大街

Sinclair Lewis，第一位榮膺諾貝爾文學獎的美洲大陸作家，耶魯大學畢業，在紐約當了八年打工人後辭職回到小鎮全職寫作，造出了“戈鎮“——就像《Tell Me Why》遊戲裏的 Delos Crossing、馬爾克斯《世上最美的溺水者》裏偏遠的西班牙語小鎮，代表着一百年前美國中西部無數個與之相似的小鎮。 飽滿的人物塑造和細緻入微的觀察和描述讓《大街》成爲他的成名作，這本書也被評爲“20世紀最佳英語小說”排行榜第68名。 本書女主出場時，是位剛從大學逃課出來的女學生，麥田裏微風吹吹起她的翩翩裙襬，讀這段文字時，耳邊迴響的是那首《夏天的風》： 夏天的風 正暖暖吹過 穿過頭髮穿過耳朵 你和我的夏天 風輕輕說着 溫柔懶懶的海風 吹到高高的山峯 溫的風 山的風 吹成了山風 A breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving beauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened to wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom. She lifted her arms, she leaned back against the wind, her skirt dipped and flared, a lock blew wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; drinking the air as she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth. 有幾處用詞我很喜歡： （1）bellied her skirt 當背對着風時，前面肚子那塊的衣服就會被風吹得鼓鼓的，belly肚子，名詞作動詞，鼓鼓的，用這個詞就特別貼切； （2）a lock blew wild裙襬像鎖一樣是遮住下體的，可當風吹過，這把鎖就被風吹開了，她飛揚起的裙襬給山丘下的路人heart tightened to wistfulness緊繃着心渴望去看裙襬下面； （3）credulous是耳朵軟、輕信他人，大學生未經社會磨練就是這樣，可接下來的 plastic難道是“塑料姐妹花“？當然不是，plastic作形容詞還有可塑性強、適應力強的意思，哇塞，褒義呀； （4）drinking the air as she longed to drink life 用drink動詞來搭配air和life，超簡單的幾個詞（幼兒園孩童都會的）卻能用錯位的搭配傳達出深層的意味，讓人浮想聯翩，在這之前咋沒人這麼搭配過呢？可以說，讀到這兒（第一頁），許多讀者都能認定這是一本值得讀的書了； （5）aching comedy 不就是痛並快樂着麼，expectant youth有種很激動、期待美好的事情到來的感覺，至此，對筆者巧妙的用詞造句三鞠躬。 描述美麗的女孩子怎能不用一段來寫她的明眸呢？水汪汪的大眼睛，明亮、清澈，這些詞哪裏夠用？怎麼也得巫山神女般誇一下，可諾獎得主偏偏不，來看看筆者是怎麼寫女主的眼睛： Even when she was tired her dark eyes were observant. She did not yet know the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly dull, but if she should ever learn those dismaying powers, her eyes would never become sullen or heavy or rheumily amorous. 首先是形容詞observant中性詞，敏銳善於觀察的，接下來，假使全世界都冷酷無情、沉悶無趣，她的雙眼也不會悶悶不樂、沉重或rheumily amorous，這是筆者的獨家用法，rheum是名詞，小貓小狗大眼睛水汪汪的樣子，而amorous是形容詞，一種強烈的、被感動的愛，讓人想起“爲什麼我的眼裏常含淚水？因爲我對這土地愛得深沉“。 全世界都無趣，好奇怪的假設，這麼描寫可是在給第三章做鋪墊呀，這樣就一點都不奇怪了，被燒過荒的鐵路兩旁一片焦黑，只留下一些殘餘的焦草枯根，每一塊地都足有一百多英畝，雖然近看滿地都是灰敗的殘枝： The grass beside the railroad had been burnt over; it was a smudge prickly with charred stalks of weeds. Beyond the undeviating barbed-wire fences were clumps of golden rod. Only this thin hedge shut them off from the plains-shorn wheat-lands of autumn, a hundred acres to a field, prickly and gray near-by but in the blurred distance like tawny velvet stretched over dipping hillocks. The long rows of wheat-shocks marched like soldiers in worn yellow tabards. The newly plowed fields were black banners fallen on the distant slope. It was a martial immensity, vigorous, a little harsh, unsoftened by kindly gardens. 面對如此無趣的、寸草不生的荒原，樂觀的女主眼中看到的卻是油畫般的美好景緻，還能哼出小曲兒來讚美這塊glorious的土地： The expanse was relieved by clumps of oaks with patches of short wild grass; and every mile or two was a chain of cobalt slews, with the flicker of blackbirds' wings across them. All this working land was turned into exuberance by the light. The sunshine was dizzy on open stubble; shadows from immense cumulus clouds were forever sliding across low mounds; and the sky was wider and loftier and more resolutely blue than the sky of cities . . . she declared." It's a glorious country; a land to be big in," she crooned. 說實話，筆者用exuberance時，我是大喫一驚啊，這詞的意思是being full of energy, excitement, and cheerfulness; ebullience; growing profusely; luxuriance. 簡直是反差萌啊，興奮的、快樂的、沸騰的、繁榮生長的、奢華的，請問哪一點能和荒原聯繫上？然而，女主滿滿正能量，心懷正義與大愛，快樂、積極、並充滿熱誠，拜服。 新婚不久的女主一步步適應當地生活，直到第10章，自問難道自己就僅僅止步於一個“已婚婦女”嗎？小鎮問題多多，可爲一個小鎮操心究竟值不值得？ Am I really this settled thing called a 'married woman'? I feel so unmarried tonight. So free. To think that there was once a Mrs. Kennicott who let herself worry over a town called Gopher Prairie when there was a whole world outside it! 從這兒開始，筆者開始描寫他最熟悉鄉鎮風土人情、中西部的中產階級精神上的空虛、自鳴得意的保守主義、狹隘的思維方式和井底之蛙式的生活態度。 女主在振興鄉村（咦 大學生村官？）的嘗試（圖書館、讀書會、俱樂部、宴客、拜訪前輩、籌建市政廳、搞人際關係）失敗後也開始自我懷疑（第16章）： How? I've failed at everything: the Thanatopsis, parties, pioneers, city hall, Guy and Vida. But——It doesn't MATTER! I'm not trying to 'reform the town' now. I'm not trying to organize Browning Clubs, and sit in clean white kids yearning up at lecturers with ribbony eyeglasses. I am trying to save my soul. 我以爲，女主早晚有一天會爆發，會像《三十而已》裏的王漫妮一樣離開小鎮。可全書39章，女主的爆走是在第36章，去華盛頓工作也只有短短兩年時間（37和38章），之後又回到這個小鎮。 所以，這本書不是在講女主受不了無趣的生活要逃離，而是明明認識到這種現狀有問題，嘗試改變卻有心無力，直到偏遠小鎮把外來媳婦同化成其中一份子的過程，儘管內心一萬個嫌棄，想要改變、逃離，可最終還是自主選擇留下，她沒有更好的選擇，而最容易的選擇就是相夫教子重複每天二十四小時（第22章）： In Carol's own twenty-four hours a day she got up, dressed the baby, had breakfast, talked to Oscarina about the day's shopping, put the baby on the porch to play, went to the butcher's to choose between steak and pork chops, bathed the baby, nailed up a shelf, had dinner, put the baby to bed for a nap, paid the iceman, read for an hour, took the baby out for a walk, called on Vida, had supper, put the baby to bed, darned socks, listened to Kennicott's yawning comment on what a fool Dr. McGanum was to try to use that cheap X-ray outfit of his on an epithelioma, repaired a frock, drowsily heard Kennicott stoke the furnace, tried to read a page of Thorstein Veblen—and the day was gone. 來感受一下以上這段話的節奏，全段就一個句號，一個接一個的逗號就像是馬不停蹄的任務，簡單的動詞就像一個接一個的無趣且重複的指令，讀完後整個情緒就出來了：墨守成規、按部就班、循規蹈矩、日復一日。 筆者對無趣的生活的描寫，也是金句不斷——“滿足於悄無聲息的死去“、“消極的生活態度是種美德“、”無趣生活至上“，能如此描寫平淡的、麻木的、被社會馴化的鄉下白人每天喫飽、躺平、曬太陽的生活，也是非常坦誠的： It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment . .. the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world. 把To be "intellectual" or "artistic" or, in their own word, to be "highbrow," is to be priggish and of dubious virtue 稍改一下就是“女子無才便是德”。 有趣的情節直到第28章生不逢時的約翰·濟慈——瑞典小裁縫埃裏克的出現，此時本書正式走向《包法利夫人》裏的情節。 按照通俗的劇本情節發展，能敲開女文青心門的必是關於愛好、夢想、未來的話題，是在不出意料的在第29章兩人散步偶遇時兩人有了一段很長的對話。 首先是愛學習卻沒讀過幾本書的小裁縫爲了迎合女主說自己愛讀書、愛繪畫、愛設計，問是否要放棄裁縫這個職業，女主沒回答是，也沒回答否，而是巧妙地搪塞了他，指正了小裁縫的用詞錯誤，站在制高點指點江山：是夢想就不要放棄，年輕時就該出去闖闖，不要束縛手腳、害怕失敗。 I don't see why a surgeon should spend very much time cobbling shoes. But what if I find I can't really draw and design? After fussing around in New York or Chicago, I'd feel like a fool if I had to go back to work in a gents furnishings store! Please say haberdashery. Haberdashery? All right. I'll remember. What if you do have to go back? Most of us do! We can't all be artists—myself, for instance. We have to darn socks, and yet we're not content to think of nothing but socks and darning cotton. I'd demand all I could get—whether I finally settled down to designing frocks or building temples or pressing pants. What if you do drop back? You'll have had the adventure. Don't be too meek toward life! Go! You're young, you're unmarried. Try everything! Don't listen to Nat Hicks and Sam Clark and be a 'steady young man'—in order to help them make money. You're still a blessed innocent. Go and play till the Good People capture you! 小裁縫接話說自己讀書少，對前途感到迷茫和困惑，渴望歐洲的文化底蘊，又對在美國開荒感到不甘心，求安慰、求理解： But I don't just want to play. I want to make something beautiful. God! And I don't know enough. Do you get it? Do you understand? Nobody else ever has! Do you understand? Yes. And so——But here's what bothers me: I like fabrics; dinky things like that; little drawings and elegant words. But look over there at those fields. Big! New! Don't it seem kind of a shame to leave this and go back to the East and Europe, and do what all those people have been doing so long? Being careful about words, when there's millions of bushels off wheat here! Reading this fellow Pater, when I've helped Dad to clear fields! 女主趕緊接話說開荒很有意義啊，就等你去東部長見識後回到這裏帶領人們致富呀，簡直就是開啓了聖母心爆棚的教誨模式，一直講到小裁縫直勾勾地看着她，目光中充滿了敬意，一邊是對知識的渴望，一邊是接受崇拜的目光，簡直是給滿了情緒價值，內心超滿足的。 It's good to clear fields. But it's not for you. It's one of our favorite American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds, and high mountains make high purpose. I thought that myself, when I first came to the prairie. 'Big—new.' Oh, I don't want to deny the prairie future. It will be magnificent. But equally I'm hanged if I want to be bullied by it, go to war on behalf of Main Street, be bullied and BULLIED by the faith that the future is already here in the present, and that all of us must stay and worship wheat-stacks and insist that this is 'God's Country'—and never, of course, do anything original or gay colored that would help to make that future! Anyway, you don't belong here. Sam Clark and Nat Hicks, that's what our big newness has produced. Go! Before it's too late, as it has been for—for some of us. Young man, go East and grow up with the revolution! Then perhaps you may come back and tell Sam and Nat and me what to do with the land we've been clearing—if we'll listen—if we don't lynch you first! 由此可見，這段感情的開始就是小裁縫的見風使舵、刻意奉承迎合，而陷入其中、自我陶醉的只有女主。不出意外的話，不出三集，小裁縫就要提出上牀的請求。果然，在第31章，小裁縫來到女主房間，開始親親抱抱，女主推開：“I am fond of you，但還是做朋友吧“，氣氛都到位了，哪能算了呀，油嘴滑舌的小裁縫趕緊再加把柴火： How many thousands and millions of women must have said that! And now you! And it doesn't spoil everything. It glorifies everything. Dear, I do think there's a tiny streak of fairy in you—whatever you do with it. Perhaps I'd have loved that once. But I won't. It's too late. But I'll keep a fondness for you. Impersonal—I will be impersonal! It needn't be just a thin talky fondness. You do need me, don't you? Only you and my son need me. I've wanted so to be wanted! Once I wanted love to be given to me. Now I'll be content if I can give. . . .Almost content! 女主的回應也很有意思，再次繞彎子，巧妙地搪塞了他。這次，兩人在女主閨房的牀沿邊，讓他去中國進口棉花（我都要笑哭了）： We women, we like to do things for men. Poor men! We swoop on you when you're defenseless and fuss over you and insist on reforming you. But it's so pitifully deep in us. You'll be the one thing in which I haven't failed. Do something definite! Even if it's just selling cottons. Sell beautiful cottons—caravans from China. 第33章，小裁縫被女主拒絕後，離開了小鎮去往州首府一座大城市謀生，女主開始懷念他，想要找到勇氣邁出一直想走的那一步，終於說服了自己，帶着兒子去華盛頓工作兩年（第37和38章），見識到外面五彩斑斕嚮往的世界裏也有冷漠殘酷的一面後，與老公和解、與自己的夢想和解，帶着身孕回到小鎮，生活還要繼續，無數個平凡的我們是歷史長河裏的絕大多數人： a hundred generations of Carols will aspire and go down in tragedy devoid of palls and solemn chanting, the humdrum inevitable tragedy of struggle against inertia. 一代又一代人就這麼悄無聲息的死去，沒有身着黑色哀悼服的親友和教堂唱詩班和樂隊的送葬，少數人對一成不變的生活的反抗，這些都是不可避免的。 在文末，女主放下“改變世界“的執念，加入到村民日常的活動中，打野鴨、看電影，開始懂得欣賞平淡普通的生活，妥協和放下，又何嘗不是一種人生智慧呢？ 另外，本書的翻譯還是很不錯的，以上英文原文來自於遼寧人民出版社的《大街 = Main Street》。

有趣易讀，超越時代的書，現在也意味深長

卡羅爾身上，能看到很多女孩、女人的影像。糾結彷徨猶豫茫然失望期待幻想快樂憂傷…… 我不認爲她的迴歸是一種妥協，看清現實之後的直麪人生，是真正的勇敢。

讀辛克萊-劉易斯《大街》 作爲第一位獲得諾貝爾文學獎的美國作家辛克萊·劉易斯，以現實主義小說《大街》、《巴比特》、《靈與欲》、《阿羅史密斯》爲世人所知。他的作品帶有強烈的批判色彩，對兩次世界大戰里美國人的拜金主義與物質享樂主義作一針見血式的揭露與挖掘。美國評論家門肯如是說：“假如我們中間要推出個小說家，他說的話全都真實可信，那這個人必定是辛克萊·劉易斯。”《大街》的故事很簡單，寫一個名叫卡羅爾的女子，結婚以後把家搬到了明尼蘇達州的一個小鎮上，這是她丈夫出生的地方。在去小鎮之前，她丈夫是這麼說的：“你一定會愛上格菲爾草原鎮的。過去幾年，我們整理了不少草坪和花園，非常舒適。鎮上還有很多高大的樹木，那裏的人也是天下極好的人，充滿熱情。”可是真的到了小鎮，卡羅爾才發現她與當地居民在思維方式上有着劇烈的衝突。小鎮沉悶保守，充滿着陳腐世俗的壓抑氣息。卡羅爾不甘心自己在閒適裏虛擲青春，立志改革鄉鎮的傳統陋習。在這樣的主題之下，作者書寫了濃郁的美國中西部的地方風情。美國評論家威克代爾盛讚：“《大街》是美國文學中描述地方風情最出色的作品。”辛克萊-劉易斯藉助小說《大街》，刻畫了一個小鎮上生活着的各色人物，字裏行間充斥着對這些人物的狹隘的思維方式、井底之蛙式的生活態度的諷刺。小說的結尾很有意思，主人公卡羅爾最後發現，自己悄然間已經變成小鎮上的女人了。“她知道，在這之前，將有好幾代人像他們自己渴望的那樣掙脫囚籠，擺脫枷鎖，最終卻免不了悲劇的發生”。事實上，沒有政治權力的加持，改變傳統幾乎是不可能的。辛克萊·劉易斯以其敏銳的洞察力以及犀利的筆鋒生動細緻地刻畫了美國小鎮的生活，顛覆了以往美國小鎮田園牧歌式的美好形象，揭露了20世紀20年代美國社會存在的種種弊端，體現了他對現代社會人類生存狀態的深切關注和深刻的思考。可以說沒有任何其他美國作家像辛克萊·路易斯那麼筆酣墨飽地寫下了美國精神。辛克萊-劉易斯的另一部作品《巴比特》被公認爲是他的巔峯之作，以美國的經濟文化繁榮時期爲背景，刻畫“巴比特”這樣一個典型的商人形象，來諷刺美國中產階級存在的勢利、虛僞、虛榮和愚昧。《巴比特》真實再現了那個時代的日常風尚與精神風貌，揭示出了盛世之下，民衆的狂歡和自信，一個被金錢統治的社會以及個體面對標準化、世俗化生活方式的徒勞無益的反抗與掙扎。《靈與欲》又名《埃爾默·甘特里》書寫了一位年輕自負、玩弄女性的經典投機分子。小說的開篇寫道：“埃爾默·甘特里醉了。他醉得酒話連篇，尋釁滋事，又醉得如此可愛。他靠在老家酒房酒吧——一家位於密蘇里州加圖市的最奢華高檔的沙龍——的吧檯上，正要邀請酒保一起來唱當代華爾茲《美好夏日舊時光》。”這樣的人在世俗的社會里獲得成功，彰顯着一個新的時代的到來。諾貝爾文學獎的頒獎詞確實深得辛克萊·劉易斯作品的神髓：“辛克萊·劉易斯帶着智慧與幽默，在充滿活力的圖畫般的描寫中，展示出創作新式人物的能力。”