Moon and sixpence: 1
The plot of The Moon and Sixpence is based on the life of Gauguin, a French post-impressionist painter. Strickland, the hero, was originally a securities broker, with a wife and children and a well-off life. When people reach middle age, they give up everything for painting. At first, he went to Paris for inspiration, then moved to Tahiti, isolated from the world and looking for inner peace. But when he finished painting, his life came to an end.
This is a book about the contradiction between art and life, ideal and reality. Where do we come from? Who Are We? Where are we going?
Strickland is eccentric, and he is not ashamed to leave his wife and children. He was not embarrassed to destroy a family indirectly because of his own selfish desires. He is bent on pursuing the unreachable moon, and even if he lives in a shabby house without any money, he still looks arrogant.
There are three places that left a deep impression on the full text.
First, his family is rich and happy. What made him give up everything to find painting inspiration? Mao Mu doesn't know, neither do we.
Secondly, he was dying in Paris and reluctantly accepted the help of his friends, but he did something treacherous, destroying his marriage and letting his wife die for him. He is not ashamed at all. On the contrary, he thinks it's their own fault.
Third, he married Aita in Tahiti. In fact, he doesn't love her, but she won't bind him, set him free and take care of him. This is different from the first two women in his life.
Which is more important, the moon or sixpence?
Mao Mu may emphasize that the moon is more important in this book, but let's take a look at Steve in the book. He was a good man all his life, married a wife who was abused by others, extended a helping hand to Strickland, praised his paintings, and offered to give them the studio when he learned that his wife was in love with Strickland. After his wife left with Strickland, he was in great pain, but as long as his wife wanted to come back, he was still willing to accept her and always loved her. There is no so-called distant moon in his heart, and he seems to care more about the meaning of life. This may be what more people are looking for.
There are too many things between ideal and reality, and between ordinary and extraordinary is also a personal choice. If it were me, I would be happy to pursue the meaning of life, whether it is the moon or sixpence.
Reflection on the Moon and Sixpence II
An eccentric old man with a bright red beard. He is Strickland, the protagonist in Mao Mu's novels, which is both disgusting and respectable.
He is a person who has no feelings at all, and his mind may only be painting. He gave up his position as a securities broker, his family, wealth and ease and went to Paris. There is only one purpose to do this: painting. Painting is more attractive to him than anything else, and neither hunger nor illness can stop his desire to paint. These are also obvious. However, strickland has never been fully understood by anyone, and his every move is hard to be guessed by others. Coupled with his ferocious face, it is even more daunting and afraid to approach him. His feelings for outsiders are always contradictory, and even the readers' feelings for this role are mixed.
Being around Strickland is also a great torture. He is ill, and those who serve him are not thanked; He was in financial difficulties, and his sponsors did not repay him. Strickland was completely immersed in the spell of painting, which was inhuman to him. But at the same time, the so-called good friend also has an expectation and desire for him: he expects his paintings to be famous, and he is eager to make a blockbuster. This ambivalence is torturing me.
But then again, is strickland worthy of respect? Is he a nasty diehard or a great artist? No one can achieve a person, but a person can't achieve himself alone. Only when he makes a breakthrough and shows it to others can he "achieve himself". Strickland painstakingly painted and devoted himself to art, which is of great significance. He is also a respectable person. However, people who know art agree with him, and people who don't know art can only stand by and watch. Even if they know a little, their cognition of him has changed. He became a broken-hearted man and abandoned his wife and children.
His appeal to outsiders is not solid and firm, and he failed to catch people's eyes and "standardize" people's understanding. Even if he has made many achievements in the field of art, he will never win trust and appreciation in real life. His pursuit is like the moon, beautiful and attractive, but he ignores the essence of existence and fails to cherish every sixpence.
In fact, everyone has a "month" in his heart, and everyone has something he yearns for and favors. It's just that different people have different long-cherished wishes. Different long-cherished wishes are like different months. After reading it, it depends on people whether the moon stars are scarce or the stars hold the moon. Some people immerse themselves in their own world, pursue their own goals and fly to the full moon in the sky. They always have an elusive fairy spirit, inaccessible but undeniable ambition. More and more people are pursuing the crescent moon, hoping that the stars around them will shine with them and make the night sky brighter.
"Life is so long that it is fleeting. Some people see dust, others see stars. Charles is a man who has been in idolize all his life. " He abandoned the city, came to the backward island, interacted with the aborigines, abandoned the world of mortals and approached the stars. People who live freely and follow their own hearts, like Strickland in the book, magnify the abstract ideal infinitely and become the sinking side of the balance between ideal and reality. It's hard for such an inexperienced person to stand in this city.
However, the world and reality he outlined with brushes and pigments eventually became a rare treasure in the real world and reality. A person who fled the city pinned his soul on the brush and showed his spirit on the canvas. He is Strickland, the protagonist in Mao Mu's works, and will always be respected.
Reflections on the Moon and Sixpence 3
It has a high reputation. If you haven't seen it, you probably know the core of it, and it is occasionally used to falsely describe idealism. After reading it, I was shocked by the vivid description of the paintings inside, but I lost a lot of my previous feelings.
Before reading it, I thought that the protagonist of the novel was a lovely young man who struggled for his ideal all his life, but he was as poor as a church mouse. Described as cute, because, I think, that man is at least a kind and naive person. However, the fact is that the man is a grumpy and rude uncle. The prototype of this uncle is Gauguin, a famous painter. Uncle was actually a typical "successful" person in his early days, and sixpence's life seemed to underestimate his social status. However, perhaps it is this contrast that makes this role stand out for a long time. The first comparison is uncle's age. He is not a teenager who has just entered the society, but a man with an enviable family. It seems incredible for such a person to let him drop everything and pursue the unreachable "moon". How much determination does it take? The second contrast is uncle's social status. If he has nothing, I can imagine what kind of nirvana rebirth a desperate person will encounter, but he is a successful person who is smooth, happy and can start from scratch without worrying about the "sinking cost". How much courage does it take?
I haven't studied Gauguin's real history. For this novel, its description beyond the real world and sometimes far-fetched logic inevitably make me feel true. But perhaps, truth is not the original intention of this novel. Even if this genius has extraordinary talent, I personally don't like him. Apart from superficial irresponsibility and harm to the family. What I hate most is his attitude towards his friends. I forgot the name of the only friend who admired him. Let's call him Xiao Pang for the time being. Xiao Pang is also a painter. After seeing his paintings, he cherished his talents very much. Even if this person has a bad temper and no manners and upbringing, Xiao Pang is still very kind to him. Unfortunately, instead of gratitude, this man cheated his chubby wife. In fact, I always thought that the novel didn't explain the reason, because at first Xiaopang's wife hated this man and had a very loving relationship with Xiaopang.
Later, inexplicably, I was attracted to that man. I remember using a "wild and primitive" attraction to simply explain the unfaithfulness of my chubby wife. Maybe there are too many unexplained phenomena in that man.
Reflections on the Moon and Sixpence 4
This is the first novel by Mao Mu that I have read, and it is also one of his most famous works. I spent almost two weeks watching the first half before going to bed every day. The second half was finished in two nights. Mao Mu is really a master storyteller. He spoke less than half a book, and the front was written like paper. When you were almost uninterested, suddenly there was a change and a big event happened, so you read it all the way quickly, and you were still too excited.
After reading the whole book, I found no mention of the moon or sixpence. I don't know why he has such a name. Maybe it's just a name. Actually, I basically only know the name Mao Mu. I just googled his life. Some people say that this novel is based on the life of the painter Gauguin, so I googled Gauguin again and found that this is not the case at all. Although Gauguin was really down and out, he did go to Tahiti and painted many pictures of primitive life. But the novel itself has nothing to do with Gauguin, and it doesn't matter without Gauguin, but Mao Mu is talking to himself there, enjoying himself.
Let's start with a general idea. The writer first talked about how a painter is excellent, how his paintings sell well, how his family gossips and so on. Then I said "I" lived in London, mixed with some literature and met some people. One of them is the wife of a stockbroker. She doesn't write herself, but she loves literature and young men and women, so she often invites them to dinner. Occasionally, I met her husband and found that he was a middle-aged man of the standard honest staff type and did not talk. Then they go on holiday. This is less than half a book.
Just as I was about to watch it, suddenly, this honest professional middle-aged man ran away, abandoned his family, money and career and went to Paris. Then the wife said that the writer helped to find him in Paris. This middle-aged man has changed. He is completely unreasonable. He has completely lost interest in family and society, and he doesn't feel that he is doing anything wrong. He devoted himself to painting, claiming that he felt the call, and that the whole person was ordered by some force, not himself.
Although I don't think highly of his paintings, another second-rate painter thinks his paintings are very good, so he always lends him money to help him. He is critically ill and wants to go home to recuperate. This man hooked up with the wife of a second-rate painter during his illness, and the second-rate painter himself had to run away from home. Three months later, suddenly, the second-rate painter's wife committed suicide, but he still didn't say anything, just left a picture of the poor woman as a model, which impressed the second-rate painter. He also made it clear that he doesn't love this woman at all, he just needs a model, and it's useless after painting.
Later, he invited me to see thirty paintings, and I felt his struggle in the paintings. And then there was no news for years. Later he became famous and died in Tahiti. So "I" went to this place, interviewed some people and learned about his life on this island. He married an indigenous woman, gave birth to a child, lived in a dense jungle and kept painting. Later, he got leprosy and died.
Since the painter named strickland left Paris and appeared in an inhuman manner, Mao Mu has actually replaced the legendary Gauguin. Whether Gauguin himself really experienced this spiritual journey or not, I think Mao Mu did. He wrote down all these ideas.
The original idea is that life is meaningless, and you must live as meaningfully as possible. Therefore, you can sacrifice yourself, many people can do it, and you can also sacrifice others, only a few people can do it. The painter in the book shows that he has no idea about this problem at all. He doesn't think about it at all. His own body has nothing to do with it, and so does other people's bodies. Everything is just for his paintings.
Reflections on the Moon and Sixpence 5
There were sixpence everywhere, but he looked up at the moon. Notes before the text of a book or after the title of an article.
Do you know someone who is over middle age, has average performance and gets along well with his wife and children? This kind of person must be very common in life. This book tells the story of such a person.
But if one day, this person suddenly ran away from home, leaving only a note "Dinner is ready" and leaving his penniless wife and children for Paris, what would you think? Disgusting, right? People in the book thought so at first, and they all felt sorry for their wives' tragic experience. Later, the "I" in the book met him in Paris and learned that he left home not for anything but for painting. You may be surprised and unreasonable, but it just happened. Later, "I" moved to Paris and met the artist Stroeve. I happened to meet him again and found that he often had to worry about eating, but it seemed that as long as he could draw, he didn't care about anything else.
A few months later, he suddenly fell ill, very ill, and lived in Stroeve's house. Stroeve and his wife took care of him wholeheartedly, but when he recovered a little, they kicked Stroeve out of his studio and left him to paint in it alone. He doesn't draw well in others' eyes. Seeing this, I believe many people will feel angry and even want to get into the book and give him a good beating, but this is not the most serious. Later, after he recovered, Stroeve's wife took a fancy to him and asked to go with him. Poor Stroeve also felt the misery of human nature.
Many years later, he left Paris and began to wander in Marseilles. Later, he went to Tahiti, married local indigenous women and had children, where he created many paintings that amazed the world. Unfortunately, he suffers from leprosy, blindness and pain. But even so, he kept painting until the last second of his life.
Is this Charlie from Mao Mu? Strickland, or the famous painter Gauguin.
Two things in the title of this book, "Moon" and "sixpence", hardly appear in the book, but the truth in the book is also inseparable from their symbolic significance. "sixpence" is a small sum of money, which is very common and everyone can have it. And the "moon" is very far away, in the eyes of people at that time is out of reach, and always so mysterious. After reading it, I think Stree has so many sixpence, a happy family and a stable income. But he is not satisfied with this. What he pursues is the "moon", the moon in his mind. In fact, in today's society, many people are "sixpence". After getting a little benefit, they are unwilling to continue to try to pursue greater goals and look up at the moon. To put it mildly, stop when it is applauded, and enough is enough. But when you really try and reach the realm of the "moon", you will find how humble the "sixpence" was at that time.
Strangely, he never allows anyone to be around when painting, not anyone.
After painting, I never want to sell it or show it to others easily. Sometimes I even throw it away or burn it after painting. You may ask, what did he draw these pictures for? The "I" in the book guesses through the conversation with him because he can feel some unique things in the world that ordinary people can't feel, and he can only express his innermost thoughts through paintings. When he finishes painting, he thinks that what he should do has been completed, and those paintings are not important, so it doesn't matter to destroy them. He, the people of Dont Ask For Help understand him and agree with him. They just want their inner world to be "liberated" and their desires to be satisfied.
You may also think that what Terry has done is unreasonable, that is, he can paint with his wife and children at home. Why does he have to run away from home and live a poor life to paint? This is another unusual thing about Terry: his view of love. He thinks that every man needs to experience a love, but when his desire is satisfied, he no longer needs love. He believes that women will always try their best to please their husbands, which will delay the realization of their ideals. Like Garcia. Marquez wrote in Love during Cholera: "Love is a curable disease."
Another brilliant part of this book is the author's analysis of characters, analyzing the behaviors of various people in the eyes of "I" and trying to convince myself with the most possible one. If you still have a lot of questions about this book, read the original, maybe it will make you better understand The Moon and Sixpence.
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