Ideals and Reality
The Moon and Sixpence is a world famous novel written by W. Somerset Maugham，who is an English novelist, playwright and short-story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era, whose work is characterized by a clear unadorned style, cosmopolitan settings, and a shrewd understanding of human nature.
First of all, let me give a brief overview of the book. The novel’s central character, Charles Strickland, is a London stockbroker who renounces his wife, children, and business in order to paint. In Paris, Strickland woos and wins a friend’s wife away just so that he can paint her; when she kills herself, he is seemingly unaffected but leaves Paris, later settling in Tahiti with a young native woman. The story is in part based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin.
I remember a sentence in the book clearly, "The ground is full of six pence, but he looked up and saw the moon", this ideal and reality of the game triggered countless people to think. Throughout this book，I have thought about the relationship between ideals and reality and realized that we should look up to the stars and keep your feet on the ground.
In fact, I prefer Captain Bruno's understanding of life to Strickland, who is also a confidant of Strickland and says that controlling Strickland is a desire to create, pursuing the beauty of art like an eternal pilgrim.
Captain Bruno is the most well-known person. He served in the Navy in his early years, after retirement he wanted to live a comfortable life. But because of the failure of investment and financial management, he became poor. Bruno and his wife left their homeland, borrowed money to buy the island, built houses, cleaned shrubs, and planted coconut trees. He had his own faith and his wife carefully raised a pair of children, teaching them piano, history, literature and labor skills. After two decades of struggle, the desert island has become a thriving plantation.
As Captain Bruno himself put simply said, he was an artist in a way, but the way of Strickland was painting, and his way is to live. So I think that Captain Bruno is a wise man, and he is the most clear person.
As a result, from this book, I hold the view that we should firmly take every step rather than look at the stars far away, in this way, perhaps one day we can reach out to touch the blue sky.
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