The Unit

NPR 的 Jess Crispin 如此评论 The Unit:

Echoing work by Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood, The Unit is as thought-provoking as it is compulsively readable.

Readable? Are you joking? 说实话很多次我想把这本书扔掉。看到一半的时候实在受不了了，后半本在不分前后左右的一片混乱中翻完。这是我见过的最 creepy 和 disturbing 的小说之一。

故事很简单，甚至有点苍白，讲一个五十岁中年女人 Dorrit Weger 按照法律被送到一个巨大的监狱里。虽然里面有吃有喝，有健身房和室内花园，有人给你铺床洗衣，你也不必干活糊口，可以跟人交朋友甚至恋爱，但这是一个地道的监狱。在不远的未来，法律规定，所有对社会没有贡献的人，包括女人过50岁男人过60岁而没有孩子，对GDP没有直接贡献，创造不了社会财富的人（例如作家艺术家音乐家），都被定性为 "dispensable"，送到 The Unit 里面去当“志愿者”，献身做药物和其他医学试验，贡献人体器官，从角膜肝脏肾脏之类不致命的器官开始直到 "the final donations"。

被关起来的这些人都很逆来顺受，勉强接受“造福人类”的官方说法，一边无力地哭泣和绝望地发发牢骚，一边建立一种弱者互相取暖的友谊，有些人觉得在外面的生活比里面更糟更寒冷更一无所有，在里面没两年可活至少不用忧愁衣食。反正这些都是“社会不成功人士”，无法给社会提供商业价值或者生殖价值，弃之可惜，不如用之。

我很想付之一笑，很想说，太假了，太不可信了，有这么没用的人么？人类自保的天性在哪里？哪有人会这么束手就擒，让政府和别人用发展社会生产力的借口把自己当块肉给瓜分了？是是是，我知道这是寓言不是写实，但是寓言里的人也忒被动，忒难让读者代入了。

可是让我又想吐又想砍人的原因在于，现实中世界上每天有拼命挣扎自保的人，也有躺倒任人宰割的人，有的是开门揖盗，心甘情愿地说“请来抢劫我吧”, “请把我的儿女送入绞肉机吧”，“请把我当垃圾扔掉吧”的人，只不过大多数人是蠢，无知，短视，被洗脑，被愚弄，另一些少数人则是人微言轻，被强盗带领的愚蠢民众席卷在荒谬的洪流中没法脱身。故事里最让我特别恶心的地方是，作为免不了接触道家理论的中国人，遁世清流总是一个 option，总有一个道观或寺庙可投。而 Ninni Holmqvist 的故事恰恰抓的就是你们这些遁世的书生，最 dispensable，最适合用来做器官工厂，毫无用处，又不会反抗。我倒希望她编的都是假的，绝不可能，跟现实一点关系都没有，但是没这么容易，实际上根本不是写未来和预言，而是对现实的折射。

作者住在瑞典 Skane，跟 Henning Mankell 设定的 Wallander 大概是邻居吧？她的某些观点，特别是对现代社会的看法，跟 Mankell 非常相近。

The Sentimentality of David Wilson

(Emily Hughes and David Wilson)

I had been wanting to write about a specific aspect of David Wilson's body of work. Romanticism is not the only style he has done, nor is it the largest component, but it does seem to be very close to his heart. He is very good at adapting himself to each skater's individuality, so it sometimes takes a bit of digging to guess at his own feelings. From the little bit I know about him and the few glimpses in person and, most important, from his most personal work, I conclude that he is a person filled with an enormous amount of emotions and empathy. He feels deeply and acutely. Such people are often both blessed and burdened by their inner richness and sensitivity.

Thus I wrote this and posted it on FSUniverse:

I saw Wilson's first ice dance program, Somewhere in Time, choreographed for Dubreuil and Lauzon, in the fall of 2005 at Skate Canada. At the time I had not seen the movie and did not quite grasp the force of his vision. In the subsequent years, I have been sometimes impressed and sometimes captivated by a number of his programs. It is amazing that he continues to put out at least a few memorable programs every year. The way he cuts music together into a smooth and coherent and dramatic story is ... sublime.

Yesterday I watched the movie Somewhere in Time, and then I went back to the Dubreuil/Lauzon free dance on YouTube again. I was floored. Damn him! He put the entire movie into the program. The music theme in the soundtrack by John Barry is extremely emotional and overwhelming. Wilson chose to start with the less familiar tunes outside of the theme and made us wait -- just like the structure of the movie, in which we are made to wait along with the main character Richard (Christopher Reeve) until he meets Elise (Jane Seymour) for the first time over half an hour into the movie. So that when the familiar theme swells up, we are swept away with delicious satisfaction. And the ending, the rising lift that had Marie-France hovering above Patrice, one can easily make the connection with the movie's ending.

In the past few years, Wilson has been steadily and quietly put on some movie-based programs. From Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence to Ararat, to the two distinct Dr. Zhivago last year, he is exploring and presenting an expansively sentimental and unabashedly romantic series of programs.

As common as it is, romance is the hardest genre to do well. An extra half teaspoon of sugar, it turns bitter. An extra half teaspoon of emotion, it feels cheesy. Yet romanticism has a universal appeal to everyone but the most hardened or cynical (or too eager to appear tough, or too young to have tasted disappointment). It is almost impossible to master, because it requires an impeccable emotional calculation with absolute sincerity. In his programs, David Wilson pushes and pushes all the way to the brink of too much, and then stops on a dime before going over the cliff and falling into cheesiness and high fructose corn syrup.

His best work reveals him as a person, like a novel reveals the fundamental psychology of its author and a painting reveals the deepest temperament of the artist. I cannot help but feel convinced that 1) David Wilson loves movies, especially romantic, emotional movies, 2) he is a master of storytelling, 3) he is not at all afraid of bearing his sentimentality and romanticism to the world, 4) he likes to get inside people's heart, find the softest spot, and own it. It is genius. It is the intention of most arts --- to move others and make them feel what you feel and, in the process, connect individual humans with an invisible bond that make us whole.

A few days after I posted this analysis, someone posted a follow-up message:

David Wilson was sent this post by a friend and he said he could not believe what Jun wrote. He said she "totally gets me" and he is going to keep her post because it really touched his heart.

Knowing that he has read it just warms my heart.

Olive Kitteridge

简直巧极了，今天正好看见华盛顿邮报上登了一篇 Elizabeth Strout 的专访。

似乎她在获得今年的普利策小说奖之前并不是 Phillip Roth 或 Tom Wolfe 这种文坛巨星，更不是门路广大的学院派。

现在已听了 Oliver Kitteridge 中前三篇，这是一本由短篇小说汇集起来的书，这三篇都是侧面从别人的眼光来看 Olive，后面才会直接写她。仿佛她是一个释放巨大热量的恒星，让人难以直视，只好先从镜像开始，慢慢地习惯和熟悉她这个人。

十分纯粹的现实主义手法，没有一点玩花的，跟很多现代文学巨星（特别是男巨星）不同。细腻可触栩栩如生的东北小镇，点滴人生，家长里短，象印花棉布一样摸着实在。让我联想起对电影女导演的印象，她也是凑近普通人的脸细细凝望，从一地鸡毛的人生琐事看进他们的灵魂，而这些灵魂全不陌生，人人认得出。小镇的人生，跟别处也差不多，我们都是各自的历史的奴隶，生活不会啪地一下被戏剧性地颠覆 (coughIanMcEwancough)。我猜想，男作家/影人和女作家/影人的根本差别在于女人没有那么强的欲望，时刻要 impress 别人，时刻要 outsmart 竞争对手，因而不怕使用最朴素的手法。

记得看到有个书评人说，Olive Kitteridge 好是写得好，但是太悲观太灰暗了，relentlessly sad. 的确，小说里的死人数目几乎可以跟日本小说相比了，动不动就是死于自杀、疾病、意外。只不过这些死亡都是鬼魂，游荡在各个人物的历史和背景里出没作祟。但是这种作品很显然是作者非得写不可的掏心掏肺。 This is who she is. This is what she MUST write. 难道大笔一挥，叫她变成另一个人？

Somewhere in Time

I sort of have a sense why this is such a cult classic. The question that I cannot answer now (unless I twist time myself) is whether I would have given the movie a second thought if I had NOT read about it being a cult classic and had NOT been swept away by the original soundtrack by John Barry, and if I had not seen the incredible ice dance program choreographed by David Wilson based on not just the soundtrack but rather the movie itself.

Romance is generally not my genre. I'd like to believe that I would nevertheless have sensed the strangeness in this movie directed by a Frenchman Jeannot Szwarc. In some ways it feels foreign, slightly detached, dreamlike --- not in the way Terry Gilliam made "12 Monkeys." One thing I disliked about "12 Monkeys" is how self-conscious it is about the time travel plot device. "Somewhere in Time" seems so primitive, so old-fashioned about the time travel device that the whole thing fits together perfectly, harmoniously old-fashioned in every aspect.

In some ways the movie's aesthetics reminds me a bit of Julian Schnabel, meticulously visual, with an eye of a painter. Well, strangely enough, Szwarc is a Frenchman who works largely in the US, Schnabel is an American who directed a French movie ("The Diving Bell and Butterfly"). Another coincidence is that Szwarc actually directed an episode of Heroes.

In looking up background stuff about the novel's author on which the movie was based, I found out (thanks to wikipedia) that this rather silly device (hypnotizing yourself into the past) has its own little subgenre. Richard Matheson's "Bid Time Return" is hardly the only one. Fascinating. I'm suddenly having an urge to look up some more "old-style" science fiction and fantasies based on old scientific theories and stuff and inhale their strange, musty charm, like "Somewhere in Time."

Currently Reading

Cannot get hold of a print version of Olive Kitteridge, but am listening to an audio version available from the library. The best novels take you to a different world and allow you to walk in it, breathe the air, and meet these strangers. Vivid and tangible.

Also reading "The Unit". It is disturbing beyond words. I am both horrified and fascinated. I might either walk out half-way or devour it. Hard to say.

Agent to the Stars 完

很轻松愉快的小说，很快翻完。今天坐在地铁上一边看一边笑。除了情节风趣，而且让我回忆起一些洛杉矶的娱乐圈轶事和传闻，不过没有那么 cut-throat ，很亲切，很善良，很有安全感。在这里可以下载，完全免费的在线小说。

赞了几句，于是又被塞了一本 Scalzi 的小说 The Android's Dream。名字想必是引用 Philip K. Dick 的名著 Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep?

慢慢看。

速写一集

昨天傍晚下了班不想做饭，到街对面的 mall 里面买沙拉，周围 food court 里很多上班族和购物族在吃那里晚饭。我照例东张西望，看见附近不远坐了一对男人。迅速地下结论是父子俩。虽然一个高且胖，一个相对瘦且矮，但是白头发稀疏的规律和年纪的差别，加上二人默默地对坐的姿态，都给我父子的感觉。高且胖的大约五十多岁，他爸爸看上去不知有没有八十了，驼背哈腰，短裤下露出两条布满老年斑的瘦腿。两人都穿着肥大的短裤和老头汗衫。

两人各自全神贯注地手持一堆花花绿绿的 lottery 彩票纸，拿硬币细细地刮呀刮，倒没有什么贪婪或者充满希望的表情，只是特别认真和耐心。老爸还拿出一个黑框的放大镜，鼻子凑近了看纸上的数字。

我想起 mall 与地铁站相通的地下走廊墙上有个电子广告牌，天天报告 powerball 的目前奖数，每天下班的时候都看见它从十几个米林慢慢涨到一百多米林，偶尔幻想个半秒如果我有这么多钱会怎么用。但是我从来不买彩票，所以当然从来不可能中什么奖。不过可以推想在这 mall 里有卖彩票的店家。

忽然高胖的儿子站起身来转身走开，表情并未透露失望或喜悦，跟老爸说了一句什么话，对方也没有特别的反应。我被好奇心捉住：中了奖去兑换还是刮完了把废纸扔掉？可惜他消失在拥挤的人群里，我没来得及追上。