Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
3 有用 热腾De小笼包 2019-07-15 15:54:17
英文原版书,7.8-7.15,历时8天。 普利策奖名副其实。能把我们无法描述的用比喻和排比淋漓尽致表达出来的段落比比皆是。双关和黑色幽默恰到好处,不同场景的转场更是有如电影般奇妙。前两章几近完美,不过后面略有重复累赘。但纵观全书偶尔就会有几个片段迸发出惊人的力量。本书最大的技巧是叙述者的隐藏,最后一页将这一伏笔回收,留下浪漫至极的结尾。关于变老、时间、错误、文学与爱情。怎样与过去的人、事和自己和解... 英文原版书,7.8-7.15,历时8天。 普利策奖名副其实。能把我们无法描述的用比喻和排比淋漓尽致表达出来的段落比比皆是。双关和黑色幽默恰到好处,不同场景的转场更是有如电影般奇妙。前两章几近完美,不过后面略有重复累赘。但纵观全书偶尔就会有几个片段迸发出惊人的力量。本书最大的技巧是叙述者的隐藏,最后一页将这一伏笔回收,留下浪漫至极的结尾。关于变老、时间、错误、文学与爱情。怎样与过去的人、事和自己和解,是我们在每个年龄都要面对的问题。最纯粹的是其中的爱情。这是Less的故事,但同时也属于他爱的那个人——Less经历的,也是Freddy同样在经历的。That is how it goes with love stories, isn't it? (展开)
4 有用 ways and means 2018-06-22 09:21:06
这么看的话,Less这一生的故事真的不坏。要形容他,也无非是一颗永远长不大的心,没有盔甲,没有防备,即使到了五十岁,仍然与这世界赤裸相对。这笔触的幽默和温柔,也在最后揭开答案。所以爱的本质是什么。如果你花了几个月穿越半个地球,并没能走出去,反而明白过来,谁能说你不爱他呢。
2 有用 瑞尔 2018-08-04 19:25:50
So many great quotes, and such flowery language. 😂
1 有用 摩诘 2019-11-04 08:01:48
"Just for the record: happiness is not bullshit."
1 有用 楚。 2019-10-14 06:29:43
作者的文笔真的是我读过的有限的英语文学里最能引起共鸣之一了 故事情节相对轻松简单 整个阅读体验还是很愉悦的