Naples '44

出版者:Da Capo Press

作者:Norman Lewis

页数:192

出版时间:2005-01-02

价格:USD 14.95

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780786714384

具体描述

As a young intelligence officer stationed in Naples following its liberation from Nazi forces, Norman Lewis recorded the lives of a proud and vibrant people forced to survive on prostitution, thievery, and a desperate belief in miracles and cures. The most popular of Lewis’s twenty-seven books, Naples ’44 is a landmark poetic study of the agony of wartime occupation and its ability to bring out the worst, and often the best, in human nature. In prose both heartrending and comic, Lewis describes an era of disillusionment, escapism, and hysteria in which the Allied occupiers mete out justice unfairly and fail to provide basic necessities to the populace while Neapolitan citizens accuse each other of being Nazi spies, women offer their bodies to the same Allied soldiers whose supplies they steal for sale on the black market, and angry young men organize militias to oppose "temporary" foreign rule. Yet over the chaotic din, Lewis sings intimately of the essential dignity of the Neapolitan people, whose traditions of civility, courage, and generosity of spirit shine through daily. This essential World War II book is as timely a read as ever.

作者简介

Norman Lewis's early childhood, as recalled in Jackdaw Cake (1985), was spent partly with his Welsh spiritualist parents in Enfield, North London, and partly with his eccentric aunts in Wales. Forgoing a place at university for lack of funds, he used the income from wedding photography and various petty trading to finance travels to Spain, Italy and the Balkans, before being approached by the Colonial Office to spy for them with his camera in Yemen. He moved to Cuba in 1939, but was recalled for duty in the Intelligence Corps during the Second World War. It was from this that Norman Lewis's masterpiece, Naples '44, emerged, a resurrection of his wartime diary only finally published in 1978. Before that came a number of novels and travel books, notably A Dragon Apparent (1951) and Golden Earth (1952), both of which were best sellers in their day. His novel The Volcanoes Above Us, based on personal experiences in Central America, sold six million copies in paperback in Russia and The Honoured Society (1964), a non-fiction study of the Sicilian Mafia, was serialised in six instalments by the New Yorker.

Norman Lewis wrote thirteen novels and thirteen works of non-fiction, mostly travel books, but he regarded his life's major achievement to be the reaction to an article written by him entitled Genocide in Brazil, published in The Sunday Times in 1968. This led to a change in the Brazilian law relating to the treatment of Indians, and to the formation of Survival International, the influential international organisation which campaigns for the rights of tribal peoples. He later published a very successful book called The Missionaries (1988) which is set amongst the Indians of Central and Latin America.

用户评价

这本书的文学性是毋庸置疑的，它的语言风格充满了独特的韵律和节奏感，即便是在描述最黑暗的场景时，也总能找到一丝不易察觉的文学光芒。我尤其喜欢它在处理时间跨度时的手法，有时会用一连串的排比句来展现某种状态的持续与压抑，有时又会用简洁有力的短句来制造突发事件的冲击力。与其他战争题材的作品相比，它更注重描绘“等待”的状态——等待救援、等待消息、等待天亮。这种对静默时刻的深度挖掘，比任何激烈的战斗场面都更能体现战争对人类精神的消磨。此外，书中对历史背景知识的融入非常自然，它不是生硬地插入注解，而是通过人物的对话、内心的独白，或者环境的描绘，让读者在不知不觉中理解了错综复杂的政治局势。这使得即便是对那段历史不太熟悉的读者，也能轻松跟上节奏，并为人物的命运感到揪心。它成功地将严肃的历史研究和引人入胜的故事讲述完美地融合在了一起。

让我印象最深的是，这本书成功地将“地方性”的体验提升到了普世价值的层面。它没有试图去讲述“世界大战”的宏大叙事，而是聚焦于一座城市在特定时间点上的具体感受。这种由小及大的叙事策略，反而让历史的重量感更加沉实。作者对特定地域的文化符号、方言习惯，以及日常生活中的那些小仪式感（比如一起喝咖啡、分享一块稀缺的面包）的描绘，精准地锚定了故事的地理坐标，让人仿佛真的置身于地中海畔的那个焦灼之地。整本书的基调是忧郁的，但这种忧郁并非绝望，而是一种深沉的、对逝去美好生活的怀念，以及对未来不确定性的警惕。阅读过程中，我强烈感受到作者对这个城市深厚的感情，这份情感通过他精准且富有张力的词汇选择渗透出来，使得文本不仅仅是信息的载体，更是一种情感的投射。这绝对是一部需要细细品味，并且值得反复重读的佳作，每一次重读，可能都会有新的感悟。

这部作品简直是一部沉浸式的历史画卷，它没有那种教科书式的冷硬，反而充满了鲜活的生命力。作者对细节的捕捉达到了惊人的程度，仿佛能闻到泥土和硝烟混合的气味，感受到那座古老城市在战火中挣扎的脉搏。书中对普通民众在极端环境下的心理刻画尤为深刻，那种在绝望中寻求一丝光明的韧性，读来令人动容。叙事节奏的处理堪称一绝，时而紧凑得让人窒息，仿佛下一秒就要发生爆炸，时而又放慢下来，聚焦于某个微不足道的日常瞬间，这种张弛有度的叙事，极大地增强了代入感。我特别欣赏作者处理多线索叙事的方式，不同的视角交织在一起，共同构建了一个立体且多维度的历史侧面，让人清晰地看到战争是如何渗透到社会肌理的每一个角落，而不仅仅是停留在宏大的军事部署层面。这本书的文字本身就极具画面感，不需要太多想象，那些破败的街道、紧锁的门扉、以及人们眼中的疲惫与警惕，都清晰地跃然纸上。它不是在讲述一个关于胜利或失败的故事，而是在记录一段关于“生存”的、充满人性挣扎的史诗。

读完后最大的感受是那种扑面而来的“真实感”。这不是那种经过粉饰或过度浪漫化的历史重述，它呈现的是战争的粗粝和人性的复杂。作者的笔触非常冷静克制，但在冷静之下却蕴含着强大的情感张力。他对那个特定历史时期的社会结构、物资匮乏导致的道德困境，以及不同派系间的微妙张力，都有着非常细致入微的观察和描摹。你不会看到脸谱化的“好人”和“坏蛋”，更多的是在生存压力下做出艰难抉择的个体。书中对于空间感的处理，尤其是对城市环境的描绘，简直是神来之笔，它不仅仅是故事发生的背景，更像是一个有生命的、参与到人物命运中的角色。那种在废墟中艰难维系日常的努力，那种对美好事物不经意间的留恋，都被作者用一种近乎诗意的笔法捕捉了下来。这本书要求读者全神贯注，因为它不会为你铺平道路，你需要自己去拼凑那些碎片化的信息和情绪，但这正是它迷人之处——它尊重读者的思考能力，提供了一个深度参与历史现场的平台。

这部作品的叙事视角转换处理得非常高明，它巧妙地避免了传统传记体或纯粹纪实文学的局限性。作者似乎站在一个观察者的角度，但其文字又充满了深切的同情，这是一种非常微妙的平衡。我发现自己不断地在书中寻找一些关于“秩序重建”的线索，但作者更多地展示的是“失序”的常态，以及人们如何在无序中自发形成新的、临时的生存规则。书中关于物资交换、信任危机和社区内部冲突的描写，简直是一堂关于社会学和心理学的生动案例课。不同职业、不同背景的人们，在共同的压力下如何表现出人性中最光辉和最黯淡的一面，描摹得淋漓尽致。它没有给人提供简单的答案或道德评判，而是将所有复杂性原封不动地摆在了读者面前，让你自己去感受和权衡。这种处理方式，使得这本书的后劲非常大，合上书后，脑海中依然会不断浮现出那些人物的面孔和他们做出的选择，引发长久的思考。