再見，馬爾克斯；再見，南美洲的桃花源

公元421年，隱居在家多年的陶淵明(365年－427年)寫下了膾炙人口的名篇 -《桃花源記》。文不長，僅三百多字，講述的是武陵漁人無意中闖入一片與世隔絕的凈土。「土地平曠，屋舍儼然，有良田美池桑竹之屬。阡陌交通，雞犬相聞。」陶淵明筆下的桃源不但秀美而且人民生活幸福自在，「黃髮垂髫，並怡然自樂。」這一切同東晉時的朝廷橫徵暴斂，民不聊生形成鮮明對比。從此桃花源就成為中國式的烏托邦或理想國的象徵，深受歷代文人騷客以及普通百姓的喜愛。到了現代，《桃花源記》更被選入中學課本，國人中很少有不知道的。

令人遺憾的是陶淵明並沒有描寫桃花源的人們的生活細節，天堂里的生活真的很甜蜜嗎？他也沒有回答一個很重要的問題：桃花源最後的結局是什麼。這留下了很多想象的空間，但總覺得不完整。

無獨有偶，一千五百多年後哥倫比亞作家加西亞·馬爾克斯(Gabriel García Márquez)在1967年也寫了一個世外桃源 。《百年孤獨》(One hundred years of solitude)講述一個叫馬孔多(Macondo)的村莊的故事。和《桃花源記》不大一樣，馬孔多並不是一塊凈土或者仙境。從外表上看它同南美洲許多村莊，小鎮差不多，人們也生老病死，過著普通的生活，仔細一看卻充滿了離奇和怪誕。人間的規矩常理在這裡似乎不管用，比如老祖母烏蘇拉活到了120多歲，最後縮成像洋娃娃這麼大；家族中的最後一個人被螞蟻吃掉，等等。這種寫作風格被稱為魔幻現實主義(Magic Realism)。諾貝爾文學獎獲得者馬爾克斯是這個流派最重要的作家之一。今年4月17日，馬爾克斯在墨西哥城去世，享年87歲。

馬爾克斯是我最喜歡的作家之一。《百年孤獨》萬花筒般的歷史長卷讓我流連，古怪離奇的變形讓我詫異，對現實的尖銳批判更讓我拍案稱奇。以前我寫過一篇博文比較《百年孤獨》與莫言的《生死疲勞》(參閱「怪圈」)，但要對它進行的全面評價卻超出我的能力。幸運的是我在「紐約時報」找到了一篇《百年孤獨》的書評，將它翻譯成中文，已饗讀者，也算一點紀念。

說到「紐約時報」，你知道文章的質量是有保障的，如果作者又是哈佛的文學教授，你可以肯定，這篇書評一定很棒。本文發表與1970年3月，當英文版《百年孤獨》剛出版之際。作者羅伯特·凱利(Robert Kiely)是English教授，在文學評論方面發表了很多專著。他也曾經擔任哈佛亞當斯學院(Adams House)的Headmaster很多年時間。

記憶和預言渾然一體，幻覺和現實真假難辨

原作：羅伯特·凱利 (翻譯：白露為霜)

說到帶有魔力的仙境，即使是談論現代小說，也會呼招出精靈(elves)，月光(moonbeams)和滑山(slippery mountains)的形象。除了侏儒和仙子之外，讀者也可以預期奇妙的壯舉和道德的預兆，但不會有太多的幽默，更不用說「性」了。想法似乎是，魔力就該忘記了地球上的一切。至少，這是魔力的一個特徵。

這顯然不是哥倫比亞作家加西亞·馬爾克斯所認同的，他在《百年孤獨》里創造了一個神奇的地方，在那裡除了甜膩之外啥都會發生。馬孔多即使在它最誘人和最讓人開心時也滲著血，冒著惡臭，火燒火燎的。它充斥著謊言和說謊者，但它也流淌著現實。小說里的愛人們可以把對方理想化為出竅的精靈，在吊床上因快樂而嚎叫，或者，在一個例子中，給自己抹上桃子醬，在門前赤裸裸地翻滾。英雄可以穿越叢林進行堂吉訶德式的遠征，雖然他的目標永遠達不到，描寫其探險的語言卻是鮮活的辛辣：

「當他們的靴子陷入黑油的池塘，用砍刀斬斷血腥的野百合與金蠑螈時，遠征的人們感到淹沒在潮濕和沉默的伊甸園的最古老的記憶中，回到原罪[注1]之前。整整一個星期，他們艱難前行，幾乎不說話，如同夢遊者穿行在悲傷的宇宙中，只有夜光蟲的暗弱反射的照明，他們的肺部在令人窒息的血腥氣味中不堪重負。」這是一位詩人的語言，他了解地球並且不害怕它會成為夢想家的敵人。

在《百年孤獨》接近結尾時某人發現了一卷由吉普賽老人「在一百年前寫下的」羊皮紙手稿，上面記載了他們家族的歷史。他「沒有把事件按常人的順序記載，卻將一個世紀每日發生的事件集中在一起，讓它們在同一個瞬間共存。」小說的敘述就像一個魔術師的表演，其中記憶和預言，幻覺和現實渾然一體，真假莫辨。簡短地說，這就像馬爾克斯的驚人的小說。

描述這本書的技巧和主題很難不使它聽起來很荒唐地複雜，吃力，幾乎無法閱讀。事實上，它完全不是這樣的。由怪癖，古老的奧秘，家庭的秘密和奇特的矛盾編織而成，它卻看上去合乎情理，並以數十種直接的方法讓人享受樂趣。

家庭的記事圍繞著何塞·阿爾卡迪奧·布恩迪亞(José Arcadio Buendía)和他的妻子烏蘇拉(Ursula)以及他們的5代子孫。他們在19世紀初的某個時間在南美某地清水河邊建立了村莊馬孔多。對時間和地點的不確定性，就像書中其他有關事實的不確定，並不是作者在時髦地逃避，而是他所寫的人們心中想法的真正反映。從一開始，我們被告知，布恩迪亞對該地區的地理環境一無所知。他很喜歡地圖和指南針，但關於他在哪裡的還停留在自己的感覺上。他做事總是太過火，「為了建立確定正午時分的一個準確方法」，在日頭下擺弄星盤和六分儀，差點中暑了。

這本書是一部歷史，但不是政府或正規機構保持公共記錄的那種，而是一群人的歷史。就像亞伯拉罕[注2]早期的後裔，了解他們的最佳方法是通過其與家族的關係。從某種意義上說，何塞和烏蘇拉是故事中僅有的兩個人物，而他們的兒女，孫子和重孫子是他們具有不同長處和短處的變種。何塞，對未知永遠的著迷，開始了一個又一個項目，發明了一樣又一樣東西。他嘗試過製造黃金，探索海洋和拍出上帝的照片，還有其他很多。他最後終於瘋了，摔破東西，除了拉丁語之外不肯說話，給綁在家裡花園中一顆巨大的板栗樹上。

烏蘇拉是實用的耐久和堅強的意志的化身。是她在災難之後把一件件東西修好，把房子打掃乾淨。是她在自己的孩子已經成年後繼續養育各種後代，是她仍然精力旺盛，頭腦清醒，直到114或122歲 - 像往常一樣，沒有人能確定。

強迫性的理想主義和耐久的實用性的混合概括了布恩迪亞後代的生活。所有的男性，都命名為阿爾卡迪奧(Arcadio)或奧雷利亞諾(Aureliano)，要麼投奔海洋，要麼領導革命，要麼跟著吉普賽人跑了，要麼災難性地愛上了自己的姐姐，或姑姑（只有一個例外，他對一個12歲的小女孩萌生愛意），但大多數都為家族增添地位和財富，所有的都給家族添人加丁。女人們也不讓男人專美。有一個在抑鬱的時候會吃泥巴; 另一個因為她的情人自殺在烤箱里燒傷了手，然後一輩子裹著黑布遮蓋它。還有一個，美人雷梅迪奧斯(Remedios the Beauty)，是那麼的純潔，有一天她在後院摺疊亞麻布，坐在家裡的床單上升到天堂。

然而要從書中孤立細節，甚至是很好的細節，對它也是非常不公平。馬爾克斯建造了一個連續體(continuum)，聯接和關係的網路。一些細節也許是離奇和怪誕的，總體的效果卻是妙趣橫生和幽默詼諧，更加重要的，警醒和同情。作者似乎讓他的角色們一半是夢想，一半是記憶自己的故事，最好的是，他十分明智地沒有為他們這種做法提供借口。借口是沒有必要的。馬孔多不是一個仙境(never-never land)。它的居民也受苦，變老和死去，但按照他們自己的方式。

現實的各種硬的和熟悉的方面時時闖入他們的世界。以一個局外人來看，似乎不真實或至少不落俗套的，是布恩迪亞他們的回應，以及他們對事情如出生，死亡，戰爭，疾病，甚至天氣的解釋。當馬孔多熱的時候，它熱的連人和獸都發瘋，鳥類攻擊的房子。一次漫長的雨季持續了不是幾個星期，但四年十一個月零兩天。當瘟疫來臨，它不是普通的殺手，而是「失眠瘟疫」，從而逐漸使人們忘記了一切，包括最普通東西的名稱和用途。為了應對記憶力的減退，村民們在椅子，鐘錶上帖上標註，甚至在牛身上掛個牌子：「這是牛，必須每天早上給她擠奶，這樣她會產生牛奶，牛奶必須煮然後與咖啡混合，來做咖啡和牛奶。「

比惡劣天氣或瘟疫更為嚴重的是從外部的侵入，神秘的吉普賽人，腐敗的政府官員，殘酷的士兵（包括保守黨和自由黨），浮誇的義大利調音師，巧妙的法國妓女，最後，鐵路和冒著汗的外國佬，他們「計劃在布恩迪亞和他的手下人尋找大海時經過的魔法之地種植香蕉樹」。起初，看起來好像北美人會被吸收到馬孔多的夢幻生活中，但他們真的是要改變這裡的，包括地形和天氣，他們也最終建立自己更合乎情理的馬孔多，整齊劃一的房子，還有網球場和游泳池。

它可能只是馬孔多亂倫生活(incestuous life)的一個階段，像32次革命或失眠瘟疫，但是世外桃源在遇上外國佬后很難存活下來，就像它無法避開20世紀一樣。同這個古怪而動人的敘述中很多東西一樣，終結似乎已經不可避免。然而，北美的讀者 - 在思考這充滿著令人難以忘懷的人、獸和事的敘述時 - 也很難不被自己同胞的做派而慚愧。「汗流滿面的客人 – 甚至不知道誰是自己的主人 - [成群結隊]佔據餐桌上最好的地方」。馬爾克斯非常藝術地告訴我們，這些主人是誰，更重要的，他們認為他們自己是誰。他完成了一部如此充滿了幽默，豐富的細節和令人詫異的變形的小說，使我想起了福克納(Faulkner)和君特·格拉斯(Gunter Grass)最好的作品。這是一個南美州的創世紀(Genesis)[注3]，一個樸實的仙境，而且，就像敘述者講述馬孔多所說的，「真實和幻影的精微的燉湯。」

用燉湯來描寫這樣一部魅力無限的幻想曲的智慧和力量是太過謙虛了，但是如果強烈的氣味驅趕了「閃亮腳趾」(twinkletoes)的景像，它已經達到了目的。

[注1]指亞當夏娃偷吃了智慧果

[注2] 聖經中先知

[注1] 創世紀是聖經的第一章，講述上帝創造世界的故事

Memory and Prophecy, Illusion and Reality Are Mixed and Made to Look the Same

By ROBERT KIELY (March 8, 1970)

To speak of a land of enchantment, even in reference to a contemporary novel, is to conjure up images of elves, moonbeams and slippery mountains. Along with the midgets and fairies, one can expect marvelous feats and moral portents, but not much humor and almost certainly no sex. The idea, it would seem, is to forget the earth. At least that is one idea of enchantment.

It is obviously not shared by the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, who has created in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" an enchanted place that does everything but cloy. Macondo oozes, reeks and burns even when it is most tantalizing and entertaining. It is a place flooded with lies and liars and yet it spills over with reality. Lovers in this novel can idealize each other into bodiless spirits, howl with pleasure in their hammocks or, as in one case, smear themselves with peach jam and roll naked on the front porch. The hero can lead a Quixotic expedition across the jungle, but although his goal is never reached, the language describing his quest is pungent with life:

"The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders. For a week, almost without speaking, they went ahead like sleepwalkers through a universe of grief, lighted only by the tenuous reflection of luminous insects, and their lungs were overwhelmed by a suffocating smell of blood." This is the language of a poet who knows the earth and does not fear it as the enemy of the dreamer.

Near the end of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" a character finds a parchment manuscript in which the history of his family had been recorded "one hundred years ahead of time" by an old gypsy. The writer "had not put events in the order of man's conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant." The narrative is a magician's trick in which memory and prophecy, illusion and reality are mixed and often made to look the same. It is, in short, very much like Márquez's astonishing novel.

It is not easy to describe the techniques and themes of the book without making it sound absurdly complicated, labored and almost impossible to read. In fact, it is none of these things. Though concocted of quirks, ancient mysteries, family secrets and peculiar contradictions, it makes sense and gives pleasure in dozens of immediate ways.

The family chronicle centers on five five generations of descendants of José Arcadio Buendía and his wife Ursula, who sometime early in the 19th century founded the village of Macondo on a river of clear water somewhere in South America. The uncertainties about time and place, like other factual puzzles in the book, are not fashionable evasions on the part of the author but genuine reflections of the minds of the people about whom he is writing. From the beginning we are told that Buendía knew nothing about the geography of the region. He comes to love maps and compasses, but his sense of where he is remains very much his own. He plays with an astrolabe and sextant, but, with characteristic excess, almost contracts sunstroke "from trying to establish an exact method to ascertain noon."

The book is a history, not of governments or of formal institutions of the sort which keeps public records, but of a people who, like the earliest descendants of Abraham, are best understood in terms of their relationship to a single family. In a sense, José and Ursula are the only two characters in the story, and all their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are variations on their strengths and weaknesses. José, forever fascinated by the unknown, takes up project after project, invention after invention, in order among other things, to make gold, discover the ocean and photograph God. He eventually goes mad, smashes things, refuses to speak except in Latin and is tied to a giant chestnut tree in the middle of the family garden.

Ursula is the personification of practical endurance and sheer will. It is she who mends the pieces and sweeps the house clean after disaster; it is she who continues to raise various offspring long after her own children have grown to adulthood, and it is she who remains strong and clear-headed until the age of 114 or 122--as usual, no one is quite sure.

A mixture of obsessive idealism and durable practicality informs the lives of the Buendía descendants. The males, all named Arcadio or Aureliano, go off to sea, lead revolutions, follow gypsies, fall disastrously in love with their sisters and aunts (except one who develops a passion for a 12-year-old-girl) but most of them add to the family's stature and wealth and all contribute generously to its number. The women are not overshadowed by the men. One eats dirt when she is depressed; another burns her hand in the oven and wears a black cloth over it for life when her lover commits suicide, another, named Remedios the Beauty, is so innocent that one day when folding linen in the backyard she ascends into heaven with the family sheets.

But to isolate details, even good ones, from this novel is to do it particular injustice. Márquez creates a continuum, a web of connections and relationships. However bizarre or grotesque some particulars may be, the larger effect is one of great gusto and good humor and, even more, of sanity and compassion. The author seems to be letting his people half-dream and half-remember their own story and what is best, he is wise enough not to offer excuses for the way they do it. No excuse is really necessary. For Macondo is no never-never land. Its inhabitants do suffer, grow old and die, but in their own way.

Various hard and familiar aspects of reality intrude on their world all the time. What seems unreal or at least unconventional to an outsider is the manner in which the Buendías respond to and explain facts like birth, death, war, sickness and even weather. When it gets hot in Macondo, it gets so hot that men and beasts go mad and birds attack houses. A long spell of rain is remember to have lasted, not weeks, but four years, eleven months and two days. When a plague hits the region, it is no ordinary killer but an "insomnia plague," which gradually causes people to forget everything including the names and uses of the most commonplace objects. In order to combat the memory loss, the villagers label chairs and clocks and even hang a sign on the cow: "This is the cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk, and the milk must be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk."

More serious than bad weather or plague are the intrusions from outside, the mysterious gypsies, the corrupt government officials, the brutal soldiers (both Conservative and Liberal), the foppish Italian piano tuner, the ingenious French prostitutes and, finally, with the railroad, the sweating gringos "planning to plant banana trees in the enchanted region that José Arcadio Buendía and his men had crossed in search of the route" to the sea. At first it looks as though the North Americans will be absorbed into the dream life of Macondo, but they do mean to change things, including the terrain and the weather, and they do eventually build their own sensible counterpart to Macondo, a village of houses in neat rows with tennis courts and swimming pools.

It might have been just another phase in the incestuous life of Macondo, like the 32 revolutions or the insomnia plague, but enchantment and solitude cannot survive the gringos any more than they can avoid the 20th century. Like so much else in this strange and moving narrative, the end seems to have been inevitable. And yet the North American reader--in thinking of this narrative filled with haunting creatures and events--can hardly help being particularly haunted by the spectacle of his countrymen, "the perspiring guests--who did not even know who their hosts were--[trooping] in to occupy the best places at the table." Márquez has shown us, with extraordinary art, who some of the hosts were or, what is more important, who they thought they were. He has also written a novel so filled with humor, rich detail and startling distortion that it brings to mind the best of Faulkner and Gunter Grass. It is a South American Genesis, an earthy piece of enchantment, more, as the narrator says of Macondo, "an intricate stew of truth and mirages."

Stew is too modest an image with which to describe the wit and power of this lusty fantasia, but if the strong savor banishes visions of twinkletoes, it has served a purpose.