英國作家石黑一雄新作未獲佳評

英國作家石黑一雄新作未獲佳評

Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, “The Buried Giant,” is an eccentric, ham-handed fairy tale with a jumble of story lines lifted from “Beowulf,” Arthurian legend and assorted folk traditions. It is recounted in stilted, formalistic language that’s presumably meant to evoke a bygone era, and set in a mythical Britain equally reminiscent of “The Lord of the Rings” and “Game of Thrones.” King Arthur’s knight Sir Gawain is a major character, and so is a she-dragon named Querig.

石黑一雄最新的小說《被埋葬的巨人》是一部笨拙怪異的童話，紛亂的故事線來自《貝奧武普》(Beowulf)、亞瑟王傳說和各種民間故事。它以生硬而充滿形式感的語言重新敘事，可能是想喚起古老年代的感覺，故事發(fā)生在虛構(gòu)中的英國，有點像《指環(huán)王》(The Lord of the Rings)和《權(quán)力的游戲》(Game of Thrones)中的世界。主角是亞瑟王的騎士，高文爵士(Sir Gawain)，還有一頭名叫克里格的母龍。

This novel is concerned, at heart, with some of the author’s favorite themes: most notably, the role that memory and denial play in shaping people’s sense of themselves. But Mr. Ishiguro seems to have renounced the qualities — precision, elliptical understatement and indirection — that lent his two masterworks, “The Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go,” a tensile strength, and he’s instead embraced a fablelike primitivism that hobbles his instinctive talents. Worse, he has failed here to create a persuasive or fully imagined fictional world.

小說的核心仍是這位作家最喜歡的主題：最主要的是記憶與抗拒現(xiàn)實在人們形成自我意識中所扮演的角色。但石黑一雄似乎放棄了精確、省略的描寫和間接性等特質(zhì)，正是這些特質(zhì)令他此前的兩部杰作《長日留痕》(The Remains of the Day)和《千萬別丟下我》(Never Let Me Go)充滿張力。這一次他轉(zhuǎn)而采取寓言式的原始主義，這卻妨礙了他發(fā)揮天賦。更糟糕的是，他沒能創(chuàng)造出一個令人信服，或充滿想像力的虛構(gòu)世界。

“The Buried Giant” takes place during an interlude of relative peace between Britons and Saxons, though a “mist of forgetfulness,” which has something to do with Querig, has overtaken the land. Among those afflicted with amnesia are the novel’s two central characters — an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice — who are so addled that they can’t remember much about their lives together, including any details about their missing son.

《被埋葬的巨人》發(fā)生在不列顛與撒克遜之間相對和平的年代，和克里格有關(guān)的“遺忘的迷霧”籠罩著這片土地。在許多身患健忘的人當(dāng)中，也有本書的兩個中心人物——名叫阿克塞爾(Axl)和比阿特麗斯(Beatrice)的老夫妻——他們頭腦已經(jīng)糊涂到記不起多少共同生活的歲月，也記不起關(guān)于他們失蹤兒子的細(xì)節(jié)。

Axl asks why their son left, and Beatrice replies: “It could be he quarreled with the elders and had to leave. I’ve asked around, and there’s no one here remembers him. But he wouldn’t have done anything to bring shame on himself, I know for sure. Can you remember nothing of it yourself, Axl?”

阿克塞爾問，他們的兒子為什么離開了，比阿特麗斯答道：“可能是他和哥哥姐姐們吵架了，就走了。我到處打聽，這兒沒有人記得他。但是他沒做什么見不得人的事，我知道。你怎么能什么都不記得呢，阿克塞爾?”

These sorts of conversations among people who can’t remember the most essential details of their lives quickly grow tiresome, and “The Buried Giant,” alas, is awash in them. The result is a fuzzy, dreamlike narrative not unlike the one in Mr. Ishiguro’s circuitous and opaque 1995 novel, “The Unconsoled,” which featured a hero who also appeared to suffer from memory loss, wandering about an unnamed European town, having a series of vaguely portentous encounters.

許多人都已經(jīng)記不起生活中重要的細(xì)節(jié)，這一類的對話很快就變得令人厭煩，而《被埋葬的巨人》當(dāng)中偏偏充滿這樣的對話。含糊夢幻的敘事有點像石黑一雄 1995年的小說《不得安慰》(The Unconsoled)中的含混晦澀，在那本小說中，主人公似乎也患有失憶癥，總在想一個沒有名字的歐洲小鎮(zhèn)，并且遇到一系列略帶不祥征兆的事情。

Beatrice is determined to visit their son’s village — conveniently, she seems to remember where it’s located — and she and Axl set off by foot on a journey that will take them across the perilous Great Plain around noon (when its “dark forces” were “most likely to be dormant”) and then over hill and dale, through forests and up a mountain. Their trip is, at once, a quest narrative and one of those allegorical journeys from innocence into knowledge — reminiscent of Dorothy’s travels in Oz, and Frodo Baggins’s in Middle-earth.

比阿特麗斯決心去拜訪兒子的村子——她似乎記得那個村子所在的地點——她和阿克塞爾徒步出發(fā)，在中午時分穿過危險的“大平原”(那里的“黑暗勢力” “很有可能處于潛伏狀態(tài)”)，之后穿越小山和谷地，穿過森林，翻過一座高山。他們的旅行一下子變成關(guān)于探索和遠(yuǎn)征的敘事，成了關(guān)于天真者求知的寓言之旅 ——有點像多蘿西在Oz國旅行的故事，也有點像弗羅多·巴金斯(Frodo Baggins)的中土之旅。

Along the way, Beatrice and Axl acquire two traveling companions: a Saxon warrior named Wistan, and Edwin, a 12-year-old boy whom Wistan has rescued from two ogres and plans to train as his apprentice. There are meetings with enigmatic strangers like Sir Gawain, and close calls with murderous monks and a giant, doglike beast, and the ever-present lurking danger of the she-dragon Querig.

一路上，比阿特麗斯和阿克塞爾達(dá)到了兩個旅伴，一個名叫韋斯坦(Wistan)的撒克遜戰(zhàn)士，還有韋斯坦從兩個吃人巨妖手中救下的12歲男孩，他打算把男孩訓(xùn)練成自己的徒弟。他們遇到迷一般的陌生人，比如高文爵士，還同殺人修道士、巨人、像狗一樣的野獸狹路相逢，母龍克里格的威脅也如影隨形。

Instead of one unreliable narrator, as he’s often used in the past, Mr. Ishiguro moves from one character’s point of view to another’s, but his prose remains flat-footed throughout — vaguely inflected with a forced old-timeyness that’s more mannered than convincing.

石黑一雄沒有像往常一樣，讓一個靠不住的敘事者講故事，這一次，他的視角從一個角色移到另一個角色，但敘事仍然平鋪直敘——有點受到舊時代風(fēng)格的影響，顯得做作，說服力不強。

The symbolism is also obvious and strained: The boatman Axl and Beatrice encounter is clearly a version of Charon, ferrying souls to the land of the dead, and the fog of amnesia plaguing the land turns out to be some sort of enchantment that has supposedly enabled old enemies, Saxons and Britons alike, to live alongside one another. In much the same way that Axl and Beatrice are unable to remember past quarrels and losses, so have tribal blood feuds been blurred or forgotten — which, Mr. Ishiguro halfheartedly suggests, might not be such a bad thing, at least when it comes to day-to-day survival among warring parties.

小說中的象征主義仍然鮮明而富于張力：阿克塞爾和比阿特麗斯遇到的船夫顯然象征著將靈魂擺渡到陰間的船夫卡隆，這片土地上蔓延的健忘癥迷霧是某種魔法，讓撒克遜人和不列顛人等宿敵可以和平地生活在一起。正如阿克塞爾和比阿特麗斯在迷霧中無法記起過去的爭吵與損失，那些部族之間的血仇也得以被埋葬和遺忘——石黑一雄半心半意地稱，這可能不是什么壞事，至少可以讓爭斗的各方活下去。