Editor's Note:
Do you often feel anxious after a busy work life?
If yes, Xiaobian will recommend you a book today - "The Banquet of civilians"
This book focuses on the plight of such a group of people who are superficially elegant and beautiful, but who have long been exhausted and are bound by desire and ambition.
It can be said that if you understand this book, you can understand the anxiety of the Chinese middle class: "We have everything, we have nothing."
A woman with no face, no body and no background
By what is the counterattack on life?
The author of "Civilian's Banquet" is a famous contemporary female writer in Japan, who has been working tirelessly for more than 30 years, she has published more than 230 works, and her works have sold 30 million copies in Japan.
However, Hayashi's writing did not go so smoothly at the beginning.
Hayashi Mariko in his early years
When she was young, Lin Zhenzi was just a fat girl with no money, no boyfriend, no figure, no beauty, who submitted her resume to forty companies, and was not admitted.
Unable to find a job, she could only work as a temporary worker, relying on 40 yen (about 2 yuan) of sliced bread to eat, barely entering the advertising agency, but because she had no education, no talent, and more lack of beauty, she was constantly excluded and humiliated by her colleagues in the company. Every time she wrote, the teacher said that it was too sensational and too long, unlike advertisements like prose.
That "sense of shame" that was despised by others stimulated the ambition of Hayashi Makoto, and she really wrote prose as soon as she gambled. So, began her life all the way.
Now Mariko Hayashi
In 1982, Hayashi's first single book, "Buy a Good Mood home", broke through millions of sales and quickly climbed the best-seller list. In 1986, she won the Naoki Literature Prize.
The Naoki Prize is one of the most highly regarded awards in the Japanese literary world, known as the "Newcomer Torimon" award in the Japanese literary world, and is listed as the highest authoritative award for Japanese literature alongside the Wasagawa Prize.
Later, sensing that the gap between the rich and the poor in Japanese society was widening, Hayashi Maiko created "The Banquet of the Commoners". During the serialization of Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, "Banquet for Civilians" caused a strong response and became a super bestseller.
WeChat "Ten Points of Character History" video dialogue with Lin Zhenzi
Good literature
It can make the reader have a strong sense of substitution
"The Civilian's Feast" tells the story of a typical middle-class family in the traditional sense, who gradually fell into the tragicomedy of "low society" due to the dropout of their sons from high school and the marriage problems of their children:
The Japanese drama "The Feast of the Vulgar" adapted from "The Banquet of the Commoners"
Yumiko Fukuhara, a middle-class mother, insists that people are noble and inferior, and she cannot accept that her son Fukuhara Sho has given up the "perfect life" she envisions, let alone accept that he wants to marry Miyagi Chuo, a "low-class person" from okinawa island. On the other hand, her daughter Fukuhara Kana has been trying her best to marry a rich man in order to enhance her status...
From the love between Sho Fukuhara and Chusuke Miyagi, who is "not right at the door", Hayashi Maiko portrays the careful thinking of people from different classes in Japan and the great anxiety in their lives.
The three women in the story represent three completely different values.
"Civilian's Banquet" TV series version, Hitomi Kuroki as Yumiko
Yumiko Fukuhara, a middle-class mother with a well-established and orthodox education, believes more than anyone in the meaning of hard work as a staunch advocate of "hard work pays off." Therefore, she always told her son that he must be admitted to a prestigious university.
Is it very similar to many parents around you?
Unable to bear the heavy expectations of his mother, Yumiko Fukuhara, Fukuhara lost interest in finding a good job in college and pursuing a so-called perfect life, unwilling to climb the peak of life, preferring to drop out of private high school and work at a manga café to live a simple, loose and crumbling life.
Faced with a family that is about to gradually fall into "low society", Yumiko is exhausted to maintain the family's status and reputation.
The TV series version of "Civilian's Banquet", Masataka Kuwata as Fukuhara Sho
Whether in Japan or China, the issue of children's education can be said to be the top priority of the family. Yumiko Fukuhara's educational philosophy can also be said to be very representative in China:
I hope that my children can jump to a higher social status, or at least inherit their middle-class status, and spend a lot of money to let their children go to various tutoring classes, learn various talents and etiquette, and find ways to let their children win at the starting line.
The pressure on Sho Fukuhara actually comes from the huge insecurity in the heart of her mother, Yumiko Fukuhara.
The TV series version of "Civilian's Feast", with Natsuki Kato as Kakuhara Kazuki
Born in a middle-class family, her sister Kana Fukuhara, dreams of marrying a rich man and living the life of a rich wife, which she believes is the most ideal life -- "a housewife dressed in a high-end Kaiser rice sweater, leisurely shopping in the international mall of Aoyama Kikuniya, next to a trolley filled with high-end ingredients, and a child wearing a private elementary school uniform."
Kenai knows that beautiful appearance is his greatest capital, so since middle school, he has been laying out how to enter the social circle of high-quality gold men.
But as Zweig said, "She was too young to know all the gifts of fate, and she had already secretly marked the price."
"Civilian's Banquet" TV series version, Miwa as Miyagi Tsurugi
Fukuhara's beloved girl, Miyagi, is from Okinawa, a small island where she went to Tokyo to work after graduating from high school, and after a few years. After falling in love with Fukuhara Xiang, Zhu Xu was despised and looked down upon by the Fukuhara family because of his mediocre appearance, lack of high education, and no stable job.
Unable to bear the humiliation of Yumiko Fukuhara, Miyagi worked hard and eventually got admitted to a very difficult medical university, thus getting rid of the fate of working everywhere.
Zhu Xu can represent a kind of people, those who refuse to bow to real life, through hard work, finally changed their destiny.
In "The Feast of the Commoners", the anxiety and struggle caused by various problems such as love marriage, children's education, and husband and wife relationships can be seen by ourselves or the shadows of those around us. Neighboring Japan in the east has always been a mirror for China, and as an excellent work, it is difficult not to think of oneself in the reading process of "The Feast of the Commoners".
The famous writer Shinan said: "After so many years of change, we have slowly become like the life described in Hayashi's book, and we or the people around us are like the people she wrote in her book." Whether it is the working women in the book, or parents and children, they are particularly similar to us now. I think if these books were changed to Chinese names, they would be books about our present."
In the face of the big times, everyone is a small person, and the anxious times have enveloped everyone, and no one can be alone and retreat.
Bite
Climb up and climb again
Hayashi once said, "Without ambition, I will achieve nothing."
In Hayashi's view, "ambition" is a force that forces people upwards.
The woman, when standing on the flat ground, could see nothing, but only knew the sky above her head like a frog at the bottom of the well. But after going up one level, she knew that there were mountains outside the mountain that should continue to climb up.
Of course, this climb was unspeakably painful, and when it was painful, she wanted to come down, hesitating whether to return to the flat land. However, she never wanted to go back to that flat spot. Therefore, only grit your teeth and climb upwards and climb again.
That process is quite painful, quite difficult! But that's what I call ambition.
In "The Feast of the Commoners", Lin Zhenzi uses sharp language and delicate descriptions to give a piece of advice to all young people who escape from reality, hide in the comfort nest they have built, and enjoy small happiness:
If people are not consciously positive, they will not be able to live a more fulfilling life by chance. Even a little bit, try to work towards a goal higher than your own ability, and you will find that the paths available increase and your life is broader.
After winning the Naoki Prize at the age of 32, She flew first class on an airplane for the first time in her life.
Because it was so comfortable, she secretly decided: "In the future, even if you pay for it, you will have to travel in first class, this is the attitude of life!" 」 She said that people who have only flown in economy class all their lives will never have the opportunity to see first class seats, but as long as they take business class once, even if they are reluctant, they will see the world of first class with their own eyes.
The same is true of the way people live, without striving for higher goals, they cannot see the wider world.
At the end of the day, money is still important, and the more options in life, the better.
In "The Feast of the Commoners", Hayashi Makoto let Miyagi, who is regarded as the "inferior class", grow up with her own hard work and the help of others, hoping to complete the class "counterattack" through education, and also give the reader a glimmer of hope: this seems to be a way and breakthrough to achieve class communication.
This kind of cruelty to oneself is a kind of happiness born towards death.
One of Japan's "Four Heavenly Kings Female Writers"
Judge of the Naoki Prize in Japan and winner of the Naoki Prize
Mariko Hayashi's masterpiece
【Sun】Written by Mariko Hayashi
Published by Oriental Press