Always on the side of the egg - 村上春樹在耶路撒冷的演講稿

Always on the side of the egg - 村上春樹在耶路撒冷的演講稿

「Always on the side of the egg 」
永遠站在雞蛋這一邊

Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
晚安，我今天是以小說家的身分來到耶路撒冷的，所謂小說家也就是職業謊言製造者。

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and generals tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
當然，並不是只有小說家才說謊的。政治家也說謊，正如大家所知道的。外交官和將軍有時也要說著他們自己的謊言，就如同二手車推銷員、劊子手以及建築師也不例外。但是，小說家的謊言與其他人不一樣，因爲沒有人會批評小說家說謊不道德。實際上，小說家的謊言說得越大越好，編造謊言的能力越高明，就越受到公衆和評論家的讚賞。這是爲什麽呢？

My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies--which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true--the novelist can bring a truth out to a new place and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth-lies within us, within ourselves. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
我的答案是：藉由有技巧地說謊——也就是說，創作幾可亂真的小說——小說家才能夠將真相帶到一個新的空間並且讓世人都能看到。在多數情況下，幾乎不可能以其原始形式去掌握真相，也不可能準確地闡述真相。這就是爲什麽我要將真相從其隱身之處挖掘出來再將它轉換到一個虛構的時空，用虛構的形式來取代。但是要想做到這一點，我們首先要確認，真相就在我們自己的心中。這是要編造完美謊言的一個非常重要的條件。

Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are only a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.
今天，我不打算說謊。我會盡可能地誠實。我一年當中不說謊的天數不多，今天剛好就是其中之一。

So let me tell you the truth. In Japan a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce fighting that was raging in Gaza. The U.N. reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded city of Gaza, many of them unarmed citizens--children and old people.
讓我來告訴你們真相。在日本有許多人建議我不要來這裏接受“耶路撒冷文學獎”。甚至有些人警告我，如果我堅持要來的話，他們就會掀起抵制閱讀我的小說的活動。當然，原因是迦薩的戰争正如火如荼。據聯合國報道，已經有一千多人在被封鎖的迦薩城內喪生，許多都是手無寸鐵的平民——兒童和老人。

Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.
在接到這個獲獎通知後,我不斷地問自己，是否要在這樣一個特殊時刻來耶路撒冷?接受這樣的文學獎是否是現在該做的事情?這樣做是否會讓人産生一種印象，說我支持衝突中的某一方，認為我支持一個發動壓倒性軍事力量的國家政策呢。當然,我也不希望看到我的書遭到抵制。

Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me-- and especially if they are warning me-- “Don’t go there,” “Don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that”. It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.
但最後在經過深思熟慮後，我還是決定來到耶路撒冷。我之所以做出這樣的決定，原因之一就是有太多的人不想讓我來這裏。可能與許多其他小說家一樣，我總是要做人們反對我做的事情。如果人們對我說——特别是警告我——“不要去那裏”、“不要這樣做”，我就偏偏要去那裏，偏偏要這樣做。你可能會說，這就是小說家的天命。小說家是另類族群。除非親眼所見，親手觸摸，否則他們是不會真正相信任何事情的。

And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.
這就是我來到這裏的原因。我選擇面對而不迴避。我選擇目睹而不無視，我選擇在這裏開口而非沉默不語。

Please do allow me to deliver a message, one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
請允許我在這裏向你們傳遞一條信息，非常私人的信息。在我寫小說時我總是牢記在心，但我從來都不會把它寫在紙上，貼在牆上，我是把它刻在了心靈的牆上，這條信息是這樣的：

“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
“在一座高大堅實的牆和與之相撞的雞蛋之間，我永遠站在雞蛋的這一邊”。

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will do it. But if there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
是的，無論牆是多麽的正確，雞蛋是多麽地錯誤，我永遠站在雞蛋這邊。誰是誰非，自有他人論斷;也許時間或歷史終有定論。但是，如果一個小說家無論何種原因站在牆的這邊來創作，那麽他的作品有何價值可言呢？

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
這個比喻是什麽意思呢?在有些時候，是在清楚也不過了。轟炸機、坦克、火箭以及白磷彈就是那堵高牆，雞蛋是被這些武器毀滅、燒傷並擊斃的手無寸鐵的百姓。這就是這個比喻的其中一層涵義。

But this is not all. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically
不僅如此。它還有更深層的意義，讓我們思考一下，我們每一個人或多或少都是一顆雞蛋。我們每一個人也都有一個包藏在脆弱外殼中的獨一無二的靈魂。並且，我們每一個人在某種程度上都面臨着一堵高大堅實的牆。這個牆有一個名字：那就是“體制”。這個體制本來是要保護我們的，但是有時候它會呈現出它自己的一面，然後就開始屠殺我們，並迫使我們去屠殺他人——冷酷、有效、有系統地屠殺。

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I truly believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories--stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
我寫小說隻有一個原因，那就是要賦予每一個靈魂尊嚴，讓他們沐浴在陽光下。故事的目的是一種警示，是對體制進行檢視，阻止它將我們的靈魂纏結在它的圈套中，防止它踐踏我們的靈魂。我由衷地相信，小說家的職責就是通過創作故事——關于生死、愛情、讓人哭泣顫慄和開懷大笑的故事，讓人們意識到每一個靈魂的無可取代性。這就是我不停創作的原因，日復一日，以十分嚴肅的態度創作小說。

My father passed away last year at the age of ninety. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school in Kyoto, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the small Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the battlefield. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
我的父親是在去年離開我的，享年九十歲。他是一名退休教師，也是一名兼職的佛教僧侶。他在京都讀研究所時，應召入伍，被派到中國打仗。作爲一個戰後出生的孩子，每天清晨在早餐之前，我總是看到他在我家的小佛壇前非常虔誠地長時間地祈禱。有一次我就問父親爲什麽要這樣做，他就告訴我說，他爲所有在戰爭中死去的人們祈禱，無論是戰友還是敵人。看着他跪在佛壇前的背影時，我似乎感受到了環繞在他周圍的死亡的陰影。

My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
我的父親去世了，帶走他那些我永遠也無法得知的記憶。但是環繞在他周圍的那些死亡陰影卻留在我的記憶中。這是我從他那裏所繼承到的少數東西之一，也是最重要的東西之一。

I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, and we are all fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong--and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from our believing in the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
今天我只希望向你們傳達一個信息。我們都是人類,超越國籍、種族和宗教的個體，我們都是脆弱的雞蛋，要面臨被稱作“體制”的堅實的牆。無論怎麼看，我們都毫無勝算。這堵牆太高太堅實——也太冷酷了。戰勝它的唯一可能，就是來自於我們相信每個靈魂都是獨一無二和無可取代而且我們確信彼此的靈魂融合後能夠得到溫暖。

Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System.
請花一點時間想想，我們每一個人都擁有獨特而鮮活的靈魂，而體制沒有。我們絕不能讓體制來剝削我們。我們絕不能讓體制為所欲為。體制沒有創造我們，是我們建立了體制。

That is all I have to say to you.
這就是我想要對你們說的。

I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I would like to express my gratitude to the readers in Israel. You are the biggest reason why I am here. And I hope we are sharing something, something very meaningful. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.
我非常感謝能獲頒耶路撒冷文學獎。也非常感謝世界各地有那麽多人看了我的作品。我還要感謝以色列的讀者們。你們是我來到這裏的最主要原因。我希望我們能夠分享一些想法，一些有非常有意義的想法。我很高興能有這樣的機會在這裏和各位講講話。

Thank you very much.
非常感謝大家。

(以上。)