15 books I have read and would like to recommend to you in 2020
15 books I have read and would like to recommend to you in 2019
15 books I have read and would like to recommend to you in 2018
Ten books I have read and would like to recommend to you in 2017
Ten books I read and would like to recommend to you in 2016
In 2021, I lost two relatives: my mother and my father-in-law. My parents always felt young when they were there, never realizing how close death was to me. After losing two relatives in less than a month, I suddenly felt old, lost the warm and powerful barrier, and had to face death. With this feeling, when I read some classic passages of the literary masters, it seems to be more easily touched than ever, and sometimes I cry alone, but these famous works give us not only sadness and memories, but also the motivation to reflect and forge ahead. I also hope that the following readings will bring more people thinking and strength.
"It is everyone's turn to ascend to the high post of suffering that has existed throughout the ages. Everyone has to encounter eternal pain and hope that there is no hope. Everyone has to follow the person who resisted death, denied death, and finally had to die. ”
"I want to be the grave where you are buried,
So that my arms can hold you forever. ”
1. Paradise Lost
Author: John Milton (UK); Translator: Zhu Weizhi; People's Literature Publishing House
It is a breathless mythological epic depicting the story of Adam and Eve, the ancestor of mankind, who was banished from the Garden of Eden by God for stealing forbidden fruit. As a cause, the story extends forward to Satan's rebellion against God's dictatorship and the regency of the Son of God, and after being suppressed, he infiltrates the Garden of Eden and incarnates as a serpent to tempt Eve to eat the fruit of wisdom on the tree of knowledge. As a follow-up, the story goes on through an angel taking Adam up the mountain to witness an illusion, showing the ups and downs of human reproduction until the appearance of Jesus the Savior.
The Garden of Eden created by God is equivalent to a comfort zone for Adam and Eve, in which man can enjoy all the glory, provided that the fruit of wisdom on the tree of knowledge is not eaten, in other words, he can only live in a muddy state and worship God wholeheartedly. Why is God so afraid of wisdom? Because all he wanted was praise and not a single doubt. Eve had this thought before picking the forbidden fruit: "If you don't know the good, you can't get the good, and to get it without knowing it is to not get it at all." To put it bluntly, why is knowledge prohibited? Forbid us to be good, forbidden to be wise! Such a ban cannot bind people. If death binds us with the last bondage, then what is the use of our inner freedom? It can be seen that Eve in the poem does not steal food out of a momentary desire, but acts after thinking. Although Adam rebuked Eve, he chose to take the forbidden fruit from Eve's hand because of his love, "And die with you, although death is still alive." "For the sake of wisdom and love, they take the initiative to choose to boldly break the circle and live to death." If a "paradise" can only live in obscurity and confinement, how can it not be a good thing to lose?
Satan is another highlight of the poem, in which he passionately speaks after the defeat of the rebellion: "What have we lost? It's not all that is lost: indomitable will, fervent vengeance, unquenchable hatred, and the courage to never give in and never give in, what could be harder to overcome? He knew God so well that he came up with a brilliant plan of revenge: "to make him regret and destroy his work." In contrast, the obedient angels not only obeyed God themselves, but also exhorted Adam to "be satisfied with what he has given... Just think about you and your life. "If God only allows sentient beings to be blindly loyal to the King in a foolish environment, then I would say that Satan is the true hero of awakening.
2. John Christophe
Author: Romain Rolland (France); Translator: Fu Lei; Spring Wind Literary and Art Publishing House
A huge production of 1.2 million words, from the birth, growth, and love of the protagonist, to escape, struggle, and flight, success, failure, and success, until the death of the person who looks down and calmly. If you can write your life so thoroughly and meticulously, and express your thoughts so deeply and sincerely, there are probably few books in the entire world literary circle.
The protagonist of the novel is a musician who dares to love and dare to hate, and his rich emotional experience makes this novel almost a love textbook. Among them are the friendship and sweetness like love that break out briefly between adolescents, the reality and cruelty of defiance of the doorman's concept and finally being knocked down by it, the youth and regret of wanting to taste and stop but ending in fruitlessness in ignorance, the chagrin and pain of being teased by the little witch of eroticism, the temporary harbor where you can tell each other about your heart but have no chance to accompany you for a lifetime, the betrayal and despair of being tempted by desire to do stupid things in loneliness, and the platonic love and godhood that are imprinted on each other but have no physical union. The author describes each relationship so vividly and delicately that people feel that those characters are living around us, and those things happened yesterday.
The novel not only has a twist and turning plot, but also a convincing ideological height. The author unceremoniously criticizes the protagonist's wandering four countries of De fari-Italy, while also unreservedly expressing love; his insight and outspokenness about the truth do not affect his understanding and sympathy for human weaknesses. From this point of view, this novel is a textbook of life full of wisdom and tolerance. "Man's spirit is very weak and cannot bear the pure truth; it must be wrapped up in a layer of lies by his religion, morality, politics, poet, artist, and beyond the truth. These lies are adapted to each nation and are different: the reason why it is so difficult for peoples to understand each other and so easy to despise each other is because of these lies. The truth is the same for all, but every nation has the lies of every nation, and they are called ideals; a man breathes these lies from birth to death, and lies become one of the conditions of existence; only a few born wizards, after heroic struggle, can get rid of them without fear of being isolated in their own free field of thought. "There is no doubt that Romain Roland is such a genius.
3. Celebrity Biography
Author: Romain Rolland (France); Translator: Fu Lei; Writers Publishing House
This is a collection of biographies of three celebrities. It is said that it is a biography, in fact, the content is not exhaustive, there are few details and imagination, but the source of information is marked very carefully, more like the author's collection of character biographies, letters and summaries of others' memories, as well as the analysis of the character's thoughts and works. Beethoven, Michelangelo, Tolstoy, separated from the pinnacle of music, sculpture and literature, Romain Rolland must have been particularly admiring the heroism born of suffering, especially the spirit of perseverance, so he chose such three giants.
In "The Biography of Beethoven", the excitement of the protagonist's struggle with fate is stirred up at all times, and the eternal storm never bows his head. "What He gave us was a courage, a joy of struggle, a drunkenness of feeling with God." "The world does not give him joy, but he creates joy to give to the world!"
Michelangelo was tired of work all his life, obsessed with the sculpture he loved, but was forced to accept the commission of painting, but also to create immortality in this work that he was not good at, that is, he was not happy. He always fought in despair and kept his word in loneliness, but he had no choice but to leave many unfinished works. To the beloved, "He will be his shoe, carry his feet to the snow." He smiled contemptuously at the adulterers, "It is not worth hitting them, for it is insignificant to their victory." ”
Tolstoy was born into the nobility, but wanted to serve the peasants, "penetrating their hearts with the intuition of love"; he wrote "a lyrical beauty" on the battlefield when he "faced death"; he believed in Christ but did not worship him as a god, but only "as the highest of the sages", juxtaposed with Shakyamuni and Confucius; he saw the misery of the people, and thought that "their suffering and depravity seem to be his responsibility", and even though he had achieved fame in his life, he was always "tormented by the reproach of conscience". It all boils down to one thing, and that is fraternity.
Romain Rolland has shaped three giants, and his own greatness lies in the fact that "there will never be an innumerable example of a hero... There is only one kind of heroism in the world: to see the world as it really is – and to love it. ”
4. "Gora Splasher"
Author: Romain Rolland (France); Translator: Xu Yuanchong; People's Literature Publishing House
Just as last year I couldn't believe that Flaubert wrote Sarangpo, I couldn't believe that John Christophe and Celebrity Biography were the work of Roman Rolland. Completely different styles, classical and realistic, serious and lively, can be easily mastered and switched freely in the hands of these great writers.
After writing about several big men, Romain Rolland turned his attention to the small citizen of his hometown, a lively and optimistic old carpenter. He quarreled with his wife for half his life, and before she died, he still said witty words until he "held her trembling, old head and kissed her sincerely", and she reviewed her bad temper with tears and said, "But it is because I love you", and the reconciliation between the two sides became eternal. He loved his granddaughter and held her to tell a story, and when he didn't listen to the advice to climb high and break her leg, her granddaughter ran up to him and said, "You don't obey, Grandpa, this is your destiny!" "The simplicity and cuteness of that snort is so real that people can't help but be funny." The most wonderful thing is that he met his old lover, recalling his youthful stubbornness and willfulness, everything was missed because of this, a sentence of "I used to love you", a sentence of "I already knew", so that all the beauty was fixed in that green onion years.
The old carpenter was a natural optimist, seemingly resigned to fate, but with a heart that longed for freedom. When riots broke out, he risked his life to lead the populace to capture the negligent parliamentarians and drive away the robbers. Although his house was burned down during the plague, he refused to live in his children's house until he broke his leg while building his house. After losing his wife, his house, his money, and his two legs, he said, "The more things you lose, the richer you become; for the mind creates what you lack; don't trees that prune their leaves grow taller?" The less I have, the richer my life..." This spirit of integrity, bravery, optimism, open-mindedness, and love of freedom is not only a good quality of the people of Romain Rolland's hometown, but also belongs to all mankind.
5. The Black Obelisk
Author: Remarck (Germany); Translator: Li Qinghua; Shanghai People's Publishing House
The story takes place in 1923, the defeat of the First World War hit Germany hard, mark's rapid depreciation changed the lives of all people, the novel depicts all kinds of people struggling to survive during this period, etc. However, the author does not want to complain here, he does not revolve around a central event, nor does he create a tall image, but uses his good black humor to direct the attention to ordinary people and eat, drink and gamble.
Faced with the economic woes of the entire country, many people do not reflect on the mistakes of history, but ignite nationalism. This is a group of people who are particularly fond of singing the national anthem, who put the charge of unpatrioticism on others and use it as an excuse to kill dissidents. In addition to populists, the authors also attacked the church because they "blessed and inaugurated this war in the name of God and love for mankind." Even more ridiculous is "we must respect his faith, and he does not have to respect our faithlessness." "It's like some people claim to represent you and you have no right to refuse.
There are many symbolic depictions in the novel, such as the black obelisk, as the treasure of the town store purchased at the beginning of the establishment of the tombstone company, which was peed every day by the retired sergeant to vent his anger, and finally sold to a prostitute as a tombstone, which seems to symbolize the destruction and subversion of tradition; the mental hospital that the protagonist often goes to is depicted as a paradise, and his chat with the patient Isabel is more like discussing the philosophy of life, reflecting that the real society may be a real mental hospital.
6. The Arc de Triomphe
Author: Remarck (Germany); Translator: Zhu Wen; Shanghai People's Publishing House
In Paris on the eve of World War II, The German doctor Ravelik, who was persecuted by the Nazis and exiled here, had a love affair in the process of rescuing the Italian actress Joan who came here to make a living. In such a turbulent era, love can be both a consolation and a luxury, and when different views of love meet together and cannot be compromised with each other, it gives rise to sadness.
Lavik said: "It is a supreme thing to love one another, it is a miracle, and it is the most natural fact in the world... Without love, a person can only be regarded as a dead man who has returned to the sun, at best, just a few years old, a random name, exactly the same as death. "Love is something he doesn't dare touch so easily, and for that he can endure loneliness. Joan, on the other hand, can't tolerate loneliness, "I need to be fanatical! I need someone crazy about me! I need someone, and I can't live without me! "She wants to enjoy the pleasure of bed, she wants to experience the feeling of conquest. It is as if divine love and worldly love, the former focusing on spiritual fidelity and the latter indulging in flesh and affection. The ending is destined to be tragic, and to put it bluntly, it is the woman who finally kills herself. A person who wants everything is likely to get nothing.
The overall tone of the novel is gray, the refugees from various countries in the international hotel, the various patients in the private clinic, the prostitutes and bustards in the brothel nightclub, everyone is tenaciously striving for survival, and the human light and stains contained in it are unobstructed. Particularly emotional is the novel's reference to reading: "In the first few years, he never read any books, because they were obviously too lifeless compared to what actually happened." But now, they have become a wall, and if not defended, they can at least hold their hands. They certainly don't help much, but when driven into darkness, they can keep people from complete despair. That's enough. The ideas that were once produced have been scorned and ridiculed today, but it is enough that they have been produced and will be passed on. "Yes, although it is a dark night light, it is light after all, and it will always be bright, longer than the lives of each of us."
7. The Age of Love and Death
At first, I thought it was the "World War II version" or "Eastern Front version" of "No War on the Western Front", but in fact, the focus of this novel was not on the battlefield but on the rear. The protagonist, Grebel, returns home from a vacation from the front lines and finds that his hometown has been bombed to the ground, and what is even more frightening is the Nazi party members and secret police who have infiltrated every corner of society, and the most basic trust between people has been lost. Ubiquitous surveillance and whistle-blowing is exhausting. "This time it's on a different front, with no cannons and no rifles, but not necessarily less dangerous." In search of the whereabouts of his parents, Grabel had a difficult relationship with Elizabeth, a girl next door who had lost her father, and eventually married. Unfortunately, the holidays were over and Grebel had to throw himself into the war he hated again.
This decades-old novel is not at all outdated today. What portrays human nature always has universal significance. What the author grieves is the sorrow of our fate, and it is also our unshakable love that we love. In the grip of the times, most people cannot escape, can only endure in silence, but everyone can still make their own choices, and history will eventually give a fair judgment.
A book may not change our living environment, but it can give us a deeper understanding of the course of life.
8. Demian
Author: Hermann Hesse (Germany); Translator: Jiang Yi; Tianjin People's Publishing House
A very grotesque novel, full of mysticism, but at the same time very "Hesse", with a seemingly simple story to unfold a complex philosophical speculation.
The story is about the growth of the teenager Sinclair, who seems to be wandering in two worlds: the "light world" created by his parents and the "dark world" where the bad children of the neighbors live. He was blackmailed in the Dark World and rescued by Demian, who was a few years older. Since then, Demian has become the leader of his growth. Through Demian, Sinclair learned to concentrate his will on achieving his goals and to think about changes in what is right and what is taboo. The adolescent Sinclair falls into rebellion and is troubled by the fantasy Beatrizy, and it is Demian's click that awakens him.
"Birds scramble out of their shells. The egg is the world. Whoever is to be born must destroy the world. Birds fly to God. God's name is Abraxas. Disapproving of arbitrariness, Demian boldly questioned the worship of God, "either to worship a God who is also the devil, or to worship the devil in addition to god." And this Abraxas is a God who is both a god and a demon. ”
The book also mentions two "guides", representing two other types. One of Sinclair's classmates, blindly following Sinclair, called him "the leader" because "his raids and entanglements always brought me inspiration." The other was a didactic organist, and Sinclair realized that "what he gave me was what he couldn't give himself." I was led by him on a path that was bound to surpass him. If I go down this path, I will turn my back on him. ”
Hesse spoke through the mouth of a teenager about his eternal thoughts on the development of human civilization: people's respect for authority can only make themselves stuck in the "light world", and only by challenging authority and gaining insight into the "dark world" can progress. In his book, he quotes the biblical words of Jacob wrestling with angels: "If you do not bless me, I will not allow you to go." "This is perhaps the first time that mankind has challenged angels with a jaw-dropping boldness and determination.
9. The Plague
Author: Albert Camus (France); Translator: Li Yumin; Lijiang Publishing House
The novel describes the story of the residents of the small North African town of Oran after the outbreak of plague and lockdown, the city's residents fight the epidemic and save themselves. The author has no intention of writing a heroic deed that can be sung and wept, nor does he want to convey a pessimistic and helpless sadness, but, like historians, "neither maliciously making a big deal of it nor exaggerating it to the extreme." It is this seemingly bland narrative that enhances the realism and symbolism of the story.
The decision to lock down the city was difficult, and although doctors had made initial efforts to get the governor to understand that "even if there is no plague, the precautions prescribed during the plague epidemic should be implemented", the higher government has delayed until the death toll has soared. "The most hateful evil deed is the act of ignorance, which thinks it knows everything and therefore empowers itself to kill."
There are all kinds of characters in the epidemic city, including Dr. Rieux, who is fully committed to treatment, Tarou, who actively organizes the health and epidemic prevention team, and Gran, a volunteer who works hard and complains, to Lambert, a reporter who tries everything to escape the city, and Kotal, who has made a fortune from smuggling. The author does not call dedication to health and epidemic prevention organizations "great achievements" "only because they know that it is the only thing that can be done"; nor does he accuse Lambert, who wants to escape from the city to reunite with his lovers, believing that "there is no shame in pursuing happiness", giving people a feeling of both calm and warmth, which is completely different from those who like to stand on the moral high ground and praise and belittling.
After ten months of fighting the epidemic, the people of Oran have finally won. Yet Dr. Rieux "never forgets that this joy is always threatened" and that "the plague bacillus does not go extinct and will never die, and this bacillus can sleep for decades in furniture and underwear and bedding, waiting patiently in rooms, cellars, boxes, handkerchiefs, or waste paper..." In the words of an old man at the end of the novel, "What is plague after all?" Plague is life, but that's it. ”
I've been wondering, what does the plague symbolize here? From this point of view, the plague does lurk in every corner of our society, and even in each of us, and can be suppressed by institutions and cultivation, but it cannot be eradicated.
10. The Burmese Years
Author: George Orwell (UK); Translator: Feng Junyan; Liaoning People's Publishing House
George Orwell's usual sarcastic tone, used to write stories about human nature, is actually an expression of helplessness. Almost everyone who lives in the cold real world and has a slight sense of justice in mind has encountered this entanglement: "What good is it to lose the whole world in order to save your soul?" "It's a torture of the soul, a struggle of human nature, and every tangled person is different from each of his choices.
In Burma under British colonial rule in the early 20th century, the idea of white supremacy made every British who could not mix in their own country become a superior person here. The protagonist of the novel, Flory, lives in such a group of drunken and dreaming of the same kind, although he is one of the very few Britons who can discover the beauty of Burma, but he feels extremely lonely, bored and depraved because of no one to share and powerless to change. He struggled repeatedly over helping his only friend in Myanmar, an Indian doctor, join the white club, saying it was easier to insult his friends than to turn away his colleagues. He longs for love, but his inferiority and cowardice happen to meet the snobbishness and frivolity of the English girl Elizabeth.
The ending is tragic, the wicked and the villain have succeeded, "they live happily", which may be the inevitable in reality, otherwise similar things will not happen for a long time. We expect fate to repay the wicked precisely because we are powerless to do so ourselves; we curse them to hell after death precisely because we cannot see with our own eyes that they are duly punished while they are alive. The only thing we can do is stick to every choice we make: the choice of conscience.
11. The Canterbury Story
Author: Jeffrey Chaucer (UK); Translator: Fang Zhong; People's Literature Publishing House
When I first read this book, I felt that I had watched "Story Club" as a child, and the thirty or so pilgrims who went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury basically told a story each. The story itself is simple and popular, and some are directly based on folklore, which is very much in line with the identity and personality characteristics of the storyteller. It wasn't until I read the whole book and went back to combine it with the translator's preface and savored it that I realized the value of this book.
In 14th-century England, where Chaucer was located, the church was in Latin, the court nobles spoke French, and English was equivalent to the folk vernacular. His contribution to English literature is a landmark in his contribution to English literature, comparable to Dante's work to Italian literature, and the ideological breakthrough of this work is also extremely bold.
What surprised me more was that in a feudal society where men were inferior to women, the author's depiction of women's ideas and even feminism did not denounce at all. The most prominent one is the story of The Bass Woman, a woman who has been married five times, never observes the festival for her deceased husband and advocates the freedom of marriage. After she lost her husband at the age of 40, she looked up to a 20-year-old "clean and tender" young man, and after marriage, she occasionally had discord but could successfully drive her husband. She tells the story of a young samurai who is punished for committing a crime and is forced to marry an old and ugly mother-in-law in order to find the answer. In another Melibee story, the virtuous wife is sensible and good at admonition, and almost becomes the life mentor of her husband Melibee.
Similarly, in a society where religious power reigns supreme, the author's portrayal of shameless clergy is ruthless. Such is the story of the monk who bluntly said that he had cheated money, "in the name of holiness, he pretended to be a pious face, but spewed venom from under his face." Another story told by the court servant exposed the hypocrisy of the beggar monks and humiliated the beggar monks fiercely.
Not tending to inflame the situation, having the courage to expose reality; not kitsch, and daring to challenge the so-called "public order and good customs" at that time are rare and valuable in any society and any era.
12. Doctor Zhivago
Author: Pasternak (Spain); Translator: Su Yun; Beijing United Publishing Co., Ltd
The novel depicts a painful history in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, when successive foreign wars and domestic revolutions dragged down the once-mighty empire. The male protagonist Zhivago lost his parents in childhood and was fostered in the home of his relative Glomeco, and married Tonina, Olomeko's daughter, and married after graduating from medical school. The heroine Lala is lured to bed by her mother's protector Komarovsky in middle school, and in remorse, she shoots the old ghost unsuccessfully, and then marries Pasha. After the outbreak of World War I, Pasha disappears on the battlefield, and Lara works as a nurse while searching for a husband in the battlefield, and meets the field doctor Zhivago. After the October Revolution, the Zhivago family was divided up, living in extreme poverty, and the family fled to the countryside. There, Zhivago meets Lara again, and the two develop an underground romance. During the Civil War, Zhivago was captured by the guerrillas as a military doctor, and when he fled back, his family had been exiled abroad. In order to protect Lara's mother and daughter, Zhivago agreed that Komalovsky would take Lala to the Far East, and he himself returned to Moscow alone, eventually dying of illness on the streets.
The heroes and heroines in the novel have a lot of fate, and whenever they see hope, they quickly fall into difficulties, and the people in the background are even more unhappy, and many villages are ravaged by the Red Army and the White Army, becoming victims of war and political struggle. Describing the suffering experienced by the motherland does not mean that the author wants to scandalize anything, on the contrary, it may be that he loves deeply. Just like when we recall our green years, we do not want to curse the ignorance and ignorance of the past, but to fondly recall the years that are like water. The history of human suffering is actually a wealth, and some people always want to erase it.
It is very remarkable that the author, in his time, did not follow the principles of political correctness but boldly put forward his own views, in which he satirized the Left, "They are inhuman but considered a miraculous class consciousness; they are rude and arbitrary, but they are regarded as the revolutionary instincts and strong expressions of the proletariat." He slammed the error of collectivization, "this mistake is so stupid, but in order to cover it up, all means of intimidation are exhausted, so that people do not judge or think." "That courage is so precious even today.
13. Song of the Nibelons
Author: Anon., Germany; Translator: An Shuzhi; Yilin Publishing House
It is a heroic epic written in middle High German in the 13th century based on folklore from the 4th and 6th centuries, known as the German Iliad. In the past, it was mostly translated as "Song of the Nibelungen", but I think the current translation is more appropriate, because the person who owns the nibelon treasure in the poem is called the Nibelung, and the Nibelungen is the transliteration of the Nibelung.
The first half of the epic tells of The Prince of the Netherlands, Seegvrit, helping King Gunter of Burgundy defeat the invaders and using the invisibility suit to win a contest for King Brunnhilde of Iceland. In return, Gunter married his sister Klimhild to him. Ten years later, Siegfrit and Klimhild, who had become kings and queens of the Netherlands, were invited to Burgundy, where, due to quarrels between the two queens and coveting the Nibelon treasure owned by Siegfriedt, Gunter followed the advice of the old minister Hagen, murdered Siegfrit and took away the Nigelon treasure.
The second half is about Klimhilde's revenge. After remarrying the Xiongnu king Eichel, she devoted herself to enveloping the Hun warriors and waiting for revenge. Years later, he finally persuaded Eichel to invite the Burgundian monarchs to a feast. After the banquet, the two sides clashed, and eventually killed Gunter and Hagen, and avenged the killing of their husbands, but the Nibelon treasure was lost forever.
Two feasts, two massacres, greed and jealousy led to this tragedy. It is rare that there is no perfect good man or 100% evil man in the play, and although Siegfrit is a hero, he steals the queen's ring and belt to give to his wife when he helps The Roundhouse, which triggers the hatred of the two queens. Although Hagen plotted against Siegfrit and stole the Nibelon treasure from Klimhild, he still went to the king with the determination to die and fought to the end, knowing that it would be difficult to survive the feast of the Huns. There is no absolute, no one is perfect, such a story is more reasonable and credible, and more humane.
14. "Tough Times"
Author: Charles Dickens (UK); Translator: Chen Caiyu; Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore
A masterpiece of realist literature that attacked utilitarianism. The novel has no absolute protagonist, portraying many characters such as capitalists, workers, parliamentarians, circus teams, etc., which is equivalent to a white depiction of British society in the mid-19th century. Although that era was in victoria's "heyday", it seemed to be politically powerful and economically prosperous, but the gap between the rich and the poor increased, and labor conflicts continued.
Congressman Gregoryn insisted on instilling utilitarianism in the next generation, ignoring human nature and stifling naivety, most often saying that "in life we need nothing but facts." He married his daughter to the 30-year-old capitalist Pontebe, personally contributing to a marital tragedy; the son he had educated stole bank money and blamed others, brewing the misfortune of the two families.
In order to brag about his self-made family, the capitalist Pompeii did not hesitate to fabricate the experience of being abandoned by his mother and abused by his grandmother as a child, blaming the hit workers for not being able to "earn sixty thousand pounds with sixpence" like him, "you can do what I do." Why don't you do it? When workers complained about the difficult times, they ridiculed them for wanting to "eat venison with turtle soup in a golden spoon" and praised the black smoke emitted from his factory as "the most beneficial thing in the world for health."
Utilitarian people take money and political status as their goal in life, and utilitarian society judges human life and failure based on money and political status. It is interesting that people who think they are successful based on this standard love to be life mentors for young people, and reprimand them for not understanding that 996 is the blessing they cannot ask for. What they often boast is nothing more than the miracle of their own business, "making sixty thousand pounds with sixpence", without mentioning the dirty, hard-to-replicate opportunities of the times and the help they received along the way.
15. "Childhood in Berlin"
Author: Walter Benjamin (Germany); Translator: Zhijing; Tianjin People's Publishing House
This is a collection of essays that record Benjamin's childhood memories, nostalgic and not sad, only full of attachment and yearning, reminding me of Liang Shiqiu's memories of Beiping's life, all based on small objects or small experiences, there is no continuity between them, and they are all fragments that become clearer the more they can't go back and miss more and more.
A delicate person can always find those ordinary beauty, "the telephone is the comfort of their loneliness for young people", "the literacy box is the most lingering thing in my early years that I have forgotten", the thimble in the sewing box is imagined as a crown set on the index finger, "We like to wear this little laurel crown and secretly be a king".
Childhood experiences were always so fascinating, such as hide-and-seek, "This child hid behind a curtain, and himself became something that was blowing white, a ghost; crouching under the dining table and hiding, he became a wooden idol in the temple, and the four pillars supporting his temple were the carved legs of the dining table; he hid behind a door, and he became the door himself, and at the same time regarded the door as a heavy mask, and in the posture of an extraordinary wizard, he deceived all those who did not know the inside of the threshold when he stepped into the threshold." ”
Of course, there are also bad memories, "There will be no more music that is as inhuman and elegant as the music played by military bands." His hatred of the military band was reminiscent of Remack's equally obnoxious love of singing the national anthem. Another one that disgusted him was the school building where Mr. Konoch was teaching, "which was more like a rented barracks." "At that time, it was as if a closed door would rise high in people's hearts. He was told that the door would open on its own when he grew up and sensible... Now that I have grown up, and I have entered the door that Mr. Konoch showed us at that time, but it is still closed, and I have tried tirelessly to pass through it. ”
Maybe everyone will leave some mysteries in the process of growing up, some thought that they would understand when they grew up, but they didn't expect to get older and more confused; some people have a hard time figuring it out, but find that it is better not to understand.
16. "The Sorrowful Animal"
Author: Monica Malone (Germany); Translator: Liu Hong; Lijiang Publishing House
The novel recalls a poignant love in the past in the witty and slightly chatty tone of a hundred-year-old woman, interspersed with several emotional stories of friends and their parents, all of which corroborate one thing: "The most likely thing to miss in life is love." ”
It is said that she is a hundred-year-old woman, but the text also implies that she was born around 1940, forming an illusory color of standing in the future and recalling the past. The memory itself and the imagination are intertwined, and the author compares it to a river mussel bead, a grain of sand wrapped in the secretions of the mussel and turned into a pearl. If you think about it, in fact, each of our memories is not like this, each memory is a polish, leaving those we are willing to believe, and deleting those parts that have caused discomfort.
The protagonist describes love as a virus that lurks in our bodies, and when immunity declines, it explodes into a disease that cannot be cured. This just explains why people suddenly let go of themselves in middle age. I think it depends on one's insight and the needs of the time, the desire for sex in adolescence, the desire for support in adulthood, and the spiritual comfort of the elderly.
The author appreciates the lovers of life and death rather than the couple who only live together, and seems to deliberately allude to the tragic inevitability of classic love stories, such as Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet circulating in Europe, Xu Xian and the White Lady of China, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.
There are many passages in the novel that make people feel emotional. When the protagonist reunites with his young friend, he says, "Actually, it's no different now than before, but suddenly we're so old." "Reading this, I actually had an urge to cry, and a lot of youth and ignorance appeared in my heart. There is no doubt that we are all sad animals.
17. "Mrs. Dalloway"
Author: Virginia Woolf (UK); Translator: Jiang Xiangming; Shaanxi Normal University Press
Psychological portrayal is far richer than the description of behavior, and stream-of-consciousness novels can make this psychological description flow between different characters at will. Readers can not only easily change their perspectives, but even understand a character's life's experience through their inner activities.
Mrs. Dalloway, 52, was preparing for the party when she remembered her 18-year-old girlfriend Peter and her girlfriend Sully, who was still unmarried Clarissa. At that time, she often talked to Peter, but she was a rare confidant; Sally took her to the outside world, and a kiss could make her forget the whole world. However, she eventually married Dalloway and became the wife of a member of Congress, and the two girlfriends have since been away from her life. Years later, the party brought them back together, but they could never get back to the feeling they had. Memory is the sweetest and always painful.
What would it be like to dream of a career and marriage at the age of 18 and look back on it at the age of 50? How ambitious, how naïve and ridiculous, or how romantic and sincere, how snobbish and narrow-minded, no matter what kind of yin and yang, the time shift of the world as a reason, can not fully explain the choices we make with action. We just keep saying to ourselves that that choice is right, that it's right...
18. The Art of Romanticism
Author: David Bryney Brown (UK); Translator: Ma Canlin; Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House
What is Romanticism? The book does not give a clear definition, and some even argue that it is "undefinable". "Romanticism lies neither in the choice of subject matter, nor in the accurate truth, but in the way we feel", so we cannot judge whether a painting is or is not Romantic art simply by brushwork or style, divorced from the painter and the background of creation. The brilliance of this book lies in the fact that it allows the reader to come up with the answers by telling the birth, development, decay, and influence of romantic art on subsequent art forms.
Romantic art began in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when Napoleon evolved from a "hero who restored order and defended revolutionary ideals" to a great dictator and wrought the whole of Europe into a war of unprecedented scale until his complete defeat. Romanticism is "born in the context of protest and suffering, social or national crisis, and personal psychological trauma", and the artist emphasizes emotion and individualism. Neoclassicism, which had originally advocated reason, logic, harmony and symmetry, was now becoming more rigid and decaying, and was inevitably replaced by Romanticism, with Delacroix in France, Goya in Spain, Turner in England, and Caspar David Friedrich in Germany becoming the most outstanding representatives of this period.
Unlike previous art forms, self-disclosure is the core feature of Romantic art. "Never before has an artist placed himself so intensely at the center of the experience, and never before has an artist insisted so strongly on the uniqueness of individual interpretation and the mission of expressing it at all costs." It is also based on this that Delacroix's hero is not Napoleon, but the half-naked woman in Liberty Leading the People; Goya is not concerned with the heroic acts of resistance, but with the suffering of the people; Turner uses blizzards and avalanches to show the power of nature and sets off the smallness of human beings; Friedrich expresses the inner loneliness and humility of man in the face of nature with endless landscapes and characters who always turn their backs on the audience. It can be said that every figure painted by the painters is actually themselves.
19. Alexanderplatz, Berlin
Author: Alfred Deblin (Germany); Translator: Luo Wei; Shanghai Translation Publishing House
A very difficult novel, the original stream of consciousness thing is more self-sufficient, coupled with the montage writing style, the content is extremely jumpy. One moment is the progression of the story, the other is the inner heart of the characters; one moment is the description of a street scene, the other is the recording of an official announcement; the next is to insert a few arguments, and the next is to quote a biblical story. "Terali, Tera", when he does not want to elaborate, he uses these meaningless words instead, similar to the English bla.
The novel depicts a group of people at the bottom of Berlin in 1928: thieves, hooligans, prostitutes, newspaper sellers, upside-down small goods, all haunted near Alexanderplatz. The protagonist Franz is imprisoned for killing his wife by mistake, and after his release, he wants to be a disciplined person but goes astray because he meets thieves and hooligans. When he tried to quit, he was brutally pushed out of the car by his accomplices and lost his right arm. The prostitute Yonezawa likes him and is willing to raise him, but he is not willing to eat soft rice and chooses to join the theft gang again, but unexpectedly kills Xiaomizawa because of this.
This is a tragedy, not only the tragedy of Franz, the tragedy of Yonezawa, but also the tragedy of the whole society, the inevitability of the jianghu. The author can focus his gaze on the darkest corners of a bustling city like Berlin, examine some characters that seem to be far away from us but are everywhere, and is a brave performance of facing reality with a compassionate heart, far better than those propositional essays that only whitewash wealth and glory.
20. Germany: Memories of a Nation
Author: Neil McGregor (UK); Translator: Bowang; Chongqing University Press
Gutenberg, Rimmen Schneider, Dürer, Martin Luther, Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, Meissen porcelain, beer and sausages, the Beetle, the Brandenburg Gate, the Valhalla Pantheon, the Buchenwald concentration camp, the Reichstag, this is a book of people, things or architecture as the theme of German history, or the most profound imprint left in the development of the German nation.
This part of Central Europe has long been a loose alliance of many relatively independent princes, and it is probably because of this that religious and philosophical ideas here are more active and free, just as the Spring and Autumn Warring States period in China gave birth to the Hundred Sons and Hundreds of Families. Ultimately, it was the common language that brought them together, and in addition to the accumulated memories of the nation's honor and disgrace.
McGregor, an Englishman who was director of the British Museum, seems to be more objective than Germans in telling the story of love-hate History, such as his chapter "The Lost Capital" about Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, where the philosopher Kant and the artist Kollwitz were born, and now Kaliningrad. After World War II, Germany lost a quarter of its territory, and more than twelve million German civilians were expelled from their homeland as refugees, mostly silent about it, while neighbors said it was retribution, a subject that the author confronts several times in the book. There is also the liberation of the concentration camps, the author analyzes the differences in the official statements and practices of East and West Germany after the war, East Germany does not recognize the fact of the liberation of the American army, saying that "the communists in the camps themselves liberated themselves"; West Germany reincarnated some of the communists who had been imprisoned in the concentration camps.
I often feel that the truth of history can only be viewed objectively after jumping away from that period of history, and perhaps the memory will be more vague, but the mind will be clearer.