好書在手，驚喜一夏

讀書是一種提升自我的藝術(shù)。“玉不琢，不成器，人不學(xué)，不知義”。一本書有一個(gè)故事，一個(gè)故事敘述一段人生，一段人生折射一個(gè)世界。“讀萬卷書，行萬里路”說的正是這個(gè)道理。讀詩使人聰慧，讀史使人明智。讀每一本書都會(huì)有不同的收獲。“懸梁刺股”“囊螢映雪”，自古以來，勤奮讀書、提升自我是每一個(gè)人的畢生追求。讀書是一種最優(yōu)雅的素質(zhì)，能塑造人的精神、升華人的思想。讀書的好處多得不勝枚舉，那么我們來看看今年夏天，著名書評(píng)人Maureen Corrigan給我們推薦什么好書。

Terry Gross （Host）： Travel near and far， literary 1）souvenirs and the crucial companionship of an animal are the subjects of the novels and works of 2）nonfiction on Maureen Corrigan’s list of early summer book recommendations.

Maureen Corrigan （Byline）： Earlier this week， my teenage daughter and a friend took a bus up to New York. Of course， I had to burden her with anxious advice like‘hold onto your wallet’ and ‘don’t use the bathroom at Port Authority.’ Maybe it would’ve been cooler if I’d just given her Vendela Vida’s new novel. The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is both a travel 3）cautionary tale and a fantasy about the infinite possibility that travel offers.

In it， an unnamed woman 4）reeling from divorce flies to Morocco. As she’s checking in at her hotel， she places her backpack 5）atop the suitcase in front of her. A few minutes later， she reaches down， and the backpack， containing her wallet and passport， is gone. What ensues is a kind of existential suspense tale in which our heroine is at first paralyzed by the theft and then 6）emboldened to borrow other women’s documents and identities. Vida’s 7）wry narration lightens up this tense， closely observed tale. Here， for instance， is a description of the heroine’s plane landing in Casablanca.

When the plane lands， it 8）veers left， then right and then finds its way into a straight line. Your fellow passengers roar with applause. They are clapping because their existence persists， because they are not aflame on the 9）tarmac， because they did not disintegrate over the Atlantic. When the doors to the plane open， there’s a 10）palpable collective thrust of passengers toward the front. As you gather your things， someone from the row behind yours tries to cut in front of you. This is the way of air travel. Fellow passengers applaud because they didn’t die， and then they cut in front of you so they can exit four seconds earlier.

Jane Re， the Korean-American heroine of Patricia Park’s debut novel called Re Jane， also takes a few 11）momentous trips by plane， but her usual mode of travel is the number seven train that 12）shuttles between Manhattan and Flushing， Queens. Jane was orphaned as a child and taken in by her uncle， who runs a grocery store in Flushing. Itching to escape a life of bagging 13）lettuce， the grown-up Jane accepts a job as a nanny in upscale Brooklyn， where she falls for the 14）aloof master of the house and even encounters a cultural theory-spouting madwoman， of sorts， in the attic.

By now， dear listener， you’ve no doubt caught on to the fact that Re Jane is a wickedly inventive updating of Jane Eyre. But just as Charlotte Bronte’s masterpiece is so much more than a Gothic pot-boiler， Re Jane moves beyond mere 15）pastiche to drolly explore issues of class， ethnicity and women’s autonomy for an unlikely heroine of the 21st century.

While we’re talking Brontes， Deborah Lutz’s new nonfiction book， The Bronte Cabinet， yields up all sorts of fascinating new angles on the famous siblings by closely 16）scrutinizing some of their objects， like Emily’s writing desk， Anne’s needlework sampler and Charlotte’s 17）amethyst bracelet， fashioned out of the intertwined hair of her two sisters. In her preface， Lutz playfully refers to this method of studying objects to recover the past as thing theory， but not all that Lutz surveys is a thing. In fact， one of her most illuminating chapters discusses Emily’s dog， a bull 18）mastiff named Keeper.

Emily and Keeper， in their rough way， clearly loved each other， but in No Better Friend， Robert Weintraub gives the most inspiring true life account I’ve ever read of a human-animal bond. No Better Friend is the story of Judy， a purebred pointer who was World War II’s only 19）canine 20）POW. She started out her service as a 21）mascot on a British ship that was bombed during the evacuation of Singapore. The next ship she was on was 22）torpedoed， and Judy spent hours in the water， paddling wounded men over to floating bits of debris. Even more incredibly， she spent three years in a Japanese POW camp， eluding death through her own cunning—she was good at hiding from angry guards—and through the quick thinking of the prisoners who loved her—above all， a young RAF technician named Frank Williams.

When the POWs were marched out of that camp in 1944， Frank risked execution by smuggling Judy out in a rice bag slung over his shoulder. She stayed perfectly still in that hot bag for hours. After the war， Judy received the highest military medal awarded to an animal. I know this summary makes No Better Friend sound like a canine version of Unbroken. And as a dog lover， I say what could be better than that？ All the books on this early summer list begin in familiar territory and then surprise us readers by going off into places we could never anticipate.

Gross： Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University and is the author of So We Read on： How ‘The Great Gatsby’ Came to Be and Why It Endures. She reviewed The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida， Re Jane by Patricia Park， The Bronte Cabinet： Three Lives in Nine Objects by Deborah Lutz and No Better Friend by Robert Weintraub.

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泰利·格羅斯（主持人）：短途和長(zhǎng)途旅行、文藝紀(jì)念品和與動(dòng)物至關(guān)重要的友誼成為莫林·克里根推薦的初夏書單中小說及紀(jì)實(shí)文學(xué)類的書本主題。

莫林·克里根（撰稿人）：本周初，我那十幾歲的女兒和一個(gè)朋友坐大巴去紐約。當(dāng)然，我不得不不厭其煩地建議她“看緊你的錢包”，“不要用港務(wù)局的洗手間”。如果我一早把溫德拉·薇達(dá)的新小說給她看，那就更棒了。《閑置的潛水服》既是關(guān)于旅游的醒世故事，也是關(guān)于旅行產(chǎn)生的無限可能性的幻想曲。

書中，一名還沒從離婚陰影走出來的無名女子飛到摩洛哥。她在酒店辦理入住手續(xù)的時(shí)候，將背包放在身前的行李箱上。數(shù)分鐘后，她伸手下去，那放著錢包和護(hù)照的背包不翼而飛。接下來就有點(diǎn)像是存在主義的懸念故事一樣，我們的主人公先是因?yàn)檫@個(gè)小偷嚇得癱倒，繼而壯著膽子借用其他女人的文件和身份。薇達(dá)用詼諧的敘事方式使這個(gè)緊張又充滿細(xì)節(jié)的故事變得輕松。例如，以下是對(duì)女主人公乘坐的飛機(jī)降落在卡薩布蘭卡的描述。

飛機(jī)降落時(shí)忽左忽右，然后修正飛成一條直線。同機(jī)的乘客掌聲如雷。他們鼓掌是因?yàn)榛盍讼聛恚驗(yàn)闆]有在停機(jī)坪上燒成火球，因?yàn)闆]有在大西洋上爆裂成碎片。當(dāng)飛機(jī)艙門打開，乘客們很顯然爭(zhēng)先恐后涌向前頭。你收拾隨身物品的時(shí)候，后排乘客試圖插隊(duì)。這就是航空旅行的方式。同機(jī)乘客為沒有遇難而鼓掌，然后他們插隊(duì)只是為了早四秒走出飛機(jī)。

簡(jiǎn)·睿是帕特麗夏·帕克處女作小說《簡(jiǎn)的重生》的韓裔美籍女主角，她也坐飛機(jī)經(jīng)歷了一些重大的旅程，但她平常的旅行模式則是坐上往返于曼哈頓和皇后區(qū)法拉盛地區(qū)的七號(hào)列車。簡(jiǎn)自小就是孤兒，由在法拉盛開雜貨店的叔叔收養(yǎng)。總想著逃離將生菜裝袋的生活，成年的簡(jiǎn)找到了一份在高大上的布魯克林當(dāng)保姆的工作，在那里她愛上了房子里冷漠的主人，甚至遇到一位住在類似于閣樓的滔滔不絕地說著文化理論的瘋女人。

至此，親愛的聽眾，毫無疑問你已經(jīng)想到《簡(jiǎn)的重生》就是對(duì)《簡(jiǎn)·愛》的一次頑皮而獨(dú)出心裁的改編。但正如夏洛特·勃朗特的名著遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不是一部哥特式的、為混飯吃而粗制濫造的文學(xué)作品，《簡(jiǎn)的重生》也絕不是東拼西湊的模仿品，而是對(duì)等級(jí)、種族關(guān)系以及女性渴望成為21世紀(jì)超乎想象的女英雄的自主意識(shí)這些話題的有趣探索。

說到勃朗特，黛博拉·樂特茲新出的紀(jì)實(shí)文學(xué)《勃朗特的櫥柜》通過仔細(xì)審視三姐妹的一些物品，如艾米麗的書桌、安妮的刺繡小樣和夏洛特的紫水晶手鏈（它是用她的兩位妹妹的頭發(fā)交纏而編成的），展現(xiàn)出各種各樣引人入勝的新角度來看待這著名的三姐妹。在前言中，樂特茲俏皮地把這種研究物件還原過去的方法稱為物件理論，但樂特茲研究的所有東西并不限于物品。事實(shí)上，她最具表現(xiàn)力的篇章之一是對(duì)艾米麗的狗的討論，一條名為基珀的雄性大型猛犬。

艾米麗和基珀以原始的方式，狂熱地愛著對(duì)方。但在《摯友》中，羅伯特·威特洛柏述說了我所讀過的關(guān)于人與動(dòng)物關(guān)系的最富有啟發(fā)性的真實(shí)生活記錄。《摯友》是關(guān)于茱迪的故事，一條純種波音達(dá)獵犬，她是第二次世界大戰(zhàn)期間唯一的犬科戰(zhàn)俘。她開始服役是在新加坡疏散期間被炸掉的一艘英國(guó)船上充當(dāng)吉祥物。下一艘她登上的船被魚雷炸掉。茱迪在水中泡了數(shù)小時(shí)，撲打著水將傷員拖到漂浮的殘骸碎片上。更讓人驚奇的是，她在一個(gè)日本戰(zhàn)犯營(yíng)中呆了三年，用她的智慧——她很善于避過憤怒的守衛(wèi)——和喜歡她的囚犯?jìng)儥C(jī)智地躲過了死神。最愛她的，就是一位名為法蘭克·威廉姆斯的年輕英國(guó)皇家空軍技師。

1944年當(dāng)戰(zhàn)犯?jìng)冞~步走出營(yíng)地，法蘭克冒著被處死的危險(xiǎn)，將茱迪放進(jìn)掛在他肩上的米袋里偷運(yùn)出營(yíng)。她在那悶熱的袋子里幾個(gè)小時(shí)一動(dòng)不動(dòng)。戰(zhàn)后，茱迪被授予動(dòng)物中最高的軍功勛章。我知道這個(gè)結(jié)尾使《摯友》聽起來就像狗狗版本的《堅(jiān)不可摧》。作為一名狗狗愛好者，我覺得還有比這更好的嗎？這張初夏書單上的書目都從我們熟悉的領(lǐng)域開始講起，然后引領(lǐng)我們到達(dá)從未料到的地域，使我們讀者感到驚喜。

格羅斯：莫林·克里根在喬治城大學(xué)講授文學(xué)，同時(shí)是《我們閱讀吧：為什么<了不起的蓋茨比>會(huì)愈久彌新》一書的作者。她在這里評(píng)論了溫德拉·薇達(dá)的《閑置的潛水服》、帕特麗夏·帕克的《簡(jiǎn)的重生》、黛博拉·樂特茲的《勃朗特的櫥柜：九個(gè)物件展示三種人生》和羅伯特·威特洛柏的《摯友》。

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小鏈接

作者簡(jiǎn)介：

莫林·克里根（Maureen Corrigan）二十多年來每周都為皮博迪的獲獎(jiǎng)欄目“新鮮空氣”寫書評(píng)。她長(zhǎng)期任教于美國(guó)的喬治城大學(xué)，還擔(dān)任了洛杉磯時(shí)報(bào)獎(jiǎng)和2012年普利策獎(jiǎng)（小說類）的評(píng)委。她還是《美國(guó)傳統(tǒng)詞典》顧問委員會(huì)的委員，也是《華盛頓郵報(bào)》的評(píng)論家和“神秘”專欄的專欄作家。1999年，她和她的同事羅賓·溫克斯因?yàn)樗麄儎?chuàng)作的兩卷批評(píng)文集《浮城謎事》和《懸疑作家》而獲得了“埃德加獎(jiǎng)”。

2005年以來，克里根一直擔(dān)任國(guó)家藝術(shù)基金會(huì)“偉大的閱讀”項(xiàng)目的顧問委員。她是美國(guó)教育學(xué)會(huì)組織的“了不起的蓋茨比”項(xiàng)目的演講嘉賓，她就菲茨杰拉德及他的作品在全國(guó)范圍內(nèi)進(jìn)行演講。她還是2011年馬里蘭州羅克韋爾市舉辦的F.斯科特·菲茨杰拉德會(huì)議的大會(huì)發(fā)言人。她最近一本書是《請(qǐng)讓我一個(gè)人待著，我在閱讀》，這是一本關(guān)于文學(xué)的回憶錄。