What do you want to share after reading Mr. Shen Congwen's Border Town?

It was just an accident, but I chose one day to read Border Town. The weather in the afternoon is hot and dry, the sunshine outside the window is bright and hot, and there are muffled thunder rolling in the air, which makes people depressed and irritable. After reading the novel in one breath, I added a new layer of sadness, only feeling miserable. After many years, every time I think of this novel, it is like a sad mark branded in my heart, and I cry again and again. If I want to analyze Shen Congwen's novella Border Town with the literary technique I understand, I want to say that it is "two hands and two lines", one line describes "beauty" and the other tells "bitterness". Beauty and bitterness are interdependent. Bitterness does not affect beauty, but beauty cannot dissolve it, which is deeply regrettable.

Border Town tells a beautiful love story. The plot is not tortuous, but the fate of the characters is full of twists and turns. Near the tea cave at the junction of Sichuan and Hunan, the hero Cui Cui and her grandfather, the old boatman, went to watch the dragon boat race on the Dragon Boat Festival and met a young sailor to see them off. Nuosong is Shunshun's youngest son in charge of Zhangshui Wharf. His brother Tianbao also fell in love with Cui Cui and asked the matchmaker to propose in advance.

The two brothers expressed their feelings fairly and romantically by singing folk songs, and let Cui Cui choose for himself. On the same day, Bao learned that he fell in love with Nuo and took the initiative to withdraw from the competition. In order to forget the pain, he sailed to do business, but he was unfortunately killed. In the face of his brother's death, Nuosong could no longer love Cui Cui calmly and left home for Taoyuan painfully. Cui Cui endured the loss of her loved ones, and soon her grandfather died. She lost all her love at once, but she still took on all the changes alone, making a living by ferry, waiting for a farewell that might never come back.

Love is not the whole story. Shen Congwen described the simple folk customs, simple life, harmonious neighborhood and picturesque natural scenery of small towns in western Hunan with a light and meaningful style. Beautiful landscapes gave birth to a beautiful, pure, kind and loyal Cui Cui. She is graceful, like an elf fascinated by the world, but fate is extremely cruel to her. It seems that all the beauty and suffering are concentrated on her. She lived alone with her grandfather since childhood, lonely and hard; When you grow up, you will meet love, but you can't love, and you will die alone. Cui Cui's life has no dream, no eternal love, and no happy and sweet ending, but she never resents, never gives up, and accepts all the arrangements of fate. Her life is full of misfortunes. She firmly opposed it with silence. Her beauty touched the mountains; Her suffering made the world cry.

The writer Liu Liangcheng once said, "We can't see all the snow in one's life". Yes, everyone has their own winter. Not everyone can spend this life lightly. As Sakata Gintoki said, some people just try their best to stay alive. Cui Cui is beautiful, but the novel gives her a tragic ending. We can't understand her strength in withstanding heavy snow in her life. Only by stealing a little "beauty" from her can we calmly face all kinds of "hardships" in life and spend all the cold winters alone and strongly in our own life.

Mr. Shen Congwen said: Beauty always makes people sad. Border Town is beautiful, but it leaves us lonely and sad. The surface of life is often bustling, but the sadness and desolation can't be erased behind it. Maybe everyone has a border town in their heart, which is beautiful and sad. I hope everyone can stick to "Border Town" like Cui Cui and fight against sadness with kindness and light.