SAT小说必读之伟大的狄更斯（上）双城记： 自由 平等 博爱 或 死亡
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你说起上次谈到的《五月花号公约》，结合自己在北美的高中见闻，觉得历史感很强，却离现实比较远，所以总是只能理解表面含义，却又和日常生活联系不起来。你这种感觉没有错，历史本就是有些距离感的，而我给你的建议，是具备一种Detached Observation（超然的审视），既能走进历史，达到历史的同情，同时，又不要完全陷进去，觉得自己变成了一位“古人”。
之所以我希望陪同你，把西方历史文化和西方经典小说一起阅读，就是因为历史更宏观些，而小说更微观些。我们一方面从宏观的角度，切入历史，进入时代，去把握潮流，体会趋势，另一方面，又可以从小说的角度，去体验品评那些亦虚亦实的人物命运，从人物的悲欢离合，进而领略历史的沧桑。著名法国作家巴尔扎克就曾经写过，“小说是一个国家的秘史”。
（一）
从今天开始，我们来谈狄更斯。
在西方经典小说中，总有一些作家是躲不过的，而狄更斯的小说，就在其中。所谓誉满天下，谤亦随之。批判狄更斯小说通俗浅薄、缺乏思想深度的，大有人在。而狄更斯的小说，历经150余年，依然读者众多，一版再版，而那些所谓见识不凡的批评家，却早已淹没在历史的浩瀚烟波中。和你分享一句，很解气的骂人话，“尔曹身与名俱灭不废江河万古流”，杜甫写的，以后再有自鸣得意的妄人，就送他这句话。
（1）
狄更斯的遣词造句，是出名的经典。先看看这段家喻户晓的句子，也是咱们今天讨论的这本小说《双城记》的开场：
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch ofincredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
作为非主流的文艺青年，我能理解这段话给初读者带来的震撼。不多评价，背下来吧。
（2）
我们来谈谈怎么读小说。
我不给你去罗列和分析各种小说的解构理论，就从一个普通读者，一个高中生的视角，谈一下怎么阅读小说。小说中有很多要素，我建议学生首先去关注的，是人物的情感和人物之间的关系。至于时代、风景、矛盾冲突、写作手法、遣词造句等等，都可以粗略理解成，是为人物的情感特征和人物关系服务的。
在阅读经典小说时，要去注意，人物的情感会随着时间和事件的推进而改变，人物是多元而饱满的；而阅读SAT或ACT考试这种小说节选时，由于篇幅有限，人物情感是单一而相对固定的。所以在阅读长篇小说时，要不断体会人物情感的渐变性，而阅读片段节选时，要时刻关注人物情感的核心特征。而优秀的作家，是可以寥寥数笔，人物就变得鲜活起来的。这一点，我们未来在阅读各种经典小说时，会有深刻体会。反之，非经典的小说，人物基本是单薄而无变化的，就会乏味很多。
我们看一个《双城记》中的片段。
Book2 Chapter 5 The Jackal
`You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses today. Every question told.'
`I always am sound; am I not?'
`I don't gainsay it. What has roughen'ed your temper? Put some punch to it andsmooth it again.'
With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied.
`The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,' said Stryver, nodding his headover him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, `the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and now indespondency!'
`Ah!' returned the other, sighing: `yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Eventhen, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own.'
`Andwhy not?'
`Godknows. It was my way, I suppose.'
He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before him,looking at the fire.
`Carton,'said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, as if the fire-grate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour was forged, andthe one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, `your way is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look at me.
`Oh, botheration!' returned Sydney, with a lighter and more good-humoured laugh,`don't you be moral!'
`Howhave I done what I have done?' said Stryver; `how do I do what I do?'
`Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it's not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind.'
`I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?'
`I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,' said Carton. Atthis, he laughed again, and they both laughed.
`Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,' pursued Carton, `you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellow students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking up French, and Frenchlaw, and other French crumbs that we didn't get much good of, you were alwayssomewhere, and I was always--nowhere.'
`And whose fault was that?'
`Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always driving and shouldering and pressing, to that restless degree that I had nochance for my life but in rust and repose. It's a gloomy thing, however, totalk about one's Own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some otherdirection before I go.'
`Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,' said Stryver, holding up his glass.`Are you turned in a pleasant direction?'
Apparently not, for he became gloomy again.
这个段落，相信你印象很深。两个主要人物，Stryver和Carton，如同事物的两极，赫然纸上。Stryver老练炫耀，不择手段获得高位，而Carton却一直受Stryver打压，郁郁不得志。这个章节，名为The Jackal（豺狗），其实就是Stryver作为lion（狮子），不断打压Carton，阻止他进一步发展，还不断教训他，指指点点，以抬高自我；反之，Carton也只能采取居下位者的自保策略。
（3）
当然，人物特征和情感冲突，只是读小说的基本主线之一，而在主干道外，有很多风景，是足可以去领略的。所以，你千万不要走极端，只走高速公路，而忽略了沿路的美景。
狄更斯的小说，在小团圆式的温柔结尾之余，其实处处体现着18-19世纪，普通人民的苦难生活。有时那种阴冷的笔调，真的是需要强大的内心支持，才能够写完的。
试举一例：
Book 1 Chapter 5 The Wine-shop
A LARGE cask of wine had been dropped andbroken, street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the caskhad tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones justoutside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell.
All the people within reach had suspendedtheir business or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. Therough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, onemight have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approachedthem, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its ownjostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, madescoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bentover their shoulders to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers.Others, men and women, dipped inthe puddles with little mugs of mutilatedearthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women's heads, which were squeezeddry into infants mouths; others made small mud embankments, to stem the wine asit ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here andthere, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions;others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the casklicking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish.There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get takenup, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been ascavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed insuch a miraculous presence.
一个葡萄酒桶裂开了，酒洒一地，周围的男人女人，如腐肉动物般用各种破烂容器去吸食地上的脏酒，结果在一个没有水沟的街道，不但酒被清除一净，还能连带清除烂泥……这种笔法，是需要佩服的。
所以，读小说，要细致一些。高中生很容易出现的问题，就是一遇到看不太懂的段落，就直接跳过，也就错失了本应见到的风景。
你去想想，当你连这样的段落都读过了，将来看到国内的新闻，某某地区，卡车翻了，热情的村民一起来哄抢橘子西瓜时，还会动容吗？
不会了，因为你见过这一场景最好、最阴冷的写法了。
（二）
再谈一下《双城记》的历史背景，法国大革命，这个在后面去谈美国历史，尤其是制宪会议、华盛顿总统、杰弗逊总统时，都会涉及。当然，还有Thomas Paine 和 Edmund Burke隔空论剑式的《全球对话》。
（1）
有关法国大革命的研究书籍，也是浩如烟波，我最近有一个学生，暑假的时候，去法国游学，坐在草坪上，和法国的教授畅谈法国大革命，那种感受，想想都觉得开心。
而我们今天只是从一个切片，简单谈一下我对法国大革命的印象，那就是《双城记》中不断出现的一个说法：
of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death（自由、平等、博爱或死亡）
这就是笼罩《双城记》第三部分的一条阴霾主线，当时的暴民统治！
秘密抓捕，秘密处决，众人曰可杀，则可以跳过司法程序，任意处置，复仇女神……相信这些，都是你读该书第三部分的直接印象。是的，这就是所谓的多数人的暴政。如果我们把人类社会，作为一个理论的实验田的话，到底是多数人的暴政，还是少数人的暴政，对人类社会的伤害最大，本就是一个无解的话题。而《双城记》的第三部分，就是给我们呈现了赤裸血腥的多数人的暴政。
所以，不要太相信民主，就像不要太相信总统一样。最近看到一句很有意思的话，“小知识分子警惕统治者，大知识分子警惕民众”。送给你。
当然，人们总是健忘的，或者说选择性遗忘的；当我们今天在课堂上说起法国大革命的时候，总是一厢情愿的去援引“自由、平等、博爱”这样美好的词汇，却唯独忘记了，与之相伴的“死亡”阴影。
（2）
简单说一下法国大革命和美国的关系。
当时的美国联邦政府刚刚成立，公选华盛顿将军为第一任总统，而《独立宣言》的作者杰弗逊是当时的国务卿，因为二人性格和政见的不同，华盛顿选择在法国大革命的时候，美国保持中立地位，而杰弗逊那种颇有革命气质的人，却积极号召美国站在法国一边，打击英国商船。中间的很多细节，我们讲到美国总统的时候，再和你分享。总之，幸而华盛顿总统眼光深远，使刚刚成立的美国政府，躲过一劫；后来当杰弗逊逐渐看到法国的暴民统治，白色恐怖时，才逐渐改变对法国大革命的看法。
至于杰弗逊从拿破仑手中，以极其低廉的价格购买路易斯安那州，使美国领土近乎增加了一倍等等，都是后话了，将来有机会咱们再聊。
（3）
还有一个细节，你也提到了，就是觉得女主角露西远没有想象中可爱，而且动不动就晕倒，是跟林妹妹一样的病秧子，我只好告诉你，需要有历史的同情了。尤其是露西的晕倒，是当时有教养女孩的标配，就如同现在我们对名门闺秀，要求一些必要的谈吐举止一样。
（三）
再推荐一些精彩章节，可以精读。
Book 1 Chapter 1 The Period： 大时代的描写
Book 1 Chapter 5 The Wine-shop： 破酒桶的描写、初见医生的场景描写
Book 2 Chapter 1 Five Years Later：银行的描写
Book 2 Chapter 5 The Jackal： 狮子与豺狗的对话
Book 2 Chapter 22 The Sea still Rises：暴民的血腥统治
Book 3 Chapter 1 In Secret： 自由、平等、博爱或死亡
Book 3 Chapter 2 The Grindstone ： 磨刀石和杀人
Book 3 Chapter 4 Calm in Storm： 医生的重生
Book 3 Chapter 10 The Substance of theShadow：医生的控诉
Book 3 Chapter 15 The Footsteps Die out forEver：卡顿赴义
（四）
狄更斯 书目推荐
远大前程
雾都孤儿
大卫科波菲尔
艰难时代
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出版物：
《SAT全真词汇大全》
《SAT写作手册》
《ACT词汇进阶》
《新SAT核心词汇14天》