Rolling west wind

Author: Chen Danyan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: This book is Chen Danyan's New Cultural Sketches, as part of her series of travel essays about European culture. It primarily documents her trips to Austria and Germany, accompanied by photos of hands, weaving together fragments of memories deeply embedded in a generation's mind about the Archduchess Sisi, Stefan Zweig, Sigmund Freud, and the Blue Danube. I know I'm a bit homesick for Vienna, so I bought that picture book filled with too many German words, which I could barely understand. In the autumn afternoons of Berlin, the sky darkens early, and the city is covered in gray. Vienna, even when it rains, is gray-green, so soft. It's perfectly natural and almost indulgent to think of Vienna while in Berlin. Berlin is hard, Vienna is soft. Berlin is serious, Vienna is enchanting. Berlin motivates you to strive forward and gives you opportunities, while Vienna encourages you to be delicate—however delicate is never too much. In Berlin, you must keep your consciousness highly logical and as rational as possible, becoming a person with a sense of order. In Vienna, you can endlessly explore your subconscious, blaming all eccentric behavior on it, while you can gracefully withdraw from the situation. I discovered that the paradise in my heart still glows quietly, like the infinite reflections and interplay of light in the Mirror Hall. The facts did not extinguish it but transformed it into pure fantasy, separating it entirely from real life. Sometimes, standing far away by the fountain, I gaze at this pale-yellow Baroque palace, where the hundreds of tightly closed windows gleam in the sunlight. My own Sisi suffers and rejoices behind those windows, and my own princess's story weaves reality and fantasy behind them. This is the Europe I finally built.
Author Chen Danyan began writing novels and essays in the 1980s and has published over 20 works. Starting in the 1990s, she embarked on a lifelong journey of travel. Europe is her spiritual homeland. The customs and cultures of foreign lands, the history and art of distant countries—she writes as she travels, leaving behind a series of travel records filled with delicate reflections. This book includes works such as A Gardenia in the Buttonhole, Once Upon a Time, Elfe Under the Cherry Tree, The Blue of the River, and Late.