信念的坍塌：尼古拉斯·里纳尔迪小说《大桥坍塌》的主题探析

Nicholas  Rinaldi  is  an  American  novelist  and  poet.  He  was  born  in  Brooklyn, New  York  in  1934,  and  presently  lives  in  Connecticut.  His  literary  works  include three collections of poems and four novels. His poems and novels have brought him quite a few awards and great honors, and most recently, he was honored as the 2007 Artist  of  the  Year  by  the  Fairfield  Arts  council.1  As  a  young  boy,  he  showed  great enthusiasm  for  literature.  During  his  high-school  and  college  years  at  Fordham,  his interest  in  literature  augmented  and  his  doctoral  dissertation  on  study  of  allusions applied by William Faulkner in his works spawned several articles in literary journals. He  published  his  first  collection  of  poems  in  1977,  called  The  Resurrection  of  the Snails, and two more collections of poems respectively in 1982 and 1985, namely, We Have  Lost  Our  Fathers  and  The  Luftwaffe  in  Chaos.  These  works  brought  him  the initial  fame  as  a  poet.  In  the  same  year  along  with  his  last  collection  of  poems,  his first novel came into being. Entitled Bridge Fall Down and centering around a young American  soldier’s  growth  during  the  Vietnam  War,  this  book  drew  many  critics’ attention as well as recommendation. In the subsequent years, three more novels were in print: The Jukebox Queen of Malta (1999), with a cover endorsement from Joseph Heller, is a book about an American soldier on the island of Malta in World War II. Between Two Rivers (2004) was generally considered as his masterpiece. Centered on the residents of a fictitious condo building in lower Manhattan, the novel gracefully weaves  together  the  extraordinary  matrix  of  human  lives  in  New  York.  His  latest work, The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb, was published in 2014 is a stunning  work  about  the  American  Civil  War.  Richard  Bernstein  once  numbered Nicholas  Rinaldi  among  the  names  of  Joseph  Heller,  William  Styron,  and  Norman Mailer.  Although  he  is  younger  than  those  celebrated  giants,  Rinaldi  is  more  than pleased to be numbered among them.

1.2 Literature Review
Novels about the theme of growing-up have a deep root in American literature, from Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Stephen Crane’s The  Red  Badge  of  Courage  and  to  J.D.  Salinger’s  Catcher  in  the  Rye  and  so  on  so forth.  Although  different  in  settings  and  plots,  they  all  deal  with  maturity  and transformation  of  individuals,  and  these  stories  often  share  a  generally  similar structure:  temptation,  leaving,  test,  confusion,  epiphany,  transformation,  loss  of innocence,  maturity,  understanding  of  life  and/or  self,  etc.  Although  not  all  stories proceed in the same way, nearly all initiation novels contain such similar experiences as  the  protagonist’s  growing-up  background,  his/her  growing-up  confusion,  leaving home, encountering danger, getting into trouble, being enlightened and saved. That is to say, writers always consciously or unconsciously adopt a similar structural mode, sometimes this mode appears in a variant form (Rui, 2004: 80).

Chapter Four Beliefs Shattered: Maturity after the Mission Accomplishment ................. 31
4.1 Discovery of the Conspiracies of the Mission .............................. 31

4.1.1 “Diversion” for Another Greater Mission .......................... 32

4.1.2 Tool for Personal Commercial Profit .................. 33