If I say that I read one book in a year, would you sneer at me? What about, conversely, if I read a book in a year? Are you dumbfounded by this? Does it mean any different?

In 2017, I really only read one book.

"My writing career is all thanks to "Jane Eyre" and "Villette." This sentence comes from the 2017 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Japanese-British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. A passage about literary creation.

That’s why I searched Baidu for the author, British writer Charlotte Browning. What I am curious about is who can influence Ishiguro Kazuo.

A few years ago, my daughter bought a book, "Jane Eyre", which I knew about many years ago. The reason why I didn't read it at that time was because she told me that it was a novel about love. She was in the fourth grade of elementary school at the time, and of course she was not yet old enough to understand love, while I was just past the age of exploring love.

I took this book out from the bookshelf. Unfortunately, I just stood there and read the famous introduction at the beginning. I have a problem, that is, I really don’t like it. Experts connect a work with the author’s past and present lives. I don’t think the characters in the work should match reality, although I also believe that “art comes from life.” , but higher than life" is a famous saying.

Isn’t it good to simply read the article?

The first time I read "Jane Eyre" was a short novel written by me in the first person, and I found it again from the bookshelf. This time I finished reading the childhood of the protagonist Jane. I put the book solemnly on the desk and took out the bookmark from the drawer. I made up my mind this time to read this book seriously.

I have a bad habit of reading, and I can’t say it’s not good. I’ve always read like this, even though my daughter disagrees. It’s just rough reading.

Because I like foreign literary works very much. Maybe because of the cultural differences between China and foreign countries, in the translation, probably because of respecting the original work, there will be cumbersome and lengthy dialogues. I don’t know if this is right. In short, I often don't have the patience to read.

The first rough reading. I followed Jane's personal growth process, from childhood to adulthood, and read the entire book in one sitting. But I ignored other characters, and I only focused on Jane, her childhood, miserable experiences and crazy resistance, and then her forbearance at the beginning of boarding school, working as a tutor, and her final escape. At the end, I read it carefully because I subconsciously hoped for her consummation.

The second rough reading. This is because when I read it before, it was difficult to remember the names of people and places in the article. When I read it for the first time, I just followed my habits, her aunt, her cousin, the man from the boarding school, the male master, the housekeeper... because it was not easy to remember those long names at once. This time I took out a pen and paper and carefully wrote down the names of people and places in order. I read them several times and found that it was not that difficult to remember. It became easier to read them again.

Third rough reading. It is a long dialogue that I have ignored before. Foreigners really like to repeat themselves and are not as direct as Chinese. But after reading it carefully this time, I actually read it aloud vividly, imitating the tone of the Chinese dubbing that I had watched in the early days of the translated film, thinking about Qiao Zhen, Ding Jianhua, and even Tong Zirong. Sometimes I am so exaggerated that I laugh out loud.

The fourth rough reading. It was I who saw the names written on the cards. Regardless of the names of people or places, I would look for them in the book and learn about those people and places respectively. After reading carefully this time, some people and place names were deeply imprinted in my mind, and I felt that Thornfield must be more beautiful and peaceful than described. Those names would suddenly pop up when I was doing anything. In this way, I forgot about some people and places that I was not interested in. For example, St. John, I had no interest in this person.

A few months have passed since these rough readings and careful readings.

Then, I began to want to get into Jane's heart. St. John, whom I had ignored before, was deeply interested in Jane's mental journey before meeting St. John and after escaping from Thornfield. She had no choice but to run away. And the hardships on the road, especially the description of fatigue and hunger, that kind of hunger, that kind of tiredness, that kind of desire for life, actually made me feel hungry and exhausted.

I read this paragraph carefully and repeated it for many days. The last time, I fell on the bed feebly, and finally ate another meal.

So, I began to concentrate and only regarded myself as Jane. To be precise, it was Jane after meeting Rochester. It turns out that the girl's feelings are still there. I read Jane's heart carefully this time, and what struck me was that we are equally ordinary, so ordinary that we are small and insignificant among the crowd, and are often ignored. But the same thing is the heart of self-existence and self-positioning, especially when facing the grand event at Thornfield. Women all love beauty, and Jane is the same as me. Otherwise, how could she focus on those ladies’ clothes and hair accessories. Jane used detailed descriptions, not sparing even the smallest accessories, to illustrate women's sensitivity and yearning for beauty. At the same time, we also do not pursue things that do not belong to us. Even though our clothes are strange, cheap, and conservative, we still need to express our unique dignity and elegance, our knowledge and cultivation with our own temperament. Instead of caring about those domineering contempt and disdain. Just like Mr. Yang Jiang said: "I won't argue with anyone, and I won't bother arguing with anyone." You should have such confidence instead of arrogance.

Last reading selection. That was one reason I fell in love with Edward Fairfax Rochester.

I was moved when I first met Rochester. He fell off his horse, and we rode on the horse again. The scene fascinated me. Although Jane did not describe her heartbeat, I went in like this. Regarding Rochester's appearance, at first I thought of the orangutan in the cartoon, with his strong chest and forehead. But with his stunning appearance as a gypsy witch, I went crazy. So I read carefully all the chapters where Jane met him, and all their conversations. I didn't feel it was lengthy, even though it was still wordy. Every time I called "my little thing, little baby, Janet...", it made me feel happy. I am intoxicated. More than once, I fell in love with his frankness and conversation, and I didn't think he had a weird temper. I can understand the part where he told everything about him and the French dancer. Fall in love with all his unexpected encounters with Jane. He hid the fact that he had a wife, and I completely ignored him in advance. I forgive him for all the excuses for doing so. In the scene in the church, I actually ignored Jane, and felt sorry for him for the first time. I was equally bleeding and hurt as he was. They went to meet the mad woman together, and I shed tears, not because of Jane, but because of the despair and madness of his struggle with his wife. Because this made it clear that he was going to lose Jane. I felt sorry for him as long as he sat outside Jane's door. During the big conversation before he and Jane finally parted, I yelled hysterically. I knew how desperate he was.

Moved him to rush into the fire, the responsibility a man should have, and seemed to hear him calling the name of his mad wife, "Bertha!"

Read the story between Jane and Rochester carefully. Reunion. If he feels sorry for himself, feels sorry for himself, and prays for love while feeling inferior, I will give up my love for him directly. He didn't, he bluntly expressed his desire for Jane's love, panicked about losing her again, and boldly confessed that he still loved her deeply.

I was completely conquered, this is what love should be like. If love is perfect without flaws, it is not love, love is imperfect.

Rochester's eyes regained sight and he was relatively calm with Jane. I was actually excited. I laughed so excitedly that I shed tears.

For a novel, read it roughly, read it carefully, read it selectively, select the best and read it intensively, and taste it again and again, just like a glass of fine wine. In the end, they all turned into hopeless madness.

Let me shout his name again, "Edward Fairfax Rochester!"