封锁

by Eileen Chang, 张爱玲

Unknown Binding

About the author

Eileen Chang is the English name for Chinese author 張愛玲, who was born to a prominent family in Shanghai (one of her great-grandfathers was Li Hongzhang) in 1920.

She went to a prestigious girls' school in Shanghai, where she changed her name from Chang Ying to Chang Ai-ling to match her English name, Eileen. Afterwards, she attended the University of Hong Kong, but had to go back to Shanghai when Hong Kong fell to Japan during WWII. While in Shanghai, she was briefly married to Hu Lancheng, the notorious Japanese collaborator, but later got a divorce.

After WWII ended, she returned to Hong Kong and later immigrated to the United States in 1955. She married a scriptwriter in 1956 and worked as a screenwriter herself for a Hong Kong film studio for a number of years, before her husband's death in 1967. She moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1972 and became a hermit of sorts during her last years. She passed away alone in her apartment in 1995.

Reviews

[LT · Rating 4 out of 5]

hits hard but really good

part of what I wrote:

我是在翠远身上才看到了她这样对待自己有一些不公平，同时也替她难过。如果她改变自己的自我认知，意识到自己的价值的活，还会寻找这种空虚的艳遇吗？

from my chinese teacher:

你所讲述的经历是绝大多数女性都有的，在年轻时有过一些这样的虚荣心倒也未必不健康，更可能是一种必要的成长——谁又能每分钟都在做“健康”正确的事呢？不过我最近发现有一些到了我这样年龄的女性还会有翠远式的虚荣行为、甚至影响了自己稳定的伴侣关系，这就很可惜了，因为她们没有获得像你结尾写到的那样的觉悟，没有从年轻时的缺乏中获得成长。