 
字體：小 中 大 |
|
|
|
| 2023/07/08 05:42:33瀏覽116｜回應0｜推薦4 | |
| Excerpt：《大亨小傳》(巫寧坤譯本) 《大亨小傳》之所以能經久不衰，很大程度上是因為對“美國夢”的探討研究，在這點上，菲茨傑拉德擴展了霍雷肖．阿爾傑 (Horatio Alger) 的作品，將故事導向對“現代神話”的沉思。他看到美國歷史的清白與慷慨，為之深深觸動——他稱之為“心悦誠服”。蓋茨比成為了一個典型人物，他辜負了美國的承諾，同時也被這一承諾所背棄。蓋茨比寓言依舊在迴響。 ——巫寧坤，〈中文譯本序〉 書名：大亨小傳 作者：F. Scott Fitzgerald 譯者：巫寧坤 出版社：商務印書館 (香港) 出版日期：2015/12 【Excerpt】 第一章 我年紀還輕，閲歷不深的時候，我父親教導過我一句話，我至今還念念不忘。 “每逢你想要批評任何人的時候，”他對我説，“你就記住，這個世界上所有的人，並不是個個都有過你那些優越條件。” 他沒再説別的。但是，我們父子之間總是不必説透就能理解彼此，因此我明白他的意思遠遠不止那一句話。久而久之，我就慣於對所有的人都保留判斷，這個習慣既使得許多怪僻的人肯跟我説心裏話，也使我成為不少愛嘮叨的惹人厭煩的人的受害者。這個特點在正常的人身上出現的時候，心理不正常的人很快就會察覺並且抓住不放。由於這個緣故，我上大學的時候就被不公正地指責為小政客，因為我與聞一些放蕩的、不知名的人的秘密的傷心事。絕大多數的隱私都不是我打聽來的——每逢我根據某種準確無誤的跡象，看出又有一次內心剖白在地平線上噴薄欲出的時候，我往往假裝睡覺，假裝心不在焉，或者假裝出不懷好意的輕佻態度；因為青年人的內心剖白，或者至少他們表達這些感情所用的語言，往往是雷同的，而且還帶有明顯的遮遮掩掩。不輕易評論他人，是一個無止盡的願望。雖然父親曾經自豪向我暗示，我也一直引以為傲、重重複複強調：每個人最根本的格調是天生注定的。但我仍然唯恐自己會忘記那句忠告，怕因此錯失甚 麽。在這樣誇耀我的寬容之後，我必須承認寬容也有個限度。人的行為可能建立在堅固的岩石上面，也可能建立在潮濕的沼澤之中，但是一過某種程度，我就不管它是建立在甚麼上面的了。去年秋天我從東部回來的時候，我覺得我希望全世界的人都穿上軍裝，並且永遠在道德上保持一種立正姿勢；我不再要參與放浪形骸的遊樂，也不再要偶爾窺見人內心深處的榮幸了。唯有蓋茨比——就是把名字賦予本書的那個人——除外，不屬於我這種反應的範圍——蓋茨比，他代表我所真心鄙夷的一切。如果人的品格是一系列連續不斷的成功姿態，那麼這個人身上就有一種瑰麗的異彩，他對於未來具有極高的敏感度，類似一部精密的儀器，而這部儀器能夠記錄萬里以外的地震。這種敏鋭和通常美其名為“創造性氣質”的多愁善感毫不相干——它是一種異乎尋常永葆希望的天賦，一種富於浪漫色彩的敏捷，這是我在別人身上從未發現過的，也是我今後不大可能會再發現的。不——蓋茨比本人到頭來倒是無可厚非的；使我對人們短暫的悲哀和片刻的歡欣暫時喪失興趣的，卻是那些吞噬蓋茨比心靈的東西，是在他的幻夢消逝後緊隨而來的污穢塵埃。 In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that Ive been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world havent had the advantages that youve had." He didnt say any more, but weve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, Im inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought--frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. …… 第三章 整個夏天的夜晚都有音樂聲從我鄰居家傳過來。在他蔚藍的花園裏，男男女女像飛蛾一般在笑語、香檳和繁星中間來來往往。下午漲潮的時候，我看着他的客人從他的木筏跳台上跳水，或是躺在他私人海灘的熱沙上曬太陽，同時他的兩艘小汽艇破浪前進，拖着滑水板駛過翻騰的浪花。每逢週末，他的勞斯萊斯轎車就成了公共汽車，從早晨九時到深夜，往來城裏接送客人，同時他的旅行車也像一隻輕捷的黃硬殼蟲那樣，去火車站接所有的班車旅客。每逢星期一，八個僕人，包括一個臨時園丁，整整苦做一天，用許多拖把、板刷、鎚、修枝剪來收拾前一晚的殘局。 There was music from my neighbors house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. …… 第五章 …… 我走過去告辭的時候，我看到那種惶惑的表情又出現在蓋茨比臉上，彷彿他有點懷疑他目前幸福的性質。幾乎五年了！那天下午一定有過一些時刻，黛西遠不如他的夢想—並不是由於她本人的過錯，而是由於他的幻夢有巨大的活力。他的幻夢超越了她，超越了一切。他以一種創造性的熱情投入了這個幻夢，不斷添枝加葉，用飄來的每一根絢麗的羽毛加以綴飾。再多的激情或活力都趕不上一個人陰淒淒的心裏所能集聚的情思。 我注視着他的時候，看得出他在悄悄使自己適應眼前的現實。他伸出手去抓住她的手。她低低在他耳邊説了點甚麼，他聽了就滿腔愛意轉身向她。我看最使他入迷的是她那激動昂揚的聲音，因為他的夢裏再怎樣也不會出現那麼好聽的聲音——那聲音是一首永恒的歌。 他們兩個已經把我忘了，但黛西抬起頭來瞥了一眼，伸出了手；蓋茨比此刻徹底不認識我了。我又看了他們兩個一眼，他們也看看我，好像遠在天涯，沉浸在強烈的感情之中。我隨即走出房間，走下大理石台階到雨裏面去，留下他們兩人在一起。 As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsbys face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon whe Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart. As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldnt be over-dreamed--that voice was a deathless song. They had forgotten me, but Daisy glanced up and held out her hand; Gatsby didnt know me now at all. I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together. 第九章 …… 火車在寒冬的黑夜裏奔馳，真正的白雪、我們的雪，開始在兩邊向遠方伸展，迎着車窗閃耀，威斯康星州的小車站暗灰的燈火從眼前掠過，這時空中突然出現一股使人神清氣爽的寒氣。我們吃過晚飯穿過寒冷的通廊往回走時，一路深深呼吸着這寒氣，在奇異的一個小時中，難以言喻地意識到自己與這片鄉土之間的血肉相連關係，然後我們就要重新不留痕跡地融化在其中了。 這就是我的中西部——不是麥田，不是草原，也不是瑞典移民的荒涼村鎮，而是我青年時代那些激動人心的還鄉火車，是嚴寒黑夜裏街燈和雪車的鈴聲，是聖誕冬青花環被窗內燈火映在雪地的影子。我是其中一部份，由於那些漫長冬天我為人不免有點矜持，由於從小在卡羅威公館長大，態度上也不免有點自滿；在我們那個城市裏，人家的住宅仍舊世世代代稱為某姓的公館。我現在才明白這個故事到頭來是一個西部的故事——湯和蓋茨比黛西、佐敦和我，我們都是西部人，也許我們具有甚麼共同缺陷使我們無形中不能適應東部生活。 When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour before we melted indistinguishably into it again. Thats my middle west—not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns but the thrilling, returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a familys name. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life. …… 那些海濱大別墅現在大多已經關閉了，四周幾乎沒有燈火，除了海灣上一隻渡船的幽暗、移動的燈光。當明月上升的時候，那些微不足道的房屋慢慢消逝，直到我逐漸意識到當年為荷蘭水手的眼睛放出異彩的這個古島——新世界的一片清新碧綠的地方。它那些消失了的樹木，那些為蓋茨比的別墅讓路而被砍伐的樹木，曾經一度迎風飄拂，低聲響應人類最後的也是最偉大的夢想，在那曇花一現的神妙的瞬間，人面對這個新大陸一定屏息驚異，不由自主地墮入他既不理解也不企求的一種美學的觀賞，在歷史上最後一次面對着和他感到驚奇的能力相稱的奇觀。 當我坐在那裏緬懷那個古老的、未知的世界時，我也想到了蓋茨比第一次認出了黛西的碼頭盡頭的那盞綠燈時所感到的驚奇。他經歷了漫長的道路才來到這片藍色的草坪上，他的夢一定似乎近在眼前，他幾乎不可能抓不住的。他不知道那個夢早已被人丟棄，丟在這個城市那邊那一片無垠的混沌之中不知甚麼地方了，那裏共和國的黑黝黝的田野在夜色中向前伸展。 蓋茨比信奉這盞綠燈，這個一年年在我們眼前漸漸遠去的極樂的未來。它從前逃脱了我們的追求，不過那沒關係——明天我們跑得更快一點，把手臂伸得更遠一點……直到出現一個美好的清晨…… 於是我們繼續奮力向前，逆水行舟，不斷地被浪潮推回到過去。 Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsbys house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsbys wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisys dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but thats no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. |
|
| ( 知識學習｜隨堂筆記 ) |
