Reporter | Chen Jiajing
Edit | Yellow Moon
<h3>Too Much to Think About</h3>
Saul Bellow grew up in the Great Depression and was one of the most prestigious contemporary American writers of the 20th century. A scholar and a writer, he inherited some of the traditions of European realist literature in his creation, and adopted some of the concepts and techniques of modernism, emphasizing the expression of anti-heroes full of contradictions and desires. In 1953, he became famous with his novel The Adventures of Auggie March, followed by helvederson, Henderson the Rain King, Hersog, Mr. Symler's Planet, Humboldt's Gift, and others. These works expose the spiritual bitterness of middle-class intellectuals and reflect the spiritual crisis of the contemporary "abundant society" in the United States from the side. In 1976, Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work "a blend of understanding of the human person and an exquisite analysis of contemporary culture.".
This book is a collection of Bellow's essays, including his essays, as well as 57 essays on his travels, book reviews, film reviews, interviews, speeches, and memoirs, spanning more than half a century. Bellow believes that the writer's method of acquiring essence is different from that of thinkers and scientists, the latter understanding the world through systematic investigation, and the former taking himself as the object, going deep into his own heart, and finding the unique language of "expression" in that lonely area. In the book, readers will follow the trajectory of Bellow's life, witnessing his transformation from a teenager who experienced the "Great Depression" of the American economy to a Nobel Prize winner in literature, and also through his keen observation and thinking, he can get a glimpse of the prosperity and decline of the United States in the twentieth century.
<h3>"Breaking Dawn"</h3>
"Breaking Dawn" is a collection of short stories by Taiwanese literary scholar Mr. Zhu Xining, which contains thirteen short story classics and was first published in the mainland. Zhu Xining has been called "a metallurgist in the art of modern fiction" and "the first new novelist in Taiwan". As a pioneer of Taiwanese modernist writing, he first showed the multi-dimensional exploration of modern writing, the tireless interest in exhaustive study of language, and the highly mature modern consciousness in "Breaking Dawn". Among them, the short story of the same name, "Breaking Dawn", is rewritten from the Song Dynasty novel "Wrong Chop Cui Ning", pointing directly to the entanglement between people and absurd fates, asking "how did the process of degeneration begin in each of us". The novel was also adapted into a film of the same name and released in 1968.
The writer Don Nuo once said of Zhu Xining's works: "He is full of sympathy for the world, always looking at the so-called 'evil' twice, giving them a little chance." Because of this, Zhu Xining's novels have several layers more than others, and he deeply analyzes the entanglement between why people are human, and the absurd and absurd fate of people, which not only has a rich emotional level, but also a rich thinking level. In addition to "Breaking Dawn", the works of the "Republic of Zhu Xining" series now include the short story collection "Iron Pulp" and "Wolf" and the novel "Dryad".
<h3>"Merry Snow Mountain: In Search of Seventeen Friends"</h3>
In the 1970s and 1990s, mountaineering and scientific expeditions against the Himalayan snow-capped mountains gradually moved away from the early situation of going it alone and entered an era of competition. Merry Mountaineering was the most radical wave of this trend, and in January 1991, it was the second largest mountain disaster in the history of human mountaineering. Seventeen members of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Joint Mountaineering Team were killed by an avalanche, and the Meili Snow Mountain became one of the most difficult peaks for mankind to conquer. After the accident, China and Japan conducted a multi-party search, and the author of this book, Naori Kobayashi, is not only a teammate of the deceased mountaineers, a member of the third Sino-Japanese mountaineering team, but also the person responsible for collecting the remains. Over the next twenty years, he repeatedly went deep into the Meili Snow Mountain and successfully found sixteen bodies.
In the book, Kobayashi describes in detail the mountaineering activities and the collection of relics from the perspective of witnesses. The book is particularly included in the photos of the film of the mountain disaster relics, which is also the first time that the photos of the mountain disaster relics have been published. As a mountaineer and a foreigner, Kobayashi Shori has gone from strange to familiar, from exclusion to understanding with local Tibetans in years of searching, and he himself has gradually transformed from an arrogant foreign climber to the guardian of the sacred mountain, and began to use photographic lenses and pen writing to continue to explore the mysterious scenery of Meili Snow Mountain, record the changes in the lives of Tibetan villagers at the foot of the mountain, and let people feel the hope and miracle bred by the slow flow of time.
<h3>The Daughter of the Wind: The Staggered Lives of German Female Pilots in World War II</h3>
This two-person biographical work tells the story of two highly acclaimed female pilots in Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, hannah Lech and Melita von Staufenberg, a very few women among pilots, became priceless treasures of the newly formed Nazi regime with their superhuman abilities, courage and perseverance, and were both awarded the rank of female captain. When World War II came in 1939, both female pilots decided to serve Germany. Although they never formally joined the Luftwaffe in the strict sense of the word, the Pair of Geminis have been committed to the forefront of Nazi military aviation ever since.
Interestingly, Hannah and Mellita are in many ways almost replicas of each other: one is white-skinned, funny, loud-talking, and always energetic; the other is dark-faced, always serious, and thoughtful in everything. Although they were both patriotic fighters and had an unwavering belief in glory, duty, and dedication, their attitudes toward their homeland and the Nazi regime were vastly different: in 1945, Hannah pleaded with Hitler to flee Berlin with her in an attempt to save her life; Mellità secretly supported the most famous Führer's assassination plan and paid the price in blood. During the war, the two women were always avoiding each other, ignoring each other, and even belittling each other. Their intertwined lives give readers the opportunity to gain insight into Nazi Germany and its attitudes toward women, classes, and races.
<h3>Raising Good Children: Ethics and Child Development</h3>
How do children understand the tensions and conflicts of the outside world? How to cultivate their awareness of social ethics? This is a very concern for many parents when educating their children, but there is little research in the field of anthropology. Mainstream anthropologists often believe that the norms and preferences of the group in which children acquire are simply "absorbed", like sponges absorbing water, while moral norms are "imposed" by society in children's minds and therefore need to be "internalized" through rewards and punishments. But in reality, children's minds are filled with concrete expectations, intuitions, and cognitive tendencies that allow them to spontaneously build a holistic understanding of the world from fragmented information about their environment. Just as children do not need to acquire their mother tongue by teaching grammar, but rather construct grammar in their minds by listening to the conversations around them, this principle also applies to morality.
In order to examine the process of children's moral acquisition, Xu Jing used anthropological ethnographic observation and psychological experiments to conduct a practical survey of 120 children aged 2-6 in a private kindergarten in H City from 2011 to 2012. Through interviews with teachers, parents, other caregivers and children, as well as hands-on observations in kindergartens, Xu Jing distills a series of stories that meticulously depict the tension between children and parents, children's world cultures and adult world cultures. She argues that children have a priori assumptions about harm and care, cooperation, and justice, which is why they are able to acquire social ethics. The discussions in the book also provide readers with a new perspective on contemporary society and its contradictory attitudes toward morality.
<h3>Inferior: What Does Science Do Wrong about Women? 》</h3>
For centuries, scientists have influenced policymakers on many important issues. Scientists are expected to give objective facts, but they also believe that science is certainly telling stories without bias. However, once the story involves women, there are too many mistakes in it. To this day, women still face implicit or explicit inequality, and among all the gender biases against women, the most uncontrolled thing for ordinary people is to resort to scientific inferences about the nature of gender. Some scientists believe that there is a biological gap between men and women, resulting in women being intellectually and emotionally inferior to men, which is why we rarely see women in top positions in science.
This so-called "scientific discovery" reinforces society's gender stereotype of women, and it is on this basis that the author of this book reflects on the erroneous impact of scientific development on gender concepts, and exposes the direct consequences of gender-oriented research in the fields of medicine, biology, psychology and other research. Many of the injustices that people have become accustomed to – such as the fact that most drug developments are based on men and completely ignore the presence of women in order to save costs; more common diseases in the female population, such as autoimmune diseases, which have not been treated as they deserve for a long time – are actually being caused by stereotypes and dangerous myths about women by some scientists, which in turn distorts the face of science.
<h3>"The Accent of the Movie: Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke"</h3>
Born in 1970, Jia Zhangke is a leading figure in China's sixth generation of directors. Born in Fenyang, Shanxi, he spent his childhood in the late stages of the Cultural Revolution, and his adolescence coincided with an era of increasing openness, and it can be said that his growth experience coincided with the forty years of reform and opening up, which is also reflected in his films. From the first feature film "Xiao Wu" to the later "Platform", "Ren Xiaoyao", "Three Gorges Good Man", etc., he has always paid attention to the real encounters of small people in the times. While most Chinese films in the past have focused on "beautiful countryside" or "modern metropolises," Jia Zhangke has set his sights on China's "county seats," such as Fenyang and Datong. The "overlooked landmarks" and "invisible marginal figures" are truly displayed, which constitutes the unique hallmark of Jia Zhangke's films.
This book is an interview with Jia Zhangke's films by Chinese film researcher Bai Ruiwen, which focuses on 10 representative films of Jia Zhangke in chronological order, and is also a combing and summary of his film life. Through these films, Jia Zhangke was able to move from Fenyang to the world, between the "burning years of passion" in China's past era and the rising "superpower" today. Today, China's commercial film market is increasingly prosperous, but he is still focusing on small-scale art films, and through film, he also explores the position of the individual in society, the position of technology in life, and how individuals find their own value in the midst of drastic changes.
<h3>Classical Botanical Gardens</h3>
The author of this book, Tang Huan, has loved mountains and rivers since childhood, and after reading the book, he learned that plants are the carriers of "rising up" and "borrowing metaphors" in traditional literature, and began to explore the history, poetry and palm history carried by plants. As the source of food, clothing and medicine for the ancestors, plants are related to many fields such as Materia Medica, agronomy, horticulture, eating, art, and even the history of civilization exchanges, historical geography and climate. For example, "Artemisia annua is full of short reed buds, it is the puffer fish when it wants to go up" is actually a top delicacy, legend has it that Artemisia annua can solve the poison of puffer fish; "the end of the dynasty to pick blue, not a single piece of blue", indigo was once an important blue-dyed plant in China, carrying a history of the rise and fall of national industry and commerce; "exceptionally general heaven and water color, this side is the only dyeing family to know", so the ancients used duck grass to paint lamps, made rouge named "night color", after being introduced to Japan, it was even useful in the production of kimono...
"Classical Botanical Garden" includes Tang Huan's 42 articles on plant science, leading readers to swim in a world of grass and trees created by poetics, folklore, naturalism and Materia Medica. The illustrations in the book are mainly hand-drawn by ancients, especially the famous Materia Medica scholar Iwasaki Shrub garden "Materia Medica Atlas" of the famous Edo period in Japan, hosoi's "Illustration of Famous Poems and Famous Objects", and the Maori Plum Garden "Plum Garden Hundred Flowers Painting Spectrum" and so on. These maps have both the precision of Western naturalism and the interest of Oriental literati painting.