John Alvin's The Rule of the Cider House is a great literary work under the cover of a plain title, a journey of life starting and ending in an orphanage. It not only involves the social problems faced by the United States at that time and now-such as abortion, prostitution, racial discrimination, etc., but also reflects the most profound aspects of life from a very unusual perspective: the limitations of social rules and traditions, the complexity of human nature, love and goodness, and the transcendence of suffering, etc.

I watched the movie of the same name first, and after being moved, a friend recommended the original book, so I found a way to read it in one breath. Unsurprisingly, its shock far exceeds that of movies.

The story begins with the birth of the orphan Homer Wells. Homer was born in an orphanage in St. Klaus, Maine. As he grew up, the scene of the story gradually expanded, and the reader was brought into a life scene far beyond the orphanage. The plot of the book is complicated and there are many characters, which are put together by the author very tactfully, just like a fascinating "maze". Personally, I don't really like novels with too many characters, because I feel that it is difficult to describe the personality in depth after there are many characters. However, this novel is obviously an exception-most of the characters are flesh and blood and have an irreplaceable position in the book.

Although Homer is the protagonist of the story, and the author's description of it is also extremely profound, the two characters that shocked me most in the novel are Dr. Larch and Melony. Dr. Larch is an extremely intelligent and eccentric person. The author spent a lot of time describing his life experience: he was born in a slight cold, but he went to Harvard Medical School with extraordinary intelligence, and finally devoted himself to what he thought was the most "useful" cause-the establishment and management of St. Klaus Orphanage, which was responsible for delivering orphans (mostly prostitutes) and illegally performing abortion on women in need at that time when abortion was completely illegal. His attitude towards life and his views on society basically represent the central idea of this book-sympathy for the sufferings of the world and helping them. Larch is the "soul" of this book.

Miluni is another orphan in St. Klaus orphanage. Like Homer, she failed to be adopted many times and finally became the "old problem" of the orphanage. Meruni is rebellious and extremely wild. Out of her obsession with love, one day she finally left the orphanage with a shabby bag-a few clothes stuffed in a pillowcase-and a book "Jane Eyre" to create a new world. The length given to Meruni by the author is far less than that of Homer and Dr. Larch, but if the book is likened to a symphony, Meruni is like a drummer-every time she appears, it is a deafening drum, which strongly beats the reader's heart and forces the reader to devote all his attention.

If I had to rank these three people according to their power of shock, I would rank Maloney first. This is because, although passion (sensibility) and rationality are both the most important factors in life, passion is the "king of life" and has greater control over people's destiny. Because of this, at the end of the book, when Dr. Larch failed to preach Homer's long-term rationality, Miluni's intuitive perceptual "knocking" finally gave Homer an epiphany. It is no exaggeration to say that it is none other than Meruni, a wild character who seems to have no education (all her education comes from a book: Jane Eyre) that pushes the whole story to a climax.

If Meruni is the most shocking character in the book, the most touching thing in the book is the "father-son relationship" between Dr. Larch and Homer, and the love that Dr. Larch and nurses in the orphanage give to orphans. Orphanage, the place with the least love in the imagination of ordinary people, has become the cradle of love, the starting point and even the end point of life. Even the most rebellious Meruni once accidentally called the orphanage her "home". Giving love where there is no love, finding strength and hope among people abandoned by the world, is the most unusual angle and vision of this book.

As the title implies, the theme of this book involves the relationship between man and law. People make laws, but they keep breaking them. If the story of this book is convincing, it is not difficult for readers to see that the artificial laws are limited, but the complexity of human nature is infinite, and the limited laws obviously cannot cover the infinite needs of human nature. This book involves a profound philosophical topic: how to solve the conflict between complex human nature and limited social traditional norms? The author did not give a direct answer. As a writer, John Alvin only puts this contradiction in front of readers and lets each reader think for himself. This is probably the greatest charm of literature.

? The Law of the Cider House is a heavy book. Although the author has a great sense of humor and the words are light, reading this book will definitely make people cry more than laugh. Nevertheless, this book is by no means a tragedy in the traditional sense, but a "panorama"-it unfolds the cruel reality without even embellishing the saddest details, but at the same time it makes people see the light of love and goodness in the dark. This book is not only a literary classic, but also a textbook of life.

? This is the first John Alvin book I have read, but it is by no means the last. If a person has only written this book in his life, he can be called everyone, but Irwin has written countless such books, and his talent is really beyond the mountains! )

10/0 1/2020