The morning after I got this book, I took it to school. I am a student in Grade Two or Grade Three. At that time, the area near my home was still an old street with a long history, named Shishi Road. I stood at the door, holding this book on my chest, waiting for my father to push my bike out.
I felt someone looking at me across the street, and then he came over and touched me. I turned around and pretended to have just noticed him. I know him-I can say I don't know him-he is a senior at my school, lives in this compound and is a neighbor. Maybe we met while playing together, but he is too old for me, and neither of us will pay attention to anyone. If he hadn't come to touch me that morning and asked me later, I would never have left any impression on him now
I turned around and saw him staring at my book, then looked up and asked me, "Do you read this book?" I quickly replied, "Yes." This question vaguely makes me a little unhappy. He then asked, "Can you lend it to me?" I thought about it and said, "I want to see it." He said, "Then lend it to me when you have finished reading it." I said okay. Then dad came out and our conversation was over.
The expression on his face was a little disappointed. However, he never asked me about the book after that. He is a boy with a long head. Sherlock Holmes' skull is so long that the surgeon wants to make a model of it-the boy's head is not necessarily that long, but it is also very eye-catching. Besides, he has no other outstanding place. In fact, if he comes to borrow it from me again, I will lend it to him, because he, like me, was attracted by it from the moment he saw it-it seems that he is not even as good as a confidant.
This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. This is a red folio, a very rare folio. Many people are printed on the cover-residents and robbers in nutmeg town. The whole cover is watercolor style, but it is very rich. The red background is watercolor, and the color is uneven. The characters on the screen, white and pink, dressed in polka-dot clothes, can be regarded as a group of Nordic people who are a bit dull. In the book, there are many illustrations in the same style, and because of folk songs, some pages are left with large blanks-in such a book, those blank pages are like icing on the cake.
At that time, there were no cartoon comics printed on coated paper authorized by Disney in China. There are no Japanese comics. A beautiful book like that is really a treasure of mine-even now, I dare say it still looks very exquisite. If it weren't for its beauty, I wouldn't take it to school. I can put it in my schoolbag. And when I go out, I attract others' eyes-in fact, this is very attractive to my heart, and I have never met many satisfactory things like this in my life.
This is the novella The Residents and Robbers of Cardamom Town by Norwegian children's literature writer Thorborn Egner. Because of its binding, I have been fascinated for many years. The books I read when I have limited literacy are trivial fragments-even smaller and more hazy than fragments, just a general impression. For example, there are camels and elephants walking on the streets of Doukou Town, and there are biscuits on the only tram.
I'm not so interested in cookies now. When I first entered high school, before the lights went out at night, someone in the dormitory would always start eating cookies, so everyone shared a ladle. The belief of losing weight quickly is deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the behavior of eating before going to bed is put an end to. But when I was a child, I remember that most children liked to eat cookies. There was a kind of scallion cake at that time. There is an old man with a white beard on crutches on the packaging bag. Sweet or salty, grandma downstairs often eats it. There is also an apricot biscuit, and there are still some. It smells good and tastes like butter. Most girls will like a small round biscuit with colored cream icing on it, which is actually very unpalatable; The other is animal biscuits-they are the cutest biscuits, made in the shape of animals, full of small reliefs and slightly burnt marks in the depressions-most of them seem to be dogs and elephants, because they are big and smooth and beautiful. I believe that most of these animal biscuits are invited to eat by the conductor on the tram in Doukou Town. I like it so much because of this custom in cardamom town.
This beautiful little red book is so intertwined with my childhood.
And it's not a biscuit, but a story of three robbers. Their names are Jasper, Husby and Leonard. I can't remember this clearly for many years, and it was only recently rediscovered. Because I lost the little red book, I can't remember it clearly. Because I saw these three robbers in other places, I found them again.
Grandpa made me a bed when I was a child-beds like this are very common now, that is, there is a lot of space under the bed board to store things, but it was a great idea when I was a child. My red "Residents and Robbers in Cardamom Town" and many other books are hidden in it. Then unconsciously, I couldn't find the book-a lot of things just disappeared unconsciously. I read Mary Norton's Little Man under the Floor. It says that there is a little man named "borrower" who lives in the corner of the house and lives by "borrowing" human things. Many of our things are borrowed by them. I don't know if my little red book was borrowed by them. I only remember clearly that there was such a book, but now it is gone. I didn't have much effort to find it, because there was nowhere to find it. However, it is a proof of my childhood. Without it, many memories of the past look like dreams.
The best things are always half true and half false, and no one can help it. For example, you can be sure that you have been admitted to a university, but you are not sure how to become an excellent young man; For example, you can be sure that you have found a well-paid job, but you are not sure who is rich. I used to be a happy child, but that may be a rumor, because my book is missing. Obviously, this is not particularly important to the life I live now, but it is really important to think about it occasionally.
It seems to be important again.
And a few months ago in August, because I wrote my graduation thesis, I moved a lot of fantasy literature books back to read. I also relived my childhood dreams. Among them, there is a set of Latest Foreign Fairy Tales in the 20th Century published by Heilongjiang Publishing House (1992 edition). Among them, Pippi Longstocking and the residents and robbers in the town of Cardamom have not seen each other for a long time.
Fantasy literature is really a good thing.
Three robbers lived outside the town of Cardamom and kept a lion as a pet. They are lazy and unsanitary, and live by stealing things from the town. Once they even stole Aunt Sophie home and asked her to be a housekeeper and clean the robbers' lair for them. Who knows aunt Sophie is very powerful, forcing them to clean and grow vegetables themselves, and the unlucky robber had to send her back to town again. Finally, they were caught stealing and locked in a police car in Xi 'an. People in the town, especially the Eight Immortals, are very friendly and kind to them and their lions, which makes them find another happy life. In the end, they put out the fire in the old man's home in Dubya and were forgiven by the residents. Jasper became a fireman, Hasbi became a baker, and Leonard became a circus foreman, leading a good life. This is the story that happened in the famous cardamom town. It took me more than ten years to rediscover this small town with camels. According to the author, only one or two people except him and me know about it.
Fairy tales often provide us with a simple life model. Cardamom town has rich and simple biscuits, and everyone is self-reliant and loves each other. Three lovely robbers live outside the town. Lions are a big problem in their lives. They both like it and fear it. When it growled with hunger in the next room, they stared at each other and became nervous. They began to discuss the problem in a low voice. I always laugh when I see these, because I can imagine their funny expressions, and their faces are full of distressed expressions. When I was a child, I often had this kind of distressed expression on my face, such as failing math, breaking things at home and wearing new stockings. Children are always at a loss because the world is not theirs. In nutmeg town, three robbers are children-they are always led by their pets, just like all children.
This is a precious gift from fairy tales to adults. Because everyone has some memories of the good old life, simple people and the world will always be infectious to them. However, adults are hard to change. In the blink of an eye, they returned to the adult world-this is theirs, although it is a bit hard there. The best thing is always half-truth: when the air begins to clear up in the morning and there is a big red book on the pillow, you feel how beautiful the simple life is, as if layers of hard shells are peeling off from you, and you are a transparent person; But as soon as I looked back, the little red book disappeared without a trace. The simple life originally belonged to you, but now it seems that it has nothing to do with the real world and is of no importance to you-is that a dream? You don't even have time to think about it. Me too.
Childhood memories, simple life, hopes and dreams-for us, they are all floating substances. Sometimes they float to us, are sucked in like cigarettes, run into the lungs and melt in the blood, which is refreshing. More often, the upstairs and downstairs are separated. We don't know them, and we have never seen them. They are not only redundant, they don't exist at all-this is how we treat simplicity, dreams and our cecum. Be careful when you mention them, even a little embarrassed, because dreams or cecal attacks can hurt. For an ordinary person, it is undoubtedly inhuman to let him realize this all day.
But fairy tales can neutralize these and let people completely enter the pure world. Everything has two sides, everything has many possibilities, and half truth and half falsehood become truth. At the end of "The Residents and Robbers in Cardamom Town", it says: "Everyone can sleep peacefully at night, because, you know, there are no robbers in Cardamom Town now!" You see how satisfying this is-when you close this big red book, your forehead shines and your voice is loud, because there is a moment-it is only a short moment.