"poet,
live elsewhere,
in the desert/ocean,
A journey of adventure across his vast body and spirit,
The ghost of the flood has just dissipated"
This is Rimbaud's poem, engraved on the red walls of the University of Paris. The poet lived a short life in wandering: he was a young soldier in the Paris Commune, a miner in Africa, a sailor in India, and a merchant in Marseille. He was a flowing poem, burning out his youth in freedom and dreams. In the hearts of later generations of admirers, this "father of all literary genres" interprets the meaning of "an eternal Bohemian" with his life: rebel against all established arrangements, and walk until life leads you to find the mysterious Kingdom: A kingdom filled with angels and spirits, full of wine and poetry.
This is Rimbaud's chic, but it does not belong to us who are running around in the dust of the city. Gao Xingjian said: Lingshan is on the other side of the river. But when you go to "over there", "this side" becomes "over there", and the cycle goes on and on, and you can never reach it. This is the sorrow of ordinary people, and it is the unsolved mystery of life. Therefore, we look forward to a kind of passion, hope it is like a spring water, moisturizing our silent hearts and hunchbacks, bringing a ray of light to the gray life, and illuminating those ideals that shine in the cold night. Therefore, we need a trip that says go, and we need somewhere else, a distant place.
"The Pilgrimage" tells of such a distant place.
After learning of his son's death in a blizzard on the "Way of St. James", American doctor Avery traveled to Europe to recover his son's body in the foothills of the Pyrenees. In the process of picking up the relics, the hearts of the father and son had a belated tacit understanding: the father decided to finish the unfinished road of the son, the 900-kilometer pilgrimage journey, and scatter the son's ashes along the way. This is bound to be a tragic journey.
There are two "UN World Heritage Sites" related to "Roads": one is the "Ki Mountain Pilgrimage Route" in Japan, and the other is the "St. The Way of Jacob". This journey is famous for the Compostela Cathedral (the burial place of St. James) at the end, which is called the "three pilgrimage sites" of Christianity together with Rome and Jerusalem. In the "Bible • Gospel of St. James", there is such a record: St. James appeared in a dream of Charlemagne, and he urged the earthly king to go to Santiago quickly and remove his tomb from the rule of the Moors. Liberate, and point him to the route of marching, which is the direction of the Milky Way. For thousands of years, in the "direction of the Milky Way", believers have been rubbing shoulders with each other.
This is easily reminiscent of Tibetans' "turning the mountain", walking at the foot of the sacred mountain, or kowtow, in order to wash away the sins of a lifetime and get rid of the suffering of the six paths of reincarnation. Those who die in the process of turning the mountain are considered to be a kind of good fortune, and they are expected to become Buddhas in the next life. For thousands of years, the flow of faith has flowed endlessly on the roads leading to the sacred mountain.
People in the East and the West have invariably thought of "walking" to complete the salvation of their souls. Perhaps in the religious feelings, in the distance, there is the Holy Spirit, which embodies the endless reverie of the other world in the world. Walking and constantly approaching it, on this way, it is most suitable to complete the communication of soul with God or Buddha.
The way of St. James in ancient times was often full of blood and rain due to pagan harassment, but now there is no such hardship. The difficulty is nothing more than a little struggle with nature when climbing the mountains, and beyond that, the vast plains of Western Europe, mixed with peanut trees, and the earth like brocade. Without the danger of life, the pilgrimage becomes a dialogue with oneself. Of course, there are those who are with you.
Along the way, Avery meets a Dutch drug addict who wants to lose weight, a Canadian sad woman who uses travel to heal her emotional wounds, a kind and open-minded New York pastor, and an Irish writer who is exhausted. This is a small life gathering, With their unresolved melancholy, they gathered on the same road, tempered each other, and slowly reached a tacit understanding while showing their individuality and sadness. There are some issues that we are destined to tangle for a lifetime: the growing body, the lover who has gone away, the children who have never met, the manuscript that cannot be completed, and the belated love between father and son. While walking and looking forward to the distance, these questions are looming, stirring the heart from time to time, and gradually disappearing in the hustle and bustle of the road, turning into a distant background behind the halo of the icon.
There are also various scenery along the way: the church as the center of spiritual life stands in every town along the way, the continuous stream of pilgrims fills the hotel bars, the classical ruins can be seen everywhere, the Basque nationalists who are obsessed with bullfighting, the integrity His gypsy father and his passionate family gatherings, the strong Christian cultural blood of Western Europe, like a stream of passion, flows through the chaotic mountains and gravel of time, flowing through countless ordinary and casual lives. The American doctor's heart is gradually blending in. Along the way, the son's figure seems to be on the left and right, walking, singing, drinking, and sighing with his father.
On the way to take his son to the airport, the father said, "It's a life I choose." The son replied, "Dad, life is not chosen, it is lived (You don't choose). a life, you live one.)”. For those uninhibited souls, life is not a given answer, it is just a distant place to be reached. This is the son's pilgrimage road, and it is also the eternal "elsewhere" for Rimbauds.
Milan Kundera once used "Life Elsewhere" as the title of the book, describing the growth of a poet's inner life in detail, in order to express his tribute to Rimbaud - "I have heard in my heart from Calling from afar, I no longer need to look back and care about the right and wrong and discussions behind me. I have no time to take care of the past, and I want to move forward.”
Go forward, everything is in it.
Finally reached the end of the journey---the Cathedral of Compostela, the temple of St. James is solemn and solemn, the pillars are soaring into the sky, the touches of thousands of years of people have made deep grooves in the temple, and a sacrament is going on. held. Avery put his son's ashes on his knees before the coffin of St. James. As soon as he turned around, his son was in the crowd, dressed in ochre robes, shaking the rope of the holy bell with the crowd.
In the low sound of the bell, the father and son smiled at each other. This side and that side, this side and the other side, the distance and other places, at this moment, depend on each other.
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