书籍介绍
Often likened to Kafka's The Castle, The Tartar Steppe is both a scathing critique of military life and a meditation on the human thirst for glory. It tells of young Giovanni Drogo, who is posted to a distant fort overlooking the vast Tartar steppe. Although not intending to stay, Giovanni suddenly finds that years have passed, as, almost without his noticing, he has come to share the others' wait for a foreign invasion that never happens. Over time the fort is downgraded and Giovanni's ambitions fade until the day the enemy begins massing on the desolate steppe...
"Buzzati's take on military matters is ambiguous. He makes much of the elaborate system of passwords at the fort -- a system that leads to one officer's death -- or the coded music of bugle calls, as well as the way in which time itself is stratified and subdivided. . . But if this is satire, it's a satire on us all, conscripted to the fortress of our expectations, hoping by secret signals and the solace of routine to push time back from the battlements, even as they crumble." --Eric Ormsby, NY Sun
Undoubtedly a masterpiece . . . [Buzzati] has brought to life a universal man and cast his being in surrounding which are familiar to us all . . . It is a sublime book and Buzzati a master of the written word. --Sunday Times
AI导读
核心看点
- 被誉为意大利版《城堡》，深刻探讨等待与虚无。
- 讲述年轻军官德罗戈在边境要塞虚度一生的故事。
- 以魔幻现实主义笔触，揭示时间流逝与存在荒诞。
适合谁读
- 喜欢卡夫卡、贝克特等存在主义文学的读者。
- 对人生意义、时间焦虑有共鸣的现代都市人。
- 喜爱意大利文学及魔幻现实主义风格的爱好者。
读前提醒
- 建议保持耐心，感受缓慢叙事下的心理张力。
- 可结合博尔赫斯推荐语，理解其文学地位。
- 注意书中象征手法，体会等待背后的悲剧性。
读者共识
- 文笔苍凉奇骏，具有难以形容的美学价值。
- 虽略显灰暗，但精准击中当代人的精神困境。
- 结局震撼，让人反思是否也在无谓地等待。
本导读基于书籍简介、目录、原文摘录、短评和书评生成，不等同于全文精读。
精彩摘录
- "他没有造反，没有打辞职报告。他没有吭一声，而是把不公正抛到脑后去了，他又回到原来的这个地方。在他心底深处甚至还有那么一点儿高兴，因为生活没有发生剧烈变化，又可以回到原来已经习惯的生活之中了。 德罗戈幻想着从长计议，再获荣光，他相信自己的时间还多得很。因此，他放弃了为日常生活进行的微不足道的斗争。他想，总有那么一天，所有的账都会结算清楚，获得应有的报答。可是，别的人追了上来，他们贪婪地急步向前，争取走在前面，而把他落到后面，对他不屑一顾。他看到他们在远处消失不见了，他有些疑惑，他又想到了原来的疑问：他是不是真的错了？如果他是一个普普通通的人，他是不是必然会遇上很平平常常的运气？"
- "就在此时，乔瓦尼发现，尽管人们可以不错地对待他，但他们却总是同他保持距离。他发现，如果一个人在忍受痛苦，这痛苦就完全是他自己的，没有一个人能够分担哪怕很小的一部分。他还发现，如果一个人在忍受痛苦，别的人并不会因此而感到不痛快，尽管相互间也存在爱意：这会在生活中形成孤独感。"
- "后来，他看到一个大厅，看到白色的路上有一匹大马，他觉得，好像有人在喊他的名字。于是，他很快进入了梦乡。"
- "Up to then he had gone forward through the heedless of early youth--along a road which to children seems infinite, where the years slip past slowly and with quiet pace so that no one notices them go. We walk along calmly, looking curiously around us; there is not the least need to hurry, no one push"
- "All these things had now become part of himself and it would have hurt him to leave them. But Drogo did not know, he did not suspect, that his departure would have been an effort nor that life in the Fort would swallow up the days one after another, one exactly like the other, at a giddy speed. Yest"
- "There is no mistaking him - now that he has come closer you can recognise him easily and there is no particular sign of suffering in his face. So he has not rebelled, he has not resigned his commission, he has swallowed the injustice and is going back to his old post. At the bottom of his heart he i"
- "It seemed obvious that their former hopes, their warlike dreams, their constant waiting for the enemy had been no more than a pretext to give life some significance. Now that it was possible to go back to human society all these seemed childish fancies and no one was willing to admit that he had be"
- "德罗戈的生活则像一潭死水，没有变化起伏。同样的日子，同样的事物，一遍一遍翻来覆去地重复，没有向前迈出一步。时间的长河从城堡上空流过，使围墙出现了裂缝，将灰尘和碎小石块冲到低处，将台阶和铁链磨光。然而，在德罗戈面前流过时却没有造成任何变化，它还不可能将他裹挟起来一起流近。"
用户评论
被誉为意大利的《城堡》（卡夫卡，1923）出版于1945年；也有人说影响了贝克特的《等待多戈》（1953年首演）；1980年库切的小说《等待野蛮人》也与之有相近的意象和情节。但都没有The Tartar Steppe这么令人放不下，每一个单词都是当下，当下的荒诞。没有过去，过去是幻觉，也不必担心未来，未来是贝克特The Unamable第一句：Where now？who now？when now？unquestioning. I，say I. Unbelieving. Questions，hypotheses，call them that. Keep going，going，call that going.
比汉译本好多了……这则故事/寓言可以移植到自己身上，读 phd（去城堡），每天都过着一样的生活，期待着有什么发现（期待鞑靼人的进攻），让自己日复一日的生活变得有意义，可是许多年后，当真的发现什么（鞑靼人来了），却恍然发现，已经过去了这么久了，自己已经没有心力了。
写理想的荒谬，整个生命就牢牢奠基在荒谬上。荒谬形成一片生态奇观，生命在里面若隐若现、忽明忽暗。什么都是一个概念，比如英雄主义、比如女人，自以为有自己视角的生命让渡自己来服务于这些概念；生命流逝。…… 故事最终的走向很耐人寻味，这是最妙的一招。心理学上有个Peak-end rule，人们在评判一次体验的时候不是去回顾整个历程，而只是回溯峰值与结尾，然后这两项的平均值就代替了全部过程的评定。那么这个耐人寻味的故事的最终走向，实在很加分，至于是不是足够体现全部体验，就见仁见智了。（见书评）而且不要提前看博尔赫斯那句评语，不然他就参与创作了。
几乎是这几年的心境写照 太能relate到😭
Life is just a game, so have fun
是可以与之对话的作者，但略有一点太灰暗。最近也常常在想“做事”的问题。的确不做事，我的时间、人生，也就这样过了。这种过时间的方法，2007年、2009年、2015年、2019年都有，因为“完成”所致的（积极）体验，并未带来如何强烈的满足感。反而更习惯于闲置和胡思乱想。最近忙碌不可终日的生活，引发很多集聚/急遽的思考。比较直观的一个点是，在闲置和胡思乱想的天性里“强行”置入这种需要注意力、理性、规则乃至惯性要做的事，并不是一件坏事。可以控制自己。这种最终还是想要自控的欲望，终究也是天性中的成分吧。
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