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牛津大学出版百年旗舰产品,英文版本原汁原味呈现,资深编辑专为阅读进阶定制,文学评论名家妙趣横生解读。
内容简介
弗朗茨·卡夫卡的小说合集,包括中篇小说《变形记》和短篇小说《沉思录》《判决》《在流放地》和《致父亲的信》。《变形记》是形成卡夫卡独创风格的第一部作品,是20世纪影响深远的小说之一。
作者简介
弗朗茨·卡夫卡(1883—1924)奥地利伟大的作家之一,被认为是现代派文学的鼻祖,表现主义文学的先驱,其作品大都用变形荒诞的形象和象征的手法,表现被充满敌意的社会环境所包围的孤立、绝望的个人,成为席卷欧洲的“现代人的困惑”的集中体现,并在欧洲掀起了一阵又一阵的“卡夫卡热”。主要作品有《城堡》《变形记》《饥饿艺术家》《审判》《乡村医生》等。
精彩书评
卡夫卡的巨大贡献并不全在于他跨出了历史发展中决定性的一步,更为重要的是,他出人意料地打开了一扇门,让人们看到:在小说这个领域,幻想能够如同在梦中一样爆炸,小说能从看似难以摆脱的逼真性要求中解放出来。
——米兰·昆德拉
是卡夫卡使我发现我会成为一个作家的。我十七岁那年,读到了《变形记》,当时我认为自己准能成为一个作家。我看到主人公格里高尔·萨姆沙一天早晨醒来居然会变成一只巨大的甲虫,于是我就想:“原来能这么写呀。要是能这么写,我倒也有兴致了。”
——加西亚·马尔克斯 目录
Biographical Preface
Introduction
Note on the Text
Note on the Translation
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Franz Kafka
MEDITATION
THE JUDGEMENT
THE METAMORPHOSIS
IN THE PENAL COLONY
LETTER TO HIS FATHER
Explanatory Notes 精彩书摘
卡夫卡的巨大贡献并不全在于他跨出了历史发展中决定性的一步,更为重要的是,他出人意料地打开了一扇门,让人们看到:在小说这个领域,幻想能够如同在梦中一样爆炸,小说能从看似难以摆脱的逼真性要求中解放出来。
——米兰·昆德拉
是卡夫卡使我发现我会成为一个作家的。我十七岁那年,读到了《变形记》,当时我认为自己准能成为一个作家。我看到主人公格里高尔·萨姆沙一天早晨醒来居然会变成一只巨大的甲虫,于是我就想:“原来能这么写呀。要是能这么写,我倒也有兴致了。”
——加西亚·马尔克斯
前言/序言
This collection includes four of the seven books that Kafka published during— or just after— his lifetime. Even if Kafka’s three novels had remained unpublished, in keeping with his professed wish, his short fiction would have given him a secure place in the modernist canon. During his life they brought him, if not fame, at least the respect of many fellow-writers. Robert Musil invited him to write for the Neue Rundschau (New Review), the leading literary magazine in Germany, though Kafka was unable to accept the invitation; Rainer Maria Rilke attended the public reading of In the Penal Colony that Kafka gave in Munich, and revealed in conversation that he knew and admired Kafka’s previous stories. Kafka was not as obscure an author as is sometimes imagined.
Yet Kafka’s literary output is small, and was produced under difficult conditions. He held down a day job as an extremely able and valued employee in a state-run workers’ accident insurance firm. Officially his working hours were from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. without a break, but of course he often had to stay in the office for longer, and after the outbreak of war in 1914 the absence of many staff serving in the army increased the workload for those who, like Kafka, were exempted from military service on the grounds that they were indispensable. In his early years Kafka also paid many visits to factories in the industrial zone of northern Bohemia to report on the safety standards of the machinery in use. On leaving work he would walk, swim, or rest. Since he lived with his parents in their flat until he was 30, he could not find peace to write until everyone else had gone to bed.
Having such limited writing time, Kafka tended to favour short fiction. Even his novels, especially The Trial, are very much series of episodes. The mood-pictures which make up Meditation are very short; eight of them appeared in the Munich periodical Hyperion in 1908, marking Kafka’s debut as a published author. Brevity had the advantage that the initial impulse could be sustained throughout the text. With longer texts, Kafka, who never planned his work, found that his original inspiration tended to flag. The great exception was The Judgement, written in a single night, but he never again achieved such a unified, coherent piece of writing; he was dissatisfied with the end of The Metamorphosis, perhaps because of the change of perspective required by the protagonist’s death.
As an author, Kafka was not only self-critical, but as perplexed by his own works as his readers have subsequently been. He wrote to Felice Bauer: ‘Can you discover any meaning in The Judgement — some straightforward, coherent meaning that one could follow? I can’t find any, nor can I explain anything in it.’ His writing is sharp, precise, and beautifully paced, yet his descriptions become enigmatic and bewildering on close scrutiny, and he packs into his narratives a wealth of suggestions and implications which refuse to yield any simple or single interpretation. The philosopher Adorno wrote of Kafka: ‘Each sentence says “Interpret me”, and none will permit it.’ At the same time, Kafka’s narratives and images are frighteningly direct. A father condemns his son to death. A commercial traveller is turned into an insect. Colonial justice is administered by an elaborate machine. Themes of power and violence are given palpable form. Yet the messages of the stories are complex, ambivalent, and inexhaustible.
Kafka’s literary skill is apparent also in the long autobiographical letter he wrote to his father (but fortunately never delivered) in November 1919. The ability to argue a case that Kafka had developed as a lawyer is exercised with eloquence, passion, cunning, and a precise and vivid recall of crucial episodes from his childhood. How far the Letter to his Father should be seen as literature is still undecided, but as a text on the borders of autobiography and imaginative fiction it remains a painful masterpiece.
《失落的星图:克莱因的最后一次航行》 深入被遗忘的秘境,探索人类精神的边界 《失落的星图:克莱因的最后一次航行》是一部融合了十九世纪末欧洲哲学思潮、海洋探险的宏大叙事与细腻的心理刻画的史诗级长篇小说。故事围绕着瑞典裔天文学家兼哲学家奥古斯特·克莱因展开,这位被誉为“星辰之子”的学者,在一次震惊学界的理论发布后,突然销声匿迹。他留下的,只有一艘被遗弃在挪威北部峡湾的科考船“奥丁之眼”,以及一本残缺不全的航海日志。 小说伊始,我们将跟随克莱因的昔日学生,年轻的语言学家伊娃·桑德伯格,重返那片被冰雪覆盖的禁地。伊娃的任务是解读克莱因留下的谜团:他究竟是发现了宇宙的终极真理,还是在科学的边缘走向了彻底的疯狂? 第一部分:理性与失序的边缘 克莱因在小说开篇时,正处于他学术生涯的巅峰与崩溃的交界点。他毕生致力于研究“绝对时间”与“空间维度”的统一性,相信宇宙的运行法则并非牛顿或爱因斯坦所描述的那样线性或可预测。在维也纳的沙龙中,克莱因发表了他颠覆性的理论——“回声宇宙论”,认为每一个瞬间都在无限重复,而我们所感知到的“现在”,不过是无数个微小错位的时间切片重叠的结果。 这一理论使他声名鹊起,但也引来了保守学派的猛烈抨击。正当他遭受道德和学术上的围剿时,一封来自格陵兰海域的匿名信件,揭示了一个关于古代北欧神话中“永恒之光”的秘密。克莱因相信,这束光是证明他理论存在的唯一物理证据。他变卖了所有家产,购置了改装过的“奥丁之眼”,开始了这场旨在“触碰时间尽头”的航行。 伊娃在解读日志时,发现克莱因的文字风格随着航程的深入而发生了戏剧性的变化。早期的记录严谨精确,充满了复杂的数学公式和对星象的细致描绘;而航行至北极圈附近后,日志中充斥着对光怪陆离的幻觉、对“深海低语”的恐惧,以及对船员们日益怪异行为的记录。这些记载揭示了远航如何一步步侵蚀了克莱因的理智,或者,正如他自己所坚信的,如何让他更接近真相。 第二部分:冰封的信仰与异化的航程 “奥丁之眼”的航程是一场对人类耐受力的终极考验。船队深入人类文明的空白地带,他们遇到的不仅仅是极端的低温和永恒的黑夜,更是一种存在主义的虚无感。克莱因的船员大多是社会边缘人物——被学术界放逐的流亡者、寻求遗忘的退伍军人,以及对“旧世界”秩序感到厌倦的理想主义者。 小说细致地描绘了船上群体的心理动态。在绝对的孤立中,人与人之间的关系变得异常脆弱且扭曲。船长,一位沉默寡言的挪威老水手,开始坚信船舱里有某种“非我族类”的生物在操纵航线;而负责医药的医生则沉迷于使用从当地因纽特部落获取的草药,试图制造一种能让人“看穿时间薄纱”的致幻剂。 克莱因本人则在船上建立了一套私人的观测系统,他将望远镜对准冰层下的深海,而非天空。他坚信,在他理论中缺失的那个维度,存在于海洋深处,被远古的冰层所封存。伊娃发现,克莱因开始用他自己创造的符号来记录观测结果,这些符号既像古老的如尼文,又像某种高度抽象的代数结构,令所有试图破译的人感到绝望。 其中最引人入胜的章节,是关于船员集体“失语症”的记录。在经历了一场持续数日的极光风暴后,船上绝大多数人失去了用已知语言交流的能力,他们开始使用一种基于手势、音乐节奏和色彩辨识的复杂交流系统。这让伊娃不得不重新审视克莱因理论的核心——语言本身是否就是限制我们感知现实的枷锁? 第三部分:回声的尽头 随着“奥丁之眼”到达预定的坐标——一片被当地人称为“无声之海”的冰盖区域——克莱因的日志达到了高潮。他描述了一次突破性的“下潜”,并非物理意义上的潜水,而是一种精神上的“沉入”。 他记录道: > “并非时间在流动,而是我们被时间之河推着向前。但如果我能找到那条河岸的泥土,我便能站立不动。那光,那曾被视为神迹或幻觉的光,不是来自外部,而是从存在的底层涌出的……它并非永恒,而是‘永恒的开端’,一个从未被开始的瞬间。” 小说的后半部分,伊娃必须面对一个残酷的现实:克莱因的最终记录只剩下了一句话,潦草地写在一张折叠的星图背面:“我已找到地图,但航道本身已不存在。” 紧接着,伊娃抵达了“奥丁之眼”被发现的地点。船体虽然受损,但内部结构却诡异地完整,仿佛被一种无形的力量小心翼翼地安放在那里。船员们不知所踪,但实验室中堆满了成百上千的、被磨光的海玻璃,这些玻璃的内部似乎封存着某种微小的光斑。 伊娃最终的探索导向了一个哲学上的悖论:克莱因是否真的成功地触及了时间之外的结构,却因此付出了人类身份的代价?他留下的遗产,是关于宇宙的终极奥秘,还是对人类心智极限的一次残忍的、无法复制的演示? 《失落的星图》不仅是对一次伟大探险的追忆,更是一场关于记忆、感知与知识边界的深刻冥想。它邀请读者跟随伊娃的脚步,进入那片寒冷、寂静、却又孕育着宇宙最宏大秘密的北境深处。这部作品是对所有试图超越人类已知范畴的探索者们,献上的一曲宏伟而又哀伤的挽歌。