Out of the Shelter

商家名称	信用等级	购买信息	订购本书
		Out of the Shelter
		Out of the Shelter

基本信息·出版社：Penguin Putnam~mass
·页码：288 页
·出版日期：1998年10月
·ISBN：0140083758
·条形码：9780140083750
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
·外文书名：脱离苦海 (小说)

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The restrictions of a wartime childhood in London and subsequent post-war shortages have done little to enrich Timothy’s early youth. But everything changes when Timothy's glamorous older sister, Kath, invites him to spend the summer at Heidelberg. Kath, who left home long ago to work for the American army, introduces her sixteen year-old brother to a lifestyle that is deliriously fast, furious and extravagant. Dazzled by the indulgent habits of the American forces, but at the same time sensitive to the broken spirits of the German community, Timothy will find that his holiday is an unforgettable rite of passage in more ways than one.
作者简介 David Lodge has written many bestselling novels, including THINKS and NICE WORK. His books have sold well over a million copies in Penguin. Formerly Professor of English at Birmingham University, he now writes full-time. He continues to live in Birmingham.
编辑推荐 From Publishers Weekly
In the first American edition of an atmospheric, often comic, semi-autobiographical novel, Lodge ( Nice Work ) adroitly limns the maturation of Londoner Timothy Young. During WW II, his family passes most nights in the air-raid shelter in his friend Jill's garden. After a bomb kills Jill and her mother, Tim and his mother are evacuated to the country, but soon return to London where, making his First Confession, Tim is wracked with guilt for concealing that he and Jill had touched each other's genitals. Terrified of Hitler, Tim has nightmares after seeing what was "supposed to be a funny film" about him-- The Great Dictator . Even after the war, goods are scarce and food still rationed. Later, when Tim is 16, his older sister, Kath, who works for the U.S. Army in Germany, suggests that Tim spend the summer with her. Away from his claustrophobic and puritanical working-class home, Tim is initiated into adulthood; he comes to terms with his own and Kath's sexuality, and his abject fear of the Nazis is conveniently alleviated by a meeting with an ex-Nazi who proves to be a gentle, melancholy old man.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Before Englishman Lodge became well-known stateside For his dead-eye sendups of academic life (see above), he published a number of soberly realist fictions, including this one, first printed in England in a much adulterated version in 1970. a revised version in 1986, and now for the first time in the US. As he explains in an afterword, it's his most autobiographical work - a story of coming-of-age in postwar Britain. In tact, though, Timothy Young doesn't really come of age until he leaves England to visit his older sister in Germany, where she works for the American occupational forces. A short early section (reminiscent of the recent film Hope and Glory) provides his boy's-eye-view of London during the bombing so that readers can appreciate the context for the question underpinning the narrative: Why doesn't Timothy's sister Kath ever return to England on her vacations? Like her bright little brother, Kate (as her Yank friends rechristen her) is a product of the Catholic lower-middle-class and learns early on that postwar England presents few opportunities for someone without Timothy's promise for scholarship. First working for the Americans in England, she glimpses a better life, one unaffected by British scarcity and rationings. She follows her employers to France and Germany, as Timothy later learns on his summer visit to Heidelberg in 1951, in order to remake herself in the American image. Which means, Timothy quickly sees, not only forgetting her bleak past, but enjoying the prosperity of all American personnel in Germany. While Kate's glamorous friends - who include a witty homosexual couple, and some extravagant New Yorkers - gallivant through the German countryside, Timothy notices the darker realities of a beaten people. And his new friend Don, an American planning on studying in England on the G.I. bill, further tutors him in the war's horrors. An epilogue set years later provides a useful gloss on Timothy's fateful summer, and smartly demonstrates the indelible shadow cast by war over those who endure it. (Kirkus Reviews)

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