Amazon.com The distinguished biographer of Lytton Strachey and Bernard Shaw turns his trained eye on his kin in a thoughtful work that is as much a meditation on the nature of biography as a family memoir. Basil Street Blues has its origins in recollections Michael Holroyd asked his parents to write in the late 1970s, long after their 12-year marriage had ended. They agreed about little, not even the date of their son's birth in 1935, and Holroyd probes these discrepancies with the same brisk lucidity he has brought to subjects less intimately connected to his own life. Readers accustomed to the woe-is-me authorial stance frequently assumed in currently fashionable memoirs of familial dysfunction will be surprised by the impartial sympathy and considerable humor with which Holroyd depicts the financial, social, and sexual missteps of his parents, grandparents, and other relatives. Perhaps it's Anglo-Saxon stoicism inherited from his British father, perhaps the Scandinavian fatalism of his Swedish mother, but Holroyd has an impressive ability to view even his own youthful unhappiness with calm detachment. His elegantly written chronicle of "secret episodes and half-suspected dramas" nicely achieves its declared purpose: "to pare back a little the cuticle of time and to apply the research methods I have learnt as a biographer to my own life." --Wendy Smith From Publishers Weekly Affectionate and wry, Holroyd's memoir of his dysfunctional family contrasts sharply with his lives of Lytton Strachey, Augustus John and Bernard Shaw, which have earned him a major reputation as a biographer. His parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are largely what Shaw would have called "downstarts"--people crumbling from comfort and even affluence into pinched existences. Apparently of no serious consequence or achievement, they are nonetheless worth reading about because they have escaped ordinariness through Holroyd's ability to capture their extravagances. Holroyd prides himself on achieving "a good walk-on part in one's own autobiography," and while he succeeds in that, the tale's charm emerges from his mother and father, Swedish and British, respectively: their meeting onboard a ship; their secret marriage; Holroyd's childhood with assorted adults, including grandparents and stepparents; his parents' separation and subsequent episodes in their lives. Among the delightfully recounted anecdotes is one about Holroyd, as a young man, drafting a letter for his mother explaining why she was deserting his stepfather to go to South America; at his stepfather's request ("'You're a writer,' he said"), Holroyd then penned a reply to his mother, which began "what, for eighteen months or so, was to be an elaborate international correspondence with myself." As he weaves his own life lightly in and out of his family's vagaries, he leaves behind the handicaps of impecuniosity, shyness and miseducation and finds himself among helpful literati, becoming one of them. Although this title is what writers refer to as a between-books book (Holroyd is researching a new biography), it rises artfully above that class. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. See all Editorial Reviews
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这本书的节奏掌控堪称教科书级别,它成功地在宏大叙事与微观细节之间找到了完美的平衡点。故事背景的构建极其宏伟,涉及了历史变迁和社会结构的大议题,但作者却能巧妙地将这些宏大叙事浓缩到一两个核心人物的日常遭遇中,使得冰冷的历史概念变得有血有肉、可感可触。在阅读过程中,我体验到了一种史诗般的厚重感,仿佛在见证一个时代的兴衰。同时,那些关于日常琐事的描写,如一次偶然的对视、一封未寄出的信件,又将读者的心绪拉回到最私密的情感层面。这种多层次的阅读体验,让这本书的内涵显得无比丰富,每一次重读,似乎都能从中挖掘出新的层次和意涵,展现出极高的文学复读价值。
评分读完这本书后,我的脑海中久久回荡着那些鲜活的形象和交织的命运线索。叙事的手法非常高明,它没有采用传统的线性叙事,而是巧妙地运用了非线性的结构,让信息如碎片般散落,等待读者去拼凑出完整的图景。这种阅读体验是极具挑战性,但也充满了探索的乐趣。每当我以为自己已经把握了故事的脉络时,作者总能抛出一个意想不到的转折,彻底颠覆我的预设。这种叙事上的大胆尝试,体现了作者深厚的文学功底和对结构美学的精准拿捏。而且,语言的运用简直达到了出神入化的地步,那些看似朴素的词句,组合在一起却能迸发出惊人的美感和洞察力,让人不得不停下来,反复咀嚼其中的韵味。
评分这本书真是让人欲罢不能,从翻开第一页开始,我就被深深地吸引住了。作者对人物内心世界的描绘细腻入微,仿佛每一个角色的挣扎、喜悦和失落都能透过文字直达读者的心底。情节的推进张弛有度,时而紧凑得让人屏住呼吸,时而又舒缓得让人有时间去品味其中的深意。特别值得一提的是,故事中对于时代背景的刻画,那种历史的厚重感和独特的地域风情,通过作者精妙的笔触被栩缈如生地展现出来,让人仿佛置身其中,感受着彼时的空气和温度。这本书不仅仅是在讲述一个故事,更像是在引导我们进行一场深刻的自我对话,思考人生的意义和选择的重量。我已经很久没有读到如此有力量、能让人久久回味的文学作品了,强烈推荐给所有热爱深度阅读的朋友们,它绝对值得你花费时间去细细品味。
评分我对这本书中对于“人性”主题的探讨给予最高的评价。作者没有简单地将人物划分为好与坏,而是深入挖掘了人性中那些灰色地带、那些矛盾与挣扎。每个人物都有其光辉与阴暗面,他们的行为逻辑是如此贴近我们所认知的真实——复杂、多变,且时常充满无奈。这种对人性的深刻洞察力,使得整部作品具有了超越时代和地域的普适价值。读这本书,就像是进行了一次对自身道德边界和情感深度的测绘。我尤其欣赏作者在处理重大伦理困境时的克制与精准,没有说教,只有赤裸裸的呈现,留给读者足够的空间去形成自己的判断和感悟。这是一部需要时间去消化的“慢读”佳作。
评分这部作品给我最直接的感受就是其强烈的画面感和感官冲击。我常常在阅读时,能清晰地“看”到那些场景的细节,闻到空气中弥漫的气味,甚至能感受到角色身体上的疲惫与激动。这不仅仅是文字的堆砌,而是一种近乎电影蒙太奇式的影像构建能力。作者似乎拥有一种魔力,能将抽象的情感具象化,将遥远的时空拉至眼前。不同社会阶层的人物在同一个舞台上碰撞、交融,他们的思想火花与生活轨迹构成了复杂而迷人的社会全景图。如果你追求的是一种沉浸式的、全方位的阅读体验,那么这本书绝对不会让你失望。它成功地超越了纯粹的文本界限,为你打开了一个真实可感的平行世界。
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