BBC评21世纪最伟大12本小说

5. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001)
乔纳森·弗兰岑，《纠正》（2001年）

Franzen's edgy multigenerational family saga, winner of a US National Book Award, was among the first novels to capture the zeitgeist of the century's first decade. As Alfred and Enid Lambert and their three adult children gather at the end of the 20th Century for "one last Christmas", the father's Parkinson's disease progresses, and the US is on the verge of economic meltdown. "The Correction, when it finally came, was not an overnight bursting of a bubble but a much more gentle let-down, a year-long leakage of value from key financial markets," writes Franzen. "Franzen secured his place as a major American writer." Laurie Hertzel, senior books editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune adds, "This big, sprawling, fat novel touches on some of the most important themes of the early years of this millennium – economic uncertainty, the conflicts between parents and their drifting middle-aged children and the enormous issues of an aging society past its prime. He does it with great storytelling and a lot of humour." (Picador)
这本小说荣获美国国家图书奖，讲述了一个尖锐的几世同堂的家庭故事，成为首批紧随21世纪最初10年时代精神的小说之一。20世纪末，阿尔弗雷德、伊妮德·兰伯特同三个已成年的孩子齐聚一堂，一起庆祝可能是最后一个阖家团圆的圣诞节。此时，父亲阿尔弗雷德的帕金森综合征更加严重了，而美国也正处于经济危机的边缘。弗兰岑写道：“《纠正》不是指主要金融市场一夜之间突然发生泡沫破灭，而是更温和的衰退，持续一年的价值漏损。” 《明尼阿波利斯星坛报》资深图书编辑劳里·赫茨尔评论道：“弗兰岑再次证明了其作为美国重要作家的实力。这本小说布景广阔，触及了新千年早期最重要的一些主题——经济动荡、父母和漂泊不定的中年儿女之间的冲突，以及黄金时代过去后老龄化社会之中的诸多问题。弗兰岑用幽默的笔法写了一个好故事。” （Picador出版社）

6. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000)
迈克尔·夏邦，《卡瓦利尔和克雷的神奇冒险》 (2000年)

Joe Kavalier, a Houdini-like escape artist, smuggles himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 and ends up in New York City. With his Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay he invents a superhero character called the Escapist and launches the golden age of comic books. "Chabon's capacious, propulsive and many-storied novel is exquisitely written, emotionally rich and historically and morally profound," says Booklist senior editor Donna Seaman, who made the Pulitzer Prize winner her number-one choice. "It can also be seen as a bridge between the 20th and 21st centuries in its perspective on WWII and the birth of comic-book superheroes as a new. Chabon's novel has greatly influenced other outstanding works of 21st Century fiction. But The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is also a timeless inquiry into our tragic proclivity for hate and war, our abiding need for stories and our persistent longing for magical powers and transcendence." (Random House)
乔·卡瓦利尔是一位艺术家，1939年，他奇迹般地从布拉格的纳粹集中营逃脱，最终抵达纽约。卡瓦利尔和住在布鲁克林的表兄弟萨米·克雷联手设计了一个叫“逃脱侠”的超级英雄，由此开启了漫画书的黄金时代。这本书曾荣获普利策奖，《书目杂志》资深编辑多纳·西曼将这本书列为他的书单的第一位，“夏邦采用了宽广博大、层层推进的创作手法，写法上精巧，情感上丰沛，历史和道德意义深远。二战期间诞生了超级英雄漫画，这本小说从这个角度搭建起了20世纪和21世纪的桥梁，并极大地影响了21世纪其他的优秀作品。但《卡瓦利尔和克雷的神奇冒险》也提出了一个永恒的疑问，关于仇恨和战争的悲剧性、人类对传奇故事持久不竭的需求，对神奇力量、超脱存在的持久不变的渴望。”（Random House出版社）

7. Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
詹妮弗·伊根，《恶棍来访》（2010年）

Egan's Proustian meditation on time, fame and music won the National Book Critics Circle and Pulitzer awards. Who's the goon of the title? "Time is the stealth goon, the one you ignore because you are so busy worrying about the goons right in front of you," she says. Egan concocts her narrative around punk rocker-turned-music producer Bennie Salazar, his sticky-fingered assistant Sasha and a circle of wannabes, has-beens and hangers-on. Colette Bancroft, book editor of The Tampa Bay Times, named Egan's novel her top pick "not just because it is a splendidly written experiment in form that succeeds resoundingly, but because the 21st Century is its essential subject matter. Egan juxtaposes timeless literary themes, most notably the inexorable journey from youth to age, with an exploration of the ways in which a rapidly changing world reshapes the human experience. It's a novel that is prescient, surprising, wise and simply a blast to read." (Anchor)
伊根对时间、声誉和音乐进行的普鲁斯特式思考成就了此书，并因此荣获美国国家书评人奖和普利策奖。那标题中的恶棍是谁呢？“时间是最大的恶棍。人们总是因为忙于担忧眼前的‘恶棍’而忽略了时间这个隐藏的恶棍。”作者讲述了一些列故事：曾经的朋克摇滚歌手、现在的音乐制作人——本尼·萨拉查，有盗窃癖的女助手萨莎，以及一群想成名的人、曾经成名的人和无处不在的疯狂的粉丝。《塔帕湾时报》的图书编辑科莱特班·克罗夫特在他的书单中将《恶棍来访》列为第一位，“不仅仅因为这本小说的写作手法颇具实验性且异常成功，更因为此书的基本主题是21世纪。伊根将永恒的文学主题——不可阻挡的韶华易逝，以及如何在急速变化的世界中改变自己适应社会并列起来，给读者带去了睿智的、有先见之明的，但又惊奇简单的阅读体验。”（Anchor出版社）

8. Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2012)
本·芳汀《比利·林恩漫长的中场休息》，（2012年）

Eight rookies from the US army's Bravo squad, fresh from a firefight with Iraqi insurgents, in which one of their fellow soldiers died and another was disabled, are dubbed war heroes by the Fox News cable channel. Their two-week stateside victory tour ends with a halftime salute at a Dallas Cowboys game. Fountain captures the excesses of Texas, American football, business and war, and gives us a memorable narrator in 19-year-old Billy Lynn, with his combination of lust, bedazzlement and post-traumatic stress disorder. "It is sort of weird," he tells a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, "being honoured for the worst day of your life." (Ecco)
在与伊拉克反叛分子交火中，美军一个突击小队的一名士兵牺牲，一名受伤，幸存者中的八名士兵却因为福克斯电视台的宣传而成为国家英雄。他们回到美国本土，进行为期两周的“胜利展演”，最后一站是在达拉斯牛仔队橄榄球比赛的中场进行亮相。芳汀用19岁少年比利·林恩的口吻讲述了这个令人难忘的故事，他的渴望、他的困惑迷茫和他的创伤后应激障碍交织在一起，融合进了无节制发展的德州、橄榄球、商业和战争里面。比利告诉达拉斯牛仔队拉拉队队长：“在你最糟糕的一天获得荣誉，真是疯了！”（Ecco出版社）