Reading check-in + Day 13 + Appreciation of Fine Foreign Prose + reading notes
Today our gaze turns to Edinburgh. I think that words used to describe Edinburgh could just as well be used to write about Chongqing. The author writes that the city here is built upon hills. As you walk, deep valleys and rivers suddenly open beneath your feet. Overpasses stretch across the sky, and on the bridges there are streets again. The North, the North: does your mind summon cattle and sheep along both sides of the road? Yes, it is the same here. Withered vines, old trees, evening crows; little bridges, flowing water, homes. The only difference is that this place seems wrapped in stone. A montage unfolds before us. First we see the highland people, warm-hearted and rugged; then the drummers, stirring the blood; then our ballerina, stepping lightly. In an instant, a lament rises, and it is as if we see the bloody history behind kings. One general's glory is built upon ten thousand bones; the warhorses on the battlefield seem to clatter past.
The beautiful women of the North set the heart adrift. The people here are content in simplicity and full of vitality. A small shell, perhaps, could stand for the lovely scenery of this place. You see the sea, strangely calm, strangely blue; in that deep, deep blue are history, the people, stories of rise and fall, and the uncanny workmanship of creation. Then you see the graceful ballerina again: her dance is like the winding Forth River, and like a beautiful grassland. Human beings and heaven and earth become one; it is landscape, and it is story.
This article was published at https://blog.lazying.art/html/1805.htm