Maugham s Blade After reading it, the first time I read Maugham s The Blade question

Maugham's "Blade" after reading:

The detached Larry pinned Maugham's deep thoughts on the First World War. In Maugham's confessions of the heart in his later years, we see that Maugham felt that war was not just a callous, but a reminder of deception: it shattered "everything that was once thought to be true."

It makes people "wake up from their dreams and begin to reflect on whether there is a distance between truth and falsehood, good and evil". At the same time, Maugham also believed that war was the result of human self-centeredness. The way to avoid war, to remove all kinds of practical factors, in the soul is first of all to abandon the strong concept and consciousness of self-centeredness, but to achieve the realm of "selflessness", in the harmony between the spirit and the word, and to appreciate the infinity of life in the unhindered communication.

Maugham used the immortal literary image of Larry to express his understanding of the nature of human beings: there are countless desires in the heart, and it is desires that constitute the driving force of people's practice. To save people, we first need to restore peace of mind.

Blade actually expresses the absurd essentialism of life similar to Expressionism in a realistic way. Although Maugham did not take the approach of going directly to the heart and appealing to mystical intuition. "Blade" adopts a kind of irony in the connotation, which is to let the meaning be offset and destroyed in the self-contradictory meeting.

The love between Larry and Isabel came to a dead end, which many people believe to be the result of an accidental event, but in fact an irreparable inevitable event, which can be reasonably interpreted by the theory of value conflict in sociology. The theory of value conflict holds that society is not integrated, but there are different interest groups, each of which holds its own values, and different values lead to social conflicts.

Larry's breakup with Isabel essentially reveals the tremendous impact of emerging capitalist values in the United States on the ancient civilization of Europe. With the growing strength of the United States and the weakening of European countries by the First World War, the American representatives were anxious for quick success, and the values of material pursuit became the mainstream social concept in capitalist society, which had an almost upside-down impact on the civilizational superiority that Europe had always held. If Larry had lived in European society half a century ago, he would have been an extremely ordinary individual in the ancient civilization of Europe, and it was precisely because he lived at the historical juncture of the deconstruction of the Western capitalist value system that he became the ultimate of that era.

About the book "Blade":

Blade is written by William Somerset Maugham, about a young American pilot Larry Darrell who competed in World War I. In the army, Larry befriended an Irish friend: a pilot who usually risked life and death, but was shot and killed in an encounter to save Larry.

Lost in life and unable to figure out why there is evil and misfortune in the world, Larry begins his incredible transformation.

I started reading Maugham's "Blade" yesterday, which is also fascinating, especially Larry in the book, his development attracts the reader's attention and curiosity, and follows the author's context all the way forward.

At present, I have read two-thirds of the book, and I have been wondering, why is it called "Blade" when it is originally a book that writes about the image of sentient beings? Seeing this name, it is easy to think of the knife that is usually used, and the meaning of the blade is very sharp and powerful. Use this blade as a metaphor for which person in the book, Larry, this dragon who has no head or tail?

Or Eliot, this upper-class diplomat, walking social activist?

Or any other character, or not specifically at all, but the people in the war, after the war and in the rear. There is also a ** market, which is also the brother of the economy, such as the bankruptcy of Gray Company.

Go back to the beginning of the book: "The razor's edge is extremely sharp, and those who want to pass through it are all difficult; It is the old saying of the wise that the way to salvation is difficult. —Gato. The Upanishads are envious.

A knife has two sides, and those of us who live on earth only stay on one side of the sword, and to get to the other side (the so-called way of salvation), we must go beyond the edge.

But the blade is so sharp that it is difficult for ordinary people to cross it. Why is it so difficult to cross? Because when you cross the blade, the blade will cut off all ties between you and the world, and we ordinary people are not willing to cut it.

In the book, Larry's parents died when he was a child, cutting off family ties; He left his fiancée Isabella behind and cut off his love; He gave up his parents' inheritance and cut off his wealth.

In Larry's own words, it is "not impatient, easy-going, compassionate, and discarding a single word." It is precisely because of this that he is able to pursue the truth and the meaning of human existence in the world. And how many of us who live in the red world can lose a word of me?

As the saying goes, everyone in the world is good about immortals, but only the fame cannot be forgotten.

It seems that the first time I read it, I didn't fully understand the deep meaning that the author was trying to express. I just feel like I want to be like Larry.

Wander around in search of the truth of life. If you are not afraid of hardship, you are afraid that you will not be able to get out of your own limitations and do not know the hardships of the world.

Blade Blade is the final part of Maugham's tetralogy, which describes the meaning of the protagonist Larry's pursuit of his own life during World War II. We don't know what he experienced during the war, but the death of his comrades had a great impact on him. After being discharged from the army, Larry did not go to college, did not get married, and did not want to work, so he left his relatives and went to Europe to march, and finally went to India, and finally had an epiphany about the true meaning of life.

What is life for, is life meaningful, or can it just be sadly at the mercy of fate? I don't know how you feel when you see this sentence, whether you have ever thought like this. Well, your admiration for yourself.

As for why we live, the meaning of life, etc., this already belongs to the category of philosophy. Ordinary people may all have lofty ideals or dreams, but in fact, I admire people like Xiang Larry, who don't need to consider the influence of the world, be yourself, and explore the meaning of life.

On the first page of the main text of this book, there is such a sentence, Wang Pai imitates "The razor's edge is extremely envious, and those who want to pass are all hard; It is the old saying of the wise that the way of salvation is difficult. —Gato. The Upanishads Maugham met Larry in the library and discovered that the book he was reading was Principles of Psychology.

Maugham couldn't have imagined that this young man, who had been a pilot and danced until five o'clock in the morning before returning home, could read such a book. Larry said, "I know too little.

But he was reluctant to go to college. "I'm not afraid to make mistakes, and I can't find my purpose in life on one of the wrongful paths. Later, Larry said goodbye to his fiancée Isabel and went to Europe in search of a target.

Maugham spoke again with Larry, who said, "I felt the need to put my books down for a while, and I read books for eight to 10 hours a day for two years, so I decided to work in a coal mine." "In Larry's view, physical labor helps clear my mind and helps me face reality.

After that, he began to embark on the path of self-search. This ** takes Larry as the main line and tells the story of the people around Larry. The ending must be guessed, his fiancée married someone else.

Larry will eventually find the true meaning of life.

In addition, there are many intriguing characters who feel like they are also trying to interpret their personal meanings. Everyone has their own choices, and different lives have different ways of living, but first think about what you want, and then pursue it. You can also choose to live the moment, but you can't stop thinking.

August 2021