《纽约时报》榜单推荐:2012年度十大好书(一)

BRING UP THE BODIES 《提堂》 By Hilary Mantel. 作者：希拉里·曼特尔 Taking up where her previous novel, “Wolf Hall,” left off, Mantel makes the seemingly worn-out story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn newly fascinating and suspenseful. Seen from the perspective of Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, the ruthless maneuverings of the court move swiftly to the inevitable executions. Both this novel and its predecessor were awarded the Man Booker Prize. Might the trilogy’s forthcoming conclusion, in which Cromwell will meet his demise, score Mantel a hat trick? 作为曼特尔2009年作品《狼厅》的续作，曼特尔在本部小说中将亨利八世与安妮·博林老掉牙的故事有趣而充满悬疑地重新呈现了出来。小说采用亨利的首席大臣托马斯·克伦威尔的视角，讲述了宫廷残酷的体制迅速演变至不可避免的死刑。本部小说和《狼厅》一样，均荣获了英国布克文学奖。曼特尔有望续写第三部终结版，届时克伦威尔将以死亡告终。曼特尔能否上演“帽子戏法” 呢？ BUILDING STORIES 《大楼故事》 By Chris Ware. 作者：克里斯·韦尔 Ware’s innovative graphic novel deepens and enriches the form by breaking it apart. Packaged in a large box like a board game, the project contains 14 “easily misplaced elements” — pamphlets, books, foldout pages — that together follow the residents of a Chicago triplex (and one anthropomorphized bee) through their ordinary lives. In doing so, it tackles universal themes including art, sex, family and existential loneliness in a way that’s simultaneously playful and profound. 韦尔以分体形式升华并丰富了这部新颖的图画小说。作品是在一个类似棋盘游戏盒子里盛有14个“极易放错的小玩意儿”（包括小册子、书籍以及折叠卡片），这些小玩意儿一起构成了一栋芝加哥大楼（类人化的蜂窝）居民的日常生活。通过这种方式，韦尔寓教于乐地阐述了艺术、性、家庭以及存在主义的孤独等普遍主题。 A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING 《国王的全息图》 By Dave Eggers 作者：戴夫·埃格斯 In an empty city in Saudi Arabia, a middle-aged American businessman waits day after day to close the deal he hopes will redeem his forlorn life. Eggers, continuing the worldly outlook that informed his recent books “Zeitoun” and “What Is the What,” spins this spare story — a globalized “Death of a Salesman” — into a tightly controlled parable of America’s international standing and a riff on middle-class decline that approaches Beckett in its absurdist despair. 在沙特阿拉伯一座空城里，一名中年美国商人日复一日等待交易结束，希望挽救他孤寂绝望的生活。在这部被誉为“世界版《推销员之死》”的小说中，埃格斯继续了他在近作《泽图恩》和《什么是什么》中的俗世观，紧凑的寓言式故事折射出美国的国际处境及其中产阶级的衰退，其荒诞而绝望的手法堪比贝克特。（译注：贝克特·塞缪尔为《等待戈多》的作者） NW 《西北》 By Zadie Smith. 作者：扎迪·史密斯 Smith’s piercing new novel, her first in seven years, traces the friendship of two women who grew up in a housing project in northwest London, their lives disrupted by fateful choices and the brutal efficiency of chance. The narrative edges forward in fragments, uncovering truths about identity and money and sex with incandescent language that, for all of its formal experimentation, is intimate and searingly direct. 史密斯这部新锐小说讲述了伦敦西北角的一个小镇里一起成长的两个女性之间的友谊。她们的生活因命运般的抉择和残酷的机缘而各自纷扰。史密斯用卓越的笔调以片段式叙述方式触及了身份、金钱及性别等方面，密切又无不直白地揭示了严肃的课题。 THE YELLOW BIRDS 《黄鸟》 By Kevin Powers. 作者：凯文·鲍尔斯 A veteran of the Iraq war, Powers places that conflict at the center of his impressionistic first novel, about the connected but diverging fates of two young soldiers and the trouble one of them has readjusting to life at home. Reflecting the chaos of war, the fractured narrative jumps around in time and location, but Powers anchors it with crystalline prose and a driving mystery: How did the narrator’s friend die? 作为伊拉克战争的退役兵，鲍尔斯在他第一部印象小说中再现了战争的冲突。小说讲述了两名年轻士兵的故事，他们密切相连却又渐行渐远，其中一人甚至难以适应回家以后的生活。小说再现了战争的混乱，叙述片段化，时空交错跳跃。不过小说行文干净纯粹，而且鲍尔斯还留下一个引人遐思的谜团：故事叙述者的朋友究竟是怎么死的呢？