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☆☆☆☆☆

Henry James，Adrian Poole，Adrian Poole 著，Graham Clarke 编

图书标签:

• 亨利·詹姆斯
• 美国文学
• 经典文学
• 小说
• 心理现实主义
• 外交官
• 文化冲突
• 19世纪文学
• 平装本
• 文学

出版社： Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

ISBN：9780141441320

商品编码：19127829

包装：平装

出版时间：2008-06-24

页数：544

正文语种：英文

商品尺寸：19.8x12.9x2.7cm;0.367kg

内容简介

This complex tale of self-discovery — considered by the author to be his best work — traces the path of an aging idealist, Lambert Strether. Arriving in Paris with the intention of persuading his young charge to abandon an obsession with a French woman and return home, Strether reaches unexpected conclusions.

The second of James's three late masterpieces, was, in the author's opinion, "the best, all round, of my productions."

作者简介

Henry James
Henry James was a master at tracing the social boundaries of the Gilded Age -- between Old and New World, Europe and America, desire and convention, men and women. He brought an invaluably clear-eyed, and critical, sensibility to America's evolving cultural mores.

Biography
Henry James (1843-1916), born in New York City, was the son of noted religious philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of eminent psychologist and philosopher William James. He spent his early life in America and studied in Geneva, London and Paris during his adolescence to gain the worldly experience so prized by his father. He lived in Newport, went briefly to Harvard Law School, and in 1864 began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines. In 1869, and then in 1872-74, he paid visits to Europe and began his first novel, Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875 he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola, and wrote The American (1877). In December 1876 he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. Other famous works include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and three large novels of the new century, The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1905 he revisited the United States and wrote The American Scene (1907). During his career, he also wrote many works of criticism and travel. Although old and ailing, he threw himself into war work in 1914, and in 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject. In 1916 King George V conferred the Order of Merit on him. He died in London in February 1916. Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).

目录

Introduction7
Note on the Text31
Preface to the New York Edition33
The Ambassadors53
Notes513

精彩书摘

I
Strether's first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his friend; yet on his learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to arrive till evening he was not wholly disconcerted. A telegram from him bespeaking a room "only if not noisy," reply paid, was produced for the enquirer at the office, so that the understanding they should meet at Chester rather than at Liverpool remained to that extent sound. The same secret principle, however, that had prompted Strether not absolutely to desire Waymarsh's presence at the dock, that had led him thus to postpone for a few hours his enjoyment of it, now operated to make him feel he could still wait without disappointment. They would dine together at the worst, and, with all respect to dear old Waymarsh—if not even, for that matter, to himself—there was little fear that in the sequel they shouldn't see enough of each other. The principle I have just mentioned as operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men, wholly instinctive—the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as it would be to find himself looking, after so much separation, into his comrade's face, his business would be a trifle bungled should he simply arrange for this countenance to present itself to the nearing steamer as the first "note," of Europe. Mixed with everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether's part, that it would, at best, throughout, prove the note of Europe in quite a sufficient degree.
That note had been meanwhile—since the previous afternoon, thanks to this happier device—such a consciousness of personal freedom as he hadn't known for years; such a deep taste of change and of having above all for the moment nobody and nothing to consider, as promised already, if headlong hope were not too foolish, to colour his adventure with cool success. There were people on the ship with whom he had easily consorted—so far as ease could up to now be imputed to him—and who for the most part plunged straight into the current that set from the landing-stage to London; there were others who had invited him to a tryst at the inn and had even invoked his aid for a "look round" at the beauties of Liverpool; but he had stolen away from every one alike, had kept no appointment and renewed no acquaintance, had been indifferently aware of the number of persons who esteemed themselves fortunate in being, unlike himself, "met," and had even independently, unsociably, alone, without encounter or relapse and by mere quiet evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the sensible. They formed a qualified draught of Europe, an afternoon and an evening on the banks of the Mersey, but such as it was he took his potion at least undiluted. He winced a little, truly, at the thought that Waymarsh might be already at Chester; he reflected that, should he have to describe himself there as having "got in" so early, it would be difficult to make the interval look particularly eager; but he was like a man who, elatedly finding in his pocket more money than usual, handles it a while and idly and pleasantly chinks it before addressing himself to the business of spending. That he was prepared to be vague to Waymarsh about the hour of the ship's touching, and that he both wanted extremely to see him and enjoyed extremely the duration of delay—these things, it is to be conceived, were early signs in him that his relation to his actual errand might prove none of the simplest. He was burdened, poor Strether—it had better be confessed at the outset—with the oddity of a double consciousness. There was detachment in his zeal and curiosity in his indifference.
After the young woman in the glass cage had held up to him across her counter the pale—pink leaflet bearing his friend's name, which she neatly pronounced, he turned away to find himself, in the hall, facing a lady who met his eyes as with an intention suddenly determined, and whose features—not freshly young, not markedly fine, but on happy terms with each other—came back to him as from a recent vision. For a moment they stood confronted; then the moment placed her: he had noticed her the day before, noticed her at his previous inn, where—again in the hall—she had been briefly engaged with some people of his own ship's company. Nothing had actually passed between them, and he would as little have been able to say what had been the sign of her face for him on the first occasion as to name the ground of his present recognition. Recognition at any rate appeared to prevail on her own side as well—which would only have added to the mystery. All she now began by saying to him nevertheless was that, having chanced to catch his enquiry, she was moved to ask, by his leave, if it were possibly a question of Mr. Waymarsh of Milrose Connecticut—Mr. Waymarsh the American lawyer.
"Oh yes," he replied, "my very well—known friend. He's to meet me here, coming up from Malvern, and I supposed he'd already have arrived. But he doesn't come till later, and I'm relieved not to have kept him. Do you know him?" Strether wound up.
It wasn't till after he had spoken that he became aware of how much there had been in him of response; when the tone of her own rejoinder, as well as the play of something more in her face—something more, that is, than its apparently usual restless light—seemed to notify him. "I've met him at Milrose—where I used sometimes, a good while ago, to stay; I had friends there who were friends of his, and I've been at his house. I won't answer for it that he would know me," Strether's new acquaintance pursued; "but I should be delighted to see him. Perhaps," she added, "I shall—for I'm staying over." She paused while our friend took in these things, and it was as if a good deal of talk had already passed. They even vaguely smiled at it, and Strether presently observed that Mr. Waymarsh would, no doubt, be easily to be seen. This, however, appeared to affect the lady as if she might have advanced too far. She appeared to have no reserves about anything. "Oh," she said, "he won't care!"—and she immediately thereupon remarked that she believed Strether knew the Munsters; the Munsters being the people he had seen her with at Liverpool.
But he didn't, it happened, know the Munsters well enough to give the case much of a lift; so that they were left together as if over the mere laid table of conversation. Her qualification of the mentioned connexion had rather removed than placed a dish, and there seemed nothing else to serve. Their attitude remained, none the less, that of not forsaking the board; and the effect of this in turn was to give them the appearance of having accepted each other with an absence of preliminaries practically complete. They moved along the hall together, and Strether's companion threw off that the hotel had the advantage of a garden. He was aware by this time of his strange inconsequence: he had shirked the intimacies of the steamer and had muffled the shock of Waymarsh only to find himself forsaken, in this sudden case, both of avoidance and of caution. He passed, under this unsought protection and before he had so much as gone up to his room, into the garden of the hotel, and at the end of ten minutes had agreed to meet there again, as soon as he should have made himself tidy, the dispenser of such good assurances. He wanted to look at the town, and they would forthwith look together. It was almost as if she had been in possession and received him as a guest. Her acquaintance with the place presented her in a manner as a hostess, and Strether had a rueful glance for the lady in the glass cage. It was as if this personage had seen herself instantly superseded.
When in a quarter of an hour he came down, what his hostess saw, what she might have taken in with a vision kindly adjusted, was the lean, the slightly loose figure of a man of the middle height and something more perhaps than the middle age—a man of five—and-fifty, whose most immediate signs were a marked bloodless brownness of face, a thick dark moustache, of characteristically American cut, growing strong and falling low, a head of hair still abundant but irregularly streaked with grey, and a nose of bold free prominence, the even line, the high finish, as it might have been called, of which, had a certain effect of mitigation. A perpetual pair of glasses astride of this fine ridge, and a line, unusually deep and drawn, the prolonged pen—stroke of time, accompanying the curve of the moustache from nostril to chin, did something to complete the facial furniture that an attentive observer would have seen catalogued, on the spot, in the vision of the other party to Strether's appointment. She waited for him in the garden, the other party, drawing on a pair of singularly fresh soft and elastic light gloves and presenting herself with a superficial readiness which, as he approached her over the small smooth lawn and in the watery English sunshine, he might, with his rougher preparation, have marked as the model for such an occasion. She had, this lady, a perfect plain propriety, an expensive subdued suitability, that her companion was not free to analyse, but that struck him, so that his consciousness of it was instantly acute, as a quality quite new to him. Before reaching her he stopped on the grass and went through the form of feeling for something, possibly forgotten, in the light overcoat he carried on his arm; yet the essence of the act was no more than the impulse to gain time. Nothing could have been odder than Strether's sense of himself as at that moment launched in something of which the sense would be quite disconnected from the sense of his past and which was literally beginning there and then. It had begun in fact already upstairs and before the dressing—glass that struck him as blocking further, so strangely, the dimness of the window of his dull bedroom; begun with a sharper survey of the elements of Appearance than he had for a long time been moved to make. He had during those moments felt these elements to be not so much to his hand as he should have liked, and then had fallen back on the thought that they were precisely a matter as to which help was supposed to come from what he was about to do. He was about to go up to London, so that hat and necktie might wait. What had come as straight to him as a ball in a well—played game—and caught moreover not less neatly—was just the air, in the person of his friend, of having seen and chosen, the air of achieved possession of those vague qualities and quantities that collectively figured to him as the advantage snatched from lucky chances. Without pomp or circumstance, certainly, as her original address to him, equally with his own response, had been, he would have sketched to himself his impression of her as: "Well, she's more thoroughly civilized—!" If "More thoroughly than whom?" would not have been for him a sequel to this remark, that was just by reason of his deep consciousness of the bearing of his comparison.
The amusement, at all events, of a civilization intenser was what—familiar compatriot as she was, with the full tone of the compatriot and the rattling link not with mystery but only with dear dyspeptic Waymarsh—she appeared distinctly to promise. His pause while he felt in his overcoat was positively the pause of confidence, and it enabled his eyes to make out as much of a case for her, in proportion, as her own made out for himself. She affected him as almost insolently young; but an easily carried five—and-thirty could still do that. She was, however, like himself, marked and wan; only it naturally couldn't have been known to him how much a spectator looking from one to the other might have discerned that they had in common. It wouldn't for such a spectator have been altogether insupposable that, each so finely brown and so sharply spare, each confessing so to dents of surface and aids to sight, to a disproportionate nose and a head delicately or grossly grizzled, they might have been brother and sister. On this ground indeed there would have been a residuum of difference; such a sister having surely known in respect to such a brother the extremity of separation, and such a brother now feeling in respect to such a sister the extremity of surprise. Surprise, it was true, was not on the other hand what the eyes of Strether's friend most showed him while she gave him, stroking her gloves smoother, the time he appreciated. They had taken hold of him straightway, measuring him up and down as if they knew how; as if he were human material they had already in some sort handled. Their possessor was in truth, it may be communicated, the mistress of a hundred cases or categories, receptacles of the mind, subdivisions for convenience, in which, from a full experience, she pigeon—holed her fellow mortals with a hand as free as that of a compositor scattering type. She was as equipped in this particular as Strether was the reverse, and it made an opposition between them which he might well have shrunk from submitting to if he had fully suspected it. So far as he did suspect it he was on the contrary, after a short shake of his consciousness, as pleasantly passive as might be. He really had a sort of sense of what she knew. He had quite the sense that she knew things he didn't, and though this was a concession that in general he found not easy to make to women, he made it now as good—humouredly as if it lifted a burden. His eyes were so quiet behind his eternal nippers that they might almost have been absent without changing his face, which took its expression mainly, and not least its stamp of sensibility, from other sources, surface and grain and form. He joined his guide in an instant, and then felt she had profited still better than he by his having been, for the moments just mentioned, so at the disposal of her intelligence. She knew even intimate things about him that he hadn't yet told her and perhaps never would. He wasn't unaware that he had told her rather remarkably many for the time, but these were not the real ones. Some of the real ones, however, precisely, were what she knew.

前言/序言

《寂静的河流：十九世纪末美国西部拓荒史》 一部描绘美国西部大开发时代复杂人性与史诗般景观的宏大叙事 本书深入探究了十九世纪末叶，美国西部边疆从蛮荒之地向成熟社会转型的剧烈、痛苦而又充满希望的历程。这不是一部简单的历史编年史，而是一幅用汗水、鲜血和不屈意志精心绘制的社会风俗画卷，聚焦于那些在“镀金时代”的喧嚣中，试图在广袤无垠的土地上建立新生活的普通人与风云人物。 第一部分：拓荒者的远征与幻灭 故事伊始，我们将跟随一批怀揣着“美国梦”的定居者，他们穿越密苏里河，向西部的落基山脉和太平洋沿岸进发。作者细致入微地描绘了西进运动（Westward Expansion）背后的驱动力——经济压力、宗教自由的追求，以及对未开发土地的原始渴望。 铁路与钢铁的脉搏： 重点剖析了横贯大陆铁路的修建对西部社会结构造成的颠覆性影响。铁路不仅缩短了地理距离，更带来了前所未有的资本涌入和投机狂潮。我们审视了那些铁路大亨的冷酷与远见，以及工程中的非人劳动条件，特别是华工和爱尔兰移民所付出的巨大牺牲。铁路沿线的临时城镇（“幽灵镇”）的兴衰，生动地展现了美国式资本主义的残酷效率。 农场主的挣扎与土地的秘密： 农民是西部的核心。本书详述了“宅地法”（Homestead Act）如何吸引了数以万计的家庭，在看似贫瘠的草原上耕耘。然而，自然的无情——极端干旱、黑风暴（Dust Bowl的前兆）——与金融体系的压榨（抵押贷款与谷物价格的波动）交织在一起，使得许多家庭的拓荒梦想迅速破灭。小说中穿插了几段关于早期灌溉技术试验的描述，揭示了人与水资源之间不可调和的矛盾。 原住民的挽歌与抵抗： 相比于对白人定居者的侧重，本书给予了原住民部落，尤其是平原印第安人，应有的尊重和深度。我们不仅看到他们与白人军队的武装冲突，如小巨角战役的余波，更深入理解了他们面对文化灭绝和家园沦丧时的精神痛苦与复杂的内部决策。作者通过一位被强行送入“文明学校”的夏延少年视角，探讨了文化同化政策带来的身份认同危机。 第二部分：边境城镇的社会熔炉 西部边境城镇是美国社会一切矛盾的集中体现：秩序与混乱、道德与放纵、法律与私刑并存。 法律的灰色地带： 警长、法官与“维和者”的角色被置于显微镜下。本书通过一系列小冲突和审判案例，展现了边疆法律的粗粝与实用主义。法律的执行往往取决于谁的枪口更快、谁的财富更雄厚。对牧场主之间的边界争端（Cattle Wars）的细致描摹，揭示了财产定义在没有成熟法律框架下的模糊性。 女性的隐秘力量： 传统叙事往往忽略了女性在西部拓荒中的作用。本书着重描绘了“拓荒者妻子”和“沙龙女郎”两种极端形象背后的共同坚韧。她们在维持社会基本秩序、建立学校和教堂的过程中起到的关键作用，以及她们在父权社会结构下面临的独特困境——无论是作为农场主的支持者，还是作为性交易市场的参与者，她们都在用自己的方式塑造着边疆道德。 矿业的狂热与衰退： 淘金热和随后的白银热潮，是西部投机精神的集中体现。本书追踪了科罗拉多和内华达州的矿区，从最初的“淘金热”迅速滑向由大公司控制的工业化开采。矿业城镇的繁荣与萧条是瞬息万变的，充满了暴力、赌博、以及对财富的歇斯底里般的追求。当矿脉枯竭时，那些依赖矿业生存的小镇是如何迅速沦为鬼城的，描绘了一幅急速的兴衰图景。 第三部分：从边疆到“成熟”的过渡 随着人口的增加和基础设施的完善，西部开始失去其浪漫化的“边疆”色彩，逐渐被更规范、更同质化的美国主流社会所吞噬。 牧业的终结与大牧场的崛起： 传统的自由放牧时代（Open Range）随着铁丝网的发明和普及而终结。本书详细记录了“牛仔”（Cowboy）这一职业从一个自由的牧人阶层，如何被降格为受雇于大型牧业公司的劳工，以及他们对失去自由的怀旧与抵抗。铁丝网，这个看似简单的发明，被视为西部传统生活方式终结的象征。 生态与环境的代价： 作者将环境史融入社会史叙事之中。过度放牧、森林的掠夺性砍伐以及对本地物种的挤压，都构成了西部发展的阴影。对大角羊和野牛种群的毁灭性打击，被视为人类对自然界无节制索取的早期案例。 结论：遗产与记忆的重塑 《寂静的河流》最终探讨了西部“边疆时代”是如何被后世的文化所建构和利用的。当最后一个印第安人营地被强行解散，当最后一批“不法之徒”被绳之以法，美国历史学家如何开始选择性地记忆这段历史？本书批判性地审视了西部神话（The Western Myth）的形成过程，指出其往往美化了暴力、忽略了系统性的不公，并为资本的扩张提供了道德掩护。 这是一部关于美国身份核心冲突的杰作，它揭示了进步的代价，并迫使读者直面一个事实：西部，作为自由的终极象征，最终也被现代化的铁蹄所定义和驯服。

评分☆☆☆☆☆

天哪，这本书简直是近几年我读过的最令人着迷的小说之一！从我翻开第一页开始，就被那种细腻入微的笔触深深吸引住了。作者对人物内心世界的刻画简直是鬼斧神工，每一个角色的动机、挣扎和转变都显得如此真实可信，仿佛他们就活在我的身边。我尤其欣赏作者如何巧妙地编织多条故事线，它们看似独立，却又在关键时刻以一种令人拍案叫绝的方式交汇融合，那种“原来如此”的顿悟感非常美妙。这本书的叙事节奏把握得炉火纯青，时而舒缓如潺潺流水，让你有时间去品味那些深层次的哲学思考；时而又陡然加快，像一场突如其来的暴风雨，将你卷入紧张刺激的情节高潮，让人完全喘不过气来。它探讨的主题非常深刻，涉及到身份认同、道德困境以及现代社会中人与人之间复杂的关系网。读完之后，我久久不能平静，脑海里不断回放着书中的场景和对话，那种意犹未尽的感觉，简直让人想立刻再重读一遍，去挖掘那些之前可能忽略掉的深层含义。

评分☆☆☆☆☆

我得说，这本书的后劲实在太大了，以至于我看完后好几天都陷在那种情绪里出不来。它成功地做到了让读者去质疑既定的真理和既定的生活方式。书中所探讨的那些关于“何为真实”、“如何生活”的议题，至今仍在我的脑海中回响。我尤其喜欢作者那种近乎残酷的诚实，他不回避人性中的阴暗面，反而以一种近乎外科手术般的冷静去剖析它们，这让我感到既震撼又被尊重。那些看似不经意的哲学思辨，其实是对我们日常习以为常的观念的一种强力冲击。它不提供简单的答案，而是将问题抛回给读者，迫使我们自己去寻找答案。这本书的文字力量是巨大的，它不仅仅是娱乐，更是一种深刻的自我反思和精神洗礼。如果有人问我最近有没有读过什么真正有分量的书，我一定会毫不犹豫地推荐这一部，因为它真正做到了触及灵魂深处。

评分☆☆☆☆☆

这本书的阅读过程，就像是拆解一个精密的、年代久远的瑞士钟表。起初你只能看到外面华丽的表壳，但随着你深入其中，你会发现内部无数细小齿轮的完美咬合和相互驱动。作者对宏大叙事和微观细节的掌控力令人咋舌。他能在不经意间抛出一个伏笔，这个伏笔可能要等到全书后半段才真正显现其作用，但当你回过头去看，会发现它从一开始就埋下了精妙的伏笔。这种结构上的严谨性让我忍不住想做笔记，去梳理人物谱系和时间线。而且，书中对环境的描写充满了诗意，即便是最平凡的场景，经过作者的笔触，也染上了一层特殊的氛围色彩，读起来赏心悦目。它让我沉浸其中，仿佛忘记了自己身处的现实世界，完全被带入到那个由文字构建的、充满张力和美感的空间里。对于追求文学性的读者来说，这本书绝对是不可多得的珍品。

评分☆☆☆☆☆

说实话，我一开始对这本厚厚的书还有点望而却步，但读进去之后，发现时间根本不够用！这本书的魅力在于它构建了一个极其丰富和迷人的世界观。作者的想象力简直是天马行空，他对场景的描绘细致到令人发指，仿佛真的能闻到那种特定的气味，感受到那种特定的光线。每一次场景切换都像是一次精心布置的舞台转换，让人充满期待。更赞的是，作者在叙事中穿插了大量具有时代特色或地域风情的细节，这些细节非但没有拖慢故事的进展，反而极大地增强了故事的沉浸感和真实感，让人感觉自己真的“在场”。我发现自己常常会停下来，思考作者是如何做到如此精准地捕捉到那种微妙的社会潜规则和人际张力的。这本书绝对不是那种读过就忘的快餐文学，它需要你投入心神去品味，去理解那些隐藏在字里行间、充满暗示和象征的深层信息。如果你喜欢那种需要你动脑筋、去解构和重组故事脉络的阅读体验，那么你一定会爱上它。

评分☆☆☆☆☆

我必须承认，这本书对我来说是一次非常“颠覆性”的阅读体验。它的语言风格非常独特，简直像是在听一位技艺高超的说书人娓娓道来，充满了韵律感和节奏感。我特别欣赏作者对白的处理方式，那些对话听起来既自然流畅，又蕴含着巨大的张力，很多时候，角色没有说出口的话，比他们说出来的话更有力量。这本书让我对“视角”这个概念有了全新的认识。通过不同的叙事角度，作者成功地展示了同一个事件在不同人眼中的面貌，这使得整个故事变得极其复杂和多面化，没有绝对的对错，只有立场和选择。这种处理方式非常成熟，也很有启发性。老实说，有那么几次，我差点被情节的复杂性绕晕，但正是这种挑战性，让最终理解故事全貌时的成就感倍增。它不仅仅是一个故事，更像是一场关于人性和社会结构的精彩辩论。