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石黑一雄 | 或是丢了灵魂,或是无法原谅

2017-10-06 大西洋月刊 英文联播

The Book of Sorrow and Forgetting

Each of Kazuo Ishiguro’s seven novels has a “buried giant”—a monstrous secret that is gradually exhumed, with unsettling consequences. We happen upon a fingernail, then a tooth, an ulna, a rib cage, an occiput, each discovery staggering in itself, until finally we see the full shape of the colossus, appreciate its terribleness, and understand why it was buried in the first place. 

石黑一雄写了七部小说,每一部中都有一个“被掩埋的巨人”——骇人听闻的秘密被抽丝剥茧地发掘出来,并导致令人不安的后果。我们偶然发现了一个指甲盖儿,然后是一颗牙、一根尺骨、一架胸腔、一块枕骨,每次发现本身都让人吃惊,可直到最后才看到这个庞然大物的全貌,我们理解了它的可怖之处,明白一开始它何以被埋在那里。


Ishiguro’s characters tend to bury their secrets beneath heavily reinforced strata of denial, self-delusion, and cognitive dissonance. In An Artist of the Floating World, we come to realize that the narrator, a retired master painter in postwar Japan, is not nearly as revered as he would like to believe, having destroyed his legacy by collaborating with the imperialist regime in the ’30s. 

石黑一雄的人物有意将秘密埋藏在被夯实的地层之下,那是拒绝、自我幻想和认知的差异。在《浮世画家》中,我们意识到叙事者、战后日本一名退休的绘画大师并不像他自己认为的那样受人尊敬,他与三十年代的帝国主义政权勾结,毁掉了自己的遗产。


The butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day haltingly discloses that his statesman employer was a Nazi sympathizer. Stevens is driven to obsession by his pursuit of dignity, which he cultivates at severe personal cost. But what dignity is available to a man who has devoted his life to comforting a Nazi?

《长日留痕》里的男管家史蒂文斯迟疑不决地揭开他的政客雇主的秘密,他发现后者是一名纳粹同情者。史蒂文斯执着地维护自己的尊严,甚至不惜付出沉重的个人代价。可一个毕生致力于让纳粹分子舒服的人又有何尊严可言呢?


The giant is not always buried within; in Never Let Me Go, it is the revelation that the narrator and her fellow boarding-school students are genetic clones being harvested for their internal organs. Often one buried giant leads to another, larger giant, and then another beneath him—giants all the way down.

巨人并非总掩埋在内部。在《别让我走》中,叙事者和他在寄宿学校的同学发现他们是供收割体内器官的基因克隆人。一个被掩埋的巨人常常引出更大的另一个,然后发现下面还藏着一个,一路发现下去。


And in certain novels, like A Pale View of Hills and The Unconsoled, as well as in several of the stories collected in Nocturnes, Ishiguro’s previous book, the mysteries are not entirely resolved; we can see protruding bones but must imagine for ourselves how they connect.

在某些小说中,如《远山淡影》《无可慰藉》及石黑一雄上一部作品《夜曲》中的几篇故事中,神秘并未完全揭开。我们发现了突在外面的骨头,却必须自行脑补它们是如何接起来的。


Always, however, there is the sense of crucial information being withheld. The revelations lead unerringly to reflection and a profound, deforming sense of regret. This process of exhumation is the distinguishing mark of Ishiguro’s style, which applies the techniques of detective fiction to the mysteries of the heart.

然而,人们总感觉关键信息被藏起来了,真相大白后,无一例外让人反思,产生深刻又扭曲的悔恨感。掘尸的过程是石黑一雄的显著标志,将侦探小说的写作技巧用于发掘内心的种种神秘。


Might human civilization, in order to prosper, have no choice but to erase the past?

Veteran readers of Ishiguro therefore will approach The Buried Giant, his first novel in a decade, in a spirit of deep precaution. We know that first appearances will deceive, that we will not be able to rely upon our narrator’s word, that minor details noted in passing may prove to have outsize significance. 

为繁荣之故,人类文明只能擦除过去吗?因此,石黑一雄的老读者将本着的小心防范的精神,阅读他十年来的第一部小说《被埋葬的巨人》。我们知道第一印象会骗人,我们不能信叙述者的话,顺便一提的细枝末节将被证明意义重大。


But which details? There are plenty of surprising ones in the novel’s first pages, which situate us in an England “not much beyond the Iron Age,” populated by unnamed plagues, human settlements dug deep into hills, panting ogres who abduct small children, and a dragon.

可会是哪些细节呢?小说开篇有许多令人惊讶的事,我们置身于“铁器时代不久后”的英格兰,那里有无名的瘟疫,有在山里挖洞的人类定居点,有喘着粗气的食人怪拐走小孩儿,还有一条龙。


“You would have searched a long time for the sort of winding land or tranquil meadow for which England later became celebrated,” the novel begins. From subsequent clues, we can deduce that the year is approximately 450 A.D., but despite our unnamed narrator’s anthropological tone, we are not in England as it actually was then, but as it was imagined seven centuries later by Geoffrey of Monmouth and the other mythologizers who gave us King Arthur, Sir Gawain, and the wizard Merlin. 

“你可能会花很长一段时间,寻找英格兰后来为之享誉的那种蜿蜒的农田或静谧的草场,”小说如是开篇。从后面的线索中,我们推断当年约为公元450年,可尽管无名的叙事者有种人类学家的口吻,我们并不身处历史上真实的英格兰,而是七个世纪后 蒙茅斯的杰弗里和创造了亚瑟王、加文爵士和魔法师梅林的其他神话学家想象中的世界。


It is hard to shake the sense that Ishiguro is up to his old tricks: one expects the ogres to be revealed as members of a rival village, the dragon to be some kind of a communal delusion, and Merlin to be a crackpot. But in fact the ogres are ogres, the dragon is a dragon, and Merlin actually does possess supernatural powers. Giants really do stride through Ishiguro’s England, and really are buried beneath it.

很难摆脱石黑一雄故技重施的想法:你会猜测食人怪可能是对头村落里的人,龙是某种集体幻象,梅林则是个疯子。可事实上,食人怪就是食人怪,龙就是龙,梅林确实拥有超自然的力量。巨人们真的在石黑一雄笔下的英格兰大步向行,也真的被埋在了地下。


Our guides through the craggy hills and bleak moors of the medieval countryside are an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice. They live in poverty, ostracized by the rest of their village, and appear to have sunk into a senility senility. They cannot remember basic facts about their past: Have they always lived in this village? Did they have children? We soon learn that this smothering forgetfulness does not afflict them alone. Their entire village is amnesic:

我们跋涉在中世纪乡间嶙峋的山头和荒凉的沼泽,向导是一对叫艾科索和比阿特丽斯的老夫妇。他们贫困潦倒,被村子里的人赶了出来,看起来风烛残年,行将就木。他们记不清过去的一些基本事实:他们一直住在这个村子吗?他们有子女吗?我们很快发现这种令人窒息的遗忘不只折磨着他们。整个村子都患上健忘症:


In this community the past was rarely discussed. I do not mean that it was taboo. I mean that it had somehow faded into a mist as dense as that which hung over the marshes. It simply did not occur to these villagers to think about the past—even the recent one.
在这个地方,过去很少被提及。我不是说过去有什么忌讳。我的意思是,过去不知为何消失在迷雾之中,同沼泽上的烟霭一样厚实。这些村民压根就想不起来,就算不久前发生的事也是如此。


This activates one’s Ishiguro antennae. Might he not be evoking our own situation in the year 2015? As I write, the news is dominated by outrage over a torture report that describes atrocities we knew about 10 years ago; outrage over the sex crimes allegedly committed by a beloved comedian, despite the fact that some of those allegations have been public knowledge since at least 2005; and apocalyptic environmental forecasts, many of which were first articulated in the 1970s. 

这激活了你的石黑一雄天线。他莫非暗示我们2015年的处境吗?我写书评时,新闻报道因一份酷刑报告而忿忿不平,虽说报告里的残暴行为我们十年前就知道了;还因我们钟爱的喜剧演员被控犯了性侵之罪而怒火中烧,虽说至少2005年以来,那些指控就为公众所知;还有灾难性的环境预警,许多在上世纪七十年代就有人提出了。


Many novelists write about memory, but they tend to focus on the nexus between memory and identity. What are we but the sum of our memories? Ishiguro studies this question in The Buried Giant, but he is just as interested in collective memory. What does a society choose to remember? George Santayana is credited with coining the historian’s mantra, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

许多小说家书写记忆,但他们专注于记忆与身份间的连结。除了记忆的总和之外,我们还能有什么呢?石黑一雄在《被掩埋的巨人》中探讨了这一问题,但他只对集体记忆感兴趣。一个社会去选择记忆什么呢?乔治·桑塔亚那以书写了历史学家的法则而著称:“忘却前车之鉴,注定重蹈覆辙。”


The Buried Giant poses a heretical counterargument: Might human civilization, in order to prosper, have no choice but to erase the past? Remember everything, and you lose the ability to forgive.

《被掩埋的巨人》却提出一个异端的反驳:为繁荣之故,人类文明只能擦除过去吗?


The “mist” that obscures the memories of Axl and Beatrice is no metaphor. It is in fact the breath of a she-dragon named Querig; her breath, thanks to a spell cast by Merlin, causes amnesia. Nearly everyone in the mist-shrouded valley is afflicted, apart from a Saxon warrior named Wistan, who is inexplicably immune. 

遮蔽了艾科索和比阿特丽斯记忆的“迷雾”并非隐喻。事实上,秘密是一条叫奎里格的母龙,梅林对她施了咒,她的气息让人健忘。烟雾弥漫的山谷中,几乎所有人都感染了,除了一个叫魏思坦的萨克逊卫士,他可以免疫,真令人难以理解。


Axl and Beatrice become convinced that they have a son living in some distant village, and they decide to reunite with him. Wistan, for no immediately obvious reason, volunteers to escort them on their expedition. Completing their troupe is an addled young boy, Edwin, who is seeking his mother, also long missing. 

艾科索和比阿特丽斯开始相信他们有一个儿子住在遥远的村子里,他们决定和儿子团圆。看不出什么原因,魏思坦自愿护送他们远行。同行的还有糊里糊涂的小伙子爱德文,他去找失踪已久的母亲。


As the four tramp up a rough mountain road, past forests and vales and waterfalls, they encounter supernatural beasts and, among other travelers, Sir Gawain himself. The prose, as in many of Ishiguro’s novels, is lapidary and beguiling, suggestive of secrets to be disclosed. In the dialogue, however, he adopts an Arthurian register that, in its sincerity, tests credulity, perhaps because of the hallowed tradition of lampooning such diction, from At Swim-Two-Birds to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to The Princess Bride:

四人蹒跚而行,踏上一条崎岖的山路,穿过森林、溪谷和瀑布,遇到超自然的野兽,还有其他旅行者,其中有加文爵士本人。文笔同石黑一雄许多小说中一样,优雅精致,令人神往,暗示背后藏着未解的秘密。然而在对话中,他采用亚瑟王式的语体,一腔真诚地考验着听者是否会盲信,可能因为对这种措辞的讽刺是一种神圣的传统,从《双鸟泳河》到《蒙提巨蟒》,从《圣杯》到《公主新娘》:


“Mistress,” I said to her, “I may look burdened by years. But I remain a knight of the great Arthur.”
“夫人,”我对她说,“我看起来历经岁月风霜,可我仍然是伟大的亚瑟王的骑士。”

“Curse me and banish me from your sight, for it’ll be a thing well earned.”
“诅咒我,让我从你眼前消失,我活该如此。”

“Sir Gawain,” Axl said, “we have but one sword between us. I ask you not to grow melancholic, nor forget the beast is near.”
“加文爵士,”艾科索说,“你我之间只有一把剑。我请你不要多愁善感了,别忘记野兽就在附近。”


There are moments, however, when the fabulous dialogue cuts more sharply. As the elderly lovers walk single file on the rough path, Beatrice in front, she frequently calls back to make sure that her husband is keeping pace. “Are you still there, Axl?” she asks. “Still here, princess.” What better distillation of the experience of marriage? The litany runs throughout the novel like a haunting incantation. “Still here,” Axl replies—but not, we suspect, for long.

然而,小说也不时有绝妙的对话冒出来。老伉俪一前一后走在起伏不平的路上,比阿特丽斯走在头里,她不时回头确认丈夫是否跟上来。“你还在那儿吗,艾科索?”她问。“还在呢,公主。”还有什么比这更能体现婚姻生活的精华之处呢?这些翻来覆去的话遍布全篇,像挥之不去的咒语。“还在这儿呢,”艾科索回答说,但我们猜,肯定要出事儿了。


Gradually the buried giant is disinterred. We learn that during the great war between the Britons and the Saxons, Axl served King Arthur as a statesman. His greatest achievement was a treaty that ordered the Britons to spare Saxon women and children, but as the war intensified, the Britons violated the treaty, massacring entire villages. 

逐渐,被埋葬的巨人显露出来了。我们得知,在不列颠人和萨克逊人的伟大战争中,艾科索效命于亚瑟王,是一个政治家。他最伟大的成就是达成协约,命令不列颠人饶恕萨克逊女人和孩子,可随着战事升级,不列颠人违反了协约,屠杀了整个村子。


To avoid reprisals, Merlin cast his spell on the she-dragon, causing all the war’s survivors, Saxon and Briton alike, to forget that the genocide had ever occurred. But Wistan, who managed to escape the slaughter and grew up among the Britons, appears to have been spared by the mist. He sets out to kill the dragon, and afterward lead the Saxons to avenge their defeat. In this he is opposed by Gawain, who has taken it upon himself to defend the dragon and the country’s fragile peace.

为避免报复行为,梅林对母龙施咒,让所有战争的幸存者,既包括萨克逊人,也包括不列颠人,忘记曾经发生过的大屠杀。但设法逃过杀戮并在不列颠人中间长大的威斯坦看起来不受迷雾的侵袭。他要着手杀掉母龙,后来又带领萨克逊人为失败复仇。加文反对他这样做,加文亲自保卫母龙和国家脆弱的和平。


Also emerging from the mist is a forgotten personal crisis between Axl and Beatrice. Why the couple should begin to remember their past as they get closer to Querig, the source of their amnesia, is unclear (the internal narrative logic is not nearly as taut as in previous Ishiguro novels), but the dawning awareness of past deceit forms a neat parallel with the reemergence of the Saxon-Briton conflict. In both public and private life, might forgetting past horrors be a balm? Why awaken the giant from its slumber?

迷雾中显露出来的还有艾科索和比阿特丽斯之间被遗忘的个人恩怨。为何夫妇离健忘之源奎里格龙越来越近时,反倒开始记起过去的事,这不得而知,其内在的叙事逻辑不如此前石黑一雄的小说那样紧凑,但开始意识到过去的谎言与萨克逊-不列颠冲突的再现形成优雅的对照。在公众和私人生活两个层面,忘却过去的恐怖是一种镇痛的慰藉吗?为何要叫醒昏昏沉沉的巨人呢?


The answer, as most readers will intuitively conclude, lies between two extremes. Forget everything and you lose your soul; remember everything and you lose the ability to forgive. Ishiguro’s characters, like all of us, are caught between the bliss of ignorance and the agony of Borges’s “Funes the Memorious,” tortured by the curse of total recall. Both our politics and our intimate relationships teeter on this axis. 

正如多数读者凭直觉总结得那样,答案在两个极端之间。把一切忘记,你丢失了灵魂;将一切记起,你失去了原谅的能力。石黑一雄的人物和我们所有人一样,被困在无知的福气和博尔赫斯笔下福内斯的过目不忘的懊恼之间,被彻底忆起的诅咒所折磨,我们的政治生活和私人生活都在这条轴线上摇摇欲坠。


But for Ishiguro, our poet laureate of loss, the mercies of forgetfulness hold the greater fascination. This accounts for the novel’s wistful, dreamy, mournful quality. For all its dragon-slaying and swashbuckling, The Buried Giant is ultimately a story about long love and making terms with oblivion. It is an eerie hybrid: a children’s fable about old age. In Ishiguro’s novel, as in life, love conquers all—all, that is, but death.

可对石黑一雄而言,那个讴歌失落的桂冠诗人,遗忘的美德更令人神往。这构成了小说怅惘、梦幻和哀伤的调性。尽管不乏屠龙传奇,神气活现,《被掩埋的巨人》说到底是一部讲述儿女情长的故事,并试图与遗忘达成和解。那是一种怪异的结合:一部关于老年的儿童寓言。在石黑一雄的小说中,以及在他的生命中,爱战胜一切。一切,除了死亡。




文章载于2015年3月版《大西洋月刊》



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