book review

After reading "The Seagull", I can't help wondering again why the talent of Russian writers is always like a bottomless lake. So quiet, so deep. I really like seagulls because of this paragraph: "All works of art should have a very distinct, very clear idea. You should know why you are writing. For if you follow this delightful path to no purpose, you must lose your way, and your talents will surely kill you." Sometimes I wonder why I am writing. Was it just to express one's feelings, or was it because "the seagull was destroyed because there was nothing to do"? Not for fame, not for self-fulfillment, but for what? The play said, "Great talents are less, but the level of ordinary people has greatly improved." It is the same in today's era, and I am one of the ordinary people. I'm not going to shoot myself over it, because jealousy doesn't kidnap me. If the purpose of my life is not to express but to win praise, then I will be dead. But that's not my goal, so I'm not going to end up like Tripolev. At the same time, I don't have an irresistible passion to write. I can write if I want to, not for the sake of writing, and see the scenery if I don't want to, even though I don't fish. So I won't live like a tregol grove. And I wouldn't be Nina, even if I hadn't figured out what I was worth. Chekhov said, "It is time for writers, and especially artists, to admit that nothing in the world is intelligible." I am not one of them at all, yet I seem to be all of them. That's how I felt when I finished reading seagulls.