经济学人361:老主题 新故事

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　　《那时，弗林特船长仍是个好人》尼克迪贝克著

　　VAST, turbulent and mysterious, the sea is a gift to storytellers. It is a perilous¹ passageway to new lands and a bountiful source of food, beauty and lore².

　　大海，广袤、躁动而神秘的大海，是上天赐给讲故事人的礼物。它是通向新奇世界的惊险通道，是食物的源头，美丽的源头也是传说的源头。

　　Life on the rough seas turns ordinary men into heroes, but also into scoundrels and martyrs³. No wonder these sodden⁴, salt-crusted figures populate some of the best fiction.

　　生活在波涛汹涌的大海上可以既可以把普通人蜕变成英雄，也可将其变成恶棍或者烈士。难怪最好的小说中总不乏那些浑身湿透，透着盐味的角色。

　　Nick Dybek has turned to such enduring tropes for his debut⁵ novel, “When Captain Flint Was Still A Good Man”.

　　尼克迪贝克在自己的处女作小说《那时，弗林特船长仍是个好人》中选用了这一经久不衰的主题。

　　His story is set on Loyalty⁶ Island, a thin peninsula off the coast of Washington state, full of “the stink⁷ of herring, nickel paint, and kelp rotting on moorings and beaches”.

　　他的故事设定在忠诚岛上，这是一座华盛顿州海岸线外的一座半岛。岛上“充斥着鲱鱼、镍漆的味道和挺锚处和海岸边飘来的腐烂的海藻的臭味。”

　　In this remote fishing village, manhood means spending half of every year on a boat near Alaska, winching up crab⁸ pots from the freezing depths of the Bering Sea.

　　在这座遥远的渔村，男子气概意昧着每年花超过半年的时间驾船游弋在阿拉斯加附近，从冰冷的白令海深处，用绞盘绞起虾笼。

　　The women stay behind, the boys hope to join their fathers and the men return home.

　　女人留在家中，孩子们则希望与父亲一起出海。

　　If they are lucky, as shaggy, greasy⁹ strangers, telling stories that "were grey, drenched¹⁰ in icy slime. They made you gasp¹¹ but not smile, and the men who told them smiled—if at all—only at the gasps¹²."

　　如果幸运的话，大人们便可安全返家，像蓬头垢面满身油污的陌生人一样，讲述“灰色的，被冰冷泥浆浸湿的”故事，“这些故事让人屏息凝神，但并不能使人发笑，讲述人如果想笑的话，也只会在喘息间微笑。”

　　The book begins with the village on the edge of a crisis that occurred when the narrator was a boy.

　　故事开始于这座渔村处于危机边缘的时刻，那时讲述者还是个孩子。

　　John Gaunt, the owner of the fishing fleet, is on his death bed. He is the third generation of Gaunts to steer¹³ the fate and fortunes of Loyalty Island, and he has apparently¹⁴ left everything to his son Richard.

　　渔船队老板约翰刚特躺在床上与世长辞。约翰刚特是掌控者忠诚岛命运和财富的刚特家族的第三代，他的死把所有一切身后事都交给了儿子理查德。

　　But the proud locals loathe¹⁵ Richard. They know that he is no fisherman, but an urban and effeminate man, not yet 30, who left town to go to university and rarely comes back.

　　但自豪的当地人讨厌理查德。他们认为理查德算不上渔民，是个娘娘腔的的城里人。理查德当时30岁，很早就离开小镇去上大学，很少回来。

　　Just as the boats are primed for another season, Richard seems ready to sell to the Japanese. The people of Loyalty want only what they already have, and they are prepared to guard it fiercely.

　　正当所有船只未下一个渔季蓄势待发时，理查德似乎想将船只卖给日本人。忠诚岛上居民只想保持现有的生活方式不变，因此他们准备坚定地捍卫这一切。

　　This story is recalled from a distance by Cal. Older and living anonymously¹⁶ in Chicago, Cal was 14 when Loyalty Island faced this uncertain future—an age when he could still lionise his father and the other fishermen, but also be a keen observer.

　　故事是通过远离渔村的一个名叫卡尔的人的回忆展开的。现在的卡尔衣步入老年。默默无闻地居住在芝加哥市，但在忠诚岛遭遇不确定未来的危机时，卡尔年仅14岁，在这个年龄，他仍崇拜自己的父亲和其他渔民，同时又是一个敏锐的观察者。

　　"I was still young enough to believe that the important questions had been answered somewhere," he muses¹⁷, a reminiscence with hard edges.

　　他沉思道，“我当时太年轻，认为重要的问题都有答案”，这样的回忆棱角分明。

　　As a child he sensed that something was not right between his parents, who lived "like strangers on an aeroplane, squeezing politely past each other in tight spaces".

　　虽然是个孩子，他仍能感觉到父母的关系不很正常，他们就像“飞机上的乘客一样，在狭小的空间，客客气气地挤在一起”。

　　But he adored them both—his gruff but gentle father ("hands as thick as strip steaks") and his melancholic¹⁸ wisp of a mother, who was wooed to Loyalty but never fitted in.

　　但他喜欢父母——父亲是个急性子不过温文尔雅，母亲略带一丝忧郁气质。父亲希望母亲能够爱上忠诚岛，但母亲从未融入到这里的生活。

　　Instead she found nourishment¹⁹ in her substantial record collection (from Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" to John Coltrane's "bawling²⁰" sax), foreign films and John Gaunt, her only local friend.

　　相反，她从大量的唱片、国外电影和与约翰刚特的交往中自得其乐，而约翰刚特是她在当地唯一的朋友。

　　A seafaring life may be full of suffering, but it is also full of a macho romance that lends a larger sense of destiny to it all.

　　虽然航海生活充满苦楚，但同样也能充满阳刚的传奇，增添了一种强烈的人生终极感。

　　Mr Dybek considers several similarly timeworn themes, such as the spaces that grow between people, and especially the currents that set fathers and sons adrift.

　　迪贝克精心布置了若干相似的陈旧话题，如人与人之间产生的距离感，尤其是将父子送往海洋的洋流。

　　At times this book bears the stain of a debut: the circumstances too implausible; the kids too precocious²¹; the similes²² too frequent and the album references too cool (a Facebook-ready list).

　　有时，这本书也会出现处女作的缺陷——如背景不真实，儿童太过早熟，比喻太频繁，参考书目太酷（一张脸谱列表）。

　　But there is also wisdom here, and the momentum²³ of a thrilling yarn²⁴, delivered as if by a scarred man by the consoling light of a fire.

　　但书中自有智慧存，令人兴奋的故事就像是由一名疤面汉子坐在火堆旁向我们娓娓道来一样，火光让人安详。

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