首页
登录
职称英语
Despite its gargantuan heft, John Irving’s 11th novel moves nimbly from a sta
Despite its gargantuan heft, John Irving’s 11th novel moves nimbly from a sta
游客
2023-12-08
47
管理
问题
Despite its gargantuan heft, John Irving’s 11th novel moves nimbly from a standing start to warp speed. Legions of the author’s admirers will still be searching for a comfortable way to accommodate the book on their laps when they find themselves hustled off on a wintry chase through Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki and Amsterdam. In late 1969, Alice Stronach, a tattoo artist in Toronto, trundles her son Jack Bums, age 4, along with her while she pursues William Bums, an Edinburgh church organist who impregnated and abandoned her nearly five years earlier. Her itinerary has its logic: Her prey yearns to play the magnificent organs of Europe and he is an "ink addict," driven to have every possible inch of his skin decorated. The cities on Alice’s list boast grand churches and a flourishing tattoo trade.
Jack Burns’s trip with his mother in the novel’s first seven chapters reiterates the central premise of most of Irving’s fiction: since all childhoods, even the most pampered, can seem scary, why not expose a fictional child to experiences— grotesque, farcical, sexually outlandish—that might cause even jaded adults to blanch, and then see what happens? In this case, Jack survives the louche environments of tattoo parlors, the pillowy display of prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red light district and ambiguous encounters between his mother and her male tattoo customers in various hotel rooms—all with his innocence intact. His father has not been found, but Jack has not been lost.
Then something truly bizarre occurs. Back in Toronto, Alice and Jack settle in again with Mrs. Wicksteed, a wealthy widow who has protective feelings for unwed mothers. She is an Old Girl of St. Hilda’ s, an Anglican school that has just decided to admit boys to the lower grades, and Alice, with her help, gets Jack enrolled, because, she tells him, "You’ll be safe with the girls."
Alice’s confidence on this point rather quickly seems misplaced. At the beginning of his first day at St. Hilda’s, Jack bumps into an older girl, Emma Oastler, who immediately takes an interest in his long eyelashes and then in the rest of him. As she tidies up his school uniform, re-tucking his shirt into his gray Bermuda shorts, she whispers in his ear, "Nice rushy, Jack." Emma is 12 and Jack 5 at the time, and she decides to hasten, or at least observe, his progress toward pubescence.
Almost every day after school, as this odd couple rides home in the chauffeur-driven car Emma’s family sends for her or repairs to Jack’ s room at Mrs. Wicksteed’s, a pattern develops:" ’ How’s the little guy,’ "Emma would invariably ask, and Jack would dutifully show her. ’What are you thinking about, little guy?’ Emma asked his penis once." When Jack is 8, Emma brings her mother’s unlaundered bra to him as food for the little guy’s thoughts, telling Jack that he can smell the offering. When he asks why, Emma says: "Just try it, baby cakes. You never know what the little guy might like." Irving’s narrator adds: "Boy, was that the truth! (Too bad it would take years for Jack to find that out.)"
Around this point in the novel, some readers may experience a certain sinking sensation. Surely "Until I Find You" can’t have turned into what it increasingly appears to be: a novel about Jack’s little guy. (What happened to tattoos and the missing father?) There must be a reason for all those unappetizing bedroom scenes between Emma and Jack. Is he meant to be that lamentable presence in so many contemporary news stories, a sexually abused child? Irving has not been shy in the past about telling his readers what they should think—particularly strong didactic streaks run through "The Cider House Rules" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany"—but here he leaves the question of Jack’s early sexual indoctri nation murky. When she learns what Jack and Emma have been up to, Alice complains to Mrs. Oastler that Emma has "molested" her son, although she does nothing to keep the two apart. Mrs. Oastler thought "it was not possible for a woman or a girl to molest a man or a boy; whatever games Emma had played with Jack, he’d probably liked them." [br] The central premise of most of Irving’s fictions is_____.
选项
A、Hardship of poor people
B、disorder between various people
C、children’s experiences under the strange and uncomfortable circumstances
D、rebellion of youth against their parents
答案
C
解析
通过前面几段对小说内容的描述可知,欧文作品的主题在于告诉人们孩子们在陌生和痛苦的环境里的感受和经历。故选C。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3255226.html
相关试题推荐
ThemostimportantthingnowisforDemocratsnottopanic.Despitewhatyou
ThemostimportantthingnowisforDemocratsnottopanic.Despitewhatyou
Despitealloftheadvancesinmedicine,healthcareprovidershaveneverbe
Despitealloftheadvancesinmedicine,healthcareprovidershaveneverbe
Despitealloftheadvancesinmedicine,healthcareprovidershaveneverbe
Despitealloftheadvancesinmedicine,healthcareprovidershaveneverbe
RipVanWinkleiswrittenby______.A、WashingtonIrvingB、HenryDavidThoreauC、
DespiteDenmark’smanifestvirtues,Danesnevertalkabouthowproudtheyare
DespiteDenmark’smanifestvirtues,Danesnevertalkabouthowproudtheyare
DespiteDenmark’smanifestvirtues,Danesnevertalkabouthowproudtheyare
随机试题
Guthrie’scontiguityprincipleofferspracticalsuggestionsforhowtobreak
MaryShelley’snovelFrankensteinbelongstothetypeof______whichisoftense
[originaltext]W:Ijustheardaboutareallybeautifulparkintheeastendof
研究表明,要使记忆的效果最好,学习的熟练程度应达到()。A.10% B.
病侧呼吸动度减弱伴叩诊为鼓音、呼吸音消失者,见于A.肺实变B.肺气肿C.肺不张D
六西格玛项目中测量阶段的主要活动包括()。 A.对现有过程进行测量B.编制
(2018年真题)净资本=净资产-资产调整值+负债调整值+客户未足额追加的保证金
A.0.2mm B.0.3mm C.0.5mm D.1.0mm E.1.
安全操作规程是员工操作机器设备、调整仪器仪表和其他作业过程中,必须遵守的程序和注
皮带传动的危险出现在皮带接头及皮带进入到皮带轮的部位,通常采用金属骨架防护网进行
最新回复
(
0
)