内容简介

In Augustus, his third great novel, John Williams took on an entirely new challenge, a historical narrative set in classical Rome, exploring the life of the founder of the Roman Empire. To tell the story, Williams turned to the epistolary novel, a genre that was new to him, transforming and transcending it just as he did the western in Butcher’s Crossing and the campus novel in Stoner. Augustus is the final triumph of a writer who has come to be recognized around the world as an American master.

作者简介

John Williams (1922–1994) was born and raised in northeast Texas. Despite a talent for writing and acting, Williams flunked out of a local junior college after his first year. He reluctantly joined the war effort, enlisting in the Army Air Corps, and managed to write a draft of his first novel while there. Once home, Williams found a small publisher for the novel and enrolled a...

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精彩摘录

我逐渐相信，每个人一生中迟早会有个时刻令他知道-无论他还懂别的什么，无论他能否说清自己所知-那件恐怖的事实：他是孤单的、分离的，他除了是他可怜的自我，就不能是别的什么了。

——引自第358页

我先前那些绝望之词，现在看来与我的成就并不相埒。罗马不是永恒的，这无妨。罗马将会沦陷，这无妨。野蛮人会来征服，这无妨。曾经有过落马的一瞬，他将来不会完全死灭；野蛮人将会变成他征服的罗马；那语言将会驯服他粗野的土话；他毁掉的景象将会在他血里流淌。盐海不舍昼夜载着我这孤舟浮沉价是无有的，小于无有。

——引自第4194页