Talking about Jane Austen's story, the book seems to have an unfinished dance party, an endless afternoon tea... What does re-reading Austin have for today's readers? Is the marital relationship written in "Pride and Prejudice" and "Reason and Emotion" "outdated" for women today?
Shanghai Translation Publishing House cooperated with Penguin-Random Books to introduce and publish penguin cloth classic books. A few days ago, the first series of the Chinese edition took the lead in launching six works by British writer Jane Austen, namely "Sense and Sensibility", "Pride and Prejudice", "Mansfield Manor", "Northangjue Temple", "Emma" and "Persuasion". Forty books are tentatively scheduled for publication in three series. The first series featured fifteen titles, including six of Austen's works, seven of Dickens's, and the Brontë sisters' Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
At the Duoyun Academy Drama Shop in Shanghai, "Storm in a Teacup: A Theme Exhibition of Penguin Cloth Classic Austen's Works" is on display. Book micro-landscape designer "Rope" designed two sets of book micro-landscapes for the penguin cloth pattern classic Austen works, "Rope" combined with the content characteristics of Austen's works, using books as props, reproducing Austen's real life scenes, presenting beautiful books, and using ingenuity to embody the delicate and subtle characteristics of Austen's works "the storm in the teacup, the depiction on two inches of ivory".
"Jane Austen's head is printed on the back of the £10 bill, and the British are still proud to have such a great female writer. I believe that Jane Austen will encourage generations of young people, and her own achievements have encouraged young girls to do what they love and see the world they have never seen before. Writer Zhang Yiwei talked about a phenomenon, some netizens hear Austen's name, generally feel that it is for young girls to read, so that they can teach each other to become better people through those witty words in the novel, the pursuit of some quality feelings, marriage must also have feelings, otherwise it is not a perfect marriage, etc., the reader audience seems to be relatively narrow.
As for whether the "sentimental heroine" in literary works affects women's self-perception, she believes that the two do not have much to do with each other. "In Northangjue Temple, girls misjudge the real world because they read a lot of Gothic novels, and this prejudice has always existed. The fact that girls read novels is also 'stigmatized' to a certain extent, for example, it will lead girls to have unrealistic hallucinations. She believes that Austin's ability to create his own unique themes from seemingly small daily events such as socializing, marriage, and conversation is worth learning from young writers.
"Those things that I was obsessed with as a child, now I just find it to be an illusion. Does the society she wrote about exist? It exists in a sense, but it is a historical illusion. In the view of the writer and translator Bao Huiyi, behind Austen's love novels is a large number of gentry who are in the mountains and rivers, and how they want to maintain the legitimacy of their old world in the face of the impact is also the key word in Austen's works.
"Whether a person talks properly, whether a person behaves elegantly, whether he speaks with empathy, whether he is decent, is the key factor that determines whether he can become a competent male or female protagonist in Austen's pen." But this was actually a kind of substitution, Austin tried to use etiquette to re-establish the order of the world to resist the chaos of the jungle world. Austen did not choose to engage directly in social satire, to overthrow an entire class with a stick, but replaced the spiritual order with the ceremonial order, replaced the ethical order, and moderated a series of political and economic issues into the aesthetic issue of etiquette. Bao Huiyi said that Austin reconstructed order with etiquette, condensing everything into a miniature painting of the life of a squire. But whether a person talks properly, to allude to his inner moral standards, whether he is a "noble" person, this is actually quite dangerous.
Many of Austen's novels have been adapted into movies many times, and there is also a biography of the writer himself on the big screen, "Becoming Jane Austen", "At that time, after watching the movie, I threw myself on the bed like a heroine and cried for half an hour. I feel as if I have a heart to heart with her, and I envy her for being able to create a unique writing theme and writing style. Reading her works at different ages, there are different feelings, when I was a child, I felt that it was a love novel, and when I grew up, especially after I entered middle age in recent years, I will find that she has a love story, but the theme of the story is not actually love. "Writer Xu Jia believes that Austin is indeed the most ordinary life of each of us, and everyone is pursuing a better life, but there are gains and losses." I have always felt that good literature first brings resonance to people, and in resonance, understanding can be reached, not only have a deeper understanding of themselves, but also have a sympathetic understanding of people who are different from themselves. This is where Austen's wisdom lies. ”
The "Penguin Cloth Classic" book series adopts the hand-made design concept under modern visual examination, using precise and bright symbol patterns to convey the theme, and the natural cloth surface highlights the texture of the book shell. The work also includes more than 200 classic illustrations painted by Hugh Thomson, the most famous painter of the Victorian era, restoring the rural style, squire taste, and character clothing of Austen's Era Of England. In the view of Coralie Bickford-Smith, chief art designer of Penguin Books, there may be fewer and fewer paper books in the future, but they will never die. "The demand for textured, beautiful books will continue. Good design makes the whole book come alive. ”
Author: Xu Yang
Image source: publisher, stills
Editor: Tong Weijing