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一個(gè)剛丟掉工作的失意記者,酒醉后被人毆打,幸得多年前的鄰居李楚唐搭救。隨后,他受雇去完成這位前詩(shī)人的心愿:從山城出發(fā),到一座海濱小城尋找與他失聯(lián)近九年的情人楊柳。到達(dá)后他發(fā)現(xiàn),楊柳八年前就已因車(chē)禍去世。消息確鑿,但疑竇重重。在職業(yè)本能的驅(qū)使下,他展開(kāi)了一番尋訪和調(diào)查??墒?,每當(dāng)一個(gè)謎團(tuán)打開(kāi),顯現(xiàn)的并非真相而是另一層迷霧。在抽絲剝繭之后,似乎每一個(gè)相關(guān)者都有那個(gè)動(dòng)機(jī)。不到最后一刻,并無(wú)真相可言。而在尋找過(guò)程中,圍繞記者本身的謎團(tuán)也漸次解開(kāi)……
《完美的七天》楔子里寫(xiě)到的那個(gè)院落,我相信我曾光顧過(guò)很多次。那是在重慶游客熱度最高的磁器口背街,就像一枚硬幣的另一面,和尋常假日里游人如織、幾乎總被他人的前行所裹挾的正面相反,那里可以稱(chēng)之為冷清的背面。幸存的幾只路燈,冷冷地照在灰黑的石板路上,遠(yuǎn)望像是一條膚淺的水流,踏著那曲里拐彎的甬道,幾經(jīng)周折,才得以進(jìn)得院內(nèi)。院子里是那種木結(jié)構(gòu)的老屋,有堂屋、廂房什么的,維持著自明清以來(lái)的結(jié)構(gòu)。院里顯眼的是幾蓬青翠的竹子,很纖細(xì)地斜立著,一口石缸足有半人那么高,承接著從天而降的雨露,坐在那屋門(mén)邊就可以觀望細(xì)碎的雨滴,打在竹葉上、院壩里,發(fā)出老鼠行軍那樣的窸窣之聲。
在那個(gè)舊時(shí)的院落里,我和宋尾不下一次地把酒言歡。我沒(méi)有想到宋尾會(huì)將那個(gè)老院借來(lái),當(dāng)做小說(shuō)里李楚唐接待遠(yuǎn)道而來(lái)的情人之地。但慢慢地回味后卻又覺(jué)得無(wú)比適宜,那種陰氣萌生的老舊去處,也真是這個(gè)故事再好不過(guò)的發(fā)生地了。
完美的七天,這是李楚唐對(duì)那場(chǎng)幾近憑空發(fā)生的艷遇的定義。一對(duì)在過(guò)去十年間互通款曲的筆友,突發(fā)奇想,要逃出各自的婚姻,在那個(gè)獨(dú)立世外的屋檐下做七天的虛擬夫妻,在李楚唐事后的追記中,那對(duì)情侶擁有最超凡脫俗的愛(ài)戀,他平素被真實(shí)人生所壓抑、消磨殆盡的野心和渴望,在七天得到了完美的釋放,他的征服欲在那個(gè)春天完成了又一次無(wú)可挑剔的戰(zhàn)役。
這其實(shí)只是這部長(zhǎng)篇的一個(gè)藥引。鏡頭拉開(kāi),我們很快發(fā)現(xiàn),那“完美的七天”絕非一座孤島,反而像神話(huà)里的息壤,生生不息,綿延出了一個(gè)又一個(gè)糾纏不休的人生,最終,導(dǎo)向了那個(gè)不可知的結(jié)局。
As for the courtyard mentioned in the prologue of Perfect Seven Days, I believed I have been there many times. That is in the side street of Ciqikou, the hottest place for tourists of Chongqing, which is just like the other side of a coin, contrary to the obverse side that it is packed with visitors in ordinary holidays, and visitors are always carried along by the advance of others, which can be called a deserted reverse side. The few street lamps glow coldly on the grey slate road, which are like a shallow flow looking into the distance. Treading in the winding path, after setbacks, you may go into the yard. There are old wooden houses in the yard,like central rooms, wing rooms, maintaining the structure since Ming and Qing Dynasties. Clumps of vibrant bamboos are conspicuous, leaning slenderly. A stone jar is half as tall as a man,holding rain and dew from the sky. Sitting by the door, you can watch the rain drops, beating on the bamboo leaves, flat front of the houses, with the rustle of a marching mouse.
In that old yard, I drank wine with Song Wei more than once. I never expected Song Wei would borrow that old courtyard, using as the place to receive lover from far away by Li Chutang in the novel. Nevertheless, after a slow aftertaste, I feel it is incomparably suitable, since that old place where the dark air sprouted is exactly the perfect setting for this story.
The perfect seven days is Li Chutang's definition of the affair almost occurred from nowhere. Two pen pals who expressed their love in the past ten years whimmed to escape their marriages and be a virtual couples of seven days under the isolated roof. In the post retrospective of Li Chutang, that lovers possess the most un-worldly love. His ambition and desire depressed and exhausted by true life in normal times was released perfectly in the seven days.His lust of conquest completed another impeccable campaign that spring.
This is actually a medicinal usher of this long novel. When the camera pans out, we quickly find that the "perfect seven days" are absolutely not an isolated island, but a growing soil that never grows out in fairy tales, everlasting, stretching out one entangled life after another, finally,leads to the unknown ending.
首先是作為故事敘述者的“我”和小朋。在他們眼中,李楚唐和楊柳,是一對(duì)略顯神秘的夫妻,他們從天而降又不辭而別,但他們濃情蜜意的卿卿我我,仍將陰影投射到了這對(duì)年輕人貧乏的感情生活中來(lái),并且最終還波及到多年以后,由“我”執(zhí)行的那場(chǎng)尋找楊柳的任務(wù)之上。
關(guān)鍵的是,這種旁觀的映照,讓那七天的完美和封閉瞬間松動(dòng),生出意味深長(zhǎng)的疑竇和不確定性,這種敘事的拼貼,幾乎立刻讓故事的這個(gè)發(fā)端籠罩上了一層迷霧。
宋尾接著設(shè)置了第二份記錄。關(guān)于那七天,另一位女性當(dāng)事人楊柳同樣擁有屬于她自己的詮釋?zhuān)耗莻€(gè)十年時(shí)間里迢迢指引著她的人生導(dǎo)師,卻并沒(méi)有想象中那樣完美,這讓她在日記里不禁喟嘆:“有些夢(mèng)幻不能去觸摸,夢(mèng)幻就是泡沫,進(jìn)入一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)現(xiàn)實(shí)的空氣就會(huì)因失衡而炸裂。”更要命的是,這讓楊柳背負(fù)起沉重的罪孽,她為填補(bǔ)這道德的虧空接連三次挪用公款,接濟(jì)債臺(tái)高筑的李楚唐,讓她愈發(fā)泥足深陷,“那個(gè)秘密成了一個(gè)繭,越來(lái)越大”,也成為她抑郁癥的起因,無(wú)可挽回地讓她踏上了末路。
可見(jiàn)在李楚唐那里高光閃耀的七日放縱,在楊柳那里卻是暗無(wú)天日的深淵。
另外一邊,楊柳死后,她的丈夫王學(xué)進(jìn)整理遺物時(shí),發(fā)現(xiàn)了妻子的日記和為李楚唐匯款的單據(jù)。他按圖索驥,實(shí)施了一場(chǎng)秘而不宣的特殊旅行,發(fā)出了“我真的了解我妻子嗎?”的終極詰問(wèn),并暗中操控,完成了對(duì)那個(gè)生意場(chǎng)上喪家之犬的無(wú)聲報(bào)復(fù)……
就這樣,宋尾將那貌似自給自足的七天最大限度地打散,不厭其煩地反復(fù)關(guān)照,如同畢加索《格爾尼卡》中立體主義的繪畫(huà)那樣,從特定的時(shí)空起飛,超越了寫(xiě)實(shí)主義的具象,帶我們來(lái)到當(dāng)下都市婚姻的滿(mǎn)目瘡痍,一片廢墟,充溢了追問(wèn)的語(yǔ)氣,鋪展開(kāi)悲涼的底色。
Firstly, it's "I", the story narrator and Xiao Peng. In their eyes, Li Chutang and Yang Liu, a slightly mysterious couple, fell from the sky and left without saying goodbye. But their great tenderness and intimate relations still cast a shadow over the poor love life of the young people, and finally affected "my" implementation of the task of finding Yang Liu many years later.
The essential is the onlooking reflection loosen the perfection and closure of seven days instantly, creating meaningful doubt and uncertainty. The collage of narrative almost immediately casts a misty over the start of the story.
Song Wei then set the second record. About the seven days, another female person concerned, Yang Liu, also owned her own definition: the life mentor that guides her for ten years was not perfect as imagined, which made her sign in the dairy: "Some dreams cannot be touched. Dreams are bubbles, which will burst out of balance for the air of reality entering a little bit." Even worse, this makes Yang Liu bear a heavy sin. To fill the moral deficit, she embezzled public funds for three times to help Li Chutang who was burdened with debts, which made her get into real troubles. "That secret becomes a cocoon, growing bigger and bigger", and also be a root of her depression, irrevocably put her to the end.
It can be seen that the seven-day indulgence glittering for Li Chutang is the abyss of darkness for Yang Liu.
On the other side, after the death of Yang Liu, her husband Wang Xuejin arranged her remains and found her dairy and the remittance receipt for Li Chutang. He followed up the clue and went on a secret special trip. He made the ultimate query "Do I really understand my wife? ",and secretly manipulated to complete the silent revenge for the bereaved dog in the business...
In this way, Song Wei broke up the seemingly self-sufficient seven days to the maximum.He repeated tirelessly, as the cubist painting of Picasso's Guernica, flying from a certain space and time, transcending over the representational realism, took us to the scenes of devastation and heaps of rubbles of the modern urban marriage,full of questioning tone, spreading out the sad background color.
偵探小說(shuō)在告別古典時(shí)代后,那個(gè)前往犯罪現(xiàn)場(chǎng)的獨(dú)行硬漢,通常不再會(huì)像柯南·道爾的福爾摩斯那樣智力超群,也不會(huì)像阿加莎·克里斯蒂的波洛那樣戲精上身,以雷蒙德·錢(qián)德勒的馬洛為代表,往往寡言沉默,酗酒,出沒(méi)于暗夜,還有揮之不去的心酸事。他們絕非炫耀頭腦和風(fēng)度的有閑紳士,往往不得不為了生計(jì),討要那點(diǎn)可憐的調(diào)查費(fèi),他們的艱辛生存、泯然眾人,或許,更容易引導(dǎo)讀者透視深沉的人性,還散發(fā)出憂(yōu)傷的詩(shī)意。
不知這部小說(shuō)里調(diào)查者的形象,在多大程度上受了雷蒙德·錢(qián)德勒的啟發(fā),但他那獨(dú)行俠、冥想者的設(shè)定,倒確鑿?fù)嘎冻雠c馬洛一脈相承的精神氣質(zhì),抑或也是局外人的一個(gè)當(dāng)代變體?
在閱讀過(guò)程中,這個(gè)調(diào)查者也是敘述人的形象,讓我反復(fù)玩味:一個(gè)都市報(bào)的記者,這個(gè)在多方面都如此接近馬洛慘淡人生的業(yè)余偵探,惟一缺失的,似乎只有馬洛的鐵拳,這也讓他在小說(shuō)中段的某個(gè)深夜,連接兩次的襲擊面前,幾無(wú)還手之力地陷入了昏迷。
After the detective novel bid farewell to the classical era, usually the lone tough guy who goes to the crime scene is no longer as superiorly intellectual as Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, nor being good at acting as Agatha Christie's Poirot, represented by Raymond Chandler's Marlowe, is often silent, hard-drinking,haunt nights with lingering distress. They are by no means idle gentlemen flaunting their brains and manners, but have to beg for a little money for their investigation just to make a living.Their hard life, being normal, perhaps, is easier to guide readers to look into the deep human nature, disseminating the poetry of sadness.
I wonder to what extent the image of the investigator in this novel was inspired by Raymond Chandler, but the setting of lone ranger,meditator, definitely reveals the spiritual temperament that is in line with Marlowe, or is it a contemporary variant of outsiders?
During reading, this investigator is also an image of narrator, and makes me chew it over: for the reporter for a city newspaper, the amateur detective who in many ways came so close to Marlowe's bleak life, the only thing he missed, it seems, is Marlowe's iron fist, this also left him in a coma late one night in the middle of the novel, in the face of two successive attacks.
我是如此沉迷于這個(gè)漫游者那些頗有幾分迷離的旁白。每當(dāng)故事陷于困局,或是那個(gè)更加幕后的作者預(yù)謀吊起我們的胃口,那大段大段的獨(dú)白就會(huì)如夜霧來(lái)襲,讓兩對(duì)絞殺的夫婦暫且退后,由著性子舔舐那無(wú)邊無(wú)際的孤獨(dú):
“對(duì)近視者而言,白天和晚上就像兩種截然不同的世界:一種是有限的清晰;一種是清晰的模糊?!?/p>
“夜晚的黑色里有一種奇異的我們不能得知的物質(zhì),能有力地削弱鏡片的穿透力。一片薄薄的鏡片背后,總有變形和你所不了解的部分。在熟悉的環(huán)境里我們或許適應(yīng)了這種差異,但在陌生的地方,夜色很大程度上夸大了這種不適感……”
“我徜徉在熙熙攘攘的人群里,很容易看見(jiàn)那種形只影單的孤獨(dú)……像一個(gè)吸血鬼一樣,長(zhǎng)著人的形狀,但無(wú)法真正地跟那些歡笑的、嬉戲的、甚至是木然的陌生人融為一體?!?/p>
一個(gè)喬裝的知識(shí)分子,一個(gè)隱藏的詩(shī)人,或許宋尾的本意并非是要將這個(gè)故事原原本本拋給我們,而是更愿意沉迷其中,引入那幾對(duì)夫妻生于斯的土壤、呼吸于斯的空氣。那些讓人無(wú)力抗拒的傷心,無(wú)解,欲言又止,或許才是宋尾的這部仿推理小說(shuō)真正想要告訴我們的存在之殤。
傳統(tǒng)推理小說(shuō)的真相大白,其實(shí)早已無(wú)足輕重,多種可能的并置,直至這部小說(shuō)的終結(jié),都并沒(méi)有被任何一項(xiàng)的鐵證撥云見(jiàn)日,正如小說(shuō)里說(shuō)的那樣:
“每個(gè)窗子背后都是一種人生,我們不知道的人生。秘密太多了,人人心里都有那么一些,人人都是這樣,以為睡在室內(nèi),其實(shí)是站在懸崖邊上……”
I am so addicted to the wanderer's somewhat blurred asides.Every time the story is in a dilemma, or the more behind-thescenes author plans to lift our appetite, that long monologue would strike like a fog at night, and let the two pairs of strangled couples temporarily retreat to lick the boundless loneliness by nature:
"For the myope, the day and night are two distinctly different world: one is a limited clarity; one is clear blur. ”
"The black in the night has an strange unknown matter that is able to reduce lens penetration. Behind a thin lens, there is always deformity and the part you don't understand. In familiar environment, we might be adapt to the difference, but in a strange place, the darkness greatly exaggerates the discomfort..."
"I wander among the hustle and bustle of the people, easy to see that kind of loneliness...like an vampire, in human form,but can't truly integrate into one with that laughing, playful, even vacant strangers. ”
An intellectual in disguise, a hidden poet,perhaps Song Wei didn't mean to throw us the whole story exactly as it is, but preferred to indulge into it, and introduced the soil where the couple were born, and the air they breathed.That irresistible sadness, sans response,words getting in the way might be the sadness of existence that Song Wei's detective-like novel wishes to tell us.
The truth coming out of traditional detective novel does not matter anymore.Multiple possible settings, until the end of this novel, are not made clear by any hard evidence. As the novel mentioned:
"There is one kind of life behind each window, that we don't know. There are too many secrets. Every one has some. Every one is like this, they think they are sleeping indoors, but they are standing on the edge of a cliff..."