Excerpt from "Classics Should Be Read Like This" by Pu Yuping
The real deep reading must be thoughtful, feedback, and application, and reading like Qian Lao can form his own thinking, which is valuable reading. Not only reading, but also about life, but also have their own thinking, the losses they have suffered, the lessons they have gained, and only after thinking about it will they become the wealth of their own lives. The ability to think is the core competitiveness of our life. And the best way to exercise your thinking skills is to read.
Written on the Edge of Life" - when I look at the title of the book, I feel that it is a book written by the author when he is almost at the end of his life, which is really a big misunderstanding. This book was written by Qian Zhong, who was only 29 years old when he wrote this book, and he was not old at all. However, before the year of establishment, Qian Zhongshu's writing is already so old and spicy, and his thoughts are so profound, which is really admirable.
Qian Zhongshu, a name that is so popular in Chinese academic circles, has too many stories about him. For example, he has written a ** book in his life, but the influence of this ** is far greater than that of many writers. And the height of his thinking and knowledge also makes him deserve to be called a true master.
Qian Lao is very talented, and this talent may come from genetics and family tradition on the one hand. Qian Lao is the descendant of the Qian family in Wuxi, and the Qian family in Wuxi is a prestigious family in the south of the Yangtze River. This family is all university scholars: Qian Xuesen, Qian Mu, Qian Yongjian, Qian Jibo, Qian Zhongshu, Qian Xuantong, Qian Sanqiang, Qian Weichang, and Qian Wenzhong, who is now a professor in the History Department of Fudan University and has attended the "Hundred Lectures". These names have great achievements behind them, and they are all equal to their writings.
Qian Zhongshu had a story when he was admitted to Tsinghua University. It is said that at that time, he was very biased and spent all his time reading ancient books, so his math score was very bad, and he only scored 15 points in the college entrance examination. That year, Tsinghua University enrolled 174 students nationwide, and Qian Zhongshu ranked 57th in the country in terms of total scores. How?It turned out that his Chinese language (then called Bahasa Malaysia) was the first among all the candidates, and his English score was a perfect score. As a result, he was admitted to the Department of Foreign Literature of Tsinghua University with the first place in both Chinese and English, but only 15 points in mathematics.
Qian Zhongshu is the kind of person who has both talent and hard work. During his studies at Tsinghua University, he once swept the library of Tsinghua University and read all the books in the Tsinghua Liberal Arts Library. Yang Jiang mentioned in "The Two of Us" that during their study in the UK, the couple only read books and attended classes every day, and their only leisure activity was for the two of them to go out for an adventure - a walk near their residence. Later, they returned to China, whether in Shanghai in the occupied area, or to their hometown in Wuxi, or later to settle in BeijingWhether it is working as a compiler at the National ** Library or working at the Institute of Literature, most of the time of Qian Laosheng's life is handed over to the mountains and seas of books, and his daily life is to read, take notes, do research, and write. This kind of diligence is really beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Qian Zhongshu has always lived in turbulent times. When he returned from Oxford, there was a war in the country, and then the founding of New China, and various political movements, until the late 80s, when he finally settled down. He presided over the translation of the English translation of "** Poems";He has participated in and presided over the compilation of several editions of the English-Chinese dictionary, and in the field of English literature and European literature, he is a master scholar, which has made generations of students look up to him. His foundation in Chinese studies is also very good, and he compiled the "Selected Notes on Song Poems" at the Institute of Literature, and also wrote the "Pipe Cone Edition" in difficult ancient Chinese. In terms of writing, he used his spare time to write "The Siege" in his early years, which was later made into a TV series, making him a cultural celebrity with great influence in society in the ** decade.
This book "Written on the Edge of Life" was compiled in 1939, a small book, a total of less than 60,000 words, a total of ten articles, the long one is less than 10,000 words, and the short one is only a thousand-word essay. But the light of wisdom shining in it expresses Qian Lao's thinking and understanding of life, which is really amazing.
What does it mean to write on the edge of life?Qian Lao himself has an explanation, which is in the preface of this little book:
Life is said to be a big book, and if life is like this, then most of us authors can only be regarded as book reviewers. With the skills of a book critic, you don't need to read a few pages of the book, a lot of discussions have already been posted, and a book review is written and handed in.
He likened life to a big book that deserves to be read for a lifetime. The book of life has its own variety of flavors. Qian Lao said that if life is really a big book, most of our writers cannot be regarded as "writers" at all, because writers write books, but most writers can't write books of life, they only write comments on life, and can only be regarded as book critics.
If life is a big book, then the following essays can only be regarded as writing on the side of life. This book is so big!It's not easy to read it for a while, and there are still a lot of blanks left on the edges of what has been written.
The 29-year-old Qian Zhongshu is in his prime, and what he writes about this book is what he has seen in his daily life, the feelings he has experienced, and the books he has read. The most important thing is that there are some understandings, perceptions and thoughts that are different from ordinary people after he has seen, experienced, and read, which is like a commentary in life experience, and such an annotation is also the treasure of our descendants. It is of great benefit to us to see how the predecessors came over and what they thought when they encountered problems.
There are too many things in the world, and they are too complicated, and the things that can be seen are different from different people and perspectives. It is "seen horizontally as a peak on the side of the ridge, with different heights and heights near and far". Mr. Zhong Shu wrote a lot of interesting essays in this book, such as "Window" and "On Happiness", which are about ordinary things in life, but Zhong Shu is full of fun, he can not only quote the classics, turn out the books we don't know, but also extend the background we don't understand, and each article is extremely broad-minded, which is where Qian Zhongshu is powerful.
Real deep reading must be thoughtful, feedback, and application, just like Qian Lao's reading, can form his own thinking, is valuable reading. Not only reading, but also thinking about life. The losses and lessons you have suffered in the past will only become your own life wealth if you have thought about it. The ability to think is the core competitiveness of our life. And the best way to exercise your thinking skills is to read.
Select a few paragraphs of the text in the book, and you can feel Mr. Zhong Shu's thinking ability. In "The Tale of the Bat" he says:
When a bat encounters a bird, it becomes a bird, and when it encounters a beast, it becomes a beast. Humans are much smarter than bats. They will apply the bat method in reverse: in birds, it is more important to be full of animals, which means that they are down-to-earth;In the beasts, it is more important to fill the birds, which means that the height is beyond the world;Showing off elegance to the warriors, pretending to be a hero to the literati;In high society, he was a poor and hard commoner, and among the commoners, he was a condescending cultural element. It's certainly not a bat, it's just a human.
This is a typical example of "using it against its intentions", which is a kind of reverse thinking. The original meaning of Aesop's Fables is to criticize bats, and Chung Shu thinks the other way and says that people are "smarter" than bats, which is actually a satire on those opportunists who have no practical ability but always want to be different.
The next paragraph is from "The Story of the Dog and Its Own Shadow":
The dog crossed the bridge and saw the shadow in the water, thinking that it was another dog also holding the meatSo he gave up the meat in his mouth and fought with the shadow to grab the meat of the shadow, but he lost all the meat in his mouth. The original purpose of this parable was to abstain from greed, but we can now apply it to other aspects. It is said that everyone needs a mirror to be able to always look at themselves and know what they are. However, those who can know themselves do not need to look in the mirror at all;It is useless to look in the mirror if you don't know it—like this dog, who looks in the mirror, screams and makes a fuss at him, and uses his shadow as an object of attack and barking. It can be seen that some things are better not to look at themselves in the mirror.
This reflection fully demonstrates Qian Lao's critical thinking: when the dog sees the dog in the reflection holding the meat, he barks wildly, "It can be seen that some things are better not to look at themselves in the mirror." This is naturally an implicit irony, and who said that looking in the mirror must help you recognize yourself?Some people don't want to recognize themselves at all, and it's useless to look in the mirror, they will only scream more fiercely.
For us, reading this book "Written on the Edge of Life" is like doing a mental gymnastics, looking at it and thinking about it, and we can come up with many different things. Although I am in a three-foot study, I don't leave home, but I have a lot of things in my chest, and there are ancient and modern times in the world, which is probably a very high-level joy of life.
Insight determines the breadth of life;Thinking determines the depth of life.
Encourage all of you.