Cover News Reporter Zhang Jie.
When I returned to my hometown in the Central Plains during the holiday, the temperature warmed up, the sun was shining, and the spring breeze had awakened in the vast fields and began to be mighty. In the courtyard, carefully read a few good books about nature and the countryside. First of all, the first book from Hubei writer Shu Feilian's latest collection of essays "Yunmengze, alas".
Yun Mengze Alas Shu Feilian was born in Xiaogan, Hubei Province in 1974, graduated from Central China Normal University in 1995, and is now an associate professor at the School of Literature of Central China Normal University. He once posted a long post on the Internet ** "Feilian's Village", describing his homeland and countryside with poetic prose, which attracted much attention. In 2004, he published "Fei Lian's Village". After that, he successively published new books such as "The Story of the Green Forest" and "The Story of Cloud Dreams Out of the Grass". The four fields of cream, the warm etiquette, the rich terroir, and the rich food ......He is known as the "affectionate lyricist of rural China" after Shen Congwen and Wang Zengqi.
When it comes to writing vernacular literature, many people will think of Lu Xun's "Hometown", which was the countryside in the 20s of the 20th century. Lu Xun's rural atmosphere is gray, depressed and desolate, and lifeless. "I braved the bitter cold and returned to my hometown, which was more than 2,000 miles away and had been absent for more than 20 years. Since it is the depths of winter; As we approached our hometown, the weather was cloudy again, and the cold wind blew into the cabin, whining, and looking out from the tent, under the pale yellow sky, there were several deserted villages in the distance, and there was no vitality. My heart couldn't help but feel sad. In addition, Shen Congwen, Zhao Shuli, Sun Li, Mo Yan, Zhou Keqin and other modern literary masters also have different styles of literary expression of the countryside.
An era has an era of literature. At present, new changes have taken place in the writing of vernacular literature. Shu Feilian, a writer who grew up in the countryside, said, "When we talk about the observation of the countryside, it is not bitterness and hatred, it is not a farmhouse, and it is not just an innocent childhood, a new change is taking place, and it is necessary to record it in the style of prose." ”
In the past ten years, Shu Feilian has regularly driven back to his rural hometown "Yunmengze" in the west of Dabie Mountain and north of the Jianghan Plain every month. He immersed himself in his hometown. In the originally vacant ancestral home, he arranged a desk, a bed, and a refrigerator for himself, and was partially self-sufficient for daily writing, running, walking, growing vegetables, fishing, and growing rice and wheat. While roaming with his body, thinking about the soil, stars, flowing water and wilderness of the countryside, his childhood memories and middle-aged spirit, and the ever-changing countryside and nature, Shu Feilian wrote a series of "local" articles under the name of "Records of Wind and Soil". Some of these essays were collected into "Yunmengze Alas", which was planned by movable type culture and published by the Sichuan People's Publishing House, which is known as a love letter to his hometown. On November 24, 2023, at the closing ceremony of the 2023 Wuhan Literary Season, Shu Feilian won the "Essayist of the Year" award for "Yunmengze", which is an alas.
Purple eggplant is like xia, white eggplant is like jade", "Qingqian Liuji", "planting grass under the south mountain", "poplar is good-looking, maple poplar is good-looking" ......The articles included in "Yunmengze Alas" have the smell of plants. Why add a "sigh" to the title of the book? Shu Feilian said that at first, it was because he found that he had repeatedly used the interjection "sigh" in his speech for a long time, and later he found that there was "sigh" in the Chu opera actors' singing "sad tone". "Yun Mengze sigh" is not only a sigh for the history of Yun Mengze in the past, but also a call for the future. With the disappearance of dialects and the convergence of life, people are forced to look for the specificity of the individual in their hearts, and we need to go back to the inner to find it, maybe to find it in the family memory. Li Xiuwen, chairman of the Hubei Provincial Writers Association, said, "I was a fan of Shu Feilian many years ago, and as long as I saw Shu Feilian's works, I would immediately take them and read them." ......Shu Feilian is a prose writer who can represent the light of this era, and with the spirit of 'do it yourself, never spectator', he has built an intimate bridge between the classical tradition and contemporary life, and he uses his own experience to re-record those things that constantly make people feel nostalgic. ”
Shu Feilian often runs on the country roads in his hometown, "This is the early morning in my daily life, the Baoguang Village Tunnel, the Chilan Donkey Bridge, the Xiangyang Building, the Rest Pavilion, the scenery of the world is in my hometown, I write articles in my hometown, Chekov takes his grassland cherry orchard, Lu Xun uses his Baicao Garden Sanwei Study, and he does not change." ”
In the countryside, everything is slow, unlike the fast pace of the city, where traces of the passage of time remain in every corner. In the countryside, the night is quiet, and in Shu Feilian's words, the dazed night in the countryside is "night-like". There is an article in the book called "Country Night". Shu Feilian wrote, "When people meditate in the middle of the night, they produce good thoughts of conscience, and a little bit of conscience will gather together, and they will achieve a clear and selfless self." Conscience is the soul's introspection in silence. What about the night weather? It comes from the reflection of the sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, creatures and gods in darkness and silence. The dazed night in the countryside is nightly, and living in the countryside will also have the opportunity to reflect on self-consciousness on a good night? Whether it is Wuhan or Xiaogan, it is noisy during the day, and it is not quiet at night, contrary to the way of day and night, what is missing is the night air! When it comes to literature and art, Van Gogh's paintings have a night atmosphere, Chopin's nocturne, and A Bing's "Two Springs Reflecting the Moon". **Inside, Shen Congwen's "Border City" has, the night Cuicui dreamed of saxifrage, she said to her grandfather: "I heard a beautiful singing voice in my dream yesterday, soft and lingering, I flew everywhere like following this voice, flew to the halfway waist of the cliff on the river, picked a handful of saxifrage, and got saxifrage, I don't know who to give this thing to!" It was her sweet and bitter night of love.
Shu Feilian especially likes to read Wang Zengqi's "Night in the Sheep House", and thinks it is a collection with a special "night atmosphere". In the book, Xiao Lu sat on the sugar maple tree by the small stone bridge with a shovel on his back and watched the water, "Everyone in a village is sleeping now. The dew was falling, and everywhere was moist, and the strong smell of grass, the smell of crops, and the night was so cool. Xiao Lu thought to himself: I'm looking at the water ......After a while, for some reason, I thought to myself: That's great! And speak up. ”
Shu Feilian drove back to his hometown on the country road every month, and he enjoyed the journey, "Several times, when I straightened the front of the car on the gray and narrow dirt road, I saw the crescent moon hanging like a hook on the village tree in front of me, majestic and lonely, covering the stars, as if waiting for me to come back." In the rice fields on the side of the road, a season of rice sprouts and tillers and flowers, frogs play drums among the rice seedlings, crickets play the piano, crayfish fat loaches ** play water, and the village trees hiss cicadas, as if the men, women and children in the village, after the roosters and dogs bark to stop, the grass and trees grow under the stars and the moon, the fish and insects chirp, and a subtle world emerges, mysterious, quiet, familiar, and strange, sometimes, I will turn off the car lights in this faint sound, and be in a daze for a long time. The poplar tree on Baocheng Road was planted in the year I was admitted to university, and now it is growing sufficiently, and it is nearly 30 years old. From Wuhan to Xiaogan, from the city to the countryside, I went around and around, galloping all the way, and now I finally stopped in silence and darkness, in the soil, stars, flowing water and wilderness, and at the origin of my life. This darkness and silence are the result of the universe and the stars, the water of the fields and rivers, and the secretion of plants and animals after the silence of the sunset. ......Drove the car past the primary school, the pond at the entrance of the village, and cautiously turned into the village alley, the roadside wattle, motherwort, mugwort, wild daisies and tree branches brushed the body, Baowei's dog rushed out of the porch, barked twice responsibly, turned back and continued to sleep. Stopped in front of my house, took out the key, and opened the door with the faint light of my phone. Making beds, drawing wells, boiling water, bathing, and feeling stable and happy. Turn off your phone, put your head back on the buckwheat pillow, outside is the dark night under the stars and moon, true, the last resident of the village to sleep, I know there will be a dark sweet dream waiting for me in front, after that, there will be roosters chirping, birds chirping like boiling, rose-red dawn printed on the window, I will get up at dawn, sprinkle the courtyard to remove the ......”
Why do you want to record this, write this? Shu Feilian agrees with Xiang Biao and Wu Qi's words, in the new era of society, our time and space are compressed and delocalized, suspended in information, culture, suspended in foreign lands and cities, we need "squire-like" work and practical life experience. "The most basic thing is to give comfort", what can comfort us more than the scenery and terroir of our hometown?
Shu Feilian especially likes an American movie "Big River Love", Montana, a small town by the River in Detroit, where the river is running endlessly, and the brothers and sons are fishing in it. We should have such a "squire" general life experience, and have a mother river with clear water and trout-infested in our hearts. Shu Feilian said that he returned to his dear hometown and dear life, and was "close to him" in the grass and trees. To quote Heidegger, it is to "pass on to oneself by the possibility of inheriting and then choosing." ”
Yo yo deer chirping, eating wild artemisia". When intellectuals return to the "organic", based on the present, grasp the tradition, and face the future, a new possibility, the true field, may bloom?
Further reading: There are a large number of excellent works of literature about villages and nature all over the world.
An honest man who truly loves beauty and truth, and notes the constant charm and initial freshness of rural life."
Natural History of Serpen
Gilbert White by Flower City Press.
Natural History of Serpen
Serpen, a small village located in the southwest of London, England, retains relatively pristine nature, and is also the birthplace of the only book "The Natural History of Serpen" by Gilbert White, a famous British naturalist and "father of the worldview bird". In the book "The Natural History of Serpen", White used 110 letters to share with two famous British naturalists, Pennant and Barrington, the natural things in the village of Serpen: the annual arrival, brooding and departure of the hairy-footed swallow, the small ponds in the forest that rise and fall with the seasons and climate change, the ** process of crickets from eggs to nymphs to adults, the grape juice produced by the fibers like spider webs covering the vines is not full and not full of flavor, and the shellless snails come out in the good winter weather to destroy the ...... of the vegetable gardenWith an innate fascination with nature, he thinks like a philosopher, writes like a writer, and at the same time shows a vivid picture of the life of the squire who has disappeared in the past, he thinks about life from the ** nature, and records the process of how the path of scientific truth unfolds layer by layer in detail and meticulously. What we can feel most in "The Natural History of Serpen" is White's most primitive enthusiasm and concern for nature. White narrates in a kind and simple way, showing us the world that we have never seen in the steel jungle at the moment. The various illustrations in the book also make his words more concrete. Nowadays, each "Serpen" has only survived in people's distant memories and rigid pages, but our momentary lack of spiritual world and sometimes fluctuating emotions may be temporarily soothed through this natural painting more than 200 years ago.
Hour after hour like this, all the sensations follow a certain rhythm."
Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd, Wenhui Publishing House, New Classic Culture.
Living Mountain (1893-1981) was an English writer, poet, and lifelong visitor to the mountains: she ate wild fruits and drank river water, she swam in lakes and slept on mountainsides; When she woke up in the morning, the robin's paws were on her bare arms; Sometimes, it was the breath of the wild deer grazing that woke her up. Calm and precise, she shared the highlands, valleys, mountains, water, snow and frost, air and light, plants, birds, beasts, insects and humans she had seen in her life. But private, self-sufficient, describes how he sleeps in the mountains, how he listens, how he touches and feels, and even how he exists. It is a classic ode to the mountains, a collection of stories about the terroir that captures the flowing water, snowflakes and the sound of deer, but also a journey to existence, a decades-long sensory experiment that shows us how much subtle connection a person can have with the outside world: the more you perceive the life of the mountain, the more you understand yourself.
Nunn Shepard has lived in Aberdeen, Scotland, and has taught English literature at the Aberdeen College of Education. She never married, and she was accompanied by mountains, and her footprints are scattered in the Cairngorms near Aberdeen, and her works are all about mountains, including essays, ** and poetry collections. Nan Shepherd has found a place where "landscape" and "life" meet, and a way for body and mind to be at peace with each other. You think she's climbing a mountain to see the scenery, but she's actually looking for life; And when you think she's sorting out the true meaning of life, she's not just climbing a mountain. The most important thing is to have the passion to find light and discover wonders. "I finally found what I was looking for. This journey begins with love, and love is born in childhood. On time, I used to stand on the shoulder of the Monalia Mountains and look out at Mount Sgodou, and the violets blooming in the valley behind it often haunt my dreams. That valley, the things that live in it, and its vivid and almost touchable deep blue, have made my whole life closely attached to the mountains. ......This was the beginning of my experiential journey. It's always been for fun, and I don't want anything else. ”
She describes her hiking experience as follows: "Hour after hour of walking, all the sensations follow a certain rhythm, and you feel that the physical body is very transparent when you walk. But no metaphor, whether 'transparent as normal' or 'light as air', can accurately describe this state. At this time, the body is not insignificant, but crucial. Instead of being destroyed, the flesh is realized. Man is not intangible, the body is an essential part of it. ”
Singer of birds, earth and stars".
Nature's Calendar
Prishvin, Peking University Press.
Nature's Calendar
A bright moon hung in the sky, and the night faded. At dawn, a layer of first frost covered the earth, and all together it became a white patch. However, the puddle did not freeze. The morning sun rose in the east, and it didn't take long for the white frost to turn almost into crystal dewdrops. From a distance, the dense and verdant spruce forest looks like a sparkling pattern. Even if you take the diamonds of the whole earth for this decoration, it is not enough. "In this little piece of prose that sparkles like a diamond, everything is simple, accurate, and flowing with endless poetry. Gorky once commented that Prishvin had "a brilliant pen that can depict beautiful artistic conceptions with some ordinary words, so that all illusory feelings can be made real and touchable." ”
Nature's Calendar can almost be considered a purely original work, described as a "dictated note in the spring", written by Prishvin, an agronomist who roamed the Russian north, "a singer of birds, the earth and the stars". He dives his thoughts and feelings from an aesthetic perspective into the original and fundamental awe and love of the world, that is, nature. The book is divided into chapters of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and chronicles Prishvin's journey into the ancient northern forests of Russia. He hiking the land, going out into the forest, and taking integration into nature as "the key to literature". With rich biological knowledge and beautiful descriptions of nature, and the love and kindness of man and nature into poetry and philosophy, it shows the author's deep love for nature, which is a rare masterpiece in the world literary circle in the 20th century. Prishvin is a poet who treats nature sincerely, and his words are like dewdrops shining in the morning sun, reflecting the poetic brilliance of the earth's simple life. These simple and tranquil words have extraordinary insight. They sweep away the dust of everyday life and discover the glittering beauty of nature. Prishvin has a flesh-and-blood relationship with nature, "Today I feel the totality of life in nature, and I don't need a name. I felt like I was related to all these creatures that could fly, swim, and jump......If a person wants to escape the distractions of the world and live only "according to the command of the heart", then Prishvin undoubtedly provides a good example.
The starlight twinkles equally to all, and the years pass swiftly like birds."
The earth still winters under a quilt: essays on Russian nature
Vladimir Ivanovich Kolibery, China Youth Publishing House.
The earth still winters under a quilt: essays on Russian nature
As an unknown Russian writer and painter, the author's work was introduced and published for the first time. He experienced war, and then in the Far East, in the peaceful years, accompanied by nature. But with nature, he has a more eternal, open world in which he wanders, explores, and transforms it into an object of outpouring of thoughts and copying. The establishment of a home in a deeper sense enabled him to establish a spiritual connection with the mountains and valleys, and he was familiar with all the birds and animals like brothers and sisters. All his accounts seem to describe what his home looks like. Slowly, he seems to become its spokesman, and the breath and breath that nature accomplishes with the help of his expression. The nature of his pen is ever-changing, but it is still a true object, knowing its name, knowing its shape, understanding its mysteries, and learning to be in awe. I hope that everyone who has the opportunity to flip through this book will be able to feel the smell of nature everywhere when they hear the rustling sound, as if they heard the sound of their feet stepping on the snow.
The starlight shines like a bird for all, and the years pass by like a bird, allowing us to find the spirit of nature and gain peace of mind. "This is a book of nature about forests and rivers, but also a book of poetry. The final destination of the Amur is the Sea of Okhotsk. Forests and rivers contain the endless secrets and poetry of nature. From it we can see the four seasons of the Amur River, as if we are in the Far East, experiencing the migration from winter to spring. In the slight change, we heard the sound of the ice cracking when the grass and trees turned from withered to green. Reading this book is like hearing the sound of your feet stepping on the snow, and you can feel the breath of nature everywhere.