Mirror flowers and water moon, thousands of illusions.
Ingenious and satirical of reality.
When I first heard of "Mirror Flower Edge", I thought it was the same satirical novel as "Ru Lin Wai Shi", and the same as "Liaozhai Zhiyi", writing ghosts and writing demons and thorns and greedy abuse. After reading a little, I realized that it was the Chinese version of Gulliver's Travels, and the modern version of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
With his superb imagination, Li Ruzhen, the author of the novel, describes the strange stories and customs of the country of gentlemen, the country of adults, the country of daughters, the country of no intestines, the country of Nie Er, the country of black teeth, the Republic of Bai, the Republic of Mao, the Republic of Yi and other places. It's dizzying and can't help but feel like you're in a magical world of overseas mythology. Isn't this magical overseas world depicted in the "Overseas Western Classic" and the "Great Wilderness Western Classic" in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas"?
Li Ruzhen is based on the materials and clues in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", supplemented, imagined, and used humorous tones, exaggeration, metaphor, contrast and other techniques to create such a unique and novel novel novel.
The main body of the novel is half traveling to overseas countries, and half showing women's talents. The background of the story is the Wu Zetian period, when women were in power, which is more suitable for the author to express the ideas of equality between men and women and oppose the oppression of women by men. In particular, there is a daughter country in the book, "Men wear dresses instead, as women, to govern internal affairs; women wear boots and hats, as men, to rule foreign affairs." In either respect, a woman's wisdom is no different from that of a man.
The author also portrayed many talented women and wrote about the talent life of many women. Even when the human part was first written at the beginning of the novel, Shangguan Wan'er's talent was written as the first in the world, and no one in the Manchu Dynasty wenwu could hope to follow.
The discussion of women's issues in "Mirror Flower Edge" is a topic that many scholars and experts often mention, after all, this topic has been ignored for thousands of years.
In addition to the discussion of this issue, the humor of the novel is often hilarious and thoughtful, such as the part of the rice dung in the country without intestines. The characteristic of the intestine-free People is to eat something, not to stay in the stomach, and then it is discharged, although it is dung, but because it is not digested like a mortal, but directly through, so the food is discharged and does not become smelly, it is still food, which is a bit disgusting to say. Because it was not yet rotten, it was stored for the servants to eat. But some were so greedy that they not only did not let the servants eat enough, but also "made them eat the dung three or four times." "It wasn't until the rice dung was no longer arguable that the stove was started again." It is disgusting and hilarious to say, but it is even more revealing of the ugly mouths of some mean and unkind rich people. If you think about it, this is also a true portrayal of the real world.
Novels also often use some events and character dialogue to express some positive energy and satirize some ugly phenomena. Just like the bird that is not filial, because it is not filial piety, not only man plucks its hair, but even the beast eats its flesh. If you can put down the butcher's knife, you can also become a Buddha on the spot, and the unfilial bird can also become an immortal through cultivation. For tiger wolves, they are the most afraid of people, cannibalism? That's because the people they eat don't look like individuals, and they are mistaken for beasts by tigers and wolves. The difference between man and beast is whether or not what people should do, and if they do more bad things and become more angry, they become beasts.
What impresses me more deeply in the novel is a few sentences about the discussion of good and evil, eating and praying to the Buddha on weekdays, these small goodes cannot withstand the sins of filial piety and adulterous wives and daughters. Filial piety comes first, and all evil and adultery are the first. The small goodness of eating and praying to the Buddha in this form cannot be offset by the great evil of filial piety and fornication. This is reminiscent of bill Gates' scandal some time ago, which mentions a billionaire named Epstein, who was a philanthropic rich man before everything was exposed, and after everything was exposed, he was a sex offender. There are those who, on the surface, do so-called good deeds, but behind them do unforgivable sins. Isn't that what Lin Zhiyang mentioned in the novel is that people who often eat fasting and pray buddhas are eaten by tigers. And in reality, I don't know how many such people there are.
In addition to these interesting exaggerations and metaphors in the novel, the author also shows off his erudition in various ways in the book. It is said that these Chinese medicine theories are of a fairly high level, and the prescriptions in the book are still copied to treat diseases, which are said to be quite effective.
In the ninety-sixth time of the novel, Li Ruzhen lists more than fifty kinds of wines, all of which are famous wines in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and the author is afraid that he is not an alcoholic. In short, the author is all kinds of showing off his erudition, which of course is also influenced by the atmosphere of the time, after all, everyone is striving for erudition. What's more, the author is a knowledgeable person who disdains chapters and sentences and disdains the eight strands of text. Therefore, "Mirror Flower Edge" is also the most prominent work in the show off novel.
Li Ruzhen immersed herself in reading and writing, which lasted more than thirty years to write "Mirror Flower Edge", this book also includes the author's lifelong learning, although it is written too much knowledge, it is disgusting, but it does not affect that "Mirror Flower Edge" is a masterpiece.
Sister Chang'e in the novel completely subverted the beautiful image in my heart, a narrow-minded and despicable villain, while the Hundred Flowers Fairy was quite proud.