "collection" (those who are familiar with his previous academic monographs do not need him to indicate the data and arguments one by one), and also popularizes his painstaking achievements to general readers.Fifty years of hard work is extraordinary, and the true story can finally flow. This is a peak that Mr. Zhou has climbed, and of course, it is also another starting point for him.

Mr. Zhou should be seventy-nine years old this year.He is in poor health and is almost blind. Only one eye can read books, magazines and newspapers word by word with the help of a high-power magnifying glass, and his ears are almost deaf. When exchanging opinions with him face to face, he often has to shout at him. However, he is still full of vigor in the research of "Red Studies", and he still publishes unique opinions that startle the academic circle and attract the attention of ordinary readers from time to time. He also often stepped forward to "escort" some "red studies" researchers and enthusiasts among the people, saying that even if certain research angles and viewpoints seem "absurd" at first glance, they should still be allowed to exist, and they can be refuted. There is no need to scold and ban, this kind of magnanimity is really rare, and this is also a factor that I especially admire and respect him.

When Senior Zhou Ruchang has been engaged in the research of "Redology" for fifty years, I thank him for nourishing my dear heart with his "Redology" works during my life journey from the age of twelve to my fifties.I congratulate him on having a "fifty achievements" marked by completeness, and wish him to extend his academic trajectory to new peaks and tell us more detailed true stories!