Always on the side of the egg
我把标题翻成我)总是站在鸡蛋一边
作者:村上春树.
这是他在以色列接受耶路撒冷文学奖时的致谢辞.关于这个作家,见仁见智的说法不少.有兴趣的朋友自己找他的书来看,然后再下定论也不迟.
补充一点,他并不是一个受到广泛欢迎的作家.换句话说,一个人人热爱的人说不定就是一垃圾.一个人人盼望早日归天的恶棍说不定就是一天使.天使的面目并非童话中广济天下的慈善家.
废话不多写了.下面是作家的发言.
Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
晚上好.今天我以小说家的身份站在这里(耶路撒冷),(众所周知),所谓的小说家其实就是专业的谎言制造者.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and generals tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
当然了,小说家并不是唯一擅长制造谎言的职业.我们都知道,政客也精于此道.外交家和绅士们偶尔也如此这般,只不过他们用他们自己的方式.另外,汽车推销员,肉贩,地产商也不例外.但是小说家的谎言和其他人谎言之间有着天壤之别.无论如何,没有人用不道德这个词语来批评小说家的谎言.事实上,小说家的谎言愈精巧,愈多,愈不可思异,公众和批评家对谎言的始作俑者的赞誉愈多.这究竟是为什么?
My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies--which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true--the novelist can bring a truth out to a new place and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth-lies within us, within ourselves. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
我想原因可能在于:叙说技巧化的谎言-也就是说,营造看似真实的虚构情节-小说家能把一个真实的细节移植到另外的场景中,并赋予其新的意义.在大多数情形中,把真实的场景按原有的结构并精准的叙说出来是完全彻底地不可能的.这也就是说,因为如此,我们才总是力图通过真实遗留的痕迹,把它从藏身之处引导出来,加以转化和切换,最后移植到一个虚拟的结构中去.为了实现这一目的,无论如何.我们首先必须理清,究竟在那里,真实的谎言和我们以及我们自己一道.这是编织优美的谎言的必要前提.
Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are only a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.
尽管如此,在今天,我无意撒谎.我将努力使自己显得更为诚实一些.在过去的岁月里,有些时候我并不撒谎.今天就是为数不多的时刻之一.
So let me tell you the truth. In Japan a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce fighting that was raging in Gaza. The U.N. reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded city of Gaza, many of them unarmed citizens--children and old people.
那么让我把事实说与你听.在日本,有相当数量的人们建议我不要出现在这里领取耶路撒冷文学奖.有人甚至警告我,如果我来这里,你们将抵制我的小说在这里的发行.(在他们看来),(你们)这么做的原因当然是横扫了加沙的那场风暴般的军事行动.联合国的报告称,在被围困的加沙,成千的居民丧生.而他们中的大多数是手无寸铁的平民-(他们是)儿童和老人.
Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.
从收到关于这个奖项的通知的那一刻起,我无时不在反复地追问我自己.我问我自己,在这个时刻去以色列接受这个文学奖是否是一种正确的选择?这又将对我所支持的冲突中的一方-我支持的那些个政策所在的国家选择了解放他们势不可挡的军事力量-带来何种影响?不,毫无疑问,我不想看到我的小说受到抵制.
Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me-- and especially if they are warning me-- “Don’t go there,” “Don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that”. It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.
最终,经过仔细的考虑,我决定来这里.促使我做出这样的决定的原因之一就在于,太多太多的人建议我不要来这里.或许和大多数小说家一样,我倾向于选择我被告知的反面.如果人们对我说-尤其是他们如果警告我-“不要去那里”,“不要那样做。”而我却总是这样想"去那里"以及"那样做".这是我的性格使然,你们也许会这样认为.做为一个小说家,小说家们是特殊的群体.他们通常不会相信他们没亲眼看到和亲手触摸到的任何事物.
And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.
这就是为什么我来这里的原因.我选了来这里而不是呆在别处. 我选择了为我而看而不是不来看.我选择了说给你们听而不是沉默.
Please do allow me to deliver a message, one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
请允许我对你们说句话,一句我自己的话.在我写小说的时候,这句话一直在我的脑海徘徊.我从未把它写在纸条上并贴在墙上.更确切的说.它深深的刻在我的记忆中,这句话是这么说的.:
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
"在不可逾越的坚固墙壁和撞击它的鸡蛋之间,我总是站在鸡蛋这一边."
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will do it. But if there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
是的,(就是这样)无论那墙壁是如何正确,也无论那鸡蛋是如何谬误,我都将和鸡蛋在一起.其他人会被迫不判定什么是对的以及什么是错的:或许时间或历史会这么做.但是如果有一个站在墙壁一方的小说家,无论他(她)因为什么原因这么做,那么这是受什么样的价值观的驱使?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
这样的譬喻是什么意思?有些时候,意思实在是太简单也太明了了.炮弹,坦克,火箭弹,还有白磷弹就是那面高墙.鸡蛋就是被他们推倒,被他们烧焦被他们射杀的赤手空拳的平民.这就是上述的比喻的含义.
But this is not all. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically.
但这还不能表达出全部的含义.它有更进一层的含义.请这样思考.我们中的每一个,或多或少,都象一个鸡蛋.我们中的每一个人,都是被易碎的外壳包裹起来的独一无二的,不可替代的灵魂.对我如是,对你们也同样如是.我们每一个人.在不同程度上都面对着一面高不可逾的坚固墙壁.这面墙壁有个名字.这个名字就是"制度".这个"制度"本来是用来保护我们每一个人的。但是,有时它会呈现出它的另一面,也就是它开始杀戮我们或驱使我们冷血地有效地有组织地杀戮其他人.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I truly believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories--stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
我写作的目的只有一个.那就是使每一个独一无二的灵魂存在表层上的尊严并让她们在阳光的照耀下.把圣洁之光投射到制度之上,使制度不能利用其网络困惑我们的灵魂,贬低我们的人格.我坚信这是小说家的天职所在.通过写作-关于活着和死亡的故事,关于爱的故事以及那些让人们哭泣和使人们惊恐万状或使人们捧腹大笑的故事,努力阐明每一个单独的灵魂的唯一性.这是为什么我们日复一日地继续用绝对严肃的笔触去写作小说的缘由所在.
My father passed away last year at the age of ninety. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school in Kyoto, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the small Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the battlefield. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
去年,在我的父亲九十高龄的时候,他老人家过世了.在他生前,他是一个退休教师,同时还是一个业余僧侣.在他从京都学校毕业的那年.他被军队征召入伍,派往中国作战.做为战后出生的孩子,我过去总能看见,每天的早上,在早饭前,他都要在设在家里的佛教祭坛边上长久的深深的祈祷.有一次,我问他为什么要这么做,他告诉我他是在为那场战争中死亡的人们祈祷.他说,他为所有死难的人们祈祷,包括盟友和敌人.当他跪在佛坛前时,我望这他的背影,似乎感受在他周围萦绕的那种死亡的气息.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
我的父亲过世了.同时离去的还有他的记忆.那些记忆我从来不能知晓.但那曾经隐藏在他身上的死亡气息却一直停留在我的记忆中.这是少有的我从他那里获得的东西之一.然而这也是最重要的东西之一.
I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, and we are all fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong--and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from our believing in the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
今天,我想要表达的想法只有一个.我们是人类,唯一超越国家,人种,宗教的人类.我们都是面临被称做制度的坚墙的易碎的鸡蛋.就表面而言,我们获胜的概率很小.那面墙壁是如此之高,如此之坚固,如此之冷血.如果说我们还有一些获胜的可能,那就是源于我们每一个人和其他人所拥有的绝对唯一的和不可替代的灵魂深处的信念以及从所有从这些紧密结合在一起的灵魂中间我们所获取的温暖的信念(所拥有的巨大能量).
Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System.
花一点时间思考一下这一点,我们每一个人都拥有真实的,可以触摸的到的活生生的灵魂.(但是)制度没有.(无论如何)我们不能被制度利用我们.我们也不能让制度呈现它的(邪恶的)另一面.制度不能塑造我们.相反,是我们塑造了这个制度.
That is all I have to say to you.
这就是所有我想告诉你们的.
I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I would like to express my gratitude to the readers in Israel. You are the biggest reason why I am here. And I hope we are sharing something, something very meaningful. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.
非常感谢给予我耶路撒冷文学奖.非常感动于在这个世界上不同地方的人们阅读我的小说.我很乐意表达我对所有以色列的读者的感激之情.正是由于你们,我才能站在这里.希望我们能一起分享非常有意义的一些东西.我也很高兴,今天我能得到这个机会站在这里把我的想法说给你们听,我很高兴.
Thank you very much.
再次致以深切的谢意.
译后记,鸡蛋碰石头是个含义颇广的俗语.作者在演讲中用这个隐语的目的显然是试图颠覆长久以来石头永远是对的,而试图与石头对抗的鸡蛋永远是错的这一观念.
从这个意义上,小说家的使命无疑应该在于更深广的人文关怀.而不只停留在对历史和现实的描摹和指手画足的层面.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064909.html |