When reading novels, I have always held the view that we should focus on what the author wants to write, how they write it, and why they write it. This is closely related to the author's experiences, personality, and worldview.
For writers, I believe that the most important quality is authenticity. This authenticity is not about depicting reality as it is, because reality is so complex and diverse. Instead, it is about achieving a true understanding of the world and being able to see through illusions. As Zhang Ailing once said, "Life is a gorgeous robe crawling with lice." Zhang Ailing wanted to puncture the illusions people have about the world. In her novels, women who are alone and trying to survive often have to pay a great price. In the game of love and romance, men and women calculate their interests like lions on the African savannah, coming together and breaking apart for the sake of survival. The pressures of the environment, the calculations made for survival, and human desires all complement each other, creating a cruel, real, and compassionate world. Ignoring any of these aspects means not truly understanding Zhang Ailing's intentions. Zhang Ailing's own life was similar to the characters in her novels, and she made her own choices, choices that were dignified.
There are similarities in the themes of Zhang Ailing's early novels, and I will mainly discuss "The First Incense Burner."
Please find the moldy and colorful copper incense burner passed down in your family, light a stick of agarwood incense, and listen to me tell a story about pre-war Hong Kong.
The novel begins by setting the historical background. The old era of large families has just passed, and women can now leave their homes, but they still cannot achieve independence through work. At this time, there is frequent warfare. The protagonist's family came to Hong Kong to seek refuge from the Japanese invasion of China, but due to the soaring prices in Hong Kong, they decide to return to Shanghai. However, the female protagonist, Ge Weilong, does not want to go back. When she arrives at her aunt's house, she sees her aunt's exquisite garden.
The garden at her aunt's house is just a rectangular lawn, surrounded by low white stone railings, beyond which is a barren mountain. This garden seems like a golden lacquer tray lifted out of the chaotic mountains. In the garden, there is also a row of neatly trimmed evergreen trees, two sparsely arranged flower beds, planted with beautiful English roses, all arranged meticulously and orderly, like the light-colored meticulous painting on a lacquer tray.
In one corner of the lawn, a small azalea tree is planted, currently in bloom. The flowers are pink with a hint of yellow, a bright shrimp red. The spring inside the wall is just a virtual scene, but who knows that a spark can start a prairie fire? The spring inside the wall spreads to the outside, and wild azaleas bloom vigorously on the mountainside, their burning red color spreading down the slope. Outside the azaleas is the deep blue sea, with white ships moored in it. Here, not only the strong contrast of colors gives viewers a dizzying and unreal feeling—there are contrasts everywhere; various incompatible backgrounds and atmospheres are forcibly mixed together, creating a fantastical realm.
The white house on the hillside has a streamlined and geometric structure, similar to the most modern cinemas. However, the roof is covered with antique blue glazed tiles. The glass windows are also green, framed with narrow red borders. There are carved iron grilles on the windows, painted with yellow paint. The house is surrounded by wide corridors paved with red bricks, supported by majestic white stone columns, reminiscent of early American Southern architecture. Going through the glass door on the corridor leads to the guest room, which is arranged in a three-dimensional Western style, but there are also some Chinese decorations that can be appreciated by both the refined and the vulgar. On the hearth, there are jade snuff bottles and ivory Guanyin statues displayed, and a bamboo screen is placed in front of the sofa. However, the presence of these Oriental elements is clearly for the sake of foreign friends. When the British come from afar to see China, they must be shown something Chinese. But this China here is the China in the minds of Westerners—absurd, exquisite, and comical.
The descriptions of the scenery have two layers of meaning. The first is what the author wants to convey to the readers—the ecological environment in which the aunt lives is an artificially created landscape under colonial conditions. The author even steps out and explains, "Here, not only the strong contrast of colors gives viewers a dizzying and unreal feeling—there are contrasts everywhere; various incompatible backgrounds and atmospheres are forcibly mixed together, creating a fantastical realm." The second layer is the beginning of the second paragraph of the quoted passage, with its intense, spreading, blue sea and white ships, like scenes from a movie. This is the subjective landscape of Ge Weilong, reflecting her longing for a broader and freer world.
The author is afraid that the readers will not understand, so she specifically describes:
Ge Weilong caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the glass door—she herself is also a part of the Oriental colors unique to the colony. She is wearing a unique uniform from the South England Middle School, a blue bamboo cloth shirt that reaches her knees, with narrow pant legs underneath, in the style of the late Qing Dynasty; she is dressed up like a flower girl, which is one of the various facilities in Hong Kong to please European and American tourists. However, just like other girls who love fashion, she adds a knitted vest outside the bamboo cloth shirt, and under the short vest, a large section of the shirt is exposed, making her feel even more like a hybrid creature.
The story has a winding and circuitous path. The first detour: Ge Weilong arrives at her aunt's house, but her aunt is not home. She goes swimming with the thirteenth young master of the Qiao family and is cold-shouldered by two maids. From the maids' words, she realizes that her aunt is indeed from an unsavory family, and she becomes disheartened and wants to leave. But coincidentally, she runs into her aunt when she returns.
Immediately following is the second detour: The thirteenth young master of the Qiao family invites her aunt out, but it is actually a cover for him to meet Miss Zhao from the Zhao family. He comes back angry. It turns out that her aunt insisted on becoming a concubine for a wealthy businessman and had a falling out with her own family. Her aunt scolds Ge Weilong's father, and Ge Weilong wants to leave. This also reveals the background of the male protagonist.
Then comes the third detour: Her aunt discovers that one of the maids is having an affair with Sir Qiao Cheng, and she feels that the maid is unreliable. So, she wants to use her niece, who is a female student, to her advantage. Her aunt finally accepts her and trains her to become a socialite.
The benefit of these detours is that they increase the density of information in a very short period of time. "Dream of the Red Chamber" also uses this technique, such as when Lin Daiyu first enters the Jia family. Zhang Ailing intentionally imitated the writing style of "Dream of the Red Chamber" in her early works, but there are not many similar examples in her later works.
Ge Weilong's thoughts gradually change as the story progresses. At first, she just wants to rely on her aunt's help to complete her studies, even though she knows what kind of person her aunt is. She thinks:
As long as I behave properly and stand upright, I'm not afraid of her not treating me with courtesy. Let people gossip outside, let them say whatever they want, I will focus on my studies. In the future, when I meet someone who truly loves me, they will naturally understand and won't believe those boring rumors.
Why does she endure the humiliation and seek help from her aunt instead of going back to Shanghai? In her own words, she wants to stay in Hong Kong to continue her studies. Primarily because in her eyes, Hong Kong is a more beautiful and free world. When she is sick and misses her home in Shanghai:
In her home, the black iron bed that she shared with her sister, the white and red striped mattress; the old-fashioned mahogany dressing table; the peach-shaped porcelain jar that looks lovely in the sunlight, filled with refreshing body powder; the monthly calendar of beautiful women hanging on the wall, with her mother's pencil marks added to the tailor, recommending a hair salon, tofu pudding, her aunt's and third aunt's phone numbers.
Her home is warm, but there is no future there, far from being comparable to the glamorous world. When she falls asleep on her first night at her aunt's house:
Weilong didn't close her eyes all night. Just as she was about to fall asleep, she seemed to be trying on clothes, trying on one after another. Woolen fabrics, soft and fluffy like provocative jazz music; thick and heavy velvet, like melancholic classical opera theme songs; smooth satin, like "The Blue Danube," cool and shady, flowing all over her body. Just as she was dozing off, the music changed, and she woke up again. Downstairs, a hurried rumba was playing, and Weilong couldn't help but think of the purple electric silk dress in the wardrobe, dancing the rumba, kicking and kicking, making a rustling sound. Thinking of this, she whispered to everything downstairs, "It's good to take a look!" She said this with only her lips moving, without making a sound. However, she still reached out and pulled the blanket over her head, covering herself, but no one could hear her. She quietly said again, "It's good to take a look!" and smiled as she fell asleep.
But even if she studies well in Hong Kong, what can she achieve? Borrowing the words of a maid, "I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but what's the point of finishing your studies? This is just a middle school, and Hong Kong only has one university. Even university graduates can't find jobs! There are jobs, but they pay only fifty or sixty dollars a month, teaching in a small school run by a convent, constantly being oppressed by foreign nuns. It's really not worth it!" So Ge Weilong thinks that after finishing her studies, going out into society and finding a job may not be a suitable path for a girl like her, who is beautiful but lacks special skills. Naturally, getting married would be better. So she sets her sights on the male protagonist, Qiao Qiqiao.
As for Qiao Qiqiao's background, it was revealed even before he appeared, through the words of her aunt: "This guy surnamed Qiao, your father tried to please the British and got a knighthood, but your mother is an unknown Portuguese whore who counts chips at the Macau gambling stalls."
Qiao Qiqiao is by no means a suitable match, but in the Orchid Temple created by her aunt, there are no proper families. At least compared to those old men, Qiao Qiqiao arouses Ge Weilong's desires more:
After shaking hands with Ge Weilong, Qiao Qiqiao still put his hands in his pockets, stood there smiling, and looked her up and down. Ge Weilong was wearing a light blue thin silk cheongsam that day. When he looked at her with his green eyes, she felt that her arms were like hot milk poured out of a blue pot, uncontrollable, pouring out her entire self.
Regardless of whether it is willingly or not, "From then on, Ge Weilong was equivalent to being sold to Mrs. Liang and Qiao Qiqiao. She was busy all day, either making money for Mrs. Liang or finding people for Mrs. Liang."
Ge Weilong comes from a middle-class family, although her aunt scolds them as "fallen from grace," they are still a well-educated family. Why would she choose this path? It is similar to her aunt insisting on becoming a concubine for a wealthy businessman. It is the great desire of human beings. In their eyes, it is a way to break free from the lack of freedom in their original class and move up. Assuming Ge Weilong returns to Shanghai, what can she do? In the end, she will still have to marry someone from a similar family background and become a full-time housewife.
But for people from lower classes, being a full-time housewife is also unattainable. In "Days of Being Wild," the female protagonist, played by Maggie Cheung, is a ticket seller, and she can only hope that the character played by Leslie Cheung, Yuddy, will marry her. As for Yuddy, his mother married a wealthy foreigner and refused to see him, dying on her return journey from the failed meeting with her mother.
As a mirrored story, in Marguerite Duras' "The Lover," the female protagonist, a poor French-Vietnamese high school student, can only rely on the son of a wealthy Chinese businessman.
These three stories all come from a colonial background. The characteristic of a colony is the disintegration of the original social structure, with different classes eroding each other, creating a novel kaleidoscope. Outstanding authors naturally observe the special aspects within and the commonalities of humanity.
After the old order disintegrates, they see hope and despair. They cannot return to their homeland, so they are rootless. As in the famous quote from "Days of Being Wild":
There is a kind of bird in the world that has no feet, it can only fly and fly like this, when it gets tired, it sleeps in the wind. This kind of bird can only land once in its lifetime, and that is when it dies.
These young men and women have their lives attached to a structure rooted in power, wealth, and desire. This is the root cause of their tragic lives. For ordinary men and women within this structure, if they want to take risks and win the opportunity to fly, they can only rely on their will to live.
Zhang Ailing's early novels are cold and ruthless, never giving false hope, while her later novels end with warmth and tenderness, providing false comfort in the face of despair. This will be discussed later.