米蘭昆德拉《身份》語錄 (Milan Kundera <<Identity>> quotations

在今天這個世界裏，我們每個人的一舉一動都被控製，都被記錄下來，那些大商場到處有攝像機監視我們，人們摩肩接踵，接連不斷，甚至連做愛都會在第二天被搞調查或做研究的人盤問。。。一個人怎麽可能避開監視完全消失，連一點痕跡也不留下？（ ch. 1 ）

In a world where our every move is monitored and recorded. Where in department stores cameras watch you, where jostle you, where a person cannot even make love without being quizzed the next day by researchers and poll-takers, how is it possible that someone could slip out of surveillance and disappear without a trace? (ch.1)

她甚至都不能自殺，因為自殺就意味著背叛，意味著不願意再等待下去，完全失去耐心。她將會一輩子都生活在一種無盡頭的可怕之中。 (ch. 1)

She could not even kill herself, because suicide would be a betrayal, a refusal to wait, a loss of patience. She would be condemned to live until the end of her days in unrelenting horror.(ch.1)

夢將一個人生命中不同的時期化為同等價值，並將人所生活過的一切都拉平，使之具有一種同時性，這讓人受不了；夢否認現時的特權地位，使它變得不再那麽重要。 (ch. 2)

(That is why she dislikes dreams:) they impose an unacceptable equivalence among the various periods of the same life, a life leveling contemporaneity of everything a person has ever experienced; they discredit the present by denying it its privileged status. (ch. 2)

我老是在想，死去之後，人還是活著的。我在想，所謂死亡就是做一場無盡的噩夢。 (ch. 3)

I can’t shake off the idea that after death you keep being alive. That to be dead is to live an endless nightmare. (ch.3)

照他的說法，廣告就是在隔了很久之後完成這一詩歌目標。它將一些簡單的生活用品轉化為詩歌。多虧了廣告，日常生活開始變得如同歌曲一般美好。(ch. 10)

Advertising, he claims, is realizing that poetic project after the fact. It transforms the simple objects of life into poetry. Thanks to advertising, everydayness has started singing. (ch. 10)

他微笑了，一種表明距離的微笑。這樣很有風度。你越有權勢，就必須越顯得有風度。(ch. 10)

“A smile that indicates a certain distance looks elegant, and the more powerful you are. The you feel an obligation to be elegant. (ch. 10)

他怎麽說他愛她，說覺得她很美，也沒用。他那情人之眼無法安慰她。因為愛情的目光是一種使她的身體成為惟一的目光。。。。。。不，她需要的不是一種愛情的目光，而是陌生人的、粗魯的、淫蕩的眼光的淹沒，這些眼光毫無善意、毫無選擇、毫無溫柔也毫無禮貌，不可逃脫、不可回避地投注到她身上。正是這種目光將她保持在人的社會群體中，而愛情的目光則將她從中拉出來。(ch. 13)

However much he may tell her he loves her and thinks her beautiful, his loving gaze could never console her. …No, what she needs is not a loving gaze but a flood of alien, crude, lustful looks setting on her with no good will, no discrimination, no tenderness or politeness—setting on her fatefully, inescapably. Those are the looks that sustain her within human society. The gaze of love rips her out of it.  (ch.13)                         

十六七歲的時候，她特別喜歡一個隱喻；是她自己想出來的、聽來的，還是從哪裏讀到的？沒有關係。她想成為一種玫瑰香，一種四處擴散的香味，四處去征服。她希望就這樣穿透所有男人，並通過男人，去擁抱整個世界。玫瑰四處擴散的香味：那是對豔遇的隱喻。這個隱喻在她即將成人之際開放，就像是對溫柔地與男人混雜相處的浪漫許諾，對穿越所有男人之旅的邀請。可是，她天生又並非是一個常換情人的女人，這個朦朧的、抒情的夢，很快就在寧靜而幸福的婚姻中沉睡過去。 (ch. 14)

When she was sixteen, seventeen years old, she used to cherish a certain metaphor; had she invented it herself, heard it, read it?  No matter: she wanted to be a rose fragrance, a pervasive, overwhelming fragrance, she wanted to move thus through all men and, by way of the men, to embrace the entire world. The pervasive rose fragrance: a metaphor of adventure. At the threshold of her adult life, that metaphor unfolded like the romantic promise of a sweet promiscuity, like an invitation to the journey through men. But she was not by nature a woman born to run through lovers, and this vague, lyrical dream quickly fell dormant in her marriage, which started off calm and happy.(ch.14)

一個人可以在愛人在場時，因懷念他（她）而痛苦，假如他（她）隱約看到了愛人會不在的將來；愛人的死亡，雖然還看不見，卻已經可以感知。(ch. 14)

 Nostalgia?  How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a person who is present? (ch.14)

 她因自己毫無豔遇而高興。豔遇是一種擁抱世界的方式。她不再希望擁抱世界。她不再去想這個世界。(ch. 14)

She relished the utter absence of adventures. Adventure: a means of embracing the world. She no longer wanted to embrace the world. She no longer wanted the world. (ch.14)

她因沒有豔遇、沒有豔遇的欲望而幸福，高興。她想起自己的隱喻，於是看到一朵迅速凋謝的玫瑰，就像在一部快鏡頭播放的電影中，很快就隻剩下一小根花莖，黑黑的，永遠地消失在了他們共進晚餐的夜晚的白色世界中：玫瑰融化在白色之中。(ch. 14)

She relished the happiness of being adventureless and without desire for adventures. She recalled her metaphor and saw a rose withering, rapidly as in a time-lapse film until all that was left of it was a skinny blackish twig, and disappearing forever in the white universe of their evening: the rose diluted in the whiteness. (ch. 14)

 

記住自己的過去，一直將它藏在身上，這可能是保持人們所說的自我的一貫性的必要條件。為了使自我不至於萎縮，為了使自我保持住它的體積大小，就必須時時澆灌記憶，就像澆灌盆裏的花兒一樣，而這種灌需要跟一些過去的見證人，也就是說跟朋友們保持固定而有規律的接觸。(ch. 16)

Remembering our past, carrying it with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self.  To ensure that the self doesn’t shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. (ch. 16)

 朋友是我們的鏡子，我們的記憶；我們對他們一無所求，隻是希望他們時時擦亮這麵鏡子，讓我們可以從中看看自己。(ch. 16)

They are our mirror; our memory; we ask nothing of them but that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it. (ch.16)

在真理和朋友之間，我永遠選擇朋友。(ch. 16)

I liked to say: between the truth and a friend, I always choose the friend. (ch. 16)

友情對我來說，證明了存在著比意識形態、宗教、民族更強烈的東西。(ch. 16)

Friendship, to me, was proof of the existence of something stronger than ideology, than religion, than the nation.(ch.16)

友情是男人的問題，是他們的羅曼蒂克的事。(ch. 16)

Friendship is a problem for men. It’s their romanticism. (ch.16)

我們因為孩子才依戀這個世界，考慮這個世界的未來，參與它的那些喧嘩，那些騷動，把它的那些不可救藥的愚蠢之事當回事。(ch. 19)

The child makes us care about the world, think about its future, willingly join in its racket and its turmoil, take its incurable stupidity seriously. (ch.19)

眼睛，心靈的窗戶、臉部的美的中心、一個個體特性的聚合點；但同時又是一種視覺工具，需要不斷地洗涮、濕潤，用一種含有鹽的成分的特殊液體來保護。(ch. 21)

The eye: the window to the soul; the center of the face’s beauty; the point where a person’s identity is concentrated; but at the same time an optical instrument that requires constant washing, wetting, maintenance by a special liquid dosed with salt.(ch.21)

每一個職業都創造出它的思維方式，它的存在方式。一個醫生跟農民想的不一樣，一個軍人跟一個老師的舉止不一樣。今天我們都是一樣的，我們都被我們麵對工作的那種一致的無所謂而聯合在一起。這種無所謂成了熱情。這是我們時代的惟一的共同熱情。(ch. 26)

Each occupation had created its own mentality, its own way of being. A doctor would think differently from a peasant, a soldier would behave differently from a teacher. Today we’re all alike, all of us bound together by our shared apathy toward our work. That very apathy has become a passion. The one great collective passion of our time.(ch.26)

兩個人相愛，願意隻有他們兩人，與世隔絕，這是很美的事情。但他們用什麽來滋養每天的麵對麵相見？世界雖然實在讓人瞧不起，但他們需要這個世界來進行談話。(ch. 26)

Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world; that is very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.(ch.26)

我們惟一的自由是在苦澀與快樂之間選擇，既然我們的命運就是一切的毫無意義，那就不能作為一種汙點帶著它，而是要善於因之而快樂。(ch. 43)

Freedom?  As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom. You’re free to melt your own individuality into the cauldron of the multitude either with a feeling of defeat or with euphoria.(ch. 43)

我的目光再也不放開你。我要不停地看著你。(ch. 51)

I’ll never let you out of my sight again. I’m going to keep on looking at you and never stop.(ch.51)

我怕我的眼睛眨。我怕在我那目光熄滅的一秒鍾裏，在你的位置上突然滑入一條蛇、一隻老鼠，滑入另一個人。(ch. 51)

I get scared when my eye blinks. Scared that during that second when my gaze is switched off, a snake or a rat or another man could slip into your place.(ch.51)

他試著抬起身來，用嘴唇去接觸她。她搖搖頭：“不，我隻想看著你。”接著又說：“我要讓燈光整夜亮著，每夜都亮著。”（ch. 51）

He tried to raise himself a little to touch her with his lips.  She shook her head: “ No , I just want to look at you.”  And then: “I’m going to leave the lamp on all night. Every night.”  (ch. 51)