Alicia, an artist who had an incoming exhibition, was considered to murder her husband with a gunshot. After that crime, she never spoke again and painted a self-portrait in light blue Greek lettering “Alcestis”. All those strange mysteries turned a commonplace domestic tragedy into an enigma that captured the public imagination for months in this book, and also ignited my curiosity when first opened it. To be more specific, it’s a thriller, which is not the category I prefer as usual. It is its relation to “Alcestis”, a goddess in Greek Mythology which I learned in the previous semester, that spurred me to go through the whole book.
艾丽西亚，一个即将举办展览的艺术家，被认为是用枪杀了她的丈夫。那次犯罪之后，她再也没有说过话，并且用浅蓝色希腊字母 "Alcestis "画了一幅自画像。所有这些奇怪的谜团将一个平凡的家庭悲剧变成了一个谜，在这本书中吸引了公众几个月的想象力，同时也点燃了我第一次打开这本书时的好奇心。更具体地说，它是一部惊悚片，这不是我通常喜欢的类别。正是它与 "阿尔塞斯提斯 "的关系，阿尔塞斯提斯是我在上个学期学过的希腊神话中的一位女神，成为一个契机，推动我去翻阅整本书。
In Greek Mythology, Alcestis was known for her love dedicated to her husband. She volunteered to replace her husband to die, but after she was saved to return from the underground, she never spoke again. I never wondered why until I embarked on reading it. When I finished it, I finally disentangled the question and knew that this misery was indicative of a woman who loved her husband so much but awakened that she was actually abandoned by her husband in the name of being sacrificed to love. This psychological thriller was also a description of a woman who was abandoned by her loved ones. I use “ones” here because she was actually being abandoned twice! First was her cruel father, causing a great trauma in her upbringing and leaving a wound that never healed. And the second was her husband in her adulthood, who cheated on her. And finally, all the hidden grudges of the female protagonist broke out!
在希腊神话中，阿尔塞斯提斯以献给丈夫的爱而闻名。她自愿代替她的丈夫去死，但在她被救出，从地下回来后，她再也没有说话。我从未想过为什么，直到我开始阅读它。当我读完后，我终于解开了这个问题，知道这种痛苦表明一个女人是如此爱她的丈夫，但却醒悟到她实际上是被丈夫以牺牲爱情的名义抛弃了。这部心理惊悚片也是对一个被她所爱的人们的描述。我在这里使用 "人们"，因为她实际上是被抛弃了两次！首先是她残忍的父亲，在她的成长过程中造成了巨大的创伤，留下了永不愈合的伤口。其次是她成年后的丈夫，他欺骗了她（出轨）。最后，女主人公所有压抑已久的怨恨都爆发了！这就是她的故事。
This book was written in the first person. “I” was a psychotherapist, Theo. “I” was obsessed with Alicia’s silence after that notorious accident and wanted to dig out the deep reasons, the key to letting her talk again. Thus, “I” applied for the job that could treat Alicia face to face, and embarked on desperate investigations into Alicia’s personal life, from her childhood to her marriage. At the same time, “I” continued to talk about the reminiscence of how I fell in love with “my wife” Kathy but then found her loving affairs and did lots of pretending to act just as usual but had sown the criminal seeds. In the ending, there was a major twist that combined these two storylines: Kathy actually had an affair with Alicia’s husband and it was “I”, Theo, the true psychopath, who tracked Alicia, threatened her mental security, broke into Alicia’s house, held her captive, and exposed the affair, triggering a long-dormant trauma which existed long ago from her childhood and which incited her to shoot her husband in the face. After all these monstrous deeds, “I” was guilty and at the same time, wanted to cover all these things. So “I” chose to treat Alicia face to face, but ultimately failed because an inspector got Alicia’s diary, the evidence to reveal who was the true criminal.
这本书是以第一人称写的。"我 "是一位心理治疗师，西奥。"我 "痴迷于艾丽西亚在那场臭名昭著的事故后的沉默，想挖出深层原因，即让她重新说话的关键。因此，"我 "申请了可以面对面治疗艾丽西亚的工作，并开始对艾丽西亚的个人生活进行积极的调查，从她的童年到她的婚姻。同时，"我 "继续谈论回忆我如何与 "我的妻子 "凯西相爱，但后来发现她的出轨，“我”做了很多假装与平常一样的行为，但已经播下犯罪的种子。在结局中，有一个重大转折，将这两个故事情节结合起来。凯西实际上与艾丽西亚的丈夫有婚外情，而正是 "我"，西奥，这个真正的精神病患者，追踪艾丽西亚，威胁她的精神安全，闯入艾丽西亚的家，囚禁她，并揭露了这段婚外情，触发了她童年时早已存在的长期休眠的创伤，并煽动她向她丈夫开枪。在所有这些畸形的行为之后，"我 "很内疚，同时也想掩盖所有这些事情。因此，"我 "选择了面对面地对待艾丽西亚，但最终失败了，因为一个检查员得到了艾丽西亚的日记，这是揭示谁是真正罪犯的证据。
At first, I thought Theo was a soooo considerate psychotherapist for he himself suffered from trauma resulting from family breakdowns in his childhood, and decided to take psychotherapy as his career. He unwaveringly unraveled the mystery, even faced with obstacles and threats. But then the major twist surprised me! He was telling the true facts, but just omitted critical elements, which can form a total OPPOSITE story. I was so astonished by the writing technique. Maybe the technique is a bit like O. Henry-style ending, which always surprises me in the end.
起初，我以为西奥是个体贴入微的心理治疗师，因为他自己在童年时遭受了家庭破裂造成的创伤，并决定把心理治疗作为自己的职业。他甚至面对障碍和威胁时能够坚定不移。但后来的重大转折让我大吃一惊! 他讲述的是真实的事实，但只是省略了关键的因素，这可以形成一个完全相反的故事。我对这种写作技巧感到非常惊讶。也许这种技巧有点像欧-亨利式的结局，最后总是让我感到惊讶。
Besides, when I search the writer of the silent patient on Goodreads, I found the author’s other work, also enjoying a high rank—The Maidens, published in 2021. It is also a psychological thriller about murder, sharing the same writing technique of using a mystery story in Greek Mythology to arouse my interest as his previous work. After finishing it, I found that if I said The Silent Patient explicitly steeped the story in a framework of Greek tragedy, then The Maidens was only slightly related but not indissolubly wedded to Greek tragedy. The Maidens was written in a gruesome, ritualistic, gothic atmosphere, from my perspective, not as wonderful as The Silent Patient. But I found something similar—the protagonist always suffered from her childhood and broke out in her adulthood.
此外，当我在Goodreads上搜索作者时，我发现了他的另一部作品，也享有很高的排名--《少女》，2021年出版。这也是一部关于谋杀的心理惊悚小说，与他之前的作品一样，都是用希腊神话中的神秘故事作为背景。读完之后，我发现，如果说《沉默的病人》明确地将故事浸泡在希腊悲剧的框架中，那么《少女》只是与希腊悲剧略有关联，但并没有不可分割地结合在一起。在我看来，《少女》是在一种可怕的、仪式性的、哥特式的氛围中写成的，没有《沉默的病人》那么精彩。但我发现有相似之处--主人公总是从童年开始受苦，在成年后爆发。
After the reading, I feel that childhood is such an important period in life. In reality, I was growing up in a relatively full family, with no divorce and not so many quarrels in my childhood. Even though I was once a left-behind child when I was little, I still had grandparents who loved and cared for me. And I also have a little brother who could play with me. I never realize that it is childhood that helps to cultivate some good outlooks on life for me and leads me to hold a courageous attitude to cope with life. Before, I frequently see the term “Family of origin” on the internet and also this quote “some people have their whole life protected and healed by their childhood, some people have to have their whole life to heal from their childhood.” Now, I think I have a better understanding of it and I appreciated that my family members nourished me in love.
读完之后，我觉得童年是人生中如此重要的时期。在现实中，我是在一个相对完整的家庭中长大的，没有离婚，童年时父母也没有那么多争吵。尽管我小时候曾经是个留守儿童，但我仍然有爱我、关心我的爷爷奶奶。而且我还有一个可以和我一起玩的小弟弟。我从来没有意识到，是童年帮助我培养了一些良好的人生观，引导我抱着一种勇敢的态度来应对生活。以前，我经常在网上看到 "原生家庭 "这个词，还有这句话："有些人的一生都被他们的童年所保护和治愈，有些人的一生都要从他们的童年中治愈。" 现在，我想我对它有了更深的理解，我很感激我的家庭成员在爱中滋养了我。
Author: Yang Siyu
Date: July 16, 2022
