有关生日的现代短篇小说选集,村上春树选,也有他的一篇。
Birthday Stories, edited by Haruki Murakami, is a slight dose of morphine for those who are waiting for the English translation of his latest novel, Kafka on Shore. This "timeless anthology" of short stories brings the readers to see birthdays at different angles. There are sober birthdays, and also sweet ones. Stories are selected to provide a wide range of writing styles, from contemporary writer Andrea Lee and Ethan Canin to the famous Raymond Craver, Paul Theroux and Murakami himself. Personally, my favourite picks in the book include: "The Moor" by Russell Banks (a man meeting a woman accidentally on her birthday thirty years later and a love affair involving an age difference of decades is revisited); "Timothy's Birthday" (about how Timothy draws away from his parents after his homoosexual partner died in the previous year); "The Birthday Cake" by Daniel Lyons (a mother who insists on not giving away a cake for their children who are not coming home for celebration); "The Bath" by Raymond Craver (the parental worries on concern on the car accdient of their beloved birthday son; the ending is particularly thought-provoking) and "Close to the Water's Edge" by Claire Keegan (an eminent Harvard student failing to change his lifestyle on his birthday).
The first book I picked up by Ethan Canin was his collection of short stories called The Palace Thief. His writing style already haunted me at that time. What amazes me more in his "Angel of Mercy, Angel of Wrath" is his fast-paced plot and the delicate treatment of the psychology of a paranoid and ignored birthday mother. The dialogues are simple but powerful, short by revealing.
Let's talk about the dose of Murakami morphine. His story "Birthday Girl" is simple and consise to bring out the message that no matter what we wish on our birthdays, we are still what we are. Wishes for a change in fact do not, or cannot, change anything at all". This is similar to the everything-happens-for-a-reason theory in Wild Sheel Chase. The birthday girl in the story does not tell the narrator what she wished on her 20th birthday. Does it matter? Her life still goes on like normal.(Remind me of the ending shot in Lost in Translation!)
This anthology is a fast-read. All the stories in the anthology are very solid, nothing pretentious. It is definitely one of the books you may pick out if you have no dates on the forthcoming birthday - a great birthday companion. What should be mentioned here is the poem (or lyrics?) written by Paul Simon at the beginning of the anthology - "Have a good time". How many of us really had a good time on our past birthdays? Or how many of us expected so? Will we have a (un)happy birthday next year? We don't know. But the characters in the stories tell us that they have something to grasp on theirs - the readers.
说起来,每个人自己的“生日”,大概是所有普通的日子里最特殊的一天了。在大多数的恋爱故事里,“生日”都可能扮演很重要的角色,羞涩的女孩可能要绞尽脑汁猜测心上人的生日,并在那一天送上一份意义不明的礼物;而男孩们则可能会充分利用这样的契机,来制造一个自以为足够...
评分印象里很少有以生日为主题的书吧,况且生日似乎也并没有什么值得纪念和有趣的故事发生。村上编的这本生日小说,谈不上多精彩,但多少也令人触动。 论故事最喜欢《生日蛋糕》和《在水边》,论文风最喜欢《摩尔人》和《永远在上》。 每个年纪都有不同的生日,老年的生日,少年...
评分或许真的有人会忙碌到忘了自己的生日,不过对大多数人而言,生日仍然是个特别的日子。就算心下想将之视为平凡的一天,不声张不庆祝,到了这天,还是会记起:“今天是我生日”。自我意识悄悄作祟,生日从不沉默。 村上春树应当算是自我意识很强的作家,从他的村上radio专栏琐碎...
太阴暗 弃了
评分购于华沙火车站。村上自己写的birthday girl其实并没有很看懂 倒是很应景的。。。还是好喜欢Claire Keegan!选集很用心呀好评!
评分购于华沙火车站。村上自己写的birthday girl其实并没有很看懂 倒是很应景的。。。还是好喜欢Claire Keegan!选集很用心呀好评!
评分太阴暗 弃了
评分很多作家作品的收录,有些没太明白,有些挺有意思的。
本站所有内容均为互联网搜索引擎提供的公开搜索信息,本站不存储任何数据与内容,任何内容与数据均与本站无关,如有需要请联系相关搜索引擎包括但不限于百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.quotespace.org All Rights Reserved. 小美书屋 版权所有