Jia Pingwa
"Ugly Stone"
Full text
I often regret the ugly stone in front of my house: it is dark and dark Lying there, it looks like a cow; no one knows when it was left here, and no one pays attention to it. But during the wheat harvest season, when wheat is spread out in front of the door, grandma always says: This ugly stone is blocking the ground. Please move it away soon.
So, when my uncle’s family was building a house, he wanted to use it to build a gable wall, but he suffered from the fact that it was extremely irregular, had no edges or flat surfaces, so he had to use a chisel to break it apart
I'm too lazy to spend so much effort, because the river beach is not that far away. If I just pick one up and bring it back, any one will be better than it. The house was built and the steps were laid, but my uncle didn't take a fancy to it. One year, a stonemason came to wash a stone mushroom for my family. Grandma said again:
Use this ugly stone to avoid moving it from a distance. The mason looked at it and shook his head. He thought the stone was too fine and refused to use it.
It is not as delicate as white marble, which can be chiselled with words and carvings, nor is it as smooth as large bluestone, which can be used to wash yarn and beat cloth
It lies quietly. There, the shade of the locust trees beside the courtyard did not cover it, and the flowers no longer grew around it. Weeds proliferated, and the branches and vines were slowly covered with green moss and black spots. As children, we also disliked it, and we once tried to move it away, but we were not strong enough. Although we often cursed it and despised it, we had no choice but to let it stay there. .
What comforted us a little was that there was a small pit on the stone, which was filled with water on rainy days. It often rains for three days, and the ground is already dry. There is still water in the stone recess, and the chickens go there to drink. Every night on the 15th day of the month, we looked forward to the full moon coming out, so we would climb on it and look up at the sky; grandma would always scold us, fearing that we would fall. Sure enough, I fell down that time and broke my knee.
People call it an ugly stone. It is really an ugly stone.
One day, an astronomer came to the village. He was passing by my house and suddenly spotted this stone, and his eyes immediately straightened out. He didn't leave anymore and just stayed. Later, many people came and said that this was a meteorite that had fallen from the sky for two or three hundred years. It was an amazing thing. . A car soon came and carefully carried it away.
This surprised us all! This strange and ugly stone turns out to be from heaven! It patched up the sky, generated heat and flashed light in the sky. Our ancestors may have looked up to it, and it gave them light, yearning, and longing; but it fell down, in the dirt, desolate.
Lying in the grass for hundreds of years?
Grandma said: "I can't tell! It's so extraordinary, but why can't it even be built into a wall or steps?"
"It's too ugly." . said the astronomer.
"Really, it's too ugly."
“But this is its beauty,” the astronomer said. “It uses ugliness as beauty.”
“Ugliness as beauty?”
"Yes, it is extremely beautiful at the same time that it is extremely ugly. Just because it is not an ordinary stubborn stone, of course it cannot be used to make walls or steps, or to carve or beat cloth. It cannot be used to carve or beat cloth. I don’t do these naughty things, so I often get ridiculed by the world.”
Grandma blushed, and so did I.
I felt my own shame, and also felt the greatness of the ugly stone; I even resented it for enduring all this silently for so many years?
And I immediately deeply felt the greatness of its unyielding existence of misunderstanding and loneliness.
About the author
Jia Pingwa (1952-), formerly known as Jia Pingwa, originally from Danfeng, Shaanxi, is a famous modern novelist in China.
Jia Pingwa graduated from the Chinese Department of Northwest University in 1975. He has successively served as editor of Shaanxi People's Publishing House, editor of "Chang'an" magazine, director of the Innovation and Research Office of Xi'an Municipal Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and chairman of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles. He currently works for Xi'an Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
He is the author of the novels "Gao Laozhuang", "Abandoned Capital", "Missing the Wolf", "Collected Works of Jia Pingwa" (14 volumes), a collection of short and medium stories "Making Sound
Sound", and documentary Literature "I am a farmer" etc. Among them, "The Wasted City" won the French Femina Literary Award in 1997, "Impetuous" won the 8th American Mobil Pegasus Literary Award in 1987, and "Full Moon" won the 1978 National Outstanding Short Story Award. Award, "Twelfth and First Moon" won the 1984 Third National Outstanding Novella Award, and "Trace of Love" won the 1989 National Outstanding Prose Collection Award.
Theme
This essay, which is about borrowing ideas from things, uses a commonly recognized ordinary object - a stubborn stone, thereby highlighting the theme of the article,
< p>There may be exceptions to the so-called generality.Through strong contrast, the author illustrates a truth: people's ignorance cannot cover up or obliterate the greatness of "suffering silently" for many years and "unsuccumbing to misunderstanding and loneliness."