2008-07-04 21:49:42
来自: 宋阿慕
(不定期长时间消失控。)
人树的评论
"When we came to live in Castle Hill, Sydney,I felt the life was, on the surface, so dreary, ugly, monotonous, there must be a poetry hidden in it to give it a purpose, and so I set out to discover that secret core, and The Tree of Man emerged."
“在生活单调沉闷、沆瀣丛生的表象之下，一定存在某种诗意的目的，我下定决心要追寻并找出那个秘密核心，由此，《人树》最终呈现在诸位面前。”
——Patrick Victor Martindale White.
不了解澳大利亚的人或许想不到，1788年1月26人，第一批踏上澳大利亚土地的西方人当中，有超过一半的人是当时英国的囚犯——澳大利亚在最初的时间里，是被作为英国流放起囚犯的苦寒地。而这或许就成了澳大利亚之后文学发展中有别于其他西方国家特异性最好的注脚。至少帕特里克·怀特（Patrick White），这个澳州历史上唯一一位获得诺贝尔文学奖的作家，就是以写“怪人”和自己的“怪”著称。
《人树》正是这样一部处处透着“古怪”的小说。小说主人公帕克是去悉尼城郊开垦荒地的代表，同他其他作品的主人公一样，帕克外表缄默、坚韧，内心却时常焦虑不安——这是一个生命的拓荒者最宝贵的优点与最难以躲避的缺点。对拓荒者而言荒原成了遗世独立的逃遁之处，对阅读者而言，荒原第一次以一种绝佳的带入感进入文学领域，不再充斥着茹毛饮血的野蛮人与黑水盘蛇的沼泽。那不过是一处等待开垦的乡村，与业已建立起来的边陲小镇并无不同；那不过是一处能提供衣食的土地，与注定要建功立业达成梦想的美国则大有不同。人们在那里既没有闯荡未知江湖的快感与恐惧，也没有开拓新大陆之梦的豪言壮语，有的是生老病死、种植庄稼、放养奶牛，等待年岁慢慢逝去，而每一个时光流过的点滴自己都能毫无保留的感知：古典人生的喜怒哀乐浸淫其中，意识在草长莺飞的旷野间飘荡，情节则宛若长幅画卷不急不徐一一展开，那种对时间尊重享受、并不打算征服的优雅态度，或许正是符合“史诗”的定义的……于是我常常觉得怀特是20世纪西方的庄子。清冷月光下，一株直白明亮的树，这样的比喻绝对是适合他的。
怀特曾在《人树》中写道“这个世界正像他的意念一样，依然被禁锢着，冰冷而阴郁”——在这部小说的写作过程中，怀特就处于这样一种类似的情感状态中，早年的留英生涯，参战，郁郁中被遣返回澳，际遇种种让他不得不妥善面对自己因年轻而焦躁不堪的内心，直到用文字和时间慢慢磨平曾经的锋芒——或许正如后来的评论家所说，怀特的成功之处也在于此，刻骨铭心的异化和孤独感无疑是二十世纪的世纪病。
读这样的小说，首先能感受到的就是扑面而来的生活的清香，在意识流与古典情节描写的肆意转换中竟然半点斧凿之迹也无；整个故事并不波澜起伏，表面上的情节平坦就像是一条淙淙小溪，读起来毫不吃力，你不用担心故事里突然拦路跳出个陈咬金然后进入让人血脉上涌的高潮——这一点与西方古典文学有着异曲同工之妙，尽管怀特的小说成了现代研究学者运用现代文学理论的实验场，甚至有人称他为“孤寂大陆上的陌生人”，新批评、心理分析、女权主义、后现代主义、结构主义、文化研究等理论先后登台，但至少有一点共识，怀特的小说（尤其是这部《人树》）无论从结构还是语言，无处不透露出一种浑然天成的立体感——另一方面，怀特笔下人物的命运与其说是对抗环境不如说是对抗自己，因此我相信怀特是真正明白东方哲学对于“自然”的定义的，自是自己，然是这样，自然无非是自己如此的状态，天地万物，也莫不俱是有自己如此的状态，怀特暮年曾透露说希望能来中国一趟，尽管最终未能得偿所愿，后人也能从中一窥大师对于古典东方哲学的热爱。
《人树》是作家的第四部小说，正是由于它为作者赢得了国际声誉。瑞典学院在授予怀特1973年诺贝尔文学奖时的颁奖词称：“他以史诗般的和擅长于刻画人物心理的叙事艺术，把一个新的大陆介绍进文学领域”。但怀特的目光却并未局限在澳大利亚的土地上，不少研究者甚至将他与19世纪最伟大的文学巨匠托尔斯泰相比，称他在探寻深邃井下的人性光芒这一工作上，跳动着一颗堪比托尔斯泰的心脏。——如“澳大利亚的创世纪”这样的褒奖词似乎也证明，不是谁都有幸被时间选中，获得面对亘古的伟大时人之为人的平和广博，人性的光芒，于是“Eyes which had a softness to them around the edges,while at the same time a penetrating glint.（对待事物的各个层面都温柔平和、同时又不乏入木三分的犀利的目光）”这样的褒奖被他的朋友Desmond Digby说出来，也丝毫不觉得突兀了。
历史从来不乏专事锦上添花之人，怀特对这一类人向来是敬而远之的，甚至被宣布获得1973年诺贝尔文学奖后，面对大批蜂拥而至的记者，怀特避而不见，也没有出席当年的颁奖礼。怀特以他慎独笃定而宁静淡泊的内心面对这个日益疯狂的世界，他在自传《镜中瑕疵》中写道“要说关于自己的真话是很难的事情，然而，我感到必须勉力而为，因为许多人对我的认识都是错误的；即使是不少多年来熟知我的人，也显出他们对我究竟是什么样的人毫无所知。”他坦承自己的同性爱取向，与自己的爱人在农庄里笑对人生，暮暮终老。
1990年，这个生性冷僻的伟大作家于自家安静祥和的农庄中结束他在人生备受争议的78年光阴，带着或许是澳大利亚历史上最篇幅浩瀚的书册，走下神坛，走向生命最终的静默。他晚年破例接受英国BBC记者访问时曾被询问他对于写作人生的最大体会，他的回答是：“It is the way of living a life,that makes me standing on my dignity and softness.If you ask me whether being regretful or not,i'll say,what a life passing by”。（“写作就是我生活的方式，它让我活得温和而有尊严。如果你问我是否后悔选择这条路，我会说，时间这样过去就很好。”）
有不匮乏的生活资料，有相互守候的伴侣，有热爱并坚持奉献自己一生的工作，有平和安详的内心，真是的，即便只是旁观的阅读者身份，我也不免感慨一句，时间这样过去就很好。
最后，这里有一个介绍Patrick White的链接，名字很好玩，叫做“干嘛为Patrick White烦恼呢？（Why bother with Patrick White？）”
http://arts.abc.net.
附：
1.Patrick White晚年在悉尼的家
http://www.douban.co
2.《人树》小说原名<The Tree of Man>，来源于英国古典浪漫派诗人Alfred Edward Housman的著作<A Shropshire Lad XXXI>中的一句诗:"On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble."
人树的评论
"When we came to live in Castle Hill, Sydney,I felt the life was, on the surface, so dreary, ugly, monotonous, there must be a poetry hidden in it to give it a purpose, and so I set out to discover that secret core, and The Tree of Man emerged."
“在生活单调沉闷、沆瀣丛生的表象之下，一定存在某种诗意的目的，我下定决心要追寻并找出那个秘密核心，由此，《人树》最终呈现在诸位面前。”
——Patrick Victor Martindale White.
不了解澳大利亚的人或许想不到，1788年1月26人，第一批踏上澳大利亚土地的西方人当中，有超过一半的人是当时英国的囚犯——澳大利亚在最初的时间里，是被作为英国流放起囚犯的苦寒地。而这或许就成了澳大利亚之后文学发展中有别于其他西方国家特异性最好的注脚。至少帕特里克·怀特（Patrick White），这个澳州历史上唯一一位获得诺贝尔文学奖的作家，就是以写“怪人”和自己的“怪”著称。
《人树》正是这样一部处处透着“古怪”的小说。小说主人公帕克是去悉尼城郊开垦荒地的代表，同他其他作品的主人公一样，帕克外表缄默、坚韧，内心却时常焦虑不安——这是一个生命的拓荒者最宝贵的优点与最难以躲避的缺点。对拓荒者而言荒原成了遗世独立的逃遁之处，对阅读者而言，荒原第一次以一种绝佳的带入感进入文学领域，不再充斥着茹毛饮血的野蛮人与黑水盘蛇的沼泽。那不过是一处等待开垦的乡村，与业已建立起来的边陲小镇并无不同；那不过是一处能提供衣食的土地，与注定要建功立业达成梦想的美国则大有不同。人们在那里既没有闯荡未知江湖的快感与恐惧，也没有开拓新大陆之梦的豪言壮语，有的是生老病死、种植庄稼、放养奶牛，等待年岁慢慢逝去，而每一个时光流过的点滴自己都能毫无保留的感知：古典人生的喜怒哀乐浸淫其中，意识在草长莺飞的旷野间飘荡，情节则宛若长幅画卷不急不徐一一展开，那种对时间尊重享受、并不打算征服的优雅态度，或许正是符合“史诗”的定义的……于是我常常觉得怀特是20世纪西方的庄子。清冷月光下，一株直白明亮的树，这样的比喻绝对是适合他的。
怀特曾在《人树》中写道“这个世界正像他的意念一样，依然被禁锢着，冰冷而阴郁”——在这部小说的写作过程中，怀特就处于这样一种类似的情感状态中，早年的留英生涯，参战，郁郁中被遣返回澳，际遇种种让他不得不妥善面对自己因年轻而焦躁不堪的内心，直到用文字和时间慢慢磨平曾经的锋芒——或许正如后来的评论家所说，怀特的成功之处也在于此，刻骨铭心的异化和孤独感无疑是二十世纪的世纪病。
读这样的小说，首先能感受到的就是扑面而来的生活的清香，在意识流与古典情节描写的肆意转换中竟然半点斧凿之迹也无；整个故事并不波澜起伏，表面上的情节平坦就像是一条淙淙小溪，读起来毫不吃力，你不用担心故事里突然拦路跳出个陈咬金然后进入让人血脉上涌的高潮——这一点与西方古典文学有着异曲同工之妙，尽管怀特的小说成了现代研究学者运用现代文学理论的实验场，甚至有人称他为“孤寂大陆上的陌生人”，新批评、心理分析、女权主义、后现代主义、结构主义、文化研究等理论先后登台，但至少有一点共识，怀特的小说（尤其是这部《人树》）无论从结构还是语言，无处不透露出一种浑然天成的立体感——另一方面，怀特笔下人物的命运与其说是对抗环境不如说是对抗自己，因此我相信怀特是真正明白东方哲学对于“自然”的定义的，自是自己，然是这样，自然无非是自己如此的状态，天地万物，也莫不俱是有自己如此的状态，怀特暮年曾透露说希望能来中国一趟，尽管最终未能得偿所愿，后人也能从中一窥大师对于古典东方哲学的热爱。
《人树》是作家的第四部小说，正是由于它为作者赢得了国际声誉。瑞典学院在授予怀特1973年诺贝尔文学奖时的颁奖词称：“他以史诗般的和擅长于刻画人物心理的叙事艺术，把一个新的大陆介绍进文学领域”。但怀特的目光却并未局限在澳大利亚的土地上，不少研究者甚至将他与19世纪最伟大的文学巨匠托尔斯泰相比，称他在探寻深邃井下的人性光芒这一工作上，跳动着一颗堪比托尔斯泰的心脏。——如“澳大利亚的创世纪”这样的褒奖词似乎也证明，不是谁都有幸被时间选中，获得面对亘古的伟大时人之为人的平和广博，人性的光芒，于是“Eyes which had a softness to them around the edges,while at the same time a penetrating glint.（对待事物的各个层面都温柔平和、同时又不乏入木三分的犀利的目光）”这样的褒奖被他的朋友Desmond Digby说出来，也丝毫不觉得突兀了。
历史从来不乏专事锦上添花之人，怀特对这一类人向来是敬而远之的，甚至被宣布获得1973年诺贝尔文学奖后，面对大批蜂拥而至的记者，怀特避而不见，也没有出席当年的颁奖礼。怀特以他慎独笃定而宁静淡泊的内心面对这个日益疯狂的世界，他在自传《镜中瑕疵》中写道“要说关于自己的真话是很难的事情，然而，我感到必须勉力而为，因为许多人对我的认识都是错误的；即使是不少多年来熟知我的人，也显出他们对我究竟是什么样的人毫无所知。”他坦承自己的同性爱取向，与自己的爱人在农庄里笑对人生，暮暮终老。
1990年，这个生性冷僻的伟大作家于自家安静祥和的农庄中结束他在人生备受争议的78年光阴，带着或许是澳大利亚历史上最篇幅浩瀚的书册，走下神坛，走向生命最终的静默。他晚年破例接受英国BBC记者访问时曾被询问他对于写作人生的最大体会，他的回答是：“It is the way of living a life,that makes me standing on my dignity and softness.If you ask me whether being regretful or not,i'll say,what a life passing by”。（“写作就是我生活的方式，它让我活得温和而有尊严。如果你问我是否后悔选择这条路，我会说，时间这样过去就很好。”）
有不匮乏的生活资料，有相互守候的伴侣，有热爱并坚持奉献自己一生的工作，有平和安详的内心，真是的，即便只是旁观的阅读者身份，我也不免感慨一句，时间这样过去就很好。
最后，这里有一个介绍Patrick White的链接，名字很好玩，叫做“干嘛为Patrick White烦恼呢？（Why bother with Patrick White？）”
http://arts.abc.net.
附：
1.Patrick White晚年在悉尼的家
http://www.douban.co
2.《人树》小说原名<The Tree of Man>，来源于英国古典浪漫派诗人Alfred Edward Housman的著作<A Shropshire Lad XXXI>中的一句诗:"On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble."
本评论版权属于作者宋阿慕，并受法律保护。除非评论正文中另有声明，没有作者本人的书面许可任何人不得转载或使用整体或任何部分的内容。
在哪儿买这本书? · · · · · ·
>人树
2008-07-04 21:52:38 袁柒
你给我们找的电子版呢？说完完了2008-07-04 21:58:51 头儿Jing
纯支持2008-07-04 22:00:38 柳公主~换了头像觉得脸更大了
为什么我会联想到人彘。。。？2008-07-04 22:01:43 大桃子。。
阿慕，我读过一本澳大利亚的儿童小说，叫做《神秘的别墅》大概内容就是几个孩子在当地著名的建筑商家族老宅无意间看见奇怪的铭文，然后慢慢追查发现这个家族赖以起家、享誉盛名的建筑设计其实是他家的奴隶的作品
呃，还看过荆棘鸟
澳大利亚 很遥远的大陆
2008-07-05 10:06:01 丁小云
在图书馆几次看到这本书想借但因为它的厚度而放弃了看你的评论这本书似乎很好看的样子下次看到借来看看
2008-07-05 10:29:53 安小羽
恩……几次想买都没买2008-07-05 10:41:05 玄武
2008-07-05 10:06:01 穿丁字裤的云在图书馆几次看到这本书想借但因为它的厚度而放弃了看你的评论这本书似乎很好看的样子下次看到借来看看
同丁宝！！！！
2008-07-05 11:01:00 眠去
您也看安Baby？哈哈。2008-07-05 11:23:12 头儿Jing
我也想看~~2008-07-05 11:35:15 MOMO/一棵开花的树
“写作就是我生活的方式，它让我活得温和而有尊严。如果你问我是否后悔选择这条路，我会说，时间这样过去就很好。”－－－－－－－－－－－
估计N多趴在豆瓣上不眠不息，奋笔疾书的豆子们都这么想的吧。。。。。。。。。。
2008-07-05 12:07:45 布衣苏梦枕
呃..常理顶...嗯..写得不错..
2008-07-05 13:05:15 巡阅使
运动的人也是树，解构吧。2008-07-05 14:01:58 shanar
有不匮乏的生活资料，有相互守候的伴侣，有热爱并坚持奉献自己一生的工作，有平和安详的内心，真是的，即便只是旁观的阅读者身份，我也不免感慨一句，时间这样过去就很好。2008-07-05 14:10:29 leo
时间这样过去就很好！是啊，找到自己喜欢的生活方式过下去，一辈子，就这样，平静，温和．．．．．．
2008-07-05 14:20:12 aqua│不知道
喜欢这个标题 内容还没看~2008-07-05 14:21:15 莫呼洛迦-屁股上的青春在歌唱
哎呀,阿慕.2008-07-05 15:01:22 叉叉
,阿慕.也会这样，，我来豆瓣现在只是混小组了。
2008-07-05 16:39:56 菊苑深深
澳大利亚有关的，就是《荆棘鸟》和《洪荒孤女》2008-07-05 17:18:33 废名
看到你的评论，会想去看很久没有静下来看书了
2008-07-05 18:54:54 王老虎
阿慕你这这样气质型大叔的书评深深的羞愤了偶。。一看到人树～偶就歪到树人～～
一看到树人～偶就想到鲁迅～
想到鲁迅～偶就想起最近看到我很爱的大叔鲁迅～
居然也会被家虐～那么彪悍的大叔～
居然因为兄弟情深而且被他弟媳妇狠狠的虐过～～
－－－－－－－好吧。偶其实是来歪楼的————
2008-07-05 20:48:03 亲爱的暗暗。
其实不止是写作任何你喜欢的事情都是这样。
支持下。。。
2008-07-05 20:48:35 柳公主~换了头像觉得脸更大了
阿慕 天天都能在首页看到你 让暗恋你的人怎么办~~~好吧我也是来歪楼的
2008-07-05 21:27:11 隐™[白吃白喝懒骨头加肥猫]
他坦承自己的同性爱取向，与自己的爱人在农庄里笑对人生，暮暮终老。2008-07-05 21:35:01 隐™[白吃白喝懒骨头加肥猫]
White, Patrick (1912-1990)
The gay Australian Nobel laureate Patrick White wrote explicitly about homosexuality only in his novel The Twyborn Affair and his autobiography Flaws in the Glass.
By the end of his life, White ranked as Australia's greatest novelist and, as winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973, among the greatest fiction writers of the modern period. His major achievement was the production of twelve novels between 1939 and 1986, including The Aunt's Story (1948), Voss (1957), The Vivisector (1970), and The Twyborn Affair (1979).
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Homosexuality is an explicit interest only in the last-named of these novels, but in Flaws in the Glass, the "self-portrait" he published in 1981, White publicly declared his homosexuality in an extraordinarily candid and laconic record of his life and opinions.
In Australian terms, White was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His parents were members of the wealthy Hunter Valley grazier society of New South Wales, a tightly knit conservative clan that exerted considerable--if indirect--influence on the state government.
Whereas his father was quiet and mild-mannered, his mother Ruth was socially ambitious, a determined woman whose predatory qualities both fascinated and horrified her son. He was to remark that a good many of the intimidating women characters of his novels were modeled from his mother, with whom he carried on a lifelong feud.
But the wider society itself, dividing its time between the rich Hunter Valley estates and the social season in Sydney, provided material for novels that simultaneously analyzed the life of this class sharply and celebrated the New South Wales landscape with sensual bravura.
Patrick White's attitude to his native Australia was always markedly conflicted--as was Australian response to his novels.
Until he was thirty-three, much of White's life was spent in England and Europe, for his mother insisted on placing him at Cheltenham, an English public school, for his high school years. Experiencing the double humiliation there of being both a colonial and an (unconfessed) homosexual, he was utterly miserable and never forgave Ruth White for abandoning him.
The ensuing years at Cambridge University were happier, but it took him a while to discover that academic pursuits held no interest. After leaving university, he lived for some years in London, mixing with artists and actors and experiencing a number of homosexual liaisons.
It was in North Africa and Greece, however, that his mature life began to take shape. He was part of a British Army Intelligence Unit when he met the soldier Manoly Lascaris, who became his lover and lifelong companion. In Flaws in the Glass, White pays tribute to him as "this small Greek of immense moral strength, who became the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design."
They set up household in New South Wales soon after the end of World War II and were together when White died. Probably because of Lascaris, Greece and its people became significant for White and his writing.
The two decades following White's return to his native Australia, with which he began an intense love-hate relationship, saw the publication of his long, major novels.
One of them, Voss (1957), earned the respect of his fellow Australians since it was based on the doomed journey into the Australian desert of the legendary German explorer Leichardt. But White himself discounted Voss; he was only mildly excited to see it performed as an opera at the end of his life and was dismayed by unsuccessful projects to make a film of it.
Like his other novels of the period, though, it probed the quest of its central character against the surrounding materialism, banality, and snobbery of Australian society.
White was not conventionally religious but had a deeply religious, even visionary, sense of life; his major characters, like the artist-figure of The Vivisector (1970), are ultimately interested in the meaning of existence, which they will know only in death.
Until the 1960s, White spurned politics. He voted automatically for the conservative parties in federal and state elections, and espoused personally conservative values. This changed abruptly on December 9, 1969, when he participated very publicly in an anti-Vietnam War demonstration.
After that, he was politically active, witnessing against censorship, environmental destruction, colonialist politics, and the nuclear industry. By the end of his life, he was an ardent advocate for Australia as a republic. He protested against the form of the Australian bicentennial celebrations in 1988, and--although he had accepted the Nobel Prize--consistently refused to accept official Australian awards.
White never supported the Gay Liberation movement, though his attitude toward his own homosexuality, and that of others, changed as he aged. In his "self-portrait," he disavowed interest in homosexual society.
He was bored by people who discussed their homosexuality as though it was a condition they had discovered: "I see myself not so much a homosexual as a mind possessed by the spirit of man or woman according to actual situations or the characters I become in my writing."
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That situation is the one explored in The Twyborn Affair (1979), where the central character appears in the different guises of a homosexual man, a woman, and a transvestite male who runs a (heterosexual) brothel. Nevertheless, homosexuality was a significant theme of this novel, for the first time in White's writing.
Immediately on completion of The Twyborn Affair, he wrote Flaws in the Glass, an autobiography that was a coming-out story designed to shock. During the last decade of his life, White conceded that there was a gay cause, putting his own sexual orientation on the line in an Australia that was still highly resistant to avowals of homosexuality.
Patrick White's last decade was an accomplished, happy one. He renounced his affiliations with the polite Sydney society into which he had been born and mixed with younger artists and theater people. Producers and directors staged his plays in Sydney and Adelaide.
These distinctive and eccentric plays failed to attract large or enthusiastic audiences, and they have not yet received the critical attention of the novels, yet White regarded their productions as the high point of his life and career; through them, he finally established contact with an Australia in which he might feel somewhat at home.
David Marr's 1991 biography, Patrick White: A Life, is exemplary in placing its subject's sexuality at the very center and accounting for the richness of a life and body of work in terms of a particular gay sensibility.
2008-07-05 22:06:55 Cassuto
一生很平淡2008-07-06 02:44:23 王老虎
作者也气质型大叔～～拥有理想的同性生活～～
幸福的小日子是：
风吹草低见牛羊～～
在断背山开牧场～
拒绝李安的拍摄～
平静的生活～
－－－－－－－－偶发现大多同性电影都要死一个-----
2008-07-11 22:56:57 楠楠
清冷月光下，一株直白明亮的树2008-07-13 10:33:19 苇间疯
David Marr写过一本"Patrick White. A Life"，最近VINTAGE出新版了，是关于Patrick White最权威的传记了，充满了秘辛。White自己都说这本传记"I think this book should be called the Monster of All Time. But I am a monster…"
我刚在豆瓣上添加了条目。（http://www.douban.co
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