For more than twenty years Max Evans has been trying to assemble a book of stories by working cowboysamen who were ranch hands with at least five years of paid experience and women who had either been raised on ranches or joined their husbands on a double hire-out for five years or more. With the expert help of Candy Moulton he has succeeded in collecting eighteen stories set in the Working West after 1920 that meet his inflexible requirements: "experience plus imagination plus innate writing ability."As Evans notes in his introduction, subdivisions, condos, and ranchettes are shrinking the Working West every day: aSome of those who once lived it, and those few who are so agonizingly still working it with bloodied souls, must put it down on paper. . . . If we fail to act with immediacy the truth will continue to dissipate. . . with frightening rapidity.aThe stories in this anthology range as wide as the Rockies, from a murder mystery to the tale of a unique horse trainer, to a familyas desperate battle against a grass and forest fire to the story of a world famous violinist. But they share a common denominator: biscuits. Almost every story includes hot biscuits as a feature of daily life in the Working West. Biscuits, it turns out, are more important in western life than guns and maybe more than coffee. In the West, people who could make superior biscuits received more respect than the mayor and the police chief combined. The authors of the stories in "Hot Biscuits" are Taylor Fogerty, J. P. S. Brown, Willard Holopeter, Elaine Long, Sinclair Browning, Slim Randles, Lori Van Pelt, Grem Lee, Dick Hyson, Sally C. Bates, Virginia Bennett, Curt Brummett, Jimbo Brewer, Paula Paul, Helen C. Avery, Gwen Peterson, and the editors."These stories of the West are so good and so true that you can almost smell the dust blowing off the high desert and feel the wind on your face. The characters are real Westerners, the kind who know how to bend with the harsh rhythms of the land and the weather and do so with hard-earned grace. Youall laugh and cry with them, and you wonat forget them."--Margaret Coel, author of "The Shadow Dancer""In 1902, an Eastern dude and friend of Theodore Roosevelt's named Owen Wister overhauled Western fiction with his novel The Virginian. The book loosened the strangle-hold the dime novelists had on the Western story and let in the breath of literature. "Hot Biscuits, " a serious book with a funny (but significant) title, is every bit as revolutionary and literary as Wisteras. It is the first fresh approach to the Western in memory."aDale Walker, former director of the Texas Western University Press and author of numerous books on the West, including the recent "Pacific Destiny.""This marvelous collection of stories from the modern ranching West all share a hard edge that is both as starkly realistic and irresistibly engaging as the land itself. These stories perfectly capture a vanishing breed of modern ranch men and women making a last stand in the changing West."--Paul Andrew Hutton, Executive Director, Western History Association, and author and documentary film producer."The joy of "Hot Biscuits" is finding gems like artist Grem Lee's 'The Stormy Blue Jitney' amid the pros' prose--Max Evans' pure-gold tale of two cowpokes wrangling 'bargain' horses or Elaine Long's vein of irony in 'The Violinistas Story.' Lee's perfectly faceted story of ranchers taking hard hits with grit, wit, and no quit deserves the prize for an artist's mastery of a new medium."--Richard Benke, Associated Press arts writer, and former book editor of the "Pasadena Star-News."
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这本书的叙事节奏简直像夏日午后的阵雨,来得猝不及防,却又在下一秒转为慵懒的阳光。我得承认,一开始我有些被那些错综复杂的人物关系绊住了脚,每个人都藏着一把秘密的钥匙,却又不轻易地让你看到锁孔的方向。作者在描绘那个小镇的生活时,那种特有的、带着咸湿海风气息的压抑感和自由感并存的氛围,拿捏得极其精准。我能清晰地闻到码头上鱼腥味混合着廉价咖啡的香气,看到那些老旧的木质建筑在夕阳下拉出长长的影子。特别是主角“老约翰”——一个沉默寡言、眼神里却藏着整个海洋的男人——他的每一次行动都充满了宿命的重量感。这本书没有给出太多直白的答案,它更像是在你面前铺开一幅色彩斑驳的油画,让你自己去辨认那些模糊的笔触下隐藏的真相。我特别欣赏作者处理“时间”的方式,过去、现在、回忆像河流的分岔,时而汇合,时而独立,但最终都流向了同一个深不可测的河口。读完之后,心里留下的是一种久违的、对生活深层含义的探问,而非仅仅是故事的结束。这感觉就像是看完一场晦涩的戏剧,散场后你依然站在剧院门口,试图理清刚才那强烈的感官冲击。
评分我必须承认,这本书的开头部分几乎让我放弃了。那种近乎意识流的开场,充斥着大量生僻的典故和似乎毫无关联的意象堆叠,让我感觉像被扔进了一个迷雾笼罩的森林,找不到任何可以攀援的藤蔓。但是,一旦我坚持度过了最初的五十页,故事的主干便如地壳深处的岩浆般喷涌而出,将之前所有零散的碎片熔铸在一起,形成了令人惊叹的整体。这本书最成功的地方在于它对“背叛”这一主题的解构。它没有把背叛描绘成一次性的戏剧性事件,而是把它拆解成无数个微小的、日常的“失信”,这些小失信如同细小的沙砾,最终堆积成无法逾越的高墙。我喜欢作者对“记忆的不可靠性”的探讨,每个人都在用自己的视角美化或扭曲过去,而真相,可能就藏在那些被双方共同遗忘的角落里。这种叙事上的不确定性,让读者始终处于一种悬而未决的兴奋状态,迫切地想知道,谁才是那个能看清全局的人——或者,根本就没有那样的人。
评分从类型文学的角度来看,这本书显然野心勃勃,它试图跨越界限,融合历史的厚重感与现代小说的叙事技巧。它成功地构建了一个令人信服的次生世界,这个世界的物理法则和人情世故都与我们所熟知的世界既相似又微妙地偏离。我尤其赞赏作者对环境细节的苛刻打磨,比如对特定季节里光线的描述,如何影响人物的心境和决策。有一个情节,关于一场突如其来的暴风雪如何将两个原本不相干的人困在同一间小屋里,这段场景的描写张力十足,几乎能让人感受到那股刺骨的寒意和被困的绝望。然而,美中不足的是,角色的心理动机有时候显得过于文学化,缺乏那种粗粝的、由生存压力直接催生的原始驱动力。读到最后,我感觉自己更像是在欣赏一件精美的艺术品,而不是被一个真实世界的故事所牵动。它拥有极高的艺术价值和讨论空间,但或许在与普通读者的情感共鸣方面,少了一点点直接的火花。
评分我对这种带有强烈地域色彩和人物内在冲突的书籍一向抱有很高的期待,而这部作品在某些层面上超出了我的预期,但在另一些方面却让我感到一丝意犹未尽。叙事视角在不同角色之间流畅地切换,像一位技艺精湛的魔术师,让你不断地怀疑自己刚才看到的究竟是真实的投影还是精心布置的幻象。我印象最深的是关于“信念崩塌”的描绘,作者没有用煽情的对白,而是通过细微的日常习惯的改变,比如一个角色不再坚持每天早上擦拭他心爱的老式留声机,这种不动声色的细节处理,比任何激烈的争吵都更令人心碎。然而,故事的后半段,似乎为了赶上某种既定的结构,某些角色的动机变得有些仓促和工具化,失去了前半段那种有机生长的自然感。这就像是一块制作精美的蛋糕,最后几笔糖霜抹得有点急,稍微破坏了整体的平衡。尽管如此,书中所探讨的关于“身份认同”与“环境塑造”之间的辩证关系,依然值得反复咀嚼。它迫使我审视自己生活中的哪些部分是真正属于我的,哪些又是外界强加的标签。
评分这本书的文学语言密度极高,需要放慢速度,像品尝陈年的威士忌一样,让文字的醇厚感在舌尖停留。作者的句式结构变化多端,时而使用短促、直击人心的断句,营造出紧张的呼吸感;时而又铺陈出长达半页、如同巴洛克式雕塑般繁复的长句,将复杂的心理活动层层剥开。我对书中对“沉默的沟通”的描写印象深刻。例如,两个人可以在一个房间里共处数小时,无需一言一语,但他们之间的紧张或理解,比任何激烈的辩论都更有力量。这种“写出空气”的能力,是很多当代作家所欠缺的。不过,对于习惯了快节奏叙事的读者来说,这本书的阅读体验可能会有些挑战性,它要求你必须投入极大的耐心和专注力。我个人认为,如果能再删减掉其中三到四段略显晦涩的哲学思辨,将更多的篇幅留给那些充满生命力的生活场景,或许能让作品的感染力更上一层楼。但话说回来,正是这些晦涩的部分,赋予了它一种知识分子式的深度和回味悠长的余韵。
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