Fortress Besieged —— Not just about marriage

I finally saw Qian Zhongshu's Fortress Besieged this month. This is because I read Jiang Yang's biography first. Although Mr. Qian has a long reputation, why does Mr. Qian live longer and have greater influence?

The interpretation of Fortress Besieged is common in people's interpretation of marriage, which comes from the sentence "Marriage is a besieged city, people outside the city want to come in and people in the city want to go out".

This book is full of irony. Fang Hung-chien in the book is like a clown, wandering in various occasions with his well-known guilty conscience. After returning from overseas, he could not escape Miss Bao's fishing and hunting, and became a drop of dew on Miss Bao's rich love history, enriching her boring journey all the way.

Back in Shanghai, he was ungrateful and lived in the house of his late fiancee, but his relationship with his former father-in-law gradually became rigid, so that he was kicked out in disguise.

He hated Sue's condescension, but he didn't have the courage to refuse Sue's temptation. He really likes Tang Xiaofu, but he hasn't wavered.

Because of his rival in love, he got a letter of appointment from San Lv University and went to teach in the university with a group of wartime colleagues. Along the way for such a long time, he didn't show any talent, even he couldn't do it himself, but he hated this and that all the way.

Life at San Lv University turned into a joke, and he was successfully captured by Sun Roujia. Soon after they returned to Shanghai, they became bitter couples because of trivial matters at home.

Be besieged by war

My first impression of the besieged city was that I was besieged by war. Shortly after Fang Hung-chien returned to China, his hometown caught fire, and his family fled to Shanghai to settle down, which limited his life path. I think this may also be a meaning of Fortress Besieged.

When a person's life trajectory is limited to death, his thinking is bound to be limited. When Fang Hung-chien faced Sue, he couldn't refuse, because there was no chance to escape. If the letter of appointment from San Lv University had reached him earlier, he and Tang Xiaofu might have different endings.

Unfortunately, his psychology of throwing caution to the wind was only based on seeing a new way out, which offended his former parents-in-law.

However, this is also a besieged city. He wanted to go out, so he went out. He really went out, only to find that the outside world was devastated and unable to move. If it weren't for Zhao and others, Fang Hung-chien would have turned around and continued to drill back to Shanghai.

A besieged workplace

The teaching time of San Lv University is a besieged city for Fang Hung-chien. Before he came, he thought he could make a difference. But when he came, he found that all hopes were dashed, the professorship of the Department of Political Science was dashed, the professor became an associate professor, and the professor's subject became his own ethics, completely unfamiliar and without input materials. For Fang Hung-chien, the workplace at this time is like Shanghai besieged by war, and there seems to be no way out. He is not good at interpersonal management, teaching or even knowing himself.

He lamented that he might as well go back to Shanghai, and when he was really fired, he lamented that he was confused and didn't take responsibility.

Marriage besieged city

This is probably the most obvious siege in the novel. Fang Hung-chien was heartbroken for Tang Xiaofu before he went to town. When he met Sun Roujia, he walked into the besieged city without struggle, as if this were his home. However, when they entered the besieged city, they failed to see the benefits of the city, and their eyes were full of disappointment. The two gradually opposed each other and finally achieved a hopeless marriage.

The so-called besieged city, people outside the city want to come in because they can see the beautiful scenery, and people in the city want to go out because they are too forgetful to control the existing scenery.

This novel named Fortress Besieged is by no means a representation of this kind of life. I think Mr. Qian never thought that marriage was a besieged city, otherwise how could his marriage with his husband be happy for so many years? From the perspective of irony, this is precisely the irony of those who look outside the besieged city. If they can't pay attention to what is in front of them, they may get nothing like Fang Hung-chien and eventually have no hope.

Funny, in reality, most people's interpretation of Fortress Besieged is limited to that ironic sentence:

Therefore, there are so many people who want to go in and out all their lives, but they are still struggling.