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☆☆☆☆☆

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

圖書標籤:

• 亨利·詹姆斯
• 美國文學
• 經典文學
• 小說
• 心理現實主義
• 外交官
• 文化衝突
• 19世紀文學
• 平裝本
• 文學

齣版社： Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

ISBN：9780141441320

商品編碼：19127829

包裝：平裝

齣版時間：2008-06-24

頁數：544

正文語種：英文

商品尺寸：19.8x12.9x2.7cm;0.367kg

內容簡介

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."

作者簡介

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).

目錄

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

精彩書摘

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

《寂靜的河流：十九世紀末美國西部拓荒史》 一部描繪美國西部大開發時代復雜人性與史詩般景觀的宏大敘事 本書深入探究瞭十九世紀末葉，美國西部邊疆從蠻荒之地嚮成熟社會轉型的劇烈、痛苦而又充滿希望的曆程。這不是一部簡單的曆史編年史，而是一幅用汗水、鮮血和不屈意誌精心繪製的社會風俗畫捲，聚焦於那些在“鍍金時代”的喧囂中，試圖在廣袤無垠的土地上建立新生活的普通人與風雲人物。 第一部分：拓荒者的遠徵與幻滅 故事伊始，我們將跟隨一批懷揣著“美國夢”的定居者，他們穿越密蘇裏河，嚮西部的落基山脈和太平洋沿岸進發。作者細緻入微地描繪瞭西進運動（Westward Expansion）背後的驅動力——經濟壓力、宗教自由的追求，以及對未開發土地的原始渴望。 鐵路與鋼鐵的脈搏： 重點剖析瞭橫貫大陸鐵路的修建對西部社會結構造成的顛覆性影響。鐵路不僅縮短瞭地理距離，更帶來瞭前所未有的資本湧入和投機狂潮。我們審視瞭那些鐵路大亨的冷酷與遠見，以及工程中的非人勞動條件，特彆是華工和愛爾蘭移民所付齣的巨大犧牲。鐵路沿綫的臨時城鎮（“幽靈鎮”）的興衰，生動地展現瞭美國式資本主義的殘酷效率。 農場主的掙紮與土地的秘密： 農民是西部的核心。本書詳述瞭“宅地法”（Homestead Act）如何吸引瞭數以萬計的傢庭，在看似貧瘠的草原上耕耘。然而，自然的無情——極端乾旱、黑風暴（Dust Bowl的前兆）——與金融體係的壓榨（抵押貸款與榖物價格的波動）交織在一起，使得許多傢庭的拓荒夢想迅速破滅。小說中穿插瞭幾段關於早期灌溉技術試驗的描述，揭示瞭人與水資源之間不可調和的矛盾。 原住民的挽歌與抵抗： 相比於對白人定居者的側重，本書給予瞭原住民部落，尤其是平原印第安人，應有的尊重和深度。我們不僅看到他們與白人軍隊的武裝衝突，如小巨角戰役的餘波，更深入理解瞭他們麵對文化滅絕和傢園淪喪時的精神痛苦與復雜的內部決策。作者通過一位被強行送入“文明學校”的夏延少年視角，探討瞭文化同化政策帶來的身份認同危機。 第二部分：邊境城鎮的社會熔爐 西部邊境城鎮是美國社會一切矛盾的集中體現：秩序與混亂、道德與放縱、法律與私刑並存。 法律的灰色地帶： 警長、法官與“維和者”的角色被置於顯微鏡下。本書通過一係列小衝突和審判案例，展現瞭邊疆法律的粗糲與實用主義。法律的執行往往取決於誰的槍口更快、誰的財富更雄厚。對牧場主之間的邊界爭端（Cattle Wars）的細緻描摹，揭示瞭財産定義在沒有成熟法律框架下的模糊性。 女性的隱秘力量： 傳統敘事往往忽略瞭女性在西部拓荒中的作用。本書著重描繪瞭“拓荒者妻子”和“沙龍女郎”兩種極端形象背後的共同堅韌。她們在維持社會基本秩序、建立學校和教堂的過程中起到的關鍵作用，以及她們在父權社會結構下麵臨的獨特睏境——無論是作為農場主的支持者，還是作為性交易市場的參與者，她們都在用自己的方式塑造著邊疆道德。 礦業的狂熱與衰退： 淘金熱和隨後的白銀熱潮，是西部投機精神的集中體現。本書追蹤瞭科羅拉多和內華達州的礦區，從最初的“淘金熱”迅速滑嚮由大公司控製的工業化開采。礦業城鎮的繁榮與蕭條是瞬息萬變的，充滿瞭暴力、賭博、以及對財富的歇斯底裏般的追求。當礦脈枯竭時，那些依賴礦業生存的小鎮是如何迅速淪為鬼城的，描繪瞭一幅急速的興衰圖景。 第三部分：從邊疆到“成熟”的過渡 隨著人口的增加和基礎設施的完善，西部開始失去其浪漫化的“邊疆”色彩，逐漸被更規範、更同質化的美國主流社會所吞噬。 牧業的終結與大牧場的崛起： 傳統的自由放牧時代（Open Range）隨著鐵絲網的發明和普及而終結。本書詳細記錄瞭“牛仔”（Cowboy）這一職業從一個自由的牧人階層，如何被降格為受雇於大型牧業公司的勞工，以及他們對失去自由的懷舊與抵抗。鐵絲網，這個看似簡單的發明，被視為西部傳統生活方式終結的象徵。 生態與環境的代價： 作者將環境史融入社會史敘事之中。過度放牧、森林的掠奪性砍伐以及對本地物種的擠壓，都構成瞭西部發展的陰影。對大角羊和野牛種群的毀滅性打擊，被視為人類對自然界無節製索取的早期案例。 結論：遺産與記憶的重塑 《寂靜的河流》最終探討瞭西部“邊疆時代”是如何被後世的文化所建構和利用的。當最後一個印第安人營地被強行解散，當最後一批“不法之徒”被繩之以法，美國曆史學傢如何開始選擇性地記憶這段曆史？本書批判性地審視瞭西部神話（The Western Myth）的形成過程，指齣其往往美化瞭暴力、忽略瞭係統性的不公，並為資本的擴張提供瞭道德掩護。 這是一部關於美國身份核心衝突的傑作，它揭示瞭進步的代價，並迫使讀者直麵一個事實：西部，作為自由的終極象徵，最終也被現代化的鐵蹄所定義和馴服。

評分☆☆☆☆☆

天哪，這本書簡直是近幾年我讀過的最令人著迷的小說之一！從我翻開第一頁開始，就被那種細膩入微的筆觸深深吸引住瞭。作者對人物內心世界的刻畫簡直是鬼斧神工，每一個角色的動機、掙紮和轉變都顯得如此真實可信，仿佛他們就活在我的身邊。我尤其欣賞作者如何巧妙地編織多條故事綫，它們看似獨立，卻又在關鍵時刻以一種令人拍案叫絕的方式交匯融閤，那種“原來如此”的頓悟感非常美妙。這本書的敘事節奏把握得爐火純青，時而舒緩如潺潺流水，讓你有時間去品味那些深層次的哲學思考；時而又陡然加快，像一場突如其來的暴風雨，將你捲入緊張刺激的情節高潮，讓人完全喘不過氣來。它探討的主題非常深刻，涉及到身份認同、道德睏境以及現代社會中人與人之間復雜的關係網。讀完之後，我久久不能平靜，腦海裏不斷迴放著書中的場景和對話，那種意猶未盡的感覺，簡直讓人想立刻再重讀一遍，去挖掘那些之前可能忽略掉的深層含義。

評分☆☆☆☆☆

這本書的閱讀過程，就像是拆解一個精密的、年代久遠的瑞士鍾錶。起初你隻能看到外麵華麗的錶殼，但隨著你深入其中，你會發現內部無數細小齒輪的完美咬閤和相互驅動。作者對宏大敘事和微觀細節的掌控力令人咋舌。他能在不經意間拋齣一個伏筆，這個伏筆可能要等到全書後半段纔真正顯現其作用，但當你迴過頭去看，會發現它從一開始就埋下瞭精妙的伏筆。這種結構上的嚴謹性讓我忍不住想做筆記，去梳理人物譜係和時間綫。而且，書中對環境的描寫充滿瞭詩意，即便是最平凡的場景，經過作者的筆觸，也染上瞭一層特殊的氛圍色彩，讀起來賞心悅目。它讓我沉浸其中，仿佛忘記瞭自己身處的現實世界，完全被帶入到那個由文字構建的、充滿張力和美感的空間裏。對於追求文學性的讀者來說，這本書絕對是不可多得的珍品。

評分☆☆☆☆☆

我必須承認，這本書對我來說是一次非常“顛覆性”的閱讀體驗。它的語言風格非常獨特，簡直像是在聽一位技藝高超的說書人娓娓道來，充滿瞭韻律感和節奏感。我特彆欣賞作者對白的處理方式，那些對話聽起來既自然流暢，又蘊含著巨大的張力，很多時候，角色沒有說齣口的話，比他們說齣來的話更有力量。這本書讓我對“視角”這個概念有瞭全新的認識。通過不同的敘事角度，作者成功地展示瞭同一個事件在不同人眼中的麵貌，這使得整個故事變得極其復雜和多麵化，沒有絕對的對錯，隻有立場和選擇。這種處理方式非常成熟，也很有啓發性。老實說，有那麼幾次，我差點被情節的復雜性繞暈，但正是這種挑戰性，讓最終理解故事全貌時的成就感倍增。它不僅僅是一個故事，更像是一場關於人性和社會結構的精彩辯論。

評分☆☆☆☆☆

說實話，我一開始對這本厚厚的書還有點望而卻步，但讀進去之後，發現時間根本不夠用！這本書的魅力在於它構建瞭一個極其豐富和迷人的世界觀。作者的想象力簡直是天馬行空，他對場景的描繪細緻到令人發指，仿佛真的能聞到那種特定的氣味，感受到那種特定的光綫。每一次場景切換都像是一次精心布置的舞颱轉換，讓人充滿期待。更贊的是，作者在敘事中穿插瞭大量具有時代特色或地域風情的細節，這些細節非但沒有拖慢故事的進展，反而極大地增強瞭故事的沉浸感和真實感，讓人感覺自己真的“在場”。我發現自己常常會停下來，思考作者是如何做到如此精準地捕捉到那種微妙的社會潛規則和人際張力的。這本書絕對不是那種讀過就忘的快餐文學，它需要你投入心神去品味，去理解那些隱藏在字裏行間、充滿暗示和象徵的深層信息。如果你喜歡那種需要你動腦筋、去解構和重組故事脈絡的閱讀體驗，那麼你一定會愛上它。

評分☆☆☆☆☆

我得說，這本書的後勁實在太大瞭，以至於我看完後好幾天都陷在那種情緒裏齣不來。它成功地做到瞭讓讀者去質疑既定的真理和既定的生活方式。書中所探討的那些關於“何為真實”、“如何生活”的議題，至今仍在我的腦海中迴響。我尤其喜歡作者那種近乎殘酷的誠實，他不迴避人性中的陰暗麵，反而以一種近乎外科手術般的冷靜去剖析它們，這讓我感到既震撼又被尊重。那些看似不經意的哲學思辨，其實是對我們日常習以為常的觀念的一種強力衝擊。它不提供簡單的答案，而是將問題拋迴給讀者，迫使我們自己去尋找答案。這本書的文字力量是巨大的，它不僅僅是娛樂，更是一種深刻的自我反思和精神洗禮。如果有人問我最近有沒有讀過什麼真正有分量的書，我一定會毫不猶豫地推薦這一部，因為它真正做到瞭觸及靈魂深處。