Regarding "Million Pound Sterling", I think most Chinese are not strangers. Because it has been selected as a Chinese textbook, it is also a required reading list for the new curriculum.
"Million Pound Sterling" is a short story published in 1893 by the famous American writer Mark Twain. The article uses exaggerated artistic techniques and satire with humor to profoundly expose the money-worshipping ideas of British society at that time.
When I first read "Million Pounds" as a teenager, I did feel the irony deeply. But when people reach middle age and re-read "Million Pounds", they read a lot of different things. I was surprised to find that the era of gold worship was the beautiful era we aspired to.
This is undoubtedly more ironic!
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, a brief review of "Million Pounds"</h1>
Let's start with a brief review of Million Pound Sterling.
Henry Adams, a 27-year-old American lad and mining broker, was rescued by a brig sailing ship bound for London because he accidentally drifted into the sea. Henry was taken to London, England.
Henry, who was living in London, was penniless and unaccompanied. Just when he was in a desperate situation, a pair of rich brothers chose him and gave him a bill with a denomination of one million pounds.
It turned out that the two rich brothers were making a bet. The brother believed that lending an undeliverable million-dollar bill to a poor man who did not have a penny and could not prove that he was the owner of the banknote would either starve to death because the banknote could not be used or be arrested and imprisoned for not being able to explain the origin of the banknote. But the younger brother thought it wouldn't. So they went to our protagonist Henry to test it. Henry thus became a "millionaire".
What happened later was beyond Henry's imagination, and it was completely unexpected by the two rich brothers. Henry just took out the huge bill, and did not have to spend it, restaurants, clothing stores, luxury hotels and all other stores are willing to let him pay on credit. Henry also became a famous figure in London because of his "foreign freak with a million pounds in his vest pocket" and was reported by newspapers all over Britain. In the end, his reputation was higher than that of all the dukes outside the royal family, and higher than that of all the religious figures except the archbishops of England.
Thus, Henry was given the opportunity to attend the banquet of the American Minister, where he met a beautiful English girl and an old friend of his time in the United States. It was this feast that saved Henry completely. When the one-month deadline came, Henry neither starved nor was he arrested, but became a real rich man and won the heart of a beautiful lady.
That's the main content of the novel "Million Pound Sterling". The novel can be roughly divided into three parts. In the opening section, the author briefly describes the chronological background of the story and how Henry got the million-pound bill.
In the main section, the author writes about how Henry took the million dollar bill and began his magical experience in London. The author details two examples, one is henry eating at a cheap restaurant, and the other is Henry buying clothes at a clothing store. In particular, the expression description of the staff of the clothing store is a classic. The clerk saw Henry dressed in rags, which was originally a very mean face, but after seeing the banknote that Henry handed over, he immediately changed his smile:
He took it with a smile, and the smile was all over his face, and there were wrinkles and wrinkles and spiral lines in it, like you threw a brick into a pond; and then when he glanced at the banknote, the smile immediately froze firmly, and became dull, just like the wavy, maggot-like lava that you saw on the small flat ground on the edge of Mount Vesuvius.
This description has always been talked about, not only showing the author's superb writing skills, but also a vivid portrayal and ruthless lashing of the face of the money worshipper. In this way, Mark Twain used comic brushwork to outline the various ugliness of different classes of characters in front of the "million pounds", exposed the various comical absurdities that existed in British society at that time, and bitterly satirized and criticized money worship.
In 1954, the film of the same name, starring Gregory Pike, was released in the United Kingdom (January 7) and the United States (June 18). In order to increase the conflict, the film devised a plot in which the service staff pranked and hid the banknotes, and in an instant, the British stock market plummeted, and people said that Henry was a liar, and people who came to ask for debts crowded the entire hotel. However, when the service staff returned the banknotes to Henry, the situation quickly reversed, and people once again came to pay tribute to Henry... This adaptation is both a need for filmmaking and reinforces the irony of the story.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, the new connotation of "Million Pounds"</h1>
Maupassant's The Necklace is also famous for its satirical novel, about the beautiful Mathilde, the wife of a young civil servant, Roiselle, who, because of her vanity, borrows a diamond necklace from a friend to attend a party. But on the way home, the necklace was accidentally lost, and Mathilde had to borrow money to buy a new necklace and return it to a friend. For the next ten years, she cut back on food and clothing, worked hard, and worked desperately to pay off her debts. After the debt is paid off, her beauty is long gone.
At the end of the novel, the author detonates a thunderbolt: it turns out that the lost necklace is just a worthless string of fake diamond necklaces. As soon as this mystery is solved, I believe that readers will have the same poignant taste as Mathilde, who can't tell what it is. This ending greatly enhances the artistic value of "Necklace".
But the end of "Million Pound Sterling" is completely a happy ending, a happy ending. For a satirical novel, such an ending may seem out of place. So, is Mark Twain really just writing satirical fiction?
(a) Pure love story
127 years on, has the world changed? It has changed, it has become upside down; but it seems to have not changed, and it seems that something called "money worship" has always been there.
On a famous TV wedding show, a female guest once said that she would rather sit in a BMW and cry than sit on a bicycle and laugh." Although not every guest is so naked, from the perspective of the whole show, the main indicator of most female guests selecting male guests is economic conditions, and their appearance, character, talent, etc. are just icing on the cake.
There is a popular singing group that once sang a song: "Buy you the biggest house, the coolest car, go to every corner of the world..." It can be seen that in the minds of these young people now, love still depends on these material things to accumulate or maintain it.
However, it was in This "Million Pound Sterling", which satirized "money worship", that I read a pure love story.
After becoming famous, Henry went to visit the American minister to England, and the minister invited him to a banquet held that night. At the party, Henry met the beautiful and lovely English girl Bo Xia. The two people fell in love at first sight, both fell in love, and played at the banquet, which was extremely happy.
Unlike the satire of money worship throughout the text, this love story is not mixed with money at all, it is very pure. Because at the beginning, Henry came out of the Tray of Poche. How he himself was penniless, how the million pounds came from, 1510 all told Bo Xia. The beautiful Boya girl did not dislike Henry because he had no money, but loved him more and planned for his future together.
Whether it is the details of two people playing cards at the banquet, or the last two people living happily together, this love is very pure from beginning to end, and it seems to be a little out of tune with the "irony" of the whole story.
(2) Good faith and the spirit of the contract
In addition to good love, I also saw other things, such as integrity, and also the spirit of contract.
The protagonist, Henry, is undoubtedly an honest man. As mentioned above, Henry was honest with Pochelle and confessed everything to her at the beginning. In addition, honesty was an important reason why Henry was chosen by the rich brothers. Because what they have to choose is a "very honest and intelligent foreigner". It turned out that the brothers were not mistaken, and when Henry found out that the money given to him was a million pounds, his first thought was "people have made a mistake, hurry up and return it".
After becoming famous, many people surrounded him every day, complimenting him and flattering him, but Henry rarely stayed awake. He knew he was a poor man, so he used all sorts of excuses to turn away the money most people were going to lend him, and to maintain the debt to the extent that his salary could be paid in the first year: three hundred pounds of cash borrowed, and three hundred pounds of living expenses and things on credit. He was equally enthusiastic about his frustrated American colleague and old friend, Mr. Lloyd Hestin. All of it shows that Henry is a rare good man.
And those who seem snobbish and gold-worshipping are actually not useless. Their willingness to let Henry pay on credit, although based on Henry's "money", also shows that at that time, personal credit worked. The Harris restaurant, which was the first time he was given credit, was overwhelmed with customers because of Henry's patronage. Harris knew that he was always desperately trying to lend money to Henry, and he couldn't push it off.
The role of personal credit is also reflected in Henry's guarantee for Lloyd's mine. With the credit guarantee of the "million pound freak", the mine, which was originally unpopular, suddenly became hot and sold for a large price. After selling the mine, Lloyd also divided the money earned in half with Henry, one million dollars per person. That's a million dollars, but apparently they fulfilled the verbal agreement directly and didn't hesitate at all.
And the pair of rich brothers, who can be regarded as representatives of the capitalists. Although they dragged Henry into the game without Henry's consent and appeared to be somewhat cold-blooded, after Henry had completed the test, they fully complied with their agreement and were willing to offer Henry any position within his commission.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, a desirable era</h1>
In addition to the beautiful love between Henry and Bo xia, in addition to honesty and the spirit of the contract, in fact, we can read some other things in the novel.
For example, a helpless foreigner, carrying a million pounds of money, in the world of flowers and flowers in London so high-profile, there is no "guilt": there is no thief to steal, no robber to rob, not even a hooligan to blackmail.
For example, the snobbish merchants would curry favor with Henry, hoping to use his reputation to hype. However, none of them took advantage of the opportunity to blackmail him for money. Judging from the details of Henry's calculation of the debt, the money lent to him did not even charge interest.
For example, the Duke of Shoreditch at the banquet of the American ministers competed with Henry for the seat of the chief of the banquet entirely on the basis of his personal reputation and even the status of his ancestors, but did not use his power to suppress people.
Some readers may say that it is just that it is not written in the novel, which does not mean that the British society at that time was really so good. This is certainly true, because there is no society without problems.
But at the beginning of the novel, there is a passage that many people may not pay too much attention to:
"I was alone in society at the time, with no one to rely on but my own wisdom and reputation for innocence. But these strengths have made me stand firm and have the possibility of embarking on the road of luck, so I am very satisfied with the future. ”
Compared with the class boundaries that are now more and more difficult to break, in the society at that time, as long as there was a reputation for wisdom and innocence, they could gain a foothold and even get a satisfactory future. Isn't that worthy of our envy now?
In fact, Henry was able to turn around in London on the one hand, thanks to his reputation as a "million pound freak" (which was obviously not bad, and the londoners loved it), and on the other hand, it was due to his professional ability. After listening to Lloyd's story, he sniffed the business opportunity in a very short time and came up with a way to finally join forces with Lloyd and make money for both sides.
If we reconnect with the background of the novel's writing, it may be clearer. It was the "gold rush" in Nevada, and the owners of gold and silver mines were selling their shares to raise money. Mark Twain took out all his savings, including all his earnings, to buy shares in the Silver Mine. At one point, the stock rose rapidly, mark Twain became a "rich man", and let himself "retire" and stop writing.
But soon, the bubble of silver stock burst, the stock price plummeted, and the "rich man" Mark Twain suddenly became penniless and close to bankruptcy like Henry, who had just arrived in London. In order to pay off his debts, Mark Twain had to return to his old business and continue to write, so he wrote many literary works such as "Million Pounds".
Therefore, the satirical "money worship" in "Million Pound Sterling", Mark Twain, in addition to satirizing others, must also be somewhat self-deprecating. As for the remaining "beautiful" parts, they look more like the Belle Époque (rather than reality) that Mark Twain aspired to. After all, in the novel, his mine business is successful.