Amazon.com In 1956, James Purdy published Don't Call Me By My Right Name and Other Stories, and in the years since, he has produced some of the most remarkable stories, novels, and plays in the English language. Praised by artists as diverse as Dame Edith Sitwell, Gore Vidal, and John Waters for his evocative diction, emotional subtlety, and disturbingly baroque narratives, Purdy has created an emotional, psychological landscape uniquely American in its depiction of fear, love, loss, and violence. In Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue--his 14th novel and 46th book--he charts the life of Carrie Kinsella, a stifled, repressed woman who suddenly realizes the emptiness of her own life after the death of her daughter Gertrude, a brilliant artist. In her search for the "real" Gertrude, Carrie realizes that it is actually herself she is attempting to find. As in his classics Eustace Chisolm and the Works and In a Shallow Grave, Purdy's understanding of the horrors of the human heart--and the slim but possible potential for salvation--shines through here in ways that are devastating and sublime. Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue is James Purdy at his best, which is to say magnificent. --Michael Bronski --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly The first novel published here in a decade by the prolific and award-winning author (Malcom; In a Shallow Grave) is idiosyncratic and tantalizingly elusive. Chicago matron Carrie Kinsella is devastated by the death of her daughter Gertrude, a defiant and gifted painter contemptuous of her sheltered, unsophisticated mother. Neither Carrie's ailing, condescending husband (whom she deferentially and habitually addresses as "Daddy") nor her worldly and much-married sister-in-law, Gwen, is initially sympathetic to Carrie's quest to understand the daughter she never really knew. Carrie pores over the pages of her daughter's journal, a scrapbook of odd, sometimes salacious remarks about the men who posed for her paintings and often became her lovers. Her search leads her to other odd discoveries: her husband's own peculiar notes, a catalogue of yesterday's pop-culture minutiae called An Index of America's Forgotten Items; the seductive hospitality of the Spenser scholar Evelyn Awbridge and of Cy Mellerick, a golden youth who takes Carrie to her daughter's studio. As these glittering cicerones?so highly erudite, so studied in their dress and speech that a faint whiff of gothic parody surrounds them?lead Carrie deeper into the past, a novel that at first seems a relatively naturalistic narrative about loss and recovery becomes a richly detailed if somewhat diffuse allegory. Purdy alludes to Demeter's search for Persephone, imbuing Carrie's search with mythic resonance. Yet the turning point in the book?Carrie's confrontation of the sumptuous and brazen canvases in her daughter's studio?suggests that the American temperament epitomized by Carrie?provincial, philistine, repressed?needs art, needs music, needs sensual pleasure as an essential tonic. Certainly the carefully wrought pages of this novella will stimulate the patient reader. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. See all Editorial Reviews
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我必须承认,一开始我对主角的性格设定感到有些费解,甚至有点难以亲近。她身上的那种坚韧和固执,在很多时刻看起来更像是一种自我毁灭的倾向。然而,随着情节的推进,我开始理解,这种“难搞”恰恰是作者想要探讨的核心命题之一:真正的成长往往不是通过一帆风顺实现的,而是通过与自身最深层、最丑陋的弱点进行不懈搏斗得来的。这本书没有提供任何廉价的慰藉或简单的答案,它只是冷静地展示了角色们在巨大压力下所做的选择,以及这些选择带来的长期后果。它迫使读者去面对人性的灰色地带,去思考“正确”与“必要”之间的那条模糊界限。读完合上书本时,我没有感到轻松愉快,更多的是一种沉重而踏实的满足感——那是经历了一场深刻的精神洗礼后才有的感觉。这是一部严肃对待人性和命运的文学作品。
评分这本书真正让我震撼的是它对“地方性”的刻画,那种地域感几乎要溢出纸面。它不仅仅是提供了一个故事发生的背景,这个“地方”本身就是一个活生生的、有呼吸的、有自己独特历史印记的角色。我能清晰地感觉到作者对这个特定社区或街道的深厚情感,那种复杂交织的爱与恨、归属感与疏离感,都被描绘得淋漓尽致。那些具体的地理标志、独特的方言习惯,甚至连空气中特有的气味,都被作者捕捉并植入了叙事肌理之中。这让我联想到自己成长过程中那些对我产生深刻影响的角落,产生了一种强烈的共鸣。它提醒了我,我们的身份塑造,是如何与我们脚下的土地紧密相连的。如果你对那种关注小世界中大历史,通过微观视角折射宏大主题的小说感兴趣,这本书绝对是不可多得的佳作。
评分这本厚厚的书拿到手里,沉甸甸的,光是封面设计就透着一股子老派小说的韵味,那种精心排版的字体和略带褪色的插画,仿佛一下子把我带到了某个久远的年代。我一翻开,就被那种细腻入微的笔触给吸引住了。作者似乎对人物的内心世界有着近乎病态的洞察力,每一个角色的犹豫、挣扎,哪怕是最微不足道的念头,都被描绘得栩栩如生。故事的节奏把握得非常好,不是那种快节奏的商业小说,更像是一场精心策划的漫步,每走一步都有新的风景出现。读到后面,我甚至开始怀疑作者是不是在现实生活中与这些角色有着某种不为人知的联系,不然怎么能捕捉到人类情感中如此微妙和矛盾的一面。它强迫你停下来,去思考那些你平时习惯性忽略的生活细节,那种缓慢而深刻的自我反思,是现代快餐文学里很难觅得的体验。整体而言,它散发着一种内敛而强大的文学力量,值得细细品味,反复咀嚼。
评分天呐,我得说,这本书简直是叙事结构的大师课!我通常对那些试图玩弄时间线的小说持保留态度,因为它们十有八九会把自己绕进去,变成一团乱麻。但作者在这里的处理简直是行云流水,简直像一个技艺高超的钟表匠,将过去、现在和那些潜藏的未来碎片,完美地嵌合成一个无懈可击的整体。每一次时间维度的跳跃,都不是为了故弄玄虚,而是精准地为理解当前情境提供了关键性的背景信息。我特别欣赏作者如何利用不同时空下的同一场景,来对比人物心境的巨大变化——那种对比带来的冲击感,远胜过直接的心理描写。读到一半时,我甚至需要时不时地停下来,在脑海中绘制一张时间轴,以确保自己完全跟上了作者的步伐,这本身就是一种智力上的享受。它要求读者投入百分之二百的注意力,但回报是极其丰厚的,你会感觉到自己的思维被极大地拓宽和锤炼了。
评分老实讲,这本书的语言风格是一种挑战,但也正因如此,它才显得如此独特和难忘。它不是那种教科书式的完美语言,反而充满了生活的粗粝感和偶尔迸发的诗意火花。作者似乎对词语的选择有着一种近乎偏执的追求,很多句子读起来像是经过了无数次打磨,每一个词都像是精确计算过重量和位置的砖石,共同构建起一个宏大而又摇摇欲坠的叙事大厦。特别是那些环境和氛围的描写,简直是教科书级别的示范——你不需要抬头看窗外,就能真切地感受到那种弥漫在空气中的湿冷,或是午后阳光晒在旧木地板上的那种温暖而慵懒的气息。这种沉浸感是无与伦比的,它让你忘记了自己正在阅读,而是真切地“存在”于故事之中。对于热爱语言艺术的人来说,光是享受这些文字本身,就已经值回票价了。
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