哈利波特和可悲的大人

Harry Potter and the sad Grown-ups
哈里·波特和可悲的大人

By Jonathan Myerson ■李家真 译评
 
Walking through my train yesterday, staggering from my seat to the buffet and back, I counted five people reading Harry Potter novels. Not children—these were real grown-ups reading children's books. It was as if I had wandered into a John Wyndham scenario where the adults' brains have been addled by a plague and they have returned to childishness, avidly hunting out their toys and colouring-in books.

Maybe that would have been understandable. If these people had jumped whole-heartedly into a second childhood it would have made more sense. But they were card-carrying grown-ups with laptops and spreadsheets returning from sales meetings and seminars. Yet they chose to read a children's book.

I don't imagine you'll find this headcount exceptional. You can no longer get on the London Tube and not see a Harry Potter book, and I presume the same is true on the Glasgow Metro or the Manchester trams, or the beaches of Ibiza or clubs of Ayia Napa. Who told these adults they should read a kids' book? Do we see them ploughing through Tom's Midnight Garden? Of course not; if you suggested it they would rightly stare, bemused, and say: "Isn't that a kids' book? Why would I want to read that? I'm 37/42/63."

Nor is it just the film; these throwback readers were out there in droves long before the movie campaign opened. Warner Brothers knows it can't hope to recoup its reputed $100m costs through ticket sales to children alone. But the adult desire to tangle with Harry, Hermione and Voldemort existed long before the director Chris Columbus got his hands on the story.

So who are these adult readers who have made JK Rowling the second-biggest female earner in Britain (after Madonna)? As I have tramped along streets knee-deep in Harry Potter paperbacks, I've mentally slotted them into three groups.

First come the Never-Readers, whom Harry has enticed into opening a book. Is this a bad thing? Probably not. Ever since the invention of moving pictures, the written word has struggled to be as instantaneously exciting. Writing has many advantages over film, but it can never compete with its magnetic punch. If these books can re-establish the novel as a thrilling experience for some people, then this can only be for the better. If it takes obsession-level hype to lure them into a bookshop, that's fine by me. But will they go on to read anything else? Again, we can only hope. It has certainly worked at schools, especially for boys, whose reading has clearly taken an upward swing — for this alone, Rowling deserves her rewards.

The second group are the Occasional Readers. These people claim that tiredness, work and children allow them to read only a few books a year. Yet now — to be part of the crowd, to say they've read it — they put Harry Potter on their oh-so-select reading list. It's infuriating, it's maddening, it sends me ballistic. Yes, I'm a writer myself, writing difficult, unreadable, hopefully unsettling novels, but there are so many other good books out there, so much rewarding, enlightening, enlarging works of fiction for adults; and yet these sad cases are swept along by the hype, the faddism, into reading a children's book. Put like that, it's worse than maddening, it's pathetic. When I rule the world, all editions will carry a heavy-print warning: "This Is A Children's Book, Designed For Under Elevens. It May Seriously Damage Your Credibility." I can dream, can't I?

The third group are the Regular Readers, for whom Harry is sandwiched between McEwan and Balzac, Roth and Dickens. This is the real baffler—what on earth do they get out of reading it? Why bother? But if they can rattle through it in a week just to say they've been there — like going to Longleat or the Eiffel Tower—the worst they're doing is encouraging others.

By now you're asking: "What's he got against these books, they're just a bit of escapism, just a great fantasy?" First, let me make it clear, I'm not here to criticise or praise the quality of JK's prose or inventiveness. They may indeed be the best children's novels ever written. But I'm sure JK would be the first to agree that they are children's books, that they are successful precisely because they appeal so directly to the childish imagination, address the problems and questions of childhood, enact the hopes and dreams of childhood. Now this is a completely different set of questions from those that mesmerise us in adult life. A child is free to wonder about magic, to believe in the clear purity of the struggle between good and evil, to bask in simple, unquestioning friendships. As adults, we deal with the constantly muddled nature of good and evil, we carry a responsibility for the safety of others, we crave success and fear failure, we confront the reality instead of dreams.

And this is why different books are written for these two tribes. When I read a novel, I look to it to tell me some truths about human life — the truths that non-fiction cannot reach. These might be moral, sexual, political or psychological truths and I expect my life to be enlarged, (however slightly, by the experience of reading something fictional.) I cannot hope to come closer to any of these truths through a children's novel, where nice clean white lines are painted between the good guys and the evil ones, where magic exists, and where there are adults on hand to delineate rules. Adult fiction is about a world without rules.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: "Does everything we read somehow have to improve us? Does even a novel have to 'enlarge' us? Isn't there room for a bit of escapism?" Of course there is! But there is such a thing as escapism for adults. There are plenty of books that have little or nothing genuinely to say about the human condition, but at least they are constructed from the building bricks of adult experience — there are sexual tensions in the evil, there is a dubiety between the good guys and the bad, there is an understanding of complex human psychologies. Even the flimsiest of science fiction or the nastiest of horror stories or the most intricate of spy novels uses this as the mortar to bond together its narrative. There is no such psychological understanding in children's novels: it would be foolish for any children's writer to hope that a child reader would understand, let alone enjoy, such a level of plotting. To read a children's book is not escapism — it's evasion, it's retreat, it's surrender.

So how do all these grown-ups manage to get through it? Of course, we have all read similar books out loud to our children and enjoyed the experience, possibly enjoyed the book itself — only because we were vicariously enjoying it through them. This is one of the few untouchable pleasures of parenting; to live and relive experiences through your children, whether book or film or music. This is no different from taking them to see the latest Disney — you'll laugh, you'll get into it, you may even have a good time. But would you actually book a ticket to go and see it on your own? Of course not; it might be seen as rather sad, if not downright suspect.

So why do you read Harry Potter on your own? When the adult crossover first began, I remember a friend who works in the City covering his embarrassment by saying he had got so wrapped up in it while reading to his kids that he had to finish it alone in bed that night. At least, in those early days, he knew it was shaming to read a kids' book. Now we have the appalling spectacle of City brokers and merchant bankers block-booking seats in cinemas for their staff outings. God save us.
Is it just nostalgia? For those of us old enough to have been brought up in a largely literary age, where child escapism existed mainly on the page, Potter might be seen as a return to Narnia and Dolittle and Streatfield. It seems as though there has been nothing quite as good since — but that's only because you're supposed to grow out of children's books.

For others, no doubt, brought up in the Star Wars age, it is yet another nostalgic return to England-land. There is no denying that Rowling has gone out of her way —maybe not cynically, maybe by genuine heartfelt choice — to place Potter-land in the traditional English milieu, all green fields and mossy stone quads, something more English than anyone under 80 has ever known.

Sure, maybe Harry Potter does have all these side values; it's safe, it's England, it's like something we used to read. But get real, please, there is so much good fiction out there, written specifically for your adult age group, written with you in mind. Please, next time, choose that. Don't keep running away from life.
 昨天在地铁上，我摇晃着在座位和餐室之间走了个来回，看到有5个人在读《哈里·波特》。不是孩子——这些读着儿童书籍的人是如假包换的成年人。我仿佛是走在约翰·温德汉姆（英国著名科幻作家——译者注，以下同）的小说中，那里的成人被瘟疫搞坏了大脑，他们回到了童年，热切地搜寻着玩具和彩色书本。

这也许是可以理解的。如果他们是全身心地投入了第二次童年就更说得过去了。但是他们是成年人，是揣着信用卡、拎着手提电脑、带着各种电子表格、刚刚出席完销售会议和研究会的成年人。而他们选择了阅读儿童书籍。

我不认为我看到的情形有什么异乎寻常。在伦敦地铁上看到《哈里·波特》已经是一种必然。而且我想，不管是在格拉斯哥的地铁中还是曼彻斯特的电车上，伊比沙（地中海西部岛屿）的海滩上还是阿伊亚纳帕（塞浦路斯度假胜地）的夜总会里，情形都会是一样。是谁让这些成年人去读一本儿童书籍的？他们会埋头苦读《汤姆的午夜花园》（英国作家菲利帕·皮尔斯的儿童小说）吗？当然不会：如果你建议他们去读，他们会理直气壮地瞪着你，困惑不解地说：“那不是小孩子看的吗？我干吗要读它？我已经37/42/63了。”

这也不仅是因为电影。在《哈里·波特》电影开始宣传之前很久就已经有了成群结队的返老还童的读者。华纳兄弟公司知道，他们不可能光从卖给儿童的电影票中捞回传闻的1亿美元拍摄成本。在导演克里斯·哥伦布着手把小说拍成电影之前很久，这些渴望能和哈里、赫敏以及伏地魔（均为《哈里·波特》中人物）混在一起的大人就已经存在了。

这些使J·K·罗琳成为英国收入第二高的女人（仅次于麦当娜——作者自注）的成人读者究竟是些什么人？踏在被平装本《哈里·波特》深深掩埋的街道上，我暗自把他们划分为3种类型。

首先是那些从不读书的人，他们被哈里引向了书本。这有什么不好吗？可能没有。从有了电影的那一天起，书面文字就在努力想像它一样令人一见倾心。文字与电影相较有许多的优势，但它永远也不能拥有和电影一样的磁力。如果这些书能使一些人把阅读小说重新看成令人感动的体验，那只能说是件好事。如果它们能让这些人对逛书店着迷，对我来说也不错。但这些人还会去读别的书吗？我们只能期待。在学校里情况显然如此，尤其是对男孩来说，他们的阅读量明显上升——仅此一点，罗琳就无愧于她所获的奖项（《哈里·波特》曾获英国国家图书奖儿童小说奖等奖项）。

第二种是偶然读点书的人。这些人声称疲劳、工作和孩子使他们一年只能看几本书。可是现在——作为许多宣称读过《哈里·波特》的人当中的一员——他们把《哈里·波特》放进了自己“精挑细选”的书单。这让人着恼、让人疯狂，气得我浑身发抖。是的，我自己就是个作家，写作晦涩的、难懂的、最好还能让人不安的小说。但还有那么多别的好书，那么多给大人看的、有益、启人心智、长人见识的小说类作品，而这些可悲的病人却被裹在广告宣传和时尚的洪流之中，去读一本儿童书籍。这样说来，这比疯狂还要糟糕，这简直是悲惨。如果我有一天统治了世界，我会让所有版本的《哈里·波特》都打上醒目的警告：“本书为儿童书籍，适合11岁以下儿童。本书可能严重损害您的可信度。”我这样梦想，不行吗？

最后一种是经常读书的人。在他们那里，哈里夹杂在迈克万（Ian McEwan, 英国当代作家）、巴尔扎克、罗斯（Eugen Roth，德国现代诗人）和狄更斯们当中。这些人我真搞不懂——他们究竟能从这本书里得到什么？干吗在它上面下工夫？但如果他们只是带着到此一游的目的在一周内把它草草读完的话——就像去朗利特山庄（英国名胜）或埃菲尔铁塔一样——他们造成的最坏影响就是怂恿了其他人（去读《哈里·波特》）。

现在你们会问：“为什么他要反对这些书？它们只不过有点脱离现实，只不过是一个精彩的幻想故事而已。”首先我要申明，我不是要批评或褒扬罗琳的文字或独创性，也许罗琳的书的确是曾有过的最佳儿童小说。但我想她会第一个同意它们是儿童书籍，其成功之处正是在于它们直接诉诸儿童的想象，针对儿童时期的问题，展现了童年的梦想和希望。这些问题和成年人生活中的那些麻烦是完全不同的。孩子们可以任意想象有关魔法的事情，可以相信善恶斗争的绝对纯粹、尽情沐浴天真无邪、不折不扣的友情。作为成年人，我们要对付总是泾渭难分的善恶天性；我们要对他人安全承担责任；我们渴望成功、恐惧失败；我们面对的是现实而非梦想。 这就说明了为什么不同的书是分别写给儿童和成人看的。读小说的时候，我希望它能告诉我一些人类生活的真理——非小说类作品所不能触及的真理。这些真理可以是道德方面的、性方面的、有关政治的或是有关心理的，而且我希望我的生命能因这种阅读体验而丰富,哪怕是一点儿也好。我不能指望儿童小说能让我在这方面有任何收获。在儿童小说里面，有清楚整齐的白线画在好汉与坏蛋之间，有魔法、有在场制定规则的大人。而成人小说中的世界是无规则的。

我知道你们不以为然。你们在想：“难道我们阅读的一切都必须对我们有益吗？难道连一本小说也必须能‘丰富’我们吗？难道就不能有一点空间让我们逃避现实吗？”当然有！其实有一种东西是供成人逃避现实用的。有许多的书，其中没有或几乎没有任何地方真正谈到了人类的状况，但至少它们是由成人体验的砖块来构建的——其中存在有害的性焦虑，模糊的正邪界线和对人类复杂心理的认识。即便是最天花乱坠的科幻小说、最荒唐无稽的恐怖小说和最错综复杂的间谍小说也都用这些元素作为粘合叙述的灰泥。在儿童小说里看不到这样的心理分析：只有没头脑的儿童作家才会认为儿童会理解——更别说喜欢——这种层次的故事情节。读儿童小说不是逃避——是逃跑，是退缩，是举手投降。

这些成年人是怎样把它读完的呢？的确，我们都会把同类的书大声念给自己的孩子听并以此为乐，甚至是以书籍本身为乐——仅仅因为我们乐孩子们之乐。这是一种难以言喻的天伦之乐：通过孩子去体验和回味这些东西，无论是书籍、影片还是音乐都好。这跟带孩子去看最新的迪斯尼影片一样——你会笑、会投入地看、甚至会很开心。但你会真的买张票自己去看吗？当然不会。别人会觉得你很可悲，如果不是很可疑的话。

那么，为什么你们自己要读《哈里·波特》呢？当这股成人时尚刚开始的时候，我记得一个在花旗银行工作的朋友说他在给孩子读这本书时被它迷得如痴如醉，以致当晚不得不自己在床上一口气把它读完。他说这些是想掩饰尴尬，至少在早期他还知道读孩子的书不是什么光彩事情。现在却出现了花旗银行经纪人和商业银行家们为员工活动成批预订影院座位的奇观，天啊！

只是怀旧吗？我们的年纪使我们得以成长在一个文学风行的年代，儿时幻想主要寄托在书本上。对我们来说，波特也许是拿尼亚（英国作家C. S. Lewis的小说《狮王、女巫与衣橱》里的动物王国）、杜立德（英国作家Hugh Lofting 的小说《杜立德医生故事》里的人物）和斯特雷特菲尔德（Noel Streatfeild，英国儿童作家）的复归。从那时起似乎就再也没有能和它们媲美的书了——不过这也可能只因为人们不让你再读儿童书籍了。 对其他人——当然，他们在《星球大战》时代长大——来说，这倒意味着另一种对“英格兰”土地的怀旧复归。不容否认，罗琳特地——也许不是出于讥讽、也许是发自内心的选择——把波特的世界放在了传统英国的环境中。这里处处绿野、石庭苔痕，这一切比所有80岁以下的英国人所熟知的英国更加“英国”。

当然，也许《哈里·波特》的确有种种好处：它安全、“英国”、就像我们过去经常看的什么东西。不过，请现实一点，有这么多好的小说，专门为你们这些大人写的、以你们为出发点的小说。下一次，请选择它们。别总是逃离生活。

 
阅读感评
东坡先生曰：无肉复无竹，尚有书可读。读书之乐，的确胜过吃肉赏竹。遥想先生当年，大家读的都是诗词歌赋、四书五经，没有《哈里·波特》之类的东西让人追捧，红了也没有稿费版税可拿，所以说到读书，只是笼统一个“书”字，无须添上读“XX书”；而“读书人”一词，包罗天下文人学士，亦不须划分为若干类型。那时的读书问题，可能比当下要简单许多。

我们不应以小人之心忖度文章作者是酸葡萄心理，因为他的文字也很可爱，里面也有真性情在。不过他的论点却让人不敢苟同。作为单身母亲的罗琳女士，在潦倒之中写了《哈里·波特》。用她自己的话说，是在为自己写作，并非针对任何特定人群。她的写作是对成名前灰暗生活的奋力抗争，是基于对写作本身的热爱，这样绝无投降之意的作者也不太可能以她的书去引领读者逃避现实。抛开这些不谈，如果孩子爱读的东西成人就读不得，那么像《格林童话》、《小王子》以及《一千零一夜》这样的名篇如何可以说是“老少咸宜”， 《西游记》又如何成为经典？

各人读书有各人的目的，总体来说都有道理。古人云读书可以疗饥、可以医愚，宋人赵普更可以“半部《论语》治天下”。不同的人从同一本书所得也各有不同，鲁迅先生曾就不同的人读《红楼梦》有过精彩的论述，近来还听说有人从《水浒》中读出了反腐败主题，真是目光如炬。除了特定的功利用途外，普通人读书太半是为了消遣。不管手里拿的是什么，消遣的目的是一样的。大鱼大肉青菜豆腐可能各有所爱，阳春白雪下里巴人却难说有什么高下之分。最紧要处，是要从文字中体味出阅读的快乐，像陶渊明说的：“好读书，不求甚解。每有会意，便欣然忘食。”

我是不幸地读完了《哈里·波特》的人当中的一员，不过我对罗琳女士的致富就没什么贡献了（书是人送的）。读这本书令我很快乐，也让我平生第一次一口气读完了一本oh-so-thick的英文小说。读书于我，如面晤友人、如心沐阳春；如畅饮醇醪、如细啜佳茗；如耳闻仙乐、如亲历美景，怎一个爽字了得！忆起儿时，搬了凳子坐在天井里看书，轻风吹衣，薄瞑的阳光在纸上泛着淡淡的金色，这般光景真是人生中的美好回忆。

回想东坡先生的时代，黄发垂髫的儿童们在私塾里齐声咿呀着那些要到多年以后他们才能真正领悟的先贤遗赠的不朽篇章，这和前文作者描述的“返老还童”的成人热切地诵读着《哈里·波特》的情形恰能相映成趣。但是不管怎样，这些画面里共有的是一种阅读的快乐。

读书可以不求甚解，可以不问理由。读书，可以是一种纯粹的快乐。