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摘要
摘要
In Michigan's upper peninsula, a dangerous rescue effort draws the ears and eyes of the entire country. A two-and-a-half-year-old girl has fallen down a mine shaft--"the only sound is an astonished tiny intake of breath from Ursula as she goes down, like a penny into the slot of a bank, disappeared, gone." It is as if all hope for life on the planet is bound up in the rescue of this little girl, the first and only child of a young woman of Finnish extraction and her Chinese-American husband. One TV viewer following the action notes that the Wong family lives in a decrepit mobile home and wonders why all this time and money is being "wasted on that half-breed trailer-trash kid."
In response, the novel takes a breathtaking leap back in time to visit Ursula's most remarkable ancestors: a third-century-B.C. Chinese alchemist; an orphaned playmate of a seventeenth-century Swedish queen; Professor Alabaster Wong, a Chautauqua troupe lecturer (on exotic Chinese topics) traveling the Midwest at the end of the nineteenth century; her great-great-grandfather Jake Maki, who died at twenty-nine in a Michigan iron mine cave-in; and others whose richness and history are contained in the induplicable DNA of just one person--little Ursula Wong.
Ursula's story echoes those of her ancestors, many of whom so narrowly escaped not being born that her very existence--like ours--comes to seem a miracle. Ambitious and accomplished, Ursula, Under is, most of all, wonderfully entertaining--a daring saga of culture, history, and heredity.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
The story of a little girl who falls down an abandoned mineshaft is layered with tales of her ancestors in China, Finland and Michigan in Ingrid Hill's first novel, a jumbled, ambitious effort. Ursula, Under begins when Justin and Annie Wong take their two-year-old daughter, Ursula, on a picnic near an old mine. Her disappearance sets in motion a desperate rescue effort, the account of which is periodically interrupted by Hill's elaborate forays into the past. Unwieldy but inventive, this is a promising debut. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Hill's enchanting debut novel spans more than 2,000 years and is brimming with an engaging cast of characters. Annie and Justin Wong, who live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, are on a day trip exploring the area where Annie's Finnish great-grandfather died in a mine collapse in 1926. Suddenly their only child, Ursula, disappears down an abandoned shaft, setting off a monumental rescue attempt and accompanying media frenzy. The author leaves that predictable plot behind, focusing instead on the young girl's many ancestors--those with the most interest in her safe return. A second-century B.C.E. Chinese alchemist, a deaf Finnish peasant living in 700 C.E., the child born to a crippled Chinese girl in the 1600s, and more--a crowd of all the people whose blood and lives went into this little girl, brought vividly to life. In an elaborate six degrees of separation game, the author reveals centuries-old ties between relatives of both Annie and Justin, creating a magically entertaining, poetic, and heartfelt look at the often overlooked significance of extended family. --Deborah Donovan Copyright 2004 Booklist
Kirkus评论
Hill (Dixie Church Interstate Blues, stories, not reviewed) lards 2,500 years of history and misery onto the 17-hours-and-27-minutes-long drama of a little girl's rescue from a mineshaft. "It is Monday, June 9, 2003," the omniscient narrator informs us. "Our story begins long before, if we believe that all back story is also story, that the underside of the iceberg explains what we see above." You have been warned: connections will be made, moral lessons will be underscored, the small niceties of the well-made novel will be disdained. The author introduces us to an appealing young family--Annie Maki, Justin Wong, and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ursula--and sets up a strongly emotional premise as Ursula vanishes down a hole in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Hill then sends us back to China in the 3rd century b.c., beginning a saga that will unfold in 8th-century Finland, 17th-century Canada and Sweden, and 19th-century California, delving into the experiences of the Finnish and Chinese immigrants to America whose blood flows in Ursula's veins, with a few chapters interpolated to remind us she's still underground. Reminiscent of Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes in its relentless catalogue of disasters and willingness to yank readers away from characters just as they're beginning to engage our interest, the narrative aims to make a political point as women are abused, workers die due to companies' negligence, and rich brat Jinx Muehlenberg hits ten-year-old Annie with her car and speeds away, crippling the girl for life. The fact that Jinx later makes a pass at Justin while he's working on her house is practically the least outlandish coincidence in a story crammed with unlikely conjunctions. Why does all this madness sometimes work? Because Hill's prose is vivid, if undisciplined, and her passion is ultimately contagious. The cumulative impact of all those ancestors' stories adds an epic grandeur and surprising emotional punch to the finale, when Hill finally deigns to allow us to follow step by step the painstaking effort to bring Ursula out of the shaft. Wildly uneven, awesomely ambitious: a mess, in fact, but you can't help but be impressed by the author's commitment and boldness. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
In her remarkably meaty first novel, set in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula, Hill blends a present-day drama with epic tales of ancestry. In the main story, tiny Ursula Wong child of a librarian left handicapped by a hit-and-run driver and a Chinese American musician and gutter installer whose father took off when he was a child falls into an abandoned mine shaft. Among the various chapters on her frantic rescue, Hill intersperses perilous heritage tales, which range from second-century China, where we meet an alchemist relative, to eighth-century Finland, where Ursula's great-great-grandfather perishes in a mine cave-in. Hill's mosaic-like telling underlies the impact of Ursula's plight and her parents' anguish, finally leading the reader to an understanding of the unique value of each individual. This should do well in public libraries; warmly recommended. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
目录
1. Ursula | p. 1 |
2. The Alchemist's Last Concubine | p. 15 |
3. Justin | p. 55 |
4. The Caravan-Master's Lieutenant | p. 71 |
5. Annie | p. 111 |
6. The Minister of Maps | p. 127 |
7. Justin and Annie | p. 179 |
8. A Foundling at the Court | p. 223 |
9. Jinx | p. 267 |
10. A Wastrel Killed by a Snail | p. 301 |
11. Mindy Ji and Joe | p. 359 |
12. The Woman Who Married the Baker's Friend | p. 381 |
13. Ursula Again | p. 447 |