On the night of May 9, while my mother was finishing her transfusion, I stepped into a crowded Internet cafe not far from the hospital and was pleasantly surprised to see DanGold’s “Yi Meier”, saying that Xia Chuxingshi The first issue of the Yale American Studies Annual contained my review of the Asia Act. The news definitely made me excited and emotional. She was excited because it was her own writing that appeared in an English magazine for the first time; she was sad because she remembered the burning days in July last year, when she spent day and night studying and writing on the other side of the ocean. Moreover, Shu Ting had also encountered a similar situation before—— She went to Germany to "live and write for a year" and spent the years of "suffering from loneliness" in exchange for a beautiful and unique volume of "Berlin: A Silent Feather" (Huacheng Press, first edition, July 1999, page 290 , 17.80 yuan), is a book that seems to have more pictures than text.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. The participants in the academic exchange program are well known to everyone. As Shu Ting said, "Since I couldn't resist the temptation, I agreed to the expensive international air tickets paid by others and received free travel and sightseeing. The Chinese people pay attention to reciprocating what they say and don't break their promises to the world... ..." (Page 233, "Crying in Birds' Language"), you must agree to the other party's request, which is not excessive. Although our hazy poet has been in virtue for a long time, his spirit is not relaxed. Her letter home was very emotional, saying, "The heaviest and most difficult task is poetry, and poetry is the most willful and hard-edged thing. It requires opportunities and waiting." "Although you can't relax in writing long poems, before the end of March , I still have to submit seven short articles to "Deutsche Welle", and they need twenty articles per day. They have already sent the contract and have to publish it." (Pages 265 to 273, "Writing on Autism." : Newsletter on the writing of the long poem "The Last Elegy") Traveling alone in a foreign land under pressure, who can travel leisurely? "There is always something I can't finish writing, and I am always anxious and unable to relax. I don't sleep well, have night sweats at night, and feel sluggish during the day. I can't work at my desk until I have tea after lunch." I feel the same for her foreign sins, and it is rare for her to do so. Don't complain. Are female poets naturally better able to endure humiliation than their male counterparts? I can't forget that in the third volume of "Loneliness, Raising the Mao's Front Paw", there is an interesting fact that is not a joke: a certain poet whom she knew well was finally invited to come to Europe and took refuge in an isolated island villa to create. The first day, I walked, swam, and basked in the sun; the next day, I was empty-hearted and panicked, exhausted and wanted to sleep; on the third morning, I looked forward to the arrival of the boat, but before it could stop at the shore, I jumped on the boat: "Go, go, go!"
The heavy pressure on Shu Ting comes not only from writing poems and essays, but also from reading and meditation. She read books that even you and I might not dare to read behind closed doors: "I brought a whole box of philosophical theories, religious introductory works, and literary works" (page 147, "The Luminous Feather"). I saw people bringing books back from abroad, but I didn't expect that Ms. Shu would actually export them to foreign countries. As a result, she was wronged, "... stuffed into "History of Western Music" and "Expo of Ancient Chinese Culture" were all big bones that couldn't be chewed... As a result, her luggage in Hong Kong was 34 kilograms overweight, and she was fined more than 6,000 yuan. Hong Kong dollars. At such a price, as soon as I sat down and opened "The Essence of Buddhism", my head started to convulse violently, and I wanted to escape to the soft music playing on the FM music station. What you see is not a light feather.
Perhaps the cost of reading is the highest, so I feel that the best thing she wrote is the set of "Reading Notes" written by "Kan Zhang", if not counting the poetic and philosophical "Standing with Loneliness" and " Crossing to the Other Side" and "The Luminous Feather". Because, "After arriving in Germany, I had a house that was entirely my own, as the British female writer Woolf called for. For this reason, I set a strict work and rest time and writing plan for myself." Besides, it was only With Zhang Ailing, she read with the most enthusiasm and the most leisurely content. There is a confession as evidence: "I read "Interesting Notes on Apartment Life" and said, 'Flies are almost extinct on the sixth floor, and there are only a few mosquitoes. If they are imaginative, they will fly to the window and look down, and they will faint. Right? 'I had fun for a while, so I quickly closed the book. I have to save my time in Germany for half a year. Although I brought hundreds of books with me, they are good for the eyes (beautiful words and beautiful articles), nourishing the heart (quoting the past and drawing on the present), and nourishing the mind ( "There are only one or two ears of long-lasting food that are compatible with all three."
The book's preface "Try the Platter" says that she "tried a kind of 'cross-genre' writing. The structure allows a variety of literary styles to be connected together, such as: embedded in the handwriting of my father's critical illness, my son's composition in Germany, information, documents, diaries, poems, and my husband's "Remote Control of My Country" and "Education", etc. "This is really fun. It also has commemorative significance, especially for her and her family. She is somewhat like Walter Benjamin, whose "greatest ambition was to write a book composed entirely of quotations." In "Benjamin: Works and Portraits" (edited by Sun Bing, Wenhui Publishing House, first edition in January 1999, 266 pages, 10.00 yuan), an acquaintance translated it and said, "Benjamin has two short memoirs, ...describes his childhood and student life in Berlin, and is his most subtle self-portrait of himself. "But poets are different from philosophers, and they have different ideas. "I hope it is different from a travel guide. (There are more and more books like this), foreign student literature (there are also many), correspondence reports, part-time work diaries, or research papers on German society and culture. "She has no intention of playing the role of a reporter, but she enjoys preferential treatment as a reporter. , visited the film festival.
It is not difficult to see that those incomprehensible film review snippets and notes for the media are not the kind of writing that discerning readers expect. She seemed not to have heard that Ehrenberg said in Beijing half a century ago: "I am a writer, but I also work as a reporter. ...Writers in some countries look down on reporters and despise reporters. This is wrong. , because being a good reporter is much better than being a bad writer. However, being a good writer may not necessarily make you a better reporter.
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"China Reading News" June 14, 2000