无法模仿的《觅我已无踪》

文/卡迪什·莫里斯 译/杜磊 审订/肖维青

American novelist and short story writer John Edgar Wideman, the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction twice, is known for his experimental literary style exploring the African American experience.Eighty years old now, his personal history is full of trauma and tragedy and in this new collection, published 40 years after his first book of stories, there are tales about being Black, being dead and dying, some imagined and some based on his own experiences.

2Most are preoccupied with the concept of time, whether it’s the life sentence his brother is serving in prison for being an accomplice in a robbery turned murder, the 12 days in which his 15-yearold son was a fugitive after killing another teenager, or the hour and a half that he and his brother spend wandering New York’s Penn station looking for each other.Largely these melancholic stories examine the criminal justice system and how it manipulates and suffocates time:“Prisons trips away time.Leaves your body bare, bones shivering...Time shrivels to routine, repetition.Time inverted.Longer a sentence, less time matters.”

美国长篇小说家、短篇小说家约翰·埃德加·怀德曼是首位两度摘得笔会/福克纳小说奖的作家，他以探索非裔美国人生活经历的实验性文学风格而著称。现年80岁的他，人生曾经充满了创伤和悲剧。在他的第一部故事集推出40年后，这部新小说集出版，其中有关于黑人身份、死亡与垂死的故事，这些故事有的是想象出来的，有的则是根据其自身经历创作出来的。

2书中绝大多数故事都专注于时间的概念，无论是他的弟弟因做了抢劫杀人犯的帮凶而在监狱中服无期徒刑，还是他15岁的儿子在杀死另一个少年后亡命天涯的那12天，或者是他和他的兄弟在纽约宾夕法尼亚车站四处寻找对方的那一个半小时，都是如此。在很大程度上，这些悲情故事审视了刑事司法系统，也考察了这一系统是如何操纵并扼杀时间的：“坐牢令时间停滞，让你仿佛浑身赤裸无遮，骨头瑟瑟发抖……时间退化为日复一日的常规。时间被颠倒了，刑期越长，时间就越无足轻重。”

3One tale, “Atlanta Murders”, featuring two chickens crossing the road, refers to the murders committed between July 1979 and May 1981 in which at least 28 children were killed.Once on the other side of the road, one chicken ponders the semantics of the term “humanely raised”, which it has seen on packs of chicken breasts.“If you know in advance that you are preparing captive, living creatures to be slaughtered and eaten, how in the world can you raise them humanely?” the chicken asks.“Or does humanely simply mean nothing? Except whatever human beings want the word to mean.”

4The other chicken never trusted the chicken eaters’ language; always knew it was a chicken.“Funny you put it that way, sir,” says the narrator.“I always knew I was Black.”

3其中一个故事“亚特兰大谋杀案”以两只过马路的小鸡为主角，影射的是1979年7月至1981年5月间一桩涉及至少28名儿童被害的谋杀案。刚走到路的另一边，一只小鸡就对“人道饲养”一词的含义思考开了，它曾在一包包鸡胸脯肉包装上看到过这个字眼。“如果你事先清楚你正在为圈养的活物被宰杀和吃掉做准备，你怎么可能人道地饲养它们？”这只鸡仔问道，“或者说，人道这个词压根儿就没有任何意义？除非人类希望这个词是什么意思，它就是什么意思。”

4另一只鸡仔则从不信任吃鸡人讲的话；它一直都明白它自己就是一只鸡。“先生，你这么说可真有意思。”叙述者说道，“我一直明白我就是个黑人。”

5怀德曼并没有试图通过叙述故事为囚于牢狱的亲人或旧识开脱罪责。事实上，由于没有那样做，他最终暴露出了更多关于他们罪行的细节。从探视室里排队等候用微波炉的灰暗场景到一名警察将你的身躯压在城市马路上时荧光闪亮的那一幕，这些故事中不同类的痛苦交织出一幅苦难的画卷。

5Wideman doesn’t try to exonerate the incarcerated people he loves or once knew by telling their stories.In fact, in not doing so, he ends up exposing more details about their crimes.These tales create a tapestry of suffering, weaving together different kinds of pain, from the greyness of waiting in line for the microwave in the visiting room to the fluorescent brightness of a cop pressing your body into a city street.the incarcerated people he loves or once knew by telling their stories.In fact, in not doing so, he ends up exposing more details about their crimes.These tales create a tapestry of suffering, weaving together different kinds of pain, from the greyness of waiting in line for the microwave in the visiting room to the fluorescent brightness of a cop pressing your body into a city street.

6The author’s experimental use of syntax works to shift reality, altering each tale’s narrative momentum.The sentences in “Art of Story” are so sharp they scratch the skin, whereas in “Arizona”—a letter addressed to American soul singer Freddie Jackson, wherein the narrator praises his song “You Are My Lady”, which was playing in the car while he drove his son to his sentencing—Wideman’s conversational prose, curious and vulnerable(“When I hear you sing I remember you were there beside me and here I am now beside you”), feels as though it is searching for a nipple.

6作者对句法的实验性运用起到了转移现实的作用，也改变了每个故事的叙述动力。“故事的艺术”中，句子锋利到了会刮伤皮肤的程度，而在“亚利桑那”——一封写给美国灵魂歌手弗雷迪·杰克逊的信中，叙述者称赞了他的歌“你是我的女人”，当怀德曼开车送儿子去受审时，车里播放的正是这首歌。怀德曼的对话式散文，显得奇特又脆弱（“当我听到你唱歌，我记得你曾在我的身边，而现在我在你的身边”），读来令人觉得像是在寻找安慰的。

7Even in moments of bewilderment,when new questions are painted upon old ones, when Wideman’s stream of consciousness style momentarily mystifies, you are never truly gone, just suspended above a familiar scene, forced to interact with a detail you missed or ignored.This is truly inimitable storytelling.No one writes an American horror story like John Edgar Wideman.■

7即使在一些困惑时刻，比如旧题未决、新问又起时，抑或怀德曼的意识流风格瞬间变得难以理解时，读者也从未真正地离场，只是悬在一个熟悉的情景之上，被迫与自己错过或忽视的细节交流。这确实是不可模仿的故事叙述。没有人像约翰·埃德加·怀德曼那样来写一个美国的恐怖故事。 □