Author | Fan Deng Reading · Wooden meow
Anchor | Fan Deng Reading · Xia Han
Interpret the trailer
Meet · Meet your unknown self in the book.
Good evening to all book lovers, welcome to the reading column "Encounter" produced by Fan Deng Reading.
The British writer Woolf once said:
"Reading The Moon and Sixpence is like crashing head-on into a towering iceberg, completely disintegrating a mediocre life."
Today I would like to share with you Maugham's most famous novel, "The Moon and Sixpence".
Here are the real microcosms and portrayals of you and me in life.
"The Moon and Sixpence" caused a sensation as soon as it came out, and to this day, more than a hundred years later, it still occupies the top of the major must-read lists for a long time.
The sentence "The ground is full of sixpence, but he looks up and sees the moon", I don't know how many people have evoked the sigh of ordinary life and the yearning for extraordinary life.
Based on the French Impressionist painter Gauguin, the author Maugham tells a story of abandoning a good life and frantically pursuing his dreams.
Compared with his enthusiasm for art, Mr. Strickland's attitude towards male and female love can be described as rather indifferent.
He once said, "I don't need love." I don't have time to be in love, which is a weakness of human nature. ”
He experienced three main women in his life: Mrs. Strickland, the benefactor's wife, Blanche, and the island's aboriginal maiden Atta.
Also in the face of such an indifferent man, the fate and ending of the three women are very different.
Mrs. Strickland: Embrace vulgarity, embrace reality
Mrs. Strickland is a standard image of a good wife and mother.
She met and married Mr. Strickland in her twenties and has since played the role of the perfect housewife.
However, the husband suddenly left, and did not plan any way back for her and her young children.
In those days, women were proud of their pampering, and it was a shame that they needed to go out and work by themselves.
Faced with her husband's departure from home, Mrs. Strickland was caught up in rumors and economic difficulties and had a difficult time.
But she did not give up on herself, nor did she choose to send people to the fence, but tried her best to maintain a graceful posture and take on the responsibility of raising a family.
Mrs. Strickland's path to self-reliance makes people lament that this woman is really full of worldly wisdom.
She used rumors in her favor to win sympathy, gained the support of her former literary and art friends, learned shorthand and typing, and obtained work resources.
At the same time, it was wise to rent out the original mansion, rent a small house by yourself, settle down, and start a new life.
Five years later, Mrs. Strickland had her own print shop.
She made the prints exquisite and beautiful, so she was famous and prosperous.
She regained her former social status, and her children grew up to be very good.
Mrs. Strickland always seemed to be a little fond of vanity, in fact, since childhood, she loved to read, she also had her own romantic fantasies.
She always thought that her husband was not interested in art, but still actively made friends with artists:
"She watched them appear, as if her life had expanded as a result..."
After learning that her husband left because he wanted to paint, she even sighed secretly in shock:
"I'd rather marry a painter than a securities broker.
If it wasn't for the kids, I wouldn't care about anything. Living in a dilapidated studio in Chelsea would be as happy as staying here. ”
It is the "child" and many entanglements with reality that make her abandon her dream of art and choose to always walk on the worldly standard road.
She can admire the strange costumes and strange behaviors of her artist friends, but it does not affect her own principles of living in the world.
Perhaps in her husband's heart, such a life is unbearable.
But Mrs. Strickland chose to abandon the ethereal, accept the vulgar, and embrace reality.
In the end, he got a good life that met his own definition, and it was not a reward from fate to those who worked hard.
Blanche Stroyff: Sink into desire and go into the abyss
Originally a governess in a Roman aristocratic family, Blanche was seduced into becoming pregnant by the son of the male master, and was later abandoned and expelled from the house.
Desperate and ready to cut herself off, she is rescued by the kind-hearted Dirk Streuif and the two are married.
Dirk was a mediocre painter, but with a warm temperament and a charitable disposition.
He loves Blanche deeply from the bottom of his heart, loves her immensely, and Blanche reciprocates with warmth.
The two lived a beautiful life of its own pattern and pastoral pastoral.
However, Blanche is not a woman who is content with calm, and there are seeds of danger buried under the surface of happiness.
When the male protagonist Strickland was most depressed, it was Dirk who was the first to see his talent, admire his paintings, and frequently lend a helping hand.
Despite Strickland's unsympatheticism and apparent disdain for him, Dirk pities his talents and insists on helping him in his own way.
When Strickland fell ill in Paris, Dirk, fearing that he would lose his life if he was alone, offered to take him home for care.
However, Dirk's kindness brought him and his family a tragedy of farmers and snakes.
In the process of taking care of Strickland, Blanche was aroused by a desire for dangerous passion.
Her sad past, complicated moods and hidden desires hidden under a quiet life are revealed, and she resolutely decides to leave her husband who warms her family and stays with Strickland.
From the beginning, she was well aware of this man's desperation and indifference, and thought that she had made the decision to follow her heart, turning a blind eye to the persuasion of others.
However, in the process of getting along day and night, she is still gradually dissatisfied.
I hope that my efforts will weave a comfortable net for Strickland, so that he can return the same love.
Unfortunately, in Strickland's mind, comfort was meaningless, and all he cared about was his own artistic pursuits and freedom.
The conflict between the two intensified, and eventually, Strickland decided to end the relationship.
Desperate, Blanche chose to end his life, and the grieving Dirk left the sad land and returned to his hometown in the Netherlands alone.
If a person wants everything, he often gets nothing.
Blanche's tragic end stemmed from this.
She gave up stability in order to pursue passion, but after getting it, she longed for more, unable to overcome her own desires, and eventually fell into the abyss step by step.
Atta: Where the love is, the heart is firm
Tahiti is the last place where Mr. Strickland belongs.
His "eccentricity" is tolerated here, because people here have become accustomed to eccentricity.
It is on this tropical island that Atta grew up a simple and warm woman.
Working in an inn, she has a crush on the unusual Strickland and expresses her heart outspokenly.
Strickland remained steadfast after she bluntly expressed her character flaws, and lived with him with the lady of the innkeeper.
The two settled on a remote island surrounded by plantains and coconut palms and lived a secluded life.
Atta never interfered in anything in Strickland and was always gentle.
However, when Strickland contracted leprosy, which seemed to be a terrible terminal illness at the time, she changed her usual gentle and easy-going, categorically rejected Strickland's offer to let her leave her, and insisted on staying with him.
The other inhabitants of the island, fearing the contagiousness of leprosy, treated their families as beasts of flood and avoided them.
The beautiful home is gradually withering away, and Atta has never complained, because she knows her heart very well:
All she really wanted was this person, every moment with him.
Besides, what's so scary about losing everything?
Atta's rock-solidity gave Strickland's hard, indifferent heart a little tenderness.
"In the end they will catch you, and you are powerless in their hands."
This is perhaps the most gentle love word he can say to a despised person.
In the end, Strickland, under atta's unwavering protection, completed the greatest painting of his life in their dilapidated but warm cabin, and his soul was sublimated and liberated.
And Atta also obeyed his last wishes, burned his last works, and drew a dreamlike end to his pure love.
Life is always full of tribulations, and happiness comes from inner stability.
Atta's life was simple and hard, but her soul was pure and happy.
Mrs. Strickland, who liked the worldly decency, gave up her ethereal artistic dreams and chose to embrace reality, achieving good returns under the rules she recognized.
The simple and enthusiastic Atta gave up a stable and comfortable life, loyal to his inner feelings, followed the loved ones, and achieved the consummation of his soul.
Blanche, who was wavering in the midst of calm and ferocity and passion, was unable to escape the grip of desire, pushing himself and his family into the abyss, eventually losing everything.
Life may not always be as good as you want, and the most important thing is to understand what you really want in your heart.
Everyone has their own life trajectory, whether you are determined to pursue uninhibited freedom or are happy to settle down and decency.
There is no distinction between high and low road choices, as long as you can understand the trade-offs and firmly walk on the identified road.
If you are unwilling to give up anything, you often get nothing.
Only by having the courage to give up can we avoid becoming a slave to desire and grasp our own destiny.
Click "Watching" and encourage the book friends.
Author | Mu Xiaomeow, a middle-aged social animal girl who broadens the boundaries in reading and loves red dust observation.
Column Director | Come slowly
Typography | Come slowly
Music | Stone Piano - you don't have to worry