内容简介
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year 'Outstanding...a stunningly good read' Observer 'Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement... Wise and bleakly funny' Ian McEwan The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.
作者简介
Mark Haddon is an author, illustrator and screenwriter who has written fifteen books for children and won two BAFTAs. He lives in Oxford.
内页插图
精彩书评
"I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you won't want to lend yours out."
--Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
"A delightful and brilliant book. Very moving, very plausible and very funny."
--Oliver Sacks
"Brilliantly empathetic. Believe the hype: a brilliant, heart-warming book."
--Scotsman
"A remarkable book. An impressive achievement and a rewarding read."
--Time Out
精彩书摘
2. It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears's house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer, for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.
I went through Mrs. Shears's gate, closing it behind me. I walked onto her lawn and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on the muzzle of the dog. It was still warm.
The dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs. Shears, who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.
Wellington was a poodle. Not one of the small poodles that have hairstyles but a big poodle. It had curly black fur, but when you got close you could see that the skin underneath the fur was a very pale yellow, like chicken.
I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why.
3. My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057.
Eight years ago, when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture and I knew that it meant "sad," which is what I felt when I found the dead dog.
Then she showed me this picture and I knew that it meant "happy," like when I'm reading about the Apollo space missions, or when I am still awake at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. in the morning and I can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am the only person in the whole world.
Then she drew some other pictures but I was unable to say what these meant.
I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them exactly what they meant. I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn't understand what someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people's faces move very quickly.
When I told Siobhan that I was doing this, she got out a pencil and another piece of paper and said it probably made people feel very and then she laughed. So I tore the original piece of paper up and threw it away. And Siobhan apologized. And now if I don't know what someone is saying, I ask them what they mean or I walk away.
5. I pulled the fork out of the dog and lifted him into my arms and hugged him. He was leaking blood from the fork holes.
I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.
I had been hugging the dog for 4 minutes when I heard screaming. I looked up and saw Mrs. Shears running toward me from the patio. She was wearing pajamas and a housecoat. Her toenails were painted bright pink and she had no shoes on.
She was shouting, "What in fuck's name have you done to my dog?"
I do not like people shouting at me. It makes me scared that they are going to hit me or touch me and I do not know what is going to happen.
"Let go of the dog," she shouted. "Let go of the fucking dog for Christ's sake."
I put the dog down on the lawn and moved back 2 meters.
She bent down. I thought she was going to pick the dog up herself, but she didn't. Perhaps she noticed how much blood there was and didn't want to get dirty. Instead she started screaming again.
I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes and rolled forward till I was hunched up with my forehead pressed onto the grass. The grass was wet and cold. It was nice.
7. This is a murder mystery novel.
Siobhan said that I should write something I would want to read myself. Mostly I read books about science and maths. I do not like proper novels. In proper novels people say things like, "I am veined with iron, with silver and with streaks of common mud. I cannot contract into the firm fist which those clench who do not depend on stimulus."1 What does this mean? I do not know. Nor does Father. Nor does Siobhan or Mr. Jeavons. I have asked them.
Siobhan has long blond hair and wears glasses which are made of green plastic. And Mr. Jeavons smells of soap and wears brown shoes that have approximately 60 tiny circular holes in each of them.
But I do like murder mystery novels. So I am writing a murder mystery novel.
In a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the murderer is and then catch them. It is a puzzle. If it is a good puzzle you can sometimes work out the answer before the end of the book.
Siobhan said that the book should begin with something to grab people's attention. That is why I started with the dog. I also started with the dog because it happened to me and I find it hard to imagine things which did not happen to me.
Siobhan read the first page and said that it was different. She put this word into inverted commas by making the wiggly quotation sign with her first and second fingers. She said that it was usually people who were killed in murder mystery novels. I said that two dogs were killed in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the hound itself and James Mortimer's spaniel, but Siobhan said they weren't the victims of the murder, Sir Charles Baskerville was. She said that this was because readers cared more about people than dogs, so if a person was killed in a book, readers would want to carry on reading.
I said that I wanted to write about something real and I knew people who had died but I did not know any people who had been killed, except Mr. Paulson, Edward's father from school, and that was a gliding accident, not murder, and I didn't really know him. I also said that I cared about dogs because they were faithful and honest, and some dogs were cleverer and more interesting than some people. Steve, for example, who comes to the school on Thursdays, needs help to eat his food and could not even fetch a stick. Siobhan asked me not to say this to Steve's mother.
11. Then the police arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and numbers and you know what they are meant to be doing. There was a policewoman and a policeman. The policewoman had a little hole in her tights on her left ankle and a red scratch in the middle of the hole. The policeman had a big orange leaf stuck to the bottom of his shoe which was poking out from one side.
The policewoman put her arms round Mrs. Shears and led her back toward the house.
I lifted my head off the grass.
The policeman squatted down beside me and said, "Would you like to tell me what's going on here, young man?"
I sat up and said, "The dog is dead."
"I'd got that far," he said.
I said, "I think someone killed the dog."
"How old are you?" he asked.
I replied, "I am 15 years and 3 months and 2 days."
"And what, precisely, were you doing in the garden?" he asked.
"I was holding the dog," I replied.
"And why were you holding the dog?" he asked.
This was a difficult question. It was something I wanted to do. I like dogs. It made me sad to see that the dog was dead.
I like policemen, too, and I wanted to answer the question properly, but the policeman did not give me enough time to work out the correct answer.
"Why were you holding the dog?" he asked again.
"I like dogs," I said.
"Did you kill the dog?" he asked.
I said, "I did not kill the dog."
"Is this your fork?" he asked.
I said, "No."
"You seem very upset about this," he said.
He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works. The factory is a bakery and he operates the slicing machines. And sometimes a slicer is not working fast enough but the bread keeps coming and there is a blockage. I sometimes think of my mind as a machine, but not always as a bread-slicing machine. It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going on inside it.
The policeman said, "I am going to ask you once again . . ."
I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world. It is like when you are upset and you hold the radio against your ear and you tune it halfway between two stations so that all you get is white noise and then you turn the volume right up so that this is all you can hear and then you know you are safe because you cannot hear anything else.
The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet.
I didn't like him touching me like this.
And this is when I hit him.
13. This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them. Here is a joke, as an example. It is one of Father's.
His face was drawn but the curtains were real.
I know why this is meant to be funny. I asked. It is because drawn has three meanings, and they are (1) drawn with a pencil, (2) exhausted, and (3) pulled across a window, and meaning 1 refers to both the face and the curtains, meaning 2 refers only to the face, and meaning 3 refers only to the curtains.
If I try to say the joke to myself, making the word mean the three ...
迷失的地图与失落的旋律:一本关于记忆、时间和失落的史诗 图书名称:《失落的星图与未竟的交响》(The Lost Astrolabe and the Unfinished Symphony) 作者:伊莱亚斯·凡·德·维尔德 (Elias van der Velde) 装帧:精装 --- 引言:时间之河的低语 在艾姆斯特丹的阴影中,在那些被运河的水声和古老砖石的气味所笼罩的狭窄街道上,时间似乎以一种不同的节奏流动着。它不像现代的节拍那样急促而冰冷,而更像是一首被遗忘的巴洛克乐曲,充满了冗长的休止符和精妙的装饰音。 《失落的星图与未竟的交响》并非一本关于侦探或明确的谜团的书籍。它是一部对“失去”的深刻沉思,是对那些被记忆的潮汐卷走、再也无法完全寻回的事物所发出的挽歌。故事围绕着两个看似毫不相干的元素展开:一幅失传已久、据信能揭示“时间流速差异”的文艺复兴时期星图,以及一位二十世纪初荷兰作曲家遗留下的一部未完成的宏大交响乐。 第一部分:梵·德·维尔德的遗产 故事的叙述者是阿莱克斯·范·德·维尔德,一位年迈的钟表匠,他继承了家族世代相传的位于约旦区(Jordaan)的一间摇摇欲坠的工作室。阿莱克斯的生活被精确的机械节奏所支配,每一颗齿轮的咬合、每一支发条的松紧,都代表着他对秩序的执着。然而,他的内心深处却被一种巨大的虚空所占据——那是他祖父,著名但古怪的航海制图师和天文爱好者,西奥多·范·德·维尔德,留下的未解之谜。 西奥多在一战前夕神秘失踪,只留下了一个上了锁的橡木箱子。箱子里没有黄金,没有情书,只有一叠关于“以太漂移”的晦涩笔记,以及一张模糊不清的素描——那似乎是一张极其复杂的星图,上面标注着一些阿莱克斯从未见过的星座。家族传说声称,这幅“星图”并非用于导航海洋,而是用于导航“时间”。 阿莱克斯起初对祖父的“痴迷”嗤之以鼻,直到他开始修复一台被遗弃多年的、拥有非传统走时机制的古董天文钟。这台钟表内部的复杂结构,似乎与他无意中发现的一段来自二十世纪二十年代的乐谱片段有着惊人的相似性。 第二部分:未竟的和谐 这段乐谱片段,是属于另一位隐居的艺术家——作曲家卡雷尔·德·布鲁因的遗作。卡雷尔被誉为“光影的音乐家”,他的作品以捕捉瞬间的情感变化而闻名。然而,他的最后一部作品,《永恒的七号交响曲》,却永远停在了第三乐章的尾声。人们普遍认为,卡雷尔因无法找到那个“完美的收尾和弦”而心力交瘁,最终放弃了创作。 阿莱克斯通过一个偶然的机会,接触到了一个致力于复原失传艺术作品的私人研究小组。他们对卡雷尔的研究陷入了瓶颈,因为他们缺乏关键的理论支撑。卡雷尔在日记中多次提到,他试图用音乐来“描绘”星辰的运动,特别是他所称的“那张图”。 随着阿莱克斯深入研究祖父的笔记,他开始意识到,星图和交响乐之间存在着一种超越逻辑的共振。星图上的复杂几何图形,竟能被转化为音符的时值和和声的结构;而交响乐的某些不和谐音,似乎映射着星图上那些“异常”的天体位置。 第三部分:记忆的残片与时间的悖论 探索之旅将阿莱克斯从艾姆斯特丹带到了布鲁日和里斯本的古老图书馆。他追寻着西奥多留下的线索,发现星图的描绘指向了一个被遗忘的葡萄牙制图学派,他们相信宇宙的和谐并非均匀分布,而是存在着局部的时间加速和减缓区域。 阿莱克斯发现,西奥多并非试图“测量”时间,而是试图“定位”那些时间流速不同的“节点”——这些节点,或许就是卡雷尔在创作中感受到的,那些让他无法捕捉的“瞬间”。 在里斯本的一个尘封的档案馆里,阿莱克斯找到了一封西奥多的信件,收件人正是卡雷尔。信中解释道,他通过计算特定星体在特定时间点的位置,推导出了一个“情感频率”,他相信这个频率就是卡雷尔所需要的“收尾和弦”。然而,西奥多在完成计算后不久便神秘失踪,带着那份完整的星图。 高潮与回响 阿莱克斯最终在祖父在比利牛斯山脉中一处废弃的观测站找到了星图的残本——它被巧妙地隐藏在一架破旧的天文望远镜内部。但令他震惊的是,星图并非描绘已知的宇宙,而是一张描绘“人类集体记忆”的图景。某些“星座”代表着被遗忘的重大历史事件,某些“星云”则对应着集体潜意识中被压抑的悲伤。 那“时间流速差异”并非物理现象,而是记忆强度对感知速度的影响。 手持着完整的星图和未竟的交响乐稿,阿莱克斯回到了他的钟表店。他没有试图“修复”时间,而是选择了一种更具艺术性的方式来面对失落。他不再只是钟表匠,而是成为了一个翻译者。 在漫长的冬夜里,他将西奥多的几何计算,用卡雷尔的音乐语言重新编织。他没有“完成”交响乐,而是创作了一个“回应”——一个基于星图“节点”的、全新的尾声。这个尾声不是一个激昂的终结,而是一个带着深深的、近乎透明的宁静的结束。它接纳了失落,承认了不完美,就像运河水流过千年古桥时,那永恒的、带着忧郁的低语。 结语:时间的纹理 《失落的星图与未竟的交响》是一部关于寻找连接点的作品:连接过去与现在、逻辑与情感、科学与艺术。它探讨了人类如何通过艺术去抵抗遗忘,以及如何在一个不断流逝的世界中,为那些重要的、却已消散的瞬间,找到一个永恒的栖息之所。读者将跟随阿莱克斯,体验一场对精确与模糊、存在与虚无之间微妙平衡的深刻探索。这是一部献给所有珍视那些只存在于心间、无法被记录的旋律与影像的人们的作品。