经济学人459:20世纪的雄狮

 　　Books and Arts; Book Review;

　　文艺；书评；

　　Harry¹ Belafonte's autobiography²

　　亨瑞．贝拉方特式自传

　　Twentieth-century lion

　　20世纪雄狮

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

　　《吾之歌：艺术、种族、反抗回忆录》作者：亨瑞．贝拉方特

　　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.

　　故事还要从一扇百叶窗说起。1946年有一对夫妻住在曼哈顿一栋公寓楼里，公寓看门人，一个有着牙买加血统的纽约小伙子，刚从二战的海军服役中归来。一天这对夫妇请他帮忙安装一扇百叶窗，当小伙子任务完成后，他们给了他两张戏院的门票作为酬谢。考虑到付不起一次体面的约会必要的晚餐钱，看门人独自去看了《家是猎人》（Home is the hunter）。这部戏讲了一名黑人军人战后回美国的故事，小伙子看得入了迷。

　　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.

　　这部戏在美国黑人剧院（the American Negro Theatre ，ANT)上演，这对房客夫妻，Clarice Taylor 和 Maxwell Glanville，也参与了演出。这个看门人，当然就是故事的主人公亨瑞．贝拉方特（Harry Belafonte）。

　　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.

　　Belafonte先生迅速地找到了进入ANT的方法，在那里他不仅练习表演，还交到了人生中第一个朋友Sidney Poitier，也是一个贫穷的拼命赚钱的小伙子，来自西印度群岛。两人一起策划出“快速来钱的计划”——Poitier先生想贩卖一种加勒比贝壳的汁液做成的催情剂——还一起分享戏院门票：两人只负担的起一张门票钱，所以往往一人观看上半场，另一人观看下半场，然后互相帮对方把整部戏串起来。Poitier先一步时来运转了：他在一部戏里替代Belafonte的角色，此时还在做看门人的Belafonte正在清理房客的垃圾，无奈错失良机。这使Belafonte花了更多年时间努力挣扎，终于赢得了名望，却不是作为一名专业的演员，而是一位业余的歌手。他在演出的幕间休息时去听Lester Young的演唱会打发时间，在那里遇到了他第一个后备乐队（the Charlie Parker band，译者注）的成员Max Roach 和 Charlie Parker。

　　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 activism 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.

　　在书中及主人公的生活中投下阴霾的鬼影，是Millie，令他畏惧的永远不满足的母亲；以及Paul Robeson，以政治激进主义为乐，并为Belafonte打造了一条政治道路。然而，尽管Robeson的激进主义使他盲目崇尚早期冷战偏执、黑名单、以及麦卡锡主义，Belafonte则更幸运：他事业的成就或多或少与他参与美国人权运动有关。

　　Martin Luther King junior sought him out in 1956, just a few months after rising to fame during the Montgomery bus boycott¹⁴. 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 humility¹⁵. There is an especially touching¹⁶ scene from nine years later in which, following a celebrity¹⁷-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 abject¹⁸ gratitude¹⁹ to all these stars for coming out for him.” In a book that is riddled²⁰ with many of the usual faults of celebrity autobiography—name-dropping, score-settling, preening²¹ and a rather ungallant treatment of his first wife and some of his children—Mr Belafonte's portrayal²² of King stands out for its unfussy warmth and unhagiographical affection.

　　1956年，在蒙哥马利市（Montgomery）公车抵制运动后的几个月，在运动中声名鹊起的马丁路德金（Martin Luther King junior） 找到Belafonte。当时，26岁的King是蒙哥马利市Dexter Avenue Baptist Church 的传教士，28岁的Belafonte则是新晋的“美国黑人白天音乐会偶像”。Belafonte对宗教和非暴力皆持怀疑态度（“我天生就不是非暴力”他解释说，“就算我本性如此，在Harlem大街（纽约黑人住宅区，译者注）的成长经历也会使我脱离这种本性。”），但他被King的谦逊打动了。最触动人心的一幕发生在九年后，在巴黎举办的一场名人云集的民权基金募集会后，已经获得诺贝尔奖的King在就餐时为那些名人服务，作为“谦虚的表现，以及向为他而来的明星们表达的一点感激”。在这一本漏洞百出的书里，充满着通常明星自传中常有的缺点——自抬身价，利益相争，自我夸耀，以及甚至是无理的态度对待他的第一任妻子和他的某几个孩子——而Belafonte对King的这段描写，因为其平和的温暖以及不歌功颂德的感情流露而显得尤为突出。

　　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 judgment²³. Standing²⁴ with Martin Luther King junior to fight injustice²⁵ and oppression is quite different from standing with practised political oppressors such as Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. Still, Mr Belafonte does have a remarkable²⁶ song to sing. Given its breadth, and the welcome disappearance²⁷ of the segregated²⁸ world in which it began, such a song will not be sung again.

　　20世纪60年代后，很快Belafonte的事业开始走下坡路。但这丝毫不令人感到意外：守城永远没有攻城有意思。Belafonte的这本自传也长的让人生厌：Belafonte漫谈他不太顺利生意，Belafonte烦恼他家小孩享受特权，这些描写冗长又乏味。接着是他的政治判断：支持Martin Luther King junior反对不公正和压迫，与支持老练的政治压迫者，例如Hugo Chávez 和 Fidel Castro，是不尽相同的。鉴于年代的局限性，以及当时种族隔离的世界顺应人心地消失，Belafonte的这首生命之歌，将不会再被奏响。

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 boycott   

n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与

参考例句：

• We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
• The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。

15 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。

16 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。

17 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。

18 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。

19 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。

20 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》

21 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

22 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。

23 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。

24 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。

25 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。

26 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。

27 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。

28 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。