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Afternoon Poetics: Tramping through the Fragrant Hills with author Li Er
By Cindy Carter, published July 20, 4:12p.m.
Yes, Li Er is an undeniably talented writer. Just this shade of forty, his literary inventions are unrivaled in China, and have drawn favorable comparisons to Pynchon and Gaddis... but if the man ever invites you to dinner, you'd better run like hell.
On a recent afternoon, we met up with Li Er in the Fragrant Hills west of Beijing and spent damn-near half an hour trekking to the nearest fancy restaurant. After supper and some interesting conversation on various topics - publishing trends, the latest literary feuds, the state of C-E and E-C translation, scuttlebutt about the Olympics and the results of a survey on the reading habits of Chinese migrant workers (who read much more than you might expect, snobs) - we began the long slow walk toward home.
Of course this has little, if anything, to do with Li Er's poetics, but I thought it could serve as an intro to "Who Once Was Me" (谁曾经是我), a poem that plays a starring role in Li Er's novel Truth and Variations (花腔).
The life and death of Li Er's protagonist, the revolutionary poet Ge Ren (whose name is a sound-alike for "individual") is murky at best. He is either a martyr who sacrificed himself fighting the WWII Japanese invasion, or a coward who fled battle and is now hiding out in the mountains as a hermit-poet.
Everyone the author "interviews" has a different tale to tell: Ge Ren is a hero or a counter-revolutionary, a threat to the established order or an upholder of the status-quo, a patriot we can be proud of or a collaborator who should be shot on sight.
What I love about this poem (an invention of Li Er's, but in the context of the novel, it is a poem that may or may not exist in several versions; I won't destroy the mystery) is that it encapsulates so perfectly the theme of the novel, the search for individual and historical truth:
Who Once Was Me
By Poet: "Ge Ren"
Who once was me –
whose was my day within the mirror?
Was I the brook that trickles through the mountains,
or the broad beans blooming in the brookside shade?
Who once was me –
whose was my spring within the mirror?
Was I the wasp that nests in trees,
or the lovers singing underneath?
Who once was me –
whose was my life within the mirror?
Was I the blue flame flickering in the breeze,
or the wild red rose that blooms in darkness?
Who warned me from the shadows,
who stepped toward me from the crowd?
Who smashed the mirror into shards
and made one "I" into a multitude of me?
谁曾经是我
谁曾经是我，
谁是我镜中的一天，
是山中潺潺流淌的小溪，
还是溪边浓荫下的蚕豆花？
谁曾经是我，
谁是我镜中的春天，
是筑巢于树上的蜂儿，
还是树下正唱歌的恋人？
谁曾经是我，
谁是我镜中的一生，
是微风中的蓝色火苗，
还是黑暗中开放的野玫瑰？
谁于暗中叮嘱我，
谁从人群中走向我，
谁让镜子碎成了一片片，
让一个我变成了无数个我？
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