Self-Introduction#
Hello everyone, I am Raye from xxxxxx. The book I want to share with you this time is "The Submarine at Night."
My work is related to platform operations, and you can just call me Raye (although I used to have a pen name, He Guang, which comes from the Book of Songs, "Who says the river is wide, a single reed can cross it").
Let me briefly introduce myself. I started enjoying writing blogs since my university days, and raye.xlog.app is the only one I still maintain (I recently switched the domain to rayepeng.net, but it will automatically redirect). My other hobbies include badminton and console gaming; on weekends, I usually play badminton by the seaside, and feel free to reach out anytime.
In terms of reading, I am a heavy history reader, and the heatmap summarized by WeChat Reading looks like this:
I previously shared a book called "The Power of Calculus," but that was at other reading clubs and it was online. This time, I also want to take on a challenge and let more people see this great book.
Since this book is quite special, as it is actually a collection of nine short stories, after I finish discussing each story, I will pose some questions to everyone. Additionally, I prepared two copies of "The Submarine at Night." I bought them at a relatively low price during the Double Eleven shopping festival to give away. I have a personal belief that old books must be given away because unopened new books always give a sense of distance, making them less likely to be appreciated. So these two books arrived a week ago, and I intentionally aged them on my bookshelf for a week. I have indeed flipped through both and made notes, and later I will give them to whoever answers the questions well 🤣. Of course, you can choose not to take them, as this book is also available on WeChat Reading.
The First Story: The Submarine at Night#
Introduction#
I don't know how many people know Borges, but I absolutely couldn't recall this person at first, until later I remembered a line he said that appeared countless times in all my essays:
If there is a paradise, it must look like a library.
Many details in this book actually resonate with Borges, or to put it negatively, it could be seen as borrowing ideas, but we can set all that aside and focus on appreciating the work itself.
This is also the first story of the book, and I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it has been placed as the first story. You could say it was done purposefully by the publisher, but the title is not very attractive and may lead to misunderstandings.
Yes, do not be confused by the book title; before opening it, you might think it is a science fiction novel similar to Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" or "Around the World in Eighty Days," but in fact, it has little to do with that.
Of course, you could also say it is arranged in the order of the author's preference. After you finish reading the entire book, you might feel that this could be another form of autobiography by the author, and many people might see reflections of themselves in Chen Touna.
The story is simple; we can extract three sentences from the book to represent three storylines. I believe most people have finished reading the first story, so I won't waste words retelling the content.
- One spring morning, a thought dropped into his dream at dawn, prompting him to fund the most absurd feat in history. He wanted to find the coin Borges threw into the sea.
- He encountered a submarine stuck there, unsure of which country it belonged to, and we went to rescue it.
- A small piece of rusted metal was washed up by the waves. A child picked it up, looked at it, and tossed it back into the sea.
Imagination#
The most attractive point of this book may be the imagination woven throughout.
Chen Chuncheng is a post-90s writer, so we can see things very close to our lives in the text, which gives us an unparalleled sense of intimacy, such as:
Every night, I sit at my desk, tapping my fingers on the surface, the system starts, and the desktop transforms into a control panel with various instruments. The window in front displays a deep blue underwater scene. Pikachu in the co-pilot seat says: Pika Pika! It means, Captain Chan, let's set off! Bulbasaur says: Seed Seed. This means everything is ready.
I don't know how many people, upon reading this, like me, closed the book and smiled knowingly. Especially in the second story, "Bamboo Peak Temple," it even mentions playing World of Warcraft.
I believe every boy would chuckle at this point; I believe every little boy has had similar fantasies, holding toys in hand and using the environment—dirt, stones, grass—to sketch out a scene of Star Wars, piloting mechas through multiple parallel universes, with all physical laws unable to hinder you, reaching for the stars above and traveling vast distances below.
This is also why, when we play "Zelda," we find the game incredibly fun. For example, when you fall from a height and a meteor flies by, you realize that star is indeed within reach!
A similar scene was also written by Shen Sanbai in "Floating Life's Six Records": "I often crouch at the uneven places of the earthen wall, among the flowerbeds and small grass patches, aligning myself with the platform; focusing intently, I see the clumps of grass as forests, the insects and ants as beasts, the protruding dirt as hills, and the depressions as valleys, wandering within, feeling at ease."
In fact, I wish I had read this work much earlier because when you read it again as an adult, you naturally seek explanations within, rather than believing the answers in front of you, such as:
One night before sleeping, I looked at Monet's water lilies for a long time, and in my dream, I became very small, wandering among those petals, and when I woke up in the morning, there was still a faint fragrance by my pillow. At breakfast, my mother asked if I had stolen her perfume.
Bulbasaur asked: Seed Seed? (So late tonight?) I said, Sorry for the wait, let's set off! That night we were diving under the ice of the Arctic Ocean. I forgot to design a heating device, and as a result, I woke up the next day with a cold.
I believe many people, upon reading this, can't help but offer explanations: sleepwalking and spraying perfume, forgetting to cover up and catching a cold.
But you will find that adult explanations are always pale and uninteresting, akin to burning a lute to cook a crane. Instead, in imagination, sleepwalking can be interpreted as wandering among petals, and forgetting to cover up can be interpreted as not designing a heating device.
I recalled a story about another neighbor's child I had seen before; that child saw heavy rain and imagined it as a tug-of-war between heaven and earth.
Chen Touna's story is also a poignant one, and at the end of the story, for the college entrance examination, for those annoying things:
I imagined my imagination had left me, and indeed it did. That blue light floated out the window. I sat at my desk, feeling indescribably relaxed and weak, watching it gradually fly away. Finally, it shot into the sky like a comet.
Regarding imagination, when I read this part, some childhood memories suddenly struck me. This memory is about a writer whose works I have almost read all of. Let everyone guess:
- He only has a primary school education, and his son also only has a primary school education.
- He created a magazine by himself, only publishing his works.
- The characters he created include a boy, a girl, two mice, and a big bad wolf.
Zheng Yuanjie, I wonder if everyone has guessed it.
In similar writing, Zheng Yuanjie's fairy tales also have similar descriptions. Pipilu, due to his aversion to the school’s suppression of imagination, always writes two diaries—one to satisfy school inspections, and the other to unleash his endless imagination.
I am particularly afraid that writing a diary to cater to the teacher's requirements will ruin my literary talent, if I have any in my genetic makeup. Just when I was troubled and anxious about this, a piece of news on television inspired me. The gist of the news was that a company established two sets of accounts to evade taxes. One true account for themselves, and one false account to deceive tax officials. I decided to borrow this method from the company and write two versions of my diary, essentially creating a true and a false account. The purpose of the true diary is to preserve my literary genes if I have any. Who says science is still so backward that it can't test what talents are contained within each person? In the true diary, I will naturally unleash my imagination to the fullest. The purpose of the false diary is self-evident, to deal with and fool the teacher to get a good score for further studies.
Remember, having two different versions of a diary is my Pipilu's patent.
Summary#
This year, while reviewing Zheng Yuanjie's works, I wrote down the following thoughts:
The best part of Zheng Yuanjie’s writing is that he depicts the adult world from a child's perspective, starting with characters like the big bad wolf and the little mouse, gradually developing the narrative.
He portrays the darkest aspects of human nature, like a skilled surgeon dissecting the human soul.
It is an endless exploration of the human heart, revealing the deep thoughts hidden behind laughter.
Whenever he writes to this point, he begins to lose control, becoming almost mad, as if human emotions are irrelevant to him.
He traverses the boundaries of reason and absurdity with ease, blurring the lines between the fairy tale world and real life.
Outdated and decayed concepts are shattered, the rules of the world are brushed aside, revealing a world full of fantastical colors.
In this world, children learn to bravely face difficulties and feel the power of friendship, while adults find their lost innocence in this childlike world.
On September 3rd, after rereading "The Submarine at Night," I wrote the following reflections:
Reading Chen Chuncheng's novel feels like being a patient, coaxed and deceived into lying on the operating table.
Closing my eyes, the anesthetic takes effect, and under the dim light, when he confirms you can no longer move.
At this moment, he begins to lose control, almost obsessively dissecting the text, leaving only radicals, as if performing a mysterious literary formation.
It seems that the twisted paths of the soul's labyrinth, the laws of evolution at the universe's end, and the wonders of dark spaces are all wrapped within.
You can only watch helplessly, unable to resist or struggle.
Among them, the first story, "The Submarine at Night," particularly captivates me. In the eyes of a child, every drop of rain could be the beginning of a grand adventure, every rainbow a portal to another world, and every word filled with magic and power.
It is like a painting that can never be finished, a story that can never be written to completion, an endless blue sky.
However, in the end, the remaining thin imagination can no longer support the operation of the submarine.
"There are no longer dense branches and leaves, soft marshes, colorful parrots, and snakes spitting letters; before me is only solid ground and hurried people."
As mentioned earlier, "The Submarine at Night" sets the tone for the entire novel, which is fantasy and absurdity.
This is a journey interwoven with dreams and reality: a boy roaming the seabed, an ancient monument lost in the deep mountains, and phrases that pervade all things.
This is a feast of imagination and wonder: a cloud trimming station, a dream pen, performances within a blue whale.
This is an adventure about searching and hiding: forging swords and brewing wine, the tranquil lakes at night.
Questions#
- Do you also have similar fantasies?
Bamboo Peak Temple & Li Yin's Lake — How to Resist the Impermanence of the World#
The story of Bamboo Peak Temple intertwines two storylines:
One is about a key, telling the story of how I hid the key at Bamboo Peak Temple because when I returned to my hometown, I found that the old house had been demolished, leaving only a key. I hoped to hide the remaining old object because I believe that if I can find something again in the future, then I will never forget it.
The other is about a stone tablet, telling how during the Cultural Revolution, the monks at Bamboo Peak Temple hid a historically significant stone tablet called the Butterfly Tablet, which is said to have been seen by someone in the temple when a butterfly landed on the head of the Buddha statue. After hiding the stone tablet, the monks fled down the mountain, and when the Cultural Revolution ended, the monks in charge of the temple hoped to find this hidden stone tablet to make the temple more famous, but the old monks swore they would never reveal its exact hiding place.
At the end of the story, the two storylines connect. In the process of hiding the key, I deduced the location where the monks hid the stone tablet, but I did not reveal the hiding place; instead, I hid the key next to the stone tablet, and the story ends here.
A couple of certain things are enough to resist the various uncertainties of the world.
Chen Chuncheng's writing truly feels like the title "Bamboo Peak Temple"; you seem to be walking in a bamboo forest.
I have extracted two passages that left a deep impression on me:
Sometimes a dried peony petal slips from the pages of the book. I don't know who placed it there or which spring it came from. It has dried to the point of being almost transparent, yet still retains a certain graceful demeanor. And not just one. These beautifully poised petals occasionally flutter down from that book, which narrates that all the beauty in the world is merely an illusion.
At that time, we had a small dog at home, and I took it to the back mountain to play. My hometown is in Liuyang, and the back mountain used to be filled with firecracker factories, which made fireworks. But they have all been demolished, and the area is now overgrown with grass as tall as I am. I took my little dog, picked up a stick from who knows where, and went on an adventure. Occasionally, I would come across remnants of walls that had not been completely demolished, and I would recall whether I had played there as a child. Sometimes I would return and tell my parents about a certain spot, and they would share stories from that time, like how that firecracker factory had exploded due to an accident and injured several people, or how the owner of a certain firecracker factory had fled, and so on.
I imagine at the boundary between dusk and night, there is a very narrow gap, and the cold wind from another world blows through there. After sitting through several dusks, I seem to understand a bit. There is a kind of despondent power, a vast despondency that comes at dusk. At that moment, the meaning of things dissipates. In the gradually darkening sky, everything seems unimportant. You first feel a bit anxious, then relieved, and then you cease to exist. That feeling is hard to describe without personal experience. If you have gazed at a tree in the mountains at dusk for long enough, until you and it dissolve into the darkness, becoming part of the night—after experiencing this multiple times, you will inevitably become a strange person. Indifferent to everything, drifting outside of reality.
This passage is what resonated with me the most throughout the piece, and some childhood memories easily surged back.
When my hometown was still in the countryside, after school, when my parents hadn't returned home yet and I had already finished my homework, I would walk back along the road home, where there was a small tree by the roadside. I would sit under it, watching the sun gradually set, gazing at the small road leading out. In the countryside, you can see the sun being gradually obscured by the distant mountains. At that time, I wouldn't think too much or have many burdens, just like sitting in an endless wilderness, daydreaming, feeling myself gradually fading from this world, only to be startled back to reality when someone walked in front of me, realizing that something had just happened.
Li Yin's Lake is a story that feels quite dark and melancholic throughout.
A memory, shared by those who have long since discarded it, she treasures it like a gem to this day.
In the story, while I was dating Li Yin, I discovered that she deeply missed a family photo taken during an outing, which featured a lake, serving as a tether to her beautiful memories of the past. They both searched for that "lake," almost visiting every lake in that small city, but it seemed that the "lake" had never existed. By chance, the author learned the location of that "lake," only to find it had been filled in and turned into a parking lot. The lake was not really a lake, at least not as large as a lake, but for a child, it could be considered a lake. When Li Yin learned that the "lake" was no longer there, her usual indifference gave way to a sigh, as if the tether to her beautiful memories of the past had vanished.
In fact, I would rather not find that lake; even if I knew the truth, I wouldn't want to tell Li Yin.
Regarding Li Yin's Lake, I also have another story to share, which is somewhat similar to a tale from "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," but I still remember it vividly.
On the theme of how to resist the impermanence of the world, I also have another story to share, which is somewhat similar to a tale from "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," but I still remember it vividly.
This story happened when I just entered high school. One day, while heading to class, I passed a corridor with my classmates and suddenly saw a familiar girl. I called out to her a couple of times, but she didn't respond. I thought she hadn't seen me and walked away.
Who was this acquaintance? She was my middle school classmate. We were both chemistry class representatives, and since I was good at chemistry, I often helped her with problems, and we were in the same small group, with me as the leader.
After graduating from middle school, I remember that we were not in the same high school, so I was surprised to see her but didn't think much of it.
So why did I see her? The answer to the story came quickly. During the winter break of my first year of high school, we had a reunion with our middle school classmates, but I didn't see her. After dinner, a mischievous classmate suddenly remarked that life is truly unpredictable, as someone who stood right in front of you a year ago has suddenly passed away. I was shocked and hurriedly asked who it was, and I believe everyone knows the answer by now.
It was her, the one I called out to in the corridor but received no response.
She had passed away from leukemia.
Later, I repeatedly searched my memory, and I must have called her name, and my classmates even repeated it, "Oh, her name is ___!"
But later, my classmates also forgot. Every time I think of this incident, I truly regret not calling her name a few more times; perhaps something could have happened.
Questions#
- "A couple of certain things are enough to resist the various uncertainties of the world." Do you have certain things that you are sure of?
The Colorful Pen & The Dream of the Red Chamber — The Quest for Truth#
I did not intend to follow the original order of the book for each story but rather reorganized it. Since the second story, "Bamboo Peak Temple," is also beautifully written, we will first discuss the third and sixth stories.
Why do I want to discuss these two together? Because I feel they both resemble science fiction stories.
The Colorful Pen#
The story of the colorful pen goes something like this: the protagonist is a writer from a county town who occasionally writes something. In his dream, he discusses literature with an old man, who gives him a pen before leaving, a pen that can write the greatest works in the world, but others cannot see them.
After I obtained the colorful pen, there was a passage describing my writing:
At first, my mind was like a huge Chinese medicine cabinet, with vocabulary neatly categorized in countless drawers. I knew their locations and could skillfully grab the words I needed, forming the sentences I wanted. The fragrant was fragrant, and the brilliant was brilliant. Later, words began to fall like snowflakes from the sky, and I danced with my sword in the snow, always able to strike the most appropriate snowflake among thousands.
However, when I truly wrote a great work, "I longed to hear others' evaluations to bring this ecstasy into reality."
I even thought that if I maintained my original talent, I could share the joy of writing with others, "that kind of joy, although fragmented, is still precious."
In the end, I gave the colorful pen to another girl and stopped writing.
That's the story. However, I believe that upon seeing this title, everyone instinctively recited Li Shangyin's poem:
"I am the one who passes the colorful pen in dreams, wishing to write flowers and leaves to send to the morning clouds."
Li Shangyin wanted to become Jiang Yan, to obtain that colorful pen in his dreams, to write beautiful verses and send them to the goddess of Wushan.
We all think that Jiang Lang's talent has run dry because he lost that colorful pen; however, Chen Chuncheng interprets it from another angle. He believes that Jiang Yan was originally talented, and his masterpieces were written before he obtained the pen, which is why he was qualified to receive it. After obtaining that pen, he became a true genius, writing great poetry but unable to show it, thus being misunderstood as talentless. He may have inadvertently mentioned the existence of that pen, and the world misinterpreted the story based on his creative experiences.
Questions#
- "If you could write great works or comprehend the truths of the universe, but only you could understand them, and whether in life or death, no one would know of your greatness—would you choose to live such a life?"
I wonder what everyone thinks of this question, but I believe that for me, I would choose it.
When I first read this story, I thought of Liu Cixin's "Morning of the Dao," which is why I feel "The Colorful Pen" resembles a science fiction story.
Let me briefly explain for those who haven't read it: "Morning of the Dao" tells the story of the world's largest particle accelerator nearing completion. Just as scientists believe a unified model is about to emerge, a declaration from outside the universe, known as the "Risk Avoider," destroys the particle accelerator built by the scientists. The establishment of a unified model would lead to the discovery of the ultimate truth of the universe, resulting in the universe's destruction.
However, exploring the ultimate truth of the universe is the dream of every scientist, so the Risk Avoider creates a "Truth Altar" in the desert, where scientists can learn the truths they seek, only to be immediately destroyed afterward.
I feel like I am like the scientists in "Morning of the Dao"; I would also be willing, without reason. If I had to give one, it would be in the words of a climber, because it is right there.
- Is writing ultimately for pleasing oneself or pleasing others?
Let's narrow the question a bit; the previous question is quite broad and somewhat extreme, while this question is smaller, just discussing writing.
Roland Barthes proposed a theory: "At the moment a work is completed, the author has already died; the remaining interpretive work is the reader's right." Some interpret this as meaning that text, author, and reader mutually influence each other, i.e., originality, reading, and interaction.
So I actually believe that in writing, you can take pleasing yourself as a goal, but if it also has the opportunity to please others after fulfilling its function of pleasing yourself, then that is something I would like to see. However, among the two, I lean more towards pleasing myself.
As a joke, are there any scenarios where writing is solely for pleasing others? For example, when programmers write technical articles or documentation, a significant part of the reason is to please others. Otherwise, why is it said that one of the most disliked tasks for programmers is writing documentation? Because you have to consider others, and this process is tedious and quite anti-human.
In fact, we can see that literature and science are somewhat interconnected; the ultimate truth of the universe is actually "Dream of the Red Chamber."
The Cloud Cutter & The Brewer — Zhuang Zhou's Dream#
I want to group these three stories together because they all have a sense of Zhuang Zhou's butterfly dream to some extent.
The story of the brewer is quite special; it simply tells a story, and after reading it, you might even feel unsure about what it was about.
The brewer's story is very much like Zhuangzi's "Cook Ding Taming the Ox." Let's try to compare:
When he brews wine, every gesture is beautiful, perfectly in rhythm, flowing like clouds and water, light and pleasant, like a dance, creating its own rhythm. He hums softly while pouring rice. After sealing it, the jar rings like a bell.
Only by reaching a certain realm can one move with grace. In fact, programmers sometimes feel this way when writing code; when you feel comfortable writing, it is as beautiful as playing the piano.
Why do I like such stories? Just like "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," the story is just a story; once you finish listening, it ends, and there is no need to exhaust yourself interpreting its meaning.
The Cloud Cutter & The Musician — Escape#
The story of the Cloud Cutter is quite amusing; it tells of a Führer visiting a city and jokingly saying that the clouds in the sky look like rags. My job is at a cloud trimming station, where my daily work is to cut clouds into various shapes.
In my spare time, I have many hobbies, such as spending three months researching the whereabouts of the Jianwen Emperor and spending several months studying perpetual motion machines. However, I find that so many hobbies are like many forks in the road, and I don't know which one suits me best, so I linger at the forks for a long time.
Later, I visited an old friend of my teacher, who told him, "Some people are destined to fall into a certain fork in the road, while others will only wander outside."
The old man also recounted how he fell into a trap. He accidentally obtained an ancient book that the museum was clearing out. After studying it, he discovered that the couplet games within contained mysteries, so he spent his entire life researching it. Later, he found that if he completed the couplets, all written words in the world would vanish, and the universe would return to chaos.
At that moment, I seemed to have an epiphany and resolved to spend my life exploring all the forks in the road.
I could spend a hundred years diving in the depths of ancient seas, a hundred years tracking down the Jianwen Emperor, and a few centuries stubbornly pursuing perpetual motion machines. The remaining time, I would leisurely wander through all the caves. I would know the names of all the plants and be familiar with the temperatures of all the stars. If I fell into a certain trap, I would wholeheartedly pursue it without hesitation. In the early morning light, my fingers would slowly glide over a row of book spines, as if caressing piano keys, then stop, pull out a book, and read it in the light by the window.
The musician, Guliov, faced Stalin's severe opposition to the saxophone, and all compositions had to undergo rigorous scrutiny. The protagonist, Guliov, once suffered from a disease that granted him synesthesia, allowing him to review music without listening, imagining the visuals and writing down the content. The higher-ups scrutinized the music like grading essays, checking for ideological issues.
However, his musical talent was always suppressed. After retiring in his old age, he imagined a doppelgänger named Musin, who, through imagination, finally overcame his fears and performed his once-prized compositions.
This story contains many foreshadowings and symbols, and the environment in which the performance takes place, the blue sea, and the submarine appearing in the deep sea also correspond with the first story.
Both "The Cloud Cutter" and "The Musician" contain elements of absurdity; clouds and music are intangible things, the most uncontrollable aspects of humanity, yet they must be shaped and ideologically aligned with official settings.
Those living within this context also gradually become absurd. The "I" in "The Cloud Cutter" fantasizes about creating perpetual motion machines and chasing after the Jianwen Emperor's whereabouts. In fact, I have read a bit of the helplessness of life. Because in our work, we all need clear results, rarely focusing on the process, so everyone feels suppressed. Sometimes after working for a long time, I get a headache from those things; I just want to study things without results and enjoy the process, like delving into the Riemann Hypothesis or learning quantum mechanics. I know these things are useless, but I enjoy that process.
The story of the Jianwen Emperor is mentioned in "The Ming Dynasty's Affairs," and I believe friends who have read it should know it. Let me briefly explain. After Zhu Yuanzhang's death in the Ming Dynasty, the successor was the Jianwen Emperor, but Zhu Yuanzhang had also conferred titles to the princes, leading to the Jianwen Emperor's situation. At this time, Zhu Di raised an army in Beijing, leading to the Jingnan Campaign, seizing the throne. The Jianwen Emperor's whereabouts, however, remain unknown.
The musician's story is even more distressing.
Actually, I want to talk about it simply, but once I step out, I can't say it; that is about some memories from 2022.
(The following is omitted, blank paper 🐶)
The Final Questions#
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Which of the nine stories do you like the most, and why?
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What are the sentences or paragraphs that left the deepest impression on you? Can you read them aloud?