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摘要
摘要
This is the story of Simon William Behler, a popular New Journalist whose career has peaked. In 1980 he is lost overboard off the coast of Sri Lanka while attempting to retrace, with his lover, the legendary voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.
评论 (3)
出版社周刊评论
Just when you may have concluded, like Queen Scheherazade's husband, that you've ``heard them all,'' Barth ( The Tidewater Tales ) proves again how original and entertaining he is. Like many of the author's previous works, his latest blends fantasy, mythology, existentialist wit, bawdy humor and metafictional conceits. But though his opening words declare, ``The machinery's rusty,'' the new novel is a testament both to Barth's undiminished generative powers and to his maturity of vision. In the elaborate plot, a ``fifty-plus,'' ``once-sort-of-famous'' New Journalist named Simon William Behler is mysteriously transported to the medieval Baghdad of Sindbad the Sailor. Behler--known variously as ``Somebody the Sailor,'' ``Baylor'' and ``Sayyid Bey el-Loor,'' falls in love with Sindbad's daughter Yasmin and gets enmeshed in Arabian intrigues. The intrigues revolve around such nagging questions as the intactness of Yasmin's virginity, the veracity of Sindbad's tall tales and the whereabouts of a wristwatch Behler needs in order to return home. All this is dealt with in the course of six evenings of storytelling at Sindbad's dinner table. Barth creates whole and engaging characters with his usual wealth of wordplay, allusion and satire. But the novel's greatest achievement is how it connects the conventionally realistic story of Behler's 20th-century life with the outsize and metaphorical world of Sindbad, reflecting in the process on the nature of stories, dreams, voyages and death. BOMC selection; major ad/promo; author tour . (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Barth is back with another big (544-page), bawdy, and ""postmodernist"" book, replete with the usual metafictional conceits, in which the ""New Journalist"" hero, a contemporary Scheherazade of sorts, likes to swap tales with the legendary Sinbad the Sailor, while trying to get his bearings, both metaphorically and literally. Simon Behler (pen name Baylor), born and raised in Maryland's Tidewater country, had made a name for himself as a journalist by writing a series of books about his own travels, experiences, and family; but now 50, he's out of fashion, his marriage is breaking up, and he's not sure what to do next. On assignment in Spain he links up with Julia Moore, his first girlfriend's kid-sister. The two, both expert sailors, decide to trace the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor; but off the coast of Sri Lanka (the legendary Serendib), a storm drowns Julia, and Baylor finds himself in Sinbad's household in medieval Baghdad. Each night after Sinbad has regaled his guests with a story, Baylor tells in similar installments the story of his life and how he came to be there with only his modern wristwatch to reassure him about his past. In love with Sinbad's daughter, the lovely Yasmin, who reminds him of the lost Julia, Baylor is also anxious to get back to the 20th-century. He marries Yasmin, and the couple set sail for Sri Lanka, but, echoing that other voyage, Yasmin drowns in a storm, and Baylor finds himself back on the shore of Maryland. Filled with an abundance of colorful characters and settings--but less a novel than a series of insubstantial set-pieces, liberally padded with explicit sexual scenes, in which poor Baylor is always at sea, one way or the other. A thin story in a very fat book. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
Simon Behler--or Baylor, as he refers to himself in his countless best-selling books of New Journalism--falls overboard during a cruise retracing the legendary voyages of Sindbad the Sailor and is pulled from the water by contemporaries of the real Sinbad. Trapped in the distant past but never at a loss for words, Behler--or Bey el-Loor, as he is now known--amuses his new friends with his exotic tales: boyhood on Maryland's Eastern Shore, first love, early literary success, marriage, and divorce. Intricately, almost obsessively structured, Barth's latest novel is written in the mature, relaxed, stubbornly long-winded style of The Tidewater Tales (Putnam, 1987). He breaks no new ground here, but fans will enjoy his virtuoso recycling of familiar themes. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/90.-- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.