美国国家公共电台 NPR Gillian Flynn's 'Sharp Objects' Is A Whodunit ... And A Who Is She?

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

With the success of "Gone Girl," the novelist Gillian Flynn helped spawn¹ a bunch of best-selling mystery novels featuring deeply flawed women as the main character. Flynn's first novel "Sharp Objects" was turned down by many publishers who didn't think people wanted to read stories about complicated women. Now "Sharp Objects" has been adapted as a limited series which debuts² Sunday on HBO. It stars Amy Adams as a very complicated woman. NPR's Lynn Neary has more.

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE³: When Gillian Flynn was writing "Sharp Objects," novels that had been dubbed⁴ chick lit were all the rage.

GILLIAN FLYNN: There were a lot of books about - can the girl find the perfect shoe? Can she then find the perfect boy to wear the shoe (laughter) on a date with?

NEARY: Flynn says she was not interested in writing that kind of book.

FLYNN: What I really wanted to write about was the darker side of the female psyche⁵ - was, you know, female violence and female rage and, you know, what made us do bad things, why we messed up, why we became violent and particularly what that looked like generationally.

NEARY: Out of that impulse toward darkness, emerged the character Camille Preaker. She's depressed⁶, alcoholic⁷ and has a history of cutting herself. She's also a newspaper reporter, and her editor sends her back to her hometown, Wind Gap, Mo., to cover a story. One young girl is missing, and another has been murdered. The assignment lands her back in a world dominated by her mother, a Southern belle⁸ of the iron butterfly variety, played by Patricia Clarkson.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SHARP OBJECTS")

PATRICIA CLARKSON: (As Adora Crellin) When you're here, everything you do comes back on me. Understand?

AMY ADAMS: (As Camille Preaker) Honestly, no 'cause that might have been true when I was a kid, but I'm an adult now.

CLARKSON: (As Adora Crellin) Not when you're out here. When you're here, you're my daughter.

NEARY: "Sharp Objects," says Flynn, is as much a who-is-she as a whodunit⁹.

FLYNN: You start learning that, you know, there are certain secrets and awfulness that have happened to her all throughout her childhood. And there are certain things that she has never wanted to look at too closely. But, you know, the truth will out and then that it has come to form on her skin that she inflicts¹⁰ this violence and this anger and this hatred¹¹ upon herself.

JEAN-MARC VALLEE: It's a very singular story, very singular character. I've never met, never seen, never heard anyone like Camille Preaker.

NEARY: Jean-Marc Vallee is the director of HBO's "Sharp Objects."

VALLEE: The main quality of the book to me was her internal monologue¹², her internal voice. It's pretty rare to be that honest, to hear someone being that honest - someone that talks about her wounds, her insecurities, her fears, her scars, her sexuality.

NEARY: The screenwriters, including Flynn, deliberately¹³ decided¹⁴ not to use a voiceover. Instead, Vallee created flashbacks that feel like shards¹⁵ of memories that only gradually come together. And in the present, as Camille becomes more and more obsessed¹⁶ with finding out what happened to the two girls, she develops a relationship with a good-looking detective.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SHARP OBJECTS")

ADAMS: (As Camille Preaker) In Wind Gap, every woman gets a nasty label if they don't conform to the rules of engagement.

CHRIS MESSINA: (As Detective Richard Willis) What's your label?

ADAMS: (As Camille Preaker, laughing) Too many - too many to name.

MESSINA: (As Detective Richard Willis) Oh, come on.

ADAMS: (As Camille Preaker) No.

MESSINA: (As Detective Richard Willis) I can handle it.

ADAMS: (As Camille Preaker) That is so Wind Gap of you, you know. You figure out someone's secrets to use it against them later.

NEARY: As Camille's past merges¹⁷ with her present, she begins unraveling. At times, Vallee says, it's tough to watch as she makes a series of bad decisions.

VALLEE: We want to tell her sometimes - no, don't do that. No, you're not supposed to do drugs with your little sister; you're not supposed to have sex with an 18-year-old. What are you doing? And (laughter) - and she does it. And yet, we still care for her because there's something about her that is so human. Her humanity is deeply moving.

NEARY: Camille Preaker is not the only complicated woman in this story. "Sharp Objects" is full of flawed women, ranging from merely catty to downright evil. But Gillian Flynn says, as interested as she was in exploring the dark side of the female psyche, she never lost sight of one thing.

FLYNN: This is also a really juicy detective story. I'm very aware, first and foremost, you know, having written "Gone Girl," that I've never, ever had a problem with entertaining people.

NEARY: Because "Sharp Objects" is an HBO production that involves some well-known Hollywood players, it has drawn¹⁸ comparisons to "Big Little Lies," which was also directed by Jean-Marc Vallee. But Gillian Flynn says they really only have one thing in common, some very talented women were drawn to telling stories about some women who are less than perfect.

Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE ACIDS'S "TUMBLING LIGHTS")

1 spawn   

n.卵，产物，后代，结果；vt.产卵，种菌丝于，产生，造成；vi.产卵，大量生产

参考例句：

• The fish were madly pushing their way upstream to spawn.鱼群为产卵而疯狂地向上游挤进。
• These fish will lay spawn in about one month from now.这些鱼大约一个月内会产卵。

2 debuts   

演员首次演出( debut的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He never really debuts the idea of taking money from his parents any longer. 他从此就再也没有认真起过向父母要钱的念头。
• This young soprano debuts next month at the metropolitan opera. 这位年轻的女高音歌唱家下个月将在纽约大都会歌剧院举行首演。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 psyche   

n.精神；灵魂

参考例句：

• His exploration of the myth brings insight into the American psyche.他对这个神话的探讨揭示了美国人的心理。
• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche.她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。

6 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

7 alcoholic   

adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者

参考例句：

• The alcoholic strength of brandy far exceeds that of wine.白兰地的酒精浓度远远超过葡萄酒。
• Alcoholic drinks act as a poison to a child.酒精饮料对小孩犹如毒药。

8 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。

9 whodunit   

n.侦探小说（或剧本、影片等）

参考例句：

• It is not the most promising script for a whodunit.这并不是最有市场前景的侦探小说剧本。
• I always like the series "Whodunit" by Wei Sili.我一直很喜欢卫斯理系列的推理小说。

10 inflicts   

把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Bullfrog 50 Inflicts poison when your enemy damages you at short range. 牛娃50对近距离攻击你的敌人造成毒伤。
• The U.S. always inflicts its concept of human nature on other nations. 美国总是把自己的人权观念强加于别国。

11 hatred   

n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨

参考例句：

• He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
• The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。

12 monologue   

n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白

参考例句：

• The comedian gave a long monologue of jokes.喜剧演员讲了一长段由笑话组成的独白。
• He went into a long monologue.他一个人滔滔不绝地讲话。

13 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

14 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

15 shards   

n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air. 目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。 来自辞典例句
• Ward, Josh Billings, and a host of others have survived only in scattered shards of humour. 沃德、比林斯和许多别的作家能够留传下来的只是些幽默的残章断简。 来自辞典例句

16 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

17 merges   

（使）混合( merge的第三人称单数 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• The 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Mo Yan"who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". 2012年诺贝尔文学奖得主为莫言，他“很好地将魔幻现实与民间故事、历史与当代结合在一起”。
• A device that collates, merges, or matches sets of punched cards or other documents. 一种整理、合并或比较一组穿孔卡片或其它文档的设备。

18 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。