Travel has been a considerable part of my life and I have made different kinds of joumeys to
many parts of the world. Often in my travels,l was alone, traveling under difficult conditions in
wartime. And I have flown over the oceans many times when I wanted to get quickly from one
place to another. But a sea voyage,especially a long one,has some.thing unusual of its own,and
after taking a few of them,l became interested in the reasons why people take such trips and how
they are affected by them. That is why I wanted to write Life Number Two.
     Some people go for escape from grief or failure, some from a wish not to be very long iri one
place in the world. Others go to celebrate a marriage, or a retirement,and many people take voyages
to enjoy a luxury(享乐) they do not have at home and for shipboard fun. When you put all these
motives (动机)  into a forced companionship (伙伴关系 )  and sometimes an unpleasant one a
voyage can be like a mirror held up to modem  life with  all  its  variety (多样性 ) . Voyages can
be boring but they can give some passengers new view on life,renew courage and awaken a sense
of the size of the world.
     There are many books about ocean voyages,but as a rule they are magazines or diaries of travel.
 Life Number Two is a novel written not mainly to show shipboard life but to tell the stories of a few
people on board,trying their past lives and their possible futures into the narratives(叙述).lt also deals
with some modem socialproblems worth our consideration.