小說/散文

Eillen
出版社： Penguin Putnam Inc.
書林書號：
20212780
作者：
Moshfegh, Ottessa
定價：
595
會員價：
$506
ISBN：
9780143128755
出版年份：
2016
裝訂：
平裝
總頁數：
272
  • 本書介紹
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入圍2016年曼布克獎，小說界最亮眼新「聲」代 Ottessa Moshfegh一鳴驚人代表作。
「那麼就開始吧。我的名字是艾琳．鄧露普，現在你認識我了。我24歲，在一家私人少年矯正機構當秘書，週薪57美元。不過我現在認為，那地方其實是男孩們的監獄。我稱呼那裡為穆爾黑德（Moorehead）。戴爾．穆爾黑德是我可怕的房東，所以我覺得用穆爾黑德稱呼那地方還滿適合的。
　　一週後，我就要離家出走再也不回來。這就是我如何消失的故事。」
 

Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and chosen by David Sedaris as his recommended book for his Fall 2016 tour. 

So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature.



《Bookman Taipei 新書推薦》
【騷動不安的內在乖離與慾望】Eileen, by Ottessa Moshfegh

「This is the story of how I disappeared.」

Eileen，當時24歲，在一間少年矯正院上班，靠著週薪57美元的收入，照顧把家裡弄得一團糟的酒鬼父親，這就是她的生活，那個「已經消失的她」曾經歷的人生。在她決定消失的那個星期，美麗、聰明、善體人意又極富魅力的Rebecca來到這個地方擔任新的輔導員，看似為Eileen撥開眼前的濃霧，帶來一道曙光，但是，在Rebecca的耀眼光芒背後，卻隱藏著一抹比Eileen最瘋狂的幻想，還更加黑暗的秘密。

故事中運用大量的自敘、近乎意識流的描寫手法，將Eileen的面容用字句描繪成一張黑暗、恐怖卻真實的自畫像。乏味枯燥的生活磨耗著她的心；整天爛醉如泥的父親讓她幾乎精神崩潰，而對於自己的容貌和身材即便不滿，卻又無可奈何；她渴求愛情的救贖，卻只能將這樣的情緒化為扭曲、近乎變態的行徑和幻想，投射在矯正所的警衛身上。

在小說裡，Eileen曾說，她認為矯正所根本是少年的監獄，但這個監獄卻也呼應她所處的心靈牢籠，將她緊緊綑綁束縛。Eileen所遭遇的，就如同世界上所有的女人會經歷的一樣。受到男性霸權壓迫、思想不被重視，如同二等公民般卑微。伊朗裔的作者Ottessa Moshfegh認為，Eileen並不是那種討喜的主角，但她著實讓人聽見了那些被社會遺忘的人，所發出的低吼，尤其是來自女性的悲鳴。作者坦言，童年時期也曾經有過被“抽離”的失落，勉強自己符合社會對女性的標準，不難讓人聯想到伊朗社會對於女性的不平等待遇和歧視。

有時候，我們抹煞過去，希望獲得新生，但卻又被現實生活逼得必須一再檢視自己真實樣貌的醜惡，而痛苦難言。但Eileen其實是個普通人，就像你我每天都可能遇見的人，只是這個社會還太封閉、太充滿成見，讓他們把真面目都隱藏起來，將慾望、妄想、怨懟都封印在內心深處，等待有一天，能真正跟世界坦然相對。

《Eileen》在2016年8月出版後，立即在文壇和書市上造成極大的轟動，被譽為極具希區考克風格的黑暗文學，不僅被提名2016年的Man Booker Prize，在亞馬遜的暢銷排行榜上也是名列前茅，佳評不斷。

衛報專訪：https://www.theguardian.com/…/ottessa-moshfegh-interview-bo…
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