经济学人412:上世纪的名流 Twentieth-century lion

 　　Books and Arts; Book Review;Harry¹ Belafonte's autobiography²；

　　文艺；书评；哈利·贝拉方特自传；

　　Twentieth-century lion；

　　上世纪的名流；

　　My Song: A Memoir³ of Art, Race and Defiance⁴. By Harry Belafonte；

　　《我的歌：追忆艺术，种族与反抗》哈利·贝拉方特著。

　　IT ALL began with a set of Venetian blinds. In 1946 a couple in a Manhattan apartment building asked their janitor⁵, a biracial Jamaican New Yorker newly returned from naval⁶ service in the second world war, to install a set in their flat. The task completed, they gave him two theatre tickets as payment. The janitor, having no money for the dinner that a proper date would have included, went on his own to see “Home is the Hunter”, a play about black servicemen returning to America after the war. He was enraptured⁷.

　　这一切要从一套百叶窗帘说起。故事发生在1946年的曼哈顿，有对夫妇想在家里安装一套百叶窗帘，于是便叫来一位公寓清洁工，作为报酬，事后给了他两张戏票。想来，邀人看戏起码得请吃个饭，可无奈囊中羞涩，这清洁工就自个儿去美国黑人剧院看了场《家是猎人》。这出戏讲述了一位美国黑人士兵战后返乡的事，看着看着这哥们就陶醉了。

　　The tenants⁸, Clarice Taylor and Maxwell Glanville, performed in the play, which was put on by the American Negro Theatre (ANT). The janitor was, of course, Harry Belafonte.

　　剧中表演者正是那对夫妇，克莱斯·泰勒与麦斯威尔·格兰维尔；而那清洁工呢，自然就是哈利·贝拉方特；说来，那时二战刚刚终了，结束海军服役后，这个有着牙买加血统的美籍混血回到纽约，在一幢公寓里做起了清洁工。

　　In short order Mr Belafonte also found his way into the ANT, where he not only acted but made “my first friend in life”, another poor, hustling⁹ West Indian named Sidney Poitier. The two of them hatched get-rich-quick schemes—Mr Poitier wanted to market an extract of Caribbean conch as an aphrodisiac—and they shared theatre tickets: they could only afford a single ticket between them, so one would attend before the interval¹⁰ and one after, then each would fill the other in. Mr Poitier got his break first: he took Mr Belafonte's place in a play that the latter, still employed as a janitor, missed because he had to collect his tenants' rubbish. It took Mr Belafonte several more years of struggling, and he gained fame not as an actor, for which he had trained, but as a singer, for which he had not, filling time during the interval at Lester Young's concerts, where his first backup band included Max Roach and Charlie Parker.

　　不久后，贝拉方特也找到了通往美国黑人剧院的门路。在那儿，他不仅演戏，还结实了“生命中第一个朋友” 西德尼·波蒂埃。和贝拉方特一样，这个来自西印度群岛的小伙儿生活拮据，为了生计四处奔波。私下里，二人策划了快速致富的计划：加勒比贝壳的提取物可拿来当春药使，波蒂埃就想带着货去市场卖；此外，哥俩还共用一张戏票。由于只付得起一张票钱，两人就以幕间休息为准，你来半场，我来半场，互换位置。波蒂埃首先打开局面，并在一出戏中挤掉了贝拉方特的戏份。而贝拉方特仍旧干着清洁，因为他还得打扫房客的垃圾，遗憾得错过了机会。又是几年过去了，经过奋斗，贝拉方特终于获得成功。这一次，他没有拾起老本去演戏，而选择从未训练过的职业，做起了歌手：李斯特杨的音乐会上，幕间休息时常见他一展歌喉，那时，在他最初伴奏乐队里还有着像麦克斯·罗奇，查理·帕克这样的人物。

　　Looming¹¹ over both this book and its subject's life are two ghosts: Millie, his formidable, perpetually dissatisfied mother; and Paul Robeson, whose combination of entertainment and political activism⑾ forged a path that Mr Belafonte would follow. But whereas Robeson's activism ran headlong into early cold-war paranoia¹², blacklists and McCarthyism, Mr Belafonte was luckier: his career rose more or less in tandem¹³ with the American civil-rights movement.

　　不论是本书还是贝拉方特的一生中，总有两朵阴霾不肯散去：一个是他的母亲米勒。这女人让人敬畏，而且永不知满足。另一个则是保罗·罗贝孙，他将娱乐与政治激进主义糅合，铺下前路，好让贝拉方特遵循。然而，正是他的激进行为，让其猛然栽入早期冷战妄想与麦卡锡主义中，并在各种黑名单上记录在案，与之相比，贝拉方特幸运多了：其职业生涯的崛起，多多少少与美国民权运动相连。

　　Martin Luther King junior sought him out in 1956, just a few months after rising to fame during the Montgomery bus boycott⒀. King was then 26, and a preacher at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, while Mr Belafonte was 28 and newly crowned “America's Negro matinée idol”. Mr Belafonte was sceptical of both religion and non-violence (“I wasn't nonviolent by nature,” he explains, “or if I was, growing up on Harlem's streets had knocked it out of me”), but was won over by King's humility¹⁴. There is an especially touching¹⁵ scene from nine years later in which, following a celebrity¹⁶-studded civil-rights fund-raiser in Paris, King, then a Nobel peace-prize winner, serves food to the assembled stars as “an exercise in humility, an act of abject¹⁷ gratitude¹⁸ to all these stars for coming out for him.” In a book that is riddled¹⁹ with many of the usual faults of celebrity autobiography—name-dropping, score-settling, preening²⁰ and a rather ungallant treatment of his first wife and some of his children—Mr Belafonte's portrayal²¹ of King stands out for its unfussy warmth and unhagiographical affection.

　　1956年，蒙哥马利市爆发巴士抵制运动，一名来自德克斯特大街浸信会教堂的牧师声名鹊起。他，就是马丁·路德·金。几个月后，时年26岁的金找到贝拉方特，那时，后者28岁，新得美誉“通吃美国妇女的小黑哥”。贝拉方特不信教，也不信非暴力，（用他自己说是“我生来刚烈，就算不使用暴力，在哈林区混大，也叫人砸有了。”）却因金的谦逊而折服。九年后的一幕最是感人心脾：那是在巴黎举行的一场民权筹款会，到场的尽是知名人士，金，这位诺贝尔和平奖桂冠竟为在场的群星盛放实物， 以此向为他而来的群星们行以“谦恭之举”，表达心中“无尽感激”。贝拉方特的这本书中，明星自传常有的缺点满眼皆是：不是提一笔名人来拔高自己身价，就是报复之辞，要么自我吹捧几句，再不就是描写原配与孩子时，不甚殷切。所以，在对金的刻画，更凸显出他那份知性的温情与平实的情怀。

　　After the 1960s, “My Song” goes downhill quickly, but that is hardly a surprise: maintaining fame is never as interesting as achieving it. The book is also too long. Mr Belafonte's ramblings about business deals that went sour and his agonising over the extraordinary privileges his children enjoyed grow tedious. And then there is his political judgment²². Standing²³ with Martin Luther King junior to fight injustice²⁴ and oppression is quite different from standing with practised political oppressors such as Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. Still, Mr Belafonte does have a remarkable²⁵ song to sing. Given its breadth, and the welcome disappearance²⁶ of the segregated²⁷ world in which it began, such a song will not be sung again.

　　上世纪60年代后，贝拉方特“唱”不动了，事业迅速下滑。但这并不奇怪：追逐名誉时，人们总是乐此不疲，但要永葆不衰，可就难咯。这本同名自传也够冗长的: 不是漫谈生意不顺，就讲孩子享受优待，当爹的很是焦虑的事，读着读着也觉得无聊。书中还叙述了其个人的政治判断：他既和老练得政治压迫者（比如雨果·查韦斯，菲德尔·卡斯特罗）有过交情，也曾与马丁·路德·金并肩，同歧视，压迫做过斗争。两者意义却大不相同。不过，贝拉方特还真有一首别致的歌要唱，但一来这歌受众不广，二来它出炉于种族隔离的时代，如今，人们早已敞开胸怀，愈合这个世界，如此看来⒆，此曲恐为绝唱哩！

1 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

2 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

3 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

4 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

5 janitor   

n.看门人，管门人

参考例句：

• The janitor wiped on the windows with his rags.看门人用褴褛的衣服擦着窗户。
• The janitor swept the floors and locked up the building every night.那个看门人每天晚上负责打扫大楼的地板和锁门。

6 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

7 enraptured   

v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was enraptured that she had smiled at him. 她对他的微笑使他心荡神驰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were enraptured to meet the great singer. 他们和大名鼎鼎的歌手见面，欣喜若狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。

9 hustling   

催促（hustle的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Our quartet was out hustling and we knew we stood good to take in a lot of change before the night was over. 我们的四重奏是明显地卖座的， 而且我们知道在天亮以前，我们有把握收入一大笔钱。
• Men in motors were hustling to pass one another in the hustling traffic. 开汽车的人在繁忙的交通中急急忙忙地互相超车。

10 interval   

n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息

参考例句：

• The interval between the two trees measures 40 feet.这两棵树的间隔是40英尺。
• There was a long interval before he anwsered the telephone.隔了好久他才回了电话。

11 looming   

n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• The foothills were looming ahead through the haze. 丘陵地带透过薄雾朦胧地出现在眼前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Then they looked up. Looming above them was Mount Proteome. 接着他们往上看，在其上隐约看到的是蛋白质组山。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 回顾与展望

12 paranoia   

n.妄想狂，偏执狂；多疑症

参考例句：

• Her passion for cleanliness borders on paranoia.她的洁癖近乎偏执。
• The push for reform is also motivated by political paranoia.竞选的改革运动也受到政治偏执狂症的推动。

13 tandem   

n.同时发生；配合；adv.一个跟着一个地；纵排地；adj.（两匹马）前后纵列的

参考例句：

• Malcolm's contract will run in tandem with his existing one.马尔科姆的合同将与他手头的合同同时生效。
• He is working in tandem with officials of the Serious Fraud Office.他正配合欺诈重案办公室的官员工作。

14 humility   

n.谦逊，谦恭

参考例句：

• Humility often gains more than pride.谦逊往往比骄傲收益更多。
• His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.他的声音还是那么温和，甚至有点谦卑。

15 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

16 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

17 abject   

adj.极可怜的，卑屈的

参考例句：

• This policy has turned out to be an abject failure.这一政策最后以惨败而告终。
• He had been obliged to offer an abject apology to Mr.Alleyne for his impertinence.他不得不低声下气，为他的无礼举动向艾莱恩先生请罪。

18 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

19 riddled   

adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式)

参考例句：

• The beams are riddled with woodworm. 这些木梁被蛀虫蛀得都是洞。
• The bodies of the hostages were found riddled with bullets. 在人质的尸体上发现了很多弹孔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 preening   

v.（鸟）用嘴整理（羽毛）( preen的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Will you stop preening yourself in front of the mirror? 你别对着镜子打扮个没完行不行？
• She was fading, while he was still preening himself in his elegance and youth. 她已显老，而他却仍然打扮成翩翩佳公子。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

21 portrayal   

n.饰演；描画

参考例句：

• His novel is a vivid portrayal of life in a mining community.他的小说生动地描绘了矿区的生活。
• The portrayal of the characters in the novel is lifelike.该书中的人物写得有血有肉。

22 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

23 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

24 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

25 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

26 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

27 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。