美国
冷血 豆瓣 Goodreads 豆瓣
In Cold Blood
8.7 (78 个评分) 作者: [美] 杜鲁门·卡波特 译者: 夏杪 南海出版公司 2013 - 10
★我是个酒鬼。我是个吸毒鬼。我是个同性恋者。我是个天才。即使如此,我还是可以成为一个圣人。——杜鲁门•卡波特
★我在高中时第一次读到英文版的卡波特作品,它让我深叹自己没有写作的才能,所以我在二十九岁之前都没有试图写小说。 ——村上春树
★ 被《纽约时报》誉为“美国有史以来最好的纪实作品”
★ 55周雄踞美国畅销书榜TOP 1
★ 入选兰登书屋“20世纪全球百部英语非小说”
★ 美国推理作家协会“史上最经典的百部推理小说”
堪萨斯州,霍尔科姆村。几声枪响,良善温和、广受尊敬的克拉特一家惨遭灭门。凶手异常凶残狡猾:被害人均被击中面部,电话线被割断,子弹壳也消失不见……一时间,案件震惊了整个美国。
卡波特立即赶到当地,开始了长达六年的访谈和调查,对象包括死者亲友、邻居、当地警察,以及两名犯罪嫌疑人。案件逐渐得以还原,两名凶手从这起谋杀案中得到的只有几十美元、一副望远镜和一个收音机。
是什么让他们走上这条冷血之路?当作家试图打开凶手的内心时,他自己也经历了一次自省之旅。
想象共和国 豆瓣
The Republic of Imagination
作者: [美] 阿扎尔·纳菲西 译者: 杨晓琼 三辉图书/中信出版集团 2016 - 9
在想象共和国里,所有理所应当的东西都可能会被颠覆
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“远在世界划分国家与民族之前,我心里就有一个想象共和国,我可以轻而易举地逃往那里,躲开支配着我人间生活的恼人规矩。”
阿扎尔·纳菲西成年之后才挣脱伊朗的极权阴影,来到美国的自由世界,可是,她却因此发现了一个矛盾的现实:在伊朗的极权社会中,文学被视为禁忌,人们冒着生命危险阅读;但在美国这个注重学有所用的世界里,文学却被挤到了边缘。
在《想象共和国》中,纳菲西向我们展示了一个每个人都能抵达的自由国度,这个国度没有政治、宗教、种族或性别的界限,入境的唯一条件,是要拥有一颗敢于想象的心。
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《纽约时报》NO.1畅销书《在德黑兰读<洛丽塔>》作者最新作品
一场关于阅读的阅读,一次颠覆想象的想象
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作者获奖履历:
◆克里斯托弗·戈勃朗基金会国际思想与人文奖
◆东与阿冯尼·弗雷泽人权奖
◆伊丽莎白·安·斯通勇敢女性奖
◆美国移民法律基金会移民杰出成就奖
◆俄克拉何马大学杰出校友奖
◆国际笔会/玛莎奥尔布兰德回忆录奖
◆波斯金狮文学奖
◆独立书商协会年度非虚构作品
◆弗莱德利克·W. 奈斯图书奖
◆拉提菲·亚谢特图书奖
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媒体及名人评价与推荐:

“我被纳菲西反抗且帮助他人反抗的精神所打动,彻底迷住了。她的回忆录包含重要且颇具深度的反思,书中激动人心的故事有关神权政体的灾难、有关思虑、有关自由的严酷考验,以及邂逅伟大文学作品或者启发人心的师长时,所带来的深刻觉悟与快乐。”
——苏珊•桑塔格

“无与伦比的作品……如一条文学的生命之舟游弋在伊朗的海域……每个人都应该读读这本书。”
——玛格丽特•阿特伍德

“举世瞩目……探讨故事所具有的变革力的动人篇章。”
——《纽约时报》

我们都是阿扎尔·纳菲西的想象共和国的公民。没有想象便没有梦想,没有梦想便没有艺术,没有艺术世界就什么都没有了。她的文字十分重要。
——马嘉·莎塔碧(《我在伊朗长大》作者)

“我第一次见到纳菲西,是在德黑兰一所大学的课堂上。她一手拿着一束红色的仿生罂粟花,另一手拿着水仙花,问大家:‘什么是媚俗?’如今,她把那个在课堂上创造出来的闪亮词汇展示了出来,融入位于媚俗和粗鲁最高点的变革之中。在这里,因为詹姆斯、菲茨杰拉德和纳博科夫高喊要反对独裁和压迫,人们开始自我反思。你会被带入一段难以忘怀的文化旅程中去。”
——杰克•赖登(美国公共广播电台主持人)

“如果要归类的话,这本书不仅仅是回忆录,甚至不只是文学批评和社会史……纳菲西创作出了一部探讨文学与人生关系的开创性作品。”
——《出版人周刊》
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“每次读完一本了不起的书,我就将旧的自己抛在了身后。”
——阿扎尔·纳菲西
被仰望与被遗忘的 豆瓣 谷歌图书
Fame and Obscurity
7.8 (64 个评分) 作者: [美] 盖伊·特立斯 译者: 范晓彬 / 姜伊敏 上海人民出版社 2017 - 3
新新闻主义之父 盖伊·特立斯 初试啼声,即成经典
20世纪最伟大的非虚构书写 全世界特稿写作者的典范
每个匆匆行走在城市中的人,都有一身故事:歌星辛纳屈 玛丽莲·梦露的丈夫、棒球手迪马乔 《纽约时报》讣告记者 地铁站售票员 修路架桥工人
特立斯之前,没有人如此打量城市:
每天,纽约人要喝下46万加仑啤酒,吃掉350万磅肉,消耗21英里长的牙线。在这座城里,每天有250人死去,460人出生,15万人戴着玻璃或塑料假眼行走;这里还有500个巫师、600尊雕塑或纪念碑、3万只鸽子……
哥谭的秘密生活——《纽约—— 一位猎奇者的足迹》
一些看似无关紧要的数字和芸芸众生构成了这座城市的魅力。“新新闻之父”融会短篇小说文学语言的早期实例,其技巧和水准至今为后来者追摹。
20世纪最伟大的非虚构书写——《弗兰克•辛纳屈感冒了》
两月贴身酒吧、赌场、拳击赛、高尔夫,追询辛纳屈之友、随从、女儿、母亲、歌迷、酒保……就算巨星感冒了,特立斯仍尽得风流。
20世纪最优秀的体育写作、最好的杂志文章——《一位英雄的暮年》
棒球传奇、玛丽莲•梦露的前夫之一乔•迪马乔,退出公众视野十数载,喧嚣浮华早已散尽,特立斯技惊文坛的看家本领、绕不过去的体育书写,且看英雄迟暮、过河入林。
这是一部纽约交响曲。作者特立斯以他犀利的眼光,精准的笔法向我们展示了纽约风貌:面目模糊的人潮中不为人知的奇闻轶事,镁光灯下的明星转身之后的尴尬境遇。俱乐部门口的擦鞋匠、高级公寓的门卫、公交车司机、大厦清洁工、建筑工人,与弗兰克·辛纳屈、乔·迪马乔、彼得·奥图尔等明星一样受特立斯尊重,他以同样的好奇心对待他们。
全书由《纽约:一位猎奇者的足迹》《大桥》和《走向深处》三部分组成。《纽约:一位猎奇者的足迹》描绘了纽约城中不太为人所知的人物和事件,特立斯捕捉细节的功力凸显无疑。《大桥》讲述的是建设纽约韦拉扎诺大桥给当地居民生活带来的影响及流动修桥工的生活。修桥工都是些默默无闻的普通人,可正是这些工人冒着生命危险,建成了美国无数的大桥和纽约城里一座座大桥和摩天大楼。“他们把一个个的地方用大桥连接起来了,可他们自己的生活却支离破碎。”《走向深处》由11篇美国社会知名人物的小传构成,这些人物基本上涵盖了当时美国社会生活的各个主要方面。
光荣与梦想(3) 豆瓣
作者: [美]威廉·曼彻斯特(William Manchester) 译者: 四川外国语大学翻译学院翻译组 2015 - 3
这不是一本书,这是一个时代。
自1974年问世以来,《光荣与梦想》一直为无数人念念不忘。这部伟大的作品巧妙地浓缩了美国从1932-1972年的40年丰富历史。著名通俗历史作家威廉•曼彻斯特以数任美国总统的执政与竞选为明线,从让胡佛颜面尽失的“胡佛村”“胡佛车”等、罗斯福史无前例的四次当选,一路说尽杜鲁门、艾森豪威尔、肯尼迪,直至让尼克松下台的水门事件,同时不动声色地细致描画美国1932-1972年的40年社会发展历程,内容涵盖“补偿金大军”风潮、经济大萧条、人权运动、麦卡锡主义、种族隔离制度、两次世界大战、原子弹研发、空间竞赛到冷战、朝鲜战争、越南战争等。
曼彻斯特将美国这40年间的政治、经济、军事、社会、艺术、科学、时尚、音乐、娱乐,甚至生活热点、妇女的服装潮流、口头语的变化、性观念的更迭全景式重现。曼彻斯特更将美国社会放在全球背景下描述,如此强烈的对比,勾起读者的强烈兴趣。
新自由主义简史 豆瓣 Goodreads
A Brief History of Neoliberalism
8.4 (29 个评分) 作者: [英国] 大卫·哈维 译者: 王钦 上海译文出版社 2010 - 12
1978年,中国经济在邓小平的领导下,向自由化的转变道路上迈出了重要步伐。
1979年,英国首相撒切尔夫人下令限制工会力量并终止国家持续十年之久的滞胀惨状。
1980年,里根当选美国总统,通过一系列特殊政策为金融和产业松绑,将美国带上了一条复苏经济的道路。
或许在未来的历史学家看来,1978年至1980年这几年是世界社会史和经济史的革命性转折点,因为正是在这几年中,新自由主义作为一种政治经济实践的理论开始占据主流地位。
新自由主义认为,通过建立一个以稳固的个人财产权、自由市场以及自由贸易为特征的制度框架,能释放个体企业的自由和技能,从而最大程度上促进人的幸福。
自1970年代以来,松绑、私有化、国家从许多社会供给领域中退出,开始变得司空见惯。从前苏联解体后新成立的国家到老牌社会民主制和福利国家,几乎所有国家都接受了某种形式的新自由主义理论。另外,支持新自由主义的人们如今都身居要位,影响遍及教育、媒体、公司董事会和财政机构、政府核心机构以及那些管理全球财政和贸易的国际性机构。也就是说,新自由主义作为话语模式已居霸权地位,它成为我们许多人解释和理解世界的常识的一部分。
那么,新自由主义打哪儿来?它又是如何在世界舞台上泛滥的?对这个政治经济学故事的批判性考察,将为我们确认和建构另一种未来政治和经济安排的可能,提供一个框架。
囚鸟 豆瓣 Goodreads
Jailbird
8.2 (45 个评分) 作者: [美] 库尔特·冯内古特 译者: 董乐山 百花洲文艺出版社 2017 - 6
联邦最低限度安保措施成人改造所里,颓唐的小老头儿瓦尔特·斯代布克正在等待领他出狱的狱卒。

在他过去的人生中,他曾是斯拉夫移民的儿子,哈佛大学毕业生,前共产党党员,前联邦政府官员,“水门事件”的涉案者……

不久他还将获得一个新的身份,神秘的……
光荣与梦想(4) 豆瓣
作者: [美] 威廉·曼彻斯特 译者: 四川外国语大学翻译学院翻译组 2015 - 3
《光荣与梦想》作为经典传世图书,客观、精彩地记叙了美国从1932年罗斯福总统上台前后,到1972年尼克松总统任期内水门事件的四十年间美国政治、经济、文化,以及社会生活的全景式画卷,体现出历史发展的波澜起伏。此外,本书也着重体现了报纸、广播作为当时主要大众传播手段,对美国政治、生活所起的作用,所造成的影响。自出版以来,不仅仅在美国,对于中国读者,尤其是在知识分子、记者有深远的影响、崇高的地位。
为食物辩护 豆瓣
In Defense of Food:An Eater’s Manifesto
7.6 (11 个评分) 作者: [美] 迈克尔·波伦 译者: 岱冈 中信出版集团 2017 - 5
吃的理由绝不仅仅是吃本身,食物还关系到快感,关乎人际交往,关乎家庭和精神生活,关系到我们与大自然的关系,也关系到我们自我身份的表达。
传统科学认知的转变带来一种日益流行的饮食失调,你到底在吃什么,吃多少,按照怎样的程序吃,用什么来吃,什么时间吃,以及和谁一起吃,是这个时代的命题。
长踞《纽约时报》畅销书榜首,饮食界的“文化担当”止庵、韩国辉、陈晓卿、汪冰倾心推荐,喊你一起好好吃饭。
怎么吃才是一个明智的食者?“不要吃任何你祖母不认识的食物”。二十三条科学饮食规则,打重掌一日三餐的话语权。
内文用纸采用“太阳纯质”,食品级安全用纸,“用料”安全,请安心阅读,用心吃喝。
2017年8月25日 已读
有些地方可以用作逻辑谬误辨析练习
美国 餐饮
Call Me by Your Name 豆瓣
8.9 (58 个评分) 作者: André Aciman Picador 2008 - 1
A "New York Times" Notable Book of the YearA "Publishers Weekly" Best Book of the YearA "Washington Post" Best Fiction Book of the YearA "New York" Magazine "Future Canon" SelectionA "Chicago"" Tribune" Favorite Book of the YearOne of "The Seattle Times"' Michael Upchurch's Favorite Books of the YearAn Amazon Top 100 Editors' Picks of the Year An Amazon Top 10 Editors' pick: Debut Fiction (#6)An Amazon Top 10 Editors' pick: Gay and Lesbian (#1) "Call Me by Your Name "is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. During the restless summer weeks, unrelenting but buried currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them and verge toward the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. Andre Aciman's critically acclaimed debut novel is a frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion.
2017年9月8日 已读
读完之前有很多想说的,读完之后就什么也没有了。
lgbt 小说 美国
白鲸 豆瓣
Moby Dick / The Whale
8.0 (7 个评分) 作者: [美] 赫尔曼·麦尔维尔 译者: 曹庸 上海译文出版社 2013 - 6
捕鲸船“裴廓德”号船长亚哈,在一次捕鲸过程中,被凶残聪明的白鲸莫比-迪克咬掉了一条腿,因此他满怀复仇之念,一心想追捕这条白鲸,竟至失去理性,变成一个独断独行的偏热症狂。他的船几乎兜遍了全世界,经历辗转,终于与莫比-迪克遭遇。经过三天追踪,他用鱼叉击中白鲸,但船被白鲸撞破,亚哈被鱼叉上的绳子缠住,带人海中。全船人落海,只有水手以实玛利(《圣经》中人名,意为被遗弃的人)一人得救,来向人们讲述这个故事。作者赋予莫比-迪克的白色象征天真无邪和恐怖,以白鲸象征善和恶的混合,这也是人世的基本状况。这部小说以充实的思想内容、史诗般的规模和成熟、深思性质的文笔,成为传世佳作。
感官的教育 豆瓣
Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience, Victoria to Freud, Volume 1
作者: [美国] 彼得·盖伊 译者: 赵勇 世纪文景/上海人民出版社 2015 - 2
《纽约时报》《泰晤士报》《伦敦书评》《经济学人》《华尔街日报》惊叹赞赏
美国国家图书奖获得者 耶鲁大学荣休教授 彼得•盖伊
五卷本心理分析史学巨著《布尔乔亚经验》之开篇鸿制
一部布尔乔亚少妇的感官日记,引领我们返回现代社会精神困境的起点
解读亲密信件,阐释画作,分析梦境,追寻心理线索,历史学巨擘彼得•盖伊用前未有的视角探究现代社会秩序与商业文化源头的19世纪,展现出一幅构建于人类基本经验下的全景式时代画卷。
彼得•盖伊尽情引用梅贝尔•托德——这位布尔乔亚少妇大胆、详尽、毫不隐晦的情爱日记,捕捉她对于感官享乐的渴望和对情爱的需求:性知识的获得、性启蒙的困惑、与丈夫和情人的关系、生育的焦灼……在彼得•盖伊看来,性与爱是所有经验的起点,是对时代变迁的最原始反映。托德无微不至记录下的19世纪布尔乔亚的性本能表达,实则是拉开了现代社会变革的伟大序幕。
惧恨拉斯维加斯 豆瓣
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
7.3 (6 个评分) 作者: [美] 亨特·S. 汤普森 译者: 经雷 理想国 | 广西师范大学出版社 2016 - 9
《惧恨拉斯维加斯》是荒诞新闻教父亨特•S. 汤普森的代表作,出版四十年来,与《在路上》相若,已成为关于毒品文化和反叛青年的一部圣经。
终其一生,汤普森都在解剖“这个叫美国梦的玩意的死亡”,这些反思之作“使他得以跻身二十世纪最令人兴奋的作家之列”(《巴黎评论》)。在这本书中汤普森将小说、事实、幻想熔为一炉,用独创性的语言描写了一个前所未见的拉斯维加斯周末,一场亦真亦假的沙漠寻梦之旅;通过记者劳尔•杜克和伙伴“律师”一连串荒诞、愤怒、绝望的故事,探究了随着六十年代的天真乐观精神一同消逝的美国梦。
《惧恨拉斯维加斯》对美国七十年代以来的青年文化产生了深远的影响,名列许多大学的必读书目,1999年入选兰登书屋极具影响力的“现代藏书系列”,被奉为美国文学经典。
★关于那个麻醉年代最好的文学作品。——《纽约时报书评周刊》
★没有哪个痞子或条子能像亨特这么无法无天,这么污秽、敏感、开放,龇牙咧嘴地敲着打字机,仿佛给自己的潜意识当起了秘书,专心做着笔记。——《伦敦杂志》
★一本绝望而重要的书,一场躁动的噩梦,自《赤裸午餐》以来最幽默的美国散文……汤普森已经亲手把自己写入了美国文学史,在我看来,他将永远待在里面。——克劳福德•伍兹,《纽约时报》
★汤普森的文风张牙舞爪,让我看到一种全新的观看和思考方式……一种全新的生活方式。我全身心地接受了“博士”的熏陶,对耸动、夸张、华丽的意象和残损的浪漫主义燃起久不平息的热爱。——安东尼•波登
★这是一个有关希望、疯狂和寻求信念的伟大故事,让人发笑、思考和惊恐。——约翰尼•德普
美国城市社会的演变(第7版) 豆瓣
作者: [美]霍华德•丘达柯夫(Howard P. Chudacoff) / [美]朱迪丝•史密斯(Judith E. Smith) 译者: 熊茜超 / 郭旻天 上海社会科学院出版社 2016 - 1
从印第安人的“普韦布洛”到超级大都市纽约,从“步行城市”到住宅“郊区化”,美国自16世纪初开始了浩浩荡荡的城市化历程,并于20世纪初,迎来了“城市时代”。纽约、芝加哥、旧金山、洛杉矶,这些曾经荒无人烟的土地,如今已是全球闻名的大都市。摩天大楼、百货商场、中央公园,这些现代性建筑,不仅成为日后每个城市的标配,也塑造了人们全新的消费方式和文化生活。
城市,作为美国政治、经济和社会的实体,为美国的发展带来了源源不断的动力。然而,移民涌入、种族隔离、宗教冲突等问题,也为城市管理带来了难题。当今天回首美国城市四个世纪以来的演进,人们不禁要问:
● 为什么要去城市生活?
● 城市中不同的人群是如何相处的?
● 人们从城市的发展中得到了什么回报?
2018年1月1日 已读
我好像还是对城市的地理空间分布结构更感兴趣。大概内心深处隐藏着一种类似于将城市还原为机械部件式的理解。但是,脱离了文化、种族、宗教、社会、政治、经济背景的城市空间结构,大概就会变成柯布西耶式的极权主义规划吧。
城市 城市史 城市研究 社会学 美国
制造大片 豆瓣
作者: [美]爱德华·杰·艾普斯坦(Edward Jay Epstein) 译者: 宋伟航 台海出版社 2016 - 6
这本书道尽了好莱坞的本质与全貌。电影幕后真正的魔法何在?在好莱坞拍电影究竟是怎么赚钱的?谁塑造了好莱坞的神话?
好莱坞唯一看重的艺术,就是谈生意的艺术。大制作要赚大钱,靠的不是片子本身的票房,而是其他形形色色的业务:电玩、原声带、连锁速食的搭售商品、主题游乐园的游戏项目。片厂在意的或许是大导演、大明星、大制作、奥斯卡,但是,片厂的母公司争的却是隐形的市场:有线电视、付费电视、数码衍生品等。
传奇与内幕,数据与分析,光荣与梦想,奇迹与重生……这本书将揭秘一个真实的电影现场——好莱坞。
扫地出门 豆瓣 Goodreads
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
8.9 (92 个评分) 作者: [美]马修·德斯蒙德 译者: 胡䜣谆 / 郑焕升 广西师范大学出版社 2018 - 7
【本书看点】
★理想国外文纪实002,普利策奖最佳非虚构图书,牛津大学项飙教授专文导读,理解贫穷、住房问题的必读之作。
★《扫地出门》聚焦愈演愈烈的住房危机。来自美国底层的真实故事,也是我们亲历的现实——社会学人沉寂数年卧底贫困社区,用掷地有声的访谈资料和田野笔记,掀开 那个千疮百 孔的世界——有一方屋檐能遮风避雨已不再是天经地义;一旦被扫地出门,许多家庭的下一站就是收容所、废弃的空屋,甚至有人流落街头。
★直击被驱逐者的生存状态,为一瓦栖身,在苦与乐中斗争——不找有钱的亲友帮忙(保留这些人脉以备不时之需),却常常与陌生人互通有无;拿一个月的食品券换吃一顿龙虾大餐,剩余时日要饿肚子也在所不惜——精打细算的理性于他们毫无意义,被驱逐者自有统筹安排的策略,为下一个随时会出现的危机留一口气。
★对驱逐现象的系统性反思,向贫穷、住房问题发起终极拷问——因为驱逐,房客的生存底线不断被突破,为房东的“烂房”带去了数额不菲的租金收入;因为驱逐,一些人的困顿贫穷,转眼成了另一些人暴利的源泉——在房东、房客、国家政策、私人住房市场的关系蛛网中,究竟谁在获利?谁又该为贫穷负责?
★打破学术著作的金科玉律,以非虚构的面貌走向更广大的读者群——这里没有理论假设、没有结构框架,甚至鲜有概念;学术作品中常见的内容,比如文献回顾和数据陈列,也都隐身于脚注间——相反,这是一部深度的纪录片,从一个场景推移至另一个场景,将人物的表情语气、所感所思直接呈现在读者眼前。
【内容简介】
《扫地出门:美国城市的贫穷与暴利》聚焦美国愈演愈烈的住房问题——房价持续上涨、生活成本不断上升,收入却停滞不前、甚至不增反减——马修·德斯蒙德决意深入贫困社区,一探问题的核心。
2008年5月,德斯蒙德住进了密尔沃基南部的一个拖车营。同年9月,他搬至北部旧城区的一处出租房。当时还是社会学专业研究生的德斯蒙德笔耕不辍,记录濒临被驱逐群体的日常生活:他们与蛇虫鼠蚁比邻,家中的水槽长年堵塞,暖气电力说停就停。房客们使尽浑身解数、把绝大部分收入用于交租,却依旧阻止不了跌至绝境的命运。
在这本精彩却令人心碎的作品中,德斯蒙德带领读者走访了密尔沃基的贫困社区,娓娓道来八个在绝境边缘的美国家庭的故事:阿琳是一位单身妈妈,在为一间破败公寓缴纳房租后,每个月只剩二十美元养活自己和两个儿子。拉马尔是个失去双腿的残疾人,肩负照顾整个社区的男孩的任务同时,还要替房东打工偿还债务。司科特则是一名心地善良的男护士,药物成瘾让他丢了工作,也失去了栖身之所……
读者将直面贫穷带来的流离失所,见证匮乏者拒绝屈从的优雅身影。这是一本关于贫穷和驱逐的启蒙之书,也是一部呼吁行动与改变的作品。
【名人推荐】
若想了解导致贫穷的问题是如何盘根错节的,不妨读一读这本关于密尔沃基驱逐危机的作品。德斯蒙德形象描绘了美国贫困人口的生活群像。相较我读过的其他书籍,《扫地出门》使我更清楚地理解在美国做穷人是什么滋味。
——比尔·盖茨(微软创始人)
这部敏感细腻、壮美到令人心痛的民族志作品让我们重新审视美国的贫困问题——连有个栖身之所都成了一件难事。
——罗伯特·帕特南(哈佛大学马尔金公共政策讲席教授,美国国家科学院院士)
《扫地出门》论述了一场迅速卷席美国的严重经济困境。马修·德斯蒙德对威斯康星州密尔沃基市居民的生存境况和被驱逐经历的描写不仅会让普通读者目瞪口呆,还为城市贫困问题方面的专家拓宽了研究视角。
——威廉·朱利叶斯·威尔逊(哈佛大学肯尼迪政府学院教授,美国社会学协会前主席)
《扫地出门》凭借其深度的研究,揭示了2008年美国经济危机以来大规模的驱逐现象与贫穷之间的关联:贫穷,不意味着会被驱逐;而一旦被驱逐,人就会越变越穷。
——2017年普利策奖最佳非虚构图书颁奖辞
2018年8月20日 已读
和《地下城》放在一起读真是奇妙的体验。不同国家的贫困现状,以及造成贫困原因的不同。当然相比《地下城》,《扫地出门》有了更多的结构性分析和宏观的数据,更多的内容被打包在了尾注当中,这也就是社会学家和记者之间的差别。
城市研究 民族志 社会分层 社会学 美国
所有悲伤的年轻人 豆瓣
All the Sad Young Men
作者: [美]F.S.菲茨杰拉德 译者: 何绍斌 浙江文艺出版社 2016 - 3
“爵士乐时代的桂冠诗人”最具艺术功力的短篇精品
《所有悲伤的年轻人》是菲茨杰拉德的第三部短篇小说集,被认为是菲茨杰拉德最铿锵有力、最具艺术功绩的短篇小说集,收录了9个短篇故事:《阔少爷》《冬之春梦》《宝宝聚会》《赦罪》《拉格丝•马丁-琼斯与威尔士王子》《读心人》《热血与冷血》《明智之举》《格雷琴的四十次眨眼》。这些故事主题严肃、内容深刻、结构严谨、文笔舒展,反映了一个天才小说家对社会的敏锐观察和对未来的忧患意识,代表了菲茨杰拉德已臻成熟的创作思想和已经形成的艺术风格。
与荒原同行 豆瓣
Encounters with the Archdruid
7.7 (7 个评分) 作者: 约翰·麦克菲 译者: 岳韦 上海译文出版社 2015 - 3
美国,1960年代。
“如果要去荒原,你会与谁同行?”
“戴维•布劳尔。”
戴维•布劳尔,美国《荒原法案》主要推手,塞拉俱乐部执行董事,地球之友创始人。他是同行眼中“荒原保护的代言人”。
在布劳尔担任执行董事期间,塞拉俱乐部的会员从七千增长到七万七千人。在他的领导下,俱乐部影响着美国有关土地、海洋和大气利用方面的立法。对于美国垦务局而言,布劳尔简直就是一个恶魔,他以一己之力,将大峡谷中两大水坝的建设至少推迟了两代人的时间,并有可能永远都造不起来。
这本书记录的是布劳尔的三次荒原之旅。与布劳尔同行的分别是:
查尔斯•弗雷泽,“美国最顶级的两位地产开发商之一”,自认为是真正的环保主义者。他觉得很多所谓的环境保护分子,其实是环境保存分子。
查尔斯•帕克,美国地质学家,矿业工程师。他认为,“如果在白宫底下发现铜矿,那么白宫就该移走”。
弗洛伊德•多米尼,美国垦务局局长,职业生涯的目标是有一天能建造两百米高的大坝。他觉得“大自然毫无恻隐之心”,而布劳尔“只是一个自私自利的保存主义者”。
三场旅行,一个时代的声音。危机与变革、环境与发展、争执与妥协,所有这一切,都将回到最初的那个问题:
我们,是否还能与荒原同行?
金钱暗流 豆瓣
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
作者: 简•迈耶 译者: 黎爱 新星出版社 2018 - 4
·《纽约时报》年度十大好书之一
·震惊世界舆论的深度调查 了解美国当下与未来的必备读物
·美国知名记者数年采访跟踪,详尽曝光精英富豪与政坛不为人知的秘闻
·揭露美国政治的阴暗面——亿万富翁财阀如何购买政治权力
·美国国家书评人协会奖、洛杉矶时报图书奖、笔会吉恩•斯坦图书奖、鲁卡斯奖入围作品
· 两度入围美国国家书评人协会奖最终提名、《纽约时报》十大好书作家最新力作
················
1972年,保险巨头兼慈善家W•克莱门特•斯通给尼克松的总统竞选捐赠了200万美元,这张今天价值1140万美元的支票激起了众怒并导致了“水门事件”后竞选资金方面的改革。2016年,一群富有的捐助者则拿出将近9000万美元来影响总统和国会选举。他们躲避公众审查的方式是将资金注入一个由各种基金会和匿名政治团体组成的迷宫。
这种秘密体系就是简•迈耶新书《金钱暗流》的主题。这部令人振奋的调查性新闻力作,主角是继承了现今美国第二大私人企业的科氏工业集团的科赫兄弟,以及以他们为中心,几大亿万富翁构成的盘根错节的科赫网络。尽管企业是多元化的,但它们的所有精力却在推进保守的政治议程上。这本书不单单是一部抨击野蛮企业的作品,而是直指其背后的政治全貌:通过勾勒新美国寡头政治背后的隐秘人物的生动画像,追索数十亿美元的“暗钱”运作轨迹,并且一针见血地揭露了 “一小群拥有巨大财富激进右翼家庭如何通过砸钱,且在少有公共披露的情况下,影响美国人决策和投票”的数代历史。
How to Read Literature Like a Professor 豆瓣
作者: Thomas C. Foster Harper Perennial 2014 - 2
2018年12月11日 已读
2018年12月11日 评论 摘抄 - 章节:Introduction How’d He Do That? Literature has its grammar, too. Memory. Symbol. Pattern. These are the three items that, more than any other, separate the professorial reader from the rest of the crowd. Everything is a symbol of something, it seems, until proven otherwise. A related phenomenon in professorial reading is pattern recognition. 章节:1 Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not) We know, however, that their quest is educational. They don’t know enough about the only subject that really matters: themselves. The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge. That’s why questers are so often young, inexperienced, immature, sheltered. Once you figure out quests, the rest is easy. 章节:2 Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion. literary versions of communion can interpret the word in quite a variety of ways. eating with another is a way of saying, “I’m with you, I like you, we form a community together.” And that is a form of communion. writing a meal scene is so difficult, and so inherently uninteresting, that there really needs to be some compelling reason to include one in the story. that reason has to do with how characters are getting along. show something else as sex. communion doesn’t need to be holy. Or even decent. He discovers he has something in common with this stranger—eating as a fundamental element of life—that there is a bond between them. If a well-run meal or snack portends good things for community and understanding, then the failed meal stands as a bad sign. His main goal, though, is to draw us into that moment, to pull our chairs up to that table so that we are utterly convinced of the reality of the meal. he wants to convey the sense of tension and conflict that has been running through the evening—there are a host of us-against-them and you-against-me moments earlier and even during the meal—and this tension will stand at odds with the sharing of this sumptuous and, given the holiday, unifying meal. we need to be part of that communion. The thing we share is our death. 章节:3 Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires Evil has had to do with sex since the serpent seduced Eve. So vampirism isn’t about vampires? there was so much the Victorians couldn’t write about directly, chiefly sex and sexuality, they found ways of transforming those taboo subjects and issues into other forms. even today, when there are no limits on subject matter or treatment, writers still use ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and all manner of scary things to symbolize various aspects of our more common reality. ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires. Sometimes the really scary bloodsuckers are entirely human. The essentials of the vampire story, as we discussed earlier: an older figure representing corrupt, outworn values; a young, preferably virginal female; a stripping away of her youth, energy, virtue; a continuance of the life force of the old male; the death or destruction of the young woman. he deems the figure of the consuming spirit or vampiric personality a useful narrative vehicle. the thin line between the ordinary and the monstrous. That’s what this figure really comes down to, whether in Elizabethan, Victorian, or more modern incarnations: exploitation in its many forms. Using other people to get what we want. Denying someone else’s right to live in the face of our overwhelming demands. Placing our desires, particularly our uglier ones, above the needs of another. That’s pretty much what the vampire does, after all. My guess is that as long as people act toward their fellows in exploitative and selfish ways, the vampire will be with us. 章节:4 Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before? the more connect-the-dot drawings you do, the more likely you are to recognize the design early on there’s no such thing as a wholly original work of literature. the mind flashes bits and pieces of childhood experiences, past reading, every movie the writer/creator has ever seen stories grow out of other stories, poems out of other poems we recognize elements from some prior text and begin drawing comparisons and parallels that may be fantastic, parodic, tragic, anything Once that happens, our reading of the text changes from the reading governed by what’s overtly on the page. This dialogue between old texts and new is always going on at one level or another. Critics speak of this dialogue as intertextuality, the ongoing interaction between poems or stories. 章节:5 When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare ... at some very deep level he is ingrained in our psyches. There is a kind of authority lent by something being almost universally known, where one has only to utter certain lines and people nod their heads in recognition. when we recognize the interplay between these dramas, we become partners with the new dramatist in creating meaning. Fugard relies on our awareness of the Shakespearean text as he constructs his play, and that reliance allows him to say more with fewer direct statements. 章节:8 It’s Greek to Me myth is a body of story that matters. what the artist is doing is reaching back for stories that matter to him and his community—for myth. Greek and Roman myth is so much a part of the fabric of our consciousness, of our unconscious really, that we scarcely notice. So that’s one way classical myth can work: overt subject matter for poems and paintings and operas and novels. Walcott reminds us by this parallel of the potential for greatness that resides in all of us, no matter how humble our worldly circumstances. the situations match up more closely than we might expect. The need to protect one’s family: Hector. The need to maintain one’s dignity: Achilles. The determination to remain faithful and to have faith: Penelope. The struggle to return home: Odysseus. Homer gives us four great struggles of the human being: with nature, with the divine, with other humans, and with ourselves. In our modern world, of course, parallels may be ironized, that is, turned on their head for purposes of irony 章节:9 It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow weather is never just weather. It’s never just rain. And that goes for snow, sun, warmth, cold, and probably sleet, although the incidence of sleet in my reading is too rare to generalize. Drowning is one of our deepest fears the big eraser that destroys but also allows a brand-new start. That dark and stormy evening (and I suspect that before general illumination by streetlight and neon all stormy evenings were pretty darned dark) has worlds of atmosphere and mood. why does he bring rain into it? First of all, as a plot device. The rain forces these men together in very uncomfortable (for the condemned man and the brother) circumstances. Second, atmospherics. Rain can be more mysterious, murkier, more isolating than most other weather conditions. finally there is the democratic element. Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. One of the paradoxes of rain is how clean it is coming down and how much mud it can make when it lands. you have to be careful what you wish for, or for that matter what you want cleansed. 章节:10 Never Stand Next to the Hero nearly all literature is character-based. No matter how large or small the actions, though, the most important thing that characters can do is change—grow, develop, learn, mature, call it what you will. in story and song, book and film, there is generally no more persuasive reason for revenge, outrage, or prompting to action than the killing of the best friend (or his progeny). It really doesn’t pay to get too close to hero-types. characters are not people. if it’s not in the text, it doesn’t exist. We can only read what is present in a novel, play, or film. Characters are products of writers’ imaginations—and readers’ imaginations. Two powerful forces come together to make a literary character. The first, writerly, invention sketches out a figure, while the second, readerly, invention receives that figure and fills in the blank spaces. The plot needs something to happen in order to move forward, so someone must be sacrificed. literary works are not democracies. the fictive world (I’m paraphrasing here) is divided up into round and flat characters. Round characters are what we could call three-dimensional, full of traits and strengths and weaknesses and contradictions, capable of change and growth. Flat characters, not so much. They lack full development in the narrative or drama, so they’re more two-dimensional, like cartoon cutouts. we are all, each and every last one of us, the protagonist of our own story. In fictive works, some characters are more equal than other characters. A lot more equal. Even round characters are somewhat less than complete beings. They are merely simulacra, illusions meant to suggest fully formed humans. Characters are created on something like a need-to-know basis. Their utility is all that matters. plot is character in action; character is revealed and shaped by plot. What happens to Gatsby must feel like the only outcome, given who Gatsby is and who Nick is and who Daisy is. 章节:Interlude Does He Mean That? lateral thinking is what we’re really discussing: the way writers can keep their eye on the target, whether it be the plot of the play or the ending of the novel or the argument of the poem, and at the same time bring in a great deal of at least tangentially related material. 章节:11... More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its implications. Violence in literature, though, while it is literal, is usually also something else. the essentially hostile or at least uncaring relationship we have with the universe. Let’s think about two categories of violence in literature: the specific injury that authors cause characters to visit on one another or on themselves, and the narrative violence that causes characters harm in general. We sense greater weight or depth in works when there is something happening beyond the surface. 章节:12 Is That a Symbol? what do you think it stands for, because that’s probably what it does. At least for you. some symbols do have a relatively limited range of meanings, but in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing for only one thing. If they can, it’s not symbolism, it’s allegory. Here’s how allegory works: things stand for other things on a one-for-one basis. Allegories have one mission to accomplish—convey a certain message Symbols, though, generally don’t work so neatly. The thing referred to is likely not reducible to a single statement but will more probably involve a range of possible meanings and interpretations. If we want to figure out what a symbol might mean, we have to use a variety of tools on it: questions, experience, preexisting knowledge. The only thing we are sure of about the cave as symbol is that it keeps its secrets. What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extent by how the individual reader engages the text. The other problem with symbols is that many readers expect them to be objects and images rather than events or actions. Action can also be symbolic. Ask questions of the text: what’s the writer doing with this image, this object, this act; what possibilities are suggested by the movement of the narrative or the lyric; and most important, what does it feel like it’s doing? a reader’s imagination is the act of one creative intelligence engaging another. 章节:13 It’s All Political The political writing I personally dislike is programmatic, pushing a single cause or concern or party position, or it’s tied into a highly topical situation that doesn’t transfer well out of its own specific time and place. I love “political” writing. Writing that engages the realities of its world—that thinks about human problems, including those in the social and political realm, that addresses the rights of persons and the wrongs of those in power—can be not only interesting but hugely compelling. Nearly all writing is political on some level. most works must engage with their own specific period in ways that can be called political. writers tend to be men and women who are interested in the world around them. That world contains many things, and on the level of society, part of what it contains is the political reality of the time—power structures, relations among classes, issues of justice and rights, interactions between the sexes and among various racial and ethnic constituencies. That’s why political and social considerations often find their way onto the page in some guise, even when the result doesn’t look terribly “political.” Knowing a little something about the social and political milieu out of which a writer creates can only help us understand her work, not because that milieu controls her thinking but because that is the world she engages when she sits down to write. 章节:14 Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too The bottom line, I usually tell the class, is that Christ figures are where you find them, and as you find them. 章节:15 Flights of Fancy Culturally and literarily, we have toyed with the idea of flight since earliest times. In general, flying is freedom, we might say, freedom not only from specific circumstances but from those more general burdens that tie us down. García Márquez plays on our notions of wings and flight to explore the situation’s ironic possibilities. the act of falling from vast heights and surviving is as miraculous, and as symbolically meaningful, as the act of flight itself. the antidote to limitations and shackles is freedom. Indeed, often in literature the freeing of the spirit is seen in terms of flight. 章节:16 It’s All About Sex ... Suddenly we discover that sex doesn’t have to look like sex: other objects and activities can stand in for sexual organs and sex acts, which is good, since those organs and acts can only be arranged in so many ways and are not inevitably decorous. 章节:17... Except Sex describing two human beings engaging in the most intimate of shared acts is very nearly the least rewarding enterprise a writer can undertake. most of the time when writers deal with sex, they avoid writing about the act itself. The further truth is that even when they write about sex, they’re really writing about something else. If they write about sex and mean strictly sex, we have a word for that. Pornography. He carries not a woman but an entire constellation of possibilities into the bedroom. What chance does his sexual performance have? the sex is on one level symbolic action claiming for the individual freedom from convention and for the writer freedom from censorship. You just know that these scenes mean something more than what’s going on in them. It’s true in life as well, where sex can be pleasure, sacrifice, submission, rebellion, resignation, supplication, domination, enlightenment, the whole works. 章节:18 If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism The thing about baptism is, you have to be ready to receive it. Baptism can mean a host of things, of which rebirth is only one. baptism is a sort of reenactment on a very small scale of that drowning and restoration of life The rebirths/baptisms have a lot of common threads, but every drowning is serving its own purpose: character revelation, thematic development of violence or failure or guilt, plot complication or denouement. 章节:19 Geography Matters ... In a sense, every story or poem is a vacation, and every writer has to ask, every time, Where is this one taking place? What, in other words, does geography mean to a work of literature? Geography: hills, etc. Stuff: economics, politics, history. So what’s geography? Rivers, hills, valleys, buttes, steppes, glaciers, swamps, mountains, prairies, chasms, seas, islands, people. In poetry and fiction, it may be mostly people. Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time the spaces inhabiting humans. Geography is setting, but it’s also (or can be) psychology, attitude, finance, industry—anything that place can forge in the people who live there. Actually, the scariest thing Poe could do to us is to put a perfectly normal human specimen in that setting, where no one could remain safe. And that’s one thing landscape and place—geography—can do for a story. Geography can also define or even develop character. the real target is the physical village—as place, as center of mystery and threat, as alien environment, as generic home of potential enemies and uncertain friends. employ geography as a metaphor for the psyche—when his characters go south, they are really digging deep into their subconscious, delving into that region of darkest fears and desires. whether it’s Italy or Greece or Africa or Malaysia or Vietnam, when writers send characters south, it’s so they can run amok. It’s place and space and shape that bring us to ideas and psychology and history and dynamism. 章节:20... So Does Season the speaker is seriously feeling his age here and making us feel it, too, with those boughs shaking in the cold winds, those last faded leaves still hanging, if barely, in the canopy, those empty limbs that formerly were so full of life and song. A few other writers have also had something to say about the seasons in connection with the human experience. Maybe it’s hard-wired into us that spring has to do with childhood and youth, summer with adulthood and romance and fulfillment and passion, autumn with decline and middle age and tiredness but also harvest, winter with old age and resentment and death. This pattern is so deeply ingrained in our cultural experience that we don’t even have to stop and think about it. we can start looking at variation and nuance. Every writer can make these modifications in his or her use of the seasons, and the variation produced keeps seasonal symbolism fresh and interesting. We read the seasons in them almost without being conscious of the many associations we bring to that reading. 章节:Interlude One Story there’s only one story. What’s it about? That’s probably the best question you’ll ever ask, and I apologize for responding with a really lame answer: I don’t know. It’s about everything that anyone wants to write about I suppose what the one story, the ur-story, is about is ourselves, about what it means to be human what our poets and storytellers do for us—drag a rock up to the fire, have a seat, listen to this one—is explain us-and-the-world, or us-in-the-world. The basic premise of intertextuality is really pretty simple: everything’s connected. The result is a sort of World Wide Web of writing. “Archetype” is a five-dollar word for “pattern,” or for the mythic original on which a pattern is based. It’s like this: somewhere back in myth, something—a story component, let’s call it—comes into being. What does matter is that there is this mythic level, the level on which archetype operates and from which we borrow the figure of, for instance, the dying-and-reviving man (or god) or the young boy who must undertake a long journey. 章节:21 Marked for Greatness First, the obvious but nonetheless necessary observation: in real life, when people have any physical mark or imperfection, it means nothing thematically, metaphorically, or spiritually. but in literature we continue to understand physical imperfection in symbolic terms. physical markings by their very nature call attention to themselves and signify some psychological or thematic point the writer wants to make 章节:22 He’s Blind for a Reason, You Know There are a lot of things that have to happen when a writer introduces a blind character into a story, and even more in a play. Clearly the author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond the physical. Moreover, such references are usually quite pervasive in a work where insight and blindness are at issue. The challenging thing about literature is finding answers, but equally important is recognizing what questions need to be asked, and if we pay attention, the text usually tells us. What it does, though, is set up a pattern of reference and suggestion as the young boy watches, hides, peeks, and gazes his way through a story that is alternately bathed in light and lost in shadow. A truly great story or play, as “Araby” and Oedipus Rex are, makes demands on us as readers; in a sense it teaches us how to read it. We feel that there’s something more going on in the story—a richness, a resonance, a depth—than we picked up at first, so we return to it to find those elements that account for that sensation. when literal blindness, sight, darkness, and light are introduced into a story, it is nearly always the case that figurative seeing and blindness are at work. seeing and blindness are generally at issue in many works, even where there is no hint of blindness on the part of windows, alleys, horses, speculations, or persons. if you want your audience to know something important about your character (or the work at large), introduce it early, before you need it. 章节:23 It’s Never Just Heart Disease ... And Rarely Just Illness In literature there is no better, no more lyrical, no more perfectly metaphorical illness than heart disease. More commonly, though, heart trouble takes the form of heart disease. If heart trouble shows up in a novel or play, we start looking for its signification, and we usually don’t have to hunt too hard. The other way around: if we see that characters have difficulties of the heart, we won’t be too surprised when emotional trouble becomes the physical ailment and the cardiac episode appears. Their choice of illness is quite telling: each of them elects to employ a fragile heart as a device to deceive the respective spouse, to be able to construct an elaborate personal fiction based on heart disease, to announce to the world that he or she suffers from a “bad heart.” Every age has its special disease. The Romantics and Victorians had consumption; we have AIDS. That’s what happens when works get reenvisioned: we learn something about the age that produced the original as well as about our own. 章节:24 Don’t Read with Your Eyes On the other hand, a too rigid insistence on the fictive world corresponding on all points to the world we know can be terribly limiting not only to our enjoyment but to our understanding of literary works. What I really mean is, don’t read only from your own fixed position in the Year of Our Lord two thousand and some. Instead try to find a reading perspective that allows for sympathy with the historical moment of the story, that understands the text as having been written against its own social, historical, cultural, and personal background. also need to acknowledge here that there is a different model of professional reading, deconstruction, that pushes skepticism and doubt to its extreme, questioning nearly everything in the story or poem at hand, to deconstruct the work and show how the author is not really in charge of his materials. The goal of these deconstructive readings is to demonstrate how the work is controlled and reduced by the values and prejudices of its own time. Too much acceptance of the author’s viewpoint can lead to difficulties. What I would suggest is that we see Shylock’s villainy in the context of the difficult and complex situation Shakespeare creates for him, see if he makes sense as an individual and not merely as a type or representative of a hated group, see if the play works independently of whatever bigotry might lie behind it or if it requires that bigotry to function as art. For me, if it must rely on hatred i […] 章节:25 It’s My Symbol and I’ll Cry If I Want To A lot of things in the world have more or less ready-made associations—or associations so long in use that they seem ready-made to us latecomers. One of the things we’ve been talking about in this book is how we can build a sort of literary database of imagery and its uses: rain, check; shared meals, check; quests, check; and so on. What that database relies upon, naturally, is repetition. The point is, we have, as writers, artists, and readers, a common pool of figurative data built up over centuries of use in a host of situations and for a multiplicity of purposes—a store of images, symbols, similes, and metaphors that we not only can access but do, almost automatically. This warehouse of implications, as it were, permits texts to mean more than one thing simultaneously. Let’s be clear, just so no one runs off the rails: these implications are invariably secondary. The primary meaning of the text is the story it is telling, the surface discussion (landscape description, action, argument, and so on). The gyres embody opposing historical or philosophical or spiritual forces, so they’re a little like Hegel’s or Marx’s dialectic, in which opposing forces clash together to create a new reality. Except that dialectics don’t spin or whirl. Singular systems don’t get general discussions. every work teaches us how to read it as we go along. every page of a literary work is part of an education in reading. humans are very good at entering these “private” realms, at inferring meanings, at judging the implications of texts—in other words, we’re good at reading. 章节:26 Is He Serious? And Other Ironies That’s irony—take our expectations and upend them, make them work against us. What is a sign? It’s something that signifies a message. The signifier, in other words, while being fairly stable itself, doesn’t have to be used in the planned way. Its meaning can be deflected from the expected meaning. Mysteries, like irony, make great use of deflection. irony doesn’t work for everyone. Because of the multivocal nature of irony—we hear those multiple voices simultaneously—readers who are inclined toward univocal utterances simply may not register that multiplicity. We must remember: irony trumps everything. In other words, every chapter in this book goes out the window when irony comes in the door.
文学评论 方法论 美国
城中城 豆瓣
Gang leader for a day
7.9 (19 个评分) 作者: [美]素德·文卡特斯 译者: 孙飞宇 上海人民出版社 2016 - 1
问题1:作为穷困黑人的感觉怎么样?( )
A.很差 B.有点差 C.不好不坏 D.还不错 E.非常好。
“妈的,你一定是在搞笑。”
“我不是黑人,也不是非裔美国人。我是一个黑鬼。黑鬼就是住在这栋楼里的人,非裔美国人住在郊区。非裔美国人打着领带去上班。黑鬼们找不到工作。”
“你不应该四处问人们这些愚蠢的问题,没人会回答的。你应该和我们混在一起,你应该去理解年轻人是怎么在街上讨生活的。”
就这样,跟着这位黑帮老大,开始了他长达十年的“街头生活”,甚至当了一天管理黑帮业务运作的老大。
文卡特斯变身“流氓社会学家”,亲自打入黑帮内部,曾冒着生命危险,周旋在由黑帮老大、打手、毒贩、军火贩子、牧师、警察、社工以及各色人等交织而成的地下社会交际网络之中,取得第一手的资料,真正了解并体验了贫民们的日常生活完成了博士论文,顺利毕业且找到了教职,甚至变得小有名气。之后,文卡特斯怀着对贫民窟人们的内疚与感激离开了街头。临近离别时,研究地点面临拆迁,人们又将面临怎样的生活……
本书中的多数人物姓名与身份都做了匿名化处理,但其中所有的人物、地址与机构都真实存在,绝非虚构。