John Irving: The Bizarre as Commonplace 约翰·欧文(John_Irving)是美国当代最知名的小说家之一，被美国文坛泰斗冯内古特誉为“美国最重要的幽默作家”。他的作品呈现出高超的叙述技巧、独特的原创性和优美的文学性，既叫好又叫座，已被翻译成二十几种文字，多部作品被搬上银幕。

John Irving was born in 1942 in New Hampshire; his father taught history at Phillips-Exeter Academy, giving him automatic admission to its prep school.1 He was dyslexic2, before the learning disability had been identified. He attended the University of New Hampshire and participated in a study-abroad program in Vienna, studying under Gunter Grass.3 Married while an undergraduate, he had the first of three sons at age 23. Wrestling is an important part of his life. All of these elements, plus interest in a hypothetical situation, surface in his writing.4 John Irving feels that dyslexia made him more attentive to how a sentence works. He thought at the beginning of his writing career that he had a lack of talent, but rewrote compulsively, determined to succeed nevertheless, as writing was fulfilling -he draws a parallel to wrestling, which he sees as being in close contact with the other.5 In neither case is talent the deciding factor in the outcome, hard work and perseverance6 is. His novels begin with interest in a relationship, a situation, a character and he knows the ending before writing the first chapters, feeling this is necessary to plot the book. He revises, paying close attention to language, and writes epilogues7, so that in a John Irving book one always knows what happened to the characters later! The passage of time, childhood experiences as a basis for the characters, are usually present. John Irving was writer in residence8 at Brandeis University in Massachusetts in 1978-79, and held his first teaching position at Mt. Holyoke in Massachusetts; he taught freshman English for 10-12 years. He had been "mentored," by Kurt Vonnegut in the late sixties.9 John Irving has great respect for writing, having learned from reading -he feels he knows more about adultery from reading Madam Bovary10 than from listening to friends' stories. He has written 8 long novels, all bestsellers. He feels a novel should be complex. His writing has been described as an "Ivy League Fellini world view", incorporating usually a big house, a fatherless son, set in New England and having odd supporting characters, odd thoughts on morality.11 A Prayer for Owen Meany deals with destiny as well as issues in Christianity. His latest novel, The Fourth Hand, asks the question, "How can anyone identify a dream of the future?" The answer, "Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love." John Irving has been criticized for writing of outlandish characters and occurrences, but feels that the things that do happen are more bizarre than things he could make up -that the bizarre is commonplace.12 John Irving is interested in the rules of behavior, and the consequences of breaking these rules, as in The Cider House Rules. A storyteller, he engages the reader in emotional involvement with the characters.13 His work contains sharply funny moments; it can be seen as comic tragedy. He feels "exquisitely developed characters and heartbreaking stories [are] the obligation of any novel worth remembering. " He still wrestles, and coaches wrestling, being inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1992.14 He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award and an Oscar.15 He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2002.16 He used his knowledge of the life of a best-selling author, concerns about writing and the irritation of being asked how much in his writing is autobiographical, in the book A Widow for One Year.17 His books are difficult to transmute into film while remaining believable, as the characters are so bizarre, but The Cider House Rules succeeds. (The Fourth Hand is in the works at this writing.)

1. Phillips-Exeter Academy：菲利普斯·埃克塞特学院，由Dr. John Phillips于1781年创办，位于新罕布什尔的埃克塞特，距波士顿一小时车程；prep school: = preparatory school,预备学校。

2. dyslexic：[医]诵读困难的。名词形式为dyslexia/d!s#leks!2/。

3. study-abroad program：出国学习课程；Vienna: 维也纳（奥地利首都）；Guter Grass：君特·格拉斯(1927- )，德国作家，插图画家，主要作品有小说《铁皮鼓》和剧本《平民起义演习，一个德国的悲剧》等，1999年获诺贝尔文学奖。

4. hypothetical: 假想的，臆想的；surface：浮现，显现。

5. 在写作生涯之初他认为自己缺乏天分，但他强迫自己重写，决心要成功。因为写作给了他成就感，他将之与摔跤作了比较，他觉得摔跤与写作有着紧密关系。

6. perseverance：坚持不懈，锲而不舍。

7. epilogue：(小说、戏剧或电视、广播节目等的)结尾部分，尾声。

8. writer in residence：住校作家。一般不要求其担任具体教职，但希望能在非正式雇用的基础上随时为学生服务。

9. mentor: 受某人的指导；Kurt Vonnegut：库尔特·冯内古特，1922年出生于美国印第安纳州，二战中曾被关入纳粹战俘营，他的作品描写了对人类社会的失望和恐惧，作品有《第五号屠宰场》(Slaughter-House Five)等。

10. Madam Bovary：19世纪法国作家福楼拜的小说《包法利夫人》。

11. 他的作品被形容成一幅“常春藤名校气质的费里尼式世界图景”，作品中通常有一座大宅、一个无父的孩子，故事通常发生在新英格兰，有着古怪的配角及道德理念。Fellini：费里尼(Federico Fellini, 1920-1994)，意大利著名电影导演。他的影片多用象征手法将现实与想像混合在一起。片中的人物、场面、情节往往与他在家乡度过的童年和青年时代有关。

12. 他因描写稀奇古怪的人物和事情而遭受批评，但他认为现实比他创作的东西更怪诞——怪诞即寻常。

13. 他的叙事本领在于运用人物间的情感纠葛紧紧抓住读者。

14. 1992年被收进全美摔跤名人堂。induct (into)：吸收……为会员。

15. Rockefeller Foundation：洛克菲勒基金，成立于1913年；National Endowment for the Arts：美国国家艺术捐赠会，简称NEA；Guggenheim Foundation：古根海姆纪念基金会，由美国工业家兼慈善家John Simon Guggenheim(1867-1941)建立；O. Henry Award：“欧·亨利奖”(年度奖)，设立于1918年，专门奖励短篇小说的成就；National Book Award：美国国家图书奖，是美国最重要的文学奖，设立于1950年。

16. 2002年他被选为美国艺术与文学学院院士。

17. 他把自己对一名畅销书作者的生活的了解、对写作的关注、还有被问及他的书中有多少自传成分这类问题时的恼怒，都写进了《一年的寡妇》这本书中。

约翰·欧文主要作品列表：
The World According to Garp 　 (1978) 《加普的世界观》
The Hotel New Hampshire 　　 (1981) 《新罕布什尔大饭店》
The Cider House Rules 　 (1985) 《苹果酒屋法则》
A Prayer for Owen Meany 　　 (1989) 《为欧文·米尼祈祷》
A Son of the Circus (1994) 《马戏团之子》
A Widow for One Year 　　 (1998) 《一年的寡妇》
The Fourth Hand 　 (2001) 《第四只手》

根据约翰·欧文作品改编的影片有：
The World According to Garp (1982) 《加普的世界观》
The Hotel New Hampshire 　 (1984) 《新罕布什尔大饭店》
Simon Birch 　 (1998) 《西蒙伯屈》（又名《一路上有你》， 改编自A Prayer for Owen Meany）
The Cider House Rules 　 (1999) 《苹果酒屋法则》（又名《总有骄阳》）

作品快读：《苹果酒屋法则》 该小说已于1999年12月由美国米拉麦克斯影片公司拍成电影，约翰·欧文藉此获得第72届奥斯卡最佳改编剧本奖。

The Cider House Rules The story begins in the 1920s in St. Cloud's orphanage1 in Maine where Homer Wells is born and spends most of his adolescent years. Three times he is adopted by well-meaning families, but later returned to the orphanage. Dr. Larch, who is in charge there, would just as soon have him stay, for he becomes an able assistant to the doctor in performing abortions2 and delivering babies. Wally Worthington, whose wealthy parents are in the apple and cider business, gets to know Homer when he, Wally, takes his girlfriend Candy to the St. Cloud's orphanage for an abortion. These three become close friends and Homer accompanies them back to the Worthington orchard3 where he spends the next twenty years. It's a new life for Homer, and he realizes that his years at the orphanage are "... supposed to be left behind." Wally, who became a captain in the Air Force during WWII, crashes his bomber4 in Burma5, and Candy and Homer assume he is dead. When Candy becomes pregnant with Homer's child, they return to the orphanage briefly to have their baby delivered. But Wally surprises them when he comes home crippled and still wants to marry Candy. Homer has to lie about Angel, their child, so the marriage can take place. He explains to Wally that he'd adopted Angel from St. Cloud's orphanage. Several friends don't believe this. Worse than that, Homer and Candy begin to suspect that Wally sees through their cover-up6 story. In the end, Homer returns to St. Cloud to take Dr. Larch's place, but under the alias7 of a missionary doctor. Wally explains to Homer's son, "You can't get Homer out of St. Cloud's, and you can't get St. Cloud's out of Homer."

1. orphanage: 孤儿院。 2. abortion: 堕胎。 3. orchard: 果园；果树林。 4. bomber: 轰炸机。 5. Burma: 缅甸。 6. cover-up: 掩饰的。 7. alias: 化名，别名。