「Always on the side of the egg 永遠站在雞蛋的一側」
Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
各位晚安，我今天作為一名小說家來到耶路撒冷的，也就是說一名職業謊言織造者。
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?
當然，並不是只有小說家才說謊的。政治家也說謊，正如大家所知道的。外交官和將軍有時也要說著他們自己的謊言，就如同二手車推銷
員、劊子手以及建築師一樣。但是，小說家的謊言與其他人不一樣，因爲沒有人會批評小說家，稱他們說謊不道德。實際上，小說家的謊言說得越大越好，編造謊言
的能力越高明，他才更可能受到公衆和評論家的認可和好評。這是爲什麽呢？
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.
我的答案是：通過更有技巧地說謊——也就是說，創作看起來似乎是真實的小說——小說家才能夠將真相帶到
新的地方，並讓新的光明灑落其上。在多數情況下，以其原始形式掌握真相並準確地闡述之幾乎是不可能的。這就是爲什麽我要將真相從衆多掩蓋之中拉出來，將它
放到一個虛幻
的地方，再用一種虛幻的形式將它替代。但是要想做到這一點，我們首先要清楚真相就在我們，就在我們自己的心中。這是要想編造完美謊言的一個非常重
要的資質。
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.
但今天，我並不打算說謊。我會盡可能地做到誠實。這也是一年當中我不說謊的少數幾天之一，今天碰巧就是其中之一。
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.
讓我來告訴你們真相。在日本有許多人建議我不要來這裏接受“耶路撒冷文學獎”。甚至有些人警告我，如果我要堅持來的話，他
們就會掀起抵制閱讀我的小說的活動。當然，原因是加沙的戰争正如火如荼。據聯合國報道，已經有一千多人在已封鎖的加沙城失去了他們的生命，許多都是手無寸
鐵的平民——孩子和老人。
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.
在接到這個獲獎通知後我不斷地問自己，是否要在這樣一個特殊時刻來耶路撒冷，接受這樣的文學獎是否是現在該做的事情，這樣做是否會讓人産生一種印象，說我支持衝突中的其中一方，說我支持選擇向世界展示其壓倒性軍事力量的國家的政策呢。當然，我也不希望看到我的書遭到抵制。
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.
但最後在經過深思熟慮後，我還是決定來到耶路撒冷。我之所以做出這樣的決定，原因之一就是有太多的人不想讓我來這裏。可能與
許多其他小說家一樣，我總是要做人們反對我做的事情。如果人們對我說——並且特别是如果他們警告我——“不要去那裏”、“不要這樣做”，我就偏偏要去那
裏，偏偏要這樣做。你可能會說，這就是小說家的性格。小說家是另類。如果他們沒有親眼所見，沒有親手觸摸，他們是不會真正相信任何事情的。
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.
這就是我來到這裏的原因。我選擇來這裏，而不是逃避。我選擇親自來看一看，而不是回避，我選擇在這裏向大家說幾句，而不是沉默。
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:
請允許我在這裏向你們傳遞一條信息，是一個非常私人的信息。在我寫小說時我總是在心裏牢記之。我從來都不會把它寫在紙上，貼在牆上，而是把它刻在了心靈之牆上，這條信息是這樣的：
“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
“在一座高大堅實的牆和與之相擊而碎的雞蛋之間，我永遠都站在雞蛋的一側”。
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?
是的，無論牆是多麽的正確，雞蛋是多麽地錯誤，我都站在雞蛋的一側。其他人可能會判斷誰是誰非，也許時間或歷史會來判斷。但是，如果一個小說家無論因何種原因站在牆的一側來創造，那麽他的作品的還有何價值呢？
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.
這個比喻是什麽意思呢，在有些時候，非常簡單明瞭。轟炸機、坦克、火箭以及白磷彈就是那堵高牆，雞蛋是被這些武器毀滅、焚燒，擊中的手無寸鐵的百姓。這就是這個比喻的其中一層含義。
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.
但是，並不僅僅是這些。它還有更深
一層的含義。我們來這樣想，我們中的每一個人或多或少都是一個雞蛋。我們中的每一個人都是存在於一個脆弱外殼中唯一的、不可替代的靈魂。我也一樣，
對你們中的每一個人也一樣。並且，我們中的每一個人在某種程度上也面臨着一堵高大堅實的牆。這個牆有一個名字：那就是“體制”。這個體制本來是要保護我們
的，但是有時候它會有了自己的主意，然後就開使殘殺我們，並使我們去殘殺他人——冷酷、有效、系統性地殘殺。
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.
我寫小
說只有一個原因，那就是要彰顯每一個靈魂的尊嚴，並將真實之光灑上。故事的目的是敲響警鐘，是將光芒瞄準體制，阻止它將我們的靈魂纏
結在它的圈套中，防止它踐踏我們的靈魂。我忠實地相信，小說家的職責就是通過創作故事——關於生死、關于愛情、讓人哭泣和顫慄以及讓人大笑不已的故事，讓人
們意識到每一個靈魂的唯一性。這就是我們日復一日，以十分嚴肅的態度創作小說的原因。
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.
我的父親是在去年去世的，享年九十歲。他是一名退休教師，是一名兼職佛教修行人。他在京都就讀研究所時應征入伍，被派到中國打仗。作爲一個戰後出生的孩子，我每天早晨在早飯前，總是看到他的在我家的小佛教祭壇前非常虔
誠地長時間地祈禱。有一次我就問父親爲什麽要這樣做，他就告訴我說，他是在爲戰爭中死去的人們祈禱。他說，他爲所有死去的人祈禱，無論是同盟還是敵人。當
我看着他跪在祭壇前的背影時，我似乎感受到了縈繞在他周圍的死亡陰影。
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.
我的父親去世了，帶着他的記憶，我永遠都不可能知道的記憶。但是環繞在他周圍的那些死亡卻留在了我自己的記憶中。這是我從他那裏學習到東西之一，也是最重要的東西之一。
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.
今天我只希望向你們傳達一個信息。我們都是人類，
是超越國籍、種族和宗教的個體的人，我們都是脆弱的雞蛋，要面臨被稱作“體制”的堅實的牆。從外表來看，我們根本就沒有赢的希
望。這堵牆太高太堅實——並且太冷酷了。如果我們有一點戰勝它的希望，那就是來源於我們對我們自己以及他人靈魂唯一性和不可替代
性的信念，來源於我們對將靈魂聯合起來所獲得的溫暖的信
念。
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.
花一點時間來思考這些，我們每一個人都擁有有形的生動的靈魂，而體制沒有。我們不能讓體制來剝削我們。我們不能讓體制現自行其是。不是體制創造了我們，而是我們建立了體制。
That is all I have to say to you.
這就是我想要對你們說的。
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.
非常感謝授予了我耶路撒冷文學獎。我也非常感謝世界各地有那麽多人看了我寫的書。我還要感謝以色列的讀者們。你們是我來到這裏的最主要原因。我希望我們能夠分享一些東西，一些有非常有意義的東西。我也非常高興今天有機會在這裏發言。
Thank you very much.
謝謝大家。