CABOT WRIGHT BEGINS

Book ID/图书代码： 06000013B63983

English Summary/英文概要： Cabot Wright Begins, first published in 1964, may be one of the most neglected masterpieces in post–World War II American literature. Cabot Wright is a handsome, Yale-educated stockbroker and scion of a good family. He also happens to be the convicted rapist of nearly three hundred women. Bernie Gladhart is a naive used-car salesman from Chicago, who—spurred on by his ambitious wife—decides to travel to Brooklyn and write the Great American Novel about the recently paroled Cabot Wright. As Bernie tries to track down Wright in Brooklyn, he encounters a series of bizarre and Dickensian characters and sets in motion an extraordinary chain of events. In this merciless and outrageous satire of American culture, cult writer James Purdy is unsparing and prophetic in his portrayal of television, publishing, Wall Street, race, urban poverty, sex, and the false values of American culture in a work compared to Candide by Susan Sontag. Considered too scabrous for the stifling culture mores of the early 1960s, Purdy’s comic fiction evokes "an American psychic landscape of deluded innocence, sexual obsession, violence and isolation" (New York Times).

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 詹姆斯•珀迪短篇小说集汇集了大师的56部作品，其中包括他尚未发表的文章，一并收集在这部单卷中。与他不可归类的多产作品一样，詹姆斯•珀迪被认为是美国二十世纪的下半叶，文坛最为伟大的作家之一。与美国文坛的其他著名作家，伊迪丝•斯特韦尔、戈尔•维达尔、保罗•鲍尔斯、田纳西•威廉斯、卡尔•范韦克滕、约翰•考柏•波伊斯和桃乐丝•帕克尔所倡导的先锋派不同，迄今为止，珀迪的大部分作品还徘徊于美国文学主流前卫的边缘。(Sandy)

Awards/获奖情况：Publishers Weekly Even in 1964, when this novel was first published, it would have been an uphill slog to plausibly characterize a serial rapist as a philanthropist, and the angle of ascent has only increased in the ensuing decades. Cabot Wright works on Wall Street after graduating from college, but his main activity is rape—“he was no respecter of age, raping girls, young ladies, middle-aged matrons, and even elderly women.” But Wright is no violent psychopath; he uses “some form of hypnotism” on his prey, raping “easily and well.” If that description isn’t offensive enough, having women eagerly anticipating his attentions rather than fearing them will be more than most readers will tolerate, even if offered with tongue-in-cheek awareness. Wright’s predations are recounted via an awkward framing device—a sad-sack car salesman, Bernie Gladhart, is egged on by his wife to travel to Brooklyn to interview Wright for a novel based on his life. Pretentious prose (“Loneliness feels so good after the mythic contact with the social”) doesn’t enhance this unsuccessful satire. (July) New York Times Book Review - Susan Sontag “It might be loosely described as a bravura work of satire—a satire on pornographic fantasy, a satire on New York literary life, a satire on affluent eccentric mid-century America. Except that satire is perhaps too narrow a term to convey the kind of comedy that Purdy writes…Rather [it is] the vehicle for a universal comic vision.” Paul Bowles “James Purdy has succeeded better than anyone else around at the moment in re-creating the U.S.A. and presenting it simultaneously as his own invention and as a faithful reflection of reality—not an easy feat. Cabot Wright Begins is a delight all the way through.” Susan Sontag - New York Times Book Review “It might be loosely described as a bravura work of satire—a satire on pornographic fantasy, a satire on New York literary life, a satire on affluent eccentric mid-century America. Except that satire is perhaps too narrow a term to convey the kind of comedy that Purdy writes…Rather [it is] the vehicle for a universal comic vision.”

About the Author/作者介绍： James Purdy, born in 1914, is undergoing a major literary renaissance. The author of Malcolm and now The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy, he lived in New York until his death in 2009.

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

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