唐頓莊園作者用手機應用發行新作
There are few literary mediums that Julian Fellowes has not dabbled in.
朱利安·費羅斯(Julian Fellowes)未曾涉足的文學領域已經不多了。
Mr. Fellowes, the creator of the hit historical British melodrama “Downton Abbey,” has worked on screenplays, stage plays, novels and a children’s book. He wrote the book for “School of Rock,” a raucous new Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted from the 2003 Richard Linklater movie, and he is working on his new NBC series “The Gilded Age,” set in New York in the late 19th century.
費羅斯是英國熱門的通俗歷史劇《唐頓莊園》(Downton Abbey)的編劇，他寫過電視劇本、舞臺劇本、小說和一本童書。他還爲《搖滾校園》(School of Rock)寫了一本書，這部喧囂的新百老匯音樂劇是安德魯·勞埃德·韋伯(Andrew Lloyd Webber)根據理查德·林特萊克(Richard Linklater)2003年的同名電影改編的。目前費羅斯正在忙於創作NBC新劇《流金歲月》(The Gilded Age)，該劇背景發生在19世紀末的紐約。
Now, for his next project, “Belgravia,” Mr. Fellowes is marrying an old narrative form — the serialized novel, in the tradition of Charles Dickens’s “The Pickwick Papers” — with the latest digital delivery system: an app.
而在他的下一個項目《貝爾格萊維亞》(Belgravia)中，費羅斯採用了古老的敘事形式——查爾斯·狄更斯(Charles Dickens)創作《匹克威克先生外傳》(The Pickwick Papers)時延續下來的連載小說傳統；而且採用了全新的數字傳播方式——手機應用。
“Belgravia” takes place in London in the 1840s and opens decades earlier during the Battle of Waterloo. It explores the class divisions between the established aristocracy and newly wealthy families who made their fortunes through the Industrial Revolution. But instead of having the sweeping narrative arc of a novel, it will unfold more like a new network TV series, in 10 weekly digital installments that will arrive automatically on readers’ phones, tablets or computers. The chapters cost $1.99 each, and $13.99 all together. The app will also incorporate an audio version, music, video, character portraits, family trees, images of period fashion and maps of Belgravia.
《貝爾格萊維亞》發生在19世紀40年代的倫敦，故事開始於幾十年前的滑鐵盧戰役。它探索舊有貴族階層與工業革命期間發家的新富家族之間的的階級差異。但是它並沒有給出小說完整的敘事弧，而是像一部新電視劇一樣徐徐展開。小說將做10個星期的網絡連載，屆時電子下載會自動出現在讀者的手機、平板設備或電腦上。每一章價格是1.99美元，共計13.99美元。這個手機應用還將結合語音版、音樂、視頻、人物畫像、家族樹、時代風情畫和貝爾格萊維亞地圖。
“To marry the traditions of the Victorian novel to modern technology, allowing the reader, or listener, an involvement with the characters and the background of the story and the world in which it takes place, that would not have been possible until now, and yet to preserve within that the strongest traditions of storytelling, seems to me a marvelous goal and a real adventure,” Mr. Fellowes said in a statement released through Grand Central Publishing, which will publish the novel in hardcover in July.
“把維多利亞時代小說傳統和現代科技結合起來，讓讀者或聽衆可以參與到人物和故事背景之中，乃至小說裏的世界當中，這種事只有到了如今才能實現。而對於我來說，保持最有力量的講故事傳統是最宏偉的目標，也是真正的冒險，”費羅斯先生在通過Grand Central出版社發表的聲明中說，該出版社將於7月出版這本小說的精裝本。
With “Downton Abbey,” an addictive series about an upper-class British family and its household servants, Mr. Fellowes has already proven himself adept at fashioning soap opera-worthy cliffhangers. On Sunday, PBS’s “Masterpiece” will begin airing the show’s sixth and final season. The show drew an average of more than 13 million viewers in its fourth season, and became the top rated PBS drama of all time.
《唐頓莊園》是一部會讓人上癮的電視劇，講述一個英國上層家庭及其傭僕們的故事，通過這部劇，費羅斯先生已經證明自己擅長創作扣人心絃的、適合肥皂劇形式的連載劇集。星期日，PBS臺的“傑作”(Masterpiece)欄目將播放《唐頓莊園》的第六季，也就是最後一季。這部劇的第四季平均吸引了1300多萬名觀衆，成了PBS臺有史以來收視率最高的劇集。
The first chapter of “Belgravia” will arrive in April, shortly after the last season of “Downton Abbey” concludes. The app will be available through a website and individual chapters can be purchased for download through major e-book retailers like and Barnes & Noble’s website.
《貝爾格萊維亞》的第一章將在4月推出，也就是《唐頓莊園》最後一季完結後不久。這個手機應用將通過一個網站推出，每一章節都可以通過和Barnes & Boble等主要的圖書零售商網站購買下載。
App-based novels remain a relatively new and unproven format, but they could begin to catch on as some prominent authors experiment with the interactive possibilities of apps.
通過手機應用推出的小說是相對新鮮而且未經檢驗的形式，但是隨着一些著名作家開始試着運用可供互動的手機應用，這種做法可以變得流行起來。
Last year, the British novelist Iain Pears released his new book “Arcadia” as an app that allowed readers to toggle among 10 different story lines, and Eli Horowitz published his comic dystopian novel “The Pickle Index” as a hardcover, paperback and interactive app simultaneously. This spring, the best-selling novelist Wally Lamb will publish a new novel, “I’ll Take You There,” exclusively as an app via the digital publishing company Metabook.
去年，英國小說家伊恩·皮爾斯(Iain Pears)以手機應用的形式發表了自己的新書《阿卡迪亞》(Arcadia)，讀者可以在10個不同故事線之間切換，伊利·霍洛維茨(Eli Horowitz)同時以精裝書、平裝書和互動手機應用形式出版了自己的滑稽反烏托邦小說《泡菜目錄》(The Pickle Index)。今年春天，暢銷小說作家瓦利·蘭姆(Wally Lamb)將出版新小說《我會帶你去那兒》(I’ll Take You There)，通過數字出版公司Metabook，只以手機應用形式發行。
With its episodic delivery schedule, “Belgravia” will test whether “appointment reading” can become as habit-forming as a recurring TV show or serialized podcast. Jamie Raab, the president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing, said the concept behind “Belgravia” appealed to her because of Mr. Fellowes’s television background and his knack for keeping audiences engaged in a story over months and even years.
《貝爾格萊維亞》有着鬆散的發行計劃，它將檢測“預訂閱讀”是否能夠同電視連續劇與系列podcast廣播一樣，培養人們的習慣。Grand Central出版社的總裁兼出版人傑米·拉布(Jamie Raab)說，她對《貝爾格萊維亞》的概念感興趣，是因爲費羅斯先生的電視背景，以及他可以讓觀衆長達幾個月乃至幾年都沉浸在一個故事之中的能力。
“I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of publishing a novel in short episodic bites,” she said. “He gets how to keep the story paced so that you’re caught up in the current episode, then you’re left with a cliffhanger.”
“我一直對以短篇連載形式出版一本小說感興趣，”她說。“他明白該怎樣保持故事的節奏，讓你沉浸在當下的這一集裏，然後還能保持懸念。”
The thematic overlap with “Downton Abbey,” and the timing of the release, as “Downton Abbey” comes to an end, could help attract fans of the show who are experiencing withdrawal, she said.
本書與《唐頓莊園》主題上有所交叉，而且出版的時間正趕在《唐頓莊園》播出結束之後，可以吸引悵然若失的劇迷來看這本書，她說。
“ ‘Belgravia’ deals with the different classes in England, and I think that’s what people like so much about ‘Downton Abbey’ and before that, ‘Upstairs Downstairs,’ ” she said, referencing a show that ran in the 1970s. “There’s a lot of drama and melodrama.”
“《貝爾格萊維亞》涵蓋了英國的不同階層，我覺得這也是爲什麼人們如此喜愛《唐頓莊園》，以及之前的《樓上樓下》(Upstairs Downstairs)，”她說。《樓上樓下》是20世紀70年代的一部劇集。“書中有很多有戲劇性的、傷感的情節。”
