Love in a Small Town

Author: Wang Anyi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-02-01
Features: Two young men, who have not yet created a resume for their lives, meet with almost naked entities of their existence—lives, concepts. What kind of relationship can they have? Sex becomes prominent, emerging as the only form and content of their relationship. They are as if they have lost their footing, stepping into a trap disguised with red flowers and green grass, and are helplessly falling into the abyss. They are like sliding into a rushing current, then spiraling into a fierce whirlpool, feeling powerless. They believe they are the most unlucky people in the world, almost wanting to die, but they cannot make up their minds. Yet, they still have a lingering attachment, an attachment intertwined with pain—it is that dirty kind of passion. It's as if their destined calamity has not yet ended; they cannot escape it. This book depicts the distorted sexual relationship between two young men in the oppression of ignorance. It does not condemn the male protagonist from a moral perspective but portrays the lack of male subject consciousness from a psychological perspective.