Afterwards

So, this is not a book about May, but about myself, my aftermath, and my survival.
Have I sailed past that dreary equatorial doldrums? Where am I heading? Or perhaps, where am I returning from? The sails of my writing have been lowered for a long time. The sky and water merge, the mist thickens, and the memory of May is like a magic mountain. It seems I not only accompanied her on a journey of gender identity, but she also accompanied me on a very long journey of writing identity. Even in the years when she is no longer with me, her image and her writings are a comfort and a sting to me. We were once opposed, yet we also played the role of listeners. Whether we were constantly striving for higher goals or digging deeper into our inner selves, we argued, but ultimately came to terms, realizing that we were not in great conflict.
This is a book that has been slowly accumulating over time. In some places, the writing is astonishingly good. Her mature writing and this work can address many questions, including the premature death and rupture of the fifth-grader generation; it can answer how a female writer navigates emotions, trauma, and death, or how she experiences the death of a lesbian friend, and then returns from the denial of writing to the process of writing. — Zhou Fenling's novel "Afterwards" is not a secret, not an autobiography, not an inside story, not a confession or repentance, and certainly not just a confession. Rather, it is within the literary republic of the novel that the meaning of carnival and clamor can be established. We unarmor ourselves with prejudice, bias, and preconceived notions, and follow the novelist's line of thought, trance-like, calling upon the silent dead, and together completing the inner journey of the inn. I would say that Lai Xiangyin, having finished writing "Afterwards," emerged from this world with the courage of a living being who takes on a righteous responsibility, the dedication of "Ji Zha Hanging His Sword" as bright as the sun and moon. -- Lin Junying: We are too romantic. We all must die once in our youth. After such a death, looking back, everything we see will be different... I am proud of your determination to finally reclaim your right to write, because this is the story of an era, about how you survived, not about why someone died. -- Guo Qiang: When the fog of life gradually dissipated, they were no longer there.
How can I continue to live with those stories of hurt? I can't forget them, but I can't always remember them either. Stories of hurt are often both beautiful and ugly, and they, no matter what, have brought out a person's best and worst potentials to the extreme. If I don't fully understand what's inside, I have no right to preserve them.
Some pages of the book of life have been torn out, making it difficult to read the story from beginning to end, but we will still persevere and finish reading it.
I have no power to prevent lies and harm from entering my life, no power to crystallize things into a moment of ultimate beauty—if that's what you and I, our youthful hearts, insist on doing—I can't do it, and death isn't the solution. On the contrary, in the fleeting time after death, all I witness is change, the vast transformation of the world, the metamorphosis of people and the qualitative shifts in their emotions. All this is unstoppable, and often justifiable. What more can I say? Tears and cries have replaced the overwhelming loneliness, permeating every pore. But believe me, the soul has its own immortality. If you were still here, you would surely feel the same way I do. There's no need to panic. Be lonely, be alone. Be present with loneliness, observe its appearance closely, and once you've become familiar with it, there's nothing to panic about.

2012-05-01

印刻文學

256

9789866135859