Lesson 14 Mr. Ye Shengtao 23 / Zhang
Zhongxing
Mr. Yip passed away on 16 February 1988. I
remember that it was the Chinese New Year's Eve of the old calendar, and when I
learned the news at night, firecrackers were ringing outside, and I never expected
that this broken and loud sound also sent him away, and my heart was
immediately covered with double layers of sorrow. After attending the farewell
ceremony, I always want to write something, one to talk about my feelings, and
the other as a souvenir. But three months passed. Yili, or Yili, should pick up
the pen as soon as possible. What to write about? This is difficult.
First, he has many achievements and great achievements, and he cannot write
enough; Second, the text of "The Life of Comrade Ye Shengtao" was
printed at the farewell ceremony of the body, and the life's work has been
concisely stated; Third, the works are equivalent to people, as well as
literature, education, language, etc., which are enough to nourish future
generations, and there is no need to bother with words. But the commemorative
text is still to be written. In order not to repeat it, I intend to choose the
subject matter along two lines: one is to write about me, and the other is to
write about what is not found or not obvious in the Gao Wen canon.
The first time I met Mr. Ye Shengtao was in
the early fifties, when I edited textbooks, and he led the compilation of
textbooks. Before this, of course, I knew him, when I was in school, when I
read a lot of new literature. At that time, he had not yet used Ye Shaojun's
name in words. My impression, for example, compared with Lu Xun and Yu Dafu, Lu
Xun's writing is more sharp, Yu Dafu is talented, and Mr. Ye is just a plain
rule. After getting acquainted, I had more and more contacts, and I felt that
although the impression of the past could not be said to be wrong, it was too
shallow; At least not touching on the most important aspect, character.
"Zuo Chuan" says that there are three kinds of immortality, and the
first one is Lide. In this regard, as far as some of my familiar seniors say,
Mr. Ye Shengtao should always be at the forefront. The thinking of Chinese
readers, after the Han and Wei dynasties, did not go out of three big circles:
Confucianism, Taoism, and Shi. The situation of adulteration is very
complicated, such as people who are Confucian and Taoist, or Yang-Confucian
vagina; Some people are Confucian and half-interpreted, or half-Confucian; Some
people are Confucian, and poor are cultivators; Wait a minute. Mr. Ye Shengtao
does not agree, but a single Confucianism, thinking like this, acting like
this. This sometimes reminds me of the words in the Analects, one of which is:
"If you bow down to a gentleman, I will not gain anything." One place
is: "Never tire of learning, never tire of educating people, what is there
for me!" In both places, Old Master Kong thought that although his heart
yearned for it and could not do it, Mr. Ye Shengtao did it. Therefore, I often
tell others: "Ye Lao is not only a gentleman, but also can learn without
tire, and teach people tirelessly, so he is indeed a teacher of people." ”
Everyone who has some dealings with Mr. Ye
Shengtao is touched by his profound treatment of others. A few years ago, I
once heard Mr. Lu Shuxiang say that when he was in Shanghai, he went to Mr.
Ye's house one day and saw what Mr. Ye was writing and correcting. This time he
was educated, and since then he has written articles, the punctuation of the
text must be clear, and he does not dare to be hasty. My interaction with Mr.
Ye Shengtao in terms of literature and ink began with the joint revision of the
textbook. At that time, he had just come to the north and spoke Suzhou dialect
with his hometown and southern dialect with people from other places. But he
wrote articles firmly in Mandarin. He was rusty with Mandarin, so he asked
shamelessly and asked me to help him cultivate. Out of respect for him, I would
like to refrain from writing directly, but only to make some deliberative
comments. "You're welcome," he said. This is laborious, or directly
changed. Not limited to language, anything wrong can be changed. Don't be
cautious, for fear of making inappropriate changes. I don't think it's
appropriate to change it back. "I obeyed, you're welcome, and did so. But
he did not give up politeness, for example, if there were one or two places
where he thought he could not move, he would come in person, humbly and
earnestly ask me, and agree to agree to restore it. Of course I agreed, and
said, "Do whatever you want, don't talk to me again." He said,
"Okay, that's it. "But next time I will discuss it as if it is me who
should be in charge, not him."
In addition to words, in daily
interactions, he is also consistent and generous. For example, some things that
can be counted as the end of the day, something, or nothing, go to his house to
see him, take his leave, block him from sending away, no matter what, he must
still walk through three doors, four steps, and send him outside the gate to
say goodbye, he bows, says thank you, and watches the people go on the road
before turning back. In my later years, I remember two times when I couldn't
get up, I went with some people to greet and leave, and he always raised his
hand and arched, or kept saying thank you.
The great storm of the Cultural Revolution
came, and I saw a big-character newspaper posted to him, but fortunately, it
was like a gust of wind and rain, and it passed in less than a moment. But it's
always inconvenient to communicate, not to mention that I can't take care of
myself at that time. Therefore, I can only silently wish the old man to be able
to do as the "Book of Shang" said: "The emperor has no
relatives, but virtue is auxiliary." "Almost ten years have passed,
and I am relieved to know that the old man is fortunate to live in peace, and
his food and housing are as old as before. At that time, I graduated from
school according to some documents from the early seventies, because my wife
was a person with two hands who was still eating idle meals in the city, so I
had no right to return to the city to live, and I went to the countryside with
one on my shoulders. It was probably the spring of one year in the
mid-seventies, and I stayed in my wife's and daughter's house as a temporary
hukou, and took time to see him. His family said that they rarely went out, and
on this day a friend came to make an appointment and went to the Temple of
Heaven to watch the moon season. I asked for a piece of paper and left a few
sentences, in which I talked about the rural residence, when I came to Beijing,
I wrote the address at the end, what apartment is in a university in the
western suburbs. I received his letter the next day. He said that he was very
remorseful and really should not have gone to the Temple of Heaven to see the flowers.
He saw that my address was an apartment, thought that the apartment must be a
hotel, and felt very sad to think that I had worked in the capital for so many
years and finally became a hotel. When I read the letter, I was also very sad,
not for my own displacement, but because I thought of the social phenomenon in
the past ten years, and there were fewer and fewer people like Mr. Ye Shengtao.
Mr. Ye Shengtao was very kind, and on one
occasion more prominently, he spoke at a small meeting. Probably "discussing"
big topics like criticism and self-criticism, he said, this, he can only do
half, self-criticism; As for criticism, he is not unable to see the
shortcomings of others, but he always can't say the shortcomings of criticizing
people in person. This can only do half of the style, whether it is right or
wrong, naturally it is a matter for the benevolent and the wise to see the
wise. Here I can only talk about my own feelings, that is: at least sometimes,
or from a certain point of view, virtue will be more powerful than force,
because it can make people self-respect, and strive to be worthy of the leak.
The above is to treat people kindly, which
is the broad side of Mr. Ye Shengtao. He also has a strict aspect,
self-discipline, which includes self-cultivation and "standing up for
one's own desires, and attaining oneself as oneself attainments." Self,
person, thought and action, the scope is too broad for me to lose, except to
mention one aspect that I know well and should be highly valued, the
"language" aspect; This is still too broad to narrow down to the
seemingly unproblematic question of what language should be used in writing. It
is not a problem to say that it is not a problem, because: First, looking at
history, it seems that it has long been solved. That was when the early people
shouted about the literary revolution, and the words were inconsistent in the
past, such as saying, "I feel right", and the text had to write
"Yu Ranzhi", which not only added unnecessary burden, but also was
not easy to understand, so the two should be merged into one. At first, some
people, such as Lin Qinnan and others, did not think so, but this was the trend
of the times, and the public opinion was returned, and soon the whole world was
unified, reason, and decided that how to say it should be written, OK, and
write the vernacular with a pen. Second, look at reality and write, not in
classical Chinese, but in Mandarin. But there are still a lot of hidden
problems here. Since the period of the literary revolution, there should be
questions about what the so-called vernacular refers to (such as Kong Yiji's
vernacular, Lu Xun's vernacular, Beijing citizens' vernacular, etc.), whether
it can be written this way, and whether it should be written like this.
Regardless of this, after the literary revolution, many well-known and
not-so-known writers, as well as the vast number of people who could write
without starting a family, always did so. The result? In my opinion, except for
a few people and individual genres (such as dialogue in novels and dramas), it
is only "not to leave". No, it is not the same as the colloquial
language of street talk; No matter what, it can always be counted as a refined
and coherent colloquial language that is elegant. This is all in the past. The big
problem worth paying attention to is that most of the popular texts, from the
point of view of terminology, compared with the past, the component of
impropriety has obviously increased, so that the component of inseparability
has correspondingly decreased. This manifests itself as verbose, twisted,
embellished, obscure, not like words. Not like words, it has an impact, it is
unnatural, it is not concise, it is not easy to understand. Writing in this
way, some come from having more than enough in the heart and not enough, and
some from what to see and learn; But more often it comes from understanding
(even if it is not very clear), thinking that otherwise it would not be a text,
or even not enough to be called a text. With understanding as the basis, the text
that is not immediately separated will prosper and grow, and finally become a
matter of literary style. Mr. Ye Shengtao firmly opposed this style of writing,
and he put forward a positive proposition to "write words". Writing,
roughly speaking, is how the mouth says, how the pen writes; To add some
detail, what is written, from the point of view of language, should be concise
and coherent in terms of oral speech.
When we were together, we often talked
about writing articles, and he said more than once: "Write an article,
read it in this room, let the people in that room listen, it is talking, not
reading the manuscript, it is considered to pass." "Different people
will react differently to his opinion. For example, in recent years, many
people have preached obscurity, and many more people have followed the trend of
obscurity, and they will laugh at the proposition of using conciseness as
words. This is limited by the topic, and should not involve too much, or even
provoke debate. Although some of the details of my opinion and writing need
further explanation, in general, or as a high standard of wording, it is always
both correct and symptomatic. It is correct to say that this is the old
tradition of seeking consistency in words and texts since the literary
revolution. It is correct, because the current style of writing that is
detached from the spoken language or even deliberately away from the spoken
language is creating a "new literary language". It is called
classical Chinese because it is only found in writing, and it is not said in
the mouth. The new literary language, which is difficult for the vast majority
of people to easily understand, will be worse than the old literary language,
because the old literary language is short, the new literary language is long,
the old literary language is straightforward, and the new literary language has
more detours. Not short, not straightforward, coupled with the difficulty of
understanding the results, it becomes a symptom. There must be symptomatic
medicine to remove the symptoms, that is, to write words, and the proposition
of writing words will encounter two types of difficulty problems. One is what I
just said before writing, thinking that this is not a text, and the people of
Xialiba disdain. Understanding, belongs to the difference of one thought, but
it is not easy to change, you have to learn slowly, compare more, carefully
experience, and seek quick success can not be done. The other is that after
writing, my experience, let's say that it is a Xialiba person, the writing is
concise and natural, so that the Xialiba people listen to the words, not easy,
but difficult. This also depends on learning slowly (reciting more texts like
words), comparing more, and understanding carefully; In addition, it is necessary
to add the method mentioned by Mr. Ye Shengtao, after writing, you can try to
read and listen to it yourself, see that the words are not like words, not like
words, and resolutely change them. Mr. Ye Shengtao is so strict with himself,
so what he does is his own writing style, easy and natural, clear and concise,
meticulous and earnest, reading, smooth, listening, pleasant, speaking like
words is not enough, that is, words.
In terms of style, Mr. Ye Shengtao also
attaches great importance to "simplicity". Conciseness should be a
requirement within the writing of the text, and it is mentioned separately here
because Mr. Ye Shengtao often mentions that it is targeted. He said with some
emotion: "You write an article, show it to others, and people delete one
or two words for you, and the meaning has not changed, it proves that you can't
do it." Regarding complexity and simplification, about revision, Lu Xun
mentioned word segments. Mr. Ye Shengtao only speaks words, and my experience
is, firstly, to use words, and secondly, it is intended to emphasize that the
spirit should never be complicated if it is simple. But the reality is often
that it should be simple and more complicated. Complexity sometimes involves
the content aspect, meaning worthless, or even worse, of course, not writing.
The content will also raise complex issues of other nature, which are not
matters here, but only terms. The simplicity and complexity of the terminology
has become very popular in recent years, and there are many types and tricks,
and I talked about it in more detail a few years ago in the question
"cumbersome procrastination" in my humble work "Essay
Miscellaneous", and I cannot say much here. My thoughts, worthy of
attention, are not to use more or less words or two, but to use less and more
of this love of redundant mood, it expands, pervasive, will become the wind.
Take the last two words as an example. One is "up", the power is
getting bigger and bigger, occupying more and more territory, such as "I
saw the teacher", "he sat in the front row", concise and
natural, but now almost have to write "I met the teacher", "he
sat in the front row", becoming both cumbersome and awkward. The other is
"too", such as "smoking is not good", "that person I
don't know", is also concise and natural, but now almost all have to write
"smoking is not very good", "that person I don't know very
well", becoming not only cumbersome, but also unreasonable. Deleting such
a nonsense word not only does not change the meaning, but also changes procrastination
and unreasonable to concise and reasonable, but few people are willing to
delete it, so it is no wonder that Mr. Ye Shengtao sighed with emotion.
Among some of the seniors and peers I know,
Mr. Ye Shengtao should be said to be the first to value language, strive for
perfection, and lead by example. The above is a general terminology aspect. He
was equally conscientious about every aspect of his writing, from a single
punctuation to the format of the copy, and he never relaxed until it was
completely appropriate. I remember that in the early fifties, he found that the
division of labor between "doing" and "doing" in textbooks
was unclear, and which one to use followed the writer's freedom, so there was a
phenomenon that this place was "called" and that place was
"called". This is not a question of right or wrong, it is a question
of inconsistency in style. Mr. Ye Shengtao believes that this should not be
done, and that it is necessary to set a standard and seek the unification of
publications throughout the company. The result of the discussion was
determined to be "action" and "doing", and
"acting" and "doing", and only some of the historical ones,
such as composition and self-inflicted suffering, are still consistent. After
the decision, Mr. Ye Shengtao supervised the implementation, so there was a
clear division of labor between "doing" and "doing".
Mr. Ye Shengtao, man, in the past, I often
think of his achievements. Still taking the three immortals (Zuo Chuan) as the
standard, "Lide" is a matter of "Taishang", which should be
respected and there is no problem. The question is how to follow suit. There is
a distance between the two eras, how likely is it that they are connected? But
in any case, pessimism is always undesirable, and the way to know the
difficulties without fear them is to keep in mind and learn. The same is true
for the language side,—— no, there are more difficulties, because not everyone agrees with
the rational aspect. If everyone approves, optimistic empty words are of little
use. But hope, even if it is not great, should not be given up because of lack
of optimism. The hope is that anyone who holds a pen, especially if he writes
intentionally or unintentionally, will always think about Mr. Ye Shengtao's
proposition for writing words, and the deep painstaking effort with which he
put forward it. |
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