Introduce F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust: Literary Soul Mates

…and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day. ——Scott Fitzgerald
(…在靈魂的真正黑夜裡，日復一日，永遠是凌晨三點鐘。)

C’est ainsi que, pendant longtemps, quand, réveillé la nuit, je me ressouvenais de Combray, je n’en revis jamais que cette sorte de pan lumineux, découpé au milieu d’indistinctes ténèbres, pareil à ceux que l’embrasement d’un feu de bengale ou quelque projection électrique éclairent et sectionnent dans un édifice dont les autres parties restent plongées dans la nuit——Marcel Proust
(就這樣，在很長一段時期內，每當我半夜夢中回憶及貢布雷的時候，就只看到這麼一塊光明，孤零零地顯現在茫茫黑暗之中，像騰空而起的焰火，像照亮建築物一角的電光，其餘部分都沉沒在黑夜裡。)


兩年半之前因為 Max Brod 所寫的《卡夫卡傳》給了我一些靈感而完成一篇小小論文：〈有關 Marcel Proust 的《追憶似水年華》與 Georges Seurat 的《大嘉德島星期日午后》幾個私人觀察的共同點〉，當時發文多少帶有些許沾沾自喜的自娛之情，同時卻也奠立了這個部落格之後偏好清談高論的基石。
http://blog.udn.com/le14nov/3588557

而在最近，連續找了不少 Scott Fitzgerald 的作品之後，赫然發現了一篇文章：F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust: Literary Soul Mates
這篇文章是由The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society這個協會發表在onlinelibrary.wiley.com 並集結成一份相當高水準的評論集 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review，雖然我知道 Fitzgerald 在美國文學史上有著相當崇高的地位，但看到「費學」豐饒多產的研究資料，還是不禁令人咋舌。

這一篇文章厚達 15 頁，靜心讀完其實可以發現，本文作者 Maxine P. Fisher 對於 Fitzgerald 以及 Proust 的生平及作品都有著一定程度的了解，儘管有些比較的基礎可能略失偏頗。

從一開始先談到 Fitzgerald 在巴黎接受記者訪談的一段回答：
“The influence of French writers in America is very great: first of all Proust.”
接著，作者就像春蟬吐絲般，綿密不絕地演繹出一篇 Fitzgerald 與 Proust 如何成為文學靈魂伴侶的精采文章，儘管相差 20 多歲的兩人在生前始終沒有機會相知相惜。

然而，本文作者並沒有想要指涉 Fitzgerald 受到 Proust 的影響，他真正想要探究的只是這兩位作家”投緣的本性”(affinity)或”相似性”(similarity)：
Fitzgerald was not influenced by Proust as a writer. Indeed, his early novels were published before Proust's work became available to him in translation and there has never been a suggestion that he read Proust's work in French. And yet there is some tantalizing affinity between these two authors. I believe that it is based on the fact that they shared a certain sensibility, particularly their feelings about time, memory, love, and the importance of mental associations in informing an individual's sense of reality, and also the fact that their lives, to a surprising degree, followed a similar trajectory. These similarities in both their lives and writings are what I wish to explore in this essay.

作者列出了不少 Fitzgerald 與 Proust 的相似之處：
「身為長子卻背負著可能早夭的憂慮」(Both were the first-born sons of mothers who did not expect them to survive infancy.)、「被媽媽寵壞的小孩」(Both were said to be children who had been “spoiled” by their mothers.)、「身心皆有疾患之苦」(Though often regarded as hypochondriacs by their contemporaries, they both suffered from lung problems (Fitzgerald with TB, Proust with asthma).)、「深受偉大詩人的影響」(Both were strongly influenced in their writing by a great poet of their language (Keats for Fitzgerald, Baudelaire for Proust).)、「遭逢社會重大變革」(Both authors lived in and described in their writings societies that were undergoing social revolution (in France a revolution involving new relations between the aristocracy and middle classes, in America a revolution in the social mores that changed relations within the family).)......

而對於兩人的作品，作者也做了一番比較，像是《追憶似水年華》的斯萬(Swann)以及《大亨小傳》的蓋茲比(Gatsby)對於愛情遲來的醒悟：
Deep into his love affair with the courtesan Odette, Charles Swann has an epiphany as a result of hearing a piece of music at a party. The “little phrase” that he hears is the anthem of his and Odette's love. It evokes a memory of times he has been trying consciously to shut out of his mind, memories of the times when he believed that Odette's greatest joy was to be with him. (He is probably deluded about even this.) He at least knows that such memories were
part of a mysterious world to which one can never return once its doors have closed. And Swann saw motionless before that relived happiness, a miserable figure who filled him with pity because he did not recognize him right away, and he had to lower his eyes so that no one would see they were full of tears. It was himself.
(而現在這個夜晚確實已經屬於一個神秘的世界，它的大門已經全都關上，他再也無法重新進去了。斯萬現在一動也不動地面對這重溫的幸福，只見有一個不幸的人引起他的憐憫之心（因為他沒有馬上把他辨認出來），為了免得別人看見“他倆”熱淚盈眶，便把頭低了下去。這個人就是他自己。)

“from this evening on, Swann realized that the feelings Odette had for him would never return, that his hopes of happiness would never be realized now”
(從這次晚會以後，斯萬明白奧黛特往日對他的感情是永遠不會恢復了，他過幸福生活的希望是再也不能實現了。)

Gatsby likewise has moments of lucidity about Daisy. Here is Nick, at his most perceptive, describing one such moment:
As I went over to say good-by, I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby's 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 when 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. (95–96)
(…他將生命中所有的激情都投入這場幻想之中，並不斷對它加以描繪，用漂來的每一根絢麗羽毛裝點它。畢竟，再熾熱的火焰、再亢奮的熱情，都比不上一個孤單男人多年積聚而出的情思。（P.138, 大亨小傳／徐之野譯, 新經典文化出版, 2012）)

作者也提到 Fitzgerald 於 1927 年創作的短篇小說 The Love Boat 內容中有關“非自主性記憶”(Involuntary memory)的運用：
But the feeling persisted and grew stronger. Sometimes it would steal over him at dinner—a vast nostalgia—and the people at table would fade out and odd memories of his youth would come back to him. Sometimes a familiar taste or a smell would give him this sensation. Chiefly it had to do with the summer night.
……
Suddenly Bill had remembered the boat floating down the river and Mae Purley on the deck under the summer moon. The image became a symbol of his youth, his introduction to life. Not only did he remember the deep excitement of that night but felt it again, her face against his, the rush of air about them as they stood by the lifeboat and the feel of its canvas cover to his hand. (246–47)


在普林斯頓圖書館裡，作者找到 Fitzgerald 所收藏擁有的英譯本《追憶似水年華》，在最後一冊 Time Regained，發現有一段用鉛筆畫了雙線並在扉頁上做了記號，似乎驗證了兩人文學理念上的心靈契合：
As for the inner book of unknown signs (signs which seemed to stand out, as it were, in relief) for the reading of which nobody else could provide me with any rules, reading them becomes one of those acts of creation in which nobody can take our place or collaborate with us. … The book whose characters are forged within us, rather than sketched by us, is the only book we have. … and the only things that come from ourselves are those we draw out of obscurity within us, which can never be known by other people. (226)
(至於內心書本上的那些不認識的符號，誰都無法用任何規則幫助我去辨認它們，這種閱讀即是一次創作行動，誰也不能越俎代庖，甚至不可能與我們合寫…)

在這篇文章最後的結論，作者認為 Fitzgerald 與 Proust 以他人難以比擬的程度將其生命投注在其作品之中，更是多了一個理由可以將這兩個作家視為文學靈魂伴侶：
It is easy to understand why this idea of Proust's—that life presents a certain kind of writer with just one body of material, the story of his own existence which must be translated, not invented—resonated powerfully with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Surely he and Proust have been matched by few others in the history of Western literature in terms of the degree to which they invested their own personal lives in the body of their fiction. That is yet one more reason to regard them as literary soul mates.


回想起普魯斯特晚年幾近與世隔絕閉門臥床艱辛寫作的時光，除了忠心耿耿的女管家 Céleste Albaret 不離不棄在旁服侍之外，倘若多了一位 Fitzgerald 這樣的知己，是否對普魯斯特有所影響？是否可能改變他的寫作方式？
但事實上，不可諱言，以前面所提到的”they invested their own personal lives in the body of their fiction”這一點來說，我想應該是任誰也無法改變普魯斯特對於寫作蠟炬成灰般的執著。
又或許如同普魯斯特曾經說過：「我相信就其本質而言，閱讀是一個在全然的孤獨之中，仍令人心滿意足的溝通奇蹟。」那麼，「文學創作」似乎也必然是「在全然的孤獨之中」吧！


【全文出處】
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-6333.2011.01034.x/full
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust: Literary Soul Mates
MAXINE P. FISHER
Article first published online: 17 OCT 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-6333.2011.01034.x
©2011 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society/Wiley Periodicals, Inc.