Lu Xun -- Autumn Night

Author: Lu Xun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Classics are the treasures left behind by time, portraits and annotations of human nature. The significance of classics lies in their freshness with every reading, remaining an unchanging landscape on the bookshelves of readers no matter how time flows. In the ever-changing space and time, in the irreversible process of life, classics are the words, sounds, and expressions that have conquered time. Those sincere statements, those fearless cries, those reflections on the human spirit, awaken our past hopes, inspire our current courage, and free us from emptiness and vanity, no longer doubting the future. These figures of wisdom and their timeless words purify our souls, shake our spirits, and teach us what can be missed but not erased, what is fleeting yet invaluable.
The authors included in "Gleaning and Pioneering Classics of Modern Chinese Prose" are all scavengers and pioneers of modern Chinese literature, as well as experimenters and practitioners of various new artistic forms. No wonder Shi Zhecun, with a hint of pride, once told me that he was unimpressed by the various so-called artistic explorations of his younger contemporaries in the 1980s, especially their attempts at many "avant-garde" modernist techniques like symbolism, impressionism, and stream of consciousness. "All of these," he said, "we had already done in the 1930s, and even better than they did. It’s nothing new."
Indeed, every era deserves its own literature. But classic literature belongs not only to its own time but also to later generations of readers who can appreciate and share in the artistic resonance of these classics.