经济学人112:老人的故事 Old man’s tales

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　　文艺；书评；巴基斯坦的故事；老人的故事；

　　The Wandering Falcon¹. By Jamil Ahmad.

　　流浪的鹰。贾米尔·艾哈迈德著。

　　In 1893 Sir Henry Mortimer Durand drew a line in the sand, marking a border between Afghanistan and north-west British India, now Pakistan. In doing so, he carelessly carved up the Pushtun homeland. That line runs like a thread through “The Wandering Falcon”, Jamil Ahmad’s finely crafted first novel of stories set amid the Pushtun and Baluchi tribes that make up Pakistan’s wild west.

　　1893年，英国亨利·莫蒂默·杜兰爵士在沙漠上划下了一条边界线，以此来分隔阿富汗和英属印度西北部（如今的巴基斯坦）之间的边界。在划边界的过程中，他草率的把普什图的家园分隔开了，在《流浪的猎鹰》书中，这条边界是贯穿全文的主线。这本书经过了贾米尔·艾哈迈德精雕细琢，是第一部以普什图和俾路支部落为背景的小说，这两个部落支撑起了巴基斯坦荒凉的西部。

　　Starting in the 1950s from “the tangle² of crumbling³, weather-beaten and broken hills, where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet”, Mr Ahmad works his way north-east over the course of two decades. He pauses along the way to describe life in the semi-autonomous tribal⁴ areas—the migratory⁵ patterns of the nomadic⁶ Kharots, the “quiet, tormented⁷ lives” of the Gujjars, the ancient feud⁸ between the Wazirs and the Mahsuds—using as a guide a recurring⁹ character, Tor Baz, the “black falcon” of the title.

　　自从1950年开始，在伊朗，巴基斯坦和阿富汗的边界这个岩层剥落，饱受风雨侵蚀的，崎岖的小山群地域中，艾哈迈德先生经历了二十年的历程在该地区的向着东北方向进行研究。书中，艾哈迈德以“黑鹰”“为题，独辟一节，通过主人公托尔·巴兹追忆那些经历之地。一路中，其边走边停，向读者娓娓道来那些半自治游牧区生活：以迁徙为生的游牧民族卡罗兹，生活安逸却又饱受折磨的古加尔，还有瓦济里斯人与马苏德人间的恩恩怨怨。

　　Tor Baz is ostensibly the focus of “The Wandering Falcon”, gliding¹⁰ through the sky as men murder each other and women are sold for a pound of opium¹¹ on the ground below. His function is to help the reader understand the passage of time. Born to unwed parents in the first story—and witness to the brutal¹² justice they receive as a result—by the final tale Tor Baz takes a wife. He appears, quietly, in the intervening stories—here a guide, here an informer—a bit player in a much larger narrative¹³ that contrasts the ancient customs of the tribes with the rocky adolescence¹⁴ of the new state.

　　表面上,Tor Baz是《流浪的猎鹰》的关键人物,在地上,男人们相互厮杀,女人们被以一磅鸦片的价钱卖掉,而他却如鹰般在空中翱翔。他是用来帮助读者理解时间发生的顺序的。在第一个故事中他由未婚父母生出—鉴于残酷的法律，他们受到了惩罚—到最后一个故向事时他有了自己的妻子。他神秘地出现在故事中间—时而作为导，时而作为告密人—这个在宏大故事背景中的小角色，使古老的部落习俗与局势动荡的新兴国家形成了鲜明对比.。

　　Born in 1933, Mr Ahmad spent his working life as a Pakistani civil servant in postings up and down the region. “The Wandering Falcon” was completed in 1974 and sat unpublished for four decades until friends and family persuaded him to show it to Meru Gokhale, a young editor at Penguin¹⁵ India. Mr Ahmad writes with an insider’s knowledge, a careful attention to detail and an admirable restraint in his language. Metaphorical¹⁶ flourishes are rare and he is almost never judgmental. This is how the tribes live, he says, neither romanticising nor criticising their way of life.

　　艾哈迈德先生出生于1933年，他大部分的工作时间都用在作为该地区的巴基斯坦的邮政公务员。《流浪的猎鹰》是在1974年完成的，并且直到他的朋友和家人希望他将这本书给Meru Gokhale看前，这本书40年都没出版。Meru Gokhale是企鹅印度出版公司的年轻编辑。艾哈迈德先生用知情人的知识，细心的细节描述和让人敬佩的语言上的克制来写出这本书。隐喻的华丽辞藻很少出现在文中，他大多数时候从来都不做出个人的判断。这就是他所说的部落生活如何既不传奇化他们的生活也不批判他们的生活方式的方法。

　　“The Wandering Falcon” is not a long book. But it is dense¹⁷ with nuance¹⁸ and offers uncommon¹⁹ insight into a land too often explained away as “the most dangerous place on earth”. A wonderful debut²⁰.

　　《流浪的猎鹰》这本书篇幅并不长。但是这本书由精微的细节浓缩并且提出不同寻常的对于一个地方经常被误解成“世界上最危险的地方”的洞悉。这本书的初次亮相，惊艳无比。

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