America’s Favorite Novel: To Kill a Mockingbird美國(guó)最受歡迎的小說《殺死一只知更鳥》

羅伯特·麥克拉姆

Her second novel has arrived2， but Harper Lee’s first did enough alone to secure her lasting fame， and remains a truly popular classic.

In the 19th century， much of the phenomenal popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin （1852） derived from its timely advocacy of abolition in the run-up3 to the American civil war. Similarly， To Kill a Mockingbird owed some of its success to extra-literary circumstances： it was published in the year JFK went to the White House4， then caught the mood of the civil rights movement， sold tens of millions of copies， and inspired a movie5 classic starring Gregory Peck. But， where Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a simple tale with an explicit moral， intended to change hearts and minds， Harper Lee’s only published book to date is a complex and subtle work of literature that has inspired and influenced generations of schoolchildren in the US and， most especially， in the UK. It’s that rare thing： a truly popular classic.

Narrated by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch， at the outset the six-year-old tomboy daughter of widowed small-town lawyer Atticus Finch， To Kill a Mockingbird is ostensibly about race prejudice in the American south. At the core of its main plot is the trial of Tom Robinson， an African-American accused of raping a white girl. When Atticus Finch is instructed to conduct Robinson’s defence， his fortune-cookie6 declaration that “You never really understand a person until ... you climb inside his skin” becomes the rhetorical heart of a novel based on Nelle Harper Lee’s formative years in the Alabama of the 1930s. Scout’s coming of age， another major strand in the story， will involve her realisation that “Boo” Radley is a benign mystery in her life and that many childhood terrors have mature meaning.

For all Atticus Finch’s noble defence， Robinson is convicted by an all-white jury， condemned to death， and shot dead while attempting a jailbreak. The death of an innocent man is linked to the dominant metaphor expressed in the novel’s title. The mockingbird7 （Mimus polyglottos）， a thrush-like bird with a long tail， creamy grey breast and white flashes， is a popular creature in American folklore. For Harper Lee it is the quintessence of innocence and the goodness of the natural world. Mockingbirds， says one character8， “don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”.

A note on the text

To Kill a Mockingbird was published by J. B. Lippincott on 11 July 1960. It was initially titled Atticus but Lee renamed it to represent a novel that went far beyond a character study. Her editor at Lippincott warned Lee to anticipate a modest sale of a few thousand copies. She herself once said， “I never expected any sort of success”， and claimed that she was “hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers”. This is disingenuous9. She also remarked that “at the same time， I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. I hoped for a little， but I got rather a whole lot， and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick， merciful death I’d expected.” Instead of a “quick and merciful death”， a Reader’s Digest reprint gave the novel an immediate audience， with sales eventually topping 40m worldwide （and counting）. Despite her publisher’s warnings， the book soon brought acclaim to Lee in her hometown of Monroeville， and throughout Alabama.

Critical reactions varied. To The New Yorker it was “skilled， unpretentious and totally ingenious”. Time magazine declared that the novel “teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life”. Some reviewers lamented the use of poor white southerners， and one-dimensional black victims. The great southern writer， Flannery O’Connor10， said： “I think for a child’s book it does all right. It’s interesting that all the folks that are buying it don’t know they’re reading a child’s book. Somebody ought to say what it is.”

Within a year of its publication To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated into 10 languages. In the years since then it has been translated into more than 40， has never been out of print in hardcover or paperback， and has become part of the standard school curriculum. A 1991 survey by the Book of the Month Club11 found that To Kill a Mockingbird was rated behind only the Bible in books that are “most often cited as making a difference”. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie12， writing in the Guardian， stated that Lee writes with “a fiercely progressive ink， in which there is nothing inevitable about racism and its very foundation is open to question”， and compared her to Faulkner13， who wrote about racism as an inevitability.

哈珀·李的第二本小說已問世，而她的第一本小說已經(jīng)足以確保其經(jīng)久不衰的聲名，至今仍是一部真正意義上受歡迎的經(jīng)典作品。

哈麗雅特·比徹·斯托的《湯姆叔叔的小屋》成為19世紀(jì)現(xiàn)象級(jí)流行小說，主要原因是它在美國(guó)內(nèi)戰(zhàn)前期及時(shí)地為廢除奴隸制發(fā)聲。同樣地，《殺死一只知更鳥》的成功部分來自文學(xué)外部環(huán)境：該書于肯尼迪入主白宮當(dāng)年出版，恰逢美國(guó)民權(quán)運(yùn)動(dòng)情緒高漲，出版后售出數(shù)千萬冊(cè)，由格利高里·派克主演的同名電影成為了電影史上的經(jīng)典之作。然而，兩書相較而言，前者故事簡(jiǎn)單，寓意明顯，目的是改變?nèi)诵摹⒚伤枷?后者作為哈珀·李迄今為止唯一出版的小說，是一部復(fù)雜而精巧的文學(xué)作品，激勵(lì)并影響了美國(guó)一代又一代的學(xué)齡兒童，對(duì)英國(guó)兒童的影響尤為深遠(yuǎn)。這就是那種罕見的、真正意義上廣受歡迎的經(jīng)典作品。

小說的敘述者為小鎮(zhèn)律師、鰥夫阿蒂克斯·芬奇的假小子女兒瓊·路易絲·“斯考特”·芬奇，作家以故事開始時(shí)才六歲的孩子的視角展開敘述，揭示了美國(guó)南方的種族歧視問題。故事的核心情節(jié)為對(duì)非裔美國(guó)人湯姆·羅賓遜的審判，他被控強(qiáng)奸，受害者為一白人女孩。阿蒂克斯·芬奇被指派為羅賓遜辯護(hù)，他的格言“除非穿過表面進(jìn)入內(nèi)心，否則你永遠(yuǎn)都不能真正了解一個(gè)人”成為了這本小說修辭結(jié)構(gòu)的核心。20世紀(jì)30年代，內(nèi)爾·哈珀·李在阿拉巴馬度過了成長(zhǎng)階段，小說便是基于那幾年的經(jīng)歷。故事的另一條主線是斯考特的成熟，她長(zhǎng)大后才明白，“布”·拉德利是出現(xiàn)在她人生中的一個(gè)善良的神秘人物，而童年時(shí)的許多恐怖經(jīng)歷在人成年后才會(huì)顯現(xiàn)出其深刻影響。

盡管阿蒂克斯·芬奇盡全力做出了精彩的辯護(hù)，羅賓遜還是被一個(gè)清一色白人陪審團(tuán)宣判死刑，之后在試圖越獄時(shí)被射殺。無辜之人的死亡跟小說標(biāo)題的中心隱喻緊密相關(guān)。反舌鳥（拉丁文Mimus polyglottos），一種長(zhǎng)著長(zhǎng)尾巴、胸口奶灰色、身披白色鮮亮羽毛的鳥，常常出現(xiàn)在美洲民間傳說中。而對(duì)于哈珀·李來說，反舌鳥是自然界純真善良的典范。小說中一個(gè)人物說：“反舌鳥什么都不做，只是用心為我們歌唱。那就是為什么殺死一只反舌鳥是罪過。”

小說的出版

《殺死一只知更鳥》于1960年7月11日由J. B.利平科特出版社出版。書名最初叫《阿蒂克斯》，但李之后將小說改為現(xiàn)名，以示小說要探究的遠(yuǎn)不止書中的某個(gè)角色。負(fù)責(zé)這本書的編輯告訴李，這本書的銷量可能也就普通的幾千冊(cè)。李本人曾經(jīng)說過：“我從未期待什么成功”，并且聲稱她所希望的是“在書評(píng)家的手里死得痛快”。這未免有點(diǎn)言不由衷了。她還說道：“與此同時(shí)，我也希望有人能真的喜歡這本書以給我一些鼓勵(lì)。期待不高的情況下，我收獲的遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出自己的期望值，某種意義上甚至跟我所希冀的死得痛快一樣嚇人。”小說并沒有“痛快地死掉”，《讀者文摘》的重印驟然吸引了大批的讀者，銷量大增，最終在全球范圍內(nèi)賣出超過4000萬冊(cè)（數(shù)量還在增加）。雖然一開始李的出版商對(duì)這本小說的銷量并不看好，這本書的出版很快使李在其家鄉(xiāng)門羅維爾市聲名鵲起，之后在整個(gè)阿拉巴馬州都廣受贊譽(yù)。

小說收獲的批評(píng)見解不一。《紐約客》給予其“技巧嫻熟、文風(fēng)樸實(shí)、絕妙之作”的評(píng)價(jià)。《時(shí)代周刊》宣稱該小說“就小女孩和[美國(guó)]南方生活教給了讀者太多有用的真理”。另外一些評(píng)論家為小說消費(fèi)南方的白人貧困群體和單線條描繪黑人受害者而扼腕。知名南方作家弗蘭納里·奧康納表示：“作為童書我覺得還不錯(cuò)，有意思的是很多買這本書的人都不知道他們?cè)谧x的是一本童書。應(yīng)該有人道出真相。”

出版不到一年，《殺死一只知更鳥》就被翻譯為10種語言，此后多年間又被翻譯為40多種語言，不論是精裝本還是平裝本，一直不斷重印，從未絕版，更是被列為課標(biāo)必讀書目。1991年每月一書俱樂部針對(duì)讀者做了一項(xiàng)調(diào)查，發(fā)現(xiàn)《殺死一只知更鳥》在“最具影響力”書籍的評(píng)選中位列第二，僅僅排在《圣經(jīng)》之后。奇馬曼達(dá)·恩戈齊·阿迪契為《衛(wèi)報(bào)》撰文，認(rèn)為李的創(chuàng)作“帶有非常強(qiáng)烈的進(jìn)步開明意識(shí)，認(rèn)為種族主義并非不可避免，并質(zhì)疑了種族主義基礎(chǔ)本身”。她還將李跟福克納進(jìn)行對(duì)比，后者的作品中種族主義具有必然性。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎(jiǎng)選手）