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林语堂把找到自己喜爱的作者比作找到“文学爱人”。林语堂曾是我的“文学爱人”，但我决定和他分手，原因是……
MyBreaking Up With Lin
Yutang
I
first read Lin Yutang's book The Importance of
Living when I was a senior, and it was love at first
sight. Till then, I had been a “hard
grind”， a straight-A
student who was used to pushing myself,
anambitiouslittle girl who'd
like to reach for the stars. I was always intense. When I opened
Lin's book, I entered a different world. It was like talking to a
wise, laid-back man who's lying lazily in an armchair. Everything
was so cozy. I was relaxed and refreshed. “Take it easy. Just be
yourself.”I could
almost hear him say, with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. Well,
I thought to myself, if “taking it easy”could lead to such perfect English and such a mellow style
of writing, why not?
I was discussing the Art of
Reading and the Art of
writing
from The Importance of
Living with my students this morning, and I had a
chance tosavor again those lines that used to
make my heart beat faster:
“I regard the discovery of one's favorite author as the most
criticalevent in one's intellectual development.
There is such a thing as the affinity of spirits, and among the
authors of ancient and modern times, one must try to find an author
whose spirit is akin to his own. Only in this way can one get any
real good out of reading. ...It is only this kind of reading, this
discovery of one's favorite author, that will do one any good at
all. Like a man falling in love with his sweetheart at first sight,
everything is right. ”
“In China, one often encourages students to‘study
bitterly'*. There was a famous scholar who studied bitterly and who
stuck an awl in his calf when he fell asleep while studying at
night. ...This was nonsensical. If one has a book lying before him
and falls asleep while some wise ancient author is talking to him,
he should just go to bed.”
“When a genuine literary personality is cultivated, style
follows as a natural consequence and the little points of technique
will take care of themselves.”
But my heart didn't beat faster this time. I still
foundLin's writinggood, but not
that great. Maybe I have grown. For one thing, Lin's English
doesn't seem to me “perfect”anymore. His sentences are loose, and at times bloated, and
therefore his writing lacks energy and momentum. He likes to
impress the readers with big words (I WAS impressed back in
college, but now I know better). The fact is, “the little points of
technique”won't
“take care of
themselves”if you don't
take care of them.
For another,Lin has overrated interest in
reading and self-expression_r in writing. We need to reach for
something higher than ourselves in reading, even if it means
“bitter study”,
and we need to make some conscious effort in writing instead of
just “letting our mouth
go”. Lin Yutang's
writingis not perfect. Even so, I'm sure he had
read and written quite“bitterly”himself to get where he was. He might as well have admitted
the truth. That reading boring stuff can
sometimes speed up our intellectual growth; that writing is hard,
but the joy you get out of it is well worth the suffering; and that
being a “grind”actually
helps tospark interest and cultivate
personality.
Lin's ideas used to liberate me. Strangely, now that I've
long been “liberated”, I find Lin's ideas misleading. My own
experience as a reader and a writer has told me that “taking it
easy” will never get us anywhere, for between “taking it easy”
and being lazy there is only a thin margin, and any writer worth
his salt has done his share of drudgery. I understand Lin's
emphasis on the “fun” part, which goes well with his free,
relaxed style. But he makes it all sound too easy, as if interest
or personality alone will get us through such an arduous
journey.
But there's at least one thing that Lin is right about. One
changes one's literary lovers over time. Lin used to be
mine.Today I've decided to break up with him—the
chemistry is no longer right. He is too lethargic for me now. Maybe
he hadn't “studied bitterly” enough.
Note:
*
To“study bitterly”is a literal translation of “苦学”
and therefore not idiomatic
English.
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