BERLIN CANTATA

Book ID/图书代码： 00408812B54317

English Summary/英文概要： "A city that has lost one of its limbs and is receiving a miraculous gift, a little bump under the flesh, where the limb is just beginning to grow back." Thus does the American girl in Jeffrey Lewis’ remarkable polyphonic novel describe Berlin and the "remnant Jews, secret GDR Jews . . . Soviet Jews . . . Jews who’d fled and come back with the victors, Jews who were lost mandarins now, Jews who’d believed in the universality of man and maybe still did" she finds at a gathering in the eastern city soon after the Wall fell.

At the center of Berlin Cantata is a house owned successively by Jews, Nazis, and Communists. In the house, the American girl seeks her hidden past. In the girl, a local reporter seeks redemption. In the reporter, a false hero of the past seeks exposure. In the false hero, the American girl seeks a guide. And so it goes, a round of conspiracy and desire. Berlin Cantata deploys thirteen voices to tell a story of atonement, discovery, loss, identity, intrigue, mystery, insanity, sadomasochism, and lies.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 由十三位解说员所构成的这部Lewis的这部最新之作，细述了一个城市的故事，以及在城中居民寻求对曾经过往的一场救赎之旅。 这一连串的故事发生在一位犹太裔美国女人Holly的举动中，当冬青属，犹太美国妇女，当柏林墙被推倒后，父母曾经在纳粹大屠杀浩劫期间被驱逐夺走的房子将被归还之际，Holly来到了柏林。 十年间，父母的房产顷刻间被当时的纳粹和日后的共产主义者所吞噬，Holly发现现在的房子还被一个名曰“老东德作家协会”的其他成员所霸占着。想要重新拥有自己的家园，让身心备受折磨的父母得以慰藉，远比她期望得要复杂得多。此时的柏林， 正如书中的一个旁白所述 “ (在冷战的政治背景下，万物如同在强烈探照灯照射下，以一种不对称的奇怪模式在温室中生长”)，她遇见一个谎称自己是战争英雄的骗子，和一位地方记者，他们俩，都在以他们的各自叙述，流露出或压抑着，明示着他们之间的关系的秘密。有关历史变迁所铸就的忠诚和欺骗，叙述者的故事中充斥着对这座城市中的人们对于痛失的极度痛苦，和不顾一切地寻求自我认同感的绝望。 作者通过给故事中的人物的真情流露，Lewis用同情的笔触书写了故事中的这些人物，并深入探索了曾经一度受暴力阴影所遗留给这座城市的纷争。(Sandy)

Awards/获奖情况：一座背负着沉重罪恶历史的城市，承载着的耻辱过去，甚至令几代德国人都无法面对全欧洲，

一位肩负着寻回自己家园的犹太裔女子，努力想要为父母找到一丝慰藉，却发现无处申公理，

一群失落的城市居民在自我救赎的道路中迷失了方向 ……
这部小说中对于当时柏林的在冷战的描述，也许会时不时地让你联想到一部关于上世纪80年代东德的电影《Das Leben der Anderen/他人的生活》，故事发生在1984年，地点是在东德柏林，每一次的开头字幕出现的是“公开化无处不在”。全东德百姓被一百万国家秘密警察（中文也有经典翻译盖世太保Geheime Staats Polizei）控制着，国家安全局的窃听手段像《1984》中的电幕系统一样掌握和控制着人民的思想。“你只能在这样的假定下生活——从已经成为本能的习惯出发，你早已这样生活了：你发出的每一个声音，都是有人听到的，你作的每一个动作，除非在黑暗中，都是有人仔细观察的。”
这部作品充满着时代的烙印，作者用旁白的叙述记录着那个令人压抑窒息的岁月，用同情的语气，哀叹着这座城市居民所挥之不去的阴霾。

"The novel begs to be read more than once, to savor every nuance of expression, inner conflict, and resolution." Jewish Book Council

"Thirteen narrators comprise the choir of Lewis’s newest, a story of a city and its inhabitants seeking atonement for the past. A chain of events is set into motion when Holly, a Jewish American woman, travels to Berlin soon after the fall of the Wall to reclaim the house from which her parents were expelled during the Holocaust. In the decades since her parents lost the property, both Nazis and Communists owned the house, and Holly finds it currently occupied by the remaining members of the "old East German Writers Union." The quest to repossess the home, and thus gain closure for the horrors inflicted on her parents, is far more complex than she expected. Whilst in Berlin (which one narrator describes as "a hothouse, that had grown under the Cold War’s searchlights exotic flowers of every inappropriate variety"), she meets a fraudulent war hero and a local journalist, both of whom, in their respective narratives, reveal or withhold secrets that inform the relationships between them. Linked by a history of shifting loyalties and deceit, the narrator’s stories are filled with the agony of loss and the desperate search for identity. By giving voice to his characters, Lewis navigates their tales with compassion and fully explores the complications of living in a city haunted by its violent past."-Publishers Weekly

"The great strengths in Jeffrey Lewis’ previous four novels have now been brought together in such a happy way in Berlin Cantata, with striking characters, atmosphere and plot, that a clear career arc emerges. He has been painstakingly, novel by novel, constructing an oeuvre that puts him in the ranks of the country’s must-read authors. In Berlin Cantata Lewis plays his multifarious voices like a conducting maestro with the instruments in his orchestra. You never know what the next voice will say until he or she says exactly what you suddenly realize you’ve been waiting to hear. Read on."- Peter Davis, director of Hearts and Minds, and author of If You Came This Way

"In BERLIN CANTATA, Jeffrey Lewis has written a stunning novel, as deep and intriguing as the city itself. The varied cast of characters tell their own stories as they wind their tortured and tortuous way through the dark past toward some kind of understanding, if not atonement. I was utterly absorbed by this book.- Lee Smith

About the Author/作者介绍： Jeffery Lewis 是几部书的作者，他曾获得过无数奖项，其中包括独立出版商的的文学金奖，和两个艾美奖和作家协会奖。

Jeffrey Lewis is the author of Meritocracy: A Love Story (2005), Theme Song for an Old Show (2007), The Conference of the Birds (2007), and Adam the King (2008). He has won a string of awards, including the Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Literary Fiction for his novels, and two Emmy Awards and the Writer’s Guild Award for his work as a writer and producer on Hill Street Blues.

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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