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月亮和六便士 The Moon and Sixpence
如果你看了原文,就可以看出作者的思路,月亮是美好,纯洁的代名词,便士是金钱社会的代名词.主人公原来是一个富有的上层人士,在经历了空虚的前半生后,他开始了真正的理想追求,他的一生都在追求纯粹的美,震撼的美.而用月亮来诠释他的追求是最合适的.对一般人来说,月亮高不可求,但这正好反映了主人公执著的追求和高洁的人格.相比周围的配角,他们没有也不想脱离现实的欲望,因此用便士来形容他们所在的世界是在合适不过了，至于作者用六这个数字,实际上没有什么特别的意义,毛姆的很多作品里都有一些随意的东西(也可以说是创意或者个性标榜),我们不用在这个数字上透析.
我记得读这本小说已经很久了。记忆不在清晰，蒙胧的回忆是中痛苦的残记。但我仍要推荐这本小说。我的眼光一直是另类的眼光，但我对文本的读法也许本身就有属于我的记忆。我不想说是我误读了毛姆。因为作品一旦被创造出就不属于作者自己，也许作品有时候只属于作者自己！外来的读法是种主观的想法。
我记得钱钟书先生决定写《围城》时就是因为受到毛姆的刺激。钱先生的学问是没有人与之可以媲美的。别的不再多说。话说多了会惹出麻烦的。钱钟书先生说：毛姆都能写出那样的小说。读者直多是无法计算的。毛姆当时确实是炙手可热的人物。于是乎《围城》横空出世！关于《围城》它可以说是借着钱先生的才华融多家与一体的杰作。其中可以看出很多欧美小说名家的影子，以为钱先生学贯中西的才华《围城》被写成了一部杰作！
闲话说的已经多了，下面我谈谈自己对《月亮和六便士》的看法：毛姆以前是个医生，而当医生的这段经历为他日后的创作提供了大量的材料。但《月亮和六便士》的原型是法国印象派画家高更。
高更的画本身就很有价值，这部以他为原形的小说风靡后，高更的绘画艺术和作品受到了更大的关注，高更印象派宗师的地位得到确立。同时，塔希提岛-----高更隐居的小岛也名扬与世，成了旅游胜地。
根据高更的著作《马裏欧的古代信仰》,知道女人是月神希纳,男人是地神法脱。大地之神主宰人世的生成和轮转,乃是必然的毁灭。月之女神长官永远的丰收和不朽。
这个关于这个作品的题外话，而真正的文学内涵远非如此简单的解读。我自己的看法是：这个本小说远远超过毛姆自己的解读。因为我发现其实这本小说写的是关于天才的事情！天才是个残酷的字眼，人们根本不愿意承认天才！因为我们总相信：天才出于勤奋！事实上并非如此。尤其在文学领域。真正的优秀的艺术家是天才。文学不过是艺术中最上乘的精品！我知道的这个就是我读《月亮和六便士》的感悟！我作下我残酷的决定放弃化学从而转向文学就是因为这个缘故。我也许更适合搞文学。
我感激我在大一那次灵魂的颤栗！《月亮和六便士》主人公思特里克兰德那“旷野的呼喊”终于让我认识到了自我。
作家就是这样的一种人，他们把人类的智慧发现后用作品表现出来。我自己是学习化学的。我自己很难均衡文科与理科的思维。理科讲的是科学。科学真的是个很麻烦的词语。严格意义上说只有能用数学公式表达的东西才是科学。科学越来越教我怀疑？怀疑所谓的科学？所谓的科学根本解决不了人类的问题！我不想借文学来阐释科学。我多言了。
房子里的光线特别暗，仿佛是，他突然走入了一个神的世界；蒙蒙胧胧中，他好象觉得自己正置于一个原始森林中，大树下倘徉着一些赤身裸体的人。特拉斯医生几乎连呼吸都停止了，过了一会儿他才知道，他看到的是四壁上巨大的壁画。他心中出现了一种既无法理解又不能分析的感情。这幅画具有压人的气势，它既是肉欲的，又充满无限热情，与此同时又含着某种恐惧成分......绘制这幅巨作的人已经深入到大自然的隐秘中，知道了一般人所不知道的事物。他画的是某种原始的令人震慑的东西，既美的惊人，又污秽邪恶，他的画奇异而荒诞，好像宇宙初创时的图景----伊甸园，亚当和夏娃……
“上帝啊，这是天才” 特拉斯医生掩口惊呼。
这个原文的话，感谢作者道出了真理的话，艺术是属于天才的！这个是震撼灵魂的话语！
有两本相似的小说《月亮和六便士》和塞林格的《麦田的守望者》。这两个小说的主人公有着惊人的相似。
《月亮和六便士》不乏精彩的句子。如：
“世界是冷酷无情的、残酷的。我们生到人世间没有人知道为了什么，我们死后没有人知道到何处去。我们必须自甘卑屈。我们必须看到冷清寂寥的美妙。在生活中我们一定不要出风头、露头角，惹起命运对我们注目。让我们去寻求那些淳朴、敦厚的人的爱情吧。他们的愚昧远比我们的知识更为可贵。让我们保持着沉默，满足于自己小小的天地，像他们一样平易温顺吧。这就是生活的智慧。”
“在爱这种感情中主要成分是温柔。爱情中需要有一种软弱无力的感觉，要有体贴爱护的要求，有帮助别人、取悦别人的热情——如果不是无私，起码是巧妙地遮掩起来的自私；爱情包含着某种程度的腼腆怯懦。……爱情要占据一个人莫大的精力，它要一个人离开自己的生活专门去做一个爱人。即使头脑最清晰的人，从道理上他可能知道，在实际中却不会承认爱情有一天会走到尽头。爱情赋予他明知是虚幻的事物以实质形体，他明知道这一切不过是镜花水月，爱它却远远超过喜爱真实。它使一个人比原来的自我更丰富了一些，同时又使他比原来的自我更狭小了一些。他不再是一个人，他成了追求某一个他不了解的目的的一件事物、一个工具。……”
“我们每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同的价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别的人也不能为别人所了解。我们好像住在异国的人，对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的、深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说得只不过是像‘园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里’这类话。”
张贤亮在〈绿化树〉中说：“凡是出现两次的事物必有某种意义，那就是命运！”
文学，文学真的是很难言的东西，它如此另人费解，它不是靠智力，不是靠理性可以把握的。科学最大的弊端是可以模仿。即使你很笨，你仍然可以在科学上做出成绩，尤其是化学！而文学则不然！这个也许就是文学的魅力！它如此令我痴迷！尼采说：“模仿无疑于自杀”。科学的本质正是模仿。
Plot summary
The novel is written largely from the point of view of the narrator, who is first introduced to the character of Strickland through his (Strickland's) wife and strikes him (the narrator) as unremarkable. Certain chapters are entirely composed of the stories or narrations of others which the narrator himself is recalling from memory (selectively editing or elaborating on certain aspects of dialogue, particularly Strickland's, as Strickland is said by the narrator to be limited in his use of verbiage and tended to use gestures in his expression).
Strickland, a well-off, middle-class stock broker in London some time in the late 19th or the first half of the 20th century. Early in the novel, he leaves his wife and children and goes to Paris, living a destitute but defiantly content life there as an artist (specifically a painter), lodging in run-down hotels and falling prey to both illness and hunger. Strickland, in his drive to express through his art what appears to continually possess and compel him inside, cares nothing for physical comfort and is generally ignorant to his surroundings, but is generously supported while in Paris by a commercially successful yet unexceptional Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve, a friend of the narrator's, who immediately recognizes Strickland's genius. After helping Strickland recover from a life-threatening condition, Stroeve is repaid by having his wife, Blanche, abandon him for Strickland. Strickland later discards the wife (all he really sought from Blanche was a model to paint, not serious companionship, and it is hinted in the novel's dialogue that he indicated this to her and she took the risk anyway), who then commits suicide - yet another human casualty (the first ones being his own established life and those of his wife and children) in Strickland's single-minded pursuit of Art and Beauty.
After the Paris episode, the story continues in Tahiti. Strickland has already died, and the narrator attempts to piece together his life there from the recollections of others. He finds that Strickland had taken up with a native woman, had at least one child by her (only a son is directly referenced) and started painting profusely. We learn that Strickland had settled for a short while in the French port of Marseilles before traveling to Tahiti, where he lived for a few years before finally dying of leprosy. Strickland left behind numerous paintings, but his magnum opus, which he painted on the walls of his hut in a half-crazed state of leprosy-induced blindness, was burnt down after his death by his wife by his dying orders.
Inspiration
The inspiration for this story, Gauguin, is considered to be the founder of primitivism in art. The main differences between Gauguin and Strickland are that Gauguin was French rather than English, and whilst Maugham describes the character of Strickland as being largely ignorant of his contemporaries in Modern art (as well as largely ignorant of other artists in general), Gauguin himself was well acquainted with Van Gogh. How many of the details of the story are based on fact is not known. However, Maugham had visited the place where Gauguin lived in Tahiti, and purchased some glass panels painted by Gauguin in his final days.
About the title
According to some sources, the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review of Of Human Bondage in which the novel's protagonist, Philip Carey, is described as "so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet." Presumably Strickland's "moon" is the idealistic realm of Art and Beauty, while the "sixpence" represents human relationships and the ordinary pleasures of life.
Adaptations
The book was filmed by Albert Lewin in 1943. The film stars George Sanders as Charles Strickland.
The novel served as the basis for an opera, also titled The Moon and Sixpence, by John Gardner to a libretto by Patrick Terry; it was premiered at Covent Garden in 1958.
Writer S Lee Pogostin adapted it for American TV in 1959. It starred Laurence Olivier
In popular culture
In the opening scene of Francois Truffaut's cinematic adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, several firemen are preparing books for burning. In the crowd of onlookers is a little boy who picks up one of the books and thumbs through it before his father takes it from him and throws it on the pile with the rest. That book is The Moon and Sixpence.
我记得读这本小说已经很久了。记忆不在清晰，蒙胧的回忆是中痛苦的残记。但我仍要推荐这本小说。我的眼光一直是另类的眼光，但我对文本的读法也许本身就有属于我的记忆。我不想说是我误读了毛姆。因为作品一旦被创造出就不属于作者自己，也许作品有时候只属于作者自己！外来的读法是种主观的想法。
我记得钱钟书先生决定写《围城》时就是因为受到毛姆的刺激。钱先生的学问是没有人与之可以媲美的。别的不再多说。话说多了会惹出麻烦的。钱钟书先生说：毛姆都能写出那样的小说。读者直多是无法计算的。毛姆当时确实是炙手可热的人物。于是乎《围城》横空出世！关于《围城》它可以说是借着钱先生的才华融多家与一体的杰作。其中可以看出很多欧美小说名家的影子，以为钱先生学贯中西的才华《围城》被写成了一部杰作！
闲话说的已经多了，下面我谈谈自己对《月亮和六便士》的看法：毛姆以前是个医生，而当医生的这段经历为他日后的创作提供了大量的材料。但《月亮和六便士》的原型是法国印象派画家高更。
高更的画本身就很有价值，这部以他为原形的小说风靡后，高更的绘画艺术和作品受到了更大的关注，高更印象派宗师的地位得到确立。同时，塔希提岛-----高更隐居的小岛也名扬与世，成了旅游胜地。
根据高更的著作《马裏欧的古代信仰》,知道女人是月神希纳,男人是地神法脱。大地之神主宰人世的生成和轮转,乃是必然的毁灭。月之女神长官永远的丰收和不朽。
这个关于这个作品的题外话，而真正的文学内涵远非如此简单的解读。我自己的看法是：这个本小说远远超过毛姆自己的解读。因为我发现其实这本小说写的是关于天才的事情！天才是个残酷的字眼，人们根本不愿意承认天才！因为我们总相信：天才出于勤奋！事实上并非如此。尤其在文学领域。真正的优秀的艺术家是天才。文学不过是艺术中最上乘的精品！我知道的这个就是我读《月亮和六便士》的感悟！我作下我残酷的决定放弃化学从而转向文学就是因为这个缘故。我也许更适合搞文学。
我感激我在大一那次灵魂的颤栗！《月亮和六便士》主人公思特里克兰德那“旷野的呼喊”终于让我认识到了自我。
作家就是这样的一种人，他们把人类的智慧发现后用作品表现出来。我自己是学习化学的。我自己很难均衡文科与理科的思维。理科讲的是科学。科学真的是个很麻烦的词语。严格意义上说只有能用数学公式表达的东西才是科学。科学越来越教我怀疑？怀疑所谓的科学？所谓的科学根本解决不了人类的问题！我不想借文学来阐释科学。我多言了。
房子里的光线特别暗，仿佛是，他突然走入了一个神的世界；蒙蒙胧胧中，他好象觉得自己正置于一个原始森林中，大树下倘徉着一些赤身裸体的人。特拉斯医生几乎连呼吸都停止了，过了一会儿他才知道，他看到的是四壁上巨大的壁画。他心中出现了一种既无法理解又不能分析的感情。这幅画具有压人的气势，它既是肉欲的，又充满无限热情，与此同时又含着某种恐惧成分......绘制这幅巨作的人已经深入到大自然的隐秘中，知道了一般人所不知道的事物。他画的是某种原始的令人震慑的东西，既美的惊人，又污秽邪恶，他的画奇异而荒诞，好像宇宙初创时的图景----伊甸园，亚当和夏娃……
“上帝啊，这是天才” 特拉斯医生掩口惊呼。
这个原文的话，感谢作者道出了真理的话，艺术是属于天才的！这个是震撼灵魂的话语！
有两本相似的小说《月亮和六便士》和塞林格的《麦田的守望者》。这两个小说的主人公有着惊人的相似。
《月亮和六便士》不乏精彩的句子。如：
“世界是冷酷无情的、残酷的。我们生到人世间没有人知道为了什么，我们死后没有人知道到何处去。我们必须自甘卑屈。我们必须看到冷清寂寥的美妙。在生活中我们一定不要出风头、露头角，惹起命运对我们注目。让我们去寻求那些淳朴、敦厚的人的爱情吧。他们的愚昧远比我们的知识更为可贵。让我们保持着沉默，满足于自己小小的天地，像他们一样平易温顺吧。这就是生活的智慧。”
“在爱这种感情中主要成分是温柔。爱情中需要有一种软弱无力的感觉，要有体贴爱护的要求，有帮助别人、取悦别人的热情——如果不是无私，起码是巧妙地遮掩起来的自私；爱情包含着某种程度的腼腆怯懦。……爱情要占据一个人莫大的精力，它要一个人离开自己的生活专门去做一个爱人。即使头脑最清晰的人，从道理上他可能知道，在实际中却不会承认爱情有一天会走到尽头。爱情赋予他明知是虚幻的事物以实质形体，他明知道这一切不过是镜花水月，爱它却远远超过喜爱真实。它使一个人比原来的自我更丰富了一些，同时又使他比原来的自我更狭小了一些。他不再是一个人，他成了追求某一个他不了解的目的的一件事物、一个工具。……”
“我们每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同的价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别的人也不能为别人所了解。我们好像住在异国的人，对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的、深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说得只不过是像‘园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里’这类话。”
张贤亮在〈绿化树〉中说：“凡是出现两次的事物必有某种意义，那就是命运！”
文学，文学真的是很难言的东西，它如此另人费解，它不是靠智力，不是靠理性可以把握的。科学最大的弊端是可以模仿。即使你很笨，你仍然可以在科学上做出成绩，尤其是化学！而文学则不然！这个也许就是文学的魅力！它如此令我痴迷！尼采说：“模仿无疑于自杀”。科学的本质正是模仿。
Plot summary
The novel is written largely from the point of view of the narrator, who is first introduced to the character of Strickland through his (Strickland's) wife and strikes him (the narrator) as unremarkable. Certain chapters are entirely composed of the stories or narrations of others which the narrator himself is recalling from memory (selectively editing or elaborating on certain aspects of dialogue, particularly Strickland's, as Strickland is said by the narrator to be limited in his use of verbiage and tended to use gestures in his expression).
Strickland, a well-off, middle-class stock broker in London some time in the late 19th or the first half of the 20th century. Early in the novel, he leaves his wife and children and goes to Paris, living a destitute but defiantly content life there as an artist (specifically a painter), lodging in run-down hotels and falling prey to both illness and hunger. Strickland, in his drive to express through his art what appears to continually possess and compel him inside, cares nothing for physical comfort and is generally ignorant to his surroundings, but is generously supported while in Paris by a commercially successful yet unexceptional Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve, a friend of the narrator's, who immediately recognizes Strickland's genius. After helping Strickland recover from a life-threatening condition, Stroeve is repaid by having his wife, Blanche, abandon him for Strickland. Strickland later discards the wife (all he really sought from Blanche was a model to paint, not serious companionship, and it is hinted in the novel's dialogue that he indicated this to her and she took the risk anyway), who then commits suicide - yet another human casualty (the first ones being his own established life and those of his wife and children) in Strickland's single-minded pursuit of Art and Beauty.
After the Paris episode, the story continues in Tahiti. Strickland has already died, and the narrator attempts to piece together his life there from the recollections of others. He finds that Strickland had taken up with a native woman, had at least one child by her (only a son is directly referenced) and started painting profusely. We learn that Strickland had settled for a short while in the French port of Marseilles before traveling to Tahiti, where he lived for a few years before finally dying of leprosy. Strickland left behind numerous paintings, but his magnum opus, which he painted on the walls of his hut in a half-crazed state of leprosy-induced blindness, was burnt down after his death by his wife by his dying orders.
Inspiration
The inspiration for this story, Gauguin, is considered to be the founder of primitivism in art. The main differences between Gauguin and Strickland are that Gauguin was French rather than English, and whilst Maugham describes the character of Strickland as being largely ignorant of his contemporaries in Modern art (as well as largely ignorant of other artists in general), Gauguin himself was well acquainted with Van Gogh. How many of the details of the story are based on fact is not known. However, Maugham had visited the place where Gauguin lived in Tahiti, and purchased some glass panels painted by Gauguin in his final days.
About the title
According to some sources, the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review of Of Human Bondage in which the novel's protagonist, Philip Carey, is described as "so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet." Presumably Strickland's "moon" is the idealistic realm of Art and Beauty, while the "sixpence" represents human relationships and the ordinary pleasures of life.
Adaptations
The book was filmed by Albert Lewin in 1943. The film stars George Sanders as Charles Strickland.
The novel served as the basis for an opera, also titled The Moon and Sixpence, by John Gardner to a libretto by Patrick Terry; it was premiered at Covent Garden in 1958.
Writer S Lee Pogostin adapted it for American TV in 1959. It starred Laurence Olivier
In popular culture
In the opening scene of Francois Truffaut's cinematic adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, several firemen are preparing books for burning. In the crowd of onlookers is a little boy who picks up one of the books and thumbs through it before his father takes it from him and throws it on the pile with the rest. That book is The Moon and Sixpence.
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