杜鲁门·卡波特：《一个圣诞节的回忆》

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杜鲁门·卡波特：《一个圣诞节的回忆》
作者：
来源：《阅读与作文（英语高中版）》2020年第03期
杜魯门·卡波特（ Truman Capote，1924—1984），美国文学史上著名的小说家、编剧、剧作家，很多作品后来都成了经典之作，如短篇小说《蒂凡尼的早餐》（Breakfast at Tiffany’s，1958）和纪实罪案小说《冷血》（In Cold Blood，1966）。

卡波特五岁时就自学读书写字，十一岁时发现了自己对写作的热爱，从十七岁起就经常在《纽约客》《大西洋月刊》等刊物上发表作品，二十一岁时，创作短篇小说《米里亚姆》（ Miriam，1945），获欧-亨利小说奖，成为美国文坛新秀。

后又创作小说《别的声音，别的房间》（Other Voices，Other Rooms，1948）、《草竖琴》（The Grass Harp，1951）、《蒂凡尼的早餐》（Breakfast at Tiffany’s，1958），但真正奠定其文坛地位的作品是他花费四年时间，根据一桩真实罪案创作的非虚构小说《冷血》，该书不但在出版后占踞畅销书榜首达一年之久，更使卡波特成为新新闻主义流派的开创者。

卡波特原名Truman Persons，卡波特是其继父的姓氏。

由于父母离异，年仅四岁的卡波特曾被送到阿拉巴马州母亲的亲戚家寄养，在那里和他母亲的远亲Nanny Rumbley Faulk成为忘年交，这一段生活经历后来出现在他的很多短篇小说中，如下面所选的《一个圣诞节的回忆》（A ChristmasMemory，1956）便是其中之一。

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.
A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly， like a bantam hen; but， due to a long youthful illness， her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable-not unlike Lincoln’s， craggy like that， and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too， finely boned， and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my，” she exclaims， her breath smoking the windowpane，“it’s fruitcake weather！”
The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something. We are cousins， very distant ones， and we have lived together-well， as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house， relatives; and though they have power over us， and frequently make us cry， we are not， on the whole，too much aware of them. We are each other’s best friend. She calls me Buddy， in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the
180s， when she was still a child. She is still a child.。