高墙与鸡蛋
高墙与鸡蛋
转载自 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_48f36ce00100e3qd.html - by 林少华的博客
[按：此文是依据村上春树在日本《文艺春秋》杂志（四月号）发表的日语原文翻译的]
我作为一个小说家，换句话说，作为以巧妙说谎为职业的人来到这里、来到耶路撒冷市。
当然，说谎的不都是小说家。诸位知道，政治家屡屡说谎，外交官和军人说谎，二手车推销员和肉铺和建筑业者也说谎。但小说家说谎和他们说谎的不同之处在于：小说家说谎不受道义上的谴责。莫如说谎说得越大越高明，小说家越能得到人们的赞赏和好评。为什么呢？
这是因为，小说家能够通过巧妙说谎、通过栩栩如生的虚构而将真相拽到另一场所投以另一光照。以其固有的形式捕捉真相并予以准确描述在许多情况下是不可能的。惟其如此，我们才要把真相引诱出来移去虚构地带，通过将其置换为虚构形式来抓住真相的尾巴。但为此必须首先在自己心底明确真相的所在，这是巧妙说谎所需要的重要资格。
可是今天我不准备说谎，打算尽可能说实话。一年之中我也有几天不说谎，今天恰好是其中的一天。
实话实说好了。关于此次来以色列接受耶路撒冷文学奖，不少人劝我最好拒绝。甚至警告说如果前来，将开展不买我的书的运动。无须说，理由在于加沙地区的激战。迄今为止，已不止一千人在被封锁的城区丧生，据联合国报告，大多数是儿童、老人等手无寸铁的平民。
接到获奖通知以来，我本人也一再自问：这种时候来以色列接受文学奖果真是妥当的行为吗？不会给人以支持作为纷争当事者一方、拥有占绝对优势的军事力量并积极行使的国家及其方针的印象吗？那当然不是我所希望的。我不认可任何战争，不支持任何国家。同时，自不待言，我的书在书店被人拒买也不是我所希求的。
然而，经过深思熟虑，我重新坚定了来这里的决心。原因之一，就在于有那么多人劝我最好别来。或许我有一种大部分小说家都有的“犟脾气”——别人叫我“别去那里”、“别干那个”、尤其那样警告我的时候，我就偏偏想去或想干，此乃小说家的nature（天性）。为什么呢？因为小说家属于这样一种人：无论刮怎样的逆风，也只能相信自己实际目睹、自己实际手摸的东西。
正因如此，我才出现在这里。较之不来，选择了来；较之什么也不看，选择了看点儿什么；较之什么也不说，选择了向诸位说点儿什么。
有一句话（message）请允许我说出来，一句个人性质的话。这句话在我写小说时总在我脑袋里挥之不去。它并非写在纸上贴在墙壁，而是刻于我的脑壁。那是这样一句话：
假如这里有坚固的高墙和撞墙破碎的鸡蛋，我总是站在鸡蛋一边。
是的，无论高墙多么正确和鸡蛋多么错误，我也还是站在鸡蛋一边。正确不正确是由别人决定的，或是由时间和历史决定的。假如小说家站在高墙一边写作——不管出于何种理由——那个作家又有多大价值呢？
那么，这一隐喻到底意味什么呢？在某种情况下它是简单明了的。轰炸机、坦克、火箭、白燐弹、机关枪是坚硬的高墙。被其摧毁、烧毁、击穿的非武装平民是鸡蛋。这是这一隐喻的一个含义。
但不仅仅是这个，还有更深的含义。请这样设想好了：我们每一个人都或多或少分别是一个鸡蛋，是具有无可替代的灵魂和包拢它的脆弱外壳的鸡蛋。我是，你们也是。再假如我们或多或少面对之于每一个人的坚硬的高墙。高墙有个名称，叫作体制（System）。体制本应是保护我们的，而它有时候却自行其是地杀害我们和让我们杀人，冷酷地、高效地、而且系统性地（Systematiclly）。
我写小说的理由，归根结底只有一个，那就是为了让个人灵魂的尊严浮现出来，将光线投在上面。经常投以光线，敲响警钟，以免我们的灵魂被体制纠缠和贬损。这正是故事的职责，对此我深信不疑。不断试图通过写生与死的故事、写爱的故事来让人哭泣、让人惧怕、让人欢笑，以此证明每个灵魂的无可替代性——这就是小说家的工作。我们为此而日复一日地认真编造故事。
我的父亲去年夏天去世了，活了九十岁。他是个退休教师，也是个兼职佛教僧侣。在研究生院就读期间被征召入伍，参加了中国大陆的战斗。我小的时候，他每天早上都在饭前向佛坛献上长长的深深的祈祷。一次我问父亲为什么祈祷，他回答为了在战场死去的人，为了在那里——无论友方敌方——失去性命的人。每次看见父亲祈祷的身姿，我都觉得那里似乎漂浮着死亡的阴影。
父亲去世了，其记忆——还没等我搞清是怎样的记忆——也彻底消失了。但是，那里漂浮的死亡气息仍留在我的记忆中。那是我从父亲身上继承的少数然而宝贵的事项之一。
我在这里想向诸位传达的只有一点：我们都是超越国籍、种族和宗教的一个一个的人，都是面对体制这堵高墙的一个一个的蛋。看上去我们毫无获胜的希望。墙是那么高那么硬，那么冰冷。假如我们有类似获胜希望那样的东西，那只能来自我们相信自己和他人的灵魂的无可替代性并将其温煦聚拢在一起。
请这样想想看。我们每一个人都有可以拿在手中的活的灵魂，体制则没有。不能让体制利用我们，不能让体制自行其是。不是体制创造了我们，而是我们创造了体制。
我想对诸位说的仅此一点。
荣获耶路撒冷奖，我很感谢。感谢世界很多地方都有看我书的人。我要向耶路撒冷的每一位读者致以谢意。毕竟是因了你们的力量我才出现在这里的。但愿我们能够共同拥有什么——非常有意义的什么。我很高兴得以来此向诸位讲话。
英语对照：
转载自 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_65da5f5b0101doa2.html - by 背包走天涯的博客
Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That is all I have to say to you.
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.
Thank you very much.