現代短篇小說選：托爾斯泰《伊凡里奇之死》、約瑟夫·康拉德《黑暗之心》、亨利詹姆斯《叢林野獸》、卡夫卡《變形記》
Death of Ivanilych, Heart of Darkness, Beast in the Jungle, Metamorphosis
📕 The Death of Ivanilych
One of the most perfect works by the author of War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilych is one of Leo Tolstoy‘s most celebrated pieces of late fiction. Dealing with the tyranny of the bourgeois niceties, the weakness in the human heart, living without meaning and death. Ivan Ilych Golovin has spent his life chasing after wealth and status to the deliration while ignoring his family. After a minor accident Ivan isn‘t going to recover and it is clear that he is going to die. Contemplating his life Ivan Ilych realizes that he has lived an empty existence as he finds himself totally alone.
📕 Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood‘s Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.
📕 The Beast in the Jungle
James‘s subtle mastery of the art of fiction is nowhere more evident than in "The Beast in the Jungle," regarded by many as his greatest achievement in short fiction, a gripping portrait of a man alienated from life and love.
The author‘s uncanny ability to communicate the inner lives of his characters is also richly evident in "The Jolly Corner" and "The Altar of the Dead," two superbly crafted tales that explore the complex interlacings of loss, love and the ever-present past in the lives of their protagonists.
📕 The Metamorphosis
(original German title: "Die Verwandlung") is a short novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect.
