These outstanding stories of American award-winning novelist, John Cheever, show the power and range of one of the finest short story writers of the century. Stories of love and squalor, set in a world in which momentary glimpses of brightness contend with time, social change, and the chaos of history.
John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born, and Italy, especially Rome. He is "now recognized as one of the most important short fiction writers of the 20th century." While Cheever is perhaps best remembered for his short stories (including "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Five-Forty-Eight", "The Country Husband", and "The Swimmer"), he also wrote four novels, comprising The Wapshot Chronicle (National Book Award, 1958), The Wapshot Scandal (William Dean Howells Medal, 1965), Bullet Park (1969), Falconer (1977) and a novella Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982).
His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both – light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life (as evoked by the mythical St. Botolphs in the Wapshot novels), characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.
A compilation of his short stories, The Stories of John Cheever, won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award.
On April 27, 1982, six weeks before his death, Cheever was awarded the National Medal for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been included in the Library of America.
这本书简直是文学瑰宝,我几乎是屏住了呼吸一口气读完的。作者的笔触细腻得如同春日拂过面颊的微风,每一个场景的描绘都充满了生命力,让人身临其境。那些错综复杂的人物关系,在作者的精心编织下,展现出人性幽微的各个层面。我尤其欣赏故事中对时间流逝的把握,那种淡淡的忧伤和对往昔的追忆,总是能精准地击中内心最柔软的部分。叙事节奏的掌控也堪称一绝,时而急促如暴风雨前的宁静,时而又舒缓得如同午后慵懒的猫咪,牵引着读者的心绪跌宕起伏。读完后我久久不能平静,反复回味其中几段至关重要的对话,它们似乎蕴含着某种深刻的哲学意味,但又不是那种故作高深的空洞说教,而是融入在生活的肌理之中,自然而然地流淌出来。这本书不仅仅是讲故事,更像是一场对人类情感和存在意义的深刻探索,值得反复品读,每一次重温都会有新的感悟。
评分这是一部充满烟火气的作品,作者对生活细节的观察入木三分,简直像是一个潜伏在人群中多年的老邻居。那些关于柴米油盐、邻里琐事、家庭矛盾的描写,真实得让人忍不住会心一笑,甚至会联想到自己生活中的某件旧事。最妙的是,作者并没有将这些平凡的片段堆砌成一盘平淡的流水账,而是总能在最不起眼的角落里,悄悄埋下伏笔,最终引向一个温暖而又充满哲理的结局。我特别喜欢她处理冲突的方式,很少有歇斯底里的争吵,大多是沉默中的暗流涌动,那种“尽在不言中”的力量,比任何激烈的言语都更具穿透力。读这本书的时候,我总感觉手里捧着一杯热茶,在冬日的午后,慢慢地,悠闲地,感受着生活本来的面貌。它提供了一种难得的慰藉:原来,即便是最平凡的日子,也值得被如此郑重地对待和书写。
评分坦白讲,这本书的阅读体验相当具有挑战性,它更像是作者的一场个人实验,而非传统意义上的叙事作品。开篇的几章,我花了比平时多出三倍的时间来消化,因为作者似乎刻意打乱了线性的时间轴,将过去、现在和一种近乎预言的未来片段交织在一起。这种手法固然能制造出一种迷离的、梦境般的氛围,但对于习惯了清晰脉络的读者来说,无疑是一种考验。我欣赏作者那种不屑于迎合大众的创作姿态,她似乎完全沉浸在自己的构建的世界观里,毫不留恋地抛弃了许多传统小说中“必须有”的元素,比如明确的冲突高潮或者清晰的角色成长曲线。这本书更像是一系列片段化的感官记录,是对某种特定心境的捕捉,如果你追求的是那种酣畅淋漓的阅读快感,或许会感到失望,但如果你热衷于解构主义的文学结构,那么这里面有太多值得深入挖掘的“骨架”。
评分这部作品的魅力,在于它对“沉默”的精妙运用。很多时候,故事的转折和情感的爆发点,并非通过激烈的对话来完成,而是通过角色在特定场景下的“不作为”或“选择性的遗忘”来体现。作者总能捕捉到那种潜藏在日常交谈之下的真正意图,那种话语未尽、欲言又止的张力,被拿捏得恰到好处。我感觉自己像个偷听者,窥视着那些被小心翼翼藏起来的秘密。特别是书中关于家庭秘密的那几个章节,那种压抑感几乎要穿透纸面,让你替角色感到窒息。书中的环境描写也极具特色,那些常常出现的雾气、黄昏和空旷的街道,不仅仅是背景,它们本身就成了角色心境的延伸和象征。这本书的节奏慢得有些不可思议,但这种慢不是拖沓,而是一种刻意的沉淀,迫使你放慢自己的呼吸,去聆听那些本应被我们忽略的细微声响。它成功地将“读”变成了一种“体验”,一种沉浸式的心理活动。
评分说实话,我一开始对这本书抱有很高的期望,但读完之后,我的感受非常复杂,甚至可以说有些令人困惑。作者似乎热衷于使用大量晦涩的意象和跳跃性的叙事结构,这使得故事的前后连贯性显得有些松散。有些角色的动机变化显得非常突兀,缺乏足够的铺垫和心理刻画,这让我很难完全投入到他们的命运之中。举个例子,第三个短篇里,主人公突然做出的那个决定,如果不是我硬着头皮反复揣摩了那些充满象征意义的段落,我依然无法理解其内在逻辑。当然,这本书的语言功底是毋庸置疑的,辞藻的华丽和句式的多变性,在某些瞬间确实能带来一种强烈的审美冲击,但这种冲击往往转瞬即逝,取而代之的是一种“我好像读懂了什么,但又什么都没抓住”的虚无感。它更像是一件需要被“解读”的艺术品,而不是让人放松享受的故事。
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