Chapter 24 Part Two: Thoughts on "Famous School Complex" Sylvia

After lunch on Valentine's Day, I made an appointment with Ping to watch a movie. This was the first time I went to a movie theater after arriving in Cambridge.The theater on Valentine's Day was very lively, and the strange thing was that most of the people sitting together were elderly couples. We two young oriental women sat in it, which was a bit weird.Although in the UK, most of the major titles shown in theaters are still American.I'm a bit stubborn, and I always feel that after putting together many films, the really good ones are European films, which have a sense of luxury that films from other places do not have.In the most luxurious American films, you can see the hunger for the box office, and you can smell the strong smell of money.But European movies are different. They use money not for more money, but for fun.This is luxury.Ping also prefers British movies. Her undergraduate and postgraduate studies were all English literature. Although she later became a government official, she still couldn't let go of her strong literary complex.Therefore, we chose "Sylvia" by coincidence - a film about the love experience of liberal poetess Sylvia Plath to watch.

It's a typical European style thing, the camera is beautiful, and the plot is slow and twists and turns like the protagonist's mood.A touch of sadness permeates the whole picture from the very beginning. "I have imagined life as a strong tree, which is composed of three main branches: one is like the man I love, and on this vigorous branch is full of green leaves, which is our child; The root is like a poem that arouses my enthusiasm for life, and the third root is like my students and my beloved teaching career. I water this big tree with all my love and look forward to its luxuriant branches and leaves, but suddenly there is One day I discovered that it began to wither irresistibly, looking back, everything changed, and leaves fell all over the ground..."

Sylvia Plath was born in an intellectual family in the United States in 1932. Her father was a professor of German and entomology at Boston University.While studying at Smith College, Sylvia showed an excellent writing talent and published a large number of poems. At the age of 24, she won the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge.At the beginning of the film, there are many pictures of Cambridge scenery. A woman in a red dress walks freely on a bicycle on a path covered with gravel. The young and vigorous vitality is in contrast with the solemn and ancient Cambridge. It tugs at the heartstrings.However, for Slyvia, Cambridge is not just an experience of studying in a foreign country, but the most earth-shattering turning point in her life. Here, she met her man, the British poet Ted Hughes.The occurrence of some things in the world is doomed, and the unexpected meeting of some souls is inevitable, and no one can prevent the doomed meeting in fate. Sylvia and Ted first met at a dance in February 1956.Such a meeting is really amazing, the four eyes meet each other, flashing light and flint, and the others are completely dim, just like the Chinese singing of Huangmei tune: "A glance at the shadow of a ghost, meeting is like a dream..." At the dance, they hugged each other, and she was bright and clean. The forehead, the bright face, and the wise eyes make all kinds of customs in the world lose their color in an instant. Sylvia, like the bright red dress she was wearing, was enthusiastic, and it was an undisguised, righteous enthusiasm.When parting, in front of the girlfriend Ted brought, she gave him a deep kiss, which left tooth marks on his cheek and blood flowed out. More than 30 years later, Ted still clearly remembers the bite marks of this first kiss:

You meant to give me the winning shot with your vivaciousness / I can't remember / The rest of the night / Except I snuck away with my girlfriend / Except for her angry hiss in the doorway / For your The blue turban will be in my pocket / I'll be dumbfounded and ask / the tooth marks swollen like circular mounds / will burn like a brand on my face / menstrual periods will never fade / burn the me underneath / forever In the dead of night, Ted stood downstairs where Sylvia lived, knocking on her window with a stone. How could such beauty be missed? Writing to her mother in the US, Sylvia said she had finally found the "great crazy love" of her dreams in an "unbelievable" man.She described Ted like this: "Wearing the same black sweater and corduroy jacket all day long, with pockets full of poetry, fresh trout and fortune-telling horoscopes." Seeing this, Shen Congwen came to mind When I first met Zhang Zhaohe, I sighed in my heart: "I have walked bridges in many places, seen clouds many times, and drank many types of wine, but I only loved one person at the right age." Sylvia, Ted, they They are all in their best years, they share a common language - poetry, they love and are loved.So, beside the Cambridge Bridge, there are both beautiful couples; on the Jianhe River, the love business is lively.This is the warmest part of the whole film.

After marriage, Ted and Sylvia returned to the United States together, and Sylvia taught at the university to support Ted to continue writing. Ted is not a selfish man. He appreciates Sylvia's talent and doesn't want to see his beloved woman bury her talent in the stove, so he keeps encouraging her to write poems.This is love, always thinking about the other person, always doing the best for the other person. Ted went home to read Sylvia's new poem, and Sylvia dragged him to the kitchen, pointing to the large and small freshly baked cakes piled on the dining table, pouted and said: Here, these are it.Such a mischievous expression is full of happiness.Delicious pastry, that is the most colorful poetry in life of a woman with love.

Sylvia fully helped her husband's career and gave birth to a son and a daughter for him.For her, giving is the burning of life.The giving itself is absolute, just like youth itself. At the age of 27, she accompanied Ted back to London and started her own writing. "We vent our emotions in words," Sylvia revealed in her diary of the happiness they created together.In the eyes of friends in the circle, they are an enviable couple, because "no one loves each other as deeply as they do, appreciates each other, and truly understands each other."However, fiery love is not the guarantee of a happy marriage, just as a stable marriage cannot guarantee the freshness of love. Sylvia has the sensitive and delicate heart of a poetess.If the beginning of love requires such delicacy to ignite passion, then when love is put into ordinary life, more tolerance and wisdom are needed to make love last longer. Sylvia's preoccupation with love gradually morphed into an uneasy fear of loss.In her fantasy, she created false rivals one after another for herself, and then let them crush her confidence in love bit by bit.Although Ted repeatedly assured her that he would not love others, he didn't understand that what many men didn't understand was that what really made love last was not a man's promise, but a woman's confidence.Once such confidence is destroyed, no matter how hard one tries, love cannot continue.

"Something you fear most in your life will come true one day" - the things you fear most in your life will come true in the end.When Sylvia was at her most vulnerable, Ted left her for another woman. Sylvia said to her friend seemingly free and easy: I am finally free, and I don’t have to worry about him. In the vast world, no one is the only one.She smiled, but it was really a smile uglier than crying.She wrote poetry, she became famous, she raised children, and she went on with her life in peace.However, it is still him, and only him, that she misses so much.He came to see her and the baby, Sylvia dressed herself up beautifully, and after a long-lost passion, she wanted him back—it's not that woman you really love, it's me, isn't it?Such childish questioning is heartbreaking. Ted stroked her long blonde curly hair and said: She's pregnant and I can't leave.What a tactful excuse.Yes, Ted can't deny that the woman he loves the most in his life is Sylvia, but love is only in the present moment, and if you miss the present moment, no matter how much you love, it's hard to turn back.

On a snowy winter morning in 1963, Sylvia made breakfast for her two sleeping children and kissed them lightly on the cheek.Then the windows of their room were opened and the door was sealed.Then, I went to the kitchen and turned on the gas. At the age of 30, Sylvia ended her life in despair of love.What an infatuated woman this is!Her emotions were so strong and intense that they flowed like flowing water.Her short life was always giving, giving, and giving.Only a young and youthful life can be like this.I paid it, paid it thoroughly, and absolutely without any regrets, even if this man, this world, this life, deceived himself completely, he still "will not regret it as his belt grows wider." ".

That part was shot so beautifully, Sylvia's young but vicissitudes of smile in the white snow on the screen really echoed the sentence: Life is as brilliant as spring flowers, and death is as poignant as autumn leaves.Seeing this, my tears kept flowing down, far, far, desolately thinking of the sentence in "Ancient Poetry": "Thinking, it is in the south of the sea. Why ask Yijun, the double-beaded tortoiseshell hairpin , use jade to dazzle it. I heard that you have another heart, pull the miscellaneous, destroy it and burn it, and when the wind blows its ashes, from now on, don't love each other again."

After Sylvia's death, the world pointed the finger at Ted, accusing him of abandoning Sylvia, which led to her suicide. Ted didn't say anything about it, and silently sorted out and published all the posthumous manuscripts of Sylvia that could be published.It was not until the eve of Ted's death from cancer in 1998 that he published a collection of 88 poetic memoirs that he had written over the past 30 years.In these poems, he narrates his deep love for Sylvia in plain and straightforward language, and writes about their meeting, falling in love, and even making love for the first time with amazing candor and precise details:

You are slender, tender, creamy, like a fish / You are the New World / My New World / You are America / I am amazed / Beautiful / Beautiful America When love is a thing of the past, all that remains is the evidence of having loved.But, what can that prove? The love story between Sylvia and Ted is absolutely pathetic.This may be the artist's love. Between strong passion and strong ego, their love is dazzling and fragile, just like an extremely gorgeous fireworks display.They use their bodies and souls to write indelible notes on this glamorous love.It is undeniable that Ted has always loved Sylvia.Love is love, but I can't stand a long life and can only love you alone.This is the truth of human nature, but Sylvia's lofty and fiery love just can't tolerate this cruel truth. For her, love is either not there, or it is all.Love may be poetry of fervent passion, but marriage is life.Life is peaceful, where the power of love is not as great as imagined, what is needed is tolerance and understanding, otherwise how can we hold hands and climb mountains and wading on the long road of life.When a relationship encounters a crisis and needs to be overcome, it is often too late, and reason is often the one that gives way. Sylvia is too pure a person, she refuses to be wronged or accommodated to Ted, which means she refuses to compromise with herself.Her love makes people feel distressed and regrettable. Walking out of the cinema, Ping and I said that it is no wonder that Chinese people like to call love family affection or kindness, and now we understand.When I read the last two sentences of "Drinking Horses and a Journey to the Great Wall Caves", I always couldn't understand the last two sentences of "the first sentence is to add food, and the second sentence is to remember each other". I don't know when I suddenly understood.Only the Chinese will separate the words "love" and "love" in marriage.Love because of love is glamorous, but also fragile; but "feeling" is extremely simple, no matter how romantic and lofty it is, it quietly has its place in this simplicity, so China People will know each other happily as husband and wife for a day and a hundred days of kindness.A good marriage is aroused by love and continued by love.Therefore, it is possible to "joy with the child" in this seductive and chaotic world of mortals, and to "hold the hand of the child and grow old together with the child". Walking on the road, the weather changed suddenly, the strong wind tried to escape in all directions, and the icy cold rain fell down lawlessly.We hurriedly opened the umbrella.There was an elderly couple beside them, they didn't bring an umbrella.The man took off his coat and covered the heads of the two of them.The wife shrank into her husband's arms and found the most suitable position; the husband continued to move forward with his wife in his arms.When the rain is the most domineering, their warmth is particularly touching.The love story in the movie contains so many gorgeous content and so many romantic details, but the real love I witnessed with my own eyes is silent.