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劝导(奥斯丁文集经典插图本系列)

简·奥斯丁

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内容简介

本书是作者最后一部小说,塑造了一位其笔下最为高尚的人物。韶光正从安妮的身上消逝,风华正茂的时候,因为接受了他人的“劝导”,她终与意中人温特沃斯上校分道扬镳。虽青春不再,又备受虚荣的父亲和姐姐的冷漠,但她的高贵仁慈却使她成为亲朋中最受欢迎的人。两人分手八年后再次相遇,上校不能冰释怨恨,违心追求他人;而安妮也险些接受伪君子堂兄的求婚。在因为家族事务而引发的一系列交往中,上校进一步发现安妮的无私与坚贞无人能比,而安妮也在一次次自我劝导中找回了爱的勇气。他们发现,重新团聚比第一次相爱更为幸福,于是,经受了考验的他们不再若即若离,开始尽情地回忆并表白……

读者书评

★★★★★

何德何能,何其有幸,得以品读简·奥斯汀(Jane Austen)的《劝导》(Persuasion)。 一路相伴的,是戴维·M·沙帕德(David M. Shapard)的注释本。沙帕德获加州大学伯克利分校欧洲史博士学位,专攻十八世纪欧洲史,长年执教于高校,是奥斯汀研究领域备受推崇的注释大家。这套注释本穷尽摄政时代的社会风俗、海军制度、语言典故与叙事伏笔,完整还原彼时的历史语境与文字肌理——若无这般详实的考据铺陈,奥斯汀笔下那些层层暗藏的深意与隐秘情绪,读者极易与之擦肩而过。 原著既竟,复得读哈罗德·布鲁姆(Harold Bloom)《西方正典》(The Western Canon)中的专章评析。布鲁姆为耶鲁大学斯特林讲席教授、二十世纪最重要的文学批评家之一,早年求学于康奈尔、剑桥与耶鲁,一生坚守审美本位,拒绝被时代理论框架裹挟。他从经典美学的高度,精准提炼出《劝导》不可替代的文学价值。 微观考据与宏观批评,一者扎根历史语境细读文本,一者立足文学史视野审视作品——两种顶级文本一前一后,伴随同一段阅读旅程。这般机缘,可遇不可求。 以下附上哈罗德·布鲁姆《西方正典》中对《劝导》的完整评述,这也是我心目中对这部作品最精准、最具高度的经典书评。 附录:摘自《西方正典》(10 经典记忆:早期的华兹华斯与简·奥斯汀的《劝导》) ① “PERSUASION” is a word derived from the Latin for “advising” or “urging,” for recommending that it is good to perform or not perform a particular action. The word goes back to a root meaning “sweet” or “pleasant,” so that the good of performance or nonperformance has a tang of taste rather than of moral judgment about it. “劝导”一词来自于拉丁语的“劝告”或“敦促”,即建议最好采取或不采取某一特定行动。这一词的本源可以追溯到“甜蜜”或“愉悦”,因此行动或不行动的好处带有强烈的个人趣好,而无关道德判断。 Jane Austen chose it as the title for her last completed novel. As a title, it recalls Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice rather than Emma or Mansfield Park. We are given not the name of a person or house and estate, but of an abstraction, a single one in this case. 简·奥斯汀选择它作为最后一部小说的标题,这让我想起了《理智与情感》或《傲慢与偏见》,而不是《爱玛》或《曼斯菲尔德庄园》。我们看到的不是一个人、一幢房子或一处庄园的名字,而是一个抽象概念,在这里只是单独一个名词。 The title’s primary reference is to the persuasion of its heroine, Anne Elliot, at the age of nineteen, by her godmother, Lady Russell, not to marry Captain Frederick Wentworth, a young naval officer. 标题主要关联着书中女主角安妮·埃利奥特,她十九岁时受到教母罗塞尔夫人的劝导,要她解除与年轻的海军军官弗雷德里克·温特沃思上校的婚约。 This was, as it turns out, very bad advice, and, after eight years, it is mended by Anne and Captain Wentworth. As with all of Austen’s ironic comedies, matters end happily for the heroine. And yet each time I finish a rereading of this perfect novel, I feel very sad. 后来的发展证明这个建议糟糕至极,直到八年之后安妮与温特沃思上校才修复旧好。正如奥斯汀所有讽刺喜剧的风格,女主角的结局圆满。然而每次我重新读完这部无可挑剔的小说后,总是会感到十分难过。 This does not appear to be my personal vagary; when I ask my friends and students about their experience of the book, they frequently mention a sadness which they also associate with Persuasion, more even than with Mansfield Park. 这似乎不是我个人的异常反应;当我问及我的朋友及学生们阅读这部小说的感受时,他们常常表示对《劝导》也会感到一种悲伤,而阅读《曼斯菲尔德庄园》时却很少有如此感受。 Anne Elliot, a quietly eloquent being, is a self-reliant character, in no way forlorn, and her sense of self never falters. It is not her sadness we feel as we conclude the book: it is the novel’s somberness that impresses us. 安妮·埃利奥特沉静而善于体悟,自尊又自立,绝不会感到孤独无助,她的自我意识从不会动摇和犹疑。我们读完全书后,感到的并不是她的悲伤:萦绕于心的是小说的沉郁风格。 The sadness enriches what I would call the novel’s canonical persuasiveness, its way of showing us its extraordinary aesthetic distinction. 这种悲伤充实了我所谓小说的经典劝导性,它借此向我们显示了其非凡的美学价值。 Persuasion is among novels what Anne Elliot is among novelistic characters—a strong but subdued outrider. 《劝导》在西方小说之中就如同安妮·埃利奥特在小说人物中的位置,是一个强有力但并不引人注目的随从。 The book and the character are not colorful or vivacious; Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice and Emma Woodhouse of Emma have a verve to them that initially seems lacking in Anne Elliot, which may be what Austen meant when she said that Anne was “almost too good for me.” 书和人物都朴实无华,沉静闲逸;安妮·埃利奥特乍一看似乎缺乏《傲慢与偏见》中伊丽莎白·贝内特及《爱玛》中爱玛·伍德的激情活力,这或许是奥斯汀说安妮“对我来说太温顺”的言下之意。 Anne is really almost too subtle for us, though not for Wentworth, who has something of an occult wavelength to her. 安妮对我们而言确实太难以捉摸,而在温特沃思眼中却并非如此,他有着某种神秘的波长可以与她沟通。 Juliet McMaster notes “the kind of oblique communication that constantly goes on between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, where, though they seldom speak to each other, each constantly understands the full import of the other’s speech better than their interlocutors do.” 朱利叶·麦克马斯特指出,“虽然两人相互之间极少开口,但一种间接的交流在安妮·埃利奥特与温特沃思上校之间不断地进行着,各人都对对方话中的含义心领神会,而参与谈话的其他人却不能如此。” That kind of communication in Persuasion depends upon deep “affection,” a word that Austen values over “love.” “Affection” between woman and man, in Austen, is the more profound and lasting emotion. 《劝导》中的这种交流依赖于深厚的“情意”,奥斯汀认为它的价值胜过“爱”。男女间的“情意”在奥斯汀心目中是更深沉、持久的情感。 I think it is not too much to say that Anne Elliot, though subdued, is the creation for whom Austen herself must have felt the most affection, because she lavished her own gifts upon Anne. · 埃利奥特虽不引人注目,却必定是奥斯汀本人最情有独钟的创造,我这么说并不言过其实,因为她将自身诸多禀赋都赋予了安妮。 Henry James insisted that the novelist must be a sensibility upon which absolutely nothing is lost; by that test (clearly a limited one) only Austen, George Eliot, and James himself, among all those writing in English, would join Stendhal, Flaubert, and Tolstoy in a rather restricted pantheon. ♥ 亨利·詹姆斯坚持认为,小说家必须感觉敏锐,绝对不能错失任何细节;以这一标准(显然有其狭隘之处)来衡量,在所有英语作家中,唯有奥斯汀、乔治·艾略特和詹姆斯本人,能与司汤达、福楼拜和托尔斯泰一道,跻身于那个寥寥数人的殿堂。 Anne Elliot may well be the one character in all of prose fiction upon whom nothing is lost, though she is in no danger of turning into a novelist. The most accurate estimmate of Anne Elliot that I have seen is by Stuart Tave: 安妮·埃利奥特很可能是所有散文体小说中感觉最敏锐、不曾错失半点细节的人物,尽管她并无成为小说家之虞。我所见过的对安妮·埃利奥特最精确的评价来自斯图亚特·塔夫: Nobody hears Anne, nobody sees her, but it is she who is ever at the center. It is through her ears, eyes, and mind that we are made to care for what is happening. If nobody is much aware of her, she is very much aware of everyone else and she perceives what is happening to them when they are ignorant of themselves . . . she reads Wentworth’s mind, with the coming troubles he is causing for others and himself, before those consequences bring the information to him. 无人留意安妮,无人真正看见她,然而她始终处在故事的核心。我们正是经由她的听觉、目光与思绪,才对周遭发生的一切心生关切。旁人大多未曾留意她,她却洞悉所有人;当人们尚且不自知自身处境时,她早已看清降临在他们身上的命运……她读懂了温特沃思的内心,预见了他即将给自己与他人招致的种种麻烦,远在这些后果摆在他眼前、让他认清现实之前。 ② The aesthetic dangers attendant upon such a paragon are palpable: how does a novelist make such a character persuasive? Poldy, in Joyce’s Ulysses, is overwhelmingly persuasive because he is so complete a person, which was the largest of Joyce’s intentions. 塑造这般完美无瑕的人物,伴随显而易见的美学风险:小说家要如何令这个角色具备说服力?乔伊斯《尤利西斯》中的波尔迪极具说服力,因为他是一个如此完整立体的人,这也正是乔伊斯最核心的创作目标。 Austen’s ironic mode does not sanction the representation of completeness: we do not accompany her characters to the bedroom, the kitchen, the privy. What Austen parodies in Sense and Sensibility she raises to an apotheosis in Persuasion: the sublimity of a particular, inwardly isolated sensibility. 奥斯汀的反讽模式制约了对完整性的表现:我们不会跟随她的人物们进入卧室、厨房和厕所。奥斯汀在《理智与情感》中讽拟的东西,在《劝导》中却被抬升到至尊的地位:一种内在的、特殊的孤立感受力的崇高性。 Anne Elliot is hardly the only figure in Austen who has an understanding heart. Her difference is in her almost preternatural acuteness of perception of others and of the self, which are surely the qualities that most distinguish Austen as a novelist. 安妮·埃利奥特不是奥斯汀笔下唯一善解人意的人物。她与众不同之处在于她对他人及自我的感知准确到了几近不可思议的程度,而这无疑是奥斯汀作为小说家最明显的特征。 Anne Elliot is to Austen’s work what Rosalind of As You Like It is to Shakespeare’s: the character who almost reaches the mastery of perspective that can be available only to the novelist or playwright, lest all dramatic quality be lost from the novel or play. C. L. Barber memorably emphasized this limitation:   安妮·埃利奥特之于奥斯汀的创作正如《皆大欢喜》中的罗瑟琳之于莎士比亚:这两个人物几乎达到了唯有小说家或剧作家才能掌握的全知视角,若非如此,这部小说或剧作就会丧失所有的戏剧性。C. L.巴柏令人难忘地强调过这一局限: The dramatist tends to show us one thing at a time, and to realize that one thing, in its moment, to the full; his characters go to extremes, comical as well as serious; and no character, not even a Rosalind, is in a position to see all around the play and so be completely poised, for if this were so the play would cease to be dramatic.  剧作家通常一次只向我们展现一件事,并以适当时机将其充分展现;他笔下的人物走向极端,或滑稽嬉闹,或庄重严肃;剧中人物不可能俯瞰整部戏剧、做到全然泰然自若,即使罗瑟琳也不行,否则戏剧性便荡然无存。 I like to turn Barber’s point in the other direction: more even than Hamlet or Falstaff, or than Elizabeth Bennet, or than Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Rosalind and Anne Elliot are almost completely poised, nearly able to see all around the play and the novel. 让我将巴柏的观点转个方向:比起哈姆莱特、福斯塔夫、伊丽莎白·贝内特,或《曼斯菲尔德庄园》中的芬妮·布莱斯,罗瑟琳与安妮·埃利奥特更近乎完全的从容自持,几乎能综览整部戏剧与整部小说。 Their poise cannot transcend perspectivizing completely, but Rosalind’s wit and Anne’s sensibility, both balanced and free of either excessive aggressivity or defensiveness, enable them to share more of their creators’ poise than we ever come to do. 她们的从容虽不能完全超越视角的局限,但罗瑟琳的机智与安妮的敏感都恰到好处,既不咄咄逼人,也不退缩自守,使她们得以分享创作者那份我们常人永远无法企及的从容。 Austen never loses dramatic intensity; we share Anne’s anxiety concerning Wentworth’s renewed intentions until the novel’s conclusion. 奥斯汀始终没有削弱戏剧张力;直至小说结尾,我们都和安妮一样,担忧温特沃思是否会重新萌生情意。 But we rely upon Anne as we should rely upon Rosalind; critics would see the rancidity of Touchstone as clearly as they see the vanity of Jacques if they placed more confidence in Rosalind’s reactions to everyone else in the play, as well as to herself. 但我们应当像信赖罗莎琳德那样信赖安妮;倘若批评家们对罗莎琳德在剧中对待其他所有人以及对待她自己的反应给予更多信任,他们就会像看清杰奎斯的虚荣一样,清楚地看出试金石的刻薄乖戾。 Anne Elliot’s reactions have the same winning authority; we must try to give the weight to her words that is not extended by the other persons in the novel, except for Wentworth. 安妮·埃利奥特的判断拥有同样令人信服的权威;小说里除温特沃思之外,其余人物皆未能重视她的言语,而我们则应当赋予其应有的分量。 Stuart Tave’s point, like Barber’s, is accurate even when turned in the other direction; Austen’s irony is very Shakespearean. Even the reader must fall into the initial error of undervaluing Anne Elliot. The wit of Elizabeth Bennet or of Rosalind is easier to appreciate than Anne Elliot’s accurate sensibility. 斯图尔特·塔夫的观点与巴伯的论断一样,即便反向推演依然成立;奥斯汀的反讽极具莎士比亚风格。就连读者最初也难免犯下低估安妮·埃利奥特的错误。伊丽莎白·贝内特与罗莎琳德的机敏锋芒,远比安妮·埃利奥特精准细腻的感知力更容易被欣赏。 The secret of her character combines Austenian irony with a Wordsworthian sense of deferred hope. Austen has a good measure of Shakespeare’s unmatched ability to give us persons, both major and minor, who are each utterly consistent in her or his separate mode of speech, and yet completely different from one another. 安妮性格的内核,融合了奥斯汀式的反讽与华兹华斯笔下那种迟来的希冀。奥斯汀颇具莎士比亚那份无可比拟的功力:她塑造的人物,无论主次,各自的言谈方式始终前后统一,彼此之间又判然有别。 Anne Elliot is the last of Austen’s heroines of what I think we must call the Protestant will, but in her the will is modified, perhaps perfected, by its descendant, the Romantic sympathetic imagination, of which Wordsworth, as we have seen, was the prophet. That is perhaps what helps to make Anne so complex and sensitive a character. 安妮·埃利奥特是奥斯汀笔下最后一位拥有我所说的“新教意志”的女主人公。但在她身上,这种意志经由其后继特质——浪漫主义共情想象力——得到调和,乃至臻于完善;我们此前已经谈及,华兹华斯正是这一精神的先驱。这或许正是安妮成为一个层次丰富、心思敏锐的人物的缘由。 ③ Jane Austen’s earlier heroines, of whom Elizabeth Bennet is the exemplar, manifested the Protestant will as direct descendants of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe, with Dr. Samuel Johnson hovering nearby as moral authority. 简·奥斯汀前期的女主人公们以伊丽莎白·贝内特为典范,她们身上彰显出“新教意志”,乃是塞缪尔·理查逊笔下克拉丽莎·哈洛的直接传承;而塞缪尔·约翰逊博士则如影随形,充当着道德标尺。 Marxist criticism inevitably views the Protestant will, even in its literary manifestations, as a mercantile matter, and it has become fashionable to talk about the socioeconomic realities that Jane Austen excludes, such as the West Indian slavery that is part of the ultimate basis for the financial security most of her characters enjoy. 马克思主义批评理论总会将新教意志——即便它呈现于文学之中——视作一种商业产物;如今学界盛行一种论调,热衷于讨论简·奥斯汀刻意回避的社会经济现实,例如西印度群岛的奴隶制,而奥斯汀笔下多数人物赖以安身的财富,根基正源于此。 But all achieved literary works are founded upon exclusions, and no one has demonstrated that increased consciousness of the relation between culture and imperialism is of the slightest benefit whatsoever in learning to read Mansfield Park. 但所有成熟的文学作品,皆建立在有所取舍、有所隐略的基础之上;也无人能够证实,深化对文化与帝国主义二者关联的认知,对于人们研读《曼斯菲尔德庄园》会有丝毫裨益。 Persuasion ends with a tribute to the British navy, in which Wentworth has an honored place. Doubtless Wentworth at sea, ordering the latest batch of disciplinary floggings, is not as pleasant as Wentworth on land, gently appreciating the joys of affection with Anne Elliot. 《劝导》的收尾是对英国海军的礼赞,温特沃思在这支队伍中享有崇高地位。毋庸置疑,海上执掌军舰、下令执行新一轮鞭刑惩戒的温特沃思,远不如陆上与安妮·埃利奥特相伴、温柔体味情意之美的温特沃思那般令人心生好感。 But once again, Austen’s is a great art founded upon exclusions, and the sordid realities of British sea power are no more relevant to Persuasion than West Indian bondage is to Mansfield Park. Austen was, however, immensely interested in the pragmatic and secular consequences of the Protestant will, and they seem to me a crucial element in helping us appreciate the heroines of her novels. 但话说回来,奥斯汀的伟大艺术同样建立在有所取舍、有所隐略之上;大英海上强权之下种种不堪的现实,与《劝导》文本解读并无关联,一如西印度群岛的奴役制度和《曼斯菲尔德庄园》无关。不过,奥斯汀深切关注新教意志所带来的现实世俗影响,在我看来,正是这些影响,构成了我们理解她笔下一众女主人公的关键。 Austen’s Shakespearean inwardness, culminating in Anne Elliot, revises the moral intensities of Clarissa Harlowe’s secularized Protestant martyrdom, her slow dying after being raped by Lovelace. 奥斯汀具备莎士比亚式的内在精神刻画,这一特质在安妮·埃利奥特身上臻于顶峰。它重塑了克拉丽莎·哈洛那世俗化新教殉道者身上浓烈的道德张力——克拉丽莎遭洛夫莱斯侵害后,在漫长的煎熬中走向死亡。 What removes Clarissa’s will to live is her stronger will to maintain the integrity of her being. To yield to the repentant Lovelace by marrying him would compromise the essence of her being, the exaltation of her violated will. 夺去克拉丽莎求生意志的,是她那份更为强大的信念——坚守自身人格的完整。倘若她选择嫁给已然悔悟的洛夫莱斯,便是向他妥协,这会损毁她存在的本质,辜负她备受摧残却依旧挺立的意志。 What is tragedy in Clarissa is converted by Austen into ironic comedy, but the will’s drive to maintain itself scarcely alters in this conversion. In Persuasion the emphasis is on a willed exchange of esteems, where both the woman and the man estimate the value of the other to be high. 理查逊笔下《克拉丽莎》的悲剧内核,经奥斯汀转化为带有反讽意味的喜剧;但意志坚守自我的内在驱动力,在这一转变中几乎未曾改变。《劝导》着重刻画一场经由意志促成的相互敬重:男女双方都由衷认可对方珍贵的价值。 Obviously outward considerations of wealth, property, and social standing are crucial elements here, but so are the inward considerations of common sense, amiability, culture, wit, and affection. 显而易见,财富、地产与社会地位这类外在条件固然是重要因素,但理智、温和品性、教养、才情与情意这些内在素养同样不容小觑。 In a way (it pains me to say this, as I am a fierce Emersonian) Ralph Waldo Emerson anticipated the current Marxist critique of Austen when he denounced her as a mere conformist who would not allow her heroines to achieve the soul’s true freedom from societal conventions. 某种意义上(说出这番话令我颇为痛心,因为我是坚定的爱默生追随者),拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生早已预判到如今针对奥斯汀的马克思主义批评。爱默生曾斥责奥斯汀仅仅是一名循规蹈矩之人,认为她笔下的女主人公无法挣脱世俗规约,实现灵魂真正的自由。 But that was to mistake Jane Austen, who understood that the function of convention was to liberate the will, even if convention’s tendency was to stifle individuality, without which the will was inconsequential. 然而这是对简·奥斯汀的误解,她懂得成规的作用在于解放意志,尽管成规往往会扼杀个性;倘若没有成规,意志也就无关紧要了。 ④ Austen’s major heroines—Elizabeth, Emma, Fanny, and Anne—possess such inward freedom that their individualities cannot be repressed. Austen’s art as a novelist is not to worry much about the socioeconomic genesis of that inner freedom, though the anxiety level does rise in Mansfield Park and Persuasion. 奥斯汀笔下的核心女主人公——伊丽莎白、爱玛、范妮与安妮,都拥有内在的自由,她们的个性无从被压制。身为小说家,奥斯汀并不深究这份内在自由源自何种社会经济根源,尽管在《曼斯菲尔德庄园》与《劝导》中,相关的忧虑确有加重。 In Austen, irony becomes the instrument for invention, which Dr. Johnson defined as the essence of poetry. A conception of inward freedom that centers upon a refusal to accept esteem except from one upon whom one has conferred esteem, is a conception of the highest degree of irony. 在奥斯汀这里,反讽成为创造性构思的手段,约翰逊博士曾将创造性构思界定为诗歌的本质。有一种内在自由观,其核心在于:除非赞许来自自己已然敬重之人,否则便拒绝接纳这份赞许;这一观念本身,蕴含着极致的反讽。 The supreme comic scene in all of Austen must be Elizabeth’s rejection of Darcy’s first marriage proposal, where the ironies of the dialectic of will and esteem become very nearly outrageous. That high comedy, which continued in Emma, is somewhat chastened in Mansfield Park, and then becomes something else, unmistakable but difficult to name, in Persuasion, where Austen has become so conscious a master that she seems to have changed the nature of willing, as though it, too, could be persuaded to become a rarer, more disinterested act of the self. 奥斯汀笔下最登峰造极的喜剧场景,非伊丽莎白拒绝达西首次求婚莫属——在那里,意志与尊崇之间的辩证反讽,几乎到了荒唐绝伦的地步。那种高级喜剧风格在《爱玛》中得以延续,到了《曼斯菲尔德庄园》里则有所收敛,及至《劝导》,它又蜕变为另一种难以名状却昭然若揭的东西;此时的奥斯汀已然成为一位自觉性极高的大家,仿佛连"意愿"本身的性质都被她改变了,似乎"意愿"也能被劝导成一种更为罕有、更为超然的自我行为。 NO ONE has suggested that Jane Austen becomes a High Romantic in Persuasion; her poet remained William Cowper, not Wordsworth, and her favorite prose writer was always Dr. Johnson. But her severe distrust of imagination and of “romantic love,” so prevalent in the earlier novels, is not a factor in Persuasion. 尚无观点认为简·奥斯汀在《劝导》中转变为崇高浪漫主义作家;她所追随的诗人始终是威廉·考珀,而非华兹华斯,她最推崇的散文大家也一直是约翰逊博士。但在前期小说中随处可见的、她对于想象力与“浪漫之爱”的审慎怀疑,在《劝导》里已不再构成主导因素。 Anne and Wentworth maintain their affection for each other throughout eight years of hopeless separation, and each has the power of imagination to conceive of a triumphant reconciliation. This is the material for a romance, not for an ironical novel. The ironies of Persuasion are frequently pungent, but they are almost never directed at Anne Elliot and only rarely at Captain Wentworth. 安妮与温特沃思历经八年无望别离,始终坚守对彼此的情意,二人皆拥有想象的力量,能够构想一场圆满的重逢和解。这本是传奇故事的素材,而非反讽小说的底色。《劝导》中的反讽往往尖锐辛辣,却几乎从不针对安妮·艾略特,极少指向温特沃思上校。 There is a difficult relation between Austen’s repression of her characteristic irony about her protagonists and a certain previously unheard plangency that hovers throughout Persuasion. 奥斯汀克制了惯常针对主角的反讽笔法,而一种此前未曾见于她笔下的凄婉基调萦绕整部《劝导》,二者之间存在着微妙复杂的关联。 Despite Anne’s faith in herself she is very vulnerable to the anxiety, which she never allows herself to express, of an unlived life, in which the potential loss transcends yet includes sexual unfulfillment. I can recall only one critic, the Australian Ann Molan, who emphasizes what Austen strongly implies, that “Anne . . . is a passionate woman. And against her will, her heart keeps asserting its demand for fulfillment.” 安妮虽保有内心的笃定,却极易被一种隐忧裹挟——她从不允许自己流露这份心绪:人生留有缺憾,这种潜在的失落不止包含情欲上的未能圆满,又将其囊括其中。我记得仅有一位评论家,澳大利亚学者安·莫兰,点明了奥斯汀强烈暗示的一点:“安妮……是一个满怀热忱的女子。纵使本心抗拒,她的内心始终在渴求圆满。” Since Anne had refused Wentworth her esteem eight years before, she feels a necessity to withhold her will, and thus becomes the first Austen heroine whose will and imagination are antithetical. 八年前安妮曾拒绝给予温特沃思她的珍重,故而她自觉必须收敛自身意志,由此她成为奥斯汀笔下第一位意志与想象力彼此相悖的女主人公。 Although Austen’s overt affinities remained with the Aristocratic Age, her authenticity as a writer impelled her, in Persuasion, a long way toward the burgeoning Democratic Age, or Romanticism, as we used to call it. 尽管奥斯汀表面上仍认同贵族时代的精神底色,但作为作家的本真创作力,驱使她在《劝导》中大步迈向蓬勃兴起的民主时代,也就是我们以往所说的浪漫主义。 There is no civil war within Anne Elliot’s psyche, or within Austen’s; but there is the emergent sadness of a schism in the self, with memory taking the side of imagination in an alliance against the will. 安妮·艾略特的内心之中并无挣扎交战,奥斯汀本人亦是如此;但一种因自我分裂而生的怅惘已然浮现,记忆选择与想象结成同盟,一同对抗意志。 The almost Wordsworthian power of memory in both Anne and Wentworth has been noted by Gene Ruoff. Since Austen was anything but an acciddental novelist, we might ask why she chose to found Persuasion upon a mutual nostalgia. 吉恩·鲁夫曾指出,安妮与温特沃思身上那种近乎华兹华斯式的记忆力量。奥斯汀绝非随性落笔的小说家,我们不禁要追问,她为何选择以双向的怀恋作为《劝导》的创作根基。 After all, the rejected Wentworth is even less inclined to will a renewed affection than Anne is, and yet the fusion of memory and imagination triumphs over his will also. Was this a relaxation of the will in Jane Austen herself? Since she returns to her earlier mode in Sanditon, her unfinished novel begun after Persuasion was completed, it may be that the story of Anne Elliot was an excursion or indulgence for the novelist. 说到底,遭到回绝后的温特沃思,比起安妮,更不愿凭自身意志重拾旧情,然而记忆与想象相融的力量,同样战胜了他的意志。这是否代表简·奥斯汀自身对意志的约束有所放宽?《劝导》完稿后,她动笔创作未竟之作《桑迪顿》,文风重回早年笔法,由此看来,安妮·艾略特的这段故事,或许是这位小说家一次短暂的尝试,一场心绪的释放。 The parallels between Wordsworth and Persuasion are limited but real. High Romantic novels in England, whether of the Byronic kind like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights or of a Wordsworthian sort like Adam Bede, are a distinctly later development. 华兹华斯与《劝导》之间的相通之处虽有限,却真实存在。英国的崇高浪漫主义小说,无论是《简·爱》《呼啸山庄》这类拜伦风格的作品,还是《亚当·比德》这类带有华兹华斯色彩的创作,都是在此之后才逐渐发展成型。 The ethos of the Austen heroine does not change in Persuasion, but she is certainly a more problematic being, tinged with a new sadness concerning life’s limits. It may be that the elegant pathos Persuasion sometimes courts has a connection to Jane Austen’s own ill health, her intimations of her early death. 奥斯汀笔下女主人公的精神内核在《劝导》中并未改变,但安妮无疑是更为复杂难解的人物,笼罩着一层全新的怅惘,关乎生命本身的种种局限。《劝导》时而流露的雅致悲怆,或许与简·奥斯汀自身的病痛、以及她预感到自己将早逝的心境有关。 ⑤ Stuart Tave, comparing Wordsworth and Austen, shrewdly noted that both were “poets of marriage” and both also possessed “a sense of duty understood and deeply felt by those who see the integrity and peace of their own lives as essentially bound to the lives of others and see the lives of all in a more than merely social order.” 斯图尔特·塔夫对比了华兹华斯与奥斯汀,他敏锐地注意到两人都是“婚姻的诗人”,也都具有“为一部分人所体悟并深怀于心的责任感:这些人视自身生活的完整与宁静在本质上和他人的生活紧密联结,并且理解众生的存续依托于超越单纯社交维度的秩序”。 Expanding Tave’s insight, Susan Morgan pointed to the particular affinity between Austen’s Emma and Wordsworth’s great “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Earliest Childhood.” The growth of the individual consciousness, involving both gain and loss for Wordsworth but only gain for Austen, is the shared subject. 苏珊·摩根拓展了塔夫的见解,她提出,奥斯汀的《爱玛》与华兹华斯的名篇《颂诗:童年回忆的永生喻示》存在特殊的共通之处。二者共同探讨个体意识的成长,对华兹华斯来说,这段历程得失相伴,而在奥斯汀笔下,唯有收获。 Emma’s consciousness certainly does develop, and she undergoes a quasi-Wordsworthian transformation from the pleasures of near solipsism to the more difficult pleasures of sympathy for others. 爱玛的心智确有成长,她经历了准华兹华斯式的转变,从近乎唯我主义的快乐,走向共情他人这份更为艰涩的喜悦。 Anne Elliot, far more mature from the beginning, scarcely needs to grow in consciousness. Her long-lamented rejection of Wentworth insulates her against the destructiveness of hope, which we have seen to be the frightening emphasis of the earlier Wordsworth, particularly in the story of poor Margaret. Instead of hope, there is a complex of emotions, expressed by Austen with her customary skill: 安妮·艾略特自开篇便成熟许多,几乎不再需要完成心智上的成长。那场令她久久怅憾的拒婚,使她免于希望所具备的毁灭性力量,而这份对希望之破坏力的书写,正是早年华兹华斯令人心惊的着力之处,尤以可怜的玛格丽特的故事为代表。取而代之的是一组繁复交织的情绪,奥斯汀以一贯纯熟的笔法将其描摹出来: How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been,—how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence!—She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older—the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning. 安妮·艾略特本可以多么善辩——至少,她内心多么期盼一份年少炽热的情意,期盼对未来抱有坦然笃定的信心,而非那种过度审慎的克制,这份谨慎仿佛轻视人的努力,亦不信任天意!她年轻时被迫谨小慎微,待到年岁渐长,才习得浪漫——一段有违本真的开端,终究引向这般顺理成章的结局。 Here learning romance is wholly retrospective; Anne no longer regards it as being available to her. And indeed Wentworth returns, still resentful after eight years, and reflects that Anne’s power with him is gone forever. 此处习得浪漫全然是回望过往;安妮不再认为自己还能拥有浪漫。而温特沃思的确回来了,八年之后依旧心怀怨怼,他暗自觉得安妮对自己的影响力早已永久消散。 The qualities of decision and confidence that make him a superb naval commander are precisely what he condemns her for lacking. With almost too meticulous a craft, Aus ten traces his gradual rettreat from this position, as the power of memory increases its dominance over him and as he learns that his jilted sense of her as being unable to act is quite mistaken. 这份决断与自信,令他成为一名出色的海军指挥官,可他恰恰指责安妮欠缺这些特质。奥斯汀笔法几近缜密入微,铺陈他如何逐步摒弃这一看法:记忆的力量渐渐占据上风,他也终于明白,自己此前认定安妮行事软弱、辜负自己的想法,实则大错特错。 It is a beautiful irony that he needs to undergo a process of self-persuasion while Anne waits, without even knowing that she is waiting or that there is anything that could rekindle her hope. The comedy of this is gently sad, as the reader waits also, reflecting upon how large a part contingency plays in the matter. 极具美感的反讽在于:他尚需经历一番自我劝导,安妮却只是静静等候,甚至不曾知晓自己正在等待,亦不知尚有何事能够重燃她心中的希冀。其中蕴含的喜剧意味带着淡淡的怅然,读者同样一同等候,思索机缘在此事中占据了何其重要的分量。 ⑥ While the pre-Socratics and Freud agree that there are no accidents, Austen thinks differently. Character is fate for her also, but fate, once activated, tends to evade character in so overdetermined a social context as Austen’s world. 前苏格拉底学派与弗洛伊德都认为世间并无偶然,奥斯汀却持不同看法。于她而言,性格即是命运,可命运一旦启动,在奥斯汀笔下这个多重限定的社会环境里,往往会挣脱性格的束缚。 In rereading Persuasion, though I remember the happy conclusion, I nevertheless feel anxiety as Wentworth and Anne circle away from each other in spite of themselves. The reader is not totally persuaded of a satisfactory interview until Anne reads Wentworth’s quite agonized letter to her:   我在重读《劝导》时尽管知道它结局圆满,但是当温特沃思与安妮不由自主地彼此疏远时,我仍然心生忐忑。读者要到安妮读到温特沃思写给她那封满是煎熬的信之后,才会全然相信二人能够如愿相会: “I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. “我不能再默默听下去了。我必须用尽一切可行的方式向你倾诉。你刺穿了我的灵魂。我半是痛苦,半是希冀。不要对我说为时已晚,这份珍贵的情意已然永远消逝。 I offer myself to you again with a heart more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. 我再次向你袒露心意,此刻这颗心,较之八年半前你几乎将它击碎之时,更完完全全属于你。休要说男子比女子更容易遗忘,他的爱意消散得更早。我从未爱过旁人,唯有你。 Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan.—Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? 我或许有失公允,也曾软弱、心怀怨怼,却从未变心。是你,唯有你,引我来到巴斯。我的思虑与筹划,全都只为你一人。——你难道不曾察觉?怎会不解我的心意? —I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. ——倘若我读懂了你的心意,我本连这十日都不会等候,我原以为你定早已看穿我的心思。我几乎写不下去了。耳畔传来的每一句话,都令我心神激荡。 You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others.—Too good, too excellent creature! 你放低了声音,但我依旧能够分辨这语调,旁人或许早已无从听清。——你这般美好,这般无瑕的人儿! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in F. W. 你的确公允地看待了我们。你愿意相信男子之间亦有真挚的眷恋与不渝的坚守。请相信,这份情意炽热至诚、始终如一,属于 F.W.” “I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”  “我必须离去,不知命运将如何安排;但我定会重返此地,或是尽快追随你们一行人。只消一言,一瞥,便足以决定,我今夜能否踏入令尊宅邸,或是永不再登门。” I cannot imagine such a letter in Pride and Prejudice, or even in Emma or Mansfield Park. The perceptive reader might have realized how passionate Anne was, almost from the start of the novel, but until this there was no indication of equal passion in Wentworth. 很难想象《傲慢与偏见》,甚至《爱玛》或是《曼斯菲尔德庄园》中会出现这样一封信。心思敏锐的读者几乎从小说开篇便能察觉安妮满怀深情,然而在此之前,温特沃思身上却看不出同等炽热的情意。 His letter, as befits a naval commander, is badly written and not exactly Austenian, but it is all the more effective thereby. We come to realize that we have believed in him until now only because Anne’s love for him provokes our interest. 他这封信,契合一名海军指挥官的身份,行文质朴,并不具备典型奥斯汀式文风,却也正因如此更具感染力。我们至此方才醒悟,一直以来我们之所以愿意相信他,不过是安妮对他的深情牵动了我们的关切。 Austen wisely has declined to make him interesting enough on his own. Yet part of the book’s effect is to persuade the reader of the reader’s own powers of disccernment and self-persuasion; Anne Elliot is almost too good for the reader, as she is for Austen herself, but the attentive reader gains the confidence to perceive Anne as she should be perceived. 奥斯汀明智地未曾着力塑造一个本身就富有吸引力的温特沃思。而本书的部分阅读意义,在于令读者认清自身的辨识力与自我说服的能力;安妮·埃利奥特近乎太过美好,于读者是如此,于奥斯汀本人亦是如此,但用心的读者终将拥有信心,以本应有的视角读懂安妮。 The subtlest element in this subtlest of novels is the call upon the reader’s own power of memory to match the persistence and intensity of the yearning that Anne Elliot is too stoical to express directly. 这部极尽精微的小说中,最为精妙之处,便是唤起读者自身的记忆之力,去呼应安妮·埃利奥特那份隐忍克制、无从直白倾诉,却始终执着而浓烈的思念。 ⑦ The yearning hovers throughout the book, coloring Anne’s perceptions and our own. Our sense of Anne’s existence becomes identified with our own consciousness of lost love, however fictive or idealized that may be. 这份渴慕萦绕全书,浸染着安妮的感知,也浸染着我们的感知。我们对安妮的共情,与我们自身对于逝去爱意的体悟融为一体,无论这份体悟多么虚幻、多么理想化。 There is an improbability in the successful renewal of a relationship devastated eight years before which ought to work against the texture of this most “realistic” of Austen’s novels, but she is very careful to see that it does not. 八年前彻底破裂的情愫终能圆满重修,此事本有几分不真切,理应破坏奥斯汀这部最具“现实主义”质感小说的行文肌理,但奥斯汀悉心铺陈,避免了这一问题。 Like the author, the reader becomes persuaded to wish for Anne what she still wishes for herself. Ann Molan has the fine observation that Austen “is most satisfied with Anne when Anne is most dissatisfied with herself.” 读者与作者心意相通,一同期盼安妮终得所愿。安·莫兰曾有精妙之论:奥斯汀“最属意安妮之时,恰是安妮深自不满之际”。 The reader is carried along with Austen, and gradually Anne is also persuaded and catches up with the reader, allowing her yearning a fuller expression. 读者受奥斯汀牵引,安妮亦慢慢解开心中桎梏,与读者同频,得以更充分地袒露心底的渴慕。 Dr. Johnson, in The Rambler 29, on “The folly of anticipating misfortunes,” warned against anxious expectations of any kind, whether fearful or hopeful:   约翰逊博士在《漫步者》第二十九篇《预判不幸的愚行》中提出警示:一切急切期盼皆不可取,无论心中是惶忧不安,还是心怀乐观。 because the objects both of fear and hope are yet uncertain, so we ought not to trust the representations of one more than the other, because they are both equally fallacious; as hope enlarges happiness, fear aggravates calamity. It is generally allowed, that no man ever found the happiness of possession proportionate to that expectation which incited his desire, and invigorated his pursuit; nor has any man found the evils of life so formidable in reality, as they were described to him by his own imagination. 由于恐惧与希望所指向的事物尚不确定,我们不可偏信二者其一而生出的臆想,二者同样不足凭信;希望夸大幸福,恐惧加重灾难。世人大多认同:没有人在得偿拥有之时,感受到的喜悦能匹配那份催动欲念、支撑追寻的期许;也没有人发觉,现实中的人生磨难,会如自己想象所描摹的那般可怖。 This is one of a series of Johnsonian pronouncements against the dangerous prevalence of the imagination, some of which his disciple Austen had certainly read. If you excluded such representations, on the great critic’s advice, then Wordsworth could not have written at all, and Austen could not have written Persuasion. 这是约翰逊一系列警示想象力泛滥之害的论断之一,其追随者奥斯汀必定读过其中部分文字。倘若遵从这位大批评家的劝诫,摒弃这类臆想描摹,华兹华斯将无从落笔,奥斯汀亦写不出《劝导》。 Yet it was a very strange book for her to write, this master of the highest art of exclusion that we have known in the Western novel. Any novel by Jane Austen could be called an achieved ellipsis, with everything omitted that could disturb her ironic though happy conclusions. 然而对于这位西方小说史上,精通取舍之道这一至高写作技艺的大师而言,写下这样一部作品实属异数。简·奥斯汀的每一部小说,皆可称作完成度极高的省略笔法:凡会扰乱她带着反讽却终归圆满结局的内容,尽数摒除。 Persuasion remains the least popular of her four canonical novels because it is the strangest, but all her work is increasingly strange as we approach the end of the Democratic Age that her contemporary Wordsworth did so much to inaugurate in literature. 《劝导》是她四部经典小说中最为特别、流传也最不广泛的一部。当我们走近民主时代的尾声——这一时代,由她的同代人华兹华斯在文学领域奋力开启,她全部的作品,也愈发显得陌生。 Poised as she is at the final border of the Aristocratic Age, she shares with Wordsworth an art dependent upon a split between a waning Protestant will and a newly active sympathetic imagination, with memory assigned the labor of healing the divide. 她泰然自若地伫立在贵族时代最后的边界之上,与华兹华斯拥有共通的艺术内核:日渐衰微的新教意志与方才苏醒的共情想象彼此割裂,而记忆肩负弥合这道裂痕的使命。 If the argument of my book has any validity, Austen will survive even the bad days ahead of us, because the strangeness of originality and of an individual vision are our lasting needs, which only literature can gratify in the Theocratic Age that slouches toward us. 倘若本书论点成立,奥斯汀便能熬过前路黯淡的岁月而长存;原创与个体视野自带的疏离特质,是我们永恒的渴求,在正朝我们蹒跚而来的神权时代里,唯有文学能够成全这份渴求。 典故 slouches toward 源自叶芝《第二次降临》 The Second Coming “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” 布鲁姆此处的Theocratic Age不是狭义宗教神权,泛指:共识单一、思想管控、压制个体独立思考,以集体教条取代个人审美与思辨的时代。 深层主旨(布鲁姆核心立场) 布鲁姆悲观预判:未来社会会走向教条化、同质化(他命名为Theocratic Age),会排斥独立个体思想。 但真正的文学经典(奥斯汀)不会消亡: 人永远需要独一无二的原创视角,这种需求无法被意识形态、教条规训替代,只能依靠伟大文学实现;奥斯汀作品那种独特、异于主流的原创特质,恰好承载这份人类永恒诉求,足以穿越艰难时代。 补充上下文呼应 前文布鲁姆提出:《劝导》是奥斯汀最特别、最另类的作品;奥斯汀处在贵族时代尾声,她与华兹华斯一样,平衡克制意志与共情想象。在同质化、教条化的未来,这种珍视个体心灵的写作,会愈发珍贵。

★★★★★

对比了目前微信读书上的几个版本以后,裘因翻译的这一版是我最能读下去的(孙致礼那版看了几章实在是太抽象果断换了一本看,事实证明是明智的)。外国小说太依靠译者了,从小到大我都看不进去外国小说,看电影要比看小说更能进入故事。在看《劝导》的时候终于get到了外国小说的好看,只能说对我来说打开外国小说的方式还得是闺情小说。 《劝导》是一本很可爱的小说,二十七岁的“老姑娘”安妮生活在一个没有什么的亲情可言的穷讲究但仍显颓势的贵族家庭里,在一次社交活动中遇到了自己阔别八年的前男友。大家都到了该结婚的年纪,前男友正是找妻子来的。 故事的前半部好看在两人装不熟,当年分手是安妮因为听从了长辈的劝导提出的,前男友到现在还怨恨她,她也心怀愧疚,其实一直念念不忘,强压住内心涌动的感情,充当恋综观察室嘉宾,内心点评包括前男友在内的几位嘉宾的互动。英国的适龄青年社交文化很有意思。 后半部分则是两个人如何冲破重重误会重新在一起的过程。两个人互动真的,太好磕了。安妮和温温都是特别好的人,他们身边也有特别好的朋友。就算是公主脾气毛病多多的玛丽,在他们之中的宽容下也显得有些可爱。玛丽真是好命的丫头。 借用李清照的那句“闺情自有闺情之气象”。写爱情、写生育、写养育小孩,写闺中密友的聊天、写女孩视角下的人情世故,写女性的内心世界,女性的成长。这些都是我喜欢看并看得津津有味的东西。而作品的感染力和文学性并不弱于其他类型的作品。 简奥斯丁和张爱玲还不一样,她就是纯粹的闺情,没有任何宏大的历史叙事,就是写乡间田园琐碎的生活,她很温和,轻柔,很治愈,很可爱。还是那句,能够让你感到快乐的就是好东西。 ps:这一版本的电子版有多处错误,如编辑注意到,请及时勘误。尤其是时间和地名,存在缺字漏字的问题。

★★★★★

简奥斯汀的爱情小说核心,从来不是爱情。在家长里短间,在日常重复乏味的社交、宴会、舞会、旅行、琐事中,看似在精心调配一锅五味杂陈的爱情,其实是在小火慢炖一出人性的好戏。 安妮和温特沃思刚刚重逢的时候,吃糖吃到我心脏加速,甜的我好像是安妮本妮一样。但是随着剧情无聊的推进,直到路易莎摔倒事件发生,我把手里的糖一甩不吃了。离谱啊,离大谱了。为了凸显安妮的主角光环,其他人都像人机群演NPC,脑子是真的丁点儿都懒得用,心智是急需返厂重修。我恍惚以为看的是一部大女主翻身爽剧,其他人物扁平到A像B,B像C,感觉A是A,B是B,C是C其实也没有什么大分别,不过换个马甲和名字。就像和鸭鸭说的那样,感觉可以给这本书换个名字叫作《白雪公主和七个小丑》。人人皆小丑,肤浅势利虚荣自以为是,只有安妮善良温柔体贴平和理智冷静。这样看故事还有什么意思?不好玩。 但是,(众所周知,“但是”两个字后面才是重点)随着剧情的铺展,核心人物的灵魂和性格特点才慢慢显露出来,就像初见的一幅灰白素画,渐渐生出自己的血肉和光彩。安妮的爸爸和姐姐,不提了,直接送四医院去治疗;安妮的妹妹玛丽看起来敏感爱闹,不过是因为年纪尚幼妈妈就离开,大姐有爸爸宠,二姐有教母爱,只有自己一无所有,只能努力嚷啊叫啊闹啊吸引他人的关爱和注意,这是一个小女孩为了得到爱扭曲的表现;拉塞尔夫人,“她爱安妮胜过爱自己的才能,她的首要目标就是要看到安妮得到幸福。”真的泪目了。谁能明白这句话的含金量?一代人有一代人的三观和思维方式,可是为了爱,自己的原则和评判可以放在一边,这就是拉塞尔夫人;最后要说一下我们的主角,温特沃思上校,八年后的重逢,爱冲破了偏见与伤害,像一艘重新启航的船舶,果敢坚定不疑其他向着安妮的心疾速而来。并且在史密斯太太的事情上,“他以一个无所畏惧的坚定朋友的奔走和努力,为她写信,为她四处奔走,帮她闯过一道道具体而琐碎的难关。” 这一切,他值得拥有那么好的安妮。

★★★★★

我曾经以为奥斯汀只是英国文学史上一个二流的作者,后来才知道她的伟大能和莎士比亚、狄更斯和乔伊斯比肩;如果要写一部最简短的英国文学史,也许有这四人就足够了。 《劝导》流露出一种成熟的人情世故感,对心理的着墨极少,但是透过行动和语言,我们能看到人物的种种曲肠。它也有甜美温馨的爱情,不过作用更接近于银线,穿起生活的百态。不过,这种冷静的洞察、这种平实而戏谑的笔调,并没有损害作者对生活的柔情。“平衡”与“适度”既是作者的美学追求,也是她的人生观念,像古典主义音乐。 也许奥斯汀笔下的爱情都够不上标准的浪漫,更多是温馨。在美好的爱情里,财富、社会地位和周边人的期待都占据了重要的考量。主人公很少被激情支配。这在种种浮夸的浪漫文学里也不失为一种新鲜的体验。 该译本和孙致礼译本都不尽理想。孙译本的语言过于口语和俚俗,跟小说的风格不够协调;有时虽然翻译出了字面意思,却没能强调出言外之意。好处是作者的英语功力稳健,错讹少,而且熟悉文化知识,提供了很有价值的注释。本书是裘因译本,语言平实,接近直译但并不生硬,而且通常能传达出作者的话外之音,所以在风格上是无可指摘的。但是常有错译的句子,而许多费解的地方缺乏及时的注释。如果有读不通的地方,可以参考孙译本。 补记:我才发现汪燕是一个很优秀的译者,起码很合我的口味。她的《劝导》想来也不错。

★★★★★

奥斯汀所有作品完结打卡☺️✌️撒花✧٩(ˊωˋ*)و✧ 几乎是读到这最后一部才对奥斯汀写的所有关于爱情和婚姻主题的作品其实最最不重要的就是爱情和婚姻有了清晰的认识。很多观点奥斯汀借助人物之口来表达,很多观点通过他们的阶层地位和行为来传达。破镜重圆固然美丽,比起《理智与情感》以及《傲慢与偏见》这样的作品来看,确实显得没有那么跌宕起伏,更有一种中年人的心境。不是真的从一而终,也不是误信了他人的谗言,而是最后两害相权取其轻罢了。人性的反转总比爱情和波折更加有趣。我的心境也变了很多。 总之最后还是小甜水(误)不能要求更多了。 温特沃斯那封表白情书的确让人印象深刻,真好啊! “你刺伤了我的心。我又伤心,又企望。请别对我说为时太晚,也别说这种珍贵的感情已一去不复返了。我再次将我自己奉献给你,比起八年半前几乎被你撕碎的心,现在我的心更属于你。你不能说,男人比女人健忘,也不能说男人的爱情消亡得更早。我一直只爱着你。” “善良,你出类拔萃!你的确能公正地对待男人。你的确相信有的男人也有忠贞不渝的爱情。那就请相信,我就具有这种最热诚,最坚贞不渝的爱情。” 不过这不是男性的情书,是简奥斯汀写出来的情书 hhhh

★★★★★

《劝导》是简·奥斯丁一生创作中最后完整的小说。这是在她去世一年以后与《诺桑觉寺》一起,由她的哥哥整理出版的。其作品的风格和笔锋依然是与《傲慢与偏见》、《理智与情感》一样的精彩,人物形象的描写十分生动细腻且轻松幽默,内心深处的发声又是那么的真实。她善用的反讽手法,在她的作品中喜剧性十分突出。而她的作品最大的特点就是环境与主人公的相似性。这一特点的主要原因是由于简.奥斯丁她本身生活十分简单。 记得曾经观看的电影《简·奥斯丁的遗憾》是 由杰瑞米·洛夫林执导,伊莫珍·波茨、奥莉维亚·威廉姆斯、格列塔·斯卡奇主演的剧情片。影片根据简·奥斯丁的一生的经历,并且探寻了她的生活状态和内心世界,感受这位伟大女性作家的魅力。影片讲述了即将步入40岁之际的简.奥斯丁。她的侄女范妮·奈特在爱情和选择夫婿的事情上,请这位写过多部爱情小说的姑妈做参谋。一方面简要范妮坚持婚姻关系中爱情是不可缺少的地位,一方面长期拮据的生活又让她深知缺乏经济基础的爱情是不会有善果。而简这些矛盾的态度也令范妮迷惘。简年轻时也曾有过这种矛盾心理、她也有过真心相爱的人,可最后仍因经济原因各奔东西。而对真实爱情的崇拜又让她拒绝了富裕绅士的求婚。 最后简背负着家庭的负累,只有选择了单身生活,她将封闭起来的爱情化作一股炽热的情感融入自己的创作中。选择一种看似自由自在的生活,到底她有没有后悔过,这部《简.奥斯丁的遗憾》间接的告诉了我们。 该片以诉述的形式,走进她鲜为人知内心世界。遗憾并不意味生活的下沉,只是另一种选择的可能性,是镜子的两面。即使是未曾经历过的生活,也能依靠卓绝的想象力把细节描绘得栩栩如生,甚至胜过现实,因为现实的真实往往流于平庸。不能说终身未嫁成就了奥斯丁,也不能说奥斯丁笔下的那个时代抓住了她。上帝不是无原则地给予天赋,但有这天赋也就够了…… 《劝导》感觉就是简.奥斯丁,给予自己人生和婚姻的向往最圆满的结局。毫不夸张的讲,从电影和她最后的作品中读到了,简.奥斯丁肯定有过后悔。因为她追求真爱又深知不能让爱情陷入经济的囹圄,所以她宁可选择一人自由,可是自由无法缓解内心中的空虚与寂寞,尤其是她这样一位内心细腻向往美好爱且也曾遇到过真爱的人。所以她那个时期写下的《曼斯菲尔德庄园》《爱玛》和《劝导》,都是作者迁居乔顿以后所作。 《劝导》小说女主人公安妮·艾略特出生于没落的上流社会的家庭。她母亲早逝,父亲和姐姐对她漠不关心,没有把她放在眼里。她一直过着十分孤寂的生活。十九岁那年,她遇到一位海军军官温特沃思,两人一见钟情并私订终身。可是家人和朋友都反对这门亲事,认为对方既没有丰厚的家产,又没有显赫的亲属,因而与安妮毫不般配。安妮也担心,如果婚后生活没有保障,结婚就可能给对方带来不利。为谨慎起见,她改变了初衷。温特沃思上校因此愤然离去。在后来漫长的岁月中,安妮一直无法忘情于他,并拒绝了一位年轻乡绅的求爱,继续过着孤独的处女生活。青春和美貌过早地开始消逝,待到八年后再次遇见温特沃思上校时,安妮已经今非昔比,对方却依然一表人才。不仅如此,他还积攒了一笔钱财,变得相当富有。他一心想结婚成家,但又不能冰释对安妮的怨恨,因此开始追求安妮妹夫的妹妹。在此期间他与当时正在妹妹家的安妮不免常有接触。在交往中,温特沃思上校进一步发现安妮无私、坚定的优良品质,重又萌发了对安妮的感情。小说最后是以有情人终成眷属作为圆满的结局。 同奥斯丁的其他著作一样,《劝导》主要描写那个时代的中产阶级的生活。作者以细腻的笔触反映了那个阶层人们生活的方方面面,也以幽默和讽刺的笔调对中产阶级的虚伪和势利进行了无情的鞭挞。 书中的沃尔特爵士是一位门第观念十分强烈的没落阶级的代表。他对落魄的史密斯太太和达尔林普尔子爵夫人采取了截然不同的态度。 他坚决反对女儿安妮与史密斯太太的交往。“西门客栈!”他说,“安妮·艾略特小姐到西门客栈去访问谁呀?——一个叫史密斯太太的寡妇。她丈夫是谁?……她有什么吸引人的地方?又老又病。——说真的,安妮·艾略特小姐,你的爱好非常特别!别人厌恶地位低贱的朋友、劣等的房间、恶臭的空气、令人讨厌的关系,这些对你倒颇有吸引力。” 可是在达尔林普尔子爵夫人母女面前,沃尔特爵士却是那么卑躬屈膝,阿谀逢迎。为了谒见这位远亲,他费尽了心机。在子爵夫人回访以后,他“又把子爵遗孀和尊敬的卡特雷特小姐的名片放在最显眼的地方,逢人便谈‘我们在劳拉广场的表亲’,‘我们的表亲达尔林普尔夫人和卡特雷特小姐’”。另一方面,作家在书中又深刻地揭示了所谓微不足道的小人物与地位显赫的人们之间在精神面貌和道德观上的反差。沃尔特爵士是位从男爵。在他的眼中,温特沃思并非名门出身,没有家产和显赫的亲戚,是个微不足道的小人物,因而坚决反对安妮与他的婚约。可是那位海军军官在服务多年后获得了升迁,积攒了一笔钱财。沃尔特爵士本人却终日无所事事,只知道挥霍享乐,最后坐吃山空,债台高筑,不得不搬出祖上留下的庄园,勉强维持着虚假的面子。 在沃尔特爵士看来,他的亲生女儿安妮也是个微不足道的小人物,因为她长得不像他,又不会吹牛拍马,趋炎附势。她在家中的地位还不如一位食客。可是安妮不仅为人正直善良,而且颇有见地,“真正明白事理的人……都很尊重她”。婚姻是社会生活中的大事,对奥斯丁时代的妇女来说,婚姻更是赖以生存的手段。因此,奥斯丁的作品中,不同情操的人物围绕婚姻问题作了形形色色的表演。 在这部小说中,作者花了相当多的笔墨赞扬了英帝国的支柱——海军。安妮在一开始就指出,“海军为我们做出过很大贡献”。另一位姑娘更是大谈对海军军人的性格的钦佩和喜爱,认为“水手的品德和热情超过英国其他任何阶层人士,只有他们才懂得如何生活,才值得人们尊敬和爱慕”。 奥斯丁的这些描述反映出她对战争的折衷主义观点:一方面,她认为战争能促使古老的英国社会发生变化,冲击一些陈旧的观念。书中那位势利的沃尔特爵士就感到了这种新兴力量的冲击。他说,“出身微贱的人可以因此获得很高的地位,获得他们先辈不敢梦想的荣誉。”另一方面,作者也看到战争给人们生活留下的阴影以及给阵亡士兵的家人造成的痛苦。 这部小说所塑造的安妮·艾略特这个人物在奥斯丁的创作中具有特殊地位。评论家们认为,安妮·艾略特即使不是奥斯丁作品中最惹人喜爱的女子,至少也是一位品德最高尚的人物。奥斯丁本人在1817年3月13日给一位友人的信中谈到安妮时曾说过,“你也许会喜爱那位女主人公的。在我看来,她几乎是一个完美的女性。”事实上,安妮确实是一位正直、无私、乐于助人、对爱情坚贞不渝的女性。 在《劝导》中,奥斯丁也改变了创作思想并有了新的高度。她那一向比较保守的观点有了进一步的发展。如果说简.奥斯丁在她的第一部小说《理智与情感》中强调理智应该战胜情感,认为只有在这种情况下人们才能获得幸福,那么,在她这最后一部小说中,奥斯丁却用较长的篇幅描述了“谨慎”给女主人公安妮带来多年的痛苦。她希望年轻人“充满信心,展望未来,而不要过分忧虑和谨慎”。安妮“年轻的时候,不得不谨小慎微,年长以后才懂得什么是浪漫——这是畸形的开端所造成的必然后果”。可是,在中世纪和文艺复兴时期,“谨慎”一直被人们认为是成功地处理个人生活的诀窍。奥斯丁在早些时候的作品中也一再告诫人们要谨慎行事。因此,《劝导》肯定人物性格从谨慎到浪漫的演变,无疑反映了奥斯丁本人从思想感情上出现了超越了情感的一些释放! 人生最遗憾的,莫过于轻易地放弃了不该放弃的,固执地坚持了不该坚持的。你以为小鸟飞不过沧海,是因为小鸟没有飞过沧海的勇气,多年以后你才发现,不是小鸟飞不过去,而是沧海的那一头,早已没有了等待。 面对爱情,简·奥斯丁选择了独身。青春已逝,岁月不在,尽管在简·奥斯丁的笔下塑造很多美丽大方的女性,她们最终都收获美好的爱情,但是现实中的她却终身未嫁,独赏烟花飞满天。 在简.奥斯丁生活的那个时代,发生了美国独立战争、法国革命、英法战争等重大事件。她经历了当时英国社会的变革,但她终生居住在乡间小镇,没有受过多少正规教育,她的小说对这一切没有直接的反映。她自己曾说过,“我觉得,我可以坦诚地说……世上敢于当女作家的人中间,我是最没有学问、最无知识的一个。”“我要描写的不过是乡村中的点点星星几户人家。” 总的看来,简·奥斯丁作品的题材范畴似乎不太广泛和博大,没有极端的贫富悬殊,没有激烈的对抗和争斗,也没有强烈的激情。她的一些作品中甚至很少有关自然景物的描写。作品大多涉及家庭、婚姻和伦理问题。但事实上,她对当时的社会现象和人民生活,对历次战争和英国社会出现的某些变化,是非常了解的。这些方面在她的每部小说中也都有所反映。而对于情感方面只有在她的小说中去寻找了!

★★★★★

这是安妮的故事,是凯瑟琳的故事,是她的故事,是女性的故事。 只看简介我一直以为简奥斯汀是写爱情故事的,就像我没看张爱玲之前对她也是这样的误解。读完发现实际上简奥斯汀是在书写女性,甚至我想猜测一下她也许只是用爱情这个永不过时的广告当个幌子吸引更多人来读到这些内容。 这本书讲述了安妮在他人的劝导下,和当时没钱没势的恋人温特沃斯分手。八年后两人再次相遇,看似各有自己的情路,温特沃斯去追求路易莎,安妮被艾略特先生追求,但实则双方内心都放不下彼此,在经历一些事情后终于看清自己的内心,最后终成眷属。 看完这个故事深感物质基础的重要性,八年后的温特沃斯上校已经变成了有钱人,虽然女主并不是看重物质的人,但如果男主八年后是个穷困潦倒的人,想必在一起不会那么容易(也不一定非在一起)。正如书中所说“劝告好坏与否,要由事态发展来决定”。还有这段“我听取她的劝告,是正确的;如果我不这样做,那么维持婚约给我带来的痛苦会比取消婚约更严重,因为我会受到良心责备。如果我们承认,在人的身上存在着这么一种感情,那我就没有什么可谴责自己的。如果我的看法没有错,那么强烈的责任感并不是女人的缺点。”也让我有所启发,对于一些选择,过后总会有后悔的情况发生,当初如果怎样就好了。但当下的选择如果不那样做,心灵上会收到煎熬,那就做当下自己认为正确的选择就好了,不必谴责自己。 书中一些识人的方法也是经验之谈,比如艾略特那种没有人讨厌他,看似所有人都觉得他人不错,其实深藏爆雷,因为这类型的人往往城府极深,虚伪不够真诚。 关于与亲戚的交往描述“安妮一直认为,这种交往方式极不妥当,但她早就不想改变这一切了;因为她知道,尽管双方不断有使人不快之举,但现在不这样也不行了。”也让我觉得简奥斯汀是我的嘴替。 关于与他人想法不同而产生争论,这段也说的很好“这种意见分歧,是无法说清楚的。我们两人的出发点大概都有些偏爱各自的同类,并在这种偏爱的基础上寻找发生在我们圈子内的事情来说明自己的正确。要是不泄露别人的秘密或者不说些不该说的话,有许多情况,也许恰恰是那些最引人注目的事情,是无法说的。”意见分歧是正常的,允许不同的声音,不强加给对方自己认为的正确,也在坚持自我思想的同时可以做到多倾听各种声音,不断思辨与成长就好。 还有这段让我想到《抑制女性写作》“请你不要从书本中找例子了。男人在叙述他们的奇闻轶事方面比我们强多了。他们受的教育比我们多,笔杆子握在他们手里。我认为书本并不能说明任何问题。”简奥斯汀在那个年代就有这样的表达,思想好超前,可以写出这些好难得。 在读完简奥斯汀两本书后,发觉她在塑造女性主角的时候都很立体,一想到每本的女主都会立刻从脑海里浮现她们的特质、性格、事件。但读她书发现想不起男主,有他没他无所谓,他可以是任何他,也许是皮特也许是马克,这不重要。甚至这本里的男主给我留下的印象还没有他写的那封信令人印象深刻哈哈。能给我留下这样印象,我觉得她的写法上对人物的侧重、故事的布局很有趣。男主既不是边缘人也不是工具人,但他是女主世界里的npc,他只是来帮她完成她人生故事线的一环,并没有多重要,有没有他女主都会很好(大部分时候看关于爱情的故事,男女主往往都会留下差不多相等的主要印象,甚至有些会抢走女主的戏份留下更深的印象),书中更加侧重去细腻的描绘女主的心理与成长,但不让人觉得细碎冗长,也不会因此耽误故事情节的发展,一切融合的恰到好处。因为这是安妮的故事,是凯瑟琳的故事,是她的故事,是女性的故事。 她的书还给我一种淡淡的感觉,没有高潮迭起的狗血故事,只是一段女性经历,也许你会从中读出共鸣,读出感悟。一切淡淡的开始了,淡淡的结束了,有种电影慢慢淡入,慢慢淡出的画面感,回味悠长。

★★★★★

我看过的,最可爱最通情达理最有趣最跌宕起伏的破镜重圆,给百年之前的简奥斯汀跪下了。 安妮不愧是简奥斯汀晚期塑造的最讨人喜欢完美的女主角,她富有同理心同时能辩证思考,不盲目看表面也不固执己见,我几乎可以认为她就是我心目中简奥斯汀本人的化身。 她对痛苦的阐述:一个人不会因为在某个地方有过痛苦的经历而减弱对那里的热爱,除非那里只有痛苦,除了痛苦以外一无所有——不否认痛苦,也不因为痛苦无视其他真实与快乐,是多么厉害,是我活了三十五年还在修炼的自洽。 最有意思的是,从我的角度并没有觉得最开始拉塞尔夫人对安妮的劝导有问题,特别是在那个年代,女人没有继承权,当时的温特沃斯确实不是一个特别好的选择,谁能知道他未来一定成功呢;但从另一个方面来说,安妮所处的位置,没落没钱贵族家不受宠的二女儿,其实要想嫁的好确实也只能进行一场豪赌。 谢谢简为那些在正确时间做出理性选择、 却因此失去某种可能性的人写下这样并不保证发生的祝福。 这就是文学的意义吧。

★★★★★

喜欢!喜欢! 延续了简奥斯汀的一贯特色,在最后5%才会疯狂撒糖,然后狂拉进度条。 说实话这本和《诺桑觉寺》前半部分都读的人昏昏欲睡,冗长的对话和心理描写以及无聊的交际确实能劝退很多人。但要是怀着耐心的心情从字里行间抠出男女主之间的互动,还是挺有意思的。 路易莎摔跤的情节我也不大喜欢,众人的反应有点OOC,尤其是男主。 简奥斯汀真是冷眼看人间的大师,写言情的过程中不忘道破感情的真相:再纯粹的感情也掺杂利益比较,再真挚的爱情也必须建立在物质基础上,以及男女主都不是完美的,都像活人一样有明显的缺陷。 论爱女简奥斯汀是真的爱,舍不得笔下的女主角有一点不好的结局。 不算未完成的遗作,《劝导》算是简奥斯汀最后一本小说,相较于《傲慢与偏见》《爱玛》,文风、技巧成熟许多,思想及见地也更为辛辣理智。

★★★★☆

看奥斯汀的书不会有意外,反倒给人很安心的感觉。头脑好使的姑娘总会得到作者的眷顾,在经历困惑彷徨后总能嫁给如意郎君。虽然她的书基本都是这个套路,但还是百看不腻,大概是喜欢这个女人的睿智和猝不及防的小讽刺吧。在一个接一个的聚会间偷窥男女主的暗送秋波和互相猜忌也是一件令人身心愉悦的事情,主要是能满足八卦的小心情,然后男女主到最后一定会互诉衷肠,来应证之前的各种小情绪都不是空穴来风,然后撒一波甜甜的狗粮,真的,这狗粮是甜的,不酸。这大概就是奥斯汀的功力了。在平平淡淡甚至是琐琐碎碎的日常中,发掘了甜蜜蜜。这本书的主题就是书名—劝导。女主在接受了好友兼长辈的劝导下,远离了情谊想通的男主,时隔七年后再次相遇,男未娶女未嫁,两人再次爱上对方,但是由于第一次分手的原因仍存在着,让男主有点裹足不前的不敢再爱,最终在实在没有办法忍受不能相爱的事实中,勇敢的表白女主,并且两人成功说服了当年的劝导者,如愿的在一起了。好希望生活也可以这么简单美好,最打动我的地方就是,不得不爱,宿命般兜兜转转还可以在一起的爱情。就是,I  can't stand the idea of not meeting you.虽然被现实打肿了脸,但依然不影响我贪婪汲取着浪漫爱情故事的营养,特别是在明白了现实也只不过是现实的道理后。

书籍信息

作者简·奥斯丁
译者裘因
出版社上海译文出版社
出版时间2008-04-01
ISBN9787532744299
分类文学-外国文学
格式EPUB
完结状态连载中
章节数30