The White Tiger

出版者:Free Press

作者:Aravind Adiga

页数:304

出版时间:2008-10-14

价格:GBP 11.47

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9781416562603

具体描述

Aravind Adiga's extraordinary and brilliant first novel takes the form of a series of letters to Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, from Balram Halwai, the Bangalore businessman who is the self-styled “White Tiger” of the title. Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of the subcontinent, and on the eve of a state visit by Jiabao, our entrepreneur Halwai wishes to impart something of the new India to the Chinese premier - “out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuse”.

Halwai's lesson about the new India is drawn from the rags-to-riches story of his own life. For Halwai, the son of a rural rickshaw-puller, is from the “Darkness”: “Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well-off. But the river brings darkness to India - the black river.”

The black river is the Ganges, beloved of the sari-and-spices tourist image of India. (“No! - Mr Jiabao, I urge you not to dip in the Ganga, unless you want your mouth full of faeces, straw, soggy parts of human bodies, buffalo carrion, and seven different kinds of industrial acids.”)

At first, this novel seems like a straightforward pulled-up-by-your-bootstraps tale, albeit given a dazzling twist by the narrator's sharp and satirical eye for the realities of life for India's poor. (“In the old days there were 1,000 castes...in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies.”) But as the narrative draws the reader further in, and darkens, it becomes clear that Adiga is playing a bigger game. For The White Tiger stands at the opposite end of the spectrum of representations of poverty from those images of doe-eyed children that dominate our electronic media - that sentimentalise poverty and even suggest that there may be something ennobling in it. Halwai's lesson in The White Tiger is that poverty creates monsters, and he himself is just such a monster.

作者简介

阿拉文德·阿迪加一九七四年出生于印度海港城市马德拉斯，后移居澳大利亚。毕业后曾任《时代周刊》驻印度通讯记者，并为《金融时报》、《独立报》、《星期日泰晤士报》等英国媒体撰稿。现居孟买。《白老虎》是其处女作。

读后感

在豆瓣开了一个专栏，主要写投资与自我管理方面，欢迎关注：http://read.douban.com/column/93927/ 靖昀兄推荐，阅读体验很奇妙。感谢。 我估记此篇在未来会被拍成电影。 一方面里面的故事内容是虚构的；另一方面作者文笔相当生动，而本人又对印度了解得不多，看过《贫民窟...  

《白老虎》是一本非常特别的小说，曾一度让我误以为是政治性的书信体作品，因为它的封面语为：一位印度企业家写给中国总理的信。结果读过之后，发现真乃大错特错，事实上这是一本诙谐幽默风趣的虚构小说，当然虚中也有实，而它的独到之处，恰恰就在于书信体的设定上。 　　 ...  

真好啊，1974年出生的人，就已经能写出这么好的小说。 印度真是不可小觑。 有意思的是小说竟然是一个黑手起家的企业家写给中国总理的七封长信。 不难看出，年轻的作者甚至认为过去的那种种姓阶级制度都比现在这样“吃人与被吃”的社会状态要幸福美满得多。就像，呵呵，其实...  

真正读懂这本书不容易，往往要深入下去才能明白作者夸张而荒诞的写法背后的东西。作为小说，这本书固然有其情节方面的绝妙构思，但是，本书最重要的价值还在于其对印度社会矛盾的剖析。也许只喜欢读故事，追情节，读畅销书的人可能要失望了。 从某种意义上来说，阿迪加有点像印...  

白老虎的困境 　　 书评人：苏七七 书名：《白老虎》 作者：阿拉文德•阿迪加 出版：人民文学2010年4月版 　　 　　白老虎，就是孟加拉虎。是这个小说的叙事者，巴尔拉姆•哈尔维的自喻。他现在是一个“企业家”——这是他对自己的称呼，他也是一个前茶倌、前司机，与前杀...  

用户评价

一口气读完，故事发展及其吸引人，作者用有点悲伤和无奈的口吻娓娓道来，让读者看到了另一面的印度。这一面不是从外国人角度能看到，所以才更加真实。

其实， 如果某个中国作家有勇气从社会底层人的角度写一本关于现在中国的小说， 结果会同样令人震惊。但是，能用英语创作的大部分是海外作家，和中国的现实脱离太久，要么不停地翻陈芝麻烂谷子 ， 要么就故弄玄虚玩文字游戏。而用中文创作的，要么躲在象牙塔里玩自我欣赏，小资情调，或不能真正触到痛处的表面文章；要么就不知道躲到哪里去悲叹了。

比起中国，印度的可研究内容太多太多了。比如民主制度下又有rootster coop的约束。北印度和南印度对咖啡的看法 ps之前的les cp房东女儿要去印度玩的时候她就推荐这一本

虽然主角是Balram，但最复杂、最迷人，我最喜欢、也最惋惜的角色是Ashok。

其实没读下去。。。