Song of the Sad Café (Bilingual Reading: Chinese and English)

Author: Carson McCullers
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: On a leading afternoon, the road was deserted, the dust dazzlingly white; the sky above was bright as glass; a woman satbehind the blinds; listening to the singing of the bound. In the afternoon of August, the road was deserted, the dust dazzlingly white, the sky above bright as glass, a woman satbehind the blinds, listening to the singing of the bound from the depths of the earth. The bound.
The work of American writer Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café, is a part of the Classic Love Reading Series, featuring a bilingual Chinese-English edition. It allows you to appreciate the style of the original modern foreign classic while simultaneously comparing it with Chinese for easier reading by the general public. Miss Emily in the small town is capable and wealthy, "with bones and muscles like a man"; the local handsome man Marvin Macy falls in love with her and changes his rogueish ways to become a respectable person. After secretly loving her for two years, he finally gathers the courage to propose. But this marriage lasts only 10 days, "a groom cannot take his beloved to bed." Macy becomes a rogue again and is sent to prison. Miss Emily contentedly enjoys a peaceful life until her hunchbacked cousin Lymon comes to the town. She falls in love with him and accommodates him in everything. Six years later, Macy is granted parole. Lymon, upon seeing him, tries to curry favor with him, but Macy responds with a punch. The hunchback still goes out every day to fight with Macy and arranges for him to live in their house. The conflict between Miss Emily and Macy finally erupts, and the two duel in full view of everyone. Just as "her strong hands gripped his throat," the hunchback screams and joins the fight. Miss Emily becomes the loser. That night, the hunchback and Macy steal valuables, destroy the café, and leave together. For three consecutive years, Miss Emily sits on the steps in front of the door, gazing and waiting, but the hunchback never returns. In the fourth year, she hires a carpenter to nail boards over all the windows and doors, "after that, she stayed locked in her room."
The novel expresses a theme as eternal as love—loneliness—in a mysterious, absurd, and surreal way, and uses the absurdity of love to prove the inevitability of loneliness.