[2008.08.23] 乔治.奥威尔与伊夫林.沃夫：对抗未来

George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh
乔治.奥威尔与伊夫林.沃夫

Fighting against the future
对抗未来

Aug 21st 2008
From The Economist print edition

THEY could hardly seem more different. Eric Blair (who took the pen name George Orwell) was an austere socialist-albeit Old Etonian-whose egalitarian convictions were etched into his soul by a miserable childhood and who despised churchy cant. Evelyn Waugh was a world-class snob and social climber, an aesthete whose rigid religious convictions were rarely matched by their practical application. “One resembled the embodiment of privilege”, writes David Lebedoff, “and the other its emaciated foe.”
这两人的差异是多么的大呀。埃里克.布莱尔（笔名乔治.奥威尔）是一名严苛的社会主义者–虽然师出老伊顿公学（注：伊顿公学是英国最好的贵族中校，后来”老伊顿人”成为无能败家子的代称）–悲惨的童年经历让他有了坚定的平等主义信仰，他鄙视教条陈规。伊夫林.沃夫则是一位世界级的伪绅士和趋炎附势之人，同时也是一位审美家，他有着坚定的宗教信仰，但他实际的言行举止却很少与之相一致。”一个类似于特权的化身”大卫.莱比道夫（David Lebedoff）写道，”而另一个却类似于它的弱敌。”

Yet the sharp contrast is misleading. As this insightful, waspish book shows, the hidden similarities were greater than the visible differences. Having the fortune to be born in 1903, both men were too young to be killed in the first world war, but were a bit too old (and in Orwell’s case also too ill) to fight properly in the one that came next. Both sought moral clarity, but failed to find it.
然而，如此鲜明的对比是误导性的。正如这本深刻、尖锐的著作所指出的，暗藏的相似点大于可见的不同点。有幸生于1903年，两人在第一次世界大战时还太幼小，不至于战死沙场，而下一次大战到来时，二人又变得年龄太大（同时，奥威尔还过于病恹恹的）以至于不能正常出战。两人均曾探寻道德的是非明辨，却都无果而终。

Orwell had fought in the Spanish civil war; his disillusion with that cause is chronicled in “Homage to Catalonia”. Waugh was part of an ill-fated military mission to the cynical, wily Communist partisans in Yugoslavia. His disillusion is told in his masterpiece, the “Sword of Honour” trilogy, where his fictional hero, Guy Crouchback, starts by thinking “the enemy at last was plain in view…It was the Modern Age in arms”. But by the end Crouchback realises he has become the modern age’s henchman.
奥威尔曾参加西班牙内战；他对这一战事的醒悟历程被记载于《向加泰罗尼亚致敬》一书。沃夫也曾参与一项不幸的、针对世故狡猾的南斯拉夫共产主义政党的军事行动。他的幻灭历程可见于他的杰作《荣誉之剑》（Sword of Honour）三部曲，书中的虚构英雄盖伊.库奇班克（Guy Crouchback）一开始认为”敌人最终露出了全貌……这是荷枪实弹的现代社会”，但是结尾，库奇班克却意识到他已经成为这种现代社会的追随者。

That is Mr Lebedoff’s main point. “Their seemingly opposite lives were dedicated to the same cause: fighting against the future.” They saw the evil of their own time “not as throwback but preface”. Moral relativism, cloaked in jargon, was on the march, promoted by the tedious, despicable know-alls of the supposedly educated classes. Both thought that decency (a favourite word of Orwell’s) was to be found elsewhere.
这就是莱比道夫的主要观点。”他们的一生看似相反，实则献身于同一个事业：对抗未来。”他们将自己所处时代的邪恶势力视为”序幕，而非过往”。道德相对主义，披着各种名义的外衣，踏步前行，经由所谓的知识阶级之中乏味卑劣且自称无所不知的人一路炒作。两人都认为体面（decency，奥威尔最爱用的词）只能去别处寻找。

The two corresponded with appreciation and even with signs of affection. Each defended the other in public. Both were unpopular: Waugh as an effete reactionary; Orwell for his unfashionable anti-Stalinism. Orwell praised Waugh publicly for his moral courage. Privately Waugh upbraided Orwell for leaving religion out of “1984”. They even met, though only when Orwell was already on his deathbed.
两人相互欣赏，甚至流露倾慕之意。在公开场合，一人总会为另一人辩护。两人都不受欢迎：沃夫是一名疲弱的反动主义者；奥威尔则因为他那非主流的反斯大林主义。奥威尔曾公开赞扬沃夫的道德勇气。私下里，沃夫曾责怪奥威尔在《1984》中不提宗教。他们甚至相互约见，只不过那时奥威尔已经垂危于病床之上。

Mr Lebedoff shows sureness of touch in linking the men’s writing and their lives. He understands what made them literary giants. He highlights neatly (and hilariously) Waugh’s demonic streak of prankishness: insisting to the bafflement and fury of all and sundry that Tito, the Yugoslav leader, was a woman. And he evokes with uncomfortable clarity the self-imposed poverty and discomfort of the Orwell household. He explains what made them likeable, and what made them maddening. Writing about Waugh’s frantic attempts to find a good military post in wartime London, he says: “He did, after all, know a great many influential people. The problem was that they also knew him.”
莱比道夫成竹在胸地将两人的作品与他们的一生联系起来。他知道是什么让他们成为文学巨匠。他扼要地（同时嬉笑地）强调了沃夫颇带邪气的恶作剧：尽管让人感到不解或愤怒，他仍然坚称南斯拉夫领导人铁托是个女人。莱比道夫以令人不快的清晰笔触解读了奥威尔一家自甘自愿的贫苦和不安。他解释了是什么让他们讨人喜欢，又是什么让他们疯狂。当写至沃夫发疯般地试图在战时的伦敦觅一份好的军职时，他写道，”他，毕竟嘛，确实认识不少有影响力的人物。问题是，他们也同样太了解他了。”

Book details

The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War
By David Lebedoff

Random House; 262 pages; $26 and £14.99

译者：安圈儿   http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=13613&extra=page%3D1