news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

for urbanites, “twenty minutes in the park” is a magic tool to dispel the work atmosphere and help everyone create an oasis where they can breathe freely in a tight space.

the book "in autumn" unfolds a twenty-minute unfamiliar experience in the park through moments such as perceiving the sun that we are familiar with and yet unfamiliar with, the innocence of a child's first showing of his baby teeth, the simple joy of chewing a piece of sweet gum, the father's lonely watch over the long river of time, and the warmth and hope when embracing a new life.

this article is excerpted from "in the autumn" and is authorized by the publisher. the subheadings are written by the editor.

01

the sun we are used to and never used to

the sun has been there every day since i was born, but i've never really gotten used to its presence, perhaps because it's so different from anything else we know.

as one of the rare natural phenomena in our world, we cannot approach it because we would be destroyed; we cannot send any probes, satellites or spacecraft because these things would also be destroyed. we cannot look at the sun with our naked eyes because that would cause blindness or impaired vision. sometimes it feels like an unreasonable and almost insulting existence: it just hangs high in the sky, visible to all people and animals on earth, and we can't even look at it in the face of this huge burning celestial body!

but this is the reality. if we look directly at the sun for a few seconds, our retinas will be covered with tiny black dots that move around. if we keep staring at it, the dots will spread across our eyes like ink on blotting paper. in other words, there is a burning sphere hanging above our heads that not only brings us all the light and heat, but is also the origin and basis of all life. at the same time, it is absolutely inaccessible andindifference to what it creates。

movie the sun also rises (2007)

it is difficult not to think of the sun when reading about the monotheistic god of the old testament. a fundamental characteristic of the relationship between man and god is that man cannot look directly at god, but must bow his head. the biblical image of god is fire, which represents the divine and always represents the sun, because all worldly fires are its incarnations. thomas aquinas wrote that god is the unshakable mover. his contemporary dante portrayed the divine as a river of light,a glimpse of god at the end of the divine comedy，its image is an eternally luminous circle.without religious beliefs, people are just arbitrary creatures, slaves to their circumstances, but dante wrote this way, making the people under the sun become significant beings, while the sun is just a star.

although ideas about reality wax and wane, burst and vanish, reality itself is immovable, its conditions of existence immutable: first the eastern sky lights up, the darkness slowly recedes from the fields, the sun catches the backs of the clouds as they turn from grey to pink to bright white as the air fills with the song of birds; at the same time, the sky, which only minutes before had been grey-black, turns blue, the first rays of sun fill the garden, and daylight arrives.

as people went back and forth to their chores, the shadows first grew shorter, then longer, in sync with the earth's rotation. as we sat outside under the apple tree to eat dinner, the air was filled with the noise of children, the clinking of cutlery, and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. no one noticed that the sun was hanging over the roof of the guest room, no longer a fiery golden color, but was covered in an orange coat, burning quietly.

02

human teeth do not age over time.

when the first tooth appears, a small stone slowly emerges from the child's red gums. at first it is just a small tip, and then it stands in the mouth like a small white tower. it is hard not to be curious: where does this thing come from?

the food that infants eat, mostly milk but also some mashed bananas and mashed potatoes, bears no resemblance to teeth, which are quite the opposite. but something must have been extracted from the partly liquid, partly soft food, transported to the jaw, and assembled into the material that forms the teeth. but how does this process work?

the formation and development of skin and flesh, nerves and tendons may be an equally great mystery, but it feels different. human tissue is soft and dynamic, and cells are open to each other and to the outside world to exchange substances. light, air and water flow through cells and tissues, whether in humans and animals, trees and plants.

documentary planet earth season 3 (2023)

but the teeth are completely closed, they reject everything, but closer to the mineral world of mountains and rivers, stones, gravel and sand.

what, then, is the difference between the rock that has been formed by the solidification of molten rock over millions of years, or by the infinitely slow process of sedimentation, in which the soft material at first is compressed and becomes diamond-hard, and the little enamel-like stones that have grown out of the upper and lower jaws of my children, who are sleeping in their rooms in the dark as i write this? for the two older ones, the growth and loss of teeth is a common occurrence, but for the youngest, it is still accompanied by great excitement and attention. the first tooth is a big deal, the second, and perhaps the third, but then the mentality gets a little bigger and the teeth seem to pop out of their own accord. the teeth start to loosen while i'm lying in bed at night, so that the next morning i have to ask where the blood on my pillow came from, or the tooth fell out while chewing an apple in the living room in the afternoon, and no one takes it seriously. "here, dad," one of them might say, handing me the tooth, and i hold it in my hand and carry it to the kitchen. what do i want this thing for?

i stood at the bench, the autumn sky casting a dim light outside, illuminating the faucet and sink in front of me. the little tooth was bright white, with some dark red blood stains at the root, and it looked almost unclean against the red and white skin of my hand. it didn't feel right to throw the tooth away, after all, it was a part of her. but at the same time, i couldn't save it, so why keep it? when i was old, would i pull out a box of rustling teeth and remember who owned them?

teeth don’t age like the rest of the body, nor do they change over time. this tooth is always ten years old. i opened the cabinet door under the sink and threw the tooth into the trash. it landed on a soft coffee filter, faded to gray from the black coffee grounds still on it. i took a crumpled cereal bag and threw it on top of the trash so i would never see the tooth again.

03

the importance of chewing gum

chewing gum usually comes in two forms, one is a small rectangular pillow-shaped piece, and the other is a flat, thin strip of slices. the small pillow-shaped piece has a hard and slippery outer shell, like enamel, which makes a crisp crunching sound when bitten by teeth. inside is a soft sandwich, which releases a rich flavor when touched by teeth, which is a bit like the principle of medical ampoules.

once chewing begins, the properties of these two different substances change rapidly; for the first few seconds, the gum turns into a porridge-like mass, and then it becomes the feeling of chewing gum that we remember, tough, smooth, and elastic. the other type of gum is a flat, thin slice that looks like fresh pasta, with a completely different texture from the pillowy gum, because there is no shell, so it is softer to chew, and there is no filling. the change after chewing seems to skip the ampoule stage, where the flavor explodes, and the porridge stage, and go directly to the real state of chewing gum.

from a purely physiological perspective, chewing food without swallowing it makes no sense.

the same is true for smoking, but in the process of smoking, tobacco releases irritating and addictive substances, which explains why adults are addicted to it.

movie "there's tomorrow" (2023)

chewing gum does not produce this effect. it is perhaps the closest thing to a pacifier that a child sucks. the activated sucking reflex first deceives the body into believing that it is taking in food, and then takes over, giving the sucking action an intrinsic value. in this way,gum chewing is clearly a baby thing。

i myself spend a lot of time chewing gum, but i didn't notice it until last week when i drove to a small fishing village a few dozen kilometers away to visit a german cultural editor who lives there for a few months each year. whether writing or driving, i always like to chew gum, not just one or two pillowy pieces, but a whole pack at a time. when i parked the car outside the old captain's house where he lived, i had a big sticky ball of gum in my mouth. i rang the doorbell and he came out to open the door for me, and only then did i realize that i had gum in my mouth. as he showed me around the house, i had to hide the gum in the corner of my mouth and concentrate on resisting the urge to chew.

the house was very beautiful, with modernist decoration style and no flaws. i kept looking for a place to throw the gum, but found nothing. after walking around the house, we found a place to sit down. he made me a cup of coffee. i carefully took out the gum and hid it in my palm, pinching the handle of the thin old coffee cup with my index finger and thumb, and bending the other three fingers to wrap the gum.

we talked about literature, and he told me about two books he was currently writing. now the gum no longer just clung to my skin, but, without the protective layer of saliva, it stuck firmly to my hand. i thought he might shake my hand as i was leaving, so i mustered my courage.

"do you have somewhere to throw this?"

finally, i chose to speak up.

"chewing gum?"

he asked.

i can still recall his expression and attitude the second after he finished speaking, which was a little surprised, a little unhappy, and even a little contemptuous. "chewing gum?" he said. in the blink of an eye, chewing gum has become the most natural thing in the world. he tore off a piece of paper and handed it to me, saying, "there is a wastebasket next to the desk." it seems that except for the chewing gum, almost all other mistakes can be forgiven, because there i am a writer and an artist, which means that i can cut off my ears, swear, get drunk, and even inject a shot of heroin in his bathroom.

because if drug abuse is stupid and childish, it is also great, at least for artists, whose minds never stay in line. excessive gum chewing only occurred when we were seven or eight, when it was cool to chew a small piece of gum with an open mouth, and it was impressive to stuff a mouth full of gum. i remember that i used to eat it sparingly. a piece of gum could be kept for weeks. the taste would disappear after a few hours, but the gum itself would not.

but things are different now. with all the sugar-free products these days, the taste of chewing gum fades after a few minutes, and it feels loose and grainy, with no silky texture at all. but there is one gum that is an exception: colorful fruit gum. i know exactly which shops sell colorful fruit gum, in volda and bergen, in stockholm and malmö, everywhere i’ve lived and written. it’s becoming increasingly scarce, so i’m stockpiling it.

my desk is always covered with chewed gum, gray, hemispherical, with many tiny indentations, like a shrunken brain. i can't write without chewing gum until it slowly turns into particles, and then i spit it out of my mouth. fortunately, as a gum chewer, i am not alone, and i am not worth mentioning in this trivial matter.

i remember this every time i go to the city. outside large gathering places, the sidewalks and squares are dotted with white spots, like random stars in the night sky. in the dark, under the streetlights, these spots glow faintly on the black asphalt, and look like the starry sky.

04

is the fruit that falls from the tree still part of the tree?

the chestnut tree has started to lose its leaves now, and they are scattered on the stone path. the willow has also lost its leaves and must be pruned. it grows too fast. the apple tree has also become sparse in its canopy, but the apples are still hanging from the tree, looking like little red lanterns hanging between the bare branches. i ate an apple from the tree today. it was large, more red than green, and the flesh was juicy, perhaps a little too sour. maybe it should be left hanging for another week before picking.

i walked through soft green grass that had grown so tall, with a sour taste in my mouth, wondering what flavors different varieties of apples had, and how old those flavors were. when were the varieties hybridized? in the 19th century? or was it the 20th century? there are apples in the world that taste exactly the same as they did 2,000 years ago.

i am happy when i encounter a slightly strange and unfamiliar aroma on home-grown apples. i often think of my grandmother, and how we used to pick apples from their garden in the fall, sometimes a whole box, and store them in the basement for weeks. yes, the basement was filled with the smell of apples and plums.

the cider house rules (1999)

she was passionate about everything to do with plants and gardens. her son, my father, inherited this interest. however, when i think of them, i feel that i have not inherited this interest, they are strangers to me. this makes me feel comfortable, as if i have opened a new chapter, a new life that is completely different from the past, that is my family.

every day i feel that what matters is the present, and all the important things are happening now, in the past few years. my past life is getting farther and farther away from me. my childhood is no longer the protagonist of my life, and i am no longer interested in my studies and my youth. all of these have become out of reach. i can even imagine what everything will be like when everything that is happening now becomes the past and when the children have grown up and left home.

i think back to the years when these events happened, and to my past life. why didn't i cherish it when i had it? i can imagine that by then, i will have lost it. only the past that slipped through my fingers, only things without words and thoughts, are real. this is the price of intimacy, being in it but not realizing it. not knowing it is there, only realizing it when it is gone.

the orange leaves fell on the soft, smooth stones between the houses, which darkened when it rained and then became shiny again when the water dried.

05

the antonym of loneliness is belonging

it's nice to be alone, it's nice to close the door and be away from other people for a while. but it doesn't always work that way.

for children, being alone is a mistake, a defect, and often painful. if you were alone a lot as a child, it was because no one wanted to be with you, or because no one was around to be with you. in any case, if no one was around, it was definitely a negative thing. groups of two or three are good, but being alone is not necessarily good. that's the rule.

but despite this, i never thought about what it was like for my father to be so alone. he seemed like a sovereign being, and everything about him seemed to be the way it should be. it never occurred to me that his solitude might be a mistake or a flaw, a painful existence.

he had no friends, only co-workers. he spent most nights alone in his basement, listening to music or collecting stamps. he withdrew from social and intimate relationships, never took the bus, never went to the barbershop for a haircut, and never took a busload of kids to a football game like other parents. i didn't notice any of this at the time. it was only after he died, when we found his journals, that i saw this side of his life.

he was addicted to loneliness and thought a lot about it. “i can always recognize people who are alone,” he wrote in his diary. “they walk differently from other people, as if they have no joy or enthusiasm, whether they are men or women.” in addition, he wrote in his diary: “ilooking for an antonym for loneliness. i want a word other than 'love', the word 'love' is overused and not fully expressed. tenderness, peace of mind and soul, or a sense of belonging? "in fact, "sense of belonging" is a good word, it is the antonym of loneliness. why he didn't think of it, i don't understand. a sense of belonging is one of the many beautiful feelings in a person's life, perhaps the most beautiful.

movie "forgotten lines" (2017)

but i often do the same thing as my father, i also like to close the door and be alone. i know why i like to be alone. it is great to be alone for a few hours, to completely disconnect from the complexities of human relationships, away from the big and small right and wrong, and put aside all the demands and expectations, desires and ideas. after a while, all of these will be closely intertwined, and there will be less room for action and reflection.

if all interactions between people could make sounds, then they would be like a chorus, and even the faintest twinkle in the eyes would make a very noisy sound. he should know this, right? maybe he understands it more deeply than i do? after all, he started drinking, and alcohol can make the chorus sound quieter, and when he is with others, he can automatically block out the voices of people around him.

yes, that's definitely the case.

because there is a sentence at the end of my father's diary that i will never be able to write. he wrote: "in short, what i am now so clumsily trying to express is that i have always been a solitary man." or, i suddenly thought with horror, what if it was the other way around? maybe he could not hear the chorus around him, was not aware of it, and therefore was not bound, but was always like a spectator watching everyone else being bound by something he did not know?

06

holding a baby is a joy

holding a baby in your arms is one of life's greatest joys, perhaps the greatest.

this applies to newborn babies, which are so small that an adult's palm can almost completely cover their tiny bodies. their eyes seem to wander around, and only occasionally they focus on the things around them, which makes people feelexisting in this world means almost nothing more than being surrounded by feelings.: the warm, soft body of a baby that is almost always snuggled up against, the warm milk that fills the tummy, and the wonderful sleepiness that comes every few hours.the existence of a newborn is to smooth out the differences between itself and the surroundings., making everything warm, intimate and soft. a sudden drop in temperature can create a gap between babies and the real world, as can sudden noises or unexpected movements, which can cause babies to scream and cry.

there is a joy in fulfilling these simple requests, both because they are simple indeed, requiring only an interaction, a beat, a song, and because the intimacy it requires satisfies a desire, almost like a lust, to protect, to give, to care.

for a grown man like me, holding a child close to me is the only non-sexual physical intimacy i know. i don't know how it feels to women, but it's no exaggeration to say there is a difference. maybe this is why when a man lives closely with a newborn, he has to act very manly so as not to look like a woman.

raphael, madonna of the chair (1514)

as the child grows and approaches one year old, everything changes, except the pleasure of holding it close to your body. but you don’t hold it as often as before, because the requirements are exactly the opposite of what they were before. the child must and will expose himself to the gap between himself and the world.

he began to crawl on the floor, exploring specific stations: a wire here, a shoe rack there, a vacuum cleaner here, etc. he also sought eye contact with his family during mealtimes, smiled when they laughed, and waved when they waved. his eyes were very active, sometimes even a little shrewd, but mostly happy.

many words around babies have already been stored and recognized, but they still cannot be spoken, just like words printed in a magazine. the same is true for the process of learning to walk. first, it will grab the legs of the table, slowly climb up, then stand up, and soon, it will take its first step full of fear, tension, joy and surprise.

but if it goes out into the world on its own, after enough time, maybe just ten minutes, or maybe thirty minutes, then this child will come back to you, back to the adult, and you will pick it up and hold it tightly in your arms. when it leans its head against your chest and makes a gesture of complete trust in you, at that moment, your heart will burst into an incomparable and wonderful feeling, which is irresistible. why is this?

i think that what we are defenseless against is not the helplessness of children, and what strikes the heart is not this helplessness, but its innocence. because you know how much pain this world will bring to it, you know how complicated this world is, how difficult life will be in the future, and you know that in the future, when it interacts with the complex social environment, it will develop a series of defense mechanisms, avoidance strategies, and self-protection methods. this is the content of a complete life, both good and bad. all of this does not exist in the baby. what shines in its eyes is pure and flawless joy, and the adult it leans its head on is still the safest place it has.

this article is excerpted from

in the fall

author: [norway] karl ove knausgaard

publisher: shanghai joint publishing company

producer: ideal country

translator: shen yunlu

publication year: 2023-9