Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

出版者:Jonathan Cape

作者:Jeanette Winterson

页数:240

出版时间:2011-10-27

价格:GBP 14.99

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780224093453

具体描述

Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, identity, home, and a mother.

Jeanette Winterson's novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally bestselling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents that is now often required reading in contemporary fiction.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life's work to find happiness. It's a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the Universe as Cosmic Dustbin.

It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she'd written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother.

Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, identity, home, and a mother.

作者简介

Novelist Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England in 1959. She was adopted and brought up in Accrington, Lancashire, in the north of England. Her strict Pentecostal Evangelist upbringing provides the background to her acclaimed first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. She graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford, and moved to London where she worked as an assistant editor at Pandora Press.

One of the most original voices in British fiction to emerge during the 1980s, Winterson was named as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" in a promotion run jointly between the literary magazine Granta and the Book Marketing Council.

She adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990 and also wrote "Great Moments in Aviation," a television screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2 in 1994. She is editor of a series of new editions of novels by Virginia Woolf published in the UK by Vintage. She is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to many newspapers and journals and has a regular column published in The Guardian. Her radio drama includes the play Text Message, broadcast by BBC Radio in November 2001.

Winterson lives in Gloucestershire and London. Her work is published in 28 countries.

读后感

谁会爱原本的我？我该如何爱一个人？该如何相信一个人爱我？ 又发现了一个让人颤栗的英国女作家—用非线性叙事写作的詹妮特·温特森。 家庭作为第一个进行社会化的场所，对孩子的影响丝丝缕缕浸入生命，早已变得无法量化和捉摸。温特森生活在一个抑郁缠身的养母身边，压抑和控...

I always like JW’s writing. When this book came out in 2011, I ordered it but did not read it immediately. I thought that it was the fact-version of Oranges are not the only fruit. The online bookstore introduces the book this way: "Heartbreaking and funn...  

用户评价

这本书在结构上的处理非常大胆和创新，它不像传统小说那样线性推进，反而像是一系列精心编排的片段和内心独白交织而成的拼贴画。这种非传统的叙事方式，完美地契合了现代人碎片化、信息过载的思维模式。每一次翻页，都像是在进行一次随机的意识跳跃，你永远不知道下一秒是会深入到一个角色的童年阴影，还是会突然跳跃到对未来模糊的恐惧中。这种跳跃感，反而让主题——即对“正常”生活持续不断的质疑——得到了更深层次的体现。因为现实生活本身就充满了不连贯和突兀的转折。我常常需要停下来，反复阅读某一段话，不是因为不理解，而是因为那些文字的密度太大，需要时间去消化它们所蕴含的复杂情感层次。它挑战了读者对“故事”的期待，要求我们从混乱中自行提取意义，这本身就是一种智力上的挑战，也是阅读体验上的一大乐趣所在。

读完这本书的中间部分，我产生了一种奇特的代入感和抽离感并存的体验。作者的文字功底极其扎实，尤其擅长运用那些看似平淡无奇的日常对话，来构建一个庞大而复杂的心理迷宫。比如书中对“工作场所的微妙权力游戏”的描绘，那种没有硝烟的战争，比任何直接的冲突都来得更令人窒息。我发现自己不自觉地将书中的角色投射到我认识的某些人身上，甚至开始审视自己在这个社会机器中扮演的角色是否过于顺从或僵化。然而，这本书最精妙之处在于，它并非一味地抱怨或批判，而是在那些略显灰暗的场景中，偶尔闪现出一种近乎残酷的幽默感。这种幽默并非为了逗乐，而是一种生存的韧性，一种在承认生活荒谬性后所生出的达观——尽管这种达观可能更接近于一种清醒的宿命论。我特别喜欢作者在描述主人公的内心挣扎时所使用的那些精准到令人感到疼痛的比喻，它们仿佛是你大脑中那些模糊不清的想法，被清晰地用语言固定了下来，让你无处可逃，却又因此感到一丝被理解的慰藉。

让我印象最为深刻的是作者对“不适感”的精准捕捉和表达。整本书弥漫着一种挥之不去的“局外人”情结，不是那种戏剧化的叛逆，而是一种存在主义式的疏离——你身处人群之中，却感觉自己正在透过一层看不见的玻璃观察这一切。这种“不属于”的感觉，被作者处理得极其微妙，它体现在对光线的捕捉、对特定气味的反应，甚至是走路姿势的细微变化中。我能感受到角色（或者说，作者自己）在努力地将自己塑造成“正常人”时所付出的巨大精神内耗。这种对内在消耗的细致描摹，使得这本书具有强大的共情基础，尤其对于那些习惯性自我审视、常常怀疑自己是否“做对了”的人来说，它提供了一种强有力的确认——你的那种微妙的不协调感，并非你独有的怪癖，而是一种深刻的人类境遇。这本书最终给人的感受不是绝望，而是一种对复杂人性的坦然接受，一种在不完美中寻找立足之地的勇气。

这本书的语言风格，我必须着重强调，简直是一种教科书级别的“克制的美学”。作者似乎对每一个词语的选择都怀有近乎偏执的审慎，力求用最经济的笔墨，描绘出最丰富的情绪光谱。你很难找到大段的、情绪泛滥的宣泄，一切都被包裹在一层冷静、甚至略带疏远的叙事外衣之下。然而，正是这种克制，使得一旦情感的闸门偶尔被打开，其冲击力会显得异常强大。那种深埋的情绪，如同地壳深处的压力，一旦爆发，便势不可挡。阅读过程中，我经常会产生一种“哦，原来是这样”的顿悟，那是作者用极简的词汇精准地击中了某种普遍的人类经验，却又用独特的视角将其重新包装。这使得这本书的耐读性极高，每一次重读，都会因为自己心境的变化，而挖掘出以往忽略的潜台词和微妙的讽刺意味。它不是那种让你读完就扔掉的消遣读物，而是会沉淀下来，在你日后的思考中时不时冒头的“心头之刺”。

这本书的开篇，那种扑面而来的疏离感和带着一丝讥诮的日常剖析，简直让人拍案叫绝。作者对于“正常”这个概念的解构，不是那种高高在上的学术批判，而是非常贴近生活，甚至有些令人不安的细致入微。我记得有一个章节，详细描述了某次家庭聚餐的场景，表面上风平浪静，每个人都在恪守着社会期待的礼仪，但字里行间却透露出一种集体性的、心照不宣的压抑。那种“大家都在努力扮演一个好人/好孩子/好配偶”的疲惫感，被刻画得入木三分。我常常在想，是不是我们为了追求那种外界定义的“正常”，而牺牲了太多本真？这种探讨不提供简单的答案，反而更像是抛出一系列尖锐的问题，逼迫读者去审视自己生活中那些被忽略的、不那么“光鲜亮丽”的部分。它让我开始反思，那些被我们视作理所当然的社会规范，究竟是支撑我们生活的骨架，还是限制我们自由的牢笼。这本书的叙事节奏感极佳，时而缓慢沉思，时而像突发的闪电，精准地击中那些潜藏在心底的、不愿承认的困惑。

非常喜欢。关于love, loss, longing. audio book听来非常亲近，叙述坦率、热诚，还有不同口音、小曲儿、对曼城描述的bonus。The pursuit of happiness 'is not all or nothing; it’s all and nothing'.

沉溺于温特森的文字无法自拔患者

The wider we read, the freer we become, collapsing the space between fact and fiction, as the energy of art is not time-bound.

格言式写作一度让我打问号？哪有那么多真理。但是A tough life needs tough language，明白了。

The wider we read, the freer we become, collapsing the space between fact and fiction, as the energy of art is not time-bound.