Books Within Books　書中書

Books Within Books

書中書

Max Beerbohm

馬克斯·比爾博姆

作者簡介

馬克斯·比爾博姆（Max Beerbohm，1872—1956），英國散文家、劇評家、漫畫家。他出生于倫敦，在牛津大學接受高等教育，1898年接替蕭伯納成為《星期六評論》（Saturday Review）的戲劇評論家。他于1911年出版了小說《朱萊卡·多布森》（Zuleika Dobson），嘲諷了牛津大學里的荒誕生活。比爾博姆以諷刺文學作品中的矯揉造作和荒誕不經(jīng)見長，其文筆睿智老辣，漫畫風格獨特，被英國文豪蕭伯納（George Bernard Shaw）譽為“舉世無雙的馬克斯”。

本文節(jié)選自比爾博姆1914年出版的文集《即使在當下》（And Even Now），主要談論“書中書”，即小說中虛構人物寫成的虛構作品。作者眼光獨到，想象奇特，對五花八門的“書中書”如數(shù)家珍，令人大開眼界。

They must, I suppose, be classed among biblia a-biblia [Greek]. Ignored in the catalogue of any library, not one of them lurking in any uttermost cavern under the reading-room of the British Museum, none of them ever printed even for private circulation, these books written by this and that character in fiction are books only by courtesy and good will.

But how few, after all, the books that are books! Charles Lamb let his kind heart master him when he made that too brief list of books that aren't. Book is an honourable title, not to be conferred lightly. A volume is not necessarily, as Lamb would have had us think, a book because it can be read without difficulty. The test is, whether it was worth reading. Had the author something to set forth? And had he the specific gift for setting it forth in written words? And did he use this rather rare gift conscientiously and to the full? And were his words well and appropriately printed and bound? If you can say Yes to these questions, then only, I submit, is the title of “book”deserved. If Lamb were alive now, he certainly would draw the line closer than he did. Published volumes were few in his day (though not, of course, few enough). Even he, in all the plenitude of his indulgence, would now have to demur that at least 90 percent of the volumes that the publishers thrust on us, so hectically, every spring and autumn, are abiblia [Greek].

What would he have to say of the novels, for example? These commodities are all very well in their way, no doubt. But let us have no illusions as to what their way is. The poulterer who sells strings of sausages does not pretend that every individual sausage is in itself remarkable. He does not assure us that “this is a sausage that gives furiously to think,”or “this is a singularly beautiful and human sausage,”or “this is undoubtedly the sausage of the year.”Why are such distinctions drawn by the publisher? When he publishes, as he sometimes does, a novel that is a book (or at any rate would be a book if it were decently printed and bound) then by all means let him proclaim its difference—even at the risk of scaring away the majority of readers.

I admit that I myself might be found in that majority. I am shy of masterpieces; nor is this merely because of the many times I have been disappointed at not finding anything at all like what the publishers expected me to find. As a matter of fact, those disappointments are dim in my memory: it is long since I ceased to take publishers' opinions as my guide. I trust now, for what I ought to read, to the advice of a few highly literary friends. But so soon as I am told that I “must”read this or that, and have replied that I instantly will, I become strangely loth to do anything of the sort. And what I like about books within books is that they never can prick my conscience. It is extraordinarily comfortable that they don't exist.

And yet—for, even as Must implants distaste, so does Can't stir sweet longings—how eagerly would I devour these books within books! What fun, what a queer emotion, to fish out from a four penny-box, in a windy by-street, Walter Lorraine, by Arthur Pendennis, or Passion Flowers, by Rosa Bunion! I suppose poor Rosa's muse, so fair and so fervid in Rosa's day, would seem a trifle fatigued now; but what allowances one would make! Lord Steyne said of Walter Lorraine that it was “very clever and wicked.”I fancy we should apply neither epithet now. Indeed, I have always suspected that Pen's maiden effort may have been on a plane with The Great Hoggarty Diamond. Yet I vow would I not skip a line of it.

Who Put Back the Clock? is another work which I especially covet. Poor Gideon Forsyth! He was abominably treated, as Stevenson relates, in the matter of that grand but grisly piano; and I have always hoped that perhaps, in the end, as a sort of recompense, Fate ordained that the novel he had anonymously written should be rescued from oblivion and found by discerning critics to be not at all bad. Such a humiliation as Gideon's is the more poignant to me because it is so rare in English fiction. In nine cases out of ten, a book within a book is an immediate, an immense success.

On the whole, our novelists have always tended to optimism—especially they who have written mainly to please their public. It pleases the public to read about any sort of success. The greater, the more sudden and violent the success, the more valuable is it as ingredient in a novel. And since the average novelist lives always in a dream that one of his works will somehow “catch on”as no other work ever has caught on yet, it is very natural that he should fondly try meanwhile to get this dream realised for him, vicariously, by this or that creature of his fancy. True, he is usually too self-conscious to let this creature achieve his sudden fame and endless fortune through a novel. Usually it is a play that does the trick. In the Victorian time it was almost always a book of poems. Oh for the spacious days of Tennyson and Swinburne! In how many a three-volume novel is mentioned some “slim octavo”which seems, from the account given, to have been as arresting as Poems and Ballads without being less acceptable than Idylls of the King! These verses were always the anonymous work of some very young, very poor man, who supposed they had fallen still-born from the press until, one day, a week or so after publication, as he walked “moodily”and “in a brown study”along the Strand, having given up all hope now that he would ever be in a position to ask Hilda to be his wife, a friend accosted him—“Seen The Thunderer this morning? By George, there's a column review of a new book of poems,”etc. In some three-volume novel that I once read at a seaside place, having borrowed it from the little circulating library, there was a young poet whose sudden leap into the front rank has always laid a special hold on my imagination. The name of the novel itself I cannot recall; but I remember the name of the young poet—Aylmer Deane; and the forever unforgettable title of his book of verse was Poments: Being Poems of the Mood and the Moment. What would I not give to possess a copy of that work?

Though he had suffered, and though suffering is a sovereign preparation for great work, I did not at the outset foresee that Aylmer Deane was destined to wear the laurel. In real life I have rather a flair for future eminence. In novels I am apt to be wise only after the event. There the young men who do in due course take the town by storm have seldom shown (to my dull eyes) promise. Their spoken thoughts have seemed to me no more profound or pungent than my own. All that is best in these authors goes into their work. But, though I complain of them on this count, I admit that the thrill for me of their triumphs is the more rapturous because every time it catches me unawares. One of the greatest emotions I ever had was from the triumph of The Gift of Gifts. Of this novel within a novel the author was not a young man at all, but an elderly clergyman whose life had been spent in a little rural parish. He was a dear, simple old man, a widower. He had a large family, a small stipend. Judge, then, of his horror when he found that his eldest son, “a scholar at Christminster College, Oxbridge,”had run into debt for many hundreds of pounds. Where to turn? The father was too proud to borrow of the neighbourly nobleman who in Oxbridge days had been his “chum.”Nor had the father ever practised the art of writing. (We are told that “his sermons were always extempore.”) But, years ago, “he had once thought of writing a novel based on an experience which happened to a friend of his.”This novel, in the fullness of time, he now proceeded to write, though “without much hope of success.”He knew that he was suffering from heart-disease. But he worked “feverishly, night after night,”we are told, “in his old faded dressing-gown, till the dawn mingled with the light of his candle and warned him to snatch a few hours' rest, failing which he would be little able to perform the round of parish duties that awaited him in the daytime.”No wonder he had “not much hope.”No wonder I had no spark of hope for him. But what are obstacles for but to be overleapt? What avails heart-disease, what avail eld and feverish haste and total lack of literary training, as against the romantic instinct of the lady who created the Rev. Charles Hailing? “The Gift of Gifts was acclaimed as a masterpiece by all the first-class critics.”Also, it very soon “brought in”ten times as much money as was needed to pay off the debts of its author's eldest son. Nor, though Charles Hailing died some months later, are we told that he died from the strain of composition. We are left merely to rejoice at knowing he knew at the last “that his whole family was provided for.”

I wonder why it is that, whilst these Charles Hailings and Aylmer Deanes delightfully abound in the lower reaches of English fiction, we have so seldom found in the work of our great novelists anything at all about the writing of a great book. It is true, of course, that our great novelists have never had for the idea of literature itself that passion which has always burned in the great French ones. Their own art has never seemed to them the most important and interesting thing in life. Also it is true that they have had other occupations—fox-hunting, preaching, editing magazines, what not. Yet to them literature must, as their own main task, have had a peculiar interest and importance.

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt. It is nonsense to imagine that our great novelists have just forged ahead or ambled along, reaching their goal, in the good old English fashion, by sheer divination of the way to it. A fine book, with all that goes to the making of it, is as fine a theme as a novelist can have. But it is a part of English hypocrisy—or, let it be more politely said, English reserve—that, whilst we are fluent enough in grumbling about small inconveniences, we insist on making light of any great difficulties or griefs that may beset us. And just there, I suppose, is the reason why our great novelists have shunned great books as subject-matter.

…

I crave—it may be a foolish whim, but I do crave—ocular evidence for my belief that those books were written and were published. I want to see them all ranged along goodly shelves. A few days ago I sat in one of those libraries which seem to be doorless. Nowhere, to the eye, was broken the array of serried volumes. Each door was flush with the surrounding shelves; across each the edges of the shelves were mimicked; and in the spaces between these edges the backs of books were pasted congruously with the whole effect. Some of these backs had been taken from actual books, others had been made specially and were stamped with facetious titles that rather depressed me. “Here,”thought I, “are the shelves on which Dencombe's works ought to be made manifest. And Neil Paraday's too, and Vereker's.”Not Henry St. George's, of course: he would not himself have wished it, poor fellow! I would have nothing of his except Shadowmere. But Ray Limbert!—I would have all of his, including a first edition of The Major Key, “that fiery-hearted rose as to which we watched in private the formation of petal after petal, and flame after flame”; and also The Hidden Heart, “the shortest of his novels, but perhaps the loveliest,”as Mr. James and I have always thought…How my fingers would hover along these shelves, always just going to alight, but never, lest the spell were broken, alighting!

我想，它們一定屬于希臘語中的“非書之書”。它們不見于任何藏書目錄，沒有潛伏在大英博物館閱覽室最幽深的角落里，一本也沒有印出來過，哪怕是供私下流通。這些書出自小說里的虛構人物之手，純粹是美好設想的產(chǎn)物。

但畢竟，真正能稱之為書的作品又有幾本呢！查爾斯·蘭姆曾開列過一份書單。他心慈手軟，只列了寥寥幾本“非書之書”?！皶笔莻€光榮的稱謂，不可輕易獲得。蘭姆提醒我們，讀來毫無困難的書不一定可稱之為書。關鍵在于，此書是否值得一讀：作者是否言之有物？下筆時是否有如神助？行文是否秉正翔實？印刷、裝幀是否恰如其分？我認為，只有你對上述問題都回答“是”，這部作品才配得上“書”的稱號。如果蘭姆活在當下，他定的標準或許會更嚴格。在他的年代，出版的作品不多。（當然，仍然不夠少。）眼見如今出版商在每年春秋兩季如此瘋狂地推出新書，即使是他這么寬宏大量的人，也會認定其中至少有90％稱不上是書。

那么，他會如何評價小說？無疑，這些商品一經(jīng)宣傳會很有市場。但我們暫不考慮宣傳。叫賣成串香腸的家禽販子不會假裝其中每一根極為出色。他不會向我們保證“這根香腸發(fā)人深省”或“這是一根極其美妙而彰顯人性的香腸”或“這無疑是年度香腸”。那為什么出版商要關注這種區(qū)別？有時，他們出版了一部可稱之為書的小說（如果印刷、裝幀恰當，至少看上去是本書），卻想盡辦法來宣揚這種區(qū)別，甚至是冒著嚇跑大多數(shù)讀者的危險。

我承認，自己屬于大多數(shù)讀者。我不愿讀“大師杰作”；只因為我很多次大失所望地發(fā)現(xiàn)，出版商大肆宣傳的作品名不符實。實際上，那些失望已漸漸淡出我的記憶，因為我早就不把出版商的宣傳當作購書指南。如今，對于該讀哪些書，我只相信一些精通文學的朋友的建議。但每當有人告訴我“必讀”某書，我嘴里答應著馬上看，心中卻生出奇怪的抵觸情緒。我之所以喜歡“書中書”，是因為它們從不讓我良心不安。它們并不存在，這點讓我特別舒心。

然而，“必讀”會惹人反感，“讀不到”則會激起甜蜜的渴望——我多想盡情品味“書中書”的芳澤！在涼風習習的街頭，從4便士一本的廉價書箱里，淘到阿瑟·潘登尼斯1的《沃爾特·洛蘭》或是羅莎·布尼恩的《激情之花》2，該是多么有趣、多么奇妙！我想，可憐的羅莎的靈感，在那個年代或許令人激情澎湃，現(xiàn)在看來卻是老調(diào)重彈；但她能賺多少零花錢?。∷固┮蚓羰?說《沃爾特·洛蘭》“很機敏，很邪惡”。我想，時至今日這兩個形容詞都用不上了。事實上，我一直懷疑，潘登尼斯的處女作應該與《大鉆石》4不相上下。但我發(fā)誓，書里每一行字我都不會跳過不看。

《光陰一去不復返》也是我垂涎已久的作品?？蓱z的吉迪恩·福賽斯5！據(jù)史蒂文森6所述，吉迪恩那部關于恐怖大鋼琴的作品遭受了殘酷的對待。我一直期望著，或許在最后一刻，命運之神會拯救他匿名寫成的那部作品，讓其免于被世人遺忘，讓挑剔的批評家發(fā)現(xiàn)它并不糟糕，以此作為對他的補償。吉迪恩遭受的羞辱讓我倍感心痛，因為這種情況在英國小說中極少出現(xiàn)。書里出現(xiàn)的書十之八九會一炮打響、大獲成功。

總的來說，我們的小說家總是抱有樂觀主義精神，尤其是那些用文字取悅大眾的人。他們用各種各樣的成功來取悅大眾。成功越巨大、來得越突然、越猛烈，這個情節(jié)在小說里就越重要。由于小說家一般都心懷夢想，希望自己的某部作品能“風靡一時”，取得前所未有的成功，他們自然會通過筆下人物為自己間接實現(xiàn)這個夢想。沒錯，作者通常很有自知之明，不好意思讓筆下人物靠寫小說一夜成名、財源滾滾。他們往往靠寫戲劇取得成功。在維多利亞時代，在丁尼生和斯溫伯恩7的自由繁榮的時代，一本詩集就能使人成功。多少三卷本小說提到過“薄薄的八開本”詩集——從書中描述來看，它們和《詩歌及民謠》一樣引人入勝，和《國王敘事詩》一樣大受歡迎！這些詩通常是某個窮小子的匿名作品，他從未奢望自己的作品能付梓。直到某一天，在詩集出版后一周左右，他“心情煩躁、心不在焉地”走在斯特蘭德大街8上，放棄了向希爾達求婚的打算。這時，一個朋友和他打招呼：“看今天早上的《雷神報》了嗎？喬治的專欄評論了一本新詩集。”等等。我曾在海邊讀過某部從小型流動圖書館借來的三卷本小說。書里有位一舉成名的年輕詩人，此人給我留下了深刻印象。我已記不得小說的名字，卻記住了年輕詩人的名字——艾爾默·迪恩，還有他那本令我永世難忘的詩集的標題——《詩，瞬間心情之花》。為了擁有這樣一本作品，我可以不惜代價。

盡管艾爾默·迪恩曾歷經(jīng)磨難，且磨難往往是杰作極好的前奏，但我起初并沒有想到他能摘得桂冠。在現(xiàn)實生活中，我擅長預知未來的成功；但看小說時，我卻是事后諸葛。以我的愚鈍之眼看，那些事后火遍全城的年輕人，之前并未展示出多少天賦。在我看來，他們的作品里表達的思想不比我的深刻或犀利多少。這還是作者最優(yōu)秀的思想滲入作品的結(jié)果呢。盡管我對作品頗有微詞，但我得承認，他們的成功總能在不知不覺之中讓我驚喜感動。我最激動的一次是讀到《天賦之禮》這部小說中的小說大獲成功之時。故事主角不是年輕人，而是一位年邁的牧師。他一輩子都生活在某個農(nóng)村的小教區(qū)。他是一位和藹可親、生活簡樸的老人，也是一個鰥夫。他有一大家子人，收入?yún)s少得可憐。后來，他驚恐地發(fā)現(xiàn)長子、“牛津大學基督教士學院的學者”，背負了數(shù)百英鎊的債務。該找誰幫忙？這位父親自尊心很強，不愿向關系不錯的貴族、昔日在牛津的“密友”開口借錢。這位父親也沒有任何寫作經(jīng)驗。（作者告訴我們，“他的布道都是即興演講”。）但多年以前，“他曾計劃以友人的故事為素材撰寫一部小說”。如今時機已經(jīng)成熟，他開始動筆寫這部小說，盡管“不抱成功的希望”。他知道自己患有心臟病。但據(jù)書中所寫，“他穿著陳舊褪色的睡袍，徹夜伏案，奮筆疾書；直到晨光依稀，燭光黯淡，才休息幾個小時，以便白天履行教區(qū)職責”。難怪他“沒抱什么希望”，難怪連我都不看好他。但有什么障礙是不能逾越的呢？心臟疾病、年老體衰、狂熱急切、缺乏文學訓練，這些怎么能對抗創(chuàng)造查爾斯·黑林牧師的女作家的浪漫情懷？“所有一流的評論家都宣稱《天賦之禮》是一部杰作?！贝送猓X也很快“到手”，這一大筆錢是其長子所欠債務的十倍。盡管查爾斯·黑林幾個月后就撒手人寰，但他是否死于過度勞累，我們不得而知。我們看到他在彌留之際深知“家人將衣食無憂”，只會滿腔喜悅。

我一直想知道，為什么英國廉價小說里樂于頻頻出現(xiàn)查爾斯·黑林和艾爾默·迪恩這樣的人，我們偉大的小說家卻很少讓主人公撰寫杰作。沒錯，相較于法國小說家始終燃燒的寫作熱情，我們偉大的小說家從來對文學創(chuàng)作本身沒什么熱情。在他們看來，文學創(chuàng)作從來不是生活中最重要、最有趣的部分。沒錯，他們往往身兼數(shù)職——獵狐、布道、編輯雜志等等。但文學創(chuàng)作作為其主業(yè)，應該是興趣獨具、尤為重要的事。

沒有專心致志和自我犧牲，沒有埋頭苦干和懷疑精神，就不可能寫出一本好書。如果你認為，我們偉大的小說家單靠推測寫書的過程，就能依照英國傳統(tǒng)方式那樣或快或慢地取得成功，那你就是大錯特錯了。一本好書由許多因素共同促成，小說家選擇的主題在其中最為重要。但由于英式的偽善——或更禮貌地說，英式的矜持——我們一方面抱怨雞毛蒜皮的小麻煩，一方面輕視可能困擾我們的大麻煩。我想，正因為如此，我們偉大的小說家避免用“偉大的作品”作為主題。

……

我渴望——或許是愚蠢的心血來潮，但我確實渴望——親眼見到那些書完成創(chuàng)作、出版。我想看見它們整齊排列在精美的書架上。幾天前，我就坐在那樣一間看不見門的書房里。放眼望去，屋里盡是一排排密集的書卷，每扇門都被四周的書架淹沒，每個書架都極其相似；為了整體效果的美觀，書架上放滿了裝幀一致的書脊。有些是真正作品的書脊，其他則是特制的書脊，上面印著滑稽的書名。這讓我相當沮喪。我想：“鄧庫姆的作品應該放在這個書架上展示，尼爾·帕拉迪和維里克的作品也該放在這兒?！碑斎?，別放亨利·圣喬治的作品——那個可憐人自己肯定也不愿意！除了《絕影》之外，我不會買他的其他作品。但雷·林伯特可不同！——我想擁有他的全部作品，包括《大調(diào)》的初版。那本書里有這么一句話：“我們看著那朵火焰玫瑰如何鑄就，一片花瓣接一片花瓣，一簇火焰接一簇火焰?！蔽疫€想要《隱藏之心》9。我與詹姆斯先生一致認為，該書是“他最短的或許也是最美的一部小說”。……我的手指在書架邊盤旋，欲落未落；唯恐指尖落下，咒語便被打破。

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作者是否言之有物？下筆時是否有如神助？行文是否秉正翔實？印刷、裝幀是否恰如其分？我認為，只有你對上述問題都回答“是”，這部作品才配得上“書”的稱號。

Max Beerbohm 馬克斯·比爾博姆

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1．阿瑟·潘登尼斯，英國小說家威廉·梅克比斯·薩克雷作品《潘登尼斯》中的主人公。

2．英國小說家威廉·梅克比斯·薩克雷曾以邁克爾·安杰洛·提特馬斯為筆名，在報紙雜志上發(fā)表了一系列附有自創(chuàng)插畫的故事和諷刺文章。他去世后，人們將“提特馬斯”的文章集結(jié)成冊，名為《提特馬斯的圣誕讀物》。羅莎·布尼恩是書中出現(xiàn)的一位女詩人，《激情之花》是她的詩集。

3．斯泰因爵士，《潘登尼斯》里的人物。

4．《大鉆石》，英國小說家威廉·梅克比斯·薩克雷的另一部作品。

5．吉迪恩·福賽斯，英國作家羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森的諷刺幽默小說《入錯棺材死錯人》中的人物。

6．羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森（Robert Louis Stevenson，1850—1894），蘇格蘭小說家、詩人與旅游作家，其冒險小說《金銀島》最為人熟知。

7．阿爾加儂·查爾斯·斯溫伯恩（Algernon Charles Swinburne，1837—1909），英國詩人、批評家。

8．斯特蘭德大街，英國倫敦中西部的一條大街。

9．亨利·詹姆斯寫過一組描寫作家、藝術家生活的中短篇小說。鄧庫姆、尼爾·帕拉迪、維里克、亨利·圣喬治和雷·林伯特均為其筆下的作家?！督^影》《大調(diào)》和《隱藏之心》分別是這些虛構作家的作品。