正文
英媒评出十佳亚洲小说 《红楼梦》居首
《H·哈特尔大全》
G V Desani (1948)
作者:G·V·德萨尼 (1948年出版)
It’s the glorious mash-up of English and Indian colloquialism that makes this book, about the son of a European merchant and a Malayan lady, such a wild, whimsical delight. Anthony Burgess admired its “creative chaos that grumbles at the restraining banks”.
一名欧洲商人和马来女子所生的儿子是本部小说的主角,书中巧妙地融合了英语和印度俚语,文笔精彩。安东尼·伯吉斯称赞这本书中“虽一团糟糕但生气勃勃,魅力涌动四溢”。
7、The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
《奇鸟行状录》
Haruki Murakami (1994)
作者:村上春树 (1994年出版)
This labyrinthine and hallucinogenic novel gets going when Toru Okada’s cat disappears in suburban Tokyo. He consults a pair of psychic sisters who appear to him in dreams and reality. But although Murakami’s plot meanders, it never loses its pace or its humanity.
冈田亨的猫在东京郊区走失,小说借此拉开了序幕。冈田亨既而向一对亦真亦幻、拥有特异功能的姐妹询问猫咪的下落……村上春树的小说虽然情节曲折,但不失节奏之美和人文之美。
8、Spring Snow
《春雪》
Yukio Mishima (1969-71)
作者:三岛由纪夫 (1969年-1971年间出版)
Before committing ritual suicide in November 1970, Mishima posted this tetralogy of novels (named after a dry lunar plain once believed awash with water) to his publisher. It’s a saga of 20th-century Japan, in which a law student imagines a school friend constantly reincarnated.
三岛由纪夫把这篇四部曲发给了出版商,随后便在1970年11月剖腹自杀。长篇小说《春雪》以20世纪的日本为背景,小说中有一名学法律的学生不停地想象着自己的朋友一次次转世。
9、Midnight's Children
《午夜的孩子》
Salman Rushdie (1980)
作者:萨尔曼·拉什迪 (1980年出版)
Magic realism meets postcolonial India in the ambitious, colourful and clever novel which was awarded the “Booker of Bookers” Prize. Hero Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947: the second of India’s independence and is endowed with an extraordinary talent.
本书充满魔幻现实主义色彩,作品野心勃勃、丰富多彩、情节精巧,荣获“布克中的布克奖”。故事发生的背景在后殖民时代的印度,主人公萨利姆·西奈随1947年8月15日的午夜钟声降临人世、禀赋非凡,而此时也正是印度独立的一刻。
10、The God of Small Things
《微物之神》(又译作《卑微的神灵》)
Arundhati Roy (1997)
作者:阿伦德哈蒂·罗伊 (1997年出版)
This intense and exquisitely written tale of fraternal twins unfolds against a backdrop of communism, the caste system, and Christianity in Kerala from the Sixties to the Nineties. “Change is one thing,” writes Roy in her Booker Prize-winning debut, “Acceptance is another”.
《微物之神》张力十足、笔触细腻,讲述了印度西南部喀拉拉邦一对双胞胎兄妹的故事。故事发生在19世纪60年代到90年代之间,穿插了共产主义运动、种姓制度和基督教等内容。罗伊在小说中写道:“改变是一回事,接受改变是另一回事。”