Volume 1: The Visible City

The End of Lyric

Haizi: From Spiritual Home to Mental Home

A Romance The accidental death of an activist

At around 5:30 pm on March 26, 1989, a roaring train seemed to have passed through an era, passing through the icy railway tracks near Shanhaiguan - the one on the railway tracks. The warm body suddenly split into two. No one knows now what kind of "quatrains" Haizi, lying on the hard sleeper, would write in his last moments? It was a slow-moving train, but even so, there was no more than 0.01 seconds between life and death.

Later writers quickly fixed this brief moment into an eternal moment. Regarding the poet's death, we can hear countless opinions: some are metaphysical, such as calling him a "poetry martyr"; some are metaphysical, believing that suicide is just a way to ascend the literary world. The imagination of colleagues is particularly good at this aspect, but the final outcome is nothing more than "the literati are indifferent to each other" or "the literati are indifferent to each other". However, how do more poetry laymen, including Haizi’s family, view the suicide case that was publicized after this incident? Haizi's original name was Zha Haisheng. If "Haizi's death" is the accidental death of a romantic, "Zha Haisheng's death" is the accidental death of a son. "Death of Son" does not exude the fragrance of culture like "Death of Poet", but it can experience more fatal pain.

Zha Haisheng is a young farm boy. Even if he did not become a famous poet later, in 1979, when he was admitted to university at the age of fifteen, he was already called a golden phoenix flying out of a grass nest in Gaohe Chawan, Huaining County, Anqing City, Anhui Province. Poetry laymen living in the countryside do not understand the principle of "Phoenix Nirvana". In their view, "dedicating one's life to poetry" or "dedicating one's life to honor" are unreasonable. If they had to make a choice between Zha Haisheng, a living teacher at China University of Political Science and Law, and Haizi, a famous poet who died, they would choose the former without hesitation. "The family was very happy," the mother once recalled her son's first job. "In the first month's salary of 90 yuan, he sent 60 yuan home." Poets may, perhaps, look down upon such layman's comments. But beneath that seemingly short-sighted statement, there is a simple ethics of life hidden.

Letters from a Madman

In most poets, there is a tension between the ethics of life and the laws of art. The ethics of life are often "myopic", with special emphasis on the bland and within reach of the real world; the laws of art are often "farsighted", paying more attention to the distant or even ethereal fantasy world. If you can't find a balance between the two, it's like an out-of-focus rabbit bumping into the stump of art or life. Unfortunately, as the son Zha Haisheng is "short-sighted", and as the poet Haizi is "far-sighted", the final tragedy can be imagined.

That year, Zha Haisheng spent the winter vacation in his hometown, and wrote a letter to the director of the philosophy teaching and research office where he worked, intending to take sick leave for half a year. However, he later changed his mind and made a written explanation saying that You must attend class with peace of mind, make achievements in teaching, and strive to be rated as a lecturer within the year. Before going to Shanhaiguan, Haizi wrote several suicide notes that were not suicide notes. One of them wrote: "Two Taoist shamans filled my ears with auditory hallucinations. Most of the sounds were their voices. They were probably there." Last Thursday, I suddenly fell into a coma and opened my mind. My so-called 'mind's eye' and 'telepathy' were caused by them."

On the other hand, "Strive to become a lecturer within the year. "The ethics of life, and on the other hand the art law of "the ears are full of auditory hallucinations" (this cannot just be attributed to Qigong issues), they are enough to tear apart a flesh and blood body. These letters are like Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman". That novel consists of a preface and a main body. In the preface written in classical Chinese, the madman is not crazy. He follows the ethics of life and has "went to a certain place as a candidate."; in the main text written in vernacular, the madman follows the laws of art and is just like a Van Gogh-style artist.

A young man from another province who was split in two

Doctors and school officials all treated Haizi's suicide as "schizophrenia."

His friend Nishikawa disagreed with this view, specifically pointing out that Haizi's other suicide note stated: "My death has nothing to do with anyone." Based on this, he believed that the poet was quite sober. This kind of defense not only fails to "truly and comprehensively understand Haizi as a person", but instead imagines Haizi as a "one-sided person". In fact, every slightly sensitive writer is prone to suffer from "schizophrenia" in which reality and art are contradictory to each other. In other words, when we are looking for a spiritual home, we are likely to stumble into a mental home by mistake.

Haizi is not the two-faced god Janus, and it is difficult to balance between the ethics of life and the laws of art. He is more like a "viscount divided into two" (to be precise, "a viscount divided into two"). "Provincial Youth"), the body that cannot be stitched together after death is a wordless metaphor. As the eldest son in the family, he must have deeply felt the weight of "an elder brother is like a father"; as a lyric poet, he must face all kinds of "unbearable lightness in life". The ethics of life and the laws of art, weight and lightness, country and city, are like the two wings of scissors, cutting a life apart.

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In a sense, the writer must face certain spiritual dilemmas, just like Patients with low-grade fever of 37 degrees 2 will have beautiful hallucinations. But how to not collapse like Haizi (which is equivalent to having a high fever), but not be completely cured like a madman (which is equivalent to disappearing from everyone), is a problem. There is a Macaulane Poets Asylum in the United States, where famous poets such as Plath, Lovell and Sexton once called home. In my opinion, instead of driving poets out of the Utopia like Plato, it is better to send crazy poets to mental hospitals like Macaulane, which will not prevent but delay the suicide of poets.

"Madness" is not a complimentary word, nor a derogatory word, it is just a phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the poet. But we either praise the mental symptoms of madmen or categorically refuse to acknowledge the existence of such diseases. How to achieve a balance between the ethics of life and the laws of art, and how to maintain a constant temperature and low fever that is slightly higher than normal without affecting health. I am afraid that only by seriously thinking about these issues instead of avoiding them can we avoid the road of no return from the spiritual home to the mental home. .

Finally, I need to declare that the above analysis does not affect my respect for the deceased and my love for his genius short chapters in no way.

(This article refers to relevant articles by Liaoyuan, Yu Xugang and others, and I would like to express my gratitude)

Sanmao: How many flowers have fallen in dreams

Yongbao The secret of youth is to die young - this is a bitter truth. Just like Haizi will always be the young "Little Dongzi" in our hearts, no one can imagine that he will become a middle-aged literary person; just like Sanmao is always the Cinderella in the rolling world, no one can describe her sixty years old face. Coincidentally, Haizi's death anniversary happens to be Sanmao's birthday. This is another metaphor. A writer's life often begins with his or her death. Perhaps, they have not left the world, but are just hiding in a secret corner, deliberately using death to test their works, and then watching people's tears and laughing secretly.

When Sanmao passed away, I was still in junior high school. When the news of her suicide reached that remote county, it was already several days later. It was only then that I realized that Sanmao was not a cartoon character written by Mr. Zhang Leping, and that’s when I started looking for her words. I must admit that I am a cultural belated observer. I only started to read Jin Yong when I was in college, and I only started to listen to Luo Dayou when I was a graduate student. I only get close to these yesterday's flowers when they have already been ridiculed and passed. It is precisely this time difference that makes me lack the passion for "idol worship". I would be temporarily anesthetized by their works, but I'm not really a member of the "fan club". The first time I read Sanmao was her article "How Many Flowers Have Fallen in a Dream". This "Song of Everlasting Regret" floating around was like a cup of sweet bitter water, slowly soaking into my afternoon. For a long time, I have been ashamed of the "touch" I felt at that time, thinking that it was just a minor adolescent symptom. But this is the power of Sanmao. She will make you "rejuvenate" you in a moment, although there must be some unforgettable chapters in your youthful memories.

Sanmao and Qiong Yao are often compared, as if they were two partners in the same literary dance. In fact, Sanmao is related to one era, while Qiong Yao is related to every era.

In other words, the former is a little out of place, and her pain may make young readers laugh out loud; the latter is very comfortable, and can make the audience generously shed tears at any time. Roland Barthes once said that Garbo's face symbolized an "idea" while Hepburn's face represented an "event." If Sanmao has that kind of "desperate beauty", Qiong Yao has gradually no longer even has "charm to play with", and can only remind people of Zhao Wei's face - expressing the "aesthetics" of coquettishness.

Sometimes, I would cruelly and secretly rejoice: Fortunately, both Haizi and Sanmao passed away "in time". A mythical era, the red curtain fell one after another. Perhaps, for them, death would be a decent exit. Cultural heroes in an era that does not belong to them can only be some cultural remnants who are "living on". They either become clowns or are treated as clowns by others. And that era when spiritual alcohol could be ignited at any time was both happy and dangerous. Although I have imagined those youthful years of youth countless times, I have not lamented too much about my untimely birth.

Tonight, I don’t care about human beings, I just want them to rest in peace - as the poet Lu Yimin said: "Die if you can", or "die gently in this city".

Hu Heqing: Ten Years of Life and Death

I don’t know Hu Heqing. When he jumped off the window sill on a stormy night in Shanghai, I was still in middle school in a small town in Anhui; by the time I went to Shanghai to study, his soul might have returned to his ancestral home in Anhui. But I seem to have known Hu Heqing for a long time. I have read many of his articles by heart. Every time I read silently, I always feel like the lights are dimming, even though there are no sad words in them. The relationship between us is a kind of communication between the living and the dead. I would like to call this friendship a "friendship between life and death."

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The light green cover of "Memories of the Spiritual Land" and the dark green cover of "Hu He Qing" "Wen Cun" once accompanied me through the desolate university life. At that time, a paleography teacher with a certain Wei and Jin style recommended a contemporary literary criticism book to us in class for the first time - the author was Hu Heqing. Out of trust in that teacher, we rushed to Fuzhou Road to buy back the books at the weekend. The entire dormitory building seemed empty due to the departure of local students, but we and the two rooms next door were circulating Hu Heqing's articles while reading. It made a sound of excitement and sadness. The aura flashed by those words is enough to illuminate the youth who are ignorant of the world and the bleak youth years. This kind of "collective reaction to reading" was common in the 1980s, when people could easily be excited by an article and stay up all night; but in the 1990s, it was a surprise, and books with a little depth would only make readers yawn.

After ten years of life and death, few people today still think of Hu Heqing. This is not a bad thing. Hu Heqing once said during his lifetime: "Literature, to me, is like an old house located on the side of the Grand Canal... I am willing to stay closed in such a house for the rest of my life, like a lonely waker, listening to the gurgling The distant sound of the river, daydreaming about the mystery of life." It was easy for him to forget his literary achievements, which Cao Pi called "an immortal event", and preferred to live like his favorite Qian Zhongshu: "Most of the knowledge is the second grade of the old house in the wilderness. "Three people with good intentions discuss the matter of training." Although Confucius also praised similar words: "In late spring, when the spring clothes are ready, five or six people are crowned, and six or seven boys are bathing in Yi, dancing in the wind, singing and returning." But their ambitions are not the same. From the singular "I" to "two or three plain-hearted people" to "five or six champions, six or seven boys", this is not only the number of people, but also means that their ideals are like those of "plain-hearted people" and " There is a world of difference between "Su Wang". Hu Heqing was unmarried and alone all his life, while Qian Zhongshu, Yang Jiang, their daughters, and "the three of us" were with each other. Confucius had three thousand disciples and seventy-two sages - each of them lived according to the realm they longed for. Hu Heqing and Qian Zhongshu have many similarities. One is willing to stay closed in the "old house on the side of the Grand Canal" for the rest of his life, while the other loves to live in the "old house on the wild river". The two almost have the same clear feelings. But perhaps it is the difference between "I" and "the three of us" that makes Hu Heqing and Qian Zhongshu end up on the same journey, one going to die calmly and the other enjoying his old age.

When I write this article, it is April Fool’s Day in the West. According to Hu Heqing, in Shanghai, where there are so many smart guys, he and another critic Zhu Dake can only be listed in the Guinness Book of Fools.

He calls himself a "very rustic" literary critic, and this is not self-effacing. Hu Heqing's literary criticism can hardly see the eighteen weapons from Western literary theory, but is soaked in the soft light of local civilization like a psychic gem. Even his academic paper was criticized by Qian Zhongshu, who commented: "The whole article is also witty and interesting, which is different from an academic paper." We know that in modern society, whether "the old house on the side of the Grand Canal" or The "old houses in the wilderness" can only exist within the siege of the college. However, with the establishment of academic norms and discipline systems, university Chinese departments also began to exclude literary critics with a keen sense of justice on the pretext of studying theory and chemistry. The latter had only two choices that led to the same goal: either Westernization or academicization, which was a dead end for Hu Heqing. It is said that he is paranoid that Chinese culture is superior to Western culture, and naturally cannot become the "post-master" of Westernization. A senior scholar with profound knowledge in Chinese studies who had read his writer's essay laughed and said: "Oh, this is not a review, it is really a novel." When Hu Heqing recalled this incident, he said: " Of course, this is an exaggeration; but if the author's theory can be written into something like a novel, that is exactly what I want." Since he said this, he has no chance to be among the "experts" who are good at writing academic journals. Li Jie once used his usual exaggerated tone to link Hu Heqing's death with Wang Guowei's self-immolation. There is no way to tell how far the two are from each other, but what Chen Yinke said in memory of Wang Guowei can also be applied to Hu Heqing: "Whenever a culture declines, the people transformed by this culture will feel pain."

Hu Heqing preferred Xu Hun of the late Tang Dynasty, and once asked a friend to write one of his poems into a banner: "A song of labor can be interpreted as a boat trip, green mountains and red leaves, rapids in the water. At dusk, the drunken people are far away, and the sky is full of wind and rain in the west. Building." I wonder if he thought that the phrase "the sky is full of wind and rain going to the west building" became a prophecy? I wonder if he would have thought of another poem by Xu Hun on the last night in April 1994: "As soon as I go up to the high city, I will be sad for thousands of miles, and the willows will look like Tingzhou. The clouds in the stream are just beginning to rise, the sun is sinking in the pavilion, and the mountain rain is about to come. The building is full."

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Luo Dayou: Treat him as a thing of the past

" "What you look like"

For a long time, I didn't know what Luo Dayou looked like. Artists usually have two faces: one is actor-like, they treat themselves as works and personally stage various scandals, legends or affairs; the other is director-like, they hide themselves behind their works and choose silence Even disappear quietly. It's hard to say which category Luo Dayou belongs to: as a screw in the cultural industry, he must abide by the rules of the game, attend press conferences, hold solo performances, and accept interviews; as a lyric poet in an underdeveloped area, he must face himself , the hidden pain of our time and our country.

Later I saw photos of Luo Dayou. The first impression he left on people was that of a gentle scholar, wearing glasses, very gentle and even fragile. In 2001, the "Beijing Evening News" had a text sketch of Luo Dayou: "His hair was dyed yellow, wearing purple sunglasses, a schoolbag slung across his body, a green shirt, bright green trousers, and white casual shoes." However, this old style The urchin outfit is just camouflage for the body. If you look carefully several times, you will find that there seems to be alcohol flowing in his body, which may ignite at any time.

Luo Dayou once confessed that the source of his thoughts when writing songs was "anger, anger and the like" because "anger represents a kind of concentration." Fortunately, he did not suffer from the cynicism of the angry youth, nor the mysophobia of the intellectuals. Luo Dayou belongs to Cancer, which is not an insignificant detail. Even if we throw away all the knowledge of astrology, we still cannot deny the biological common sense that crabs are "bones wrapped in flesh". Although Cancer is tough on the outside and soft on the inside and Luo Dayou is soft on the outside and tough on the inside, the same thing is that they both have their own bulletproof vests. This body armor protects those lonely hearts in the dark. We all still remember "The Look of You": "The person who turned around seemingly indifferently/is the bleak shadow after the tears have dried up"

"The Story of Time"

From kindergarten to From elementary school to middle school, all the music I could hear came from street speakers. The same sounds made me tone-deaf to this day. My "first intimate contact" with Luo Dayou was in college. It was an N-class university, and "the air was filled with the smell of lovers." Compared with those delicate female voices, Luo Dayou's voice is almost crude.

But it made my blood boil in an instant. Unlike burning in a hot fire, this plateau-style boil brought warmth and cold at the same time. If most of Luo Dayou’s followers are old people left in the 1980s, I would like to call myself a young leftover in the 1980s. "The story of flowing water taking away time" not only "changes a person" but also "changes us". People born in the mid-to-late 1970s who like to be nostalgic are almost all "absent people who were present" in the 1980s. Although I have personally experienced that era, I can only feel its splendor in my imagination.

Luo Dayou and Cui Jian were two cultural heroes in the 1980s. They can be called the "Southern Emperor and Northern Beggar": one is building a "dream of home and country", and the other is a fake monk who longs for water and girls. Campus folk singer Gao Xiaosong once said "respectfully": "I dare not talk about music with Luo Dayou, just like you see a lighthouse and swim under the guidance of the light, but can you use a flashlight to shine on others?" Luo Dayou certainly can't. Agreeing with the majestic metaphor of "lighthouse", he prefers to carry a "fragile lantern" - although he strives to illuminate those dim faces, it will be extinguished at any time. When a netizen told someone that his music was regarded as the Bible, his answer was very concise and straightforward: "I am not Jesus." Mainland China in the 1980s was like Europe and the United States in the 1960s, creating one cultural miracle after another. This miracle may be the rebuilt Great Wall of Culture, or it may be just a cultural mirage. Many people cannot extricate themselves from hallucinations, but Luo Dayou is an exception. On various occasions, he refused to call himself a "hero" or call his works "classics."

"The Era of Farewell"

It would be too cruel to say that Luo Dayou is already a "gone flower", but the reality is often so cruel. According to a survey by Nanfang.com, the vast majority of people born in the 1980s know nothing about this former "godfather of music." People's appetites require different nutrients - "The reasons for the separation of the farewell years/do not need to be told in the end." Some followers like to put Luo Dayou into the "elegant" camp. It seems that they can also pretend to be elegant.

Another cultural hero, Stephen Chow, was born in the 1990s. What is subtle is that the hero appears in the form of a clown; what is even more subtle is that the "carnival spirit" of the big talk culture is reproduced and copied into the "coquettish aesthetics" by Sister Xiao Yanzi (Zhao Wei). At the same time, a proverb that has been repeatedly "misunderstood" spread through Kundera's mouth: "When humans think, God laughs." In the laughter, the "outdated" Luo Dayou naturally became the object of laughter. Laughter is not terrible, but using laughter as a reason to refuse to think is close to boredom.

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In my opinion, "Luo Dayou" and "Stephen Chow" are by no means an incompatible pair. Rong's enemy. Luo Dayou is not a frowning "Knight of Sadness". His answer to the honorary title of "Hero" is: "Please - heroes die easily!" Stephen Chow is not the "King of Comedy" who can only laugh and laugh. , the partner bluntly said that he was "very serious, too serious, not funny at all." Life requires both ridiculous tears and serious laughter.