贝娄的文学

贝娄的文学 Bellow’s Lettres

——索尔·贝娄《太多值得思考的事物》

By马丁·艾米斯（<The Rub of Time> ，原载于The New York Times Book Review 2015）

翻译|small bean

“苍蝇在空中饥饿地等待着”，贝娄写道（在一篇描述南伊利诺斯州肖尼敦镇的文字中），“一大片苍蝇制造出一种类似撕薄纸的声音”。去，撕开一张薄纸——慢慢地：听上去恰似悬空害虫的低沉嘟囔。但你好奇贝娄究竟是怎么知道撕薄纸的声音的？你也不禁迷惑，这个精细、机警的细节在这（《假日》杂志，1957）做什么？它明明应该为正在写的《雨王汉德森》（1959）尽一份力，在那里，它甚至可能变得更好。根源在于，贝娄的虚构和非虚构声音枝缠蔓绕、异花授粉。以下来自1962年的一个电视访谈：“那便是她，结实、年长，一座正在下沉的方形的骨头架子”。二十年后，这一形象在中短篇小说《堂兄弟》中开花结果了：

我记得薇瓦是一位丰满、黑发、圆滚滚的、双腿笔直的女人。如今她所有的几何形状都变了。她在膝盖处坍塌下来，呈菱形，像一个千斤顶。

1958年，一部戈尔·维达尔的戏剧被改编成著名的西部片《左撇子手枪》（由他的朋友保罗·纽曼主演）。有这么一个老生常谈：当虚构作者转而去写散漫的散文时，“他们用左手写作”。换言之，时事短评、报告文学、游记、演讲和回忆录在某种意义上是不自然、不真实、腹语性质的。但对维达尔来讲，这个文学观点显得有些吊诡。反倒是他的散文（或那些在9·11前写的文字）感觉上像是右手写的。他紧紧依附于现实的历史小说，自有其地位。但其无拘无束的幻想作品——如《迈拉·布来金里治》、《米隆》——却完全出自“左撇子”。与之相反，贝娄天生地左右手灵活自如。

他还是一个猖獗的直觉主义者。在这方面，贝娄与弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫、约翰·厄普代克这两位非常杰出的艺术家-评论家完全不同。在他大量的文学讲稿中，纳博科夫独具一格，经常夸夸其谈，但他总归是一个清醒、严肃的专业人士：一名教师。厄普代克在他同样大量的评论集中明确指出，评论家们与小说家不同，他们在某种程度上是“值班”的：他们必须穿戴最好的星期天礼服，永远不能如其所是。贝娄如其所是。他接近于D.H.劳伦斯，更像V.S.普里切特。普里切特写道：“让学者们仔细权衡，详尽阐释，建立他们的上层结构。艺术家以自己强调的重点为傲，同样，也为自己忽视的东西骄傲；谦逊是一种耻辱。”这就是贝娄的处事方式。没有燕尾服和微带，没有长袍和吊穗学位帽。事实证明，无论什么体裁，贝娄的感觉中枢都是完整且不可分割的。

这一方式天生带着一种对象牙塔的坦率反对。尽管贝娄自成年后便一直教授文学，但他对大学却始终抱持越来越怀疑的态度——早在变幻多端的思想把它们变成他私下里所说的“反言论自由中心”之前。（他的短文《作为反派的大学》发表于1956年。）他被那种想告诉你亚哈的鱼叉可能象征什么或不象征什么的评论家激怒了，搞疯了。在《全世界的深度读者，当心！》（1959年）他想象了一场课堂对话：

“先生，为什么？”一个学生问道，“阿喀琉斯要用战车拖着赫克托耳的尸体绕着特洛伊的城墙跑上几圈。”“这个问题听起来非常有趣，非常有趣，我也想知道。”教授说道。“嗯，你看，先生，《伊利亚特》里全是各种圆圈——盾牌、战车的车轮，还有其他圆形的事物。你也知道柏拉图对圆形的看法。雅典人就是为几何而生的。”“上帝保佑你那平头下面的小脑袋，”教授说道，“保佑你的奇思妙想。你有绝佳的直觉。你的思考又深刻又严肃。但是，我一直相信阿喀琉斯那么做只是因为他太愤怒了。”

评论家应该坚持人的元素，而非仅仅给文本涂抹上一层层额外的隐晦。贝娄暗示，基本的教学任务是给读者灌输热情、感激以及敬畏。

指责一位小说家是自大狂，就像谴责一位拳击手冠军具有暴力倾向。贝娄，以一种天生的启蒙，依靠自身的进化来建立核心法则。“一切都被视作第一次。”假设与你的读者有“一种精神上的统一”（“其他人本质上跟我类似，我基本上与他们雷同”）。接受乔治·桑塔亚纳对“虔诚”这个声名败坏的词的定义：“敬畏一个人存在的来源。”因此，珍惜你的个人历史，不假外求于所谓的大写的“经验”。一些作家为他们“在性、酗酒的领域做出的特殊贡献”倍感自豪，还有贫穷领域（“我甚至因我在大萧条时期长大这一好运而遭人妒忌”）；但“顽固”的世故是一条错误的路。抵制福楼拜、马克思等人的“重大影响”，以及贝娄引用梭罗所说的那种“多数人的野蛮力量”。想象有其“永恒的天真”——这是作家绝不能丢失的东西。

贝娄的非虚构作品跟他的故事和小说同样有力：对人物、地点和时间（或时代）的生机勃勃的反应。所有这些都体现在《和黄孩子的一次聊天》（1956）这篇杰出的速写中。这个孩子是一个八十高龄的芝加哥骗子：他一辈子都在“把子虚乌有的地产或他并不拥有的特许权，还有那些天花乱坠的规划方案卖给那些贪婪的人”。贝娄写这类人笔调自如，但他更有信心承认这个孩子难以捉摸的谜团：“多年的行骗生涯已经给了他一种优势，人们不是特别容易辨得清他的出身和来历。”你怀疑，还有哪个高眉的作家，或者准确地说，低眉的作家，能对街道、机器、法庭、敲诈有如此条件反射式的把握？贝娄对世界各地的社会等级都异常灵敏，西班牙 (1948)，以色列(1967)，巴黎(1983)，托斯卡纳(1992)。以下摘自《在罗斯福先生的时代》，大萧条和大战之间的那段时期：

枯萎病还没有带走那些榆树，榆树下，开车的人们靠边停车，保险杠挨着保险杠地挤在一起，打开收音机听罗斯福。他们摇下车窗，打开车门。处处都是同一个声音，奇怪的东部口音，任何其他人这么说话都会激怒中西部人。你慢慢走过，可以一字不漏地听下去。你感觉好像加入到这些素不相识的司机中，静默中抽着烟的男男女女，他们不是真的在思考总统说的字句，而更多的是在确证他语气里的从容平稳，吃下定心丸。

这一转播，汽车收音机发出的温和挑战，完美概括了罗斯福赠予美国的东西：困难时期里的延续性。

《太多值得思考的事物》是贝娄1994年出版的《集腋成裘集》的一个微调、扩充的版本。“注意力分散”，“噪音”，“关于危机的絮絮叨叨”，这些在前一本书中频繁出现的主题，如今遍布字里行间。“世界对我们来说太多了，未来和当下/获取与花费，我们浪费了我们的能量。”1802年左右困扰华兹华斯的，1865年同样让拉金烦恼（“思想处于这种状态下人们无法阅读”）。不出所料，这一情形愈演愈烈。贝娄在1959年写下，“世界对我们来说太多了，而且从来没有这么多”。1975年他更进一步指出，“说世界对我们来说太多毫无意义，因为已经没有我们了，世界即一切。”无处可逃，即便是在佛蒙特的乡下：“各地发生的一切，都会以这样那样的方式让所有人知晓。看不见、摸不着的世界大潮也冲刷着地球最偏远角落的人类的神经末梢。”确实如此。但，“反抗世界的胜利显然是人的本性”，反抗“喧哗与骚动”的胜利——贝娄的文集就是这种反抗的生动证据。

书中最出格的文章之一是一篇看似谦逊的短文，《诙谐讽刺游戏》（2003年；很可能是他的绝笔）。与贝娄在别处将自己大部分小说描述为“广泛阅读的喜剧”不同，他在这篇文章里坚持认为“绝大多数小说都是由幽默作家、讽刺作家和喜剧作家写出来的”。多年来我一直这么认为。看一看那些据称灰暗而成熟的俄罗斯小说：果戈里很有趣，托尔斯泰无情的清晰很有趣，陀思妥耶夫斯基，足够有趣，事实上非常有趣；而未被列宁和斯大林摧毁之前的最后一代俄罗斯文学，明显延续了喜剧传统——布宁、别雷、布尔加科夫、扎米亚京。小说是喜剧的，因为生活是喜剧的（直到不可避免的第五幕悲剧）。同时也因为小说不像诗歌或其他艺术那样是一种本质上理性的形式。这样说不像看上去那样自相矛盾。用艺术家-评论家克莱夫·詹姆斯的话来说：

常识和幽默感是以不同速度移动的同一事物。幽默感不过是跳舞的常识。那些缺乏幽默感的人是没有判断力的，他们完全不值得信任。

附原文：

Bellow’s Lettres

Saul Bellow There Is Simply Too Much to Think About

“The flies wait hungrily in the air,” writes Saul Bellow (in a description of Shawneetown in southern Illinois), “sheets of flies that make a noise like the tearing of tissue paper.” Go and tear some tissue paper in two—slowly: it sounds just like the sullen purr of bristling vermin. But how, you wonder, did Bellow know what torn tissue paper sounded like in the first place? And then you wonder what this minutely vigilant detail is doing in Holidaymagazine (in 1957), rather than in the work in progress, HendersontheRainKing(1959). It or something even better is probably in Henderson. For Bellow’s fictional and nonfictional voices intertwine and cross-pollinate. This is from a film review of 1962: “There she is, stout and old, a sinking, squarish frame of bones.” Two decades later the image would effloresce in the story-novella “Cousins”:

I remembered Riva as a full-figured, dark-haired, plump, straight-legged woman. Now all the geometry of her figure had changed. She had come down in the knees like the jack of a car, to a diamond posture.

In 1958 a Gore Vidal play was adapted into the famous western TheLeftHandedGun(which starred his friend Paul Newman); and it has often been said that when writers of fiction turn to discursive prose “they write left-handed.” In other words, think pieces, reportage, travelogues, lectures, and memoirs are in some sense strained, inauthentic, ventriloquial. In Vidal’s case, literary opinion appears to be arranging a curious destiny. It is in the essays (or in those written before September 11, 2001) that he feels right-handed. His historical novels, firmly tethered to reality, have their place. But the products of Vidal’s untrammeled fancy—for instance MyraBreckinridgeand Myron—feel strictly southpaw. Bellow, by contrast, is congenitally ambidextrous.

He is also a rampant instinctivist. In this respect Bellow is quite unlike, say, Vladimir Nabokov and John Updike, to take two artist-critics of high distinction. In his voluminous LecturesNabokov is idiosyncratic and often verbally festive, but he is always a sober and serious professional: a pedagogue. And Updike, in his equally voluminous collections of reviews, makes it clear that critics, unlike novelists, are somehow “on duty”: they have to wear their Sunday best, and can never come as they are. Bellow comes as he is. He is closer to D. H. Lawrence, and closer still to V. S. Pritchett. “Let the academics weigh up, be exhaustive or build their superstructures,” Pritchett writes: “The artist lives as much by his pride in his own emphases as by what he ignores; humility is a disgrace.” This is Bellow’s way of going at everything. No tuxedo and cummerbund, no gowns and tasseled mortarboards. Whatever the genre, Bellow’s sensorium, it turns out, is whole and indivisible.

Inherent in this approach is a candid opposition to the ivory tower. Although he taught literature throughout his adult life, Bellow was always and increasingly suspicious of the universities—long before ideological jumpiness had turned them into what he privately called “anti-free-speech centers.” (His short essay “The University as Villain” is dated 1956.) He is infuriated, maddened, by the sort of commentator who wants to tell you what Ahab’s harpoon may or may not “symbolize.” In “Deep Readers of the World, Beware!” (1959) he imagines a classroom conversation:

“Why, sir,” the student wonders, “does Achilles drag the body of Hector around the walls of Troy?…Well, you see, sir, the Iliadis full of circles—shields, chariot wheels, and other round figures. And you know what Plato said about circles. The Greeks were all made for geometry.” “Bless your crew-cut head,” the professor replies, “for such a beautiful thought….Your approach is both deep and serious. Still, I always believed that Achilles did it because he was so angry.”

Critics should cleave to the human element, and not just laminate the text with additional obscurities. The essential didactic task, Bellow implies, is to instill the readerly habits of enthusiasm, gratitude, and awe.

Accusing novelists of egotism is like deploring the tendency of champion boxers to turn violent. And Bellow, naturally and enlighteningly, relies on his own evolution to establish core principles. “Everything is to be viewed as though for the first time.” Assume “a certain psychic unity” with your readers (“Others are in essence like me and I am basically like them”). Accept George Santayana’s definition of that discredited word piety: “reverence for the sources of one’s being.” Cherish your personal history, therefore, but never seek out experience, or “Experience,” as grist: some writers are proud of their “special efforts in the fields of sex, drunkenness,” and poverty (“I have even been envied my good luck in having grown up during the Depression”); but “willed” worldliness is a false lead. Resist “the heavy influences”—Flaubert, Marx, et cetera, and what Bellow, citing Thoreau, calls “the savage strength of the many.” The imagination has its “eternal naïveté”—and that is something the writer cannot afford to lose.

Bellow’s nonfiction has the same strengths as his stories and novels: a dynamic responsiveness to character, place, and time (or era). All are on display in the marvelous vignette “A Talk with the Yellow Kid” (1956). The Kid is an octogenarian Chicago swindler: all his life he has “sold nonexistent property, concessions he did not own, and air-spun schemes to greedy men.” Bellow is altogether at ease in this company, but he has the deeper confidence to acknowledge the Kid’s elusive mystery: “It is not always easy to know where he is coming from,” because “long practice in insincerity gives him an advantage.” And you wonder, what other highbrow writer, or indeed lowbrow writer, has such a reflexive grasp of the street, the machine, the law courts, the rackets? But then Bellow is abnormally alive to social gradations everywhere, in Spain (1948), in Israel (1967), in Paris (1983), in Tuscany (1992). This is from “In the Days of Mr. Roosevelt,” the days being those between the crash and the war:

The blight hadn’t yet carried off the elms and under them drivers had pulled over, parking bumper to bumper, and turned on their radios….They had rolled down the windows and opened the car doors. Everywhere the same voice, its odd Eastern accent, which in anyone else would have irritated Midwesterners. You could follow without missing a single word as you strolled by. You felt joined to these unknown drivers, men and women smoking their cigarettes in silence, not so much considering the president’s words as affirming the rightness of his tone and taking assurance from it.

That relay, that gentle gauntlet of car radios, perfectly encapsulates what FDR had to give to America and Americans: continuity in troubled times.

ThereIsSimplyTooMuchtoThinkAboutis a slightly pruned, and then greatly expanded, version of ItAllAddsUp, Bellow’s nonfiction compendium of 1994. “Distraction,” “noise,” “crisis chatter”: persistent enough in the earlier book, these themes have now become pervasive. “The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” This bothered Wordsworth around 1802, and it bothered Ruskin in 1865 (“No reading is possible for a people with its mind in this state”); meanwhile, unsurprisingly, things have not quieted down. “The world is too much with us, and there has never been so much world,” Bellow writes in 1959. In 1975 he goes further: “To say that the world is too much with us is meaningless for there is no longer any us. The world is everything.” And there is no escape, even in rural Vermont: “What is happening everywhere is, one way or another, known to everyone. Shadowy world tides wash human nerve endings in the remotest corners of the earth.” Yes; but “it is apparently in the nature of the creature to resist the world’s triumph,” the triumph of “turbulence and agitation”—and Bellow’s corpus is graphic proof of that defiance.

One of the most audacious essays in the book is a seemingly modest little piece called “Wit Irony Fun Games” (2003, and quite possibly the last thing he ever wrote). Elsewhere describing his own novels, or many of them, as “comedies of wide reading,” Bellow here insists that by a very considerable margin “most novels have been written by ironists, satirists, and comedians.” I have been thinking that for years. Look at Russian fiction, reputedly so gaunt and grown-up: Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic—Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act); and also because fiction, unlike poetry and unlike all the other arts, is a fundamentally rational form. This latter point is not the paradox it may appear to be. In the words of the artist-critic Clive James:

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humor are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.

The New York Times Book Review 2015