Learning Mandarin - BOTM November 2007，《雷雨》 - Page 3 -

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BOTM November 2007，《雷雨》
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muyongshi -

Shouldn't tell me that....I might just have to quit

Why is it that all "great works" (or just even most authors) seem to be so 悲观 and love writing
these 悲剧?



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studentyoung -



Quote:

Shouldn't tell me that....I might just have to quit

Why is it that all "great works" (or just even most authors) seem to be so 悲观 and love writing
these 悲剧?

I understand how you feel, however, I here have one word for you in “Commemorating Miss Liu
Hezhen” by Luxun (鲁迅《记念刘和珍君》) as below.
真的猛士,敢于直面惨淡的人生,敢于正视淋漓的鲜血。
A true brave man dare face up to blue aspects and bloody scenes in life.

Hope you can feel better now! And cheer up, muyongshi!

Cheers!










imron -

Anyone else still reading this? There's still a week left :） I've just finished reading it now.










muyongshi -

I WILL FINISH...Now that Thanksgiving is over! I'm about a week behind but I should finish in a
week....










rob07 -

I wouldn't call this a "great work". I think it relies too much on cheap tricks for effect, what
with all the incest, death and madness. Still, it was fun I guess.

My favourite character was 鲁贵, he felt the most real. Such a scumbag! 周繁漪 had a very
passive negative presence, which I thought worked well. Gong Li seemed to take over the movie a
bit too much.

Imron, what did you think?










imron -



Quote:

I think it relies too much on cheap tricks for effect, what with all the incest, death and madness.

Yes, some of the story definitely felt like it was straight out of a bad TV soap opera, except
that it predates TV soaps by a few decades.



Quote:

I wouldn't call this a "great work".

It's considered to be one of the better plays written during that period, and to be fair, I think
that as a play it loses something when you read it as opposed to seeing it acted out.

Overall I quite liked it though, despite the fact that it's a tragedy.

I think I agree with you about favourite character, although I also liked 冲. The other
characters just didn't seem to have anything going for them that made you care too much about
them. With 鲁贵, being such a good-for-nothing at least made you despise him.










rob07 -

Yes, I liked 周冲 too. He and to a lesser extent 四凤 were innocents. They had no way of
knowing that events that happened long before they were born meant that they inevitably were going
to end up screwed. This makes the play classic tragedy in the Greek tradition and gives it most of
its narrative force.

This was what I was getting at when I said that 周繁漪 had a very passive negative presence,
which I thought worked well, and that Gong Li seemed to take over the movie a bit too much. Yes,
things haven't worked out that well for you since your step-son decided he didn't want to sleep
with you any more, but why should I care? From a narrative point of view, the evil deeds of the
past are scarier if they are left half veiled in shadow, and the focus is on how they continue to
blight the lives of future generations, rather than on how people who wrecked their lives years
ago continue to have wrecked lives.

I think one of the most interesting things about the play is that, as I understand it, it is one
of the first recognised Chinese literary works to show strong signs of Western influence. I
understand that 曹禺 was heavily influenced by Henrik Ibsen, and I think it is fair to say that
雷雨's roots are ancient Greek. I don't know much about Ibsen, but I think you can see his
influence in some of the other major writers of the period, particularly伤逝 by 魯迅.










muyongshi -

I can see that it has qualities to it and by the end was getting into it despite how painful it
was. The long dialogs are a bit hard to read rather than to see acted out and some of them were
just down right painful as characters like 鲁贵 and 周繁漪 rambled on. Kind of felt that the
father was a bit underdeveloped but I also felt like he was one of the more "real" characters as
well. Just living his life, hurts and all, and just hoping to kind of get old and die. You can
tell he loved his family and was concerned for all of them. 鲁贵 was also really real but you
can't like him for it. I think 周冲 and 四凤 were the embodiment of the entirety of the
tragedy. 周冲 with all the weight of the "sin" on his shoulders countered by 四凤 who was the
pure and innocent. Very interesting read.










chenpv -



Quote:

周冲 with all the weight of the "sin" on his shoulders countered by 四凤 who was the pure and
innocent.

Out of curiosity, what was Zhou Chong's sin and why do you think Sifeng was pure and innocent?










muyongshi -

No I'm not saying that he was guilty and she was innocent what I'm saying is that their characters
took on those roles. Meaning that he was weighed down heavy by depression and a type of guilt and
it represented all the mistakes of the entire family being piled onto him. And well si feng was
the opposite. She made him feel like there was something to live for and she was always portrayed
with kind of this feel of a young, lively girl.












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