He’ll Always Be Elvis永遠的貓王
2022-08-31 07:44:16科斯佳肯尼迪黃媛
英語世界 2022年8期
文/科斯佳·肯尼迪 譯/黃媛
By Kostya Kennedy
There’s plenty of kitschto indulge in on a visit to Graceland, the estateturned-tourist-meccawhere Elvislived for the last 20 years of his abbreviated life. You might stay in a nearby motel with a guitar-shaped swimming pool and in-room televisions that show Elvis movies 24 hours a day. You might find yourself in a diner ordering deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.You might pony upfor a stained-glassElvis Christmas tree ornament.
貓王埃爾維斯在雅園度過了他短暫一生的最后20年，這座莊園因而成為旅游圣地。到這里參觀的時候，有不少貓王周邊紀念品和設施讓人流連忘返：你也許會在附近一家有著吉他形狀泳池的旅館下榻，客房里的電視機全天24小時播放著貓王主演的電影。你可能會在一家小餐廳里點上一份油煎三明治，里面夾有抹上了花生醬的香蕉。你還有可能會破費一下，買個彩色玻璃材質的貓王圣誕樹裝飾品。
2 但是，主題餐飲和紀念品并不足以每年吸引60萬名游客造訪雅園，尤其是在貓王已經離世45年后的今天。45年前，也就是1977年酷熱的夏天，8月16日晚，全美50個州、然后是世界各地的新聞主播和頭條記者都報道了這則消息：貓王埃爾維斯·普雷斯利逝世，享年42歲。
2 But theme meals and tchotchkeswould not be enough to lure the 600,000 visitors who come to Graceland each year, even now, 45 years later. Fortyfive years, that is, since the hot-awful summer of 1977 when, on the evening of August 16, newscasters and headline writers in 50 U.S. states and then in provinces around the world began to spread the news: Elvis Presley, dead at 42.
3 The flags in Memphis flew at halfstaff the next day and thousands of fans traveled to Elvis’s home, to Graceland,to view him in his casket. When his hearse drove through Memphis for the funeral the day after that, many more thousands—half a million, some guessed—stood on the streets.
4 Graceland is a 17,552-foot, 23-room mansion on 14 acres in South Memphis,off what is now known as Elvis Presley Boulevard. It’s about a hundred miles from the two-room shotgun shackin Tupelo, Mississippi where Elvis was born, seven miles from the public housingapartment where he lived as a teenager and barely a 10-minute drive from Sun Records studio where, in 1954 at the age of 19, Elvis made his first commercial record.
Small world.
3 第二天，整個孟菲斯市降半旗致哀，成千上萬的歌迷涌入貓王的家——雅園，來瞻仰他的靈柩。第三天，送葬的靈車駛過孟菲斯市，更多的民眾——據說約有50萬人——佇立街邊送行。
4 雅園地處孟菲斯市南部，位于現在被稱為貓王大道的地方，莊園占地14英畝，宅邸占地17552平方英尺，共23間房。雅園離貓王出生地——密西西比州圖珀洛市一套僅有兩個房間的小屋——大約100英里，距他少年時居住的公共住房只有7英里，到太陽唱片公司的錄音棚僅10分鐘的車程。1954年，19歲的貓王在這間錄音棚灌制了他的第一張商業唱片。
貓王的世界真小。
5參觀貓王的世界，你感受到的是貓王作為一個人的存在，而不僅僅是他的成就或他代表的各種文化符號。雅園如此成功，用自己的方式感動你我，原因正在于此。結束參觀的時候，你會覺得，不知怎么你已經讀懂了貓王。埃爾維斯盛名之下粉絲遍布全球，這在充斥著推特的當今世界幾乎也讓人覺得不可思議，盡管看似高高在上，但埃爾維斯始終保持本色，是個真性情的人。他的打扮花里胡哨，品位標新立異，但他的骨子里卻只是埃爾維斯，一個來自密西西比州小鎮卻成就了驚世偉業的男孩。
5 What you get out of a trip to that world—and why Graceland is so hugely successful, and touching in its way—is an impression of the man, not just the phenomenonor the caricature.You leave with the certain feeling that you’ve gotten to understand him somehow. Even despite an enormityof fame and global idolatryalmost incomprehensible in a modern, Twitterriddledworld, Elvis remained unceasingly authentic. Garishand showy and heavy handedin his taste, he was, to the bone, Elvis himselvis, the kid from small-town Mississippi made inordinatelygood.
6 貓王在太陽唱片公司灌制的第一張唱片是一首名為《沒事了（媽媽）》的藍調老歌歡快的翻唱版，這首歌與他的人生軌跡相當契合，因為貓王第一次到太陽唱片公司的錄音棚，就是為了給母親格拉迪絲錄一首歌。在母親離世前，他一直和母親生活在一起。格拉迪絲與兒子貓王、丈夫弗農以及弗農的母親明妮·梅一起葬在雅園一處名為冥想園的地方。在這里，刺脊樂隊的吉他手奈杰爾·塔夫內爾，靜靜地打量著貓王的墓碑，感慨道：“現在體會到貓王真是不簡單，不是嗎？”對此，樂隊的主唱戴維·圣哈賓斯回應道：“可不是么，現在這這那那的體會可太多了?！?/p>
6 That first record at Sun was Elvis’s high-spirited version of an old blues song called(),which fits his story-line neatly given that Elvis had first come to Sun Studio to record a song for his own mama,Gladys, whom he lived with until the day she died. Gladys is now buried,alongside Elvis and Elvis’s father, Vernon, and Vernon’s mother, Minnie Mae,in a place called the Meditation Garden at Graceland. This is where Spinal Tapguitarist Nigel Tufnel, quietly surveying Elvis’s grave, observes: “It really puts perspectiveon things, though, doesn’t it?” To which Tap frontmanDavid St.Hubbins responds: “Too much, there’s too much perspective now.”
7 戲說歸戲說，讀懂貓王的感覺并非看到他墓碑時的睹物思人，而是走近這座宅邸各個房間時的觸景生情。這里有綠色的粗毛地毯和人工瀑布、從當地家具店展示區買下的提基風格的成套家具，墻上有閃電圖案的裝飾，桌子上擺放著白色的瓷猴。此外，還有不少電視機，起碼有十幾臺，其中有三臺并排擺放。收集這么多臺電視機似乎是因為這在美國是財富和成功的典型象征——就像在特夫亞當時生活的俄國，擁有大量的火雞和鵝就意味著富足一樣。貓王對這些顯而易見的東西有著毫不掩飾的渴望。
7 Sendupsaside, the sensation of getting to know Elvis comes not from reflecting at the burial site but rather from the rooms throughout the house.There’s the green shag carpetingand the fauxwaterfall, the tiki-like furniture bought as an ensembleout of a local furniture shop’s showroom display,the lightning bolton the wall and the white porcelain monkey on the table.Also, there are the many televisions, a dozen or more, including three side by side. The TVs seem as if they were collected as a quintessentially American show of wealth and success—in the way that having an abundance of turkeys and geese signaled wealth in Tevye’sRussia. Elvis had an unapologetic appetite for the obvious.
8 On such a TV screen you might see Elvis, in the mid 1950s, in all his marvelous, hip-swivelingvirility, belting outoror another in the sudden outpouring of hit songs that reframed popular music then and forever. And on another TV screen you might see him in the 1970s,bloatedby all he had consumed, in that studdedwhite jumpsuit, singing, perhaps, or Simon ＆Garfunkel’s, sweat descending in rivuletsdown his changed familiar face, eyes closed,and still with that voice, deep and melancholy and free of constraint. Elvis at the start and Elvis to the end: Beautiful,brilliant, and true. ■
8 在其中的一塊電視屏幕上，你可能會看到20世紀50年代中期的貓王，跳著他那活力非凡的扭胯舞步，高唱著《心碎旅館》或《別太殘忍》等勁歌金曲，這些歌曲突然涌現，重新定義了當時和后來的流行音樂。在另一塊電視屏幕上，你可能會看到20世紀70年代的貓王，此時的他，因胡吃海塞已變得臃腫不堪，穿著那件鑲嵌寶石的白色連體衣，也許在唱《猜疑的心》，也許在唱西蒙和加爾豐克爾的那首《憂郁河上橋》，汗水順著他那張既熟悉又陌生的臉龐淌下來，他雙眸緊閉，仍是原來的嗓音，深沉憂郁、無拘無束。出色、輝煌、真實——這，就是貓王的一生。 □
