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Opinions are like the tide flowing against the tide, but the voice of the heart is endless
Text | Grace
It is understood that the 73-year-old Tanzanian novelist won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel gave the reason for the award "because of his influence on colonialist literary writing, uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the fate of refugees in the gulf between different cultural continents". If you can, you may wish to read his short story "The Cage", which does reflect a sense of powerlessness to fight against fate but cannot break free.
The feeling of powerlessness is the deepest experience I have after reading the short story "The Cage".
The novel begins with a young man who is far from home in his teens and comes to live in a small place, he follows an old man to work in his grocery store, he is diligent, serious, kind, bored day after day living life, he is afraid of fighting with the darkness, life is almost two points and a line, never had the courage to go farther away after work, because beyond those places he is not familiar with, he will be afraid, and after a long time he will get used to this kind of life. If there is no change, this life should be like this.
Everything changed when one day when the grocery store was close to closing, a young girl came to buy something, looked at the beautiful woman in front of him, the young man suddenly ignited the hope of life, sold things to her, watched the girl plunge into the night figure, suddenly his fear of the night decreased, and even saw the light of the night as the girl left.
So after work, he began to dare to go a little bit beyond the place he had never been before, even if he walked a little farther, he thought that place was very beautiful.
Next, his life began to greet a little color, he looked forward to the girl's return, and at the same time the imagination he gave the girl was so beautiful that he felt that the girl should be kind, steady, and noble and pure. Until one day the girl came to the store, there sat another old man with cataracts who was bored, the old man jokingly talked to the girl, and reminded the boy that this must be a girl who could buy a spring supper as long as he had money, the boy of course did not believe the old man's words, he still thought that the pure beauty of the girl was not discovered by others.
Girls come to the store to buy more and more frequently, and when they are not busy, they will take the initiative to chat with boys, boys often secretly take more things to give her, the end of the story is that the girl asks the boy to make a lot of money here, right? Do you have a lot of savings? The boy confessed that he was a man with nothing, and finally the girl said, "You are always giving me something, and I know that you want to be rewarded." In that case, these small favors alone will not be enough. The boy was embarrassed, the girl smiled softly and left, she glanced back at him, smiled at him again, and plunged into the night...
The story is over like this, perhaps many people will feel that the end is a bit of a beginning and no end, I don't know what the author wants to express, this novel is obviously an open-ended ending novel, everyone combines their own experience, reading cognition will give it an imaginary ending, I boldly guess that the girl should be the social experience of the cataract old man said, is a dust woman who can buy as long as there is money, because the novel mentions that the old man is invisible, smell the fragrance of the girl to judge, There will be that naked and explicit conversation, the boy is young and not deeply involved in the world, the imaginary life, the imaginary love are tending to be beautiful, and the reality is sometimes such a tentacled punch in the face, hitting the boy's face hard.
After reading this novel, I would like to say that in fact, each of us is this boy, imagining that the world is so beautiful when we are not deeply involved in the world, and when we face the darkness of society and the ugliness of human nature, the pain of being broken in our hearts is really very strong.
In addition, the title of the novel "Cage" also expresses the plight of young people to some extent, in today's epidemic situation, the Nobel Prize in Literature gives this author and this novel such a high degree of recognition, want to reveal that the epidemic era should go to literary classics, the more classic literature is more durable, and the more can find the courage to live from the classics.
Maybe every one of us at the moment is a person in a cage, beyond the layer of our own preset defenses, always carefully living, maybe we should try to open our hearts, to explore more unknown worlds, maybe life will be more interesting.
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■ Editing and typography | Esther, the first place in eating and drinking
■ The picture | from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author, if there is infringement, please contact the background.
People who think independently will understand