ЖИТТЯ ЯК НАТЯГНУТА СТРУНА / ПЕРЕКЛАД З КИТАЙСЬКОЇ, ВСТУПНА СТАТТЯ ТА КОМЕНТАРІ Н. О. ЧЕРНИШ

Abstract

The reader is invited to get acquainted with the works of the famous Chinese writer Shi Tiesheng, a prominent author of novels, short stories and essays of the 20th century. Many of his works are included in textbooks of Chinese schools. Academic interest in Shi Tiesheng’s work is increasing every year; in particular, many studies are devoted to his story Like a Banjo String (“命 若 琴弦”). The story Like a Banjo String has all features of a parable. It is both an instructive and allegorical plot, built on a hidden comparison, and also symbolism, imagery, and vivid allegory. The story is characterized by the principle of the parable: it seems to break away from the given space and, moving along the curve, turns back, gives a philosophical and ethical understanding of the subject, ‘the timeless’ contains a description of modernity, concrete action communicates the eternal.
According to the author of the translation, it is the philosophy of A. Camus that helps to better understand the story-parable of Shi Tiesheng. We can assume that Shi Tiesheng himself was familiar with the philosophy of A. Camus, whose works began to be published in Chinese in 1958. In the image of the protagonist of his parable, Shi Tiesheng asks the same questions as Camus in his famous essay on the absurd, The Myth of Sisyphus: what motivates a person to act, what is a sense of absurdity, a sense of hope and hopelessness, a thirst for clarity (the absolute), reconciliation with fate, creativity, etc. Reflecting on the absurdity of human life, Shi Tiesheng seeks a solid basis for it. In the story Like a Banjo String the winner in the confrontation with fate is not the stoic acceptance of one’s fate, supported by an understanding of its absurdity and freedom of action, but the ability to dissolve oneself in another, to see another, to shift one’s attention to another, and this ability of mind or state of mind, or the nature of the character in the Chinese tradition is called humanity, philanthropy and even ‘conscience’. These words are united by the hieroglyph 仁 ren.
The Ukrainian translation of the story Like a Banjo String is done for the first time.