2019年经济学人 了不起的黑人女作家托尼·莫里森(1)

 

In her magnificence

了不起的托尼·莫里森

Toni Morrison, writer, died on August 5th, aged¹ 88

作家托尼·莫里森于8月5日去世，享年88岁。

She did not look away. When Toni Morrison's clear imagining gaze met uncomfortable things, she faced them down. A poisoned dog jerking round the yard like a toy. Human placenta in a field. The transparent² underskin of a bobcat gutted³ on a kitchen table. The greyish panties, still round her ankles, of an 11-year-old girl raped⁴ by her father as she washed the dishes. Especially she did not look away from the images of slavery she had been slowly, painfully dragged towards by the time she wrote "Beloved", in 1987.

她不会把目光移开。当托尼·莫里森的清澈的充满想象力的目光看到令人不舒服的东西时，她会面对它们。在院子里转来转去的一只中毒的狗像玩具一样。田野中人的胎盘。放在厨房桌子上被破坏的山猫的透明的皮肤。一名11岁的女孩在洗碗时被父亲强奸，她的灰色内裤还绕着脚踝。尤其是1987年托尼写《宠儿》的时候，她没有将她的目光从自己被慢慢地、痛苦地拖向的奴隶的形象上移开。

A man hanged in a sycamore tree, known by his shirt, but with head and feet missing. A red ribbon, fished from the river, with a curl of wet woolly hair attached to it and, to that, its bit of scalp. A fugitive⁵ slave crunching⁶ the breast bone of a dove before its heart had stopped beating. The wildness that shot up in a man's eye when his lips were yanked back to take the bit. Sethe, her heroine in "Beloved", serenely⁷ continuing to hold on her baby's face after she had cut its throat to save it from a slave's life.

一名男子被吊死在一棵美国梧桐树上，从他的衬衫就可以看出，但是他的头和脚都不见了。一个从河里钓出来的红丝带，上面有一绺湿漉漉的毛茸茸的头发，还有一点头皮。一个逃亡的奴隶在鸽子的心脏停止跳动之前嘎吱嘎吱地啃着它的胸骨。当这个男人的嘴唇被拉回去咬一口时，涌上他的眼睛的野性。《宠儿》中的男主角塞丝，她割断了自己的婴儿的喉咙，把他从奴隶的生命中救了出来，然后平静地继续捧着孩子的脸。

Because these scenes sometimes brushed against beauty—the sycamores tall and soughing, the dove eaten under flowering plum trees—and because her novels won prizes, notably⁸ the Nobel in 1993, critics tended to call them lyrical and poetic⁹. Nothing made her madder. Lyricism meant that literary language was getting in the way. It had to be stripped down, freed up, opened up and teased to get the writerly-ness out. First drafts of her word-work, in number-two pencil on yellow legal pads, then went through as many as 13 revisions on the word-processor.

因为这些场景有时会与美擦肩而过-飒飒风吹的高大的梧桐树，在开花的李子树下被吃的鸽子-因为她的小说得了奖，尤其是1993年的著名的诺贝尔奖，评论家们倾向于称其为抒情的和诗意的描述。没有什么使她更加生气了。抒情风格意味着文学语言的介入。它必须被剥离，被释放，被打开，被戏弄，以获得可写性。她的文字作品的初稿是用二号铅笔写在黄色的便笺簿上，然后在文字处理器上经过了多达13次的修改。

1 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

2 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

3 gutted   

adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏

参考例句：

• Disappointed? I was gutted! 失望？我是伤心透了！
• The invaders gutted the historic building. 侵略者们将那幢历史上有名的建筑洗劫一空。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

5 fugitive   

adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者

参考例句：

• The police were able to deduce where the fugitive was hiding.警方成功地推断出那逃亡者躲藏的地方。
• The fugitive is believed to be headed for the border.逃犯被认为在向国境线逃窜。

6 crunching   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• The horses were crunching their straw at their manger. 这些马在嘎吱嘎吱地吃槽里的草。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog was crunching a bone. 狗正嘎吱嘎吱地嚼骨头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 serenely   

adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地

参考例句：

• The boat sailed serenely on towards the horizon.小船平稳地向着天水交接处驶去。
• It was a serenely beautiful night.那是一个宁静美丽的夜晚。

8 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

9 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。