Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Graphomania

《笑忘書》(The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1979)出現了"Graphomania"一詞,米蘭昆德拉作出了一個預言。

「書寫癖」Graphomania,不是熱切於寫信件、私人日記或家族紀事,not a mania to write letters, personal diaries, or family chronicles,而是一種寫作的狂熱,but a mania to write books.

當社會的整體生活水準提高,人們可以進行不關生產的活動;當社會變成極度個人化,導致個人與個人之間的隔離;當國家之內的社會缺乏崩天塌地的轉變。

廣泛的隔離滋生了書寫癖,General isolation breeds graphomania,蔓延的書寫癖又加劇了人際隔離,generalized graphomania in turn intensifies and worsens isolation. 媒體印刷從前讓人互相了解,但在書寫癖的世代,書寫蘊含相反的意思:人人被自己的語句包圍,everyone surrounded by his words彷如被鏡子包圍as by a wall of mirrors, 外間的聲音一點也漏不進來,which allows no voice to filter through from outside.

Bannka, Bibi, Hugo和Tamina的書寫的分別,在於Bannka, Bibi和Hugo屬於被忽視、被遺忘的一群,他們渴望得到認同,被人記住,他們害怕被遺忘。Tamina害怕的,是遺忘了關於逝去丈夫的一切記憶。

Tamina流亡西歐,無論如何的堅持,她的記憶已經殘缺,她是昆德拉的一個化身,昆德拉出走法國,以斷續的段落紀錄往事,他認為對抗強權的艱苦奮鬥,The struggle of man against power, 是記憶對抗遺忘的掙扎,is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

書寫癖不同。我們書寫,The reason we write books ,是因為我們的子孫不會在意,is that our kids don't give a damn. 我們一頭裁進茫茫不知所以的世界,We turn to the anonymous world, 因為我們妻子不再聆聽我們絮絮的話語,because our wife stops up her ears when we talk to her.

昆德拉碰過一個的士司機,他說:「寫作,對其他很多人帶來很大的好處。」

政客、的士司機、保母、情人、殺人者、盜賊、妓女、官員、醫生和病人紛紛染上書寫癖,The irresistible proliferation of graphomania among politicians, taxi drivers, childbearers, lovers, murderers, thieves, prostitutes, officials, doctors, and patients 讓我看到每一個人,毫不例外底下都是一個寫作者show me that everyone without exception bears a potential writer within them, 是以全人類都可昂首闊步走到街上大叫,so that the entire human species has good reason to go down into the streets and shout: 我們都是作家! "We are all writers!"

因為每個人都難以接受在冷漠的世界默默無聞,最終淹埋,For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, 而因為每個人都想,趁還有時間,and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, 將自己化成綴滿字詞語句的無盡天幕,to turn himself into a universe of words.

有一日(很快便會來到),One morning (and it will be soon), 當所有人醒來,when everyone wakes up 人人都變成作家as a writer, 拒絕聆聽和瞭解的時代便會來臨,the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived.

當周圍充斥Bannka, Bibi和Hugo的影子,每個人都想抓住別人的耳朵,但同時掩住自己的耳朵。

當《時代》選出「你」作為2006的風雲人物,等如宣告昆德拉的預言成真。

一天,我在公司瘋狂睇別人的網誌/博客/部落格,吵鬧、喧嘩,我感到暈眩,淹沒在一片起泡的口水花。

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