略薩給青年小說家的信談說服力

三、說服力The power of persuasion

親愛的朋友：Dear Friend,

 

您說得有道理。我前兩封信，由於在文學才能和小說家的主題來源方麵的模糊假設，以及那些動物寓言——絛蟲和卡托布勒帕斯的原因，內容過於抽象和犯有令人討厭的不可證實的毛病。因此現在應該談一談主觀性較少、尤其與文學方麵聯係較多的事情了。

 You’re right. My first few letters, with their vague hypothesizing on the literary vocation and the origin of novelists’ themes, not to mention their zoological allegories—the tapeworm, the catoblepas –were overly abstract, their suppositions sadly unverifiable. Which means that the moment has come for us to move on to less subjective matters, ones more specifically rooted in literary practice.

那 咱們就談談長篇小說的形式吧，小說中最具體的東西就是形式，不管它顯得多麽怪誕,

Let us speak, then, of form, which, paradoxical as it may seem, is the novel’s most concrete attribute, since it is form that gives novels their shape and substance. But before we set sail on waters so alluring for those who,

因為通過小說采取的形式，那具體的東西就具有了可感知的真實特點。但是， 在起航駛入您和我喜愛並且操練的小說藝術技巧的水域之前，有必要界定一下您自己很明白但許多讀者並不清楚的東西：內容和形式(或者主題、風格和敘述順序) 的分離是人為造成的，隻有出於講解和分析的原因才能成立，實際上是絕對不會發生的，因為小說講述的內容與講述的方式不可能分開。正是這個方式決定故事是否 可信，是否動人或者可笑，是否滑稽或者悲傷。Like you and me, love and practice the narrative craft, it’s worth establishing what you already know very well, though it is not so clear to most readers of novels: the separation of form and content(or theme and style and narrative structure) is artificial, admissible only when we are explaining or analyzing them; it never occurs in reality, since the story a novel tells is inseparable from the way it is told. This way is what determines whether the tale is believable or not, moving or ridiculous, comic or dramatic.

當然，可以說《白鯨》講述的是一個老海員被一條白鯨迷住的故事：在所有海域裏追捕這條鯨魚，《堂吉訶德》講述 了一個半瘋癲的騎士的冒險和不幸，這位騎士企圖在拉曼卻平原上再現騎士小說中的英雄業績。可是有哪位讀過這兩部小說的人能在"主題"的描寫中辨認出麥爾維 爾①和塞萬提斯創造的無限豐富和精致的世界呢？當然，為了說明結構是如何使得故事活起來的，是可以把小說的主題與形式分割開來，條件是確保這一分割絕對不 能發生，至少在優秀的小說中如此，——在壞小說中可以，所以才是壞小說——優秀的小說講述的內容和方式構成一個不可摧毀的統一體。這些小說之所以優秀，正 是因為借助形式所產生的效果，作品被賦予了一種不可抵抗的說服力。

It is of course possible to say that Moby-Dick is the story of sea captain obsessed with a white whale that he pursues across all the world’s oceans and that Don Quixote tells of the adventures and misadventures of a half-mad knight who tries to reproduce on the plains of La Mancha the deeds of the heroes of chivalric literature. But would anyone who has read those novels recognize in such plot descriptions the infinitely rich and subtle universes of Melville and Cervantes? To explain the mechanisms that brings a tale to life, it is permissible to separate content from form only on the condition that it is made clear that such a division never occurs naturally, at least not in good novels. It does occur, on the other hand, in bad ones, and that is why they’re bad, but in good novels what is told and the way it is told are inextricably bound up together. They are good because thanks to the effectiveness their form they are endowed with an irresistible power of persuasion. 

 

假如在您還沒有讀過《變形記》之前，有 人告訴您那篇小說的主題就是一個可憐的職員變成令人厭惡的甲蟲，那您有可能一麵打著哈欠一麵心想：立刻放棄閱讀這類愚蠢的玩藝兒，可是，由於您讀過了這個 卡夫卡用魔術般的技巧講述的故事，您就毫不懷疑地“相信”了格裏高爾·薩姆沙的意外事件：您認可這個事情，您同他一道痛苦，您感到毀滅那個可憐人物的絕望 情緒同樣在使您窒息，直到隨著薩姆沙的去世、那不幸的冒險攪亂了的生活又恢複正常為止。您之所以相信了薩姆沙的故事，是因為卡夫卡能為講述這個故事找到一 種方式——安排話語和緘默，揭示秘密，講述細節，組織素材和敘事的時間——一種讓讀者接受的方式，以便打消讀者麵對類似敘事過程可能懷有的保留態度。

If before reading The Metamorphosis you had been told that it was about the transformation of a meek little office worker into a repulsive cockroach, you probably would have yawned and said to yourself there was no reason to read such a ridiculous tale. However, since you’ve read the story as Kafka magically tells it, you “believe” wholeheartedly in the terrible plight of Gregor Samsa: you identify with him, you suffer with him, and you feel choked by the same despair that destroys the poor character, until with his death the ordinariness of life as it was (before his unhappy adventure disturbed it) is restored. And you believe the story of Gregor Samsa because Kafka was capable of finding a way to tell it—in words, silences, revelations, details, organizations he or she might harbor when faced with such a tale.

 

為 了讓小說具有說服力，就必須講出故事來，以便最大限度地利用包含在事件和人物中的生活經驗，並且努力給讀者傳達一個幻想：針對現實世界應該自己當家作主。 當小說中發生的一切讓我們感覺這是根據小說內部結構的運行而不是外部某個意誌的強加命令發生的，我們越是覺得小說更加獨立自主了，它的說服力就越大。當一 部小說給我們的印象是它已經自給自足、已經從真正的現實裏解放出來、自身已經包含存在所需要的一切的時候，那它就已經擁有了最大的說服力。於是，它就能夠 吸引讀者，能夠讓讀者相信講述的故事了；優秀的小說、偉大的小說似乎不是給我們講述故事，更確切地說，是用它們具有的說服力讓我們體驗和分享故事。

To equip a novel with power of persuasion, it is necessary to tell your story in such a way that it makes the most of every personal experience implicit in its plot and characters; at the same time, it must transmit to the reader an illusion of autonomy from the real world he inhabits. The more independent and self-contained a novel seems to us, and the more everything happening in it gives us impression of occurring as a result of the story’s internal mechanisms and not as a result of the arbitrary imposition of an outside will, the greater the novel’s power of persuasion.  

When a novel gives us the impression of self-sufficiency, of being freed from real life, of containing in itself  everything it requires to exist, it has reached its maximum capacity for persuasion, successful seducing its readers and making them believe what it tells them. Good novels –great ones—never actually seem to tell us anything; rather, they make us live it and share in it by virtue of their persuasive powers.

您 一定知道布萊希特著名的間離效果理論。他認為，為了使自己準備寫出史詩性和教化性戲劇能夠達到目的，必須在表演中運用一種技術——演員的動作、台詞、甚至 舞台設計本身等方麵的演出方式——一種漸漸摧毀“幻想”的技術，它提醒觀眾舞台上表演的那一切，不是生活，而是戲劇，是謊言，是表演，但應該從中吸取可以 指導行動的經驗和教訓，以便改變生活。我不清楚您對布萊希特是怎麽想的。我認為他是一個偉大的作家，雖然他的劇作常常被意識形態的宣傳企圖弄得令人不快， 但還是優秀的，幸虧比他的間離效果理論有說服力。

 You’re undoubtedly familiar with Bertolt Brech’s famous theory of the alienation effect. He believed that to succeed in writing the kind of epic and didactic theater he proposed, it was essential to develop a way of staging plays—reflected in the movement or speech of the actors and even the construction of the sets—that would gradually destroy the “illusion” remind the audience that what they were seeing was not real life but theater a fabrication, a performance, from which, nevertheless, conclusions should be drawn and lessons learned promoting action and reform. I don’t know what you think of Brecht. I believe he was a great writer, and that, although he was often hampered by his propagandistic and ideological aims, his plays are excellent and thankfully, much more persuasive than his theorizing.  

 

小說的說服力恰恰追求相反的東西：縮短小說和現實之間的 距離，在抹去二者界線的同時，努力讓讀者體驗那些謊言，仿佛那些謊言就是永恒的真理，那些幻想就是對現實最堅實、可靠的描寫。這就是偉大小說所犯下的最大 的欺騙行為：讓我們相信世界就如同作品中講述的那樣，仿佛虛構並非虛構，仿佛虛構不是一個被沉重地破壞後又重建的世界，以便平息小說家那種本能——無論他 本人知道與否——的就神欲望(對現實進行再創造)。隻有壞小說才具備布萊希特為了觀眾上好他企圖通過劇作開設的政治哲學課所需要的保持距離的能力。缺乏說 服力或者說服力很小的小說，無法讓我們相信講述出來的謊言中的真實；出現在我們麵前的謊言還是“謊言”，是造作，是隨心所欲但沒有生命的編造，它活動起來 沉重而又笨拙，仿佛蹩腳藝人手中的木偶，作者牽引的細線暴露在眾目睽睽之下，讓人們看到了人物的滑稽處境，無論這些人物有什麽功績或者痛苦都很難打動我 們，因為是毫無自由的欺騙謊言，是被萬能主人(作者)賜予生命而操縱的傀儡，難道它們會有那些功績和痛苦嗎?

In its persuasive efforts, the novel aims for exactly the opposite effect: to reduce the distance that separates fiction from reality and, once that boundary is elided, to make the reader live the lie of fiction as if it were the most eternal truth, its illusions the most consistent and convincing depictions of reality. That is the trick great novels play: they convince us that the world is the way they describe it, as if fiction were not what it is, the picture of a world dismantled  and rebuilt to satisfy the deicidal urge to remake reality, the urge that fuels the novelist’s vocation whether he knows it or not. Only bad novels foster the alienation Brecht wanted his spectators to experience in order to learn the political lessons he meant to impart along with his plays. Bad novels lacking in the power of persuasion, or possessing only a weak strain of it, don’t convince us that the lie they’re telling is true; the “lie” appears to us as what it is: a construction, an arbitrary, lifeless invention that moves ploddingly and clumsily, like the puppets of a mediocre puppet master whose threads, manipulated by their creator, are in full sight, exposing them as caricatures of living beings. The deeds or sufferings of these caricatures will scarcely be able to move us: do they, after all, experience anything themselves? They are no more than captive shades, borrowed lives dependent on an omnipotent master.

 

當 然，一部虛構小說的主權不是一種現實，它還是一種虛構。確切地說，一種虛構掌握著一種形象的方式，因此一說到虛構，我總是非常小心翼翼地談到一種“主權幻 想”、“一個獨立存在的印象、從現實世界裏解放出來的印象”。某人寫長篇小說這個事實，即小說不是自發產生的，都必須是從屬的，都有一條與現實世界聯係的 臍帶。但是，不僅僅因為小說有作者才與實在的生活聯係在一起，而且還因為在編造和講述的故事中，如果小說不對讀者生活的這個世界發表看法的話，那麽讀者就 會覺得小說是個太遙遠的東西，是個很難交流的東西，是個與自身經驗格格不入的裝置：那小說就會永遠沒有說服力，永遠不會迷惑讀者，不會吸引讀者，不會說服 讀者接受書中的道理，使讀者體驗到講述的內容，仿佛親身經曆一般。

Naturally, the autonomy of fiction is not a truth—it is a fiction, too. That is to say, fiction is autonomous only in a figurative sense, and that’s why I’ve been very careful when referring to it to speak of an “illusion of autonomy” “the impression of self-sufficiency, of being freed from real life.” Someone is writing these novels. That fact, that they are not the product of spontaneous generation, makes them dependent, connects each of them by an umbilical cord to the rest of the world. But it’s not just having an author that links novels to real life; if the storytelling inventions of noves did not reflect on the world as it is lived by their readers, the novel would be something remote and mute, an artifice that shuts us out: it would never possess any power of persuasion, it could never cast a spell, seduce readers, convince them of its truth, and make them live what it relates as if they were experiencing it themselves.

 

 

這就是虛構小說奇特的模糊性：由於小說知道自己受現實性的奴役是不可避免的，因此希望自主，通過大膽的技巧設想出一種充滿幻想的獨立自主品格，其空想程度如同歌劇的曲調離開了樂器，或者離開了歌喉一樣。

當 形式有效時，就能創造這些奇跡。盡管像主題和形式的問題從實際操作的角度說是一個不可分開的單位，但形式是由兩個同等重要的因素組成的，雖然這兩個因素總 是纏繞在一起的，出於分析和說明的理由也是可以分離的，它們是：風格和秩序。風格當然是指

This is the curious ambiguity of fiction: it must aspire to independence knowing that its slavery to reality is inevitable, and it must suggest through sophisticated techniques an autonomy and self-sufficiency as deceptive as the melodies of an opera divorced from the instruments or the throats that voice them.

 

敘述故事的話語和方式；秩序指的是對小說素材的組織安排，簡而言 之，就是與整個小說結構的巨大支柱有關係的內容：敘述者，敘述空間和時間。

 

為了這封信不拉得太長，有些看法我留待下一封信說，例如：風格，講述虛構故事的話語，決定小說生(或者死)的說服力。

 

擁抱您。

From works these miracles—when it works. It is in practical terms an indivisible entity, made up of two equally important components that, though they are always intertwined, may be isolated for purposes of analysis and explication: style and order. Style refers, of course, to words, to the way a story is written; order to the organization of the story’s elements. To simplify greatly, order concerns the great axes of all novelistic construction: narrative space and time.

  So as not to make this letter too long, I’ll leave for next time some thoughts on style, the language of fiction, and the workings of that power of persuasion on which the life (or death) of all novels depends.

Fondly,