《Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?》是一本由Jeanette Winterson著作，Jonathan Cape出版的Hardcover图书，本书定价：GBP 14.99，页数：240，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。

　　《Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?》读后感(一)：infinitely complex and absolutely simple

　　开始读这本书，一方面因为喜欢《橘子不是唯一的水果》，一方面，实在标题难以忘怀。Why be happy when you could be normal？既然能正常，还要快乐做什么？多奇怪的逻辑啊。

　　因为看了《橘子》的缘故，多少对Jeanette的生平有所了解。从小母爱、父爱的缺失，对她的影响是破坏性的。阅读过程中，太多桥段令人心疼、怜惜这个女孩。但纵使她多么天赋异禀，文字多么俏皮有趣，从不少细节和自白仍可以想见，现实中的Jeanette并不是一个好相处的人。傲慢、刻薄，也许还有些许极端。她渴望爱，渴望幸福，却也亲手将幸福付之一炬。

　　第八章结尾，当养母问Jeanette为什么宁可离开家也不愿“纠正”自己的性取向时，珍妮特想了很久说，‘When I am with her I am happy. Just happy’。养母点了点头。她以为这次终于可以得到母亲的理解。她等着，只听到母亲说：“Why be happy when you could be normal？”

　　不会好了。看到这句话的刹那，我的心也随之石沉大海，同时也恍然大悟：原来这个有趣的标题背后却有如此沉重的含义。养母一辈子无法理解她的渴求，她也无法理解她的养母。这并不是谁的错。她只是一个渴望被爱的孩子。

　　We all want to be loved. It's infinitely complex and absolutely simple。

　　《Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?》读后感(二)：the hiding place and the finding place

　　I always like JW’s writing. When this book came out in 2011, I ordered it but did not read it immediately. I thought that it was the fact-version of Oranges are not the only fruit. The online bookstore introduces the book this way:

　　quot;Heartbreaking and funny: the true story behind Jeanette’s bestselling and most beloved novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. In 1985, at twenty-five, Jeanette published Oranges, the story of a girl adopted by Pentecostal parents, supposed to grow up to be a missionary. Instead, she falls in love with a woman. Disaster."

　　This confirms my prior. I left the book on the shelf. I prefer the fiction-version of life. The fact-version might be too depressing.

　　Recently a woman emailed me with a picture, telling me that she is my biological sister. We have been separated for twenty-eight years since I was given away to my adoptive father. I knew that I was adopted but did not really want to confront the fact. I had a hard time with my adoptive father and his repeated divorces, but this did not make me long for my birth parents. The reluctance to face the fact of life has been protective for many years. Now my sister contacts me. I have to face the fact, or the facts because of different versions.

　　I started reading Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, because I knew that it would be a hiding place. I knew that she would be handling the painful memories with candor, humor, and wisdom. In fact it gives me more than a hiding place. As she brilliantly wrote, “a tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”

　　After finishing the book, I listened to audio book read by JW herself. I like the book even more when it is read. Listening to a story is different from reading a story. Stories, cheerful or sad, are to be told and to be listened to.

　　《Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?》读后感(三)：The lost loss/ shines bright as midnight stars/ Starry starry twinkles/ Lead you far away and back t

　　quot;Adopted Children are self-invented because we have to be; there is an absence, a void, a question mark at the very beginning of our lives. A crucial part of our story is gone, and violently, like a bomb in the womb.

　　quot;The baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story --- of course that is how we all live, it's the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. It's like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It's like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you, and it can't, and it shouldn't, because something is missing."

　　------ 摘自原书

　　初次接触Jeanette Winterson是看她那一本红极一时的《橘子不是唯一的水果》，那已经是很久很久以前的事情了。最近有朋友问起我这本书如何，我几乎没有什么印象，回去翻当时写的摘抄和读后感才惊讶，那本薄薄的小说我竟然摘抄了整整六面纸。重新读了读自己当时的读后感和摘抄又重新找回一点熟悉感，当时看那本书时，几乎每个段落都有精妙的句子或者明隐喻，看到哪里就想抄到哪里，但是说实在的却并不太能理解含义是什么，仅仅觉得写得很妙，妙在哪里说不出来。所以后来看完就算狠狠抄过六面纸还是遗忘了大多数。最近遇到一个特别喜爱Jeanette Winterson的姑娘，看她好几次写到Winterson的时候简直隔着屏幕能感受到她眼睛透露出来的热度，于是决定重新认真读读Winterson的原著。搜索作品列表的时候，这本《Why be happy when you could be normal》首先就抓住了我的眼球，二话不说就买回来了。如果说人和人之间会有一见钟情，那某些读者和作者作品也同样有这种love at the first sight，看Winterson这本书对我来说，就是一见难忘一读倾心……

　　如果说有些人是天生歌姬，张嘴就能唱出音符；有些人天生能作画，色彩调和度敏感度达到微米数量级；那么Jeanette Winterson就是天生的作家，SHE KNOWS WORDS！文字写作对她来说简直就是水到渠成，血液里流淌的好像都是文字符号，句子在她笔里写出来都有一种云淡风轻但是神秘如暗物质一样的东西具有无极限的吸引力把你整个重心和灵魂一下子吸进去她的漩涡里。这同时又让我想起第一次读《橘子》一书，原版得要比翻译版更精彩多少啊？有些作者要俘获读者的心必须处心积虑，各种tricks各种弄虚作玄；但是有些作者只要一句话，读者就死心塌地地为止倾倒。WInterson就是这样的作家，我就是那个读者。

　　这本《Why be happy when you could be normal》算是Jeanette Winterson的半自传，说的主要是小Jeanette在被Mrs Winterson收养之后的童年经过，和长大离家后自己的一个‘寻找自我’的过程。而这一切一切，其实都来源于Jeanette Winterson对于一种lost loss的执念，就像我摘出来的那段话，作为adopted child，她一直存活在something missing的生活和世界里，她对外找也对内找，整本书其实在我看来就是一个寻找这种lost loss和自我的过程。而这一切的开端，都是从这个收养她的Mrs Winterson开始，也就是Jeanette的养母。

　　Mrs Winterson是什么样的人？如果要用一个词简单的形容应该我第一个想到的就是Monster。她不让小Jeanette进家门，让她彻夜坐在门前的阶梯上捱冷捱饿；她不允许小Jeanette阅读，说书本是sin说jeanette是wrong crib，是from the devil；她甚至在知道小jeanette的性取向之后向教会告状，主张实施对小jeanette的驱魔仪式……我无法想象还有什么样的母亲能比Mrs Winterson更Monster的，就算是继母就算是养母。橙子说，这就是Heartbreaking。然而，我在Jeanette Winterson的笔下读到的却不仅仅是Heartbreaking。Jeanette恨她母亲吗？恨！绝对恨。特别是当Mrs Winterson举报她同性恋导致她的初恋离开她的时候，特别是当Mrs Winterson把她藏在床垫下面的所有买来的书都扔院子里烧掉的时候，特别是当《橘子》一书出版之后，Jeanette打电话回家电话那头传来的不是being so proud而是being so upset，怨恨Jeanette把自己的故事名字写在书里了……但是，除了恨，除了让Jeanette十六岁小小年纪就收拾行李头也不回离家出走的恨以外，还有爱，还有期待，还有Forgiveness。每一次提到Mrs Winterson对自己实行的暴行或者非亲的对待，Jeanette的描写却一直都是平淡的，像在说别人的故事而不是自己的遭遇一样，但是正因为越平淡却比那些嚎啕大哭的悲哀来得更加钻心刺骨的痛。而也是这种平淡，让整个笼罩的黑暗和绝望多了那么点隐约的希望的曙光，环境处境越恶劣，也因此Jeanette的反抗自救越强烈。从她逃离现实生活而完全让自己沉浸在文学世界和书本里面，那种顽强那种积极那种自我痊愈真的beyond my imagination并且gets all my admiration。Mrs Winterson给Jeanette带来的阴影笼罩是永久性的，不可移除无法逆转的，就算在书的后半部，Mrs Winterson已经去世，已经完全真真切切失去再影响Jeanette真实生活的力量时，Jeanette后来经历的精神break down或者说后期她对人生生活的追求，其实都来自Mrs Winterson那得来的‘动力’。虽说这整个童年过程实在太残忍，太不堪，太非人道，但是也不得不说，说不定某种程度上，是这个Mrs Winterson造就了现在的Jeanette Winterson。就像Jeanette Winterson对后来相认的亲生母亲说到不允许她辱骂Mrs Winterson，因为“就算她是Monster，她也是我的Monster。”

　　俗话说“天将降大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志……”；Jeanette Winterson也在书里说了“The wound is a gift: the one who is wounded is marked out - literally and symbolically - by the wound. The wound is a sign of difference." 越长大越发现这是多么的真理，伟大的人大多都有极其苦难的人生和过去，因为在苦难艰难之中才能孕育出明珠般的智慧结晶。尽管如此，我仍然很庆幸自己生而为一个普通人，普通无疑不也是一种乐融融平和的幸福啊。To be normal or to be yourself, that is the question. For Jeanette Winterson, she chose to be herself, and she succeeded to be a happy-self ; but for me, maybe I will just stay as normal as i can. Being oneself or just always being truly happy, sometimes just cost too much which i cannot possibly afford to sacrifice.

　　想说的实在太多，无奈实在没有办法一气呵成把脑里面的纠缠线团理清楚表达出来。越是看Jeanette的作品越是觉得文字作品实在是庄严神圣的事物，不应该轻易铺张滥用，不应该矫情肆意抒发，文字都是有精神气的，就像你看这本书的时候，能感觉到Jeanette Winterson的呼吸在你脸颊在你耳边。决定要重看《橘子》一书原版，并且要把Jeanette Winterson的著作全部看遍。没有看过Jeanette的书没有关系，不认识不了解不感兴趣这个作家也没有关系，只要你看了这本书，你就会爱上她，义无反顾地，一定会，正如我一样❤️。