200岁的《傲慢与偏见》仍然招人爱戴的10个理由

‘Pride & Prejudice’ was first published 200 years ago Monday, on Jan. 28, 1813

1813年1月28日,英国作家简·奥斯丁的第二部小说《傲慢与偏见》正式出版发行。2013年1月28日,《傲慢与偏见》200岁了。英国和美国举办了多种活动为这部经典作品庆生。200年来,《傲慢与偏见》的读者可谓长盛不衰。开篇的这一句“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”更可谓耳熟能详,是不朽的经典名句。

《今日美国》(USA Today)在祝贺《傲慢与偏见》200岁生日快乐的同时,还做了一个专栏,讨论为什么这部小说200年来能够始终如一地得到读者爱戴的原因。USA Today列举了以下10个理由:

1. It’s the ultimate “happy ever after” tale. Pride & Prejudice established the template for an infinity of romance novels, yet no subsequent love story has ever come close to equaling the delights of the original. In P&P, opposites repel then attract: Mr. Darcy is sullen and arrogant. Elizabeth is vivacious and charming. He is rich, she is poor. He is madly in love, she can’t bear him. In a scene both hilarious and dramatic, Elizabeth squashes Mr. Darcy’s massive pride when she rejects his first proposal. To win her, Darcy is forced to change, to become more kind and polite. But Elizabeth also changes, though her journey from prejudice is less visible.

2.It’s fun. The plot of P&P scarcely seems to be the stuff of comedy. Here are five unmarried girls in rural England who will face poverty once their improvident father kicks the bucket since his estate must pass to a male heir. If they can’t snag husbands, their career options involve downwardly mobile humiliations such as working as governesses or paid companions to the wealthy. And yet the novel, brimming with sparkling dialogue, “is a pure joy to read,” as Anna Quindlen once put it. Perhaps it is Elizabeth’s father, Mr. Bennet, who best explains its appeal: “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”

3. It’s the rom-com of all rom-coms. Which is why P&P has been adapted for screens big and small around the world. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth have been portrayed by Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson (1940) and Matthew Macfadyen and the radiant Keira Knightley (2005). There is even a 2004 Bollywood musical, Bride and Prejudice. But for many fans, the ultimate adaptation is the 1995 BBC miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle. Her co-star Colin Firth may have won an Oscar playing a British monarch, but to Darcy fans, he is a god thanks to a certain scene involving a wet white shirt. These days, you can watch a Web adaptation on YouTube called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which stars Ashley Clements as Lizzie.

Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen are the most recent actors — but by no means the only ones — to embody Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy on the big screen, in 2005.(Photo: Alex Bailey, Focus Features, via AP)

4. Sex, lies and runaway teens. The next time someone dismisses Pride & Prejudice as a fussy old story about the breeding habits of early 19th-century Brits, point out that the novel’s villain, George Wickham, would probably be arrested today as a serial pedophile. An Army officer in his 20s, Wickham is a smooth operator who tries to seduce underage girls for fun and profit. Though he fails to lure Mr. Darcy’s 15-year-old heiress sister into marriage, Wickham succeeds in deflowering and shacking up with Elizabeth’s 16-year-old sister, Lydia, without benefit of clergy, thanks to her “animal spirits.”

5. P&P isn’t just “how to marry a millionaire, Regency style.” You can divide the world into two groups: mad romantics who adore those passionate Brontë tales about women yearning for tormented psychos like Heathcliff, and more pragmatic souls who admire Elizabeth Bennet’s decision to marry for love and money. Readers know that Austen, who never married, disapproves of Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte Lucas’ decision to marry a “conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man” simply for money. Mr. Darcy, however, wouldn’t be Mr. Darcy without the ka-ching of 10,000 pounds a year and the big estate up north. Elizabeth herself jokes about her change of heart regarding Darcy: “I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

6. Before the Kardashians, there were the Bennets. Reality TV didn’t invent miserable, weird families. Just look at Lizzie’s parents, the supremely ill-matched Ma and Pa Bennet. When not locked in his library reading, Mr. Bennet entertains himself by teasing and tormenting his whiny dimwit of a wife in front of their offspring. The deepest bond in the novel isn’t romantic love, it’s affection between siblings. (Austen adored her own sister Cassandra, who, in turn, encouraged Austen’s writing.) Even when Elizabeth dislikes Mr. Darcy, she admits he’s an outstanding brother to his little sister. And it’s sibling solidarity, not rivalry, with Elizabeth Bennet and her older sister, the head-turning beauty Jane. Indeed, it is a worried Elizabeth rushing to help Jane, fallen sick while dining with wealthy new neighbors, that captured the heart of British writer Martin Amis, who wrote: “Impelled by sibling love, Elizabeth strides off through the November mud to Netherfield, that fortress of fashion, privilege, and disdain. She arrives unannounced, and scandalously unaccompanied, ‘with weary ancles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise.’ By now the male reader’s heart is secure (indeed, he is down on one knee).”

7. Back then, well-off people’s purpose really was to eat, drink and be merry. Name the one activity that Mr. Darcy, Bingley, Sir Lucas and Mr. Bennet all avoid: Work! They visit the ladies. Hunt birds. Attend balls. Ride horses. Travel. The one worker bee in the bunch — Elizabeth’s uncle Mr. Gardiner — is socially handicapped because of that icky thing called his job. Even military life appears to be a social club for swanky young studs — pretty remarkable since P&P was published at time when Napoleon was rampaging through Europe.

8. Now, as then, we choose to see what we want. First Impressions was Austen’s original title. Though far less catchy, it does convey perfectly Austen’s important message: First impressions are often wrong. For example, Darcy’s little sister is often mistaken for proud when she’s simply painfully shy. Other first impressions are dangerous. P&P‘s one truly evil character is the slick seducer Wickham, who charms everyone, even Elizabeth, who prides herself on being nobody’s fool.

9. Hypocrisy is always good for a laugh. Some of Austen’s funniest and sharpest scenes involve hypocrites. There’s Mr. Collins, the clergyman. Upon learning that his teenage cousin Lydia is living in sin, this man of God writes a letter to Mr. Bennet, noting that “the death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison” and closes by urging, “Let me then advise you, dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection forever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offense.” Nice. ​And while Mrs. Bennet embarrasses her family with her loud voice and silly ways, she’s Emily Post compared with the snobbish Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the novel’s rudest character.

10. Technology might change, but human nature remains the same. Give cellphones to the youngest Bennet daughters — the boy-crazy shopaholics Kitty and Lydia — and they would fit right in at any high school. Their father is every Baby Boomer dad ignoring both his upside-down mortgage and his out-of-control kids. The one homely Bennet female, Mary, is the 19th-century version of an insecure, overachieving nerd.

我也特别喜欢这篇专栏文章的最后一段总结。它能够代表很多P&P读者的心声:

In the end, although Austen crafted her characters with a quill pen dipped in ink, they have remained fresh, instantly recognizable and fascinating for 200 years. Whether people read P&P on a print page, a tablet or some future gadget, the love story of how Mr. Darcy won Elizabeth Bennet, will, no doubt, continue to captivate readers for another two centuries.

西文剪报之“名著改写”和“作家谈性”

这个月已经有两则有关改写简·奥斯丁的作品的报道了。先有乔安娜·特洛罗普(Joanna Trollope)将执笔重写奥斯丁的≪理智与情感≫,现在又有报道说一位以凶杀主题闻名的作家詹姆斯(PD James)将改写奥斯丁的《傲慢与偏见》。凶杀也将成为新版《傲慢与偏见》的重要主题。BBC有报道如下:

PD James writes Pride and Prejudice crime novel

Crime writer PD James is to publish a novel that puts murder at the heart of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The BBC's 1995 adaptation of Pride And Prejudice is one of at least 10 filmed versions of Austen's novel

Death Comes to Pemberley, which is due out in November, is set six years after the events of Austen’s tale of romance and social advancement.

It sees Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage thrown into disarray when Lydia Wickham arrives unannounced and declares her husband has been murdered.

James said it had been “a joy” to immerse herself in Austen’s world.

“I have to apologise to Jane Austen for involving her beloved Elizabeth in a murder investigation,” she said in a statement, “but this fusion of my two enthusiasms – for the novels of Jane Austen and for writing detective stories – has given me great pleasure which I hope will be shared by my readers.”

The 91-year-old is best known for her series of novels starring detective and poet Adam Dalgleish.

Speaking to the BBC during the writing of Death At Pemberley, she refused to give away any details.

“It’s rather secret at the moment, because it’s something entirely new,” she told Radio 4’s Today programme.

“I’m superstitious. I feel if I talk about it before it’s a third of the way through, somehow it will never get finished.”

She added she was wary of writing further adventures for her enigmatic detective.

“I would love to do another Dalgleish,” she said, “but it seemed to me the last book was somewhat valedictory.

PD James worked for the civil service during the early years of her career

“I’m very afraid of starting something that will take a long time to write – about three years with all the plotting and planning – which may be unfinished when I die. I hate the thought of that.”

Stephen Page, head of James’s publishers Faber, said Death At Pemberley was an “elegant, intelligent and moving” book.

“It is always a moment of great excitement when PD James delivers a new novel but the brilliance of both the idea and the execution on this occasion is simply breathtaking”.

Austen’s novel was originally published in 1813, and James is far from being the first writer to foray into the world she created.

In fact, more than 40 “Austenesque” novels were published in 2010 alone.

Notable examples of the genre include Darcy’s Story by Janet Aylmer, which retells Pride And Prejudice from the point of view of the antagonist, and Seth Grahame-Smith’s parody Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, which is currently being turned into a Hollywood movie and video game.

USA TODAY的一篇题为Let’s talk about sex with some ‘Snark’-y authors的文章介绍了Lawrence Dorfman的一本新书 The Snark Handbook Sex Edition: Innuendo, Irony, and Ill-Advised Insults on Intimacy。该书花了十四章的篇幅谈到文学与性的话题。其中还大量引用了一些小说家、散文家和幽默作家的独特表述。部分摘录如下:

Woody Allen: “Sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it’s fantastic.”

John Updike: “Sex is like money. Only too much is enough.”

Camille Paglia: “Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.”

Fran Lebowitz: “Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”

Nora Ephron: “In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.”

Steve Martin: “Don’t have sex, man. It leads to kissing, and pretty soon you’ll have to start talking to them.”

Dave Barry: “People don’t think of writers as sex objects. The women who write to me and suggest that we ought to have sex usually turn out to be, like, eighty. And their letters always end with, ‘Just joking.’

英美文学琐记【0911】

1. 从2009年11月6日起至2010年3月14日止,在纽约的摩根图书馆博物馆(Morgan Library & Museume)特别开始一个专题展览,题为“妇女的智慧:简·奥斯丁的生平及遗产”(A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy),纪念英国历史上最伟大的小说家之一,简·奥斯丁。在过去的20多年里,根据其作品改编的电影、电视作品可谓层出不穷。显示出人们对奥斯丁的热爱再次出现高潮。摩根图书馆博物馆组织的这次展览包括奥斯丁的100多部作品——她的手稿、私人信件,以及其他相关材料。其中有不少展品为半个多世纪以来的首次展出。点击这里,可以看到更为详尽的介绍。

The Origin of Laura2. 本月,弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫的遗作《劳拉的原型》[The Original of Laura: (Dying Is Fun)]终于在一片喧嚷声中推出了。各方评说不一,褒贬不一。为什么纳博科夫生前不愿意出版,甚至授意他的太太将其手稿毁掉?他的儿子迪米特里出版了这部作品到底有无功德,意义何在?对这样问题,恐怕永远只会是公说公有理、婆说婆有理,不会有什么定论的。也许只有你看过了这部作品之后,才会有你自己的看法。点击这里查看相关介绍。

3. 唐纳德·哈灵顿(Donald Harington)是一位超现实主义作家。在他的十多部小说中创造了一个虚构的位于阿肯色州斯戴莫市的欧扎克村,一个超现实的乡村小世界。11月7日,这位超现实主义作家在阿肯色州的斯普林戴尔去世,享年73岁。点击这里查看更多相关介绍。

4. 《一切为了自由》(Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theatre Story Ever Told)不仅仅为读者展示了约瑟夫·帕普(Joseph Papp)作为戏剧家的一生;还通过他之口,讲述了戏剧大师、导演麦克·尼科尔斯(Mike Nichols)对戏剧家们所产生的深远影响。这部由肯尼斯·图兰(Kenneth Turan)和约瑟夫·帕普共同完成的作品为研究美国戏剧的学者们提供大量的历史素材和一手资料。尤其能够让我们得窥美国戏剧在1960s、70s、80s年代的发展概貌。

5. 毫无疑问,菲利普·罗斯(Philip Roth)是当今美国文学界的大红人。他的每一部作品都会引起评论界的热烈讨论。自然,他的新作《卑微》(The Humbling)一经推出便理所当然地成为美国文学界和批评界的大事。这里有篇文章,不妨看看。至少可以对罗斯的这部新作了解。

6. 好像我们还拥有不少卡佛迷。那么新版雷蒙德·卡佛(Raymond Carver)传记及其最新短篇小说集的出版无疑是卡佛迷们的福音了。这两部最新推出的作品也应该被列入美国文学的学习者和研究者,以及卡佛的研究者们的必读书目。这里还有稍微详细一点的介绍

7. 畅销书作家迈克尔·克赖顿(Michael Crichton)去世已经一年多了。最近却又有新作推出:这部题为《海盗纬度》(Pirate Latitude)的作品据称是从克赖顿的手稿中发现的。似乎专家们的看法不太统一,有人怀疑其可能为赝品。反正有人关心那些问题。我倒不是很在意。无论如何,这部新作有可能会成为很好的电影素材。

8. 当代加拿大大师级短篇小说作家艾丽丝·门罗(Alice Munro)推出了她的最新短篇小说集《幸福“死”了》(Too Much Happiness)。这部作品集堪称近年来门罗作品的精华版。几乎其中的每一篇小说都能够让读者领略到作者的创作才华及其精湛的契可夫式的艺术风格。近10年来,加拿大作家玛格丽特·阿特伍德(Margret Atwood)在我们的外国文学批评界掀起过小小的热潮。个人以为,下一位能够在我们的外国文学批评界掀起热潮的加拿大作家应该使这位一直坚持只写短篇小说的艾丽丝·门罗吧?

9. 2009年,美国作家埃德加·爱伦·坡(Edgar Allan Poe)诞辰200周年、逝世160周年。世界各地都有形式各异的纪念这位文学大师的活动举行。坡的家乡里士满更是有一系列的活动来纪念他们的英雄——多台纪念坡的戏剧的上演,以及埃德加·爱伦·坡纪念馆的隆重揭幕。在这里,借用爱伦·坡的一首小诗,谨表对大师的敬意吧:

To One in Paradise

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine —
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

理智与情感与海怪

The book “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is one of several projects that mixes hoary costume drama with horror.

The book “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is one of several projects that mixes hoary costume drama with horror.

简·奥斯丁(Jane Austen)的作品又有了最新的恶搞版本。她上一部被恶搞的小说是其经典之作《傲慢与偏见》(Pride and Prejudice)。经过塞斯·格拉汉姆-史密斯(Seth Grahame-Smith)之手,《傲慢与偏见》被改写成了《傲慢与偏见与食肉僵尸》(Pride and Prejudice and Zombies)。据说这部恶搞版保留了原作85%的文本内容。这部作品一经推出,没想到竟然成了畅销书。受此鼓舞,在能赚钱就是硬道理的今天,出版商当然会抓住这个机会,一鼓作气,再大捞一把。据出版家周刊报道,“怪异图书”将会在今年的9月15日推出最新一部根据奥斯丁的《理智与情感》(Sense and Sensibility)而炮制出来的搞怪作品,《理智与情感与海怪》(Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters)。这部最新的恶搞作品将由本·H·温特斯(Ben H. Winters)操刀。在这部作品中,达什伍德姐妹将被迫沦落到一座岛屿上,置身一群食人海怪之中。“怪异图书”的编辑向出版家周刊介绍说,这部新作的创作灵感来源于凡尔纳的科幻小说、“迷失的世界”、“大白鲨”、以及“海绵宝宝”等等。此外,《傲慢与偏见与食肉僵尸》的作者塞斯·格拉汉姆-史密斯也与“大中央出版公司”签订两本书的合约。其中一本新书的标题是《亚伯拉罕·林肯:猎杀吸血鬼》(Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter)。

下面这段视频是《理智与情感与海怪》的电影预告片:

【据说YouTube目前直接观看不了。提供一个地址:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jZVE5uF24Q。有翻墙能力的可以去看看!】

【来源:纽约时报