A review by james_z
围城 by Nathan K. Mao, Qian Zhongshu, Jeanne Kelly

4.0

Insightful, sarcastic and timeless in its social critique. The central character Fang is an ambitious young men who just seems a little too proud to reconcile the reality of his immediate surroundings. Seen as a foreigner while studying abroad and upon returning to his home soil, the fracture between his idealism as cultivated by the Western philosophy became even more evident as he attempted to settle back into the typical confines of life namely career and marriage. This story sends a chilling message that sometimes you may desperately want to escape your immediate prison only discovering that you've trapped yourself once again in another. This never-ending cycles of escape and re-escape gives us a reality check that given how much choice and options we have, we are still feeling underwhelmed and unfulfilled.