"Half Life" is Zhang Ailing's first complete novel, originally titled "Eighteen Spring", which was completed in 1951, and later during Zhang Ailing's stay in the United States, it was rewritten, deleting some slightly political endings and renaming it "Half Life".
The novel reveals all aspects of society and human nature through the joys and sorrows of young people's marriages.
Synopsis
"Half Life" tells the love and hatred of several young people in old Shanghai, who used to be related people, but in the end they went their separate ways. A few ordinary sentient beings and men, Shi Jun, Man Zhen, Shu Hui, Cui Zhi, a group of urban young people who can be seen everywhere, told a little bit of infatuation and resentment that was not bizarre. At the same time, the various changes in modern Chinese society that have turned the world upside down: September 18, 12,88, the victory of the War of Resistance, the takeover of the Kuomintang, the liberation of Shanghai, and the support for the northeast have only made their background, vaguely brushing their stories with a turbulent background.
Shen Shijun originally fell in love with Gu Manzhen, but the family urged him to marry his cousin Shi Cuizhi, and Man zhen's sister Gu Manlu dropped out of school to serve as a social flower to maintain the family's living expenses, and finally married Zhu Hongcai, who had a wife and a son, in desperation. In the face of Shi Jun's family, Man Zhen felt inferior, and Shi Jun mistakenly thought that Man Zhen was in love with Zhang Yujin, who had been Man Lu's boyfriend, and the old father of the family entrusted the family property to him in danger, he had to return to Nanjing, separated from Man Zhen, and Man Lu in order to please Zhu Hongcai, he did not hesitate to sacrifice his sister's happiness, so that she gave birth to a son for Zhu Hongcai, and prevented Shi Jun from looking for Man Zhen, man Zhen finally escaped the clutches of Man Lu and Hongcai and then looked for Shi Jun, Shi Jun was married to Cui Zhi. Soon after, Man Lu died, and Man Zhen returned to the Zhu family to take care of his son, and finally married Zhu Hongcai.
Evaluation of works
The rewriting of "Eighteen Springs" in "Half Life" highlights Zhang Ailing's new artistic conception, which is a splendid reproduction of Zhang Ailing's "love aesthetics of the city", although "Eighteen Springs" has the same origin and co-roots, but it bears different and more colorful fruits.
--Chen Zishan
Zhang Ailing was greatly influenced by popular fiction, but "Half Life" sublimated popular fiction into an elegant and deep program.
- Shibu-an
About the Author
Zhang Ailing was born in Shanghai on September 30, 1920, and her original name was Zhang Yan. In 1922, he moved to Tianjin. In 1928, he moved back to Shanghai from Tianjin and read "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". In 1930, she changed her name to Zhang Ailing, and in 1939, she was admitted to the University of Hong Kong, and in 1941, when the Pacific War broke out, she devoted herself to literary creation. Two years later, he published works such as "Love in the Fallen City" and "The Book of Golden Locks", and became acquainted with Zhou Shuangjuan, Ke Ling, Su Qing and Hu Lancheng. In 1944, he married Hu Lancheng, and in 1945, he wrote "Love in the Fallen City" and performed in Shanghai; in the same year, the Anti-Japanese War was victorious. He divorced Hu Lancheng in 1947, moved to Hong Kong in 1952, and left Hong Kong for the United States in 1955 to visit Hu Shi. In 1956, he met the playwright Raya, and in August of the same year, he married Raya in New York. Laiya died in 1967 and settled in Los Angeles in 1973, two years later, completing an English translation of the Qing Dynasty novel "The Legend of the Flowers on the Sea". He died in September 1995 at his Los Angeles apartment at the age of seventy-four.