In the German writer Daniela Klein's novel "Jump Up", when we focus on five middle-aged women, we will hear them say: Life is a misty wilderness, there is no clear and straight road for you to go on.
They are women who despise men, women who cheat on their families, women who accept non-partner sexual relations, women who are imprisoned by fertility, gender, age, women who are wrapped in human desires and limitations. They have free will, ability, and conditions, but they do not create the myth of independent women.
Or insist on celibacy, or fall into repeated falls, or to love, or to have sex, to understand passionately, to coexist coldly, to divide happily, to tear viscously... Desires change rapidly, and you can't find a kind of freedom that floats lightly.
We are tired of bondage
And eager to connect
If we go through the comments, it is no surprise that many of the five protagonists are the most envious of Uttit – a doctor by profession and a private clinic. Less than forty, always single, needs a man but never indulges in a long-term relationship because "sooner or later she will despise him". Time is spent on work, and energy is spent on forging oneself. The perfect sample of modern independent women, the free state for which countless people strive.
This is the A side of Uttite's life. Her B-side is that she wanders between IDs on dating and matching sites, constantly changing sexual partners until sex is nothing special. Everything always starts from scratch and then ends quickly. There is no bondage, no heartbeat, no anticipation, no comfort. Age is rising, the joy of finding is decreasing, and she doesn't want to "spend her next birthday alone" anymore.
Like a cool text with only 90% completion, Yuttit's life is stuck. Not because of social pressures, the gaze of others, nor out of the instinct to reproduce, the intention of the future. The novel "Jump" doesn't want to talk about these clichés.
What the novel is more about is that our sanity may be more limited than we think. A person will firmly refuse to live with another person, refuse him to take off his shoes and lie on his own couch, and will not be able to refuse the company from the gaze, hugs, and weakness of another person. It's true to hate bondage, and it's true that there's inner desolation. And these desolations do not evaporate naturally due to exercise, shopping, and work, but only extend along the gaps.
In the eyes of those who pride themselves on their independence and autonomy, Uttit has a life as precious as gold. But as the authors put it, these "are not everyone's only interest." Others prefer stable relationships, security, and minimal wealth over unlimited freedom. ”
So in the other four chapters we see that the protagonists want to divorce and not leave, want to escape and return. Whether they hate their husbands who don't grow up, or build their own families because they feel desperate for their parents, they feel nest-like safety in their own closed-loop relationships.
These relationships are cages and peach blossoms. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, their lives had new possibilities, and the world opened up to them. The traditional voice gradually weakened. What doesn't change is that they always need the breath of the same kind, expecting responses, reassurances, and attachments.
Even if there is not necessarily a thrilling romance in it. In the novel, it is written that the two get along, and always eat, sleep, walk, quarrel... But it was in these day-to-day procedures that did not happen unexpectedly, they caught a little bit of certainty and satisfaction, and no longer felt floating.
Marriages that can escape
A life from which there is no escape
In addition to women who voluntarily do not marry, the protagonists of "Jumping" are more women who enter marriage and run away. After enjoying the sweetness and encountering boredom, they accept the disappearance and brokenness of love.
Just like the dashing and brief declarations of female celebrities on Weibo hot search to pass on, we seem to be more and more convinced that this move to pull out the quagmire means victory and means a reduction in the risk factor. The end of a relationship must lead the way to a new freedom.
But the novel's author is far less cheerful. "Freedom is always just a false thing, limited by time." One may not step into the river of marriage twice. But there are so many tributaries of life that before you can react, you fall into another quagmire.
Just as Brida was in a relationship with her husband, she was initially given a gift. In the marriage woven by love and passion, I have had a lot of confidence in facing the world and ushered in the peak of my creative career. But life is fluid, changing, and there are more and more things around her, and more and more things she wants to juggle: "children, art, culture, friends, men, sex, reading time, idleness and impromptu escape"...
Everything has to take up energy. The folds on the skin, the marks of staying up late on the face, the loss of hair and confidence are felt by no one. She began to look outward for a way out, separated, divorced. She thought ending a relationship would bring about a qualitative change.
But as a result, her work remains stagnant, and she must continue to forge ahead and make a living from it. She also has two daughters, and the joy she gives her is hard to leave and also gives her great fear. Her tiredness still has not dissipated, what she wants is still not fully possessed, and what she has is still invincible.
How do you avoid the personal crisis that follows? Those desires for self-actualization, the increasingly heavy responsibilities, the gains and losses between people, the aging body and mind, the decline of ability and luck... The boundaries of life are too broad, and the fine tiredness and pain in marriage dwarf each other.
The novel arranges a divorce plot for the protagonists who enter the marriage. Their marital crisis is over, but they can't digest the regrets of bereavement, can't get out of the house without shame, can't take three children of different fathers with them, and take care of rising careers. They walked out of marriage, but they didn't become big, cool women.
They are booksellers, actors, writers, violinists, educated and creative, self-aware and able to escape from marriage. But compared to the journey of marriage, the devastation of life is still too long. And a man cannot terminate his life in the same way that he terminates a marriage.
Life is muddy
Or jump in
If you can't create the myth of independent women, what's so good about the lives of five middle-aged women?
For some, the novel "Jump In" seems too unscathy. When you are young, you passionately enter into marriage or choose not to marry, followed by middle-aged divorce, children, insomnia and crying at night, and hard work but still do not know the way forward.
At the age of forty or so, I have already figured out the rules of marriage and love, and I know that many things in life are likely to become a mess, but I will still let men break into life, or I will shed tears for them. In the face of contradictions and conflicts in intimate relationships, encroachment and exclusion, bear huge emotional risks, and at the same time play more love and attention without giving up.
In today's increasingly awakened consciousness of women, it is difficult for us to understand that paying such a great price will result in so much physical and spiritual suffering. Emotional satisfaction certainly has its pleasures, but these pleasures don't seem to be enough to cancel each other out with pain. So, in order to avoid harm, we refuse to enter the relationship. Even if you enter, you are still vigilant, defensive, afraid that the gain will not be worth the loss, the loss will not be lost, and the expectation is that the effort is minimal but the gain is not cheap.
Don't the women in the novel know these calculations? Every relationship that comes to an end is a choice after screening and consideration. However, unlike people who have long given up expectations after being worn down by life, they accept the healing and the hurt in it. Because "this thing, which people call destiny, is nothing but her decisions." ”
They accept the price of all choices. They need to be close to people and want to be needed. Simply mend the seams in the heart and start the next rush. Again and again if necessary.
This is certainly not a happy book. But it's not tearful, at least a little optimistic. At the end, Brida finally bids farewell to the triangle and prepares to write a story with a happy beginning and ending. After spending Christmas alone, Yuttit once again met the man who was super well matched on the dating site at the new book conference in Brida, but also abandoned himself. They started a new love, a new heartbreak, a new life of living with others.
The novel "Jump" does not want to talk about good women in the secular sense, nor does it want to talk about good women under the standards of the new era. There are only women who live within the framework of daily life, exploring themselves with all their strength, and dealing with themselves. They walk the path they can take, the path they are willing to take. As for the right way, the only way, they don't care.
Rejecting marriage is certainly not a big deal. As the book writes, it's a real grind. But choosing feelings does not mean weakness, and it is more common to be an independent woman who cannot get rid of her feelings and have evolved and soared since then.
It is important that on the journey of life, you do not cowardly, do not be afraid of getting muddy. Whether you're twenty, thirty, or forty, you'll still have the courage to jump.
"Jump In"
Author: [de] Daniela Crirn
Translator: Li Shixun
Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House
Published in February 2022
Paula, Utite, Brida, Marika, and Jolind grew up on the borders of the German Democratic Republic, and they were either friends, lovers, or sisters, and their stories were both independent and interconnected. Wives, daughters, and mothers give them identity and pressure, and the desire for love and independence leaves them with and must face difficulties. They tell us with their own experiences that life is a difficult walk on a tightrope, and we must always beware of the danger of falling from a high place. After enduring nightmares and biting again and again, can they find another possibility of life?
Illustration: Sex and the City, Marriage Story, Revolutionary Road
Typography: Adzuki bean