Sunrise at Sea is selected from Miscellaneous Notes on the Sea
Stars is selected from Miscellaneous Notes on the Sea
Being a Warrior, untitled collection-Random Notes, episode 5
Attachment: Introduction to Miscellaneous Notes on the Sea <
Introduction to "Random thoughts"
Random thoughts is an essay collection written by Ba Jin in his later years. Ba Jin faced the disaster brought by the "Cultural Revolution" and the distortion of his personality. He is willing to fill the spiritual gap that once appeared with real writing. In his later years, he finally wrote "Random Thoughts", which had a great influence in contemporary China, in order to fulfill the historical responsibility of an intellectual, thus reaching the final peak of literature and thought.
random thoughts is a great book. This was created by Ba Jin with all his life experience. Without the pursuit of a beautiful ideal, a perfect personality and a highly serious historical attitude, the old Ba Jin would not have written. He painfully recalled in "Random Thoughts"; He deeply reflected in "Random Thoughts"; He resumed his pursuit of youth in "Random Thoughts"; He completed the shaping of a real personality in "Random Thoughts".
capriccio includes 15 articles written by Mr. Ba Jin after the Cultural Revolution, which are divided into five episodes: capriccio, exploration, truth, illness and untitled, collectively referred to as capriccio.
Ba Jin started the column "Random Thoughts" in Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao at the end of 1978. From December 1, 1978, he wrote the first article "Talking about Homecoming" to August 2, 1986, he finished the last article, the 15th article "Remembering Hu Feng" (every 3 articles were compiled into one episode, followed by five episodes. To Ba Jin, who is 8 years old, finishing this 42,-word prose masterpiece not only means the hard work, but also is an old man's ruthless interrogation of his own mind, and a self-regret that gradually deepens with great inner conflict.
The starting point of Ba Jin's writing "Random thoughts" is very clear, that is, to make personal reflection on the "Cultural Revolution", as he said in his later new book "Random thoughts": "When I get a pen, my thoughts are always spinning in a circle, even though I touch various topics and talk about various things. That is the so-called" Cultural Revolution "which was disastrous for ten years. ..... After living in the' bullpen' for ten years, I have the responsibility to expose that thrilling big scam and prevent future generations from suffering again. " In Random Thoughts, he truly recorded the physical and mental devastation that the Cultural Revolution brought to him and his family and friends (such as the famous touching chapter Xiao Shan and Comrade Lao She, etc.), revealing that the vicious power and influence of the Cultural Revolution did not disappear with its end (such as "Poisonous Grass Disease", etc.), and he constantly struggled with ghosts in nightmares. In fact, the whole "Random Thoughts" can also be regarded as a personal "Cultural Revolution" museum established by Ba Jin with paper and pen.
The unique and in-depth feature of Random Thoughts is that the introspection of the Cultural Revolution was combined with Ba Jin's "thousand regrets consciousness" from the beginning, instead of simply putting all the responsibilities on the Gang of Four like many victims of the Cultural Revolution, so it was thought that smashing the Gang of Four would solve all the problems. Ba Jin's introspection contains greater worries about history and the future. This reflection was not completed at once in Random Thoughts, but went through a gradual and in-depth process. Originally in The Comedy of a Peach Kernel, Ba Jin asked himself: "I often think that we can't blame Lin Biao alone, but the Gang of Four alone, and we have to blame ourselves! We' eat' that set of feudal goods ourselves, and Lin Biao and the Gang of Four will only prosper by selling them. Otherwise, how can a casual' order' make people's homes ruin? " Then, he talked about one thing that bothered him all his life, that is, when he was a child, he saw the prisoner being beaten in his father's yamen and thanked the magistrate of a county. This childhood impression first appeared in his first novel "Death", and at this time it reappeared and became the overall image throughout the book "Random thoughts". In the following chapters, Ba Jin constantly reflects on the connection between his "Cultural Revolution" experience and slave consciousness. He finds that in the early days of the "Cultural Revolution", he also willingly bowed his head and confessed like a slave, and took the initiative to reform his mind. In "A Dream in Ten Years", he painfully shouted out such self-condemnation: "Slave, I always thought I had nothing to do with this word in the past, but I was obviously a slave for ten years! ..... I am a slave in my heart, and I am a dead-set spiritual slave. This discovery makes me very sad! My heart is struggling, and I feel that slave philosophy binds me like a chain. I am not myself. "
This painful confession deepened the introspection in Random Thoughts, and Ba Jin re-recognized his life path with great courage, so he found himself again in In Memory of Non-British Brothers: "Only in the anti-Hu Feng and anti-Rightist movements did I write such irresponsible statements, saying that it was to draw a clear line. Isn't it' throwing stones into the well'?" The following "Remembering Hu Feng" is his last and most emotional essay. In this article, he analyzes in detail his painful feelings when he wrote an essay at will in order to preserve his sanity in the anti-Hu Feng movement. At this time, the feelings of regret have caused him inner pain that cannot be resolved, which makes him feel sick and humiliated. Obviously, what Ba Jin regrets here is not only slave consciousness. The so-called slave consciousness is still based on the premise of believing in one's guilt, and pinning the hope of self-help on the savior is essentially a manifestation of ignorance. However, Ba Jin's reflection on some of his behaviors in the 195s is to dig into a deeper ideological level: that is, under the rule of unconstrained authoritative order, he was forced to sacrifice justice and friends in order to save himself, which was actually an accomplice to unconstrained authoritative order, but behind this behavior, he knew right from wrong, so his conscience would suffer for it, and the result was in an increasingly desperate living environment and great pain of physical and mental difficulties. He finally lost his sober will little by little, gave up his consciousness and ability of independent thinking as a modern intellectual, and fundamentally violated his free spirit and humanistic ideal that he once regarded as life. This is also the psychological basis why he became a spiritual slave during the Cultural Revolution.
This can't help but remind people of Ba Jin's "Chueh-hsin character" in "Riptide" trilogy: a character that gives up individuality and self-awareness voluntarily under the pressure of environment and constantly compromises. This was originally the content that Ba Jin lashed from the standpoint of advocating independent personality and free spirit in the May 4th Movement. He used to be a modern intellectual who took the May 4th spirit as the starting point of his life exploration, but after a catastrophe, he discovered that he also had a terrible "new personality", which was a real heartbreaking thing for him. Thus, from the introspection of his participation in criticizing Ke Ling's play The City That Never Sleeps in 1965 in the seventh article "Obedience Literature" of Random Thoughts, to the final abuse of the anti-Hu Feng movement, Ba Jin struggled to complete a long self-discovery and liquidation from shallow to deep. Its significance should not only lie in Ba Jin's personal reflection, because his own mental journey revealed very typically reflects the cultural mentality experienced by intellectuals in modern China. Especially after the 195s, the causes of the tragedy of a whole generation of intellectuals undoubtedly included that they gradually gave up criticizing the authoritative order and defending the spiritual tradition of the May 4th Movement under the pressure of the environment, and this abandonment behavior and the subsequent constant compromise. Surrender to strong pressure, and finally put a shameful brand of "Chueh-hsin character" in the spiritual world of a generation.
When Ba Jin revealed the deep content of all these hidden personal and national disasters with the courage to split the wound, he actually finished criticizing himself and the whole intellectual group for betraying the spirit of the May 4th Movement. What really gives people strength and encouragement is that it puts forward the conscience and responsibility that intellectuals should stick to and advocates the return to the spirit of the May 4th Movement. For example, at first, Ba Jin repeatedly proved the importance of independent thinking to writers by talking about the freedom of creation (such as "obeying literature", "the will of officials", "the role of literature" and "Do you want to formulate a law on literature and art", etc.), but in later random thoughts on "exploration", he clearly pointed out that there was no "independent thinking" or "independent thinking" Only those who insist on "independent thinking" are entitled to enjoy their own lives. By showing their support for "scar literature" at that time, he also directly mentioned the social responsibility of writers many times and praised the critical spirit of a new generation of writers. From the writing process of "Random Thoughts", we can also see the gradual awakening of Ba Jin's "May 4th" realistic fighting spirit. He quoted Zhao Dan's last words: "For me, there is nothing to be afraid of". ("Nothing to be afraid of") This re-ignited courage made him maintain a vigilant and critical attitude towards various real social problems, and mercilessly exposed the feudal consciousness that remained in the contemporary social form, although psychologically, he went through the ups and downs of unrelenting and lingering fears, but in the end he overcame the fear left in his heart by decades of unfortunate encounters. In the last few articles, For example, in Bureaucracy, Museum of the Cultural Revolution, Twenty Years ago, Aging, and Missing Hu Feng, the social passion of volcanic eruption was ejected from his pen again, and the old man really opened his mind, turned his back, shouted loudly, and remolded the personality of the May 4th Movement with sharp social attacks. It can be said that this "testament" is as heavy and profound as a "Confessions", which has recovered the long-lost social conscience for contemporary intellectuals in China, and also established the contemporary spiritual tradition of intellectuals with personal bleeding souls. This is to consciously inherit the new cultural tradition of the May 4th Movement, consciously become a sober critic of the real society, and use modern culture to overcome all kinds of ugly, backward and dark things in society.