经济学人10:新英国小说 作家和间谍

 　　Books and Arts; Book Review;

　　文艺；书评；
　　New British fiction；
　　新英国小说；
　　The writer and the spy；
　　作家和间谍；
　　A clever book that leaves you cold；
　　打不动人心的一本智慧书；
　　Sweet Tooth. By Ian McEwan.
　　《甜蜜牙齿》作者：Ian McEwan.
　　At 64, with a Hollywood film, a Man Booker prize and a gong from the queen, Ian McEwan has become a grand old man of British letters. Publication of his latest novel, “Sweet Tooth”, was announced on the evening news. A reading at the Edinburgh book festival was introduced by none other than the first minister, Alex Salmond.
　　64岁那年，带着被改编成的好莱坞电影，伊恩.麦克万从女王的手里接过了布克奖和奖章。成为英国的最年长的作者。晚间新闻报道了他最新出版的小说《甜蜜的牙齿》。在爱丁堡图书节的一次读书会上，竟然是首席部长阿列克斯.萨尔蒙德推荐了这本小说。
　　For all the attendant publicity 1, “Sweet Tooth” is not Mr McEwan's finest book. It has neither the darkness of “The Comfort of Strangers” nor the passion of “Enduring Love”, nor even the forensic 2 observation that made “On Chesil Beach” such an uncomfortable and memorable 3 read. It is a clever book—ostensibly about spying, yet really about writers and the alchemy of fiction. But it is also curiously 4 forgettable. What it lacks is not so much an animating 5 spirit, as a heart.
　　对于所有的参赛作品来说，《甜蜜的牙齿》并不是麦克万最棒的书。它既没有《舒适的陌生人》的那种阴郁，也没有《永恒的爱》那么的激情，甚至没有那种使《在Chesil的海滩》成为令人忐忑，却难以忘却的书的法医的观察。这是一本智慧的书——表面看似是关于谍报活动的，其实它是讲作者和小说的魔力。但是，说来奇怪，它也容易被忘掉。它缺少的是没有令人心跳般地虎虎生机。
　　The novel is set in 1972, a pivotal year in post-war British history, when a series of bloody 6 IRA bombings and debilitating 7 miners' strikes seemed to presage 8 the political and economic chaos 9 that would mark the rest of the decade. Farther afield, the cold war stumbled on, as East and West battled for cultural influence.
　　小说的故事设定在1972年，英国历史上战后的最关键的一年，一连串的北爱尔兰共和军的流血爆炸，虚弱矿工的罢工似乎预示着政治和经济的大乱，那混乱也许充斥那个年代的剩下的整个时间。远方，冷战磕磕碰碰地继续着，就像东西方为了文化影响战斗一样。
　　In her final year at Cambridge—nest of an earlier generation of spies—Serena Frome (rhymes with “plume”, the reader is swiftly told, for no discernible reason) has an affair with an older man, who helps recruit her to become a junior spy. At the time the West was spending millions spreading anti-Soviet propaganda, and America was bankrolling newspapers and broadcasters like Radio Free Europe. Serena, a compulsive reader of fiction, is sent on a secret mission to convert a promising 10 young novelist, Tom Haley, to the cause.
　　剑桥是这个早先一代间谍的的老窝。Serena Frome （与”plume”押韵，给读者一带而过，没有别的意思。）在剑桥的最后一年，和一个老头之间有段韵事，老头协助招募她，使她成了一位初级间谍。那时，西方花费数百万用于反苏宣传，美国资助着报纸和广播，如自由欧洲电台等。一位痴迷小说的读者，Serena身负着神秘使命，被送去策反年轻有为的小说家 Tom Haley到这事业来。
　　The two become lovers. Their hedonistic affair is full of Chablis and long discussions about famous writers and publishers of the time (Martin Amis, Tom Maschler). The book chugs along this way until the end, when Mr McEwan delivers an unwieldy denouement 11 and some unearned sadness. By then it is hard to feel much of anything for these heroes, who are all notions and no depth.
　　这两个成了恋人，他们享受着花天酒地，久久地讨论着当时知名的作家和出版商（如Martin Amis, Tom Maschler）。这本书遵循着这条线索，跌宕起伏，一直到结束，这时麦克万写出了繁琐的结尾和一些顺理成章的伤感。直到此刻我们也很难感受到这些英雄的什么事迹，虽然他们一直贯穿始终，但没有深度。