THIS IS PARADISE
Book ID/图书代码： 11701212B52441
English Summary/英文概要： The Alldens are an ordinary English family. Teachers Don and Emily have four children: confident Liz, brilliant Clive, shy Lotte, and Benjamin, the late arrival. Liz, who can cook for twenty, wants her freedom and will have it. Clive draws and writes, knows he is great, knows he must fight. Lotte’s normal: she doesn’t want anything, much. Benjamin cannot decide. He’ll sing along and wait and see. They squabble and survive while the world changes. Go to work, go abroad, go to university, go to pieces. Don and Emily stick it out, for better and for worse. Their love is sometimes troubled, but whose isn’t? Their main worry is Clive, fragile and funny, his own worst enemy, the ardent boxing fan for whom the world does not add up. Born in the strangled blue corner, he nearly didn’t make it. He’s special.
But then the Alldens are a special family, and will find out why thirty years later when Emily falls ill, slowly, and those who love her make the journey home to say goodbye. They meet on the poor outskirts of the city in which they grew up, a place they’ve never been, where strangers gather. It is here that Emily, the unacknowledged centre of their very different lives, makes everyone wait and see.
This is a new experience. This is a world of shocking physical and mental distress, anger, failure and compassion. This is a story about allies and adversaries who are drawn to each other, the collective memory about which no one agrees. This is the third, saddest, funniest, and most powerful novel by Will Eaves: This Is Paradise.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 阿尔登(Alldens)一家是非常普通的英国家庭。唐(Don)和艾美利(Emily)老师育有4个孩子：自信的莉兹(Liz)，聪明的克莱夫(Clive)，害羞的乐天(Lotte)以及最小的本杰明(Benjamin)。莉兹有一手好厨艺，能烧出一桌子的好菜，她希望能尽快获得自由并一定会达成愿望；克莱夫喜欢画画和写作，他清楚知道自己很有能力，但也知道如果想获得机会则必须去争取；乐天是个很平常的孩子，她并不奢求很多东西；本杰明不能为自己做决定，他听话并等待着事情的结局。
当世界发生巨大变化的时候，他们也发生争吵，但也就这样生活了下来。四个兄弟姐妹有的出去工作，出国，去上大学，也有人意志崩溃。不管是好的还是坏的时光，唐和艾美利都坚持了下来。他们的婚姻关系有时发生了麻烦，但每对夫妻不都是这样吗？他们最担心的就是克莱夫，他很脆弱但幽默，是自己最大的敌人，他对拳击有份狂热的爱，却从来都没有在这上面成功过。出生时差点缺氧夭折，不可否认，他是一个特别的人。
所以从另一个方面来说，阿尔登一家也是特殊的，当30年后，艾美利患病在床，慢慢地，所有爱她的人都从四面八方赶来送她最后一程。他们在他们长大的城市一个破落，从没去过的郊区会合了。正是艾美利，使已经过着不同生活的亲人再次聚集在一起。
我们的世界就是这样的，它给人们带来身体上和心理上的极大痛苦，使人们遭受愤怒，失败和他人的怜悯。这个故事告诉我们盟友和敌人是相辅相成且可以相互转换的。这是维尔.易福斯(Will Eaves)的第三本小说《这就是天堂》，是悲伤的也是最欢愉，最具力量的一部小说。(XAT & CK)
Awards/获奖情况：对于这部新的小说《这就是天堂》的褒奖：
“易福斯很善于细致入微地观察，所以艾美利(Emily)与她处于青少年时期女儿的之间的紧张局势就被刻画得很微妙，作者从来不正面描写，我们却可以从字里行间看出一些具有进攻性的言行举止，这样的表达方式颇具智慧。这部小说让我想起了另外一部同样也是描写家庭故事的优秀小说，《爱德华·奥宾》(Edward St Aubyn)。”－ 观察家报（The Observer)
“使一部小说中有6个主角的确是一项颇具挑战性的工作，更何况小说的跨度也超过了几十年，易福斯成功地做到了，他用简单的场景和尖锐的对话很好地刻画了人物与故事背景。”—佩内洛普.莱福利(Penelope Lively)，《卫报》(The Guardian)
“易福斯把组成家庭生活的重要部分如出轨，庆典和相互的职责描写得相当细致。”—《每日邮报》(Daily Mail)
“这是一部相当优秀的小说，细腻的纪录着日常生活中的细节，带领着我们进入了主人公一家的生活，我们同阿尔登(Allden)一家共同欢笑，哭泣，最终，深深爱上了他们，我们知道，这其实也是我们的生活。”－《红周刊》(Red Magazine)
“易福斯的写作功力相当了得，有些心照不宣的东西却恰恰是我们家庭生活的核心，易福斯对这部分的描写很细致。我会把一些主要奖项颁给这部小说。”—《泰晤士时报》(The Times)
“在易福斯早期的小说中，他更多关注的是人与人之间的互动描写，而他对普通家庭生活的描写也同样出色。”—TLS
Praise for new novel, THIS IS PARADISE:
“Eaves has a real gift for nuanced observation. The tension between Emily and her growing teenage daughters – never expressed but left to slither out in acts of passive aggression – is conveyed brilliantly... the best passages are reminiscent of that other unflinching chronicler of family dynamics, Edward St Aubyn.”－ The Observer
“It is a challenge to assemble a cast of six (with further walk-on parts) and carry them across several decades; Eaves succeeds triumphantly. Economy is essential, and he does economy with great style, establishing people and situations with cameo scenes and sharp dialogue.” －Penelope Lively, The Guardian
“Eaves is extremely perceptive about the shifting loyalties, celebrations and recriminations that make up family life”－ Daily Mail
“this wry, warts and all narrative is beautifully written. There is a sense of kitchen sink, fly-on-the-wall documentary that takes the reader straight into the heart of the home. Having laughed and cried with the Alldens we end up loving them, knowing they are people just like us.” －Red Magazine
“Eaves’s writing is so beautiful and extraordinary that mundane events bristle with oddity… Eaves is brilliant about the unspoken conspiracies that bind the average family together. I’m placing best for some major prizes.” －The Times
“As in his earlier novels, Eaves writes with great insight about human interaction… Eaves is excellent, too, on those things common to all family life: the effort to forge collective well-being and the exasperation caused by dissent or non-cooperation.”－TLS
About the Author/作者介绍： 维尔.易福斯(Will Eaves)于1967年出生，他是《监督者》(The Oversight)（2001年）的作者，这部小说以及《没什么可说的》(Nothing to Declare)（2005年）入围了惠特布莱德最佳处女作奖。他是泰晤士报文学副刊前艺术编辑，现在在华威大学教授硕士写作。
WILL EAVES was born in Bath in 1967. He is the author of THE OVERSIGHT (2001), which was short-listed for the Whitbread Best First Novel Award, and also NOTHING TO DECLARE (2005). A former Arts Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Will now teaches an MA in Writing at the University of Warwick.
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