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最近,一本名为《房思琪的初恋乐园》的小说在大、中学生中间十分流行,不仅因为它“改编自真人真事”,涉及师生恋、性爱、诱奸等敏感话题,更因为年轻作者林奕含在此书出版后不久便自杀这件事。
《房》仿佛琼瑶体《窗外》类言情小说的反面:在这里,少女恋上“潇洒多才”的教师的缎面被反转,阴暗、污秽、暴力的败絮一下露了出来,于是,便有了这个教师利用少女对“才子”的仰慕和对文学的热爱而对其施暴的故事。
然而,本书的重点并非肉体、情感,或是“强暴”,而是“文学”——在这里,“文学”变成了一个脱去高尚外衣的罪恶之物。如推荐语所说,本书“直指文学及语言如何成为诱奸与哄骗之物;在加害者对受侵害者不可逆转之剥夺和取乐中,成为残忍的同谋”1。的确,在小说的字里行间,文学不断为“强暴”制造优美的说辞,为“残忍”编织浪漫的理由,为“无耻”涂抹诱人的脂粉……文学,让13岁的女孩子“相信一个可以整篇地背《长恨歌》的人”;而文学与强暴者的合谋,又让这个孩子明白,“联想、象征、隐喻,是世界上最危险的东西”。
文学,英文作“literature”,范围极广,几乎所有文字形成的东西,皆可称“literature”。然而,文学其实又颇为狭义,“风花雪月”、“儿女情长”、“山盟海誓”,是文学在大众眼中的基本内容。
爱伦·坡(Edgar Allan Poe)在《论创作》(“The Philosophy of Composition”)中有这样的著名论断,“The most poetical topic in the world...[is] the death of a beautiful woman... and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved(丧失密友或亲人的)lover.”(世界上最有诗意的题目,是美丽女子的死亡……同样毋庸置疑,最适合吟咏这个题目的,是悲伤的恋人。)据说,民国奇人辜鸿铭曾称,全部美国文学,除了爱伦·坡的一首《安娜贝尔·李》(“Annabel Lee”)外,其他皆不值一提。那“为爱而生,为爱而死”的女孩,“this maiden she lived with no other thought / Than to love and be loved by me”(这少女活着,只为一个念头,爱我和为我所爱),附和着那悲苦地吟咏着失落爱人的“目若愁胡”的“才子”,轻易便可敲开少女们本不愿意向成人敞开的心扉。
小说结尾,“玩文学”的李老师继续着他的“潇洒人生”,而为“文学”痴迷的房思琪却发了疯,闲人们则唏嘘着,“从前给她看那些书,还不如去公园玩”。
文学竟然如此“险恶”!
此“真相”一出,不免令我等“读书写字”之人惊出一身冷汗。
文学,还要读它吗?
在我手边有本书——《在德黑兰读〈洛丽塔〉》(Reading Lolita in Tehran),是一位女教师带领一群女孩子读“禁书”的故事。在相对开化的社会,文学的破坏力尚且如此之大,那么在充满禁忌的伊朗,又会是何种景象呢?
1995年,辞去大学教职的阿扎尔·纳菲西(Azar Nafisi)决定实现人生一大梦想:“I decided to indulge myself and fulfill a dream. I chose seven of my best and most committed students and invited them to come to my home every Thursday morning to discuss literature.”2(我决定放纵一下自己,实现一个梦想。我选了七个最好、最投入的学生,邀请她们每周四上午来我家讨论文学。)
因为这是个把“梦想”变作现实的工程,参与者的选择,自然是至关重要的。“I wanted to teach a handful of selected students wholly committed to the study of literature, students who were not handpicked by the government, who had not chosen English literature simply because they had not been accepted in other fields or because they thought an English degree would be a good career move.”(3我想教幾个我精挑细选、一心学习文学的学生,不是政府选出来的那种,她们选择英语文学不是因为没被别的专业录取,也不是因为她们认为有个英语学位能让她们将来好找工作。)
书的选择,当然也不能马虎。“One of the criteria for the books I had chosen was their authors’ faith in the critical and almost magical power of literature”4(我选择书的一个标准是,作者对于文学的批判力和近乎魔力的信仰。)
每周四的聚会不是《相约星期二》(Tuesday with Morrie)中莫里教授那种充满了“人生哲理”的长者教诲,更不是《房》中李老师那种夸夸其谈。 在这些女性的生活里,“道德纠察队”会随时在大街上把犯有“不道德”行为的女性抓走,盲眼的“审查员”和他的继任者,要把原本少得可怜的影视作品全部剪到“人畜无害”。在这里,每周四读“禁书”,对于女人们来说,就像把被头巾盖住的长发偷偷多露出一些一样,提供的是片刻的“窃喜”。“Our class was shaped within this context, in an attempt to escape the gaze of the blind censor(审查员)for a few hours each week. There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom. And like Lolita, we took every opportunity to flaunt(夸耀)our insubordination(拒不服從): by showing a little hair from under our scarves, insinuating(使逐渐而巧妙地挤入)a little color into the drab uniformity of our appearances, growing our nails, falling in love and listening to forbidden music.”5(就是在这种背景下,我们的课成了每周偷得几个小时,逃脱那盲眼审查员注视的机会。在那间客厅,我们重新发现,自己也是活生生的、呼吸着的人;不管环境变得多么压抑,不管如何被威慑、恫吓,我们,就像洛丽塔,总要试图逃跑,试图创造我们自己的一方小小自由天地。就像洛丽塔,总要抓住任何机会,显示我们的不屈服:从头巾下露出一缕头发,给单调的服饰掺入一抹颜色,把指甲留长,谈一次恋爱,听一听违禁音乐。)
当然,在这里,“窃喜”并不是全部。
在德黑兰读《洛丽塔》,这些女人们读到的,不是H. H.(小说男主角)的欲望,也不是各种文学的隐喻与反讽,而是那个被顶着继父头衔的中年男人绑架、胁迫、禁声的小姑娘,那个小姑娘的“声音”。
读禁书,让她们听到与她们一样的弱者的声音,更让她们学会“说话”,说“她们自己的话”。共读禁书,简直“Upsilamba”!
人,特别是被“压抑”的人,比如孩子、少女,和所有少有机会畅所欲言的人,需要自己的语言。房思琪们使用只有小孩子懂得的“唇语”。而“Upsilamba”,则是属于这些读禁书女人的语言。“Upsilamba has become part of our increasing repository(宝库)of coded words and expressions, a repository that grew over time until gradually we had created a secret language of our own. That word became a symbol, a sign of that vague sense of joy, the giggle in the spine Nabokov(小说《洛丽塔》的作者纳博科夫)expected his readers to feel in the act of reading fiction; it was a sensation that separated the good readers, as he called them, from the ordinary ones. It also became the code word that opened the secret cave of remembrance.”6(Upsilamba成了我们逐渐增长的暗语词汇宝库的一部分,宝库日益扩大,后来竟然有了我们自己的秘密语言。那个词成了一种象征,成了一种模糊的欢乐之感的表示,成了纳博科夫期待他的读者在阅读小说时感到的那种来自脊柱深处的悄笑;那种感受,如他所说,将好读者与普通读者分别开来。那个词也变成了打开记忆的秘密洞穴的暗号。)
文学,给那些被生活“禁声”的人们提供了发声的可能,哪怕这可能是微乎其微的。纳菲西老师和学生们共读的第一本书是《天方夜谭》(A Thousand and One Nights),“the familiar tale of the cuckolded(被戴绿帽子的)king who slew successive virgin wives as revenge for his queen’s betrayal, and whose murderous hand was finally stayed by the entrancing storyteller Scheherazade.”7(那个故事讲的是,国王被妻子背叛,于是作为报复,他不断迎娶处女,然后杀死她们,后来会说故事的谢赫拉莎德终于让国王放下了屠刀。)
在别人看来远在“天方”的故事,在这些女性们看来,却几乎就发生在她们身边。她们也许不能让谁,甚至是自己身边的男人,放下屠刀或皮鞭,但至少读书为她们狭小甚至封闭的个体存在打开了一扇窗,也许还是看不到方向,但至少让她们知道,“自由”这种东西是真实存在的。“We were not looking for blueprints, for an easy solution, but we did hope to find a link between the open spaces the novels provided and the closed ones we were confined to. I remember reading to my girls Nabokov’s claim that ‘readers were born free and ought to remain free.’”8(我们并不是要寻找什么蓝图,什么简单的解决方式,但我们的确希望在小说所提供的敞开的空间与围困着我们的封闭空间之间找到某种联系。我记得曾经给我的女学生们念起纳博科夫的话,“读书人是自由的,也应当保持自由”。)
玛雅·安吉罗(Maya Angelou)在自传《我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱》(I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)献词中说,本书献给,“all the strong black birds of promise who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs”(所有满怀希望,反抗命运与诸神,唱出自己的歌的青鸟们)。从小在亲属间辗转的黑人小姑娘玛雅,八岁时被母亲的男朋友强奸,除了忍受肉体上的伤痛,还要面对法官的奚落和审问,要承受强奸犯被暴打致死而给她带来的罪恶感,要服从严厉而痴迷于宗教的祖母的训导,更要习惯白人社会对她和所有像她一样的黑人的蔑视与侮辱……还好,她爱上了文学。“It was Shakespeare who said, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes’; It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar. ”9(莎士比亚说,“当面对命运的羞辱和世人的白眼”;而这种处境,我太熟悉了。)
文学不是工具,不管这工具是用来“施暴”,还是“教化”。文学,是“笼中鸟”们眼中的世界和心中的歌。
1. 此书引文出自Kindle版,无页码。
2. Azar Nafisi. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. Random House, 2003. P. 3.
3. Ibid. P.10.
4. Ibid. P. 18.
5. Ibid. P. 26.
6. Ibid. P. 21.
7. Ibid. P. 19.
8. Ibid. P. 19.
9. Maya Angelou. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ballantine Books, 2015. P. 14.
《房》仿佛琼瑶体《窗外》类言情小说的反面:在这里,少女恋上“潇洒多才”的教师的缎面被反转,阴暗、污秽、暴力的败絮一下露了出来,于是,便有了这个教师利用少女对“才子”的仰慕和对文学的热爱而对其施暴的故事。
然而,本书的重点并非肉体、情感,或是“强暴”,而是“文学”——在这里,“文学”变成了一个脱去高尚外衣的罪恶之物。如推荐语所说,本书“直指文学及语言如何成为诱奸与哄骗之物;在加害者对受侵害者不可逆转之剥夺和取乐中,成为残忍的同谋”1。的确,在小说的字里行间,文学不断为“强暴”制造优美的说辞,为“残忍”编织浪漫的理由,为“无耻”涂抹诱人的脂粉……文学,让13岁的女孩子“相信一个可以整篇地背《长恨歌》的人”;而文学与强暴者的合谋,又让这个孩子明白,“联想、象征、隐喻,是世界上最危险的东西”。
文学,英文作“literature”,范围极广,几乎所有文字形成的东西,皆可称“literature”。然而,文学其实又颇为狭义,“风花雪月”、“儿女情长”、“山盟海誓”,是文学在大众眼中的基本内容。
![](http://img1.qikan.com/qkimages/ellx/ellx201709/ellx20170913-1-l.jpg)
爱伦·坡(Edgar Allan Poe)在《论创作》(“The Philosophy of Composition”)中有这样的著名论断,“The most poetical topic in the world...[is] the death of a beautiful woman... and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved(丧失密友或亲人的)lover.”(世界上最有诗意的题目,是美丽女子的死亡……同样毋庸置疑,最适合吟咏这个题目的,是悲伤的恋人。)据说,民国奇人辜鸿铭曾称,全部美国文学,除了爱伦·坡的一首《安娜贝尔·李》(“Annabel Lee”)外,其他皆不值一提。那“为爱而生,为爱而死”的女孩,“this maiden she lived with no other thought / Than to love and be loved by me”(这少女活着,只为一个念头,爱我和为我所爱),附和着那悲苦地吟咏着失落爱人的“目若愁胡”的“才子”,轻易便可敲开少女们本不愿意向成人敞开的心扉。
小说结尾,“玩文学”的李老师继续着他的“潇洒人生”,而为“文学”痴迷的房思琪却发了疯,闲人们则唏嘘着,“从前给她看那些书,还不如去公园玩”。
文学竟然如此“险恶”!
此“真相”一出,不免令我等“读书写字”之人惊出一身冷汗。
文学,还要读它吗?
在我手边有本书——《在德黑兰读〈洛丽塔〉》(Reading Lolita in Tehran),是一位女教师带领一群女孩子读“禁书”的故事。在相对开化的社会,文学的破坏力尚且如此之大,那么在充满禁忌的伊朗,又会是何种景象呢?
1995年,辞去大学教职的阿扎尔·纳菲西(Azar Nafisi)决定实现人生一大梦想:“I decided to indulge myself and fulfill a dream. I chose seven of my best and most committed students and invited them to come to my home every Thursday morning to discuss literature.”2(我决定放纵一下自己,实现一个梦想。我选了七个最好、最投入的学生,邀请她们每周四上午来我家讨论文学。)
![](http://img1.qikan.com/qkimages/ellx/ellx201709/ellx20170913-2-l.jpg)
因为这是个把“梦想”变作现实的工程,参与者的选择,自然是至关重要的。“I wanted to teach a handful of selected students wholly committed to the study of literature, students who were not handpicked by the government, who had not chosen English literature simply because they had not been accepted in other fields or because they thought an English degree would be a good career move.”(3我想教幾个我精挑细选、一心学习文学的学生,不是政府选出来的那种,她们选择英语文学不是因为没被别的专业录取,也不是因为她们认为有个英语学位能让她们将来好找工作。)
书的选择,当然也不能马虎。“One of the criteria for the books I had chosen was their authors’ faith in the critical and almost magical power of literature”4(我选择书的一个标准是,作者对于文学的批判力和近乎魔力的信仰。)
每周四的聚会不是《相约星期二》(Tuesday with Morrie)中莫里教授那种充满了“人生哲理”的长者教诲,更不是《房》中李老师那种夸夸其谈。 在这些女性的生活里,“道德纠察队”会随时在大街上把犯有“不道德”行为的女性抓走,盲眼的“审查员”和他的继任者,要把原本少得可怜的影视作品全部剪到“人畜无害”。在这里,每周四读“禁书”,对于女人们来说,就像把被头巾盖住的长发偷偷多露出一些一样,提供的是片刻的“窃喜”。“Our class was shaped within this context, in an attempt to escape the gaze of the blind censor(审查员)for a few hours each week. There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom. And like Lolita, we took every opportunity to flaunt(夸耀)our insubordination(拒不服從): by showing a little hair from under our scarves, insinuating(使逐渐而巧妙地挤入)a little color into the drab uniformity of our appearances, growing our nails, falling in love and listening to forbidden music.”5(就是在这种背景下,我们的课成了每周偷得几个小时,逃脱那盲眼审查员注视的机会。在那间客厅,我们重新发现,自己也是活生生的、呼吸着的人;不管环境变得多么压抑,不管如何被威慑、恫吓,我们,就像洛丽塔,总要试图逃跑,试图创造我们自己的一方小小自由天地。就像洛丽塔,总要抓住任何机会,显示我们的不屈服:从头巾下露出一缕头发,给单调的服饰掺入一抹颜色,把指甲留长,谈一次恋爱,听一听违禁音乐。)
当然,在这里,“窃喜”并不是全部。
在德黑兰读《洛丽塔》,这些女人们读到的,不是H. H.(小说男主角)的欲望,也不是各种文学的隐喻与反讽,而是那个被顶着继父头衔的中年男人绑架、胁迫、禁声的小姑娘,那个小姑娘的“声音”。
读禁书,让她们听到与她们一样的弱者的声音,更让她们学会“说话”,说“她们自己的话”。共读禁书,简直“Upsilamba”!
人,特别是被“压抑”的人,比如孩子、少女,和所有少有机会畅所欲言的人,需要自己的语言。房思琪们使用只有小孩子懂得的“唇语”。而“Upsilamba”,则是属于这些读禁书女人的语言。“Upsilamba has become part of our increasing repository(宝库)of coded words and expressions, a repository that grew over time until gradually we had created a secret language of our own. That word became a symbol, a sign of that vague sense of joy, the giggle in the spine Nabokov(小说《洛丽塔》的作者纳博科夫)expected his readers to feel in the act of reading fiction; it was a sensation that separated the good readers, as he called them, from the ordinary ones. It also became the code word that opened the secret cave of remembrance.”6(Upsilamba成了我们逐渐增长的暗语词汇宝库的一部分,宝库日益扩大,后来竟然有了我们自己的秘密语言。那个词成了一种象征,成了一种模糊的欢乐之感的表示,成了纳博科夫期待他的读者在阅读小说时感到的那种来自脊柱深处的悄笑;那种感受,如他所说,将好读者与普通读者分别开来。那个词也变成了打开记忆的秘密洞穴的暗号。)
文学,给那些被生活“禁声”的人们提供了发声的可能,哪怕这可能是微乎其微的。纳菲西老师和学生们共读的第一本书是《天方夜谭》(A Thousand and One Nights),“the familiar tale of the cuckolded(被戴绿帽子的)king who slew successive virgin wives as revenge for his queen’s betrayal, and whose murderous hand was finally stayed by the entrancing storyteller Scheherazade.”7(那个故事讲的是,国王被妻子背叛,于是作为报复,他不断迎娶处女,然后杀死她们,后来会说故事的谢赫拉莎德终于让国王放下了屠刀。)
在别人看来远在“天方”的故事,在这些女性们看来,却几乎就发生在她们身边。她们也许不能让谁,甚至是自己身边的男人,放下屠刀或皮鞭,但至少读书为她们狭小甚至封闭的个体存在打开了一扇窗,也许还是看不到方向,但至少让她们知道,“自由”这种东西是真实存在的。“We were not looking for blueprints, for an easy solution, but we did hope to find a link between the open spaces the novels provided and the closed ones we were confined to. I remember reading to my girls Nabokov’s claim that ‘readers were born free and ought to remain free.’”8(我们并不是要寻找什么蓝图,什么简单的解决方式,但我们的确希望在小说所提供的敞开的空间与围困着我们的封闭空间之间找到某种联系。我记得曾经给我的女学生们念起纳博科夫的话,“读书人是自由的,也应当保持自由”。)
玛雅·安吉罗(Maya Angelou)在自传《我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱》(I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)献词中说,本书献给,“all the strong black birds of promise who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs”(所有满怀希望,反抗命运与诸神,唱出自己的歌的青鸟们)。从小在亲属间辗转的黑人小姑娘玛雅,八岁时被母亲的男朋友强奸,除了忍受肉体上的伤痛,还要面对法官的奚落和审问,要承受强奸犯被暴打致死而给她带来的罪恶感,要服从严厉而痴迷于宗教的祖母的训导,更要习惯白人社会对她和所有像她一样的黑人的蔑视与侮辱……还好,她爱上了文学。“It was Shakespeare who said, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes’; It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar. ”9(莎士比亚说,“当面对命运的羞辱和世人的白眼”;而这种处境,我太熟悉了。)
文学不是工具,不管这工具是用来“施暴”,还是“教化”。文学,是“笼中鸟”们眼中的世界和心中的歌。
1. 此书引文出自Kindle版,无页码。
2. Azar Nafisi. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. Random House, 2003. P. 3.
3. Ibid. P.10.
4. Ibid. P. 18.
5. Ibid. P. 26.
6. Ibid. P. 21.
7. Ibid. P. 19.
8. Ibid. P. 19.
9. Maya Angelou. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ballantine Books, 2015. P. 14.