经济学人50: 城市的黑暗

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　　文艺；书评；新小说;城市的黑暗;

　　Capital. By John Lanchester.

　　《首府》；约翰·兰彻斯特著；

　　Any neighbourhood in London might merit its own novel. But John Lanchester, author of the bestselling “Fragrant Harbour”, chose the fictional¹ Pepys Road as the setting for “Capital”, his new state-of-the-nation story. Like many streets in London, Pepys Road was smartened up by the glory days before the financial crisis. And like others elsewhere, the tenants³ of this street lived on rather shaky ground.

　　任何伦敦附近的街区都可能成就自己的小说。但是，畅销书《芬芳海港》的作者约翰·兰彻斯特为《首府》一书选择了虚构的佩皮斯路作为背景，讲述他的新国情故事。就象伦敦的许多街道一样，佩皮斯路在金融危机前有过辉煌的岁月。同时也象其它地方的其他人一样，这条街上的房客住得有点儿摇摇欲坠。

　　The novel begins in December 2007 and ends a year later, after the unwieldy collapse⁴ of Lehman Brothers. This is a London of swagger and hubris⁵, and the story is cluttered⁶ with more characters than Roger Yount, the banker protagonist⁷, knows ways to spend money. Each character lives on Pepys Road or orbits it, and their stories are fraught⁸ with a sense of impending⁹ loss.

　　这本小说的故事开始于2007年12月，一年后结束在雷曼兄弟公司棘手的倒闭之后。这本书讲的是伦敦的狂妄自大与傲慢，书中除了擅长花钱的主角罗杰·扬特外，还挤满了其它众多的人物。每个人物都住在佩皮斯路，或是围绕着佩皮斯路而存在，他们的故事都充满了即将失去的感觉。

　　At the outset residents receive eerie¹⁰ postcards that say “We want what you have.” Petunia¹¹ Howe, the only tenant² born on Pepys Road, wonders how anyone could envy her. Her struggle with a brain tumour¹² is the book's most emotionally resonant¹³ subplot. There are countless¹⁴ others, including a City banker and his self-obsessed wife, a Polish construction worker, a Senegalese footballer and Pakistani shopkeepers. What binds¹⁵ these stories together is a growing awareness¹⁶ of how quickly fortunes can change and how easily perception diverges¹⁷ from reality.

　　一开始，居民都收到令人毛骨悚然的明信片，上面写着“我们想要你拥有的东西”。唯一出生在佩皮斯路的房客皮丢尼雅·豪怀疑怎么会有人羡慕她。她与脑瘤的抗争是本书最感人肺腑的陪衬情节。本书还有其他无数的人，包括市银行家和他自恋的妻子、波兰的建筑工人、塞内加尔的足球运动员以及巴基斯坦的店主。这些故事交织在一起，让人越发清醒地意识到命运可以改变得有多么迅速，以及感知偏离现实又有多么轻易。

　　Mr Lanchester is not the first post-crisis novelist to consider Londoners and their money. There was Justin Cartwright's very funny “Other People's Money” and Sebastian Faulks's “A Week in December”. “Capital” manages to be both less entertaining and shallower than these books, while also running quite a bit longer. Flabby and repetitive writing explains some of this heft. There is also plenty of lazy imagery, which compares one character's breakdown¹⁸ to “an iceberg¹⁹ cracking or a huge sheet of glass shattering into fragments”.

　　兰彻斯特并不是第一位思考伦敦人及其金钱的后危机小说家。这类书还有贾斯廷·卡特赖特的《别人的钱》，写得非常有趣，以及塞巴斯蒂安·福克斯的《12月的一个星期》。《首府》试图比这些书少些娱乐性和肤浅，同时也写得篇幅长些。松散而重复的写作手法让本书的篇幅过长。书中还有很多懒惰的比喻，把一个人物的崩溃比做“冰山开裂或一大块玻璃碎成片片”。

　　This might be forgiven if Mr Lanchester's characters could carry the weight of his book. But there are so many of them, and they are so lightly sketched²⁰ that only ten pages before the end of the book he feels the need to remind readers about the identity of a central figure. In this way “Capital” is like the city he is trying to evoke²¹: so crowded with people that they pass each other impersonally²². No one needs to read so many pages to recreate that experience.

　　这可以得到原谅，只要兰彻斯特的角色都可以在他的书中占有份量。但有许多人物只被轻轻勾上几笔，以致在本书结束前十页，他才觉得有必要提醒读者主要人物的身份。因此《首府》一书就象他正试图唤醒的城市一样，挤满了互不关己的人。没有人需要读这么多页来得到这一经验。

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