Jack Maggs: A Novel (Vintage International)
Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs is a historical novel set in nineteenth-century London that follows a transported convict returning to confront his past.
Work Information
A transported convict returns to London to confront the life he was forced to leave behind.
Jack Maggs examines class, memory, and power through the lens of a convicted man sent to the colonies.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- 1999-02-22
- Pages
- 368 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.18 x 2.11 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780679760375
- ISBN-10
- 0679760377
- Price
- 3700 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Historical
The Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda returns to the nineteenth century in an utterly captivating mystery. The year is 1837 and a stranger is prowling London. He is Jack Maggs, an illegal returnee from the prison island of Australia. He has the demeanor of a savage and the skills of a hardened criminal, and he is risking his life on seeking vengeance and reconciliation. Installing himself within the household of the genteel grocer Percy Buckle, Maggs soon attracts the attention of a cross section of London society. Saucy Mercy Larkin wants him for a mate. The writer Tobias Oates wants to possess his soul through hypnosis. But Maggs is obsessed with a plan of his own. And as all the various schemes converge, Maggs rises into the center, a dark looming figure, at once frightening, mysterious, and compelling. Not since Caleb Carr's The Alienist have the shadowy city streets of the nineteenth century lit up with such mystery and romance.
Born in Bacchus Marsh, Australia, in 1943, Peter Carey lives in New York City with his wife and two sons. He is the author of five previous novels and a collection of stories.
Reviews
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オーストラリアの鬼才がディケンズの本歌取りに挑んだ秀作
オーストラリアで流刑の身になっていた主人公がロンドンに帰り・・・というお話。 多くの方が指摘されている通り、ディケンズが好んで描いていた一種の犯罪小説に近い小説というよりも物語風の体裁の作品でした。なので、この小説或いは物語の魅力を説明しようとすれば、ディケンズが活躍していた頃のイギリスを舞台にしたピカレスクという事になりましょうか。 催眠術を操る如何わしい作家、その作家と不義を重ねる義妹、主人公を悪い道に誘う友人等など一見まともそうにみえるけれど、裏を返せば胡散臭い登場人物達が織りなすアラベスクは現代の視点で書かれたからこそ、同時代に書かれた物よりも企みに満ちていて読ませます。 レビューの冒頭でディケンズに雰囲気が似ていると書きましたが、訳者あとがきによれば実際にディケンズの小説の筋や登場人物の名前が似ていて、ディケンズの作品を読んでから読んだ方が面白いらしいですが、私みたいに読んでいなくても十分楽しめる作品でした。 鬼才がディケンズの本歌取りに挑んだ秀作。機会があったら是非。
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The condition of the book was good
The book was good in condition
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Lettura consigliata
Lettura consigliatissima, offre una chiave di lettura ed una prospettiva del tutto nuova al classico GREAT EXPECTATIONS di Dickens
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literary page-turner
Loved this. A brilliant idea to subvert the world of Dickens, gripping characters and story. A master novelist.
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Jack Maggs
I have watched Oscar & Lucinda (Peter Carey) about 10 times. It's one of my alltime favorites. I heard about Peter Carey when Theft: A Love Story was reviewed in my local newspaper. I got the book and then went online to see what else he had written. I read Jack Maggs first, the story is so enthralling and the cast of characters reminds you of the quirkly people out of a Dickens novel. In a book where there is no sex, a little violence it certainly kept my interest from the first chapter. I give Jack Maggs *****
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Jack Maggs
Great yarn and character study of a man, a convict, a study in poverty, crime, reform and redemption. The story has a mysterious development and mildly surprising ending. Good read on several meaningful levels.