托福閱讀和聽力中經常涉及各類別話題和學科的考察，如果我們對所考察人或事有所了解，那么對于我們快速準確做題會大有裨益。 今天我們來了解一位非常高逼格的意識流作家——James Joyce 詹姆斯·喬伊斯，雖然他沒有得過諾獎，但托福、SAT里都曾出現過他的身影。

TPO23的conversation2里提到了作家James Joyce 詹姆斯·喬伊斯以及他的作品Dubliners，為啥叫都柏林人呢，因為James Joyce是愛爾蘭人，于是他就把早年都柏林的社會景象描繪了出來，這個時候，喬伊斯的書還是能讀懂的，屬于大家能夠理解的realism現實主義，比如其中一篇教授提到的Araby，大家感受一下：

“When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown somber. The space of sky above us was the color of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from ash pits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. ”

(參考譯文：到了日短夜長的冬天，晚飯還沒吃完，夜幕就降落了。當我們在街上玩耍時，一幢幢房屋變得陰森森的。頭上的夜空顯出一片變幻的紫羅蘭色，同街燈的微光遙遙相映。寒氣刺骨，我們不停地玩著，直到渾身暖和。我們的喊叫聲在僻靜的街心回響。我們竄到屋子后面黑暗、泥濘的巷子里，遭到棚屋里那一伙野孩子的夾道鞭打;我們就跑到一家家幽暗陰濕的花園后門口，那里一個個灰坑發出難聞的氣味。隨后再到黑黝黝的滿是馬糞味的馬廄去。馬夫在那兒梳馬，或敲著扣上的馬具，發出鏗鏘的聲音。當我們折回街道時，燈光已經從一家家廚房的窗子里透出來，把這一帶照亮了。)

conversation里面professor評價喬伊斯的作品非常complex，是因為使用了stream of consciousness(意識流)的手法，教授形容意識流是“told through the narrator’s thought, through an inner monologue, as opposed to dialogue or an objective”，啥意思呢，我們知道小說的plot要進行，需要通過dialogue對話、narration敘述等來推動，而意識流小說則是通過consciousness意識即心理描寫來推動故事發展的。

除了James Joyce，還是另外三位享譽世界的意識流作家：喜歡“追憶逝水年華”的Marcel Proust，女權斗士Virginia Woolf以及美國“莫言”William Faulkner，下面這段出自Virginia Woolf著名的短篇The Mark On the Wall，作家由墻上的斑點開始聯想，通過意識的流動，從古冢想到古物收藏家，再來感受一下：

“In certain lights that mark on the wall seems actually to project from the wall. Nor is it entirely circular. I cannot be sure, but it seems to cast a perceptible shadow, suggesting that if I ran my finger down that strip of the wall it would, at a certain point, mount and descend a small tumulus, a smooth tumulus like those barrows on the South Downs which are, they say, either tombs or camps. Of the two I should prefer them to be tombs, desiring melancholy like most English people, and finding it natural at the end of a walk to think of the bones stretched beneath the turf.... There must be some book about it. Some antiquary must have dug up those bones and given them a name. I wonder? Retired Colonels for the most part, I daresay, leading parties of aged labourers to the top here, examining clods of earth and stone, and getting into correspondence with the neighbouring clergy, which, being opened at breakfast time, gives them a feeling of importance, and the comparison of arrow-heads necessitates cross country journeys to the county towns, an agreeable necessity both to them and to their elderly wives, who wish to make plum jam or to clean out the study, and have every reason for keeping that great question of the camp or the tomb in perpetual suspension, while the Colonel himself feels agreeably philosophic in accumulating evidence on both sides of the question. ”

(參考譯文：在某種光線下面看墻上那個斑點，它竟像是凸出在墻上的。它也不完全是圓形的。我不敢肯定，不過它似乎投下一點淡淡的影子，使我覺得如果我用手指順著墻壁摸過去，在某一點上會摸著一個起伏的小小的古冢，一個平滑的古冢，就像南部丘陵草原地帶的那些古冢，據說，它們要不是墳墓，就是宿營地。在兩者之中，我倒寧愿它們是墳墓，我像多數英國人一樣偏愛憂傷，并且認為在散步結束時想到草地下埋著白骨是很自然的事情……一定有一部書寫到過它。一定有哪位古物收藏家把這些白骨發掘出來，給它們起了名字……我想知道古物收藏家會是什么樣的人?多半準是些退役的上校，領著一伙上了年紀的工人爬到這兒的頂上，檢查泥塊和石頭，和附近的牧師互相通信。牧師在早餐的時候拆開信件來看，覺得自己頗為重要。為了比較不同的箭鏃，還需要作多次鄉間旅行，到本州的首府去，這種旅行對于牧師和他們的老伴都是一種愉快的職責，他們的老伴正想做櫻桃醬，或者正想收拾一下書房。他們完全有理由希望那個關于營地或者墳墓的重大問題長期懸而不決。而上校本人對于就這個問題的兩方面能否搜集到證據則感到愉快而達觀。)

James Joyce的Ulysses是他最著名的意識流小說，描述了三位普通的都柏林人在1904年6月16日從早上8點到晚上2點一天之內所發生的事情。為什么會叫Ulysses呢?尤利西斯是羅馬神話的名字，在希臘神話中叫做Odysseus奧德修斯。史詩《奧德賽》說的是特洛伊戰爭結束后，奧德修斯在返鄉途中長年漂泊、歷經艱險的故事。而James Joyce的Ulysses里面就有一個對應奧德修斯的人物名叫布魯姆，他在6月16日這一天漫游了都柏林，最后又返回到了家中。作者安排小說和神話對應，其實有一種irony反諷的意味，神話當中的大英雄到了現實生活中成了碌碌無為被生活瑣事所困擾的廣告推銷員，反應了現代社會人們空虛的精神狀態。

很多人覺得這本小說晦澀難讀，主要是因為書中大量的monologue內心獨白，這就是我們所說的意識流，小說的結尾是布魯姆妻子長達40頁的內心獨白，而且是沒有標點符號斷句的，大家最后再來感受一下：

YES BECAUSE HE NEVER DID A THING LIKE THAT BEFORE AS ASK To get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing-suits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope I'll never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month…

(參考譯文：對啦 因為他從來也沒那么做過 讓把帶兩個雞蛋的早餐送到他床頭去吃 自打在市徽飯店就沒這么過 那陣子他常在床上裝病 嗓音病病囊囊 擺出一副親王派頭 好贏得那個干癟老太婆賴爾登的歡心 他自以為老太婆 會聽他擺布呢 可她一個銅板也沒給咱留下 全都獻給了彌撒 為她自己和她的靈魂 簡直是天底下頭一號摳門鬼 連為自己喝的那杯攙了木精的酒都怕掏四便士 凈對我講她害的這個病那個病 沒完沒了地絮叨她那套政治啦 地震啦 世界末日啦 咱們找點兒樂子不好嗎 唉要是全世界的女人都像她那樣可夠嗆 把游泳衣和袒胸夜禮服都給罵苦了 當然嘍 誰也不會要她去穿這樣的衣服 想必正因為沒有一個男人會對她多看上一眼 她信教才信得那么虔誠 但愿我永遠不會變得像她那樣 奇怪的是她倒沒要求我們把臉蒙起來 話又說回來啦 她的確是個受過良好教育的女人 她就是嘮嘮叨叨地三句話不離賴爾登先生叨 我覺得他擺脫了她才叫高興哩 還有她那只狗 總嗅我的毛皮衣服 老是往我的襯裙里面鉆 尤其是身上來了的時候 不過我還是喜歡他對那樣的老太婆有禮貌 不論對端盤子的還是對叫花子 他都是這樣 向來也不擺空架子 但也不會老是這個樣兒 要是他真有什么嚴重的毛病 住院要好得多 那兒什么都那么干凈 可我想我得催上他一個月他才肯答應…)

以上就是關于意識流作家的簡要分享，文學類話題是托福聽力的常考要點之一，需要我們關注之前考過的重要知識點，做好重點話題高頻詞匯的積累和背景知識的拓展，在以后碰到類似內容的時候可以更沉著應對。