ABOUT “DIVORCE” WITH NOTES ON THIS NOVELW
ritten in the Summer of 1933,this book was my 7th fulllength novel in order of publication.
In the early Spring of 1932,the Japanese army & navy invaded Shanghai.Among other destructions, the invader burned down the famous Oriental Library of the leading publishing house of China—the Commercial Press where the sole manuscript of my novel Ta-Ming Lake was kept to be published as a serial in the Story Monthly .Both the Library & my manuscript became ashes together.
Instead of re writing the ill fated Ta-Ming Lake ,I started a satire,the Cat’s City ,as soon as the invasion was over.It was also to appear as a serial,but in a new periodical.Inspite of the agreement that it waslater to be printed in book form by the Liang Yu Co.,the publisher of the magazine in which the serial appeared insisted to have the priority of printing it.To satisfy Liang Yu,I started to write Divorce which took me only 3 months to finish.It was an extremely hot summer,but the terrific heat was somehow defeated by the writer’s furious hard—working.
By this novel,I firmly established my own style of writing. Modem Chinese literature uses the vernacular language as its means of expression.This is,of course,a new experience,and nobody exactly knows how to bring out all the beauty of the hitherto unexplored language of the people.In writing Divorce,I decided to do away with all the stale old literary expressions and to set it all in sentences and phrases so near to the spoken language as possible.I tried to imagine how a coolie would express himself when he saw a beautiful sunset.All the sayings about sunset of the ancient poets were dead things.I wanted to create a new sense of beauty out of the mind of the common people. Were my stories & philosophy all rubbish,I hope I may be always remembered by the clarity andfreshness of my language of which Divorce is the first,perhaps also the best example.
The word Divorce and its implications are new to the Chinese.From ancient times down to the beginning of the Republic,Chinese laws only supported the man to divorce his wife on the ground if she was unfaithful to him,or disobedient to his parents,or failled to give him a male heir.Otherwise,the bond could not be possibly nullified,no matter how unhappy and disagreeable the married life was.Moreover,inspite of the authority of the law,divorce was yet very seldom practiced,as the fear of disintegrating a family often overruled.Even an unhappy family was much better than the pain and scandal of bringing it to disintegration.
When divorce as practiced in the West was heard of by the Chinese,many a family had nothing less than an earthquake.The unmarried began to protest against their parents to arrange marriage for them as practiced for the past centuries.If they wished to marry now,they wanted it done as romantic as a Hollywood film.Those who had already married were so disturbed that they jumped to the conclusion at once:unless they were bold enough to get a modern girl for a new wife by divorcing the old one,they could never feel happy and contented all the rest of their life. Many,many families were thus broken up and many old fashioned wives were thrown away as old newspapers.Tear,laughter,agony,confusion,and all the elements of a tragicomedy all came together to torture the heart of men and women.
Many families were,however,saved from being dashed to the rock after the earthquake lessened its force a bit.The surging emotions were curbed somehow by a culture and tradition which were of many thousand years old.It seems that to break up a culture is a much harder matter than to break up a family.Beside tears of the wife,parent’s feelings,friend’s advices and children’s pleading eyes could sometimes make even an iron heart melt.
In a sense, a tradition and culture as old as the Chinese is really a blessing.It can contranvene the emotion to rum quite wild and soon to put life’s disturbance back to the old track of tranquility and peace.On the other hand,it seems it is also a curse to progress and revolution:one day you go three steps forward,but next day six steps back.One day you see some sacred temples of Confucius or Buddha are restlessly pulled down,but a week or so later you see they are built all anew.The matter of divorce is only one of the many examples of the conflicts and onfusions that set China in between laughs and tears.Progress is inevitably slow,as judgement of what to keep from old Cathay and what to take from its terrific new world is by no means easy to decide in one day.And this is the reason why I call Divorce a satire—something to be laughed at as well as to shed tears!
The Story
“Big Brother”Chang, a conservative,cheerful,capable,and sometimes silly,middle aged native of Peking,took match-making for men & women as a most happy & fruitful hobby.He was,of course,strongly against divorce.To him,a well matched marriage was really the foundation of the realization of a paradise on earth.On the other hand,divorce should be banned by law & denounced by every decent man and woman.
Among his friends,there were the Lis,the Wus and the Chius,who were all trying to break up the sacred vow of marriage.
Li,a shy,sincere,and somewhat day-dreaming young man,had a wife and 2 small children in his country home.“Big Brother”Chang advised and helped Li to bring his family to Peking,so to avoid the danger of a possible divorce.Mrs.Li,a country woman with a pair of so called “reformed” small feet,did not know a thing about smart dresses,fashionable hair-do,and everything that would make her acceptable to the happy breeds of Peking.She was no less confused and embarrassed than her husband,and family life became hell.
They rented their rooms from the Mas who had also matrimonial troubles.Young Ma run away with another lady,and left his pretty young wife behind with his mother.To Li,young Mrs. Ma was the poetry of womanhood on which he built up wonderful dreams of love and romance.To his surprise,Ma suddenly came home and the reunion was carried out so smoothly that they even did not have a heated quarrel.Li’s dream came to an end.With many bundles,his wife,and 2 children,he went to his country home for good.
Mr.Wu,a small civil service employee and an amateur boxer as well,had a wife whose head looked as if it was soaked in lime water for days.Naturally,he wanted a divorce.
Mr.Chiu wanted a divorce too.His wife’s chest was so flat that sht looked more like a piece of cardboard than a married lady.
Both the Wus and the Chius had a lot of trouble and quarrel,and tears were shed by the gallon.But both of them failed to get a divorce.
In the mean while,“Big Brother” Chang’s son,a vain and spoiled youth,was,instead of taking a wife and settling down as his father planned for him,so foolish and careless as to be arrested and put in jail.His daughter,a pretty young innocent,was also in trouble.She mistook a rogue for a romantic lover.Chang was heartbroken.
To be or not to be is really the question for all the characters in Divorce.
图书在版编目(CIP)数据
老舍全集.第18卷,文论工作报告译文/老舍著.—修订本.北京:人民文学出版社,2008.8
ISBN 978-7-02-006658-2
Ⅰ.①老… Ⅱ.①老… Ⅲ.①老舍(1899~1966)—全集②文艺理论—文集 Ⅳ.①I217.2
中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字(2008)第023541号
责任编辑 杨康
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文前彩插
1965年春留影
1966年春,老舍与外孙女王研(左)、孙女舒悦(右)于北京寓所
《但丁》中译文发表页
老舍翻译的《苹果车》收入《肖伯纳戏剧集》
本卷说明
本卷收入作者写于1959至1966年间的文艺理论文章共88篇。收入作者1930至1963年间的工作报告共27篇。同时收入作者1922至1956年间的翻译作品共16篇。
文论部分续接前卷,包括作者个人的创作经验、文艺作品的批评、作品序跋、文艺理论阐述及有关文艺问题的谈话。工作报告包括作者三十年代初主持编辑《齐大月刊》时以编辑部的名义写的编后记;抗战时期主持“文协”工作时写的会务报告;1949年后负责北京市“文联”和中国“作协”工作时的工作总结、工作报告等。译文部分包括作者翻译的文学作品、文艺理论文章、作家介绍和一些非文学类的文章。
这些作品大部分曾收入近年来陆续出版的《老舍文集》、《老舍论创作》、《老舍剧作全集》及其它一些作品集中,除此之外,还尽可能搜集了散见于各报刊杂志上的作品入集,其中《小故事》、《我们写了些什么?》两篇系英文转译,由胡允桓翻译。英文原文收入附录。特别是译文部分,除《苹果车》外,其余单篇译文以前从未编集出版。
作品按分类依发表或写作先后编排,篇末注有初发时间和刊物。
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