奇葩:驚悚小說也催淚

Schroder. By Amity Gaige. Twelve; 272 pages; $21.99. Faber and Faber; ??14.99. Buy from ,

《父親的罪》作者艾米蒂·蓋奇，十二出版社，共272頁，售價21.99美元；費伯-費伯出版社，售價14.99歐元；以及網上書店有售。

ERIC is the unlikeliest of characters to charm a reader. His life is a tabloid drama: man abducts daughter, gets arrested and confesses in a letter to his estranged wife. It is to the credit of Amity Gaige, an American writer, that her third novel, “Schroder”, transforms this thriller plot into a deeply moving tale.

埃裏克的人生就像通俗小報刊登的故事：他拐跑親生女兒，爲此鋃鐺入獄，隨後寫信向分居的妻子表示懺悔。這種人物最不可能贏得讀者的青睞。多虧美國作家艾米蒂·蓋奇（Amity Gaige），她用妙筆將驚悚情節演繹成一個感人至深的故事，這就是蓋奇的第三部小說《父親的罪》（Schroder）。

Eric’s story is one of multiple deceptions. At the age of eight, and named Erik Schroder, he landed in America with his father from East Germany. Six years later he assumed the name Eric Kennedy and never minded if people presumed he was related to the slain president. These primordial lies set the stage for his later unravelLing. His marriage to Laura, which brought a happiness he hardly dared believe, breaks up when their daughter, Meadow, is four years old. Knowing that divorce will expose his pretence and endanger contact with his child, Eric flees with her into the wooded mountains of northern New York.

層層疊疊的謊言構成了埃裏克的生活。八歲時以埃裏克·施羅德（Erik Schroder）的化名，跟隨父親從東德搬遷至美國。六年後，他更名埃裏克·肯尼迪（Eric Kennedy），有時被誤認爲那位慘遭暗殺的美國總統的親戚，他也絲毫不介意。這些謊言爲他日後的遭遇埋下禍根。和勞拉的婚姻生活竟然是如此的幸福，不過一切就在女兒麥朵（Meadow）四歲時煙消雲散。一旦離婚，他不得不暴露真實身份，還有可能承受失去女兒的痛苦。想到這裏，埃裏克帶着小麥朵逃匿到紐約州北部的森林裏。

The description of the next six days, written by this serial liar, self-inventor and troubled, possibly dangerous man, is riveting. Ms Gaige’s main achievement is to inhabit her protagonist so thoroughly that the reader cannot help but empathise. Eric is by turns insightful, funny, bizarre and irresponsible, at once self-deceiving and self-aware. Explaining his decision to cut and run, he writes: “I couldn’t take it any more, the way the wind went out of the world whenever my daughter left.” In his apologetic, heartfelt voice, the novel becomes an intense, often beautiful meditation on the desperate love of a parent for a child.

這名落魄的父親雖然滿嘴謊言，善於編造身份，也許是個危險人物，他將跑路六日娓娓道來，語言卻也賞心悅目。女作家不惜筆墨，主角形象豐滿，讀後令人同情，此乃小說最大亮點。她筆下的埃裏克時而富有遠見卓識，時而滑稽古怪不負責任，時而自欺欺人，時而頭腦清醒。提到下定切斷過去遠逃異鄉的決心時，埃裏克如此解釋：“每次我的女兒離開時，世界了無生機，我再也受不了了。”他的敘述充滿歉意和真誠，成就一部深刻思考絕望親情的驚悚小說，其中不乏美麗的語言。

Eric regards the kidnapping as a fairy-tale adventure; his daughter, wryly intelligent, is swept along. But Laura’s lawyer accuses him of “bizarre, neglectful parenting”. On the lam he lets Meadow wade into a freezing lake, feeds her junk food and leaves her unattended. The question is not if he will be caught, but how and when.

明白一切的女兒嘲諷地看着事情發展的態勢，跟着父親匆匆趕路，而在埃裏克眼裏，這次綁架就是一次童話般的冒險。然而勞拉的律師指責他“行爲古怪，缺乏爲人父的責任心”。途中，他用垃圾食品餵養小麥朵，帶她涉過冰冷的湖水，甚至留她孤身一人。他總會被逮捕，關鍵是何時以何種方式。

What distinguishes “Schroder” is its insight and language. Rain is “not rain but the liquid redistribution of collective conflict.” Laura has “such a careful way with the truth”. Ms Gaige excels at landscapes; her writing has the still, clear beauty of a mountain lake. Equally, she understands the terror of potential loss. Eric realises that there is only “one thing that really deranges us and that is the disappearance of love.” Linking too obviously to the symbolism of the cold-war Germany that Eric left behind, with its metaphors of flight and division, is the only misstep. Readers do not need such neat explanations to follow this flawed yet caring father.

《父親的罪》脫俗之處不僅在於思想深刻，更在於語言奇妙。天上下的“不再是雨水，而是蒸發後重新分配的集體衝突。”勞拉“謹慎地認知真相”。女作家蓋奇女士不僅擅長於描寫景緻，賦予筆下的山中湖一種靜謐透徹的美，而且深諳可能失去某些人或事時的恐懼。埃裏克認識到，“世上真正使我們瘋狂的僅此一物，那就是愛的消逝。”唯一不足之處是，小說充斥着飛行和分裂的意象，影射主人公逃離的東德，這一比喻太露骨，反而減少品讀並不完美卻舐犢情深的父親形象的樂趣。