Inner Voices

出版者:Farrar, Straus and Giroux

作者:Richard Howard

页数:440

出版时间:2005-10-12

价格:USD 16.00

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780374529901

具体描述

The poems of Richard Howard are noted for their unique dramatic force and for preserving, in their graceful, exquisitely wrought lines, human utterance at its most urbane. "Inner Voices," the first volume to draw together material from Howard's twelve books of poems, leaves no doubt as to why he has been called "a powerful presence in American poetry for 40 years" ("The New York Times Book Review"). Richard Howard is a poet, scholar, teacher, critic, and translator. The author of more than a dozen books, including "Paper Trail: Selected Prose, 1965-2003," he is the recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award for translation. He teaches at Columbia University and is poetry editor of "The Paris Review." Winner of the "Los Angeles"" Times" Book Prize for Poetry The poems of Richard Howard have long been celebrated for their compelling drama and graceful design--and for preserving, in their exquisitely wrought lines, human utterance at its most urbane. Here, in the first volume to draw together material from Howard's twelve books of poems, all students and scholars can fully appreciate the erudite nuances of his lyric poetry and the superb historical and emotional bravura of his dramatic monologues and imagined conversations among famous figures. "Inner Voices" conveys a body of work that J.D. McClatchy has described as "a unique dramatic force fusing] the structural intimacies of voice with the elaborate situations of speech." This selection leaves no doubt as to how and why Howard has been "a powerful presence in American poetry for forty years" ("The New York Times Book Review"). "By my count, 80 of the 100-odd poems gathered here] take art or artists as their subject . . . In the landscape of American poetry no other poet, setting up a homestead for himself, has toiled so diligently to breed such a herd: poems as] creatures whose dam is art and whose sire is art. It's a formidable task, and I can't imagine anyone better equipped for it than Howard, who recently turned 75 and has been publishing poems and essays for more than 40 years . . . The chronological arrangement of this book] makes clear that Howard's poetry over the years has trended toward the more personal, direct, wryly plain-spoken. He follows a salutary impulse, and I pursued "Inner Voices" not merely with steady respect but with a] gratitude, a warmth, a coalescing affection."--Brad Leithauser, "The New York Times Book Review" "By my count, 80 of the 100-odd poems gathered here] take art or artists as their subject . . . In the landscape of American poetry no other poet, setting up a homestead for himself, has toiled so diligently to breed such a herd: poems as] creatures whose dam is art and whose sire is art. It's a formidable task, and I can't imagine anyone better equipped for it than Howard, who recently turned 75 and has been publishing poems and essays for more than 40 years . . . The chronological arrangement of this book] makes clear that Howard's poetry over the years has trended toward the more personal, direct, wryly plain-spoken. He follows a salutary impulse, and I pursued "Inner Voices" not merely with steady respect but with a] gratitude, a warmth, a coalescing affection."--Brad Leithauser, "The New York Times Book Review" "In the last half-century, no American poet has been more instinctively, elegantly cosmopolitan than Richard Howard . . . Mr. Howard deserves to be known as the greatest "litterateur" in America . . . For Mr. Howard, poetry is] a "causerie" of master spirits across time and space. The majority of the poems in "Inner Voices" are responses to other poems, other artworks, other lives; when Mr. Howard is not meditating on a Nadar photograph or a Donatello sculpture, he is assuming the voice of John Ruskin, Edith Wharton, or others among the famous dead. No English-language poet since Browning has devoted himself so exclusively to the traditional dramatic monologue . . . Mr. Howard's language is] always baroque, periphrastic, Jamesian."--Adam Kirsch, "The New York Sun" "Reading these poems does not feel much like reading other contemporary poets; it feels like reading Henry James or Marianne Moore--uncompromising stylists who are therefore our most unflinching, most heartbreaking moralists. Like James and Moore, like Dickinson, Howard is an American original. Like theirs, his language is closest to home when it is most arcane. Like them, he makes the world in which he walks."--James Longenbach, "Boston Review" "Richard Howard is an indispensable, unique poet, whose work instructs by delighting, and delights by instructing. This volume vindicates a lifetime's imaginings, and establishes him as Robert Browning's authentic heir at rendering the inner voices of the cultural past and present."--Harold Bloom "If there is a literary paradise where one could imagine Baudelaire and Browning, Auden and Henry James, James Merrill and Gautier amiably conversing and declaring their views and tastes to one another, one would expect to hear the name of Richard Howard raised with warmth and enthusiastic satisfaction--for his deftness, his wit, his incomparable copiousness, his vast range of subjects, and his burnished intelligence. He has achieved a stature of eminence as a poet beyond challenge or dispute. "Inner Voices" is a wonder."--Anthony Hecht " Howard is] our era's Robert Browning. No other English-language poet since Browning has written so many dramatic monologues of such high quality. Like Browning, Howard chooses artists and art as the personae and subjects of many of his poems; no wonder, perhaps, for a poet who says that one poem he most wishes he had written is Browning's 'My Last Duchess' . . . While he modernly dispenses with rhyme and meter, Howard shapes his poems by other means, retaining the rhythms and swing of intelligent talk and the look of traditional verse on the page. He is as rich and as ever-fresh as Browni

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不得不提，这本书的结构设计堪称一绝。它采用了多线叙事和非线性时间轴的复杂交织，初读时可能会让人感到一丝迷惘，仿佛置身于一个巨大的迷宫之中。但是，一旦你适应了这种叙事节奏，就会发现作者是如何巧妙地埋下伏笔，又在不经意间将那些看似无关的碎片拼凑起来，揭示出令人拍案叫绝的真相。这种层层递进、不断反转的结构，极大地增强了阅读的参与感和探索欲。我常常因为一个突然出现的细节，回溯前面读过的内容，惊喜于作者的布局之宏大和严密。这种构建复杂世界观的能力，在当代文学中实属罕见。它要求读者必须保持高度的专注力，因为任何一个疏忽都可能让你错过理解全局的关键线索。读完后，我有一种智力被充分调动的满足感，仿佛完成了一场高强度的智力挑战，而最终的回报是丰厚而深刻的。

这本书给我的最大震撼，在于它对“人性灰色地带”的毫不留情的剖析。它没有设置绝对的善与恶，书中的每一个角色，无论正面还是反面，都有着极其复杂和矛盾的动机。作者似乎在对我们所有人耳语：所谓的道德界限，在极端环境下是多么的脆弱和模糊。我读到某些角色的行为时，会感到强烈的道德冲突和自我审视，甚至会忍不住问自己，如果处在那种境地，我又能坚持多久？这种直面人性的阴暗面却又不失温度的描写，让这本书的思考深度远超一般的小说范畴。它更像是一部社会心理学的深度报告，披着文学的外衣，直击我们内心最深处的恐惧和渴望。这种深刻的反思性，使得这本书具有了超越时空的价值，它探讨的议题，无论放在哪个时代背景下，都依然振聋发聩。

这本书的语言风格简直是一场华丽的文字盛宴，充满了古典韵味却又暗藏现代的锐利。作者仿佛是一位技艺高超的雕塑家，用词遣字都经过千锤百炼，每一个句子都像是精心打磨过的宝石，折射出不同的光芒。我特别欣赏作者在描述自然景象时所用的比喻，那些新奇而又恰到好处的意象，让我对那些熟悉的景物产生了全新的认知。比如，他描述日落时分，天空像是被泼洒了最浓郁的朱砂，那种壮阔感，让我忍不住合上书，抬头望向窗外，试图捕捉一丝遗落的美。更难得的是，在如此华丽的辞藻下，情感的表达却异常真挚和克制，没有丝毫的矫揉造作。这是一种高超的平衡艺术，让读者在享受语言美感的同时，更能被故事内核深深触动。读这本书，不仅仅是在阅读一个故事，更像是在欣赏一场关于文字的个人演奏会，每一个音符都精准地落在了心弦之上。

我对这本书的整体氛围营造佩服得五体投地。它成功地创造了一种弥漫着宿命感和微弱希望交织的独特氛围。那种感觉，就像是站在暴风雨来临前的海边，空气中充满了电离子的味道，你知道灾难将至，但同时又被眼前那片被乌云压抑得近乎墨色的海面所摄住。作者通过对环境光线、背景音乐（虽然是文字描述的）以及人物肢体语言的精准拿捏，构建了一个令人窒息又充满美感的场域。这种氛围感极其强烈，以至于在阅读过程中，我常常感到心跳加速，仿佛自己真的参与了那些紧张的对峙和无声的较量。这种强烈的沉浸感，不是靠情节的刺激达成的，而是通过一种高密度的情绪灌输实现的。读完之后，那种挥之不去的情绪残留，证明了作者在“氛围营造”这一艺术技巧上已臻化境。

这本书的叙事节奏简直让人欲罢不能。从翻开第一页开始，我就感觉自己被一股无形的力量拽进了一个完全不同的时空。作者的笔触细腻得像是描绘一幅工笔画，每一个场景、每一个人物的内心挣扎都被勾勒得栩栩如生。尤其是在描写主角面对抉择时的那种踟蹰与挣扎，简直是把我自己的影子投射了进去。我甚至能想象出那个昏暗的房间里，空气中弥漫着旧纸张和灰尘的味道。这本书的魅力在于它没有急于给出答案，而是耐心地铺陈着生活的质感，让我们和主人公一起在迷雾中摸索前行。那种细微的心理活动，比如一个眼神的闪烁，一次不经意的触摸，都被赋予了深刻的意义。读完之后，我需要花很长时间才能从那种沉浸感中抽离出来，仿佛刚刚经历了一场漫长而真实的旅行。这种叙事功力，不是一朝一夕能练就的，背后一定蕴含着作者对人性深刻的洞察和对生活无尽的体察。它不像那些快餐式的读物，读完就忘，而是像陈年的美酒，后劲十足，回味无穷。