half-life

During the first half of the book, I was amazed at Eileen Chang's sensitivity to human feelings. The previous story was unsurprising, but Eileen Chang's description of the characters' psychology made me admire her ability to hit the nail on the head. A novel about love, but it doesn't put love in a supreme, powerful position. Generally, there are only two kinds of such works, one is Qiongyao daydreaming, which belongs to the boring pastime, the other is the Peony pavilion type of the highest ideal, which belongs to the spiritual sustice. The love expressed in "Half Life" is probably the norm in a particular environment. Eileen Chang often likes to use a word to describe, is with a "desolate sense."

Manlu sets Zhu Hongcai up to rape his sister, so she almost becomes the villain of the story. She bought me a word, the idea is that I was to be a strong girl, our family starved to death, the same two sisters, why I am so cheap, you noble to such a point. It was a little weak to talk of chastity in front of a sister who had done so much for her family. However, there was no reason why Man Zhen had to live in the shadow of his sister. Destroying herself for her family, and then taking her sister with her to save herself, it is the distortion of Manlu that deepens her tragic color. I don't know how I feel about Manlu. Sympathy? Pity? She also has love, life turns her love into memories, can recall is also a happy, finally found that in the memory of the support she believes the warmth of the man actually like his sister. Why do all the men like Manzhen because she has the purity that Manlu doesn't? I even kind of hate Man Frame. She enjoyed her sister with the flesh to her in exchange for all kinds of capital, that she is what kind of feelings for her sister? There is no clear explanation in the book, but one can feel that the basic lives of Manzhen and Manlu rarely intersect.

Can because of a misunderstanding and collapse of love is a little ridiculous. So the tragedy of Shikyun and Man Jeong did not get a sigh from me, but I felt that this kind of love is everywhere. Even if Man Zhen had not been raped, they would not have got together. They are not reckless people, and they always think that their relationship can only be nourished in a greenhouse. Just like many men and women in reality, they cannot escape their families, others' eyes and their personal future, and they cannot withstand the test of changes. Shikyun gave up his feelings with Man Zhen easily because of what others said, and he didn't even want to get a face to face explanation. Therefore, many years later, when Man Zhen said, "We can't go back", I sighed more for the reality's encroachment on the soul, the crazy Man Lu and the negative Shiyun.

Man Zhen finally married Zhu Hongcai, whom she hated, for the sake of her child. Women's maternal nature is great and glorious, but women's nature is often the source of their own tragedy. For readers like me, who have never experienced the power of motherhood, there is little to say about her choice.

Shikyun married Cui Zhi, who he did not love. Cui Zhi is one of my favorite characters. She is daring to pursue, but this pursuit can not be echoed, and finally committed to the man who does not love.

In the impermanence of life, always feel that love is a calm time, probably some pessimistic. I don't know Eileen Chang's experience, so I don't know what she is trying to say. I do not regard it as a romantic novel completely, through the story of those men and women to see the state of the world to see the heart, the reason why Zhang Ailing Zhang Ailing!

When I read the comments written by many people, they intended to absorb the fragments of other people's thoughts to make up for their own shallow thoughts, but all of them had a sense of being merely scratching the surface. What they wrote was full of the regrets, heartaches and tears of Shikyun and Man Zhen. They could not help but be disappointed when viewed in the light of Qiongyao's drama.