好书推荐：“The Snow Child” by Eowyn Ivey

德州炎夏的大毒日头下穿越至阿拉斯加的刺骨寒风中，是一种怎样特别的体验？ 这本快四百页的“The Snow Child”就有这种魔力，叫你如被狂风暴雪包裹，却同时又感受着身处风暴中心眼的静定沉潜。

我已经忘了为什么会选这本书。 在图书馆等了一阵才排到。 读到1/4时，我不禁开始担心：小说的结尾是不是会很悲伤啊？ 哎呀，简直想要翻书尾啊。（不过还是强迫自己不要，也绝对不会在这里暴雷。）

1920年代，Jack和Mabel这对中年夫妻，从美国东部搬家到阿拉斯加。 十年前失去了唯一的初生儿，那彻骨伤痛成为他们心头永远的十字架；而亲友们儿孙满堂的热闹，和亲戚间的闲言闲语，更令他们难以出走撕裂伤痕。 搬家到人烟荒芜的阿拉斯加，为的就是远离这一切。 他们想要在孤独中喘息、疗伤、遗忘，重新开始生活。

但阿拉斯加的严酷和荒凉令他们措手不及、屡屡碰壁，几乎吞噬了他们一切的希望，夫妻关系也陷入冰点，正如那阴沉黑暗的冬天。 下第一场雪时，Mabel想起了自己喜欢的俄国童话：年迈的老夫妻膝下无子，有一天，他们堆了一个雪女孩，隔天这个雪人真的变成了一个活生生的女孩。。。然而这个童话的结局却是失去的哀伤。

初雪的欣喜叫夫妻二人短暂忘却了尘世烦忧，像小孩子一样堆了个雪人，还给她打扮成可爱的女孩。 而第二天，一个神秘的小女孩就像是童话般出现在他们眼前！ 但，她不属于Jack和Mabel，雪融的时候，她总是回到自由的荒野中，以开阔的天地为家，像个精灵般无法捉摸。 Jack和Mabel多么爱她，想要留住她、拥有她，却只能抑制自己的渴望，默默地等待、守护、和关爱。

随着雪孩儿的来去，女孩长成了少女，Jack和Mabel也在邻居好友的帮助下扎根、成长、蜕变。 全书最令我感动的就是他们两人间经过伤痛、低谷，而后胼手胝足日渐坚强；对于女孩，在放手和拥有间的挣扎；还有两人重燃的爱情。 然而，这个精灵般的少女能否适应人间烟火？ 现实的发展能否扭转童话的悲剧结局？ 还是，这一切都只是生命的一场捉弄？

作者以幽婉细腻的文字，白描阿拉斯加的蛮荒与温柔—无边的苍茫、参天的古木、陡峭的岩石、积冰的河流、漫天的风雪。。。以及各种山林走兽，还有这个仙子般的女孩，在一支火狐的伴随下，轻快地在雪野中来去自如，画面令人悠然神往。

然而在加拿大度过高中时代的我，忘不了那刺骨寒风如冰刀的痛，忘不了雪地里开车的险恶危机，忘不了冬天永远阴霾的黑暗天空，还有臃肿的装扮。 大概绝大部分爱笑爱闹的年轻人，都太难以享受冰寂的雪国冬夜。

“It was beautiful, Mabel knew, but it was a beauty that ripped you open and scored you clean so that you were left helpless and exposed, if you lived at all.”
"Wherever the work stopped, the wilderness was there, older, fiercer, stronger than any man could ever hope to be. The spindly black spruce were so dense in places you couldn't squeeze an arm between them, and every living thing seemed barbed and hostile."
"Alaska gave up nothing easily. It was lean and wild and indifferent to a man's struggle." "Maybe that was how a man held up his end of the bargain, by learning and taking into his heart this strange wilderness - guarded and naked, violent and meek, tremulous in its greatness."

本书作者Eowyn Ivey真的就跟家人过着返璞归真的生活，没有自来水，伐木烧柴，打猎种菜。。。 真的是现代版的渔樵耕读，遗世独立的典范啊。

在盛夏读这本书，有如笼罩在夜光下晶莹美丽的雪花纷飞，书中原始纯净的天地，熠熠生光，实在是非常享受的一场阅读盛宴。

Quotes:
“We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That’s where the adventure is. Not knowing where you’ll end up or how you’ll fare. It’s all a mystery, and when we say any different, we’re just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive?”

“In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.”

“She looked directly up into the northern lights and she wondered if those cold-burning spectres might not draw her breath, her very soul, out of her chest and into the stars.”

“She had watched other women with infants and eventually understood what she craved: the boundless permission-no, the absolute necessity- to hold and kiss and stroke this tiny person. Cradling a swaddled infant in their arms, mothers would distractedly touch their lips to their babies' foreheads. Passing their toddlers in a hall, mothers would tousle their hair even sweep them up in their arms and kiss them hard along their chins and necks until the children squealed with glee. Where else in life, Mabel wondered, could a woman love so openly and with such abandon?”

“She could not fathom the hexagonal miracle of snowflakes formed from clouds, crystallized fern and feather that tumble down to light on a coat sleeve, white stars melting even as they strike. How did such force and beauty come to be in something so small and fleeting and unknowable? You did not have to understand miracles to believe in them, and in fact Mabel had come to suspect the opposite. To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the little thing in your hands as long as you were able before it slipped like water between your fingers.”

“...did fear drive her? Fear of the gray, not just in the strands of her hair and her wilting cheeks, but the gray that ran deeper, to the bone, so that she thought she might turn into a fine dust and simply sift away in the wind…..”

喜欢这本书。 也许人要到有一点年纪、积累了一点生活智慧，才能欣赏北风寒冷中那种深刻和沉静。 漫天风雪里飘舞着晶莹雪花，广大之中却又折透着细密单纯的心。 我想到自己人生路上的挫折坎坷，更多的是种种恩典。 生命的实相，人生的悲欢，若用清明的眼睛，单纯的心，以及温柔的态度去面对，便都是丰溢的收获。