读美国小说总有种“各人自扫门前雪”之感,因为作家所写大多局限于美国本土或极少数几个欧洲的大城市,这些不过是“摆设”,真正所写下的却是主人公的身边琐事。而谈英国小说则有相反的感觉,故事背景往往设置在世界各地。这与当年英国之称霸全球,不无关系。美国的作家宁肯去西班牙巴塞罗纳式的豪华饭店里,一写美国人在那里的小天地,而不愿就近去贫困的拉丁美洲寻找素材,如海明威之以非洲为背景写狩猎生活,堪 There is always a sense in reading American novels that “everybody swears in front of the snow” because the writers are mostly confined to the United States or a handful of major cities in Europe. These are merely “decorations” Is the hero’s side trivia. However, there is a contrary feeling in talking about British novels. The story background is often set around the world. This is the British dominate the world then, not unrelated. American writers would rather go to a luxury hotel in Barcelona, ​​Spain, to write about the small world where Americans are, instead of looking for materials in the poorest Latin America, such as Hemingway’s hunt for life on the African continent.