这本"the age of innocence"让我联想到的是《牡丹亭》。 都是”情不知从何而起， 一往而深“， 都是”良辰美景奈何天“的深深惆怅，
如果说《牡丹亭》是对封建礼教的抗争， 那么我读出来"the age of innocence"则是对19世纪末期虚伪僵硬的纽约上层社会的Society and Class的抗争。 相似之处没有止步于此。 《牡丹亭》佳句迭起，而"the age of innocence"也是如此。
1. 男主对表姐说： “Each time you happen to me all over again.”
这真是我读到的最动听的情话之一。 这句话的背景是--男主为了不爱上表姐， 有很多挣扎，比如避开表姐，比如提早自己婚期， 可每次碰到，他就身不由己的被吸引。
让我联想到“飘”里面白船长从监狱里出来去找斯佳丽，本来两人已在斯佳丽探监的时候翻脸，但这会儿白船长看到斯佳丽不仅跟妹夫结婚，还红红火火的在修她的作坊，白船长真正的爱意在这里开始。 如果说一开始白船长是被斯佳丽的美貌和叛逆所吸引，这个时候则是被她的百折不饶而折服。这也就是一种“you happen to me all over again”.
2. 男主跟表姐的一段对话，很精彩
男主： “I want - I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that -categories like that- won't exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter.”
表姐： "Oh, my dear—where is that country? Have you ever been there? I know so many who've tried to find it; and, believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo—and it wasn't at all different from the old world they'd left, but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous."
男主曾经在花丛中流连过 （作者的表达很巧妙： "In the rotation of crops there was a recognised season for wild oats"），不同的是以前没有动过真心， 直到遇见表姐。 这让男主做出幼稚感性的表白。而表姐的回答很有见识， 难怪让男主倾心。
3. 这个女作者对男主婚姻的解读：
He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust; and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty.
4. 结尾是30年后， 男主和儿子在巴黎。 儿子上楼去看女主， 他不去， 让儿子转告： ”Say I'm old-fashioned: that's enough.“
我很喜欢这个结尾。 与其让不再存在于同一个世界的情人刻舟求剑， 不如让更年轻心态更开放的版本2.0去见老情人。 而男主和表姐，就还是彼此把对方埋葬在心间吧。
作者前面这样解释了男主这30年是这样的 -- 这个女作者的文字太美！
"But Archer had found himself held fast by habit, by memories, by a sudden startled shrinking from new things. Now, as he reviewed his past, he saw into what a deep rut he had sunk. The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else."
世间太多辛苦和无奈，而有些文学艺术，就像那清风明月，足以熨平人心底最深处的褶皱。
