《双城记》阅读路书

牛妞

　　最近忙着制定旅游计划天天盯着路书看，这篇书评也索性叫作路书了。《双城记》我也只初读了一遍原著，斗胆希望能够以一些感想指引准备阅读者（盯着大星）。

　　《双城记》好读吗？不好读。当然了我的阅读范围很有限，还没见过大场面吧～从读过的书中比较，这篇小说只比《瓦尔登湖》这种散文容易一点点，并且这“一点点”我觉得是由于这是我买了kindle后读的第一本书提供的冲劲造就的。我在这里谈几个让我觉得想要放弃阅读的“极点”：

　　1、长篇铺垫导致出场人物出场原因费解。这是一篇构思缜密、人物关系层层交织的文学作品，作者布置了大量伏笔铺垫，而且故事发生在伦敦和巴黎两地，因而在阅读的前半部分经常会出现的一个情况是，一个新人物出场了，这个人物可能与上一节的内容发生地截然不同，作者对他进行了大量描写和叙述，可是你会感到疑惑，因为根本看不出来这个人和整个故事有什么关系！在这时请耐心继续阅读，在该节末尾或后续章节，作者总会交代的。

　　2、议论性语言篇幅大，人物语言优雅而有力但十分舞台化。这些好像是维多利亚时期文学作品的特征。像开篇第一节那样的长篇议论在文中屡次出现，而且似乎隐藏着大量隐喻，让我这样知识匮乏者不知所措。我的方法就是硬着头皮加快速度读过去，直到出现情节为止。这样阅读也许低级，但总比无法忍受煎熬而放弃要好。然后就是人物语言，语言完全没有生活化的影子，是诗歌的感觉，就是略感不自然。举例：

　　"On, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!" cried little Lucie, springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. "Now that you have come, I think you will do something to help Mamma, something to save Papa! Oh, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who love her, bear to see her so?"

　　这是这个叫Lucie的十岁左右的小姑娘在全文唯一一次开口说话，完全没有十岁的感觉。

　　然而这样的语言感情强烈，韵律使其富有美感。举例：

　　"If you hear in my voice-I don't know that it is so, but I hope it is-if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!"

　　这是女主人公遇见年未谋面的父亲而父亲精神病发作无法认出女儿时，女主人公歉疚而充满女性细腻感情的话语。

　　3、古英语不时出现。像thou、thee、thy、hast、didst、wilt这样的古英语短小但是不记住又确实挺麻烦，混个脸熟之后阅读就能顺畅些了。

　　4、法语词混杂其中。bastille是巴士底狱（已经读了大半了才发现），Monseigneur是阁下，madame是女士，还有不少但是找不到了，出现时也查查字典，法语词就那么些，会反复出现，不查可能影响阅读，反正法语词好认。

　　下面是一些摘抄。文字到动情处，撼天动地。

　　"When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the chruch, across the mill, across the prison-seemed to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!"

　　一名极刑旁观者的回忆。the shadow-即吊杆的影子，夸张地被描述成快要爬向天边，诡异，冷色调。而"stuck across the church, across the mill, acrosst eh prison"也预示着暴政之下即将爆发的反抗。

　　"'I tell thee," said madame, extending her right hand for emphasis, 'that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops, I tell thee it is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock you.'"

　　这是madame Defarge在丈夫革命信念动摇时说的话。madame Defarge在开头，是一个每天默不作声只一直倚着酒坊墙织衣的古怪女性（下一篇摘抄中有描述），革命前夕，才发现原来她是坚定的革命者。然而革命成功后，她的革命狂热又让人惊异甚至厌恶。作者笔下一个人物能够引领读者对她在不同时期产生截然不同的印象，而又不失逻辑，是人物塑造的成功。

　　"Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bell, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thunder cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched voice, that night all-potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.

　　knitting这种生活场景在此处如鼓点，如战歌，产生了强烈的对比。画面感十足的暴力反抗的序幕拉开，女人，镇定，平静，却又狰狞，狂暴。

　　"See!" said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand toward the moon. "I have looked at the moon from my prison window when it was painful to look at. I have looked at it when it was such torture to think of the moon shining on all that I had lost that I beat my head against my cell walls."

　　Doctor Manette被监禁18年，他绝望到需要用做工匠活去缓和自己的痛楚，直到后来成为他精神病的标志。我读这本书时适逢结束一段感情，我强迫自己读下去，以抵抗思绪回到会引起我痛苦的部分。我感同身受啊，Doctor Manette。

　　For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam.

　　这是Mr. Lorry在Lucie结婚前对她的祝福。Mr. Lorry在全篇中一直是一位忠实的老友，尽职的银行职员，可敬的长者。他不涉及关键情节，却让人产生信赖。

　　The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds and flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far we are pursued by nothing else.

　　结尾，逃亡，匆匆，辽远，悲欢离合终场，只剩下马车吱吖。

　　I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.

　　为自己爱的人去赴死，也为了正义赴死，重复着这句祷告，没有恐惧，只有圣人般平和的面容。

　　"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

　　全篇经典，掷地有声，

　　最后是本书开头的序里的一句评论。

　　"He(Dickens) cuts the distance of the title and of the novel's overture down to size, making clear that the soul itself-not continents, not epochs- is the measure of separateness."

字数：1201
原作者：Ringwoodite
原网址：https://book.douban.com/review/5457040/