彼得·阿克罗伊德,1949年生于伦敦东阿克顿,英国传记作家、小说家和评论家,著有《莎士比亚传》《牛顿传》《狄更斯传》等五十多部作品,曾获惠特布雷德传记奖和英国皇家文学会威廉•海涅曼奖。《名利场》杂志称誉道:“倘若伦敦能够给自己选一位传记作家,它肯定会选彼得•阿克罗伊德。”
Amazon.co.uk Review
When the eminent novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd finished writing London: The Biography, he almost immediately had a heart attack, such was the effort of his 800-page work about the "human body" that is this most fascinating of cities. And not just any human body either, but "envisaged in the form of a young man with his arms outstretched in a gesture of liberation... it embodies the energy and exaltation of a city continually beating in great waves of progress and of confidence."
Probably there is no one better placed than Ackroyd--the author of mammoth lives of Dickens and Blake, and novels such as Hawksmoor and Dan Leno and the Lime House Golem which set singular characters against the backdrop of a city constantly shifting in time--to write such a rich, sinewy account of "Infinite London".
Ackroyd's London is no mere chronology. Its chapters take on such varied themes as drinking, sex, childhood, poverty, crime and punishment, sewage, food, pestilence and fire, immigration, maps, theatre and war. We learn that gin was "the demon of London for half a century", and that "it has been estimated that in the 1740s and 1750s there were 17,000 'gin-houses'." Fleet Street was an area known for its "violent delights" where "a 14-year-old boy, only 18 inches high, was to be seen in 1702 at a grocer's shop called the Eagle and Child by Shoe Lane." By the mid 19th century "London had become known as the greatest city on earth." By 1939 "one in five of the British population had become a Londoner."
Though London's chapters vary meaning that it can be dipped into at random, Ackroyd is employing a skilful and continuous theme throughout, which constantly links past and present--the similarities of children's games in Lambeth in 1910 and 1999; the obsession with time--"in 21st-century London time rushes forward and is everywhere apparent", while in 18th-century London the church clock of Newgate "regulated the times of hanging." Above all, he insists that the "dark secret life" of the metropolis is as relevant today as it was in perhaps its most appropriate period, Victorian London.
Again and again Ackroyd returns to the image of London as a living organism, hence his use of the word "biography" in the title. At once awed by and intimate with this "ubiquitous" city, he stresses that "it can be located nowhere in particular... its circumference is everywhere." –-Catherine Taylor
欧洲中世纪有一句谚语:“城市的空气使人自由(Stadt Luft macht frei)。”乍一听,这完全不符合事实。城市空气是污浊、恶臭的,满街粪便污水横流,楼上居民窗口倒马桶。居民在自家后院堆积垃圾杂物,托马斯·莫尔曾担任治安副官后,对伦敦的肮脏深有体会,他在著作《乌托邦》里...
评分 评分本来看网上介绍,以为是本精彩纷呈的历史传记。结果买回来一看,傻了眼,通篇是泛泛而谈的空话,从开篇到结束,大量对其他著作中只言片语的引述和作者的感慨,几乎没有任何具体的历史事件或是历史重要建筑哪怕稍有内容的描述。 入主伦敦的三任国王,怎么来的怎么走的,几座世...
评分《伦敦传》!捧在手里很重很重,六百多页,打算用4-5天的时间啃掉。一口气读了近二百页,对远古、中世纪的伦敦有了进一步的了解,原来伦敦所处的地方在人类新时期时代后期就已有,从伦敦城的地下和砖上还能看到远古时候的海洋痕迹,甚至还有猛犸象的遗迹,太让人吃惊和开眼界了...
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