具体描述
Traditions: The ‘Real’, the Hyper, and the Virtual in the Built Environment is a continuation of Nezar AlSayyad’s engagement with the subject of tradition in the built environment. In it he attempts to unsettle the belief that tradition is simply a product of history and transmission. Without dismissing the parallels between history and tradition, he argues that normative discourses which conceive of tradition as a place-based, temporally situated concept, as a static authoritative legacy of a past, and as a heritage owned by certain groups of people can no longer be sustained in the present moment of globalization. Instead he calls for an approach that recognizes how the main qualities of tradition are transient, fleeting, and contingent. While using the built environment as the primary lens of investigation, other approaches for the study of tradition, with origins in geography, history, sociology, or anthropology, are actively deployed in this book. AlSayyad offers a recasting of the epistemology of tradition as fundamentally spatial, thus providing a much-needed theoretical rudder for the emerging debates. Rather than analyzing tradition as a reaction to modernity or as its antithetical other, he examines those discursive and spatial terrains where tradition collides and colludes with modernity. AlSayyad argues that built traditional environments have been studied until recently as ‘authentic’ environments that represent ‘real’ everyday practices. But, as his research illustrates, their consumption at a mass scale, especially in the arena of tourism and mass media, has often elevated them to hyper-environments whose connection to ‘real’ places results in fundamentally ‘dis-placed’ and disembodied experience. More recently, the portrayal of traditional environments in both the virtual realm and heritage discourses has resulted in new articulations of tradition that could not be imagined just a few decades ago. AlSayyad interrogates the meanings and practices of tradition in the twenty-first century by looking at these three distinct categories of the built environment: the ‘real’, the hyper, and the virtual.
作者简介
Nezar AlSayyad, architect, urban historian, and public intellectual, is a Professor of Architecture and Planning and Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author and editor of many books including Dwellings, Settlements and Tradition (1989); Cities and Caliphs (1991); Forms and Dominance (1992); Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage (2001); Hybrid Urbanism (2001); The End of Tradition? (2004); Making Cairo Medieval (2005); Cinematic Urbanism (2006); The Fundamentalist City? (2010); and Cairo: Histories of a City (2011). In 1988, AlSayyad co-founded the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE) of which he is President, and served as Editor of its journal, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review (TDSR).
目录信息
读后感
用户评价
我必须承认，《Tradtions》在某些技术层面上展现出了一定的雄心，但其执行效果却令人遗憾地平庸。这本书试图融合多种文学风格，从历史小说到心理惊悚的元素都有涉猎，但结果却是四不像，各种风格之间的衔接生硬得像用胶带粘合起来的拼贴画。作者对细节的掌控力似乎时好时坏，某些段落的描写细致入微，达到了近乎照片般的真实感，而另一些关键性的转折点却轻描淡写，处理得极为敷衍。例如，书中关于一场关键性冲突的描述，仅仅通过几段模糊不清的内心独白带过，而我们渴望看到的、充满戏剧张力的场景却被完全省略了。这种选择性的叙述，严重损害了作品的可信度和沉浸感。我感觉作者更专注于炫耀自己的词汇量和对复杂句式的运用，而非真正地将故事讲好。阅读过程中，我经常需要停下来查阅生僻词汇，但这并非因为词汇本身带来的美感，而是因为它们显得格格不入，像是强行塞入的装饰品。这本书读起来与其说是享受，不如说是一场持续的“文本解码”练习，最终得出的结论是：华丽的辞藻无法掩盖内容上的空洞和结构上的松散。
如果用“缺乏灵魂”来形容一本小说，那么《Tradtions》可能就是最贴切的范本。这本书的叙事脉络如同被精确切割成方块的冰块，虽然形状规整，但缺乏流动性和生命力。我注意到书中反复出现的主题，似乎是对某种宏大议题的探讨，但所有这些严肃的探讨最终都沦为僵硬的口号，没有通过人物的真实困境或情感挣扎来内化和呈现。它像一本教科书，在告诉我们“世界是残酷的”或者“记忆是欺骗性的”，而不是让我们通过体验来感受这些真理。角色们似乎只是为了阐述作者的某个观点而被制造出来的工具，他们的喜怒哀乐都显得预设和公式化。我试图寻找任何一个能让我产生共情或产生强烈反感的角色，但最终一无所获，他们都保持着一种令人感到疏远的、完美的“中立”状态。更糟糕的是，这本书的后半部分明显后劲不足，情节在达到一个本应是高潮的点之后，反而开始急转直下，以一种令人难以置信的草率方式收尾，许多重要的悬念点被简单粗暴地解决了，仿佛作者在截止日期前仓促地完成任务。这种虎头蛇尾的处理方式，是对读者前期投入的极大不尊重。
对于《Tradtions》这部作品，我的感受非常复杂，它似乎拥有一副绝佳的骨架，却被一层厚重、不合时宜的皮囊所包裹。这本书的优点和缺点都极其鲜明，以至于两者相互抵消，最终留下一个平庸的印象。在氛围营造方面，作者确实展现了不俗的天赋，对于某些场景的描绘，那种压抑、潮湿的历史厚重感几乎能让人真切地感受到。然而，这种优秀的“画面感”仅仅停留在表层。一旦涉及到角色驱动的冲突或情节的张力，所有精心构建的氛围便瞬间崩塌。人物之间的对话常常显得矫揉造作，充满了不必要的文学腔调，仿佛每个人都在背诵精心排练过的独白，而不是进行真实的交流。例如，两位主要人物之间本应是充满火花的对峙，最后却演变成了一场关于哲学概念的冗长辩论，让人昏昏欲睡。这本书的篇幅也令人咋舌，很多地方的重复叙述显得极为累赘，似乎作者生怕读者错过任何一个微不足道的想法，从而导致阅读体验的拖沓。我本可以接受它是一部缓慢的“沉思录”，但它却披着小说的外衣，这使得它在试图承担推动故事的责任时显得力不从心。
这本小说《Tradtions》简直是味同嚼蜡，让我对“阅读的乐趣”产生了深刻的怀疑。故事的开端平淡无奇，仿佛在慢镜头下观看一株植物的生长过程，每一个情节的推进都像是在泥泞中跋涉，费力且毫无惊喜。人物塑造更是令人啼笑皆非，主角的行为逻辑飘忽不定，一会儿表现出惊人的洞察力，下一秒又做出愚蠢至极的决定，让人不禁怀疑作者是否对人物的内心世界进行过哪怕最基本的梳理。更让我难以忍受的是，作者似乎沉迷于描绘那些与主线剧情毫无关联的冗长细节，比如对某件古董的材质进行长达三页的罗列，或者对一场茶会的餐点进行事无巨细的描述，这些内容不仅没有增加任何厚度，反而像沉重的锚链一样，将整个叙事节奏拖入了深渊。我花了大量时间试图在这些琐碎的描述中寻找隐藏的线索或更深层次的寓意，结果却是徒劳无功，只剩下一脑门的浆糊。如果说文学作品是心灵的盛宴，那么《Tradtions》无疑是一顿被过度烹饪、调味失衡且分量过剩的自助餐，让人食之无味，弃之可惜，最终只想赶紧结束这场折磨。我强烈建议，如果想体验真正引人入胜的故事，请把目光投向别处。
初次翻开《Tradtions》时，我满怀期待，毕竟书名似乎暗示着某种关于文化传承或家族秘密的史诗叙事。然而，读完之后，我只感到一股强烈的认知失调。这本书的叙事结构犹如一座用散乱砖块拼凑起来的迷宫，作者似乎在刻意回避清晰的线性叙事。章节之间的跳跃性极大，前一章还在十九世纪的某个欧洲小镇，下一章就毫无预兆地跳跃到现代都市的某个阴谋之中，读者需要花费大量的精力去重新构建上下文，否则很容易迷失方向。更令人困惑的是，书中大量使用了晦涩难懂的术语和典故，但作者却吝于提供必要的注释或背景解释，这使得非专业背景的读者在阅读过程中时刻处于一种“被排斥”的状态。它不是在邀请你进入一个世界，而是在你面前设下重重障碍，让你在理解的边缘徘徊。我不得不承认，其中有那么几个瞬间，零星的片段展现出一种令人屏息的美感，仿佛是暗夜中的流星，但它们很快就被周围平庸甚至混乱的叙事所淹没。总而言之，《Tradtions》更像是一份未加整理的学术手稿，而非一部成熟的文学作品，它考验的不是读者的耐心，而是他们的耐心阈值和对模糊性的容忍度。
