Reading Flaubert's "Dictionary of Common Views" (middle): An ambition to subvert authority, standards and collective consensus

Last time we talked about the transformation of "power discourse" and "power structure".

This is not a simple transformation, it is a transformation of the entire power structure, the discourse of power. We talked about the concept of discourse in Nietzsche's episode. It is the complicity of knowledge and power, and it is the all-encompassing discourse of power that defines various social systems, organizations, laws, and morals. Here, it is discourse that defines the unequal language and power structure of critics and critics.

So how is this rule written? This brings us back to the discussion of the book "Dictionary of Common Views". Flaubert's choice of the style "dictionary" was no accident, it was a genius decision after careful consideration. For when we want to reveal how knowledge systems and language paradigms dictate and manipulate the distribution of knowledge and power, nothing is more representative than the lexicon, which is precisely the concentration of all these powers, the one that announces to all human beings The fundamental rules of society: what is what, what is higher and what is lower, what is right and what is wrong, what is class, what is standard, what is authority, what is truth, what is false, and what is system. These rules may not be what you feel every moment in your daily life, but every step of your life moving forward is inseparable from them: from what is a man and what is a woman, whether cigarettes are harmful, fat or not How to lose weight, whether to lose weight, how to build a model to understand human emotions, whether animals are afraid of pain, what is comedy, what is tragedy, what does intelligence represent... until the foundation that supports it - rationality, what is science, rationality is higher or emotion Higher, so that how we manage our feelings, . Therefore, Flaubert's choice of the style of the dictionary is a perfect example of how he can find a new way of defying stereotypes for literature, for writers, and for mankind.

Therefore, in The Dictionary of Common Views, Flaubert turned his focus to the destruction, play and reconstruction of the stylistic and discourse rules represented by the dictionary. That is, from what is said (that is, what is commonplace) to how we say it (that is, in what way, language, tone, style...) . Our focus has also shifted from the previous analysis of plots, thoughts, and characters to the social discourse itself, or coding system, such as style, form, and language. Now we know,

The focus of the title of "Yongjian Dictionary" is not "Yongjian", but "dictionary" .

🛶｜From the "dictionary"? ｜🛶

(1) WHY "dictionary"?

Let's talk about what Flaubert did to the style of the dictionary to find another way to fight against common sense? Here I want to make a one-sentence explanation. We will treat "dictionary" and "encyclopedia" as synonyms below. From a stylistic perspective, they are one kind of thing, but the encyclopedia is larger, more detailed, and more complex.

Speaking of the dictionary, there should be no one who has never used it in their life. From elementary school, we have accompanied our "Xinhua Dictionary" and "Modern Chinese Dictionary", until after college, "Ancient Chinese Dictionary", "Idiom Dictionary", "English Dictionary", "French Dictionary", "Encyclopedia Britannica", etc. Etc., as a style of writing, dictionaries are familiar to all of us. There are also countless dictionaries of their own in various professional fields. Everyone's understanding of the dictionary is very consistent. The dictionary is like a ruler of knowledge, and it is recognized as the most objective, authoritative and standard knowledge.

Like all genres, dictionaries have their own history of development. It was a long time ago that people compiled a thing similar to today's "dictionary", but not necessarily in the same way. Since ancient Greece, there have been many books that systematically write knowledge, and there are also many dictionaries like Erya in ancient China. However, the earliest source of the "dictionary" or "encyclopedia" understood by us modern people is not so ancient. It mainly refers to a set of things developed since the Enlightenment in the 18th century.

I don't know what comes to mind when you mention the "18th century Enlightenment". We should know some of the characteristics of the Enlightenment movement in history books. We have heard the names of famous leaders of the Enlightenment movement such as Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Holbach. He was the successor of the Renaissance, a radical thinker who firmly opposed the church, and a passionate advocate of modern knowledge and popular enlightenment. At the same time, we should also have heard of the famous " Encyclopedia " that they compiled together. They are also better known as the "Encyclopedia School". This encyclopedia is arguably the first dictionary and encyclopedia in the modern sense. Encyclopedia Britannica, the authority in the encyclopedia world, was first written in imitation of its style.

Why do we say that the "Encyclopedia" written by Diderot and other French Enlightenment is the founder of the modern dictionary style? Because it has established far more than the style and popularity of the encyclopedia or modern dictionary, its more important significance is the establishment of modern science and modern knowledge system. The "knowledge" and "truth" we now understand, their meaning, disciplinary setting, interrelationship, practical significance, etc., were fully established during this period in human activities represented by the compilation of encyclopedias. Why do you say that?

First, it recognized for the first time the centrality of human knowledge, which was in complete opposition to theocracy , and quickly developed into worship. The biggest conflict faced by the Encyclopedias at that time was the conflict between what they advocated for humanistic spirit and theocracy, the conflict between what they advocated for human enlightenment and awakening and the Christian church's efforts to trap people in ignorance. Science and knowledge are the most powerful humanistic weapons in their hands. This is why most of the Enlightenment thinkers' life has been condensed into the compilation of this encyclopedia.

Second, for the first time, it recognizes science and knowledge , rather than religious teachings, as "truth" and a guide to human society. To name a few, the earth is no longer the work of God, but an astronomical sphere with its own properties; the flames in the laboratory are no longer a sign of the devil's mood, they are the result of chemistry; man is no longer sick because of the devil Only the prayers of the church can cure it. The human body is a complex and sophisticated organism, and pathological changes may come from any abnormality, damage, or mutual forces in any part of the body... Of course, these changes are to replace theological and The Church's domination and suppression of human beings, it has indeed done. Since then, it has fundamentally rewritten the knowledge system and academic discourse of human society. Science and knowledge have replaced religion and gods, and began to influence the development of human society. It can be said that when they produced such an encyclopedia containing all the science and knowledge of the time, they consciously produced the first human canon. The style of the encyclopedia has also become the projection of the canon (authority) of the structure of the universe in the human society.

Third, it established a modern knowledge classification system for the first time. We have been using this classification system to this day without fundamental changes. Perhaps more important than the classical status of human knowledge is the establishment and standardization of the classification of knowledge, because this is the key to truly changing the knowledge system and structure of modern people. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the biggest revolution in the human brain. We need to know that classification is not just an index game. For human beings, it means the order of everything in the world, such as the relationship between heaven, earth, and people in the world. What do we put God in? Position, where to put people, where to put animals; similarly, what and what we regard as the same or closely related things, how we view our bodies, how we view the position of the soul, and how to understand the difference emotions and the relationship between the different senses, etc. In other words, in a sense, it is categorization that creates for us the world, human beings, society, ourselves, as we now understand it .

For example, before the encyclopedia school, knowledge was monopolized by the church, there was only one world, and that was the Christian world that believed in God; there was only one way to know the world, and that was through God, through Christianity, through the church, the Bible and its system of interpretation, Understand the only truth in the world. In the minds of the people at that time, Christianity was not a kind of knowledge, it was the totality of knowledge, the world itself, and all sciences were subordinate to it. In our modern academic sub-discipline, "Christianity", which was once synonymous with "world", "relegated to" a discipline in the modern scientific system - theology (or, religious studies). We regard Christianity as a type of various religions, and religion is a type of human thought activity. It is a human subject that is completely equal to literature and art. The knowledge of religion, like physics, mathematics, literature, and philosophy, is in theology. The knowledge that can be imparted in a department or a department of religious studies.

Of course, we must all be aware that knowledge classification systems and standards are often quite different in different cultures. For example, China has its own knowledge classification, structure and standards throughout its long history, and it is constantly changing. This topic is too complicated, and it is not in the topic we are discussing now, so it is not listed here for the time being. Because we have to admit that the "dictionary"/"encyclopedia" discussed here as the establishment of a modern knowledge system, although the source and background are in the West, is the authority that most countries and cultures around the world, including us, are pursuing. System, authoritative knowledge, authoritative standards.

Then say it again. Did you see it? On the surface, it seems that the knowledge classification system has changed, but the actual change is a fundamental change in the entire epistemological system.

The content of knowledge itself may not have changed, but the framework and paradigm in which we understand knowledge has completely changed, so the status, structure, relationship between knowledge and knowledge, the relationship between knowledge and us, the way of imparting and learning knowledge, and the relationship between knowledge and knowledge have changed. The relationship between powers has also changed.

The above three aspects are what we call the "encyclopedia school" which establishes the meaning and significance of the new academic and intellectual paradigm in the modern world.

Today, we have fewer and fewer opportunities to consult paper dictionaries. Wikipedia (Wikipedia) and various electronic dictionaries or resource banks on the Internet, and even forums, have become our daily sources of knowledge. Although wikipedia is now a so-called "decentralized" dictionary that everyone can contribute, the "modern science and knowledge system and rules" laid down by the encyclopedia have never changed, that is, what is knowledge and what knowledge should How to write, understand and learn, what is the objectivity, authority and standard of knowledge, these rules have not changed; moreover, with the blessing of technology, this net is getting tighter and tighter, and scientism is just around the corner. to claim to take the place of religion.

It is worth noting that the encyclopedias of the French Enlightenment were published preemptively, and the lineup of editors at that time was not without luxury: Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Holbach … Because of the special historical background at that time, each editor, as a genius thinker who shoulders the mission of resisting theocracy and the church, was compiling the entries with a mix of narrative and discussion, putting a lot of his own ideas and ideas into each entry. The idea seems to contradict our current general impression of encyclopedias, namely their objectivity, scientificity, and universality. For this reason, this set of books caused a huge uproar in the society at that time, and was banned by the government and the church for many times; but it was also because of the same reason that it failed to come out of its own era and was buried in the long river of history. Today, it is difficult to read the original text of this encyclopedia, except in the rare book reading room.

What really shaped our understanding of the encyclopedia was another one, the Encyclopedia Britannica. It copied the style of the French version, but on the contrary in content, it was extremely objective, conservative, and tried not to incorporate any personal views. As a result, it has been on the market for three hundred years and has become a model for the encyclopedia world. From this little historical allusion, we can also clearly see that the French Enlightenmentists, as rebels at that time, held high the banner of "knowledge" in front of theocracy and the church and cheered for the awakening of mankind, but But I didn't have time to realize that once this brand-new banner at that time became the general consensus of mankind, it would become a new "theocracy" and a new "religion" that surpassed mankind in the future. It just changed its name. , called scientism .

The compilation of encyclopedias by Enlightenment thinkers and the publication of the "Encyclopedia Britannica" not only established the status of modern scientific knowledge and scientific classification system, but also set off people's continuous enthusiasm for knowledge and encyclopedias. From the end of the 18th century to the entire 19th century, it was an era of extreme advocacy of knowledge. In our previous issue on Nietzsche, we also talked in detail about the soaring status of science in that historical context, as well as the importance of literature, art and religion. The general repression of the humanities and the arts. Even if we look at the astonishing number and breadth of encyclopedias published in various countries and fields in the 19th century, as well as the tenfold or even 100-fold increase in the size of encyclopedias compared to the 18th century, we can understand the What a frenzy of scientific knowledge.

This is the real world that Flaubert faced when he wrote "The Dictionary of Common Views"; it is also an important background that we must understand when we understand "The Dictionary of Common Views". It is no accident that Flaubert chose the style of "dictionary"/"encyclopedia" to express his opinions and defiance, but the result of his careful choice.

The "dictionary" here has a typical representation of a style, which is not only a style that best represents standards, authority, collective opinion, and commonplace, but it is also endowed with the highest level of power, that is, it is also all other styles. , the definer of all knowledge.

Flaubert used the "Dictionary of Common Views" to issue the earliest and most influential protest against this knowledge system, this scientism, which dictionaries/encyclopedias have represented since the 18th century.

(2) Opening of the dictionary style

So the question is: how?

Let’s start by recalling how we felt when we first read this book, when we asked ourselves this question: Is this really a dictionary?

Yes and no. There is an air about this book, which is "serious nonsense". It looks like it's a dictionary, and all of the dictionary's surface style features are preserved, such as the alphabetical format, the writing format of the entries, and the title of the book itself, everything is "standardized". But a closer look shows that although it is still in alphabetical order, the choice of words is completely arbitrary, neither seeking complete blame, nor focusing on any specific subject or topic; the definition of entry is not a standard authoritative definition at all, but a seemingly authoritative definition. Relevant and seemingly unrelated divergent descriptions, full of personal, casual tone; the dictionary is not a dictionary, but two characters in the novel - two ordinary scribes themselves compiled "documents". Obviously, this is not a dictionary as we normally understand it.

This is the first thing Flaubert sets out to unpack—the lexicographical style, that is, the default rule that makes the lexicon the lexicographical style as we understand it. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are, above all, objective, scientific, and authoritative. It is a serious scientific style, but also a style that has nothing to do with literature and art, or even the opposite. The function of the dictionary is to teach everyone universal and objective knowledge, so as to guide everyone's study and life.

But let's see, what is taught under the entry of the "Yongjian Dictionary"? The clichéd but effective words, ideas and practices in social activities, these words, ideas and practices are full of history, individuality, regionality, contingency, and have nothing to do with objectivity, standards, and integrity, but we have to admit that it is true sex. It's like the casual conversation and commentary between friends chatting or characters in a novel. These were originally only suitable for novels or popular pamphlets, but Flaubert turned them into dictionary entries, filling them with so-called objective definitions, scientific explanations, standard answers and The void of common truth.

Let’s pick a random word—poesie, poetry—and see how it is included in three different dictionaries.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., p.877-890, poetry . After the overview, the discussion is divided into four sections:

• (1) What is poetry? The following lists various famous views on poetry genres in history, and gives rich examples.
• (2) what is the position it takes up in relation to the other arts? Explain one by one the relationship between poetry and other artistic genres, such as music.
• (3) what is its value and degrees of expressional power in relation to these? Analyze the psychological mechanism of poetry production.
• (4) what varieties of poetic art are the outcome of the two great kinds of poetic impulses, dramatic imagination and lyric or egoistic imagination? The question is obvious, the following are all about the classification of poetry according to various criteria, and examples of each category and Description, etc.

Poetry entry for the French edition of the encyclopedia. Much shorter than Encyclopedia Britannica, but still quite long. There is no point-by-point discussion. Like a complete narrative, it also covers the definition of poetry, comparison with other genres, and the psychological mechanism that poetry needs to mobilize. It uses many contemporary examples and introduces a lot of contemporary the controversy over poetic style.

Poetry entry in Flaubert's Dictionary of Common Views (just one sentence):

poetry . Totally useless. out-of-date.

It can be seen that the "Yongjian Dictionary" has nothing to do with the style of the dictionary except that it is called "dictionary" and wears a "dictionary" coat.

The lexicographic style, which had been perfectly closed (to form authority), opened up, and the lines between it and other styles, especially those that were formerly the opposite of it, such as literary styles, became blurred. As a result, the dictionary style was completely opened, and the dictionary became a novel, an autobiography, prose, poetry, drama, speeches, refrigerator sticky notes, lyrics, diaries, letters, and everything! The reverse also means that everything can now become a dictionary.

We only need to imagine that if the more than 10,000 Chinese characters included in the "Xinhua Dictionary" are strung together and written into a novel, or the interpretation of each character, instead of the current style, a poem or a song will be used. , a painting, a short film, a note, a diary, or even a small piece of old newspaper, an old trademark, it's not hard to see what it means.

This is why Flaubert's posthumous work, his most ambitious work, was deliberately designed by him to be a hodgepodge of literary styles , a mixture of novels, dictionaries, picture books, quotations, indexes and other styles, and there is no fundamental difference between them. There are no strict boundaries: a novel is a dictionary, a dictionary is a novel, a dictionary is an index, an index is also a novel, a novel is also a citation, and a citation is also a picture book... This point, we have learned from the modern knowledge system about various styles and their boundaries. The regulations are completely opposite, and this kind of provocation or even subversion of everyone's existing stylistic concepts is exactly what Flaubert had in mind.

In this way, we have completely dismantled the dictionary style, and liberated the originally tightly closed, self-consistent and self-explanatory style system and language symbol system, that is, those inherent paradigms that are determining how people speak and think. The extremely closed style of the dictionary is now completely open to seemingly random style and language challenges, revealing its own problems little by little. Because we know that it is useless to oppose common views with common views, and it is not easy to be noticed that the dictionary style itself is one of the greatest common views. Giving another version of the explanation for a word or a concept, hoping to attack the previous version, is just a left-handed language game that doesn't solve any problems at all. The only way out is to establish a new linguistic and stylistic rule, a new way of expressing discourse, and a new paradigm of knowledge.

As the most authoritative dictionary style, which can give authority and standards to all other styles, it can be completely dismantled, and the opening of any other style will naturally no longer be a problem.

This is Flaubert's real ambition in writing the "Dictionary of Common Sense", and it is also his real greatness.

(3) Dictionary of Personal Narratives

If opening the style of the dictionary, giving the style infinite openness and fluidity, and hoping to establish a new language knowledge system and rules, is Flaubert's first intention to destroy the style of the dictionary, then his second important The method is to replace (and cancel) the universal, authoritative, and collective truth statement of the original dictionary style with a completely personal narrative . For example the following examples:

minutes . People can't imagine how long a minute is.

landscape painting . Always like a big plate of spinach!

olive oil . Never met a good one! There must be a friend in Marseille who can send you a small bucket.

children, children . Pretend to have tender feelings for them - in public.

we all know,

Different from the traditional, stylistic, and standard "objective narrative", the personal narrative is not right or wrong, it is special, accidental, situational, and individual. Literature and art are its representatives.

Today, the so-called "objective narrative" has long since plummeted in people's hearts. However, in Flaubert's era, the use of personal narratives to deliberately provoke and protest against the scientific and authoritative "objective narratives" represented by dictionaries was quite earth-shattering.

You know, in the discourse system represented by dictionaries and encyclopedias, literature itself is only a kind of science . Since the Enlightenment, the Encyclopedia School has always placed literature under the overall science, and as a branch of the humanities, it is side by side and equal with mathematics, physics, biology, medicine, religion, etc. Although they belong to the humanities and Natural disciplines, but there is no difference in the fundamental principles they follow, that is, they are all one of the sciences characterized by objectivity, seriousness, and universality .

For example, about what a "novel" is, it must be explained by specifying three elements: characters, plot, and environment. It should be divided into long novels and short stories according to the length of the text, and divided into sequential narratives, interludes, and flashbacks according to the narrative sequence. Divided into first person, third person, according to the style is divided into realism, romanticism, naturalism, modernism, and so on. For another example, when defining "beauty", it is not to cite various phenomena of beauty, but to try to understand the perception capabilities of different human senses, the different ways the human mind responds, and whether it is of interest to people, etc. angle, and make an explanation that is as scientific, accurate, and convincing as possible.

All this shows that literature in this sense is still a science. Although in the dictionary "literature" is (deliberately) defined as a humanities discipline distinct from the natural sciences, with one or another character, the definition itself, and the way it is understood, defined, taught, and taught by people The language used for it is as scientific and rational as other natural sciences. In this context, the fundamental difference between literature and mathematics and physics is only the difference in the materials and content handled. Right or wrong, unfortunately, this is the official, authoritative, and only correct "literature" that we must study on our behalf.

The great thing about Flaubert is that he was the first to reverse this scientific discourse on literature, the first to try to redefine "literature" .

He had ridiculed and denounced those second-rate and third-rate literary critics, who defined his work as "naturalism" to mark his difference from the so-called "realist" writers. For Flaubert, these "isms" are the most stupid and ridiculous, the most superficial and trivial dismemberment, and they are out-and-out common sense, and these people who can only label things as "isms" are the The person Flaubert despised the most in his life: a literary critic. The main reason is this. This is not literature. For Flaubert at least, this is not only not literature, but the exact opposite of literature .

True literature and art are carriers of personal narratives. As an individual, concrete, and fluid narrative that does not submit to objective, accurate, and universal scientific authority, it is what Flaubert considers the greatest undertaking of mankind, and it is the enslavement of human beings from mediocrity and scientism. The last hope for rescue. It is the only uncertain, soft, fragile, colorful, living thing in the deterministic, hard, grand and common ruins of the world composed of "scientific truth". Something that makes people live happily and contentedly, not indiscriminately and efficiently.

It can be said that this is the real intention of Flaubert's "Dictionary of Common Views". Only literature can put this gigantic scientist, objectivist demon - whose "dictionary" is its spokesman (as is the State Department's spokesman) - temporarily to sleep and protect people from escaping through the back door one by one, like a fairy tale like the heroes in saving the world. Therefore, Flaubert confessed his heart to his friends countless times, declaring that literature was his lifelong career. He did exactly that, dedicating his entire life to his beloved writing career. Now, we can answer the questions you asked earlier :

Why do we want to read a book like "The Common Sense Dictionary" that seems so "literary" and interesting?

That's because, not only does it not lack literariness, but it is it that redefines literature and literariness.

Since then, literature is no longer just an article defined by the three elements of characters, plot, and environment, and is no longer just a "standard style" that defines and classifies itself by fiction or non-fiction, rhyme or no rhyme. I created a new norm of discourse: every sense can make your senses directly feel your own real existence, feel the joy, beauty, warmth, horror, change of the outside world, and feel the happiness, pain, loneliness, and happiness of the inner world. Everything that satisfies . . . is literature and art; whatever is contrary to it, whether it is cookie-cutter, boring, so-called "objective", scientific, universal, good for you, should be, must It is, has been, and will always be... it is not literature, it is not art, it is not literary, even if it calls itself poetry and fiction, even if it is placed in the category of literature, even if it is written in textbooks , taught aloud in all classrooms - sorry, it's not literature.

Even, we should not rush to define it at all. Because "definition" means that it is still a scientific discourse, a product of static observation and cognition. Zi Zai on the river said: The deceased is such a gentleman! Our lives go by day and night, and no minute or second is truly static. How can we find a perfect "literature", a static definition, to perfectly "define" our life? impossible.

The literary revolution that Flaubert initiated in the distant 19th century had already been met with a large number of responders in the 20th century. We have had a lot of "Flaubert" appear, and a lot of "dictionaries of common sense" have come out. We can cite two famous examples, one is the "Maqiao Dictionary" by the Chinese writer Han Shaogong; the other is the "Mivos Dictionary" by the Polish writer Milosz.

"Maqiao Dictionary" is a strange book. According to the author, this so-called "dictionary" was written for a village in a remote area of Hunan, which was sent to him when he was an educated youth. This village is called Maqiao (in real life). Miluo). The entries in the dictionary are all local dialect words, and under each entry are the stories and life experiences of local people, and dialects are also used in many places to explain and describe. For Mr. Han Shaogong, the "dictionary" is just a form he borrowed. In fact, this is not a dictionary, but a novel, which records the living languages spoken by people and their living thoughts in a living village. , their living emotions and desires, joys and sorrows. A dictionary records a real, living person, an era that has passed but is forever alive, an era that cannot be forgotten in the author's own life and in the lives of his contemporaries. We can give an example, look at the entry " Old Watch", how he wrote:

First of all, the book briefly explains that the word "Laobiao" refers to the fact that after the bloodbath of Zhang Xianzhong in Hunan in history, "hundreds of thousands of Gan people filled Hunan". Many Hunan people moved from Jiangxi at that time, so Hunan people used to refer to Jiangxi People are always called "Old Watches" to show closeness.

Three hundred years later, in the 1960s, there was a reverse wave of Hunan people filling Jiangxi, mainly due to the great famine at that time. So the author tells a story. The protagonist is called Ben Ren, who was originally from Maqiao and later fled to Jiangxi. Here is his story:

I later met a man named Ben Ren who came from Jiangxi to visit relatives in Maqiao, about forty years old. He gave me cigarettes and was commensurate with my "old watch". After my curious inquiries, he said that he went to Jiangxi because of a can of grain pulp (see entry "pulp") - he brought back a can of grain pulp from the collective canteen, which was the family's dinner, waiting for his wife. Come back from the ground and wait for the two cubs to come back from school. He was too hungry to eat his own portion first. Hearing the sound of his own baby at the entrance of the village, he excitedly threw the pulp into the bowl, only to find that the jar was empty when he lifted the lid. His eyes darkened with anxiety. Where did the jar of grain pulp go? Could it be that he ate it all in one bite before he knew it?

He didn't believe it, and frantically searched the house again, there was no pulp everywhere, and all the bowls, basins, and pots were empty. In this year, there will be no dogs and cats to steal food, and even the earthworms and locusts on the ground have long been eaten by people.

The baby's footsteps are getting closer and closer, and it has never been such a terrible sound.

He felt that he had no face to meet people, and he couldn't explain to his mother-in-law. He hurriedly ran to the slope behind the house and hid in the grass. He faintly heard the crying at home, and heard the mother-in-law calling his name everywhere. He didn't dare to answer, didn't dare to cry out his voice. He never entered his house again. He said that he is now cutting trees, digging medicines, and burning charcoal in a cave in southern Gansu. Of course, more than ten years have passed, and he has a new litter of cubs there.

His original mother-in-law had also remarried, and without blaming him, she took him to the house for a pilaf meal this time. It's just that the two cubs recognized their birth, played on the mountain, and didn't come back when it got dark.

I asked him if he still plans to move back.

After I said that, I knew I was asking stupidly.

He smiled slightly and shook his head.

He said the same, and living there is the same. He said that he is expected to become a regular worker in the forest farm there. He also said that he and several other people who went from Maqiao lived there in a group, and the village was also called "Maqiao". People over there also call Hunanese "Old Biao".

After two days, he went back to Jiangxi. It was raining lightly on the day of the walk, so he walked in front, his old mother-in-law followed behind, about ten steps away, probably to give him a ride. They only had an umbrella, which was held in the woman's hand, but did not open. When he crossed a ditch, he pulled the woman, and soon separated another ten paces, and walked forward in the rain and fog.

I never saw him again.

This is the example of Maqiao Dictionary. Let’s see how it borrows the form of a dictionary to complete a novel, and how it replaces the objective and grand historical narrative represented by the dictionary with individual life stories and local narratives (represented by dialects).

The other one, the Milosz Dictionary, has all the entries based on the author's personal life experience, like a memoir in the form of a dictionary. Because the author is a Polish living in the United States, there are many entries about American politics, cities and life. Let's see how he wrote the entry - "America" ! Read the last few paragraphs here:

America in the 20th century took a leap forward that she could not have imagined before. At the turn of the century, artists and writers fled to old cultural centers like Paris and London from what was considered a dull, materialistic country that only knew how to make money. By the end of the century, artists and writers from all countries had once again embarked on a journey to America, a land of opportunity. Today, New York, not Paris, is the painting capital of the world. Poetry, which has shrunk to an antique collection in Western Europe, found audiences on American college campuses, entire departments, colleges, and awards. I realized that if I had stayed in France, I would not have won the Neustadt Prize in 1978 (which is seen as a small Nobel Prize and is generally the first step to winning a Nobel Prize), or later Nobel Prize.

It is difficult today to imagine how far America was from Europe at the turn of the century. An ocean separates two continents. When people talked about travel they thought of shipwrecks, and they appeared in pictorial magazines throughout the 19th century. My first trip from England to America was in the winter of late 1945 to 1946, and the journey took about twelve days. The small steamship hurriedly climbed the mountain of water, and then fell into a trough suddenly, and then continued to climb. Later, air travel across the Atlantic was not uncommon, and I even got on a Concorde in France at one point: dinner with wine had just arrived on a cheese plate, and we were already in Paris.

People headed for America, and most stayed in America, but occasionally some went home. Not far from the estate where I was born, in the beautiful and affluent village of Pekswa, there is a striking "American House". Then something happened that, simply put, opened a corner and provided a glimpse into what really happened in Lithuania, where agriculture was collectivized under Soviet rule. Located on the edge of a large forest, this village once helped the "Forest Brotherhood". The family living in the "American House" was killed, the house burned, the villagers were exiled to the taiga in Siberia, and the village was razed to the ground.

My wife Yanka's father was one of those who came home from America. Before the First World War, Ludwik Dłuski worked for several years in several metallurgical plants on the east coast. I think of him whenever I see the rusting shelves of abandoned factories in New York City's North Hudson Valley. In those old-fashioned factories, Mr. Duskey was up from morning to night, and his fate was like that of other people who did not work on their own land. They did not enjoy the rights and benefits that the union later won. He's back in Warsaw, where life may be tough, but it doesn't have to be a life-and-death job (he's a bailiff), and, at least, less lonely.

It can be seen how far the literature of the 20th century represented by these two dictionaries has gone on the road that "Yongjian Dictionary" has opened up alone. The opening, flow and fusion of dictionaries, and the resistance and dissolution of personal narratives against human knowledge and power discourse have become the norm in the literature and art of the 20th century. Moreover, it is obviously not limited to a single style of dictionary. All traditional literary styles, all grand narratives, all the discourses of power symbolized by dictionaries and deeply woven into every language we use every day face the challenges and destruction of literature and art, as well as contemporary society. .

Just to name a few examples. "Ulysses" is a difficult book to understand, but aside from the gap caused by the language details, if we learn more about the ancient Greek classic "Odyssey" that it parodied, we can know how it can make the vulgar trivial , extremely boring modern life scenes are transplanted into the human epic genre that is recognized as great, grand, serious and noble, and also makes various collages and mixtures of styles and languages that seem to be most casual and even vulgar. All sorts of incomprehensible language games, endless streams of consciousness, and geeky collages of vulgar and high stylistics and styles, if we look at the work's own destructive intent rather than its creation and construction , will be much easier. We just have to imagine how a rebellious civilian with a big hammer and a big stick would rush into the Parthenon to destroy and insult the idols; or more closely, imagine just rushing into America with all kinds of guys The rioters in Congress, how to rush into the Congress, smashing, looting, rubbing desks, looting computers and even coins, and holding up their rifles and sticks to take pictures with the statues of successive presidents and famous paintings on the wall, you will know It's easy to see how Ulysses managed to destroy stylistic boundaries, as well as the rules of language. In the literary world since the 20th century, there are many such examples.

The same is true for other art forms. Electronic music, which is very popular now, can also be said to be our 21st century "symphony", which symbolizes that people are constructing a new paradigm, a new world that reflects the new world they are living in. Paradigms, including, for example, what can be music, what can be mixed with what, how other art forms can join in, how people and music can interact "equally", etc. Many modern dances are not only full of a mix of various dance styles, but also deliberately confuse the boundaries between artistic performance and life experience, breaking the previously strictly defined boundaries between "art" and life. Such examples are really endless. Today, there is hardly a literary and artistic style that we are familiar with, and there is almost no relationship between people, people, things, things and things, which has not been questioned, challenged, or replaced. , blend and rebuild.

In fact, more than a hundred years after Flaubert, this conflict has become so common in our contemporary literature and art that it has almost itself become a newly woven classic discourse that is about to slip into a new "common view" ".

Flaubert spent his entire life advocating literary writing and personal narrative that escaped the discourse of modern scientism, and established a new attitude of contemporary literature and art: subversive, destructive, individual, diaspora, absurd, non-centered, Meaningless... In the next article, that is, the last article of the "Dictionary of Common Views", we will continue to discuss whether such literature, such personal narratives, can be the salvation of our contemporary world?

Happy Readependence Day!