Happy
Valentine's Day
"The world seems to have never changed, but in fact it is changing, the so-called change, is not natural, I can conceitedly say, we have changed society", "I tell you this purpose is to let you know that you also have the ability to make changes." 」 ”
It is clear that literature has reached a fork in the road of the times, and women's literature, as one of the forces, is increasingly being faced. Especially in the revival of women's novels, the writer Tambao has a subtle passage:
Novels like Chat History, like Pride and Prejudice, speak of ordinary, little-told, experiences that were as common as they were when Pride and Prejudice were published two hundred years ago. This stage is the architectural period of 'sisterhood', tens of millions of people empathize with each other in their own awakening, and I guess the next step will be more new books to make people more aware of the differences between women of different classes, nationalities, and regions, which is actually the basis for deeper empathy. ”
In the women's theme book fair "Walking with Her, Crossing the Inner Landscape", we can see not only the works of the Nobel Prize winners, but also the best-selling book "My Genius Girlfriend" that is "popular all over the Internet", and the "unpopular masterpieces" of the Chinese language world such as "Montmartre's Testament". They represent different literary arts, showing the texts of universal significance of human destiny created by female writers based on gender subject consciousness or super-gender consciousness, and fully expressing the unique feminine charm. In their words, those who shout, wander, frivolous and strong show the monologues of women from the depths of the soul of women from all regions and classes of society, and also describe a certain truth that women encounter in daily life and society, and have a strong resonance with the current era.
The "Neapolitan Quadrilogy" is a popular feminist literature of the moment, and the success of the series by Elena Ferrante was selected by Time magazine as "the 100 most influential people in the world".
Although Ferrante never made her gender public, the media and critics judged him to be female from his "autobiographical" overtones. From 2011 to 2014, she published "My Genius Girlfriend", "The Story of a New Name", "The Departed, Left" and "The Missing Child" at the frequency of one book per year, that is, the "Neapolitan Quadrilogy" that swept the world.
▲"Neapolitan Tetralogy"
Before the "Neapolitan Tetralogy", almost everyone assumed that there was no literary tradition of female friendship in world literature. The female protagonists in the story always appear as lonely women, who lack female friends to rely on and talk to. But in the "Neapolitan Tetralogy", two women with very different natures establish a relationship of sympathy:
Lennon and Lila were born together in post-World War II, depressed and dilapidated Italy, and grew up in a poor neighborhood in the southern city of Naples. Lennon became an intellectual and proud of her studies and schooling, while Lila was left far behind Lennon, trapped in the mire of life at the bottom. In the torrent of the times, the two experienced the tests of education, class, and violence, and finally maintained a friendship that lasted for half a century.
The "Neapolitan Quadrilogy" depicts the respective experiences of Lila and Lennon in an epic style, which is very resonant with readers. This resonance comes half from the author's real experience with his deceased friend, and half from the truth that emanates from well-worded texts. Ferrante once said: "The truth of literature dissolves in language, directly linked to the energy emanating from sentences." If this truth is obtained, it will avoid rigidity, mediocrity, and the techniques commonly used in popular literature. ”
▲ Stills from "My Genius Girlfriend"
The reading experience of this series of novels is quite pleasant, and it always gives people a sense of exhilaration and unsettling pleasure. Because the plot in the story has romance, confusion, struggle, and resistance, but there is no indulgence and stagnation. In addition to the wonderful literary nature of the book, the book also provides a detailed depiction of the social changes in Italy over the past seventies, such as the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s, the social revolution and the war of equal rights in the 1960s and 1970s, the collapse of left-wing ideas in the 1980s, and the decline of the political situation in Italy.
In these changing times, the status of women is also changing, and people will follow the fate of Lila and Lennon:
In a complex and difficult native environment, how do women fight for their lives? How much of a role does education play in this?
To what extent does the affirmative action play in the fate of individual women?
If women stay where they are, succumbing to the established rules of society, is there a possibility of self-liberation in this life of resignation?
Whether you want to understand Ferrante's literary style or the development of feminism in Italy, the "Neapolitan Quadrilogy" can provide a literary and empirical reference to present a vivid picture of the situation of Italian women.
Janet Winterson is one of the best and most controversial writers of our time. She was born in Manchester, England in 1959 and was adopted as a child by a religious couple. At the age of 19, Winterson fell in love with a girl and ran away from home. She stayed overnight in a funeral home, a mental hospital and other places, but was still admitted to the English Department of Oxford University with an all-A score.
Janet Winterson
Jeanette Winterson
1959-
Based on previous real-life experiences, Winterson created his semi-autobiographical debut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which was selected for The Guardian's "1,000 Must-Read Novels Before Death" and adapted into a BBC hit series.
In the novel, the heroine Janet grows up in an evangelical Protestant family. Mother was a paranoid and devout believer. As she grows, Janet finds herself at odds with the town and her mother's paranoia. So, when she fell in love with another girl, she left the town and her mother, and also entered her adulthood with this determination.
As the author's semi-autobiographical novel, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" is undoubtedly the entrance to the world of Winterson's literature. In the book, Winterson presents an opera aria-style redemption through the interweaving of mythological and magical elements, and the redeemed and redeemed are both the heroine Janet. Although the work cannot be fully equated with the real experience of the writer herself, there is no doubt that the heroine of the book, like the author, has overcome the narrowness of the community from which she comes.
▲ Stills from "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit"
Tessen once said that she wanted to persuade people through literature to experience the unparalleled unleashing power that exists in art. She gives the heroine the right to release her true self, and uses her mouth to denounce the deprivation of women's consciousness by the patriarchal society, the forced "silence" of women's voice, and the obliteration of "her history".
The indictments of women's unfair status presented in the book do not come from Winterson's support for gender-opposing views, but from highlighting the value of individual efforts in achieving freedom. Winterson wants to convey a philosophy of "always moving forward" that a person, even in an unsupported family, with a sexual minority identity, and having to go through a life that always doesn't answer the right questions, must always keep an open mind and achieve self-redemption through struggle.
For writers, it is a fortunate thing to become famous at a young age, with Zhang Ailing in the front and Qiu Miaojin in the back. Coincidentally, the two of them were the only Chinese-language authors to be selected for the New York Review of Books' NYRB Classics — unfortunately, Qiu Miaojin ended his life in Paris in 1995 at the age of twenty-six.
Qiu Miaojin
May 29, 1969 - June 25, 1995
Born in Taiwan in 1969, Qiu Miaojin studied psychology in France; in the 1990s, Qiu Miaojin ushered in the glory of the literary road. She is herself gay, and her work is crucial in Taiwanese gay literature. Lesbian is called "Lala", which is derived from the name of the heroine in Qiu Miaojin's debut work "Crocodile Notes".
▲Qiu Miaojin
The Testament of Montmartre is Qiu Miaojin's posthumous work, containing twenty-one letters she wrote to her same-sex lover, which were compiled and published by friends after her death. The words in the letter collide and drift between her strong desire for love and painful self-analysis, as if sensibility and reason are inseparable. Sensibility comes from her fiery emotions, and rationality may be related to her experience of studying psychology. Sensibility and reason merge in the literary world, erupting into a sense of unprepared impact.
Reading this book, it is as if in the knowledge forest of Western art films and classic literature constructed by Qiu Miaojin, you will find a deep path to love and art. She presents her true self in her words, perhaps since Yukio Mishima, no other writer has been able to tear off the mask of disguise so mercilessly.
For generations of young people, Qiu Miaojin's writing provides not only a classic reading object, but also a pilgrimage coordinate. When people worship a deceased person and derive the power to live from it, it means a lot to both the author and the reader.
Born in 1991, Sally Rooney is a new force in Irish literature. Ireland is a country of small size and population, but it has produced outstanding writers such as Swift, Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Joyce and other outstanding writers, and has made great contributions to world literature. These great writers inherited many qualities from the ancient Celtic culture, including the mysterious exploration of the natural world, the narrative style mixed with exaggeration and absurdity, and the ironic creative attitude.
Unlike his predecessors, Rooney's works have excellent psychological depictions and gentle and delicate writing.
Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney
1991-
Normal Man is Rooney's second novel, which won the British Book Award and was named to The Guardian's "100 Best Books of the 21st Century". The book tells the story of a pair of young lovers who redeem each other between class differences and the swing of fate:
Cornell's mother worked as a cleaning aunt at Marian's house, and they were of great disparity. In high school, Cornell was very popular, and Marianne was regarded as a freak because she was alone. However, the two were thrilled in a conversation, the relationship began to deepen, and they comforted each other, but they also left a lot of pain.
A year later, both came to Trinity University in Dublin to study, and their status was reversed again: Marianne became a social hub, while Cornell was at odds with other alumni because of her poor family. The two come together again, influencing each other, exploring symbiotic strategies in search of an outlet for life.
Reading "Normal People", you will have a feeling of recording the moment: daily life and dialogue hide each other's temptations, and even social software such as Facebook appears in the dialogue of the characters. In addition, delicate class relationships, the struggles of the original family, the sensitivity of youth and the numbness to work... These topics, which are repeatedly discussed and pondered by contemporary young people, have become a portrayal of a certain real life in "Normal People".
▲ Stills of "Normal People"
In the current situation of information overload, people are sensitive and alienated, it is difficult to trust a person, it is difficult to maintain this trust. In "Normal People", the heroine Marianne wants to meet a resonant soul in the long journey of life, she hopes to cross all kinds of worldly obstacles, withdraw from unreal social interaction, and Cornell is like "two plants in a pot of soil, growing around each other, growing crookedly to make room, forming some kind of incredible posture".
Rooney's "Normal People" presents the way in which the "post-90s" record the world with literature, and as the British media says, it is a book for the future, showing the world of contemporary young people.
White Teeth
Author: Charty Smith
Keywords: female independence
"Every moment happens twice:
In vivo and in vitro,
The inner and outer moments are two different kinds of history. ”
——
Born in 1975, Zadie Smith is one of Britain's most influential new generation writers. She grew up in multi-ethnic North London and studied English literature at King's College, Cambridge. In 1999, at the age of 24, Smith published the novel "White Teeth", which became famous in one fell swoop. Her White Teeth, like Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton, brings a breath of fresh air to the English-speaking world with her minority talents.
Charty Smith
Zadie Smith
1975-
The White Teeth is an epic work about the "Dickensian" of modern Britain:
Argy's 30-year marriage, a British veteran, ended in divorce. Later, he befriends the Jamaican Clara at a chaotic party, and the two conceive a mixed-race daughter, Jolie. Around the same time, Aji's wartime friends, the Bengali Samads, also gave birth to twin sons Maillat and Majid.
When the twins were ten years old, Samad sent his younger brother Majid back to Bangladesh, while his older brother Maillat remained in England. Years later, in Bangladesh, Majid became a full "British gentleman", while his brother Maillet became a religious extremist in Britain. At this time, Aji's daughter Jolly was pregnant, and she did not know who the father of the fetus was. In the search for the truth, the book unveils to the reader a religious, moral, and ethical scuffle of immigrant descendants, mixed races, and people of color.
"White Teeth" embodies Charty Smith's relaxed and detached writing style, condensing the clash of beliefs and cultures of different races in the 1980s and 1990s, the rupture and stratification of ideas between generations, as well as the flow of the times and the absurdity of history, between the racially mixed blocks of North London, portraying a complex and profound picture of the life of immigrants in the post-colonial era, which seems to be a literary portrayal of reality for London, which now has a Muslim mayor.
In White Teeth, Aji's wife Clara is the main female character in the novel. Determined, intelligent, and actionable, she insisted on finding and displaying her independence under the power of patriarchy, not to be attached to others, but to work for the support of her family—all in the context of a challenging, often sexist modern world.
Smith argues that even in the modern world, fighting for women's independence is an ongoing and uphill battle. In london, where multiculturalism intersects, ethnic minority women face regional, background, and gender discrimination, constantly looking for ways to maintain their independence, and the final victory shows that although this road of exploration is arduous, there is a dawn at the end of the road.
*The pictures in this article are from the network
Read the recommendation
Paris Review Interview with Women Writers
Writer: Editor, Editorial Board of the Paris Review
Publisher: People's Literature Publishing House
Interviews with Women Writers is a special edition of the Editorial Board of the Paris Review since 2017 and has been published twice to date. The Paris Review Interviews with Women Writers has been revised to include interviews with sixteen women writers, including Margaret Eusenaar, Isaac Dynerson, Hilary Mantel, and Elena Ferrante.
As the first interview special with a female writer in the history of the Publication of the Paris Review, the sixteen interviews in this book can also be regarded as "essays in dialogue", which is both a very high-level discussion of writing techniques and covers the subtle but refractory details of a female writer's life: When did she establish her ambition to write? What was her literary enlightenment? What are the specific obstacles she encounters at different stages of writing? As a window to understand the important women writers of our time, this book leads readers to re-embark on the path of writers' writing.
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