Chapter 85 Trying to Show Foolishness——Miscellaneous Comments on Gao E's Pseudo-Continuation

Gao E's puppet continuation of the 40-time evaluation question is an old story with a history of 200 years.This article does not want to "argument" with anyone, but it is just an occasional repetition of an old saying, expressing some of my own humble opinions - it is mixed feelings, neither comprehensive nor systematic, and it is just for reference. I read, since junior high school.It's strange, when I read the 80th chapter, I felt a kind of taste; when I got to the 81st chapter, I suddenly felt that everything had changed, and no matter how hard I tried to "patiently" read it, I couldn't read it anymore, so I had to Cover up and sigh.I feel bored for a while, I can't explain what's going on, I just feel very awkward, very sad, really disappointed, bored, and unhappy.

Later, when I grew up and thought about it carefully, I felt that from the perspective of "creation law", Xueqin spent ten years of hard work, every word was blood, creating business, and writing more than 70 chapters, that is really Lu Xun. What Mr. said, "the sound of sorrow has been revealed", "the mist of sadness is all over Hualin", that is to say, the following plot development is the official unveiling of Rongfu's ruin and death. People are shocked and breathless——How can the 81st chapter be opened, but it is the "beautiful scenery on a good day and fun to enjoy" by the "Simei" fishing?Is Xueqin still so "interested" in writing this?What shocked me even more was that Baoyu obediently "concentrated" on the stereotyped articles he had always hated! ——Even Lin Daiyu began to praise "stereotyped writing" as a kind of "pure and noble" writing!Is this the "creative development" of Xueqin's own mind and heart? !From then on, I had a lot of doubts about the motivation and purpose of Gao E's continuation of the book.

Later, when I was studying at Nankai Middle School in Tianjin, my classmate Huang Shang (a famous essayist and director of the Writers Association) and my younger brother took a walk outside the school every night, and the discussion must be the main topic.We also had heated arguments, on par with each other - even in the prime of our youth.But it's very interesting to say: the two of us are exactly the same on Gao E's pseudo-continuation of "I can't bear to read", it can be said that we "lifted our beards" with palms, and we couldn't resist each other, and we laughed endlessly every time!The "opposite" that I "treat" seriously and engage in debates on this issue is Mr. Hu Shizhi.Let's briefly describe the past: Later, I criticized him in letters and manuscripts: a person who received the authentic "Jiaxu Edition" (the only authentic edition that had not been tampered with by Gao E at the time), However, it is really wrong to wholeheartedly promote and praise the so-called "Cheng Yiben" (a bad book that was falsified and distorted most at the beginning).I even said something like this: Cao Xueqin wrote books back then, which were fundamentally different from Mr. Hu’s understanding and proposition of "vernacular", and he had no intention of letting his book "enter the "History of Vernacular Literature"! [Press: This refers to Hu’s works]. This time, Mr. Hu was really upset, and he marked this part of my manuscript with a purple pen to make a big cross all over the page! Handed down.)

This is old stuff from the 40's.It is thought-provoking that when he wrote to Taiwanese novel authors due to problems in his later years, he gave Xueqin's book a very low evaluation, and he quoted a passage from "Red" that he still admired and cherished. "Text" of "Cheng Yiben" (this matter was in 1960-61) Back to myself——I later read Zhao Liewen's "Notes on Neng Jingju" quoted by Mr. Jiang Ruizao, which recorded the conversation of Song Xiangfeng, a scholar (accounter) in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. "Submit it", Emperor Qianlong "read it and understood it" - and also published the opinion of "the founder of the Suoyin School"!

When I read this article at that time, it was like a thunderbolt, and the shock was great.I wondered: Qianlong would "affirm" (however) Xueqin's original book? !That was fabulous.There must be an unspoken secret in it. In 1980, when I was writing a paper for the first International Symposium on Red Studies, I formally proposed that Cheng Gao’s pseudo-continuation had a political background and the intention of “educating”, and what He Shen “presented” refers to the 120 chapters of the pseudo-continuation. After completion, send it to the emperor for review and "approval"—that's why you can have a "yes" statement.

My argument totaled 30,000 words, and some people agreed with it (such as Taiwan expert Professor Pan Chonggui).There are also those who are very opposed, saying that I used the "Left" ideology of the "Gang of Four" to "weave accusations" against Cheng Gao. In 1985, a paper co-authored by former Soviet sinologists Li Fuqing and Menglev was published in my country, revealing a very important document, simply put—— The pseudo-continuation "complete" version of "Cheng Jiaben" has 120 chapters and was first published in 1791.Three years later, that is, in 1794, the head of the 10th mission of Russia to China, named Kamensky, was a brilliant sinologist.He paid great attention to.Under his guidance, the Russians acquired no less than ten manuscripts and publications.On a "Cheng Jiaben" collected by the library of the Oriental Department of St. Petersburg University today, Kashiba used the 18th-century attribution method to inscribe: "Moral critical novels, published by the imperial printing house." [Note 1] When I read these words, It was really more shocking than when I first read Song Xiangfeng's narration. I never expected that the important answer to the important mystery of how Gao E's pseudo-continuation could use wooden movable type to "layout printing" (it was renamed "typeprinting" in later generations) was already 200 years ago. Faithful records have been left for us by Russian scholars - amazing historical mysteries!

It turns out that there is a lot of controversy in our country about the origin of the "Cuiwen Bookstore" wooden type version of "Cheng Gaoben": one opinion thinks that "Bookstore" is the title of Shujia, and some people even designate it to be located in Suzhou—or Beijing. "Branches".One opinion holds that the long-passed "Cheng Gaoben" is the "Wuyingdian version", and there was no such entity as "Cuiwen Bookstore" at that time, and there was no condition for printing novels with movable type.The author belongs to the latter opinion.But I was unable to know the records of Kamensky, a Russian sinologist and head of the religious order, so I lacked convincing evidence. (At that time, foreign missions and missions recorded a lot of historical situations, and people in the Qing Dynasty did not dare to write them down.) The "palace printing house" that Kashi mentioned was the "Wuyingdian Shushu" set up in the palace at that time. place".This is the wooden movable type "Royal Printing House" built for the publication of "Siku Quanshu".

In this way, my argument is confirmed: Cheng Gao's fake "Complete" version is one of the cultural conspiracy of paying attention to "cleaning up" the novel and play books in the later stage of the revision of "Siku Quanshu", the basic project is completed, and the rest of the effort; He Shen (President of the Book Repair Department) presided over the meeting.At that time, even folk drama books had to be thoroughly investigated, or banned and destroyed, or replaced and tampered with. Will Cao Xueqin's authentic and original work be honored with the honor of being printed in movable type by the Book Repair Department of the Hall of Martial Arts? !That really became a "domestic legend".If so, Xueqin will still die in poverty, and his best friend Duncheng also said that he is "a disease without a cure" and "talented people have hatred"?Xueqin passed away in grief and indignation, wasn't it because he had learned that someone was instigating to destroy the back of the original book, and conspired to falsify the continuation in order to tamper with his brainchild?

From this, I became more and more convinced: Gao E wrote the preface and openly declared that this book was rewarded by "famous officials and great officials". What he meant was that the great scholar (prime minister) He Shen conspired and gathered Cheng, Gao and others to fabricate fake " Quan" Ben's ulterior tricks.The anecdote Song Xiangfeng mentioned is clearly the matter [Note 2]. This is no longer a matter of the scope and nature of "literary creation".From the perspective and level of literary theory, it is impossible to answer this unique historical and cultural phenomenon of the Qing Dynasty.

For this reason, I completely deny Gao E's pseudo-continuation.Even if he continued "good", I can't forgive him; what's more, his thoughts and writing are so unbearable to me? But because of this, I have attracted verbal abuse and personal attacks outside the scope of academics-even my deceased parents have been scolded!The scholar who scolded others was Lin Yutang, who wrote "Peace on Gao'e". It is interesting to say that there is a "Lin fan" overseas who read this tens of thousands of words of Lin's masterpiece, which actually changed his admiration for Lin, and wrote an article titled "Can't bear to read ", signed "Yiyantang", there is a passage that says:

"After I read Lin Yutang's "Peace on Gao'e" published by Taipei, it shook my "belief" in admiring Lin for decades since the "Analects of Confucius" was founded in the third grade of junior high school. I conditionally praised it, because the last forty chapters of the text are simply too important. Many times to do some "private" research, I insisted on reading it "sensibly", but I couldn't bear it. We Chinese can't bear it. After reading the four characters of ', it was only at this time that I realized the painstaking efforts of the ancients in using characters." [Note 3] His "can't bear to read the theory" really made me laugh. People all over the world have different tastes, but there are always those who have the same taste. The author, who has been admiring Lin for several decades, has become disillusioned with the object of his admiration, Lin, just because of the article "Peace on Gao'e", which he fully praised.This matter is extraordinary, and it is worth pondering deeply.So what is the problem that the author said that "the last forty chapters of the text are simply too important", and even "unbearable to read"?It is more worth pondering and exploring together. Obviously, it should first be a question of literary appreciation, but this kind of appreciation is obviously not just a matter of "words". " that meaning. This example is important because the author, unlike me, did not know that the production and printing of Gao E's "words" were closely related to the "court".He also has no other emotional factors such as "love and hatred" and "grievances" that have affected his literary appreciation ability and literacy level. Liu Tieyun, the author in the late Qing Dynasty, could already understand that the themes of Cao Xueqin's book were "A Thousand Reds Cry" and "Wan Yan Shared Sadness". Cup - sad "people.He is a hero with eyes, not to mention the "little tragedy" of "brother and sister" love.Gao E was ordered to tamper with Xueqin's original purpose, but his method completely obliterated the original broad and profound theme connotation of weeping for thousands of reds and glamorous people, and narrowed and vulgarized the "story" into "out-of-the-box tricks" and "villains and bad guys destroying Happy Marriage", leading this great book to that straight line and a small point.For this reason, he had to annihilate all the art of "volting lines" that had been laid out in the original work, and completely changed the ending content and spiritual world of the original book. "Fuxian" is a unique creation of ancient Chinese novelists. The so-called "grass snake gray line, crouching veins thousands of miles", has an upgraded development from "Water Margin" to "Red Mansion".Mr. Lu Xun's discussion of "Red Mansions" also recognized the literary technique and aesthetic concept of "fuxian".However, for his own needs and purposes, Gao E willfully destroyed the carefully arranged lines in the first 80 chapters.For example, the combination of Jia Yun and Xiaohong is closely connected with Baoyu and Sister Feng's later situation, while Gao Xuzhong has nothing left.The list goes on and on.The ending of the mandarin duck was that Jia She held a grudge and couldn't let her go. In the end, Jia's mother passed away, and it was falsely accused of having an affair with Jia Lian. Evidence"...) and was killed by Jia Amnesty.But in Gao Xuzhong, Yuanyang became the "benefactor of Jia's family" who served the old lady after her death. Baoyu was also "happy" to salute her! A glimpse of the leopard, a taste of the tripod——enough is enough.I was indignant for Xueqin and complained of grievances, so I left a comment on Gao E's "unfair" and "extreme". If there are unfair and extreme mistakes, they should be corrected.But I also thought: this shouldn’t be a matter for Gao E only—how about Cao Xueqin?But who will call him "unfair" and "extreme"? !Really, those who cry for injustice should not all stand on that side. When it comes to "extreme", I can't really stand it.Mr. Hu Feng later published his "Symphony of a Dream of Red Mansions" and its preface and postscript. At that time, someone told me: "Now I will publish an article criticizing Gao E, which is more extreme than you!" I was dubious at the time.Who knows that after reading it, it is really much more "extreme" than me!I am ashamed of myself. Mr. Hu Feng is not a red scholar, and he has never seen any Zhen Jiuya. His sharp eyes can see the essence of the matter.You hear him say:— "A completely negative conclusion has been drawn on Gao E's continuation and Gao E himself. (Commissioned) I think that not only does he not have any inheritance relationship with Cao Xueqin's struggle goal, but he is trying to eliminate Cao Xueqin's entire struggle spirit with ulterior motives." He also straightforwardly revealed: Gao Zhi's continuation book was the biggest deception in the history of Chinese literature before the "May 4th Movement"! This is a miracle——Hu Feng could only get a current "Cheng Gaoben" at that time, without any reference materials such as papers.He was not influenced by anyone.He didn't rely on any "textual research".I can't help but ask: where did this kind of "extreme" view come from? Recently, I read the new edition of "Exploring the Lost Stories of Stones" by Professor Liang Guizhi of Shanxi University, which has been updated to nearly 500,000 words.The second part of "Si Li Bian" is a series of important theoretical articles, discussing and analyzing Gao E's new works in sequels from multiple levels and angles such as philosophical meaning, aesthetic system, reception aesthetics, traditional culture and national character.Those who are concerned about this topic, if they can read it, will be rewarded. There are still many miscellaneous feelings, so let's save it for the time being.Now I just add one sentence to make the end of this article as described above. Although it is very rough, it can be seen that this is far from the general distinction of "benevolence and wisdom" in the scope of literature and art, and it is not the same as "scholars have their own ambitions". one thing.At the stage when Hu, Lin, etc. have passed, they were only trying to fight for Gao Xu's original work that was "not inferior to Cao Xueqin's original work", or "equal to" the original work, and did not dare to go beyond this formulation; He made the public statement that "Gao E is the great one, not Cao Xueqin".This will naturally make Hu, Lin and others far behind.In fact, this is just my own opinion and has nothing to do with others.But this kind of propaganda does not stop there, it also slanders others to defend Cao Xueqin, and even adds new elements of personal attacks.This goes further than academics. Looking back, in order to defend Cao Xueqin's authenticity, to defend Cao Xueqin's innocence, and to expose the Qing Dynasty people's affairs, I did not expect to be taught by Hu, abused by Lin, and slander attacks by others.At first I thought it was strange, but later I thought it was not humiliation, but something to be proud of, because they designated me as the representative of Hu Cao, isn't this the greatest honor?Really, this is much more difficult than any honorary title degree. After all, I have done some effective work-seeking the authenticity of Cao Xueqin, a great literary star in the history of Chinese culture, seeking his true spirit, purpose, meaning and value , has also been proved by objections and attacks.This is my original intention and the goal of my efforts. Is there any need to care about personal gains and losses? Mr. Lu Xun studied novels, and once used "5 Yanye" and "repudiation of fakes and return to the original" as the targets. I will always admire these four characters. ~~~~~~~~ [Note 1] See his book "The Discovery and Significance of the Stone Stories in the Leningrad Collection". [Note 2] Regarding the thorough investigation of folk drama books, Zhou Yibai quoted the replay files after the investigation by local officials in "The History of Chinese Drama", which can be referred to.This fake full version first published in 1791 was the "court edition", approved by Qianlong; but in 1991, because it was the 200th anniversary of the palace imperial edition, the red academic circles were quite lively in commemoration of its publication. , to praise it.This is also one of the great examples of Chinese cultural vision. [Note 3] Quoting, see the Taiwan version of "A Dream of Red Mansions Research Album" "Red Studies Controversy - Centered on Lin Yutang" volume. 1993