01
The first time I "saw" San Mao, I was still in my hairpin years. It was a dark night outside the window for self-study, and the girl at the same table brought a copy of "Tender Night". Just reading the title of the book, I felt that it suited the situation and couldn't help but feel lingering. I flipped through two or three pages and wanted to dive in. Of course, the contact back then was limited to this. In my youth, the world from now on was all about test papers and question banks.
Now I have the opportunity to read it again because a friend donated the book. On a rainy afternoon, I picked up the courier and unwrapped it. It was "The Red Dust" - a script. The eye-catching red cover stood out tightly, just like the enthusiasm of a woman who traveled to the end of the world for love and never left.
For women, love is life, and for literature, it is an eternal theme. And which one are you experiencing in this mortal world? Is it the secret love of "there are trees in the mountains, and the branches of the trees, and my heart is so happy for you, but you don't know it", or the lovesickness of "a day without seeing each other is like March"? Or is it a promise that "the life and death contract is broad and the child is mature, holding the child's hand and growing old together"?
Let’s talk about this book "The Red Dust". The story takes place during the Anti-Japanese War. It mainly tells the love entanglement between the female writer Shen Shaohua and Zhang Nengcai, who works for the Japanese. The protagonist has experienced the difficulties, twists and turns, temptations, courage and fragility of love one by one.
02
In one’s childhood, there are three relationships. The first one is blind first love. This passionate relationship dies from material things; the third one is life. final destination. There is not much detail about these two relationships in the book, so we will not explain them this time.
In this article we will only talk about Shaohua’s second relationship. The chronological order of this relationship is between the first and third paragraphs. It is a colorful chapter with the most ink in the book.
Shaohua wanted to marry her first love but was rejected by her family and was detained in solitary confinement. After despairing, she escaped from home and rented on the second floor of a small building to make a living by writing manuscripts. At this time, her reader and the man she loves most in her life——Zhang Nengcai appeared.
At that time, Zhang was between 39 and 42 years old. Most men of this age have experienced the vicissitudes of growing up, and life has also polished him to be independent, responsible, confident and measured, and have a general understanding of things. And considerate of women. It can be said that Zhang's charm is extraordinary, but the unfortunate side lies in his occupation - a cultural official of the Kuomintang puppet government.
They were frightened when they first met:
The moment they saw this stranger (Zhang Nengcai), Shen Shaohua's heart was slightly shocked by something strange, and they His eyes happened to meet.
Shen Shaohua opened the letter and read it while going downstairs and touched his hair again. I struck a match, lit it, put it out, and used the black head of the match to draw my eyebrows.
My heartbeat is racing and my movements are panicked, but I still don’t forget to tidy up my appearance. Stroking hair and drawing eyebrows, these two actions are the most accurate interpretation of "women want to please their appearance".
She admired his calligraphy, and he admired her articles. Their "physiological waves" are similar.
He treated her to western food and gave her gifts. The two most unforgettable scenes are one when they dance on the balcony, Nengcai pulls up Shaohua's shawl, Shaohua's voice is almost choked: let's get married, Nengcai replies sentimentally: My identity will harm you for the rest of your life.
Their dance was accompanied by Luo Dayou's "The Rolling Red Dust", which moved me while I was holding a book and reading quietly. They are too immersed in the vicissitudes of the world, the sentimental troubled world, and the desolate obsession. The immersion in the troubled world without tomorrow, the forgetful devotion to the passing clouds, is heartbreaking.
Another scene is when they exchange "horoscopes". This is a kind of honest delivery, a commitment, and "accepting another person's life." In form, it's like today when we go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to get a marriage certificate, but in reality, it's more solemn than today's wedding banquet. It's touching.
At that moment, their happiness was so complete, but they didn't know that fate had already laid a foreshadowing, just waiting for the opportunity to open.
After that, the situation changed. Nengcai left Shaohua and went to Jiangsu to escape, where he had an affair with his landlady. Shaohua rushed thousands of miles away, but Nengcai only asked, "Why are you here?" - what he really meant was, why are you here? He didn't mention a word about what happened after the separation.
He missed her after parting, and was embarrassed by being chased and beaten, but he never greeted her. At that time, Shaohua's heart had already started to feel cold, right?
She calmly burned the "eight-character destiny book" that symbolized the eternal friendship, seeming to declare a break. At this point, the relationship between Nengcai and Shaohua was put on hold by fate and current circumstances.
03
Three men, three relationships. First love is young and ignorant of worldly affairs, and death is inevitable; in the end, what stays with you is the arrangement and gift of fate. Only in the second relationship, the second man Zhang Nengcai, although not as passionate as the first love and never stayed together for a long time, he was entangled with Shaohua for a lifetime, and it also burned up Shaohua for a lifetime.
When she first met him, she was like a little girl, nervous and confused; when she saw him being attacked, she said, "If you die, I won't live either."
She diverted the inspectors on the deserted streets and helped him escape; at the last moment of her escape, she jumped off the boat and gave him the chance of life.
In this world, if you truly love someone, it is nothing more than this.
Zhang Xiaofeng said:
To love someone is to see beyond his title, status, education, experience, good deeds, and bad deeds that he is really just a child---- Good boy or bad boy----so I love him.
I don’t care who you are, I only know that you are the one I love. Shaohua did this. She didn't shrink from being a traitor because of her talents. She was emotionally moved for no apparent reason, gave up without thinking, and fell in love with each other passionately.
But Nengcai finally failed her and traveled thousands of miles to go there alone and bravely. He said: I am just a person who needs to eat, I cannot afford you. Because he wanted to escape the current situation, have a moment of warmth, and have a room to rest, he became ambiguous with life and gave the nickname "little fool" that he thought was her exclusive nickname in his youth to another woman.
At this point, what was once gentle and affectionate has turned into resentment; what was once indulgent joy has turned into sleeping back to back; what was once a flowery smile has turned into tears. She said, do you know why I came here? To love you.
I traveled thousands of miles to love him, but he stopped talking about love. On that heartbreaking rainy night, she ran away, stubborn and determined.
Even though the author emphasized in the character introduction that Nengcai only loved his youth; even after liberation, Nengcai returned to China to look for his youth. But at a certain moment, at a certain moment, Nengcai still made Shaohua cry.
If you say you lose, your time is lost to fate, and your time is lost to the man's weakness and lack of steadfastness. Small people in the context of a big era have always been like this, their hearts are like duckweeds and their lives are like grass. There are more involuntary laments than self-inflicted condemnations.
04
Some netizens on Zhihu gave the reading order of "The Complete Works of San Mao":
Main line reading order: The Rainy Season Will Never Come Again - The Story of the Sahara — Scarecrow’s Notes — Gentle Night — How Many Flowers Have Fallen in Dreams
Interspersed reading: Dear Sanmao — Traveling Through Thousands of Waters and Mountains — Send You a Horse — My Baby — Meteor Shower
He suggested that "The Red Dust" should be used as the final reading. On the one hand, it is Zhang Ailing's biography and some kind of sustenance for Sanmao. On the other hand, the drama reading may not be very suitable for reading.
I didn’t know about this suggestion before. I read this script purely by accident. Maybe it's some kind of fate.
I started reading on a rainy afternoon and continued reading until late at night. It was extremely dark outside the window, and the rain was still pouring. My thoughts drifted far away, thinking about the beauty and wanderings of women of that particular era, and how they burned their souls, fought, and put all their efforts into loving someone.
Those women taught me to cherish. Cherish all encounters, cherish all reunions; cherish the peace and tranquility of this world, and cherish the promise of the future.
So now, let us act bravely, and at the same time, we hope that women in the world will work hard throughout their lives and be loved and loved throughout their lives.
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Collection of Jiang Xiaobai Book Reviews