什么叫经典？－经典就是那种吸引你多次阅读，而每一次阅读都会带来惊喜的著作。

                                                   周郎语录

轻与重 －谁轻谁重？ 

    周郎的初读流于肤浅，感谢几位网友的批评。现摘录几点英文评价如下－绝对言简意赅。几段话刻画了小说的主人翁－两对男女和一只狗。

• Tomáš - The story's protagonist（主角）: a Czech surgeon and intellectual. Tomáš is a light-hearted womanizer （轻浮放荡的花花公子）who lives for his work. He considers sex and love to be distinct entities: he copulates （交媾） with many women but loves only his wife, Tereza. He sees no contradiction between these two positions. He explains womanizing as an imperative to explore female idiosyncrasies （特质）only expressed during sex. At first he views his wife as a burden whom he is obligated to take care of. After the Russian invasion, they escape to Zurich where he starts womanising again. Tereza, homesick returns to Prague. He quickly realises he wants to be with her and follows her home. He has to deal with the consequences of a letter to the editor in which he metaphorically likened the Czech Communists to Oedipus. Eventually fed up with life in Prague under the communist regime, he moves to the country with Tereza. He abandons his twin obsessions of work and womanizing and discovers true happiness with Tereza. His epitaph is He wanted the Kingdom of God on Earth.

• Tereza - Young wife of Tomáš. A gentle, intellectual photographer, she delves into dangerous and dissident photojournalism during the Soviet occupation of Prague. Tereza does not condemn Tomáš for his infidelities, instead characterizing herself as a weaker person. Tereza is mostly defined by her view of the body as disgusting and shameful, due to her mother's embrace of the body's grotesque functions. Throughout the book she fears simply being another body in Tomáš's array of women. Once Tomáš and Tereza move to the countryside she devotes herself to raising cattle and reading. During this time she becomes fond of animals, reaching the conclusion that they were the last link to the paradise abandoned by Adam and Eve, and becomes alienated from other people.

• Sabina - Tomáš' favorite mistress and closest friend. Sabina lives her life as an extreme example of lightness, taking profound satisfaction in the act of betrayal. She declares war on kitsch and struggles against the constraints imposed by her puritan ancestry and the Communist party. This struggle is shown through her paintings. She occasionally expresses excitement at humiliation, shown through the use of her grandfather's bowler hat, a symbol that is born during one sexual encounter with Tomáš, before it eventually changes meaning and becomes a relic of the past. Later in the novel she begins to correspond with Simon while living under the roof of some older Americans who admire her artistic skill. She expresses her desire to be cremated and thrown to the winds after death - a last symbol of eternal lightness.

• Franz - Sabina's lover and a Geneva professor and idealist. Franz falls in love with Sabina whom he considers a liberal and romantically tragic Czech dissident. Sabina considers both of those identities kitsch. He is a kind and compassionate man. As one of the novel's dreamers, he bases his actions on loyalty to the memories of his mother and of Sabina. His life revolves completely around books and academia eventually to the extent that he seeks lightness and ecstasy by participating in marches and protests, the last of which is a march in Thailand to the Cambodian border. In Bangkok after the march, he is mortally wounded during a mugging. Ironically, he always sought to escape his wife Marie-Claude's kitsch, but dies in her presence, allowing Marie-Claude to claim he always loved her. The inscription on his grave was: "A return after long wanderings."

• Karenin - The dog of Tomáš and Tereza. Although physically a female, the name given always alludes to masculinity, and is a reference to Anna's husband in Anna Karenina. Karenin displays extreme dislike of change. Once moved to the country, Karenin becomes more content as he is able to enjoy more attention from his owners. He also quickly befriends a pig named Mefisto. During this time Tomáš discovers that Karenin has cancer and even after removing a tumor it is clear that Karenin is going to die. On his deathbed he unites Tereza and Tomáš through his "smile" at their attempts to improve his health. Tereza invents an inscription for his grave: "Here lies Karenin. He gave birth to two rolls and a bee", a reference to a recent dream.

    在加州自我放逐的百般聊赖的日子里，不经意中我读了两部中文小说（广义而言包括翻译的外国小说）。这还是三十年中的第一次（不包括读过几本英文小说）。当我78年走进医学院校门的那刻起，我已经在心中选择告别文史哲式的思维方式和生活轨途，转而全心全意地投入我十分陌生但跃跃欲试的科学生涯。虽然在DNA遗传密码里，我对文字的亲和和理解是与生铸就的－此话是反医学的艺文式表达，其实我想说的是生长在报刊主编和外国文学教授的家庭，在小学到高中期间，我是我那一辈少数幸运儿之一－有条件读过一些文艺类书籍（当时大多还是禁书）。但30年的疏远和20多年的异国漂流，我对读中文小说书有着恐惧心理，一怕深陷其中不能自拔(时间是要用来讨生活的）；二怕对故事中的逻辑格格不入；三怕对其文字表达以失去领悟力（尤其痛恨那些不明内涵的“硬翻”）。

    最近的两部书余华的《活着》和米兰，昆德拉的《不能承受生命之轻》都是由电影入手，然后看的书。看电影是我这样的文学门外汉现今可以享受的文化生活－属于快餐式。但这两次经历却颠覆了我对电影比书精彩的既定看法，从而认为看经典还是要看书比较透彻，当然看原著可能更好。这里不谈《活着》，还是乘着脑袋瓜还热着，谈一点对《不能承受生命之轻》的读后感。

    看这部书的时候，有多重回顾，看过几节之后，当时我就断定我曾经看过改编于此的电影，印象中这是一部非常精彩的电影，是政治与性的经典巨作。后来，又回忆起这是出国前风传的《布拉格之春》，列为情色电影之最。当下正值苏联即将解体，政治与性开始升温，年青人处于彷徨中的敏感时刻。周郎忙于出国，未能到当时充斥于街头巷尾的录像室一睹。但在茶饭之余还是不时听到同学大谈片中的乳波臀海，在当时的封闭社会感觉是匪夷所思。

   记不清哪一年看的电影，实际是看的是DVD，只是仅仅记住托马斯的扮演者－刘易斯和特雷莎的扮演者毕诺丘，对于片中的哲学意境完全没有理解。只是粗线条的记住了，这是捷克人反抗苏联控制的电影。电影的主人公是个脑外科医生，花花公子，但具有民族正义感。

   看了书之后，才对书所揭示的主题有了一些认识。如果把该书作为情色作品来读，大概是对它最大的亵渎：灵与肉，轻与重这些深奥的哲学概念通过刻画小说中的人物变成了一个个栩栩如生的具象。像托马斯，这个在20年中周旋与200多个女人的花花公子，能与无数女人做爱，但只爱妻子特雷莎。对于他来说，爱情是通过与她共眠来体现的。正是如此，在做爱后，他总是坚持把不爱的女人送走，当然其说辞是闪烁其词。作为男人，托马斯轻而易举地将性与爱区别开来，他对性流于轻浮。作为女人，爱与性在特雷莎则是天人合一，坚持对爱情坚贞。丈夫是她的一切，她的生活重心。为了不与其他女人分享托马斯，她甚至希望丈夫快快变老，而不再花心。米兰昆德拉将男人分成浪漫型和放荡型，托马斯属于后者。本书还描写萨比娜和佛兰茨两人的感情纠葛，后者为前者而背叛自己的婚姻，却发现前者为后者的背叛而背叛。

    这本书描写的是大政治－1968年的布拉格之春时局下两对男女的灵与肉，也即性。政治与性似乎是文艺作品永恒的主题。小说成于1984年、电影是1988年。

    女人总渴望承受一个男性身体的重量。于是，最沉重的负担同时也成了最强盛的生命力的影像。负担越重，我们的生命越贴近大地，它就越真切实在。

　　相反，当负担完全缺失，人就会变得比空气还轻，就会飘起来，就会远离大地和地上的生命，人也就只是一个半真的存在，其运动也会变得自由而没有意义。

　　那么，到底选择什么？是重还是轻？在周郎看来，是轻还是重，全在受者的感受。

    我就被它吸引了，不能不赞扬翻译家许均的功力－当然原作者的伟大更是不言之中。