一天晚上有人趁我喝了兩杯問道:「so… are you going to be a writer for the rest of life?」我無以應對,只告訴她那個故事,許多年前我第一次到倫敦遠遊,在青年旅館遇到一個叫「二三」的日本女子,旅館的其他人都知道我倆投緣,時常擠著笑…… 有天我們到Greenwich 觀光,走累了來到一個小茶室的後園裡喝茶,漫無邊際的用英語交談,她突然很認真的問到,「將來你想做甚麼?」我不知何故就答了「a writer」、並且好像忙補充道:「a small time writer」。
Memoir of My Nervous Illness (Daniel Paul Schreber)
2001 年郵購所得、擱足7年。德萊斯登上訴院首席大法官在事業高峯頹然崩潰,被診斷為「被害妄臆型精神分裂」之際,時為精神病學、心理學長足起步之時,再站不住脚的假設,在十九世紀末的歐洲,只要與「科學」掛鈎(而我們不要忘記這個「科學」與殖民/現代性計劃不可分割),所有人還是會前仆後繼的去實驗、嘗試。於是,Schreber 被送進了全歐洲最權威的精神病院、由最享負盛名的醫生以最先進的方法治理,也就是用最烈性的鎮靜劑、用強行餵食、用關黑房、用「人身保護令」強制覊留。
First Love and Other Stories (Ivanov Turgenev)
愛情啊!有甚麼比愛情小說更適合夜裡捧讀呢?讀愛情小說當然就沒時間談戀愛了。起題的那篇我覺得很于腐,講父子同愛上了一個年輕女人。而且十九世紀中葉後俄羅斯的地面上充斥太多沒落貴族、沒落皇親閣戚,他們的皇族遺風與被廹往下流的新身份地位拼在一起太令人想起某種海派情調、偏偏關在內陸,沉悶和沉悶在下奕。最喜歡叫「Asya」的一篇,有兄妹不是親兄妹再加上太拘禮的一個沒事人,主角在旅行中聽到鄉音,「你是俄羅斯人嗎?」就一見如故,卻是注定三個都失戀、友誼也不得萬歲,到君子捨得面子、伊人又要遠去的局面。愛情就是重覆又重覆的提旨、錯失一定是同一種錯失的。
Arresting God in Kathmandu(Samrat Upadhyay)
以英語寫作的尼泊爾當代作家,此為其短篇小說的合集。讀畢還是不能明白,亞洲人用英語寫作到底具「解放性」或是「規懲性」,尤其是有關城市經驗與性題材的時候。
Prisoners of Love (Jean Genet)
有時很驚訝身邊沒幾個喜歡Genet的人,那麼傳奇的人生,應該是悶蛋的天人。出生沒多久便遭生母遺棄,孩童時代在孤兒院與寄養家庭中渡過,15歲因偷竊判入教導所,甫離開,在服役期間又因為「不道德行徑」給革出軍旅,在歐洲各處流浪,偷竊、爆架、賣淫、行使偽造文件等為生,除了情人的窩或街邊,不是九流旅館就是住進監倉。然後,「文學」發現了他,在Cocteau的幫助下出版了牢中所書的【繁花聖母】(1944),在發表【竊賊日記】的1949年,他因積案累累可能面對終身監禁的判刑,結果Cocteau 、畢特索與沙特等人向總統說情,得免除牢役。自由,可沒有為惹內開鋪一條創作之路,50年代實是其創作低潮,1952年沙特暱名發表的論文「Saint Genet comédien et martyr」,讓惹內對自己的創作深陷質疑,擱筆五年沒發表一隻字,此後他似乎也放棄了小說的形式,在五十年代後期發表了【陽台】、【黑人】等關於種族仇恨、亞爾及利亞戰爭等題材的三齣劇本,亦標示惹內對權力與身份政治的探討。火紅火綠的年代他走去禁上自己著作出版的美國,訪問黑豹黨,「黑權」 (Black Power) 暴力的政治哲學,似乎直鈎在惹內作為一個不認同法國、不認同歐陸白人身份的流放者的心弦。
【Prisoners of Love】就是惹內臨終時還在寫著的回憶錄,也是自從五六十年代以後,他唯一的散文體著作。場景是70年代未80年代初的巴勒斯坦及隣近的約旦、黎巴嫩等地。1982年惹內應巴勒斯坦解放組織領袖阿拉法半認真的邀請,再次來到情勢嚴峻的巴勒斯坦,其時正為黎巴嫩戰爭(又稱「第五次中東戰爭」)中,以色列軍方控制的黎巴嫩屬地Sabra與Shatila巴勒斯坦難民營遭到血腥大屠殺之後。
關於以色列在美國外交政策袒護下對巴勒斯坦的長久壓廹,Marwan Bishara 【Palestine/Israel: peace or apartheid: occupation, terrorism, and the future 】 (Zed Books, 2002)是很好的導讀,圖書館有唔駛買 (書目記錄號碼:2037013)。惹內不是一個記者、也不是編年史家、人權組織研究員,惹內是作家,【Prisoners of Love】既是行旅所記、也是回顧自己之所以投入黑豹黨運動的情由,更是對巴勒斯坦人的歷史與宿命的一種垂注、對政治運動的道德詰問。他甚至懷疑這本書對所謂「Palestinian Cause」沒有多少益處。這本書就是作家按著記憶寫成的,而且僅是他自己的記憶,一個七十歲的法國白人,去到那裡都要人帶、要人翻譯,而他只能記下有人帶著、經過了翻譯的事情,其他的他只有一種直覺,而且一個七十歲的法國白人,總是過於礙眼。但他走到哥蘭高地,跟十幾二十歲的武裝份子、將來的烈士,去刺探軍情、在漆黑的野地聽子彈飛過耳邊。又老遠走到某個村落,找一位朋友的母親,讓村裡的人不知要帶去那處的同時,憶起上一次來過、為甚麼又來。他似乎也在思考激進政治與愛慾的某些關聯;在他描述的那群近親亂倫、靠婦孺乞騙終日的遊浪人中,也似乎對「誰才是巴勒斯坦人」的種種提法,作了一種舊約式的注脚。貫穿全書的一個母題,如果真有母題的話,就是惹內對一個沒有土地、家園被強佔不能歸返的民族,撰寄流放者的詩歌。
Orientalia: Sex in Asia (Reagan Louis w/ essay by Tracy Quan)
一個老外攝影師問准老婆飛到泰國、香港、澳門、台灣、日本、越南等地,走去那些夜總會、三温暖、馬檻、KTV、金魚缸、舞廳公寓等等色情架步,給裡面工作的女人拍照造像,成為合輯。我覺得拍得很美,在鏡頭前看來,她們都不羞於自己的身體、職業,而身體又記載著她們的工作。
It is in a house that one is alone. Not outside it, but inside. Outside, in the garden, there are birds and cats. And also, once, a squirrel, and a ferret. One isn’t alone in a garden. But inside the house, one is alone that one can lose one’s bearings. Only now do i realise I’ve been here for ten years. Alone. To write books that have let me know, and other know, that I was the writer I am. How did that happen? And how can one express it? What I can say is that the kind of solitude found in Neauphle was created by me. For me. And that only in this house am I alone. To write. To write, not as I had up until then, but to write books still unknown to me and not yet decided on by me and not decided on by anyone.
(…) People are bad, good, clever, stupid, pleasant and unpleasant; but superfluous… no. That’s to say, if you want to understand me: the universe could get along without such people… of course; but uselessness is not their chief quality, not their distinctive characteristic, and when you talk about them the word “superfluous” is not the first one that springs to one’s tongue. But in my case, nothing else can be said about me: I’m superfluous and that’s all there is to it. Redundant - nothing else. Nature did not count on my appearance and therefore treated me like an unexpected and unbidden guest. One joker has said of me not inappropriately, keen on cards as he was, that I was the throwaway card in my mother’s hand. I talk about myself now calmly, with no bitterness… The game’s long over! During the course of my life I constantly found my place already occupied, perhaps because I looked for it in the wrong place. I was highly strung, pitifully shy, extremely irritable, like all ill people; in addition, perhaps through excessive self-regard or generally through the unsuccessful structure of my personality, there existed between my feelings and my thoughts — and the expression of these feelings and thoughts — some senseless, incomprehensible and impregnable obstacles. And when I tried to overcome this obstacle by force, to smash this barrier, my movements, my facial expression, my whole being acquired a look of intense effort: I not only looked, but I actually became unnatural and over-wrought: I felt this myself and hastened to return to what I was. Then a frightful panic would arise in me. I used to analyse myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words of those to whom I’d tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at my attempts “to be like the rest” — and suddenly, in the midst of my laughing, I’d give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again — in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel. Whole days went by in this tormenting, fruitless activity. Well, now just you tell me, to whom and for what is such a man necessary? Who knows and who will say why this happened to me, what was the cause of this nitpicking concern with myself?
I remember I was once travelling away from Moscow in a diligence. The road was good, but the driver hitched up a fifth horse to the four already in harness. This unfortunate fifth horse, completely useless, tied somehow to the shaft by a short, stout rope which mercilessly cut its haunch, rubbed its tail and forced it to run in the most unnatural fashion, lending its whole body the shape of a comma, always aroused in me profound pity. I remarked to the driver that on this occasion one could get by without a fifth horse… He said nothing, shook his head, lashed the horse ten times with his whip across its thin back and distended stomach — and muttered, not without a grin: “Look, it’s dragged itself along right enough! Devil knows why, eh?“
And I’ve dragged myself along just like that… though, thanks heavens, the post-station’s not far off now.
— Ivan Turgenev.
“The Diary of a Superfluous Man” First Love & Other Stories. Trans. Richard Freeborn. Oxford& NY: Oxford UP, 1989. pp33-34.
老友指出小站最近一直在轉貼他方、他人的事情。我無話可說,small time writer 就是small time writer ,幾乎是一種「示弱主義」。老友說找不到一份工作,倒没能在空閒寫作,到又要天天上班捱累那寫作的點子和興味又回來了…… 自己「生產力」長期處於低水平,離開了自己總做不成稱職的工作崗位,在其它的平台和場合卻是鬆開了一點點那閉著的嘴巴、緊著的眉頭,不是嗎?我不能用工作來愛你們,那就換過方式去愛你們好了。