7.小说家编造的谎言

　　I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.

　　今天我作为一个小说家来到耶路撒冷，也就是说，作为一个职业撒谎者。

　　Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and generals tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?

　　当然，并不只有小说家才撒谎。政治家也做这个，我们都知道。外交官和军人有时也说他们自己的那种说，二手车销售员、肉贩和建筑商也是。但小说家的谎言与其他人的不同，因为没有人会批评小说家说谎不道德。甚至，他说的谎言越好、越大、制造谎言的方式越有独创性，他就越有可能受到公众和评论家的表扬。为什么会这样呢？

　　My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies-which is to say by making up fictions that appear to be true---the novelist can bring a truth out to a new place and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth-lies within us, within ourselves. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

　　我的回答会是这样：即，通过讲述精巧的谎言——也就是说，通过编造看起来是真实的虚构故事——小说家能够把一种真实带到新的地方，赋予它新的见解。在多数情况下，要以原初的形态领会一个事实并准确描绘它，几乎是不可能的。因此我们把事实从它的藏身之处诱出，将之转移到虚构之地，用虚构的形式取而代之，以试图抓住它的尾巴。然而，为了完成这点，我们必须首先理清在我们之中真实在哪儿。要编造优秀的谎言，这是一种重要的资质。

　　I truly believe it is the novelist's job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories---stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

　　我完全相信，小说家的任务是通过写故事来不断试图理清每个个体灵魂的独特性——生与死的故事，爱的故事，使人哭泣、使人害怕得发抖和捧腹大笑的故事。这就是为什么我们日复一日，以极其严肃的态度编造着虚构故事的原因。