这周日要给大家放一部电影 ... that there's a movie this Sunday,
继续通过电影考察婚姻 continuing our cinematic investigation of marriage,
我们要看的是《牙医的秘密生活》 the movie The Secret Lives of Dentists.
下午两点开始 还是这个教室 It'll be shown 2 o'clock in the afternoon in this room.
愿意的话可以带上爆米花 Bring corns if you'd like.
今天我们又要看 So we are turning our attention back to
安德鲁·德布斯的小说 Andre Dubus's short stories
看他如何继续讲述 and to his investigation of the relationship
特德和卢安的关系 between Ted Briggs and LuAnn Arceneaux.
上次课最后我说 I said at the end of the last lecture
在电影《汉娜姐妹》中 that there's something about the movie
有一些非道德的元素 Hannah and Her Sisters that I find immoral,
即影片对于婚姻不忠这一主题的处理 something about the treatment of marital infidelity there.
我从一部分学生的反馈中发现 A number of students in their responds cards
他们对影片中人物的态度比我更狠 were harsher than I was about the characters in the movie
他们希望看到人物受折磨 and expressed the desire to see them suffer,
至少不能像影片中那么好过 or at least to see them suffer more.
几年来我发现 I've found over the years that
学生在读了 I've had students read this
德布斯的这篇《罪恶倒计时》之后 Dubus's short story The Timing of Sin,
总会有不少学生反映说 that I will always get a significant number of responses
真希望看到卢安受折磨 that would really like to see LuAnn suffer,
他们觉得不能这样轻易放过她 who feel that this story lets her off too lightly.
可见婚姻不忠这一话题 So the issue of marital infidelity
可以说制造了一个审美问题 is one that creates you might say an aesthetic problem,
或者一个文学问题 a literary problem
即如何表现美的事物 of how to present something that's beautiful
德布斯声称他要这么做 as Dubus told us he wants to do,
而同时又要避免 but yet at the same time avoids
把原本是丑陋的 具有破坏力的 making something beautiful
写成美的事物 that in fact is very ugly, very destructive.
有的读者 比如我 A reader, I'm one of those readers,
认为卢安是一个很有吸引力的角色 who finds LuAnn in a specially attractive character,
而正因为她如此生动 如此吸引人 might exactly because she's made so vividly attractive to us,
面对这样动人的角色 we might suffer a kind of moral paralysis
读者反而会承受一种道德的折磨 in the face of her attractiveness,
因此 对于她自己认为的那种罪恶 so that somehow we diminish the severity
我们反而觉得不是那么严重了 of what she herself understands to be a sin.
这又让我们想到了其他一些主题 This brings us back to some of the themes
我们在《威尼斯之死》中已经探讨过 that we already explored in Death in Venice,
即美如何可以脱离道德的束缚 issues about how beauty can become unhinged from morality.
我们这门课程 One reason that in a course
声称要将哲学和文学相结合 that claims to integrate philosophy and literature,
之所以常常让哲学占上风 philosophy is usually allowed to win,
是担心如果文学获胜的话 is the anxiety that when literature wins,
美就会凌驾于道德之上 beauty triumphs over morality.
古斯塔夫·冯·奥森巴哈 Gustav von Aschenbach
似乎是一个反例 seems to live out some of the consequences
如果说他不是让美战胜了道德 of letting beauty triumph over, if not exactly morality,
至少也是战胜了艺术自律 at least over one's artistic discipline.
卢安应该为她的不忠 Should LuAnn suffer more for her infidelity
承受比《罪恶倒计时》中更多的折磨吗? than she does in The Timing of Sin?
我这样做公平吗? Should I to be fair
如果我不带有任何私心 which I've already told you I'm not interested in
像批评《汉娜姐妹》一样 condemn this story in something
去向这篇故事发难 这样公平吗? like the way I criticized Hannah and Her Sisters.
我将要说一下 Let me say something about
我为什么要这么做 why I'm not tempted to do that,
当然我可以接受其他的评论 though I'm open to the conversation,
比如在大家的写作中 the kind of conversation that might show up
可能出现的评论 in your own writing for example,
大家可能会说这篇故事是失败的 about why the short story is a kind of failure
而我却认为它是异常成功的 rather than as I think of it a particular success.
对卢安而言 For LuAnn Arceneaux
正如我们在《世间所有时间》中看到的一样 as we found out in All the Time in the World,
她的性与她的宗教信仰紧紧相连 her sexuality is very tightly integrated with her religiosity,
尤其是与她 with her sense particularly
生活中的宗教仪式相联系 of the sacramental character of her own life.
对卢安而言 上帝进入她的生活 For LuAnn, God does not enter her life
不是以无肉身的 外来的形象进入的 as a disembodied, other-worldly person.
上帝进入她的生活 God enters into her life
是通过肉体的仪式 through bodily practices,
也可以说是通过她接受这个世界的方式 through you might say the way she inhabits the world
她把自己看作肉体之身 有血有肉 as herself incarnate as meat, as fleshly.
因此不难理解 So it's not surprising that
对于这样一个性感的女性 for a woman so vividly sensual,
性是她日常生活重要的一部分 her sexuality is a big part of her everyday life,
因此在这篇短篇小说中 so that in this particular short story,
我们所看到的卢安和她朋友玛莎 we're presented with LuAnn and her friend Marsha
在百无聊赖地锻炼身体 on a rather half-hearted exercise program,
考验着身体机能 a very bodily undertaking.
有很多恋人在恋爱最初 More than a few couples have begun their courtship
都会一起做运动 through exercising together,
因为恋爱过程中对体力有要求 because there's something very physical about that.
卢安和玛莎 LuAnn and Marsha
在彼此身上发现了吸引人的地方 recognize in each other something attractive,
并非只是对各自的丈夫有吸引力 and not attractive just to their respective husbands.
顺便提一句 By the way,
大家在写论文的时候 when you write your papers,
千不要用respective(各自的)这个词 never use the word respective.
这个词糟透了 It's a terrible word;
人们一直都在误用它 people misuse it all the time.
玛莎和卢安爱她们的丈夫 So Marsha and LuAnn, they love their husbands,
但她们也知道 如果处在不同的世界 but they can also see that if the world were different,
如果她们自己也是不同的 and if they were different,
那么她们会对彼此产生性吸引 they could find each other sensually attractive.
这意味着她们是拉拉吗? Does this mean they are lesbians?
不 这意味着她们是正常人 No! It means they are normal people.
意味着她们活在这个世界上 It means that the way they live in the world
是活在肉体当中的 is that they live in a body.
我们在读柏拉图的《会饮篇》时 When we read Plato's Symposium,
碰到的一个困惑是 one of the impediments for us is
他们都在谈论 all of the talk about
男人对男人的性欲 the erotic interest of males in other males,
我们可能会这样想 we are tempted to think of that as
哦天哪 这些希腊人都是同性恋 "Oh my God, all these Greeks, they are homosexual."
但继续读下去我们就会发现 But then we read on and we find out that
很多人都已经结婚 而且有孩子 lots of them are married, and they have children.
于是 我们就想 And then we think
哦 天哪 他们都是双性恋 "Oh God, they are bi-sexuals."
但愿房间里别再出现其他物种 Let's just hope no other species walks in the room,
否则 我们可能要说他们是三性恋 they may trying to be tri-sexuals from all we know.
但是他们自己 But that's not the way
对性的认识并非如此 they experienced their own sexuality at all.
我们看待他们的眼光是 To us, we look at them and we think
这种东西他们拥有两样 "Man, they got two of something.
为什么我只有一样? Why I only got one of them?"
我们可能还要为此忌妒他们 Guess we ought to be jealous.
在谈话交流的过程中 They get the same spark of personal excitement
他们多余的能量 that extra level of energy
也会和我们一样产生兴奋的火花 in conversation and in interaction
当周围有吸引你的人就会产生 that you have when you are in the presence of someone
那些人的身体吸引了你 who's physically attractive to you,
让你产生性爱的欲望 who's erotically attractive to you.
不只是一半的人会让他们产生欲望 They get that not with half of the people in the room,
而是所有的人 but with all of them.
他们四下张望 They look around.
有金发 白脑袋 红脑袋的人 They see blonds, brim heads, red heads
心里想 天哪 真是火辣 I think, "Man, they are hot."
可他们压根儿没打算谈论女性 They haven't even started to talk about the women yet.
对我们而言这似乎很奇怪 To us, this seems kind of odd,
因为在过去一百年中 because in this last hundred years,
我们学会了把某种东西称作 we've learned to think of something we call
性取向 sexual orientation
事实上 性取向这个词 actually the very term sexual orientation
是很晚才出现的 is much younger even than that.
对希腊人而言 For the Greeks,
他们的情爱反应 their primary erotic responsiveness
不是以性别为划分的 is not to male or female.
而是看这个人美不美 It's to beautiful.
柏拉图和他同时代的很多希腊人一样 Now Plato, as many other Greeks of his time,
对于同性的情爱吸引 was quite critical as a matter of fact
如何通过身体表达 of the physical expression
事实上持很强的批判态度 of this erotic attraction in same-sex relationships.
但柏拉图所批判的 But what Plato's critical of
不是每个人的吸引力中 is not the existence of an erotic dimension
所存在的情爱的一方面 of the personal attractiveness of every human being.
他所批判的 What he's critical of
是在情爱吸引中 is the making of something merely physical
仅仅看到肉体的东西 out of that erotic attraction,
他在《会饮篇》中没有谈论很多 which though doesn't up so much in the Symposium,
但在其他的对话中有所涉及 is something that Plato talks about in other dialogues.
因此 在卢安和玛莎的场景中 So in the scene where LuAnn and Marsha
卢安在谈论 as LuAnn's talking about
他最近对特德有很强的性欲 how sexually excitable she's been recently with Ted.
这使玛莎对特德产生了一阵嫉妒 And Marsha feels a twinge of jealousy about Ted.
不是说她想跟特德发生性关系 That is not that she would like to have sex with Ted,
而是跟卢安 but rather with LuAnn.
她在卢安身上感到那种情爱欲望时 When she feels that twinge of erotic interest in LuAnn,
我想我们不该把玛莎或卢安 I don't think we are to understand Marsha or LuAnn
看作是怪人或反常的人 as somehow extremely odd, or as perverse.
而是把她们看作有肉体的人 We are to understand them as embodied people,
她们对别人表达性欲 for whom sexual response to others
是她们正常交流的一部分 is a normal part of what they have to negotiate,
是她们通常获取能量的一个渠道 a normal part of where they get their energy
也以此找到她们的诱惑 and of where they get their temptations.
可见这篇故事试图探讨 So the story is trying to work over
情爱反应的复杂性 a kind of complexity about erotic response,
仅仅通过性取向的简单划分 that the simple division of sexual orientation
或通奸这样简单的词不足以说明问题 or the simple word adultery doesn't do justice to.
没结婚的年轻人可能会认为 It's possible for the young and unmarried sometimes to think
婚姻应当甚至确确实实会 that marriage should and indeed even that marriage will
驱散对所有人的性欲 eclipse the erotic attractiveness
除了对自己的配偶 of everyone other than one's spouse.
这篇故事直截了当地告诉我们 This story takes it as a matter of course that
这是不对的 that's false.
卢安碰到了许许多多让她产生性欲的人 LuAnn walks through a world of erotically interesting people.
要是这些人消失的话 She would feel it as a diminishment
她会觉得 of her life, of her liveliness,
自己的生活失色不少 if that aspect of the world would disappear.
她差点与罗杰发生婚外情 The reason that she almost commits adultery with Roger
从玛莎的反应来看 who given Marsha's reaction,
这一定不像布拉德·彼特(美国演员)之类的人 must not look like Brad Pitt say.
她之所以差点与他发生婚外情 The reason that she almost commits adultery with him
是因为这个男人很有魅力 is that she finds him a very attractive man,
不仅是身体上的 not merely physically,
更是因为他的品格让她钦佩 but the way that she admires him,
她在他身上看到了一种仁慈 the way that she sees in him a tenderness
为那些无家可归的女孩奉献了一生 for these broken girls to whom he's dedicated his life.
她在他身上看到了一种父爱的光芒 The way she sees him as paternal, as fatherly toward them
这燃起了她的热情 产生了性欲 turns her on, makes him erotically attractive.
钦佩和性欲之间的界线 The line between admiration and attraction
是很模糊的 is a very blurry one,
而卢安是拥有幸福婚姻的女人 and LuAnn being married, being happily married,
对婚姻全身心投入 being committed to her marriage
却并未让这条界线变得清晰 doesn't make the line any starker.
只是意味着卢安的不忠 It just means that the dishonesty
和对这条界线的不尊重 of a failure to respect the line
被更加突显了出来 is all the more emphasized.
有一个时刻很说明问题 In a very revealing moment,
卢安为玛莎讲述完经历后 after LuAnn has told the story to Marsha,
对玛莎说 she says to Marsha,
如果我说话时能表现得毫无欲望 "if I ever talk as if I could never be tempted,
再也没人能对我构成威胁 as if there's no risk for me anymore,
我有过痛苦的时候 I had my bad moment,
但我克服了它们 I overcame it,
现在我如白雪一样纯净 and I'm as pure as the new-driven snow now,
我再也无需处在那种境地 I would never, never be in that position again
再也不需要运气帮忙 of needing something like the luck
不必为没穿裙子穿了牛仔裤而庆幸逃过一劫 that I was wearing jeans instead of a skirt to save me,
再也不需要这些东西了 I would never need that again."
卢安说 LuAnn says,
要是我再对你讲那样的事情 "If I ever say something like that again,
请爱我 打我 扇我耳光 love me, hit me, slap me."
因为卢安之所以让自己处于那种境地 Because part of the reason LuAnn let herself be in that position
原因之一是她高估了自己的意志 was a false view of her own strength.
她对玛莎说的意思是 What she says to Marsha is
性就像天气 sex is like the weather.
它就在那儿 It's just there.
就跟去圣母院大学一样简单 It's like going to Notre Dame.
天气... The weather...
你醒来 选择穿短裤 you wake up, you put on your shorts,
因为有75℉(相当于24℃) it's 75 degrees.
从古代智慧与当代爱情课堂上出去 You get out of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Love,
发现外面很冷在下雨 it's cold and you're sleet.
你只能说 And all you can say is
还好我带了雨衣 I'm glad I've brought my raincoat.
你无法预知天气会怎么变 You never know when weather might happen to you.
你能做的只是穿的保险 You should dress safely,
始终带上安全套 coated in Latex all the time.
卢安不想做安全的性爱 LuAnn doesn't want to have safe sex,
因为她觉得安全性爱就意味着放弃性爱 because for her to have safe sex is to give up what sex is.
突然的一下让她叫"我的上帝" That suddenness lets her say "My God"
这时她能意识到 when she realizes that
特德也许是 Ted Briggs might be
她愿意做爱的那类人 the kind of man she wants to have sex with.
做安全的性爱就像是 To have safe sex would be something like
不说"我的上帝" 而说"我的普罗姆" replacing "My God" with "My Plomer."
怎么会有人愿意那样生活呢? Why would anybody want to live that way?
至少卢安不愿意 At least LuAnn does not want to live that way.
接着她又不得不承认 But then she's got to admit that
如果她不愿意做安全的性爱 if she's unwilling to make sex safe for her
不愿一直穿上安全"雨衣" by always having her raincoat available,
她就得寻求帮助 she'll also need help,
她发现这种帮助要通过宗教仪式 and for her she finds that help sacramentally.
因此她对好友玛莎说 And so she tells her friend Marsha that
她要去忏悔 what she's going to do is going to confession,
这让玛莎觉得不可思议 which Marsha finds incredibly quaint.
等等 你差点与人通奸 So wait, you are just about to have adultery
在汽车里 在路灯下 in a car under a street light
现在你要去把这事告诉牧师? and you are going to tell a priest about this?
这不是很搞笑吗 There's something rather comical about this.
难道你不觉得 Don't you think
你比牧师更了解性? you know more about sex than a priest would after all?
但卢安并不这么看问题 But that's not the way LuAnn sees it.
卢安相信 或者自认为 LuAnn sees what she needs, or believes
她所需要的是宽恕 what she needs is forgiveness,
因为她觉得 只有意识到 because she thinks that it's only by recognizing
她需要从别人身上获得一些 that she needs something from somebody else,
能阻止她所控制的幻想的东西 that shows stop with the fantasy that she's in control,
她的性活动才是安全的 that her sex can be safe sex.
因此故事让我们觉得 So the story drives us to the notion that
卢安的忏悔 LuAnn's confessing
并不像很多学生所想的 is not as I think many students respond to this
是一条代价很低的简单出路 a cheap or easy way out for her.
相反 这是卢安在找回自我的意识 Rather, it's LuAnn coming back to her sense of herself,
意识到她不能单打独斗 seeing that she can't do it all alone.
但她意识到自己不能单打独斗 But her recognition that she can't do it all alone
尽管看起来像个借口 can look like an excuse.
对她而言却是在承担责任 To her it's a taking of responsibility,
也可以说是正视她的过失 taking sort to speak possession of her own weakness.
但从另一个角度 But from another point of view,
如果对她的道德自律提更高的要求 a point of view that demands more self-sufficiency morally
不像她自己那么低 than LuAnn demands from herself.
那么她承认自己的过失 This can look her acknowledgement of weakness
就像是给自己找台阶下 like it's giving her an excuse.
在我看来 For me,
他去向神父坦白自己的过失 the sacramentalizing of her acknowledgement of her weakness,
进行一种忏悔的仪式 the making of it something practical in which
敞开自己的心扉去赎罪 she turns her heart and mind toward some sort of redemption
这样一来 我就没法把她的这种坦白 prevents me from interpreting her claim to weakness
看作是托词 as in fact a cover story
或看作是纵容自己 as the way of giving herself permissions.
但我也能理解 But I can understand
其他一些读者可能不这么认为 why other readers do not respond to her that way.
觉得她太姑息自己了 Think that she has taken a cheap way out,
没有付出足够多的代价 a way that doesn't demand enough from herself.
过去几年中 I found in discussing the story
我和很多不同的读者聊过这个故事 with lots of different readers over the last few years
不少读者最不能接受的 that a number of readers are most offended
是卢安和玛莎之间的这样一段话 by one particular exchange between LuAnn and Marsha.
玛莎对卢安说 When Marsha says to LuAnn
千万别告诉特德 "Don't ever tell Ted"
卢安回答说 我当然不会告诉他 and LuAnn says of course I wouldn't tell Ted.
我发现有相当一部分人认为 I found that a fair number of readers think that
这一刻卢安背叛了特德 that is a moment of betrayal of Ted.
他们认为 她要做的 That what she should do
不是通过牧师或仪式向上帝忏悔 is confess not to God through priest, through sacrament,
而应该向丈夫忏悔 but rather confess to her husband.
人们对婚姻抱有一种理想 There is a certain ideal of marriage
认为夫妻关系应该透明 as a transparent relationship in which
身为配偶的每一个小的方面 no small part of the responsibility of being a spouse
都要完完全全可见 is to let yourself be fully visible,
让另一半一目了然 seen utterly by your spouse.
这篇故事不同意这种观点 This short story disagrees with that thought,
而是认为 就算在婚姻当中 puts forward the prospect that even in a marriage
我们对爱人也总会保守一些秘密 there will always be some opacity that we bear to our lovers.
在婚姻中 What sort of demand of truthfulness
对忠诚提出怎样的要求才合适? is appropriate at the heart of a marriage?
更笼统地说 More generally
要获得真正的忏悔和宽恕 what kind of demand for transparency, for explicitness
对另一半应当保持怎样的透明? should be a requirement of true repentance and forgiveness.
天主教有个神学传统... The theological tradition about the Catholic sacrament
忏悔 和解 赎罪 of confession or reconciliation or penance
还是别的什么名字 or whatever the hell they call it these days—
人们一直设法想一些柔和的名字 they keep trying to give it some softer names
说到底就是忏悔 it's confession,
你做了错事 you did something wrong,
就去该去的地方说你做了什么错事 and you go and you say you did something wrong...
天主教的传统就是 The tradition is that
牧师不宜要求 it's inappropriate for the priest to demand of
忏悔者去向造成伤害的一方忏悔 the person confessing a confession to the person wrong.
一些个例中 In some cases
这是忏悔的组成部分之一 that might be a part of what's required for real confession,
但这并非忏悔的题中应有之义 but it's not a standard part.
要是卢安把这事告诉特德 For whom would LuAnn do the confessing,
那她的忏悔是为了谁呢? if she brought this to Ted.
她那么做是为了让特德好受? Would she do it to make Ted feel better
还是一种自私的行为 or would she do it in a selfish way
让自己好受? to make herself feel better?
这样就把宽恕作为压力 And now to place the burden of forgiveness
转移到了特德身上 rather than the burden of penitence,
而不是自己承受忏悔的压力 to place it on him rather than on her.
怎样的相互坦诚 What kind of ideal of mutual transparency
才是婚姻中理想合适的? is appropriate in a marriage?
我们何时应当要求另一半向我们忏悔? When should we demand from a spouse a confession to us?
什么时候应当给另一半负担 When should we burden a spouse
向对方忏悔 说明自己的想法? with a confession of our own thoughts?
这些主题 These are themes that
我们将通过《牙医的秘密生活》继续讨论 we'll be taking up in The Secret lives of Dentists.
周末大家将看电影 You'll be seeing the movie Sunday
下周一见 and see you on Monday.