用戶:MonicaLee1996/True at First Light 1

Bookcover showing a photograph of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background and a green plain in the foreground

《曙光示真》的第一版封面，出版於199年

《曙光示真》是美國小說家 歐內斯特·海明威的作品，記錄了海明威與第四任妻子瑪麗於1953-1954年間在東亞的旅行，該書在海明威的百年誕辰1999年出版。 大眾媒體對這本書的評價並不理想，甚至在文學界激起了爭論，爭論有關於作家逝世後他的作品是否應該被重新編撰並發表。 與大眾媒體中評論家不同的是，研究海明威的學者普遍認為，《曙光示真》 是一本內容豐富的作品，同時是海明威後期作品中的傑出代表。

1954年1月，海明威和瑪麗在非洲叢林中兩天內遭遇了兩次墜機。 在他抵達恩德培接受記者採訪時，國際媒體報道稱他已經死亡。直到幾個月後海明威回到歐洲，他的傷勢才為大眾所知。 在接下來的兩年裏，海明威在哈瓦那度過了大部分時間，在那裏他修改並撰寫了那本被他稱之為'有關非洲的書'，這本書在他1961年7月自殺時仍未完成。 在20世紀70年代，瑪麗把它和海明威的其他手稿一起捐贈給約翰 · f · 甘迺迪圖書館。 這份手稿於20世紀90年代中期被海明威的兒子帕特里克發行。 帕特里克將這部作品縮減為原稿的一半，以強化故事情節並突出其小說色彩。 最終這本書成為了一部同時帶有傳記和小說色彩的作品。

在書中，海明威探討了婚姻里的衝突，在非洲歐洲文化與當地文化之間的衝突，以及當一位作家面臨瓶頸期時的恐懼感。 本書涵括了他對早期與其他作家間友誼的描寫和對寫作本質的闡釋。

寫作背景

海明威曾與第二任妻子波琳在1933年去過非洲旅行，他一直有再去一趟的打算。 那次旅程激發了海明威創作《乞力馬扎羅山的雪》的靈感，該短篇小說被收錄在了《非洲的青山》中，這本書是海明威傑出作品中重要的一部分。 二十年後，1953年，在完成《老人與海》的寫作後，海明威打算去坦噶尼喀探望他的兒子帕特里克。 美國雜誌《展望》表示願意為他的旅行提供1萬5千美元的資金支持，並出資1萬美元邀請他撰寫一篇3500字的關於此次旅行的文章，同時派Earl Theisen作為攝影師隨行，聽到這些後海明威很快答應了。 海明威和妻子瑪麗在六月離開了古巴，首先到了歐洲為接下來的旅程稍作安排，幾個月後他們從威尼斯出發前往坦噶尼喀。 他們於八月抵達，海明威很激動能成為一名榮譽監督官，在信中他寫道，」這都是肯雅危機導致的「。海明威旅途中的嚮導Philip Percival，在1933年加入了這對夫婦為期四個月的探險；他們沿着肯雅撒冷蓋的堤岸出發，在那裏攝影師Earl Theisen捕捉下了海明威與象群的合影， 隨後他們來到了基馬納沼澤，裂谷 ，最後前往坦噶尼喀探望海明威的兒子帕特里克。在拜訪了帕特里克的農場後，他們在乞力馬扎羅山的北坡處安頓了兩個多月。 在此期間，嚮導珀西瓦爾離開了他們的營地回到帕特里克的農場，留下海明威擔任狩獵監督官的職位，當地的守衛會定期像他匯報。海明威很自豪可以擔任此職位，同時他相信：根據這期間的經驗，他可以完成一本書的寫作。

In the early 1970s, portions of the manuscript had been serialized in Sports Illustrated and anthologized. Mary Hemingway approved the segments published by Sports Illustrated: segments described by Patrick Hemingway as a "straight account of a shooting safari". In a 1999 talk presented at the annual Oak Park Hemingway Society dinner, Patrick Hemingway admitted ownership of Ernest Hemingway's manuscripts had "a rather tortuous history". Access to the Africa manuscript—and to other Hemingway material—required a lawsuit and an eventual agreement with the Hemingway Society.

Scribner's requested a book of fewer than 100,000 words. Patrick Hemingway worked for two years with the 200,000-word manuscript—initially converting to an electronic format, and then editing out superfluous material. He strengthened the storyline, and eliminated long descriptive passages with disparaging remarks about family members and living persons. He explains the manuscript was a draft lacking "ordinary housekeeping chores" such as character names. The cuts made, he said, maintained the integrity of the story and "the reader is not deprived of the essential quality of the book".

Genre

In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there, absolutely true, beautiful and believable.

—Ernest Hemingway's epigraph for True at First Light

s a travel journal that became a "fanciful memoir" and then a novel of sorts. Patrick Hemingway believed adamantly the manuscript was more than a journal. He emphasized the storyline because, as he explains, "the essential quality of the book is an action with a love interest". He tightened the hunting scenes, and to honor his father's statement to the reader that "where I go, you go" he emphasized the mid-20th century Africa scenes and "the real relation between people ... on that continent". Although he fictionalized the storyline, Patrick Hemingway said of the characters, "I knew every single one ... very well indeed". Hemingway scholar Robert Fleming (who reworked the manuscript as Under Kilimanjaro) considers Patrick Hemingway's editing essentially to be correct because he believes the work shows evidence of an author unable to "turn off the mechanism that produces fiction". The marital conflict is where Fleming believes the book took "a metafictional turn". The published book is marketed as fiction.

Fleming considers True at First Light similar to Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa and A Moveable Feast—a book that presents a primary topic as a backdrop interspersed with internal dialogue. Unlike the other two books, True at First Light is without a preface "indicating the intentions of the author or dictating how he intended to have the book read". Fleming thinks Hemingway regarded Green Hills of Africa as experimental and A Moveable Feast as fiction. Rose Marie Burwell, author of Hemingway: The Postwar Years and the Posthumous Novels, believes Hemingway enjoyed writing the "strange combination of memoir and fiction". She thinks in the fictional aspects of True at First Light he is free to imagine a second wife and to jettison his Protestant background.

主題

海明威是"最肯定的假期"，在 真實的，在第一個光 寫弗萊明; 和伯韋爾看到的是一個提交人是誰願意和愉快地享受的假期，行為幼稚的，無所不知的效果，他的行為有關成員的營地。 給人的印象是一個人尋求深入研究文化的非洲衝突，這需要一個虛構的轉Debba的故事情節。 瑪麗是其特徵為一個嘮叨而角色的作家提出的作為"寧靜的、成熟和充滿愛"，沉浸在自己的本土文化。

Reception

Hemingway with a Cape buffalo in Africa in 1953. The publication of True at First Light began to shift critics emphasis away from the image of the "white man with a gun" in his works.

Although it was listed on The New York Times Best Seller list, the book received poor reviews from the popular press, although better reviews from Hemingway scholars. In a pre-publication review for The New York Times, Ralph Blumenthal said that True at First Light was not as good as Hemingway's earlier autobiographical fiction, and he questioned whether Hemingway would have wanted his "reputation and last printed words entrusted solely to any editor, even a son". Blumenthal wondered about the autobiographical aspects of the work: the relationship between Hemingway and Debba; the background of the Look magazine photoshoot; the safari itself; and the subsequent plane accidents. In the 1999 The New York Times review, James Wood claimed Hemingway knew True at First Light was not a novel though the editors billed it as one. He believes Hemingway's later work became a parody of the earlier work. True at First Light represents the worst of Hemingway's work according to a review in The Guardian.

Christopher Ondaatje writes in The Independent that the existence of a Hemingway industry tends to overshadow his posthumous work. He considers Hemingway's African stories to be among his best although the posthumous work about Africa has been disregarded or overlooked. In her piece for Nation, Brenda Wineapple describes the book as "poignant but not particularly good". However, she points out that it "reminds us of Hemingway's writing at its most touching, acute and beautiful best". The review in Publishers Weekly is much the same saying the "old Hemingway magic flashes sporadically, like lightning, but not often enough".

Hemingway scholars think the work is more complicated and important than a cursory read suggests. With the publication of True at First Light critics saw a more humane and empathetic Hemingway, and began to shift their emphasis away from the image of the "white man with a gun." Robert Fleming considers True at First Light to be part of the Hemingway canon declaring, "This is a more complicated book than it appears to be, and Hemingway deserves far more credit for it than the reviewers of the popular press have given it. Serious critics dealing with the late works would be advised not to ignore it". Gadjusek praises the prose style, which he says is a new direction in Hemingway's writing; he also believes, despite the editing, the book is cohesive and whole with well-ordered themes. Burwell considers the edits to the manuscript generally well-done, though she laments losses that she thinks contribute to some of the subtexts in the book. Biographer Kenneth Lynn criticized Hemingway's sons for editing the manuscript but of Hemingway he says the "memoirist is being totally, indeed helplessly honest," and Gray concedes the publication of the book "underscores Hemingway's courage as a writer". Despite what he considers poor workmanship in the book, Wood considers Hemingway even at his worst a compelling writer and he says the literary estate should be left alone to save the literary influence.

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參考文獻

[[Category:1999年書籍]]