书名：Less Than One小于一
作者：Joseph Brodsky约瑟夫·布罗茨基
出版社名称：Penguin Classics
出版时间：2011
语种：英文
ISBN：9780141196510
商品尺寸：12.9 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：512
★美国国家书评奖获奖作品
★诺贝尔文学奖得主、美国著名诗人约瑟夫·布罗茨基经典散文集

Less Than One《小于一》是诺贝尔文学奖得主布罗茨基的首部散文集，展现了他对文学、政治和历史等各领域的全面兴趣。从广泛的意义上讲，《小于一》是一部知识分子的自传。本书收录了布罗茨基评论诗歌与诗学的卓越的散文作品。不可避免，《小于一》中也谈到了政治。这些散文是对历史和当今时代的深刻沉思。本书也是一部私人回忆录。用作书名的散文《小于一》和压卷之作《一个半房间》，是布罗茨基为自己的故乡城市和双亲谱写的颂歌——或者说哀歌。

媒体评论：
“东西方兼容的背景为他提供了异常丰富的题材和多样化的观察方法。该背景同他对历代文化透彻的悟解力相结合，每每孕育出纵横捭阖的历史想象力。”——诺贝尔文学奖授奖词
 
“（本书）展现出作者用英语写作的高超能力，文笔灵动，饱含智慧……为人们了解俄国的文学传统、政治气候和俄罗斯当代诗歌与诗学，提供了深刻而具有启发性的真知灼见。” ——美国《图书馆杂志》

“每一篇散文都是一场充满激情的演出，这些经典散文跨越了生活、政治与艺术。”——英国《独立报》

Essayist and poet Joseph Brodsky was one of the most penetrating voices of the twentieth century. This prize-winning collection of his diverse essays includes uniquely powerful appreciations of great writers: on Dostoevsky and the development of Russian prose, on Auden and Akhmatova, Cavafy, Montale and Mandelstam. These are contrasted with his reflections on larger themes of tyranny and evil, and subtle evocations of his childhood in Leningrad. Brodsky’s insightful appreciation of the intricacies of language, culture and identity connect these works, revealing his remarkable gifts as a prose writer.

Review
“Sparkles with intellect, and combines the precision of scholarship with the passion of the poet.”  —The Times

“Genius... bringing ardent intelligence to bear upon poetry, politics and autobiography.”  —Seamus Heaney
Less Than One《小于一》作为一本诗人批评家的随笔集，它不是一部纯粹的批评著作，也不是纯粹的批评文章结集或专著，而是结合了自传成分，而由于布罗茨基的经历具有传奇性，因此这自传成分不仅包含了对诗歌的评论，还有对社会和政治的评论。《小于一》是一部以长篇文章为主的随笔集，夹以若干短文。除了标准的“诗人批评家”的长篇文章例如评论阿赫玛托娃、卡瓦菲斯、蒙塔莱、曼德尔施塔姆夫妇、沃尔科特、茨维塔耶娃和奥登的文章外，还有几篇短则三四十页、长则五六十页的“超文章”，包括分别对茨维塔耶娃和奥登各一首诗的细读；对20世纪俄罗斯散文（主要指小说）的无情裁决（《空中灾难》）；对自己的成长（《小于一》）、对父母（《一个半房间》）和对他的城市（《一座改名城市的指南》）的回忆；以及历史笔记和游记（《逃离拜占庭》）。
约瑟夫·布罗茨基（1940—1996），俄裔美籍著名诗人、散文家，生于列宁格勒（现圣彼得堡）一个犹太家庭，15岁辍学谋生，很早开始写诗并发表于苏联地下刊物。1964年受苏联政府当局审讯，因“社会寄生虫”罪获刑五年，并被流放至西伯利亚。1972年被苏联政府当局强制遣送离境，随后前往美国定居，先在密歇根大学任驻校诗人，继而在其他大学任访问教授。1986年荣获美国国家书评奖，1987年荣获诺贝尔文学奖，1991年获选“美国桂冠诗人”。其代表作品有诗集《诗选》、《词类》、《致乌拉尼亚》，散文集《小于一》、《论悲伤与理智》等。
Joseph Brodsky died in January 1996. His last post was Five Colleges Professor of Literature at Mount Holyoke College. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Brodsky’s other collection of essays On Grief and Reasonis being reissued alongside Less than One in Penguin Modern Classics.
Less Than One小于一
The Keening Muse哀泣的缪斯
Pendulum’s Song钟摆之歌
A Guide to a Renamed City一座改名城市的指南
In the Shadow of Dante在但丁的阴影下
On Tyranny论独裁
The Child of Civilization文明的孩子
Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980): An Obituary娜杰日达·曼德尔施塔姆（1899—1980）：讣文
The Power of the Elements自然力
The Sound of the Tide涛声
A Poet and Prose诗人与散文
Footnote to a Poem一首诗的脚注
Catastrophes in the Air空中灾难
On “September 1, 1939” by W.H. Auden论W.H.奥登的《1939年9月1日》
To Please a Shadow取悦一个影子
A Commencement Address毕业典礼致词
Flight from Byzantium逃离拜占庭
In a Room and a Half一个半房间

As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one’s palms keep sliding off.
I remember rather little of my life and what I do remember is of small consequence. Most of the thoughts I now recall as having been interesting to me owe their significance to the time when they occurred. If any do not, they have no doubt been expressed much better by someone else. A writer’s biography is in his twists of language. I remember, for instance, that when I was about ten or eleven it occurred to me that Marx’s dictum that “existence conditions consciousness was true only for as long as it takes consciousness to acquire the art of estrangement; thereafter, consciousness is on its own and can both condition and ignore existence. At that age, this was surely a discovery—but one hardly worth recording, and surely it had been better stated by others. And does it really matter who first cracked the mental cuneiform of which “existence conditions consciousness” is a perfect example?
So I am writing all this not in order to set the record straight (there Is no such record, and even if there is, it is an insignificant one and thus not yet distorted), but mostly for the usual reason why a writer writes—to give or to get a boost from the language, this time from a foreign one. The little I remember becomes even more diminished by being recollected in English.
For the beginning I had better trust my birth certificate, which states that I was born on May 24, 1940, in Leningrad, Russia, much as I abhor this name for the city which long ago the ordinary people nicknamed simply “Peter”—from Petersburg. There is an old two-liner:
The sides of people
Are rubbed by Old Peter.
In the national experience, the city is definitely Leningrad; in the growing vulgarity of its content, it becomes Leningrad more and more. Besides, as a word, “Leningrad” to a Russian ear already sounds as neutral as the word “construction” or “sausage.” And yet I’d rather call it “Peter,” for I remember this city at a time when it didn’t look like “Leningrad”—right after the war. Gray, pale-green façades with bullet and shrapnel cavities; endless, empty streets, with few passersby and light traffic; almost a starved look with, as a result, more definite and, if you wish, nobler features. A lean, hard face with the abstract glitter of its river reflected in the eyes of its hollow windows. A survivor cannot be named after Lenin.