【BBC精讀】三島由紀夫:一位日本作家的奇聞

原文譯文

*註：本文選自11月25日BBC News

Yukio Mishima: The strange tale of Japan’s infamous novelist

三島由紀夫：一位日本作家的奇聞

1. Standing on abalcony, as if on stage, the small,immaculatefigure appeals to the army assembled below. The figure is Yukio Mishima, real name Kimitake Hiraoka. He was Japan’s most famous living novelist when, on 25 November 1970, he went to an army base in Tokyo,kidnappedthe commander, had him assemble thegarrison, then tried tostart a coup. He railed against the US-backed state and constitution,beratedthe soldiers for theirsubmissivenessand challenged them to return the Emperor to his pre-war position as living god and national leader. The audience, at first politely quiet, or just stunned into silence, soondrowned him outwithjeers. Mishima stepped back inside and said: 「I don’t think they heard me.」 Then he knelt down and killed himself byseppuku, the Samurai’sritual suicide.

三島由紀夫身材矮小，溫文爾雅，他站在陽臺上，就像在舞臺上一樣，吸引了集合的衛士軍官。三島由紀夫原名平岡松威。1970年代，他是日本最有名的小說家。1970年11月25日，他來到東京的一個軍事基地，綁架了他們的指揮官，召集軍隊，想要發動軍變。他譴責當時以北國為後盾的政府和制度，斥責士兵的卑躬屈膝，想要恢復天皇戰前作為國家領袖的地位。起初，士兵們都沒有說話，或者說他們被嚇到了，但是很快，此起彼伏的鬨笑淹沒了三島由紀夫的聲音，他退回屋裡，說：「他們都沒聽懂我在說什麼。」緊接著，跪下來，以武士的方式切腹自殺了。

2. Mishima’s death shocked the Japanese public. He was a literary celebrity, amachoandprovocativebut also rather ridiculous character, perhapsakin toNorman Mailer in the US, or Michel Houellebecq in today’s France. But what had seemed to beposturinghad suddenly become very real. It was the morning of the opening of the 64th session of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, and the Emperor himself was present. The prime minister’s speech on the government agenda for the coming year was somewhatovershadowed. No one had died by seppuku since the last days of World War Two.

三島由紀夫之死轟動了日本。當時，他是日本文壇明星，他男性氣概十足，敢於挑戰但同時也有點荒謬，就像美國作家諾曼·梅勒和當代法國作家米歇爾 維勒貝那樣。但那些看起來很是荒誕的一切突然成為了現實。那天早上，日本第64屆國會正在召開，天皇本人也出席了會議。他的自殺使得人們無暇關注日本首相關於明年政府議程的講話。自二戰結束之後，還沒有人以切腹的形式自殺。

3. 「Some thought he had gone mad, others that this was the last in a series ofexhibitionisticacts, one more expression of the desire to shock for which he had becomenotorious,」 wrote the Japanese philosopher Hide Ishiguro in a 1975 essay for The New York Review. 「A few people on the political right saw his death as apatrioticgesture of protest against present-day Japan. Others believed that it was a despairing,gruesomefarcecontrivedby a talented man who had been anenfantterrible and who could not bear to live on into middle age andmediocrity.」 For his part, Mishima once told his wife that 「even if I am not immediately understood, it’s OK, because I』ll be understood by the Japan of 50 or 100 years』 time.」

日本哲學家石黑浩1975年為《紐約時報》撰寫的一篇評論文章中說，「有的人覺得他瘋了，有的人則認為這是他一系列行為藝術的結尾，這是他想要引起轟動的舉措，沒想到卻讓他臭名遠揚。少數右翼人士將他的自殺視為一種愛國行為，視為是對當今日本的一種抗議。有些人則認為這是一場令人絕望的可怕鬧劇，一場由一個無法忍受中年生活的平庸的天才導演的鬧劇。」三島由紀夫曾對妻子說：「人們現在不明白我，這沒關係，50或者100年以後，他們會明白的。」

4. In 1949, Mishima arrived on Japan’s literary scene with Confessions of a Mask, a kind ofautobiography, thinly veiled as a novel, that made him famous in his early twenties. It tells the story of adelicate, sensitive boy who is all but held captive by his grandmother. She is ill and he is made to nurse her. Rather than playing outside with other boys, he is confined with her for years in the sickly-sweet smelling darkness of her bedroom.

1949年，三島由紀夫憑藉自傳體小說《假面自白》確定其在日本文壇地位，這本小說讓他在二十多歲時就蜚聲文壇。小說講述了一個脆弱敏感的男孩被自己祖母監禁的故事。她病了，男孩被安排去照顧她。多年來，他沒法像其他男孩一樣出去玩耍，而是被關在她那黑黢黢的臥室裡。

5. The boy’s mind develops in that room. Fantasy and reality are never quite separated; fantasy, the stronger twin, grows dominant. By the time the grandmother dies and the boy emerges, he has developed afixationwithroleplaying, with life as theatre. He cannot resist layering fantasies over life around him. Men and boys, especiallymuscular, straightforward ones, areassignedroles in his vivid, often violent daydreams. Meanwhile he obsesses over his owndevianceand appearing normal. He learns how to play his own role: 「The reluctantmasqueradehad begun.」

男孩的心智是在那個小房間裡成長的。幻想和現實像孿生兄弟一樣，從來沒能分開。幻想甚至變得更加強大，佔據了主導地位。祖母去世之後，男孩終於從小房間走出來，但是那時候，他已經愛上了這種角色扮演的遊戲，生活對他來說，就像戲劇一樣。他忍不住對周遭的生活加上種種幻想的色彩，男人尤其是那些肌肉發達，耿直坦率的男人是他白日夢裡經常扮演的角色。他痴迷於自己的與眾不同的同時，也讓自己看起來與常人無二。他學會了如何演好自己的角色：「假面舞會開始了。」

Beauty and destruction

美麗與毀滅

6. Confessions of a Mask continues up to the end of the boy’s adolescence, detailing theentwinedevolution of his internal and external lives and his homosexual awakening. In many ways, it is the key to understanding Mishima’s later life and works. It reveals the roots of the aesthetic sensibility, so tied to his sexuality, which proved to be Mishima’s steering obsession. The narrator writes that he 「sensuously accepted the creed of death that was popular during the war」, whenconscriptionandself-sacrificeseemed certain andimminent, and indeed Mishima was forever fixated on the idea that beauty is most beautiful when it istransient– and above all on thecuspof destruction. This creed mingles with admiration for the male form, a form the frail narrator lacks, to produce fantasies of brave warriors and their bloody demises. This private world of 「Night and Blood and Death」 was filled with the 「mostsophisticatedof cruelties and the most exquisite of crimes」, all recounted with a cooldetachment.

小說《假面自白》也講述了男孩的青春期，詳細描述了男孩內心世界和外部世界的交織演變，也講述了他同性戀意識的覺醒。總的來說，這部小說是理解三島由紀夫晚期生活和作品的關鍵。這部小說揭示了三島由紀夫審美的起源，三島由紀夫的審美和性密切相關，他對此有一種很深的痴迷。《假面自白》中，敘述者寫道，他「接受了戰爭期間流行的死亡信條。」當時，徵兵和自我犧牲就在眼前。事實上，三島由紀夫認為，消逝之時即為美，在他看來，毀滅即為美。他的這一美學觀點和他的男性崇拜交織在一起，而男性氣質正式小說敘述者所缺乏的。這種交織，引起了對英勇戰士及其以身殉死的幻想。這個「暗夜，血腥和死亡」交織的世界裡充滿了「殘忍和罪惡，」而小說所有的敘述卻都帶著一種超然。

7. But then Confessions of a Mask also suggests the slipperyinterplaybetween performance and reality that characterised everything Mishima did and wrote. It gave the impression of revealing the author locked in some dark struggle with himself – while also suggesting it may just be a masterfulmanipulationof media and publicity. Mishima had it both ways,scandalisingsociety while retaininga wisp ofdeniability.

同時，《假面自白》也暗含了現實和表演之間微妙而又難以捉摸的聯繫，而這正是三島由紀夫自己的寫作和生活。小說讓人覺得，三島由紀夫自己在黑暗中苦苦掙扎，同時也讓人覺得這一切都只是媒體和宣傳的操縱。三島由紀夫在抨擊社會的同時，也對其保留一點肯定的態度。

8. The formula worked. It turned Mishima into the enfant terrible of postwar Japanese literature and won him a broad readership at home. He was, though decadent, a disciplined andprolificwriter,churning outreams of popular fiction alongside high literature and dozens of Noh plays. He worked himself into Tokyo high society with the same focus, cultivating adandyishimage. His face, with its rugged bones and soft eyes, photographed well. And he was a friend to foreign bureaux and their correspondents,ingratiatinghimself and doing what he could to extend his celebrity across the Pacific – with some success. 「If Sony’s Akio Morita was the most famous Japanese abroad,」 wrote John Nathan, a translator and later a biographer of Mishima’s, 「Mishima ran a close second.」

這是三島由紀夫的寫作原則，這讓他成為戰後日本文學的天才，在國內吸引了廣泛的關注。雖然三島由紀夫看上去很頹廢，但是他是一位自律而又多產的作家，除了各種文學作品和戲劇，他還寫作了大量流行小說。他自己也是以同樣的面目走進了東京上流社會，把自己打造成了時下流行的形象。一張照片中，他稜角分明的臉和柔和的眼睛都很好表現了出來。他是國外駐日本媒體的寵兒，他竭盡所能在太平洋彼岸擴大自己的影響了，他成功了。三島由紀夫的傳記作家約翰·內森寫道，「如果說索尼的森田昭夫是海外最知名的日本人，那麼三島由紀夫就排第二。」

9. Mishima’s novels during the 50s mostly mined the same suggestivelyautobiographicalvein as Confessions of a Mask. In Forbidden Colours (1951), an ageing writer manipulates a young gay man who has become engaged for convenience and financial security. In Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956), anacolyteat the temple istransfixedby its beauty in the belief that it will be destroyed by the bombing raids – and when it survives the war, he takes it on himself to destroy it. And in Kyoko’s House (1959), a boxer takes up right-wing politics, while an actor becomes involved in asado-masochisticsexual relationship that ends in a double suicide.

三島由紀夫在50年代創作的小說大多採用了自傳體風格，就像《假面自白》一樣。在《禁色》(1951)講述的是一名老作家利用一個同性戀男子，以金錢為誘餌讓其訂婚的故事。在《金閣寺》(1956年)中，廟裡的一名侍從為金閣寺的美所震撼，深信其會被戰爭所毀，而戰爭過後，金閣寺仍在，侍從卻自己將寺廟毀掉了。《恭子的家》(1959)中，一名持右翼觀點的拳擊手和一名演員捲入了一場性虐待醜聞，最終雙雙自殺。

精讀解析

篇章結構

P1：三島由紀夫之死。

P2：三島由紀夫之死的影響。

P3：人們對三島由紀夫之死的看法。

P4—P5：三島由紀夫的私小說《見面自白》.

P6：《假面自白》中三島由紀夫的美學觀點：轉瞬即逝即為美。

P7—P8：三島由紀夫的寫作原則：三島由紀夫在抨擊社會的同時，也對其保留一點肯定的態度。

P9：三島由紀夫的小說採用自傳體風格，將現實和幻想緊密結合。

重點單詞

balcony/'b lk n / n. 陽臺；包廂；戲院樓廳

【例句】

A balcony overhangs the door below it.

陽臺懸於其下方的樓門之上。

immaculate/ 'm kj l t/ adj. 整潔的, 無汙跡的；精確的, 無誤的

【例句】

Her apartment was immaculate.

她的公寓房間潔淨無垢。

kidnap/'k dn p/ vt. 綁架；誘拐；拐騙

【例句】

He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.

他被一個恐怖組織綁架並短暫拘禁。

garrison/'g r s( )n/ n. 守備部隊, 衛戍部隊vt. 衛戍部隊守備；派部隊駐防

【例句】

The town was garrisoned with two regiments.

該鎮有兩團士兵駐守。

start a coup發起政變，篡位

berate/b 're t/ vt. 嚴責；申斥

【例句】

The dissatisfied customer berated the florist.

不滿意的顧客責罵花商。

submissiveness/s b'misivnis/ n. 柔順;服從;謙遜;恭謹

【同根】

submissive adj. 順從的, 唯命是從的

submit vi. 屈服, 認輸vt. 提交, 呈遞；建議, 主張, 申辯

【例句】

He expects his wife to be meek and submissive.

他期望妻子溫順而且聽他擺布。

drown out(聲音)淹沒(另一聲音)；(洪水)使(人們)無家可歸

【例句】

The loud cheers drown out his shouts.

歡呼聲蓋過了他的喊叫聲。

jeer/d / vt. & vi. 嘲笑n. 嘲諷

【例句】

The crowd hooted and jeered at the speaker.

群眾向那演講人發出輕蔑的叫囂和嘲笑。

seppuku/se'pu ku / n. 切腹自殺

【例句】

Seppuku (Hara-Kiri) was a key part of bushido, the code of the samurai warriors; it was used by warriors to avoid falling into enemy hands, and to attenuate shame.

切腹自殺是日本武士階級信奉的武士道的重要部分；往往切腹自殺是為了防止自己落入敵人之手，藉以此來洗刷恥辱。

ritual suicide自殺儀式

macho/'m t / adj. 大男子氣概的

【例句】

He emerged with a macho swagger.

他大搖大擺地走了出來。

Bourdain managed to be masculine without being swaggeringly macho.

波登做到了既很有男子氣概又不過於大男子主義。

provocative/pr 'v k t v/ adj. 煽動性的, 刺激性的, 挑釁的

【例句】

His provocative words only fueled the argument further.

他的挑釁性講話只能使爭論進一步激化。

akin to同類，近似

【例句】

Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt.

巴克表達愛的方式就像要傷人似的。

posture/'p st / n. 姿勢；情形；態度v. 擺姿勢；作…的姿勢

【例句】

He bade us keep in a ready posture.

他囑咐我們做好準備。

overshadow/ v ' d / vt. 使(某物)被遮暗;使陰暗；使(某事物)令人不快或減少樂趣；使(某人)相形見絀或黯然失色

【例句】

Mary was sometimes overshadowed by the more talkative members of the family.

有時家中更健談的人使瑪麗顯得黯然失色。

exhibitionistic['eks ,b 'n st k]裸露(或露陰)癖的；風頭主義

notorious/n ( )'t r s/ adj. 臭名昭著的, 聲名狼藉的

【例句】

Los Angeles is notorious for its smog.

洛杉磯的煙霧是出了名的。

patriotic/ p tri tik/ adj. 愛國的, 有愛國心的

【例句】

His speech was full of patriotic sentiments.

他的演說充滿了愛國之情。

gruesome/'gru s( )m/ adj. 可怕的；陰森的

【例句】

The injured man, with blood all over his face, was a gruesome sight.

受傷的人滿臉是血, 十分可怕。

contrive/k n'tra v/ v. 設計；發明；圖謀

【例句】

He contrived to make the matter worse.

他圖謀使事情惡化。

enfant/ 'f / n.小孩，兒童

【例句】

He became known as the enfant terrible of Chicago theatre.

他在芝加哥戲劇界是讓人頭疼的天才。

mediocrity/mi d ' kr t / n. 平庸,第二流;平庸人

【例句】

His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.

他的戲劇與眾不同之處就是平凡得出奇。

autobiography/ t ba ' gr f / n. 自傳；自傳文學

【例句】

The series was based on the autobiographies of the author.

這部連續劇是根據那位作家的自傳拍攝的。

delicate/'del k t/ adj. 微妙的；易碎的；清淡可口的；柔和的；精美的，雅致的；纖弱的

【例句】

The rooms were decorated in delicate pastel shades.

房間都裝修得色彩柔和。

fixation/f k'se ( )n/ n. 固定；定影；定位

【例句】

Such a fixation with money can’t be healthy.

這般地迷戀錢財可能是病態的。

roleplay/'r ul,plei/ n. 角色扮演,角色模仿

【例句】

I'm an English lecturer, so I use a lot of drama in my classes such as role plays.

我是個英語講師，所以在我的班上我會用很多戲劇的因素，比如角色扮演。

muscular/'m skj l / adj. (有關)肌(肉)的；肌肉發達的, 強壯的

【例句】

He is a muscular young man.

他是個健壯的年輕人。

assign/ 'sa n/ vt. 分配; 交給；指派, 選派；指定, 訂出

【例句】

They have assigned me a small room.

他們已給我分配了一個小房間。

deviance/'di v ns/ n. 異常；異常行為

【例句】

Trevor was a good man, helped me with my dissertation on sexual deviance in the baroque period.

特雷弗是個好人，當初他還幫我寫巴洛克時代異常性取向的論文。

masquerade/ mɑ sk 're d/ n. 化裝舞會；偽裝物;掩飾vi. 假裝(是), 冒充；假扮；喬裝；偽裝

【例句】

The stowaway masqueraded as a crew member.

偷渡者假扮成乘務員。

entwine/ n'twa n/ vt. 纏繞,盤繞

【例句】

Each wish of my heart would entwine itself verdantly still.

我的熱情依然在我心靈深處，還增添了對你愛慕。

conscription/k n skr p n/ n. 徵兵

【例句】

He was rejected by the conscription office because he was under age.

徵兵辦公室沒有接受他,因為他還未成年。

self-sacrifice/'self's krifais/ n. 自我犧牲;獻身

【例句】

I thanked my parents for all their self-sacrifice on my behalf.

我感謝父母為我所做的一切犧牲。

imminent/' m n nt/ adj. 迫近的；即將來臨的

【例句】

According to the weather report a rainstorm is imminent.

據天氣預報說暴風雨即將來臨。

transient/'tr nz nt/ adj. 短暫的; 片刻的; 轉瞬即逝的

【例句】

We stayed at the inn as transient guests.

我們在小酒館中只作短暫停留。

cusp/k sp/ n. 尖端；尖頭

【例句】

The scientists say it’s on the cusp of a comeback.

而如今他們表示，這次開發可以算得上是上次嘗試的回歸。

sophisticated/s 'f st ke t d/ adj. 老練的; 老於世故的；精密的, 尖端的；高雅的, 有教養的

【例句】

Mr. Smith is a sophisticated world traveler.

史密斯先生是一位老練的環球旅行家。

detachment/d 't t m( )nt/ n. 超脫；拆卸, 分離, 分開

【例句】

His air of detachment lost him many friends.

他那種超然的態度使他失去了很多朋友。

interplay/' nt ple / n. 相互作用

【例句】

She examines the interplay between changing gender divisions and urban change.

她研究性別差異的變化和城市變化之間的相互影響。

manipulation/m ,n pj 'le ( )n/ n. (熟練的)操作；操縱；控制；(對帳目等的)偽造，篡改

【例句】

They were mere puppets manipulated by other men.

他們只不過是受人操縱的傀儡而已。

scandalize/'sk nd( )la z/ vt. 使震驚；使...憤慨；誹謗;使...受恥辱

【例句】

People were scandalized at the slovenly management of the company.

人們對該公司草率的經營感到憤慨。

a wisp of一縷

【例句】

A wizened, frail-looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight.

一個顯得很虛弱的乾癟巫師，禿頭上只有幾縷白毛，正就著燭光讀一封信。

deniability/d ,na 'b l ti/ n. (官員等的)否認本領,推諉於不知情的本事

【例句】

Some experts say such a position of categorical deniability is driven by pragmatism.

一些專家表示，這種斷然否認的立場是出於實用主義。

prolific/pr 'l f k/ adj. 多產的；豐富的

【例句】

Dickens was a prolific writer.

狄更斯是位多產作家。

churn outv. 艱苦地做出

【例句】

She churns out trashy romantic novels.

她不斷拼湊些無聊的愛情小說。

dandyish/'d ndi / adj. 時髦的,愛修飾的

【例句】

The melancholy, violin-playing, cocaine-injecting insomniac was betrayed by his off-duty clothes, specifically his collection of dressing gowns, which ranged from "mouse-colored" to a dandyish purple.

憂鬱的小提琴演奏，注射古柯鹼引起的失眠症，都從他日常的穿著中顯現出來，尤其是他的睡袍。

ingratiate/ n'gre e t/ vt. 討好,諂媚

【例句】

She quickly sought to ingratiate herself with the new administration.

她很快就獲得了新政府的歡心。

autobiographical/ :t ba gr f k l/ adj. 自傳的;自傳體的

【例句】

And I wrote the film, and it's an autobiographically movie.

我寫了這電影，這是一部自傳體的電影。

acolyte/' k la t/ n. 侍僧；助手（指教士的）

【例句】

The courtroom itself was packed. Stone's friends and acolytes certainly turned out. But his opponents were there as well.

法庭上人滿為患。斯通的朋友和助手當然出席了庭審。而且他的反對者也出現在庭審現場。

transfix/tr ns'f ks/ vt. 刺穿, 釘住；使驚恐, 使驚呆

【例句】

He was transfixed by the pain in her face.

他被她臉上的痛苦表情給驚呆了。

sado-masochistic施虐受虐狂的

- THE END -

堅持就會有收穫！