Fran私觀點

我好喜歡Housekeeping/Marilynne Robinson/(1980)

台灣是麥田出版，林則良翻譯。因為很喜歡，我後來還去買了原文來看。

Fran雖然混讀，但感覺你大部分的書都能終卷。我很糟糕，有時一本書的閱讀完成式，能拉長到半年以上，其中主要的因素，就是每次逛一次書店，就會有許多新歡插隊進來。

這個禮拜報告纏身，我理應不該讀任何〝閒書〞，不過昨天走一趟誠品，還是忍不住把藤澤周平的《蟬時雨》捕回來了。

運詩人，

Housekeeping 我還沒看過呢！看來得閒以後，第一本該看的書就是它了。

我的閱讀順序也常常會遇到「插隊」的事，老是有新鮮、有趣的書，因此秩序只好一直順延下去...。
我想這個陋習，大抵在我有生之年，都沒有改變的可能吧！

倒是，不知道妳沒有注意到，Philip Roth 的名字出現了好幾次啊！
《美國牧歌》在 THE RUNNERS-UP 的名單內，其他如：The Counterlife、Operation Shylock、Sabbath's Theater、《人性污點》、The Plot Against America，一共有六本書上榜呢！真是可怕啊！
--- 美國一直預測 Philip Roth 該得諾貝爾文學獎了。不知道這份名單有沒有什麼特別的政治意涵？

談到解讀，或許可以看看紐時該版有一篇A.O.Scott的解讀文章

謝謝鐵志兄的資訊。

根據 A.O. Scott（評論家）：
（以下摘錄自紐約時報，熱心的朋友或可幫忙翻譯，但我實在沒空可做這件事；我的摘錄重點放在：1.所謂的最佳美國小說到底是怎麼評斷的？2.Philip Roth有那麼多作品被選，又是為了什麼？）

The American literary tradition is relatively young, and it stands in perpetual doubt of its own coherence and adequacy - even, you might say, of its own existence. Such anxiety fosters large, even utopian ambitions. A big country demands big books. To ask for the best work of American fiction, therefore, is not simply - or not really - to ask for the most beautifully written or the most enjoyable to read. We all have our personal favorites, but I suspect that something other than individual taste underwrites most of the choices here. The best works of fiction, according to our tally, appear to be those that successfully assume a burden of cultural importance. They attempt not just the exploration of particular imaginary people and places, but also the illumination of epochs, communities, of the nation itself. America is not only their setting, but also their subject.
They are - the top five, in any case, in ascending order - "American Pastoral," with 7 votes; Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" and Updike's four-in-one "Rabbit Angstrom," tied with 8 votes each; "Don DeLillo's "Underworld," with 11; and, solidly ahead of the rest, Toni Morrison's "Beloved," with 15.
......IF "Beloved" and "Blood Meridian" pull us back to a premodern American scene - a place that exists beyond realism and in some respects before civilization as we know it - the other three novels trace the more recent ups and downs of that civilization.......

The agonized question that ripples through "American Pastoral" is "what happened?" How did the pastoral America of Newark in the 40's and 50's - an Eden only in retrospect - come apart? And its selection over Roth's other books is indicative of how important this question is taken to be. Over the past 15 years, Roth's production has been so steady, so various and (mostly) so excellent that his vote has been, inevitably, split. If we had asked for the single best writer of fiction over the past 25 years, he would have won, with seven different books racking up a total of 21 votes. Within these numbers is an interesting schism. The loose trilogy of which "American Pastoral" is the first installment - "I Married a Communist" and "The Human Stain" are its companions - accounts for 11 votes, while 8 are divided among "Sabbath's Theater," "The Counterlife" and "Operation Shylock," and another 2 go to "The Plot Against America." The Roth whose primary concern is the past - the elegiac, summarizing, conservative Roth - is preferred over his more aesthetically radical, restless, present-minded doppelgänger by a narrow but decisive margin.


Philip Roth 真的是美國人的驕傲，Scott說：If we had asked for the single best writer of fiction over the past 25 years, he would have won, with seven different books racking up a total of 21 votes.
難怪2005的諾貝爾頒給英國的品特時，美國人會那麼失望.......。
--- 我私底下在懷疑，這與其是說紐約時報在票選近25年來最好的美國小說，不如說是在喊給諾貝爾提名委員會看的。