In the early 20th century the city was the backdrop for despair. Virginia Woolf s London inMrs Dalloway is mournful, offering little succour after the first world war. J.B.Priestley s Angel Pavement offers a latter-day Dickensian tale of cheats,bankruptcy and failed firms. By the 1960s Muriel Spark guided readers through a newmetropolis, where women gushed at the thought of sex and film stars, and pennedunanswered letters to famous writers. Yet the delights of works such as The Girls of SlenderMeans are overshadowed by the threat of nuclear war.

　　20世纪初，这座城市的舞台上演着绝望。维吉尼亚伍尔芙《达洛维夫人》中的伦敦死气沉沉，不给一战结束后的人们半分慰藉。J.B.普里斯特利的《天使街》则是近代的狄更斯翻版，讲述欺骗，破产和倒闭的公司。20世纪60年代，穆里尔斯帕克引领读者在这座焕然一新的大都市中穿梭，女人一想到性和电影明星便兴奋得大呼小叫，还热衷于给著名作家寄去一封封石沉大海的信件。但在核战威胁的阴影面前，《窈窕淑女》这类轻快俏皮的小说顿时黯然失色。

　　Across the decades the capital has inspired potboilers and sizzling romances, but it was notuntil the 1980s, when London was booming again, that the city itself returned to centre stage.Martin Amis s London Fields was a triumph, a black comedy about lust and low-lifes that fizzed with a rare energy.

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