The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
http://www.randomhouse.com/nanatalese/stolenchild/index.html
（真貼心的網頁，除了書摘還有閱讀指導！）
基於「福裡慢介紹的好書一定溫馨感人」，YV 決定等到開學前最痛苦焦慮的時候再讀。果然這個決定是正確的。花了兩天多，今天終於在十二點前把它讀完了。謝謝慢子！
這本書本質上是青少年版雙生雙旦浪漫愛情故事，但是披上童話/民間故事色彩，討論人的善惡兩面，以及凡人和自然/本性妥協的隨緣隨喜，宗教用語叫做寬恕的快樂。故事由 Henry Day 和 Henry Day’s Double (Gustav
Ungerland) 輪流用第一人稱說故事：一線是Henry Day/Aniday 要告訴讀者他被抓輪替之後的精靈生活，並將這本書獻給他正要前往追隨的小女孩；另一線
Gustav Ungerland/Henry Day 是要寫給妻子揭發自己身分的懺悔書。
故事開始，森林裡十二個小精靈 changeling/hobgoblins「抓輪替」重回人間，專找孤獨、不快樂、被忽略的小朋友當「替活精靈」。故事結束，數量減半的小精靈決定就這樣簡單生活下去，不入輪迴，永遠當小孩：
indifferent children of the earth.
「三生有幸」的男主角一百多年前叫做 Gustav Ungerland，是個捷克音樂神童，被綁去森林遠離文明替活百年之後，抓了逃家的 Henry Day 當輪替，開始第三段生命，活在音樂的記憶光芒裡。他長大之後和 Tess 相戀結婚，在半輩子的痛苦之中尋找前世的自己。Tess 萬般鼓勵，還存錢送他一台二手管風琴，Gustav/Henry 因此重回過去的音樂世界，譜成了一首〈被偷小孩交響曲〉向真正的 Henry Day 懺悔求和，也得到原諒。他知道自己最終會老去、死去，用的是 Henry Day 贈送的名字。但是他此生無悔無憾，因為他擁有 Henry 媽媽完整的愛，(半知情的父親在極度痛苦中舉槍自盡)，也擁有 Tess 和 一個長得完全像波西米亞人(前世)的兒子 Edward。
「兩生有幸」的 Henry Day 七歲因細故逃家，被精靈綁架，過了幾十年遠離文明的苦日子，他和十一個小精靈相伴求生，最後小精靈死的死、逃的逃，剩下七個，其中一個是愛讀書的小女孩 Speck。她眼睛常常望向遠方，和其他小精靈明顯不同掛，有一天在圖書館地下藏匿處的天花板留下藏身寶圖，逃向西海岸，可惜呆頭鵝 Henry Day/Aniday 一直搞不清楚狀況，沒有讀出 Speck 的心，不曉得為愛走天涯。Anyway, 善良的 Henry Day/Aniday 決定不再抓別的小孩輪替，也說服同伴放過 Edward, 幾番為難 Gustav/Henry Day 之後，在他的音樂裡懂了原諒，聽完他在教堂的管風琴演奏〈被偷小孩交響曲〉就帶著他的包包離開。他要走到西海岸去找 Speck （她其實在加州，Gustav/Henry
Day 和他的兒子 Edward 遇見過）。
讀到這裡，妳是不是想學 Robin Williams 說一句：”Son of a bitch, he
stole my line” 呢？真的好像《心靈捕手》呀！害我笑到滾進沙發！
不過我整整笑了三次，另兩次其中一次是酷酷的小精靈 Speck 帶領 Henry Day/Aniday 大量閱讀圖書館的書。普通小精靈都只喜歡看圖片，可是 Speck 都讀什麼呢？
When the chance arose over those next few years, Speck and I would
steal away to sleep in relative peace and luxury beneath library.
We threw ourselves into our books an papers. We read the Greeks in
translation, Clytemnestra in her grief, Antigone’s honor in a thin
coating of earth. Grendel prowling the bleak Danish night. The
pilgrims of Canterbury and lives on the road. Maxims of Pope, the
rich clot of humanity in all of Shakespeare, Milton’s angels and
aurochs, Gulliver big, little, yahoo. Wild ecstasies of Keats.
Shelley’s Frankenstein. Rip Van Winkle sleeping it off. Speck
insisted on Austen, Eliot, Emerson, Thoreau, the Brontes, Alcott,
Nesbitt, Rossetti, both Brownings, and especially Alice down the
rabbit hole. We worked our way right up to the present age, chewing
through the books like a pair of silverfish.
Sometimes, Speck would read aloud to me. I would hand her a story
she had never before seen, and almost without a beat, she made it
hers. She frightened me from the word Once in Poe’s “The
Raven.” She brought me to tears over Ben Jonson’s drowned cat.
She made the hooves thunder in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
and the waves roar in Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” I loved the music of
her voice and watching her face as she read, season after season…
(p.205)
Speck had been reading Flannery O’Connor, and I was wading in deep
water with Wallace Stevens. But I could not concentrate on his
abstractions, and instead stared at her between the lines… (p. 242)
哈哈哈哈哈！！！他們是英語系在職進修班的小精靈嘛！
「延伸教育是一種德政！」
還有一次笑得更開心！連二麻子都有點關心了。
Gustav/Henry 帶著妻、子到加州去錄音出唱片，小愛德華失蹤了一下下，引
起Gustav/Henry的超級焦慮，後來 Edward 回來了順便報告他看見的「望海小女孩」。
Dark hair flying behind her, a young girl emerged from the firs, ran
like a goat down the sloping face, as thin and lissome as the
breeze. From that distance she looked unreal, as if woven from the
mist. She stopped when she saw us standing there, and though she
did not come close, she was no stranger. We peered at each other
across the water, and the moment lasted as briefly as the snapping
of a photograph. There and gone at the same time. She turned
toward the waterfall and ran, vanishing beyond in a haze of rock and
evergreen. (p.264)
“What is her name?” Tess asked.
“Ever heard of a girl called Speck? She likes to come here in
winter to watch the whales.”
“Eddie, did she say where her parents were? Or how she got all the
way out here by herself?”
“She walked, and it took more than a year. Then she asked where
was I from, and I told her. Then she asked me my name, and I said
Edward Day.” He suddenly looked away from us and gazed at the rock
and the falling tides, as if remembering a hidden sensation.
“Did she say anything else?”
“No.” He gathered the blanket around his shoulders.
“Nothing at all?”
“She said, ‘How is life in the big, big world?’ and I thought
that was funny.”
“Did she do anything …peculiar?” I asked.
“She can laugh like a seagull.” (p.265)
妳可能會問：「笑點在哪裡？」
哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈！！！！！猜吧！
