2019年经济学人 美国代孕题材新小说:《农场》(1)（在线收听）

美国代孕题材新小说:《农场》(1)

Books and Arts

来源于《图书与艺术》版块

Book Review

书评

New American fiction

新美国小说

Womb for rent

出租子宫

The Farm. By Joanne Ramos.

《农场》。作者：乔安妮·拉莫斯

For Jane, a job at Golden Oaks, an elegant property north of Manhattan, seems almost too good to be true. She spends her days swaddled in cashmere, engaged in light exercise and nourished by organic superfoods. Her bedroom is far more luxurious than the dormitory in Queens where she and her newborn daughter bunked with dozens of fellow Filipinas; the pay is much better than her previous jobs. The hitch is that she had to leave her child, relinquish her freedom and carry a baby to term for one of the most powerful women in the world.

曼哈顿北部一处优雅的房产名为黄金橡，对于简而言，在这工作似乎美好得不真实。她每天裹着开司米，进行轻度运动，吃有机超级食品。她的卧室比皇后区的宿舍豪华得多，她和刚出生的女儿与数十名菲律宾同胞同住在这里；薪水比她以前的工作高得多。问题是她不得不离开自己的孩子，放弃自由，为世界上最有权势的女人之一代孕。

This is the unnervingly plausible set-up for Joanne Ramos’s impressive debut novel, “The Farm”. The title comes from the employees’ name for this high-end surrogacy outfit, where mostly destitute women incubate the infants of the 1%. Befitting an era when parents strive to give their offspring ever-more sophisticated advantages, the place is calibrated to maximise “fetal potential”, with customised diets, wristbands to monitor activity levels and wearable machines that broadcast Mozart’s symphonies and Churchill’s speeches directly into the womb. Hired “hosts” submit to constant scrutiny—there are cameras everywhere. White surrogates are rare and command a premium, particularly if they have been to university.

这就是乔安妮·拉莫斯令人印象深刻的处女作《农场》中刻画的令人不安的似是而非的场景。这个书名来自于这家高端代孕机构的员工名字，在这家机构里，大多数贫困女性为1%的人代孕婴儿。在这个时代，父母们努力给后代更多复杂的优势，得益于此，这个地方的标准是最大化“胎儿潜能”，饮食定制，腕带用来监测活动水平，可穿戴设备可以将莫扎特的交响乐和丘吉尔的演讲直接送入子宫。雇佣的“代孕”要接受持续的审查——到处都是摄像头。白人代孕者很少见，而且价格不菲，尤其是如果还上过大学。