读书会：一起探讨夏洛特·麦康纳吉的《荒野暗岸》

嘿，等等。这是属于你的时刻，属于你玩耍、创造、行动、穿越、探索的日子。这是你用来休息、滋养、成长的身体。这是你的思想。

Hey. Hold up. This is your minute, your day to play, to make, to move, to move through, to explore. It's your body to rest, to nourish, to grow. It's your mind.

知道吗？这是你的位置，你的生活去热爱、梦想、改变。这是你要理解的世界。《纽约时报》。更多信息请访问nytimes.com/yourworld。

You know? It's your place, your life to love, to dream, to change. It's your world to understand. The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com/yourworld.

我是吉尔伯特·克鲁兹，《纽约时报书评》的编辑，这里是书评播客。我们以每月一度的书友会节目结束这个月，也结束这个夏天，本期依然由MJ·富兰克林主持。本周，他和他的小组将讨论《狂野黑暗海岸》。我们将在下周劳动节期间暂停更新。

I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm the editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the book review podcast. We are ending this month and ending the summer with our monthly book club episode, posted as always by MJ Franklin. This week, he and his panel are discussing Wild Dark Shore. We are taking off next week for Labor Day.

希望大家利用这段时间读些好书，我们节后再见。

I hope everyone uses that time to read something good, and we'll see you on the other side.

大家好，欢迎来到书评播客的又一期书友会节目。我是MJ·富兰克林，《纽约时报书评》的编辑。本月的书评书友会，我们要讨论的是夏洛特·麦康纳希的《狂野黑暗海岸》。我们选择这本书是因为八月正值夏末，人们正抓紧享受最后的假期。

Hello, and welcome to another book club episode of the Book Review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review. And for this month's Book Review Book Club, we're talking about Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey. We chose this book for our book club because it's August, summer is winding down, people are squeezing in their last summer vacations.

我们想，不如选一本既引人入胜又发人深省的书，让大家无论身处何地——无论是躲在室内避暑，还是在海滩晒太阳，或是介于两者之间——都能沉浸其中。和我一起讨论这部小说的有两位书评同事，都是书友会的常客。首先是劳伦·克里斯滕森，你可能还记得三月份我们讨论过洪晃的《我们不分开》。欢迎回来，劳伦。

And we thought, let's read a propulsive, but still thought provoking book that people can sink their teeth into wherever they may be, whether that's hiding indoors from the heat, basking in the sun at the beach, or anywhere in between. And joining me to discuss the novel are two of my book review colleagues, both returning book clubbers. First, we have Lauren Christensen, who you may remember from our conversation about We Do Not Part by Hong Kong back in March. Welcome back, Lauren.

谢谢邀请。

Thank you for having me.

还有莉兹·伊根，她上次来是在2024年底讨论《像这样的小事》。莉兹，好久不见，欢迎回来。

Also with us is Liz Egan, who is here last at the end of 2024 to discuss small things like these. Liz, it's been a while. Welcome back.

谢谢邀请，很高兴回来。

Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be back.

那期节目是我们和另一位同事朱玛娜一起录制的，就像乐队重聚一样。谢谢，沃施。

And in that episode, it was all of us together with another colleague, Jumana. So it's like getting the band back together. Thank you, Vosch.

很高兴来到这里。我也是。

Glad to be here. Same.

这次我们要讨论的是一本截然不同的书。不过在深入探讨之前，按照惯例，我有几点事务性提醒。首先，在节目结尾我们会公布九月读书俱乐部的选书，请坚持收听以了解下月书目。其次，本次讨论会涉及剧透，但由于反转正是这本小说的乐趣所在，为了让更多听众能参与，前半部分节目会尽量做到无剧透或轻微剧透。重大剧透内容将集中在下半场，届时我们会全面深入剖析。

Well, we have a very different book to talk about this time around. But before we dive into that conversation, you know the drill people, I have a few admin notes. First, at the end of the episode, we will reveal our September Book Club book, so stay with us to find out what we're reading next. Second, there will be spoilers in this conversation, but given that the twists are part of the fun of this novel, to keep this conversation accessible, we're gonna keep the first half of this episode, if not completely spoiler free, spoiler light. And then we'll save the revelation, so the second half, there will be big spoilers, we're gonna be diving all the way in, So that will be in the second half of the episode.

所以请自行选择收听策略：介意剧透的只听前半部分，不介意的可以全程收听。建议先读原著再回来听节目。

So choose your own adventure. If you care about spoilers, listen to the first half. If you don't care about spoilers, listen to everything. Read the book. Come back to us.

全凭各位选择。这就是播客的魅力所在。最后还有个小请求——请别因为我的发音问题责怪我。

Just listen to us. Who knows? It's all on you. That's the beauty of your podcast, but we're gonna dive in. And then last but not least, this is just a please don't yell at me anxiety note.

关于作者名字的发音，我参考了有声书和访谈中的读法，会称她为夏洛特·麦康纳赫。虽然有人指出正确读法应是麦戈纳吉，但我们绝无冒犯之意，只是尽力而为。

I just wanna say, for this conversation, I'm pronouncing the author's name as Charlotte McConaughey. Because that's what it sounded like on the audiobook, that's what it sounded like when I listened to interviews, try to make sure I got her name right. But already, when just talking about the book, I've gotten people saying, actually, you're pronouncing her name wrong, it is McGonagy. I'm trying my best, we will be saying Charlotte McConaughey. If we are wrong, it is no disrespect.

特此说明。事务性内容到此结束。现在谁能用简短的电梯演讲介绍一下这本书的内容？

I just want to put that out there. So those are all our admin notes. And with those out of the way, could someone give us a brief elevator pitch synopsis? What is this book about?

我很乐意。《荒暗海岸》是一部关于气候变化的悬疑小说，同时也讲述了一个被遗留在荒岛上的家庭的动人故事。这个位于南极洲和澳大利亚之间的家族，肩负着看守能重启地球生态的种子库的重任。

I would love to. Wild Dark Shore is, what I would call a climate change mystery that is also a moving drama about a family that's been left on an inhospitable island. It's somewhere between Antarctica and Australia. It's basically at the bottom of the earth. And this family is charged with taking care of a seed vault that will repopulate all of the earth's flora after the apocalypse.

这个家庭由丧偶的父亲多米尼克·索尔特和他的三个孩子组成：两个青少年拉夫和芬恩，以及早慧的九岁儿子奥利。他们与企鹅、象海豹和鲸鱼为伴，过着严格节制的生活。附近废弃的研究站因永冻层融化引发的洪水而被科学家遗弃。小说开场时，一场暴风雨将一名濒死女子冲上岸。

This family consists of a widower father named Dominic Salt and his three children. There are two teenagers, Raff and Fenn, and the precocious nine year old son, Orly. And these four live a very strict, hardworking, highly rationed life amid penguins and elephant seals and whales. And nearby is an abandoned research base that is no longer inhabited by the scientists that used to work there because they've all fled due to this flooding that is about to result, or is in the process of resulting from the thawing permafrost layer. When the novel begins, the body of a woman has washed ashore in a dangerous storm.

这个名叫罗温的女子被救活后，与索尔特家族成员之间逐渐产生了亲密感与猜疑——每个家族成员都对这个既危险又神奇的地方怀有复杂的感情。为避免剧透，我只说这么多。

She turns out to be alive, but only barely, and the family nurses her back to health. So that's the setup. And I I know this is a spoiler light beginning. So without giving away too much, I'll just say that the remainder of the novel sees this growing intimacy as well as suspicion between the woman whose name is Rowan, and the various members of the Salt family, each of whom has his or her own mysterious reasons for both being drawn to and fearing this dangerous, haunted, miraculous place.

考虑到这本篇幅不长的小说包含如此丰富的内容，你的介绍非常精彩。

I think that was beautifully done considering just how much happens in this relatively slim novel.

希望我没剧透什么。我有点害怕，已经尽量小心翼翼了。

I hope I didn't give anything away. I'm scared. I tried to really tread lightly.

我觉得你做得很好。你会

I think you did perfectly. You're gonna

看到精彩的部分。丽兹，

see exquisite. Liz, is there

你有什么要补充的吗？

anything that you would add?

没有。完全没有。是的。

No. Nothing. Yeah.

这就是这本书的背景设定。现在我们是读书会，要深入探讨感受。我想问问大家，对这本书感觉如何？喜欢吗？

So that's the setup of the book. Now, it's a book club. We're gonna dive into our feelings. I wanna ask the table, how did you feel about this book? Love it?

讨厌？感觉复杂？还是介于两者之间？劳伦，先从你开始吧。

Hate it? Feel mixed? Somewhere in between? I'm gonna start with you first, Lauren.

我很喜欢。两天就读完了，根本放不下。谜团展开的方式令人非常满足，情节推进也很流畅。这本书最特别的是，除了自然的描写外，文笔也非常优美。

I loved it. I read it in two days. I it was really difficult to put down. I think the way the mystery unfolds is really satisfying, and it also flows really nicely. And what's also really special about this book is on top of all of the natural description, the just the prose is graceful.

写得真的很美。我与角色产生了强烈共鸣。而且，我迫不及待想讨论他们的遭遇。总之，我对这本书感触很深，结局也让我非常感动。

It's really beautifully written. I felt very connected to the characters. And, yeah, I'm very excited to talk about what happens to them. But, yeah, overall, I felt very connected to this book and was very moved by the end.

丽兹，我也想听听你的想法。

And I wanna ask you, Liz, tell me your thoughts.

谢谢你，MJ。我在这里扮演反派角色。我并不喜欢这本书。虽然我确实也是花了两天时间读完的。

Thank you, MJ. I am here as the bad cop. I did not love this book. Interesting. Although I did read it also over a period of two days.

倒不是说我想放下它走开。实际上坦白说，我根本没什么可放下的——因为我是用听的。所以也不存在想把AirPods摔到墙上的冲动。我被这本书吸引住了，但确实有些不满。通常我会用'吹毛求疵'这个词，但这次的问题比那更严重。

And it wasn't that I wanted to put it down and walk away from it. And in fact, I need to be honest, there was nothing to put down because I was listening to it. So it's not like I wanted to fling my AirPods across the room. I was held in the thrall of the book, but I did have some complaints. Normally I would use the word quibbles, but what I had here is larger than that.

我不相信书中的爱情线。我不喜欢其中一个孩子的声音显得过分早熟，就是最小的儿子奥利。虽然不想把对书的所有不满都归咎于有声书朗读者，但确实觉得部分问题可能源于多米尼克的嗓音特别低沉，这让我非常困扰。简直难以忍受。感觉角色声音太多——具体就不一一列举了。

I did not buy the romance. I did not like that one of the children's voices was so incredibly precocious, the youngest son, Orly. I don't want to pin all of my problems with the book on the narrator of the audiobook, but I do think that some of my complaints might stem from the fact that the voice of Dominic in particular is deep, and it really bothered me. I just, I couldn't stand it. I felt there were too many, I won't go into all of my issues, but I felt there were too many voices.

我只关心其中一个角色——罗温。真希望整本书都是从罗温的视角展开。我知道这种抱怨很烦人，就像在说'我希望这是本完全不同的书'。但我不是这个意思。

I only cared about one of them. Which That was Rowan. I wished the whole book had been from Rowan's perspective. And I know it's annoying when somebody complains about a book and basically says, I wish it had been a different book. That's not really what I'm saying.

我喜欢这个设定，喜欢这个环境，喜欢这座生机勃勃却又濒临死亡的幽灵岛。这些非常吸引我。但视角切换让我头晕目眩，奥利的角色更是让我...

I loved the setup and I loved the environment and this haunting island that is teeming with life and yet dying at the same time. I found that really appealing. But the switching of the perspectives left me with whiplash and Orly's role graded on

...忍无可忍。有意思。

me. Interesting.

说到

To the

每次轮到他的章节，我都紧张得肩膀耸到耳朵边。

point where when his section started, I found my shoulders coming up around my ears.

感觉我现在像是辩论主持人，不过劳伦，我想听听你的回应。

I feel like I'm in the role of debate moderator here, but I'm just gonna say, Lauren, your response.

我想说，在阅读和听书时，由于旁白质量的差异，我的体验经常天差地别。这本书的有声版我没听过。书中角色声音我倒不觉得刺耳。反而一直联想到——这个比喻可能有点牵强——《我弥留之际》的结构。两本书确有相似之处。

I will just say I've experienced many times in reading a book, listening to the audiobook, and having a really big difference in my enjoyment one over the other based on, yeah, I guess, the quality of the narration. And I haven't listened to the audiobook of this title. I didn't find any of the voices grating. If anything, I actually kept thinking, and this might be a stretch of a comparison, but it kept coming to me, was the structure of As I Lay Dying. There are parallels in this book.

如我所言，多米尼克·索尔特是个鳏夫。这个故事中主要的萦绕形象之一就是他已故的妻子，这三个孩子的母亲，她的声音时而浮现，或许只是他的想象，但她持续存在着。这是困扰这座岛屿的众多死亡之一。但我想说，视角的转换实际上让我觉得很有收获，无论是从情节还是艺术角度。不过这也正是我们进行这些对话的原因。

You know, as I mentioned, Dominic Salt is a widower. They're one of the main sort of haunting figures in this story is his dead wife, the mother of these three children, and her voice kind of surfacing, or maybe it's his imagination, but her kind of ongoing presence. That's one of the many deaths that haunts this island. But I will just say I actually found the changes in perspective quite rewarding, I think, for plot reasons as well as artistic reasons. But this is why we have these conversations.

完全同意。完全同意。我们可以保留不同意见。但MJ，你必须告诉我们你的想法。是的。

Absolutely. Absolutely. We can agree to disagree. But MJ, you have to tell us what you think. Yeah.

我觉得我介于你们两人之间。

I think I am the middle of you two.

你是中立派。我也是中立派。

You're Switzerland. I'm Switzerland.

总的来说，我想说，我会这样描述：我爱这个故事，但对叙事方式感到非常沮丧。我觉得这个设定很有趣。一个神秘女子被冲上岸。她怀揣秘密，被困在与世隔绝的岛屿上，与一家人共处。这本身就构成了有趣的动态。

Overall, I would say, I would characterize it as I love the story and found myself very frustrated by the storytelling. I just think the setup is interesting. A mysterious woman washes a store. She has secrets and she is stranded on an isolated island with a family. Already an interesting dynamic.

但他们也在经历丧亲之痛。这又增加了一层复杂性。而且他们也有自己的秘密。这本身就很有意思。然后你会看到他们的故事如何交织在一起。

But they are also grieving. That's another level of complexity. And they also have their own secrets. It's just inherently interesting. And then you see how their stories intertwine.

我就这样被吸引住了。我对叙事方式的挫败感在于，虽然书中有很多关于自然和气候的优美描写，也有很多关于悲伤的深刻沉思，我想回头再读，但为了推动情节，几乎像是为了保持读者的兴趣而做出的焦虑反应。我觉得有很多台词就像是廉价的情节预告。所以我有些例子，我打算念几个。因为我发现自己起初被吸引，然后就被这些反复砸中。

And I was just hooked. My frustration with the storytelling is I think that while there's a lot of very beautiful nature writing and climate writing here, and there's a lot of beautiful meditations on grief that I wanna come back to, I think for propulsion, and almost it felt like an anxiety response trying to keep the reader hooked. I felt like there were a lot of lines that were just like really schlocky teasers of drama. So I have a few exam I'm gonna just read a few. Because I found myself like, at first, being intrigued and then just getting hit over the head with them again and again.

这些只是前几页中的一些例子。

So these are just from some of the first few pages.

MJ Schlachke这真是开火了。这是个开火的词。

MJ Schlachke is really shots fired. That's a shot a shots fired word.

我用对了吗

Am I using it

你用得恰到好处，但这更适合那种

You're using it perfectly, but it is for somebody who

她正试图拉拢你

She's trying to get you on

站在她那边。没错。有人自称是瑞士中立派，可那根本不是瑞士风格的措辞。

her side. Yeah. Somebody who claims to be Switzerland, that's not a Switzerland word.

所以我会再绕回这个话题。我会再回来的。但这里有些引文。第三页写着：'这是个风暴之地，但这场风暴将是他们抵达后经历的最猛烈的一次。'

So I'll come back around to it. I'll come back around to it. But here's some of the quotes. Quote, this is a place of storms, but this storm, this one will be the worst they've endured since coming here. That's on the third page.

接着是：'她爱剪嘴鸥岛，或许比任何人都深，但她能看出岛屿正逐渐吞噬他们。'感觉这里能听到悬疑音效'噔噔噔'。下一段：'即便在这片荒凉海岸成为她的家园与避难所之前，她总会在海豹幼崽季来到海滩。甚至在她领悟到，有种恐惧不同于屏息时的战栗之前。'随后：'拉夫对父亲沉稳的性格感到惊叹。'

Then we have, she loves Shearwater, maybe more than any of them do, but she can see that little by little, the island is killing them. Like, feel like you can hear the dun dun dun being inserted there. Next, she has always come down to the beach for pup season, even before this inhospitable stretch of coast became her home, her escape. Even before she learned that there is a different kind of fear from the one you feel when you hold your breath. Next, Raff marvels at his dad's even keel.

他永远从容，永远冷静。此刻拉夫突然明白——就像他偶尔能读懂妹妹心思那样——芬正在想象与他相同的画面：多米尼克·索尔特突然爆发的暴力，及其可能造成的伤害。单独看这些片段还行，但我觉得这些暴力暗示和悬疑噱头像连环重锤般袭来，实在没必要。不过丽兹，你说过'廉价惊悚'这个词很重。

He is always even, always calm. Raff knows, in this moment, the way he sometimes knows what his sister is thinking, that Fen is imagining the same thing he is. The sudden calm violence Dominic Salt is capable of, and the damage it can do. In isolation, think it is fine, but I feel like you're just bludgeoned with these teasers of violence or these teasers of intrigue in a way that I just didn't think we needed. Liz though, you said that schlocky is a big word.

希望这话不算太刻薄。就我而言，因为完全沉浸在这个家庭的魅力与互动中，所以能够忽略这点。乐趣在于既亲自解开谜团，又旁观他人识破谎言的过程。这本书让我读得很愉快，正是整体故事帮我克服了对文风的某些不满。

I hope it's not too harsh. For me, I was able to get over that because I was so invested and charmed by this family, by their dynamics. Part of the fun is both unraveling mystery yourself, but then also watching other people realize that someone else is lying to them. And so I had a great time with this book. And it that that the overall story is what helped me get over some of my frustrations with the writing.

直说吧，这些内容完全吸引了我。你甚至没提到中间有章结尾写着'是血'，我当时不得不放下书去睡觉。我想我早就接受了'这是本悬疑小说'的设定。

I'm just gonna say I was hooked by all of that. There was oh, you didn't even say there's one chapter. It's like halfway through that ends in, it was blood. I had to go to bed at that point, and I had to just put it away. And I just I think I accepted some level of this is a mystery.

我早已做好心理准备，结果还是深陷其中。

I had prepared myself for that mindset and was just hooked.

你说'这是本悬疑小说'，这恰好是本书让我反复思考的问题——关于体裁。作为悬疑小说，某些笔调曾让我略感不耐，但转念又想：这是否正是此类文风的特色？进而联想到其他悬疑作品...

You said this is a mystery. And that is one of the things that this book actually made me think a lot about, which is genre. This is a mystery, and I found myself being a little bit annoyed by some of the tone. But then thinking, is this just the tone of the genre? And then thinking about other mysteries This

对我来说是个跨界作品。

is a crossover to me.

然后我觉得同意。完全同意。

Then I felt Agreed. Agreed.

与此同时，那种文学腔调、贯穿全书的哀思冥想，再加上气候科幻的角度，我觉得这形成了另一种更安静、更具反思性的基调。所以对我来说，这两种基调并没有无缝融合。我有些抵触情绪——倒不是不喜欢这本书，只是阅读过程中有些地方让我感到不适。

At the same time, like, the the literary tone, the grief meditation of it all, and then the climate fiction angle of it, I feel like that has a different tone where it's like more quiet, more reflective. And so for me, those two tones didn't blend together seamlessly. And I think I bristled. Like, I didn't dislike the book. I just there were things that I bristled at while reading it.

嗯。所以这就是为什么我持中立态度。整体上我非常喜欢这本书，但它也让我感到非常沮丧，可我又完全放不下这本书。

Mhmm. So I think that's why I'm in the middle zone. I overall really like this book. But I also felt really frustrated by this book, but I couldn't put this book down.

还有个你没提到的类型，可能别人不觉得这是个类型，但我认为这是《音乐之声》类型——一个远方来的陌生人教会某个家庭认识自我。

Another genre that you didn't mention, and maybe other people don't think of it as a genre, but I think of this as the sound of music genre, where a stranger comes from far away and teaches a family something about itself.

这个类比太妙了。经你这么一说，确实有太多相似之处了。

Such a good comparison too. There's so many parallels now that you said that.

对。而且罗温有次对多米尼克说：你根本没在听孩子们说话，或者说你...

Yes. And she says to, Rowan says to Dominic at one point, you're not hearing your kids, or you're not

是啊。

Yeah.

记得《音乐之声》里那个场景吗？孩子们乖乖列队走出舞厅后，玛丽亚对上校说：你根本不了解这些孩子。是啊，他们想念母亲，他们所有的...

And remember there's that scene in The Sound of Music where the kids obediently march out of the ballroom and Maria says to the captain, you don't even know these kids. Yeah. They miss their mom. They have all the

所以他情感上如此封闭 是的 就像多米尼克

So he's so emotionally closed off Yes. As Dominic

所以我非常喜欢这部分。我认为这本书中的这种风格非常成功。比如，你能看到她与孩子们相处的乐趣，以及她如何学会倾听他们，帮助他们了解自己，甚至可能了解到他们在母亲缺席的情况下是如何成长的。是的，我特别喜欢那种《音乐之声》般的氛围。我就是想提一下这一点。

So I loved that bit of it. I thought that genre, insofar as it's in this book, was very successful. Like, thought you see the fun that she has with the kids and how she learns to listen to them and help them learn something about themselves and maybe even how they've grown in the absence of their mother. So, yes, I loved the sound of music ness of it all. I did just wanna put that in.

只不过把纳粹换成了不断上涨的

Except instead of Nazis, it's rising

水位。没错。

water levels. Exactly.

是的。所以我们对这本书的看法截然不同。一个支持，一个反对。你能试着说服对方吗？Liz，你提到了Orly，比如他的声音让你感到厌烦。我的回应是，一开始Orly也让我感到厌烦，尤其是第一章以他的声音叙述时，他一直在说‘让我们打开这个那个，好吗？’

Yeah. So we have very different opinions about this book. One pro, one con. Can you try to convince the other person of Liz, you mentioned Orly, for instance, and his voice annoying you. My response to that is, I feel like Orly is he initially annoyed me too, especially you get that first chapter in his voice, and he's like, let's open blah blah blah blah, shall we?

我当时想，哪个九岁的孩子会这样说话？但后来你意识到这是一个技巧。这是他的‘声音’，他在引用百科全书的内容，他的声音是在模仿。所以后来这一切就说得通了。对我来说，我一开始对Orly感到厌烦，但后来接受了他的视角。这是我的反驳之一。

And I'm like, what nine year old speaks like this? And then you realize it's a trick. It's that it's his voice, quote unquote, but he's reading from this encyclopedia, and his voice is mimicking So then it it it made sense after all. So for me, I was, like, annoyed by Orly, but then came around to Orly and his perspective. That's one of my rebuttals.

但对于你们俩，有没有一个支持的观点能说服Liz？Liz，有没有一个反对的观点能说服Lauren？

But, like, for you two, are there is there a pro that you feel like would convince Liz? Liz, is there a con that you feel like would convince Lauren?

好吧，我来谈谈Orly。我不常和九岁的孩子相处，所以其实不太清楚他是否显得过于早熟。让我印象深刻的是Orly寻找母亲形象的方式。我觉得这不算剧透。

So okay. I'll say about Orly. I don't spend a ton of time with nine year olds, so I actually really don't know if that's, like, outrageously precocious for him. The thing that sticks out to me is the way Orly is searching for this mother figure. And the way I don't think this is a spoiler.

他在潜意识里从那个被冲上岸的女人身上寻找这种形象。他想知道，我的母亲会是这个样子吗？他不太记得母亲了，她在他出生时就去世了。这种渴望和九岁孩子那种纯粹的温柔与天真让我感到非常饱满。

He seeks that in some subconscious way with this woman who's washed ashore. He wonders, is this what my mother would have looked like? He doesn't really remember his mother. She died around when he was born. This kind of reaching and this utter tenderness and guilelessness of the nine year old felt so full to me.

抛开Orly不谈，我想为这本书说一点，我在阅读散文时能感觉到它是基于真实经历的。Shearwater，作者在文后的注释中提到，Shearwater是虚构的，但它基于一个真实的岛屿——麦夸里岛。这是一个位于塔斯马尼亚和南极洲之间的亚南极岛屿。她曾去过那里，实际上她和丈夫以及16岁的孩子一起去了这个既壮丽又恐怖、不适合人类居住的地方。

Orly aside, one thing that I really wanna say on behalf of this book, and I could feel it reading the prose that that this was based on something. Shearwater, the author writes in a note after the text. Shearwater is fictional, but it is based on a real island called Macquarie Island. It's a subarctic island between Tasmania and Antarctica. And she has been there, visited this this place, and she actually took she writes in in in this note that she she went with her husband and her 16 old child to this place that was both magnificent and terrifying and not meant for human life.

你能在每一页中感受到她与这片土地的深刻联系。我认为这是非常难能可贵的，尤其是因为大多数读者可能对这种地方没有概念。它甚至不像阿拉斯加，它真的是世界的尽头。而她将这一点传达得如此之好。

And you can just feel in every page of this book her connection to the physical land. And I think that's a really hard thing to achieve, especially because the most readers, I'm gonna venture, don't really have a reference point for a place like this. It's not even like Alaska. It it really is the edge of the earth. And I think she conveys that so well.

这就是我对Liz的推介内容。

So that's my pitch to Liz.

我完全同意。是的。我要稍微跑个题——你读过《巴兹尔·E.弗兰克韦勒的混乱档案》吗？

I totally agree. Yeah. I'm gonna throw this slightly out to left field. Did you ever read from the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E.

弗兰克韦勒？

Frankweiler?

没，应该没读过。

No. Don't think I did.

这是本很老的书，作者姓康宁斯伯格，E·L·康宁斯伯格。讲一对离家出走的兄妹住进大都会艺术博物馆的儿童故事——我保证这和主题有关——他们在博物馆里生活，晚上睡在古董床上，从喷泉池捞硬币去餐厅买食物。要知道这书写于七十年代，那时候几分钱还能买午饭。

It's a very old book. The author's last name, think, is Konigsberg, E L Konigsberg. And it's a kid's book about a pair of siblings who run away. I promise this relates back, but it's about a pair of siblings who run away from home and they move into the Metropolitan Museum Of Art. And they live there.

我并非将这本书与《音乐之声》比较，而是与《混乱档案》对照——虽然可能偏离了MJ你让我讨论的方向——但我特别喜欢书中展现的生存智慧：如何在恶劣环境里分配日渐减少的食物，如何利用手边工具，如何与周围生物共处并尊重地接纳它们成为社群成员。我渴望更多这类细节：他们如何精打细算食物，如何倒数大船接他们回家的日子。

Like they sleep in the fancy historical beds at night, and they fish the pennies out of the fountain and use them to buy food in the cafeteria. Mean, this was written in like the seventies, so you could use pennies to buy lunch. But I also, I wasn't comparing this book to The Sound of Music, I was comparing it to The Mixed Up Files because what I liked, I might not be following what you've asked me to do, MJ, but but one thing I really liked about this book was the way that we learn about living in this inhospitable world, how they're rationing their dwindling food, how they use the tools they have at their disposal, how they work with the creatures who are around them and make them part of their community in a respectful way. I wanted more of that. Like, I wanted more details about how they were stretching the food and how they were counting down the days until the big ship would come in and bring them home.

这不算剧透，开头就说了船会来。所以我现在是褒贬参半：既钟爱这种生存纪实元素（就像另一套儿童读物《生存手册》），又觉得笔墨不足。

That's not a spoiler. Don't think. We know in the beginning that the ship is coming. And so I guess I'm both complimenting and complaining at the same time. I loved the how I survived element, to throw it back to another children's book series, the how I survived books, which I also love, but I wanted more of that.

我会减少角色间互动的篇幅——顺便说岛上死了不少人——而着重描写岛上生存的精细筹划，那才最令我着迷。

I would have dialed down some of the interaction between the various characters, and also, by the way, the many people who died on this island, and dialed up the logistics of what it meant to exist there, which I found fascinating.

那种物资配给、 paranoid 心理和勉强求生的状态如何随时间影响思维模式，对心理产生什么变化——这设定实在太棒了。

And how that kind of rationing and paranoia and barely surviving, how that affects your mindset over time, what that does to your psychology. I think that was so cool.

就像《荒岛余生》。看过吗？对！我超爱这种题材，爱死了。

It's Castaway. Did you ever Castaway? Yes. I love this. I love it.

没错。《荒岛余生》是我心目中最伟大的电影之一。我公开声明过，它太棒了。我宁愿多看点《荒岛余生》，少看点奥利的小个子泰特。

Yeah. I love Castaway is one of the greatest movies of all time. I'm on record. It's so good. I wanted more Castaway and less little man Tate from Orly.

我是不是暴露年龄了？你们根本不知道我在说什么...算了。

Am I dating myself? You guys don't even know what I Forget it.

我太喜欢这些讨论了，下半场我们会深入探讨，也会聊到之前暗示过的所有剧透。但首先，我想分享一些读者的评论——这个月我们在《纽约时报》书评版块的线上读书会里讨论了夏洛特·麦康纳希的《荒暗海岸》。目前网站上挂着标题为《与书评一起读夏洛特·麦康纳希的<荒暗海岸>》的文章，读者们在评论区留下了对这本书的看法。以下是几条让我印象深刻并想分享的评论。费城的米基写道：'在我人生的这个阶段，我特别欣赏并强烈认同这位作者对人为破坏自然世界可能性的持续关注。'

I love all of this, and we're gonna dive in more in the second half, and we'll get to all the spoilers that we've alluded to. But first, I wanna share a few comments from readers because online this month, we have been talking about Wild Dark Shore with the book review book club community online. Right now, we have an article up on the New York Times headline, Book Club Read Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey with the book review, and people are leaving their thoughts on the novel in the comment section there. Here are a few that I loved and wanted to share. Mickey from Philadelphia writes, At this late point of life, I have appreciation and strong approval for this author's preoccupation with the likelihood of disturbance we have created for our natural world.

他继续写道：'我赞赏她为未来所有物种发起的这场抗争，正是这些物种构成了我们享受的多样性与美好。'这触及了小说中环保与气候保护的主题。威斯康星州麦迪逊的尼古拉斯写道：'《荒暗海岸》不仅是部有着丹·布朗式节奏的生态惊悚小说，其核心是对悲痛的沉思。'他补充道，'既令人心碎又充满生命力的《荒暗海岸》，无疑是我今年读过的最佳小说。'

He continues on: I applaud the crusade she wages for future generations of all species that comprise the diversity and beauty we enjoy. So that's tapping into the environmental climate conservation aspect of this novel. Nicholas from Madison, Wisconsin writes: Wild Dark Shore is more than an eco thriller with the pacing of a Dan Brown novel. At its heart, it is a meditation on grief. Continues, equal parts heartbreaking and life affirming, Wild Dark Shore is easily the best novel I have read all year.

这种评价我们听到很多——'毫无疑问的最佳小说之一'。一位署名'美国马里兰'的读者写道：'今年我已读完35本书，这本绝对是顶尖中的顶尖。麦康纳希的三部作品我都读过，全都精彩绝伦，但这本在多个层面上都发人深省。如果今年你只读一本书，就选《荒暗海岸》吧。'

And that's a sentiment we heard a lot of, easily one of the best novels. A reader who just goes by an American, writing for Maryland, wrote, I've read 35 books already this year, and this, by far, is the best of the best. I've read all three of McConaughey's books. All were spectacular, but this one is profound on so many levels. If you only read one book this year, make it Wild Dark Shore.

海洋泉镇的罗西简练地写道：'绝对是我今年读过最好的书。'不过也有不同意见。埃文斯顿的凯瑟琳写道：'我可能是少数派，但我觉得这本书令人疲惫。那种刻意营造的悬疑感，加上重复的反思桥段——是的，我们懂了。'

Rosie from Ocean Spring writes, just simply, absolutely the best book I've read this year. But there were some dissenting opinions as well. Catherine from Evanston writes, I suspect I'm an outlier as I found this book exhausting. It felt like the canned anticipation and suspense, littered with repetitive reflections. Yes, we get it.

'地球正在分崩离析濒临崩溃，你是刚知道吗？'她继续批评，'整体节奏时而慢如凝滞的糖浆，时而又跳过看似关键的细节，所有这些都显得不协调。我迫不及待想读完这本书好继续下一本。'言辞犀利，但我觉得说得很到位。分享这些是想说明读者们的观点确实两极分化。

The earth is falling apart and on the brink. Are you new here? And the overall pace, at times slower than stale molasses, and at others skipping over seemingly relevant details, all of it felt out of step, I couldn't wait to finish this book and move on. Way harsh, but also I think, well said. So I just wanted to bring those together to say that we are divided, readers are divided.

很多人热爱这本书，也有人对它感到失望。但我觉得很酷的是，无论爱憎，这本书都引发了极其强烈的观点交锋。以上是部分读者评论。我们即将回归对谈，不过首先需要短暂休息一下。

A lot of people love this book. Some people are frustrated with this book. But one thing that I think is really cool is that, love it or hate it, this book has elicited a lot of really strong opinions. So those are just some reader comments. We're going to jump back into our conversation, but first, I think we should take a quick break.

欢迎回来。这里是《书评》播客，我是MJ·富兰克林。正与劳伦·克里斯滕森和莉兹·伊根讨论夏洛特·麦康纳希的《荒暗海岸》。休息前我们一直避免剧透，

And we're back. This is the Book Review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm talking to Lauren Christensen and Liz Egan, and we are chatting about Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McGonahy. Before the break, we kept everything spoiler light.

现在我们要彻底深入剧透部分。闲话少叙，让我们直接探讨这本书后半段的情节：罗文来到岛上的原因，是她的丈夫汉克作为科学家曾在种子库工作。他发出求救信号后失踪了。她暗中调查试图查明真相。

Now we're just going to fully dive into spoilers. Without further ado, let's dive in and talk about what happens in the second half of this book. So, the reason why Rowan has come to the island is because her husband, Hank, was one of the scientists working at the seed vault. He sent out a distress signal and then disappeared. She is secretly trying to research and figure out what happened.

与此同时，这个家庭的每个成员都隐藏着自己的秘密。多米尼克隐瞒了一个事实——后来被罗温发现——他与罗温的丈夫之间发生了些事情。真相是，多米尼克将汉克锁在了种子库中，因为汉克侵犯了多米尼克的女儿芬恩。而奥利为了保护种子，切断了岛上的通讯，这很糟糕，因为一场即将到来的风暴正在逼近，灾难迫在眉睫。所有这一切汇聚在一起，不再是一个谜团。

Meanwhile, all of the family are hiding secrets of their own. Dominic is hiding the fact, and Rowan later discovers this, he has done something with Rowan's husband. What it turns out is that Dominic has locked Hank in the seed vault because Hank assaulted Dominic's daughter, Finn. Meanwhile, Orly, hoping to protect the seeds, has cut off communication from the island, which is bad because there's this impending storm that's approaching, and that's calamity is on the horizon. And it all comes together in this no longer a mystery.

这完全是一部惊悚片。与时间赛跑，来自坟墓的恶棍，等等，等等。发生了很多事情。说完这些，我想问，你是怎么看待它的？你对故事的发展方向有什么看法？

It's just full on thriller. Race against time, villain from the grave, etcetera, etcetera. And quite a lot happens. And with that out of the way, I wanna ask, what did you make of it? What did you make of just where the story takes us?

我的意思是，多米尼克绝对会杀了汉克。根据我们对多米尼克的了解，他出身于一个拳击世家，他没有鼓励儿子拉夫用言语解决问题（就像现在人们常说的那样），而是鼓励儿子击打沙袋。他自己也有暴力倾向。所以，我一点都不相信他在发现汉克对他女儿做了什么之后会饶过汉克的命。

I mean, Dominic definitely would have killed Hank. Knowing what we know about Dominic, that he puts a ton of he comes from a boxing family, and rather than encourage his son, Raf, to use his words, as I believe they say now, he encourages his son to punch this punching bag. He himself has the has a violent streak. And so I did not for one second buy the fact that he would have spared Hank's life when he found out what Hank did to his daughter.

我我不会说我完全不相信他不会杀人。就像，他骨子里是个心软的人。我想说的是，我认为这些所有的揭露，有很多而且它们相互重叠。比如，你知道通讯被切断了。是谁干的？

I I wouldn't say that there was no part of me that believed he wouldn't murder him. Like, he's a kind of tender hearted man at the bottom of it. I guess I will say, I thought that these, all of these revelations, and there were many and they overlapped. Like, you knew the communications had been cut off. Who did it?

这是怎么做到的？你知道汉克从岛上失踪了，但你不确定他在哪里。我们还有罗温和汉克的婚姻背景故事，我认为这部分处理得非常漂亮。但我要说，他们的婚姻非常不幸福，罗温解释了这个背景故事，这再次与书中关于生育的普遍主题相关。对吧？

How was that done? You knew Hank Hank was missing from the island, and you weren't sure where he was. You also we also have this backstory of Rowan and Hank's marriage that I think is very beautifully done. But I will say they had a very unhappy marriage, and Rowan explains this backstory that is again related to this pervasive theme in the book about procreation. Right?

从种子到生育孩子，再到在生育过程中死去。这是一本完全关注生命延续的书。所以，一个非常重要的情节是罗温在汉克前往剪水鸟岛之前感到内疚，因为他想要孩子，而她拒绝在这个垂死的星球上生孩子。这个背景故事确实推动了后续的许多揭露。我要不同意那位非常有见地的评论者的观点。

Like this from the seeds to bearing children and dying in the process of bearing children. It's a book that's completely concerned with life continuing on. And so a very big plot point is Rowan feeling this guilt before Hank has left for Shearwater that he wanted children, and she refused to bring children into this dying onto this dying planet. That backstory does fuel a lot of the ensuing revelations. I will disagree with that very eloquent commenter.

我认为节奏对我来说是合适的。我喜欢揭露的方式。它们是否都是百分之百优雅或严密的？不是。但同样，我并没有期待它们如此。

I think the pacing, it worked for me. I liked the way revelations unfolded. Were they all a thousand percent, like, the most elegant or airtight? No. But again, I wasn't looking for them to be.

没有什么太过分的事情让我出戏。我觉得这个故事应该是推动性的。我主要是为了那些被激发的非常强烈的情感，而且它对我起了作用。这就是我的感受。

Nothing was so egregious that I was pulled out of it. I felt like the story was meant to be propulsive. I was really mostly there for all the really intense emotions that were, like, being elicited, and it was working on me. So that's how I feel.

我还想补充另一个罗温不想要孩子的原因，是因为她认为自己对她妹妹的死负有责任。对吧。

I also just wanna add another reason why Rowan doesn't want kids is because she believes she was responsible for the death of her younger Right.

这是她自己的家庭。

It's her own family.

我们在故事中见证了她对自身责任认知的演变过程。13岁时，她和家人同住一艘船屋，被留下照看那个小男孩，结果孩子溺亡了——这责任真该由她承担吗？于我而言，这悲剧仿佛层层堆叠。而后她的房子又遭焚毁。

Which we see over the course of the story, her evolution in her thinking about her own responsibility level. Should she have been left to watch this little boy when she was 13 and they were living together on a houseboat and he ended up drowning? It felt to me at times, like layer upon layer of tragedy. And then her house burned down.

接着还有

And then there's

罗温的往事确实格外动人。我得说，这段背景故事让我深受触动。但确实，失去实在太多了。我甚至想

It the was older really moving. Like, I will say, it was move I thought Rowan's backstory was incredibly moving. But yes, there was just so much loss. I Like want

拉夫特的往事。

Raft's backstory.

对，拉夫特的故事。拉夫特。对亚历克斯来说，死了又死。威胁层出不穷。是啊。

Yes, Raft's story. Raft. For Alex, dead and dead. There were a lot of threats. Yeah.

还有哥哥的女友，死了。记得吗。还有那个用船载她的男人——后来

And the brother's girlfriend, dead. Right. And the boat ride the guy who drove her How

她怎么死的？

did she die?

我想不起...他们当时试图在石屋里救亚历克斯来着？哦对。对对。死了。

I I can't think they were trying to save Alex in that Oh, yeah. In that house on stone. Yeah. Yeah. Dead.

那个用船载罗温的男人，死了。剧情真够密集的。

The guy who drove Rowan over in the boat, dead. A lot of plot.

确实

A lot

属于A

of A

很多死人。是的。关于汉克我还想说一点，因为书中一个重要的加分项就是罗温的背景故事。汉克毫无可取之处。完全没有。

lot of dead people. Yeah. I just want to say one other thing about Hank, because I I just a point in the book's big point in the book's favor is Rowan's backstory. Hank has no redeeming qualities. No.

无可救药的反派。所以

Irredeemable villain. So

当你发现他在这个压抑的牢房里住了好几个月时，感觉赌注很低。顺便说一句，他们还给他阅读材料。

it's like the stakes feel very low when you find him living in this depressing cell for months on end. And by the way, they give him reading material.

为什么？他们对他很好。

Why? They treat him very kindly.

是啊。也许他们有他们的理由。但我一点也不关心他。我并没有为他加油。他毫无可取之处。

Yeah. Guess maybe they felt maybe they had their reasons. But I didn't care about him one bit. So it wasn't like I was rooting for him. He had no redeeming qualities.

对我来说，在书中遇到一个纯粹邪恶的角色很难。是的。

It's hard for me to encounter a character in a book who just has it's just all evil. Yeah.

那有点平淡。

That was a bit flat.

是的。我感觉又一次站在你们中间，因为我感受到了你们所有的感受。汉克太单薄了。情节变成了一堆悲剧的混合体。然而，我却被这一切深深打动了。

Yeah. I feel like, once again, I'm in the middle of you two because I felt everything that you felt. Hank was so flat. The plot just became this, like, amalgamation of tragedies. And yet, I felt myself so moved by it all.

我被芬恩对她所面对一切的思考所打动。我感受到了拉夫的悲痛。另一个剧透，罗温最后死了。我强烈地感受到了她的离去。这让我很惊讶，因为在整个故事中我对叙事感到相当沮丧，我心想，等等，这本书还是做了些什么的。

I found myself moved by Finn's consideration of everything that she has faced. I felt Rafe's grief. I felt an another spoiler, Rowan dies in the end. And I felt her loss so tremendously. In a way that surprised me because I was pretty frustrated by the storytelling throughout, that I was like, wait, this book did something.

而且我还挺喜欢这一点的。

And I kinda like that.

嗯，这就是她的死法。没错。她实际上是在牺牲自己来拯救奥利。在这个紧张刺激的惊悚时刻，水位不断上涨，多姆试图救他们，但来不及赶到。于是她选择了自我牺牲。

Well, it's the way she dies. Yeah. She is quite literally sacrificing herself to save Orly. In this in intense thriller moment, water is rising, and Dom is trying to save them, but he can't get there fast enough. And she sacrifices herself.

这一幕充满戏剧性。虽然极其夸张，但很美。

And it's it's dramatic. It's extremely melodramatic, but it's beautiful.

但这也让我意识到，我有多期待这个团体能重新聚在一起，形成某种非血缘家庭——这是贯穿全书的一个主题：关于你选择的家人、与生俱来的家人，何时该靠近，何时该放手。由于情节发展紧凑，故事在触及这个主题后又会回到惊悚或悬疑元素上。而罗文结局带给我的情感冲击，让我意识到这种手法多么有效——即便我们在不同线索间切换，夏洛特·麦康奈尔·康妮确实完美把握住了这本书的情感基调。是的，我真的很欣赏这一点。

But then also, it just made me realize just how invested I was in this unit coming back together as a sort of found family, which is a theme that kind of runs throughout this book of family you choose, the family you're born with, how do you lean in, or when do you step away. And because so much plot is happening, I feel like the story lean like touches on that and then goes back to like a thriller aspect or a mystery aspect. And my emotion at Rowan's end made me realize just how effective that was. That even though we're going in and out of those threads, that she Charlotte McConnell Connie, he really does have a tremendous handle on the emotional tenors of this book. And, yeah, I just I really admired that.

我还欣赏她没有仅仅抛出这些重大命题却不予解答。比如'在世界末日时生育和恋爱是否符合伦理'这个问题，她实际上给出了答案。这些答案直白却动人：是的，世界正在终结，但我们不会停止相爱，也不会停止生育。而负责管理种子库的多米尼克这个角色——

I admired also the fact that she doesn't just put all these big capital q questions out there and then not answer them. Like, it isn't just posing, well, are the ethics of having children and falling in love when the world is ending? She actually gives answers to these questions. And they're really bluntly but beautifully put of just, yeah, the world is ending, but we're not gonna stop loving each other, and we're not gonna stop having children. And you have this man, Dominic, who's in charge of taking care of this seed vault.

但故事反复提醒我们，无论是节省柴油燃料还是分配精力，他的人生优先级始终是：如果必须在延续地球所有植物和三个孩子之间做选择，他会选择孩子。夏洛特·麦康奈尔给出的答案正是如此——因为我们是人类，是动物，就像那头搁浅的母鲸，她唯一在乎的就是拯救自己的幼崽。

But again and again, you're reminded his priority in his life, whether it's reserving diesel fuel, reserving just directing his energy, he if he has to choose between the continuation of all flora on earth or his three children, he's gonna choose his three children. And that just being the answer that Charlotte McConaughey puts out there because we are human beings and we are animals just the way the same way this mother whale who washes up on shore, saves all she cares about is saving her baby.

还有那只袋熊。

And the wombat.

对，记得那只袋熊吗？它翘起屁股保护——

Yes. Remember the wombat? Who sticks his butt up to He protect

没错。我超爱这段。她反复展现年长动物保护幼崽的场景，无论是...我真的很喜欢这个设定。

yeah. I loved that. I love how she showed the the older animals' protection of its young again and again. Yeah. You know, what whether it was I I love that.

还有

There was

只是倾注了很多心血。确实如此。

just a lot of heart in it. There was.

不过我也很欣赏的是，她提供了一个绝佳的对比。她说，看一个父母会为孩子做什么，会牺牲什么。然后你看到孩子们的反应却是，实际上这像个监狱。

What I love too, though, is that she provides a really great foil. She says, look at what one parent will do and what they'll sacrifice for their kids. And then you see the kids are like, but actually this is a prison.

对，没错。

Like Right.

芬恩和拉夫表示，我们想长大，过自己的生活。尽管我们明白父亲的用意，但在这里我们感到窒息。而奥利极度渴望一个他无法完全拥有的母亲形象，因为多米尼克彻底断绝了这种可能。我喜欢这些宏大的道德课题相互交织、冲突、推动的感觉。在这部惊悚情节之下，书中仿佛进行着一场充满张力的对话。

Finn and Raf being like, we want to grow up and have lives on our own. And we are being smothered here even though we see what our dad is trying to do. And Orly really longing for this mother figure that he can't totally have because Dominic has cut himself off so tremendously. I love that, like, these big sweeping lessons on morals felt like they were complicating each other and conflicting with each other and pushing each other. And it felt like there was a very dynamic conversation happening in this book underneath this kind of thriller storyline.

我能快速补充一点吗？虽然我们说得很有戏剧性，充满深度思考之类的，但其实很多地方带着冷幽默。

Can I also just really quickly say, I think we're making it sound rightly melodramatic and kind of like deep thoughts and whatever? It's also there's a dry humor to a lot of it.

我觉得有一种

I think there's a

大量...对话处理得非常好，本来很容易变得俗套——可能我现在描述得比实际呈现更俗气些。比如罗温就很有趣，她

lot the the dialogue is really nicely done, and that could have easily it could have easily been a really cheesy I think we're maybe I'm making it sound a little cheesier than I think it actually was in execution. Like, Rowan is funny, and she's

言辞犀利。而且能干。完全独立。我太喜欢她了。

sarcastic. And Can do. Handy and Completely. I loved her.

所以抱歉莉兹，我确实相信这段爱情

Which is why, sorry, Liz, I did buy the love

我不太喜欢其中的惊悚元素。感觉可能是夏洛特·麦康纳收到了编辑的意见，要求把这本书包装成惊悚小说，放在书店特定区域。而我更希望它归类为普通小说——那些戏剧性冲突本已足够，不需要额外贴上惊悚标签，就像月球上插旗那样多余，不知道这么说是否清楚。

I didn't like the thriller part of it as much. I felt like maybe Charlotte McConaughey was getting notes from her editor saying, we want to sell this as a thriller. We want to shelve it here in the bookstore, when I just wanted it in general fiction. Like, I I didn't need the melodrama because the stakes were already there, and there were so many stakes that we didn't need the thriller flag on the moon in addition, if that makes sense.

我同意你的看法。我也认为不需要那些刻意制造悬念的桥段。是的，因为故事本身——包括情节、冲突、主题和背景设定——已经足够吸引人。我喜欢其中蕴含的惊悚元素，但不需要将其刻意强化到夸张的程度。

I'm with you. I didn't think it needed, and that was part of my gripe too, that we don't need those, like, really big cliffhanger teasing lines. Yes. Because in itself, the story, the stakes, the themes, the setting is interesting enough. I liked that there was that thriller arc to it that I didn't need it dialed up to 12.

确实如此。我也是这么想的。我们这次讨论已经超时了，接下来还有有趣的好书推荐环节。不过在进入下一部分前，我想问问，关于这本书还有什么我们没谈到的内容你想补充吗？

Exactly. And that's how I yeah. So I agree with you. We are running long in this conversation, and we have a fun third segment of recommendations. But before I move on, I just wanna ask, are there any things that you wanna mention about this book that we haven't gotten around to?

比如特别喜欢的角色、观点，或者希望确保纳入讨论的引文？我先抛砖引玉——之前提过我钟爱其中的自然描写。夏洛特·麦康纳希描绘这座岛屿生态的笔触，做到了优秀自然与气候题材作品的精髓：为读者留出沉思与感悟的空间。这种写法本身也是对读者的暗示——不仅要关注气候变化主题和即将淹没岛屿的海潮，更要珍视自然界的奇迹。

Characters you particularly loved, ideas, or quotes that you wanna make sure are part of this conversation. I have one to give any people time to think, which is I mentioned before I love the nature writing. And what Charlotte McConaughey is able to capture with how she writes about this island of flora and fauna here, she does what I think all good nature and climate writing does, which is give us space and time to think and appreciate. And it I think that is a signpost to the reader as well. Pay attention not just to the overall themes of climate change, to the surging tides of water that are that's gonna destroy this island and this base, but also just appreciate the miracle of the natural world.

我对此深有共鸣。

I loved that.

这个解读太美了，真的非常美妙。

That is beautiful. Really beautiful.

以上只是我们对这本书的部分见解。感觉能聊上一整天，但时间所剩无几。在结束前，我们必须分享些书籍推荐。我会把这个环节设置得很开放——莉兹、劳伦，你们认为读者看完《Wild Dark Shore》后适合接着读什么？

Those are just a few of our thoughts about this book. I feel like we could talk about this book all day, and unfortunately, we're running out of time. But before we go, I wanted to make sure we shared some book recommendations. I'm gonna keep this recommendation segment very broad. I just wanna know, Liz, Lauren, what would you recommend readers pick up after reading Wild Dark Shore?

推荐理由可以多样：可能是另一部岛屿悬疑故事，或是关于孤立哀伤家庭的作品，也可能是其他气候主题书籍，又或者你们想推荐更多生态惊悚/生态小说。

That could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe this is another mystery set in an island. Maybe this is another isolated, grieving family story. Maybe this is another book about the climate. Maybe there's more eco thrillers or eco fiction that you wanna recommend.

我洗耳恭听。就想知道你们会建议读者接下来读什么？

I defer to you. I just wanna know, what would you recommend readers pick up next?

我推荐夏洛特·伍德的《石院祷文》。

I would recommend Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood.

这本书的书评作者正是劳伦·克里斯滕森——特别提一下。

And reviewed by one Lauren Christensen for the books review. Shout out.

没错。我可能是根据你的卖家评论挑选的。这是一本关于一位澳大利亚女性去修道院生活的小说。书中还融入了气候元素和野生动物元素，描述了修道院里鼠患成灾的情景。故事非常感人。

That's right. I probably picked it up based on your seller review. It's a novel about a woman in Australia who goes to live at a convent. It also has a climate element to it and a wildlife element to it involving a mouse infestation in the convent. And it's incredibly moving.

我认为夏洛特·伍德克制住了将其变成其他任何东西的冲动，只留下对时间流逝真正美丽而深思的冥想。我在拿苹果和橙子作比较，这并不是一个完美的类比。但这两本书之间有些相似又美妙的元素。

And I think Charlotte Wood resisted any urge to turn it into anything other than just a really beautiful, thoughtful meditation on the passage of time. I'm comparing apples and oranges. It's not really a perfect comparison. But there are elements between these two books that are similar and wonderful.

我会说苹果和橙子的区别从书名就能看出来。《石院祷文》是虔诚的，而《黑暗海岸》则是狂野阴暗的。绝对如此。处理手法相似

I would say the Apples and Oranges are clued by the titles. Stoneyard Devotional is a devotional, while Dark Shore is wild and dark. Absolutely. Tack with similar

的主题。完全正确。

themes. Absolutely.

你呢，劳伦？

What about you, Lauren?

读这本书时，我一直在想另一本我们三个几年前读过的书——埃莉诺·卡顿的《伯纳姆森林》。我想这也算心理惊悚小说，所以节奏感确实相似。这本讲的是一个游击园艺团体的故事，同样带有强烈的生态惊悚色彩，只不过多了个科技亿万富翁式的幕后主宰。

So I kept thinking while reading this book of another one that actually I know the three of us read a couple years ago, Eleanor Catton's Burnham Wood. It is also, I guess, a psychological thriller. So it does have a similar pace feel. This is about a a guerilla gardening collective, also very much an eco thriller. It's except there's this tech billionaire kind of overlord.

情节不同，但都是关注气候问题的悬疑惊悚。另一本让我想起的书是伊丽莎白·奥康纳的《鲸落》，这本书基调完全不惊悚，同样设定在威尔士海岸外一个非常偏远、人烟稀少的小岛上。讲述一个封闭的小家庭和新来者打破他们习以为常的生活常态的故事。非常冥想式，充满空灵感和大量自然描写。

It's a the plot is different, but it's climate minded mystery thriller. Another book that I was thinking of, which is not at all a thriller in tone, is Elizabeth O'Connor's Whale Fall, which is a book similarly set on a very remote, sparsely populated island, this one off the coast of Wales. And it's about a sort of small insular family and newcomers that arrive to sort of disrupt the everyday normalcy that they have come to experience. It's quite meditative. It's very ethereal, a lot of nature description.

篇幅短小，但很美。

It's short. It's beautiful.

超爱那本书。它和我推荐的卡里斯·戴维斯的《澄澈》也很相似，我觉得可以把《澄澈》《鲸落》和《狂野黑暗海岸》并列摆放，取下封面装裱起来。它们就像完美的三联画，因为都是关于岛上与世隔绝的人，某个陌生人被冲上岸，然后都配有这种浪花翻涌的美丽画作。但《澄澈》讲的是被派去偏远岛屿驱逐最后一位租客的男人。

Love that book. And that is also similar to one of my book recommendations, which is Clear by Carys Davies, which I feel like you could put Clear Whale Fall and Wild Dark Shore next to each other. Take their covers, frame them. They're like this perfect triptych because they are all books about people isolated on an island, a stranger somehow washes ashore, comes ashore, but then also they all feature these like beautiful paintings of like waves cresting. But Clear is about a man who is sent to this remote island to evict the last tenant there.

他是个独自生活的牧羊人，因为其他人都离开了。而抵达的男人遭遇严重事故昏迷不醒，被他救醒后两人建立了深厚情谊。与此同时，他藏着必须驱逐这个人的秘密。

And he is this, like, mountain man shepherd who has been living alone because everyone else has left. But the man who arrives, gets in this terrible accident, is knocked out cold, and is brought back to health by this man. And they form a really deep relationship. Meanwhile, he has this secret. He has to evict this man.

他还有妻子，但他正在建立这段关系。就像有人被冲上岸，既有秘密，我们又深深沉浸于这些被迫共处的人们之间发展的关系中。他们之间非常相似。

He also has a wife, but then he is forming this relationship. But just like someone washes ashore, there are secrets, but also we are very deeply invested in the developing relationships between the people that are stuck together. Very similar between all of them.

我能指出一点吗？我就把这话放这儿——我们提到的书都来自英联邦国家。有苏格兰的、新西兰的、澳大利亚的。

Can I just point out, and just I'm just gonna leave this here? And we're all we have all named books that are Commonwealth books. We have Scotland. We have New Zealand. We have Australia.

还有威尔士的。就想提一下。听众们可以...

We have Wales. Just wanna put that there. Listeners can be

我注意到了。

I noticed that.

是啊。

Yeah.

我还有一本将我们带到美国的书——保罗·哈丁的《这另一个伊甸园》。哈丁是我最爱的作家之一。之前提过优秀气候小说和自然写作能让人沉浸于某种感受或思考，这正是哈丁的风格，但带着深刻的情感共鸣。

I have one other one that brings us to The United States Of America. And that is This Other Eden by Paul Harding. And Paul Harding is just one of my all time favorite writers. I mentioned before the idea of good climate fiction and good nature writing letting you just sit in a feeling or a thought. That's what Paul Harding does, but with these like very deep emotional resonances.

你沉浸在悲伤中，沉浸在渴望里，沉浸在孤独里。故事发生在缅因州一座岛上，有个混血族群正面临驱逐。你跟随岛上多位居民的视角。

You sit in grief. You sit in longing. You sit in isolation. This other Eden is set on an island in Maine, and there is a colony of mixed race people living there, and they are being evicted. And you follow a variety of the residents of this island.

也会跟随其中一位执行驱逐的男子。文字太美太动人。开篇就值回书价——洪水上涨淹没岛屿的绝美场景描写。

You follow, I think, one of the men who come to evict them. And it's just beautiful. It's just moving. And it opens with this alone is worth the price of entry. It opens with this beautiful set piece of this island being flooded and the water is rising up.

有家人爬上一棵树，其中一人举着旗帜。这个意象绝美。哈丁擅长写动人、心碎又引人共鸣的小说。《这另一个伊甸园》描绘面临巨变的孤立岛民社区，让我想起《野暗岸》——不同风格，一个静谧冥想，一个狂野黑暗，但很相配。

And there's a family climbing up this tree, and one person is holding this flag. And it just it's this beautiful image. And Paul Harding writes these moving, heartbreaking, evocative novels, and this other Eden in just the portrait of an isolated community on an island facing a tremendous change, I think, makes me think of Wild Dark Shore. Different tones. One is quiet, meditative, literary.

另外两本必须提及：《上层林》——谈气候变化和自然不能不提理查德·鲍尔斯；还有谢丽尔·斯特雷德的《走出荒野》。

This is wild, dark. But I think they pair very nicely together. And then two others that I just wanted to mention, we have to mention the over story. We cannot talk about a book about climate change and nature without mentioning Richard Powers. And then Wild by Cheryl Strayed came to mind.

我不知道。那是一本关于自然的书，自然与

I don't know. That's a book about nature Nature and

绝对是。

and Absolutely is.

我喜欢那本书。我经历了一段很长的谢丽尔·斯特雷德

I love that book. I went through a very big Cheryl Strayt

我从未读过。

I never read it.

我羞愧地说，我从未读过理查德·鲍尔斯的作品。

I never read the Richard Powers, I'm ashamed to say.

这就是读书俱乐部的美妙之处。我

That's the beauty of a book club. I

你在不同人生阶段两次阅读《荒野》。它真的很棒。我喜欢那部电影，但书要好得多。

You've away with a reading read Wild twice at different phases of my life. It's really good. And I liked the movie, but the book is much better.

我们有了行动指令。劳伦，去读王尔德。莉兹，去读《树语》。读者们，去读任何你们还没读过的书。遗憾的是，我们今天的时间就到这里了。

We have our marching orders. Lauren, go read Wilde. Liz, go read The Overstory. Readers, read anything that you haven't read so far. That is unfortunately all the time that we have for today.

我只想说，莉兹，劳伦，非常感谢你们。这真的很有趣。

I just wanna say, Liz, Lauren, thank you so much. This is really fun.

这

This

你太棒了。真的。这真的很有趣。

is you great. So much. This was really fun.

我还想感谢所有在线与我们共读的朋友。请继续参与讨论。我们《纽约时报》网站上有一篇题为'读书会'的文章，邀请大家与书评版一起阅读《Wild Dark Shore》。快去那里和其他读者交流吧。

I also wanna say thank you to anyone who has read with us online. Please keep up the conversation. Again, we have an article up on the New York Times' website, Headlined Book Club. Read Wild Dark Shore with the book review. So go chat with other readers there.

如之前承诺的，现在揭晓我们九月读书会的选书。九月份，书评读书会将阅读简·奥斯汀的《傲慢与偏见》。2025年本该是简·奥斯汀诞辰200周年。因此全球各地都在举办各种纪念奥斯汀的活动，我们想通过读书会阅读她最受喜爱的作品之一来加入这场庆典。希望大家能参与进来。

But as promised, we are gonna reveal our September book club pick. In September, the Book Review Book Club will be reading Pride and Prejudice by one Jane Austen. This year, 2025, would have been Jane Austen's 200 birthday. Because of that, there are a lot of celebrations about Austen, and for Austen, and of Austen going around all over the world, and we wanted to join in on the fun by reading one of her most beloved books from Book Club. We hope you'll join us.

现在网站上已发布相关文章，标题结构你们肯定能猜到——'读书会：与书评版共读简·奥斯汀的《傲慢与偏见》'。欢迎加入讨论。我们还将在9月26日播出的播客中讨论这本书。

Right now, there's an article up. I bet you can guess the headline structure. Book Club, read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with the book review. Join the conversation there. We will also be discussing the book on the podcast that airs on September 26.

我们迫不及待想和大家探讨这部小说。在那之前，祝阅读愉快。

We can't wait to discuss this novel with you. And until then, happy reading.

刚才听到的是MJ·富兰克林、莉兹·伊根和劳伦·克里斯蒂安森在月度读书会讨论中关于《Wild Dark Shore》的对话。我是《纽约时报》书评版编辑吉尔伯特·克鲁兹。祝大家夏末愉快。

That was MJ Franklin, Liz Egan, and Lauren Christiansen in conversation for a monthly book club discussion talking about Wild Dark Shore. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. Have a happy end of your summer.