Books Within Books　书中书

Books Within Books

书中书

Max Beerbohm

马克斯·比尔博姆

作者简介

马克斯·比尔博姆（Max Beerbohm，1872—1956），英国散文家、剧评家、漫画家。他出生于伦敦，在牛津大学接受高等教育，1898年接替萧伯纳成为《星期六评论》（Saturday Review）的戏剧评论家。他于1911年出版了小说《朱莱卡·多布森》（Zuleika Dobson），嘲讽了牛津大学里的荒诞生活。比尔博姆以讽刺文学作品中的矫揉造作和荒诞不经见长，其文笔睿智老辣，漫画风格独特，被英国文豪萧伯纳（George Bernard Shaw）誉为“举世无双的马克斯”。

本文节选自比尔博姆1914年出版的文集《即使在当下》（And Even Now），主要谈论“书中书”，即小说中虚构人物写成的虚构作品。作者眼光独到，想象奇特，对五花八门的“书中书”如数家珍，令人大开眼界。

They must, I suppose, be classed among biblia a-biblia [Greek]. Ignored in the catalogue of any library, not one of them lurking in any uttermost cavern under the reading-room of the British Museum, none of them ever printed even for private circulation, these books written by this and that character in fiction are books only by courtesy and good will.

But how few, after all, the books that are books! Charles Lamb let his kind heart master him when he made that too brief list of books that aren't. Book is an honourable title, not to be conferred lightly. A volume is not necessarily, as Lamb would have had us think, a book because it can be read without difficulty. The test is, whether it was worth reading. Had the author something to set forth? And had he the specific gift for setting it forth in written words? And did he use this rather rare gift conscientiously and to the full? And were his words well and appropriately printed and bound? If you can say Yes to these questions, then only, I submit, is the title of “book”deserved. If Lamb were alive now, he certainly would draw the line closer than he did. Published volumes were few in his day (though not, of course, few enough). Even he, in all the plenitude of his indulgence, would now have to demur that at least 90 percent of the volumes that the publishers thrust on us, so hectically, every spring and autumn, are abiblia [Greek].

What would he have to say of the novels, for example? These commodities are all very well in their way, no doubt. But let us have no illusions as to what their way is. The poulterer who sells strings of sausages does not pretend that every individual sausage is in itself remarkable. He does not assure us that “this is a sausage that gives furiously to think,”or “this is a singularly beautiful and human sausage,”or “this is undoubtedly the sausage of the year.”Why are such distinctions drawn by the publisher? When he publishes, as he sometimes does, a novel that is a book (or at any rate would be a book if it were decently printed and bound) then by all means let him proclaim its difference—even at the risk of scaring away the majority of readers.

I admit that I myself might be found in that majority. I am shy of masterpieces; nor is this merely because of the many times I have been disappointed at not finding anything at all like what the publishers expected me to find. As a matter of fact, those disappointments are dim in my memory: it is long since I ceased to take publishers' opinions as my guide. I trust now, for what I ought to read, to the advice of a few highly literary friends. But so soon as I am told that I “must”read this or that, and have replied that I instantly will, I become strangely loth to do anything of the sort. And what I like about books within books is that they never can prick my conscience. It is extraordinarily comfortable that they don't exist.

And yet—for, even as Must implants distaste, so does Can't stir sweet longings—how eagerly would I devour these books within books! What fun, what a queer emotion, to fish out from a four penny-box, in a windy by-street, Walter Lorraine, by Arthur Pendennis, or Passion Flowers, by Rosa Bunion! I suppose poor Rosa's muse, so fair and so fervid in Rosa's day, would seem a trifle fatigued now; but what allowances one would make! Lord Steyne said of Walter Lorraine that it was “very clever and wicked.”I fancy we should apply neither epithet now. Indeed, I have always suspected that Pen's maiden effort may have been on a plane with The Great Hoggarty Diamond. Yet I vow would I not skip a line of it.

Who Put Back the Clock? is another work which I especially covet. Poor Gideon Forsyth! He was abominably treated, as Stevenson relates, in the matter of that grand but grisly piano; and I have always hoped that perhaps, in the end, as a sort of recompense, Fate ordained that the novel he had anonymously written should be rescued from oblivion and found by discerning critics to be not at all bad. Such a humiliation as Gideon's is the more poignant to me because it is so rare in English fiction. In nine cases out of ten, a book within a book is an immediate, an immense success.

On the whole, our novelists have always tended to optimism—especially they who have written mainly to please their public. It pleases the public to read about any sort of success. The greater, the more sudden and violent the success, the more valuable is it as ingredient in a novel. And since the average novelist lives always in a dream that one of his works will somehow “catch on”as no other work ever has caught on yet, it is very natural that he should fondly try meanwhile to get this dream realised for him, vicariously, by this or that creature of his fancy. True, he is usually too self-conscious to let this creature achieve his sudden fame and endless fortune through a novel. Usually it is a play that does the trick. In the Victorian time it was almost always a book of poems. Oh for the spacious days of Tennyson and Swinburne! In how many a three-volume novel is mentioned some “slim octavo”which seems, from the account given, to have been as arresting as Poems and Ballads without being less acceptable than Idylls of the King! These verses were always the anonymous work of some very young, very poor man, who supposed they had fallen still-born from the press until, one day, a week or so after publication, as he walked “moodily”and “in a brown study”along the Strand, having given up all hope now that he would ever be in a position to ask Hilda to be his wife, a friend accosted him—“Seen The Thunderer this morning? By George, there's a column review of a new book of poems,”etc. In some three-volume novel that I once read at a seaside place, having borrowed it from the little circulating library, there was a young poet whose sudden leap into the front rank has always laid a special hold on my imagination. The name of the novel itself I cannot recall; but I remember the name of the young poet—Aylmer Deane; and the forever unforgettable title of his book of verse was Poments: Being Poems of the Mood and the Moment. What would I not give to possess a copy of that work?

Though he had suffered, and though suffering is a sovereign preparation for great work, I did not at the outset foresee that Aylmer Deane was destined to wear the laurel. In real life I have rather a flair for future eminence. In novels I am apt to be wise only after the event. There the young men who do in due course take the town by storm have seldom shown (to my dull eyes) promise. Their spoken thoughts have seemed to me no more profound or pungent than my own. All that is best in these authors goes into their work. But, though I complain of them on this count, I admit that the thrill for me of their triumphs is the more rapturous because every time it catches me unawares. One of the greatest emotions I ever had was from the triumph of The Gift of Gifts. Of this novel within a novel the author was not a young man at all, but an elderly clergyman whose life had been spent in a little rural parish. He was a dear, simple old man, a widower. He had a large family, a small stipend. Judge, then, of his horror when he found that his eldest son, “a scholar at Christminster College, Oxbridge,”had run into debt for many hundreds of pounds. Where to turn? The father was too proud to borrow of the neighbourly nobleman who in Oxbridge days had been his “chum.”Nor had the father ever practised the art of writing. (We are told that “his sermons were always extempore.”) But, years ago, “he had once thought of writing a novel based on an experience which happened to a friend of his.”This novel, in the fullness of time, he now proceeded to write, though “without much hope of success.”He knew that he was suffering from heart-disease. But he worked “feverishly, night after night,”we are told, “in his old faded dressing-gown, till the dawn mingled with the light of his candle and warned him to snatch a few hours' rest, failing which he would be little able to perform the round of parish duties that awaited him in the daytime.”No wonder he had “not much hope.”No wonder I had no spark of hope for him. But what are obstacles for but to be overleapt? What avails heart-disease, what avail eld and feverish haste and total lack of literary training, as against the romantic instinct of the lady who created the Rev. Charles Hailing? “The Gift of Gifts was acclaimed as a masterpiece by all the first-class critics.”Also, it very soon “brought in”ten times as much money as was needed to pay off the debts of its author's eldest son. Nor, though Charles Hailing died some months later, are we told that he died from the strain of composition. We are left merely to rejoice at knowing he knew at the last “that his whole family was provided for.”

I wonder why it is that, whilst these Charles Hailings and Aylmer Deanes delightfully abound in the lower reaches of English fiction, we have so seldom found in the work of our great novelists anything at all about the writing of a great book. It is true, of course, that our great novelists have never had for the idea of literature itself that passion which has always burned in the great French ones. Their own art has never seemed to them the most important and interesting thing in life. Also it is true that they have had other occupations—fox-hunting, preaching, editing magazines, what not. Yet to them literature must, as their own main task, have had a peculiar interest and importance.

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt. It is nonsense to imagine that our great novelists have just forged ahead or ambled along, reaching their goal, in the good old English fashion, by sheer divination of the way to it. A fine book, with all that goes to the making of it, is as fine a theme as a novelist can have. But it is a part of English hypocrisy—or, let it be more politely said, English reserve—that, whilst we are fluent enough in grumbling about small inconveniences, we insist on making light of any great difficulties or griefs that may beset us. And just there, I suppose, is the reason why our great novelists have shunned great books as subject-matter.

…

I crave—it may be a foolish whim, but I do crave—ocular evidence for my belief that those books were written and were published. I want to see them all ranged along goodly shelves. A few days ago I sat in one of those libraries which seem to be doorless. Nowhere, to the eye, was broken the array of serried volumes. Each door was flush with the surrounding shelves; across each the edges of the shelves were mimicked; and in the spaces between these edges the backs of books were pasted congruously with the whole effect. Some of these backs had been taken from actual books, others had been made specially and were stamped with facetious titles that rather depressed me. “Here,”thought I, “are the shelves on which Dencombe's works ought to be made manifest. And Neil Paraday's too, and Vereker's.”Not Henry St. George's, of course: he would not himself have wished it, poor fellow! I would have nothing of his except Shadowmere. But Ray Limbert!—I would have all of his, including a first edition of The Major Key, “that fiery-hearted rose as to which we watched in private the formation of petal after petal, and flame after flame”; and also The Hidden Heart, “the shortest of his novels, but perhaps the loveliest,”as Mr. James and I have always thought…How my fingers would hover along these shelves, always just going to alight, but never, lest the spell were broken, alighting!

我想，它们一定属于希腊语中的“非书之书”。它们不见于任何藏书目录，没有潜伏在大英博物馆阅览室最幽深的角落里，一本也没有印出来过，哪怕是供私下流通。这些书出自小说里的虚构人物之手，纯粹是美好设想的产物。

但毕竟，真正能称之为书的作品又有几本呢！查尔斯·兰姆曾开列过一份书单。他心慈手软，只列了寥寥几本“非书之书”。“书”是个光荣的称谓，不可轻易获得。兰姆提醒我们，读来毫无困难的书不一定可称之为书。关键在于，此书是否值得一读：作者是否言之有物？下笔时是否有如神助？行文是否秉正翔实？印刷、装帧是否恰如其分？我认为，只有你对上述问题都回答“是”，这部作品才配得上“书”的称号。如果兰姆活在当下，他定的标准或许会更严格。在他的年代，出版的作品不多。（当然，仍然不够少。）眼见如今出版商在每年春秋两季如此疯狂地推出新书，即使是他这么宽宏大量的人，也会认定其中至少有90％称不上是书。

那么，他会如何评价小说？无疑，这些商品一经宣传会很有市场。但我们暂不考虑宣传。叫卖成串香肠的家禽贩子不会假装其中每一根极为出色。他不会向我们保证“这根香肠发人深省”或“这是一根极其美妙而彰显人性的香肠”或“这无疑是年度香肠”。那为什么出版商要关注这种区别？有时，他们出版了一部可称之为书的小说（如果印刷、装帧恰当，至少看上去是本书），却想尽办法来宣扬这种区别，甚至是冒着吓跑大多数读者的危险。

我承认，自己属于大多数读者。我不愿读“大师杰作”；只因为我很多次大失所望地发现，出版商大肆宣传的作品名不符实。实际上，那些失望已渐渐淡出我的记忆，因为我早就不把出版商的宣传当作购书指南。如今，对于该读哪些书，我只相信一些精通文学的朋友的建议。但每当有人告诉我“必读”某书，我嘴里答应着马上看，心中却生出奇怪的抵触情绪。我之所以喜欢“书中书”，是因为它们从不让我良心不安。它们并不存在，这点让我特别舒心。

然而，“必读”会惹人反感，“读不到”则会激起甜蜜的渴望——我多想尽情品味“书中书”的芳泽！在凉风习习的街头，从4便士一本的廉价书箱里，淘到阿瑟·潘登尼斯1的《沃尔特·洛兰》或是罗莎·布尼恩的《激情之花》2，该是多么有趣、多么奇妙！我想，可怜的罗莎的灵感，在那个年代或许令人激情澎湃，现在看来却是老调重弹；但她能赚多少零花钱啊！斯泰因爵士3说《沃尔特·洛兰》“很机敏，很邪恶”。我想，时至今日这两个形容词都用不上了。事实上，我一直怀疑，潘登尼斯的处女作应该与《大钻石》4不相上下。但我发誓，书里每一行字我都不会跳过不看。

《光阴一去不复返》也是我垂涎已久的作品。可怜的吉迪恩·福赛斯5！据史蒂文森6所述，吉迪恩那部关于恐怖大钢琴的作品遭受了残酷的对待。我一直期望着，或许在最后一刻，命运之神会拯救他匿名写成的那部作品，让其免于被世人遗忘，让挑剔的批评家发现它并不糟糕，以此作为对他的补偿。吉迪恩遭受的羞辱让我倍感心痛，因为这种情况在英国小说中极少出现。书里出现的书十之八九会一炮打响、大获成功。

总的来说，我们的小说家总是抱有乐观主义精神，尤其是那些用文字取悦大众的人。他们用各种各样的成功来取悦大众。成功越巨大、来得越突然、越猛烈，这个情节在小说里就越重要。由于小说家一般都心怀梦想，希望自己的某部作品能“风靡一时”，取得前所未有的成功，他们自然会通过笔下人物为自己间接实现这个梦想。没错，作者通常很有自知之明，不好意思让笔下人物靠写小说一夜成名、财源滚滚。他们往往靠写戏剧取得成功。在维多利亚时代，在丁尼生和斯温伯恩7的自由繁荣的时代，一本诗集就能使人成功。多少三卷本小说提到过“薄薄的八开本”诗集——从书中描述来看，它们和《诗歌及民谣》一样引人入胜，和《国王叙事诗》一样大受欢迎！这些诗通常是某个穷小子的匿名作品，他从未奢望自己的作品能付梓。直到某一天，在诗集出版后一周左右，他“心情烦躁、心不在焉地”走在斯特兰德大街8上，放弃了向希尔达求婚的打算。这时，一个朋友和他打招呼：“看今天早上的《雷神报》了吗？乔治的专栏评论了一本新诗集。”等等。我曾在海边读过某部从小型流动图书馆借来的三卷本小说。书里有位一举成名的年轻诗人，此人给我留下了深刻印象。我已记不得小说的名字，却记住了年轻诗人的名字——艾尔默·迪恩，还有他那本令我永世难忘的诗集的标题——《诗，瞬间心情之花》。为了拥有这样一本作品，我可以不惜代价。

尽管艾尔默·迪恩曾历经磨难，且磨难往往是杰作极好的前奏，但我起初并没有想到他能摘得桂冠。在现实生活中，我擅长预知未来的成功；但看小说时，我却是事后诸葛。以我的愚钝之眼看，那些事后火遍全城的年轻人，之前并未展示出多少天赋。在我看来，他们的作品里表达的思想不比我的深刻或犀利多少。这还是作者最优秀的思想渗入作品的结果呢。尽管我对作品颇有微词，但我得承认，他们的成功总能在不知不觉之中让我惊喜感动。我最激动的一次是读到《天赋之礼》这部小说中的小说大获成功之时。故事主角不是年轻人，而是一位年迈的牧师。他一辈子都生活在某个农村的小教区。他是一位和蔼可亲、生活简朴的老人，也是一个鳏夫。他有一大家子人，收入却少得可怜。后来，他惊恐地发现长子、“牛津大学基督教士学院的学者”，背负了数百英镑的债务。该找谁帮忙？这位父亲自尊心很强，不愿向关系不错的贵族、昔日在牛津的“密友”开口借钱。这位父亲也没有任何写作经验。（作者告诉我们，“他的布道都是即兴演讲”。）但多年以前，“他曾计划以友人的故事为素材撰写一部小说”。如今时机已经成熟，他开始动笔写这部小说，尽管“不抱成功的希望”。他知道自己患有心脏病。但据书中所写，“他穿着陈旧褪色的睡袍，彻夜伏案，奋笔疾书；直到晨光依稀，烛光黯淡，才休息几个小时，以便白天履行教区职责”。难怪他“没抱什么希望”，难怪连我都不看好他。但有什么障碍是不能逾越的呢？心脏疾病、年老体衰、狂热急切、缺乏文学训练，这些怎么能对抗创造查尔斯·黑林牧师的女作家的浪漫情怀？“所有一流的评论家都宣称《天赋之礼》是一部杰作。”此外，钱也很快“到手”，这一大笔钱是其长子所欠债务的十倍。尽管查尔斯·黑林几个月后就撒手人寰，但他是否死于过度劳累，我们不得而知。我们看到他在弥留之际深知“家人将衣食无忧”，只会满腔喜悦。

我一直想知道，为什么英国廉价小说里乐于频频出现查尔斯·黑林和艾尔默·迪恩这样的人，我们伟大的小说家却很少让主人公撰写杰作。没错，相较于法国小说家始终燃烧的写作热情，我们伟大的小说家从来对文学创作本身没什么热情。在他们看来，文学创作从来不是生活中最重要、最有趣的部分。没错，他们往往身兼数职——猎狐、布道、编辑杂志等等。但文学创作作为其主业，应该是兴趣独具、尤为重要的事。

没有专心致志和自我牺牲，没有埋头苦干和怀疑精神，就不可能写出一本好书。如果你认为，我们伟大的小说家单靠推测写书的过程，就能依照英国传统方式那样或快或慢地取得成功，那你就是大错特错了。一本好书由许多因素共同促成，小说家选择的主题在其中最为重要。但由于英式的伪善——或更礼貌地说，英式的矜持——我们一方面抱怨鸡毛蒜皮的小麻烦，一方面轻视可能困扰我们的大麻烦。我想，正因为如此，我们伟大的小说家避免用“伟大的作品”作为主题。

……

我渴望——或许是愚蠢的心血来潮，但我确实渴望——亲眼见到那些书完成创作、出版。我想看见它们整齐排列在精美的书架上。几天前，我就坐在那样一间看不见门的书房里。放眼望去，屋里尽是一排排密集的书卷，每扇门都被四周的书架淹没，每个书架都极其相似；为了整体效果的美观，书架上放满了装帧一致的书脊。有些是真正作品的书脊，其他则是特制的书脊，上面印着滑稽的书名。这让我相当沮丧。我想：“邓库姆的作品应该放在这个书架上展示，尼尔·帕拉迪和维里克的作品也该放在这儿。”当然，别放亨利·圣乔治的作品——那个可怜人自己肯定也不愿意！除了《绝影》之外，我不会买他的其他作品。但雷·林伯特可不同！——我想拥有他的全部作品，包括《大调》的初版。那本书里有这么一句话：“我们看着那朵火焰玫瑰如何铸就，一片花瓣接一片花瓣，一簇火焰接一簇火焰。”我还想要《隐藏之心》9。我与詹姆斯先生一致认为，该书是“他最短的或许也是最美的一部小说”。……我的手指在书架边盘旋，欲落未落；唯恐指尖落下，咒语便被打破。

* * *

作者是否言之有物？下笔时是否有如神助？行文是否秉正翔实？印刷、装帧是否恰如其分？我认为，只有你对上述问题都回答“是”，这部作品才配得上“书”的称号。

Max Beerbohm 马克斯·比尔博姆

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1．阿瑟·潘登尼斯，英国小说家威廉·梅克比斯·萨克雷作品《潘登尼斯》中的主人公。

2．英国小说家威廉·梅克比斯·萨克雷曾以迈克尔·安杰洛·提特马斯为笔名，在报纸杂志上发表了一系列附有自创插画的故事和讽刺文章。他去世后，人们将“提特马斯”的文章集结成册，名为《提特马斯的圣诞读物》。罗莎·布尼恩是书中出现的一位女诗人，《激情之花》是她的诗集。

3．斯泰因爵士，《潘登尼斯》里的人物。

4．《大钻石》，英国小说家威廉·梅克比斯·萨克雷的另一部作品。

5．吉迪恩·福赛斯，英国作家罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森的讽刺幽默小说《入错棺材死错人》中的人物。

6．罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森（Robert Louis Stevenson，1850—1894），苏格兰小说家、诗人与旅游作家，其冒险小说《金银岛》最为人熟知。

7．阿尔加侬·查尔斯·斯温伯恩（Algernon Charles Swinburne，1837—1909），英国诗人、批评家。

8．斯特兰德大街，英国伦敦中西部的一条大街。

9．亨利·詹姆斯写过一组描写作家、艺术家生活的中短篇小说。邓库姆、尼尔·帕拉迪、维里克、亨利·圣乔治和雷·林伯特均为其笔下的作家。《绝影》《大调》和《隐藏之心》分别是这些虚构作家的作品。