The Sigh of Glass Beads
Yi ShuCosmos Books1994
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- Yi Shu Collections
- ISBN
- 9789622573048
Tags
Featured Fiction Women's Fiction Sibling RelationsFamily TragedyFamily DeclineStep-by-Step GuideClan SagaRomance NovelFull-Length NovelHong Kong Taiwan LiteratureHong Kong WriterHong Kong LiteratureSummary
The Sigh of Glass Beads is a novel by Hong Kong author Yi Shu, published by Cosmos Books. The story opens at a lively social dinner party: Zhijun notices her father exchanging glances with a woman surnamed Chen among the guests and points this out to her sister Zhijue, who replies, "My eyes have always been unable to see what I do not wish to see." This brother and sister, both from the family of a cloth mill owner, each take a different path after their father leaves home and the family fortunes decline—the sister loses all trust in love and men, while the brother drifts from one relationship to another. With her trademark crisp short sentences and brisk pacing, Yi Shu peels back layer after layer of family upheaval, sibling ties, and the calculation and self-deception of urban men and women: glass beads look crystal clear, yet when struck they give off only a hollow sound, just like the many seemingly glamorous people and relationships in the novel. It reads lightly, but lingers with a sigh.Editor's review
亦舒是华语世界最受读者喜爱的都市言情作家之一，从十几岁发表小说起，她以“麻利、泼辣”的文字写尽香港都会女子的情爱与生计。《玻璃珠的叹息》属于她创作成熟期的长篇作品，开篇即以一场晚宴上的暗涌切入，几句对白便立住了两姐弟的性格，也埋下家庭分崩离析的伏笔。她的故事往往情节跌宕、结局出人意料，语言上又以一两句话成段，节奏快、跳跃大，正合现代都市人的阅读习惯。若你想认识“亦舒式”的清醒与凉薄，这本书是一个轻盈的入口；若你已是她的老读者，这一册也不该在你的书架上缺席。Who it's for
A good fit for
- 喜欢亦舒、亦舒式语言的读者
- 对香港都市文学、港台言情有兴趣的读者
- 爱看家族变故与兄妹关系题材的中篇读者
- 想在通勤、短途旅行中轻快读完一本小说的读者
Not a good fit for
- 期待严密社会派推理或硬核文学的读者
- 反感言情题材、偏爱冷硬写实的读者
- 希望读到亦舒早期或代表作（如《玫瑰的故事》）的读者
Reading tips
- 可对照亦舒其他作品，留意她“一两句成段”的语言节奏与欧·亨利式收束。
- 关注书中“看见”与“装作看不见”的反复出现，这是理解人物选择的关键。
- 不建议把小说人物当作道德范本，宜带着对都市人处境的体谅去读。
About the publisher
Cosmos BooksPublic information about Cosmos Books is limited. Judging from the twenty titles held in the collection, its publishing focuses on fiction and essay collections, particularly women's fiction, romance and social novels, alongside select literary fiction and belles-lettres. Representative titles include If You Were Anqi, Catching Fish and Forgetting the Trap, Dusk, Davenport Cream, Floral Skirt, Can Love Be Downloaded?, A Woman with Two Beds and Tighter, Tighter, whose themes often center on urban women's emotions, life circumstances and personal relationships, with delicate storytelling close to everyday experience. In terms of authors, works by Yi Shu are a representative author resource in the collection; her romance and urban writing give the publisher a distinct identity in the women's reading market. Overall, Cosmos Books is characterized by literary titles on romance and urban life, together with essay collections, shaping a literary publishing profile oriented toward female readers.
FAQ
《玻璃珠的叹息》是哪位作家的作品？
是香港作家亦舒的长篇小说，由天地图书出版，收入亦舒作品集。亦舒原名倪亦舒，是香港作家倪匡的妹妹。这本书主要讲什么故事？
围绕之俊与之珏两姐弟展开。父亲离开后家道中落，姐姐变得不再相信男人，弟弟则到处周旋于感情，故事写的是家庭变故如何影响人的选择。这本书有没有简体中文版？
目前可核实的主要是天地图书版，于1994年出版，ISBN 为 9789622573048。简体字版的版本信息暂未核实到，购买时请以实际在售版本为准。它不是三联“新知文库”的一种吗？
不是。三联书店的“新知文库”是人文社科译丛，多为非虚构作品；《玻璃珠的叹息》是亦舒的小说，属于天地图书的亦舒作品集。目录线索提到的“新知文库电子书合集”与该书无关。This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Yi Shu AuthorYi Shu is a widely read author in the Chinese-speaking world, though public information about her remains limited, with no clear record of her nationality or dates of birth and death. The collection includes 108 of her works, spanning quality fiction, women's fiction, literature, classical literature, prose and miscellaneous writings, and fiction for female readers, showing that her writing crosses both narrative fiction and the personal essay. Representative works include When the Grapes Ripen, If Walls Could Talk, Across the Four Seas, A Night Without a Moon, A Fleeting Bloom, Until the Flowers Fade, Till the Seas Run Dry, and Asura. Judging from these titles and categories, she often takes the emotions, lives, and circumstances of urban women as her point of entry, writing in a calm and restrained tone and using everyday detail to reveal her characters' psychological turns, so that her stories, under a light surface, offer a clear-eyed view of life's meetings and partings and have thus long circulated among Chinese-language readers.