Beyond Canaan: An Ordinary Woman's Tragic Epic

? Canaan, as the holy land of the Israelites (Jews), is called "the promised land" in the Old Testament. This legendary land is full of "milk and honey", which is the place that Abraham first led his followers to pursue, symbolizing the desire for hope and happiness.

? Since its birth, Ireland has always been a country famous for its suffering, especially during the Great Famine. Irish immigrants have been exporting and drifting. Sebastian, an Irish contemporary playwright, poet and novelist who has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Literature for three times and won the Costa Book Award for two times? Barry is very good at writing novels about Irish family autobiography, and his Dunne family is a typical example.

? In her novel The Other Side of Canaan, based on the self-narrative memoirs of Lily Dunn, an Irish woman who suffered three wars, the youngest daughter of the Dunn family and an Irish immigrant, she slowly tells the readers the joys and sorrows of an ordinary woman's life under the background of war from a microscopic perspective, and generously donates with a tragic family epic. ...

? This novel is based on the personal experience of a menstruation and grandmother in Barry. After losing her grandson Bill, Lily ended her 89-year life peacefully with 17 days' confession. The Long Road, On the Other Side of Canaan, with time and main plot as the main line, shows how Lily, an 89-year-old grandmother far across the Atlantic, reviewed and tried to understand and summarize her life in 17 days after her last blood grandson Bill committed suicide in the school toilet.

? In my opinion, you can regard this novel as a review of life. But at the same time, we should also realize that it was in these seventeen days that Lily looked back on her life and realized that her life had run out of oil and lamps, and the 17-day spell wrapped around her like a death warrant. Perhaps, her fate was doomed as early as when her mother gave birth to her and died in childbirth.

? After the turmoil of World War I, her brother William died, and then she was dragged down by her fiance Tag's sensitive identity. Young Lily had to emigrate from her turbulent country, Ireland, to seek asylum in new york, USA, across the Atlantic. During her stay in the United States, Lily witnessed that she worked for the British royal family and fought in the name of the king during World War I. After the war, she joined the auxiliary police force-Tagg, a notorious "black zongzi regiment" in the eyes of Irish nationalists, and was assassinated by the Irish Peace Army. Later, because of the suspicion of the police husband Joe, she was brutally abandoned when she was about to give birth. After raising her son Ed, she could not face the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War because of her obedience.

? Canaan, a beautiful land symbolizing good luck and happiness, did not bring Lily the happiness she wanted. After the baptism of three wars, 89-year-old Lily finally came to an end after a series of fatal blows, such as the assassination of her affectionate fiance, the abandonment of both mother and son by her husband, the disappearance of her son and the suicide of her grandson. For her, the grandson's suicide is tantamount to crushing the last straw of the camel and taking away her last hope. Now this only thought is gone, and there is no nostalgia for her in the world.

? On the other side of Canaan, Lily's fiance Tiger, who was far away in Ireland, was killed by the army. Her husband Joe abandoned their mother and son because he suspected that Lily had black blood in her own blood, and then he was afraid that the upcoming child would be black and remarried. Wounded by the war, his son Ed hid in a corner where his mother Lily and son Bill could not see him. From then on, mother and son lived far apart. Grandson Bill later committed suicide because of the loss and anger of the war. From then on, the old Dunn family was left with a lonely old man, suffering from the pain of sending white-haired people to black-haired people again and again, counting his memories again and again, and suffering from the unbearable lightness in life. ...