阿芳心曲

HBO 迷你影集《幻世浮生》 改編自James M. Cain 1941年的經典同名小說 ” Mildred Pierce “。故事發生在 1930 美國經濟大蕭條時期，主角蜜卓是位離婚又獨立的女性，以單親媽媽負起養育兩個女兒的責任，堅毅果決和友人奮力一博而事業有成。她處心積慮始終保守著中產貴族的地位和自尊，但所處的時代背景和家庭狀況並無法讓她獲得真愛與尊重。

這位屬於曾祖母年代的女性典範，何來女人的堅持和勇氣 ? 愛恨交織的情感，寄託在落魄貴族蒙帝的身上，他生性放浪不羈並不真正懂得珍惜她；望女成鳳默默地包容女兒薇達嬌縱成性的虛榮心，不惜眾叛親離投注女兒從事花腔女高音的華麗生活卻拂袖不顧返。世態炎涼，儘管「學精愛本錢」又何妨，唯有咬緊牙關擺脫困頓磨難，所以動心忍性也就撐起了自己的一片天。

HBO迷你影集，改編自同名小說，由金獎影后凱特溫斯蕾主演。

　　<Mildred Pierce> had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter. Out of these elements, James M. Cain created a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.

作者簡介

　　James M. Cain (1892-1977) is recognized today as one of the masters of the hard-boiled school of American novels. Born in Baltimore, the son of the president of Washington College , he began his career as reporter on the Baltimore papers, served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and wrote the material for The Cross of Lorraine, the newspaper of the 79th Division. He returned to become professor of journalism at St. John’s College in Annapolis and then worked for H. L. Mencken on The American Mercury. He later wrote editorials for Walter Lippmann on the New York World and was for a short period managing editor of The New Yorker, before he went to Hollywood as a script writer. His first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published when he was forty-two and at once became a sensation. It was tried for obscenity in Boston , was said by Albert Camus to have inspired his own book, The Stranger, and is now a classic. Cain followed it the next year with Double Indemnity, leading Ross MacDonald to write years later, ”Cain has won unfading laurels with a pair of native American masterpieces, Postman and Double Indemnity, back to back.” Cain published eighteen books in all and was working on his autobiography at the time of his death.

引自http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!qZ54PsyaAwJjsxV53a8G3Q--/article?mid=1283&prev=1288&next=1277

本篇作者係阿芳个先生徐翠青，佢係客家文學作家，中央客家研究所畢業，目前任職警廣。特此致謝。