《珀比·莎士比亚》

U.K .Bestseller

英国畅销书

Title: Poppy Shakespeare

书名：《珀比・莎士比亚》

Author: Clare Allan

作者：克莱尔・艾伦

Publisher: Bloomsbury

出版商：布鲁姆斯伯里出版社

Notable Because...

Poppy Shakespeare is an outstanding debut novel that has been widely acclaimed by critics and stands out from the norm because of its unusual subject.

Highly original and darkly funny, Clare Allan's debut novel explores the relationship between N., a patient in a mental institution, and Poppy Shakespeare, a new and disturbingly "sane" arrival who finds herself having to feign mental illness in order to be released. There are 25 residents at the Dorothy Fish, one for each letter of the alphabet - the "X" chair is vacant. The day hospital sits on the bottom floor of an impossibly tall tower, stretching so high into the sky that its uppermost residents can see right round the world and back in through the window behind them. The system is simple: the crazier you are, the higher up the tower they put you. When Poppy Shakespeare arrives, N. has already been at Dorothy Fish for thirteen years, and spends her days quietly, smoking in the common room and swapping medication with her fellow patients. But what happens in the next six months will change both of their lives forever. In this inventive and brutally comic novel, Clare Allan captures the familiar and sometimes terrifying idiosyncrasies of a modern institution, asking the question: who is mad and who is sane? And who gets to decide? By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Poppy Shakespeare is a significant achievement of voice and insight.

《珀比・莎士比亚》是一部杰出的小说处女作，受到了评论家的广泛好评，并因其与众不同的主题而

脱颖而出。

克莱尔・艾伦的这部小说处女作，极富独创性和黑色幽默，对“N”（一家精神病院中的病人）和珀比・莎士比亚（一个新来的、“正常”得令人感到不安的病人，此人发现，要想被放出去就必须装作有精神病才行）之间的关系进行了探讨。“多萝西・菲什”精神病院一共住了25个人，每个人都代表着一个字母，而“X”的位子是空着的。这家日间医院位于一座高得不可思议的大厦的底层，那座大厦高耸入云，而住在最高层的人，其目光可以顺着地球表面一直望下去，并通过他们身后的窗户绕回原点。其制度是简单的：你越是疯狂，他们就越会把你往大厦的高处放。当珀比・莎士比亚入住的时候，“N”在“多萝西・菲什”精神病院已经呆了13年了，安静地过着自己的生活：在公用房间里跟其他病友抽烟、互换药物。但是，在随后6个月内发生的事情将会完全改变这两个人的生活。在这本富有创意和冷幽默的小说中，克莱尔・艾伦捕捉到了现代机构中的那些常见的且有时会令人感到恐怖的痼疾，并提出了这样一个问题：谁疯了而谁又是正常的？那该由谁来评判？在悲喜中交替展开的《珀比・莎士比亚》，是一部有特色、有深度的集大成之作。