How to be both-如何二者皆是

作者：Smith Ali

书名：How to be both《如何二者皆是》

中文简介：How to be both《如何二者皆是》小说中的 两个部分把一个现代少女和一个15世纪意大利画家联系起来。这是一本关于重新思考事物双重性的书--从书里两个独立又相关的故事开始，Smith用她一贯有趣的言语带着读者思考我们如此习以为常的两面（对立）性在生活中到底有多少现实意义？我们习惯也喜欢归纳，可人、事、物真的只能是one thing or another 吗？从书里主人公拥有男性名字却是女孩的George开始，到Francesco生为女性却从着装到举止以男性的方式在意大利文艺复兴时期活着，再到故事里不停在艺术中探讨的生死并存：活着的人和已逝者其实同时存在--在艺术中，也在回忆里，最后还有作者的巧思：挑战传统阅读方式 （剧情A到B自然顺时发展），这本书看读者运气，随机拿到不同的版本，即读的两则故事顺序不同。

英文简介：Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently attract serious acclaim and discussion—and have won her a dedicated readership who are drawn again and again to the warmth, humanity and humor of her voice.

How to be both is a novel all about art’s versatility. Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it’s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life’s givens get given a second chance.