好書推薦：“A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra

不久前讀了Anthony Marra的第二本小說“The Tsar of Love and Techno”，剛好有愛書的朋友買了Anthony Marra的第一本小說“A Constellation of Vital Phenomena”，推薦給我，真是一本很深刻的好小說。

書名來自醫學字典裏對生命的定義－“Life: a constellation of vital phenomena—organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.”  小說的背景定在2004年戰火肆虐的車臣。

老實說，我對車臣的印象相當刻板，一提起它，腦子裏立刻浮現蒙麵穆斯林恐怖分子－－在莫斯科戲院把炸彈綁在人質身上，在Beslan劫持千多名無辜學生，還有炸毀客機，引爆地鐵；最可怕的是那些黑寡婦，蒙著黑頭巾，披著黑長袍，綁著自殺腰帶，內心燃燒著黑色仇恨；三年前的波士頓馬拉鬆爆炸案的凶手也是兩個目光冷酷的車臣後裔兄弟。。。似乎有關於車臣的新聞都是壞消息。

車臣的麵積才1.5萬平方公裏，人口也才一百萬多一點點。 雖然隻是彈丸之地，但位於北高加索戰略要地，又有豐富石油，且是俄國跟高加索各國石油管道的唯一樞紐。 1944年，斯大林為防車臣人跟納粹結伍，把全部車臣人流放到哈薩克境內的荒漠和西伯利亞的原始森林做苦力，直到1957年斯大林死後三年才獲準回歸。 但隻有一半的車臣人存活下來，而他們原有的土地財產卻已被新移民的俄羅斯人占有。 

故事的開始在2004年一個白雪覆蓋的車臣小村莊內，八歲女孩Havaa藏在屋後的樹林裏目睹家園被燒毀，爸爸也被俄軍帶走，十有八九凶多吉少。 她雖然躲過一劫，之後被鄰居也是爸爸的好友Akhmed救助；但Akhmed深知俄軍一定會回來捉拿她，此地不可久留，天一亮就帶Havaa去附近城市的醫院尋求庇護。 

醫院基本上早已被廢棄，唯一的醫生Sonja是車臣長大的俄裔，八年前（1996年）為了尋找失散的妹妹，放棄了在倫敦醫院做實習醫生的大好前程和未婚夫，回到剛停戰（第一次車臣戰爭）的家鄉，沒想到又被卷入第二次車臣戰爭的漩渦，日日見證著戰爭的殘酷無情。 Akhmed請求Sonja收留Havaa，作為交換條件，他每天留在醫院幫忙。 這三個車臣普通人的命運因此聯結在一起。。。

作者Anthony Marra好年輕（1984年生）。 大三的時候他去聖彼得堡做交換學生，在車站附近結識了一群從車臣戰爭退役的俄兵，他們在車臣的故事令他開始閱讀關於車臣的文獻和報道，之後更兩度來到車臣收集材料，花了三年時間才寫完這部小說。 Marra目前在Stanford教寫作，我朋友的女兒正要去Stanford讀英文，趕快跟她推薦，說不定會給他教到呢。 

雖然年輕，Marra的寫作功力卻非常純熟。 全書的主線濃縮於短短五天，但相關的鋪墊卻往前延伸了十年。 Marra跳躍於橫跨這十年的時間軸上，分別展示幾位主角的過去、未來、因緣、後續，即使是旁枝末節小人物的人生際遇也多有交代。 經過這些前因後果的層層發掘翻轉，幾位主角人物都被塑造得很豐富很立體，而不是單一的臉譜化。

在戰火的暴虐中，即使每一個人物都那樣殘破悲慟，作者的筆調始終滿含同情和希望。 最難得的是，Marra的文筆寫實，沒有一絲一毫的煽情。 有些地方他也很自然地加入幽默或者反諷，叫你讀起來會心一笑。 這本書不好讀，題材沉重，但我學到很多，也叫我思考，而且作者有很多聰明的句子，讀起來很享受。

Quotes：

用冰塊來做比喻。“At the kitchen table she examined the glass of ice. Each cube was rounded by room temperature, dissolving in its own remains, and belatedly she understood that this was how a loved one disappeared. Despite the shock wave of walking into an empty flat, the absence isn’t immediate, more a fade from the present tense you shared, a melting into the past, not an erasure but a conversion in form, from presence to memory, from solid to liquid, and the person you once touched runs over your skin, now in sheets down your back, and you may bathe, may sink, may drown in the memory, but your fingers cannot hold it.” 

“Invader and invaded held on to their fistfuls of earth, but in the end, the earth outlived the hands that held it.” 

姐妹情。“She wouldn't climb out of the bed for her sister, but she had climbed into a crater. She wouldn't cross a room, but she had crossed a continent.” 

“For their entire lives, even before they met you, your mother and father held their love for you inside their hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree.” 

“...she stood back and wiped the sweat-sting from her eyes. The air was clean. Her hands brown with dirt. Pride surged through her, raw and immense; she had believed happiness to be an absence - of fear, of pain, of grief - but here it roared in her as powerful as any sadness.” 

“The look on his face told her what had happened and that hurt burrowed deeper than anything she'd ever felt, deep enough to change from the thing she felt to the thing she was. Love, she learned, could reduce its recipient to an essential thing, as important as food or shelter, whose presence is not only longed for but needed.”