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Culture
文藝版塊
Book review
書評
Haruki Murakami’s fiction
村上春樹的小說
Strange and familiar places
陌生而又熟悉的地方
The City and Its Uncertain Walls. By Haruki Murakami. Translated by Philip Gabriel.
《城市及其不確定的墻》，村上春樹著，菲利普·加布里埃爾譯。
Philip Roth never really left New Jersey.
菲利普·羅斯從未真正離開過新澤西。
Saul Bellow could not keep his characters out of Chicago.
索爾·貝婁無法讓他筆下的人物離開芝加哥。
And Haruki Murakami’s narrators—unmarried, often middle-aged men with solitary habits—continually slip into eerie netherworlds.
而村上春樹筆下的敘述者——未婚、通常喜歡獨來獨往的中年男子——則不斷滑入神秘的異世界。
The alternative realm in the Japanese writer’s latest novel is the same one in which the narrator was marooned at the end of “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” (1985).
這位日本作家最新小說中的另類世界就是《世界盡頭與冷酷仙境》（1985年）結尾處敘述者被困的那個世界。
It is a town surrounded by an impregnable wall and governed by an inscrutable, imposing Gatekeeper.
這是一個被堅不可摧的城墻所圍繞的城市，由一個神秘莫測、令人生畏的看門人把守著。
In “Hard-Boiled Wonderland” this locale—where the nameless narrator reads “old dreams” from unicorn skulls in a library—was part of the narrator’s subconscious.
在《世界盡頭與冷酷仙境》中，這個地方——無名敘述者在此處圖書館里從獨角獸的頭骨中解讀“舊日的夢”——是敘述者潛意識的一部分。
It was a place he had created in his own mind.
這是他在自己腦海中創(chuàng)造的地方。
In “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” characters find their way into that world.
在《城市及其不確定的墻》中，人物們找到了進入這個世界的方法。
As a teenager, this narrator falls in love with a girl whose “real self” is in the alternative world; she vanishes; he matures, and one day he falls into a hole and wakes up in the other place.
敘述者在青少年時期愛上了一個女孩，她的“真實自我”在異世界，后來她消失了，他成熟了，有一天他掉進一個洞里，然后在另一個地方醒來。
For the rest of the book the narrator flits between the two realms.
在書的其余部分，敘述者在兩個世界之間穿梭。
Mr Murakami links the novels throughout.
村上先生將兩部小說貫穿了起來。
(Both Raymond Chandler’s detective fiction and Jorge Luis Borges’s fantastical prose experiments seem to be influences.)
（雷蒙德·錢德勒的偵探小說和豪爾赫·路易斯·博爾赫斯的奇幻散文實驗似乎都對村上先生產(chǎn)生了影響。）
In an afterword he writes that the tales stem from the same novella, “The City, and Its Uncertain Walls” (1980), and that the two novels are complementary.
在后記中他寫道，這兩個故事都源于同一部中篇小說《城市及其不確定的城墻》（1980年），而且這兩部小說是互補的。（注：1980年發(fā)表的中篇小說與新小說同名，是新小說的基礎。）
What distinguishes them is tone.
二者的區(qū)別在于語調(diào)。
“Hard-Boiled Wonderland” is a propulsive page-turner.
《世界盡頭與冷酷仙境》情節(jié)不斷推進，吸引人一頁接一頁地讀下去。
“The City and Its Uncertain Walls” is more meditative: the work of an older author confident that he has earned readers’ attention over his long career.
《城市及其不確定的墻》則更具沉思性：作家在年歲增長后寫下了這部作品，此時他相信自己在漫長的寫作生涯中已贏得了讀者的關注。
The novelist is 75; this is his first new novel in six years (and it is not entirely new).
這位小說家今年75歲了，這是他六年來的第一部新小說（而且并不完全算新作）。
If this is Mr Murakami’s last work, how will he be remembered?
如果這是村上春樹的最后一部作品，人們會如何記住他呢？
He is best known for his mordant surrealism.
他以尖刻幽默的超現(xiàn)實主義而聞名。
But the flights of fancy work only because they are grounded in a detailed reality.
但這些奇幻想象之所以奏效，是因為它們基于充滿細節(jié)的現(xiàn)實世界。
The archetypal Murakami protagonist is an observer.
村上春樹小說的典型主人公是觀察者。
Stories happen to them: they rarely instigate conflict or set out looking for adventure without being prodded.
故事發(fā)生在他們身上：他們很少挑起沖突，也很少自發(fā)地去尋找冒險。
Failure and unrequited longing define their romantic lives.
他們的戀愛生活以失戀和單戀為主。
The writer’s principal concern has always been the pain and necessity of learning to be alone, and the worthwhile difficulty of establishing real connections.
村上的主要關切一直是學會獨處的痛苦和必要性，以及建立真正聯(lián)系的價值和不易。
Those concerns are universal.
這些關切是普遍存在的。
Mr Murakami’s compassionate rendering of them is why millions seek solitude to read his books.
村上春樹對這些問題的充滿同情的描寫，正是數(shù)百萬人想要獨自閱讀他的書的原因所在。
