冬の犬 (新潮クレスト・ブックス) [単行本（ソフトカバー）]

カナダ東端の厳冬の島で、祖先の声に耳を澄ませながら、人生の時を刻む人々。彼らの傍らには、犬、牛、馬、鷲などの動物たちが、いつもあった。人生の美しさと哀しみ、短篇小説の気品に満ちた8編。

舞台は、『灰色の輝ける贈り物』と同じ、スコットランド高地の移民が多く住む、カナダ東端の厳寒の島ケープ・ブレトン。役立たずで力持の金茶色の犬と少年の、猛吹雪の午後の苦い秘密を描く表題作。ただ一度の交わりの記憶を遺して死んだ恋人を胸に、孤島の灯台を黙々と守る一人の女の生涯。白頭鷲の巣近くに住む孤独な「ゲール語民謡最後の歌手」の物語。灰色の大きな犬の伝説を背負った一族の話。人生の美しさと哀しみに満ちた、完璧な宝石のような8篇。

カナダ東端の厳冬の島で、犬、馬、鷲ら動物と共に、祖先の声に耳を澄ませながら、人生の時を刻む人々。人生の美しさと哀しみ、短編小説の気品に満ちた8編を収録。

"Once there was a family with a Highland name who lived beside the sea." So begins "As Birds Bring Forth the Sun," a 1985 entry from Island. The story continues, "And the man had a dog of which he was very fond." And there you have the basic elements of an Alistair MacLeod story: dog, family, and sea. The author--whose 2000 novel No Great Mischief won him a measure of long-overdue acclaim--shuffles these elements into a surprisingly infinite variety of configurations, always with the same precise, confident, quiet language.

His big theme is the abandonment of the rural. Though his characters live in the fishing communities of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the seaside isn't a place where they dwell contentedly. In half the stories, young men and boys feel a pull toward academe and the center of the country. In the other half, academically successful middle-aged men return to the wild eastern coast of Canada to try to reclaim the life they left behind. Both dilemmas are impossible to resolve--no one can be both a city mouse and a country mouse--and MacLeod wisely doesn't offer easy solutions.

What makes the writing sing, though, is the specificity of his descriptions of rural life. He tells you exactly how things work: "The sheep move in and out of their lean-to shelter, restlessly stamping their feet or huddling together in tightly packed groups. A conspiracy of wool against the cold." The people here are ultimately defined by the physical world, and MacLeod has a farmer's visceral feel for geography. As he writes in "The Lost Salt Gift of Blood": "Even farther out, somewhere beyond Cape Spear lies Dublin and the Irish coast; far away but still the nearest land, and closer now than is Toronto or Detroit, to say nothing of North America's more western cities; seeming almost hazily visible now in imagination's mist." This is regional fiction in the best sense: it belongs to one perfectly evoked place. --Claire Dederer
--このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。

Alistair Macleod's Island: The Complete Stories begins "Once there was a family with a Highland name who lived beside the sea." The 1985 entry continues, "And the man had a dog of which he was very fond." And there you have the basic elements of an Alistair MacLeod story: Dog, Family, and Sea. The author--whose 2000 novel No Great Mischief won him a measure of long-overdue acclaim--shuffles these elements into a surprisingly infinite variety of configurations, always with the same precise, confident, quiet language.

His big theme is the abandonment of the rural. Though his characters live in the fishing communities of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the seaside isn't a place where they dwell contentedly. In half the stories, young men and boys feel a pull toward academe and the centre of the country. In the other half, academically successful middle-aged men return to the wild eastern coast of Canada to try to reclaim the life they left behind. Both dilemmas are impossible to resolve--no one can be both a city mouse and a country mouse--and MacLeod wisely doesn't offer easy solutions.

What makes the writing sing, though, is the specificity of his descriptions of rural life. He tells you how things work, exactly: "The sheep move in and out of their lean-to shelter, restlessly stamping their feet or huddling together in tightly packed groups. A conspiracy of wool against the cold." The people here are ultimately defined by the physical world, and MacLeod has a farmer's visceral feel for geography. As he writes in "The Lost Salt Gift of Blood": "Even farther out, somewhere beyond Cape Spear lies Dublin and the Irish coast; far away but still the nearest land, and closer now than is Toronto or Detroit, to say nothing of North America's more western cities; seeming almost hazily visible now in imagination's mist." This is regional fiction in the best sense: it belongs to one perfectly evoked place. --Claire Dederer, Amazon.com --このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。

The sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely,
He has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years.

A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse. A passionate girl who grows up on a nearly deserted island turns into an ever-wistful woman when her one true love is felled by a logging accident. A dying young man listens to his grandmother play the old Gaelic songs on her ancient violin as they both fend off the inevitable. The events that propel MacLeod's stories convince us of the importance of tradition, the beauty of the landscape, and the necessity of memory.
--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。

“A great writer…. Talent like his needs no hype.”–The New York Times Book Review

“The work of a superb…patient craftsman.”–The Boston Globe

“This stormy Cape Breton Island…is a place you will never forget, illuminated by a writer whose name you will always remember.”–San Francisco Chronicle

“A remarkable reading experience…. MacLeod clearly has a distinctive literary voice… His writing is seamless, rather like a Heifetz CD or a Sinatra or Fitzgerald song…. His stories are artfully crafted.”–The New York Times

“MacLeod writes of bonds of love and family that transcend time and distance and all the circumstantial dividers that life imposes, and does it with as much heart as any writer ever has.”–The Dallas Morning News

“An extraordinary excursion in exquisite prose that will satisfy and sustain you for many years.”–The Tampa Tribune

“Like the poignant lament of a Scottish piper…. A masterful evocation of a displaced people caught between past and present.”–Kirkus

“A treat for anyone who loves good writing.”–Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“MacLeod is, in the truest sense, the bard of his native Cape. His stories are strong, deep, and as powerful as the sea: absolutely memorable.”–Andrea Barrett

“Each story is charged with a place and way of life both alien and somehow familiar…. The honest emotion is as sensually rendered as the blood, salt, and waterlogged wood of Cape Breton…and every word feels true.”–Frederick Busch

"One of the great undiscovered writers of our time." -- Michael Ondaatje

"It's hard to think of anyone else who can cast a spell the way Alistair MacLeod can." -- Alice Munro

"Alistair MacLeod is a wonderfully talented writer." -- Margaret Atwood

"This stormy Cape Breton Island . . . is a place you will never forget, illuminated by a writer whose name you will always remember." -- San Francisco Chronicle

--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。

Alistair MacLeod was born in 1936 and raised among an extended family in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. --このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。

マクラウド,アリステア
1936年、カナダ・サスカチェアン州生まれ。作品の主舞台であるノヴァ・スコシア州ケープ・ブレトン島で育つ。きこり、坑夫、漁師などをして学資を稼ぎ、博士号を取得。2000年春まで、オンタリオ州ウインザー大学で英文学の教壇に立つ。傍らこつこつと短編小説を発表。99年刊行の唯一の長編『No Great Mischief』がカナダで大ベストセラーになったため、翌2000年1月、76年と86年刊の2冊の短編集の計14篇にその後書かれた2篇を加え、全短編集『Island』が編まれた。31年間にわずか16篇という寡作であるが、短編の名手として知られる(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)