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2010-04-30, 10:39 PM
The Wisdom Of Paul Auster
過去四年我讀得最勤的作家，是Paul Auster。
甚至可以說，幾乎只讀他的作品。這當然是不尋常的，畢竟聽音樂、看電影或讀書這些事就像吃東西，太專注某特定領域（或口味），久了一定會膩。可Auster卻讓我久讀不膩，每次翻開都有無窮樂趣，尤其紐約三部曲（The New York Trilogy）和月宮（Moon Palace）這兩本，已進入第N次閱讀，每隔幾段還是會讓我在心裡「哇」的一聲。
Auster讀的是紐約哥倫比亞大學，自80年代定居於布魯克林的Park Slope，書中場景總繞著紐約打轉，對我來說有額外的吸引力。不過即使扣掉地域因素，也就是說那些紐約地名和街道對你並無特殊意義，Auster的魅力不會有絲毫折扣，他筆下的情節又奇又險，詭譎難測，字用得重，卻同時富有幽默感。
由於書中主角多半也是寫字的人，每當Auster描述與文字創作相關的情境，或他對於文字創作這件事的觀察，我都感覺像命中紅心那樣精準。然而我最著迷的是他用第一人稱書寫時導引出的內心交戰狀態，簡單說就是主角的「內心戲」。往往一段裡的每一個句子都在推翻前一個句子營造出的概念、推測或假說，然後以最後一個句子得出一個讀者也認同「嗯，真的是這樣」的結論。
隨即立刻用下一段來推翻這個結論，如此循環不已，交相詰問。
讀Auster的書頭腦需保持清醒，遇到昏沈的狀況乾脆留到明天再讀。以我現在這種不知幸還是不幸的狀態（大概一半一半），聽音樂、看電影或讀書已經很難只是單純地享受它，享受之外還會下意識地去分析、去拆解，所以我讀書的速度始終不是太快，尤其好書更是越讀越慢，會忍不住去研究文章的結構，這麼好的句子是怎麼寫出來的，及最重要的，那種駕馭情境的能力。
三年前在紐約參加Auster的簽書會，他的女兒Sophie也在現場演唱。我用紐約三部曲的原文版給他簽名，人排得多，簽得頗潦草，基本上是自己也可以簽得很像那種程度，但無論如何還是比Interpol簽名好多了。
有原文版可以對照，也發現中譯版的一些錯誤。有趣的是月宮和紐約三部曲的譯者並不同，卻出現一個「異曲同工之妙」的失誤。月宮裡提到的Mets是紐約大都會隊（Auster和Yo La Tengo都是死忠的大都會球迷），中譯卻譯成梅滋隊；紐約三部曲提到的Met應該是大都會歌劇院，中譯成梅特劇院。都不影響情節發展，不過若能精確當然更好。
一個比較顯著的失誤發生在紐約三部曲的第三篇禁鎖的房間（The Locked Room），原文是「As I came into her the second time.」中譯成「我第二次來找她的時候。」可當下的情境是男女躺在床上做愛，即使刻意不要翻得太寫實，這個中譯也有失準頭。
附上一些我喜歡的句子，及Auster和王穎合導的Smoke片尾，用的是Tom Waits的Innocent When You Dream；影片最終Harvey Keitel和William Hurt互相對望，兩人臉部表情的變化真是無價。至於Smoke的另類續集Blue In The Face，雖然劇情鬆散，能看到Lou Reed、Madonna和Jarmusch搞笑，實已夠本。
"Writing is no longer an act of free will for me, it's a matter of survival."
"Solitude became a passageway into the self, an instrument of discovery."
"That's what you finally learn from life: how strange it is. You can't keep up with what happens. You can't even imagine it."
"Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them. Experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them."
"Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when he's there, he's not really there."
"In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose."
"I am not talking about desire so much as knowledge, the discovery that two people, through desire, can create a thing more powerful than either of them can create alone. This knowledge changed me, I think, and actually made me feel more human."
"What it means when a writer puts his name on a book, why some writers choose to hide behind a pseudonym, whether or not a writer has a real life anyway. It struck me that writing under another name might be something I would enjoy - to invent a secret identity for myself - and I wondered why I found this idea so attractive."
"Only darkness has the power to make a man open his heart to the world, and darkness is what surrounds me whenever I think of what happened. If courage is needed to write about it, I also know that writing about it is the one chance I have to escape. But I doubt that will happen, not even if I manage to tell the truth. Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out. My only hope is that there is an end to what I am about to say, that somewhere I will find a break in the darkness. This hope is what I define as courage, but whether there is reason to hope is another question entirely."
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Auster也是我幾乎會收集齊的作家，Lawrence Block的雅賊與私家偵探系列這幾年也不知不覺地多收了好幾本。
同是紐約在地的爵士樂作曲家兼樂手Jeff Gardner有出一張The Music of Chance的演奏專輯，曲目內容就是Auster的小說。值得一聽。
Don DeLillo或許是長住紐約的作家裡最受普遍讚譽的，好像作品大多都根植於NYC，國內翻譯好像只出一本白噪音(雖跟紐約沒關但也是最有名的一本)。
由 dionysoslin 發表於 May 4, 2010 1:06 PM
to dionysoslin,
喔，趕緊找The Music Of Chance來聽！
Don DeLillo生涯早期有一本Great Jones Street，主角是一名住在Great Jones Street的搖滾明星。
你對Great Jones Street應該很有印象啦，就在Other Music南邊幾個blocks...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Jones_Street_(novel)
由 pulp 發表於 May 4, 2010 4:54 PM
我有跟你提過Lawrence Block的小城(Small Town)嗎? 跟Auster的Brooklyn Follies同樣的是描述911前後紐約客心理狀態的好作品。現在處理Post-911 trauma的文學數量不多，或者說已被引進到國內好像還不多喔。
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artistic_depictions_of_September_11_and_its_aftermath
必須坦承我有閱讀英文小說的障礙，這也讓我少接觸到很多沒被翻譯成(繁體)中文的好作品。教科書或工具書原文的還OK，但文學作品我很容易會一直在某個段落不停打轉。我打從高中不自量力地挑戰Edith Wharton純真年代後，到現在都還提不起勁再買原文小說來讀哩。
由 dionysoslin 發表於 May 5, 2010 12:03 PM
to dionysoslin,
我目前看過最震撼的Post-911相關作品是Spike Lee的電影25th Hour，你看過嗎？
其中一段Edward Norton狠狠罵了各式各樣的紐約客，然後最後罵自己，那種力量真的會讓人從沙發上彈起來。結尾也超棒。
由 pulp 發表於 May 5, 2010 5:53 PM
