经济学人下载:一刀见血 The first cut is the deepest

Books and Arts; Book Review;Joseph Heller and his fiction;The first cut is the deepest;
文艺；书评；约瑟夫·海勒和他的小说；一刀见血；

Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller. By Tracy Daugherty.
《只有一条军规：约瑟夫·海勒传》；作者：特雷西·多尔蒂；

Late in life, Joseph Heller was occasionally asked why he had never written anything else as good as “Catch-22”. “Who has?” he'd reply with a self-satisfied grin. Heller was haunted by the long shadow cast by his absurdist first novel, which has sold over 10m copies since it was published in 1961. But he was also proud, glad to have elbowed his way into the literary canon despite being raised in Coney Island by a poor widow who knew more Yiddish than English. The book earned him notoriety, confidence, a dictionary entry and lots of money. Yet Heller kept writing till he died in 1999, aged 76, each time believing the scribbles on his legal pad could contain the next Great American novel. “Nothing fails like success,” exclaims King David in Heller's 1984 book, “God Knows”.
海勒晚年时偶然被问及为何没有创作出比《第二十二条军规》更优秀的作品，“难道有人创作出了比它更好的作品？”他反问道，嘴角露出得意的笑容。自1961年他的第一部荒诞体小说《第二十二条军规》问世以来，至今已卖出1000万本，他也藉此长期笼罩在成功的光环之下。科尼岛上的一位寡妇把他抚养成人，那位寡妇很贫穷，懂的英语还不如第绪语多；一路披荆斩棘，海勒最终踏入文学圣坛，他由衷地为自己感到自豪。这本小说的名字甚至还被收录入字典成为专有名词，这部小说也给他带来了自信，荣誉还有财富。1999年，76岁的海勒辞世，他一生笔耕不辍，从未停止过写作。他在便签纸上龙飞凤舞，并坚信下一部伟大的美国小说很可能诞生于此。“成功是最大的失败”海勒1984年的作品《天晓得》中主人公金·大卫大声疾呼。

The 50th anniversary of “Catch-22” has prompted a flood of fresh ink, including a special edition of the wartime farce, an affecting new memoir from Erica Heller, his battle-weary daughter, and the first full biography of the man, “Just One Catch”, by Tracy Daugherty. This is not just a cynical way to cash in on a trusted brand; it is worth remembering that “Catch-22” is indeed one humdinger of a book.
在《第二十二条军规》发行五十周年到来之际，一批于此相关的著作也新鲜出炉，例如战时笑剧特别版的发行；海勒厌战的女儿——艾瑞克·海勒执笔的新回忆录问世；还有特雷西·多尔蒂所著的、关于海勒本人的首部全传记《只有一条军规》的出版。这并不是乘机从备受信赖的品牌中恶意牟利，不是见机牟利，《第二十二条军规》确实是一部非同寻常的作品，值得纪念。

With its mix of vaudeville slapstick and Kafka-like anxiety, the novel is unlike anything that came before. Heller took war as his subject, but he didn't write about backslapping brothers in arms. Rather, he wrote about an American soldier named Yossarian who knew his government was sending him to his death, but who wasn't ready to die. It was a hauntingly prescient look at the senselessness of war, released just as the country was learning how senseless it could be. And he made it funny, too.
这部小说融合了歌舞杂耍、打闹剧及卡夫卡式的焦虑，可谓“前无古人”。海勒虽取材战争，但避免大谈军中战友情。相反，书中写了一位名叫约瑟连的美国大兵，政府派他去战场送死，但情非所愿。小说颇有预见性，揭示了战争的无意义性。其出版恰逢越战爆发，举国上下都正深刻地体会战争是多么没有益处。此外，海勒还不忘用有趣的形式把它表现出来。

Heller is a worthy subject, complicated and appealing. He was a difficult father, an unfaithful husband and a selfish friend. But he was charismatic and magnetic, with a wry sense of humour and sexy confidence. His ticket out of Brooklyn was first the draft—he served as a bombardier in Corsica—and then the GI Bill. He followed one degree with another, and spent a year at Oxford as a Fulbright scholar. All the while he wrote stories—derivative short ones—until he realised he needed to stop writing and read a lot more. He “wanted to be new”, in the way that Nabokov, Céline, Faulkner and Waugh were new; “not necessarily different, but new. Original.”
海勒其人值得研究，他即复杂又魅力无限。作为父亲，他难以相处，作为丈夫，他不忠于妻子，作为朋友，他太过自私，但这无法阻挡他吸引大众的目光：嘲讽式的幽默又性感自信。他离开布鲁克林后，事业上的第一站就是在科西嘉岛上当炮兵军士，接着就退伍了；此后又修了两个学位，在牛津做了一年富布莱特法案基金学者。他一直坚持写作，还模仿他人的短篇创作，直到他意识到：该停下笔来，多读点东西了。他“想另辟蹊径”，就像纳博科夫、赛琳、福克纳还有沃一样与众不同。“不需要标新立异，但要新颖、要原创。”

The thrill of this biography is in the years and months leading up to Heller's breakout book, originally called “Catch-18” (but changed when Leon Uris released his “Mila 18” the same year). It took Heller nine years to stitch together some kind of story, but his book only saw the light of day with help from some brave characters: Candida Donadio, his agent, who was 24 when she saved his manuscript from the slush pile; and Robert Gottlieb, Heller's wunderkind editor who spent years whipping the book into shape.
这部传记中最有趣的部分，是对海勒的首部大作问世后的年月的描写。那本书原名是《第十八条军规》，但由于同年里昂·尤里斯出版了《米勒·十八》，于是更名为《第二十二条军规》。海勒用了九年时间才把故事拼凑完整，然而这本书得以见天日，还多亏了几位勇者相助：肯迪达·多纳迪奥，海勒的代理商，当年若不是24岁的她出手，手稿恐怕早就被丢进了稀泥管道；罗伯特·葛特利布，海勒的神童编辑，用时多年，才将此书打磨成型。

Mr Daugherty's biography is a eulogy for a time in book publishing when editors rolled up their sleeves and everyone aimed to create literature. But like Heller's own career,“Just One Catch” starts to lose steam after his second novel, “Something Happened”, which Mr Gottlieb counted as his favourite. Heller enjoyed being a public figure, making speeches and going to parties. He liked being paid well, especially the record $2m advance for his third book, “Good as Gold”, which came out in 1979.
多尔蒂先生这部传记的出版，可以说谱写了图书出版业的颂歌。在这个人人都想出书立作的年代里，编辑们只好挽起袖子埋头苦干。《只有一条军规》从写到海勒的第二部小说、戈特利布先生的最爱——《烦恼无穷》以后，就如同顺着海勒的事业线一般——开始走下坡路了。海勒很乐意做一名公众人物，发表演讲、参加派对。他喜欢丰厚的报酬，1979年他的第三部小说《好似金玉》破纪录的卖了两千多万美元。

Mr Daugherty tries to sustain interest in Heller's subsequent books, but finds it hard going. He also never quite paints a picture of the man; instead he creates Heller's shape by filling in everything around him. A novelist and the author of an acclaimed biography of Donald Barthelme, Mr Daugherty is an evocative writer and an acute literary critic. But he relies heavily on Heller's own memoir and the published observations of others. This book is rich with quotes, but few seem to have come from original interviews.
多尔蒂试着读完海勒的其他作品，但却始终没能坚持下去。他没有刻意去描写海勒为何许人也，而是从与他相关的人事着手，反衬出一幅海勒的肖像。多尔蒂先生不但是一位小说家，还是一位能调动读者情绪的写手、敏锐的文学评论家，他创作的唐纳德·巴塞尔姆的传记颇受好评。但对于这部传记，他多取材于海勒的自传和他人回忆录，所以书中的引用颇多，原访甚少。

By the end of Heller's life, the reviews were scathing. “There comes a time when an author just can't write anymore,” gouged one critic about “Closing Time”, a controversial sequel to “Catch-22”. “‘God Knows' is junk,” complained Leon Wieseltier in the New Republic. No one could forgive Heller for still writing books when his best work was clearly behind him. But for Heller, writing was his life. He couldn't imagine how anyone survived who didn't have a novel to write.
在海勒晚年，关于他的评论文章都很苛刻。《最后的时光》是《第二十二条军规》的续本，但饱受争议，某批评家甚至挖苦：“作家总有黔驴技穷的时候.”里昂·维斯提耶在《新共和》上评论：“《天晓得》就是垃圾”。海勒后来的作品均不如第一部成功，不免让人失望。但对于他来说，人生就是写作，他也无法想象出写不了小说，还怎么活下去。