26 忆读书

Lesson Twenty-six

Recalling Reading Books

1. When it comes to reading, I can talk a lot!

2. I started reading within a few years after I could read.

3. Instead of reading the Chinese textbook my mother taught me at the age of four, I started reading the Romance of the Three Kingdoms by myself at the age of seven.

4. At that time, my uncle, Mr. Yang Zijing, would tell our cousins a story about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms every day after dinner. I listened with gusto, and it was really interesting, such as “The trio of the Peach Garden and kill Yellow Turban Rebellion to make meritorious deeds”.

5. But after talking for half an hour, he stopped to do his business.

6. I had to go to bed with tears at the urging of my mother with infinite expectation for the following story.

7. After that, I decided to read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms by myself. Although I have a little knowledge, it was really funny.

8. The pronunciation of each word is not correct, and I often read the wrong character because I haven’t learnt that.

9. When I read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms for the first time, I cried when I read that Guan Yu was dead, so I left the book behind.

10. When I read it again for the second time, I found Zhuge Liang dead, cried again, and left the book behind.

11. Later, I forgot when I read the whole book to the end.

12. Because the Romance of the Three Kingdoms aroused my interest in chapters novels, I especially appreciated the Heroes of the Marshes, which narrated that “the officials forced the people against them”.

13. The characters described in that book, such as Lin Chong, Wu Song, Lu Zhishen, all have their very vivid characters. Although the author has to make up a total of 108 people because he wants to create different characters, I think it is much better than A Dream of Red Mansions without character personality.

14. I read A Dream of Red Mansions at the age of 12 or 13. At first, I was not interested in it. Jia Baoyu’s and Lin Daiyu’s characters make me tired.

15. When I read this book again after middle age, I got a taste of the ups and downs of a family contained in “full of absurd words and bitter tears”.

16. All in all, I have read a quite number of Chinese and foreign literary and artistic works in my whole life.

17. I always feel that reading is the greatest happiness in my life!

18. From reading, I also learned the principle of thinking independently, which I can’t get from self-cultivation textbooks.

19. Since I came back from my visit to Japan in 1980, I was unable to travel thousands of miles because of my leg injury, and “reading thousands of books” was my only pastime.

20. I get many books and periodicals every day, know many things, and know many people.

21. At the same time, when I read too many books, I will also choose and compare them.

22. For example, after reading the wonderful Journey to the West, I will not be interested in The Legend of Deification, and the Heroes of the Marshes with vivid characters is better than All Men Are Brothers, and so on.

23. As for the modern literary and artistic works, those words which are hazy, full of gorgeous words and sentences, groaning without illness and amorous feelings, are erased from my mind at a glance. However, those chapters full of true feelings and simple and plain words, even if they are only a few hundred or more words, often make me moved and can't do it by myself!

24. After reading too many books, I also got an experience. Things are afraid of comparison, people are afraid of comparison, and books are also afraid of comparison.

This is exactly what is called shocked to compare with.

25. Therefore, on Children’s Day on June 1 in a certain year, a children’s publication asked me to write a few words to guide children in reading. I only wrote these words, that is, reading is good, read more books and read good books.