I have a friend named Zhuang Xinzheng, who is a famous translator, scholar, and expert on James Joyce. He said something like this (to the effect): As the saying goes, there is heaven on the top and Suzhou and Hangzhou on the bottom. But for me, I'd rather change the phrase to "there is heaven on the top and a study on the bottom." He said that when he was young, he thought that no one knew what heaven was like anyway, and he had no problem imagining it as a study.
When I read these words, I smiled heartily at his purity and his values that coincided with mine. My heart gushed out a deep gratitude to this old friend. Because in this era of rapid changes in values, a big part of my life is still writing and reading alone. Sometimes I can't help but sigh at the people around me who are busy and do not read books, but are also very fulfilling. And Mr. Zhuang's words made me realize that I still have companions and have not fallen behind as thoroughly.
In Ibsen's Pergent, there is a young girl named Solwig, and when Pergent thinks of her, he always thinks of her holding a Bible wrapped in a handkerchief. In Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Life, Teresa gives Thomas the impression that she holds an album of Anna Karenina in her hand. The reason why these two women have gained a special place in the hearts of the male protagonists Pergent and Thomas is a layer of symbolic meaning given to them by their books. My understanding is that reading creates a mood for them, a mood of beauty that exists independently of their material image.
Neither Ibsen nor Kundera used pen and ink to describe the appearance of these two women, but from the specific movements they gave them,-the holding of the book—we can clearly see their beautiful charm, which is abstract, symbolic, and therefore beautiful beyond concrete forms, not strengthened or weakened by clothing or makeup, and not deprived of the beauty of aging.
This is not to say that any woman who carries a book in her hand becomes Teresa or Solwig: a book is just a prop in the hands of people who don't like to read. What is important is that the spiritual lesson of reading, which imperceptibly infects man, liberates man from worldly desires (money, material things, external beauty, etc.), and then a kind of existence arises.
I felt lucky to be able to read on a milky white leather couch on a sunny afternoon, to jump up and pace on an oak floor when I read a wonderful English sentence. Too good articles, like too good meals, are difficult to digest, so they have to taste and ruminate in order to absorb its nutrients.
There are always times when women will never look beautiful. Not to be left behind, people like Elizabeth Taylor become comical characters. With the passage of time, the antics are gone, and it has become an experimental fragment of contemporary beauty techniques that "man is determined to win the day", a clown who is desperate to transcend the limitations of nature, and this example may give us a little enlightenment: beauty and beauty are two different things.
A pair of eyes can not be beautiful, but the eyes can be beautiful. An unspeakable face can have a cute look, and an imperfect figure can have a good look and demeanor. It all lies in the richness and openness of a soul. There may be many ways to beautify the soul, but I think that reading is one of the easiest, less expensive, shortcuts without having to ask for help.
This article is excerpted from Yan Geling's book "Bohemian Building"
Minglun College - "Top Ten Chinese Studies Educational Institutions in China"