Teacher Zhang Jie’s prose collection “The One Who Loves Me Most in the World Has Gone” has just been republished by the People’s Literature Publishing House. Her masterpiece “No Words” was also included in the “Mao Dun Literature Award-winning work” by the People’s Literature Publishing House not long ago. The Complete Works is published. Reading through these works by Mr. Zhang Jie, I can’t help but think of some past experiences with Mr. Zhang Jie. I have known Teacher Zhang Jie late, probably in 2005 or 2006. Teacher Zhang Jie is a friend of the writer Xu Xiaobin, and I am also a friend of Xu Xiaobin, a friend of a friend, and I became a friend.
The first time we met was at Mr. Zhang Jie’s house. Sister Xiaobin said that Mr. Zhang Jie read my article and wanted to know me, so we made an appointment and went to Mr. Zhang Jie’s house as a guest. Teacher Zhang Jie didn’t let me call her Teacher Zhang Jie, which stumped me. I didn’t know what to call her for a while, but she said, just call her Zhang Jie.
Zhang Jie (1937-2022)
Mao Dun Literature Award series “No Words” by Zhang Jie, published by People’s Literature Publishing House
Zhang Jie’s paintings
At the beginning, I was not used to it, because she is an elder who is nearly 30 years older than me, and is the only Venerable Chinese who has won the Mao Dun Literature Prize twice. But her stance was firm and indisputable. After a long time, she became familiar with each other, and she became accustomed to it. Anyway, everyone called it that way. Now that Teacher Zhang Jie has gone to heaven, I still follow her wishes and call her by her first name.
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True to his name, Zhang Jie gave me the most direct impression of Jie. At that time, she was nearly 70 years old, but she was still dressed so plainly and elegantly, unlike some ladies who gave up on themselves as soon as they got old. Every time I see Zhang Jie, she is so clean and neat, well-dressed, sometimes accompanied by a small floral scarf. She is concise and meticulous, without losing the sense of quality of an intellectual woman, which makes me believe that some women are more beautiful as they get older. , like Chen Jingrong, an important poet of the “Nine Leaf Poetry School” that I met when I was in college. That year, she was also in her 70s, and she was very thin. I remember she was wearing a small beige suit. She was very personable and very spirited.
Zhang Jie’s house is also very clean and spotless. I think she has a habit of cleanliness, and I have seen her mopping the floor over and over again, and I am really afraid of a speck of dust falling. Her daughter lives and works in the United States. She lives alone. The Red Hat Building is a house assigned by the Writers Association. I remember that there was a piano in the room. It was rare among writers of that generation to have a piano at home. Even if there was one, they were mostly bought for their grandsons and granddaughters to learn the piano. Zhang Jie’s piano, I think she played it herself. I have never heard her play the piano, but I have seen her paintings, one of which is hung on the wall. She also showed me other works and asked me to evaluate them. Unfortunately, I am not an expert in oil painting. She found her own painting language.
She has a straightforward personality, does not rub the sand in her eyes, speaks straight and does not bend, and must have offended many people because of this. I read “The Autobiography of Wang Meng” and said that there was a meeting between Zhou Yang and the writers. Zhou Yang said: “You must also be considerate of the leading cadres in various places. If you try it, you may not be better than them.” Zhang Jie refuted on the spot: “Then let them write novels.” After reading this, I couldn’t help but smile. It was Zhang Jie’s character.
Zhang Jie told me one thing: in the 1980s, it was also a writer’s meeting. A reportage writer saw Zhang Jie and said, “Zhang Jie, can I hug you?” Answer: “No.”
I also experienced a similar embarrassment. Once Zhang Jie talked to me about her novel “No Words”, because “No Words” just won the Mao Dun Literature Award not long ago, Zhang Jie asked me what I thought of this novel, I say that this novel takes the marriage of several generations of women in a family as the main line, depicts the magnificent history of China in the 20th century, and deeply excavates the human nature under the background of the times from the perspective of women and magnificent brushwork. It is both heavy and unique. . Zhang Jie listened to it for a long time and asked, “Have you read this novel?” I immediately revealed the stuff, because this three-volume novel with more than 800,000 words, how could I read it overnight, I just read it at the time To the abbreviations of the novels in the “Book Digest” magazine, as well as some chapters. What I said is the conclusion drawn from the part I can read, and it can’t be wrong. But Zhang Jie’s question made me break out in a cold sweat. I felt that Aunt Zhang Jie was too blunt, and she spoke without mercy, but in the final analysis, she was too exaggerated and unrealistic. Although Zhang Jie didn’t say much and changed the subject with kindness, I was deeply alert and warned myself: In the future, I must speak with some basis, and I must be in awe and not talk nonsense.
Many people don’t like Zhang Jie’s character, but I think it’s cute. Maybe because I’m her junior, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her criticizing me. If it was her contemporaries, she might not be able to stand it. I think she has a very good quality that is worth learning from her, that is, although she has too many grievances and grievances in her heart, she never talks about it. What she talks about to me, the younger generation, is all trivial and irrelevant. It is considered a literary world. Trivia, it’s okay. Even when we met in Spain in 2006 and had a lot of time to chat, she only told anecdotes from the past, not literary gossip and personal privacy. I have heard other senior writers scold Zhang Jie with the harshest words, but Zhang Jie never speaks ill of others behind his back, vents his own anger, and never gives money to himself in front of others.
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In 2022, I read an article by Mr. Han Xiaohui who misses Zhang Jie from Guangming Daily, saying, “As early as 1989, she won the Italian Malapati International Literature Award, this award. It is only awarded to one writer a year, and Borges and Saul Bellow are the winners”, “later Zhang Jie won the Italian Knight Medal, as well as German, Austrian, Dutch and other literary awards”, “1992 Zhang Jie was elected as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters… There are only 75 members of this academician in the world, and there will be no increase in the number of members. Only one person will be added after death. The only Chinese writers who have won this honor are her and Ba Jin.” These are all I know from Han Xiaohui’s article Yes, I have never heard a word from Zhang Jie’s mouth. In my eyes, she is a writer who loves writing and a person who loves life. Everything about her is so real and does not require pretense. In the eventful literary world, this is such a rare character. In my opinion, this is Zhang Jie’s greatest cleanliness addiction – spiritual cleanliness. This kind of cleanliness makes me respect, and this kind of character also affects my way of life.
In 2006, Zhang Jie said that she was going to Spain. I came back from the United States, and I was going to take a detour to Spain. After meeting with my old friend, the painter Leng Bingcheng, and then returning to China, we made an appointment to meet in Madrid. The meeting place was in the center of Madrid. Statue of Cervantes. At that time, there was no mobile phone, especially in foreign countries, and it was very inconvenient to communicate. I went to Madrid first, and everything was arranged, so I went to the statue of Cervantes at the scheduled time. After waiting for a long time, I wondered if my memory was wrong, and it was not until I saw Zhang Jie’s figure in the crowd of white people that I calmed down. I think it’s incredible, and I admire her very much. At such an old age, she still travels alone to a distant foreign country.
At that time, Zhang Jie’s foot strength was still good. In Madrid, from the Prado Museum to Plaza Mayor, he walked a lot every day, watched art exhibitions, and ate delicious food. I thought to myself that I should take more care of this old man, but later I found that she needed no care at all, and she was more energetic than me. She took me to the vegetable market in Madrid. It was clean and tidy. All kinds of fruits and vegetables were red and green, like a big garden. Every time I went to the vegetable market, Zhang Jie looked happy and would buy some local fruits. Never seen. It can be seen that she is a person who loves life. Of course, this is nonsense. If a writer doesn’t even love life, how can he still love writing?
Every day back at the hotel, we would sit down in the common area. Zhang Jie didn’t like that kind of star-rated hotel, but chose an old-fashioned apartment-renovated hotel with an old-fashioned elevator like in European movies, which can only stand for one person or two at most. This kind of hotel does not have a lobby, but has a public area where three or two sofas are good. We would sit there chatting after dinner, listening to her talk about her creative experiences and bits and pieces of the literary past. The names she said were all literary masters I saw in literary journals when I was in middle school and college. She talks so engrossingly, and I listen to it. Isn’t this a literature lecture with only me in the audience? It’s a pity that it was inconvenient to record at the time, and there was no post-recording after the event. After a long time, almost all of them were forgotten. I don’t keep records not only because I’m lazy, but also because I don’t think it’s inconvenient to record these personal conversations and publish them afterwards, which is disrespectful to the talker and seems too utilitarian. I don’t trust my friends. I think Zhang Jie talks about these people and things out of trust in me. If I write down what she said and publish it, it will violate her trust, even though they may be valuable. “New Literary History”.
Not only did I not write down a single word of the conversation between Zhang Jie and me, but I never asked Zhang Jie to sign the book, or even a photo with Zhang Jie.
My interactions with Zhang Jie left almost no memorabilia of every word and object, and it was completely “wordless”.
When I went to Spain that time, one thing made me feel guilty. When I was about to leave Madrid, Zhang Jie was going to a small seaside village (I forgot the name), and I was going to Barcelona to meet my friend Leng Bingbing. In fact, I felt that Zhang Jie wanted me to accompany her to the small village, but I had already made an appointment with Leng Bingchuan, and we couldn’t break the appointment, so I wanted to take her to Barcelona with her, but she refused to go, so we had to part ways in Madrid. Although Zhang Jie was used to being alone, she still felt unbearable when she saw an old lady leaving Madrid alone. Later, when I think about that trip to Spain, an indescribable guilt rises in my heart.
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Being alone and alone, this is another distinct impression Zhang Jie left on me. Wang Anyi described Zhang Jie as “smart on ice and snow” and believed that “sometimes people shouldn’t be so smart. If they are so smart, they will cause harm to themselves. If they are too sensitive, they will become vulnerable. It is better to be a little stupid.” Wang Anyi is kind. Yes, it also speaks to Zhang Jie’s personality. People need harmony, and even fireworks, but Zhang Jie is like a fairy and is too clean, so she will feel lonely, unsocial, and easily form a tension with the surrounding environment. Zhang Jie likes to get along with us children (as well as Ning Ken, Xing’an, etc.), because we are juniors and will not form such a tense relationship with her, and we will feel safe with each other. Of course, such a personality makes her writing, and the love and hate in her works are sharp and decisive. She is a lonely traveler in the Chinese literary world, and she has also made a myth in Chinese literature. A hundred years of loneliness, these four words can almost be used to sum up her whole life.
There is another thing that not only makes me feel guilty, but even feels eternal self-blame-although I went to see her in the Red Hat Building after returning to Beijing, but since Zhang Jie was brought to the United States by her daughter, I have been caught up in my own affairs all day long. I haven’t contacted Zhang Jie all the time. When I remembered to contact Zhang Jie “in my busy schedule”, I got the news of Zhang Jie’s death. I would like to borrow this text to apologize to Zhang Jie and hope she can hear it in heaven.
In her last days, she sent a letter to Xing’an, in which she said:
“Because it is only more than 100 meters away from the Hudson River, there are boulevards on the embankment. Although the sun is hot, the trees are densely shaded, and there are benches one after another under the trees. I spend a lot of time in the forest on the embankment. On the shaded road, I don’t think about anything, just sit and watch the scenery on the river.
“Everything in the past has left me, as if it never happened, and I have no regrets. It’s really strange that people have reached this point.” (Zhu Yong)
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责编：邱晓琴 ]