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| 2010/03/16 10:24:26瀏覽730｜回應1｜推薦17 | |
| Death of A Used-Book Store 舊書店之逝 英文原作：德州大哥 中文翻譯：北橋客 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not all funerals are held over rains, sleets, or snows. The one I attended on Sunday, December 27th, 2009 AD, in San Diego, California, was carried out under a sunny enough blue sky. Although it was as solemn and morbid as any other funeral that I’ve been to, I couldn’t help noticing certain anomalies which made this one a bit peculiar: None of the mourners was related to the deceased nor had they, the mourners, known each other from the past. Another oddity was, even with a weather this lovely, very few people showed up at the service, which contradicted the conventional wisdom that weather alone, rather than putting all together the wealth, fame, kindness, and generosity once held by the honorable deceased, should have decided the number of people showing up at his or her funeral. I had attended the funeral of a used-book store. I didn't learn about it from reading the obituary page of the newspaper – some people do that as a hobby; I just happened to walk into its death chamber while undertaking my annually held post-Christmas used books shopping. By that time it was hanging on to its last bit of strength, well under its way of crossing over to the other side. I had known the deceased since I moved to here from Texas over a year ago. For me it had been a rare source of joy and adventure - while it was alive, but for many others it was never more than just another nameless, faceless, and profitless little shop belonging to a dying - soon to be died out, breed. 喪禮並不都於凄風苦雨冰雪交加中舉行。我近來參加的一場就發生於陽光普照的晴空下，時間是公元 2009年12月27日、星期天，地點是加州聖地牙哥市。它和我參加過的喪禮一樣，氣氛肅穆沉鬱，然而若干異常之處，使它別具一格。先是送殯的人無一為死者親屬，且彼此之間亦非舊識。另一件怪事是，僅管天氣如此之佳，卻甚少有人出席致意。此點違反一般的理解，亦即往往是天氣這項因素，而非可敬的死者生前擁有的財富、名氣、或其樂善好施的義行，決定了喪禮出席人數的多寡。 我參加的是一間舊書店的喪禮。我並非自報紙的訃聞版得知 - 不像有些以讀訃聞為嗜好的人。當時我正從事一年一度聖誕節後的舊書採購活動，卻湊巧走進它臨終的寢室。當時它已大漸彌留，挺著最後一口氣。我和死者結交始於一年多前剛從德州搬來之時。活著的它，帶給我難得的喜悅與奇遇；但對大多數人而言，它不過又是一家無名無面孔無利可圖的小店，屬於漸漸死去、瀕臨絕種的一群。 On 2:40 pm, Saturday, December the twenty-sixth, I walked into the store without noticing one apparent difference: the store manager, a bald old man with very thick beards, wasn’t there to greet me as usual. But knowing exactly in which section and from which shelves I would be doing my treasure hunt - as I had done many times before, I went straight up the creaking stairs leading to the second floor. A young clerk whom I had never seen before called out to me from behind, telling me ‘We’ll close in 10 minutes.’ Yelling back at him, not out of rudeness but because I was already half way up, that I only needed 10 minutes, I kept climbing the stairs determinedly. Realizing that whatever subtle message he tried to convey was not getting through, he followed me up and told me emphatically, ‘No, we ARE closing in 10 minutes.’ I turned around to look at him, and that was when it hit me: Slightly above his head was a sign on the wall stating ‘Everything 75% off, ‘and my heart sank immediately – there goes another one. So here’s to you, Wahrenbrock’s Books of Sand Diego; never shall your proud and magnificent collections of poetry monograms, essays from the golden ages of journal writing, literary criticisms covering the entire spectrum from the native ground of Southern Conservatism to the radical minds of New England Marxism, be ever again seen or touched by another mortal. This is your elegy. 十二月二十六日星期六下午兩點四十分，我走進書店，卻未留意到一個明顯的差別：書店老闆，一位禿頭濃髯的老者，並沒有如往常般在店裡招呼我。但曾多回進出寶山的我，熟知該從哪一區哪排書架展開我的尋寶之旅，於是便踏上嘰嘰嘎嘎作響的樓梯直趨二樓。這時一位我未曾見過的年輕店員從後面叫嚷著說：“我們十分鐘後關門。” 我喊回去（不是由於粗魯，而是因我已經爬了一半樓梯）：“我只要十分鐘”，然後繼續往上走。這位店員發現我沒聽懂他委婉的表達，於是跟了上來，加重了語氣：“我是說，我們十分鐘後就要關門了”。我轉過身來看他，一下子忽然明白了：就在他頭頂上方的牆上掛著一個牌子寫道：“全面25折”。我的心立刻沉到谷底 - 又倒了一家。 所以，這是寫給你的，聖地牙哥的華倫布克書店啊，願你高貴宏偉的收藏 - 那精緻的詩稿，那撰於報章雜誌的黃金年代的散文，以及那從南方的本土保守流派到新英格蘭激進的馬克斯思維無所不覽的文學評論 - 從此再不沾染凡人的翻閱碰觸。這是你的輓歌。 I fell in love with used-book stores at a young and tender age. I would walk a few miles all by myself – at age seven or eight, to a used-book street vendor all the way over the other side of the town, and brought back a stack of second-hand Reader’s Digests; sometimes the stack would get so tall that I had to look around it in order to see my way home. What magical power do these stores have over me, drawing me in as a loadstone following the magnetic field lines? I don't know for sure. But I do suspect it has something to do with the sense of ruin and death they represent. By the time I was twelve, I had in my head the detail archeological maps of the two most famous excavation sites for the used book hunters in Taipei, the Goo-Lin Street and the Gwan-Hwa market. I knew both places as well as the backs of my hands and frequented them as often as a confessed opium user. The Goo-Lin Street was famous for Chinese books in traditional bindings and fine Japanese books printed as early as Taisho era, left behind from the Japanese occupations - or the administrations - whichever one you prefer to call. The Gwan-Hwa market geared more towards the contemporary books – textbooks in particular and many western magazines, ranging from National Geographic to Playboys. 在少年敏感的年紀，我就愛上了舊書店。才七、八歲便獨個走幾里路到城的另一頭，從舊書肆抱回一大疊過期的《讀者文摘》。有時候那一疊書太高遮住了視線，我得左顧右盼才能走回家。舊書店究竟有何魅力，如磁力線牽引磁石般吸引著我？我不甚明白，但八成與它代表的沒落與死亡的意象有關。到了十二歲，我的腦中便配備了牯嶺街與光華商場的詳細考古地圖 - 熱中蒐羅舊書的人都曉得，那是臺北兩處最知名的發掘勝地。我對此兩地瞭若指掌，有事沒事就往那跑，活似吸了鴉片上癮無法自拔。牯嶺街以中文線裝古籍及精美的日文書馳名；日文書的刊印年代可溯及大正年間，乃日據（或稱日治）時期所遺。光華商場的特色則為近代書刊，尤其是教科書及許多西方雜誌，從國家地理雜誌到花花公子不等。 Knowing where to shop is one thing; being able to afford to buy any is quite another. Rarely could I afford anything at either place - it was a time when few people had spare money for books. But strangely enough I was often granted the privileges of taking my time to browse through the entire store without being harassed around by its owner. The majority of these owners were quite tolerating towards me, probably because they saw in me someone who loved and was awed by books. I have a theory: for anyone who wishes to own and run an used-book store, having that sort of comradeship feelings toward his customers is one necessary disposition, on top of being stubbornly stupid and suicidal. The most memorable purchase I made from these two places was a copy of collected etches, with more than one-hundred-fifty illustrations, of several German masters. The book, which cost me my entire Lunar New Year’s allowance, had been long gone with the rest of my Taiwanese life – I bought it when I was sixteen. But I can still recall vividly how mutually each line and dot printed on the 300lb cold-pressed papers responded to my tracing index finger. For a book like that, you read with both your eyes and your fingers; the sensation of touching the heavily textured paper makes up half of the reading experience. That well-aged book had a stale smell so delicate that every time I opened and placed it close to my eyes to inspect the bookplate – a rainy scene of a Bavarian town square, I could feel from the picture the dampness in the air and could almost hear the sound of raindrops hitting the tin roof. A new-new book can never provide me that kind of sensation. 曉得在哪裡買東西，和買不買得起，可是兩碼子事。通常我是買不起的，那年頭一般人也少有餘錢購書。但奇怪的很，書店主人經常予我特權，任我好整以暇瀏覽滿店收藏而不加干擾。大多數店主對我都相當寬容，或許他們在我身上看到了一個愛書人對書籍的敬畏之情。我的理論是：對顧客產生一種同道相親的情感，乃是有意經營舊書店的人最起碼的素質（此外他還得具備無可救藥的愚笨、以及自我毀滅的傾向）。我最值一記的購置，當屬一本蝕刻版畫集，中有一百五十頁以上的插圖，系數位德國名家所作。那年我十六歲，該書費去我全部農曆年的收入，而它早已隨我過去臺灣的生活一同消失了。但我仍清楚記得印在300磅冷壓紙上的點與線，是如何互相呼應我食指的探索。讀這樣一本書，得眼手並用，因一半的閱讀經驗來自質地厚重的紙頁所傳達的觸感。該書年深日久，帶一股細緻的腐味；我每回打開它，置於眼前細看扉頁所印的巴伐利亞小鎮廣場的雨景，就仿佛感到空氣中的濕潤，仿佛聽到雨點敲打鐵皮屋頂的聲音。那樣的感官刺激，實非現在的新書所能提供。 All these used-book stores in Taipei, which I once knew so well, are gone forever now. I was there last September, visiting Gwan-Hwa flea market in search of one particular back issue of Chung-Wai literary Quarterly, the official publication of Foreign Language Department of NTU. I couldn’t find it anywhere. All they had were left-over and out-of-date computer technical books, good for only one thing with their glossy covers – to be placed on top of a bowl of Ramen as a lid substitute. I asked one owner where I could find what I was looking for, and he told me ‘tough luck’ because no one carried that sort of books any more. I asked him how about Goo-Lin Street and he answered mockingly, more towards himself than at me, ‘Where do you think this store of mine came from?’ Well, I didn't know then, but I do now, and I also know exactly to where it will be going. 這些個我曾熟稔無比的臺北舊書店，如今已不復存在。我去年九月在臺北逛了趟光華商場，欲尋找一本過期的、由臺大外文系發行的《中外文學季刊》，竟無功而返。商場裡僅剩下過時的有光面封皮的電腦叢書，而它們唯一的用途是充當泡麵的碗蓋。我問一家店主何處可以找到我要的書，他答道： “難啊”，因為再沒有人進那樣的貨了。我又問可否試試牯嶺街？他嘲笑著（多半是自嘲）答道：“你以為我這家店是從哪裡搬來的？” 我原是不知，現在知道了，而且我也知道它未來的下場。 ----- 待續 ----- |
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