Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over ma...
Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa. We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her longstanding compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life - divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed up band in the basement of a suburban house and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang - who thrived and who faltered - and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie's catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou's far flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall. "A Visit from the Goon Squad" is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to Powerpoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both and escape the merciless progress of time in the transporting realms of art and music. This sly, startling, exhilarating work comes from one of our boldest writers.
She saw her apartment as he must see it- a bit of local color that would fade almost instantly into the tumble of adventures that everyone has on first coming to NY. It jarred Sasha to think of herself as a glint in the hazy memories that Alex would struggle to organize a year or two from now. Where was that place with the bathtub? Who was that girl? (查看原文)
In fact, this particular memory is one she'll return to again and again, for the rest of her life, long after Rolph has shot himself in the head in their father's house at twenty-eight: her brother as a boy, hair slicked flat, eyes sparkling, shyly learning to dance. But the woman who remembers won't be Charlie; after Rolph dies, she'll revert to her real name—Charlene—unlatching herself forever from the girl who danced with her brother in Africa. (查看原文)
就这翻译质量,甭出了,洗洗睡吧。 当当网上有试读。贴过来大家看看。 Selling the General 把将军销售出去(“推销将军”是不是更好?毕竟是包装宣传,不是真卖) Dolly’s first big idea was the hat. She picked teal blue, fuzzy, with flaps that came down over the ge...
(展开)
原文链接:http://www.bimuyu.com/blog/archives/117345094.shtml 詹妮弗•伊根(Jennifer Egan)并不是一位十分有名的作家,她的长篇小说《A Visit From the Goon Squad》(姑且试译为《恶棍来访》)却让人眼前一亮。之所以喜欢这本书,也许和笔者在读小说方面的个人趣味有...
(展开)
0 有用 朱斯提提亚W 2022-04-14 15:48:01
A++.
0 有用 悄声月牙 2019-10-22 16:56:07
形式太过新颖,实在不是我的菜。除了岁月是把杀猪刀,没有太多感动。最喜欢的是Out of body那一篇,最不喜欢PPT那一篇。
0 有用 S 2013-01-19 14:09:56
Affecting, sad, not that funny funny, and not that wise but wise.