When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his "one last chance" to learn t...
When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his "one last chance" to learn the great literature he'd neglected in his youth--and, even more, a final opportunity to more fully understand his son, a writer and classicist. But through the sometimes uncomfortable months that the two men explore Homer's great work together--first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son's interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus's famous voyages--it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: Jay's responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn's narrative comes to echo the Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned author-scholar's most triumphant entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.
作者简介
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DANIEL MENDELSOHN is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His books include the international best seller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and many other honors; a memoir, The Elusive Embrace, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; a translation...
DANIEL MENDELSOHN is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His books include the international best seller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and many other honors; a memoir, The Elusive Embrace, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; a translation, with commentary, of the complete poems of C. P. Cavafy; and two collections of essays, How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken and Waiting for the Barbarians. He teaches literature at Bard College.
A father makes his son out of his flesh and out of his mind and then shaps him with his ambitions and dreams, with his cruelties and failures, too. But a son, although he is of his father, cannot know his father totally, because the father precedes him; his father has always already lived so much more than the son has, so that the son can never catch up, can never know everything. No wonder the Greeks thought that few sons are the equals of their fathers; that most fall short, all too few surpass them. It's not about value; it's about knowledge. The father knows the son whole, but the son can never know his father. (查看原文)
经常关注《纽约书评》及《纽约客》的读者，想必不会对Daniel Mendelsohn感到陌生。多年来笔耕不缀，他所撰写的书评、随笔常见于欧美各大文艺评论刊物；身为研究古希腊及古罗马文化的学者，Mendelsohn也曾在大学任教，同时，他还是希腊诗人卡瓦菲斯的译者。 AN ODYSSEY: A Fathe...
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别的熊
Knopf2017版
le flâneur
上海人民出版社2022版
ly的读享生活
上海人民出版社2022版
童末
上海人民出版社2022版
鐘綠
上海人民出版社2022版
猫阿水
上海人民出版社2022版
2 有用 le flâneur 2023-12-30 21:54:02 湖北
再读。我把这本书当成写作游戏来看，可以反复把玩式阅读。它的精巧的写法本身就是最大的价值，至于父子关系云云，不重要，不重要。
0 有用 haihui 2022-10-11 10:57:51 上海
补记。去年非常喜欢的一本书。The old classic provides a new perspective to our relationships.
0 有用 Young_To 2023-01-19 13:03:12 美国
太动人了 父亲与儿子在重温经典的同时都对彼此更了解了一些 虽然这本书只看到了儿子对父亲的叙述 但相信那么喜欢学习的父亲对自己的儿子也多了许多认知 看似奥德赛与作者自己的故事双线并行 但其实作者写作手法相当了得 书中提到的ring式手法作者自己运用得游刃有余 而且作者本人对于情感的表达其实也相当克制 这样的模范式的父亲 真的不仅是孩子的榜样也是一座不可超越高山的存在 可是这样的儿子也的确长出了他父亲... 太动人了 父亲与儿子在重温经典的同时都对彼此更了解了一些 虽然这本书只看到了儿子对父亲的叙述 但相信那么喜欢学习的父亲对自己的儿子也多了许多认知 看似奥德赛与作者自己的故事双线并行 但其实作者写作手法相当了得 书中提到的ring式手法作者自己运用得游刃有余 而且作者本人对于情感的表达其实也相当克制 这样的模范式的父亲 真的不仅是孩子的榜样也是一座不可超越高山的存在 可是这样的儿子也的确长出了他父亲期待的模样啊 其实很多细节都能看出来作者的家庭关系真是相当不错 孩子们出落如此也不意外了 读完心里真的会难过 但也真的感到温暖♥️ (展开)
0 有用 wanlinzw 2022-12-31 05:24:11 美国
生命在于延续
0 有用 缓冲步 2025-02-28 10:35:32 英国
书是仅仅两年前购入的（从阅读的堆积拖延角度讲算是挺喜人的了），却已完全记不得是在什么场景下得知到并产生兴趣的，唯独确定从当时一直到上个月翻开前始终误以为作者是「父」的角色，大概是有想刨出些关于做父亲的洞见的期许，但这个最初的误会带来的反而是对原本的期许倍增的回馈，这里头自然有此刻人生节点与性情的双重因素。结构上精秒的编排以及对史诗本身的抽拨探讨免不了美誉，但对父亲那份难以靠零星几个词涵盖的真挚着实... 书是仅仅两年前购入的（从阅读的堆积拖延角度讲算是挺喜人的了），却已完全记不得是在什么场景下得知到并产生兴趣的，唯独确定从当时一直到上个月翻开前始终误以为作者是「父」的角色，大概是有想刨出些关于做父亲的洞见的期许，但这个最初的误会带来的反而是对原本的期许倍增的回馈，这里头自然有此刻人生节点与性情的双重因素。结构上精秒的编排以及对史诗本身的抽拨探讨免不了美誉，但对父亲那份难以靠零星几个词涵盖的真挚着实令人在空闷中深吸气，那或许迟来的探寻才是这个本书更为珍贵的东西，与父亲末年的这份共同经历以及埋藏在这纸页中的都是对父亲生前身后第一等的礼赠。这是个值得好莱坞搬上银幕的故事（当然作者一个大活人在，还是有些怪怪的），这也怕是近年读到的最好的书。 (展开)