"The Landscape of the Waves"
Zhou Jianing Written by
Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House Published in August 2022
This book contains three novellas created by Zhou Jianing from 2019 to the present: "Goodbye Solar Eclipse" (2019), "The Landscape of the Waves" (2021), and "Tomorrow Party" (2022).
"Goodbye Eclipse": Japanese writer Takumi Manjima visited the small town of Peonia again after 20 years and reunited with his youthful friends. The Chinese girl Izumi, who has a secret past, has long been lost in the depths of the world and has only been left in fiction by Takumi. A funeral has ended and a solar eclipse will be witnessed.
"Wave Landscape": In the wave of the times, friendship, love, money and dreams are raised high and swept away quickly, leaving a bubble. When "I" stood in front of the pyramid on the beach, I decided not to be a victim trapped in my memories, but to extend my arms and send a signal to the universe as a brave man.
"Tomorrow Party": Zhang Zhou, the music host of Midnight Radio, is like a band without form, connecting the friendship of a group of people. We try to build a "Tomorrow Party" about musical dreams. However, under the squeeze of the times, everything seems difficult to maintain. People who survived the disaster went down the river with gratitude, drifted to the river on this side and waved to the other side.
Weekly Jianing
Goodbye Solar Eclipse (Excerpt)
Tu See a young man leaning on his luggage next to the bus stop at Denver Airport to read his novel. The young man seemed to have come from a heavy rain area. His wet clothes and shoes were spread out on the railing next to him, and he was comfortably staying in the shelter surrounded by himself. He did not pay attention to the ordinary middle-aged man around him, and he would not even think that the place he was wandering was the inner world of this person. Taku couldn't help but wonder where he had read. The story in the book
is about a high school baseball team from Japan to the United States to participate in a baseball game in 1995. At that time, Taku had moved to the United States and decided to write only in English. Giving up Japanese was not to get rid of specific constraints, nor was it a confirmation of another way of thinking. As a result, he wrote clumsyly in the mood of practice and achieved unexpected success. He is believed to support a virtual era between Eastern aesthetics and Western values, protecting the beauty that could not have survived in reality. Unconsciously, there are more and more young readers, following him, looking for an outlet to nowhere.
Tu's favorite passage to read at the reader meeting is Baseball The teenagers took a bus and headed all the way to New York along the East Coast. After passing through a body of water, the bus seemed to be driving in the sea, or like a Galaxy Railway train, with silver-white river beaches, triangular black birds, huge moons, friends who were traveling with them, and the upcoming New World. However, what he was about to go to at this moment was the complete back of the New World.
Last night, Tuo also attended the opening party of the Literature Festival on Boston . He drank with several of his colleagues. Several of them were ambitiously writing two-volume books, hoping to get rid of the times. After returning to the hotel, he checked the email forwarded by the publishing house, and the address of one of the letters made his heart beat wildly. It is an old institution that has been out of service for many years. It is like a wave from the other side of the River of Memory. It is all about the last century - Uka passed away. The email was delayed for two days at the editor, and when Takuro saw it, it was already the day before the funeral.
Tuo immediately adjusted all the itineraries behind, canceled the reading party, and bought the next day's air ticket. He was somewhat grateful that he was in New York, at least in mainland America, rather than wandering around other corners of the world, without having to rush to Peonia with excessive determination. It’s not that he doesn’t have this determination, but for the contrary reason, he is afraid of the surging emotions that come with his determination.
But the plane from Boston to Denver was four hours late. When he arrived in Denver, he missed the last flight to Peonia that day. Fate is like giving him some tips, or a buffer zone.However, even if it was impossible to catch up with the funeral, he had no intention of spending the night in Denver and decided to change buses overnight to continue to Peonia. The carriage was unexpectedly crowded, and all the students were going to get off at Hawks. After they left like a tide, the driver turned off the music and left a long dark journey until the bus crawled out of the woods and a cold lake appeared diagonally in front of it. It is the kind of night the baseball teenagers in the novel experience. He wanted to take a break, but his heart was filled with complex thoughts and expectations, and he couldn't close his eyes no matter what. He couldn't help but imagine the funeral scene, but what came to his mind was in the spring of 1995. He and his new friends were huddling in a van, and the driver was playing the music of Duran Duran and along the way. The local residents of Peonia have set up greenhouses in the community park, most of whom are the elderly from the church. They come one after another, prepare food and wine, and welcome the young artists to visit each year. It had just rained, and Taku walked carefully in the muddy grass wearing solemn clothes. He was extremely shy. He tried not to exchange glances with anyone, sat in the greenhouse, lowered his head to eat the stewed meat and vegetables dressed in a plastic plate. On the other end of the bench was an extremely thin lady, older, wrapped in a brightly colored shawl, dark skin, and her shiny gray hair was like a dark cloud inlaid with gold edges. She moved over politely and greeted, "Are you okay in Tokyo?"
Maybe it was because of the jet lag, or the wine in a paper cup, Taku felt excited and sad, and even choked.
Shortly after mailing the application materials to Peonia, the Om Shinri Kstan incident occurred. During that time, Taku met his best friend in the literary club every day, but he did not mention any application. They often go to the park near the overpass, where there is a small baseball driving range. Baseball players train there after school. There are several chairs next to the shed where the equipment is rented, which emits sweat and smell all year round. However, Taku likes to sit there and chat because he is facing the training ground, discussing the cruel and confused reality in the news, while hearing the inspiring sound of the bat.
Two months before coming to the United States, Taku Wuxin did anything, handling the rental house while handling the procedures. This delayed again and again, and it was not until before leaving that I finally plucked up the courage to tell my friend. They were still in the park, with crows and spring breezes in the evening. My friend said seriously that now is the best time to observe the Japanese social form, and those who are interested in writing will not leave no matter what - "It turns out that all you have is weak enthusiasm!" - My friend's words made Takuma both sad and angry, but he could not speak up for himself, so he waved goodbye to him as if he was careless.
"The members of the Aum Shinri Cult named the poison gas equipment they used as the Universe Cleaner, which was a radiation removal device that appeared in the "Space Battleship Yamato"." Takumo answered the lady with no brainstorm.
"Are you talking about a science fiction novel?" the lady asked curiously.
"is an animation broadcast in the 1970s." Takuro replied.
"Oh! You are such a very interesting person." The lady's laughter eliminated Taku's nervousness.
Turn only realized that she was Wuka until she was surrounded by her and went on stage to deliver a speech. Uka is an Indian-born Ugandan . In the mid-1970s, he came to the United States as a visiting scholar at Harvard University and met her husband Peter. Soon, Asians were expelled from Uganda by the Amin government, Ukka was stranded in the United States, gave birth to a daughter Tina, and never returned to his hometown since then. In the mid-1980s, Peter was sent to China as a reporter to complete a report on a medical system. After that, he and Uka set out from China, wandered all the way in Asia and Eastern European countries, making friends with many journalists, writers and poets. The century of exile was coming to an end, and a small half of the world gradually recovered from trauma. After returning to the United States, they raised funds everywhere and founded this young artist training project, inviting artists and writers from Eastern Europe and Asia to live together and provide their most basic living expenses. The location is in the small town of Peonia, where large areas of lakes, grasslands and mountains meet, making it an ideal middle ground.
Tuo didn't start writing at the time, but he spent his middle school years at a second-hand English bookstore. In high school, I translated several bad science fiction novels based on my interest. When I went to college, I studied an irrelevant major, but because I became fascinated by Thomas Pinchen , I worked hard to translate several short stories from Pinchen. Among them, his favorite "Entropy" was printed on the publication made by the school's science fiction club. Later, I didn't know what channel it was seen by Pinchen's Japanese version editor and wrote a long letter. Taku thought that such a self-talking translation would be criticized, but he received unexpected encouragement. The editor praised his translation for being closer to the spiritual atmosphere of American youth in the late 1950s than the published Japanese version, and was willing to serve as a recommender to help him apply for the youth residency program in Peonia.
Tu recalled these, and the bus driver reminded him that he would arrive in Peonia in ten minutes. Taku got up and went to the back of the carriage to use the toilet. He stepped into the slippery and the bucket seemed to be blown by the boys just now. He held the handle and swayed in the narrow box, feeling embarrassed. When he returned to his seat, he felt funny and almost laughed out loud. I can't help but think of the boy who was reading a book at the airport just now. I hope he has a pleasant journey and can feel the dry and clean world in the novel.
The next morning, Taku was woken up by the phone from the hotel room - "Tao?" - A woman's hesitant voice came from the phone. After Taku's confirmation, the other end immediately exclaimed: "Go downstairs quickly, I can't wait to see you!" Taku was in a dream where he didn't know where he was. After putting down the phone, he saw the black suit hanging in front of the mirror, and he was completely awake. He washed quickly in the small bathroom, put on his shirt and took off his clothes, and replaced it with an old T-shirt he wore during the trip. When I walked at the entrance of the stairs, I realized that I was so nervous that I was sweating slightly.
The town has not built a new hotel. It has been the same building for more than 20 years, with three floors in total, with about twenty rooms. It is next to the river, next to the public library, and behind it is a whole walnut tree. Every autumn, green-shelled walnuts fall all over the ground and slowly rot. Taku walked two floors of the stairs and pushed open the door to the hall. Without having time to hesitate, he saw a tall woman turning out from behind the pillars, walking nearly two steps towards him, almost hitting his shoulder, and hugging him tightly. Taku calmed down in her firm hug. Oh, Tina, of course it's Tina, like a whirlwind, with the summer heat. It was not until Tina sat down with Takuro's arm that Takuro was able to solidify her eyes and immediately recognized that the hippie robe they bought with her ears on her body that they bought at a charity store, which she liked very much, that year, from summer to winter.
"This dress is still there." Taku smiled.
"These days I have sorted out my mother's things and turned them out again. The clothes are not broken, but I am old." Tina interrupted his gaze.
"How many asteroids have you found?" Taku asked.
"Ha! Ha!" Tina was the same as before. As long as she was a little excited, tears would appear on the corners of her eyes, and a thin layer of rashes appeared on her neck and arms. She was a few years older than Tuo, loud, energetic and overdrinking. It has a natural exotic style that is unforgettable on any occasion. Tina was planning to transfer from physics to Johns Hopkins University to study cosmology, so she returned to Peonia in 1995. While teaching programming by herself, she was tutoring for quantum physics , and applying for a new degree. During this period, I had to repeatedly explain to the young artists surrounding Uka that the significance of cosmology is not to discover asteroids, but to learn about the birth and evolution of the universe. Only an extremely weak part of everything contained in the universe can be perceived, while the rest cannot be named or even imagined. For this, Tina spent most of her time sitting in front of a computer in a public library to correct the code, which she called a simulation. The complex combinations of numbers and letters are like using one abstract to simulate another abstract, and they don’t understand at all. But Taku knew that once Tina performed boring operations, she gave people a sense of trustworthiness that was fully maintaining the progress of the universe.
"The hotel has been renovated in the past few years and has a central air conditioner, but the breakfast is still as bad," Tina said.
"I didn't expect the organization's email address to be still in use," said Tuo.
"The project was restarted two years ago, and it was a university's writing center and the foundation. Uka was nominally a convener, but now there is a special committee responsible for the specific work. They have a small office building, right next to the library. Do you remember, it used to be the library's office building," Tina said.
"Do you still live in this hotel?" Tao asked.
"Yes. You will see a few soon. A new group of people just arrived last month, and several of them learned about Peonia after reading your book." Tina replied.
"I hope they are not disappointed." Tuo looked away.
"You have never disappointed." Tina held Taku's hand and said, "I have to leave now. There are so many things to do today. Can you come to your house for dinner in the evening? They are all old friends. Do you have to come?"
"You go and do it. I plan to walk around, and see you in the evening." Taku's tears are also shining now.
Tina hugged him hard again, as if she wanted to give him some comfort and promise, then she carried her bag and quickly entered an old white Citroen at the door. After watching her car leave, Taku didn't go back to the room, but was attracted by the back-distance of time in the hotel and came to the corridor on the second floor. The reception room is still retained, and now there is a sign of no entry for non-workers hanging at the door. The revolving door ball was unexpectedly pushed open. The window inside was closed and there was nothing left. When people step into black holes, they may also feel this way. After the physical memory is completely removed, the vortex of time is dry and silent. Tuo walked to the window, reached out and pushed it, but couldn't push it, and tried the window bolt again, which was locked. But you can see the sunlight slowly moving to the roof outside the window.
Author: Zhou Jianing
Editor: Zhou Yiqian
