加拿大安大略省笔译口译协会（atio）认证翻译、加拿大认证esl老师、留学申请顾问。
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加拿大英文教练（原温哥华英文教练），致力于地道英文表达
赶在年前读完了2017年诺贝尔文学奖得主石黑一雄的《无可慰藉 The Unconsoled》，在豆瓣上写了篇书评，大家有兴趣可以看看，此处不赘。https://book.douban.com/review/15737665/ 这里我们只谈语言。
石黑五岁的时候随父母移民到英国，因此，英语对他而言几乎是母语。从他的小说里，我们一丁点儿都看不出一丝的不纯正，相反，他的行文叙事还带着些狄更斯、哈代的味道，这恰好符合我的口味。这里，我选两段书中的场景来感受一下他的文字。
这两段写的是一个叫Brodsky的指挥家，在晚年的时候的一场表演。
Brodsky occasionally steadied himself with his free hand, but he had by this point entered some deeper part of himself, and seemed able to maintain his balance with only nominal support. He swayed his torso. He swung both arms through the air with abandon. During the early passages of the first movement, I noticed some members of the orchestra glancing guiltily at the audience as though to say: “Yes, really, this is what he’s told us to do!” But then steadily the musicians became engrossed in Brodsky’s vision. First it was the violins who became quite carried away, and then I could see more and more musicians losing themselves in their performance. By the time Brodsky led them into the melancholy of the second movement, the orchestra appeared to have accepted entirely his authority. The audience too had by this point lost its earlier restlessness and was sitting transfixed.
Brodsky took advantage of the looser form of the second movement to push into ever stranger territories, and I too—accustomed though I was to every sort of angel on Mullery—grew fascinated. He was almost perversely ignoring the outer structure of the music—the composer’s nods towards tonality and melody that decorated the surface of the work—to focus instead on the peculiar life-forms hiding just under the shell. There was a slightly sordid quality about it all, something close to exhibitionism, that suggested Brodsky was himself profoundly embarrassed by the nature of what he was uncovering, but could not resist the compulsion to go yet further. The effect was unnerving, but compelling.
这一段写到Brodsky的指挥，一开场的时候并不讨喜，甚至一些演奏者还用目光与观众交流，好像在说，瞧，这不是我的原因，指挥把我们带到这个节奏中来的。其后，演奏者开始进入状态，和观众一道渐渐被Brodsky折服。接下去的一段，写到“我”也陶醉其中，但听出了音乐中sordid, embarrassed, unnerving的成分，不过还是认可他的指挥到目前为止是compelling的。一般而言，作者在叙事时，最高的境界是Show, don’t tell.即通过人物的行为、对话、心理描写等来展示（show），而不是单纯靠形容词来堆砌、来告诉(tell)读者。但这只是理想的境界，尤其是在长篇小说中，完全靠show，也做不到，这时，就需要作者进行tell，但你又不能絮絮叨叨说个没完，必须要靠笔底的文字本身来吸引读者。这段文字中，因为涉及到古典音乐，所以一般读者对于什么tonality, melody，什么是音乐的surface of the work，什么是life-forms hiding just under the shell，等等，是完全无感的，但作者又不能不有所交代，好在石黑没有停留在这些专业的层面，点到为止就够了。
我们继续看
I could see much had changed while I had been wandering around the building. Brodsky, I supposed, had taken things too far, for that tentativeness of technique that so often signals a disaffinity between a conductor and his musicians had entered the orchestra’s sound. The musicians—I was now able to see them at close quarters—were wearing expressions of incredulity, distress, even disgust. Then, as my eyes grew more accustomed to the glare of the stagelights, I gazed past the orchestra to the audience. Only the first few rows were visible to me, but it was clear people were now exchanging worried looks, coughing uneasily, shaking their heads. Even as I watched, one woman stood up to leave. Brodsky, however, continued to conduct in an impassioned manner, and if anything, seemed eager to push things still further. Then I saw two of the cellists exchange looks and shake their heads. It was a clear sign of mutiny and Brodsky undoubtedly noticed it. His conducting now took on a manic quality and the music veered dangerously towards the realms of perversity.
Up to this point I had not been able to see Brodsky’s expression very well—I had mainly his back view—but as his twisting and turning grew more pronounced, I began to catch fuller glimpses of his face. Only then did it dawn on me that some other factor altogether was influencing Brodsky’s behavior. I watched him carefully again—the way his body was twisting and clenching to some rhythm of its own dictating—and I realised that Brodsky was in great pain and probably had been for some time. Once I had recognized this, the signs were unmistakable. He was only just managing to keep going at all, and his face was distorted with something more than passion.
这两段讲到指挥走火入魔了，走得太远，以至于席中的演奏者都要mutiny了，台下的观众也纷纷摇头，一些人甚至起身离场。虽然是背对着观众指挥也能感受到，而他的反应是继续疯魔，将音乐带入危险的癫狂境地。而“我”开始为他担心，事情将走向何方？
从这里的描写中，我们我们看到，作者基本上是在show，而我们作为读者的脑海中—如果我们跟得上他的节奏的话—也在不断脑补当时的场景；当作者能塑造出身临其境的场面，读者就会情不自禁地进入到一种“自动阅读”的模式，完全被作者的叙述所引领，你会不停地想，下一步会发生什么？这一幕将怎么收场？这就是其文字的魔力。有时候，文字本身也能推动叙事，这里的选段，就是例子。
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