Inadvertently cover

Inadvertently

Rating 4.0
Word count
85K words
Chapters
49
ISBN
9787559806581

Tags

Summary

Start of Spring: copy a page of small regular script of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra; Grain in Ear: brew a bowl of twenty-year-old tea cake; Summer Solstice: shoot a film late at night in the hutong; Start of Autumn: recall the scent of chrysanthemums in Chengdu that year; End of Heat: listen to an elder play the guqin piece "Remembering an Old Friend"; White Dew: learn the qin from Teacher Yu of the Yushan Wu school; Major Snow: close the door and read the Japanese classic Tsurezuregusa; and as for sweeping tombs at Qingming, watching the rain at Start of Summer, listening to the wind at Cold Dew, viewing the qin at Frost's Descent… These daily staples and romantic flourishes of life form the底色 under the two themes of reading and writing; they are closer to the original meaning of "casually." As the author says: "Living is like flowing water, rushing a thousand li, gains and losses, success and failure, all come casually." Reading, tasting tea, writing characters, playing the qin—stepping out of "boundaries," stepping into "life," capturing the casually moving moments in daily life; in a noisy and restless modern society, maintaining a calm and easygoing state of mind, letting the mind arise without dwelling on anything.

Editor's review

Yang Kui uses the solar terms as the warp and daily life as the weft, stringing together copying sutras, brewing tea, shooting films, listening to the qin, and reading classics into a slow book. It does not strike the pose of a lifestyle guru, nor rush to conclusions, but between daily staples and romantic flourishes writes out the original meaning of "casually": living is like flowing water, and gains and losses, success and failure, all come casually. The prose is calm and easygoing, the pieces short, suitable for flipping through a few pages on the commute or before bed, letting a restless mind settle a little. For those used to fast-paced reading, what it offers is not information but a sense of slowed rhythm and a reference point for mood.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Urban office workers who want to feel relaxed in fragmented time
  • Readers who like essays, diary-style writing, and life-aesthetics texts
  • People interested in solar terms, tea, the qin, calligraphy, and other daily refinements
  • Readers who need light reading before bed or on the commute to soothe their mood

Not a good fit for

  • Readers expecting systematic knowledge or practical skill tutorials
  • Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced narratives
  • People uninterested in the life-essay genre who pursue information density

Reading tips

  1. No need to read straight through; you can turn to the corresponding piece by solar term and read with the seasons.
  2. Read only two or three pieces at a time, then pause to let the rhythm in the writing slow down.
  3. Keep it by the bed or in your bag as short, light reading for the commute or before sleep.
  4. When you reach a passage on a refinement that interests you, look it up or try it out and extend it into your own daily life.

About the publisher

Guangxi Normal University Press China · Founded in 1986

Guangxi Normal University Press is a publisher known for literature, foreign literature and history titles. Its 1,175 books in the database show a solid accumulation in classics and prose collections, including foreign literary works such as Les Fleurs du mal: Annotated Poems of Baudelaire, Snow Country, Dubliners and The Wild Palms, as well as modern prose compilations like The Complete Prose of Zhou Zuoren. History and philosophy also hold a notable share, with titles such as Running Dogs: Clerks and Runners in Qing County Yamen and The History and Thought of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reflecting attention to Qing local administration and modern history. In art literature there is the 16-volume Ten Bamboo Studio Painting and Calligraphy Manual. Its author resources include foreign writers Charles Baudelaire and Yasunari Kawabata, translators and annotators Liu Nanqi and Zou Bo, and scholars such as Zhong Shuhe, Bradly W. Reed and You Chenjun. As public information is limited, this characterization is based only on the books in the database, which together present a profile balancing Chinese and foreign literary classics with academic works in the humanities and social sciences.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 自序
  3. 上辑
  4. 去扬州,读欧阳修
  5. 大唐公务员柳宗元
  6. 武则天与禅师
  7. 耘于空漠:吴大羽的超越之道
  8. 势象大美
  9. “苦茶”蒋兆和
  10. 南方人朱新建
  11. 老树的江湖
  12. 纸边儿
  13. 文人骄娇二气
  14. 沈从文和《沈从文的后半生》
  15. 汪曾祺的动感
  16. 三说阿城
  17. 高尚地吃
  18. 硬知识与软知识
  19. 斯泰因与毕加索
  20. 书籍·记忆·艾柯
  21. 石黑一雄的厚重
  22. 读书平常事
  23. 序言两则
  24. 互联网编辑十问
  25. 下辑
  26. 立春·抄写
  27. 雨水·画盐
  28. 惊蛰·来历
  29. 春分·隐居
  30. 清明·墓园
  31. 谷雨·落伍
  32. 立夏·暴雨
  33. 小满·收藏
  34. 芒种·饮茶
  35. 夏至·拍电影
  36. 小暑·报志愿
  37. 大暑·欲雨
  38. 立秋·气息
  39. 处暑·听琴
  40. 白露·学琴
  41. 秋分·一人饮
  42. 寒露·听风
  43. 霜降·看琴
  44. 立冬·昆明
  45. 小雪·书卷气
  46. 大雪·慢读
  47. 冬至·艺字
  48. 小寒·四则
  49. 大寒·始乱

FAQ

Is this book suitable for reading in one sitting?
Not really. The pieces are short and the pace is slow; reading it in one go easily loses the flavor. It is better to pick and choose by solar term or mood, two or three pieces at a time, leaving room to savor.
Is everything in the book about the author's own life?
The book unfolds around daily activities such as copying sutras, brewing tea, shooting films, listening to the qin, and reading classics; it is a record of essays grounded in the author's own life, focused on capturing casually moving moments rather than being a complete autobiography.
Can I get into it without knowing traditional refinements?
Yes. The author writes about tea, the qin, and calligraphy without setting a threshold, focusing more on mood and daily feeling. Readers unfamiliar with these refinements can still relax through the rhythm of the writing; no prior study is needed.

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About the author

杨葵 Author

Yang Kui is an author in the Chinese-language writing scene known for his essays and documentary-style prose. Public information about him is currently limited, and no confirmed details of his life are available. Two of his works are included here, Bujingyi (Inadvertence) and Guodequ (Getting By), commonly classified as essays and miscellaneous writings and as documentary literature. Judging from the titles and genres of these two books, Yang Kui's writing tends to draw on everyday experience and the people and events around him. His tone is plain and restrained, revealing human feeling and the passage of time through small fragments of life, with a note of recollection and self-reflection. Rather than relying on grand narrative, he attends to the measure of language and the texture of detail, letting ordinary people's situations emerge naturally in his understated prose. This close-to-life approach gives his writing a simple sense of truth somewhere between the essay and the documentary, suited to readers who prefer quiet reading and an attention to daily experience. Owing to limited materials, the full scope of his work and his writing career remain to be further documented.

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