The Moon and Sixpence

This book is narrated from the perspective of a literary young man "I" (as an outsider). As a reader, I don't know what the protagonist thinks~ Content overview: The protagonist is a person with a stable job and a happy family, but he is not satisfied with the status quo and starts a journey to chase his painting dream ~ We don't seem qualified to say that the protagonist abandoned life because of his ideals. He has been searching for himself on the road of painting. Later, he also formed a beautiful family and found a way to live his life. Painting and life can coexist, just like ideals and reality can achieve each other~ I really like the last monologue of "The Story of the Rose": "From now on, I no longer hope for happiness, I am happiness. I like everything I meet, and everything is accepted. From now on, I am not restricted, I make myself free, and I go wherever I want to go. I am completely and absolutely in charge of me." May we all have the ability to pursue our own spiritual food while ensuring basic material premise~

A very famous novel. There were several times in the middle that I almost couldn't watch it due to emotional reasons, but after watching it, I felt that those emotions were a bit ridiculous, maybe because I felt something more shocking than the impact on my values.

The meaning of life lies in whether you devote enough time or even your own life to maintain your ideals. Most people live a short life journey in confusion; they are always tired of running around and working for a living, but they still have enough determination to maintain their ideals. Therefore, most people's lives are meaningless; even life and death are meaningless, let alone trivial matters. What is an artist? Personally, I think it is something that ordinary people cannot see but some people can feel and see it. Only such people can become artists;

This book showed me a man who risked everything for his ideals. His story moved me very much. Although he did a lot of unreasonable things in the pursuit of his ideals, I can understand his persistence in art. I hate his irresponsible abandonment of his family, but I also admire his courage. This reminds me of Gatsby in "The Great Gatsby". They are all people who keep working hard for the light in their hearts. But in comparison, I like Charles better because he is more pure and real. Overall, this is a book worth reading that will make you think about the meaning and value of life.

This book made me think about the meaning of life. Skin is not important, what you eat, drink, wear, or live is actually not important. People should spend their time on more meaningful things. Secondly, this book also changed my concept of love. As mentioned in this book, many novels exaggerate love. In fact, love only accounts for a small part of life in real life. You can even live well without a lover. At the same time, most of the descriptions of female characters in this book regard love as the most important thing in life, which may be inappropriate today. Sexual desire is normal, and the pursuit of delicious food is normal, but it cannot be succumbed to human nature. The protagonist has been pursuing this point. Whenever he feels that someone is restraining him or criticizing himself with morality, he will not hesitate to leave the environment. At the same time, when others accuse him from a moral level (traditional customs), he can still not feel the slightest bit ashamed. His mentality has reached a certain state.

At the age of 47, the protagonist gave up his relatively wealthy material life and devoted himself to unrealistic learning of painting (at the end of the story, his unrealistic actions succeeded). His death was a kind of spiritual fullness. I read this book and cured my mental internal friction. The author said: While highlighting the spiritual greatness of this man (I am disgusted with his material life after the age of 47), how can the ideal beauty ruthlessly destroy the material reality, but vision is something everyone deserves to have. Once you have the touchable moon, your sixpence will only buy a few dry bread. This huge contrast has succeeded and placed infinite ideals on future generations. It is a very good book. Like👍🏻

Both painters are quite impressive. Stroeve's character may not be a role model for readers and authors, but I was so angry when he saw the nude painting of his wife that he wanted to destroy it, but when he realized that it was a work of art, I woke up with him. Someone has emphasized the need to distinguish artworks from artists a long time ago, but few people can really do it when they are controlled by emotions. There is also the answer of Redbeard (I can't remember the name) when he was first asked why he abandoned his wife and children and how he should survive. I admit that maybe my personal values ​​are indeed a bit abnormal. I felt that I envied him very much. He really gave up everything and didn't even care about moral issues. I thought he was really charming at that time. That's it. The charm of Dot made me feel that this book suddenly became particularly interesting. At the same time, the things he said about women tying up men also made me somewhat sober. However, some of the ideas were too deep-rooted. Reading and thinking about a book could only bring me a short period of light, but more importantly, the soul felt more suffocated because of the freedom and constraint of nothingness.

Go after what you really want, stay away from the noisy world, and get rid of the shackles of the world. Move forward with courage that is different from ordinary people. This may be the reason why the protagonist finally became a great painter.

When there is a fundamental conflict between the secular value system (sixpence) and the individual's will to life (the moon), Maugham uses Strickland's extreme choice to question whether modern people have the courage to "melt the moon into sixpence", or whether they will become inauthentic in the compromise. The answer always hangs in the gap between ideal and reality.

Many people say that this book is about scumbags. I think it is still relatively one-sided and superficial, or extremely biased. If you read it with Maugham's theme in mind, you may be able to better understand what is being written. Men and women have their own different thinking. In fact, the union of men and women is against nature, but due to the development of society, we are constantly facing this eternal difficulty. That's why there are so many dramatic stories, and the decision of the protagonist to jump into it makes us think about what we want most in our hearts, what is a high-quality life, and what is happiness that only we can understand. In the eyes of most people, it is unruly, primitive, barbaric, and cynical, but on a certain level, it is to find the true meaning of life. To put it simply, where we come from and where we are going, only we know deep in our hearts. Others, society, and the world cannot tell us the meaning of life. Only by experiencing it ourselves can we know that everyone is walking their own path.

His whole life has been for art. He always pursues his heart's desire and is not moved by the world. This is very impressive. Some people pursue him all his life but never find what they really want.

We are not alone on the road to pursuing our dreams.

Being separated from the secular purity will definitely cause criticism. There is a thin line between madman and genius.

Real and objective, clear logic

Disgusting behavior, but thought-provoking thoughts

For the ideal of painting, he gave up his current superior life and devoted himself to art until the end of his life.

Very good, the appearance and events are all written very clearly, as if you were actually there!