2020年经济学人 现代生活方式--特罗洛普系列书评(2)（在线收听）

Lady Glencora is only one of dozens of unforgettable characters, who are every bit as boldly drawn as Dickens’s, and more plausible. Obadiah Slope is an oleaginous young clergyman who divides his energies between ingratiating himself with the powerful and laying down the moral law to everyone else. Mrs Proudie is a clerical wife consumed by ambition—and by disappointment with her husband. Nathaniel Hawthorne described Trollope’s world as “just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business and not suspecting that they were made a show of”.

格伦科拉女士只是众多令人难忘的人物中的一个，这些人物的刻画和狄更斯的一样大胆，而且更加可信。奥巴底亚·斯洛普是一个油腔滑调的年轻牧师，他把自己的精力分配在讨好权贵和向其他人制定道德律法之间。普劳迪夫人是一个牧师的妻子，她的内心被野心和对丈夫的失望占据。纳撒尼尔·霍桑将特罗洛普的世界描述为“就像某个巨人从地球上挖出一个大块儿，然后把它放在一个玻璃盒子里，所有的居民都在忙着自己的日常事务，却不知道自己是在作秀”。

Part of the appeal lies in Trollope’s ability to summon up a vanished society of vicarage tea parties, where clerical careers are decided, and country-house shooting weekends, where the fate of the nation may hang in the balance. But part also lies in Trollope’s knack for choosing subjects that echo powerfully today. “The Way We Live Now” (1875) is as much a portrait of the last few decades as it is of the high Victorian age, and every bit as addictive as HBO’s hit series “Succession”.

特罗洛普的部分吸引力在于，她能够唤起一个已经消失的社会，那里的牧师茶话会决定着牧师们的职业生涯，乡村别墅的周末枪击则决定着这个国家的命运。但部分原因还在于特罗洛普在选择今天能产生强烈反响的题材方面的技巧。《我们现在的生活方式》(The Way We Live Now, 1875年出版)既是对过去几十年的写照，也是对维多利亚时代鼎盛时期的写照，每一点都像HBO的热播剧《继承权》(Succession)一样令人上瘾。

The novel’s anti-hero, Augustus Melmotte, is one of the great portraits of the businessman as ogre—a “horrid, big, rich scoundrel”, “a bloated swindler” and “vile city ruffian” who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Robert Maxwell (and to living figures who had best not be named for legal reasons). Despite his foreign birth and mysterious past, Melmotte forces his way into British society by playing on the greed of bigwigs who despise him yet compete for his favours. He buys his way into the House of Commons; he floats a railway company that is ostensibly designed to build a line between Mexico and America but is really a paper scheme for selling shares. The Ponzi scam eventually collapses, exposing Britain’s great commercial empire for a greed-fuelled racket and its high society as a hypocritical sham.

小说的反英雄奥古斯都·梅尔莫特是对商人食人魔的最好描述之一——“可怕的、高大的、富有的恶棍”、“膨胀的骗子”和“卑鄙的城市恶棍”，他与已故的罗伯特·麦克斯韦尔有着惊人的相似之处(由于法律原因，最好不要点名活着的人)。尽管他出生在外国，有着神秘的过去，但梅尔莫特利用那些鄙视他的权贵们的贪婪，强行进入英国社会，这些权贵们为了得到他的青睐而相互竞争。他花钱进入下议院；他让一家铁路公司上市，该公司表面上是为了在墨西哥和美国之间修建一条铁路，但实际上是一个出售股票的纸面计划。庞氏骗局最终瓦解，暴露出英国庞大的商业帝国是一个贪婪滋生的骗局，其上流社会是一个虚伪的骗局。

“The Way We Live Now” is an excellent place to begin an affair with Trollope. It is relatively short by his standards and exquisitely executed. If you don’t like it, Trollope’s world is not for you. If you do, another 46 novels await you.

《我们现在的生活方式》是开始与特罗洛普交往的绝佳之地。按照他的标准，这本书相对较短，而且执行得很精巧。如果你不喜欢，那么特罗洛普的世界不适合你。如果你喜欢，还有46本小说等着你。