This Side of Jordan

作者:Schulz, Monte

页数:318

出版时间:2009-5

价格:$ 22.99

isbn号码:9781606992968

具体描述

Monte Schulz's prose novel opens in the spring of 1929, as the 19-year-old consumptive farm boy Alvin Pendergast attends an ill-fated dance marathon he's too sickly to participate in. After a year of his life has been stolen by a sanitarium, Alvin knows he's relapsing, and dreads not only the drudgery of his family's homestead, but a return to the hospital. In this state of mind, an invitation for a late-night slice of pie is too seductive to pass up and before he knows it, Alvin crosses the Mississippi River and finds himself working for a slick con artist named Chester Burke. Alvin is no match for Chester, who's not merely a con man, but a gangster from Chicago, following the bootleg liquor trade through the small towns of America's middle border. With Alvin in tow, Chester's insouciant disregard for life serves him well as he embarks upon a series of bank robberies and senseless murders. All summer long, Chester assumes the role of a dark angel on Judgment day, cleansing the scrolls of those whose sad fortune had drawn them across his path. Too ill to flee, too morally weak to object, Alvin resigns himself to what seems like certain doom somewhere down the road. Fortunately, Alvin finds another companion on his journey, a lonely, eccentric, and grandiloquent dwarf named Rascal, whose own infirmity binds his and the farm boy's destiny together. Drawn deeper and deeper into Chester's murderous frolic, they come across a curious assortment of characters, from small town businessmen and religious kooks to wayward girls and dance contestants, spiritualists and sideshow freaks. Caught between Chester's villainy and Alvin's own physical deterioration, the young farm boy must make a decision: stick with Chester, who would surely kill him at the slightest hint of betrayal, or muster the courage to stake his life on faith in Rascal's clever plan to save them both. Tired of being afraid, Alvin finally grasps the need not only to outwit the gangster but to find another road to travel. What he discovers about the meaning of home offers a solution to escape and freedom. This Side of Jordan is a thoroughly American novel told in the voice of a lost generation hurtling toward the Great Depression, and evokes a long ago America of crowded Main Streets and tourist camps, miles of cornfields, rural church�es, and musty parlors. It ends on the fairgrounds of a traveling wagon circus that beckons gangster, farm boy, and dwarf toward a startling resolution, and a hard-fought absolution for the two young, frightened collaborators. The narrative of this novel has the momentum of a freight train, but told in the seductive, rhythmic tradition of Southern lyricism reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor and Truman Capote, and filled with vivid, outsized literary characters. If Jim Thompson and Carson McCullers went on a collaborative bender by kidnapping Holden Caulfield, Perry Smith, and Ignatius J. Reilly, they'd have come up with something like This Side of Jordan.

用户评价

这本书的哲思深度令人深思，它毫不留情地触及了关于“承诺的重量”与“自由的代价”这两个永恒的母题。它没有提供简单的答案或廉价的慰藉，而是将读者置于一个伦理的灰色地带，迫使我们去面对那些即便在最美好的意图下也可能导致悲剧的抉择。故事探讨了维护某种理想状态所需付出的隐性成本，以及当这些成本被转嫁到他人身上时，个人良知将如何应对。我特别欣赏作者处理道德困境时的克制感，他没有将任何一方塑造成纯粹的恶人，而是展示了在特定情境下，每一个选择背后都有其不可推卸的逻辑链条。这种复杂性，使得故事的结局——无论你如何解读——都带有一种无可避免的悲剧色彩，因为真正的“胜利”似乎从未存在。它迫使读者走出故事本身，去反思自身在面对重大抉择时，会如何权衡那些无形的、却又极其沉重的价值砝码。

这部作品的氛围营造是其最引人入胜的特质之一。它成功地构建了一个既熟悉又疏离的世界，一个充满了怀旧感，却又无法真正回归的记忆空间。作者对“地方感”的描绘达到了近乎病态的精确性，无论是那些被遗忘的角落，还是那些被时间磨损的公共设施，都带上了一种沉重的历史感和无法言喻的失落。这种氛围不仅仅是通过视觉来实现的，更多的是通过声音和感觉的叠加完成的——比如老旧木地板上行走时特有的吱呀声，或是某种特定植物在阳光下散发出的苦涩气息。阅读过程中，我常常会停下来，闭上眼睛，试图在自己的经验中寻找与之匹配的感官记忆。这种强大的代入感，使故事中的地理位置不再是简单的背景板，而成为了角色情感的容器，甚至是某种不可抗拒的命运力量的具象化。它让我开始审视自己生命中那些“阈限空间”，那些介于离开与抵达之间的模糊地带。

这本书的叙事节奏把握得极为精妙，仿佛一位技艺高超的钟表匠，将时间滴答的韵律精确地融入到每一个场景的切换之中。作者并没有急于抛出核心冲突，而是选择了一种缓慢而坚定的渗透方式，让人物的情感纹理如同古老的挂毯，在光影的变幻中逐渐显露出其复杂的图案。我尤其欣赏它对环境细微之处的捕捉，那些关于气候、气味甚至是建筑材料的质感描绘，都不仅仅是背景，它们是鲜活的参与者，深刻地影响着角色的心境与抉择。例如，书中对某种特定季节的雨水冲刷声的描写，那种带着泥土和金属锈味的湿润感，几乎能穿透纸面直达读者的感官。人物的对话也极具张力，表面上风平浪静，水面下却是暗流涌动，那些未尽之言和潜台词的交锋，比任何直白的冲突都更具震撼力。这种含蓄而深刻的表达，要求读者必须全神贯注，去解读那些潜藏在文字之下的情绪密码，这无疑提升了阅读的门槛，但也给予了愿意投入的读者无与伦比的智力回报。它不是那种可以让你在通勤路上轻松翻阅的读物，它需要你为它留出整块的、不受打扰的时间，让自己的思绪与故事中的世界完全同步。

这本书在人物塑造上的大胆和细腻，简直令人叹为观止。主角群体的内心世界被剥开了一层又一层的伪装，揭示出那些藏在社会规范和自我认知背后的脆弱与矛盾。我很少看到一部作品能如此坦诚地探讨“身份认同的漂移”这一主题。每个人物似乎都在进行一场与自身过往的拔河比赛，他们试图在既定的命运轨迹和内心深处涌现出的全新渴望之间找到平衡点，但这种平衡往往是暂时的，甚至是虚幻的。特别是对配角的刻画，简直可以单独成书。他们不是功能性的道具，而是拥有完整生命轨迹的个体，他们的每一次犹豫、每一次看似无关紧要的选择，最终都像蝴蝶效应般连锁反应，推动着主线的演进。读到某些角色的关键转折点时，我感到一种强烈的共鸣，那种“原来不止我一个人这样想”的释然，伴随着对作者洞察力的惊叹，久久不能平复。这种对人性的深入挖掘，使得故事超越了单纯的叙事层面，上升到了对存在意义的哲学探讨。

从文学技巧的角度来看，这部作品无疑是一次大胆的实验。它拒绝了传统叙事中清晰明确的因果链条，转而采用了一种碎片化、记忆闪回和多重视角交织的方式来构建叙事迷宫。起初，这种跳跃感可能会让人感到一丝困惑，仿佛手里拿着一幅被打乱的拼图，但随着阅读的深入，你会发现这种结构本身就是作者试图传达的核心信息——生活本身就是一种不连贯、充满缺失和主观偏差的体验。章节的长度不一，段落的呼吸也时而急促，时而悠长，这种对文本形式的操纵，成功地模拟了思绪的无序性和情感的非线性发展。尤其值得称道的是，作者在不同时间线和空间背景的切换中，使用了非常微妙的意象或重复的词汇作为锚点，这不仅避免了读者迷失方向，更巧妙地强化了“循环与回归”的主题。这要求读者必须保持高度的专注力，用批判性的眼光去拼凑出潜藏的完整图像，这绝对是献给那些厌倦了平铺直叙的读者的盛宴。