Book Description
This novel captures a fateful moment in British politics during the 1970s - the collapse of "Old Labour" - and imagines its impact on the topsy-turvy world of the bemused teenager: a world in which a lost pair of swimming trunks can be just as devastating as an IRA bomb.
Sean Harding's anarchic humour makes him a mythical figure, both among his fellow pupils and at the girls' school next door. Doug Anderton begins to absorb the political lessons of his father, a leading shop steward at British Leyland's Longbridge plant. Philip Chase struggles to live with his parents' faltering marriage and the collapse of his progressive rock band, whose career is shorter than a Yes concept album. And for Benjamin Trotter, aspiring novelist, part-time composer and closet Christian, life will never have any meaning until he can find some way to make the beautiful Cicely sit up and take notice of him.
Together, these friends inherit the editorship of their school magazine, and soon new arguments begin to rage: which is more worthy of the front page, the story of a bitter industrial dispute in far-off London, or the equally bitter sporting rivalry between the loathsome Culpepper and Steve Richards, the only black pupil in the entire school?
Amazon.co.uk Review
At a time when people are looking back on the 1970s with nostalgia, Jonathan What a Carve Up Coe's The Rotters' Club is a timely reminder of quite how ghastly that benighted decade was in Britain. Set in the "industrial" heartland of the West Midlands, it chronicles the growing pains of four Brummie schoolboys--Philip, Sean, Doug and Benjamin--who must not only come to terms with the normal pangs of adolescence but with terrible knitwear, ludicrous pop-music, nightmarish food and insidious racism, all set against the awful, surreal and tragicomic reality of a post-imperial nation.
The book suffers in its programmatic attempts to make the four boys and their families symbolise, or represent, Something Important To Do With British Life. Doug, for instance, symbolises Industrial Decline, via his dad, a shop steward at the doomed British Leyland Longbridge plant. For Sean its Sexual Liberation--at least he's the one that looks most likely to get his rocks off. And young Ben Trotter would appear to represent A Young Jonathan Coe. But if this aspect of the novel seems contrived, then the author's capricious, deft, wryly comedic and touchingly empathetic style keeps things chugging along, as he knits together the troubles and tragedies of some fairly ordinary people living through fairly extraordinary years.
--Sean Thomas
Book Dimension:
length: (cm)24.1 width:(cm) 15.6
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这部小说的叙事节奏把握得极其精妙,仿佛一位经验丰富的老船长,时而让情节如同平静的海面般舒缓流淌,时而又骤然掀起惊涛骇浪,将读者毫不留情地抛入命运的漩涡之中。作者对于人物心理的刻画,达到了近乎残酷的真实感,那些隐藏在日常言谈举止下的焦虑、渴望与挣扎,被剖析得淋漓尽致。特别是主角群在面对重大抉择时的内心独白,那种矛盾与挣扎,让我几度放下书卷,陷入沉思,试图在他们模糊的道德边界中寻找一盏指路的明灯,却往往只看到更深的迷雾。这种对人性的深度挖掘,使得即便是最微小的配角,也拥有了血肉和复杂性,绝非功能性的符号。情节的推进并非简单的线性发展,而是充满了精巧的伏笔和意想不到的反转,每一次看似松散的对话,最终都会在后文以一种令人拍案叫绝的方式串联起来,构建出一个宏大而又严密的文学结构。阅读体验就像是在解开一个层层嵌套的谜团,你以为已经触及核心,却发现那只是更深层秘密的入口。这种叙事上的张力,让人欲罢不能,每一次翻页都是对未知的好奇驱使,即便合上书本,脑海中依然回荡着那些未竟的对话和未竟的命运。
评分这部小说的情感张力,建立在一种压抑而又爆发的张力之上,它处理悲剧的方式非常成熟,没有廉价的煽情,更多的是一种宿命般的无奈感。人物的情感流动是内敛的,他们之间的交流往往充满了“言外之意”,那些未说出口的话语,比任何激烈的争吵都更具杀伤力。我被深深吸引的,是作者如何描绘“坚持”与“妥协”之间的微妙界限。在看似走向衰败的过程中,总有一些闪光点,是关于人性的韧性,是关于友谊的坚固,尽管这种坚固往往也伴随着巨大的代价。每一次情感的高潮点,都不是通过戏剧化的冲突达成的,而是通过人物长久累积的压力释放,因此显得格外真实和震撼。它不是那种能让你读完后立刻感到轻松愉快的读物,相反,它会让你带着一种沉甸甸的思考离开,这种思考是关于责任、关于选择,也是关于如何与世界共存的深刻叩问。这种高质量的、令人深思的情感体验,是这部作品最宝贵的财富。
评分这部作品所探讨的主题之深刻与广阔,远超我最初的预期。它不仅仅是一部关于个体成长的故事,更像是一面映照特定社会群体集体无意识的棱镜。作者似乎毫不避讳地触碰了那些敏感、尖锐,甚至有些令人不适的议题,比如理想主义的破灭、集体记忆的重塑与遗忘,以及个体如何在巨大的结构性压力下保持或丧失自我。这种探讨是极其克制和智慧的,它没有采取说教式的灌输,而是通过人物的行动和他们所处的困境自然而然地流淌出来。阅读过程中,我不断地与自己内心的价值观进行对话和审视,作品成功地制造了一种“共振”效应,让你在为书中人物的遭遇感到悲悯的同时,也反思自己生活中的相似困境。它的后劲非常足,读完后很长一段时间,我都会不自觉地将现实生活中的事件与书中的某些哲学命题联系起来思考,显示出作者在主题设置上的穿透力。
评分文字的质感是这部作品最令人称道之处,它并非那种华丽辞藻堆砌的矫揉造作,而是一种带着泥土气息的、精准而有力的表达。作者的笔触如同雕刻家手中的凿子,寥寥几笔,便能勾勒出场景的氛围和人物的气质。尤其是在描绘那些被时代洪流裹挟的个体时,那种疏离感、无力感被渲染得入木三分,仿佛我能闻到空气中弥漫的旧日气息和某种难以言喻的颓败感。语言的韵律感极强,长句与短句的交替运用,形成了独特的阅读节奏,时而如同一首低沉的挽歌,时而又像急促的鼓点,紧紧攫住读者的心跳。我尤其欣赏作者在构建环境描写时所采用的象征手法,那些看似不经意的景物细节,其实都暗含着对人物命运或主题的深层隐喻。这种文字上的精工细作,使得阅读过程本身就成为一种审美享受,每一次停下来回味一句精妙的措辞,都像是发现了一块隐藏的宝石。它要求读者必须全神贯注,因为它从不浪费任何一个词语,每一个字都承载着明确的重量与指向。
评分从结构布局来看,这部小说的野心可见一斑,它成功地在宏大的时代背景和细腻的私人情感之间找到了一个令人信服的平衡点。作者并没有将叙事局限于某一个时间点或某一个空间,而是巧妙地运用了穿插叙事和不同视角切换的手法,使得故事的维度得到了极大的延展。这种多视角的处理,极大地丰富了信息的层次感,让我们得以从各个侧面去拼凑出一个完整的图景,同时也揭示了“真相”往往是多面且主观的。特别是那些看似无关紧要的支线情节,在后期对主线起到了至关重要的烘托作用,展现了作者对整体架构的精妙掌控力,绝无冗余之笔。这种结构上的复杂性,非但没有造成阅读障碍,反而如同精密的钟表内部构造,每一次齿轮的啮合都清晰可见,令人赞叹。对于喜欢细致梳理情节脉络的读者来说,这部作品无疑是一场盛宴,值得反复推敲那些看似跳跃的场景转换,从中捕捉到被隐藏的逻辑线索。
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