Standing in love

Author: Suggested to see a doctor
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: The protagonist, Chen Bei, is an ordinary man struggling with desires, a Don Quixote-like love knight of the 21st century. He has many flaws and has made many mistakes, with betrayal and being betrayed playing a significant part in his life. However, he is not a particularly bad man. Yet, his noisy physical body and lonely soul make him an undeniably tragic figure. He chases after his so-called ideals—love and life—with great effort. He has a special kind of obsession, and for this obsession, he is willing to harm himself and those around him, causing severe hurt and destruction. Xiao Dao is imagined by Chen Bei as a goddess who saves him online. In reality, she is no different from the women in Chen Bei's past—clever, realistic, and always wavering between desire and reason, unable to resist indulgence. But Chen Bei stubbornly refuses to acknowledge this. Among the female characters, Xiao Dao being unpopular is normal, because the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. Chen Bei's harsh expectations of her ultimately strip away her likable qualities in the eyes of the readers. It's unsure whether this is the cruelty of life or the cruelty of the novel itself. She is both Chen Bei's ideal and his Pandora's box. In Chen Bei's drifting soul, she is like the forbidden fruit in Eden—beautiful, tempting, but always a trap, an alluring trap and a deadly challenge to reality. Once ensnared, disasters, illnesses, panic, and disappointments press upon him like the plague. Xiao Dao is merely a distant, elusive woman of temptation, a fleeting firework in a dream. But the Chen Bei portrayed in the book is utterly hopeless.