Yan Zhen said that over the years, he has seen too many things and heard too many things - in today's increasingly rich material, increasingly comfortable life, and increasingly free soul, there are so many outstanding women who have been frustrated and troubled by love, marriage, and family issues, and staged one life tragedy after another - so he has to write a novel to express the emotional and survival dilemmas faced by contemporary intellectual women.

Yan is really a master at writing dilemmas. Six years ago, he wrote about the plight of civil servant Chi Dawei in "The Water of the Waves", and the novel was reprinted again and again, silently selling more than 300,000 copies, and the bookstore is still adding to it. The earlier "Once in the World" was written about the plight of Gao Liwei, an international student, which was Yan Zhen's debut novel, but the delicate writing was like a soft knife, cutting open the inner secrets of that generation of international students (mainly male students). This time, "Because of Women", Yan Zhen extended his pen to women—the plight of women.

The opening up of society and the economy has brought about tremendous changes in people's ideological concepts, values, and living conditions. In the relations between the sexes, morality tends to be tolerant, freedom loses its boundaries, the body becomes wealth, and desires are no longer shy to answer. "Love" has been forgotten by many people, or has been replaced by material and "feeling". Matter and "feeling" are not profound or sacred, but they have an irresistible power that leads the "body" to pursue the pleasures and satisfaction of reality. This state of affairs is becoming more and more common and becoming a mainstream sight in our lives.

The ensuing confusion is: is love, as the most central value and the most important theme in a woman's life, out of date? Does love no longer mean responsibility and loyalty, is no longer eternal, but needs to be redefined? Yan Zhen does not make judgments from a specific ethical standpoint, and in the meticulous, realistic and meticulous description of the emotional journey of Liu Yiyi, Miao Xiaohui, and A Yu, we gradually read the real problem that worries Yan Zhen deeply: how should women deal with themselves in the emotional competition with "youth" and "beauty" as capital? Women, how to be a woman? What several heroines in the novel—whether sober as Miao Xiaohui, Ah Yu, or confused as Liu Yiyi—have not figured out is that in their interactions with men, they should pay physically and mentally and enjoy both mental and physical pleasure; Or is it physical investment, using youth and beauty for material satisfaction? When the red face fades and the youth is no longer there, what branch can the lovebird follow?

Due to various reasons, women have always been disadvantaged in society, and people have struggled for many years to achieve "equality between men and women" with different meanings, different levels, and different purposes. In the super-"liberal democracy" of the United States, it was only in the sixties of the twentieth century that women were given the right to vote and to be elected, which had always been enjoyed exclusively by men. But due to God's partiality, while men's lives and careers are at their peak, women's blooms have passed. Is this the root cause of the recurrent marital tragedies? If the answer is yes, wouldn't this tragedy be even more tragic? In an atmosphere of instinct indulgence, desire affirmation, and moral dissolution, isn't their gender a natural tragedy? Wouldn't their skies be any darker? Isn't their struggle against fate pointless? Specifically, will more women become forced love nihilists like Liu Yiyi? Reading between the lines of this novel, we can read Yan Zhen's worried cries at any time.

The question remains: what should a woman do? Where is the way out?

Yan Zhen thought of family affection. He believes that family affection is the product of time, the cornerstone of a woman's happiness, and the light of a woman's hope. However, is family affection inevitable? When a man and a woman hold hands, they may not see marriage as a passing eye, but how many people think of the wilderness?

For Yan Zhen, this is a novel that must be written, because he has read too much, listened too much, and thought too much, and it is difficult to feel at ease if he does not write it. He wants to convey to the reader the shock he feels in his heart, and the questions he has repeatedly pondered to the reader. These questions are acute and stinging, but they must be faced and cannot be avoided. He wants to work with the reader to find answers and prospects. In fact, from another point of view, isn't the plight of women the plight of men the plight of men? If the world doesn't know what it is, it's not just women who will suffer misfortune.

From "Once in the World", "The Water of the Waves" to "Because of Women", Yan Zhen's novels are all good-looking and intriguing. He is a master of writing about dilemmas, and he is also a master of meticulous carving. "Because of the Woman" is written in more detail, thoughtfulness, and realism. The meticulous psychological portrayal, the character dialogues full of tension and charm, the unbridled language imagination, and the appropriate and thoughtful atmosphere rendering - when all this is combined with scholarly thinking almost perfectly, the artistic taste and spiritual impact of the novel are not a problem.

After reading the novel, you will know how Yan Zhen, as a male writer living on a college campus, accurately and meticulously reproduces the complex and contradictory inner world of today's intellectual women. You may not agree with his views, but you can't help but admire his writing, share his worries, and think about the questions he raises. Because reality is reality, and you, too, are in reality.

Yang Liu November 2007 Women are not born, but rather gradual. Physically, psychologically, or economically, no fate can determine the image of human women in society. It is the whole civilization that determines this so-called femininity between the male and the eunuch.

- Simone de Beauvoir's feminine temperament and psychology are first and foremost a physiological fact, and then a civilized existence; That is, it is first and foremost the premise of civilization, and then the result of civilization. Biological facts determine the cultural and psychological state of women to the greatest extent, and not the other way around. To describe women's gender temperament and psychological characteristics merely as the result of civilization makes it impossible to understand the real state of their existence. Here, civilization is not just formed by traditions and customs. In this sense, we can say that gender is culture.

- Yan Zhen