她是公认的经典作家，她拥有全世界范围的铁杆“简迷”，她的书长年畅销并被无数次改编成电影、电视，甚至是电玩游戏。大概没有任何一个作家能像简·奥斯汀这样，在其作品被奉为经典的同时，受到流行文化如此广泛而持久的青睐。那么，究竟是什么成就了奥斯汀的魅力？又究竟有多少人真正静下心来读懂了她笔下的世界呢？
The Magic of Jane Austen
Jane Austen probably can’t compete yet with Shakespeare or Dickens for the greatest number of adaptations, tie-ins1) and other epiphenomena2). Dickens has a theme park in Chatham, England, while the Austen-themed resort called Pembrook Park exists so far only in Austenland, a just-published chick-lit novel by Shannon Hale, whose author’s note describes her as “an avid Austen fan.”
若论改编作品、搭卖品或其他衍生产品的数量谁最多，简·奥斯汀或许还无法跟莎士比亚或狄更斯相匹敌。在查塔姆有一个关于狄更斯的主题公园，而以奥斯汀为主题的彭布鲁克公园目前还只存在于《奥斯汀乐园》中，这是香农·黑尔刚刚发表的一部女性文学小说，在作者手记中黑尔自称是“铁杆奥斯汀迷”。
Last summer, a British actress
named Emma Campbell Webster published Lost in Austen: Create Your
Own Jane Austen Adventure, an interactive fiction game with you as
the main character. Your mission is “to marry both prudently and
for love.” And in August, 2007, the film Becoming Jane invents an
Elizabeth/Darcy-esque3) love affair between 20-year-old Jane and a
rebellious young lawyer.
去年夏天，英国女演员埃玛·坎贝尔·韦伯斯特出版了《迷失于奥斯汀：创造属于自己的简·奥斯汀奇遇》——一部以互动游戏为内容的作品，游戏的主角就是你。你的任务是“既要慎重，又要为了爱情而结婚”。2007年8月，电影《成为简·奥斯汀》虚构了20岁的简与叛逆不羁的年轻律师之间发生的一段“伊丽莎白——达西式”的爱情故事。
Austen is the Virginia Woolf4) of
today: a certifiably great novelist starring in books and films,
yet one who might go to the same manicurist as you. Shakespeare and
Dickens were pop-culture entertainers in centuries past, but as
familiar as they remain, they’ve sunk into venerability. Austen,
on the other hand, has become our contemporary. Nobody would be
surprised to see her shelved at Barnes & Noble5)
between Margaret Atwood6) and Julian Barnes7). Like Norah Jones8),
Austen seems to offer middlebrow entertainment with an up-market
sheen9). Like BMW, Prada and Martha Stewart10), she’s now a
brand.
奥斯汀就是今天的弗吉尼亚·沃尔夫：一位毋庸置疑的伟大小说家，常常成为书籍和电影中的主角，然而也是一个会像你一样光顾同一家美甲店的平凡女子。在过去几个世纪中，莎士比亚和狄更斯是为人们提供娱乐的流行文化的代表。不过，他们虽然仍旧为人们所熟知，却早已变成受人尊敬的圣人。而奥斯汀却相反，她成为我们同时代的人。在巴诺书店，如果看到她的作品被放在玛格丽特·阿特伍德和朱利安·巴恩斯的作品之间，相信没人会感到惊讶。就像诺拉·琼斯一样，奥斯汀似乎给中产阶级提供了一种高品味的娱乐。如同宝马、普拉达和玛莎·斯图尔特，她现在是一个品牌。
So why her? And why here? Let’s
start with the obvious. Austen caters to Americans’ perennial11)
Anglophilia12)—as does that odd preoccupation with the royals.
With that, she offers Regency13) variants of the Cinderella14)
story—the central fable about class, and about marriage. Most
obviously, she’s one of history’s great storytellers. She
contrives plots to prevent you from putting the book down, writes
dialogue so well that you hear her characters in your ear. Those
characters seem as real and idiosyncratic15) as those in
Shakespeare or Dickens.
那为什么是奥斯汀呢？为什么是在美国呢？我们从明显的原因谈起。奥斯汀迎合了美国人长期以来的崇英情结——以及对王室的莫名痴迷。在这方面，奥斯汀提供了摄政时期版本的灰姑娘故事——也是讲述阶层和婚姻的核心寓言。最显而易见的是，她是历史上最擅长讲故事的人。她在小说中设计的情节让你拿起书就放不下，撰写的对话也绘声绘色，让你觉得仿佛能听到书中人物在耳边讲话。这些人物有血有肉，各有特色，跟莎士比亚或狄更斯笔下的人物一样。
Why now? Clearly Austen started to become a brand
with all those Austen films of a few years back. But the motor of
all her books—courtship leading up to marriage—has a strong
resonance in the socially conservative 2000s. Still more creepy18),
a version of Austen’s world has become the American Dream—at
least as dreamed by advertisers and the entertainment industry.
Austen’s orderly, decorous16) world has an Augustan balance and
sanity—just the place to which we’d like to retreat after each
day’s news.
那为什么是现在呢？很明显，通过近几年拍摄的奥斯汀作品的影片，奥斯汀已开始成为一种品牌。但是她所有作品的主题——从求爱到步入婚姻殿堂——在21世纪这个社会比较保守的时期引起强烈的共鸣。奥斯汀笔下的世界已经成为了美国梦——至少是广告客户和娱乐业的梦。奥斯汀的世界里，一切井然有序，人人彬彬有礼，颇有古罗马奥古斯都时代的和谐与理性——是那种我们听够了一天的新闻，想隐退其间的地方。
Austen is now one of those writers
held up as a model by some nostalgics17): a novelist for everyone,
dishing up literary intricacy18) and complexity for the scholars, a
good read for the groundlings19) and a rebuke for the snobs. But
it’s time to rescue Austen from her fans, lest the most
adventurous and discerning readers pass her by. If you look at her
books closely, you find them more bleak than charming: her
characters are isolated within their own minds, trapped in tight
spaces, forced to socialize daily with a small group of people they
can never fully trust, including their own families. Not one of her
heroines ever shares everything with a true confidant, and
everybody has secrets. Courtship is deadly serious business: fail
to find the right husband and you end up poor, or married to
someone you can’t stand.
如今，奥斯汀是被一些怀旧人士奉为经典的作家之一：适合所有人口味的小说家，给学者提供错综复杂的文学话题，给普通大众优秀的读物，同时给势利小人以驳斥痛击。但是，现在是把奥斯汀从她的“粉丝”那里解救出来的时候了，不然最富有冒险精神和敏锐眼光的读者可能就错过她了。如果细读她的作品，你会发现凄凉的成分大于迷人的部分：她笔下的人物都活在自己的思想里，与外隔绝，困于狭小的一隅，每天被迫与一小撮自己永远无法充分信任的人打交道，这其中包括他们的家人。她的女主人公中没有任何一个人会把所有的心里话与真正的知己分享，人人各怀心事。求婚是异乎重要的大事：找不到理想的丈夫就得过穷日子，要不就得嫁给一个自己无法忍受的人。
Austen balances out that bleakness
with wisdom, with humor, with romance, and above all with a deeply
satisfying sense of form, analyzed by scholars and sensed by
general readers. Entertainment, advertising, professional sports,
the gossip industry, electro-gaming and the tsunamis of digital
information seem calculated to obliterate20) that bleakness, or at
least drown it out with noise. Literature, by contrast, tries to
find the pain and disorder of life inside and outside the mind. If
people of High Seriousness pass up Austen because of the prevalent
notion that she’s a literary fashion accessory...well, what? The
sky won’t fall, the books will survive, but the culture will
ratchet down another notch, and the best readers will never know
what they’re missing.
奥斯汀用智慧、幽默、浪漫以及最突出的一点——非常令人赏心悦目的形式感，冲淡了她作品中的这种凄凉色彩。娱乐、广告、职业运动、八卦行业、电玩业以及数字信息的洪流好像都要抹去那一丝凄凉，或者至少想用噪音来将其淹没。而与此形成对照的是，文学则试图在思想内外找到有关生活的痛苦和无序。目前流行的看法认为奥斯汀是文学的一个时尚配饰，如果思想高度严肃的人因为这样的看法而忽视奥斯汀的话，那……不过，那又能怎么样呢？天不会塌下来，书照样会留存后世，但是文化会下一个台阶，而最好的读者将永远无法知道他们错过了什么。
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