布萊爾回憶錄獲"拙劣性愛獎"提名
Former prime minister's memoir nominated for prize dedicated to clumsy erotic scenes in fiction.
Tony Blair has received a double insult from the Literary Review, with the nomination of his bestselling autobiography, A Journey, for its bad sex award. The slight is not only to his skill at bedroom prose, but also to his claims to historical accuracy, since the award is dedicated to clumsy clinches in fiction.
The magazine's deputy editor Tom Fleming today confirmed the genre-busting nomination for the prize, which celebrates "poorly written, redundant or crude passages of a sexual nature". According to Fleming it is the first time a work of non-fiction has been up for the award. "It's absolutely unprecedented," he said. "He's groundbreaking in every way."
The former prime minister is nominated for a purple passage about the night spent with his wife Cherie following the news of the Labour leader John Smith's sudden death. "That night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me. On that night of 12 May 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct," Blair wrote.
Although the judging process is at an early stage, Fleming suggested that Blair would be a strong contender in a "good year" for the award, with Ian McEwan's Solar and Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow already under consideration for the shortlist.
The shortlist for the Bad sex award is due to be announced next month, with the prize no author wants to win due to be awarded on 29 November.
Blair's nomination is not the first time that his autobiography has been classified as fiction, as bookshops have reported customers with anti-war sympathies repeatedly reshelving the book into the crime section, following a Facebook-led campaign. Now it seems, A Journey may be moving into erotic fiction.
英國前首相布萊爾的回憶錄日前獲得“拙劣性愛獎”提名，而這一“殊榮”原本只頒給小說作品。
《文學批評》雜誌提名布萊爾的暢銷回憶錄《旅程》角逐“拙劣性愛獎”無異於對他的雙重侮辱。這不僅諷刺了其性愛描寫的拙劣筆法，還嘲笑了他自誇的“歷史真實性”，因爲該獎是頒發給性愛描寫文筆拙劣的小說作品的。
該雜誌副主編湯姆•弗萊明於今日確認了對布萊爾的這項“突破體裁”的獎項提名，該獎項旨在頒發給“在描寫性愛時文筆糟糕、冗長、粗俗的作品”。弗萊明表示，這是非小說類作品首次獲得該獎提名。他說：“這真史無前例，他在很多方面開創了歷史先河。”
令前首相布萊爾入圍的是一段詞藻華麗的文字，描寫了他和妻子切麗在工黨領袖約翰•史密斯突然去世後度過的一個夜晚。布萊爾寫道：“當晚，她擁我入懷，輕輕撫慰我，告訴我理應知道的事情，給我力量。那是1994年5月12日的晚上，我自私地渴求切麗給我的愛，我揮霍着這份愛，化爲自己的力量。我如一頭野獸般聽從本能的召喚。”
儘管評審工作還處於初期，但弗萊明表示在今年這樣一個該獎項的“好年頭”，布萊爾是位強有力的競爭者。伊恩•麥克尤恩的《日光》、以及馬丁•艾米斯的《懷孕的寡婦》也已入圍候選名單。
“拙劣性愛獎”的入圍名單將於下月公佈，11月29日將正式揭曉，但各路作家唯恐避之不及。
布萊爾的回憶錄被歸入小說類已經不是第一次了。書店方面早已報道稱，在Fackbook發起的一項活動後，有反戰情結的顧客屢次把這本書放進犯罪書籍類別。而如今，《旅程》或將被讀者歸入色情小說類別。
Vocabulary:
genre: a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like（體裁，類型）
purple passage: a passage full of ornate and flowery language（詞藻華麗的段落）
