常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(二战后美国小说(1))【圣才出品】

第23章二战后美国小说（1）

23.1 复习笔记

I. Overview of postwar novel（二战后小说简介）

1. Historical Background（历史背景）

The postwar prosperity’s optimism was vitiated by the “Cold War”. The life of 1950s was poisoned at the root by McCarthyism, and that of the sixties enriched by the Civil Rights movement, the appearance of a counter culture, and an upsurge of feminism and feminist power. Whereas the Vietnam War weighted all the time on the consciousness of the people, life was complicated by violence, political or radical, including the assassinations of John. F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Everything seemed to be subjected to a prevailing skepticism. New advances in science and technology have given people an increasing sense of power, but have also further deprived life of its mysteries.

在二战后的一代中的乐观情绪，很快就被大国之间的冷战削弱了。麦卡锡主义从根本上毒害了人们的50年代的生活。民权运动，反主流文化的出现，女权主义的风起云涌则极大地丰富了60年代的生活。而越南战争使人们的思想沉重。生活因政治上的或激进的暴力行径而变得错综复杂，例如，肯尼迪和马丁·路德·金的遇刺身亡。一切都陷入被质疑中。科学技术方面的进步使人们感觉到力量，但同时也使生活失去了神秘感。

2. Features of postwar novels（战后小说特点）

The war novel, the southern novel, the Jewish novel, the Beat novel and alienation, the Black novel, and satire and the novel of manner, came to public notice in the years from the end of the war through 1960. And the period after that has been one in which American fiction is noted for its fantasy and surrealism, its nonfiction, black or absurd humor, parody and pop, and its experimental novelistic techniques. Themes such as the tyranny of society, the subjugation of the individual, the quest of self-identity, and the self-indulgence of the writer relation to his environment.

战末至1960年末期间，战争小说、南方小说、犹太小说、垮掉派小说、黑人小说、讽刺与世俗小说，引起了人们的广泛关注。这之后，又有梦幻与超现实主义小说、非虚构小说、科幻小说、黑色或荒诞幽默小说、模仿与通俗小说、试验小说等。主题则包括社会专制，个人被征服，寻求个人认同，作家在自我环境下的自我放纵等。

II. Saul Bellow (1915- 2005)（索尔·贝洛）

1. Life（生平）

Saul Bellow was about the best-known writer of his generation. He was born into a Russian Jewish family in Canada, he grew up in Chicago. His first book, Dangling Man, was published in 1944, and for over a half a century, he wrote a good number of novels, short stories and plays, and won a good number of awards. His career reached its exciting climax in 1976 when he was awarded the Pulitzer

Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

索尔·贝洛是当代美国最著名的小说家。他出生于加拿大一个俄国犹太移民家庭。他在芝加哥长大。他的第一部小说《摇来晃去的人》发表于1944年。在接下来的半个多世纪，他创作了大量的长篇小说、短篇小说和剧本，赢得了众多的奖项。1976年他的创作事业到达巅峰，他同时被授予普利策奖和诺贝尔文学奖。

2. His Themes（主题）

Saul Bellow’s basic themes are essentially Three-fold: first, he views contemporary society as a threat to human life and human integrity. Then living in such an environment, people tend to become paranoid, high-strung, and impotent, and so lose their sanity. Finally, there is the quest motif, a quest for truth and values, difficult, excruciating, but successful in a way.

索尔·贝洛的主题主要是如下三方面：首先，他认为当代社会对人们的生活和独立人格是个威胁。因此，生活在这种环境中，人们容易偏执多疑、精神紧张、虚弱无能以至失去理智。最后，他的作品中总会有追寻真理及价值观的主题，追寻的过程是困难的、痛苦的，但最终结果却是成功的。

3. Major works（主要作品）

Dangling Man《摇来晃去的人》

The Victim《受害者》

The Adventures of Augie March《奥吉·马奇历险记》

Seize the Day《只争朝夕》