2015年2月28日 星期六

Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan 愛上賴特


“Either advance or decay. These are the only choices offered to us when we build as men should build today.” - Architect‪#‎FrankLloydWright‬, February 1953 ‪#‎FrankLloydWrightFridays‬


Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan






出版社為本書設的網站:Loving Frank

www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/lovingfrank/ - 頁庫存檔 - 翻譯這個網頁
FRANK. LOVING. Welcome to the Loving Frank website. Browse our pages to discover more about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Check ...


ABOUT THE BOOK

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.



So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. 



In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright. 



Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion. 


Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story.
---

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Significant Seven, August 2007: It's a rare treasure to find a historically imagined novel that is at once fully versed in the facts and unafraid of weaving those truths into a story that dares to explore the unanswered questions. Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney's love story is--as many early reviews of Loving Frank have noted--little-known and often dismissed as scandal. In Nancy Horan's skillful hands, however, what you get is two fully realized people, entirely, irrepressibly, in love. Together, Frank and Mamah are a wholly modern portrait, and while you can easily imagine them in the here and now, it's their presence in the world of early 20th century America that shades how authentic and, ultimately, tragic their story is. Mamah's bright, earnest spirit is particularly tender in the context of her time and place, which afforded her little opportunity to realize the intellectual life for which she yearned. Loving Frank is a remarkable literary achievement, tenderly acute and even-handed in even the most heartbreaking moments, and an auspicious debut from a writer to watch. --Anne Bartholomew

From Publishers Weekly

Horan's ambitious first novel is a fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage. Despite the title, this is not a romance, but a portrayal of an independent, educated woman at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century. Frank and Mamah, both married and with children, met when Mamah's husband, Edwin, commissioned Frank to design a house. Their affair became the stuff of headlines when they left their families to live and travel together, going first to Germany, where Mamah found rewarding work doing scholarly translations of Swedish feminist Ellen Key's books. Frank and Mamah eventually settled in Wisconsin, where they were hounded by a scandal-hungry press, with tragic repercussions. Horan puts considerable effort into recreating Frank's vibrant, overwhelming personality, but her primary interest is in Mamah, who pursued her intellectual interests and love for Frank at great personal cost. As is often the case when a life story is novelized, historical fact inconveniently intrudes: Mamah's life is cut short in the most unexpected and violent of ways, leaving the narrative to crawl toward a startlingly quiet conclusion. Nevertheless, this spirited novel brings Mamah the attention she deserves as an intellectual and feminist. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

**
愛上賴特 南京:江蘇人民 2011


弗蘭克勞埃德賴特(Frank Lioyd Wrignt,1869-1959)是20世紀美國最重要的建築師,在世界上享有盛譽。他以在“有機建築”領域無與倫比的高超技藝為人們所銘記,其建築物 的形式和材料都與自然渾然一體。其著名作品有:羅賓私人住宅、流水別墅、古根海姆博物館等。梅瑪波絲薇克(Mamah Borthwick,1869- 1914)于1892年在密歇根大學獲得學士學位,之後在密歇根州休倫港圖書館工作。1899年與埃德溫切尼(Edwin Cheney)結婚。從1911年起,梅瑪開始翻譯瑞典著名女權主義思想家和文學家愛倫凱(Ellen Key)的作品。1903年,切尼夫婦請賴特為他們設計住宅,賴特與梅瑪相識後,彼此吸引,開始了他們的婚外情。這段震驚了當時社會的戀情,永遠改變了他 們的人生;然而,就在他們為了追求真愛而克服重重阻礙後,厄運卻無情地降臨到他們身上……

連載

第1部分 楔子

三年前,我靜悄悄地結了婚。做埃德溫切尼的夫人並不難。埃德溫個性溫和,很少聽到他的抱怨--他是有些驕傲的。一開始,他幾乎每天回家都會來到客廳與波絲薇克家的女士們共處。

第2部分 第一部1907年-1909年(一)

梅瑪再次閉上眼睛,試圖讓自己置身於幾小時前的情境之中。她覺得自己的行為太瘋狂了--她搖著汽車手柄直到雙臂感覺到疼痛,又下車急急地穿行在暴風雪之中,只是為了再見弗蘭克一面,仿佛她已經沒有了選擇的餘地。

第3部分 第一部1907年-1909年(二)

當她站在鏡子面前,她看見了一個因為慾望而滿臉通紅,正處於情慾之中的女人。我的天哪,就像喝了麻醉藥!她好久沒有過這樣充滿活力的感覺了,而那時,她還只是個20歲的女大學生,身後有著一大群追求者。

第4部分 第一部1907年-1909年(二)

梅瑪從窗戶向上望去,她想弄清楚去年夏天鄰居家的女孩到底看到了什麼。是弗蘭克握著她的手,親吻她?或者更糟?為什麼貝克納普家現在才用木條封住窗戶呢?她在腦子裏描繪著女孩兒們去年冬天所看到的一切,甚至希望看得更多。她們被母親抓住了,並向母親承認了一切嗎?

第5部分 第一部1907年-1909年(三)

她得在7月之前理清自己的思緒。而現在有更多的事情值得她去注意。在他們來這兒的第三個星期裏,約翰因為感冒而染上了嚴重的咽喉炎。他的上嘴唇也因為手帕的不斷擦拭而磨破了皮。

第6部分 第二部1909年-1911年

梅瑪躺在他溫暖身體的旁邊,歪向另一側。她一隻手撐起腦袋,一隻手寫著日記,儘量不弄醒他。“你知道你剛才睡覺時在夢裏笑了嗎?”她問道。

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