J·K·羅琳偵探小說揭露的出版業內幕

During a cocktail party in Robert Galbraith’s (a.k.a. J. K. Rowling’s) endlessly entertaining detective novel “The Silkworm,” the publisher Daniel Chard gives a toast in which he observes that “publishing is currently undergoing a period of rapid changes and fresh challenges, but one thing remains as true today as it was a century ago: Content is king.”

羅伯特·加爾佈雷思（Robert Galbraith，又名J·K·羅琳[J.K. Rowling]）的偵探小說《蠶》(The Silkworm)非常有趣，書中寫到了一次雞尾酒會，席間出版商丹尼爾·查德(Daniel Chard)做了致辭，說：“出版業目前正在經歷鉅變與嶄新的挑戰，但是有一件事百年至今從未改變：內容爲王。”

Coming from an obscure, midlist, mystery author named Robert Galbraith such a statement might go unnoticed. But when the same passage is written by J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and one of the most successful authors of all time, the words cannot help having a far greater impact.

這樣的話若是來自籍籍無名、在書榜上名列中游、名叫羅伯特·加爾佈雷思的神祕作家，可能根本不會有人注意。但同樣的話如果是由哈利·波特(Harry Potter)系列的作者，也是史上最成功的作家之一J·K·羅琳寫下來的，影響力可就大多了。

Therein lies the problem and the great joy of this book.

問題就在這裏，它也是這本書給人帶來的巨大樂趣之一。

You want to judge “The Silkworm” on its own merit, author be damned. It is, in fact, this critic’s job to do so. But writing that type of blind review in this case, while a noble goal, is inauthentic if not downright disingenuous. If an author’s biography always casts some shadow on the work, here, the author is comparatively a total solar eclipse coupled with a supermassive black hole.

你希望以《蠶》本身的價值來評判這本書，不去管作者怎麼樣。事實上，這是評論家的責任。但是，在這種情況下，寫這種“盲評”，雖然目的是高尚的，但卻顯得不真誠，至少也是不大可靠。如果一個作家的生平總會在他的作品中投下陰影，在這本書裏，這位作家投下的不只是日全食，簡直就是一個特大號黑洞。

This is especially true because Rowling (let’s stop pretending) makes matters worse (or better) by taking on the world of publishing. Leonora Quine, the dowdy wife of the novelist Owen Quine, hires our hero, the British private detective Cormoran Strike (first seen last year in Rowling’s “The Cuckoo’s Calling”), to investigate the disappearance of her husband. Owen Quine has just written a nasty novel that reveals dark, life-­ruining secrets of almost everyone he knows. Owen, his wife tells Strike, is probably at a writer’s retreat. Finding him should be a routine matter.

更何況羅琳（還是別用假名稱呼她了）還挑戰了出版界，這讓事情變得更糟（或更好）。本書主角是英國私家偵探克莫倫·斯特萊克(Cormoran Strike)，去年在羅琳的《布穀鳥的呼喚》(The Cuckoo’s Calling)中首度登場；小說家歐文·奎恩的妻子利奧諾拉·奎恩(Leonora Quine)長相俗氣，她僱用斯特萊克尋找失蹤的老公。歐文·奎恩剛寫完一本令人不快的小說，幾乎所有熟人的黑暗醜陋祕密都被他端出來了。奎恩太太告訴斯特萊克，歐文可能呆在一個作家的療養地，尋找他可能會變成常事。

But, of course, nothing here is what it seems. When Owen Quine ends up gruesomely slaughtered — in a murder scene ripped from his new novel — Strike and his comely sidekick, Robin Ellacott (think Sherlock and Watson, Nick and Nora, Batman and, well, Robin), enter the surprisingly seedy world of book publishing. They investigate those who were thinly disguised in Quine’s final manuscript, all of whom offer insights into the world of the writer.

但是，當然啦，一切都不是表面上看起來的那樣。歐文·奎恩最後被殘酷地殺害了，犯罪場景正來自他的新小說。斯特萊克和他的漂亮助手羅賓·埃拉科特（Robin Ellacott，他倆的關係就像福爾摩斯和華生、尼克和諾拉、蝙蝠俠和，那個，也是羅賓）進入了圖書出版的世界，這個世界令人驚訝地名聲狼藉。他們調查了奎恩最後的手稿中那些幾乎沒做任何掩飾就提到的人，他們都能讓人洞察到作家世界的內部。

The suspect pool includes his editor, Jerry Waldegrave (“Writers are different. . . . I’ve never met one who was any good who wasn’t screwy”); his agent, Elizabeth Tassel (“Have you any idea . . . how many people think they can write? You cannot imagine the crap I am sent”); his publisher, Daniel Chard (“We need readers. . . . More readers. Fewer writers”); and the pompous literary novelist Michael Fancourt (“Like most writers, I tend to find out what I feel on a subject by writing about it. It is how we interpret the world, how we make sense of it”).

嫌疑人中包括奎恩的編輯傑裏·沃德格雷夫（Jerry Waldegrave，“作家們都很不一樣……我從來沒見過不古怪的作家能寫出好東西”）；他的經紀人伊麗莎白·塔塞爾（Elizabeth Tassel，“你知不知道……到底有多少人覺得自己能寫作？你沒法想像人們拿給我什麼樣的垃圾”）；他的出版商丹尼爾·查德（“我們需要讀者……更多的讀者。更少的作家”）；還有高傲的文學小說家邁克爾·範克特（Michael Fancourt，“和大多數作家一樣，我也喜歡通過寫作某個主題來找出自己對它的真實感受。這是我們闡釋世界的方式，是我們爲之賦予意義的方式”）。

As written by Rowling, “The Silkworm” takes “write what you know” and raises it to the 10th power. Is this crime fiction, a celebrity tell-all, juicy satire or all of the above? The blessing/curse here is that you turn the pages for the whodunit, but you never lose sight that these observations on the publishing world come from the very top. This makes complete escape, something mandatory for a crime novel, almost impossible — but then again, who cares? If you want a more complete escape, pick up another book. Reading Rowling on writing is delicious fun.

《蠶》由羅琳創作，是那種“寫你熟悉的事情”，然後再把它增加到十級馬力的小說。它究竟是一部犯罪小說，還是一部名流曝光，抑或生動的諷刺文學，或者以上皆是呢？這裏面的好處/壞處在於，你把它當做一部偵探小說來閱讀，但你總會注意到書中充滿對出版界的觀察，這種觀察正來自出版界的頂層。這使得純粹的消遣——對於一本偵探小說來說所必須提供的——成爲幾乎是不可能的事情；但是這裏問題又來了，誰會在乎呢？如果你想要更徹底的放鬆，那還是換一本書吧。不過讀羅琳談寫作還是很有意思的。

Even the title of the novel (and the English translation of the poisoned-pen manuscript) is “The Silkworm” because a silkworm’s life is “a metaphor for the writer, who has to go through agonies to get at the good stuff.” On envy: “If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.” On Internet trolls: “With the invention of the Internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani.” On a literary male writer’s inability to create realistic female characters: “His women are all temper . . . and tampons.” On a writer named Dorcus Pengelly (some of these names are straight out of Hogwarts): “She writes pornography dressed up as historical romance,” but our murder victim still would “have killed for her sales.”

小說的名字叫做《蠶》（小說中那本毒舌手稿的名字也是這個），就連這個名字也和寫作有關係，因爲蠶的一生“是對作家的隱喻，他們經歷痛苦去獲得好東西”。她談起嫉妒時說，“如果你希望一生都只能獲得暫時的同盟者，這些夥伴們還會對你的每次失敗歡呼雀躍，那就去寫小說吧。”她談起互聯網上的喧囂：“有了互聯網，隨便什麼會寫幾個字的白癡都能當角谷美智子（美國著名評論家——譯註）了。”還有一個無法寫好逼真女性角色的男作家：“他筆下的女人都很情緒化……像經前綜合徵。”關於一個名叫多克斯·潘格利（Dorcus Pengelly，書中有些名字是直接從霍格沃茲學校來的）的女作家：“她寫的是僞裝成歷史浪漫小說的色情文學”，而我們的受害者“會因爲她的銷量而殺人”。

There is even a debate on the merits of self-publishing when Quine’s mistress whines that she’s going the “indie” route because “traditional publishers wouldn’t know good books if they were hit over the head with them.”

書中甚至還討論了自費出版的價值，奎恩的情婦抱怨說自己走上了“獨立”的道路，因爲“傳統出版社不知道什麼纔是好書，就算好書砸到他們腦袋上也認不出來”。

Are these opinions shared by Rowling? Don’t know, don’t care. In the end, despite the window dressing, Rowling’s goal is to entertain and entertain she does. If we can’t forget that she is a celebrity, we’re also constantly reminded that she is a master storyteller. Push aside J. K. Rowling (a gender-neutral pseudonym Joanne Rowling took so that boys would read Harry Potter) and judge the book on the merits of Robert Galbraith (a full-fledged male pseudonym with no such neutrality), and “The Silkworm” is still a suspenseful, well-written and assured British detective novel.

這些觀點羅琳都認同？沒人知道，也沒人關心。儘管有這些裝點門面的東西，羅琳最終的目的還是娛樂，她也提供了娛樂。如果我們總忘不了她是個名人，那麼也應該時常提醒自己，她是講故事的大師。拋開J·K·羅琳（這是個中性化的筆名，用來代替她的原名“瓊尼·羅琳”，好讓男孩子也來讀哈利·波特）的名氣，獨立判斷羅伯特·加爾佈雷思（一個完全是男性化的筆名，並沒有做中性化處理）這本書的價值，會發現《蠶》同樣是一本充滿懸疑、文筆精彩、徹頭徹尾的英國偵探小說。

Strike, who lost his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, is described as a “limping prize fighter,” a man who looms so large, “the room seemed much smaller with his arrival.” Potter fans will want to make a connection between Cormoran Strike and Rubeus Hagrid, the beloved giant in the Harry Potter novels, but such comparisons feel forced. If J. K. Rowling never leaves our minds while reading “The Silkworm,” the world of Harry Potter, to Rowling/Galbraith’s credit, never enters it. We are squarely in the gritty, gloomy and glitzy real world of the Muggles, except maybe when she describes a noisy piece of furniture in Strike’s office as the “farting leather sofa.” For a moment, the reader can almost see the sofa coming to life in the halls of Slytherin House.

斯特萊克在阿富汗戰場上因爲地雷而失去了一條腿，被描述爲“跛腳的榮譽戰士”，一個非常有存在感的男人，“因爲他的到來，房間顯得小多了。”哈利·波特的粉絲們會希望在克莫倫·斯特萊克和哈利·波特小說裏受人喜愛的巨人魯伯·海格(Rubers Hagrid)找到共同點，但這樣的比較感覺很牽強。如果在在閱讀《蠶》的時候，J·K·羅琳從未離開你的腦海，那麼，值得稱道的是，羅琳或加爾佈雷思從未讓哈利·波特的世界進入這本書。我們完全置身於這個堅實、陰鬱、浮華，由麻瓜組成的現實世界裏，或許只除了她描寫斯特萊克辦公室裏一件吱嘎作響的傢俱是“老放屁的皮沙發”。在那一刻，讀者可能會感覺斯萊特林學院大廳裏的沙發回來了。

“The Silkworm” most often feels like a traditional British crime novel albeit set in the present day, complete with eccentric suspects, a girl Friday (Oh, when will they see that they are meant for each other?) and a close friend in the police department whose life Strike saved in the war. But Rowling gives some of the old saws a new spin. Robin, for example, isn’t a longtime friend or ex-lover — she starts out as a young temp Strike first meets in “The Cuckoo’s Calling.”

雖然發生在現在，《蠶》幾乎可以被視爲傳統的英國犯罪小說，再加一堆古怪的嫌犯，一個女孩版“禮拜五”（啊，他倆什麼時候才能明白他們是天生一對？），一個在警察局的密友，斯特萊克曾在戰爭中救了他的命。不過羅琳給這些老套路賦予了新元素。比方說，羅賓不再是斯特萊克的老朋友或前女友，她和斯特萊克在《布穀鳥的呼喚》中初遇時是個年輕的臨時祕書。

Strike himself may at first appear to be something we have seen too often — a brooding, damaged detective, with a life-­altering war injury, financially on the brink, who’s recently lost his longtime girlfriend — but there is an optimism to him that is refreshing and endearing. Even though he’s hobbling down the street, often in great pain, “Strike was unique among the men not merely for his size but for the fact that he did not look as though life had pummeled him into a quiescent stupor.”

斯特萊克本人一開始可能很像我們經常遇到的那種形象——一個多思、受過傷害的偵探，戰爭中受的傷改變了他的生活、經濟在崩潰邊緣，前不久又失去了多年女友——但他身上有一種樂觀主義，這非常令人喜愛，也讓人耳目一新。儘管他在街上一瘸一拐地走着，時常都很痛苦。“斯特萊克是獨一無二的，不僅是因爲他的身材，也因爲他並不覺得生活一直在打擊他，把他打到人事不省。”

Strike also shares a trait with many great fictional detectives: He is darn good company.

斯特萊克還有一個特點是很多偉大的虛構偵探都具有的：他是個好夥伴。

There are musings on fame (Strike is the illegitimate son of the rock star Jonny Rokeby), the media (the book opens with a passing shot at the British phone hacking scandal that engulfed many celebrities, including Rowling), book marketing (Quine’s wife on her husband’s sluggish sales: “It’s up to the publishers to give ’em a push. They wouldn’t never get him on TV or anything like he needed”), not to mention e-books and the digital age of publishing.

書中有很多思考，諸如名譽（斯特萊克是搖滾明星約翰尼·洛克比[Jonny Rockeby]的私生子）、媒體（這本書一開頭就寫了英國電話竊聽醜聞，包括羅琳在內的很多名人都身陷其中）、圖書市場（奎恩的妻子談起丈夫的書賣不動：“完全要靠出版商來推動。他們從不讓他上電視，或者提供他類似的機會”），當然還有電子書和數字出版時代了。

But Rowling saves her most poignant observations for the disappointments of marriage and relationships. The likable Robin is engaged to a pill named Matthew and cannot see, as Strike and the reader can, that “the condition of being with Matthew was not to be herself.” When he thinks about his own sister’s marriage and those like it, Strike wonders about the “endless parade of suburban conformity.” His private-eye job of catching straying spouses makes him lament “the tedious variations on betrayal and disillusionment that brought a never-ending stream of clients to his door.” He sees the “willfully blind allegiance” of long-suffering wives and the false “hero worship” of male writers by the women who supposedly love them. When his sister asks Strike if he puts up with his destructive ex-girlfriend “because she’s beautiful,” Strike’s honest answer is devastating: “It helps.”

但羅琳最深刻辛酸的觀察還要算是對婚姻和戀愛關係的失望。可愛的羅賓和一個名叫馬修的討厭鬼訂婚了，但她看不到斯特萊克和讀者們所能看出的東西——“她和馬修在一起時的狀態完全不是她自己。”斯特萊克想起自己姊妹的婚姻，還有那些有着相似婚姻的人，不禁思忖，這是一條通往“市郊常規生活的漫長隊列”。他的尋找失蹤配偶的私家偵探工作讓他哀嘆“背叛與幻滅是冗長乏味的變奏，爲他帶來永無窮盡的客戶”。他看到長期受苦的妻子們保持着“故意盲目的忠誠”，以及那些聲稱愛着男性作家們的女人虛假的“英雄崇拜”。他的姊妹問他能夠忍受那冤家前女友是不是“只因爲她很漂亮”，斯特萊克的回答誠實而可怕：“的確有幫助”。

Do these observations take on more weight when we know that the writer is a superstar female author rather than a semi-obscure male one? I think they do.

如果我們知道這些觀察來自一位明星女作家，而不是一個幾乎沒有名氣的男作家，會不會覺得它們更有分量？我覺得是這樣。

The book isn’t perfect. It’s a tad too long, and the suspect interrogations grow repetitive. Sometimes the reader feels Rowling may be trying too hard to move away from Hogwarts. The fair amount of swearing reminds one of a rebellious teenager set free.

這本書並不完美。它稍微有點冗長，對疑犯的質詢愈來愈囉嗦。有時候讀者會覺得羅琳過於努力擺脫霍格沃茨。大堆髒話有點像叛逆的青少年好不容易得到自由。

Some will also argue that while Harry Potter altered the landscape in a way no children’s novel ever has, here Rowling does the opposite: She plays to form. “The Silkworm” is a very well-written, wonderfully entertaining take on the traditional British crime novel, but it breaks no new ground, and Rowling seems to know that. Robert Galbraith may proudly join the ranks of English, Scottish and Irish crime writers such as Tana French, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Kate Atkinson and Peter Robinson, but she wouldn’t overshadow them. Still, to put any author on that list is very high praise.

有些人會說，從沒有任何一本童書像哈利·波特這樣改變了出版界，在這裏羅琳做的事正相反，她在努力建設。《蠶》是一本文筆極佳、極具娛樂性的讀物，以傳統英國犯罪小說的面目出現，沒有打破任何常規，羅琳似乎也知道這一點。羅伯特·加爾佈雷思可能會驕傲地加入塔娜·法蘭琪(Tana French)、伊恩·蘭金(Ian Rankin)、薇兒·麥克德米德(Val McDermid)、約翰·康諾利(John Connolly)、凱特·阿特金森(Kate Atkinson)和彼得·羅賓森(Peter Robinson)等英格蘭、蘇格蘭和愛爾蘭犯罪小說作家的行列，但她不會超越他們。不過，能躋身這些作家的行列已經是很高的榮譽了。

The upside of being as well known as Rowling is obvious — sales, money, attention. That’s not what she’s after here. The downside — and her reason for using the pseudonym — is that telling a story needs a little bit of anonymity. Rowling deserves that chance, even if she can’t entirely have it. We can’t unring that bell, but in a larger sense, we readers get more. We get the wry observations when we can’t ignore the author’s identity and we get the escapist mystery when we can. In the end, the fictional publisher Daniel Chard got it right: “Content is king,” and on that score, both J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith triumph.

隨“羅琳”的名氣而來的好處是顯而易見的——銷量、金錢和關注。但這並不是她所追求的。至於壞處——這也正是她使用化名的原因——就是講故事確實需要一點匿名性。就算無法徹底享有，羅琳也理應獲得這樣的機會。我們不能忘記她的名氣，但從大一點的角度來說，我們讀者獲得的東西更多。如果我們注意到作者的身份，就會理解到書中觀點的諷刺之處；如果我們忘記作者的身份，就能體會到一種避世的神祕感。不管怎樣，書中虛構的出版商丹尼爾·查德說得對——“內容爲王”，就這一點而言，J·K·羅琳和羅伯特·加爾佈雷思都贏了。