六个字母的解法

by Lydia H. Liu, 刘禾

故事从纳博科夫开始，六个字母是人名NISBET，音译为“奈思毕特”。他是纳博科夫自传中的化名人物，爱抽烟斗，向往俄国革命，跟流亡就读剑桥大学的纳博科夫，政治上激烈争论，文学亲密投缘。 就此， 刘禾开始寻找六个字母后的人与事：剑桥学子间激烈理念的冲突和思想的交锋，充满了火药味，甚至于出现奥威尔“黑色笔记本”这样严重的事件。刘禾抽丝剥茧般解开最终谜底，伴生的愉悦也丰富而微妙。随着作者的表达变换，既像悬疑小说；又似亲切的散文； 或变为一出人类精神戏剧。从太平洋畔的湾区伯克利，到英伦三岛上的牛津剑桥，文学的轻灵，史学的厚重，文本与理论，当下与过往，穿梭于著者的笔下，不期而遇，融洽无间，一卷在握，兼具感性的欢乐与知性的满足。

248 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2014

About the author

Lydia H. Liu 劉禾 is the W.T. Tam Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She teaches in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University. Professor Liu also holds a joint professorship at the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University 清華大學 in Beijing.

(from http://www.columbia.edu/~ll2410/)

Reviews

[Chaniya Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Parodic Detective Fiction + Prose Textual Analysis and Scholarly Examination" , a little book that combines the elements I'm almost most obsessed with, so it's no surprise that it's highly personal and readable.

What struck me was the offhandedness of the expressions that popped up between the lines - one of the handiwork of parody, roughly - and the combination of such experimentation with the metaphorical style of the book as a whole narrative can't help but be viewed as one of the most subtle and creative experiments in writing.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

很有意思的一本書。以仿偵探小說形式（仿納博科夫的The Real Life of Sebastian Knight)這樣非學術式文體展示學術考據的資料，揭示二十世紀上半葉劍橋的知識分子群像，尤其是當時的左冀知識分子群體。故事以求證納博科夫回憶錄中提及的一個隱名人物Nesbit為線索，串聯出當時劍橋知識分子群體，更是聚焦於《1984》作者奧威爾為冷戰時期英國外交部屬下信息調查部（IRD)提供的左冀黑名單。在那樣一個被標籤站隊的時期，不同的知識分子如何選擇理想與人生，又如何被政治選擇而走向不同的人生路徑。