"We often see returning to our hometown as stability or comfort, but the point is that it may be a more complicated thing, and we need to talk more honestly about these complicated experiences." March 6, 2021, afternoon Abdul Razak Gulna, winner of the Bell Prize for Literature, said at the first event of his visit to China that what he writes is his experience and his understanding of things seen and unseen, which may be "what others have never expressed" way of seeing”.
This is the first time for 76-year-old Gurna to come to China, but China is not an unfamiliar name to him. He was born on the East African island of Zanzibar, just steps away from the port. When I was a child, "when I walked in some areas along the coast, I might pick up beautiful pottery fragments, which are said to be relics left by Zheng He's fleet..."
It is reported that during the 9-day trip, from Shanghai, Ningbo to Beijing , Gulna will hold talks with Chinese writers such as Ge Fei, Sun Ganlu, and Mo Yan, visit the Modern Literature Museum, and hold multiple book signings.
Celadon fragments picked up on the other side of the Indian Ocean
On the afternoon of March 6, with the theme "We must talk about pain", Gurna and the writer and Mao Dun Literary Award winner Ge Fei shared their literary world.
In his speech before the dialogue, Gurner said that he has actually been fascinated by China for a long time: "I have heard since I was a child that we have had frequent contact with places on the other side of the ocean. Walking along the beach in some places on the coast, You will pick up fragments of celadon, which are produced in China and are historical relics left by Zheng He's fleet. In some stories, the Chinese did not leave with the fleet and stayed on this land forever. To be honest, this kind of cross-country The stories of foreign connections sound like legends or myths, but the colorful evidence of human activities that I see at my doorstep every year makes me believe that they are true."
"When I read his book, it immediately came to my mind. A map of the world emerged." Ge Fei shared his first impressions of reading Gurna's works at the scene. What surprised him first was the very complex spatio-temporal relationship in Gurna's works, such as the African continent and India and Malaysia in Asia. , Singapore, as well as Ireland in Western Europe, the then Democratic Germany and other places, and then deeply explore the complex connections between different cultures, races, nationalities, religions and literatures. "This also gives us a very important revelation for contemporary Chinese writers: it is simply impossible to write today without a global vision."
When reading Gulner's works, Ge Fei also clearly felt the "clarity" of the works. "There are very few ambiguous parts in the book, and there are some very minor characters. Gurner will also introduce the lives of these characters one by one. This has some inherent similarity with Homer's epic: "The German scholar Auerbach has a very important point in his "On Mimesis". He said that Homer did not bother to arrange suspense and attracted everyone through dramatic conflicts. And then deliberately left some tense and ambiguous places for everyone to guess. In Homer's writing, nothing is dark." Ge Fei pointed out that before the 16th century, people paid attention to "rhetoric to establish sincerity"; after the 16th century , "sincerity" is gradually replaced by "truth", "I have been thinking recently, is it possible for us to return to 'sincerity' while pursuing 'truth', which is the light in our hearts. I am reading Mr. Gurner's works At that time, you can clearly feel that 'sincerity' and 'truth' exist at the same time."
The pain of "unreachable"
In the works of the two writers, "pain" is a common theme. Ge Fei once said: "There is a lot of pain in life, and this pain is fixed." Gurner said frankly: "You have to talk about the things that cause you pain."
Gurner believes that as we grow older, pain in life will be inevitable Accumulated over time, "Pain is a strong emotion, different from physical pain. Pain reflects that the growth of time has brought me more understanding and appreciation of life. Therefore, I write about pain and the anxiety of young people." Different.He recalled his father’s state at the end of his life, “I saw him sitting quietly alone looking at the street, and I asked him, ‘What are you thinking about? ’ He replied, ‘I’m thinking about things that cause me pain. '"
"In "One Thousand and One Nights", the ending of the story is the same, "They lived a beautiful life from then on until their hair turned gray for eternity." 'Every time you read this place, you will feel that all the suffering and unfortunate entanglements in the world have been resolved. This is the charm of traditional literature," Ge Fei said. "But modern literature is different. According to Benjamin, , which is dedicated to explaining and finding the meaning of life rather than providing you with moral teachings and wisdom. I think pain is a kind of darkness. You are in it and you don’t know the reason. If you want to seek light, you must go to the darkness to find it. So I have to write about pain in my works. "
In Gurner's novel "By the Sea", different characters have their own interpretations of Melville's "Bartleby the Scribe". In Gefei's view, Bartleby should be "the most painful character in the history of literature" "One of them. His catchphrase is "I'd rather not", and he refuses to do anything except copy. Tracing back to the origin, it is probably because Bartleby works in the "Dead Letter Bureau" and deals with countless unreceived "dead letters" every day. "It's hard not to feel pain when dealing with, burning the words, emotions and valuables delivered in envelopes, and experiencing all the tragedies in the world." These works describe the core of pain in modern society, which is a kind of 'unreachability'. "
Nostalgia is not about being far away from home, but about losing it.
In Gurna's novels, the relationship between immigrants or refugees and their hometown is repeatedly written. The host and professor of East China Normal University Mao Jian pointed out that it is similar to many "homecoming literature" in China "Different from the positive descriptions of his hometown, Gurner satirized both Europe and Africa in novels such as "In Praise of Silence" and changed people's imagination of Africa.
In this regard, Gurner believes that "returning literature A major feature of "" is that the writer or narrater has the ability to return to his hometown, but in his own novel, some characters may never go back. "He has a sense of guilt and betrayal. I believe This is a feeling shared by those who voluntarily left their hometown and those who were forced to leave," Gurner said. "The key is that we have to be more honest about the different complex feelings and write about what you see. This kind of literature There is an originality in it. "
From "Jiangnan Trilogy", "Looking at the Spring Breeze" to the recently published "Dengchuntai", Ge Fei's novels also contain a large number of descriptions of his hometown Jiangnan. He believes that returning home is an important link between traditional literature and modern and contemporary literature. Common themes, for example, Joyce almost rewrote Odysseus' return home in Homer's epic poem "Ulysses". "The German Romantic master Novalis once said a famous saying: Modern philosophy is actually "It originated from homesickness, and Nietzsche also said that his writing came from homelessness." Ge Fei said that whether it is the freedom of returning home or the pain of not being able to return home, "returning home" is always a strong creative motivation.
side Some readers also expressed doubts about the strong nostalgia in the work. Regarding this, Ge Fei analyzed: "In "A Dream of Red Mansions", Qingwen must exchange underwear with Baoyu before she dies. My mother left home at that time and was afraid that she and her sister would never see each other again, so we exchanged socks with each other and kept them preciously. With the convenience of transportation and information today, we no longer have to face so many separations of life and death, and we don’t have as strong emotions as people did in the past. It’s not that people have become indifferent, but that our society has undergone fundamental changes. Gurna responded: "Nostalgia does not mean being away from home, but losing it." ”
Intern Guan Xien Modern Express/Modern+ reporter Jiang Sijia Chen Xi
(Photo provided by the organizer)
