Belgian classic literary masterpiece: The Blue Bird (Chinese-English)

Author: Maurice Maeterlinck
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Can read beautiful Chinese, can compare English and Chinese, can appreciate top-quality English, specially designed for readers of different ages and levels, creating a timeless collectible masterpiece. If we do not personally experience the truth, then even the most reliable truth is of no benefit to us. To tell a child all the philosophy takes only a moment, but to fully understand its essence is not enough in a lifetime, because practice makes perfect! Every one of us should seek happiness for ourselves, learn to feel simplicity and perfection from the heart and mind, and thus become happy. Before that, we must endure endless suffering and bear many disappointments.
In ancient times, the children of a woodcutter—Tessie and Miette—dreamed of a fairy named Berylune before Christmas. She entrusted them with the task of finding a blue bird to cure her seriously ill daughter, as only this divine bird could heal her. The fairy said, "My little daughter will only be happy when she is cured." So, accompanied by cats, dogs, and various things (sugar, bread, fire, water), they entered another world, guided by the Light God, to search for this blue bird. They endured countless hardships in the Land of Memory, the Palace of the Night, the Cemetery, and the Kingdom of the Future, in the temple of the Light God, but the blue bird was always found and lost again, and in the end, they still could not find it. They had no choice but to return home. Upon waking the next morning, their neighbor, Mrs. Berling, came to ask for her daughter's Christmas gift, and Tessie had no choice but to give her her beloved dove. Unexpectedly, at that moment, the dove turned blue, becoming a "blue bird." The neighbor's daughter's illness was also cured.
The Blue Bird was originally a fairy tale play of the same name written by the Belgian author and founder of Symbolist drama, Maurice Maeterlinck. Later, his wife, Georgette Lebeuf, revised and adapted it into this prose fairy tale for children's reading. The theme of this fairy tale, as stated in the book, is: "We give happiness to others, and only then do we come closer to happiness." The Light God showed the protagonist a "path to happiness through kindness, compassion, and generosity." The author said, "Every one of us seeks our own happiness, but in fact, happiness is not so rare. If we often have selfless and good intentions, happiness is just within reach."
This fairy tale adopts the themes and techniques of folk stories, rich in poetry, with a beautiful and enchanting story. In 1911, Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in Literature for this humanitarian masterpiece.