《缅甸岁月》里,主人公弗洛里抓着伊丽莎白说:你一定要有个钢琴。伊丽莎白挣脱了他纠缠的手,转身离开,头也不回,甩下一句话:我不会弹钢琴。
伊丽莎白是个徒有美貌庸俗肤浅的女人,弗洛里却对她一往情深。在殖民地十多年的孤独生活后,他将这个稀罕的白人女人视作一根救命稻草,唯一的希望。在他的憧憬里,他们的婚姻生活,无论如何应该有一架钢琴,因为,那是文明和安定生活的象征。可惜的是,缅甸土著之间的明争暗斗断送了弗洛里的幸福,伊丽莎白拒绝了他,而这个三十五岁,因为年轻时的放荡不羁已把生活糟蹋得极度乏味的人,在最后一个获得体面生活的可能性也灰飞烟灭后,他朝自己的腹部开了一枪,把自己送到永恒的宁静里。
其实,乔治奥威尔的这部处女作远比我以上叙述的有趣得多。他继承了英国文学辛辣刻薄与幽默并存的传统,那个斯威夫特和简奥斯丁均做出不少贡献的传统。对人物的刻画总是入木三分,嘲笑起人来都是毫不客气,却从不直截了当,非得兜个弯子,以故作委婉的姿态来表明它的英国性格。尽管小说的这些优点值得大书特书,可是,当我决定要为小说写点什么时,立刻想到的却是这句话:无论如何应该有一架钢琴,那是文明和安定生活的象征。
是一种何其熟悉的现代思维。《缅甸岁月》描绘了一群英国白人老爷们在殖民地缅甸的百无聊赖乏味枯燥的生活状况。它的时代背景是上上世纪末和上世纪初,除了日本,亚洲的绝大部分地区处于愚昧落后贫困的年代,是我们自己正积贫积弱,船不坚炮不利除了白银和茶叶外什么也输不出的年代。相比于文明了几千年的中国,缅甸是一个更愚昧,更落后,更贫穷也更顺从的国家,奥威尔栩栩如生的文字将那个年代缅甸的风俗民情在读者的眼前活灵活现起来。殖民者无知自大的心态、殖民统治的实质、殖民地生活的空虚乏味无聊和缅甸气候环境的恶劣以及对景物和事件的描绘,都让人有置身现场亲历其境之感,也好像正在看电影,画面感是如此之强。实际上,我一边读小说,脑子里也是一刻不得闲,不是在回想某部殖民电影的镜头就是在想主人公的心理和想法和我们当代人的相似性。
当今凡事讲究政治正确的年代里,敢冒天下之大不韪把不同民族分为三六九等的人会被人怀疑是纳粹余孽,绝对属于被具有良知之现代公民深恶痛绝之流。但在20世纪初的殖民时代,作为统治之意识形态基础,殖民者和被殖民者绝对是要分个高低贵贱的。《缅甸岁月》里,连在印度读过两年书受过现代教育的维拉斯瓦米医生都坚持英国人是进步文明的化身,没有英国人,缅甸人是绝对无法自治的,只能走向日益愚昧不可救药的可悲境地。而小说的主人公,白人老爷弗洛里却根据经验和理性,得出这些论调荒谬之结论,他敏锐的思维和目光也看透了政府种种自我美化的宣传标语背后贪婪的真相,由此陷入一种两难的道德困境里,在伊丽莎白出现于这个乏味的殖民地前,他靠与维拉斯瓦米医生的聊天中控诉自己的政府来获取心灵的短暂宁静。
无论是将钢琴视作文明和安定生活的象征,还是这种对西方霸权的自我反思以及对异文化的包容心态,弗洛里的思想观念在我看来是如此熟悉!这种相似性让主人公的时代背景渐渐退隐,而径直与我的时代接驳了起来。可是,透过他文字展示出来的、那个电影一般真实的旧缅甸的风物人情种种文化生态却是牢牢地与主人公的思想观念黏附在一起。一个是遥远的,充满羞辱的,拥有各种让人发指的愚昧习俗(例如喝月经血治病等)的属于“古老”的殖民记忆,另一个则是非常现代性的,即使是今日的世界也依旧有市场的思想观点,这两者的结合无疑产生一种奇妙的化学反应。愚昧和现代都各自得到了强化,好像它们都走到一面哈哈镜前,体积被放大了几倍。
奥威尔的《缅甸岁月》,带给我的乐趣很多。对作者甚为鄙视的,如伊丽莎白和她母亲,还有莱克斯蒂恩太太等贪慕虚荣却又肤浅愚蠢的人物,他以一个英国绅士所具有的克制,极尽挖苦嘲讽之能事。许多的细节都让人忍俊不禁,暗自偷笑(偷笑之余也会自我对照,且自嘲不过五十笑一百而已),但此书最让我惊奇的,其实是通过弗洛里之口而表达的奥威尔的现代性。
《缅甸岁月》是我读的第一本奥威尔的小说,它是个很好的开始,让我对作家一见钟情。我开始期待他的《一九八四》。
- Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/12/2008
先看"Animal Farm"吧。:) - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/12/2008
古典偷懒去了,看小曼来说书,同样的老道,一点不输哈:)
奥维尔的书一直想读,今年吧,多谢提醒。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
老尚的推荐肯定没错!上次推荐德沃夏克的美国,我就很喜欢!嘿嘿,那我就先去找这个animal farm吧。
班长,你别着急,根据小道消息,古典同学这几天都在家里啃书,估计节后好文不断。:)) - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
文革过后“内部书“泛滥,读了他的《1984》,那无处不在的广播宣传,无处不在的秘密监视(big brother is watching!)简直就和文革中的中国一模一样,而这些描写是根据苏联的经验,当时一个巨大的震动就是,为什么不同的民族,不同的文化,只要相信共产主义,就变得如此相似。这个疑问至今存在。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
小曼是披着文艺小资外衣的政治小资。:) - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
你那?老A?
abc wrote:
小曼是披着文艺小资外衣的政治小资。:) - posted on 02/13/2008
I'm glad to hear that you liked my recommendation.:)
After you finish reading Orwell's books, you might want to read "Why Orwell Matters" by Christopher Hitchens as well.:)
If you want to keep up with my recommendations, I'm afraid that you might have to quit your job to become a full-time reader. Then, I'm afraid that you might have to marry a rich guy--that is, if you are not already independently wealthy.:):):)
xiaoman wrote:
老尚的推荐肯定没错!上次推荐德沃夏克的美国,我就很喜欢!嘿嘿,那我就先去找这个animal farm吧。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
我更想当文艺小资,有趣味,有情调,可惜不擅长,555。
July wrote:
你那?老A?
- posted on 02/13/2008
This is from "The Yale Review of Books", Spring, 2004:
Nineteen Years Later
A fresh look at literature's most famous dystopian thinker.
Why Orwell Matters
Christopher Hitchens
Basic Books, 208 pp, $24
reviewed by Alex Lee
George Orwell has suffered the saddest fate for a political writer: he has been rendered uncontroversial. Animal Farm and 1984 are assigned reading for junior high school students around the world, and Orwell's nuanced body of ideas have been simplified to pithy statements, as if all he really had to say was: “democracy good, totalitarianism bad.” He has suffered the indignity of becoming a hero to neoconservatives, who see him as the father of their cold-war ideology but forget that he opposed runaway capitalism just as vigorously as he opposed fascism and communism.
This year, the 100th anniversary of Orwell's birth, a new battle has erupted over his memory and legacy. Christopher Hitchens, until recently a long-time columnist for The Nation, has written an entire book attempting to extricate Orwell from the pile of “saccharine tablets and moist hankies” under which his reputation has been buried. Attacking both the right and the left, Why Orwell Matters tries to bring Hitchens's version of Orwell's “true” opinions to the public, saving him from critics and false friends.
Orwell was born Eric Blair in Motihari, India in 1903, the son of a minor official in the government opium monopoly. The date and place are important, because they meant that Orwell came of age during the Great War and experienced the British Empire at the height of its power. Although he understood the flaws of the Edwardian Age, Orwell would always look back on that era with nostalgia, as an Eden destroyed by war, technology, and mass unemployment. Orwell's writing draws upon this vision of a happier time, maintaining that no matter how bad things become, some hope remains for humanity.
For the first twenty-two years of his life, Orwell did the expected things for an Englishman of his class. After attending a hellish prep school (memorialized in his brilliantly ironic essay “Such, Such were the Joys”) Blair went to Eton, then started a career in the Burmese Imperial Police. Disgusted by his police work, he became a lifelong enemy of imperialism. Anxious to get in touch with the common man, he became a tramp, a dishwasher, and a bookstore clerk. He traveled through the Lancashire coal country, gathering material on the squalid conditions of the unemployed for his book The Road to Wigan Pier. Acting on his ideals, he fought in the Spanish civil war and was almost killed by a bullet to the neck.
Orwell's style was fresh, clear, and persuasive. A champion of common sense, he appealed to universal human values of reasonableness and decency (two of his favorite words.) He preferred these everyday ideas to the subtle intellectual arguments advanced by many of his contemporaries, which he felt tended towards fascism or communism. In The Road to Wigan Pier, he wrote:
Socialism means the overthrow of tyranny at home as well as abroad. As long as you keep that fact in front, you will never have much doubt as to who are your real supporters. As for minor differences—and the profoundest philosophical difference is unimportant compared with the saving of twenty million Englishmen whose bones are rotting from malnutrition—the time to argue about them is afterwards.
Because of his unadorned style, readers often identify closely with him. The critic Richard Schickel once wrote that Orwell's persona is “very close to your best self, the self that exists for most of us only in wistful imaginings.” This is most apparent in Orwell's copious nonfiction works. From the early 1930's until his death in 1950, Orwell churned out hundreds of essays, reviews and columns. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, from popular culture to the best way to make a cup of tea. In his major political work, Orwell persuasively puts forward a view of democratic socialism as the “natural” alternative to the bloody ideologies of the time. Many of his views were indisputably radical: he felt that free market capitalism was a failed system, pernicious in its effects on English society. He was remarkably consistent in his opinions and opposed atrocities and imperialist actions all over the world, even when they were committed in the name of freedom.
For a man who is so often identified with common sense, Orwell was a decidedly odd individual. He preferred squalor, was a devotee of the worst excesses of English cuisine, and suffered from paranoia about his body odor. He later accelerated his own death by moving to a poorly ventilated shack in the Scottish isles while severely ill with tuberculosis. This pattern of self-denial led many friends and associates to call him saintly, and less sympathetic critics to call him mad.
Many of his personal opinions were politically incorrect. At English boys schools, he adopted a misogynistic and homophobic outlook as well as a distrust of what today would be called cultural liberalism. He disdained “the high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit juice drinkers who come flocking to the smell of progress like bluebottles to a dead cat.” His contempt for “pansies” would lead to a vitriolic attack on W.H. Auden and other homosexual writers.
These complaints have gained more attention in recent years, as Orwell scholarship has been undergoing a renaissance since the death in 1980 of Orwell's wife, Sonia. Sonia, whom Orwell married on his deathbed, discouraged all attempts at a biography of her late husband, and published an incomplete and bowdlerized anthology of Orwell's journalism. The release of the 20-volume Complete Works of George Orwell in 1998 made all of Orwell's known work available, providing much of the source material for Hitchens.
Hitchens's book is a chatty polemic, like so much of Orwell's nonfiction. In fact, much of Hitchens's career has been spent attempting to pick up Orwell's fallen banner. Hitchens's attack elsewhere on Mother Theresa is reminiscent of Orwell's debunking of Gandhi, and his support for the war in Afghanistan in defiance of the mainstream left invites comparison to Orwell's support for the Second World War.
Like Orwell, Hitchens is a leftist who dislikes the pacifist “pinks” (Orwell's phrase) who define official leftism. He devotes one-third of his book to refuting Orwell's leftwing critics, who see conservative tendencies in his work, both in his stand on cultural issues and in his reverence for tradition. Hitchens has elevated mockery to a high art, picking apart the arguments of Orwell's critics with wit and an eye for logical contradictions. Here is a typical passage:
The above citations are only a sample, but by no means and unrepresentative one, of what might be offered, by way of illustrating the sheer ill will and bad faith and intellectual confusion that appear to ignite spontaneously when Orwell's name is mentioned in some quarters.
He devotes another chapter to refuting the attempts of political conservatives to claim Orwell for their own. He emphasizes Orwell's radicalism and shows how Orwell's opposition to the Soviet Union had very little to do with that of William Buckley. He concludes:
The body snatching of Orwell, however, is a much more specialized task and probably should not be attempted by any known faction. Least of all perhaps, should it be done by Tories of any stripe. George Orwell was conservative about many things, but not about politics.
Hitchens's support of Orwell is less successful in other areas. His attempts to show Orwell as a theorist of postmodernism and colonialism are largely unsuccessful, for Orwell never dealt with the issues straight on, and Hitchens must piece together “Orwell's view” from scattered references in different pieces. One is left with the feeling that Hitchens is reading his own ideas into Orwell. Another challenge for Hitchens is that Orwell failed to understand the United States, seeing it largely as a source of slang and bad films. He didn't appreciate the power of American materialism, and the immense economic might that would help America to dominate the globe. Hitchens acknowledges this, but is unable to admit Orwell's mistake. Hitchens is best when attacking the work of others, and his direct defenses of Orwell's homophobia and his “girl trouble” are less entertaining than the rest of the book.
In 1949 Orwell provided the British government with a list of writers with pro-communist views who should not be employed to write anti-Soviet propaganda. Though this has been known since 1980, in recent years Orwell has been savaged in the British press for cooperating with the “thought police.” This incident is the centerpiece of Scott Lucas's forthcoming book Orwell and the Betrayal of Dissent. Hitchens makes the point that this was a minor incident, and that Orwell intended harm to nobody. In a line of argument that seems less reasonable, he goes on to attack several of those Orwell listed, implying the truth of the allegations justified the making of the list.
Hitchens, though, has proved his basic point: The modern world needs more of the clear thinking, good writing and simple ideals that Orwell stood for. The solution is to go back to the source and read some of Orwell's own essays and books. In this immense corpus, Orwell becomes his own biographer, and his ideas develop on their own. Only by directly dealing with Orwell's work can one comprehend his profound wisdom and his continued relevance in troubled and uncertain times.
- Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
读的是英文版?能读原文最好读原文。中文翻译除非是老尚的手段。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
八十一子 wrote:
读的是英文版?能读原文最好读原文。中文翻译除非是老尚的手段。
能得到八爷这句评价--I'm truly flattered.:) 8 ye: you are not alone.:):):) - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
看来《缅甸岁月》不错,别的两本宣传小册子,不看也罢。
- Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
给小曼个联接,不知你能否看到,这里收集了奥威尔的小说和文章:http://orwell.ru/library/index_en - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
同感。读过奥威尔的短篇Shooting The Elephant,扣人心弦。读过他的一些随笔,如“政治与英语”等等。奥威尔比较intense, too political for my taste。讲Big brother,不看就心里明白。小资们自我意识强尾巴最翘,最怕怕的就是集体主义。所以从来没想看过“动物农场”或“1984”。
xw wrote:
看来《缅甸岁月》不错,别的两本宣传小册子,不看也罢。
- posted on 02/13/2008
这个不仅是共产主义的问题。集体主义可以有左的右的各种形式。
集体主义下面不存在个人和个人隐私,监视监视怕什么?;)
“若要人不知,除非己莫为”,这不是共产主义吧?
guanzhong wrote:
文革过后“内部书“泛滥,读了他的《1984》,那无处不在的广播宣传,无处不在的秘密监视(big brother is watching!)简直就和文革中的中国一模一样,而这些描写是根据苏联的经验,当时一个巨大的震动就是,为什么不同的民族,不同的文化,只要相信共产主义,就变得如此相似。这个疑问至今存在。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
奥威尔这本还真没读过,谢推荐。 - posted on 02/13/2008
和兔教授同感一下, 我也是非常喜欢他的non-fiction, 兔教授这里提的几篇我都读过多次, 他的思路非常清晰, 文笔简练达意, 他的“动物农场”或“1984”我总觉得文学性不够强, 人物也都是概念的外化.
touche wrote:
同感。读过奥威尔的短篇Shooting The Elephant,扣人心弦。读过他的一些随笔,如“政治与英语”等等。奥威尔比较intense, too political for my taste。讲Big brother,不看就心里明白。小资们自我意识强尾巴最翘,最怕怕的就是集体主义。所以从来没想看过“动物农场”或“1984”。
xw wrote:
看来《缅甸岁月》不错,别的两本宣传小册子,不看也罢。
- Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/13/2008
拥抱浮生!我收藏了。:)) - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/19/2008
回老尚、XW、图教授......
一个下午就把中文版《动物农场》看完了(八爷,找不到英文版的:(),谢谢老尚的推荐,我的感觉和XW,TOUCHE差不多,过于概念化了,文学性不强。但我感到难能可贵的是,这本书的出版在半个世纪以前,里面所讲到的情节,后来,在我们自己国家几乎都发生过了,如出一辙。这本书的预言性让人惊奇,不得不佩服作家对世事的洞明透彻。 - posted on 02/19/2008
推荐小曼有机会读读夏志清的中国现代小说史,写得很实在的,里面
也论及奥威尔。
xiaoman wrote:
回老尚、XW、图教授......
一个下午就把中文版《动物农场》看完了(八爷,找不到英文版的:(),谢谢老尚的推荐,我的感觉和XW,TOUCHE差不多,过于概念化了,文学性不强。但我感到难能可贵的是,这本书的出版在半个世纪以前,里面所讲到的情节,后来,在我们自己国家几乎都发生过了,如出一辙。这本书的预言性让人惊奇,不得不佩服作家对世事的洞明透彻。
我看过“一九八四”的电影,那电影里倒不象中国,有点德国,或者
现代英美的风格。看的时候我还以为是英国呢。
- Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/19/2008
那小曼要不要趁热打铁再去看看赫胥黎(Aldous Huxley)的《Brave New World》,那里面的预言部分仍在实现中 :) - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/20/2008
好啊好啊,你们的推荐我相信都是不错的,只是,我真的要记下来,一本,一本,又一本,看到年底都不愁。:))
古典推荐白银时代,XW推荐夏志清的现代小说史,浮生推荐的BRAVE NEW WORLD,还有什么?一起来吧! - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/20/2008
韩寒的《三重门》。:)
xiaoman wrote:
古典推荐白银时代,XW推荐夏志清的现代小说史,浮生推荐的BRAVE NEW WORLD,还有什么?一起来吧! - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/20/2008
三重门?我早就知道这本书了呀,要推荐我不知道的,未曾被否决过的。:)
对了,今晚看了一场爆搞笑的电影,估计你爱看,辛普森一家电影版。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/20/2008
谢谢,我会去找来看。以后想看好电影就给你推荐书。:)
美国版的琼瑶小说你爱看不?推荐 Danielle Steel 的系列言情小说。 作者Danielle Steel是个大美女。她笔下的美女很智慧优雅,帅哥很man. :)
以前我以为西方很开放,看了她的小说才知道,二战前,未婚同居在美国上层社会并不多见。
xiaoman wrote:
三重门?我早就知道这本书了呀,要推荐我不知道的,未曾被否决过的。:)
对了,今晚看了一场爆搞笑的电影,估计你爱看,辛普森一家电影版。 - Re: 《缅甸岁月》--奥威尔的现代性posted on 02/20/2008
嗯,书店经常看到她的书,不太记得有没有看过,印象中有的。
我连JAMES PATTERSON 和 LISA SCOTTOLINE,还有那个DEAN KOONTZ的书都有。
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