One Hundred Years of Solitude

夏輝

加夫列爾·加西亞·馬爾克斯（Gabriel García Márquez），1927年出生于哥倫比亞馬格達萊納省的海濱小鎮(zhèn)阿拉卡塔卡。童年時，他與外祖父母一起生活。1937年外祖父去世后，他隨父母遷居玻利維亞的首都蘇克雷。1947年，他考入哥倫比亞的波哥大國立大學法律專業(yè)，并開始文學創(chuàng)作。1948年，他因哥倫比亞內(nèi)戰(zhàn)而中途輟學，由此進入報界。作為記者的馬爾克斯在非小說題材及短篇小說領(lǐng)域成績斐然，然而使他聲名鵲起的主要是其長篇小說，代表作包括《百年孤獨》（One Hundred Years of Solitude）、《族長的沒落》（The Autumn of the Patriarch），以及《霍亂時期的愛情》（Love in the Time of Cholera）。其中，以《百年孤獨》最為著名。本文將為讀者介紹的就是這部被譽為“再現(xiàn)拉丁美洲歷史社會圖景的鴻篇巨著”。1982年，馬爾克斯獲得諾貝爾文學獎。作為世界文學史上最偉大的西班牙語系作家之一以及拉丁美洲魔幻現(xiàn)實主義文學的代表人物，他的作品在評論界和普通讀者中都廣受贊譽。2014年4月17日，87歲的馬爾克斯在墨西哥家中去世。

Excerpts1）

Many years later， as he faced the firing squad， Colonel Aureliano Buendía2） was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe3） houses， built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones， which were white and enormous， like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names， and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point. Every year during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies4） would set up their tents near the village， and with a great uproar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions. First they brought the magnet5）. A heavy gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands， who introduced himself as Melquíades6）， put on a bold public demonstration of what he himself called the eighth wonder of the learned alchemists7） of Macedonia. He went from house to house dragging two metal ingots and everybody was amazed to see pots， pans， tongs8）， and braziers9） tumble down from their places and beams creak from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge， and even objects that had been lost for a long time appeared from where they had been searched for most and went dragging along in turbulent confusion behind Melquíades magical irons. “Things have a life of their own，” the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. “Its simply a matter of waking up their souls.” José Arcadio Buendía， whose unbridled imagination always went beyond the genius of nature and even beyond miracles and magic， thought that it would be possible to make use of that useless invention to extract gold from the bowels of the earth. Melquíades， who was an honest man， warned him： “It wont work for that.” But José Arcadio Buendía at that time did not believe in the honesty of gypsies， so he traded his mule and a pair of goats for the two magnetized ingots. ?rsula Iguarán10）， his wife， who relied on those animals to increase their poor domestic holdings， was unable to dissuade him. “Very soon well have gold enough and more to pave the floors of the house，” her husband replied. For several months he worked hard to demonstrate the truth of his idea. He explored every inch of the region， even the riverbed， dragging the two iron ingots along and reciting Melquíades incantation11） aloud. The only thing he succeeded in doing was to unearth a suit of fifteenth-century armor which had all of its pieces soldered together with rust and inside of which there was the hollow resonance of an enormous stone-filled gourd. When José Arcadio Buendía and the four men of his expedition managed to take the armor apart， they found inside a calcified12） skeleton with a copper locket containing a womans hair around its neck.

In March the gypsies returned. This time they brought a telescope and a magnifying glass13） the size of a drum， which they exhibited as the latest discovery of the Jews of Amsterdam. They placed a gypsy woman at one end of the village and set up the telescope at the entrance to the tent. For the price of five reales14）， people could look into the telescope and see the gypsy woman an arms length away. “Science has eliminated distance，” Melquíades proclaimed. “In a short time， man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his own house.” A burning noonday sun brought out a startling demonstration with the gigantic magnifying glass： they put a pile of dry hay in the middle of the street and set it on fire by concentrating the suns rays. José Arcadio Buendía， who had still not been consoled for the failure of his magnets， conceived the idea of using that invention as a weapon of war. Again Melquíades tried to dissuade him， but he finally accepted the two magnetized ingots and three colonial coins in exchange for the magnifying glass. ?rsula wept in consternation15）. That money was from a chest of gold coins that her father had put together over an entire life of privation and that she had buried underneath her bed in hopes of a proper occasion to make use of it. José Arcadio Buendía made no attempt to console her， completely absorbed in his tactical experiments with the abnegation16） of a scientist and even at the risk of his own life. In an attempt to show the effects of the glass on enemy troops， he exposed himself to the concentration of the suns rays and suffered burns which turned into sores that took a long time to heal. Over the protests of his wife， who was alarmed at such a dangerous invention， at one point he was ready to set the house on fire. He would spend hours on end in his room， calculating the strategic possibilities of his novel weapon until he succeeded in putting together a manual of startling instructional clarity and an irresistible power of conviction. He sent it to the government， accompanied by numerous descriptions of his experiments and several pages of explanatory sketches … In spite of the fact that a trip to the capital was little less than impossible at that time， José Arcadio Buendía promised to undertake it as soon as the government ordered him to so that he could put on some practical demonstrations of his invention for the military authorities and could train them himself in the complicated art of solar war. For several years he waited for an answer.endprint

1. 節(jié)選部分選自小說開頭，主要描述了馬孔多小鎮(zhèn)的居民對新鮮事物的好奇，尤其描寫了小鎮(zhèn)的創(chuàng)始人之一何塞·阿爾卡蒂奧·布恩迪亞（José Arcadio Buendía）對磁鐵和放大鏡的癡迷。

2. Colonel Aureliano Buendía：奧雷里亞諾·布恩迪亞上校，性格寡淡，小說中布恩迪亞家族的第二代，是何塞·阿爾卡蒂奧·布恩迪亞的次子。

3. adobe [??d??bi] n. 土磚，磚坯

4. gypsy [?d??psi] n. 吉卜賽人

5. magnet [?m?ɡn?t] n. 磁鐵

6. Melquíades：梅爾基亞德斯，吉卜賽人，后與何塞·阿爾卡蒂奧·布恩迪亞結(jié)為好友。

7. alchemist [??lk?m?st] n. 煉金術(shù)士

8. tongs [t??z] n. [復] 鉗子；夾剪

9. brazier [?bre?zi?（r）] n. 火盆

10. ?rsula Iguarán：烏爾蘇拉·伊瓜蘭，是何塞·阿爾卡蒂奧·布恩迪亞的妻子，精明能干。

11. incantation [??nk?n?te??（?）n] n. 咒語

12. calcified [?k?ls?fa?d] adj. 鈣化的；石灰化的

13. magnifying glass：放大鏡

14. real [re??ɑ?l] n. 里亞爾（舊時西班牙的貨幣單位）

15. consternation [?k?nst?（r）?ne??（?）n] n. 驚愕；驚惶失措

16. abnegation [??bn??ɡe??（?）n] n. 克制（私心、欲望等）

作品賞析

在英文中，solitude一詞具有雙重含義，既可指由于疾病、疏離或失去摯親好友所造成的“孤獨之悲”，又可用于表達遠離干擾、回歸內(nèi)心、在沉思中與自我對話，最終知己任、明是非的“孤獨之喜”。就這個意義而言，以solitude為題的《百年孤獨》，可謂是一段用“孤獨之喜”對“孤獨之悲”進行描述、評判，乃至對其出路進行探索的文學之旅：通過對布恩迪亞家族七代人橫跨百年的“孤獨之悲”進行講述，馬爾克斯不僅在個人層面開啟了為自己的童年回憶尋找文學歸宿的自我對話，更將其擴大到人性層面——為拉丁美洲甚至全人類的“孤獨之悲”撰寫了微縮編年史，傳遞出的是愛與幸福的可能性、團結(jié)取代孤獨的重要性，以及對生命的豐沛足以抵御死亡侵襲的信念。

《百年孤獨》的故事背景設(shè)定在小鎮(zhèn)馬孔多。參與小鎮(zhèn)創(chuàng)立的何塞·阿爾卡蒂奧·布恩迪亞和烏爾蘇拉·伊瓜蘭本是表兄妹，后又結(jié)為夫妻，他們在擔心近親聯(lián)姻會生下怪物的焦慮中成為布恩迪亞家族的第一代。由于缺乏愛的引導，布恩迪亞家族雖然香火旺盛，卻世代重復著孤獨和受挫的命運。布恩迪亞家族的男人們狂熱昏憒，沉迷于戰(zhàn)爭、斗雞、女人和不切實際的事業(yè)；而家族的女人們則比男人們理智清醒，用剛毅和堅忍維持著家中的日常秩序。在整整一個世紀的時間里，小鎮(zhèn)馬孔多飽受疫病、戰(zhàn)亂、權(quán)力斗爭以及商業(yè)盤剝的侵襲，由最初萬象皆新的希望之所逐漸走向凋敝。最后，布恩迪亞家族迎來了它唯一由愛情孕育而生的后代，卻應(yīng)驗了家族最初的擔憂——生了一個長著豬尾巴的孩子。在小說結(jié)尾，“不懂愛情，不通人道”的布恩迪亞家族連同始建于荒漠沼澤旁的小鎮(zhèn)馬孔多，一并消失在了颶風里——作者用一個毀滅性的結(jié)尾結(jié)束了整個故事。

作為一部人物眾多、場面宏大、結(jié)構(gòu)精巧的小說，《百年孤獨》自連載時期就備受矚目，一經(jīng)出版更是在國際范圍引起了轟動，為作者贏得了巨大的財富和聲譽。然而對馬爾克斯而言，這本成為他創(chuàng)作生涯轉(zhuǎn)折點的書“根本不是什么一本正經(jīng)的作品”，更像是一本匯集了其不同生活階段中孤獨之“悲”與“喜”的私人影像集：書中那種隱去了現(xiàn)實與想象界限的敘述手法，是作者自童年時代起就熟悉的外祖母講故事的方式；而全書開篇處“一個老頭帶著一個小男孩兒去見識冰塊”的中心意象，則源自馬爾克斯與曾當過上校軍官的外祖父共處的珍貴回憶；由于“香蕉熱”而熱鬧一時的小鎮(zhèn)馬孔多，也與一度擠滿了美國聯(lián)合果品公司運載香蕉列車的小鎮(zhèn)阿拉卡塔卡別無二致；正是在阿拉卡塔卡小鎮(zhèn)中，幼年時寄居在外祖父母家的馬爾克斯體會到了最初的孤單與靜謐。

如果說馬爾克斯童年的經(jīng)歷為《百年孤獨》賦予了脈絡(luò)和神采，這部從構(gòu)思到成書歷時15年之久的小說，還將從其求學與工作時代的孤寂與探索中尋求骨骼和肌理。這個從13歲開始只身前往哥倫比亞首都波哥大的窮學生，在離別的憂傷中，從詩歌和小說里找到了慰藉；這個在巴蘭基利亞的報社編輯部里獨自打字到天亮的青年記者，在對未來的迷茫中投身到了寫作這個世界上最孤獨的職業(yè)里。在《百年孤獨》一書成稿之時，馬爾克斯之前的作品并沒有獲得大范圍的認可，他的家中生活拮據(jù)，靠賒欠度日。《百年孤獨》所帶來的巨大成功，仿佛是上天對這個在孤獨中不懈探索“悲”與“喜”的作家的獎賞。然而，對馬爾克斯來說，《百年孤獨》所見證的是其妻子梅賽德斯及家人愛的守候，是前輩作家和同輩友人心意相通的理解，更是他本人用堅忍不拔的精神和日益精湛的寫作技巧在“孤獨之喜”的回望、沉思與對話中，為自己所體驗的“孤獨之悲”找到了和解性的文學歸宿。

馬爾克斯在接受好友門多薩的一次訪談時說道，《百年孤獨》所要講述的“孤獨”在本質(zhì)上是“愛的缺失”，是“團結(jié)的反義詞”。成名后，“孤獨”這一主題不僅沒有從馬爾克斯的作品中消失，反而愈發(fā)清晰地出現(xiàn)在其作品中，這成為他履行身為作家和名人的公眾責任的某種方式。正如馬爾克斯所言，“我經(jīng)過長時間的思考，終于懂得了，我的職責不僅僅是反映我國的政治和社會現(xiàn)實，而且要反映本大陸乃至全世界的現(xiàn)實，決不忽略或輕視任何一個方面”。如果說《百年孤獨》是馬爾克斯對拉丁美洲“巨大然而徒勞的奮斗”的總結(jié)宣言，其后問世的《族長的沒落》則著眼于“權(quán)力的孤獨”，矛頭直指政治上的暴君和獨裁統(tǒng)治；而發(fā)表于1985年的《霍亂時期的愛情》，則用一段跨越半個多世紀的故事，展現(xiàn)了作為孤獨反面的愛情所擁有的種種可能性。

在馬爾克斯的諾貝爾文學獎獲獎致辭中，他這樣說道：“面對壓迫、掠奪和孤單，我們的回答是生活。無論是洪水還是瘟疫，無論是饑餓還是社會動蕩，甚至還有多少個世紀以來的永恒的戰(zhàn)爭，都沒有能夠削弱生命戰(zhàn)勝死亡的牢固優(yōu)勢。”在馬爾克斯的筆下，個體的“孤獨之悲”并不源自于生命的匱乏與荒涼，與之相反，生命總是以一種豐沛而繁茂的增長得以呈現(xiàn)，而這樣一種洶涌的力量，需要經(jīng)由愛的指引，才能不失于莽撞，更需要依靠團結(jié)的支撐，才能走向幸福的普惠之地。