The Art Of Life

Lin Yutang has always been regarded as cultural emissaries, humorous intellectual, and boasted as a hedonist. From his novels, we find that his feelings towards life are so delicate. What he pursues is not superficial happiness, but the feeling, "Life should be happy", after his philosophical and artistic reflections towards human life. Based on reading his novels, this paper tries to probe Lin Yutang's life meaning and its expression in the texts.Except introduction and conclusion, the paper can be divided into three parts.The first part traces the origin of life meaning of Lin Yutang. The fragile in reality and the texts, and the helplessness of life make him feel nostalgic about being alive and have a regrettable imperfection towards life. Thus, spread the background of tragedy toward life.The second part traces the lodging of life meaning of Lin Yutang. After feeling the background of tragedy toward life, Lin Yutang chooses happy life. Between free and since, he tried to adjust life position, and enjoy the process of life and its fun. Meanwhile, he found a way to go beyond the tragedy of life. He acknowledged the limited life, didn't fear death, and particularly cherished life itself. He pursued a life of emotional and vitality, but did not give up implicit in the depths of rational philosophizing.The third part analyzes Lin Yutang's life self-localization, the expression of his life meaning in the texts and its influence on the narration in the texts. He located himself as an ordinary person, and his life principle is to be reasonable, happy and comfortable. He affirmed sound, reasonable and appropriate desire of the other people. In his narrative, he took a more female perspective and the omniscient narrative form. The former drew close to life feelings, and the latter opened the aesthetic distance. The perceptual experience and the rational contemplation were compatible. Culture and ideal preferences made his novels show the characteristics of human customs and romantic atmosphere. Of course, this has brought deficiencies of artistic expression.Compared with the other writers and works in the same time, Lin Yutang's idea and novels are different, which are manifested as a kind of advance and not understood by the domestic social. His works and idea have a positive significance to people who bear too much pressure in modern commercial society.