Comeback man
重生（陈继龙 编译）
Oct 12th 2006
From The Economist print edition
THE true critic, Vladimir Nabokov onceo_______①,reads not with his brain but with his backbone. He waits for the “tell-tale tingle down the spine” which alerts him to good writing. After more than a decade messing about writing some fine essays and autobiography mixed in with poor fiction and some questionable history, （1）Martin Amis has suddenly—and unexpectedly, even to his publishers—turned in a work of real worth, a novel that not so much makes the spine tingle as the heart race at its passion and richness.
弗拉基米尔•纳波可夫曾说，真正的评论家读书时用的不是大脑，而是脊梁骨。他守候着让人惊喜交集的故事的到来，让他惊觉原来这是一本妙作。过去十余年间，马丁•埃米斯一直在为撰写几篇优秀论文和一本夹杂着拙劣的小说和某些不可靠的历史记载的自传而折腾不停，如今他却突然——甚至连他的出版商都意想不到地是——献出了一部真正有价值的著作，一部富于激情、有血有肉的小说，让人感到与其说是惊喜交集还不如说是心如潮涌。
The enemies of the people whom the Soviet authorities sent to camps in thegulag[1]were, on rare occasions, permittedconjugal[2]visits. （2）Valiant women would travel huge distances, the jacket sleeve says, sometimes for weeks or even months, in the hope of spending a night à deux[3] in the House of Meetings.Written as a deathbed letter to a well-fed daughter now living in the West, “House of Meetings” tells the tale—and tragic consequences—of one suche________②.
被苏联当局关押在古拉格集中营的敌人获准各自的丈夫或妻子前来探望，可这种机会很难得。该书的封套上写道，勇敢的女人们不远万里而来，有时候行程数周甚至数月，希望夫妇二人能够在“见面屋”共度一个晚上。《见面屋》一书读起来好像是写给如今生活在西方、丰衣足食的女儿的临终遗书，可它讲述的却是一个夫妻如此邂逅的故事，结局悲惨。
在二战之后、斯大林死前的某个时候，在血雨腥风即将来临的莫斯科，有两个兄弟同时爱上了一个名叫卓娅的19岁犹太女孩。她嫁给了弟弟列弗。故事开篇写道：“1948年，我的弟弟来到了集中营。我已经在那儿了。”
The camp is situated just north of the 69thparallel[5],inside theA______③circle. As Zoya makes the journey from Moscow, it is the narrator's job to prepare the House of Meetings for Lev and his bride. They had been married for eight years, but this would be their first night together as man and wife. The narrator offers them a thermos of vodka, two candles and six cigarettes (“rolled out of the state newspaper”). （3）The triangular romance, however, is but a come-hither[6] to the novel's weightier themes, which are all about rust, ruin and decay—all metaphors for ageing.
集中营位于北纬69度正北方、北极圈以内。卓娅从莫斯科启程后，“我”（故事是第一人称写的，下同）开始为列弗与其新娘张罗“见面屋”。他们结婚八年，但这将是他们以丈夫和妻子的身份住在一起的第一夜。“我”为他们准备了一暖瓶的伏特加、两支蜡烛和六根雪茄（“用报纸卷成的”）。然而，这段三角恋情的描写无非是为了将读者引向这部小说那些更为沉重的主题，如锈蚀、废墟以及腐朽，一切都隐喻着年华的逝去。The compulsive vividness of Mr Amis's style may have annoyed his father, but he puts it to good use here. Lev'sf_______④seem to have been “thrown together inattentively, as if in the dark. Even his ears seemed to belong to two completely different people.” A smoker, he eats with a cigarette in the hand that holds the knife: “When he went to stub it out, the movement was but a step on the road to lighting another.” There is little romance in the book. The sex, when it appears, comes as a shock. （4）Mr Amis uses it to explore how people are not strengthened by adversity but warped[7], crushed and then killed, even as they still walk the streets.
埃米斯一向行文生动，气势逼人，而也许正是这种风格让他的父亲不胜其烦，不过在这部著作中他的行文技巧得到了出色的施展。列弗的五官看上去“仿佛是于黑暗之中不经意地拼凑而成”，“就连他的双耳都似乎属于两个完全不同的人”。他爱抽烟，吃饭的时候握刀的手中也夹着一根雪茄：“他踩灭烟头，无非是为了接着再点上一根。”书中鲜有云雨之事的描写。性爱甫一呈现，便让人感到震惊不已。埃米斯希望借此来探讨这样一个问题，那就是人们在身处逆境时，不但没有愈挫愈勇，反而被扭曲、摧垮直至毁灭，即便活着也如同行尸走肉。
（5）“House of Meetings” is a singular, unimpeachable triumph, as powerful as J.M. Coetzee's “Disgrace” and the small list of novels that have unanimously carried off[8] the Man Booker prize for fiction.In the week that a divided jury awarded the 2006 prize to Kiran Desai's “The Inheritance of Loss”, what is astonishing is that Mr Amis's publishers did not evens________⑤his book for consideration.
《见面屋》一书的成功卓尔不群且无懈可击，其强大的感染力一如J.M. Coetzee的《耻辱》以及少数赢得评委一致赞许并捧走布克小说奖的作品。本次评奖周期间，意见相左的评委们最终把2006年布克奖授予了基兰•德赛的《遗失之继承》。奇怪的是，埃米斯的出版商甚至都未将他的著作送审。
[QUIZ]
1. 根据上下文和英文释义，补全单词：
①o_______（v.to say or write what you have noticed about a situation）
②e_______（n.an occasion when you meet someone, or do something with someone you do not know）
③A________（adj.relating to the most northern part of the world）
④f________（n.a part of someone's face, such as their eyes, nose etc）
⑤s________（v.to give a plan, piece of writing etc to someone in authority for them to consider or approve）
2. 英译汉（将划线部分英文翻译成中文）：
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. gulag n.【俄】古拉格（集中营）
2. conjugal adj.夫妻间的
3. à deux adv.【法】两人一起
4. pogrom n.(尤指沙俄时对犹太人的) 大屠杀
5. parallel n.纬度，纬线
6. come-hither n.挑逗，诱惑（come-hither look秋波）
7.warp v.歪曲，使有偏见
8. carry off获得，赢得；成功对付[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. ①observed 说，评述
②encounter 遭遇，相遇
③Arctic 北极的
④features 面貌特征
⑤submit 提交，递交
2.（见译文，仅供参考，欢迎指正）
