喬伊斯:Love Loves to Love Love
Dedicated to
Shirley
英院三樓走廊的名人名言里,我對喬伊斯的這一句love loves to love love最感興趣。因為他這個人會很皮很有趣。往小了說他的標點符號會break away from tradition:用破折號代替雙引號來表示對話;往大了說他主動追求流放,身在異鄉卻比任何一個愛爾蘭人都更加愛爾蘭:他聲稱就算有一天都柏林突然從世界上消失,後人也能通過《尤利西斯》來複原。
事實上,他的確有資本自命不凡。我們上高中的時候他已經把愛爾蘭國內能拿的獎都拿遍了;我們上大學的時候他已經寫出了傳統意義上登峰造極的短篇小說集《都柏林人》;我們在為二外發愁的時候,喬伊斯已經能夠用59種語言無間斷玩梗了。
↑據考證,喬伊斯寫《芬尼根的守靈夜》時用到的語言。
《芬尼根的守靈夜》,上海人民出版社,2013
但這意味著讀喬伊斯很困難嗎?Not necessarily. 他筆下的主題永遠是mundanity, 用我的話講就是,daily sh*t。很難想像喬伊斯的小說里充滿了瑣碎的日常生活:小學生翹課去看運河邊上的鴿舍(Dubliners, An Encounter),小學生為暗戀的女孩買禮物(Dubliners, Araby),小學生聽兩個寡婦談論一位剛去世的神父(Dubliners, The Sisters),事業受挫的爸爸把氣撒在小孩身上(Dubliners, A Little Cloud),事業有成的男主發現妻子最愛的的是年輕時給她唱情歌但後來得肺病死掉的小男生(Dubliners, Death),窩囊廢丈夫每天都泡酒吧因為他知道妻子在和別人偷情(Ulysses),風流妻子看著丈夫酣睡的模樣翻然悔悟想起他對她的種種好來(Ulysses)……一言以蔽之,都是日常瑣事,daily sh*t
所以,期待在喬伊斯的作品中看到史詩級復仇/巨額寶藏/霸道總裁愛上我/驚天大逆轉/屌絲逆襲/蝙蝠俠大戰三體人/超人拯救世界的可能要失望了。真正驚到我的是,我總能在喬伊斯描繪出的瑣碎的世界中,找到那些我曾經歷過的,正在經歷的,以及那些我未曾經歷過的體驗。 用他的話來說就是:
I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
--James Joyce
當《一個青年藝術家的畫像》中的小男主實在受不了絮絮叨叨絮絮叨叨絮絮叨叨的禱告之後,他逃出無聊沉悶的教會學校,來到海灘上散步。在這裡,他遇見美的啟蒙——一個漂亮的女孩子:
Heavenly God! cried Stephen"s soul, in an outburst of profane joy.
He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling.On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singingwildly to the sea,crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.
Her image had passed into his soul forever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy.Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call.To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant ofecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.On and on and on and on!(James Joyce,A Portairt of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 4)
↑ Dollymound Strand, Dublin, Ireland
相傳主人公Stephen在這裡遇到那個美麗的女孩
當小男主決定和死水一潭的社會環境決裂,追求自己當藝術家的夢想的時候,喬伊斯是這麼寫的:
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do.I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use —silence, exile and cunning.(James Joyce,A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man, chapter 5)
↑ 看來不是所有人都hold的住這樣的眼鏡
回到開頭說的love loves to love love。喬伊斯能用30萬的辭彙量復刻都柏林,他也能用2個單詞表達他對生活的理解:
—But it』s no use, says he.Force, hatred, history, all that. That』s not life
for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it』s the
very opposite of that that is really life.
—What? says Alf.
—Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says
he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there.
If he comes just say I』ll be back in a second. Just a moment.
Who』s hindering you? And off he popslike greased lightning.
—A new apostle to the gentiles, says thecitizen. Universal love.
—Well, says John Wyse. Isn』t that what we』retold? Love your
neighbours.
—That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,
Moya! He』s a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.
Love loves to love love. Nurse lovesthe new chemist. Constable 14 A loves
Mary Kelly. Gerty Mac Dowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves
a fair genteman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant,
loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old
Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh
loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen.
Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor.You love a certain person. And
this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.(James Joyce,Ulysses, chapter 12)
說實話,我並不是很理解,但我必須耐心,但正如里爾克所說:
And the point is, to live everything.Live the questions now.Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.(Rilke,Letters to A Young Poet, Letter Four)
會為喬伊斯感到可惜,因為他的遺言是:
Does Nobody Understand?
--James Joyce, 1941


TAG:aleks |