ペイ・フォワード (角川文庫) [文庫]

   キャサリン・ライアン・ハイドの『Pay It Forward』は、よく車のバンパーに貼り付けてあるステッカーのフレーズ、「地球のことを考えよう、まわりの人のために行動しよう」を大前提に書かれたような小説だ。この物語の主人公トレヴァー・マッキーニは12歳。ある日、社会科の先生が出した「世の中をよくするにはどうしたらいいか考え、実践しなさい」という宿題をきっかけに素晴らしいアイデアを思いつく。トレヴァーの考えはまさにシンプルそのものだった。まず、3人に親切な行いをする。次にその3人は、ほかの3人に自分の受けた親切をお返ししていく。
 「そしたら9人が助かるでしょ。そのお返しが27人にいく…。そうやってどんどん親切の輪が広がっていくんだ」
   だが、トレヴァーの試みは最初の3人ですでに挫折しそうだ。力を貸したはずの麻薬常用者は刑務所へ逆戻りだし、年とった女性の庭の手入れを手伝ったものの、どうしたことか庭の草木が枯れてしまう。しかし、この少年が自分の計画をあきらめてしまったあとも、その親切な行動は思いもかけないところで実を結び、じきにその運動はじわじわと広まり、ついにはアメリカ全土を駆け巡ることとなる。

   トレヴァー自身も、少しは救われることができそうだった。彼の父親は家族を置いて出ていってしまい、置き去りにされた母親アーリーンは、アル中と男を見る目のない自分、そして深い絶望と必死に戦っている最中だ。そんなとき、新任の社会科教師ルーベン・セント・クレアを見たトレヴァーは、世の中を変える方法だけでなく、母親の人生をやり直させる方法まで思いつく。

   もっともルーベン自身も悩みを抱えていた。ベトナム戦争で深い傷を負った彼は、なかなか他人に心を開くことができない。いやと言えないし、愛を受け入れることもできないのだ。実は、このアーリーンとルーベンの関係が本書の中核である。2人の傷ついた大人たちは、トレヴァーが自分たちに与えてくれた信頼と愛情に「お返しする」ことを学んでいくのである。

   ハイドはいろいろな観点から物語を進めていく。手紙を使ったり、日記を挿入したり、トレヴァーの計画に携わったさまざまな人たちによる一人称や三人称の語りを使ったり、と工夫を凝らしている。たとえば、トレヴァーが助けようとした麻薬常用者ジェリー・バスコーニはある晩、ゴールデン・ゲート・ブリッジから身を投げようとしている若い女性にこう語りかける。

なあシャーロット、俺は麻薬がやめられない。一度もやめられたことがないんだ。どう考えても立派な市民じゃない。でもな、くそっ、思ったんだよ。とにかくお返しだけはしとこうって。あのガキ、俺を助けようとしてくれた。もちろんうまくいかなかったさ。でも、こんな俺でもあんたを助けようとしてる。あんたは飛び込んじまうかもしれない、そりゃそうだ。そんなこと俺にはわからない。でもこうやってあんたを助けようとしてるだろ？　なあ、ひとつだけ言わせてくれよ。ある朝目が覚めたら、誰かがチャンスをくれたんだ。降ってわいたようにさ。まるで奇跡じゃないか。それが明日、あんたの身にも起こるかもしれないんだぜ。え？

 『Pay It Forward』は、フランク・キャプラの代表作『素晴らしき哉、人生！』を思わせる作品だ。あの映画と同じく、この小説の中心にあるのも、楽天的な考え方に決して消されることのない、砂をかむような厳しい現実だ。たしかに、たった1人の力が世界を変えることもある。少なくとももっとましな世の中にする手助けになる。だがそれでも、病気や肉体的苦痛、心の痛みや悲劇は人間の一部であり続けるのだ。まっすぐな気持ちと感傷との間にある一線を、ハイドが踏み外している箇所もときには見受けられるが、鼻につくほどではない。たとえ、ちょっと感情に流されている箇所があったとしても、みんなが悲観的になっているこんな時代に、これほど希望に満ちた物語をさらりと書き上げる勇気に比べれば、どうってことはないではないか。 --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

12歳の無垢な心が起こす奇跡に、世界中の人々が涙した感動のファンタジー

世界をより良く変えるためにトレヴァー少年が思い着いたアイデアは、「ペイ・フォワード」。成功の鍵はたったひとつ――人を信じること。途方もない彼の計画は、奇跡を起こすのだろうか？世界が涙した感動の映画原作。

カリフォルニアの小さな町で、奇跡はひとりの少年から始まった。「世界を変える方法」という宿題に、12歳のトレヴァーが思いついたアイディアは『ペイ・フォワード』。「ぼくが3人に何かいいことをする。彼らがお返しをしたいと言ったら、それを他の人に返してもらうんだ」彼の計算では434万6721人の人間が幸せになれるはずだった。この途方もない計画の成功の鍵は、たったひとつ―人を信じること。トレヴァーの願いが叶うとき、奇跡は物語を超えて現実の世界へと続く…。全世界で感動の涙を呼んだベストセラー、待望の文庫化。

中学校の新任教師が出した課題「世界を変える方法を考え、それを実行しよう」に、12歳の少年トレヴァー・マッキニーは、自分が3人に何かいいことをして、そのお返しを他の人へと頼んだら、と考える。そこから奇跡が始まる。 --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

Catherine Ryan Hyde's Pay It Forward takes as its premise the bumper-sticker phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally" and builds a novel around it. The hero of her story is young Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old whose imagination is sparked by an extra-credit assignment in Social Studies: "Think of an idea for world change, and put it into action." Trevor's idea is deceptively simple: do a good deed for three people, and in exchange, ask each of them to "pay it forward" to three more. "So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven.... Then it sort of spreads out." Trevor's early attempts to get his project off the ground seem to end in failure: a junkie he befriends ends up back in jail; an elderly woman whose garden he tends dies unexpectedly. But even after the boy has given up on his plan, his acts of kindness bear unexpected fruit, and soon an entire movement is underway and spreading across America.

Trevor, meanwhile, could use a little help himself. His father walked out on the family, and his mother, Arlene, is fighting an uphill battle with alcoholism, poor judgment in men, and despair. When the boy's new Social Studies teacher, Reuben St. Clair, arrives on the scene, Trevor sees in him not only a source of inspiration for how to change the world, but also the means of altering his mother's life. Yet Reuben has his own set of problems. Horribly scarred in Vietnam, he is reluctant to open himself up to the possibility of rejection--or love. Indeed, the relationship between Arlene and Reuben is central to the novel as these two damaged people learn to "pay forward" the trust and affection Trevor has given them.

Hyde tells her tale from many different perspectives, using letters, diary entries, and first- and third-person narratives from the various people whose lives Trevor's project touches. Jerry Busconi, for example, the addict Trevor tried to help, one night finds himself talking a young woman out of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge:

I'm a junkie, Charlotte. I'm always gonna be a junkie. I ain't never gonna be no fine, upstanding citizen. But then I thought, hell. Just pay it forward anyway. Kid tried to help me. Okay, it didn't work. Still, I'm trying to help you. Maybe you'll jump. I don't know. But I tried, right? But let me tell you one thing. I woke up one morning and somebody gave me a chance. Just outta nowhere. It was like a miracle. Now, how do you know that won't happen to you tomorrow?

Pay It Forward is reminiscent of Frank Capra's classic It's a Wonderful Life. Like the film, this novel has a steely core of gritty reality beneath its optimism: yes, one person can make a difference, can help to make the world a better place, but sickness, pain, heartache, and tragedy will still always be a part of the human condition. If at times Hyde stumbles a bit while negotiating the razor-thin line between honest feeling and sentimentality, it's generally not for long. And the occasional lapse into artificially colored emotion can be forgiven when weighed against the courage it takes to write so unabashedly hopeful a story in such cynical times. --Sheila Bright
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

An ordinary boy engineers a secular miracle in Hyde's (Funerals for Horses) winning second novel, set in small-town 1990s California. Twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney, the son of Arlene, a single mom working two jobs, and Ricky, a deadbeat absentee dad, does not seem well-positioned to revolutionize the world. But when Trevor's social studies teacher, Reuben St. Clair, gives the class an extra-credit assignment, challenging his students to design a plan to change society, Trevor decides to start a goodwill chain. To begin, he helps out three people, telling each of them that instead of paying him back, they must "pay it forward" by helping three others. At first, nothing seems to work out as planned, not even Trevor's attempt to bring Arlene and Reuben together. Granted, Trevor's mother and his teacher are an unlikely couple: she is a small, white, attractive, determined but insecure recovering alcoholic; he is an educated black man who lost half his face in Vietnam. But eventually romance does blossom, and unbeknownst to Trevor, his other attempts to help do "pay forward," yielding a chain reaction of newsworthy proportions. Reporter Chris Chandler is the first to chase down the story, and Hyde's narrative is punctuated with excerpts from histories Chandler publishes in later years (Those Who Knew Trevor Speak and The Other Faces Behind the Movement), as well as entries from Trevor's journal. Trevor's ultimate martyrdom, and the extraordinary worldwide success of his project, catapult the drama into the realm of myth, but Hyde's simple prose rarely turns preachy. Her Capraesque themeAthat one person can make a differenceAmay be sentimental, but for once, that's a virtue. $250,000 ad/promo; BOMC and QPB alternates; 7-city author tour; film rights optioned by Warner Bros. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

THE MIRACLE OF INNOCENCE

The story of how a boy who believed in the goodness of human nature set out to change the world.

Pay It Forward is a wondrous and moving novel about Trevor McKinney, a twelve-year-old boy in a small California town who accepts the challenge that his teacher gives his class, a chance to earn extra credit by coming up with a plan to change the world for the better -- and to put that plan into action.

The idea that Trevor comes up with is so simple and so naïve that when others learn of it they are dismissive. Even Trevor himself begins to doubt when his "pay it forward" plan seems to founder on a combination of bad luck and the worst of human nature.

What is his idea? Trevor chooses three people for whom he will do a favor, and then when those people thank him and ask how they might pay him back, he will tell them that instead of paying him back, they should each "pay it forward" by choosing three people for whom they can do favors, and in turn telling those people to pay it forward. It's nothing less than a human chain letter of kindness and good will.

Does his plan work? No. And yes -- it works wonderfully, but only after it has seemed to Trevor that maybe all his efforts have been for naught. The first person he chooses to help -- a homeless man to whom he gives his paper-route money so he can make himself presentable enough to find a job -- disappoints him by returning to a life of dissolution and eventually ending up in jail. The second is a lady on his paper route, old and alone and infirm, and with a garden that needs tending. No sooner has Trevor begun to help her, however, than she goes and dies on him.

The third person Trevor hopes to help is his teacher, Reuben St. Clair, a scarred, bitter, untrusting man who seems to come truly alive only when in front of his class. Trevor's goal is to match him with his mother, Arlene, a pretty, hardworking woman who has raised Trevor more or less alone, but who Trevor feels has a lot to offer the right man. It proves not to be a match made in heaven, though, and Trevor's dismay only deepens as he watches these two people come so close to achieving the connection he wants for them, only to turn away at the last moment.

Failure seems inevitable, and Trevor is resigned. What he doesn't realize, however, is that there really is a good side to human nature, and that the tiny seed of kindness and caring he planted has taken root. In neighborhoods in other California towns, and as far away as Los Angeles, there are others following the rules of "paying it forward." Soon fame comes knocking, bringing with it excitement and an unforeseen tragedy.

In the end, Pay It Forward is the story of seemingly ordinary people made extraordinary by the simple faith of a child. In the tradition of the successful and inspirational television show Touched by an Angel, and the phenomenally successful novel and film Forrest Gump, Pay It Forward is a work of charm, wit, and remarkable inspiration, a story of hope for today and for many tomorrows to come.
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of many novels, including Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, and The Year of my Miraculous Reappearance. She lives in California with her dog Ella. --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

ハイド,キャサリン・ライアン
カリフォルニア州カンブリア在住。小説『Funerals for Horses』(’97)で批評家から絶賛、注目を浴びる。まだ邦訳はないものの実は短編の名手で、過去に二度、レイモンド・カーヴァー・ショートストーリー・コンテストで受賞。他にもノミネートされた賞は数知れない

法村 里絵
1957年、東京都生まれ。女子美術短期大学卒(本データはこの書籍が刊行された当時に掲載されていたものです)