LAUGHING SHALL I DIE: LIVES AND DEATHS OF THE GREAT VIKINGS
Book ID/图书代码： 14932920C00029
English Summary/英文概要： Laughing Shall I Die explores the Viking fascination with scenes of heroic death. The literature of the Vikings is dominated by famous last stands, famous last words, death songs, and defiant gestures, all presented with grim humor. Much of this mindset is markedly alien to modern sentiment, and academics have accordingly shunned it. And yet, it is this same worldview that has always powered the popular public image of the Vikings—with their berserkers, valkyries, and cults of Valhalla and Ragnarok—and has also been surprisingly corroborated by archaeological discoveries such as the Ridgeway massacre site in Dorset.
Was it this mindset that powered the sudden eruption of the Vikings onto the European scene? Was it a belief in heroic death that made them so lastingly successful against so many bellicose opponents? Weighing the evidence of sagas and poems against the accounts of the Vikings’ victims, Tom Shippey considers these questions as he plumbs the complexities of Viking psychology. Along the way, he recounts many of the great bravura scenes of Old Norse literature, including the Fall of the House of the Skjoldungs, the clash between the two great longships Ironbeard and Long Serpent, and the death of Thormod the skald. One of the most exciting books on Vikings for a generation, Laughing Shall I Die presents Vikings for what they were: not peaceful explorers and traders, but warriors, marauders, and storytellers.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 《笑问我会死吗》探索了维京人对英雄死亡场景的迷恋。维京人的文学作品充斥着著名的临终台词、著名的临终遗言、死亡歌曲和挑衅的手势，所有这些都带有冷酷的幽默。这种思维方式明显与现代情绪格格不入，因此学术界对此避之唯恐不及。然而，正是这一世界观始终推动着维京人的大众形象，他们的狂暴者、女武神以及对瓦尔哈拉和拉格纳罗克的崇拜，也令人惊讶地得到了考古发现的证实，如多塞特的里奇韦大屠杀遗址。
正是这种心态推动了维京人在欧洲的突然爆发？是一种对英勇死亡的信仰使他们在面对如此多好战的对手时取得了如此持久的成功吗？汤姆·希佩在权衡传说和诗歌的证据与维京人受害者的叙述后，在探究维京人心理的复杂性时，考虑了这些问题。一路上，他讲述了古挪威文学中许多精彩的场面，包括斯乔尔邓家的倒塌，以及斯卡德人托莫德的死亡。
一代人以来最激动人心的关于维京人的书之一《笑问我会死吗》展示了维京人的本来面目：他们不是和平的探险家和商人，而是战士、掠夺者和故事讲述者。（WYL）
Awards/获奖情况：“这本书的内容既宏伟又活泼友好，偶尔还带着尖刺！希佩的代表作不仅提供了令人振奋的、让人心旷神怡的对北欧海盗历史的评价和复述，而且还邀请人们去探索中世纪北方的诗歌和散文。”——迈克尔·迪尔达，《华盛顿邮报》
“希佩勇敢地“航行”在教学室的“舒适区”之间，公然“用自己的方式”描绘维京人。他向我们展示了文学和考古证据都有助于让我们更接近古老的挪威思维，为维京人对他们的生活检查提供了迷人的证据。”——卡琳·阿尔滕伯格，《华尔街日报》
“这本书生动地复述一些伟大的故事。”——朱迪思·耶什，《泰晤士报文学副刊》
“今天，许多关于维京人的流行言论倾向于将中世纪欧洲北部居民改造成受人尊敬的人。希佩在《笑问我会死吗》一书中，用一种发人深省和有趣的方式探索了维京人的思维定势。自始至终，希佩独特的声音响亮而清晰：健谈、睿智、带有黑色喜剧，与他探索的古老挪威传奇和诗歌不一样。”——埃莉诺·罗莎蒙德·巴拉克劳夫，文学评论
“引人入胜，这本书与中世纪故事一样令人难忘和愉快，它为任何对维京人感兴趣的人探索了一本不容错过的读物。”
“希佩令人无法抗拒的新书《笑问我会死吗》详细挖掘了北欧传奇和诗歌中维京人物的生活、战斗和死亡。冷酷、善辩、充满活力的《笑问我会死吗》不仅具有娱乐性和挑战性，而且是我们将要读的最具维京海盗色彩的书。”——史蒂夫·多诺霍，《公开信评论》
"Magnificent. . . . Lively, friendly and occasionally barbed. . . . Shippey’s magnum opus provides not only an exhilarating, mind-expanding appraisal and retelling of Viking history but also an invitation to discover the cold-iron poetry and prose of the medieval North. Take up that invitation."
-- Michael Dirda, Washington Post
“Shippey sails gallantly between the skerries of faculty-room ‘comfort zones,’ defiantly portraying the Vikings ‘in their own terms.’ . . . He shows us that both literary and archaeological evidence can help to bring us closer to the Old Norse mindset, providing fascinating proof of the Vikings’ own intellectual examination of their place in the world.”
-- Karin Altenberg, Wall Street Journal
"A lively retelling of some great stories."
-- Judith Jesch, Times Literary Supplement
"Today, much of the popular discourse on the Vikings tends to be directed towards the rehabilitation of medieval Europe’s northerly inhabitants as respectable people. In Laughing Shall I Die, Shippey blows this longship out of the water with a thought-provoking and entertaining exploration of the Viking mind-set, which he describes variously as ‘psychopathic’ and a ‘death cult’. . . . Throughout, Shippey’s distinctive voice comes across loud and clear: conversational, intelligent, irreverent, darkly comic—not unlike the Old Norse sagas and poems he explores. Psychopathic death cult or otherwise, I suspect the Vikings themselves would have approved of both the tone and the content."
-- Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Literary Review
"Fascinating . . . Spirited, engaging, and frequently very funny, this book is as memorable and enjoyable as the medieval stories it explores—an unmissable read for anyone interested in the Vikings."
, BBC History Magazine
"Shippey’s irresistible new book Laughing Shall I Die is a densely-detailed excavation of the lives, battles, and deaths of the towering figures from the Norse sagas and poems. . . . Flinty, argumentative, bristling with energy—Laughing Shall I Die is not only entertaining and challenging . . . it’s also the most Viking Viking book we’ll likely see all year."
-- Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
About the Author/作者介绍： 汤姆·希佩曾在英国和美国的六所大学任教，包括牛津大学和哈佛大学。他以中世纪文学和现代文学创作的方式而闻名于世。他在利兹大学担任英国语言和中世纪文学的主席。他是密苏里州圣路易斯大学的名誉教授，著有许多书，包括《中土之路》、《世纪作家托尔金》、《艰苦阅读：从科幻小说中学习》，他还是《批判遗产：贝奥武夫》和《阴影漫游者：雅各布·格里姆的怪物神话》的编辑。Tom Shippey has taught at six universities in the United Kingdom and the United States, including Oxford and Harvard. He is well-known for his writings on medieval literature and on the way that literature has been re-created in modern times—notably by Professor J. R. R. Tolkien, whom he followed as chair of English language and medieval literature at the University of Leeds. He is professor emeritus at Saint Louis University, Missouri, and the author of many books, including The Road to Middle-Earth, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, and Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction, as well as the editor of The Critical Heritage: Beowulf and The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous.
Format:HARDCOVER
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
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