Why Do Americans Idolize Dumb Big Men?為何美國人視無腦巨人為偶像？

馬克·阿西塔基斯 譯/孫美萍 Mark Athitakis

Who made America？ Men made America. Big men. Men like Pecos Bill， who could tame a mountain lion and make a lasso1 out of a rattlesnake. Or Paul Bunyan， who felled entire forests with one mighty swing of his ax and carved the Grand Canyon by dragging his giant pick2 behind him.

Needless to say its false. Folklore， fakelore， tall tales3. Not just the literal facts but the Great Man spirit of Manifest Destiny4. And yet America has never quite shaken its admiration for stories about manly men with the power to conquer and tame a lawless land. Recent polling suggests that about 40% of U.S. registered voters remain keen on the concept of a macho， I-alone-can-fix-it folk hero bringing law and order to a wild country. We can recognize the ridiculousness of folk tales， but they have a way of worming5 into our national narrative infrastructure.

Pete Beattys very funny， rambunctious6 debut novel， “Cuyahoga，” is not a Trump-era allegory. It could be read with pleasure in 2002， or 1950. Or 1837， when most of it is set. Its a satire of tall tales， but not a distant， too-cool treatment. Beatty， a Cleveland-area native， deeply inhabits the tone and style of the form， paying sidelong homage to an essential American genre. He knows that we needed these big guys to rationalize Americans headlong urge to press forward， consequences be damned.

Its also just a hoot7 of a tale about a man who reputedly “drank a barrel of whiskey and belched fire.” Big Son comes straight from tall-tale central casting， possessing “shoulders wide as ox yokes，” according to the narrator， his brother Medium Son， or Meed. “A waist trim8 as a sleek schooner9. Muscles curlicued10 like rich mans furniture.” Big has single-handedly cleared the forest west of the Cuyahoga River and south of Lake Erie， establishing Ohio City as a rival to the budding metrop-olis of Cleveland to the east. Its thankless work. Hed like to be paid for his labors， but money is scarce. And alas， his feats fail to win the heart of Cloe， a woman “as pretty as Big were strong.”

The plot turns on a plan to construct a bridge across the Cuyahoga. Clevelanders see an opportunity for expansion， but Ohio City residents fear the span will siphon off11 business and force the communities to merge. Nativist suspicion of Clevelanders escalates， and the bridge soon becomes a target of sabotage， with Big recruited to repair the damage. Meed reports that some residents would rather the bridge remain half-exploded， using the wisdom of a cockeyed Solomon12. “If half the bridge belonged to Ohio [City]， then Ohio [City] had the right to half-destroy the bridge. Cleveland could do with their half how they liked.”

That folksy tone comes straight out of Twain. Beattys style in the novel is what you might call Modified Huck13： Grammatically concussed14 but knowing and down to earth. Beattys sentences in this mode are homespun15 and lyrical， without coming off as hokum16： “I drank down a gulp of autumn air and looked through my brains for what I ought to do” Or： “The whole assembly went quiet with the work of believing their eyes.” Describing Bigs accomplishments， he rattles a run-on sentence like hes speaking in tongues： “lied to the devil—stalked the deepest woods—hogtied17 panthers—drained jugs—got stung by one thousand hornets and only smiled.”

The mytho-rustic tone of “Cuyahoga” is its own pleasure， but its also essential to the story. To remunerate Big and shore up the notion of Ohio Citys greatness， Meed is recruited to write an almanac that will detail Bigs accomplishments， most of them wildly fanciful （“Climbed to heaven and dared Christ to a rastle”）. With Bigs reputation preceding itself， Beatty sets the stage for a climax that requires Big to prove his mettle18—to conquer the river and Cloes affections.

“Cuyahoga” is as fun as any well-told campfire tale， all the more so for19 having few rivals. There is a touch of George Saunders limber satire， and some of the grit20 of other Ohio-bred writers obsessed with folklore and myth—William H. Gass “Omensetters Luck，” Toni Morrisons “Beloved，” Donald Ray Pollocks “The Devil All the Time.” But none of these wrote tall tales， which present a particular challenge to a novelist： They allow the writer to be freewheeling21 but dont leave much room for the readers empathy.

Big is more myth than person， so he becomes hard to get a grip on. Meed suggests that theres a moral in Bigs origin story （he discovered his might after he was kicked in the head by a horse）. “We cannot live without gobbling up the world—taking its trouble into our bones and flesh—a kick will bust22 the trouble loose，” he writes. How should we feel toward a hero whose defining feature is getting kicked in the head？ Admiring？ Pitying？

But theres another suggestion in the line： Perhaps we put a little too much stock in23 heroes who are defined by their kicked-in-the-headed-ness. Meed is an unreliable narrator on behalf of an unbelievable character. He spins a lot of lies in the name of progress， independence and civic pride， and Ohio Citys anxiety over Cleveland is largely a phantom24. Clevelanders， Meed reports， “look the same and generally act the same. The only difference is that Clevelanders are wrong all over.”

“Cuyahoga” covers a particular moment in history as well as a wide swath of Americas historical consciousness. “Every age and place has got its Big Sons，” Beatty writes. “Folks who hang the sky that we shelter under. Stand up the timbers of a place.” A healthy society might stand to be more skeptical of the myth-making that creates such figures. But in the society we have， they endure， and Beatty wrings absurd and serious pleasure from them. “Let us have tenderness but also a dash of cussedness25 and tragedy，” Meed promises early on. He delivers.

誰造了美國？人，巨人。比如佩科斯·比爾，他可以馴服美洲獅，也可以用響尾蛇做出一個套索。又比如保羅·班揚，他用力一揮斧頭就砍倒了整片森林，又拉著巨鎬雕刻出了大峽谷。

不用說，這些都不是真的。民間傳說、偽傳說、荒誕故事，不僅僅是字面上的事實，天定命運論的偉人精神也是假的。然而對于那些關于強壯厲害的人征服并馴服不法之地的故事，美國人從未動搖過他們的欽羨之心。最近的投票顯示，美國大約40%的登記選民仍然熱衷于具有男子氣概的英雄，那種單憑一己之力就可以給野蠻的國家帶來法律與秩序的民間英雄。我們可以認識到民間故事的荒謬性，但它們往往滲透到我們民族敘事的基礎結構中。

皮特·貝蒂的處女作小說《凱霍加河》非常有趣歡快，它不是對特朗普時代的諷喻。在2002年或1950年，或者是1837年（大部分故事發生在那時），讀起來都會樂趣無窮。本書是對荒誕故事的諷刺，但并無孤傲冷酷之感。貝蒂生長于克利夫蘭地區，深深地融入了這種文學形式的基調和風格，間接地向一種重要的美國流派致敬。他清楚我們需要這些大家伙來為美國人輕率冒進的沖動找尋合理的依據，后果就見鬼去吧。

這確實也不過是一個滑稽故事：據說一個男人“喝了一桶威士忌后噴出了火”。“大兒子”是荒誕故事的典型角色，根據敘事者——“大兒子”的兄弟“中兒子”米德所言，“大兒子”擁有“牛軛那樣寬的肩膀，腰部如同造型優美的縱帆船那樣修長，肌肉如同富人家具的雕花般一塊塊鼓起”。“大兒子”獨自清理了凱霍加河以西、伊利湖以南的森林，并建立了俄亥俄城，與東部新興的大都市克利夫蘭相抗衡。這是吃力不討好的活兒。他希望自己的勞動換來錢，但大家都沒什么錢。同時可惜的是，他的壯舉沒有贏得克洛的芳心。克洛是一個“美貌可以和‘大兒子的健壯相匹敵”的女子。

故事情節圍繞在凱霍加河上架橋的計劃展開。克利夫蘭人看到了擴張的機會，但是俄亥俄城的居民擔心大橋會讓生意外流，迫使社區合并。本土主義者對克利夫蘭人的懷疑不斷升級，大橋迅速成為破壞目標，“大兒子”受命修補。米德稱，一些居民聽取一個自作聰明之人的愚蠢建議，寧愿大橋保持被炸掉一半的狀態。“如果一半大橋歸俄亥俄（城）所有，那么俄亥俄（城）有權損壞一半大橋，克利夫蘭也可以隨意處置他們的那一半。”

這種鄉土腔直接來自馬克·吐溫。貝蒂在這部小說中的風格可以稱之為翻版的哈克：語法上令人不解，但又通透接地氣。貝蒂這種風格的遣詞造句簡單樸素且富有詩意，絲毫不讓人覺得是胡扯：“我飲下一大口秋天的空氣，透過大腦看看我該做什么”或者“所有的人都安靜下來，相信自己的眼睛”。在描寫“大兒子”的成就時，他如同說方言般前言不搭后語地喋喋不休：“向魔鬼撒謊——潛入最深的叢林——捆住黑豹——喝干壺里的水——被一千只大黃蜂刺蟄卻只是傻笑”。

《凱霍加河》的“半神話半鄉土文學”基調本身是一種樂趣，但這對故事也非常重要。為了回報“大兒子”并標榜俄亥俄城的偉大，米德受命寫一部年鑒來詳述“大兒子”的功績，其中大多數都是天馬行空的想象（“爬上天，要跟耶穌打架”）。隨著“大兒子”聲名漸起，貝蒂將故事引向高潮，“大兒子”需要證明自身的魄力——征服凱霍加河，贏得克洛的芳心。

《凱霍加河》和任何一個引人入勝的篝火故事一樣有趣，尤其是因為幾乎沒有幾個故事可以與它匹敵。書中有一點喬治·桑德斯的輕快諷刺，以及癡迷于民間傳說和神話的俄亥俄州其他本土作家的那種勇氣——威廉·霍華德·加斯的《奧門塞特的運氣》、托妮·莫里森的《寵兒》、唐納德·雷·波洛克的《神棄之地》。但是這些作家都不創作荒誕故事，因為那給小說家帶來一個特別的挑戰：荒誕故事允許作者自由發揮，但不給讀者留下太多的共鳴空間。

與人性相比，“大兒子”具備更多的神性，所以他很難把握。米德認為“大兒子”的起源故事具有寓意（他被馬踢中頭部后發現了自己的威力）。他寫道：“我們要想活命就得吞噬這個世界——把它的麻煩融入我們的骨肉中——踢一腳就能解決問題。”我們該如何看待這樣一個以腦袋被踢為典型特征的英雄呢？崇敬抑或惋惜？

但是這句話又有另外一層含義：也許我們過于相信因為腦袋被踢而出名的英雄。米德是一個不可靠敘述者，代表著一個不可信的角色。他以進步、獨立和居民自豪感為名編造了許多謊言，俄亥俄城對克利夫蘭的緊張感在很大程度上是幻影而已。米德稱，克利夫蘭人“看起來和我們一樣，行動上也大體一樣。唯一的區別就是克利夫蘭人從頭到腳都是錯的”。

《凱霍加河》涵蓋了歷史上的一個特殊時期，體現了美國廣泛的歷史意識。“每個時代、每個地方都有它的‘大兒子。”貝蒂寫道，“這些人筑起庇護之所。”對于創造此類人物形象的神話創作，一個健全的社會或許應該抱持更加懷疑的態度。但他們在我們所處的社會中長久不衰，貝蒂從中提煉出亦莊亦諧的樂趣。“我們要擁有柔情，但也要來點兒乖僻和悲劇。”米德很早就做出了承諾。他實現了承諾。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者;單位：北京外國語大學）