托马斯·曼——逃避现实的人

Books and Arts -- Book Review

文学与艺术——书评

Literary lives -- Daylight on the magic

文学生涯——揭开魔法

The Magician. By Colm Toibin.

《魔术师》，作者：科姆·托宾。

Thomas Mann’s last, unfinished novel tells of a confidence trickster named Felix Krull.

托马斯·曼最后一部未完成的小说讲述了一个名叫菲利克斯·克鲁尔的骗子的故事。

In “The Magician”, Colm Toibin’s fictionalised portrait of the great German writer, the ageing Mann thinks of himself as a similar “dodger” who “got away with things”.

在科尔姆·托宾对这位伟大德国作家的虚构描写作品《魔术师》中，日渐衰老的曼认为自己像是一个“逃避现实的人”。

He believes that the skill to “reverse their own story as the wind changed” is a hallmark of humankind.

他认为，“随着风向变化改变自己的行事”的技能是人类的典型特征。

In Mr Toibin’s immersive novel about the author’s life and times, Mann is a consummate actor.

在托宾这部关于作者生活和时代的沉浸式小说中，曼是一个完美的演员。

His “distant, bookish tone” and “personal stiffness” mask a restless and conflicted soul.

他“冷漠又充满书生气的语调”和“固执己见”掩盖了他矛盾不安的灵魂。

Most obviously, this long-married father of six, an upright pillar of German-speaking culture, learns how to cloak his homosexual desires.

最惹人注目的是，这位结婚已久的六个孩子的父亲、德语文化的顶梁柱，学会了如何掩饰自己的同性恋性向。

After brief encounters during his bourgeois upbringing in Lubeck and Munich, Mann’s taste for younger men settles into chaste flirtations, private diaries, or just “the secret energy in a gaze”.

他在吕贝克和慕尼黑的资产阶级环境中成长期间曾有过短暂的邂逅，此后，曼对年轻男人的涉猎逐渐转变为纯洁的调情、私人日记，或者仅仅是“凝视中的隐秘力量”。

In politics, too, Mann knows how to dissemble and compromise.

在政治上，曼也懂得如何掩饰和妥协。

Even when his conservative patriotism has given way to outrage at the Nazis, his courage falters and he prevaricates over taking a public stand.

即使当他的保守爱国主义已让位于对纳粹的愤怒时，他还是勇气衰弱，在公开场合含糊其辞。

Slowly, when an honoured exile in America, he rises to become a champion of democracy.

慢慢地，当他光荣流亡到美国时，他成为了民主的捍卫者。

It takes almost until the end of his 80-year life for this great pretender to feel “he could freely speak the truth”.

这位高明的伪装者几乎到他80年的生命结束之际才感到“他可以畅所欲言了”。

The saga has other threads.

这个传奇故事还有其他故事线。

Mann’s unruly brood of troubled children act out all the emotional drama that the Nobel-prizewinning author of “Death in Venice”, “The Magic Mountain” and “Doctor Faustus” forbids himself.

曼那一群任性的问题孩子们演绎出了这位诺贝尔奖得主所有的情感戏剧——他的作品有《威尼斯之死》、《魔山》和《浮士德医生》——而他却禁止自己表露这些情感。

After the suicide in Cannes of Klaus Mann—reckless, outspoken, openly gay—Michael, another of Thomas’s sons, tells him that “we, your children, do not feel any gratitude to you.”

在克劳斯·曼在戛纳自杀后——鲁莽、坦率、出柜的同性恋——托马斯的另一个儿子迈克尔告诉他，“我们作为你的孩子，对你没有任何感激之情。”

The literary prophet, touted as a post-war president of liberated Germany, earns little reverence at home.

这位文学先知虽被吹捧为战后解放德国的总统，在国内几乎不受尊敬。

Many chroniclers, including four of Mann’s six children, have told his story.

许多编年史者，包括曼六个孩子中的四个，都讲述过他的故事。

So “The Magician”, which invents dialogue but takes no flagrant liberties with facts, rests on a mountain of prior testimony.

因此，《魔术师》虽然创造了一些对白，但并没有公然捏造事实，它依旧建立在大量的事先证词之上。

Yet admirers of Mr Toibin—best known for “Brooklyn” and “The Testament of Mary”— will see what drew him to this tormented dynasty.

然而，托宾——他最著名的作品是《布鲁克林》和《玛丽的遗嘱》——的崇拜者将会明白是什么吸引他来写这个饱受折磨的家族。

The Irish author has often explored same-sex love in hostile climates, unpicked the entangling bonds that parents and children share, and, especially in “The Master”, his novel about Henry James, probed the mysterious links between self-denial and creativity.

这位爱尔兰作家经常探索充满敌意的环境下的同性爱情，解开父母和孩子之间的纠结，特别是在他关于亨利·詹姆斯的小说《大师》中，他探讨了自我否定和创造力之间的神秘联系。

From Bismarck’s Germany to the cold war, “The Magician” covers a lot of history alongside its personal tumult.

从俾斯麦统治下的德国到冷战时期，《魔术师》在讲述个人骚动的同时，也讲述了很多历史。

With such a wagonload of baggage, the narrative sometimes feels like a trudge.

背负着如此沉重的包袱，这个故事有时让人感觉像是一场长途跋涉。

But Mr Toibin shines in close-up scenes of thwarted longing, delivering a grave homage that is nevertheless flecked with irony and mischief—just the tone Mann himself perfected.

但是托宾先生的精彩之处在于详细描写被挫败的渴望时，传达了一份庄严的敬意，同时夹杂着讽刺和顽皮——这正是曼本人擅长的基调。

The novel gently removes a con-man’s wardrobe of disguises, while celebrating this “dull interloper become magician” for the enduring spell his art has cast.

小说温和地褪去了这位骗子的伪装外壳，同时庆祝这位“沉闷的闯入者成为了魔法师”，因为他的艺术持久地散发着魔力。