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Book Description
Julia Roberts represents a return to the glamour of the great Hollywood stars of another era. Fans flock to her movies, and she's a staple cover subject of People magazine and every entertainment show imaginable, but her real life has only been seen in tabloid glimpses until now. James Spada has gone back to Julia's beginnings in Athens, Georgia to unearth fascinating facts about her family and her early dating life. And he's followed her career from movie to movie-both on screen and behind the screen-to show fans what the private face of Julia really is.
As an artist, Julia has changed dramatically from the talented but sheltered girl who found fame first with a role in the independent movie "Mystic Pizza" and became the exuberant star whose "Pretty Woman" delighted audiences everywhere before becoming an Oscar-winning actress capable of taking on the toughest roles. As a person, she's grown from a skittish and gangly girl moving through relationships with co-stars to become an assured woman making her own bold decisions about how to live her life.
Julia will delight fans with its level of detail and fresh information, as well as its thoughtfulness about the life and career of a truly vibrant and complex star.
From the Inside Flap
She is beloved worldwide for her effervescent smile and the way she lights up the screen in movies like "Erin Brokovich", "Mona Lisa's Smile" and, of course, "Pretty Woman." But Julia Roberts's real life has only been glimpsed in the tabloids until now. Acclaimed biographer James Spada has created a rich and exhaustively researched portrait of Julia as both an actress and as a woman. Spada went back to Julia's parents' beginnings in Georgia to unearth fascinating facts about her dysfunctional family background, her troubled childhood, and her early dating life. What he discovered may explain why Julia moved through her twenties and early thirties seemingly falling for a new co-star on every movie set. And Spada's interpretation of those romances-from the whirlwind last minute cancellation of her marriage to Kiefer Sutherland and the brooding intensity of her relationship with Jason Patric to to the sunnier and healthier long liaison with Benjamin Bratt-is juicy and fascinating reading.
Julia offers fresh details about all the star's famous movies to uncover an intensely dedicated but deeply insecure artist. After rising to superstardom at twenty-two Julia endured the onslaught of paparazzi along with her very public string of failed relationships, rumors of drug addiction, and clashes with big-name directors like Herbert Ross and Steven Spielberg. She fled Hollywood for two years, made her first "comeback" at the tender age of twenty-five, then took on a series of risky roles in movies that flopped. For the last six years, she has delighted audiences in a string of smash hits and topped the Hollywood heap as the highest paid actress in history.
Julia shows how the star has grown from a skittish girl moving through volatile relationships with charismatic co-stars to become an assured woman making her own bold-and often controversial-decisions about how to life her life.
Julia is as lively and vivacious as the star it explores. You will not be able to put it down.
From Publishers Weekly
According to Spada, star biography specialist (Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Jacqueline Kennedy), Julia Roberts inspires every response, from the accusation by high school classmates that she "liked to steal other girls' boyfriends" to Woody Allen's praise: "She's bright, beautiful, and a pleasure to work with." This duality makes her an intriguing but unsympathetic character here. So much evidence is presented about Roberts pro and con that the book becomes a biographical mystery, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions. A self-proclaimed ugly duckling who "never really fit" in early childhood, Roberts was strongly inspired by actor brother Eric. The book moves briskly from Roberts's breakthrough role in Mystic Pizza to superstardom with Pretty Woman, a part she researched by interviewing prostitutes. Roberts "does her emotional homework," declares director Joel Schumacher during their collaboration on Flatliners, a film that co-starred her with one-time fiance Kiefer Sutherland. Other lovers who emerge with colorful clarity include Liam Neeson, Dylan McDermott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jason Patric and country singer ex-husband Lyle Lovett. Although Spada cuttingly characterizes Roberts and Lovett as "beauty and the beast," he delineates their relationship less sharply than the other liaisons (although Matthew Perry of Friends is a vividly etched presence). Spada recounts the Roberts-Nick Nolte feud during I Love Trouble and highlights the ambivalence so many feel about her by quoting Steven Spielberg, who praised her while directing Hook and criticized her on 60 Minutes. Readers won't be as enchanted with this box-office sweetheart as they were before beginning the story, but they're likely to become caught up in Spada's incisive portrait of her personal and professional tribulations.
Book Dimension
length: (cm)25 width:(cm)16
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我不知道该如何形容这本书带给我的那种“疏离感”。它像一个精心制作的微缩模型，每一个细节都无可挑剔，但你永远无法真正走进去触摸它。作者似乎对“情感”这个概念持有一种居高临下的审视态度，而不是去真正体验和描摹它。书里发生的一切重大事件——生离死别、突如其来的成功或毁灭——都被一种冰冷的、近乎科学报告的语气来叙述，好像作者在记录一个实验数据，而不是讲述一个关于人的故事。我读到关于主角失去挚爱的章节时，内心毫无波澜，这在我阅读其他小说时是极其罕见的。这种缺乏共情力的写作方式，使得整本书变成了一场智力游戏，而不是一次情感的旅程。对我而言，一本好书应该能让你忘记自己正在阅读，让你沉浸其中，忘记时间的流逝。但这本“朱莉娅”却时刻提醒着我：你正在读一个构造出来的东西，你和它之间隔着一堵厚厚的、用理论和术语砌成的墙。我希望未来的阅读能够回归到对真实情感和生活肌理的捕捉上来，而不是沉溺于这种过度智力化和情感抽离的写作风格中。
这本所谓的“神作”简直是浪费时间，我简直无法理解为什么会有人给它这么高的评价。从头到尾，情节都像一团乱麻，人物的动机模糊不清，作者似乎沉迷于用晦涩难懂的语言来堆砌所谓的“深度”，结果就是把一个可能还算有趣的故事讲得让人昏昏欲睡。我尝试了三次才读完，每一次都感觉像是在啃一块坚硬、索然无味的石头。特别是中间那段关于“存在主义虚无”的冗长独白，简直是灾难，完全打断了任何可能建立起来的阅读节奏。角色之间的对话也极其做作，充满了刻意为之的哲学思辨，听起来就像是两个刚看完几本哲学入门书籍的人在互相炫耀学识，毫无生活气息可言。如果作者想探讨深刻的主题，至少应该用一种能让人产生共鸣的方式来呈现，而不是用这种故作高深的笔法来疏远读者。这本书的装帧倒是挺漂亮，可惜内容与之完全不匹配，简直是包装精美的空盒子。我强烈建议那些寻求真正引人入胜阅读体验的人，把时间和精力投入到其他更值得的书籍上。读完后，我唯一的感受就是一种强烈的被愚弄感，感觉自己被那些华丽辞藻和故作深沉的叙事技巧给骗了。
这本书的对话部分简直是文学界的“恐怖谷效应”。角色们说话的方式极其不自然，他们不是在进行日常交流，而是在朗读一篇经过精心打磨的、充满尖刻反讽的剧本台词。每一个字似乎都经过了反复推敲，以确保其措辞的“完美”和“智慧”，但结果却是失去了人味儿，听起来像是一群机器人彼此用高级算法进行的数据交换。我特别关注了其中一个主要人物的内心独白，那段文字充满了对自身智力优越感的自鸣得意，读起来让人只想赶紧合上书，去听听真实世界里人们是怎么打招呼的。此外，作者对女性角色的刻画也显得非常刻板和扁平化，她们的存在似乎仅仅是为了衬托男主角的“复杂性”，不是被过度浪漫化就是被符号化，完全没有看到立体的人格维度。这种老旧的叙事视角，在当今的文学环境中显得尤为刺眼。如果你期待看到当代文学中那种对人性的复杂和日常化的探索，那么这本书绝对会让你失望。它更像是对上世纪某种文人相轻的旧有模式的一种拙劣模仿，既没有赶上那个时代的锐气，也未能跟上这个时代的需求。
我的天呐，这本书简直是文学界的“薛定谔的猫”——在你打开之前，你永远不知道它下一秒会用哪种莫名其妙的叙事诡计来让你感到困惑。我得承认，开头的部分确实给了我一丝希望，那种细腻的笔触描绘的乡村风光很有代入感，但很快，作者就迷失在了自己的意识流里，一发不可收拾。我感觉我读的不是一个连贯的故事，而是一系列破碎的、互不关联的梦境片段，它们之间唯一的联系似乎是作者随机选择的一个颜色或者一种气味。这种尝试打破传统叙事结构的勇气值得肯定，但是，如果打破了之后无法重建一个更具吸引力的结构，那它就仅仅是混乱。这本书的篇幅也令人咋舌，作者似乎吝啬于删减任何一个冒出来的想法，无论它多么不合时宜或者多么偏离主线。我读到第两百页时，已经完全放弃去追寻“谁是主角”或者“他们到底在做什么”这类基本问题了，转而开始享受那种纯粹的、混乱的感官体验，但这已经不是阅读小说的乐趣，更像是在解读一份加密电报。总而言之，它可能适合那些热衷于解构主义文学研究的学者，但对于普通希望被故事牵引的读者来说，简直是精神上的折磨。
说实话，这本书的节奏感糟透了，就像一辆在爬坡时不断熄火，然后又突然冲刺的汽车。有些章节的细节描写真是到了令人发指的地步，一个眼神的微妙变化，作者能用上整整三页的篇幅去分析其潜在的社会学意义，看得我直翻白眼。然后，当你终于熬过这些冗余的“微观世界”分析，急切地盼望情节能有所推进时，作者会冷不防地给你来一个时间跳跃，直接跳过关键的十年，只用一个模糊不清的段落来概括这段漫长的时间。这种处理方式让人抓狂，感觉作者根本不尊重读者的投入时间。我经常需要在翻回前几页，试图确认我是否错过了什么重要的铺垫，但每次都是徒劳。更让我不解的是，书中的许多象征符号似乎是为符号而符号，它们出现的频率高得像是作者强行在教科书里摘抄下来的例句，生硬地植入到对话和场景中，完全没有与故事情节自然融合。我试着去寻找隐藏的深意，但最终得出的结论是：也许根本就没有深意，只是一堆为了显得有深度而堆砌的装饰品。这本书让我体验到了一种前所未有的阅读疲劳，每翻一页都像是在完成一项艰巨的任务。
