詹姆斯.乔伊斯的《死者》

西门

《死者》是乔伊斯25岁时写的一个小中篇，我不确定是不是《都柏林人》中的一篇。昨天看了以后，心里很不平静，非常佩服乔伊斯在这么年轻的时候就能写出如此有深度的作品。
故事讲的是上世纪初都柏林三位还算富有的老小姐在一个爱尔兰难得一见的雪夜举办自家一年一度的圣诞晚会。出席的都是她们的亲戚朋友以及学生（老小姐中的一位教授钢琴），作者用广角镜头般的视角事先不做介绍的依次扫描了出场的各位宾客。一开始是用的老小姐们的视角，而后主要是她们的外甥——一位大学教授盖布锐先生的视角。盖布锐是一位事业有成，刚介中年的爱尔兰中产知识分子的典型，他知识渊博、温文尔雅，有温柔的妻子，有孩子，有自己的事业，是三位老小姐的骄傲。故事就这样按部就班的展开，其中虽然穿插了盖布锐和一位女同事——一位激进的爱尔兰民族主义者的小冲突，但总的来说，还是相当的波澜不兴。看到这里，我有些失望，以为这就是长篇小说大师早年的一部小小的习作，但到了故事即将结束的地方，大师终于出招了——在晚会已经结束，客人各自陆续散去的时刻，一晚上没有给大家唱歌的歌手达西先生自己在小钢琴上唱起了一支不知名的歌，吸引了盖布锐夫人的注意，她急迫的向歌者打听这首歌的名字。当天晚上，盖布锐夫妇在附近的一家旅馆下榻。去旅馆的路上，沉静的雪夜，欢乐的聚会使盖布锐先生心中充满柔情，他沉浸在对与夫人刚刚相识的美好时光的回忆之中。当两人到了旅馆，盖布锐先生突然发现夫人变得心不在焉，在他的询问下，夫人却说在想刚刚听到的那首歌。接着，夫人给他讲了“好久以前经常唱那支歌的人”的故事，那是一个多年以前的才17岁就已死去的痴情的小伙子的故事......
故事结尾时盖布锐夫人已经熟睡（这才是真正的女人），而盖布锐先生则百感交集、难以入睡。此时窗外一片白茫茫，爱尔兰全境被大雪覆盖，它落在平原上、落在沼泽里、落在香浓河上、也落在西爱尔兰那片埋着那小伙子的山头的小小墓园上。当我看到这里的时候，我的眼睛潮湿了。

荣闪闪

是《都柏林人》里的一篇。非常棒。我也是好奇，写了那么长的宴会。

追雪

这篇文章是不朽的。我从未见过更出色的故事。看之前最好就着《都柏林人》的顺序读一遍，有助于理解其中的许多事情。

事实是：世上没有25岁的人可以想象出如此完美的那个剧情要素，全书的文眼，所谓的epiphany。即使天才如乔伊斯。

他所写的，是他的亲身经历。

Another element of "The Dead" is Joyce's relationship to his wife, Nora.

Nora was a Galway girl (just like Mrs Conroy in "The Dead") - and had had a love affair back in her youth - where a young man stood outside her window in the rain, and then died of pneumonia later.

Joyce knew about this event - and it always kind of haunted him, because it somehow made it seem like he, Joyce, was indistinct to Nora. It made him jealous to think that Nora could still be moved by what had happened in her past, with another man.

Richard Ellmann, in his biography of Joyce, devotes an entire chapter to "The Dead" - and the background thereof, how all of these different strands came together to make Joyce write it the way he did.

Joyce said, much later in life, that every woman in his stories was Nora - he didn't know any other women, basically - and could only write about her. She fascinated him, and he stole from her, her lack of punctuation in her letters (think of Molly's run-on sentence - 40 pages worth - at the end of Ulysses) - her Galways roughness, her tone of voice, how she was ... all of that was pilfered from his wife, and you see it come up time and time again.

James and Nora were in Rome for about 6 months - in 1906, 1907 .. and Joyce's experience of Rome - with its ancient ruins abutting up against modern buildings - also became another strand that would make up "The Dead" - how one can be dead at the same time that one is alive. How consciousness of mortality can change what it feels to actually be alive: it is possible to be in both states at once (as Gabriel experiences so devastatingly at the end of "The Dead").

Gabriel, up until the revelatory last 2 pages of the story, has been - for all intents and purposes - a good man, a good husband - a bit stuffy, perhaps - self-conscious - but he tries to do the right thing. He carves the goose gallantly, he dances with Miss Ivors - he works hard on his speech that he wants to give at the party ... he's not a buffoon or an idiot. We don't get the sense that something is MISSING in Gabriel Conroy - until the end.

Then we realize that what he was missing was consciousness. Now he has it. The story of his wife's failed love back in Galway (same story as Nora's) - has launched him into life. And at the very same moment he is acutely aware of his own life, he becomes even more aware of how death approaches - as death approaches us all. We are all becoming "shades". His consciousness becomes telescopic - and moves over the snowy Irish landscape - moving 'westward' - he sees the fields, he sees the "mutinous Shannon waves" (meaning: west) - he sees the country cemetery where his wife's lover is buried ...

Gabriel, in his sense of loss in regards to his wife, has - for the first time - become connected to all of mankind. He is now in connection with others. What we all share is that we will all die. And for the first time Gabriel really feels the pain of that. He feels the pain of his wife, lying asleep in bed - tears in his eyes - for the love that she once lost.

西门

3# 追雪

多谢，我英语不行，能否译成中文？多年以前看过《都柏林人》，那时还是少年不识愁滋味，如今完全没有印象了。所以这个短篇对我来说是全新的，非常喜欢，看完后心潮澎湃，想到很多故人（包括已经逝去的）。

坏天气杰克

有旋律的画作