Lin Zixuan's "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds" was published in 1991, and the translator was Yu Dafu's son, Mr. Yu Fei.

Mr. Yu Fei spent ten years translating this book, called "Instant Jinghua", which is basically in line with Lin Yutang's original meaning, and uses Beiping colloquial language, with vivid writing and fluent prose.

The reason why Mr. Yu Fei translated this book is from 1939.

At that time, "Jinghua Smoke Cloud" was published in the West and was a success, so Lin Yutang asked Yu Dafu in Singapore to translate it into Chinese, and sent Yu Dafu 5,000 yuan.

He believes that Yu Dafu is "proficient in English, familiar with Chinese, old in this way, and Dafu has no current fake modern Europeanized sentences", and is the ideal translator in his mind.

This statement is very pertinent.

Yu Dafu's writing was super-first-class, if not top-notch, in the literary world during the Republic of China.

However, Yu Dafu did not live well during that period, he was relatively down, and there were family disputes, although he started translating, he did not finish the translation, and only made a start.

Later, he died in Nanyang, and the matter was over, and the money was not returned to Lin Yutang.

Mr. Yu Fei is regarded as the repayment of his father's debts and sons, and he has achieved a good story in the literary world.

On July 20, 1924, "Happy Forest" began to publish "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds".

The story begins in Beijing on the morning of July 20, Guangxu 26, which is 1900 according to the Western calendar, and it is also the year Lin Zixuan was born.

He's telling the story of 24 years ago.

That year, the Boxers were rioting in Beijing and killing foreigners. Kill the parishioners and burn the churches. Mess.

The Eight-Nation Coalition occupied Tianjin and was about to attack Beijing. If Beijing is a Shura field, then Tianjin is a big hell.

It's time for troubled times.

Yao Mulan, the daughter of the Yao family, was separated from her family on the way to escape, fell into the hands of the Boxers, and was almost trafficked, but fortunately was rescued by the Zeng family and out of danger.

Next, Yao Mulan returned home and lived a short life as a parent.

The start of "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds" is a little bland. And it tells the story from the perspective of a woman, which disappoints many readers who are full of expectations.

Even many literati think that Lin Zixuan Jianglang is exhausted and has written a romance novel of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School.

But many more are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

If this novel is a novel by a Mandarin Duck and Butterfly writer, there is nothing strange, but it is from Lin Zixuan, so you need to think about it carefully.

Like "Gone with the Wind", the protagonist of "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds" is a woman named Yao Mulan.

In Lin Zixuan's novels, it is not uncommon for women to be the protagonists. It's just that the story is a bit bland.

"Gone with the Wind" pulls the reader into the war at the beginning, telling the persistence and transformation of the characters in the war.

Comparatively speaking, the background of "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds" is also a period of endless war in China.

In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, foreign enemies invaded. There was turmoil at home, and for the next two decades, the political situation in China was turbulent. The warlord melee can be said to be an era of great change. There are a lot of things to write about.

However, what can a little girl do in this big time?

This is something that readers and literati who follow Lin Zixuan's new work do not understand. After all, Chinese and Western customs and cultures are different.

In the West, women may be independent, can maneuver between men, and have a place in society.

But in China's conservative environment, a woman's identity is destined to only go around within the family, and cannot really play a major role in social life.

In other words, the pattern of this novel is destined to be a story in the mansion, which may be wonderful, but it does not match the identity of a great writer like Lin Zixuan.

According to these people's ideas, you are all great writers, you can't write those pulp novels anymore, you have to be high-end and high-grade, otherwise you will be willing to degenerate.

If Lin Zixuan wants to write a Chinese version of "Gone with the Wind", it is undoubtedly asking for trouble.

In China, the promotion of feminist ideas is destined to lose male readers, and the end result is that it is unflattering and reduced to a third-rate novel.

Many people watched the beginning of "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds", and after some analysis, they felt that Lin Zixuan was going to stumble this time, and waited to see Lin Zixuan's jokes.

Since Lin Zixuan returned to China, it has been smooth sailing, and he has become a great writer.

This naturally caused a lot of dissatisfaction with people, I am also full of talent, why not famous, this kind of self-righteous people have no talent in any era, and there are many of them.

They finally waited until Lin Zixuan missed, the opportunity was rare, and they must be ridiculed.

Some scholars who study red studies see "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds", and their first feeling is that this novel has the shadow of "Dream of Red Mansions", whether it is the narrative structure or the style of writing, it has a flavor of "Dream of Red Mansions".

"Smoke and Clouds in Beijing" depicts the daily life of the Beijing City family in the last years of the Qing Dynasty in great detail.

Including customs, human geography, various furnishings in the home, family etiquette, etc., this is a comprehensive description of the life style of the big family in Beijing.

"Dream of Red Mansions" is known as an encyclopedia of ancient life, does Lin Zixuan want to write a modern version of "Dream of Red Mansions"?

It's not impossible, Lin Zixuan was originally a master of red studies, and there is nothing wrong with him writing a novel based on "Dream of Red Mansions".

From this point of view, this "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds" is likely to be Lin Zixuan's ambitious work.

He wanted to write an encyclopedia that recorded the historical features of this era, and if he succeeded, it would be a great thing in the literary world, and this matter attracted the attention of many people.

Hu Shi wrote to Lin Zixuan: Does Zixuan want to follow Cao Weng's example?

For those of them who study "Dream of the Red Chamber", it is easy to see the connection between "The Smoke of Beijing" and "Dream of Red Mansions".

Lin Zixuan replied: A work of imitation, see a smile and laugh.

He was not writing the Chinese version of "Gone with the Wind", but the Republic of China version of "Dream of Red Mansions".

In 1938, when Lin Yutang was in Paris, he was preparing to translate "Dream of the Red Chamber" into English, and he did a lot of preparation, even noting down the names of everyone in "Dream of the Red Chamber".

This is important because it is extremely difficult for Chinese names to be remembered by foreigners, and to figure out the kinship between the various characters in the book.

Most foreigners who read Chinese novels will be confused by the relationships between the characters.

However, due to various reasons, Lin Yutang put aside the matter of translating "Dream of Red Mansions" for the time being, and instead imitated the structure and writing technique of "Dream of Red Mansions" to write "Jinghua Smoke and Clouds".

It is impossible for Lin Zixuan to tell others that he wrote the Republic of China version of "Dream of Red Mansions", which would make people feel too self-conscious.

He writes the story first, and as for the evaluation, that's later. (To be continued.) )