I graduated from grade three, and I don't know how to study this summer vacation.

I suggest reading Fortress Besieged, a favorite book, which I have read for more than ten times. There are different gains every time.

Fortress Besieged is more than just a love novel. Its contents are various, and its themes and symbols are multi-level. The symbol of Fortress Besieged comes from the foreign idiom quoted in the dialogue of the characters in the book: "Marriage is like a golden painted birdcage, the birds outside the cage want to live in it, and the birds inside the cage want to fly out; So leave, leave, and there will be no games. " He also said that "the besieged castle fortresse assiégée, people outside the city want to rush in, and people in the city want to escape." But it is obviously not Qian Zhongshu's original intention to talk about the dilemma of Fortress Besieged only by marriage. The dilemma of Fortress Besieged runs through all levels of life. Later, Fang Hung-chien mentioned this matter again and commented, "I feel this way about everything in life recently." This is a pen for punctuating questions. Qian Zhongshu arranged many variations in the whole book, which made the symbolic meaning of Fortress Besieged transcend the marriage level and formed a multi-voice song. Fortress Besieged begins with the metaphor of "besieged city", which vividly shows the dilemma of "besieged city" of human beings: constant pursuit and subsequent dissatisfaction and boredom with the success pursued, the contradiction and transformation between them, the interweaving of hope and disappointment, joy and pain, persistence and vacillation-all these constitute everything in life. The dilemma of Fortress Besieged tells us that the result of life pursuit is likely to be illusory and seemingly pessimistic, but it is a serious pursuit in the bones, and the enthusiasm is buried deep in peace, just like Qian Zhongshu's scholar life. He exposed the illusion of pursuing the ultimate ideal and goal, which may make the pursuit process no longer just a means, but make its own meaning recognized and recognized, and let us understand that the pursuit and hope are endless and will not fall into nothingness. But Qian Zhongshu doesn't want to simply interpret this metaphor. He also wants to use another word to eliminate the symbol of "besieged city" from time to time. Qian Zhongshu's wife, Jiang Yang, once said that if Fang Hung-chien and his ideal lover, Tang Xiaofu, were married, and then they accumulated their love into resentment, or even broke up, it would truly conform to the literal meaning of Fortress Besieged. Qian Zhongshu also said something similar when he criticized Wang Guowei for misreading A Dream of Red Mansions in Tan Yi Lu. Fang Hung-chien wanted to enter the besieged Tang Xiaofu, but he couldn't. Su once thought that she had entered Fang Hung-chien's besieged city, but in fact she was outside. When she married Cao Yuanlang and lived a real bourgeois life that Qian Zhongshu thought was absolutely necessary to escape, she let nature take its course. She once seemed to have entered a cultural siege, but only when she became a rich official did she really find her own place to live. You forced her with a gun. Fang Hung-chien didn't want to live in Sun Roujia, so he went in a daze. After marriage, he also has the impulse to rush out, but he is a passive person, afraid to act and will not act. On the surface, Fang Hung-chien's experience of going to San Lv University fits the metaphor of "besieged city" best, but in fact, Fang Hung-chien can't feel at home in San Lv University because he still has some basic ethics of intellectuals, or the most basic ethics of being a man. Gao Songnian, Li and Wang Chuhou, are these people willing to come out?

abstract

The French mail ship "Viscount Bella Si Long" from the Indian Ocean docked in Shanghai. As soon as Fang Hung-chien, the hero of the novel, set foot in his hometown after a four-year absence, he fell into a "besieged city" one after another.

Fang Hung-chien came back from Europe in the summer of 1937. Based on his life track, the novel reflects the ups and downs of life and psychology of some intellectuals (mainly some European and American students and university professors). ) at that time. They don't belong to the advanced intellectuals of that era. At the height of the Anti-Japanese War, most of them stayed out of the storm of this great struggle. First in Shanghai Shili Sheep Farm, and then in a remote town in Hunan, they launched a series of intrigues and competitions around life, career, marriage and love. This is also a war, although there is no smoke, but the swords and shadows of the old society are everywhere, jumping in love and vanity fair; Although there are no physical casualties, we can always see how gray life devours people's years and lives, and how dirty air corrodes people's integrity and soul. Naturally, there are sincere friendship and good wishes here; But these are so weak and powerless in front of the powerful barrier of the old society. Where is the way out for these intellectuals who have not exhausted their vitality on the road of life that may fall into "birdcage" or "besieged city" everywhere? This is a serious problem left by this profound realistic novel.

The novel Fortress Besieged is divided into nine chapters, which can be roughly divided into four units. The first chapter to the fourth chapter is the first unit, which describes Fang Hung-chien's life scenes in Shanghai and his hometown (a county in the south of the Yangtze River), with Shanghai as the center. In this unit, the "love" entanglement between Fang Hung-chien and Su occupies an important part. The love between Sue and Fang Hung-chien caused a lot of farce. This exposed the embarrassing situation that Miss Su was reserved and conceited as an official and achieved nothing as a result. It also exposed the flashy situation of indecision, ignorance and cynicism in Fang Hung-chien's Playboy. Around them, the author also wrote about various figures in the social life of Shili Foreign Firm, such as Zhang Jimin, the comprador of American Citigroup, who likes to be called Jimmy, Dong Xiechuan, who is fashionable in appearance and conservative in nature, Chu, a young philosopher who "has the most research on men and women", and Cao Yuanlang, a poet who is full of dishonesty and calls himself "neoclassicism", who secretly regards Fang Hung-chien as a rival in love and wastes his time. They are so empty, boring and vulgar at banquets, poems and songs, and all kinds of entertainment. Such a life will not cultivate healthy love, let alone healthy ideals, and it is a "besieged city" to be broken.

The fifth chapter can be counted as the second unit, which is "transition" or "convergence". In this unit, Fang Hung-chien and Zhao, two people who suffered setbacks in their personal lives, rushed out of the cage of "love". They changed from imaginary rivals to real friends, and went to San Lv University in Pingcheng, Hunan Province to look for jobs together. In this unit, the author also prepared new roles for the farce of the next unit: future university president Li, associate professor Gu Erqian, and young teaching assistant. Together with Fang and Zhao, they set sail from Shanghai to the south and formed a temporary "small society". All kinds of contradictions, banter and ridicule in this "small society", as well as what I saw and heard along the way, constitute a very wonderful part of the realistic picture depicted in the novel.

Chapters 6 and 7 are the third unit, which mainly describes the infighting in San Lv University. The sixth chapter we choose here is a heavy scene in this unit. From the headmaster, dean, department head, to faculty, students and even their families, they are involved in a dizzying personnel dispute. Professional exclusion, love competition, blatant routines, slanderous rumors, intrigue, and so on, San Lv University has become a stage for competition. Some scholars and scribes, black powder, appeared. Among them, Li is a semi-old man who is full of thieves and prostitutes, and Han is a fake foreign doctor who is dull in appearance and dirty in heart and cheats by forging academic qualifications. There are hypocrites like Gao Songnian who are sanctimonious, crafty and profess to safeguard the dignity of education, but they are actually loafers, and there are also A Mu Woods who are attached to bureaucrats, seek jobs, want to form a party to consolidate themselves, and finally repeat the same mistakes. There are snobs such as Lu Zixiao and Gu Erqian who are obsessed with dragons and phoenixes, and there are also celebrities such as Mrs. Wang. Although they wander around the university, they only show the leading role in love and add fuel to the fire. In short, all kinds of people who are active in this "neo-Confucian forest" don't need stereotyped writing as a stepping stone. They all hold up a banner that they think is the most beautiful, cover up their true colors, and try their best to pursue a new promotion, as if all animals in nature are covered with protective colors and pursuing their own development. Naturally, there are some good people among them who have not worn out their shoulders, such as Fang Hung-chien and Zhao. Although they are absurd and exciting, they still have a sense of responsibility, and they are delicate, deep and calculating, and so on. These figures, like Fang Hung-chien, can be regarded as "creatable talents", or like Zhao, they finally have a skill; Or like Sun Roujia, they are thoughtful and hidden-they may develop into outstanding talents in a good society; However, in those smoky environments, due to the lack of clear life goals, just like the "redundant people" in Russian literature in the19th century, their intelligence was offset by social inertia.

Chapters 8 and 9 are Unit 4. Fang Hung-chien and Sun Roujia got married on their way back to Shanghai. This is not an exciting combination for both parties. The anxiety about the future brought by unemployment makes them quarrel constantly after marriage. This quarrel is relatively simple on the way back to Shanghai. After settling in Shanghai, the contradiction became more complicated due to the intervention of families and relatives of both sides. There was a time when there were a series of discord and disputes between mother-in-law, Weng Xu, sister-in-law, relatives and friends, and even master and servant. Finally, the contradiction between Fang and Sun finally intensified when Sun resigned as the director of the newspaper reference room and faced unemployment again. Just after the establishment and disintegration of Fang Hung-chien's new home, he once again rushed out of a "besieged city" and came to the entrance of a "besieged city"-he planned to go to Zhao, an official in Chongqing, to find a job, which must be a bumpy road with an uncertain future. The novel ends with an old-fashioned bell "Bang, Bang …". Like all the outstanding realistic works in the past, it does not provide any clear conclusions about the way out of society and life, but the life itself he described is "more profound than all languages and all smiles."

(Excerpted from Guo Zhigang's talk about Qian Zhongshu's Fortress Besieged, China Modern Volume of Novel Appreciation Library, Shaanxi People's Publishing House, 1986).

Cultural criticism

The immediate background of Fortress Besieged is 1937 and a few years later, it is the period when China was invaded by Japanese imperialism. However, to understand Fortress Besieged, we must go back to modern times, especially since the Opium War. Under the artillery fire and warships of imperialist powers, China was forced to contact with the world, and the ancient civilization of the Chinese nation and western civilization began unprecedented confrontation, collision, conflict and even convergence and integration. This cultural phenomenon is embodied in a large number of international students-Qian Zhongshu is one of them, so it is of typical significance to dissect it.

As a great scholar who is well versed in Chinese and Western cultures, it is almost inevitable for Qian Zhongshu to understand the spiritual dilemma of Fortress Besieged from a cultural perspective, thus producing a profound sense of loneliness and absurdity. At the end of the book, after experiencing the failure of education, love, career and family (marriage), Fang Hung-chien lamented that he was afraid of making enemies with people in small counties, but he hated being indifferent to people in big cities and felt that he made enemies with people. Even a tiny bug is complacent and wants someone to put it under a microscope. The loneliness in the crowd and the desolation in the excitement make him, like many people living on this island, feel like an island without a bank. (page 324).

The exclamation of life in existentialism philosophy is obviously introduced here. This cultural dilemma and spiritual dilemma happened in the fierce conflict between the declining boss China and modern capitalist civilization, so we saw such a thought-provoking picture: passing by a foreign bakery, the kitchen window was brightly lit and shone on all kinds of cakes. An old man in rags stood outside the window, staring at the things in the window, with a basket on his arm and a rough clay doll and a sticky wax paper in his hand. (353 pages)

There is also the famous ancestral clock at the end of the book, the precious clock given by Fang Hung-chien's father to his son and daughter-in-law as a wedding gift, and the "very accurate" clock that is only 7 minutes slow. Now it has been five hours slow: this outdated timer inadvertently contains irony and sadness about life, which is deeper than all words and all smiles. (page 359)

Some western critics say that Fortress Besieged describes the spiritual crisis of intellectuals in China under the influence of western culture, while others in China say that it shows the failure of modern western civilization in China, thus proving that capitalist civilization can't save the theme of China. All this has some truth, but Qian Zhongshu doesn't seem to take an either-or position. He focuses more on mocking the absurdity, pity and shame of pseudo-intellectuals, and more on writing the embarrassment, embarrassment and dilemma in the cultural conflict between China and the West. In a broader cultural sense, "Fortress Besieged" mainly talks about the dilemma of "besieged city". Its artistic generalization and ideological implication transcend the narrow division of personal experience, national boundaries and times, which embodies the author's in-depth thinking on the whole modern civilization and life, and also condenses the author's historical reflection on the basic conditions of the whole human existence and the basic roots of human beings.

Character image

When Qian Zhongshu was writing "Man, Beast and Ghost", it seemed that he was still addicted to satire and ridicule, with witty remarks and profound implications, but the characters were still vague. In Fortress Besieged, besides a series of impressive cartoon characters such as Li, Cao Yuanlang, Gao Songnian, Manager Zhou and Miss Fan, there are also two unique characters, Fang Hung-chien and Fang Hung-chien, which are worth cherishing.

Fang Hung-chien was called a "besieged city man" by some critics.

Fang Hung-chien is a passive, incompetent, unstable person who can't stand the temptation, and even more a loser. His failure is due to his lack of rationality, belief, enthusiasm and strength to face the cruel competition for survival and serious spiritual crisis in modern society, and also because he is not a despicable person, and he still has some self-knowledge. Sometimes he wants to maintain his dignity as a human being. It's embarrassing not to get up or down. Many scholars associate him with the image of "superfluous man" in Russian literature, but the tragedy of "superfluous man" lies in his awakening in thought and lack of courage and historical conditions in action, and the tragedy of "besieged man" lies in his mediocrity. "Redundant people" will give people an avant-garde and heroic sense of the times, while "besieged people", like us, are vainly looking for liberation or attachment as ordinary people.

Just as the useless Jia Baoyu is almost the only good guy in A Dream of Red Mansions, Fang Hung-chien is also the best guy in Besieged City-except perhaps Tang Xiaofu. In the whole novel, there is only one Tang Xiaofu, pure and lovely. This is because she is still illusory and hopeless about Fang Hung-chien, so she is an illusion. But anyone with a sense of reality is ridiculous, obscene, vain and despicable. Fang Hung-chien is better than everyone inside. We know that troubled times are heroes or heroes' world, and cowards are doomed to failure. Therefore, Fang Hung-chien, who is neither evil nor heroic, does not strive for the world and does not help the world, is doomed to failure. Fang Hung-chien's tragedy is the result and contrast of the alienation of human nature in modern society.

But Sun Roujia is more unique in the character pedigree of Fortress Besieged. This timid little girl, this little girl who doesn't seem to have any definite opinions, and the little girl entrusted by this innocent girl to Fang Hung-chien's care are the most scheming people. This gentle person, secretly feminine and tenacious, is like a sweet trap, but he controls his own marriage, life and destiny, as well as Fang Hung-chien's. This is a figure with China cultural connotation. The so-called "femininity" in China's Taoist culture and the so-called "Machiavellian" in China's political culture can be found in her. No one seems to have written it before or even after Qian Zhongshu. But she is not a cultural symbol, but a living person with all the complexity. When she is in control, marriage, life and fate seem to be out of control. This turning point expresses the dilemma of Fortress Besieged on another level, and it also makes it impossible for us to summarize this person in a few words, just like Shakespeare's Hamlet, which is inexhaustible, and she can't say it.

Sharp irony

Fortress Besieged is regarded as a modern scholar by many people because Qian Zhongshu satirizes intellectuals incisively and vividly in this novel. This satire is due to the times and human nature, and also to Qian Zhongshu's personal reasons.

Let's start with personal reasons. Qian Zhongshu is a rare genius, at the same time, he is also the purest scholar, who has the deepest investment in learning and can't tolerate any hypocrisy and Machiavellian in academic circles. Under this gaze, it is hard for ordinary so-called "scholars" to be ridiculous. For example, he often satirizes literati copying cards. The number one clown Li in Fortress Besieged has a tin card box. In fact, it is commendable that a teacher is willing to work hard to copy cards, but in Qian Zhongshu's view, reading without putting it in his mind is a big joke.

The cultural satire in Fortress Besieged is more based on the historical platform of cultural conflict and collision between China and the West, which is one of Qian Zhongshu's focal points. One is to observe some disadvantages of China traditional culture with modern culture, such as the pedantry of Mr. Fang Lao, Fang Hung-chien's father, and his thread-bound book China is square, so foreigners are smooth, so he advocates that the land is round. The second is to mock the western culture mechanically, "just like the first tailor's suit copied in China, two patches were made on the old clothes of foreigners, which were placed on the sleeves and trousers", such as Cao Yuanlang's imitation of the poem "Food and Companion" in Love and Evil (Eliot) and The Waste Land, and Yang Jingbin by comprador Zhang. The third is to explore the absurdity in absorbing western civilization and western culture. For example, in his speech at his hometown middle school, Fang Hung-chien said, "For hundreds of years, only two Western things have survived in China society. One is opium and the other is syphilis, both of which are western civilizations absorbed by the Ming Dynasty. " Another example is the tutorial system of San Lv University.

But the satire in Fortress Besieged is more based on the anatomy of human nature. For example, Fang Hung-chien's famous fake doctor at Clayton University embodies the fraud, vanity, weakness and helplessness of human nature. Another example is that Li stole roasted sweet potatoes, Lu Zixiao bluffed with envelopes from the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Miss Fan gave herself English books that she could not use as a fake author. Readers ask themselves, it seems that not only these people have done these things, but also themselves, just as we see our own characteristics in Ah Q's face.

Psychological description

Qian Zhongshu said in Preface to Selected Poems of Song Dynasty that literary works should "convey the unexpressed psychology of characters", and Fortress Besieged is his best practice of this theory. Most successful literary works must have a successful psychological description, while Qian Zhongshu's psychological description is different, and the key lies in the psychology of "bending over and not revealing". In terms of methods, one is to convey psychology with plots and tunes, and mobilize all trivial details that seem helpless or destroy the central scene. For example, in the last chapter, Fang Hung-chien quarreled with Sun Roujia and wanted to go home to avenge Jou-chia. Jou-chia is telling menstruation about Hung-chien's mistake, for fear that he will hear. In fact, Fang Hung-chien didn't hear it, so he had to pretend, "You know, I don't have to say it." As a result, Jou-chia said guiltily, "It's not for you. Who taught you to eavesdrop? " This is tantamount to admitting that she "spoiled" Fang Hung-chien behind her back. As a result, Fang Hung-chien, who was about to bow to his wife, and Sun Roujia, who was bent on finding a good job for her husband, quarreled more and more, and finally they were "inseparable" and broke up in discord. The second commonly used method is to convey the psychology of the characters through a series of wonderful metaphors. For example, when Zhao met Fang Hung-chien for the first time, he "proudly looked at him from head to toe, as if he were a kindergarten reader with a book list", which fully conveyed Zhao's contempt for Fang Hung-chien's posturing, because on the one hand, Zhao really cared about Fang Hung-chien, because he was pursuing Miss Su, and on the other hand, he wanted to give him a duel. On the other hand, he knows that Fang has got a fake doctor Clayton, who is still in the newspaper. Next, "his expression turned into air like Hung-chien's, and there was no such person in his eyes. ..... Hung-chien really wants to feel that he is nothing, like a ghost when the cock crows in the fifth watch, or the Taoist truth that' if you don't see it, you won't stand'. "

The above example also shows a major feature of Qian Zhongshu: metaphor. I understand metaphor as having two meanings, one is that it is widely used in the whole book, and the other is its original definition, that is, metaphors come one after another to describe the same thing. Another remarkable feature of Qian Zhongshu's metaphor is that it is always combined with psychological description, full of profound knowledge and humor. In the above example, abstract Taoist thought is used to describe a psychological feeling. Wit, eloquence and metaphor focus on Fang Hung-chien's defense of what he did wrong, such as a letter to Miss He Su. To give the simplest and smallest example, Zhao called Fang Hung-chien "Brother Compassion" because he called his colleagues when he worked in the same place, his classmates when he studied in the same place, and his lover called sympathy.

Highlight 1

Miss Su led out a little girl of about twenty years old and said, "This is my cousin Tang Xiaofu." Miss Tang has a charming and tall round face and two shallow dimples. It is natural that a good face that ordinary women have to spend money and time to imitate by adjusting fat and powder is so fresh that people forget their thirst and feel greedy, as if it were good fruit. Her eyes are small, but flexible and gentle, which makes many women's big eyes like politicians' big words. Classical scholars will wonder why poets at all times and all over the world are willing to be women's hairpins, belts, sleeping mats, and even shoes and socks trampled under their feet, but they never expect to be her toothbrush. Her hair is not permed, her eyebrows are not tweezers, and her lipstick is not rubbed. She seems to abide by the limitations of nature with peace of mind and not make up for the defects of nature. In a word, Miss Tang is a wonderful flower of modern civilized society-a real girl. Many city girl are pretentious precocious women, not children; There are many girls who are just confused and stupid children without sex, let alone women. Fang Hung-chien immediately wanted to make a good impression on her. Miss Tang respectfully called him "the old-timer of her classmates", and he protested: "This can't be done! You call me' Senior', and I already feel like the remains of prehistoric apes. Why did you add the word' old'? It's a pity that we were born too early to be classmates with you. This is a pity. You call me' senior' again, which reminds me that I am an old-fashioned person. Too cruel! "

Miss Tang said, "Mr. Fang is so picky! I was wrong, the word' old' was cancelled first. "

At the same time, Miss Su said cheerfully, "Don't be ashamed! Do you want us to call you Xiao Fang like those people on the boat? Fu Xiao, ignore him. He is not flattered, just don't call him anything. "

When Fang Hung-chien saw that Miss Tang was not smiling, she still had a smile on her face, like the sound in the air after the music stopped. Many women will smile so sweetly, but their smiles are just facial muscles, as if a coach is shouting a password: "one!" " "Suddenly grinning," two! "Suddenly I disappeared with a smile, leaving only an empty face, like the curtain before the opening of the movie. He found something to tell her and asked what department she was in. Miss Su forbade her to say, saying, "Let him guess. "

A day later, I came to visit Han. After Tong Ming, Fang Hung-chien was embarrassed, happy and disappointed. The ideal Han doesn't know how arrogant and slick he is, but he is a man of few words. He thought that Lu Zixiao might remember wrong, and Miss Sun must have believed the rumor. Being stupid and simple is Han's housekeeping skill. Modern people have two popular beliefs. First: a woman's ugliness is a virtue, so a beautiful woman must not have the thought and virtue of an ugly woman; Second: A person without eloquence shows that he has morality, so the mute is the most honest person in the world. Maybe I've heard enough speeches and propaganda. Modern people overcorrect, thinking that only those who don't speak can tell the truth accurately, which has caused the new official to take office with three fires. During the lecture, everyone said, "It is not enough to talk about politics." I hate that I can't just point at my mouth, my heart and the sky with three gestures. Although Han is not stupid, he was born with a stutter. Because he wants to hide his stuttering, he speaks very little, slowly and emphatically, as if every word is guaranteed by his whole personality. A person who doesn't talk easily always makes others feel that he is full of hidden wisdom, just like a sealed and locked box. Most people always think that it is full of treasures. When Gao Songnian first met this man in Kunming, he felt that he was sincere and serene, like a gentleman, and he was bald before he was old. It can be seen that there is so much knowledge in his mind that his hair has been squeezed out. Let's take a look at his education. In addition to his doctorate, there is another one: "His works are scattered in American History Magazine, Saturday Literature Review and other big publications", and he can't help looking at others. Several people who came to the meeting with letters of introduction all wrote on their resumes that they had "given many lectures" abroad. Gao Songnian himself studied in a small country in Europe, knowing that he often thought he was giving lectures, and the audience thought he was learning to speak-he couldn't speak a foreign language to learn. However, publishing works in major foreign journals requires real talents and practical learning. He asked Han, "Can you look at Mr. Wang's masterpiece?" Han admits that the magazines are all in his hometown in the occupied area, but all the universities in China should subscribe to these two publications, and they should be nearby, unless the old magazines in the library are lost after this flight. Gao Songnian never thought that a liar would be so calm; Books in various universities are scattered, and I can't find that issue of the magazine, but it seems that there are articles by Han. Han did contribute to these publications, but Gao Songnian didn't know that his works were published in the personnel advertisement column of Saturday Literature Review: "Young people in China are highly educated, and those who are willing to help study the China issue have low fees." And the communication column of History Magazine: "Han Jun asked for this magazine twenty years ago, and would like to ask the transferor to contact somewhere in the communication." Finally, he heard that Mrs. Han was an American, so he simply changed his face and respected each other. To marry a foreign wife, he must be proficient in western learning. Didn't he want to marry a foreign women when he was young? This man is the dean. He didn't expect this foreign wife to marry in China.