"Notes of a Crocodile" is the first novel by Taiwanese writer Qiu Miaojin, and it is also her most important novel. It is a feminist literary classic in the Chinese-speaking world.
The novel is based on the college life of the protagonist "I". Through the emergence, deep love and even final divorce of a series of relationships, it faces the ultimate love and uncomprehended sorrow deep in the heart, and looks at the sensitive and self-harming inner world of young people.
The novel is a true portrayal of the confused and troubled mental journey of a generation of young people in Taiwan at the end of the 20th century. It is also a personal record of a difficult journey of gender identity and self-identity.
With brushstrokes as sharp and shining as a blade, the author penetrates into the hidden rock formations of the soul. Those extremely candid self-analyses and the dialectical reversal of love imagination, those moments of deep intersection between humanity and humanity, and the powerful and solemn life experience, profoundly demonstrate the eternal theme of mankind, that is, how to understand oneself and the world more deeply through the ultimate pure emotion, and reach from oneself to the depth of the universal human soul, a brilliant mental passion.
These stories are also interspersed with the monologue of an anthropomorphic crocodile, forming a poetic fable independent of the main plot. The crocodile dressed in human clothing finally floats into the deep sea in a burning bathtub, alluding to the fate of "crocodiles/marginal people" who are lonely and excluded in human society, creating a strange artistic effect of polyphonic double voices.
Reader comments
Looking at the multiple descriptions of the relationship between Shui Ling and them, I found that when Qiu Miaojin mentioned his relationship with Shui Ling in the book, there seemed to be some self-pity. I feel that she is a cruel and affectionate person, her emotions are like a scourge, and where love is entangled, she is as delicate as a spider spinning its silk web, which finally wraps itself up and entangles her lover. Both sides feel they are the underdog.
I like her description very much. Her punctuation and sentence fragmentation are actually very interesting and very personal. It contains gorgeous descriptions and simple language. It may not be easy to understand due to your own experience, but through the text description, you can still feel the author's self-doubt, disguise, attempt, happiness, sadness, and contradiction...
Reading a book about lesbians for the first time, I realized that Qiu Miaojin's delicate, profound and sharp words really opened a door to a new world for me. I thought about the topic of sexual orientation selection, object and love entanglement from an angle and depth that I had never had before. I only understand and respect it, but the superficial things themselves hide unspeakable complexity. The heavy mood and the current situation have brought many such people together. What she conveys is not only a fax of social emotions and love, but also an individual's own thinking about literary expression. It is exposed and insightful, and analyzed with self-sustained logic. It is very refreshing to read. It is inevitable that people will feel this kind of sadness, happiness and mourning in the midst of it. Countless thoughts are intertwined, swinging choices, destined to take an unknown road of no return.
Very, very delicate language! ! The author's emotions were so strong that they splashed into my face like water from a fountain. He is really a genius at writing, his writing is very, very, very good, and he grasps emotions very well.
The writing of this book is delicate and true. The author uses a unique perspective and profound insight to depict the struggle and confusion of young people on the road to self-identity. At the same time, the crocodile monologues interspersed in the book are poetic and add depth to the story. Qiu Miaojin's writing style is brave and direct, making people think deeply.
Love brings too much pain to people, and illusion and unreality seem to float in mid-air forever. People love each other in pain and despair. Inquiring into life, it turns out that life has no meaning. The body is an empty shell, filled with many emotions. Who can weigh how many tears of sobriety and despair this feeling requires, how much chaotic desire it requires? The depth of love is counted with tears. When the count reaches the end of life, the soul floats in the air and then looks back carefully. Oh, so this is my life.
Reading this book makes me unable to calm down for a long time. Suppressed, torn, feeling inferior, in pain, and suffocating, it took me many, many days to finally close the book. This book is like a prism, refracting the individual pain that society has deliberately obscured with a dazzling clarity. The diary's self-destructive honesty is heartbreaking and eerily empathetic. Qiu Miaojin, who had the ability to use words to fight the destruction of death, died young. Her writing was so violent, but it also achieved an almost saint-like sincerity. It does not provide answers, but forces us to look directly at our wounds and acknowledge the reality in the pain. .
With the progress of society, homosexuality is finally no longer a mental illness! But it was still a scourge in the 1990s! They must be very troubled too! Heterosexuality and homosexuality are all based on love! Love is not depression, hardship, or self-destruction! Love is light and nourishment! Why do I see pain and suffering in novels!
It's very depressing to watch, love has nothing to do with gender, I feel sorry for the author [crying][crying]
This book is as deep as a dark green river. The vortex in the middle is sucking in every word and every bit of ink-colored words that enter my mind. What I see, the dank air, the panic, and the fleeing people are all sucked in.
I guess it's because of my age that I haven't quite understood this book yet. I also thought that maybe this period of reading in adolescence was a stepping stone to my knowledge. In the future, I will not be unfamiliar with it, and will slowly and step by step read it carefully.
Frankly speaking, I didn't understand anything, and I didn't understand anything at all. I didn't understand the author either. Recently, it was even my first step into literary classics, and I knew very little about the author Qiu Miaojin.
Apart from the name, this book, and the ones mentioned in the appendix, there is not much left. What's funny is that even these three are being eaten by the whirlpool, but the whirlpool shouldn't eat too much. I have begun to want to know more about it. Whether it is this book, my future, or this author, I have the desire to get to know him.
Even if I don't understand it, it's a stepping stone and opens doors for me.
But I still have a few words that I want to say. For a few moments, I saw a few paragraphs of text, and I seemed to understand the tangled emotions in a trance.
"Goodness should be the beauty of love.
I can't keep a beautiful thing forever, not even my memory, even if I love it anymore, just because of its natural life, I want to keep it forever, so I kill it.
Separation may not be the most beautiful but it is the best.
Passion alone is not enough to love. Although our love is beautiful, it does too much harm to our lives. "
Through these words, it seemed that a nameless emotion penetrated into my heart, which made me understand that even if it is only one-tenth of the original emotion, enthusiasm alone will not dampen the discussion of the outside world. I don't know what the society was like at that time, but looking at the past of the mainland, I seem to be able to get a glimpse of it.
If it's so hard, so sad, just let it go, you deserve better.
There are always one or two people who want to let go and run away. I also wondered for a moment whether Xiaofan's fiancé's escape was slightly similar to the protagonist's?
The muddy book wraps people's hearts, and pictures like old photos appear in front of me with the words, but they cannot tell the whole story of their lives.
"I feel like reading will make me drunk to death. This is what I think when I see "me" escaping to sleep all day long. Although I have never experienced such a thing, there is a voice in my heart saying that I want to bury myself with the pages of books, blending them with absurd, bizarre, and bizarre worlds that are opposite or the same as reality. I will never remember these things again. Let these books turn into wine and send me into an immersive dreamland.
A voice said in the dark, I want to die of drunkenness and headache due to lack of sleep. "——I saw a certain paragraph of thought.
I read this book on a whim. Although it had been on my schedule for a long time, I officially started chasing the tail of the book around the 20th, stepping into this world and getting to know it bit by bit.
When I was reading this book, my last stop was the tragedy of Y, but this was also a sudden thought for me. Before the tragedy of Y, I read Stormy Harvard Road.
I am interested in similar autobiographical books, and this is my explanation, my reason, one of the factors that led me to click on this book.
Knot.
In fact, I treated homosexuals with a prejudiced eye at the beginning, but over the years I have gradually realized that "homosexuality" is not some pervert. It is an "abnormality" relative to the so-called normal, but it is not their fault. This should be treated with a non-discriminatory attitude, rather than ridicule or rejection. In the era when the author lived, I don't know how many people were different from ordinary people in the world - so-called crocodiles, but I think we should understand them fairly and without colored glasses. This book by the author writes about the deviant love between men and women, but it is actually within the boundaries of repression, making people feel endless pain and extreme pulling, because it is not recognized, it is the so-called mutation. The author's writing style is very genius. Unfortunately, she ended up taking her own life in the most painful way. I dare not imagine that maybe her heart was too depressed and painful. I hope we can face the marginalized groups correctly.
There is no normal person in the text that was conceived in pain.
The unspeakable pain and the love sealed in my heart will be buried with me in the black earth.
I couldn't understand it, but I was shocked.
In the soil of social disciplines, the superposition of the situation of women and homosexuals destined the love between "I" and Shuiling. It is like a dazzling flower that grows under the vessel. It accumulates sweetness and is full of moths. Finally, it cannot hold on anymore. It becomes deformed and rotten due to lack of oxygen. People passing by will say that it is a good land, but it is a pity that there is an abnormal bad fruit. People do not need to pull it out. This bad fruit spontaneously evaporates without a trace. In this case, let me be willing to use myself as a sacrifice and join others in saying that I deserve it.
So pretty. I didn't understand these metaphors at first, but it became much better after I read the analysis. The emotions are written very delicately, allowing me to see the pain and depression of love, but it also allows me to see the beautiful side of love. For example, when getting along with Shui Lian, he calmed down her emotions in a persuasive way, etc., But most of them were painful emotions. But maybe I'm relatively young, so I'm a little more superficial with this kind of feeling, and I always feel that something is missing, but it still benefits me a lot. My way of getting along with people is similar to that of a crocodile, a bit avoidant and sensitive. This not only traps you but also hurts others. I knew this was bad before, but I didn't take it seriously. Only after reading the story did I understand the importance of changing this problem.
I like Qiu Miaojin... In order to escape the absurdity and helplessness on the other side, I often pretend that I live in this real world and am still the same as everyone else... Maybe in essence I do. The "normal" nature of my despicable fantasy prevents me from completely integrating into that side, but from this book I get a glimpse of "there", which makes people happy... Tolerance, gentleness, how to treat different groups, we all need to learn.
A work worth reading again and again. Now I still can't fully understand the emotions and thoughts that the author wants to convey in some words. At different ages, different time periods, and after experiencing different experiences, you may have a deeper understanding of this book.
After reading it, I felt disappointed... For a female high school student, my personal experience of emotions was too shallow and thin. The author's words let me see another world... Love and hate, self and others, compromise and toughness, sensitivity and vulnerability... Like water, with its vastness and trickle, softness and deepness...
Some incomprehensible parts have been skipped, but the description of emotions is very real and delicate.
Poetic words describe the inexplicable encounters in life as the weightlessness of the soul
At the moment when the crocodile enters the spark, the world is left with only a dark background, a stinging sound, and a suspended, unconscious "I".
Very clever writing, but some parts are a bit obscure.
I don't want to understand you literally. I want to remember and not think about how you make me feel.
Will you always remember how many households there were in that building? But I remember that it has never become important to me. We are just constantly and constantly being grasped by our current cognition.
"I have nothing to say... I wish you happiness!"
I think I will remember this book forever.
Well, pay attention to your mental state.
After reading it, I couldn't calm down for a long time and kept crying [crying]
Repressive, paranoid, realistic, patients' self-reports, the common plight of sexual minorities
When I posted the post, many people shared sentences from this book. After reading this book, there are indeed many sentences worth savoring and pondering over and over again. It is written in its own style and is worth reading.
Read it for the second time. Highly recommended.
I like Qiu Miaojin's writing style. It's like the plum rain season, when it's hot and humid, the air seeps into the skin like water, and everything becomes sticky.
The people described in the book, whether they are men or women, are emotionally delicate and the writing is very good.
Looking at the multiple descriptions of the relationship between Shui Ling and them, I found that when Qiu Miaojin mentioned his relationship with Shui Ling in the book, there seemed to be some self-pity. I feel that she is a cruel and affectionate person, her emotions are like a scourge, and where love is entangled, she is as delicate as a spider spinning its silk web, which finally wraps itself up and entangles her lover. Both sides feel they are the underdog.
I like her description very much. Her punctuation and sentence fragmentation are actually very interesting and very personal. It contains gorgeous descriptions and simple language. It may not be easy to understand due to your own experience, but through the text description, you can still feel the author's self-doubt, disguise, attempt, happiness, sadness, and contradiction...
Reading a book about lesbians for the first time, I realized that Qiu Miaojin's delicate, profound and sharp words really opened a door to a new world for me. I thought about the topic of sexual orientation selection, object and love entanglement from an angle and depth that I had never had before. I only understand and respect it, but the superficial things themselves hide unspeakable complexity. The heavy mood and the current situation have brought many such people together. What she conveys is not only a fax of social emotions and love, but also an individual's own thinking about literary expression. It is exposed and insightful, and analyzed with self-sustained logic. It is very refreshing to read. It is inevitable that people will feel this kind of sadness, happiness and mourning in the midst of it. Countless thoughts are intertwined, swinging choices, destined to take an unknown road of no return.
Very, very delicate language! ! The author's emotions were so strong that they splashed into my face like water from a fountain. He is really a genius at writing, his writing is very, very, very good, and he grasps emotions very well.
The writing of this book is delicate and true. The author uses a unique perspective and profound insight to depict the struggle and confusion of young people on the road to self-identity. At the same time, the crocodile monologues interspersed in the book are poetic and add depth to the story. Qiu Miaojin's writing style is brave and direct, making people think deeply.
Love brings too much pain to people, and illusion and unreality seem to float in mid-air forever. People love each other in pain and despair. Inquiring into life, it turns out that life has no meaning. The body is an empty shell, filled with many emotions. Who can weigh how many tears of sobriety and despair this feeling requires, how much chaotic desire it requires? The depth of love is counted with tears. When the count reaches the end of life, the soul floats in the air and then looks back carefully. Oh, so this is my life.
Reading this book makes me unable to calm down for a long time. Suppressed, torn, feeling inferior, in pain, and suffocating, it took me many, many days to finally close the book. This book is like a prism, refracting the individual pain that society has deliberately obscured with a dazzling clarity. The diary's self-destructive honesty is heartbreaking and eerily empathetic. Qiu Miaojin, who had the ability to use words to fight the destruction of death, died young. Her writing was so violent, but it also achieved an almost saint-like sincerity. It does not provide answers, but forces us to look directly at our wounds and acknowledge the reality in the pain. .
With the progress of society, homosexuality is finally no longer a mental illness! But it was still a scourge in the 1990s! They must be very troubled too! Heterosexuality and homosexuality are all based on love! Love is not depression, hardship, or self-destruction! Love is light and nourishment! Why do I see pain and suffering in novels!
It's very depressing to watch, love has nothing to do with gender, I feel sorry for the author [crying][crying]
This book is as deep as a dark green river. The vortex in the middle is sucking in every word and every bit of ink-colored words that enter my mind. What I see, the dank air, the panic, and the fleeing people are all sucked in. I guess it's because of my age that I haven't quite understood this book yet. I also thought that maybe this period of reading in adolescence was a stepping stone to my knowledge. In the future, I will not be unfamiliar with it, and will slowly and step by step read it carefully. Frankly speaking, I didn't understand anything, and I didn't understand anything at all. I didn't understand the author either. Recently, it was even my first step into literary classics, and I knew very little about the author Qiu Miaojin. Apart from the name, this book, and the ones mentioned in the appendix, there is not much left. What's funny is that even these three are being eaten by the whirlpool, but the whirlpool shouldn't eat too much. I have begun to want to know more about it. Whether it is this book, my future, or this author, I have the desire to get to know him. Even if I don't understand it, it's a stepping stone and opens doors for me. But I still have a few words that I want to say. For a few moments, I saw a few paragraphs of text, and I seemed to understand the tangled emotions in a trance. "Goodness should be the beauty of love. I can't keep a beautiful thing forever, not even my memory, even if I love it anymore, just because of its natural life, I want to keep it forever, so I kill it. Separation may not be the most beautiful but it is the best. Passion alone is not enough to love. Although our love is beautiful, it does too much harm to our lives. " Through these words, it seemed that a nameless emotion penetrated into my heart, which made me understand that even if it is only one-tenth of the original emotion, enthusiasm alone will not dampen the discussion of the outside world. I don't know what the society was like at that time, but looking at the past of the mainland, I seem to be able to get a glimpse of it. If it's so hard, so sad, just let it go, you deserve better. There are always one or two people who want to let go and run away. I also wondered for a moment whether Xiaofan's fiancé's escape was slightly similar to the protagonist's? The muddy book wraps people's hearts, and pictures like old photos appear in front of me with the words, but they cannot tell the whole story of their lives. "I feel like reading will make me drunk to death. This is what I think when I see "me" escaping to sleep all day long. Although I have never experienced such a thing, there is a voice in my heart saying that I want to bury myself with the pages of books, blending them with absurd, bizarre, and bizarre worlds that are opposite or the same as reality. I will never remember these things again. Let these books turn into wine and send me into an immersive dreamland. A voice said in the dark, I want to die of drunkenness and headache due to lack of sleep. "——I saw a certain paragraph of thought. I read this book on a whim. Although it had been on my schedule for a long time, I officially started chasing the tail of the book around the 20th, stepping into this world and getting to know it bit by bit. When I was reading this book, my last stop was the tragedy of Y, but this was also a sudden thought for me. Before the tragedy of Y, I read Stormy Harvard Road. I am interested in similar autobiographical books, and this is my explanation, my reason, one of the factors that led me to click on this book. Knot.
In fact, I treated homosexuals with a prejudiced eye at the beginning, but over the years I have gradually realized that "homosexuality" is not some pervert. It is an "abnormality" relative to the so-called normal, but it is not their fault. This should be treated with a non-discriminatory attitude, rather than ridicule or rejection. In the era when the author lived, I don't know how many people were different from ordinary people in the world - so-called crocodiles, but I think we should understand them fairly and without colored glasses. This book by the author writes about the deviant love between men and women, but it is actually within the boundaries of repression, making people feel endless pain and extreme pulling, because it is not recognized, it is the so-called mutation. The author's writing style is very genius. Unfortunately, she ended up taking her own life in the most painful way. I dare not imagine that maybe her heart was too depressed and painful. I hope we can face the marginalized groups correctly.
There is no normal person in the text that was conceived in pain.
The unspeakable pain and the love sealed in my heart will be buried with me in the black earth.
I couldn't understand it, but I was shocked.
In the soil of social disciplines, the superposition of the situation of women and homosexuals destined the love between "I" and Shuiling. It is like a dazzling flower that grows under the vessel. It accumulates sweetness and is full of moths. Finally, it cannot hold on anymore. It becomes deformed and rotten due to lack of oxygen. People passing by will say that it is a good land, but it is a pity that there is an abnormal bad fruit. People do not need to pull it out. This bad fruit spontaneously evaporates without a trace. In this case, let me be willing to use myself as a sacrifice and join others in saying that I deserve it.
So pretty. I didn't understand these metaphors at first, but it became much better after I read the analysis. The emotions are written very delicately, allowing me to see the pain and depression of love, but it also allows me to see the beautiful side of love. For example, when getting along with Shui Lian, he calmed down her emotions in a persuasive way, etc., But most of them were painful emotions. But maybe I'm relatively young, so I'm a little more superficial with this kind of feeling, and I always feel that something is missing, but it still benefits me a lot. My way of getting along with people is similar to that of a crocodile, a bit avoidant and sensitive. This not only traps you but also hurts others. I knew this was bad before, but I didn't take it seriously. Only after reading the story did I understand the importance of changing this problem.
I like Qiu Miaojin... In order to escape the absurdity and helplessness on the other side, I often pretend that I live in this real world and am still the same as everyone else... Maybe in essence I do. The "normal" nature of my despicable fantasy prevents me from completely integrating into that side, but from this book I get a glimpse of "there", which makes people happy... Tolerance, gentleness, how to treat different groups, we all need to learn.
A work worth reading again and again. Now I still can't fully understand the emotions and thoughts that the author wants to convey in some words. At different ages, different time periods, and after experiencing different experiences, you may have a deeper understanding of this book.
After reading it, I felt disappointed... For a female high school student, my personal experience of emotions was too shallow and thin. The author's words let me see another world... Love and hate, self and others, compromise and toughness, sensitivity and vulnerability... Like water, with its vastness and trickle, softness and deepness...
Some incomprehensible parts have been skipped, but the description of emotions is very real and delicate.
Poetic words describe the inexplicable encounters in life as the weightlessness of the soul At the moment when the crocodile enters the spark, the world is left with only a dark background, a stinging sound, and a suspended, unconscious "I".
Very clever writing, but some parts are a bit obscure.
I don't want to understand you literally. I want to remember and not think about how you make me feel. Will you always remember how many households there were in that building? But I remember that it has never become important to me. We are just constantly and constantly being grasped by our current cognition. "I have nothing to say... I wish you happiness!"
I think I will remember this book forever.
Well, pay attention to your mental state.
After reading it, I couldn't calm down for a long time and kept crying [crying]
Repressive, paranoid, realistic, patients' self-reports, the common plight of sexual minorities
When I posted the post, many people shared sentences from this book. After reading this book, there are indeed many sentences worth savoring and pondering over and over again. It is written in its own style and is worth reading. Read it for the second time. Highly recommended.
I like Qiu Miaojin's writing style. It's like the plum rain season, when it's hot and humid, the air seeps into the skin like water, and everything becomes sticky.
The people described in the book, whether they are men or women, are emotionally delicate and the writing is very good.