走暗黑風的童話故事

Most of us get our earliest life lessons from fairy tales, like “True love can overcome anything”, and “Even a frog can turn into a prince”.

我們大多數(shù)人都從童話故事中學到了人生第一課，如“真愛能夠戰(zhàn)勝一切”，“就算是青蛙，也能變成王子”等等。

However, at a certain age, we start to learn new things about life, particularly that love doesn’t always win, and that a frog is just a frog.

然而，到了一定年紀，我們開始學到了人生中的新課，尤其是愛情并非無所不勝，而青蛙也永遠只是一只青蛙。

But somehow, our love for fairy tales never dies. Just look at animated films like The Lion King and Frozen, which have millions of fans young and old. And this year’s Lucerne Festival in Switzerland – a classical music festival – will also feature the themes of “Childhood” and “Fairy tales” when it runs from Aug 17 to Sept 16.

但無論如何，我們對童話故事的愛卻永遠不會消逝。看看《獅子王》、《冰雪奇緣》等動畫電影擁有數(shù)百萬不分老幼的粉絲就明白了。而在今年8月17日-9月16日，于瑞士舉行的古典音樂節(jié)琉森音樂節(jié)也將以“童年”與“童話”為主題。

“Fairy tales endure because they are the stories of our lives in their most stripped down form,” wrote US author Laura Packer on the National Storytelling Network website. “They are stories of love and loss, desire and death, riches and ruin.”

“童話故事歷久彌新，因為它們是人生故事最純粹的形式，”美國作家勞拉·帕克在美國全國講故事聯(lián)合會網(wǎng)站上如此寫道。“這些故事講述了愛與失去、渴望與死亡、富有與毀滅。”

Fairy tales are all about reality. But if children only see just one side of reality, adults usually see the other.

童話故事都與現(xiàn)實息息相關(guān)。但孩子們只能看到一面，而成年人往往能看到另一面。

For example, in the 2014 film Maleficent, we’re told the tale of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the evil queen. Unlike the children’s version of the story, we see that the queen wasn’t born evil. Instead, she suffers great losses growing up, leading to the creation of her “evil” side. And in US author James Finn Garner’s book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, he tells the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood, but with a modern touch: When the wolf tells Red Riding Hood that it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through the woods alone, she calls the wolf sexist, which connects with today’s gender equality movement.

比如，在2014年的電影《沉睡魔咒》中，我們通過邪惡皇后的視角觀看了《睡美人》的故事。與兒童版故事不同的是，我們看到，皇后并非生來就是惡人。她在成長過程中遭遇了重大打擊，從而激發(fā)了她“邪惡”的一面。而在美國作家詹姆斯·芬恩·加納所著的《政治正確的睡前故事》一書中，他以一種現(xiàn)代的方式講述了《小紅帽》的經(jīng)典故事：當大灰狼告訴小紅帽，小女孩獨自前往森林并不安全時，小紅帽認為大灰狼這是性別歧視，將這個故事與如今的性別平權(quán)運動聯(lián)系起來。

It looks like fairy tales aren’t just stories our parents read us at bedtime. They may usually start with “Once upon a time …”, but as we grow older, we learn that every story doesn’t always need a “Happily ever after” to be a good one.

看起來，童話故事并不只是父母給我們講的睡前故事。它們的開頭或許都是“很久以前……”，但當我們漸漸長大，我們會發(fā)現(xiàn)，一個好故事的結(jié)局并不一定非得是“從此幸?？鞓返厣钤谝黄?rdquo;。