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. However, this cultural dilemma and spiritual dilemma occurred in the fierce conflict between the declining boss China and modern capitalist civilization, so we saw such a thought-provoking picture:
Passing a foreign bakery, the lights in the kitchen window are very bright and shine 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 ancestor clock at the end of the book, the baby clock that Fang Hung-chien's father gave to his son and daughter-in-law as a wedding gift, and the "very accurate" clock that is "only 7 minutes slow" every hour, which is already five hours slow at the moment:
This untimely opportunity inadvertently contains the irony and sadness of life, which is deeper than all languages 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.
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. For example, 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 an 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.
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 said:
I feel this way about everything in my 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?