HIGH TENSION, QUIET PLOT
外驰内张
Six Good Books: Maggie Fergusson is surprised by a raffish king, a contemporary urban gang and Alison Moore's Booker prize-listed debut...
六本好书：这次让麦琪·弗格森（Maggie Fergusson）感到惊喜的有一位放荡国王、一个当代都市帮会以及艾莉森·摩尔（Alison Moore）提名布克奖的处女作……
FICTION
小说
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore (Salt, paperback, out now). Rarely can so much tension have been packed into so quiet a plot. Futh, manufacturer of synthetic smells, takes a walking holiday in Germany after the breakdown of his marriage. His walk is circular, and so are his thoughts, revolving relentlessly round his unfaithful wife, abandonment by his mother, the childhood abuse he suffered from his father. One longs for him to lose his grip and so break the cycle. Instead, helplessly tossed on waves of memory and inarticulated anxiety, he combats mental collapse with nerdish, cagoule-wearing precision, regularly itemising his luggage, carefully masticating his food. He is trapped, and the reader feels trapped with him. Moore works in miniature, layering tiny details—greasy croissant flakes, stubble clinging to a hotel bath—to build an atmosphere of foreboding as she inches towards the point where "Psycho" meets "Barton Fink".
《灯塔》，艾莉森·摩尔著（‘盐’出版社，现已上市）。很少能找到一本小说情节如《灯塔》般平静却又蕴含着如此大量的紧张气氛。福斯是一位人工香精制造商，在他的婚姻支离破碎后他前往德国进行徒步旅游来度假散心。他的旅程一直在兜着圈子，而他的思想如出一辙，永无止息地围绕着他不忠的妻子，抛弃他的母亲和孩童时被父亲虐打的回忆转圈。读者深切渴望他能够失控，继而打破这个循环。相反，在如潮水般的回忆和无法表达的焦虑煎熬之下，无助的他只能通过一种书呆子气的精确态度来对抗精神崩溃。他反复地将自己的行李列出清单，仔细地细嚼慢咽嘴里的食物。他是一个被困的角色，而读者也会感觉自己和他一起被束缚着。摩尔喜欢从小处着手描写，将微小的细节——例如油油的羊角面包屑，旅馆浴缸里粘着的胡渣——层层叠叠堆砌起来，构造出一种不祥的气氛。在这种氛围下，她慢慢地将小说推向那有如《惊魂记》和《巴顿·芬克》结合体般的高潮。
A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson, hardback, out now). Victorian workhouse boy, 1930s schoolmaster, neuroscientist, French peasant, musician: the life stories explored here diverge so widely in time, place and circumstance that to jam them together and call them "A Novel in Five Parts" seems, at first, perverse. But it's precisely this fragmentary structure that enables Faulks to enact and interrogate his themes, and bind the book into a coherent whole. Does human identity end with death? Are we essentially alone, or intimately linked in a web of connection transcending time and space? The stories vary greatly in quality, at worst verging on the banal, but by the end of the fifth—a heartfelt tale of love, loss and the price of creativity—it's clear that they add up to something considerably more moving and thought-provoking than the sum of their parts.
《一种可能的人生》，赛巴斯蒂安·福克斯（Sebastian Faulks）著（哈钦森出版社，精装本现已上市）。维多利亚时代的济贫院男孩、20世纪30年代的男老师、神经科学家、法国农夫、音乐家，这部小说探讨的几段人生在时间、地点和环境上差异之大，一开始会让人感觉把这些故事串在一起，并称其为“一本小说的五个部分”实在是有点无理取闹。但正是这种零碎的结构才使得作者福克斯能够表达并探讨他的主题，将全书合为一个连贯的整体。一个人的个性是否随着死亡而消逝了呢？我们在本质上是孤独的，还是通过超越时间空间的一张联系网紧密连接在一起的？这五个部分的文笔质量参差不齐，最糟的地方可谓接近平庸。但是等读到第五则故事（一则关于爱、失去和创意所需代价的真诚故事）结尾，读者可以很清楚地感觉到这五部小说的全体远比部份之和要更感人，也更发人深思。
One Hundred Days by Lukas Bärfuss, translated by Tess Lewis (Granta, paperback, out now). Set in Rwanda in the early 1990s, this restrained, disturbing novel exposes the deficiencies and dangers of international aid. David Hohl, an idealistic Swiss aid worker, is shocked to find his colleagues chiefly engaged in drinking beer and trading gossip. Worse, by channelling money through established political structures, they are supporting a racist power and unwittingly preparing the way for genocide. But as Hohl discovers, slowly and painfully, his own motivation is far from pure. Bärfuss explains the politics concisely, engaging the reader without oversimplifying. He has a knack for homing in on detail—a Donald Duck tie, for example—to suggest character; and he recognises that, in evoking atrocity, less horror is more. But his greatest strength is psychological acuity, and an understanding that altruism is invariably infused with self-interest.
《百日》，卢卡斯·贝尔弗斯（Lukas Bärfuss）著，苔丝·路易斯（Tess Lewis）译（格兰塔图书，简装本现已上市）。这部小说的背景设在20世纪90年代初的卢旺达，书中用冷静节制的语言描述了令人不安的故事，暴露了国际援助的不足和危险之处。大卫·霍尔是一位来自瑞士的援助工作者。胸怀理想主义的他在发现自己的同事大多把时间打发在喝酒和闲聊上之后深感震惊。更糟的是，这些援助人员带来的资金注入了当权政治结构，结果就等于是他们在支持种族主义权力，并在无意中为种族屠杀做了准备。但霍尔渐渐发现了一个痛苦的事实：他自己的动机也远远谈不上高尚。贝尔弗斯用精辟的语言解释了政治，吸引读者的同时却又不流于过度简化。他特别擅长通过细节来刻画人物（如戴着一条印有唐老鸭的领带）。而且他也深明要唤起读者对暴行的回忆，描述的恐怖场景越少反而效果越好。不过他最大的长处还是在于他对于人们心理的尖锐洞察力，以及他明白利他主义不可避免地会和个人利益混合在一起。
BIOGRAPHY
传记
Bertie by Jane Ridley (Chatto, hardback, out now). "Totally unfit" ever to be king was Queen Victoria's assessment of her son, the future Edward VII, at 21, and she and Prince Albert had made him so. Forget the blissful couple rearing their royal brood in bourgeois domesticity: as this deeply researched, eye-opening biography shows, Albert was a monstrous control freak, Victoria a hysterical bully. For Bertie, considered an imbecile, they prescribed rigid timetables, regular thrashings and isolation. He grew, as a result, into what they dreaded most: a raffish, debauched playboy, serially unfaithful to his wife. Yet, when his mother finally died, he became, at 59, a good king—visible, politically astute, charismatic, so well loved that the queue for his lying-in-state stretched seven miles. Ridley's reassessment of this largely forgotten monarch is scholarly, sprightly and ironic, and brims with infectious enthusiasm.
《伯蒂》简·里德利（Jane Ridley）著（查托出版社，精装本已上市）。维多利亚女王（Queen Victoria）曾这么说她当时年仅21岁的儿子，未来的英王爱德华七世（Edward VII）：“完全不是当国王的料”，现在不是，将来也不会是。而实际上，这正是她和丈夫阿尔伯特亲王（Prince Albert）一手造成的。一对幸福的夫妻在衣食无忧的家庭生活里共同抚养他们的皇室后代？忘了这种错误印象吧。这本经过深度调查，让人大开眼界的传记显示阿尔伯特有强烈的控制欲，而维多利亚则歇斯底里且喜爱欺负弱小。在他们看来伯蒂（译者注：爱德华七世小名）就是个白痴，于是他们在伯蒂的身上强加了严格的日程表，鞭打和禁闭更是家常便饭。在这样的教育方式下，伯蒂最终变成了他父母最害怕他会变成的样子：一位放荡堕落的花花公子，前后多次对妻子不忠。即使这样，在他的母亲最终逝世之后，当时已是59岁的他变成了一位贤明君主——常常在公众场合露面，在政治上精明能干，而且充满个人魅力。他深受人民爱戴，死后为他送葬的队伍足足排了七英里。里德利对这位几乎已被世人遗忘的君主进行了一次重新评价。全书旁征博引，语调活泼，文笔讽辣，而且充满了具有强烈感染力的热忱。
REPORTAGE
报道文学
Among the Hoods by Harriet Sergeant (Faber, hardback, out now). Don't be put off by the bodice-ripper cover: this is a gripping tale of an extraordinary friendship. In 2008, researching educational underperformance for a right-wing think-tank, Harriet Sergeant was introduced to a south London teenage gang. "Unprepared to find goodness in criminals", she became, in spite of herself, drawn into their lives. She fed them, took them to museums, bought them football boots, fought to lure them away from crime. But when she tried to help them engage with schemes for NEETs (those not in education, employment or training), she found herself mired in bureaucracy, lethargy and corruption. Sergeant writes with pugnacious vivacity, and her prose simmers with rage. Four years after that first meeting, three of "her" boys are in prison, one is in psychiatric care, and another is dead.
《人在江湖》，哈丽德·萨金特（Harriet Sergeant）著（费伯出版社，精装本已上市）。不要因为这部书的封面酷似言情小说而对其反感：这是一则有关非凡友谊的动人故事。2008年，在为一家右翼智库组织研究教育表现不佳人群时，哈丽德·萨金特经人介绍结识了伦敦南部一个青少年帮会的成员。据她所说，她当时根本“没想过会在犯罪者身上发现善良”。但尽管如此，她还是被这些年轻人的生活所吸引而置身其中。她给他们食物，带他们去博物馆，为他们买足球鞋，尽最大努力让他们能够远离犯罪。但当她想要帮助这些孩子加入为尼特族（指不上学、不就业、不进修的人）所设的政府计划中时，她发现自己身陷于官僚主义、慵懒怠惰和贪污腐败所组成的泥沼之中。萨金特的叙述带着一种激昂的活力，她的文字中含有一股按捺着的怒火。在他们第一次相遇四年之后，“她的”孩子中有三人被关进了监狱，一人在接受精神病治疗，还有一人已离开这个世界。
PHILOSOPHY
哲学
Unapologetic by Francis Spufford (Faber, hardback, out now). At a time when the "New Atheists" appear to hold the intellectual high ground, it's exhilarating to discover such a zesty and companionable dissenter as Francis Spufford. This rattling defence of Christian belief is both a challenge to those for whom faith consists of little more than "the liquidised content of a primary-school nativity play", and a riposte to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins, Hitchens and their followers are guilty of "category errors", he argues. Of course one cannot know for sure whether God exists: it's not a reasonable question. But to Spufford it has made "emotional sense" to behave as if He does—to "dare the conditional". Written in a Costa coffee bar, unburdened by research, this "report from the inside of my head" is witty, bracing and boldly personal.
《毫无愧疚》弗朗西斯·斯布福特（Francis Spufford）著（费伯出版社，精装本已上市）。在如今“新无神论”似乎已占据智慧高地的时候，能够发现像斯布福特这样一位有趣且亲切的异见者不得不说是一件快事。这本充满活力的书为基督教信仰进行了辩护。本书不但对那些信仰只限于“小学生‘耶稣降生’话剧内容凝缩体”的人群发出挑战，同时也是对理查德·道金斯（Richard Dawkins）和克里斯多夫·希金斯（Christopher Hitchens）所持论点的机智反驳。作者在书中提出道金斯、希金斯和其追随者们犯了“范畴谬误”。当然人不可能肯定神是否存在：这个问题本身就不合理。但对于斯布福特来说人表现得好像神确实存在那样本身在“感情上具有合理性”，用哲学术语来说就是“敢于挑战有条件命题”。本书是作者在咖世家喝咖啡时写成的，没有研究引证的包袱，按作者所说，这是一份“来自我脑内深处的报告”。全书妙语横生，读来令人心旷神怡，而且还大胆地使用了亲切的个人语调叙述。
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2012-10-17
经济学家
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