《军阀》章节试读

《军阀》的笔记-The warlord by Malcolm Bosse - The warlord by Malcolm Bosse

China, 1927--in a long, episodic novel that, while thoughtful and energetically written (with all the expected exotica), never chums up much drama or sweep from its hardworking mixture of history and fictional characterization. The title figure is General Tang Shan-t'eh, Defense Commissioner of Southern Shantung Province, an earnest Confucian and true Chinese patriot who is one of the several leaders vying for power after the death of Sun Yat-sen. (The complex enmities and alliances--including Japanese/ Soviet/western ties--are explored, in not-always-lucid detail.) Tang, in desperate need of arms, travels to Shanghai, where he falls in love with aristocratic refugee/prostitute Vera Rogacheva, mistress of German arms dealer Erich Luckner: a devotee of calligraphy, Vera will become Tang's new mistress-in-residence, despite doubts. (""Do I love this man, this Chinese general, this strange foreigner I can never know?"") Tang's other journeys take him to the monastery hideout of Chiang Kai-shek for a doomed alliance-chat (""this intense and mercurial man who seems possessed of both a crystalline intelligence and the heart of a child""); to a second Kuomintang contact in Canton (where he's briefly kidnapped); into war with General Jen Ching-i of Hopei; and to Peking for another round of negotiations. Meanwhile, with an iffy sense of pace and plotting, Bosse follows two other major characters: moody Soviet agent Kovalik, who rats to win Tang over to communism, becomes addicted to opium, eventually reaching the mountain camp of young peasant-leader Mao (who wants no Russian help); and young US missionary Philip Embree--who, captured by bandits, eagerly goes native, loses his virginity and his faith (""Fuck Christmas""), joins Tang's cavalry after the bandits are massacred (""Should he, an American, be fighting in a Chinese battle whose outcome has nothing to do with him?""), saves Tang's life, and predictably goes ga-ga over Vera. Eventually, then, the storylines will more or less come together--when Embree, in order to steal Vera away, betrays Tang. But, despite extensive flashback/musing material, the characters remain remote, uninvolving--especially the far-from-believable Embree, who lurches from naif to super-hero to villain with YA-ish shallowness. (Bosse's recent work has been YA fiction.) And though there's a strong cote of material in Tang's idealism/pragmatism dilemma, it's a short-novel idea that's been stretched out here to epic-saga proportions. . . with slow, talky results. Little of the excitement or romance of other China fiction, then--but the history is intriguing, the sights and sounds (with sex and grue) are colorfully done, and heavy promotion may draw a large audience to this half-absorbing/half-dullish period mixture.
Pub Date: May 16th, 1983
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

《军阀》的笔记-关于作者 - 关于作者

Malcolm Bosse, 75, an Author Of Historical Novels Set in Asia
Published: June 14, 2002
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Malcolm Bosse, an author of best-selling historical fiction and children's books, died on May 3 at his home in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. He was 75.
The cause was esophageal cancer, his wife, Lori Mack, said.
Mr. Bosse was perhaps best known for ''The Warlord,'' his 1983 historical novel set in China in the 1920's. It follows an American missionary who is attacked by bandits soon after arriving in China and joins their gang. The novel's characters include Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong and the warlords and generals fighting for control of China.
Mr. Bosse wrote 22 novels, including ''Ganesh,'' made into the movie ''Ordinary Magic'' in 1993, and ''The Man Who Loved Zoos,'' which in 1987 became a movie starring Catherine Deneuve called ''Agent Trouble.''
Malcolm Joseph Bosse Jr. was born in Detroit and grew up in Moline, Ill. After high school, he became a merchant marine and served in Asia, where he first experienced the cultures that would provide the backdrop for many novels.
Mr. Bosse earned a bachelor's degree from Yale in 1950, then served in the United States Navy in Vietnam. It was then that he started his first novel, ''The Journey of Tao Kim Nam'' (1959). He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1956 and a Ph.D. in literature from New York University in 1969, and then began writing novels for young readers.
He taught English literature at City College from 1969 to 1992. He traveled in India on a Fulbright scholarship and lectured for the United States State Department in China and India.
His first wife, Janet Bosse, died after their divorce. His second marriage, to Marie-Claude Bosse, also ended in divorce. He is survived by Ms. Mack, his wife since 1996; their son, Mark; and a son from his second marriage, Malcolm-Scott Bosse.