书城文学文学与人生
4259100000068

第68章 人生的回归是种无人能够违抗的自然规律(2)

1.2 作者人生

1.2 The writer’s life

海明威1899年6月21日生于美国伊利诺伊州的奥克帕克,父亲是医生,母亲是音乐教师。

在学校里,他虽然不是个“有名”的学生,可他很快就表现出了写作能力。他描写事物既准确又生动,因而当上了校刊编辑。他得到这份差事,只对提高写作能力有用,却没有改善他的社交能力,因为无论出于个人爱好,还是出于天性(也许两者都有),他从来都没进入有特殊关系者的圈子。的确,他在学校里的生活多是孤寂乏味的,但却给他上了永远难忘的一课:生活是一种艰苦的考验,只有坚忍不拔者才能适应生存。这段生活中,在某些方面,海明威反映出了他日益增长的不安分。比如,他下决心学习拳击,可他根本就不是拳击手的“料”。的确,他学会的几招,都是以被打断鼻梁骨和差点被打瞎的代价换来的。上学念书的时候,他真的离家出走了两次,在外边逛荡了几个月时间,干了些临时性的苦活。

Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A on June 21, 1899, the son of a doctor and a musicteacher. Although he was never a very“popular”boy at school, he quickly demonstrated his ability towrite accurately and well, and became the editor of his school paper. That he got the job was a tribute to hisskill rather than his social success, for either through choice or nature (and perhaps a combination of both)he was never a member of the“in”crowd. Indeed, his school experience was often lonely and not alwayspleasant, but it did provide one lesson that Hemingway was never to forget: life is a hard contest which onlythe toughminded are likely to survive. Certain aspects of Hemingway’s life at this time reflected his growingrestlessness. He determined, for example, to learn boxing, but was by no means a“natural”fighter; indeed,he achieved some mastery of boxing only at the cost of a broken nose and a serious eye injury. He actuallyran away from home twice during his school years, and spent months“on the road”working at a variety oftemporary and often laborious jobs.

海明威17岁中学毕业后,试图参加第一次世界大战去打德国,但因眼睛受过伤而被拒绝了。他不得不在《堪萨斯城明星报》当了几个月的见习记者。但当成千上万的美国人纷纷离开家园,去战斗和历险中获得“红十字军功章”时,让海明威安心待在堪萨斯城也是不可能的了。他当上了一名意大利前线救护车驾驶员,满怀期望地离开了家乡,当不成战士,无论如何也得尝尝战争那种历苦的光荣。海明威的尝试是短暂的,而且痛苦甚于光荣。因为,在到达战区短短几周后,即在他18岁生日前,他就被奥地利流弹碰巧“炸”伤了。而且,给他精神上留下的创伤,远比肉体上的要重。不论怎么说,他受的伤都是莫名其妙的,跟当兵打仗毫无关系,迫击炮手连看都没看见他,炮弹的金属碎片就射进了他的身体。再者,被“击中”的时候,他做的事情(在那种情况下)也着实可笑,他正给意大利士兵分发巧克力糖。

Hemingway graduated from high school at seventeen and tried to enlist and fight Germany during WorldWar I, but was rejected because of his eye injury. He had to work for a few months as a cub reporter on theKansas City Star. But it was impossible for Hemingway to remain in Kansas City while thousands of otherAmericans were going off to earn their“red badge of courage”in battle and adventure. He volunteered toserve as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, and left this country with high expectations: if he could notbe a soldier, he would nevertheless taste the bitter glory of war. It was a very brief taste indeed, and far morebitter than glorious. For, only a few weeks after arriving in the combat zone, i.e. before his 18th birthday,Ernest Hemingway was“blown up”by an Austrian stray shell, receiving a serious wound which was toleave scars on his mind and spirit no less than on his body. It was, in many ways, an absurd wound, and onethat had very little to do with“soldiering”at all: the mortar had punctured Hemingway’s body with littlebits of metal without even being aware of his existence. At the time of his wound, furthermore, he had beenengaged in an activity which (under the circumstances) was rather ludicrous: he had been“blown up”whilehanding out chocolates to Italian soldiers.

如果说受伤给海明威心灵上造成了致命的创伤,如果说这种创伤把海明威对军人荣誉的追求变成了由暴力突然造成的一个悲惨结局,那么这个结局似乎就成了海明威决意去过一种 根据他的才能和意愿而形成的放荡不羁生活的原因。19岁回到美国以后,海明威成了《多伦多每日之星》和《多伦多之星周刊》的作者,这时,他发现自己陷入了文人圈子,其中最重要的人物是舍伍德·安德森。1921年与哈德莉·理查森结婚后,海明威作为《多伦多明星日报》驻外记者和他妻子移居巴黎。这时,他游遍了整个欧洲,渐渐对西班牙、瑞士、奥地利和法国都有了认识,并且爱上了这些国家。同时,他继续做记者的工作,而且喜欢上了这种颇能激发感情的工作。23岁时,他采访并报道了希土战争。到了25岁的时候,他已经见过劳埃德·乔治、克列孟梭和墨索里尼这些世界知名的人物了。报道了这场战争后,经舍伍德·安德森介绍,海明威去巴黎与格特鲁德·斯泰因了面。此人自称是美国文学界侨居海外的“伟大女性”。这个时期,海明威努力认真写作,但由于结了婚,麻烦事也多了:哈德莉怀孕了,想要回家。但海明威却觉得,巴黎才是他的“家”,老婆孩子都是“累赘”,最重要的是他的文学创作。他的小说开始出现在先锋派和一些流行的刊物上(包括《泛大西洋评论》)。1923年,他出版了《三个故事和十首诗》。1924年,他的《我们的时代——无标题的简短评论》在巴黎出版了。翌年,《尼克·亚当斯故事集》在美国出版,1926年他出版了《春潮》。欧内斯特·海明威的文学生涯终于走上了正轨,再没有任何东西能够阻挡他了。

If his wound left vitally important scars on Hemingway’s spirit, however, and if it brought his searchfor military glory to a violent and sudden end, it also seemed to sharpen his determination to live life as fullyas he could, and to shape it according to his own talent and will. After returning to the United Sates at theage of nineteen, Hemingway became a writer for the Toronto Star and Toronto Weekly, and found himselfinvolved with many literary people, the most important of whom was Sherwood Anderson. After his marriageto Hadley Richardson in 1921, Hemingway and his wife moved to Paris, where he served as a correspondentfor the Toronto Daily Star. This time he traveled widely throughout the continent, getting to know and loveSpain, Switzerland, Austria, and France. Meanwhile, he continued his work as a journalist, and enjoyed arather sensational career in this respect; at the age of 23 he covered the Greek-Turkish war, and by the timehe was 25 he had interviewed such world-famous figures as Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Mussolini.

After covering the war Hemingway went to Paris with an introduction from Sherwood Anderson and metGertrude Stein, the grande dame of American literary expatriation. He was seriously trying to write at thistime, but all was not going well with his marriage: Hadley was pregnant and wanted to return home. ForErnest Hemingway, however, Paris was“home”, and nothing—not even his wife and impending family—was more important than his literary work. His stories had begun appearing in avant-garde and popularmagazines (including Atlantic Monthly), and in 1923 he published Three Stories and Ten Poems. In 1924In Our Time—a series of 32 fragments—was published in Paris. The Collection of Nick Adams Stories waspublished under the same title in the United States the following year, and The Torrents of Spring appearedin 1926. The literary career of Ernest Hemingway was underway at last, and nothing would be allowed to stopit.

20世纪20年代初期,海明威被斯泰因恰如其分地称为“迷惘的一代”(即第一次世界大战后对社会深怀不满的一代美国青年人)而名声大噪。他的《太阳照样升起》(1926)和《永别了,武器》(1929)确立了他在当时文坛举足轻重的地位。他那言简意赅的写作风格对当时文坛产生了革命性的影响,被后来一代又一代年轻作者争相效仿。

In the early 1920s, Hemingway began to achieve fame as a chronicler of the disaffection felt by manyAmerican youth after World War I—a generation of youth whom Stein memorably dubbed the“LostGeneration”. His novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) established him as adominant literary voice of his time. His spare, charged style of writing was revolutionary at the time and wouldbe imitated, for better or for worse, by generations of aspiring young writers to come.

海明威虽然在文学上获得了成功,但在个人生活上依就混乱无序。1927年,他和哈得莉离了婚,当年就与《法国时装》杂志编辑波琳·法伊弗结了婚。他从没过过单身日子。但在1928年,海明威又遭受了一次只有战争最初冲击才能与之相比的精神上的震撼:他的父亲开枪自杀了。1928年末,海明威离开了欧洲,在佛罗里达州的基伟斯特住下了。1929年帕特里克·海明威出生在这里,1932年格里戈里也出生在这里。海明威当然不是一个能在一处地方待得住的人,就是在他所钟爱的基伟斯特的宅子里,也同样住不久。他外出四处旅行,特别是到非洲去旅行。旅行的结果,是《非洲的青山》在1935年问世。但随着1936年西班牙内战的爆发,海明威又走上了国际政治舞台。1937年,他以北美报业联盟记者的身份在西班牙采访报道战争消息——为增强大众对法西斯战争机器的仇恨服务。海明威从西班牙前线报道回来后,与波琳·法伊弗离了婚。这之后,他于1940年完成了《丧钟为谁而鸣》。不久,他就娶了作家马莎·格尔霍恩。这年,他带着新婚的妻子开始了一系列的旅行;访问中国之后,定居在古巴。但第二次世界大战刚一爆发,他就以自己特有的方式投入了这场战争。1942年编完《战争里的男人们》之后,他作为一名军事记者,在美军把德军压过西欧节节败退时,在美军里随军采访报道。但同时海明威绝没有停止积极创作和积极生活。1944年与马莎离婚后,他立即又和《时代》杂志记者玛丽·沃尔什结婚。1950年,他的小说《过河入林》出版,受到了很多批评。批评激怒了海明威。《老人与海》在1952年面世,被一些读者看做是对评论界那些鲨鱼的一次进攻。

Hemingway’s personal life, however, was chaotic despite his literary success. A divorce ended hismarriage to Hadley in 1927, and Hemingway—who never remained unmarried for long—wed PaulinePfeiffer, an editor of Vogue, the same year. But it was in 1928 that Hemingway suffered an emotional shockrivaled only by the initial impact of the war: the suicide of his father, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Latein 1928 Hemingway left Europe and took up residence at Key West, Florida, where Patrick Hemingway wasborn in 1929 and Gregory in 1932. Hemingway, of course, was not one to stay put for long—not even in hislovely Key West home. He traveled extensively, especially in Africa, and one result of his journeying was TheGreen Hills of Africa, which appeared in 1935. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, however,Hemingway entered the arena of international politics. In 1937 he served in Spain as a correspondent forthe North American Newspaper Alliance—service which was to solidify his hatred of the Fascist war-machine. Hemingway divorced Pauline Pfeiffer following his return from covering the Spanish Civil War,after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and completed it in 1940. In the same year, he and Paulinefirst separated and then divorced. He promptly married the writer Martha Gelhorn, and in 1940 began newtravels with his new wife; after visiting China, they settled in Cuba. When World War II erupted, Hemingwayleaped into the fray in his own manner. After editing Men at War in 1942, he served as a war correspondent,accompanying American troops as they pushed the German forces back across western Europe. Meanwhile,however, Hemingway had by no means retired from active working and living. Divorced from Martha in 1944,he immediately married Mary Walsh, a Time Magazine correspondent. His novel Across the River and Intothe Trees, published in 1950, met with much critical disapproval. This negative critical response infuriatedHemingway; The Old Man and the Sea, which appeared in 1952, was seen by some readers as an attack onthe critical“sharks”themselves.

《老人与海》出版后,海明威去了东非旅游考察。在1954 年一次飞机坠毁事件中差一点丧失性命,给身体造成了严重的伤痛,使他的后半生被病痛折磨。1930年至1940年,海明威在佛罗里达州的基伟斯特和古巴常住,1959年,他从古巴搬到爱达荷州。养了一段时间病之后,在1961年,在爱达荷州的凯彻姆——他那么喜爱的山峦起伏的乡间,海明威开枪自杀了。海明威,一个一贯信奉“活着,则应勇敢地活下去”的硬汉,是个真正的作家,写作就是他的生命。当他不能继续写作时,生命就失去了意义。这就是为什么他选择结束生命的原因。仅是肉体的病痛决不足以击倒他。他一直工作到生命的最后一刻,留下了许多没有发表的手稿,留给玛丽保管。1963年,他去世后的作品——也是他的最畅销书——20年代巴黎回忆录《流动的宴会》面世了。其他手稿仍未发表,世人至今也还没有听到欧内斯特·海明威的最后声音——不论他是不是美国文学史上的“斗士”,他都是用自己的语言和其他语言进行斗争的一位最重要的作家。

After the publication of The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he wasalmost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingwayhad permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 40s, but in 1959 he movedfrom Cuba to Idaho. After a period of illness, he met his death as the victim of a“self-inflicted gunshotwound”in 1961, at Ketchum, Idaho, in the rugged country he loved so well. Hemingway, a man who believedto live under pressure, is a true writer, writing is his life. When he could not continue to go on writing, lifewas meaningless. This must have been the reason why he chose to end his life. He could not be defeatedonly by his ill-health or physical pain. But he had been working up until the end, leaving many unpublishedmanus to the care of Mary; and in 1963 there appeared his posthumous—and best-selling—memoir ofParis in the twenties:A Moveable Feast. Other manus remain unpublished, and the world has not yetheard the last from Ernest Hemingway, who—whether or not“The Champ”of American Literature—was amajor contender in his own or any other language.

海明威的作品因其真实性和与读者产生共鸣而大获成功。他生前一共出版了七部小说、六部短篇小说集和两部非小说作品。在他死后,又出版了三部小说、四部短篇小说集和三部非小说作品。他可能是20世纪被最广泛学习的美国作家(长篇小说家和短篇小说家)。他的主题、态度和风格对其他作家都有很大的影响。他的作品在全世界被无数亿读者阅读,同时被至少千百万读者所理解。他的小说出版发行量,除基督教的《圣经》外,比世界上其他任何书都多,被译成了136种语言。他的作品说的是各种文化和不同种族的人性本质问题。

Hemingway’s fiction was successful because the characters he presented exhibited authenticity thatreverberated with his audience. Many of his works are classics of American literature. He published sevennovels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works during his lifetime, with a further three novels,four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works published after his death. He is probably themost widely imitated American writer (novelist and short-story writer) of the twentieth century. His subjectmatter, attitude, and style have much influence on other writers. He is read by billions of people in the world,at the same time understood by millions at least. There are more copies of Hemingway’s novels than any otherbook in the world except the Christian Bible. He is translated into 136 different languages. His work speaksto the essential humanity of individual human beings of all cultures and all races.

《永别了,武器》是欧内斯特·海明威深受第一次世界大战亲身经历影响的文学事业上的一部重要作品。这部作品直接描写的是人被无端杀害的大规模技术战——产生了1000万具尸体的“死亡竞技场”,并给海明威这样年轻的作家似乎留下了西方文明崩溃的最终证据。

《永别了,武器》里的主人公弗雷德里克·亨利说:“一听到什么神圣、光荣、牺牲这些空泛的字眼,我就害臊……我可没见到过什么神圣的东西,光荣的事情也没什么光荣,至于牺牲,那就像芝加哥的屠宰场,不同的只是把肉埋了罢了。”1942年编完《战争里的男人们》之后,海明威作为一名军事记者,在美军把德军压过西欧节节败退时,在美军里随军采访报道。但这是海明威最后一次战争历险了。思想意识战的日益复杂和对付共产主义的“警察行动”,使海明威丧失了作为美学思想源泉的那种战争。直到完全脱离战争和政治,登上大海上桑提亚哥的那只小船,海明威才完成另一部重要小说——只写个人行为,求取个人行为的意义和力量,而不涉及“社会机器”的一部作品。

A Farewell to Arms is in many ways the key novel of Ernest Hemingway’s career, a career affecteddeeply by the author’s experiences in World War I. It deals directly with the futile butchery of mass,technological warfare—the“circus of death”which produced 10 million corpses and seemed, to youngwriters like Hemingway, final proof of the bankruptcy of Western Civilization.“I was always embarrassedby the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice, and the expression in vain,”remarks Frederic Henry,the“Hemingway Hew”in A Farewell to Arms: ...I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that wereglorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with themeat except to bury it.”After editing Men at War in 1942, Hemingway served as a war correspondent,accompanying American troops as they pushed the German forces back across western Europe. Butit was Hemingway’s last war adventure. The increasing complexity of ideological warfare and“policeactions”against Communism eliminated war itself as an aesthetic resource for Hemingway; not untilhe left war and politics altogether, and took to Santiago’s small boat on the open sea, did Hemingwayproduce another major work of fiction—a work which focused on the individual, alone and without“socialmachinery”, for its meaning and strength.

海明威为我们提供了人的力量的价值和对个人价值的希望。海明威使一个爱和宗教信仰不复存在、男子汉气概缺乏并难以证实、人人都必须给自己的道德标准下定义并付诸实践的世界有了意义。他一生热爱旅游,游遍了整个欧洲、非洲的许多地方和自己祖国的很多州,在访问中国后,曾定居古巴。他在墨西哥湾和加勒比海数年捕鱼的经历为其在《老人与海》中有关渔夫生活的生动描写提供了必不可少的背景素材。他也热爱大自然,喜欢打猎、钓鱼。海明威这个小时候在密执安州北部林区生活过的青年,深受他父亲的作风和人生哲学的影响,养成了敬重生命个体——人或动物——在单独死去时产生的那种力量。他养成了尊重勇气和自我克制的习惯,学会了凡做事都要有“一定之规”,无论是钓鲑鱼,还是打猎,都要有“一定之规”。19岁的时候,他去欧洲战场,也是要获得锻炼男子汉气概的机会,以便让他的“一定之规”变成一种有军人外在形式的有序模式。

Hemingway offers resources of human strength, and the hope for individual value. His“code”givesmeaning to a world where love and religion are defunct, and where the proofs of manhood are difficult andscarce and where every man must learn to define his own moral conditions and live up to them. He lovestravel all his life—he has traveled widely throughout the European continent, many parts of Africa, manystates of his motherland, after visiting China, they once settled in Cuba. His years of experience fishing theGulf Stream and the Caribbean provided an essential background for the vivid deions of the fisherman’scraft in The Old Man and the Sea. He also loves nature and likes hunting and fishing. As a young boy in theMichigan north woods, deeply influenced by the example and the philosophy of his father, Hemingway hadlearned to respect the strength and power of the individual creature—man or animal—alone with his owndeath. He had learned to respect courage and control, the“right way”of doing things, whether of fishing fortrout or killing game, and had gone to war at the age of 19 expecting an exercise in manhood—an exercise inwhich the“right way”would be transferred to an orderly pattern of military form.

海明威的作品有诸多局限,这是显而易见的。不幸的是,为解释这些局限所做的种种努力常常引起与作品内容无关的激动情绪。海明威忍受不得丝毫的批评。

That Hemingway’s work has limitations is obvious enough, and it is unfortunate that efforts to definethese limitations have often aroused passions which have nothing to do with the work itself. Hemingway couldtolerate little criticism.

海明威对外界挑战作出的反应有些过激,不是指责人家,就是自己生闷气,把他那男子汉气概丢到了一边,那些一再追问非常关心看他的书、而不只是赞扬他的书的人的动机。由于缺乏自知之明,他固执己见,狂妄自大。

Too often he reacted to challenges either with denunciation or sulking, and questioned the motives,not to mention the manhood, of those who actually cared enough about his work to read it instead of merelypraising it. Unleavened by self-perspective or self-humor, the mannerisms had become the substance.