坑道里的金丝雀在歌唱

春节假期读完了503页英国小说“The Birdsong”，据说这本书是英国人自己票选的100本最值得读的小说的第13位。作者文字大胆，感情细腻。

可能是因为BBC改编的迷你剧集主演是小雀斑，改编剧集将战争和战前的爱情交叉闪回，导致很多人都聚焦于战前Stephen和Isabel的love affair。而事实上一战才是这本书的主旨。Love affair只是背景，说明Stephen为什么这样的性格，为什么做出了一些别人看来不可思议的选择。

Stephen, Weir, Jack Firebrace是战争部分的三条线索，还有一个出场不太多但是很有意思的Gray，Stephen的上司。

在战争部分中，Stephen还没出场，就是军士嘴里奇怪的存在，一个冷冷的不好琢磨的年轻军官：Mr. Wrayford is the strangest one I’ve seen. Law unto himself. 很快，他就说出了关于战争的各种金句：The war has provided all of us with daily lessons in anatomy. 他又对自己的上司说：This is not a war, this is an exploration of how far men can be degraded.

Stephen和Weir这两个军官像是一个硬币的两面。一个是步兵，一个是指挥挖地道工人的上尉工程师；一个冷静一个焦虑，一个拒绝进坑道但是进去了好几次，几乎每次都会发生些事情，一个在地面上一有炮击就发抖。一个不在乎死亡一个觉得生存是需要去斗争去争取；当然最终一个幸存一个死亡。Weir死后，Stephen后悔最后一次见面时对Weir粗鲁，“Yet he had loved him. Wir alone had made the war bearable. Weir’s terror under the guns had been a conductor for his own fear, and in his innocet charcter Stephen had been able to mock the qualities he himself had lost. Weir had been braver by far than he was: he had lived with horror, he had knew it everyday, and by his strange stubbornness he had defeated it. He had not conceded one day of his servie; h had dided in the line of battle......Stephen felt more lonely than ever in his life before. Only Weir had been with him into the ege of the reality where he had lived; only Weir had heard the noise of the sky at Thiepval.”

Firebrace是Weir指挥下的工人，爱自己的妻子和儿子，但妻子来信告诉他儿子生病，死去。他的生命奇怪地和Stephen纠缠在一起。他在哨兵位置上睡着被Stephen发现，被传唤；Stephen第一次下坑道作为步兵掩护坑道工人受伤，被当成已经阵亡时，Firebrace说要去为他祈祷，当他到达时发现Stephen未死，Stephen倒在他怀里。战争快结束时，他跟Stephen一起被困在坍塌的坑道里，Firebrace没有生存的意愿，而Stephen一心要活着出去。他开始跟Firebrace说他的过去，8年前的Affair,说I came to this country eight years ago. I was alive to dangerous currents, things in later life you lok at, the passy by- because they are too risky. ....no one had ever loved me. No one cared where I was or wether I should live or die. That’s why I made my own reasons for living, that’s why I will escape from here, somehow, because no one else has ever cared. If I have to I will chew my way out like a rat.

人们进入坑道会带一只金丝雀，金丝雀的活泼程度说明坑道氧气是否足够。Stephen第二次下坑道是和Weir一起，查看爆炸后坑道的影响，在快要坍塌的坑道里，Weir胳膊受伤，金丝雀的笼子坏了，Stephen无法下手把这只鸟杀死，最终把这只黄色的小鸟带出了坑道。也许，金丝雀那个微不足道生命的保全是战争中的一点点人性。

他看着士兵们一个个离去，无法释怀，甚至觉得羞耻，因为他幸存而他们都离去了。I feel guilty that I have survived when all the others are gone. His life became grey and thin, like a light that might at any moment be extinguished; it was filled with quietness. 他回英国休假英国的宁静让这种更强烈。他在一封信里写道：

When it is over we will go quickly among the living and we will not tell them.

We will talk and sleep and go about our businesss like human beings.

We will seal what we have seen in the silence of our hearts and no word will reach us.

一战给英国留下了难以言状的伤痛，几乎一代年轻男子消失在一战前线。英国各地至今在11月11日停战日举办纪念活动。至今英国各地有很多一战纪念碑，上面密密麻麻全是将士姓名。原著中1978年的几章和其他章节比较要逊色不少。这几章主要作用就是说明后人还记得一战，记得发生了什么。而Stephen外孙女生下了私生子取名为John，完成Stephen对Firebrace的承诺，这个勉强说得过去，但是Stephen是私生子，他女儿是私生子，外孙女有私生子，这想说明什么？生生不息？没搞明白Faulks想表达什么。

BBC的同名电视剧做了不少改编，尤其是Isabel和Stephen私奔后又弃他而去，电视剧给了一个不太brutal的解释：做为类似孤儿长大的Stephen害怕对后代负责。所以Isabel没有告诉他自己怀孕而是出走。而原著没有这样的交待，原著里Isabel在战争中又爱上了一个德国军官Max，并且跟他去了德国，客死他乡。Isabel的姐姐Jeanne写信告诉他这个消息，Stephen因此确认Isabel对他的爱已经消失或在远处爱着他，远到有足够空间让她爱上德国军官。

从观看顺序，建议先读书再看电视剧，小雀斑的演技确实好，一个眼神，一个动作就能说明他的感情；而芙蓉撑不起Isabel。同时安利小雀斑的纪录片：War Art，听这个剑桥大学艺术史毕业生讲解战争艺术，听他说在Flander地区发现的一战坑道内，白色白垩岩上一个士兵用铅笔写道：

If in this place you are detained

Don't look around you all in vain

but cast your net and you will

find that every cloud is silver lined...still