经济学人466:最好,最坏的城市

 　　Books and Arts; London fiction

　　文艺；伦敦小说

　　The best of cities, the worst of cities

　　这是最好的城市，也是最坏的城市

　　The capital as inspiration for novelists

　　首都伦敦，小说家灵感之源

　　London is a “great cesspool” into which the loungers and idlers of life irresistibly¹ drain, wrote Arthur Conan Doyle in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories. But it has proved to be a fertile dumping ground, an inspiration for each generation of novelist and every genre² of fiction.

　　亚瑟·柯南道尔在一集福尔摩斯故事中写道，伦敦是个“污水坑”，不可避免地集聚了游手好闲，无所事事的懒汉。但伦敦也是块相当肥沃的垃圾场，每一代小说家，每一种小说体裁都从中汲取着灵感。

　　The capital's most famous and still unparalleled chronicler is Charles Dickens. His template for the London novel has never dated, flinging together characters from every walk of life into dazzling, swarming³, state-of-the city narratives⁴. In his London the rich cannot escape the poor, and the do-gooders and swindlers quaff⁵ ale elbow-to-elbow. The inanimate actors are as vivid as the living: the miserable⁶ workhouse that harboured Oliver Twist is no less legendary⁷ than the poor, begging boy himself or his criminal chum, the Artful Dodger⁸; the “sooty spectre” of fog coloured the capital's image long after the industrial pea-soupers had disappeared.

　　这座城市最著名且仍罕有匹敌的记录者当属查尔斯·狄更斯。他为伦敦小说定下的模板至今仍未过时，各行各业的角色在其叙述中粉墨登场，眼花缭乱，纷纷攘攘，世态万象。在他笔下的伦敦，富贵阶级与贫苦人家低头不见抬头见，大善人和诈骗犯并肩痛饮麦芽酒。无生命的角色也同有生命的一样栩栩如生：奥利弗·特弗斯特待过的那家阴暗凄凉的车间，与这个可怜的小乞儿本身或是他邪恶的朋友亚瑟·道奇比起来，同是一段传奇；即使工业时期的浓雾早已散去，那“幽灵般灰蒙蒙”的雾霾仍笼罩在伦敦的形象周围，挥之不去。

　　Few novelists have so successfully managed such vast and varied⁹ casts. In contrast, Sherlock Holmes rattled¹⁰ “through the silent streets”; his cases invariably depend on a few players. Yet Conan Doyle did almost as much as Dickens to establish another enduring theme of London-lit: that every character conceals¹¹ a secret. No wonder the capital is such a popular setting for crime fiction, from Margery Allingham to Ruth Rendell.

　　少有几个小说家像狄更斯这样，笔下的人物鱼龙混杂，截然迥异，处理起来却依旧得心应手。相反，歇洛克·福尔摩斯的车轮辘辘“驶过寂静的街道”；他的故事里一贯只牵涉寥寥几个人物。但柯南道尔同样确立了伦敦小说另一个经久不衰的主题：人人皆有秘密，就这一点其几可与狄更斯比肩。难怪从马杰里·艾林翰到露丝·蓝戴尔的作品，犯罪小说常常以伦敦为背景。

　　In the early 20th century the city was the backdrop for despair. Virginia Woolf's London in “Mrs Dalloway” (1925) is mournful, offering little succour after the first world war. J.B. Priestley's “Angel Pavement” (1930) offers a latter-day Dickensian tale of cheats, bankruptcy¹² and failed firms. By the 1960s Muriel Spark guided readers through a new metropolis¹³, where women gushed¹⁴ at the thought of sex and film stars, and penned unanswered letters to famous writers. Yet the delights of works such as “The Girls of Slender Means” are overshadowed by the threat of nuclear war.

　　20世纪初，这座城市的舞台上演着绝望。维吉尼亚·伍尔芙《达洛维夫人》（1925）中的伦敦死气沉沉，不给一战结束后的人们半分慰藉。J.B.普里斯特利的《天使街》（1930）则是近代的狄更斯翻版，讲述欺骗，破产和倒闭的公司。20世纪60年代，穆里尔·斯帕克引领读者在这座焕然一新的大都市中穿梭，女人一想到性和电影明星便兴奋得大呼小叫，还热衷于给著名作家寄去一封封石沉大海的信件。但在核战威胁的阴影面前，《窈窕淑女》这类轻快俏皮的小说顿时黯然失色。

　　Across the decades the capital has inspired potboilers and sizzling romances, but it was not until the 1980s, when London was booming again, that the city itself returned to centre stage. Martin Amis's “London Fields” (1989) was a triumph, a black comedy about lust¹⁵ and low-lifes that fizzed with a rare energy.

　　数十年内，围绕伦敦编就的蹩脚小说层出不穷，风流传奇泛滥成灾，但伦敦本身真正重回到镁光灯下，还是在20世纪80年代这座城市重振旗鼓之后。马丁·艾米斯的《伦敦场地》（1989）大获成功，这部黑色幽默叙述着欲望，以及暗潮汹涌的底层生活。

　　As London has grown in all dimensions, authors have chosen to present a segment of it rather than a Dickensian sweep. The most pioneering modern London novel was Hanif Kureishi's “The Buddha¹⁶ of Suburbia” (1990), set amid one of the many ethnic¹⁷ and immigrant communities that fiction—and many Britons—had ignored for decades. It introduced readers to the city's southern outskirts¹⁸, and threw in sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

　　随着伦敦全面发展，作家不再像狄更斯一样力求面面俱到，而是择其一二展开阐述。最先锋的现代小说当属汉尼夫·库雷什的《郊区佛陀》（1990），书中的主角是伦敦众多种族移民群体中的一支，多年来一直为小说界和许多英国人忽略。这部小说引领读者深入伦敦南郊，其间穿插着性，毒品与摇滚乐。

　　A new genre was born. The multicultural¹⁹ and dysfunctional families of Zadie Smith's “White Teeth” (2000) brought celebrity²⁰ to London's lesser-known boroughs²¹. Like Dickens's characters, Ms Smith's are preoccupied²² with roots—yet class and identity had come to mean something quite different.

　　一种新的体裁应运而生。扎迪·史密斯的《白牙》（2000）中分崩离析的多文化家庭使伦敦不为人熟知的街区出了名。与狄更斯笔下的人物一样，史密斯女士刻画的角色也一心牵挂着根系所在——但阶级与身份的内涵已大相径庭。

　　Monica Ali's “Brick Lane” (2003) brilliantly evokes²³ the Bangladeshi community. When her heroine walks down the famous East End street one step behind her husband, she sets the novel's tone in a single scene. A year later London's gay community was given a new voice with Alan Hollinghurst's “The Line of Beauty”, which won the Man Booker prize.

　　莫妮卡·阿里的《砖巷》（2003）则触动着孟加拉裔群体的心弦。著名的东区大街上，女主人公落在丈夫后面一步，单这一幕便已奠定了这本小说的基调。一年后，阿兰·霍灵赫斯特的《美丽线条》赋予了伦敦的同志群体新的声音，荣获曼布克奖。

　　The novels of London are now coming full circle, bringing a fuller cast into focus through two modern preoccupations: economic crisis and terrorism. Two recent examples, John Lanchester's “Capital” and Sebastian Faulks's “A Week in December”, fail to define their age as Dickens or Conan Doyle did. But they also point to a new cosmopolitan²⁴ cesspool, where a similar set of worries beset²⁵ every strata²⁶ of society, uniting and dividing it along new lines.

　　如今，伦敦小说又再次回到原点，借由当代两大忧患——经济危机与恐怖主义，拓宽视角，聚焦于方方面面。以最近的两本小说为例，约翰·兰彻斯特的《首都》和塞巴斯蒂安·福克斯的《十二月的一周》未能像狄更斯或柯南道尔的作品那样，成为一个时代的印记。但它们也展现了一个新的大都市版“污水坑”，同样有无尽烦恼纠缠着各个社会阶层，令他们在新的战线上分分合合。

1 irresistibly   

adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地

参考例句：

• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside. 她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was irresistibly attracted by her charm. 他不能自已地被她的魅力所吸引。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

3 swarming   

密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。
• The beach is swarming with bathers. 海滩满是海水浴的人。

4 narratives   

记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分

参考例句：

• Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点，然而也是一个伟大的开始。
• This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。

5 quaff   

v.一饮而尽；痛饮

参考例句：

• We quaffed wine last night.我们昨晚畅饮了一次酒。
• He's quaffed many a glass of champagne in his time.他年轻时曾经开怀畅饮过不少香槟美酒。

6 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

7 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

8 dodger   

n.躲避者；躲闪者；广告单

参考例句：

• They are tax dodgers who hide their interest earnings.他们是隐瞒利息收入的逃税者。
• Make sure she pays her share she's a bit of a dodger.她自己的一份一定要她付清--她可是有点能赖就赖。

9 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

10 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

11 conceals   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He conceals his worries behind a mask of nonchalance. 他装作若无其事，借以掩饰内心的不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Drunkenness reveals what soberness conceals. 酒醉吐真言。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

13 metropolis   

n.首府；大城市

参考例句：

• Shanghai is a metropolis in China.上海是中国的大都市。
• He was dazzled by the gaiety and splendour of the metropolis.大都市的花花世界使他感到眼花缭乱。

14 gushed   

v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话

参考例句：

• Oil gushed from the well. 石油从井口喷了出来。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Clear water gushed into the irrigational channel. 清澈的水涌进了灌溉渠道。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 lust   

n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望

参考例句：

• He was filled with lust for power.他内心充满了对权力的渴望。
• Sensing the explorer's lust for gold, the chief wisely presented gold ornaments as gifts.酋长觉察出探险者们垂涎黄金的欲念，就聪明地把金饰品作为礼物赠送给他们。

16 Buddha   

n.佛；佛像；佛陀

参考例句：

• Several women knelt down before the statue of Buddha and prayed.几个妇女跪在佛像前祈祷。
• He has kept the figure of Buddha for luck.为了图吉利他一直保存着这尊佛像。

17 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

18 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

19 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

20 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。

21 boroughs   

（尤指大伦敦的）行政区( borough的名词复数 )； 议会中有代表的市镇

参考例句：

• London is made up of 32 boroughs. 伦敦由三十二个行政区组成。
• Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City. 布鲁克林区是纽约市的五个行政区之一。

22 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

23 evokes   

产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• Each type evokes antibodies which protect against the homologous. 每一种类型都能产生抗同种病毒的抗体。

24 cosmopolitan   

adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的

参考例句：

• New York is a highly cosmopolitan city.纽约是一个高度世界性的城市。
• She has a very cosmopolitan outlook on life.她有四海一家的人生观。

25 beset   

v.镶嵌；困扰，包围

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• The plan was beset with difficulties from the beginning.这项计划自开始就困难重重。

26 strata   

n.地层（复数）；社会阶层

参考例句：

• The older strata gradually disintegrate.较老的岩层渐渐风化。
• They represent all social strata.他们代表各个社会阶层。