Summary of views: "Any art is a mirror image of the world". How does the human ego rise again in psychological trauma? Beyond the tide of grief and bitter hatred, is it possible to perceive some of the greater feelings, such as tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, the beauty of adulthood, and liberate oneself in this sense? "In the Mirror" opens up an inner self-redemption. Ai Wei tried to find the inner language that belonged to Chinese, "opening up the spiritual world of Chinese and finding the 'soul' of Chinese." ”
According to the writer's own account, the title of the novel "In the Mirror" tries to say: "Any art is a mirror image of the world" It can also be borrowed from "mirror image" to describe Ai Wei's narrative style: precise, clear, sharp, "difficult to write scenes as in the present". "In the Mirror" interlaces the shapes, lights, and tones of various buildings; many plants swaying, green, fat, red and thin; the late autumn in Hangzhou or the snowy night in New York is like a beautiful lens picture. However, like a double-edged sword, this kind of text shows the disaster and suffering that is terrifying. Tragic car accidents and broken bodies, great pain suddenly descended, inner pain and division. Even if you read a fictional text, sharp pain and cruelty will still evoke psychological defense mechanisms, which may form some kind of strange "slow heat" of the storyline, and the reader's reaction will inadvertently delay half a beat.
The narrative of "In the Mirror" sets up a complex puzzle. As the suspense lifts, the legend slowly fades, and the daily atmosphere of the plot gradually returns: a single female journalist falls in love with a famous architect. The architect does not have the courage to confess to his wife that he is empathetic, and the passion and hopelessness between them accumulate at the same time; the other side of this plot is that the architect's wife falls in love with the head of the architectural design office, who is the architect's assistant and close friend. Whether it was the pressure of public opinion or the superior status of a celebrity's wife, she could not consider dissolving the marriage and rebuilding the family with the head of the firm. However, things suddenly take a sharp turn for the worse: in a moment, a terrible car accident takes the lives of two lovely children, and the wife of the architect driving is seriously disfigured...
The puzzles of "In the Mirror" are set in the slightest: the architect's remorse, the grievances of the female reporters, the unexpected discoveries of the surveillance, all the mysteries are finally clarified by the e-mail sent by the architect's wife before she committed suicide. This plot construct subtly and naturally sustains the architect's inner ups and downs—from sadness, guilt, hatred, to a liberating epiphany of life. In the sense of plot evolution, the love affair between the architect's wife and the head of the firm constitutes a more entangled whirlpool. In addition to endangering the relationship between husband and wife, the brotherhood of the two men has been irreparably blasphemed and beaten, and the strongest interpersonal relationship is suddenly fragile. Their daily work and life are so closely integrated that it is impossible to refuse to see each other; yet, from loyalty, trust, and dependence to betrayal, jealousy, and revenge, confrontations between men can be subjected to intense external actions with serious consequences. The plot of the novel repeats the fact that all kinds of hidden passions can easily turn into blazing flames that burn everything. The selflessness and jealousy of love are often separated by a wall, and the slightest sway and loss of control will cause a major test of life.
Marriage has always been an important topic focused on sociology. How many marital crises stem from the cooling of passion? Should moral or legal restrictions be tightened? How can reasonable aftercare measures be established, such as proper division of property or offspring? And all that. "In the Mirror" turns sociological considerations to psychology, exploring the mutual harm between the characters who are deeply in the puzzle, and even destroying the expectations that a person once had in his heart.
Ai Wei is more concerned with the follow-up theme: how does the self stand up again in psychological trauma? In addition to the tide of sorrow and sharp hatred, is it possible to perceive some of the greater feelings, such as tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, the beauty of adulthood, to become a Buddha, and liberate oneself in this sense? Compared with external sociology, "In the Mirror" opens up inner cultivation and inner self-redemption. Ai Wei said he tried to "find the inner language that belongs to the Chinese" and "open the spiritual world of Chinese and find the 'soul' of the Chinese." ”
The destruction of the home tears apart the architect's soul in an instant, and the inner repair is long and tortuous. Spirits and medicines provide temporary anesthesia, does the enlightenment of Buddhist scriptures and the beauty of architecture contribute to the rebirth of the spirit? Returning to a Buddhist zen monastery of his own design, he re-studied the Buddhist scriptures, trying to gain inner peace through the world and get rid of the red dust; architecture once again gave a new enlightenment—the interdependence of light and darkness inside the building reminded him of the inseparability of love and hate. As the architect realized, "Faith is so simple that it can be planted in the human heart in one night." "Physical suffering often shows arbitrariness and tyranny, and when the impulse of hatred suddenly emerges, various wise and profound philosophical sayings are the salvation after the awakening of reason.
Some writers focus on tracing the relationship between the spirit and the material environment: material scarcity can corrupt a pure mind, while nobility often manifests itself as contempt for many forms of inducements. Stories like this abound. The protagonist of "In the Mirror" seems to have left behind the days when he would have worried about money. They travel freely between Hangzhou, Japan, new York, in and out of various hotels or social circles of noble people, and financial problems have never been a cause of conflict. But does pure love hide a possessiveness that is more powerful than financial problems? At this time, the architect's wife Yi Rong once again entered the field of vision - she is the most successful character portrayed in "In the Mirror".
Compared with the simplicity of the architect, the kindness of the female reporter and the stability of the director of the firm, this character is vivid and vivid, and his personality is complex and changeable. She is both conservative and open and rebellious, both maternally gentle and loving and good at the temptation of other styles; she can neither give up her husband's fame and honor, nor can she abandon the gentle consideration of her lover. It is true that she does not have a deliberate vision, to get by and to live and act willfully; on the other hand, she is precisely the axis of contradictions, or a contradiction herself. Her origins are a mystery, and her adoptive mother is a single celebrity who has a role in her character formation. There is no reason to simply classify this moving character as the object of moral condemnation, but, according to secular logic, the contradictions surrounding her are irreconcilable. Jealousy will awaken at any time, and tragedy will happen sooner or later. In fact, the curtain of tragedy was set off by her own hands.
The writer delicately recounts the mental struggles after the architect's tragedy: left and right, strong or weak, uncertain, and various inner trajectories are far more complex and subtle than the intense plot. He volunteered deep into the frontiers, caring for refugees in the midst of war as both a self-atonement and a way of forgetting their pain. Revenge does not modify history, and reason can block the logic of retribution. Despite this simple conclusion, the seeds of hatred remain there. The moment he knew the truth, hatred quickly resurrected, "He wanted to forgive, but hatred had filled his whole body and wanted to break out of his shell." Not hard hatred, but helpless hatred, and thus he knew that hatred is not only a shape, hatred is not necessarily like an arrow out of anger, but can also swallow its own flesh and emotions in the body like cancer cells. ”
Of course, continuous inner cultivation has produced subtle effects. When he was alone with the head of the firm, the architect had two evil thoughts, but the "light" on the sea stopped him twice, and the symbolic imagery blessed his inner perseverance. However, inner cultivation has never had a form that can be achieved overnight, and the long cultivation is gradually disintegrating the inner basis of evil thoughts, if the architect and the head of the firm do not encounter an unexpected fire, if the latter does not fight to the death but still survives, will the evil thoughts in the architect's heart never arise again? How to build a solid spiritual?
Of course, the novel does not have to provide a clear answer to such questions, the writer's task is to design the plot for the texture of testing human nature: the fire encountered by the architect and the director of the firm may not be unexpected, and a profound enlightenment comes at the same time, and the supervisor not only drives away the evil thoughts in the architect's heart by desperately trying to save each other, but also repairs the heart from the symbolic imagery back to the fireworks world. Although the various texts have preserved many most reasonable sayings, the selflessness of the world is the real force that drives away the darkness of the heart. Pain and disaster cannot be extinguished, and it is precisely the light of human nature that resists doom and gloom in the fireworks world. The belief that goodness and righteousness will eventually become a more resilient backing is a belief that is always implicit in the sharp plot of the novel, and at the same time presents the writer's ability to ask questions directly.
Ai Wei's novel "Wind and Sun" was adapted into a TV series of the same name, starring Li Chen and Ma Yili
The family as a micro-social unit, the glue between family members is a powerful "love": gender love and parent-child love. The special cohesion of "love" often stems from selflessness, and the exclusivity in gender love makes humanity face various tests. "In the Mirror" uses the emotional puzzle of the architect's family set by the narrative to face the setbacks and dilemmas of love encountered by the characters, and explores the self-redemption in the spiritual process of contemporary people.
Author:Nan Fan (Researcher, Fujian Academy of Social Sciences)
Editor: Xueying Wang
Planner: Wang Xueying
Editor-in-Charge: Shao Ling