WULOLIFE
"The Lonely Game" Author: Yuan Zhesheng Publisher: Beijing United Publishing Company
"The Lonely Game" Author: Yuan Zhesheng Publisher: Beijing United Publishing Company
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Description
Introduction · · · · · ·
☆ Beijing News·Tencent's Top Ten Books of 2017
☆ Douban 2017 annual reading list Chinese literature (novel category) TOP1
☆ The First Bookmaking Award for Original Novel of the Year
Capture the lonely corners with innocent eyes
Zhang Dachun praised him as one of the two writers who supported the 21st century novel industry.
Winner of Taiwan's Wu Zhuoliu Literature Award, United Daily News Literature Award, and Times Literature Award
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※Editor's Recommendation※
☆ Yuan Zhesheng is ranked as the best novelist in Taiwan in the 1960s with Luo Yijun for his calm and restrained short story style. He is also one of the two writers praised by Zhang Dachun as "the one who supports the 21st century novel industry". He also influenced a group of young Taiwanese authors such as Tong Weiguo, Gan Yaoming, Gao Yifeng, and Wang Congwei. If Yuan Zhesheng continues to write, perhaps he will be the most outstanding novelist in Taiwan today...
☆ American novelist Hemingway once proposed the famous iceberg theory, which states that writers only leave one-eighth of their writing to readers, and the other seven-eighths are hidden. Yuan Zhesheng, who has always admired Hemingway's iceberg theory, also showed his own iceberg writing in this book "The Lonely Game". Through his consistent calm words and simple structure, he left one-tenth of the part; the blank spaces between the lines hide the profound meaning of nine-tenths for readers to explore on their own. When readers feel that nine-tenths, the meaning of Yuan Zhesheng's words is truly revealed.
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※Content Introduction※
In this book, "The Lonely Game", which consists of seven short stories, Yuan Zhesheng repeatedly captures loneliness, "the sense of dilemma that people must face" through various interpersonal emotions, such as the affection between parents and sons, the friendship between classmates in their youth, or the affection between husband and wife who have been married for many years. The feeling of loneliness is everywhere between the lines. Loneliness and solitude have always been a common tone in literary works, and it is also an emotion that many writers try their best to describe. However, when we carefully appreciate Yuan Zhesheng's calm and restrained words in "The Lonely Game", we will eventually discover a kind of loneliness writing that is unique to Yuan Zhesheng.
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※Recommended by celebrities※
In Yuan Zhesheng’s best works, he is clearly not satisfied with simply describing life fragments, but wants to express more complex views through narrative form. This allows him to transcend the limitations of realistic simulation, and the award-winning "Farewell" is exactly this. In the story, the father takes his younger son on a train to see off his older son who was caught as a deserter; then the younger son goes to the harbor to see his father off. In this way, the relationship between the characters gradually becomes distant, and the narrative power becomes weaker and weaker. A novel about family affection actually contrasts with the loneliness of the world being cruel and what can be done. We are as close as flesh and blood, so what?
——Literary critic Wang Dewei
The author of "Farewell" has extremely precise control over words, which keeps the readers in a calm state at a certain "distance". The deliberately low and faint tone makes the little people floating around in the Hong Kong-style town more humble and lonely because of their vague faces. The author's extensive use of plain brushstrokes will not become empty because of "not depicting the psychological changes of the characters". Instead, through the characters' passing encounters, unconnected actions and encounters, the author's deep concern is revealed - the fragmentation and alienation of human existence.
——Zhang Dachun, a contemporary Chinese writer
He replaced moderation and omission with a strong desire to express. He wanted to combine personal feelings with the current state of society into a literary whole. However, he did not forget the art of concealment. He wanted to strike a balance between revealing and implying. He used rich and accurate descriptions of reality to build the structure of his works. He also understood that he had to go deep into society to pursue his goals.
——Taiwanese novelist Zheng Qingwen
About the Author · · · · · ·
Yuan Zhesheng (1966-2004) was born in Gangshan Town, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan (now Gangshan District, Kaohsiung City). He graduated from the English Department of Cultural University and the Institute of Western Languages and Literature of Tamkang University. His writing is calm and plain, his narrative technique is simple and restrained, and his writing style is like an alienated iceberg. The blank spaces between the lines often contain profound meanings. His works often capture the loneliness of human beings, the plight of survival, and the depressed emotions hidden in people's hearts through the innocent eyes of children.
He has won the first prize of the 17th and 22nd "Times Literature Award" in Taiwan for short stories, the 20th "United Daily News Literature Award" for short stories, the 33rd "Wu Zhuoliu Literature Award" for novels, and the "May Fourth Literature Medal" for novels, etc. He has written the novel collections "The Sheep Standing Still on the Tree", "The Lonely Game", and "The Scholar's Watch", the novellas "Monkey" and "Arhat Pond", the Ni Yada series of novels, and the memorial collection "Standing Still: The Beginning and the End" published by Taiwan Baoping Culture.
