aqiun

To: 同好yunyun

彩蛋：翻译的时候做了一些比较任性的选择：书里因为用了许多花草作人名，选择尽量意译，另外还模仿老版《飘》里的译名习惯，把名字汉化成单字姓，字也可以少打一点。单字的姓没有很大的发挥余地，但‘昌’正好通‘唱’字，声音和意思都配得上会打鸣的雄鸡家族，挺幸运的。‘流’字想表达Leer大夫的不可捉摸，‘浦’有同样的偏旁，算一点点剧透。‘棘’希望称得上寡妇的扎手，‘匈’当然是为了表达水手的痞子气。‘祟’一般和‘鬼’字形影不离，而Willy Wisp 非常接近鬼火（‘will o' the wisp’），但更主要是喜欢它是‘崇’字的李鬼，符合那位善用障眼法的红发青年。

补注：（不看完全不影响理解原文）
* Polydore Vigil 和 Ranulph 的名字可能取自两位中世纪学者，写过英国历史的Polydore Vergil和写过世界编年史的修士Ranulf Higden。热衷谐音和无稽之谈的Endymion Leer让人联想到写了许多无厘头诗歌的Edward Lear。Chanticleer 和 Leer 两个姓也有类似处，应有深意，可惜译名里无从体现。
* Mirrlees 本人化用了许多英国民间关于精灵的传说，（比如精灵怕铁器，香草驱邪），民歌“梦幻草” （原名粗鄙许多的“耧斗菜”）里有两节是她原创，但第1，2，4节是流传下来的佚名之作。楂樱草小姐学院里留下的那些破损的舞鞋和德国童话‘十二位起舞的公主’里的情节重合。
* Christina Rossetti 的长篇叙事诗 Goblin Market 也有可能为作者提供了灵感。
* 开篇引言作者Jane Harrison 是一位古典文学学者，Mirrlees和年长四十岁的她共住多年，思想上深受她的影响。
* 第六章里的‘金色圆规’应该和Phillip Pullman的书名《The Golden Compass》同样出自《失乐园》：

Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand

He took the golden compasses, prepared

In God's eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things:

One foot he centred, and the other turned

Round through the vast profundity obscure...

— Paradise Lost, Book 7, lines 224–229

apologia：这本书让我皱眉头的不止一处，在一名拳头硬硬的女权主义者听来，流大夫说寡妇‘通晓妇人该懂的一切’那句都莫名刺耳。作者的阶级观念比她的性别观念还要陈腐一些，寿菊太太大义凛然的‘我还从未遇到过能和我们势均力敌的下等人——只要对他们态度坚定，他们就会像狗一样乖乖臣服。’是捏着鼻子翻出来的。虽然完全可以理解作者的历史局限，毕竟这本书写在近一百年前，但真的要把这些雷人的句子用母语重申出来还是蛮别扭的。

本人初读原文后的读后感：
真是很好看。开篇就有惊喜，闲笔好看得花团锦簇。由此本来以为会是Melvyn Peake一脉，以辞藻氛围取胜，但再到后面层层叠叠，一年中四季更迭的田园风情之外，有俏皮的政治隐喻，有扎实的谋杀悬疑，立意情节也一点不输。作者从容地在调侃/诡异/温情之间无缝切换，kindle上区区两百多页里举重若轻地打造出一个别致的另世界和一干鲜活人物，还擅长用文字制造各种歧义迷惑读者，最后连这迷惑手段本身也是形而上学的，实在是妙。回头想起这本书比《指环王》足足早写了二十年，称它是给大人们看的英国奇幻小说的开山之作都不过分，更让人惊叹服帖。

但安利这本小说就觉得很有难度。身边看奇幻小说的朋友很少，就是看奇幻的很多也是喜欢更大场面的。悬疑部分也许是卖点，但和寻常whodunit的节奏几乎是反其道而行之：很慢热，1/4处少爷出了城才算引子交代完，2/3处老爷出城情节才加快了，但又一下子好像把答案和盘托出了，剩下还有十几章都干什么呢。这本书很早就在我的书单里了，一直看书名就提不起兴致，所以我自己这样不忌口的读者都多年懒得去看的书，又怎么热忱十分地推荐给别人，让别人快点来看呢？（它最有名的拥趸恐怕是Neil Gaiman，而他偏偏对我而言是比较无感的作者，对我而言自然也没多少说服力。）

别处的书评：

The story is, among other things: a cold-case murder mystery, with a play-by-the-rules solution worthy of John Dickson Carr or Dorothy Sayers; a psychological drama of self-discovery and generational conflict; a critique of British middle-class culture, including an aesthetic defense of aristocracy, ceremony and (by implication, or historical association) Roman Catholicism, against drab and (also by implication) Puritanical commercial modernity; and, above all, one of the finest adaptations of British fairy lore I have seen, effortlessly including in its scope medieval and Elizabethan versions, modern folklore, and even academic interpretations.

that is the true hallmark of the faerie story if nothing else — the sensual.

in the author’s own words, ‘A Story of Smuggling, Kidnapping and Adventures on the Borders of Fairyland’. If you like classifying novels, this is a tricky one: a fantasy, a comedy (in the older sense) perhaps, a thriller, an allegory, related in jewel-like prose and a wry tone.

Thus, while neither fairies nor Fairyland are idealised, they do represent an important dimension of human experience: the Dionysiac.

This novel, despite clearly being a fantasy, crosses quite a few other genres while yet feeling one of a kind. Is it a philosophical meditation or a detective story? Is it about the conflict of civic duty and personal honour or about family life versus personal quests? Is justice about vengeance and retribution or about readjusting balance? As a novel does it retain a core of realism or is it veering towards a self-indulgent idyll? It is a bit of all these things and yet Lud-in-the Mist is not heavy: there are comic touches aplenty in amongst the satire, smiles amidst the malice, love in the face of broken friendships.

Mirrlees quietly displays her erudition (for those that recognise it) with the names of Polydore Vigil and young Ranulph, both inspired by the medieval chroniclers Virgil and Higden; while Endymion Leer’s apparently nonsensical but soothing songs may owe not a little to Edward Lear’s verse as much as to traditional rhymes.

Nathaniel finds peace in the burial ground known as the Fields of Grammary at the highest point of Lud, and it is this locus — as the name suggests — that proves to be an unexpected interface between Dorimare and Fairyland.

The strand that ties all together is music. An opening quote about siren songs from Mirrlees’ long-time friend Jane Ellen Harrison plants that idea in our minds. Then it is Master Chanticleer (whose name derives from the French chante and clair and who’s deeply disturbed when first hears the Note) who makes the near-homophone connection between ‘malady’ and ‘melody’. Subsequently it’s the music of Willy Wisp and Portunus which affects Miss Crabapple’s young ladies in exactly the same way it did the Twelve Dancing Princesses in the German fairytale.

And is it a complete coincidence that Dorimare itself is reminiscent of the notes do-re-mi?

忍不住的八卦：
曾经一度我以为榛子和卢克是cp，哪知她嫁给了书里只一面之缘的水手... 再加上骚妞贝丝，可以让人脑补四角恋了。