First, any great novel tells the same story. This is the case from Cervantes, the first man in Western fiction, or back in Greek mythology. Of course, this story must be about the growth, adventure and conquest of a hero. Growth is the theme, and adventure and conquest are the plot. Of course, there are countless variants of this model, such as satirical or parody (Don Quixote or Taming of the Shrew), absurd or bleak (castle or Tin Drum or Shame); some have family variations spanning generations (Of course, a hundred years of loneliness); some are just situations that represent a specific moment in life (outsiders). In a considerable proportion, the protagonist is a female, and more often, he/they has nothing to do with the title of hero. After they get into trouble, they are stuck there, and even die there (Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea), even if Is eternal immortality or death (2001: A Space Odyssey, Interview with the Vampire).
In either case, the author's purpose is to entice you to read on. This purpose naturally has a strong economic motive; Han Han's announced royalty income exceeds 90% of his peers. But inevitably, it also carries another message the author needs to convey: his conclusions about human nature. This conclusion may be just a very objective or even boring description and listing of phenomena, but it can still imply a certain personal attitude, not to mention that these guys who fail in life often have a strong attitude (I always think that people who live a happy life do not need constant Write to entertain yourself or others, or simply to live without entertaining others, so the profession of clowns is actually extremely miserable) Fortunately, there are still far more honest writers than sincere painters, although they are a large number Part of it, like those new Andy Howells, is just trying to make ends meet or make a splash; unfortunately there are always too many writers who are too untalented to be too sincere, or that's the same in all art fields.
After giving them reserved affirmations, let's take a look at what they have to say. As said before, the trick to art is in skillful repetition and constant variation of popular themes; since they only have one story to write, it's best to put in enough sauce to cook. The three open secrets of French food are butter, butter, butter; the three secrets of fiction are plot, plot, plot. In this sense alone, the founding of the country is a good work, comparable to Manna's memoirs. However, if only eating butter is not considered a delicacy, not to mention the damage to health and the exposed vulgar taste, of course, blindly pursuing plot has some similar harms. What's more, almost no one wants to miss all the episodes in the latter work in particular, so we don't discuss such simple issues here.
Let's focus on what, in such a mysterious and fascinating novel, are the authors trying to express but never say explicitly, which threads are interrelated and eventually merge into a complete picture, which are thematically polyphonic, and ultimately It repeats and reinforces it by transposing it. Yes, this part is going to be very annoying, boring and tedious. The easiest way for us to simplify is to turn to someone who has already simplified it for help: philosophers. They spend their lives explaining everything we see, hear, realize, experience every day, and tell us that it's not, at least not exactly, what it looks, sounds, or feels. Their purpose is to try to reveal the laws behind life, some more basic principles, and these laws and principles have indeed been confirmed and followed in a period or field of human civilization. It's easy to think that writers who are constantly imitating real life and trying to give direction will also construct the lives of their heroes according to an understanding or even a theory. It is absurd and tragic for an author to live in a structure constructed according to one of the bad theories, but his crooked operation and constant self-healing also prove that a structure is more or less is an improvement over Total Disorder; it's not surprising, then, that the author did so.
In this novel, the author reflects the influence of typical German culture and philosophy. The protagonist who was born in a filthy place is surrounded by the smell of fish, meat, and sweat, those smells that represent human desires and life, but he has no smell. This is not only a dehumanizing setting for the protagonist, but also a superhuman a hint of sex. It is a common technique to give the protagonist of a story something that transcends everyday life, but the absence of such a quality as smell actually implies that the protagonist does not have the desires, hobbies, and aspirations of ordinary people. It can be understood that the protagonist does not have the original sin of depravity, and it can also be understood that the protagonist does not have a reason to exist in society. For a long time thereafter, the protagonist's motives move dangerously between two goals: survival and recognition. For a social animal such as man, these two goals are actually the main behavioral motives of all individuals. Survival is not a very complicated goal for any individual. The main threat of the protagonist lies in the way he uses his scent to understand the world and the ideas based on this way are different from ordinary people, and conflicts with ordinary people are inevitable. The goal of gaining recognition is relatively complicated, because it must involve more recognition of the contract of social ethics, which involves how to understand the contract. Conflict is inevitable from this point of view, but it is not easy to express clearly and clearly through any of the current artistic means. Recognition is actually hidden between the third and fourth goals.
Soon, the protagonist has a third goal: beauty and perfection. In Germanic culture, order and frenzy were alternate terms and phenomena, and the concepts from Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Sun and Dionysus have never been explored and practiced so deeply. The pursuit of beauty itself is cross-cultural, and it is also based on desire, libido and other irrepressible, infatuation from the instinctive level of animals; however, the process of this pursuit often means continuous repetition and improvement, continuous comparison and analysis. A rational, methodical side must be introduced. Therefore, the pursuit of beauty and the pursuit of perfection represent a balanced pursuit of sensibility and rationality in civilization. In Germanic culture, there is often more emphasis on the beauty contained in order, that is, the beauty of structure and system. There is no need to repeat Kant's famous words, let alone later Hegel and Marx. The pursuit of the protagonist in these two aspects is very balanced, the awakening of youth and the study of handicraft technology go hand in hand.
But back to beauty itself, we have so far not acquired any means of creation that can be fully reproduced technically. The ultimate beauty will only be partially restored and reconstructed through imitation and analysis after it appears. At the same time, whether our recognition of beauty can extend to unconventional creators is a deviating scenario. We have media darlings who put toilets in art galleries and get admiration, but we also have pioneers who cut off their ears and fail to win a confidant. The tragedy of the protagonist is that he uses killing methods that are unacceptable to ordinary people to obtain the beauty he seeks. This intense conflict constantly draws our attention to his fate, led by his adventures. Of course this sentiment is most common in gangster films, where an unruly hero who hurts everyday values saves the whole situation.
We speak of the quest for perfection rather than the quest for beauty itself, which guides our repetition. This is probably one of our most fundamental criticisms of technology in modern society: how to distinguish between ends and means, between results and processes, between motivation and skills, and stay awake at all times. As far as I'm concerned, it's certainly very pessimistic. In fact, so does the protagonist. His repetition is the confirmation of his failure to pursue. He has realized that beauty is difficult to capture and repeat, there is no rule to follow, and it is often futile to pursue and reproduce. So far, the protagonist seems to be a regular adventure hero who has reached a dead end.
The plot that follows is full of conflict: the protagonist kills the last virgin, gets the ultimate virgin fragrance, is arrested, and is about to be executed for his crime, while the only fragrance is ready and the hero's experience is about to peak. In the climax, the protagonist confuses the senses of the whole city with a perfume made from virgin body scent. He achieves his goals of survival and recognition. He can already command the wind and rain, but what about his third goal of beauty? Here, we noticed that he was more indulged in the aftermath of using perfume. The experience of childhood orphans and the constant discrimination in his life controlled him. All the gains in the process of pursuing beauty became a tool for him to control others and an accomplice to realize himself. . Here, is a very graceful variation of the hero theme, from a drop of the original theme of "beauty" to a stride of new themes of "power" and "control". This is the dissolution of the heroic characteristics, that is, the loss of the ultimate goal and the sinking, and it is also the affirmation of another heroic characteristic, which is the realization of the individual. Interpreted in this way, it is not difficult for readers to realize that the story must end in tragedy. Finally, the story reaches its final climax when the perfumed protagonist is torn apart by his admirers and dies, and the hero's way of dying conveys a great deal: the way he understood the world is finally close and unintelligible; his wrong The use of his talents destroys himself and his society; in this sense death is no longer an end to escape or a release, but some kind of contract. It can be seen that this is a typical Greek drama, the difference is that the death of the protagonist in this novel is the end of the tragedy rather than the continuation. Ultimately, we should be able to detect the author's intent. Yes, the author's only intention is very clear: the pursuit of beauty is very difficult and dangerous, full of all kinds of obstruction and harm, and it must hurt others more than once. The pursuit of beauty does not necessarily equate to the pursuit of love, at least not in the worldly sense. The pursuit of beauty requires constant persistence, stealing, begging and lying, and if necessary, killing. The pursuit beyond social ethics is difficult, but the rewards are also huge: there is a huge richness of experience and emotion in beauty that the individual cannot bear. At the same time, this unparalleled beauty is extremely dangerous, and the energy it possesses tends to destroy the one who possesses it and experiences it.
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