Cicely Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892–15 March 1983), known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. She reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Sunday Telegraph, and the New Republic, and she was a correspondent for The Bookman. Her major works include Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; A Train of Powder (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in The New Yorker; The Meaning of Treason, later The New Meaning of Treason, a study of World War II and Communist traitors; The Return of the Soldier, a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund. Time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. She was made CBE in 1949, and DBE in 1959, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to British letters.
Part travelogue, part history, part love letter on a thousand-page scale, Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a genre-bending masterwork written in elegant prose. But what makes it so unlikely to be confused with any other book of history, politics, or culture--with, in fact, any other book--is its unashamed depth of feeling: think The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire crossed with Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. West visited Yugoslavia for the first time in 1936. What she saw there affected her so much that she had to return--partly, she writes, because it most resembled "the country I have always seen between sleeping and waking," and partly because "it was like picking up a strand of wool that would lead me out of a labyrinth in which, to my surprise, I had found myself immured." Black Lamb is the chronicle of her travels, but above all it is West following that strand of wool: through countless historical digressions; through winding narratives of battles, slavery, and assassinations; through Shakespeare and Augustine and into the very heart of human frailty.
West wrote on the brink of World War II, when she was "already convinced of the inevitability of the second Anglo-German war." The resulting book is colored by that impending conflict, and by West's search for universals amid the complex particulars of Balkan history. In the end, she saw the region's doom--and our own--in a double infatuation with sacrifice, the "black lamb and grey falcon" of her title. It's the story of Abraham and Isaac without the last-minute reprieve: those who hate are all too ready to martyr the innocent in order to procure their own advantage, and the innocent themselves are all too eager to be martyred. To West, in 1941, "the whole world is a vast Kossovo, an abominable blood-logged plain." Unfortunately, little has happened since then to prove her wrong. --Mary Park
A masterpiece . . . as astonishing in its range, in the subtlety and power of its judgment, as it is brilliant in expression. -- The Times, London
Rebecca West’s magnum opus . . . one of the great books of our time. -- Clifton Fadiman, The New Yorker
Surely one of the great books of our century. -- Diana Trilling
發表於2024-06-01
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
我把《巴爾乾兩韆年》與《黑羊與灰鷹》這兩本書放在一起讀,這是因為《巴爾乾兩韆年》作者對《黑羊與灰鷹》極為推崇。我也非常喜歡這兩本書。在我看來《巴爾乾兩韆年》最有意思的就是帶有個人感情在裏麵,所以讀起來很過癮。其實做人為友也一樣。有時候貌似不偏不倚反倒不如真...
評分 評分圖書標籤: 政治 巴爾乾 英國文學 曆史 巴爾幹 女性 原版 travel_literature
這版是希欽斯作序 讀完正文再讀序言覺得特彆精彩 有點奇怪為什麼中文版給替換掉瞭 可能恰恰因為評得很實在吧 他在最後一段裏說:你可以說它不能被視作信史 也不能算行紀 又沒什麼預見性 甚至有人發現有些描述都不是太可靠 那你憑什麼非說這是一部經典呢 我歸結瞭三條 第一 有深度思考 第二 啓發瞭不少後來者 卻從未被超越 第三 她是一個時代極少數清醒的知識分子 她的智識配得上她的膽色 她不絕望 所以她偉大 |另有一點感慨 這樣的筆力恐怕不必怕翻譯軟件 翻不瞭的 好的作傢 翻譯機和平庸譯者都對付不瞭 必須翻譯傢
評分這版是希欽斯作序 讀完正文再讀序言覺得特彆精彩 有點奇怪為什麼中文版給替換掉瞭 可能恰恰因為評得很實在吧 他在最後一段裏說:你可以說它不能被視作信史 也不能算行紀 又沒什麼預見性 甚至有人發現有些描述都不是太可靠 那你憑什麼非說這是一部經典呢 我歸結瞭三條 第一 有深度思考 第二 啓發瞭不少後來者 卻從未被超越 第三 她是一個時代極少數清醒的知識分子 她的智識配得上她的膽色 她不絕望 所以她偉大 |另有一點感慨 這樣的筆力恐怕不必怕翻譯軟件 翻不瞭的 好的作傢 翻譯機和平庸譯者都對付不瞭 必須翻譯傢
評分年度最愛。兩次世界大戰之間寫就,一韆兩百多頁,既是遊記雜文,也是曆史學說。在客觀和私人之間達到瞭微妙平衡,於流變激蕩中抓住瞭永恒不變的東西,謂之南斯拉夫各民族的民族性,夾縫中生存的中世紀小國嚮現代國傢發展過程中內部矛盾外部掣肘舉步維艱的過程。
評分這是一個關於迷戀與犧牲的故事,關於野心祭祀者和盲目殉道者的故事,以難以置信的視野,預言瞭世界大戰以及人類全部殺戮和不甘的災難,始於南斯拉夫這片看似沉睡的土地。
評分年度最愛。兩次世界大戰之間寫就,一韆兩百多頁,既是遊記雜文,也是曆史學說。在客觀和私人之間達到瞭微妙平衡,於流變激蕩中抓住瞭永恒不變的東西,謂之南斯拉夫各民族的民族性,夾縫中生存的中世紀小國嚮現代國傢發展過程中內部矛盾外部掣肘舉步維艱的過程。
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載