Freedom

Freedom
定價:595
NT $ 595
  • 作者:FranzenJonathan
  • 出版社:Picador USA
  • 出版日期:2011-09-27
  • 語言:英文
  • ISBN10:0312576463
  • ISBN13:9780312576462
  • 裝訂:平裝 / 14 x 21.6 x 3.2 cm / 普通級
 

內容簡介

  ★《紐約時報》十大好書
  ★史蒂芬金十大選書
  ★《時代》雜誌年度小說第一
  ★大西洋月刊年度圖書 
  ★歐普拉讀書俱樂部選書
  ★歐巴馬渡假選書

  追求自由,就能得到幸福?

  小說描寫柏格蘭這個家庭及其家族成員,並延伸到他們最親近的朋友、包括戀人,時間跨越多年一層層描繪這些人之間的關係。

  柏格蘭家座落在明尼蘇達州聖保羅,這一帶正在變化著。沃爾特.柏格蘭在跨國企業集團3M任職。他的妻子佩蒂——一個不滿現狀的郊區母親——大學時代她是明星籃球員,婚後無工作,在家照顧兩個孩子:潔西嘉和喬伊。這個家庭看上去其樂融融,但家庭所賴以存在的情感基礎並不牢靠。

  沃爾特的父親是個酒鬼,經營汽車旅館,家裡多半依賴他勤懇照料旅館,卻對他不表感激,他心中一直有著不滿之情。他與佩蒂的婚姻慢慢出現裂痕,當孩子長大後,他開始沉溺於一場堂吉訶德式的營救活動,深信自己將解救一種即將絕種的深藍色鳴鳥。佩蒂沒有工作,學生時代曾是籃球明星,婚後的佩蒂,通過酗酒,以及溺愛兒子喬伊排憂解愁,後來更重然對大學時代另一個朋友的戀情,一個搖滾音樂家理查.卡茲,也是沃爾特的好友。

  小說基本上延著這群人(沃爾特的父母、佩蒂的父母、孩子、孩子的戀人、鄰居、同學、同事等)而發展,法蘭岑對這一切只需要隨便勾勒幾筆,人物形象便躍然紙上。他對待書中人物的態度既溫和又無情,準確寫出21世紀的美國人心靈,寫出這些追求著幸福,卻總在失落感中徘徊的人們。法蘭岑筆下這群人對自由的追求似乎並不能帶來幸福,而最後因為營救蔚藍鶯而捲入華府醜聞的沃爾特,會對自由美國做出怎麼樣的回應呢?會對他自己似乎破碎的人生做出怎麼樣的決定呢?

  《自由》這個書名,起源於作者希望透過這個故事,釋放自己,讓自己自由。但是追尋自由會為人帶來甚麼?自由自在就是幸福?透過小說,法蘭岑有全新的答案。

  One of the New York Times Book Review's Top 10 Books of 2010

  Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.

  But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outre rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

  In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

  本書中譯版《自由》由新經典文化出版。

作者簡介

強納森.法蘭岑(Johnathan Franzen)

  1959年出生,美國小說家、散文作家,《紐約客》撰稿人。1996年,法蘭岑在《哈潑》雜誌上發表的一篇題為《偶爾做做夢》的隨筆,表達了其對文學現狀的惋惜,從此聞名於世。當他的第三部小說《糾正》(2001)一齣紛亂的家庭諷刺劇,出版時,引來如潮好評,法蘭岑憑此書獲得美國國家圖書獎及2002年美國普利茲獎提名。2010年八月底出版第四本小說《自由》。

  法蘭岑出生於美國伊利諾州,母親是美國人,父親是瑞典人。在聖路易度過幼年時光,1981年從斯沃思莫學院(Swarthmore College)畢業,主修德文。1979-1980年,通過韋恩州立大學設立的“去慕尼克讀大三”合作項目,他曾到德國留學。1981-1982年,獲歐布萊特獎學金在柏林自由大學學習。因此法蘭岑會說一口流利的德語。創作第一部小說期間,曾在哈佛大學地震實驗室打零工。

  Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Corrections, winner of the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pen/Faulkner. He is also the author of the novels The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion, and two works of nonfiction, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In 1996, he was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California.

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