2015考研英语阅读忧郁的本质

　　Kind ofblue

　　忧郁的本质

　　Blue Nights. By Joan Didion.

　　《忧郁的夜》，琼迪丹著。

　　Few memoirs are worth reading. When they are nottawdry opportunities to air grievances, settlescores or rationalise errors, they tend to be tales ofadversity with a triumphant twist. This is whatmakes Joan Didion unique. Her non-fiction hasalways considered grand matters from a personal perspective, without making herself thecentre of the story. Even when she writes about the hard drama of her own life, such as thesudden death of her husband followed by the death of her only daughter, her stories manageto be larger than her own grief.

　　鲜有回忆录有看头。作者们如果没法发牢骚、翻旧账、找借口，就是自吹自擂的往脸上贴金。琼迪丹与众不同之处正在于此。她的纪实类文学作品常常是从个人视角出发，思考重大事件，而不是把自己作为故事的中心。即使是写到诸如独生女儿死去之后丈夫也突然去世这样自己生命中艰难时刻，她对故事的经营也远远超过了自己的悲伤。

　　This is how a memoir like The Year of Magical Thinking became a bestseller. Inwriting about the year that followed the fatal heart attack of John Gregory Dunne, herhusband of nearly 40 years, Ms Didion used her experience to reflect on the fundamentalabsurdity of death. She movingly considered the way time makes the ordinary gifts of lifeextraordinary. The unmentioned horror of the bookan event that took place after she hadfinished writing but before it was publishedwas that her daughter Quintana Roo was dead,too, undone by a series of health problems that ended with acute pancreatitis at the age of39.

　　这就是为什么像《奇幻思维之年》这样的回忆录热销的原因吧。写到她不满40岁的丈夫，约翰格雷戈里邓恩严重心脏病发作之后的日子，琼迪丹用自己亲身经历去反思了死亡最本质的荒谬，并令人感动地思考着如何用时间让平凡的生命不再平凡。这本书还有件未曾提及的惨事这件事就发生在书已成稿而并未出版之时是琼迪丹的女儿昆塔斯终于不用再遭受严重胰脏炎的折磨了，去世时仅39岁。

　　With Blue Nights, her first book since the earlier memoir, Ms Didion conveys the lonelinessof living on without her child or husband, and the indignities of ageing. For decades her lifehad been charmed, even more so than she had realised. But in a matter of months in 2003everything turned unspeakably grim. It is horrible to see oneself die without children, shequotes Napoleon as saying. This is a difficult book, but not a sentimental one. Ms Didion hasa remarkable ability to consider her own feelings without letting her prose turn soggy withemotion.

　　而用《忧郁的夜》，这本她早期回忆录之后的头一本书，琼迪丹表达了失去丈夫和女儿后生活的孤独和衰老带给她的侮辱。几十年来她的生活如同被施了魔法一般，更奇妙的是她自己没有意识到这一点。2003年的几个月中，一切变得无法形容的可怖。引用拿破仑的名言，她说道：眼睁睁地看着自己无儿无女地死去是如此可怕。这是一本关于困难的书，但却不是关于脆弱的。琼迪丹有一种非凡的能力，将沉闷的情绪排除在自己的散文之外，不带感情地思考。

　　Today would be her wedding anniversary, she writes at the beginning, and then evokes thescene of her daughter s summer wedding in Manhattan in 2003.There were cucumber andwatercress sandwiches, and a peach-coloured cake from Payard. Quintana wore stephanotisin her hair. Ms Didion returns to these details in later chaptersthe stephanotis, thecakeusing this repetition to illustrate the way she is haunted by memories. After alifetime of travel and dynamism, she now appears anchored in New York by the detritus oflife. Her drawers and cupboards are filled with mementoes which serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciatedthe moment when it was here.

　　今天是她的结婚周年纪念日，琼迪丹在开头写到，唤起了2003年夏季女儿在曼哈顿岛婚礼上的场景。宴会上有黄瓜和水田芥三明治，从Payard送来的粉色蛋糕，昆塔斯在头发上别着千金子藤。琼迪丹在之后的章节千金子藤，蛋糕里回味着这些细节，用这些反复的回味阐述了她是如何被回忆萦绕的。终其一生的漂泊与动荡之后，生命的碎片似乎把她锚定在了纽约。塞满抽屉和橱柜的纪念品只是为了让我弄明白，这些东西在时我对它们的欣赏是多么地不合适。

　　The appeal of Ms Didion has long been her insight mixed with something glamorous; she isboth of this world and a world apart. Memories here are cluttered with brand names and glittering friends . Theeffect can be distracting, but Ms Didion sometimes uses these details to worry over the oddityof Quintana s life , and also tomarvel at her own naivety. I do not know many people who think they have succeeded asparents, she writes. In regarding herself as a mother, her remorse festers unchecked.

　　琼迪丹的感染力在于长久以来她能将自己的洞察力与这些极富魅力的东西很好地调和在一起。她既能溶于世界，又能与世界分离开来。这些记忆与名牌和那些显赫朋友的名字交织在一起。这样做能起到转移痛苦的效果，而琼迪丹有时也因为这些细节苦恼女儿昆塔斯生活的不幸，也会惊讶自己天真的本性。我认为很多人并不认为自己做父母很成功，她写到。做为母亲而言，她的懊悔带来的痛苦从未制止。

　　Now 75, Ms Didion s gaze is turned backwards. Her recollections meander and loop back,interrupted only by distressing questions that no one is left to answer . Often these questions consider the choices she made as a mother and her own increasing frailty . With Blue Nights, named for the intense and portentous beauty of the dyinglight on a summer day, Ms Didion has translated the sad hum of her thoughts into aprofound meditation on mortality. The result aches with a wisdom that feels dreadfullyearned.

　　已经75岁了，琼迪丹的注意力也涣散了。她的回忆缓慢而又反反复复，只有在那些无法让人回答的悲情问题时才被打断。这些问题经常是思考做为一个母亲她的选择，和她自己越来越多的弱点。借着《忧郁的夜》，这部以某个夏日里生命之光暗淡时的那种紧张而又不吉之美命名的书，琼迪丹将自己思维里悲伤的呻吟译成了对死亡深厚的沉思。所产生的结果是与这位悲伤的智者一起伤痛。