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Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce Colm Tóibín B07CMP158X |
Just as Oscar Wilde began to become himself in the very year after his father’s death, and John B. Yeats managed, figuratively, to kill his son by going into exile, so too James Joyce managed to kill his father by leaving him to his fate in Dublin, seeking, in his father’s absence, not only to forge the uncreated conscience of his race but to find shape for the experience of his father, to resurrect him, to offer life to what had become shadow.
上面这段摘抄出自托宾的这本非虚构作品，正如其副标题讲的是王尔德（Oscar Wilde）、叶芝（William Bulter Yeats）、乔伊斯（James Joyce）三位差不多同一时期的爱尔兰文学家的爸爸们的事、以及对他们的影响，甚至有时还会稍带一点Henry James一爸二娃名人的对比。我不确定这本书的定位是什么样子的，可能是可以读出来一点为什么这些文学家的作品是这样的，风格影响的来源、人物原型等等，但是我是把它当作一本文学家的八卦来读的。
比如王尔德的爸爸的官司，真的太狗血了，还可以拿来和王尔德自己的官司做一些对比。和王尔德的爸爸打官司的控方律师Butt，还是叶芝爷爷的好友。叶芝的爸爸那段超长篇幅在讲老年的时候和暧昧对象写信，还都是阅后即焚的那种玩的很凶，让人觉得有点反胃，托宾却又说这些信和叶芝的诗有共同之处。三篇里面我觉得最没意思的是乔伊斯的爸爸的那篇，感觉是一个爸爸很渣、儿子很宽容甚至有点过头了。
跟着这本书，在本年第三季度里我分别读了三位的作品，最喜欢的还是乔伊斯。虽然还是没有勇气挑战《尤利西斯》，接下来我打算读读看《一个青年艺术家的画像》作为本季度主题读书的收尾吧。