At first glance reading Mu Tao's writings, you are likely to regard him as a genius in Jiangnan, because the exquisiteness and subtlety of his writing often reveal the genius, to put it bluntly, it is the kind of elegance, the charm of the fairy wind and bones. From the textual content to the connection with the cultural phenomena of the real world and the works of writers, he often uses a roundabout "curved brush", and the kind of straightforward expression does not seem to be the "trick" used by Mu Tao's style. However, this style of writing is easy to use in a long high-headed sermon, but his article is precisely a short essay like the "frontispiece", and I often compare "Ding Congti" with "Mu Tao style", and it is the same thing.

Since modern times, Mr. Lu Xun's "dagger and spear" style of warfare has been famous all over the world, and the indirect expression of immersing in the classics is a rare style today, and it is not an exaggeration to use the "Mu Tao style" to crown it. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that behind the half-written expressions, what do we read? In Mu Tao's own words, it means that "those who speak have words"! In this regard, when I read Mu Tao's essays, what I realized was the majestic atmosphere and sharpness of his words after quoting the classics, and the image of a free-spirited Yan Zhao scholar jumped into my eyes. In "The Expression of the Real Realm", the author's prose realm theory can be used as the best commentary: "The realm is high, but it is not ethereal, it is a real and perceptible existence." The ancients expressed the realm of four often quoted literary descriptions, all of which are very concrete. One sentence is Lu You's, 'The old realm is not yesterday, lying down and watching a wisp of incense lingering on the curtain'; one sentence is Xin Qi's, 'I suddenly looked back, but the person is in the lamplight'; one sentence is Su Qi's, 'Until the highest place of the Heavenly Gate, I can't accommodate things but only myself'; one sentence is Tao Yuanming's, 'There is a true meaning in this, and I have forgotten to say it'. These four sentences are not only philosophy, but also literature. That's exactly what I wanted. No matter what kind of literary expression, if there is no philosophical background behind it, then the grace of the words and the maturity of the skills cannot hide the paleness of its content. Undoubtedly, what I see behind Mu Tao's words are the thoughtful and penetrating inner expressions that I longed to see. That's all I should pay tribute to him.

In fact, I have known Mu Tao since the 80s of Hebei's "Wen Lunbao", and later I saw his long and short words in the "Meiwen" of Pingwa, and knew that he was running the magazine, and felt the charm of this "Mu Tao" text. If I want to pick and choose these words, I think that "Mu Taoti" might as well be sharper and not too literary when acupuncture current affairs and describe the phenomena of the literary world, and "Lu Xunfeng" and "Ding Congti" can also be learned.

At the end of the article, I would like to conclude with the author's own words, because this is also our enthusiastic hope for "Mu Tao Style".

In the past 30 years of the new period of literature, we have remembered novelists and their novels, and poets and their poems. The exception seems to be the essayist, and we can name many essayists but not many of them at the same time. So many prose writers are "laboring", but the handwriting dries a little faster. "Spicy hand article" is a couplet of an old couplet, spicy hands are not only spicy, but also spicy eyes and spicy hearts, referring to insightful and weighty.

Prose should not be dipped in water, but dipped in ink, the thicker the better.

Ding Fan

at Nanjing University