

內容簡介
來自**《紐約時報》排名第一暢銷作家**、布克獎得主、《林肯在中陰》作者的一部充滿電光火石般衝擊力的小說。故事發生在一間石油公司執行長生命黃昏時分的床邊,他正被從這個世界渡向來生。
這不是第一次,Jill “Doll” Blaine 發現自己正朝著地球墜落,一邊下墜一邊重構自己的身體,直到她最喜歡的黑色高跟鞋也重新成形。她筆直地衝向她最新的職責對象(charge)——另一個她必須引導進入來生的靈魂,並頭朝下落在了他那華麗豪宅的環形車道上。
自從她自己去世以來,她已經履行了 343 次這項神聖的職責。通常情況下,她的服務對象們在生命的最後時刻都會感到極大的慰藉。但她很快發現,這位對象與眾不同。權勢滔天的 K. J. Boone 拒絕被安慰,因為他沒有任何遺憾。他過著偉大、大膽、史詩般的一生,世界也因此變得更美好。難道不是嗎?
《Vigil》 帶領我們急速奔馳,穿過這位複雜人物狂野的最後一夜。訪客開始抵達(世俗的與超凡的、活著的與已逝的),他們大聲要求一個清算。群鳥蜂擁至垂死男人的房間;一隻黑色小牛在雙人沙發上吃草;一位來自遙遠、飽受乾旱摧殘村莊的男子顯形;兩位數十年前的石油業老友出現,帶來了 Boone 死後未來的驚悚計畫。
憑藉著我們所期待的智慧、玩味和爆炸性的想像力,喬治・桑德斯 (George Saunders) 處理了我們這個時代最嚴重的議題—企業貪婪的威脅、資本主義的代價、進步帶來的環境危機—並在這個過程中,編織了一個涵蓋生與死、善與惡,以及赦免這個棘手問題的故事。
An electric novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, taking place at the bedside of an oil company CEO in the twilight hours of his life as he is ferried from this world into the next
Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favorite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion.
She has performed this sacred duty 343 times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this charge, she soon discovers, isn’t like the others. The powerful K. J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold, epic life, and the world is better for it. Isn’t it?
Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of a complicated man. Visitors begin to arrive (worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead), clamoring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man’s room; a black calf grazes on the love seat; a man from a distant, drought-ravaged village materializes; two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s postdeath future.
With the wisdom, playfulness, and explosive imagination we’ve come to expect, George Saunders takes on the gravest issues of our time—the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, the environmental perils of progress—and, in the process, spins a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.
各界推薦
Praise for Vigil
“A magnificent expansion of consciousness . . . Saunders has crafted a novel that feels deeply resonant, especially in these fractious times.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Praise for George Saunders
“Saunders is the most humane American writer working today.”—Harper’s Magazine
“Saunders captures the fragmented rhythms, disjointed sensory input, and wildly absurd realities of the twenty-first-century experience like no other writer.”—The Boston Globe
“Part of the Saunders elixir is that we feel more empathetic after reading his work.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time.”—Khaled Hosseini
“Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice.”—Tobias Wolff
“Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless.”—Jonathan Franzen
“Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.”—Zadie Smith
作者介紹
George Saunders is the author of thirteen books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize, and five collections of stories, including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recent collection Liberation Day (selected by former President Obama as one of his ten favorite books of 2022). Three of Saunders’s books—Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln in the Bardo—were chosen for The New York Times’s list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Saunders hosts the popular Story Club on Substack, which grew out of his book on the Russian short story, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People by Time. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.
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