The story is not complicated, and the writing is not complicated. What is rare is that the marriage of two key figures, Yukiko and Miao Zi, shows the human feelings, class and style of the whole Kansai region.
It happens that the Kansai region of Japan (Osaka, Nara and Kyoto) is a place of great interest to me, and I have just been to Japan not long ago. This book can be said to greatly satisfy my regret that I went to Japan and didn't understand the life of local people in Kansai.
Character writing is very simple.
In terms of narrative perspective and character description, Gucci's description of Zi Xue (Third Sister) gives people a mysterious aesthetic feeling and a desire to know this character through an objective perspective rather than his own narrative and psychological presentation.
His description of the narrator Xing Zi (Second Sister) focuses on psychological description. Through this figure, people are particularly impressed by the characteristics of an oriental traditional harmonious family. Almost exactly like a China family. Psychological descriptions read like people around you. More precisely, like my mother, she loves to worry about everything. Very kind and easy to understand.
Gucci's objective perspective on Miao Zi (little sister) is mainly to contrast and set off Yukiko. Yukiko represents the beauty of the East, while Miao Zi represents the beauty of the West. Their choices, destinies, living conditions and experiences are in sharp contrast.
Yukiko inherited many Gucci understandings of beauty. She is handsome/thin, but extremely healthy, not as morbid as Lin Daiyu. Quiet, elegant and easy-going. But there will be no compromise on the issue of right and wrong, and right and wrong are clear. This kind of character with a clear distinction between right and wrong will not be shown in daily life, but in some deeper places, reducing readers' speculation about this character's "cowardice".
The beauty of Yukiko is reflected by the comparison with Miao Zi. Especially in the final description of Miao Zi's ending, it implicitly embodies the author's value proposition. Miao Zi's unruly personality has some defects, such as lying, selfishness in the relationship with men, and finally dystocia, and the child died at birth. Junichiro Tanizaki implicitly mentioned that this is a causal rotation.
"Westernized" Miao Zi likes chaos.
Miao Zi's relationship with men is entangled, and eventually both lose. Because of the lack of love, I tried to get it, and finally I was emotionally devastated, and love went in the wrong direction. At the end of this relationship, it is hasty, and it is a choice for a person to fall into the dust after his heart is torn.
Yukiko happens to be emotionally indifferent. Blind date after blind date, she refused people who didn't want to get married, didn't rush to get married, and didn't show her eager desire for love. This success, which is indifferent to the growth and change year by year, is exactly the author's beautiful view of Anshun after many failed blind date experiences.
Class group image
Through Yukiko's blind date, Koike Runichiro let us see the whole picture (almost the whole picture) of people from all walks of life in Osaka. From declining aristocrats to ordinary people, from wealthy families to working-class people. From the first marriage to the second marriage. The scene that impressed me the most was that Yukiko dated a rich man with great ostentation and extravagance and was arranged in a "rotten museum". In the face of men's silent extravagance and pride, Yukiko looks very weak. At this time, not two people are dating, but two families are dating. A declining aristocrat, a rich aristocrat, obviously, the giants have the upper hand. Yukiko, who doesn't know how to attach and flatter, seems so inappropriate in this blind date, but she is so "Yukiko".
The author finally arranged for Yukiko to marry an equally declining aristocratic lineage. The luxury of this noble family has almost vanished, but the blind date is very talented and has the talent cultivated by superior families. In the end, Yukiko silently agreed, and the book ended in Yukiko's marriage. The outcome is undoubtedly in line with public expectations.
The beauty of the East, though beautiful, has flaws.
Although Junichiro Tanizaki loves the beauty of the East very much, for example, he wrote many times about several sisters enjoying cherry blossoms together, the beauty of Yukiko and the elegance in daily life, but he also wrote about the obstacles caused by the "slowness", "slowness" and "unwillingness to disturb others" in the East.
The most obvious thing is that in medicine, for example, if a patient got gangrene, the doctor could have done some western medicine treatment as soon as possible, but because of the doctor's own tradition, the patient died without timely treatment. Almost the same thing happened during childbirth in Miao Zi. At this time, Miao Zi's family has shown dissatisfaction and interference with traditional medical skills and medical ethics.
Taking Yukiko's blind date as an example, it is not the main reason for Yukiko's unsuccessful blind date many times because of her family's excessive caution.
For example, Xing Zi, Yukiko's sister, arranged a blind date for her even though she was ill after the miscarriage. When the blind date was not considerate enough, she kept silent, which made her body hurt more. (Many people in China do the same, voluntarily sacrificing individuals for the collective benefit. )
For example, when the storm came, the house was shaken, and the family delayed going to live in the neighbor's house in order not to disturb others, and was almost crushed by the house on the verge of collapse.
On the other hand, the author does not criticize the western way too much. For example, the book also describes two foreign families, Russia and Germany. The author's brushwork also greatly appreciates these two families, and spent some pen and ink to describe the feelings and contacts between these two foreign families and the Yukiko family.
However, even so, this book does not present the meteorological and international vision of the interaction between great powers, but describes an external country. More is to present the inner life of this traditional Osaka family. Gu Qirun Ichiro's thought is Japanese after all.
Japanese transformation: gloomy beauty
I read this book very quickly, even after reading it, I finished "Chunqin Copy" in one breath. This is no accident, because Gurunyichiro is too straightforward, unlike Kawabata Yasunari, who is endlessly entangled in some details, and a detail can be written for several pages. Although I like Yasunari Kawabata, I was badly abused by Yin Shan, and I can finish it with great patience. I don't remember anything after reading it, except a shady yard.
Junichiro Tanizaki's main aesthetic thought is "the beauty of the mysterious". The word "the mysterious" is not sunny at first glance, so it is not abnormal. But the "pervert" in "Qin Chun Replication" made me finish reading it and understood it in my bones.
This kind of "abnormal condition" is fully displayed in Keigo Higashino's White Night. The abused girl can't heal herself after being hit hard psychologically, and she can achieve psychological satisfaction by abusing others. In this process, she has already lost her love, sympathy and empathy for others. In Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Forest, it is occasionally revealed that Reiko Kobayakawa met a beautiful girl when she was a teacher and was seduced by this girl. From normal to abnormal, it is difficult to distinguish whether her original sexual orientation is normal or abnormal, and even drool over the temptation of the girl; In The Mermaid and Thousand Cranes written by Yasunari Kawabata, the old man fell in love with the body of the cardamom girl in his later years, and the young man fell in love with his father's mistress, which all looked "abnormal".
But I don't think all these "perverts" can be attributed to Japanese perverts. In the land of China, there are also many abnormal psychology similar to pedophilia. However, Junichiro Tanizaki's Metamorphosis and Kawabata Yasunari's The Mermaid are closely related to beauty.
The gloomy beauty lies not in gloom, but in beauty. Especially the beauty of a girl, the beauty of youth, the beauty of quietness and the beauty before disappearing. The lust for this beauty, nostalgia, and almost morbid persistence in not wanting this beauty to die.
Liang Wendao recently talked about Yukio Mishima's "Golden Pavilion Temple" program and discussed Yukio Mishima's "abnormal" psychology. After reading it, I feel that sometimes people are satisfied by having beauty. Sometimes mere possession is not enough, so destroying this beauty becomes a choice. Some people destroy beautiful things, while others achieve it through self-harm. For example, in the case of Qin Chunwen, in order to achieve the unity with beauty, the protagonist does not hesitate to self-harm, cut off his eyes, reach the realm of blindness, and let heaven and man enter another realm of beauty. Writing here, I can't help but understand a little what it means that Japanese people like to commit suicide by caesarean section. .
(with pictures from the movie "Fine Snow" stills)