作品介紹
英文小說：優(yōu)秀書評家推選的12本最偉大英文小說
作者：著名作家 整理日期：2022-07-17 06:55:32
英文小說：優(yōu)秀書評家推選的12本最偉大英文小說！BBC文化專欄作者Jane Ciabattari 向幾十位書評家發(fā)出了問卷，這些書評家包括《紐約時報》圖書評論員Parul Sehgal、《時代周刊》圖書編輯Lev Grossman、《每日新聞》圖書編輯Tom Beer、Bookslut 創(chuàng)始人Jessa Crispin 、《百萬》創(chuàng)始人C Max Magee 、《書目雜志》Donna Seaman和《柯克斯書評》Laurie Muchnick 等。這些全世界最優(yōu)秀的書評家列出了156本他們心目中最偉大的英文小說，最后根據(jù)投票結(jié)果評選出了前12名榜單。
12
《中性》Middlesex
by 杰弗里·尤金尼德斯
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974," Eugenides writes in the opening lines of his novel. At 14, Calliope Stephanides discovers she has a rare recessive mutation that renders her a pseudo-hermaphrodite. Claiming her "male brain", she shifts genders and becomes Cal.
作者這樣開篇：“我擁有兩次生命：第一次是1960年1月，一個晴朗無霧的日子作為一個女嬰出生在底特律；第二次是1974年8月在密歇根佩托斯基的一個急診室里作為一個男孩重生�！�14歲的卡莉歐碧·斯迪芬奈茲患上了罕見的基因隱性突變，使她成為了一名陰陽人。卡莉歐碧考慮到自己的男性本性，她變性成了卡爾。
In often exuberant language, Eugenides layers questions of fate and free will onto Cal's coming-of-age story and the tale of the entrepreneurial rise of his parents, Desdemona and Lefty. (They have their own genetic secret.) Ultimately Cal’s condition gives him a near mythic gift – “the ability to communicate between the genders, to see not with the monovision of one sex but in the stereoscope of both". Middlesex bridged the gap between critical and commercial acclaim, as well, winning a Pulitzer and selling millions of copies. (Picador)
尤金尼德斯用意趣盎然的語言講述了卡爾的成長故事，以及卡爾父母列夫提和苔絲狄蒙娜的創(chuàng)業(yè)經(jīng)歷（他們也有自己不為人知的基因秘密）。最終，卡爾的基因問題卻讓他擁有了一項神奇的能力——“他能自由地游走在兩性世界之間，從雙性的立體角度思考問題而不僅僅站在單性的角度”。《中性》不僅榮獲了普利策獎，而且銷量百萬，在文學(xué)成就和商業(yè)成就上都表現(xiàn)地很突出。（Picador出版社）
11
《白牙》（White Teeth）
by 査蒂·史密斯
White Teeth is set in London, where Archie Jones and Samal Iqbal, friends who met while serving in WWII, have settled to raise their families.
《白牙》的故事背景設(shè)在倫敦，講述的是二戰(zhàn)戰(zhàn)友阿吉·瓊斯和薩馬·伊克巴爾兩個家庭的悲歡離合。
Smith opens as Archie, divorced by his second wife, sits in his "fume-filled Cavalier Musketeer Estate face down on the steering wheel". He's chosen suicide on New Year's Day 1975, his car parked in front of a halal butcher's shop, only to be saved by the owner. As White Teeth unfolds, it is chockablock with vivid scenes and characters, a portrait of postcolonial multicultural London. (Vintage)
《白牙》以阿吉結(jié)束第二次婚姻開頭，1975年的元旦，“他坐在充滿濃煙的騎士火槍手牌旅行車?yán)�，臉朝下，趴在方向盤上”。他將車停靠在一家清真肉鋪的門口，做好了自殺的準(zhǔn)備，最后被屠夫救下了。隨著故事展開，作者給我們呈現(xiàn)了后殖民時代多元文化并存的倫敦生活，刻畫了生動的人物形象。（Vintage出版社）
10
《半輪黃日》
�。℉alf of a Yellow Sun）
by 奇麻曼達(dá)·恩格茲·阿迪切
In her audacious and vividly imagined second novel, Adichie drew upon her ancestral past to write about the Biafra conflict, which traumatised her country and her family for three years after the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria seceded in 1967.
阿迪切利用大膽生動的想象，追憶先祖故事，創(chuàng)作了她的第二部作品，內(nèi)容與比亞法拉戰(zhàn)爭有關(guān)。1967年，伊博人占多數(shù)的尼日利亞東區(qū)脫離聯(lián)邦，引發(fā)三年內(nèi)戰(zhàn)，摧毀了尼日利亞這個國家，也給尼日利亞人民帶來了深重苦難。
The novel is told from the perspectives of twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, a 13-year-old houseboy and Richard, a British expatriate who is in love with Kainene. Olanna's academic boyfriend, who favours secession, is also a key character as Adichie shows the repercussions of postcolonial power struggles on individual lives. (Anchor)
小說的主人公是雙胞胎姐妹奧蘭娜和凱楠，以及一個13歲的男仆和喜愛凱楠的英國僑民理查德。奧蘭娜的男友也是一個關(guān)鍵人物，他是大學(xué)學(xué)者，支持東區(qū)獨立。作者通過這些人物形象，向讀者展示了后殖民時代國家權(quán)力斗爭對個人的影響。（Anchor出版社）
9
《贖罪》（Atonement）
by 伊恩·麥克尤恩
The novel opens on a summer day in 1935, when 13-year-old Briony shows her mother a play she's written to perform with her three cousins the next evening. "Briony was hardly to know it then, but this was the project's highest point of fulfillment," McEwan writes. "Nothing came near it for satisfaction, all else was dreams and frustration."
這部小說以1935年的一個夏日開篇，13歲的女孩布里奧妮在向她的母親展示她剛完成的劇本，并準(zhǔn)備在第二天晚上和她的三個表姐一起表演�！安祭飱W妮當(dāng)時還不知道，這已經(jīng)是她的這個劇本最成功的時刻了！其他的設(shè)想都只是些白日夢，不能為她帶來任何滿足，甚至?xí)屗龂L到沮喪的滋味�！�
That evening, Briony witnesses her 15-year-old cousin Lola being assaulted in the darkened woods. Her testimony implicates Robbie, her sister Cecilia's boyfriend from Cambridge and son of the family house maid, and he is jailed. In a second section, McEwan gives a panoramic account of the harrowing evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, with Robbie among those saved. Realising she has ruined Cecilia and Robbie's lives, Briony works as a nurse during the Blitz in a third section. (Anchor)
當(dāng)天晚上，布里奧妮15歲的表姐洛拉遭強(qiáng)暴，布里奧妮在黑暗的樹林中看到了兇手。布里奧妮出庭指證罪犯就是家庭女仆的兒子羅比，羅比來自劍橋，也是布里奧妮姐姐塞西莉亞的男朋友，羅比被捕入獄。在書的第二部分，麥克尤恩對敦刻爾克大撤退的頹敗進(jìn)行了全景描述，羅比就是其中的幸存者。在第三部分，布里奧妮認(rèn)識到自己的誤解毀了塞西莉亞和羅比的一生，渴望贖罪的她成為閃電戰(zhàn)期間的一名醫(yī)護(hù)人員。（Anchor出版社）
*注：閃電戰(zhàn)（Blitz），1940年到1941年德軍對英國各主要城市的“大空襲”，即“不列顛空戰(zhàn)”。為實施入侵英國的“海獅”計劃，德國空軍對倫敦實施了近10個月的毀滅性大轟炸。英國得到英聯(lián)邦成員、其他被占?xì)W洲國家和中立國美國的空軍幫助，戰(zhàn)爭在1941年10月12日以德國的失敗告終。
8
《比利林恩漫長的中場休息》
（Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk）
by 本·芳汀
Eight rookies from the US army's Bravo squad, fresh from a firefight with Iraqi insurgents, in which one of their fellow soldiers died and another was disabled, are dubbed war heroes by the Fox News cable channel. Their two-week stateside victory tour ends with a halftime salute at a Dallas Cowboys game.
在與伊拉克反叛分子交火中，美軍一個突擊小隊的一名士兵犧牲，一名受傷，幸存者中的八名新兵卻因為福克斯電視臺的宣傳而成為國家英雄。他們回到美國本土，進(jìn)行為期兩周的“勝利展演”，最后一站是在達(dá)拉斯牛仔隊橄欖球比賽的中場進(jìn)行亮相。
Fountain captures the excesses of Texas, American football, business and war, and gives us a memorable narrator in 19-year-old Billy Lynn, with his combination of lust, bedazzlement and post-traumatic stress disorder. "It is sort of weird," he tells a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, "being honoured for the worst day of your life." (Ecco)
芳汀用19歲少年比利·林恩的口吻講述了這個令人難忘的故事，把他的渴望、他的困惑迷茫和他的創(chuàng)傷后應(yīng)激障礙交織在一起，融合在無節(jié)制發(fā)展的德州、橄欖球、商業(yè)和戰(zhàn)爭里面。比利告訴達(dá)拉斯牛仔隊拉拉隊隊長：“在你最糟糕的一天獲得榮譽(yù)，真是瘋了！”（Ecco出版社）
由此小說改編而成的同名電影，乃李安導(dǎo)演新作《比利·林恩的中場戰(zhàn)事》,北美2016年11月11日上映。
7
《惡棍來訪》
�。ˋ Visit from the Goon Squad）
by 詹妮弗·伊根
Who's the goon of the title? "Time is the stealth goon, the one you ignore because you are so busy worrying about the goons right in front of you," she says. Egan concocts her narrative around punk rocker-turned-music producer Bennie Salazar, his sticky-fingered assistant Sasha and a circle of wannabes, has-beens and hangers-on.
那標(biāo)題中的惡棍是誰呢？“時間是最大的惡棍。人們總是因為忙于擔(dān)憂眼前的‘惡棍’而忽略了時間這個隱藏的惡棍。”作者講述了一系列人物的故事：曾經(jīng)的朋克搖滾歌手、現(xiàn)在的音樂制作人——本尼·薩拉查，有盜竊癖的女助手薩莎，以及一群東施效顰者、江郎才盡者和溜須拍馬者。
Colette Bancroft, book editor of The Tampa Bay Times, named Egan's novel her top pick "not just because it is a splendidly written experiment in form that succeeds resoundingly, but because the 21st Century is its essential subject matter. Egan juxtaposes timeless literary themes, most notably the inexorable journey from youth to age, with an exploration of the ways in which a rapidly changing world reshapes the human experience. It's a novel that is prescient, surprising, wise and simply a blast to read." (Anchor)
《塔帕灣時報》的圖書編輯科萊特班·克羅夫特在他的書單中將《惡棍來訪》列為第一位，“不僅僅因為這本小說的寫作手法頗具實驗性且異常成功，更因為此書的基本主題是21世紀(jì)。不可阻擋的韶華易逝，以及如何在急速變化的世界中改變自己適應(yīng)社會，伊根在書中探討了這些永恒的文學(xué)主題，給讀者帶去了睿智的、有先見之明的，又驚奇的閱讀體驗�！保ˋnchor出版社）
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