Kristen S. Hannah is one of the favorite female writers in recent years, she is good at writing long stories of hundreds of thousands of words and three to four hundred pages, each book is a fire, since her debut, there have been 23 bestsellers, and the global sales have exceeded 20 million copies. Looking backwards in the results, her mother's statement that "you are destined to be a writer in the future" is still low-key, which is going to the list of great writers of American history.
Each has been hailed as "a rare epic about female friendship!" "A masterpiece that touches the soul and changes women's lives"! Famous bestselling author Danielle Steele calls her the "female version of Márquez". "Firefly Alley" and "Nightingale" are all must-sell pirated books on the market, running through the book is her understanding and praise of women, and the women's stories written are placed in the context of American history to explore the possibility of women's development. She can easily shuttle between eras and characters, constantly changing styles, sometimes fresh and sometimes magnificent, and her inner description is delicate and profound, in her new work "Four Faces of the Wind", she continues this style, telling the story of the lonely girl Elsa from girl to wife to mother, and finally becomes a warrior for a better life.
Elsa as a child
Childhood is the happiest time in a person's life, we don't have a sense of future worries, enjoy the present, just have someone to play with, but Elsa doesn't. Suffering from heart disease since childhood, she spent most of her time in the boudoir, her family forbade her to run, play or dance, and she had never experienced love when she was forced to drop out of school at the age of fourteen. She is accompanied only by novels that she can't read endlessly and can't read enough, and her favorite is Edith Wharton's "Age of Innocence" (the plot of the book is a "love", and the people in the story are like they have nothing else to do, and they only know to fall in love all day. ）
It was this book that awakened her desire for love and awakened this brave girl who had been neglected. And what made her firmly believe to love all her life was his grandfather, a person who presumptuously loved those people and things she loved. It was he who encouraged Elsa: "Don't worry about dying, Elsa. What really worries people is not being able to survive. Be brave. She came to believe that she had courage, even if that courage was never tested and never discovered. She also began to do things that drove her family crazy.
Elsa is getting married, and the groom is not me
The day before her twenty-fifth birthday, she proposed to her family to take a literature class at a university in Chicago, where she wanted to finish school and become a teacher or a writer. Sure enough, it was denied. But Elsa's pent-up desire seems to be uncontrollable, and she tries to vent in "Memoirs of a Happy Woman" to no avail. I cut off my long hair and cut the fabric to make the most fashionable dress-V top, low-rise, handkerchief-style hem. This dress was characteristic of the trendy girls of the time, and she also wore it to a bar to drink and listen to music, where she met her future husband Rafi Martinelli. Just because they took one more look in the crowd, these two people touched the depths of their hearts with sparks and lightning all the way.
Afterwards, the family's violent beating did not shake her belief in love in the slightest, "In order to be loved, even if she is only loved for one night, she is willing to do anything and endure anything." "She was willing to do whatever it took from Rafi to get whatever she could, even if it was to hell." This happy extension is the birth of life, little Loreda begins to absorb her nutrients in Elsa's body, and soon the persecution of Elsa's family and the Martinelli family have to agree to this seven-year-old sibling marriage because of shame.
The female nature is weak, and the mother is strong
Many soap operas at home and abroad are shaping how women encounter sudden changes at home after marriage, women shoulder the burden of the family, and then begin to take care of their families alone, find various jobs to do, and do a good job at home and outside the home. But the reason why this book can be called epic is precisely to combine this corny plot with the background of the times to explore what women can achieve, from the beginning of Elsa's crazy bravery, she suffered a series of events that could destroy her lifeEconomic crisis caused her to suffer from debt collection and mortgage; Severe weather such as drought and sandstorms make it impossible for crops to grow and families to lose their economic resources; The husband ran away from home, and the support of faith was gone.
In this harsh environment, the evil of human nature is also exposed. Farmers' oppression and unfair wages continue to exploit the lives of poor people. When they tried to flee to California, known as a "paradise", they found that the oppression was even greater, the xenophobia was greater, and the basic rights of the human person could not be guaranteed. No one is qualified to fight, go to the hospital, go to the house...
"We are forced to live in despair, but we can draw strength from it. We are destined to endure. "Elsa endured, but for Loreda's sake, she could endure it. The endless oppression and the workers' struggle are destined to put the brave Elsa on a new stage in life. Those who help themselves help themselves, and those who abandon themselves abandon them. She could no longer bear it, and since her rights were not protected, she fought for it, and she began to participate in the strike cause, and eventually died as a result.
At this point, what comes to mind is not only the tragic situation experienced by Elsa in the thirties of the 20th century, but also a tall, thin woman who loves to read novels and walks me up, step by step becoming a resolute and brave mother. I have seen decades of life review, and I have seen me now, how should I face the rest of my life? I don't have an answer yet.