Qian Zhongshu was a literature master in the 1900s. Through works like Fortress Besieged and Human, Beast, Ghost, he left an indelible footprint on modern Chinese literature. His strong memory and language sense characterized his works with numerous quotations from diverse national literatures. Contemporary writers just praised him as “a walking library,” and he always surprised me with unproposed profound ideas and brilliant examples in several languages.
In his prose collection Written in the Margins of Life, he thought life was a thick book. People enjoy writing their life reviews, as they like commenting on books, but sometimes they draw conclusions even though the book of life is not finished. Qian chose to be a casual reader of the life book and casually wrote down his thoughts as marginalia. Because it’s a casual reading, he wrote down what was in his mind, without the limit of the guidance or education, including some “prejudices”, never minding the logic or format. It’s difficult for me to summarize the book’s content or style. So instead, I will just try to write down what I’ve discovered.
Qian talked about happiness in one essay. He pointed out that time flees in happiness, and remains in pain, which is reflected in various languages’ roots. For example, in French, “bonheur” consists of “bon” and “heur” (well and hour), and in Chinese, “kuai” in “kuaile” means “fast”. In old myths, there is a saying that “One day in heaven equals one thousand years on Earth.” Further, it should be much longer in hell. Good things are more difficult to pursue in our life.If exhilaration shrinks our life, why not endure the pain and have more time? Conversely, why do we trade instant happiness for lasting pain? Personally, I can’t fully stand with this point because I think there is no conflict between happiness and time. But Qian’s novel logic unveils something real in our life, which drives me to continue reading. Happiness occupies a much smaller part in our life, so it’s improper to describe life as “happy.” However, Qian added, we still could be optimistic about the “painful” life. He wrote, “Happiness depends on the spirit. The alchemy of the spirit turns the pain into the nourishment of happiness.” There are plenty of great men’s stories proving that. A greek poet said illness teaches people how to rest. I’m glad that spiritually, pleasure and sadness are mutually transformed. Therefore, it’s rational to pursue a happy life for oneself. Withstanding the lasting pain of life for instant happiness is a kind of humor.
Happiness always links to humor and laughter. In another essay, Qian separated them, and discussed the backside of social smiles. He asked, “How many people have humor and need to laugh to show it?” From his question, I realized an appalling fact that people (including me) do not always laugh because of humor, but use laughter to disguise their lack of humor. Humor and smiling are independent. Then Qian cited Henri Bergson’s Laughter (chapter 2), and explained that laughable things consist of a certain mechanical inelasticity where “one would expect to find the wide-awake adaptability and the living pliableness of a human.”. I also went to Bergson’s book and borrowed some sentences, “the vice capable of making us comic…lends us its own rigidity instead of borrowing from us our flexibility.” A man, running along the street, stumbles and falls; the passers-by burst out laughing. The man should struggle to keep from falling down, but a lack of elasticity prevented him from doing so. They laugh because his falling down is involuntary. From this perspective, the stereotyped fake laughter itself is funny. Sidney Smith, an English wit, described lightning as the wit of sky. Qian extended this view that laughter is the lightning on a human’s face. It isn’t reasonable for both the lightning and laughter to be frequent and lasting. Instant laughter, an expression of instant humor, is an attitude towards life, instead of an attribute. “Humor” in Latin means liquid. Liquid can not bear weight, but buoyancy can reduce efforts. One can’t make a living by selling laughs, but we need humor to ease the pressure of life. Bergson in his book also said “We do not render it more complicated; on the contrary, it simplifies us…This rigidity is the comic, and laughter is its corrective.” The real humor is the personal reflection of one’s life and therefore, it’s different for everyone. The essay stopped here since Qian’s intention isn’t satirizing social reality. (Here Qian is commenting on some corrupt customs before the New Culture Movement)
I found real humor in another of Qian’s essays, The Devil’s Night Interview with Mr.Qian. In this essay,the devil with a cold body went to Mr.Qian’s house by mistake after attending a banquet. Yes, the famous devil needs to socialize. Also, he cares about commodity prices and worries about being famous. He describes himself as straightforward and humble, knowledgeable and friendly, advancing with the times, and condescendingly tolerant of the world. He doesn’t like wars, because there is no direct relationship between wars and high-quality souls. It’s difficult to find a man with a soul in the 1900s, and without enough souls received into hell, the devil will lose his job. Therefore, he is depressed because he can not use his professional skills. As the interview continues, the devil looks desolate. Is Qian comparing himself to the devil? He said, “Biography is also one of self-expression; autobiography is non-biography.” Here, I decide not to draw a conclusion but to keep the veil of the interesting story. It seems that there is a real devil who visits at night and talks with a scholar, and then the scholar writes the experience down in the margin of his life.