腊月时节，柳寒烟疏。今天我们将继续为大家推荐英国作家威廉·萨克雷的《名利场》，以写实的笔触描摹世间百态，以理性的篇章启迪人生方向，以崇高的理想激励人们在人生道路上勇于探索、一往无前。这正是经典阅读的力量。

《大书<名利场>》（节选自《名利场》商务印书馆，2022）

……除了对一班贵族人物不依不饶、穷追猛打之外，对其他人物，萨克雷不同程度地把他们置于尴尬窘迫、渺小猥琐、可恨可怜、着实无奈的境地，同时表露出宽宏博大、理解同情的态度。可能在他眼里，这就是现实生活，这就是所有人的人生。在一定程度上，读者确实感到小说中人物的性格、情感、心理、愿望、人际纠缠乃至一些生活场景，具有人类存在意义上的普遍性和永恒性，亦即存在于任何时间和地方。萨克雷或小说叙述者经常呼唤“亲爱的读者”“可敬的读者”“敬爱的读者”“聪明的读者”“细心的读者”“有修养的读者”“忠厚的读者”“仁慈的读者”“多情多义的读者”，通过与读者建立亲密的“我们”和“咱们”的互动关系，获得读者对小说意旨的顺畅接受……读者可以是任何人，这也就意味着可以直接指向每一个“你”，譬如小说里的读者“琼斯”，萨克雷用这种特别巧妙的手法把读者拉进《名利场》，使读者身临其境地充分理解人物及其环境和行动逻辑，更重要的是让读者豁然意识到原来自己也是“名利场”上的一员……于是，《名利场》的读者在观看这场喜剧的同时，不得不问自己“我是哪样的角色？”，进而不得不做出自己的身份认同和道德选择……

 

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（以上插图节选自《名利场》中信出版集团股份有限公司， 2021）

 

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Rebecca’s wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily the vogue in London among a certain class. You saw demure chariots at her door, out of which stepped very great people. You beheld her carriage in the Park, surrounded by dandies of note. The little box in the third tier of the Opera was crowded with heads constantly changing: but it must be confessed that the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to our little adventurer.

With regard to the world of female fashion and its customs, the present writer, of course, can only speak at second-hand. A man can no more penetrate or understand those mysteries than he can know what the ladies talk about when they go upstairs after dinner. It is only by enquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets hints of those secrets; and by a similar diligence every person who treads the Pall Mall pavement, and frequents the clubs of this metropolis, knows, either through his own experience or through some acquaintance with whom he plays at billiards or shares the joint, something about the genteel world of London, and how, as there are men (such as Rawdon Crawley, whose position we mentioned before) who cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant world and to the apprentices in the Park, who behold them consorting with the most notorious dandies there, so there are ladies, who may be called men’s women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen, and cut or slighted by all their wives.

 

词汇学习

• vogue  n. 流行，时髦
• adventurer  n. 冒险家；投机分子
• enquiry  n. 打听，询问；调查，研究
• hint  v. 暗示，示意

   n. 暗示，提示；线索

• notorious  adj. 臭名昭著的，声名狼藉的；众所周知的

（单词注释来自有道词典）

 

本书包含了英国与美国文学史上杰出作家的散文、随笔作品。包括萨克雷、纽曼、阿诺德、罗斯金、白芝皓、赫胥黎、佛里曼、斯蒂文森、钱宁、爱伦·坡、梭罗、洛威尔等名家的经典短文，囊括了人类有史以来至十九世纪优秀的社会科学和自然科学文献，向现代读者展示人类观察、记录、发明和思想演变的进程。

This study provides a broad examination of the use of realism in literature. In particular, the author analyzes the such writers as Thackeray, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Maupassant. It is a valuable theoretical and critical contribution to the study of realism inworld literature. This book will enable readers to confront, in a new and dependable manner, the issues of literary realism and its digressions into magical realism.

 

文案策划及录音：图书借阅部 李圣昭

编辑：宣传策划小组 郭琳