영어로 읽는 고전 _ 조지 깁스의 천국 정원
조지 깁스의 『천국 정원: 위대한 실험에 관한 풍자적 이야기(Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment)』는 20세기 초에 쓰인 풍자 소설이다. 이 작품은 고인이 된 백만장자 존 벤햄(John Benham)이 자신의 아들 제리(Jerry)를 여성과 현대 사회의 영향으로부터 차단된, 외부와 격리된 통제된 환경 속에서 키우고자 시도한 기이한 사회적 실험을 중심으로 전개된다. 이야기는 이 소년의 양육을 책임지도록 임명된 지적인 가정교사 로저 캔비(Roger Canby)의 시점으로 펼쳐지며, 제리의 삶은 그의 아버지가 남긴 별난 지침들에 의해 철저히 통제된다.
소설의 도입부에서 우리는 잭 발라드(Jack Ballard)로부터 한 가지 독특한 제안을 받는 로저 캔비를 만나게 된다. 부유하지만 냉소적인 아버지를 둔 제리 벤햄의 가정교사가 되어 달라는 것이다. 존 벤햄은 아들의 양육에 관해 엄격한 조건들을 내걸어 두었는데, 그중에는 제리가 스물한 살이 될 때까지 호샴 매너(Horsham Manor)라는 광활한 영지 안에서 여성의 영향을 일절 받지 않은 채 격리된 삶을 살아야 한다는 항목까지 포함되어 있다. 이 비정상적인 역할을 수행해 나가는 과정에서 로저는 자신의 철학적 신념과 이 거창한 실험이 지닌 의미를 거듭 곱씹게 된다. 초반부의 장들은 작품의 사회적 역학 관계를 보여주며, 제리가 로저의 지적 지도 아래 성장하면서 결국 바깥세상의 현실과 인간관계의 복잡한 진실에 맞닥뜨리게 될 때 빚어질 갈등의 무대를 차근차근 마련해 나간다.
Classics Read in English _ Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment by George Gibbs
Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment by George Gibbs is a satirical novel written in the early twentieth century. The story turns on a singular social experiment devised by the late millionaire John Benham, who has resolved to raise his son Jerry in seclusion—shielded from the company of women and the contaminations of modern society alike, deep within a tightly controlled world of his father's design. The tale is filtered through the eyes of Roger Canby, the cerebral tutor charged with shaping the boy's upbringing, whose every move is dictated by the eccentric directives left behind by Jerry's father.
As the novel opens, Roger Canby is approached by Jack Ballard with an unusual proposition: to take on the role of tutor to Jerry Benham, the son of a wealthy and deeply cynical man. John Benham has laid down rigid terms for his son's upbringing, chief among them that Jerry must live in complete isolation within the sprawling estate of Horsham Manor, untouched by any female presence, until the day he turns twenty-one. As Roger settles into this unorthodox post, he finds himself wrestling with his own philosophies and turning over, again and again, the deeper implications of so grand an experiment. The opening chapters sketch the social dynamics at play and quietly set the stage for the conflicts to come—conflicts that will erupt as Jerry grows into manhood under Roger's intellectual stewardship and is at last forced to confront the realities of the outside world and the tangled complexities of human relationships.
Among the contents
It might be better if Jerry Benham wrote his own memoir, for no matter how veracious, this history must be more or less colored by the point of view of one irrevocably committed to an ideal, a point of view which Jerry at least would insist was warped by scholarship and stodgy by habit. But Jerry, of course, would not write it and couldn't if he would, for no man, unless lacking in sensibility, can write a true autobiography, and least of all could Jerry do it. To commit him to such a task would be much like asking an artist to paint himself into his own landscape. Jerry could have painted nothing but impressions of externals, leaving out perforce the portrait of himself which is the only thing that matters. So I, Roger Canby, bookworm, pedagogue and student of philosophy, now recite the history of the Great Experiment and what came of it.
It is said that Solomon and Job have best spoken of the misery of man, the former the most fortunate, the latter the most unfortunate of creatures.
