美国国家公共电台 NPR Marlon James Builds A New World From Old Stories In 'Black Leopard'

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Marlon James could have chosen to write about anything after his last novel, "A Brief History Of Seven Killings¹." That kaleidoscopic² account of Jamaica won the prestigious³ Man Booker Prize. So there were a few gasps⁴ when the author revealed that his new book would be what some people dismiss as genre⁵ literature. "Black Leopard⁶, Red Wolf" is an epic⁸ fantasy quest, full of monsters sex and violence, set in a mythic version of ancient Africa.

MARLON JAMES: The whole idea that you get to the age where you outgrow⁹ fairies and witches and wonder and so on, to the point where people who like that are considered kind of immature¹⁰ and nerdish, has always struck me as pretty ludicrous.

SHAPIRO: This book overflows¹¹ with that sense of wonder. Nightmares from African folklore¹² jump out of every page. These are monsters that might be unfamiliar¹³ to readers of Western mythology¹⁴.

JAMES: So there's ipundulu, who's the lightning bird. Then there's the adzi, and adzi is also a bloodsucker. But - but what adzi does is that he changes into a swarm¹⁵ of bugs¹⁶. And then bugs attack you, and the bugs drink your blood.

SHAPIRO: Other elements of the story are more familiar. There is a ragtag group of adventurers who set out on a quest. The crew includes a moon witch, a sad giant, an intelligent buffalo¹⁷ and the narrator, known only as Tracker. He can sniff¹⁸ out anyone anywhere.

They're looking for a missing child, and Marlon James gives away the child's fate in the very first sentence of this book. It begins (reading), the child is dead. There is nothing left to know.

JAMES: I've always been more interested in whydunnits (ph) than whodunnits. I find whodunnits frustrating¹⁹ because I usually figure it out by the 10th page.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: But whydunnits, it's a bigger question. It's a more involved question. It's - it's, you know, I don't want to know that you got a divorce. I want to know why your marriage fell apart.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: That's the question that always leads to the longer and the more complicated answer. Why cannot be answered with a one-word answer.

SHAPIRO: And this book is told by an unreliable narrator, a man who's being held prisoner. And the whole thing feels like it comes from an oral storytelling tradition. There's no omniscient²⁰ exposition, which makes it a little less reliable. We don't know whether to believe what we're being told.

JAMES: And that's a very African way of telling a story. I think in the West, we are a little too obsessed²¹ with the idea that a story told must be truth. We're obsessed with the authentic²² version, the director's cut, the...

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: ...This is the legit version, whereas in African storytelling, a lot of African storytelling you already know that the trickster is telling you the story. An Anansi story, you know, the trickster - we already know...

SHAPIRO: Anansi is the famous character from African mythology...

JAMES: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: ...Who is the trickster storyteller.

JAMES: This trickster spider. Any story, one should take with a grain of salt. It doesn't change how much you enjoyed a story, but it does put the burden of belief on you, the listener or the reader, than on the person telling the story. I have no duty to tell it true or not.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

JAMES: It's your job to judge if I'm lying or not.

SHAPIRO: You didn't grow up with African myths and legends. You grew up in Jamaica. So tell us about how you learned this mythology and how you became well-versed in it.

JAMES: Yeah, I grew up with some. I grew up with Anansi stories, and I grew up with my grandfather telling me stories. Sometimes it would be the same story with one tweak the next day. So, you know, it's - despite their very, very best efforts, Europeans didn't totally destroy the African in the slave. But of course, I didn't know nine-tenths of what I wrote about. So I figured I had to research it.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: African mythologies²³, African histories, African legends, African epics²⁴ that have been translated so far - you know, most of those are on par⁷ with any "Beowulf."

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: I had some very clear ideas about the type of story I wanted to tell. But I'm - as much as I can talk about Africa, I grew up in the West. A crisis for me is, who's my favorite Charlie's Angel?

(LAUGHTER)

JAMES: So, yeah, a lot of that, I had to learn. A lot of that, I had to discover and do some detective work.

SHAPIRO: In the world of literature, for a long time, the gatekeepers have rewarded people who write about traditional nuclear families and middle-class crises. And you're writing about blood and sex and monsters...

JAMES: (Laughter).

SHAPIRO: ...In a literary way. Do you think that we're in a new phase now?

JAMES: Man, I hope so.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

JAMES: It's - it's - it's the same type of thing that - that, you know, ended up infecting a lot of American fiction with this sort of obsession²⁵ with the great American novel. I mean, what a ludicrous idea.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: But it won't - it won't die.

(LAUGHTER)

JAMES: It's weird²⁶ saying people are looking for news stories 'cause in a lot of ways, these are old stories.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: And I think we're rediscovering them and also just finding new ways of telling them. I think also in the time that we're in and in the politics that we're in and the society we're in and the ways in which societies is turning into these very strange and sometimes nightmarish shapes that we start to look at, quite frankly²⁷, nightmares.

One of things that I found myself on a - on a - on a search-and-find thing - and it was - it was a research that led it, was writing about sexuality in a book...

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: ...'Cause there's lots of queerness. Main characters are queer and it deals with queerness and gender²⁸ identity and gender fluidity and all of these things. And I think some mother reading it might think I'm trying to score some intersectionality points.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

JAMES: And the funny thing is, that's the oldest element in the book. That was - that was - that was shocking to me, that in some societies, gay men were actually praised 'cause they're the only men allowed near brides-to-be. I mean, some of these tribes have 15 genders²⁹. And nobody doubted these roles until, you know, a bunch of American preachers showed up and told them, no.

SHAPIRO: Marlon James, could I ask you to take a step back and sort of situate this book in the moment that we're living in? Because it feels like, in so many different genres³⁰ of entertainment, there is this flourishing of high-end kind of black surrealism and fantasy...

JAMES: Right.

SHAPIRO: ...Whether that's "Black Panther" or the latest season of "Atlanta" or now this book that you've created, which I know you started working on before either of those things came out.

JAMES: (Laughter).

SHAPIRO: What's going on right now?

JAMES: It's - I wonder if we're all faced with the things that Tolkien was faced with, where we have these big questions, and we just - the world right in front of us isn't answering them.

You know, if I want to talk about what it feels like to be displaced and lost, I might have to set myself in a fairytale New York. If I'm talking about larger-than-life evil I don't understand, I have to bring in monsters. But I also think that all these writers are responding to erasure³¹.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: Yeah. They're responding to never being in the narrative³², or if we're in a narrative, it's a certain kind. If you - if we're in the Americas, for lots of us, certainly for me, ground zero was slavery. And I rarely learn anything beyond that. And it's important that we know slavery and we understand it. I think it's something that's still actually under-discussed. But if I continue to think that the origin of my story, origin of - of the story is colonialism and slavery, then eventually I'm going to feel as if I'm not, you know - I'm a - nothing more than a displaced person.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

JAMES: So I think that's one of things to actually tap into the original narratives³³, to tap into this sort of reservoir of stories. And I think every society needs its myths. It's what tell us who we are. So if I come from a people who didn't have them, I'm going to start searching for them and trying to make some up.

SHAPIRO: Marlon James, thank you so much for talking with us.

JAMES: Thanks for having me.

SHAPIRO: His new book is called "Black Leopard, Red Wolf."

(SOUNDBITE OF LUDWIG GORANSSON'S "WAKANDA")

1 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

2 kaleidoscopic   

adj.千变万化的

参考例句：

• London is a kaleidoscopic world.伦敦是个天花筒般的世界。
• The transfer of administrative personnel in that colony was so frequent as to create kaleidoscopic effect.在那个殖民地，官员调动频繁，就象走马灯似的。

3 prestigious   

adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的

参考例句：

• The young man graduated from a prestigious university.这个年轻人毕业于一所名牌大学。
• You may even join a prestigious magazine as a contributing editor.甚至可能会加入一个知名杂志做编辑。

4 gasps   

v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• He leant against the railing, his breath coming in short gasps. 他倚着栏杆，急促地喘气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• My breaths were coming in gasps. 我急促地喘起气来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 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。

6 leopard   

n.豹

参考例句：

• I saw a man in a leopard skin yesterday.我昨天看见一个穿着豹皮的男人。
• The leopard's skin is marked with black spots.豹皮上有黑色斑点。

7 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

8 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

9 outgrow   

vt.长大得使…不再适用；成长得不再要

参考例句：

• The little girl will outgrow her fear of pet animals.小女孩慢慢长大后就不会在怕宠物了。
• Children who walk in their sleep usually outgrow the habit.梦游的孩子通常在长大后这个习惯自然消失。

10 immature   

adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的

参考例句：

• Tony seemed very shallow and immature.托尼看起来好像很肤浅，不夠成熟。
• The birds were in immature plumage.这些鸟儿羽翅未全。

11 overflows   

v.溢出，淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 )；充满；挤满了人；扩展出界，过度延伸

参考例句：

• He always fills his glass till it overflows. 他总是把杯子斟得很满。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A distributary overflows its banks. 分流水溢出河岸。 来自辞典例句

12 folklore   

n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• In Chinese folklore the bat is an emblem of good fortune.在中国的民间传说中蝙蝠是好运的象征。

13 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

14 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

15 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

16 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

18 sniff   

vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视

参考例句：

• The police used dogs to sniff out the criminals in their hiding - place.警察使用警犬查出了罪犯的藏身地点。
• When Munchie meets a dog on the beach, they sniff each other for a while.当麦奇在海滩上碰到另一条狗的时候，他们会彼此嗅一会儿。

19 frustrating   

adj.产生挫折的，使人沮丧的，令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间，真令人懊恼。
• It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 omniscient   

adj.无所不知的；博识的

参考例句：

• He's nervous when trying to potray himself as omniscient.当他试图把自己描绘得无所不知时，内心其实很紧张。
• Christians believe that God is omniscient.基督教徒相信上帝是无所不知的。

21 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

22 authentic   

a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的

参考例句：

• This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
• Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。

23 mythologies   

神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点

参考例句：

• a study of the religions and mythologies of ancient Rome 关于古罗马的宗教和神话的研究
• This realization is enshrined in "Mythologies." 这一看法见诸于他的《神话集》一书。

24 epics   

n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍）

参考例句：

• one of the great Hindu epics 伟大的印度教史诗之一
• Homer Iliad and Milton's Paradise Lost are epics. 荷马的《伊利亚特》和弥尔顿的《失乐园》是史诗。 来自互联网

25 obsession   

n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感)

参考例句：

• I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
• She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。

26 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

27 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

28 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

29 genders   

n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分

参考例句：

• There are three genders in German: masculine, feminine and neuter. 德语中有叁性：阳性、阴性和中性。 来自辞典例句
• Japan was fourth among the genders of foreign students. 日本在二十个留美学生输送地中列第四位。 来自互联网

30 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

31 erasure   

n.擦掉，删去；删掉的词；消音；抹音

参考例句：

• The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. 过去给人擦拭个干净，擦拭的行为又忘了个干净，于是，谎言就变成了真理。 来自英汉文学
• The inspection, modification, replacement or erasure of part of file's contents. 检查、修改、代替或擦去文档内容一部分的过程。 来自互联网

32 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

33 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。