美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Story Of A Brief Marriage' Provides Intimate Look At Sri Lanka's Civil War

'The Story Of A Brief Marriage' Provides Intimate Look At Sri Lanka's Civil War 

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"The Story Of A Brief Marriage" is a small book, fewer than 200 pages. And it's intimate, taking place over the course of a single day at a displaced persons camp during Sri Lanka's civil war. Despite the horrors of that war, the writing in this book feels poetic². In this passage, the author describes flies swarming³ over patients at a makeshift clinic.

ANUK ARUDPRAGASAM: (Reading) They would fold back their wings so respectfully when they landed, bending their four back legs, lowering their bodies and bowing down their heads. Raising their two front legs up in front of their faces, they would wrap their little hands together silently as if in fervent⁴ prayer, and only after several seconds of prostrating⁵ like this would they put their lips down reverently⁶ to the skin.

SHAPIRO: That's the author Anuk Arudpragasam. He grew up with a life of privilege in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital. But he kept wanting to learn more about the people who were directly affected⁷ by the civil war. He started with videos and testimonials on the internet from Sri Lankan displaced persons camps. Then he went in person.

ARUDPRAGASAM: And then finally I found myself in the northeast for the first time in the part of the country where the war occurred, walking on the same earth on which, you know, so many people had died and coming into contact with people who had survived.

You know, and I would never actually ask somebody what happened to them because, you know, it's such a traumatic experience obviously. But if somebody made it seem like they wanted to talk about it, then I would talk about it, and I would listen to what they had to say.

SHAPIRO: Writing a nonfiction account of the war felt too invasive, like he would be ripping off a shroud⁹ of privacy or trying to own other people's stories. So he turned these real stories into fiction.

ARUDPRAGASAM: And the prevailing¹⁰ sense I had was of, you know, how far these humans who share my language and share my history - how far they had moved away from ordinary life or how much distance was now there between us. And when I wrote this novel, part of what I wanted to do was to bring myself closer to them or to bring them closer to me, to understand that distance.

SHAPIRO: I have to tell you. The first five or so pages of this book are as difficult to get through as the opening of just about any book I have ever read. Will you just read the very first sentence?

ARUDPRAGASAM: The very first sentence - yes, I will read that to you. (Reading) Most children have two whole legs and two whole arms, but this little 6-year-old that Dinesh was carrying had already lost one leg - the right one from the lower thigh¹¹ down - and was now about to lose his right arm.

SHAPIRO: And then you go on to describe in great detail this amputation¹² for this 6-year-old child with no anesthetic¹³.

ARUDPRAGASAM: That actually is taken from a real event. I mean towards the last months of the war, there were very few doctors still in this area. Most of them had fled to the government-controlled territory. And the doctors who were remaining didn't have adequate equipment. They didn't have operating theaters. They didn't have surgical¹⁴ instruments. They didn't have anesthetic. So a lot of amputations were performed in this kind of way - you know, haphazardly¹⁵.

SHAPIRO: Tell me about the decision to make that the opening scene of the novel.

ARUDPRAGASAM: Well, so usually when there's - when an amputation occurs, when there is surgery, there is some kind of anesthetic. And in this case, there was no anesthetic obviously. But I think a large part of this kind of trauma⁸ does involve some kind of anesthetized relationship to the world around you - not necessarily to a particular part of your body or to some specific physical location but in general to the world around you.

And I want - and I think it was that parallel that I wanted to explore in the beginning of the novel to suggest that the sense in which to the doctor and to this boy who is being amputated upon - that there was this kind of numbed¹⁶ relationship between the mind and the world, this kind of distorted, unfeeling, anesthetized relationship.

SHAPIRO: Another thing about this book that struck me - the author never dwells on the setting in Sri Lanka. Most of it sounds like something you could imagine in Syria or Somalia. Arudpragasam told me he made a conscious decision not to include history or politics.

ARUDPRAGASAM: I mean my project was to really understand what it was like to be in such a situation, what it was like to be confronted with such violence on a day-to-day basis, and I feel that politically contextualizing the situation allows both myself as a writer but also the reader to kind of escape the immediacy of the situation.

SHAPIRO: You mean it's easier to say, oh, well, that's the Tamils, or that's the Shiites, or that's the whatever the particular group is that happens to be subjected to or causing the violence.

ARUDPRAGASAM: Right. That's right. I mean you - I mean if you're presented with the suffering of a group of people far away from you in space and time and it's difficult to be in the presence of and you feel an urge to act or to do something so immediately you try to diagnose the situation, you ask yourself, who did that? When did it happen? Who was responsible? How can we punish them? And...

SHAPIRO: And you don't give us those answers in this book.

ARUDPRAGASAM: No, I don't. And I mean I think those are important questions, and those are important answers to find. But I think asking those questions and answering them is also in a way a way of removing yourself from the discomfort¹⁷ or the anxiety you feel when you're confronted by this kind of suffering. And the project of the novel really was to put myself as a writer in the presence of it, so I did want to allow this kind of contextualization to happen.

SHAPIRO: Anuk Arudpragasam, thank you so much for joining us.

ARUDPRAGASAM: Thank you so much for having me.

SHAPIRO: Anuk Arudpragasam is the author of the new novel "The Story Of A Brief Marriage."

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

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 fervent   

adj.热的，热烈的，热情的

参考例句：

• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。
• Austria was among the most fervent supporters of adolf hitler.奥地利是阿道夫希特勒最狂热的支持者之一。

5 prostrating   

v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的现在分词 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力

参考例句：

• The pain associated with pancreatitis has been described as prostrating. 胰腺炎的疼痛曾被描述为衰竭性的。 来自辞典例句

6 reverently   

adv.虔诚地

参考例句：

• He gazed reverently at the handiwork. 他满怀敬意地凝视着这件手工艺品。
• Pork gazed at it reverently and slowly delight spread over his face. 波克怀着愉快的心情看着这只表，脸上慢慢显出十分崇敬的神色。

7 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

8 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

9 shroud   

n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏

参考例句：

• His past was enveloped in a shroud of mystery.他的过去被裹上一层神秘色彩。
• How can I do under shroud of a dark sky?在黑暗的天空的笼罩下，我该怎么做呢？

10 prevailing   

adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的

参考例句：

• She wears a fashionable hair style prevailing in the city.她的发型是这个城市流行的款式。
• This reflects attitudes and values prevailing in society.这反映了社会上盛行的态度和价值观。

11 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

12 amputation   

n.截肢

参考例句：

• In ancient India,adultery was punished by amputation of the nose.在古代印度，通奸要受到剖鼻的处罚。
• He lived only hours after the amputation.截肢后，他只活了几个小时。

13 anesthetic   

n.麻醉剂，麻药；adj.麻醉的，失去知觉的

参考例句：

• He was given a general anesthetic.他被全身麻醉。
• He was still under the influence of the anesthetic.他仍处在麻醉状态。

14 surgical   

adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的

参考例句：

• He performs the surgical operations at the Red Cross Hospital.他在红十字会医院做外科手术。
• All surgical instruments must be sterilised before use.所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。

15 haphazardly   

adv.偶然地，随意地，杂乱地

参考例句：

• The books were placed haphazardly on the shelf. 书籍乱七八糟地堆放在书架上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It is foolish to haphazardly adventure. 随便冒险是愚蠢的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

16 numbed   

v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His mind has been numbed. 他已麻木不仁。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was numbed with grief. 他因悲伤而昏迷了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

17 discomfort   

n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便

参考例句：

• One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
• She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。