求村上春树的《永远站在鸡蛋那边》

"Jerusalem Prize” Remarks
Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and generals tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies--which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true--the novelist can bring a truth out to a new place and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth-lies within us, within ourselves. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are only a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.
So let me tell you the truth. In Japan a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce fighting that was raging in Gaza. The U.N. reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded city of Gaza, many of them unarmed citizens--children and old people.
Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.
Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me-- and especially if they are warning me-- “Don’t go there,” “Don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that”. It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.
And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.
Please do allow me to deliver a message, one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will do it. But if there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.
But this is not all. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I truly believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories--stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
My father passed away last year at the age of ninety. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school in Kyoto, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the small Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the battlefield. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, and we are all fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong--and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from our believing in the warmth we gain by joining souls together.
Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System.
I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I would like to express my gratitude to the readers in Israel. You are the biggest reason why I am here. And I hope we are sharing something, something very meaningful. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today. Thank you very much.
中文译文：
今天我以一名小说家的身分来到耶路撒冷。而小说家，正是所谓的职业谎言制造者。
当然，不只小说家会说谎。众所周知，政治人物也会说谎。外交官、将军、二手车业务员、屠夫和建筑师亦不例外。但是小说家的谎言和其它人不同。没有人会责怪小说家说谎不道德。相反地，小说家愈努力说谎，把谎言说得愈大愈好，大众和评论家反而愈赞赏他。为什么？
我的答案是：藉由高超的谎言，也就是创作出几可乱真的小说情节，小说家才能将真相带到新的地方，也才能赋予它新的光辉。
在大多数的情况下，我们几乎无法掌握真相，也无法精准的描绘真相。因此，必须把真相从藏匿处挖掘出来，转化到另一个虚构的时空，用虚构的形式来表达。
但是在此之前，我们必须先清楚知道，真相就在我们心中的某处。这是小说家编造好谎言的必要条件。
今天，我不打算说谎。我会尽可能地诚实。我在一年之中只有几天不会说谎，今天刚好就是其中之一。
请容我告诉你们真相。
在日本，许多人建议我不要来这里接受耶路撒冷文学奖。甚至有人警告我，如果我坚持前来，他们会联合抵制我的小说。主要的原因，当然是迦萨正在发生的激烈战斗。
根据联合国调查，在被封锁的迦萨城内，已经有超过千人丧生，许多人是手无寸铁的平民、孩童和老人。
我收到获奖通知后，不断问自己：此时到耶路撒冷接受文学奖，是否正确？这会不会让人认为我支持冲突中的某一方，或认为我支持一个发动压倒性武力攻击的国家政策？老实说，我也不想看到自己的书被抵制。
经过反复思考，我还是决定来到这里。原因之一是，太多人反对我来。我和许多小说家一样，总是要做人们反对的事情。如果有人对我说，尤其是警告我说，「不要去」、「不要这么做」，我通常反而会特别想去、特别想做。
这就是小说家的天性。小说家是特别的族群，除非亲眼所见，亲手触摸，否则他们不会相信任何事情。
我来到这里，我选择亲身面对而非置身事外；我选择亲眼目睹而非蒙蔽双眼；我选择开口说话，而非沉默不语。
但是这不代表我要发表任何政治讯息。判断对错，当然是小说家的重要责任，但如何传递判断，每个作家有不同的选择。我个人偏好用故事、尤其用超现实的故事来表达。因此，我今天不会在你们面前发表任何直接的政治讯息。
不过，请容我在这里向你们传达一个非常私人的讯息。这是我创作时永远牢记在心的话语。我从未将这句话真正行诸文字或贴在墙壁，而是刻划在我心灵深处的墙上。这句话是这样的：“以卵击石，在高大坚硬的墙和鸡蛋之间，我永远站在鸡蛋那方。”
无论高墙是多么正确，鸡蛋是多么地错误，我永远站在鸡蛋这边。
谁是谁非，自有他人、时间、历史来定论。但若小说家无论何种原因，写出站在高墙这方的作品，这作品岂有任何价值可言？这代表什么意思呢？轰炸机、战车、火箭和白磷弹就是那堵高墙；而被它们压碎、烧焦和射杀的平民则是鸡蛋。这是这个比喻的其中一层涵义。
更深一层的看，我们每个人，也或多或少都是一枚鸡蛋。我们都是独一无二，装在脆弱外壳中的灵魂。你我也或多或少，都必须面对一堵名为「体制」的高墙。体制照理应该保护我们，但有时它却残杀我们，或迫使我们冷酷、有效率、系统化地残杀别人。
我写小说只有一个原因，就是给予每个灵魂尊严，让它们得以沐浴在阳光之下。故事的目的在于提醒世人，在于检视体制，避免它驯化我们的灵魂、剥夺灵魂的意义。我深信小说家的职责就是透过创作故事，关于生死、爱情、让人感动落泪、恐惧颤抖或开怀大笑的故事，让人们意识到每个灵魂的独一无二和不可取代。这就是我们为何日复一日，如此严肃编织小说的原因。
我九十岁的父亲去年过世。他是位退休老师和兼职的和尚。当他在京都的研究所念书时，被强制征召到中国打仗。身为战后出生的小孩，我很好奇为何他每天早餐前，都在家中佛坛非常虔诚地祈祷。有一次我问他原因，他说他是在为所有死于战争的人们祈祷，无论是战友或敌人。看着他跪在佛坛前的背影，我似乎感受到周遭环绕着死亡的阴影。
我父亲过世了，带走那些我永远无法尽知的记忆。但环绕他周遭那些死亡的阴影却留在我的记忆中。这是我从他身上继承的少数东西之一，却也是最重要的东西之一。
今天，我只希望能向你们传达一个讯息。我们都是人类，超越国籍、种族和宗教，我们都只是一枚面对体制高墙的脆弱鸡蛋。无论怎么看，我们都毫无胜算。墙实在是太高、太坚硬，也太过冷酷了。战胜它的唯一可能，只来自于我们全心相信每个灵魂都是独一无二的，只来自于我们全心相信灵魂彼此融合，所能产生的温暖。
请花些时间思考这点：我们每个人都拥有独特而活生生的灵魂，体制却没有。我们不能允许体制剥削我们，我们不能允许体制自行其道。体制并未创造我们：是我们创造了体制。
这就是我想对你们说的。