Lesson 14 Mr. Ye Shengtao 23 / Zhang Zhongxing

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.