Chapter 26 How Eileen Chang Died

Foreword: In Shanghai in a broad sense, there are many souls, some like my father and some like me.Zhang Ailing, as one of the most important souls in Shanghai, when she left this world, I couldn't help but write these two articles, catching wind and shadows.Because catching the wind and shadow of Shanghai is what my family has been doing since childhood. Zhang Ailing can die in many ways, but others may not. Zhang Ailing can die in many ways, and she used one of them.This kind of death cannot be "chosen", but can only be "completed". Death is not a gesture, death is just the next basic movement of life.Zhang Ailing's way of death has inherited her way of living. She is really a great figure with a unified style!

The death method completed by Zhang Ailing made it impossible for people to know the exact time, will, and reason, and there was no place for religion and society to intervene, so many people used Zhang Ailing's words—— Said she died "desolate". To say that she died desolately, I think, is a mistake. The world Zhang Ailing describes is very desolate, but she may not be a person in that world.She has the ability to draw the world she sees in detail, probably because she can recognize the difference between the world she created and the real world.She probably wouldn't plunge headfirst into the desolate world she created, just like Chagall wouldn't want to bump his head into his own painting!

We don't use the word "lonely" to describe God.However, no matter from which angle you think about it, God must live very lonely. Eileen Chang's way of death is the same as her way of life, perhaps in terms of "coldness", it is closer to my version of Eileen Chang. Eileen Chang knows the prosperity and excitement of life. She has experienced broken families, tasted fame, absurd military disasters, and chaotic love affairs. But these excitement, for her, will soon expire. A dull person, even at the last stage of his life, can't smell the smell of decay, and can keep chewing with relish.

Smart but enthusiastic people, although they saw the meaning of life early, they are warm and active by nature, and they don't care about spoiling everyone's interest, so they live a lifetime of fun and don't force it. Zhang Ailing is very smart, and Zhang Ailing is not without enthusiasm. People who are not enthusiastic cannot write decent things. If you are indifferent from birth, you will not be able to paint, compose, do experiments, or write novels.The creators of the big school may have extremely repressed characters, like Tchaikovsky or Lewis Carroll, but it is impossible to have people who are naturally indifferent.

However, it is obvious that Eileen Chang's enthusiasm was quickly exhausted - after writing a few novels, living a life of separation and reunion, and looking at the repeated love again, everything will become clear.That's why she said that it is necessary to become famous as early as possible, not for other reasons, but because she knows that the little fun of becoming famous is only enough to enjoy at a naive age, and it will expire soon, and it will not become lively. It's a common thing to tell adults that they don't like to play firecrackers anymore. From Zhang Ailing's novels, if you can't read this meaning, it should be considered a strange thing.

Her novels along the way, like Wang Guowei's Ci, the better they are written, the more people believe that "there will be no next one".If there is, I think it was picked up. After gradually losing sight of creation, it is still possible, and very possible, to have enthusiasm for life. But it is obvious that Eileen Chang became less optimistic about life later on.What caused her coolness was hardly clear. But to put it bluntly, that's all after the novel, and has nothing to do with us as readers of the novel. He who is indifferent to life is also indifferent to death.Everyone's confusion and disappointment stem from: this indifferent Zhang Ailing is no longer the Zhang Ailing who painted the world with novels.

The only clue we have to track her down is her novels, and she is no longer at the other end of the trail. How could her death be the one everyone thought was "befitting" her? Whether you are lucky or not in life has nothing to do with creation or creation. A good creator has indeed comforted countless hard-working and lonely people, but for the creator himself, this is just "just so", "by the way", that's all. Creators, usually driven by the desire to create, have no choice but to create, like Van Gogh and Fassbender.If other people benefit from it, it is the good luck of other people, not the good intentions of the creator.

Of course, there are creators who are driven by the desire to make money, like Shakespeare, Balzac and Wagner. If there are creators whose starting point is "I want to comfort people's hearts", then usually they can only create something "comforting", and it is difficult to produce any decent works. Eileen Chang, like all good creators, may have been oppressed by the desire to "speak without complaining", or by the desire for fame and fortune, so she wrote novels.Her sympathy for the world has already been exchanged for precious works—— There is no reason, and there is no way, to exchange for the happiness of life.

If Eileen Chang's life is what she wants, or if, like most people, it is what life naturally develops into, then we actually have no position to fight against injustice. We can only respect such a unified life. We often look at a certain star in the sky, are moved by the light of that star, and make a wish for the light of that star—— And the shining star was destroyed and disappeared millions of years ago. And no one brought us the news of Xing's death one by one. To me, as long as I can still see the light when I look up, the star is still there. The same goes for the star being dead for a few days, or for millions of years.

I think Zhang Ailing is the same way.