The young and the restless 年轻与躁动

New fiction 1
新小说 1
The young and the restless
年轻与躁动

Jan 28th 2010
From The Economist print edition

British and American fiction gets off to a promising start in 2010
2010年英美小说开局呈祥

The Unnamed. By Joshua Ferris. Reagan Arthur; 310 pages; $24.99. Viking; £12.99. Buy from Amazon.com
《莫名者》.约书亚·费里斯. 里根亚瑟出版社；310页；24.99美元.海盗图书网；12.99英镑. 从亚马逊网购买

VLADIMIR NABOKOV, who liked to observe other people, once declared that “professional book reviewers are veritable bookmakers”. They gleefully declare who’s in, who’s out, and ask: “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” Hot young novelists, many believe, are meant to follow a predictable script. First, burst onto the scene with some bold, voice-of-the-generation debut—preferably with a comely author photo. Then, years later, deliver to the expectant public a sophomore effort that is, alas, disappointing. Critics favour lamenting squandered promise to praising yet another fine book from someone with unlined skin.

热衷于评点他人作品的弗拉迪米尔·纳博科夫曾经宣称：“只有书评家才算是一本书真正的作者”。他们一边评判着别人的优劣得失，一边问着“去年白雪，如今安在？”乐此不疲。很多人认为，当红的年轻小说家们注定都会蹈循一条老路：起初，他们的一炮走红都是凭借着其富有时代锐气的处女作——往往还配有一张作者靓照；而几年后，他们给期待中的读者交出的第二部作品则往往，唉，让人大失所望。批评家们都眼巴巴地等着将自己的溢美之词送给能够写出第二部好作品的年轻作家。
Not all writers oblige. Occasionally, a well-known name, such as Peter Carey, an Australian, will go through a fallow period only to enjoy a return to form; a rare few, having written a debut of note, then go on to pen an even better second book.

然而并不是所有的作家都极具天赋。一些有名气的作家，比如澳大利亚人彼特·凯里，偶尔也需要过一段清闲时光只为找回良好的状态；很少有人能够在拿出一部为人称道的处女作之后，还能再写出更好的作品来。

Joshua Ferris became an international success in 2007 with “Then We Came to the End”, a smart and breezy satire of office life in an advertising firm. Told in the collective first person, it was a stylish rendering of workplace ambivalence in the wake of the dotcom bust. (“We were delighted to have jobs. We bitched about them constantly.”) It wasn’t perfect, but it was fresh, with pages that turned freely and unpretentiously. At 32, Mr Ferris—gracious, photogenic, based in Brooklyn—was anointed a writer to watch.

约书亚·费里斯于2007年凭借《我们快到头了》一书红遍全球，这是一部轻松明快的喜剧小说，描述一家广告公司的白领办公室生活。全书以第一人称的视角，将互联网泡沫年代人们的矛盾与苦闷进行了精细的刻画。（“我们曾经快乐地工作；我们现在不停地抱怨。”）并非完美无缺，但却新颖别致，情节的起承转合顺畅自然，朴实无华。费里斯——这位优雅、俊俏、现居住于布鲁克林的年轻人——32岁时就已被奉为天才作家。

Readers have not had long to wait for “The Unnamed”, his second novel. Anyone keen on another comedy of manners will be disappointed. So too will those who hoped to write off Mr Ferris as a victim of literary hype.

读者们并没有等待太久，他的第二部小说《莫名者》很快便已问世。以为这又会是一部时尚喜剧小说的人要失望了，同样会失望的还有那些试图把费里斯定性为又一颗文坛流星的批评家们。

From the opening page, he makes it plain that this is a very different book. “It was the cruellest winter. The winds were rabid off the rivers. Ice came down like poisoned darts…They were waiting for him. They didn’t know they were waiting for him.” The novel seizes readers by the lapels with a story that feels serious and mysterious. Tim Farnsworth, a successful Manhattan lawyer in his 40s, returns home one night and declares to his wife, Jane, “It’s back.” What’s back? A strange, unknown disease—one that compels the hero to walk helplessly, incessantly, until he drops from exhaustion. After a reprieve, Tim is once again a victim of his wayward body, “the frightened soul inside the runaway train of mindless matter, peering out from the conductor’s car in horror.”

一开篇，作者就清楚地表明这是一部很不寻常的书。“那是一个酷冷的冬日，寒风从冰河上呼啸而过，飞落的冰碴如同带毒的短箭……他们在等着他，它们不知道他们在等着他。”故事在一种凝重、诡秘的气氛中展开，紧紧抓住了读者的心。40岁的蒂姆·法恩斯沃斯是曼哈顿一名成功的律师，一天晚上他回到家对他的妻子简说：“又来了”。什么又来了？是他身上某种奇怪而未知的疾病——某种迫使主人公不停行走直至力竭而昏厥的疾病，又发作了。在经过了一个短暂的和缓之后，蒂姆又一次成为他那个倔强身躯的受害者，“失控的列车发疯似地向前飞驰，驾驶室里受惊的灵魂惊恐地盯着窗外。”

Tim is otherwise “horse-healthy” and content, a self-assured workaholic, devoted husband and father to a teenage daughter. But in a flash he is uncontrollably off, leaving his wife to find him passed out in a municipal parking place, a hospital or behind some chemist’s shop in the middle of the night. “Was she up for this?” Jane asks herself. These spells last for months at a time, and caring for him is a full-time job. But Jane has no choice: he could die out there. So she reads survivalist manuals, prepares his pack (a first-aid kit, snacks, GPS, a poncho—to carry at all times), and then waits for the call to pick him up. The only alternative is to tie him to the bed and ignore his screams.

蒂姆本来身体很健康，生活也算富足，是一个工作狂，也是一位称职的丈夫和一个未成年女儿的父亲。而他突然间就失去了自我控制，使得他的妻子每于午夜时分在停车场、医院或者药店门口找到已昏厥在地的他。“我该怎么办呢？”简自问道。她丈夫每次发作起来都持续几个月，而照顾他就成了她唯一要做的工作。简没有其他选择：在外面他随时会死。于是她读了生存专家指南，给丈夫准备了防护包（装有急救设备、零食、定位仪，以及随时会用到的雨衣等物），然后等着电话去接他。除此之外，还有一个办法就是把他捆绑到床上，任由他叫喊。

Doctors around the world have no idea what the problem is. Tim, alone in his mutinous body, is left wondering whether the trouble is in his head. Readers wonder about this too. Here Mr Ferris achieves a clever balance: Tim behaves strangely, but isn’t that natural for anyone who loses the life he understood? Isn’t madness inevitable when suffering from something no one can explain? A subplot about a murder trial, which yields a haunting exchange between Tim and a possible suspect on a bridge at night, raises more questions about his mental stability. Yet Jane stops speculating that her husband might be crazy after she goes through the menopause. She could only imagine how infuriating it would be if a doctor insisted her hot flushes were “all in her head”.

全世界的医生都搞不清原因在哪儿；蒂姆，连同他那个不听话的身躯，也不知道自己脑袋到底出了什么状况；读者们同样也不能明白。这里，作者费里斯的小说达到了一种很高明的对比协调：蒂姆的行为十分怪异，然而对于那些对自我失去掌控的人来说，这样的怪异难道不也很正常么？遭受到某种让人无法解释的疾病之后，难道不是必然要走向疯诞？小说中有一个次要情节涉及一起谋杀案，其中蒂姆和杀人疑犯之间有一场夜间发生在桥上的神秘对话，这个情节使得读者对蒂姆的精神状况催生出更多的疑问。然而，后来当简经历了更年期的时候，她便不再去怀疑她丈夫是不是发疯了，因为她已能够想象如果哪个医生非要坚称她的烦躁情绪都是“来自于大脑”，她将会多么的抓狂。

Mr Ferris keeps his prose direct and uncluttered, with only occasional flourishes (Tim’s feet “were like two engorged and squishy hearts”; a diner’s “fluorescent brutality” is “the national colour of insomnia and transience”). His fondness for his characters sometimes veers towards the sentimental. Still, he exercises a mature writer’s restraint, content to leave questions unanswered. He also has a fine ear for speech, and a good sense of what feels real, even when chronicling the surreal.

费里斯保持着他文笔的直率和简洁，但偶尔也会有几处花里胡哨的句子（蒂姆的双脚“就像两颗憋闷而潮湿的心”；那位就餐者的“闪着荧光的粗暴”就像“失眠症一样是一种民族特色”）。他对那位主人公的偏爱有时也稍显矫情。但他依然有着成熟作家的节制，比如在小说中设置疑惑而又并不作答。他对言说有着极高的领悟力，而且对现实世界时刻保持着敏锐，即便他是在编写超现实主义的小说。

Mr Ferris insists that “The Unnamed” is not a work of magical realism, but of “realist magic”. By inventing an incurable disease, he can meditate on its impact—on a marriage, on a career, on a character’s self-esteem—without dragging in the baggage of a familiar illness. This also amplifies the horror, leaving readers just as perplexed about what is afflicting Tim. Is this a physical or mental problem? Can a line be drawn between the two? In the last third of the book, Tim gives himself over to his need to walk. Raving and deteriorating, he lets his legs take him across the country, living a hobo’s life without possessions or attachments (“To own something was to keep it on his back or risk losing it forever”). Yet Tim’s dilemmas still feel real and his needs sympathetic. How does he go on? How does anyone?

费里斯一再说到，《莫名者》的风格不是魔幻现实主义，而是现实主义魔幻。通过发明一种不可治愈的疾病——不是牵强地通过一种常见的病——他才能够对受到这种疾病冲击的婚姻、职业以及主人公的自尊进行一番沉思。而这样做也能放大那种恐惧感，使得读者对发生在主人公身上的事情感到莫名的惊恐与不解，读者会问，问题到底是出在生理上呢还是心理上？作者能不能再多一些着墨描写呢？在本书的最后三分之一，蒂姆完全放任了自己的行走欲望。狂乱疯癫，每况愈下，蒂姆任由自己的双腿带着他游走于天南海北，过着无依无靠的浪人生活（“拥有某物就要一直把它背在肩上，否则就会永远地失去”）然而蒂姆的苦难又是那么的真切，那么的让人同情。他如何继续下去？我们每个人又如何继续下去？

This is a story about a man with a walking problem, but it is also a larger tale about struggling with uncertainty. Scattered throughout the novel are some odd events: blizzards, floods, fires, dying bees. Mr Ferris is reminding us of how little we know about the world we live in, and how little we know about ourselves within it, and yet we persist. This is not to say that Tim’s walking is some clunky metaphor. Mr Ferris is wise enough not to teach a lesson. Rather, he has teased ordinary circumstances into something extraordinary, which is exactly what we want our fiction writers to do.

这是一个关于患有行走强迫症的人的故事，而它也同样是一部与不确定性进行抗争的史诗。小说中处处充满着古怪的意象：暴风雪、洪水、火灾、垂死的蜜蜂等等。作者费里斯在提醒我们，对于我们生活在其中的这个世界以及我们自己，我们都还了解得太少，但我们却仍在安于现状。这并不是说，蒂姆的行走是某种笨拙的隐喻。费里斯先生很明智，他没有在小说里进行说教，而是通过戏谑的方式将人生中的寻常境况变得不同寻常，而这正是我们希望小说家们都去做的。

译者：eco彬彬
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