First Reading of Fortress Besieged

Everyone is like Fang Hongjian, unable to escape their own fortress. — Epigraph

I had long been drawn to Qian Zhongshu's Fortress Besieged. I first opened it last August on a high-speed train bound for Guangzhou, and only recently managed to finish it. It wasn't that Qian had written some lengthy treatise, but that I have a habit—I like to read in scraps of time, and often before finishing one book I start another, so it always ends up this way, stretching the time it takes to finish a book over a long span.

From last August until now, my experiences have been fairly rich. I also read some other works in the meantime, but I never stopped thinking about Fortress Besieged. Only recently, after finishing it, my feelings toward Fortress Besieged went from a slight interest at the start to a sense of loss when the story came to an abrupt end. Fang Hongjian's changing course of life, set against my own experiences, is enough to make one sigh.

The plot of Fortress Besieged is not complicated. It follows the protagonist Fang Hongjian from his return after studying abroad, from being praised by everyone to being of no interest to anyone, while his attitudes toward life, love, and marriage also change.

I've found that many great works are often tragedies, or at least carry a tragic hue—for example, Jin Yong's The Deer and the Cauldron and Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Shen Congwen's Border Town, and so on....... There is no doubt that the story in Fortress Besieged is a tragedy. The protagonist Fang Hongjian's life is a tragedy, and every character around him likewise spends a lifetime in helplessness. Zhao Xinmei pines for Su Wenwan for half his life to no avail; Su Wenwan does everything she can to get close to Fang Hongjian, only to fail in the end. In Fang Hongjian's family, the sisters-in-law are at odds, full of open strife and hidden struggle. Fang Hongjian's own career has never gone smoothly; he is a failure in family, marriage, and romance alike. Small wonder—what prospects could there be for a man who spent years "studying" abroad, learned nothing, and got by on a fake diploma he bought?

As for the social setting, Fortress Besieged takes mainland China during the War of Resistance Against Japan as its backdrop. Beacon fires rose across the land; everywhere people were anxious and fearful for themselves. Government officials were thoroughly corrupt; people in every trade—workers, farmers, and merchants—and even schoolteachers were pedantic and stubborn. Fresh ideas from the West collided fiercely with traditional Chinese thought. Some took pride in worshiping the foreign; others clung to convention as their own view (in fact both types of people still exist today). In the society Qian depicts, a sense of oppression fills every corner. Fang Hongjian's job-hunting experience makes this clear: it is a society that runs entirely on connections. Without various connections to open the way, you can hardly take a single step. Although Fang Hongjian had no real learning, he had after all studied abroad, which in that backward society of the time was enough to qualify him for many jobs. Yet the few job opportunities he had all came through relatives and friends. The bank job was provided by his "father-in-law," Manager Zhou; the post at National Sanlü University was recommended by his friend Zhao Xinmei; the newspaper job after he returned to Shanghai was also provided by Zhao Xinmei......

What left the deepest impression on me is the book's attitude toward marriage. To be honest, this is a book that makes you not want to get married after reading it—you may even lose faith in "love." Qian and his wife Yang Jiang had a very good relationship, yet he could write a book like this; it seems Qian still had quite a wealth of experience (hehe). The attitude toward marriage in Fortress Besieged is just like the two characters of the title—"fortress besieged." The characters in the book discuss marriage more than once. The first time "fortress besieged" is mentioned is at a dinner table with Fang Hongjian, Zhao Xinmei, Dong Xiechuan, and others: "Shenming said: 'About Bertie's marrying and divorcing, I talked with him too. He quoted an old English saying, that marriage is like a gilded birdcage: the birds outside want to get in, and the birds inside want to fly out; so they marry and divorce, divorce and marry, with no end in sight.' Miss Su said: 'The French have a similar saying. Only they don't say birdcage; they say a besieged fortress, fortresse assiegee: the people outside want to break in, and the people inside want to escape. Hongjian, isn't that so?' Hongjian shook his head to show he didn't know." The book's attitude toward getting married is this: marriage is the terminator of all feelings—whether love for one's spouse, friendship with friends, or affection among family. Before Fang Hongjian got engaged to Sun Roujia, she was someone whose gentle, compliant nature left nothing to criticize, and who was also very shy. But after they got engaged, her true nature gradually came out, until her selfishness was fully revealed. After they married, Sun Roujia thoroughly disliked Fang Hongjian's family and friends, and often told Hongjian to distance himself from them, and Hongjian gradually did distance himself from family and friends. I think that whether one is a man or a woman, life should not consist only of the little family after marriage; one must not grow distant from one's original family and friends. Sun Roujia's aim was to make Hongjian cut himself off from all his relationships, until he had no one to rely on and could only be driven by her. So the claim that "marriage is the terminator of all feelings" does not come from nowhere.

As Hongjian married, and as his relationships with his family and his wife—Sun Roujia—gradually stiffened, the story slowly moved toward its ending. At the end of the book, after a quarrel with Sun Roujia, Hongjian, like the grandfather clock, collapsed to the floor and fell asleep, and in his sleep he was still dreaming of making up with his wife and of a harmonious, reunited family. The story stops abruptly there, catching one somewhat off guard. While leaving one wanting more, it also makes one wonder: does one hope Fang Hongjian and Sun Roujia will reconcile as a couple and then continue an endless cycle of conflict, quarrel, and making up? Or hope that the protagonist Fang Hongjian will break with Sun Roujia and bravely set out on a journey to find Tang Xiaofu?

Due to length, notes on a few passages will have to wait for a separate post next time~