新年伊始，万象更新，新的一年我们将继续与经典相伴，与名著同行。今天为大家推荐的是英国作家威廉·萨克雷的代表作《名利场》，到这部“没有主角的小说”中去看看光怪陆离的英国维多利亚社会，游历欢乐浮华的名利场，并在游历之后思考人生、回归初心。愿大家新岁安康，祥和如意。

作品简介

《名利场》是十九世纪英国作家威廉·梅克比斯·萨克雷创作的长篇小说。作品以两个年轻女子利蓓加·夏泼和爱米丽亚·赛特笠的人生际遇为主线，以圆熟泼辣的手笔，淋漓尽致地描绘出一幅十九世纪英国上流社会骄奢淫逸、勾心斗角的生活图景，无情地揭露了上流阶级腐朽堕落的本质和资产阶级追名逐利的虚伪面目，堪称一部现实主义的杰作。

 

作者简介

威廉·梅克比斯·萨克雷（William Makepeace Thackeray，1811-1863），英国维多利亚时代著名小说家和讽刺文学大师，与狄更斯齐名。出生于印度加尔各答，1829年进入剑桥大学。1833年开始陆续发表文章。长篇小说《名利场》的问世使其成为公认的小说家。其代表作还有《班迪尼斯》《亨利·埃斯蒙德》《势利眼集》等。

 

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If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don’t think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble off her hands. What causes young people to ‘come out’, but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o’clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some ‘desirable’ young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs? What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year’s income in ball suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha! They want to marry their daughter; and, as honest Mrs Sedley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend.

 

词汇学习

• conquest  n. 征服
• recollect  v. 回忆，追想
• sheer  adj. 纯粹的；十足的，全然的；陡峭的，险峻的
• scheme  v. 计划，策划；阴谋

     n. 计划，方案；阴谋；配置；安排

• secure  adj. 安全的；可靠的；放心的

     vt. 得到某物，获得；防护，保卫

（单词注释来自有道词典）

十九世纪英国著名作家威廉·萨克雷凭借《名利场》《巴黎速写》等作品声名鹊起，享誉海内外。维多利亚女王统治时期的英国社会矛盾丛生，政治、经济、社会以及宗教等领域发生巨大变革，这些都能在萨克雷的作品中找到相应的印记。维多利亚主义的一系列价值观念对萨克雷的创作产生影响，但并未被后者全盘接受，而是以较为含蓄隐蔽的方式予以呈现或加以讽刺、鞭挞。萨克雷的思想也伴随着时代发展而变化。在表面变化的背后，实则是各种社会思想的相互碰撞与融合。本书正是通过维多利亚主义这一视角，深入挖掘萨克雷文学文本和思想的内涵及其复杂性，进而体现萨克雷在文学史上的鲜明艺术风格与独特地位。

In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan presented Vanity Fair as a place of sin and punishment, but by the nineteenth century it had come to symbolise glamour and worldliness. Kirsty Milne explores the fascinating story of a literary metaphor that has utterly reversed its meaning over three centuries of fiction.

 

文案策划及录音：图书借阅部 李圣昭

编辑：宣传策划小组 王丹