简介
《伤心咖啡馆之歌》 是美国女作家卡森•麦卡勒斯于一九五一年五月出版的小说集，共收录7篇麦卡勒斯优秀的中短篇小说杰作。其中最重要的篇目《伤心咖啡馆之歌》讲述了小镇上爱密利亚小姐、罗锅和马文•马西三人诡异的爱情故事。诸篇小说的背景多样，多用一种诡谲、神秘、荒诞的方式表达了一个与爱同样永恒的人类主题——孤独，并且用爱的荒谬来印证孤独的必然。 《人鼠之间》 讲述了二十世纪30年代美国经济大萧条时期，两个一贫如洗却又相依为命的美国流动农业工人佐治和李奈从怀揣梦想、追逐梦想、接近梦想到梦想破灭的悲惨故事，艺术地展现了田园牧歌式的农庄生活和残酷的社会现实的冲突，反映了人对生存条件的真切感受。 《了不起的盖茨比》 是美国二十世纪杰出小说家F. S. 菲茨杰拉德所著的小说。故事发生在二十世纪二十年代，穷小子尼克来到纽约，结识了富豪盖茨比，目睹了纸醉金迷的上流社会以及盖茨比与意中人黛西一段被世俗与物欲摧毁的爱情。全书以尼克的口吻娓娓道来，细心的读者会发现，书中有盖茨比的场景，尼克大多都会如影随形地出现。 《一九八四》 是一部极具预言性质的政治讽喻小说，描绘了一个令人感到窒息和恐惧的泯灭人性的极权主义社会。在这个被称为“大洋国”的极权主义社会里，你说的每一句话，发出的每个个声响都会被监听；只要有一点光线，你的一举一动都会被监视，人性被扼杀、自由被剥夺、思想被钳制，而历史每时每刻都在被伪造。那里的人类生存状态，永远警示着人们不要走进这黑暗的悲剧。
《消失的地平线》 是英国作家詹姆斯•希尔顿的代表作，讲述了二十世纪三十年代四名西方旅客意外来到坐落在群山之中的香格里拉秘境的故事。原本身为外交家、银行家、修女与大学毕业生的四名旅人，被命运捆绑在一起，在香格里拉遭遇了种种离奇事件…… 《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》 讲述的是小女孩爱丽丝追随一只会说话的兔子掉进兔子洞，进入一个神奇国度，遇到了许多会说话的生物以及像人一般活动的纸牌，最后发现原来是一场梦的奇幻故事。作者通过奇幻荒诞的情节、大量的英式幽默，描绘了童趣横生的世界，是一本值得反复阅读的经典名著。 《鲁滨孙漂流记》 讲述的是这样一个故事：年轻的鲁滨孙一心向往航海，但在一次航行中，他乘坐的船失事了。他被海浪冲到一个荒无人烟的小岛上，从此开始了孤身一人的荒岛生活。为了生存，他不得不经受种种磨难。多年以后，他收服了仆人“星期五”并得以重返家园。 《金银岛》 是英国作家罗伯特•路易斯•史蒂文森创作的一部冒险小说。小说通过少年吉姆•霍金斯的经历，讲述了一个惊险曲折的冒险故事。为了夺取老海盗弗林特藏在金银岛上的财宝，吉姆他们通过自己的勇敢和机智与海盗们周旋，经历了九死一生的激烈战斗，最终挫败了海盗们的阴谋，得到了宝藏。这部小说开创了探宝小说的先河，情节曲折，悬念迭起，成为世界儿童文学史上的经典之作。 《夜莺与玫瑰》 是英国作家奥斯卡•王尔德的作品，全书收录了王尔德七篇童话，《快乐王子》《夜莺与玫瑰》《自私的巨人》《忠实的朋友》《了不起的火箭》《年轻的国王》《星孩》。 《彼得•潘》 讲述了这样一个故事：彼得•潘是一个会飞却拒绝长大的顽皮男孩，在一天夜里，他飞进了达林先生家，把温蒂和她的弟弟们带到了“永无岛”。那里有凶猛的动物，有印第安人，有可怕的强盗，还有温柔的小精灵和美人鱼……孩子们在“永无岛”上过着无忧无虑而又惊险刺激的生活，经历了一系列冒险和奇遇。
部分摘录：
The town itself is dreary; not much is there except the cotton-mill, the two-room houses where the workers live, a few peach trees, a church with two colored windows, and a miserable main street only a hundred yards long. On Saturdays the tenants from the near-by farms come in for a day of talk and trade. Otherwise the town is lonesome, sad, and like a place that is far off and estranged from all other places in the world. The nearest train stop is Society City, and the Greyhound and White Bus Lines use the Forks Falls Road which is three miles away. The winters here are short and raw, the summers white with glare and fiery hot.
If you walk along the main street on an August afternoon there is nothing whatsoever to do. The largest building, in the very center of the town, is boarded up completely and leans so far to the right that it seems bound to collapse at any minute. The house is very old. There is about it a curious, cracked look that is very puzzling until you suddenly realize that at one time, and long ago, the right side of the front porch had been painted, and part of the wall—but the painting was left unfinished and one portion of the house is darker and dingier than the other. The building looks completely deserted. Nevertheless, on the second floor there is one window which is not boarded; sometimes in the late afternoon when the heat is at its worst a hand will slowly open the shutter and a face will look down on the town. It is a face like the terrible dim faces known in dreams—sexless and white, with two gray crossed eyes which are turned inward so sharply that they seem to be exchanging with each other one long and secret gaze of grief. The face lingers at the window for an hour or so, then the shutters are closed once more, and as likely as not there will not be another soul to be seen along the main street. These August afternoons—when your shift is finished there is absolutely nothing to do; you might as well walk down to the Forks Falls Road and listen to the chain gang.
However, here in this very town there was once a café. And this old boarded-up house was unlike any other place for many miles around. There were tables with cloths and paper napkins, colored streamers from the electric fans, great gatherings on Saturday nights. The owner of the place was Miss Amelia Evans. But the person most responsible for the success and gaiety of the place was a hunchback called Cousin Lymon. One other person had a part in the story of this café—he was the former husband of Miss Amelia, a terrible character who returned to the town after a long term in the penitentiary, caused ruin, and then went on his way again. The café has long since been closed, but it is still remembered.
The place was not always a café. Miss Amelia inherited the building from her father, and it was a store that carried mostly feed, guano, and staples such as meal and snuff. Miss Amelia was rich. In addition to the store she operated a still three miles back in the swamp, and ran out the best liquor in the county. She was a dark, tall woman with bones and muscles like a man. Her hair was cut short and brushed back from the forehead, and there was about her sunburned face a tense, haggard quality. She might have been a handsome woman if, even then, she was not slightly cross-eyed. There were those who would have courted her, but Miss Amelia cared nothing for the love of men and was a solitary person. Her marriage had been unlike any other marriage ever contracted in this county—it was a strange and dangerous marriage, lasting only for ten days, that left the whole town wondering and shocked. Except for this queer marriage, Miss Amelia had lived her life alone. Often she spent whole nights back in her shed in the swamp, dressed in overalls and gum-boots, silently guarding the low fire of the still.
With all things which could be made by the hands Miss Amelia prospered. She sold chitterlings and sausage in the town near-by. On fine autumn days, she ground sorghum, and the syrup from her vats was dark golden and delicately flavored. She built the brick privy behind her store in only two weeks and was skilled in carpentering. It was only with people that Miss Amelia was not at ease. People, unless they are willy-nilly or very sick, cannot be taken into the hands and changed overnight to something more worthwhile and profitable. So that the only use that Miss Amelia had for other people was to make money out of them. And in this she succeeded. Mortgages on crops and property, a sawmill, money in the bank—she was the richest woman for miles around. She would have been rich as a congressman if it were not for her one great failing, and that was her passion for lawsuits and the courts. She would involve herself in long and bitter litigation over just a trifle. It was said that if Miss Amelia so much as stumbled over a rock in the road she would glance around instinctively as though looking for something to sue about it. Aside from these lawsuits she lived a steady life and every day was very much like the day that had gone before. With the exception of her ten-day marriage, nothing happened to change this until the spring of the year that Miss Amelia was thirty years old.
It was toward midnight on a soft quiet evening in April. The sky was the color of a blue swamp iris, the moon clear and bright. The crops that spring promised well and in the past weeks the mill had run a night shift. Down by the creek the square brick factory was yellow with light, and there was the faint, steady hum of the looms. It was such a night when it is good to hear from faraway, across the dark fields, the slow song of a Negro on his way to make love. Or when it is pleasant to sit quietly and pick a guitar, or simply to rest alone and think of nothing at all. The street that evening was deserted, but Miss Amelia’s store was lighted and on the porch outside there were five people. One of these was Stumpy MacPhail, a foreman with a red face and dainty, purplish hands. On the top step were two boys in overalls, the Rainey twins—both of them lanky and slow, with white hair and sleepy green eyes. The other man was Henry Macy, a shy and timid person with gentle manners and nervous ways, who sat on the edge of the bottom step. Miss Amelia herself stood leaning against the side of the open door, her feet crossed in their big swamp boots, patiently untying knots in a rope she had come across. They had not talked for a long time.
One of the twins, who had been looking down the empty road, was the first to speak. “I see something coming,” he said.
“A calf got loose,” said his brother.
The approaching figure was still too distant to be clearly seen. The moon made dim, twisted shadows of the blossoming peach trees along the side of the road. In the air the odor of blossoms and sweet spring grass mingled with the warm, sour smell of the near-by lagoon.
“No. It’s somebody’s youngun,” said Stumpy MacPhail.
Miss Amelia watched the road in silence. She had put down her rope and was fingering the straps of her overalls with her brown bony hand. She scowled, and a dark lock of hair fell down on her forehead.While they were waiting there, a dog from one of the houses down the road began a wild, hoarse howl that continued until a voice called out and hushed him. It was not until the figure was quite close, within the range of the yellow light from the porch, that they saw clearly what had come.
The man was a stranger, and it is rare that a stranger enters the town on foot at that hour. Besides, the man was a hunchback. He was scarcely more than four feet tall and he wore a ragged, rusty coat that reached only to his knees. His crooked little legs seemed too thin to carry the weight of his great warped chest and the hump that sat on his shoulders. He had a very large head, with deep-set blue eyes and a sharp little mouth. His face was both soft and sassy—at the moment his pale skin was yellowed by dust and there were lavender shadows beneath his eyes. He carried a lopsided old suitcase which was tied with a rope.
“Evening,” said the hunchback, and he was out of breath.
Miss Amelia and the men on the porch neither answered his greeting nor spoke. They only looked at him.
“I am hunting for Miss Amelia Evans.”
Miss Amelia pushed back her hair from her forehead and raised her chin. “How come?”
“Because I am kin to her,” the hunchback said.
The twins and Stumpy MacPhail looked up at Miss Amelia.
“That’s me,” she said. “How do you mean ‘kin’?”
“Because—” the hunchback began. He looked uneasy, almost as though he was about to cry. He rested the suitcase on the bottom step, but did not take his hand from the handle. “My mother was Fanny Jesup and she come from Cheehaw. She left Cheehaw some thirty years ago when she married her first husband. I remember hearing her tell how she had a half-sister named Martha. And back in Cheehaw today they tell me that was your mother.”
Miss Amelia listened with her head turned slightly aside. She ate her Sunday dinners by herself; her place was never crowded with a flock of relatives, and she claimed kin with no one. She had had a great-aunt who owned the livery stable in Cheehaw, but that aunt was now dead. Aside from her there was only one double first cousin who lived in a town twenty miles away, but this cousin and Miss Amelia did not get on so well, and when they chanced to pass each other they spat on the side of the road. Other people had tried very hard, from time to time, to work out some kind of far-fetched connection with Miss Amelia, but with absolutely no success.
The hunchback went into a long rigmarole, mentioning names and places that were unknown to the listeners on the porch and seemed to have nothing to do with the subject. “So Fanny and Martha Jesup were half-sisters. And I am the son of Fanny’s third husband. So that would make you and I—” He bent down and began to unfasten his suitcase. His hands were like dirty sparrow claws and they were trembling. The bag was full of all manner of junk—ragged clothes and odd rubbish that looked like parts out of a sewing-machine, or something just as worthless. The hunchback scrambled among these belongings and brought out an old photograph. “This is a picture of my mother and her half-sister.”
Miss Amelia did not speak. She was moving her jaw slowly from side to side, and you could tell from her face what she was thinking about. Stumpy MacPhail took the photograph and held it out towards the light. It was a picture of two pale, withered-up little children of about two and three years of age. The faces were tiny white blurs, and it might have been an old picture in anyone’s album.