具体描述
This work, progressing, is to be titled The Rags of Time. They are the final words of a sonnet by John Donne: Love all alike, no season, humor or clime/Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. And it is with such tracking of my time that I began to write a work of fiction and fact that was published ten years ago, A Writer’s Almanac. Twelve years ago, if I allow for writing time which I must, given that I am almost always at home each day braiding the next rag into the rug, a cottage industry.
This time, this last time, I’m concerned with the clock running, the passing days of here and now. I am dating each entry of my almanacy fiction, working ahead as we all must to get to the end of our story. I have the good fortune to live across from Central Park (The Greensward, as their wondrous plan was called when by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvin Vaux submitted it to the Park Commission,1858). The view from my window and from my walks round the Reservoir, is there for the snapshot, more often it must be landscaped. Isn’t that how we write novels?—each scene as carefully arranged as the placement of The Lake just below Bethesda Terrace. I trust my plots are arranged like the plotted wild of The Ramble once considered a territory of danger, and that my characters, from Columbus to a failed mathematician to a foundation executive to myself, I suppose, are no more endangered than the old elms that line the Mall. Loving all alike, the novel welcomes family stories; tales of war and since I live in a house with the presumptuous name of El Dorado built in l929, stories of oil and gold. And of survival.
I have my troupe. Having, in my youth, collected prints of clowns, acrobats, comedia del’arte figures, I bring some of my characters on again from previous seasons. Are they forever set in their roles or do they gain dimension? Cartoon to panorama: I’ve written an entry in the novel for the days—All Saints, All Souls—in which the book is seen, politically and personally, as a worn tapestry hung in a ruined castle of faith meant to keep out the cold.
作者简介
Nationality: American. Born: Maureen Keans in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1930. Education: Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, B.A. 1952. Career: Worked in publishing and advertising, 1952-54; lecturer in English, New School for Social Research, New York, 1967-68, 1970-71, and since 1974, and at University of California, Santa Barbara, 1968-69, Amherst College, Massachusetts, Brooklyn College, and Royale University. Currently, Member of the School of the Arts, Columbia University, New York. Awards: Guggenheim fellowship, 1967; Radcliffe Institute fellowship, 1967; National Book Critics Circle award, 1979; Merrill fellowship, 1982.
目录信息
读后感
1,done is amzing, thought the book has little too dou with done......
1,done is amzing, thought the book has little too dou with done......
1donne is amazing, though the book has little to do with the poet 2i'm always fascinated by the topic of time. it is a sequence of temporal points, or an imagined space? who knows? mel, english major, fudan university
1donne is amazing, though the book has little to do with the poet 2i'm always fascinated by the topic of time. it is a sequence of temporal points, or an imagined space? who knows? mel, english major, fudan university
1,done is amzing, thought the book has little too dou with done......
用户评价
这部作品散发着一种令人上瘾的、近乎“禁忌”的知识气息。它并不直接告诉你“答案”，而是像一个狡猾的引导者，将你引向那些被主流文化刻意遗忘或禁止讨论的领域。书中的一些概念，比如“熵的逆转”或“记忆的物理学”，虽然听起来像是科幻设定，但作者的处理方式却充满了对现实世界中那些被忽视的物理定律和哲学暗流的深刻洞察。我能感受到作者在字里行间流露出的那种，对既有知识体系的蔑视和超越的渴望。每一次阅读都像是一场深入地下的挖掘，你总能发现一些闪烁着奇异光芒的矿石，它们可能对你的日常生活毫无用处，却极大地丰富了你对宇宙复杂性的认知。它不是那种读完后会让你心情愉快的书，它更像是给你植入了一个难以根除的“问题”，让你在接下来的很长一段时间里，都会不自觉地从新的角度审视周遭的一切。这是一种对思维边界的彻底拓展，其代价是需要你完全放弃对“简单易懂”的期望。
这部作品，姑且称之为“时间的碎片”，给我带来的震撼是难以言喻的。初读时，我被卷入了一个光怪陆离的叙事迷宫，作者似乎毫不费力地在不同时代和空间之间穿梭，那种感觉就像是坐在一架失控的时光机上，每一次颠簸都可能将你抛入一个全新的、充满奇诡色彩的世界。书中的人物设定极其大胆，他们既像是从古老的史诗中走出的英雄，又像是现代社会边缘挣扎的幽灵，他们之间的互动充满了宿命般的张力。尤其是对“记忆”这一主题的探讨，达到了一个令人不安的深度。作者并没有简单地描绘记忆的美好或痛苦，而是将其塑造成一种可以被物理篡改、可以像布料一样被撕裂和缝补的实体。我不得不停下来，合上书本，花了很长时间去梳理我自己的记忆，试图分辨哪些是真实的烙印，哪些是潜意识中被植入的“时间碎屑”。这种阅读体验的侵入性极强，它挑战了我们对“真实”的根本认知，让人在读完之后，看世界的眼光都变得有些微妙的扭曲。那种对时间本质的哲学拷问，如同冰冷的溪水，缓缓地浸透了我的心智，留下了持久的寒意。
说实话，我一开始对这种宏大叙事有些望而却步，感觉自己像个初学者，站在一座由复杂逻辑和晦涩符号构筑的迷宫前。但一旦我找到了那个突破口——通常是在一个看似不经意的角落，比如一段关于城市几何学或者某种失传乐器的描写——整个结构就开始向我展示其内在的精妙。这本书的语言本身就是一种艺术品，它不是那种直白叙事，而是充满了隐喻和回声。有些段落的句子结构长得像是巴洛克式的建筑，层层叠叠，信息量巨大，要求读者必须放慢呼吸，逐字逐句地咀嚼。然而，这种阅读上的“难度”恰恰是它迷人的地方。它拒绝被轻易消化，它要求你的全部注意力，它奖励那些愿意深入挖掘的人。我特别欣赏作者对“沉默”的运用。在那些最激烈的冲突和最宏大的揭示之后，总会有一段近乎空白的叙述，这种刻意的留白，比任何激昂的文字都更能说明问题，它让读者不得不自己填补空白，成为叙事的一部分。这不仅仅是一本书，更像是一次需要精密计算才能完成的智力探险。
从叙事技巧的角度来看，这本书简直是教科书级别的“反套路”。如果你期待一个清晰的起因、发展和高潮，那你注定会失望。作者似乎故意打乱了所有既定的时间轴，让事件像玻璃碎片一样散落在各个角落，读者必须像古文物修复师一样，用自己的理解力和想象力，将这些碎片重新拼凑起来，而最终拼出的图像可能永远不会是“标准答案”。这种非线性叙事带来的初期挫败感，在某一刻突然转化成了一种狂喜——当你意识到自己正在参与创造意义，而不是被动接受时。书中出现的那些“循环”和“悖论”，处理得极其优雅，它们不像生硬的哲学论证，而更像是自然界中光影的折射，自然而然地存在于故事的肌理之中。我尤其欣赏作者在处理角色命运时的那种宿命感，但这种宿命并非悲观的，而更像是一种宇宙运行的必然，充满了古典悲剧的重量感，却又包裹在极其现代的、破碎的叙事外衣下。
这本书的氛围营造，简直可以称得上是文学上的“感官轰炸”。我常常感觉自己闻到了书中描写的那些腐朽的香料味，听到了远处传来的，那种不属于任何已知时代的机械运转声。作者对细节的偏执近乎病态，但正是这些看似无关紧要的微小物件——一张被折叠了七次的旧地图、一个发出微弱嗡鸣的黄铜仪器、一种只在特定潮汐才会开放的植物——构成了支撑起整个世界观的骨架。每一次翻页，都像是在揭开一层厚厚的、沾满灰尘的帷幕，后面露出的景象总是比前一个更加奇异和令人不安。我特别喜欢那些“非人”视角的段落，它们用一种冷漠、近乎科学报告的口吻描述着人类的愚蠢和美丽，这种抽离感带来了强烈的反讽效果。读到最后，我甚至开始怀疑，我们日常所见的“常识”是否只是另一层更稀薄的幻觉。这本书迫使我重新审视日常生活的脆弱性，它让我对平庸的安稳生活产生了一种深深的、近乎罪恶的疏离感。
