MOTHS

Book ID/图书代码： 12100007B13766

English Summary/英文概要： Vivid, allusive, heartbreaking and with an astonishing range and layers of meaning, this is a startlingly original, important and gripping novel about people forced constantly to improvise their lives, about regeneration and the courage to embrace those single moments of opportunity.
MOTHS tells the two extraordinary, but very different, stories of a Dutch father and son as they are separated in the aftermath of war and lose all hope of ever seeing each other again. The stories intersect one another, bringing real pathos in their great contrast: the father, a successful trader, intrepid, honourable and perhaps slightly brazen, ventures into Germany to see for himself what is happening at a time when, unbeknownst to him, the Russians are preparing to ‘liberate’ it. He is mistaken for a prison guard by them and taken to Russia, where he begins a new life in which survival is his single aim. His talent as a pianist is discovered by one of his captors, and together with other inmates he forms the Jack Band, playing the likes of Jelly Roll Morton to entertain the enthusiastically inebriated guards each evening. As their jazz repertoire grows, so does their fame and they are ordered to Moscow to play, where they unwittingly perform before Stalin. He gives his seal of approval to jazz and they play (and live) in Moscow’s best hotels, only to find themselves in the Gulags two years later, when jazz is banned overnight.
Opening in the 1930s, this stunning novel tells the parallel stories of a father and son whose lives take the reader through critical moments of mid 20th-century European history, in miniature - from WWII and its aftermath to the Siberian Gulag. Alongside its Nabokovian precision and dark undercurrents, it has an unexpected black humour as well as a fantastic jazz sub-plot. A self-indulgent Dutch businessman finds himself caught up in the liberation of Auschwitz, imprisoned as a spy by the liberating Russian army, shipped off to Minsk and Moscow to play in a bizarre jazz band, and then, when jazz becomes ’decadent’ once more, to the Gulag, where his estranged son, a long-distance runner, finally catches up with him...Meanwhile, the boy (called Dolboy, because he looks like a tiny blond doll) is brought up by his doting childless aunt in the flat farmlands of east Holland, post-war. Wherever he goes, he runs, past dark forests, foxgloves, fields and birch trees. One day his running takes him to an old moated castle, where the summer house is full of moths - and he meets the curious young girl who breeds and keeps the creatures. He becomes a world-class runner, she a photographer.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 這是一個關於父子因戰後餘波而分離的兩段交織感人故事。一對荷蘭父子卻因為戰爭結束，使他們再也無法相見。
原本是一位經商成功的Siberian Gulag，因為到戰敗德國尋找商機，卻深陷奧許維次集中營的解放活動(奧許維次Auschwitz--納粹對猶太民族大屠殺的集中營)，他被蘇聯紅軍視為間諜，而被囚禁帶到莫斯科。途中被其中一位俘虜他的那些軍人，發現Siberian居然有演奏鋼琴的天賦，從此他和其他的囚犯組成一個爵士樂團，每天夜晚娛樂那些守衛獄卒。想不到的是他們這個樂團居然愈來愈紅，甚至在獨裁武夫史達林面前表演，而且之後更是在蘇聯各地巡迴演出。
因為和父親失聯而被親戚帶往荷蘭Siberian Gulag的兒子被人取綽號叫做Dolboy(從小長相就像是個洋娃娃)，有時會遭人取笑且失去父親的他是個靠跑步抒發內心失落的孩子。有一天因為慢跑於森林鄉野間發現一座古堡，裡面全是飛蛾，由一個孤僻的奇怪女孩所飼養，兩人也因此相識。男孩之後成為一個世界級田競選手，女孩是一個知名的攝影師。
Siberian Gulag演奏的樂團轟動獲得廣大迴響，聞知父親似乎還活著的消息讓Dolboy千里迢迢尋找父親的下落，相離多年的親人是否能再度重逢….(CL)

Awards/获奖情况：Metro---A ’pleasing debut novel ... it approaches history as a shifting set of echoes and overlapping narratives’
Metro (Scotland) - Rev’d Claire Allfree---’The rhythmic pulse of his writing often reflects that of jazz’
Independent - Rev’d Tibor Fischer---`This debut novel boasts considerable logodaedalic verve... beautifully written and readable’
Independent on Sunday - Rev’d Christian House---’Moths displays humanity in all its shimmering beauty and base depravity.’
Times Literary Supplement ’scintillating novel...this writing, with extraordinary visual power, is a pleasure to read....The novel is full of richly imagined detail’
故事劇情的結構融合如電影《把愛找回來》-片中小男孩鍥而不捨追求夢想和追求愛的精神感動落淚；《阿甘正傳》-阿甘不停跑步讓他忘卻失去故事女主角Jenny的痛苦時代The Times更評為這是一本充滿奇想，極度感人的傑作

About the Author/作者介绍： Karl Manders worked for forty years as a journalist. He was a member of the Guardian Features Department for five years, and subsequently contributed to the paper for some years. For three years he was News Editor of Nature, and for a similar period Deputy Features Editor of The Telegraph Magazine. He has worked intermittently for The Sunday Times and contributed freelance features to New Scientist, Scientific American, Radio Times, and Reader’s Digest. He moved to North America where he edited photographic arts titles, before returning to Europe, and particularly the Netherlands where he learned Dutch. He is married and lives in Suffolk.
Karl Manders在新聞界待了40年，曾於各大媒體服務(衛報、Sunday Times、科學人、讀者文摘等)，他離開在美國工作的崗位回到歐洲，而因緣際會下學習荷蘭語言，這本是作者的第2部作品。

Format:

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：

原文第一章内容：暂无

手稿：暂无

大纲：暂无