The legendary | small prints on red letters are pitiful: the extremely precious manuscript of Zhang Ailing's "Color Ring"

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Legendary | The small characters of the red letter are pitiful: the extremely precious manuscript of Zhang Ailing's "Color Ring"

Zhang Ailing's manuscript of "Color Ring".

Zhang Ailing (1920-1995), formerly known as Zhang Xuan, was a modern Chinese writer from Tangshan, Hebei Province. Her works include novels, essays, film scripts, and literary treatises, and her letters have been studied as part of her writings.

The Color Ring was conceived in the 1950s and was not published until the 1980s. Zhang Ailing said that this small story had shaken her, so she was willing to revise it over and over again, and before she knew it, 30 years had passed. And this novel, but more than 20,000 words, an average of two words a day. But she said that love is not asking whether it is worth it or not.

Zhang Ailing was famous, her grandfather Zhang Peilun was a famous courtier at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and her grandmother Li Ju coupled was the eldest daughter of Li Hongzhang, an important minister of the imperial court.

In 1943, Zhang Ailing met Zhou Shuangjuan, the editor-in-chief and writer of the monthly magazine "Violet" at that time.

In May, Zhang Ailing published a novel in the journal, "Agarwood Crumbs, the First Burning Incense", which made Zhang Ailing a hit in the Shanghai literary scene and made a name for herself.

In June, Zhang Ailing published her sequel "Agarwood Crumbs • Second Burning Incense".

In July, Zhang Ailing met the critic Ke Ling. Since then, Zhang Ailing has published a series of works such as "Jasmine Piece", "Shanghainese in the End", "Heart Sutra", "Love in the City" and other publications such as "Magazine", "Vientiane", "Ancient and Modern" and so on.

Zhang Ailing's novels, whether the ending is good or bad, give people a sad feeling. Zhang Ailing's writing is calm, the novel is often described in the third person, that is, "he", narrated from an omniscient perspective, although the novel is not mixed with too many of the author's personal emotions, but the emotional tone is sad.

One of the biggest features of the language of Zhang Ailing's novels is the extensive use of metaphors, contrasts, irony, color descriptions and other means. For example, in "Agarwood Crumbs: The First Incense", she once wrote:

Wei Long was wearing a magnetic blue thin silk cheongsam that day, and when she gave him a look at his green eyes, she felt that her arm was like hot milk, pouring out of the blue pot, and the tube could not be controlled, and the whole of herself was spilled out.

This is a wonderful depiction of the white beauty of a woman's arms compared to hot milk. Such a description not only makes people feel Georgie's obsessive and foolish image through the reader's vision, but also shows Wei Long's self-sustaining but vain mentality.

In The Golden Lock, she writes:

She reached the window and lifted the dark green curtains with small pompoms on it, and Ji Ze was walking out of the alley, his robe draped over his shoulders, and the sweet wind like a flock of white pigeons had burrowed into the cracks of his spinning pants, drilling everywhere, fluttering and flapping his wings.

This is the situation where the characters are in a gloomy and depressed environment, and the love is finally broken. There is no extravagant description and rendering of large paragraphs, the text is concise and moving, but the sadness is expressed very deeply, naturally and flexibly.

Zhang Ailing claimed to be:

I even write about small things between men and women, there is no war and no revolution in my work, and I think that people are more simple and more arrogant when they are in love than in war or revolution.

In 1961, Xia Zhiqing's English masterpiece "History of Modern Chinese Novels" discovered and demonstrated the literary history status of important writers such as Zhang Ailing, Zhang Tianyi, Qian Zhongshu, shen Congwen, etc., which had a far-reaching influence, especially zhang Ailing. Zhang Ailing's "The Book of the Golden Lock" is considered to be "the greatest novella in China since ancient times."

The famous writer Bai Xianyong said: Zhang Ailing is of course an unborn genius, her writing style is very interesting, like bypassing the literature of the May Fourth period, directly from the "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Jin Ping Mei" that line down, Zhang Ailing's novel language is more pure, is the authentic Chinese, her traditional Chinese cultural attainments are actually very deep.

The famous female writer Wang Anyi said: Only novels are the meaning of Zhang Ailing. Therefore, the result of the acquaintance is to grab Zhang Ailing out of the novel and then return it to the novel.

On the night of September 8, 1995 (Mid-Autumn Festival), Zhang Ailing, a talented woman in the field of Chinese literature, died in her apartment in the Westwood District of Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

Zhang Ailing's "Color Ring" manuscript manuscript is super clear to appreciate

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