Natsume Soseki's Poppy Grass: How to deal with things that are gradually "outdated" in the changing times?

Although under the baptism of democratic education, we all know that language and culture are equal. But at the same time, we also secretly know that specific languages and cultures actually have different forces (even "profits") in life, and there are different levels of emphasis.

In an era that no longer uses classical Chinese to write, a society that no longer pays attention to Taiwanese communication... Wait, the most common problem encountered in education is how much effort it takes to promote or retain some that have gradually been ignored. things? Even, why not let those things just drown in the trend of the times?

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Japan, which was in the midst of the "consistency of words" movement, was also faced with such a situation. The literary world at that time often debated the style and doctrine that literature should follow and develop. And in this kind of shock, the novel "Puppet Grass" was born.

"Poppy poppy" refers to a red poppy flower, which is considered to be very coquettish and beautiful, so it often means beauty in ancient texts. But at the same time, this flower is also highly poisonous. So it is also a metaphor for the scourge behind beauty. However, in the novel, the metaphor of the poppy grass is not only the temptation of the beautiful protagonist Fujio to Ono, but also the illusion of prosperity brought to Japan by Western civilization.

The plot of this novel is very complicated, and there are many characters, but the progress of the story generally revolves around a main axis. The heroine - Fujio is a long and beautiful, beautiful, and at the same time highly educated, elegant, and passionate about literature and art. To her, how much intelligence, thought, gentleman's manners, etc. a person has represents how much noble taste and charm a person has, worthy of her friendship. At the same time, because of his outstanding knowledge and attractive appearance, Fujio has a high self-esteem, and despises women or men who generally have little knowledge and free thinking, thinking that they are just "pathetic women with good wife and mother" or "rude women". A person who does not possess noble ideals and character, is not worthy of his own respect. She considers herself like a lavish Cleopatra who must be pampered. For those men who want to pursue themselves, it is necessary to repeatedly make things difficult and bewildering.

Under such circumstances, Fujio fell in love with a poet named Ono, thinking he was full of talent. However, despite always showing obedience and showing affection to Fujio's toying, Ono didn't really like Fujio. The reason why he and Fujio were getting along was actually for the money of the Fujio family. At the same time, he believes that if he can climb this marriage, it will be an honor for him, because Fujio has a high degree of qualifications regardless of appearance and talent. This kind of thinking makes Ono fall into the fantasy of a better future even if he doesn't really like Fujio from the bottom of his heart. In this, he accompanied the beauties, talked poetry with them, and enjoyed all kinds of glory and wealth. This kind of fantasy slowly soaked his life. In the past, he didn't care about appearances (as long as he didn't get too sloppy), and he didn't care about money. Now he starts to pay attention to whether he dresses decently and is a gentleman, and is easy to feel nervous about his response and manners. Just like the description in the text: " The eyes of the world are not just watching, but also interrogating. He even felt like he was wearing a dress to watch a play, but because he was very surprised that the size of the pattern was up to date or outdated, resulting in He couldn't concentrate on the drama. Ono felt ashamed. He walked as fast as he could in the crowd. " And because of the large expenses, it was natural to have to worry about money.

These schemings were all watched by Fujio's half-brother, Kono. Although he tried to remind his sister and stepmother, they failed to listen. The younger sister Fujio is even more deeply immersed in the sense of vanity that Ono has towards her, blindly thinking that her brother is just a dead and old-fashioned philosopher (Kano's college major is philosophy), and she and Ono can only communicate through "literature". The romantic mood of the metaphor will only say some big truths that others do not understand and are useless.

In the novel, Kono and Kono's friend, Zongjin, form a great contrast with the characters of Fujio and Ono. Although both Kono and Zongjin are familiar with Western knowledge and ideas, they also have some insight into modern civilization. However, they did not fall into the illusion that "the moon in foreign countries is relatively round" and identify with a completely Westernized Japanese society. On the contrary, they believe that although Japan at that time introduced a large number of cultural things, it did not absorb or ignore these things seriously, but was just like a girl who kept consuming, excited to wear all kinds of novel clothes. , blindly following the so-called trend. Especially Kono, when discussing "the fate of Japan" with Sokin, he replied: " People are usually killed unknowingly. " Isn't this the fate of Fujio and Ono? " People who want to close the holes of the past are usually content with their present life. If the present is not good, they will create the future. " The hallucinations produced by the anxiety of intellectuals. At that time, Japan, which was constantly trying to become one of the great powers, was in this kind of blindness.

The book Poppy Grass is full of dialectics between old and new cultures. Different values, confusions, and ideas collide with each other in complex plots, arguing over each other. For a longtime Natsume reader, however, what is truly surprising is the style of writing the book.

Readers who are familiar with or have seen Natsume Soseki's works will know that Natsume Soseki can almost be said to be the author of "I write with my mouth". His sentences are simple and clear, and his reading is more fluent. It's as if reading is like listening to someone tell his story next to you. But "Yu Mei Ren Cao" was unexpectedly written in parallel Japanese, haiku, waka, poetry and other classical literary forms mixed with vernacular Japanese.

This means that when you are reading this book, you will sometimes see Chinese characters that you have not seen before appearing in paragraphs of the article, or, from time to time, you will see sentences with allusions in the book, as well as interspersed Gorgeous paraphernalia, poetry to describe the situation. Therefore, there will be long and leaky notes next to it (a total of 240 notes in 360 pages). Usually it is to explain an uncommon word, name of a person, name of place, name of an object, or who wrote which verse, what it means, etc.

But the interesting thing is that even if this is a novel written in the form of classical literature, it is not only not as mouth-watering as you think, but also interesting. Let's take an example~ In the description of Jiaye and Zongjin's mountain climbing process, there is a passage like this: " Turn a corner, turn a corner, or this side, or that side, there is a reverberation of twists and turns. The spring in the mountains is gradually fading, and the snow on the top of the mountain is fading in spring. In the cold, under the heels of the towering peaks, there is a dark sheep-gut road, and the Ohara woman (referring to a woman living in the suburbs of Kyoto) climbs the slopes to meet her. The cow also comes. The spring in the capital is dragged along like an old cow peeing, it is long and quiet. ” In this passage, Natsume Soseki breaks the gap between classical Chinese and vernacular that we generally think in the past, so that the classical character (application of sentence pattern) in vernacular and the vernacular (easy to understand) in classical Chinese are blended together. In the description of the scenery, it seems that they are like Kono and Sokin in the story, and the two complement each other to form a rich sense of picture. Or like the following description: " At the age of 24, I still haven't married, it's really hard to figure out. The Xichun courtyard is at night, the flowers and shadows are fragrant and the railings are full of fragrance. Seeing that the day will be exhausted, there are many resentments in the arms of the Yaoqin..." I would be jealous too.” The woman slashed at the man with a voice as quiet as a spring breeze. ” Seeing this, we have to admit that this is a very rich association, and just a few words can suddenly bring people into a strong sense of the picture. The characteristics of artistic conception are indeed the most powerful places in classical literature and poetry. Natsume Soseki took advantage of this point to bring the plot into this atmosphere. After the next few sentences, the conversation changed, with the refined vernacular line of "a woman slashes at a man with a voice as quiet as a spring breeze", to cut through the too strong The classical artistic conception gives the concrete action of "holding the yaoqin with many resentments", and continues the tense plot after laying out the melancholy artistic conception.

Through such a spreading method, the modern civilization and citizens of Japan at that time appeared in front of the readers in a peculiar image, because we seemed to be watching and reading the prosperity and new trends of modern cities and residents in a classical Chinese, classical description and artistic conception. . Through the gorgeous and ethereal descriptions of classical words and the novelty of these civilized things, we not only do not feel that classical and old things are inferior to new ideas, on the contrary, we feel that both are equally broad and profound. Moreover, this way of writing completely sets off and expresses the special spirit of Japanese writers who were originally influenced by Chinese education when facing and contacting Western ideas: while still in the classical artistic conception-style imagination and writing mode, try to experience modern times. The minds, emotions and dilemmas of civilization shock. In other words, this way of writing fully expresses the Japanese sentiment and spirit hidden under the appearance of modern society.

Natsume Soseki's "Puppet Grass" was not well received in the literary circles at that time, and the realist writer, Masamune Shiratori, thought that this novel was completely showing off his writing style, and talked about it in an outdated way. A pile of useless big truths. There will be such a view, I think, maybe because the writing method of "Popular Poppy" is different from the realistic, natural or romanticism that the literary circles emphasized and pursued at that time? Who knows, looking back at this novel today, you can suddenly find that the reason why Natsume Soseki wrote in such a way is that he secretly criticized the creative mentality of the literary world at that time who only wanted to pursue Western literaryism? Or, to put it another way, rather than people wanting to imitate foreign thinking, what Soseki Natsume wants more is to expand and develop new space for old literature by introducing foreign things, rather than directly changing and erasing it. Destroy the old style. Try to make the old style as well as the new style to express more complex situations and feelings, or even to supplement the mood that the new style is not easy to express.

From this point of view, Natsume Soseki's "The Poppy Grass" has given us a very important revelation. For things that are gradually becoming outdated in the changing times, the way we face, educate and reform them is not blindly negating and sublating. He is not blindly insisting on completely clinging to and retaining him. Instead, he tried to use, through more or less improvement, or a different writing path from the past, to find a way to make his writing echo and express the situation encountered by contemporary people. After all, even if you want to keep an "outdated" thing, and give him room for education. The purpose of this education should not be to enable people to recite ancient words and content in the future, but to use them to find and express feelings that are still difficult to express today.

In this novel, Natsume Soseki's love for Chinese poetry and Chinese writing can be considered as a thorough insight. It is also because of this that he has the idea and hard work spirit to write this book. Although this kind of language is "outdated", as he said in the novel: "You can't see thousands of miles, but you can see thousands of miles of heaven." Find your own piece of paradise

(Original post on Blog: Literary Lab)
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Reprinted from Key Comments Network: https://www.thenewslens.com/article/130872