看看这个获诺奖的犹太作家的作品
今天这本名著为《洪堡的礼物》。
诺奖得主索尔·贝娄经典代表作，1976年获普利策奖。
《洪堡的礼物》无疑是贝娄在情绪最高涨的时期完成的欣快、混乱的喜剧小说中最为疯癫的一本。
——菲利普·罗斯
这是一部天才的作品，是一位天才才能写出来的作品，精彩绝伦、灿烂辉煌。如果有文学，这就是文学。
——约翰·契弗
内容简介： 普利策奖得主、法国荣誉军团骑士、中年作家查里·西特林在走过了一段人生成败道路之后，才开始回忆起他的亡友洪堡·弗莱谢尔。他对潦倒而死的前辈诗人兼导师和挚友的洪堡一直心怀歉疚，洪堡曾教他认识艺术的力量，要他忠于自己的创造性精神。得到洪堡提携而功成名就的西特林在洪堡贫病交加时却并未伸出援手。最终同样落得物质和精神双重破产的他，却借助洪堡留给他的剧本提纲摆脱了物质危机。这时，他忽然悟到人生的真谛。于是，他用一部分钱重新安葬了可怜的洪堡，其余的则希望能有助于自己“新的生活”。
《洪堡的礼物》是索尔·贝娄的第六部小说，出版于1975年，也是他最重要的代表作之一，1976年获普利策奖。小说暴露了物质世界对精神文明的摧残，真实地再现了当代美国社会光怪陆离的生活画面。
亚马逊的读者对此书评论深刻，读得懂的你们仔细体会一下：
As in Bellow's "Herzog" and "Seize the Day," the protagonist of "Humboldt's Gift" is a highly educated late-middle-aged man who's made a minor mess of his life but weathers the storm with any resources of which he can avail himself. Charlie Citrine, an Appleton, Wisconsin, native transplanted to Chicago, is an author and a briefly successful playwright who spends the novel reminiscing about his longtime friendship with the late poet Von Humboldt Fleisher, an eccentric genius and self-diagnosed manic depressive, and describing the people and events in his life that somehow seem to shape themselves around his relationship with Humboldt.
Humboldt once had a goal to raise the esteem of the poet's role in American society. In 1952 he believed an Adlai Stevenson presidency would allow the involvement of more intellectuals in government; when this hope crumbled, he sought and won an ephemeral poetry chair at Princeton, where he and Citrine concocted a strangely Sophoclean movie treatment about a doomed Arctic expedition and a man who became a cannibal. This was not the last of their show business aspirations; Citrine's play, "Von Trenck," based loosely on Humboldt's life and therefore vexatious to Humboldt, was a hit on the theater circuit and was made into a movie.
Citrine's dubious fortune attracts all kinds of problems with love and money. His ex-wife Denise is straining him over an uncomfortable divorce settlement; his new girlfriend, a much younger woman named Renata, takes advantage of him and leaves him stranded in Madrid to babysit her son. A simple poker night results in an undesirable association with a small-time gangster named Rinaldo Cantabile from which he can't seem to extricate himself.
I think this is Bellow's materwork. An author who has always searched for evidence of the human soul in contemporary society, the questions Bellow raised in each of the novels leading to this point (Herzog particularly), finally find a resolution in this book, his last novel before winning the Nobel Prize.
This is a story of Charlie Citrine, a sucessful author who finds himself struggling for meaning while confronting the ghosts of memory, particularly in the relationship with his friend, mentor; and, at many points, antagonist, Von Humboldt Fletcher. Curiously, the novel is thrown into action and suspense through Citrine's dealings with a minor gangster, Cantible. The relationship, though, turns out to be one that brings Citrine back to the "here and now." Just as he is on the brink of being lost in transcendental wanderings, Citrine is snapped back to his resposibility by Cantible.
And, from such an unlikely source, the novel begins its reach towards resolution: to be fully human, Citrine must be spiritual but remain part of the world. Meaning and true spirituality come through compassion, empathy, caring. Once Citrine and the reader discover this, the novel reaches a resolution that marked the end of an era in many of Bellow's themes. This novel is simply a must for anyone who has enjoyed any of Bellow's earlier works, as well as for anyone who, like Chalie Citrine, struggle to find a place for the soul, the human spirit, in a world that seems to have forgotten such a thing may exist.
I have a hard time understanding what there is not to like about this novel. The only thing that I can think of is that it is a book very uncontemporary in its style, but I find this to be one of its greatest strengths. I find that so many contemporary fiction writers have been overwhelmed by the presence of movies and TV that they are no longer able to write novels, but instead are forced to create what amounts to screenplays without stage directions.
Humboldt's Gift is not this. It takes the time to revel in the sheer joy of words. The characters are developed in depth. Bellow prevents them from becoming interchangeable, and this is as it should be, for people are not interchangeable. Bellow is obsessed with bringing every nuance and quirk of his characters to your doorstep. You could probably even pick them out on the street. What's more, Bellow has succeeded in bridging the amorphous world of high-minded ideas and the tangible world of reality with a prose style that is conversational and wise. You are learning something about what it means to be alive here. You are learning something about the breadth of the human condition. You are learning something about what it means to be American and what that means given the backdrop of the rest of history. If you would find such a journey tedious, don't bother reading this book. If you are anxious to take such a trip, take this book with you as a map.
Some of Bellow's books -- Sammler's Planet and Henderson the Rain King, in parts -- can be overly pendantic and essay-ish. But not this one. This one is a masterpiece of English literature. You are missing an American experience -- love it or leave -- if you are not reading this book.
中文书评 —— 来自豆瓣，作者斑点紫罗兰
《洪堡的礼物》中的“礼物”，关系到查理•西特林人生的命运，同时也给了他未来的自我救赎之路。
作者索尔•贝娄，美国著名犹太裔作家，曾多次获奖，1976年获得普利策文学奖，同年因“对当代文化富于人性的理解和精妙的分析”，获得诺贝尔文学奖。《洪堡的礼物》是他的第八部小说，本书讲述了二十世纪两代美国犹太知识分子的成功与失败，揭示了二战之后美国社会的物质世界对精神世界的摧残，同时也展现了当时美国的生活风俗。小说中的服饰、建筑、汽车等描写都反映着当时美国社会的繁华，故事的中心背景又选择在芝加哥，那是最繁荣的城市之一，更加突出了物质世界的可怕。也是因为物质、金钱等催使，西特林走上了一条“不归路”。
写法上，作者采用了倒叙、插叙、对比等方式，西特林回忆往事的部分，跨度有时很大，有时很短，说明着西特林对洪堡的内心纠结，悔恨。同时对比的手法贯通全文，最大的对比就是洪堡与西特林。
在我看来，洪堡是西特林的镜子。两人出身相似，洪堡是匈牙利犹太移民，20世纪30年代因为《滑稽歌谣》名声大噪；西特林是洪堡的学生，代表着60年代的知识分子，他因为《冯•特伦克》在百老汇引起轰动，开始了成功之路。洪堡的成名只有10年，之后没落，相比西特林要更成功。从对艺术的看法来说，西特林更加把它作为挣取金钱的工具，只要能带来大量的金钱，艺术作品变成什么样在他心中并没有丝毫的痛心，而洪堡是用金钱用来创作；从美国社会文化角度来说，二战之后，美国更加需要实用的东西，洪堡的诗歌再也满足不了人们的需求，而西特林的作品被改得面目全非，却引起轰动，两者的对比，揭示了美国知识分子的精神危机。从政治角度来说，洪堡一直希望史蒂文森成为总统，结果竞选的失败，使他跟着倒霉；而西特林却不坦露自己的观点，与妻子丹妮丝的结合，让他可以进入白宫。总体来说，西特林的成功，在于他看清当时美国社会金钱、权利、名誉的“强大”，相比洪堡，一心想重建文化精神的平台却因“大势所趋”而没落。
西特林的“罪”、败落同样来自于这个物质社会。洪堡的败落之后，西特林避而远之，他是他的学生，却因为社会地位、金钱背弃了师生情。同时金钱也蔓延到他的家庭，他不仅不忠于自己的妻子，还与妓女莱娜达混在一起，他的背叛使得妻子丹妮丝的离婚，带走了大量的金钱，而莱娜达的贪婪，坎特拜尔的勒索，萨斯马的欺骗，律师的阴谋都让西特林耗尽钱财，处在破产的边缘。这时的西特林才发觉自己的人生与洪堡的破落相似，金钱让他迷失了自己，让他没有了尊严，没有了朋友、爱人，他得到了惩罚，他的情人最后与弗朗萨里结婚，留下一个孩子给他抚养。也许这是对他的一种惩罚吧，因为他曾经背叛了爱情、家庭。
最后的结局，西特林完成了自我的救赎，洪堡的死对他来说内心矛盾，他偷偷地哭泣，责备自己。而洪堡在死前又留在了一份礼物给西特林，这份礼物让他有了新的希望。他成功地获得了一笔补偿款，为了内心的愧疚，他重新把洪堡安葬，在他的墓地前竟然开出了番红花。也许这是洪堡原谅了西特林，或也许这是代表着西特林未来的新生活。
西特林的自我救赎，让人联想到了中国当下的都市文化精神也处在危机之中，过多地追求金钱，造成了人与人之间的冷漠、真情流失，在喧闹浮华的城市中文化、艺术又在一点一滴地消失。从这样的理念上来说，贝娄的《洪堡的礼物》虽然是在反映美国精神文化的危机，物质对精神地摧残，其实也是在警示现代化的大都市，不要只看金钱，不看文化精神！
西特林的“罪”、败落同样来自于这个物质社会。洪堡的败落之后，西特林避而远之，他是他的学生，却因为社会地位、金钱背弃了师生情。同时金钱也蔓延到他的家庭，他不仅不忠于自己的妻子，还与妓女莱娜达混在一起，他的背叛使得妻子丹妮丝的离婚，带走了大量的金钱，而莱娜达的贪婪，坎特拜尔的勒索，萨斯马的欺骗，律师的阴谋都让西特林耗尽钱财，处在破产的边缘。这时的西特林才发觉自己的人生与洪堡的破落相似，金钱让他迷失了自己，让他没有了尊严，没有了朋友、爱人，他得到了惩罚，他的情人最后与弗朗萨里结婚，留下一个孩子给他抚养。也许这是对他的一种惩罚吧，因为他曾经背叛了爱情、家庭。
最后的结局，西特林完成了自我的救赎，洪堡的死对他来说内心矛盾，他偷偷地哭泣，责备自己。而洪堡在死前又留在了一份礼物给西特林，这份礼物让他有了新的希望。他成功地获得了一笔补偿款，为了内心的愧疚，他重新把洪堡安葬，在他的墓地前竟然开出了番红花。也许这是洪堡原谅了西特林，或也许这是代表着西特林未来的新生活。
西特林的自我救赎，让人联想到了中国当下的都市文化精神也处在危机之中，过多地追求金钱，造成了人与人之间的冷漠、真情流失，在喧闹浮华的城市中文化、艺术又在一点一滴地消失。从这样的理念上来说，贝娄的《洪堡的礼物》虽然是在反映美国精神文化的危机，物质对精神地摧残，其实也是在警示现代化的大都市，不要只看金钱，不看文化精神！
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