Half a life as a human

Author: Xu Xiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: "The Eternal May," Xu Xiao narrates a tragic sense of helplessness between life and death—this death stems from a misdiagnosis, which in turn triggers a 30-year ordeal. It gradually strips her husband, a man unwilling to burden others, of his self-reliance, forces a frugal person to endure the torment of spending hundreds of dollars daily to sustain life, and worst of all, all this is entangled in a chain of tragic causality—neither he nor his wife is spared from suffering. The more she insists on protecting his life with her will, the more failures and deeper pains he faces. She demands his life with her will, and his life becomes a torment he cannot escape in his struggle against pain. To live or to suffer? She must sacrifice herself to save his life. She claims it is her inherent right to choose life for him, leaving no room for choice—a conflict between one kind of goodness and another. This is truly too cruel: as if it became a suffering process of two kind hearts, and only in suffering did genuine, heart-wrenching greatness emerge. After "The Eternal May," she wrote a follow-up, "How Long Can You Love Someone," which is Xu Xiao's deeper self-examination after "May." In the text I read, she portrays a more authentic woman in the tragedy—not just for his survival, but for her willingness to sacrifice herself. The value of a person's life lies in the dignity they uphold. What is dignity? His emaciated and disfigured state after suffering is a form of dignity; her leaving the hotel for a cup of coffee to afford fat emulsion, blocking cars at the factory gate with disheveled hair and enduring humiliation—this too is a form of dignity. She uses all her strength to resist between his life and death, and this willpower, in the simplest terms, is love. But what else besides love? There is repentance. And what else besides repentance? She says he fulfilled her, allowing her to unleash all feminine energy, and the strength she drew out became her will overwhelming his will. In this dynamic of will, he becomes a passive weakling, controlled and imposed upon by her will. What is even more tormenting is that she guarded him for three years, yet she was absent during his most painful moments. Human relationships are, in fact, unanswerable; questioning them only adds to one's own suffering, yet Xu Xiao insists on questioning. She asks herself the harsh question: "How long can you love someone?" In the original manuscript she showed me, her agonizing self-blame stemmed from her instinctive resistance and psychological rejection of sleeping with him when faced with his illness. From a secular perspective, I understand her pain—it could completely negate all her efforts to love him, and she cannot escape the harm this questioning inflicts on herself. Because of this questioning, she fears that the longing she has forged from her emotions for him will last only so long—she hopes he will always be her entire spiritual and emotional anchor. —From The Weekly Review ()
The author attempts to trace a group of "new people" emerging in the late 1970s and early 1980s through personal experiences. The idealism and romanticism, as well as the rational spirit of daring to question, represented by this group, captivated many. In the book, these words whisper to us, and when we listen intently, they vanish into the wind; these faces are like reflections, and when we reach out to touch them, they shatter into ripples. They appear in our dreams, turning us restless—they touch the deepest parts of our souls. Reading Xu Xiao made me realize that the same life can be savored slowly or squandered recklessly. The difference lies only in whether you are willing to honestly face life. Humanity's efforts to unravel the mysteries of the times and life are enough to form a great river. For contemporary Chinese, Xu Xiao's focus on a tributary holds special significance. Is it an ode to history, or a lament for the departed? A reflection on a generation, or an act of self-redemption? You cannot define Xu Xiao's writing, just as you cannot define people, time, or life. This essay collection is primarily about people. The characters written about—Zhao Yifan, Zhou (mei+) Ying, and from the "Today Poetry" group—are among the "new people" who emerged in China in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During that era, the idealism and romanticism, as well as the rational spirit of daring to question, they represented captivated many. The author attempts to record the people and events of that time, borrowing Pasternak's words: "Life—how do individual events in me transform into artistic reality, and how does this reality arise from fate and experience?"