Fortress Besieged

To begin with, this book was written by Qian Zhongshu, who was born in Wuxi, JiangSu on
November 21, 1910 and died on December 19, 1998. He graduated from Tsinghua University in
1933, besides that he got the Associate doctor degree from Exeter college, oxford in 1937. He was
a Chinese modern writer and scholar. In addition to the Fortress Besieged, his other famous works
are: Talk art record, Man, Beast, Ghost and Write on the Edge of life. He had a deep research on
Chinese history, philosophy, literature and other fields. At the same time, he had never stopped
reading and studying the Western New and Old literature, which led to a outstanding academic
achievement, owing to that, he enjoyed a high reputation in academic circles both at home and
abroad.
In addition, the story of this book happened around 1920s-1940s. The main character, Fang
Hongjian was a young man from a gentry family in southern China, who was ordered to marry the
girl from Zhou family, forced by the family pressure. Fang Hongjian neglected his studies during
his study tour in Europe, so he bought a fake degree before came back to China. He met his
college classmate, Su Wenwan. Arriving in Shanghai, Fang worked in the bank ran by his father in
law, during this time, he won the favor of Su Wenwan. However, Fang gradually fell in love with
Su Wenwan’s cousin named Tang Xiaofu. Finally, the relationship among Fang、Su Wenwan and
Tang broke up. Su Wenwan got married with a poet. Fang and Zhao finally became good friends.
After the Anti-Japanese War began, the Fang family fled to the Shanghai concession. At this time,
a group of people including Fang Hongjian, Zhao Xinmei and Sun Roujia decided to go to the
National Sanlv University to get a job. As a result of fang Hongjian’s character and other
weaknesses, he fell into a complex interpersonal dispute, anyway, he ordered to marry Sun Roujia.
They went back to Shanghai and got married on the way. After that, Fang worked in a newspaper
office. However, things always go contrary to his wishes. After marriage, the conflicts between
fang and his wife and aunt Sun were exposed and intensified. This book takes Fang Hongjian’s
love an career as the main line, while takes his experience with Su, Tang, Zhao, Sun and the
person in the National Sanlv University as the branch.
What’s more? through the whole novel, I can see that it shows a satire of society. After Fang
Hongjian returned his hometown, receiving his doctorate from Clayton University. He was
reported by the local newspaper and invited to have an academic speech in his old school. It reflets
the backwardness of Chinese culture an education at that time and the corruption of people’s
thoughts. In the novel, Cao Yuanlang made a poetry which imitated The Waste Land written by
Thoms Stearms Eliot; Fang Hongjian bought the fake doctorate from Clayton University. All these
plots reflet that many people worship all things foreign and they are hypocritical. Besides these,
during the period of National Sanlv University, the open and secret struggle among colleagues and
they against on each other reflets the complexity of human nature, selfishness, and the messy
interpersonal relationship leading by profits.
In summary, the theme of this novel is to show the social corruption, educational backwardness, as
well as academic and humanity hypocrisy at the time of 19 century. Learning from this novel, we
should consider how to face the “fortress besieged” in our life, how to live a better life inside or
outside the fortress besieged. It’s vital we should stay sane and cherish the present.