Accidental Collection

Author: Zhong Shuhe
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-10-01
Features: Preface In the winter of 2000, I also published a collection titled Accidents, with the following lines printed on the cover's "fold": This book is a selection of articles written by Zhong Shuhe during the twenty years from 1988 to 1999, and was kindly included in the Literary Xiangjun Collection·Prose Formation. However, the author was timid about "enlisting," and inserting it into the "formation" made him afraid of not keeping up with the team. Thus, he exchanged the cover with this one. The name "Accidents" was chosen because writing articles was originally accidental, and publishing this book was also due to an accident. Coincidentally, the title of the last article is also Accidents, so it was named Accidents. The earlier Accidents was only printed in dozens of copies, all intended for friends, and was quickly distributed. It was a book without an ISBN, no price tag, no official release, and not listed in the national book catalog. As for the Zhong Shuhe Volume of the Literary Xiangjun Collection·Prose Formation, it was naturally a formal publication. The seventy-seven articles it included, however, only a few were reprinted in this Accidents, and like other articles published in newspapers and magazines, they were all revised to some extent. The earlier Accidents was named after Accidents, and this Accidents also includes Accidents, so it was still named Accidents. Although the titles of the two volumes are the same, their contents are mostly different. This collection includes fifty-five articles, organized into six parts: Part includes seven articles that are largely self-references, including Accidents; the second part starts with The Former Editor-in-Chief, with nine articles all of a nostalgic nature; the third part includes eight articles such as Old Writings of the Phoenix Series, all related to books the author edited; the fourth part, The Gap, and seven other articles are book reviews. Originally, these seven articles were planned to be included in The Nianlou Collection, but except for the two related to Openings, all of them had illustrations. The Nianlou Collection only requires handwritten text in the article "Correspondence from the Zengutang Family," and no illustrations for the rest, so they were moved to this collection; the fifth part includes eight short essays about birds, animals, and people. Some of them are old works from the 1980s, which were included in Before and After Books, but they were not originally placed at the beginning or end of the books. When reprinting, the author decided to remove them but couldn’t bear to discard them, so they were placed here; the final sixth part consists of selected articles from Nianlou Notes and Nianlou Short Notes written this year. The first three parts are about myself and people and things related to me. Collecting these articles written over time and publishing them together fulfills one of my long-held wishes. All writers write about themselves, but talent varies, and abilities differ. My talent is low, and my abilities are limited. I cannot write poems or novels, and even when I occasionally write short articles, I lack "intellectual depth" and "artistic quality." I only record my experiences and feelings as they are. The life of an ordinary person like me certainly has no attractive "selling points," but in this great era, the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people may still interest a few other ordinary people who share a similar sentiment—just as the saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together, and people of the same mind gather in groups." All the articles included were published in newspapers and magazines, so the names of the publications and the dates of publication are appended to each article for reference. As mentioned earlier, these articles have all been revised to some extent. My tendency to make changes is one of my major flaws when writing articles—I always feel compelled to revise even when reviewing the proofs, and I have been criticized by typesetters and editors for a long time. I also greatly admire those who write thousands of words at once without needing to revise, but I truly lack such talent and ability. Every time I read what I have written, I always find it unsatisfactory and cannot help but revise it. Of course, even when I revise, it is rare for me to improve it well. It is truly: "Diligently writing words, but the heart and effort do not follow." Please allow me to quote these two lines from the poem Tiger Bridge here as an advance apology to the generous readers. Hu Yingjun did not mind taking the trouble to retake the pictures for me. I am deeply grateful. September 18, 2002, Zhong Shuhe, from Nianlou in the north of Changsha. This book includes the author's essays such as Why Read Books, Speaking My Own Language, My Teacher, Accidents, The Former Editor-in-Chief, In Memory of Pan Hannian, Writing Eulogies, Who Will Call Back the Soul of a Thousand Years, and others.