This Time, This Place

作者:Valenti, Jack

页数:0

出版时间:2007-5

价格:CDN$ 37.95

isbn号码:9780739342077

具体描述

With the nation at war in the 1940s, twenty-two-year-old Jack Valenti flew fifty-one combat missions as the pilot of a B-25 attack bomber with the 12th Air Force based in Italy. In the 1960s, with the nation reeling from the assassination of a beloved president and becoming embroiled in a far different kind of war in Vietnam, he was in that fateful Dallas motorcade in 1963, flew back to Washington with the new president, and for three years worked in the inner circle of the White House as special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. Then, for the next thirty-eight years, with American society and popular culture undergoing a revolutionary transformation, Valenti was the public face of Hollywood in his capacity as head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Been there, done that, indeed. Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Valenti has led several lives, any one of which could have provided ample material for an unforgettable memoir. As it is, This Time, This Place is the gripping story of a man who saw the terrible face of war while fighting with skill and bravery for his country; who was in the room, listening, participating, and remembering, as political decisions were made that would benefit or devastate countless lives in this country and on the other side of the world; and who championed the interest of the vast and globally influential movie industry with tenacity and vision. The list of boldface names whom Valenti knew and with whom he worked is as varied as it is astonishing in number. Aside

from LBJ, there were Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Robert McNamara, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Julia Roberts, Cary Grant, Lew Wasserman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Warren Beatty, and Bill Clinton, to begin a very long list.

The life of a man who earned both the Distinguished Flying Cross and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is inherently intriguing, but Valenti’s warm, sometimes rueful, always engaging account gives this memoir a depth of humanity and a taste of life’s unpredictability that will linger long after you turn the final page. From growing up poor but largely oblivious to that fact in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Greek and Italian immigrants in Houston to rising to the highest summits both of national government and Hollywood, This Time, This Place is a candid and clear-eyed reflection of the joys and sorrows, ambitions and disappointments, of a life fully recognizable in its extraordinary variety. It is also a sweeping and important historical record, written by a brilliantly successful man who helped to shape politics and entertainment in the second half of the twentieth century, and who always found himself in the center of the current storm.

From the Hardcover edition.

用户评价

如果用一个词来形容阅读此书的体验，那便是“压抑的美感”。这里的“压抑”并非指情节的黑暗或残酷，而是源于一种宏大叙事下，个体命运的渺小感。作者似乎总是在提醒我们，在那些波澜壮阔的历史背景或家族变迁面前，个人的爱恨情仇是多么的微不足道，然而，正是这些微不足道的挣扎，构成了我们之所以为人的本质。文字的力量在于它能将这种沉重感转化为一种近乎崇高的审美体验。特别是书中几段关于自然环境与人类活动的对比描写，气势磅礴，将人类的短暂存在与永恒的自然规律并置，带来一种令人敬畏的疏离感。这种笔法非常成熟，显示了作者对文学传统深刻的理解和驾驭能力。它不是为了取悦读者而存在的，它更像是一份作者对自己所观察的世界投下的、毫不妥协的观察报告，虽然阅读过程并不总是轻松愉快，但最终获得的启示却是极其深刻且持久的。

这本书最让我感到惊喜的是它在情感克制与爆发之间的拿捏达到了炉火纯青的地步。它不像那些好莱坞式的作品那样依赖戏剧性的高潮来煽动情绪，而是通过对情感的层层累积、直至临界点的瞬间释放，达到了更为震撼的效果。这种“蓄势待发”的叙事策略，使得那些关键性的情感转折点，比如一次迟来的忏悔，或是一次终于被接受的真相，具有了超越故事本身的力量。我注意到，作者在描述人物内心活动时，很少使用直接的、标签化的词语，而是通过大量的象征意象和动作细节来暗示。比如，一个角色重复整理书桌的习惯，可能比一整段直接描述其焦虑的文字来得更有说服力。这种高度依赖读者的解读和共情能力来完成叙事闭环的方式，无疑是对当代快餐式阅读习惯的一种温柔而坚定的反抗。它要求你放下手机，全神贯注地去捕捉那些隐藏在字里行间的暗流，而这种投入最终换来的是一种极为充实和满足的阅读回馈。

翻开这本厚重的书，我立刻被那种扑面而来的、如同老照片般的怀旧气息所笼罩。它不是那种故作姿态的复古，而是一种深入骨髓的、关于时间流逝的沉思。作者的叙事手法像极了一位技艺精湛的钟表匠，他小心翼翼地拆解着记忆的齿轮，每一个微小的回响都被赋予了独特的声场。我尤其欣赏他对环境描写的细腻——那种阳光穿过百叶窗时在木地板上投下的斑驳光影，空气中弥漫的淡淡的灰尘与旧书本混合的味道，乃至遥远街角传来的、被雨水稀释的喧嚣，都栩栩如生地跃然纸上。它让人感觉自己不仅仅是在阅读一个故事，更像是在一个久已废弃的房间里，用指尖拂去覆盖在家具上的尘埃，试图拼凑出昔日生活的轮廓。书中角色的内心挣扎，那种在时代的洪流中努力抓住一丝个人信念的微弱光芒，被描摹得入木三分，让人在共鸣之余，也不禁反思自身存在的重量与轻盈。这种对“在场感”的极致追求，使得阅读体验成为一种近乎冥想的状态，让人暂时抽离了当下的纷扰，沉浸在一种既遥远又亲切的往昔之中，久久不能自拔。

老实说，一开始我差点被这本书的节奏劝退。它完全不是那种追求快速情节推进的商业小说，更像是一部慢炖的浓汤，需要足够的时间和耐心去品味那些看似无关紧要的日常细节。然而，一旦你适应了这种沉稳的步调，你会发现每一个被细细打磨的段落都蕴含着巨大的信息量和情感张力。作者对人际关系中那些微妙的、未言明的张力捕捉得极为精准——一个眼神的停顿，一次不合时宜的沉默，一句看似轻描淡写却暗藏玄机的对话，构建了一个异常真实可信的人类情感网络。最让我震撼的是那种对“局限性”的刻画。角色们被困在自己的时代背景、社会期望和个人弱点构筑的牢笼中，他们的选择充满了无奈和妥协，但这反而让他们的闪光点显得更加珍贵和动人。阅读过程中，我时常需要停下来，不是因为故事的高潮迭起，而是因为某个句子精准地击中了某种难以言喻的情绪靶心，迫使我停下来与自己的过往经历进行一次短暂的、却又极其深刻的对话。这是一本需要被“感受”而非仅仅“阅读”的书。

这本书的结构设计简直鬼斧神工，它巧妙地利用了多重视角的切换，但并非那种生硬的叙事工具，而更像是在一个巨大的多面棱镜中观察同一个光束。我们透过不同人物的眼睛，看到了同一事件在不同认知框架下产生的巨大形变与扭曲。这种处理方式极大地丰富了故事的层次感，让我不断地质疑自己之前建立的“事实”基础。作者对于“真相”的探寻，似乎并不指向一个明确的终点，而更像是在揭示“视角”本身就是我们理解世界唯一的，也是最不可靠的工具。从文学技巧上讲，这种叙事上的“不确定性”处理得极其高明，它没有让故事变得混乱，反而赋予了一种悬浮的、哲学思辨的美感。读完后，那种意犹未尽的感觉并非源于对结局的好奇，而是对那些未被完全解开的谜团——那些隐藏在角色沉默背后的动机——的持续回味。它挑战了读者习惯于线性叙事的惰性，要求我们主动参与到意义的构建过程中去。