Awakened by a Grave Robbery

Greg Bellow

On a visit to Chicago when I was eight, I witnessed a terrible argument, in Yiddish1. Yiddish： 意第绪语，中东欧犹太人及其在各国的后裔说的一种从高地德语派生的语言。,between my father and grandfather.Driving away from his father’s house, Saul started to cry so bitterly he had to pull off the road. After a few minutes, he excused his lapse of self-control by saying, “It’s okay for grownups to cry.” I knew his heart was breaking. I knew because of the bond between my father’s tender heart and mine.

I grew up in a household filled with books and lively conversation, bound together by a commitment to seeking and telling the truth. I came to share the value my parents placed on culture,which included the quiet solitude2. solitude： 独处，隐居。that my father thought essential to writing. His study door was firmly closed every morning, a sign of the barrier Saul drew between writing and living. For decades I ferociously3. ferociously： 残忍地，凶猛地。protected his privacy, literary and personal, which both of us connected with those

hours of his writing day. As a child I learned not to disturb him. As an adult I turned a blind eye to the literary persona and to the public furor over his fame, which reached an apex in Stockholm.After 1976 I boycotted all events held in his honor.Saul became offended, but I felt the limelight contaminated the private bond I was trying to protect.4. limelight： 聚光灯，这里指面对公众的曝光；contaminate：污染，弄脏。

格雷格·贝娄的书《索尔·贝娄的内心：一个儿子的回忆》

八岁那年，我在芝加哥亲眼目睹了一场用意第绪语进行的可怕争执，争吵双方是我的父亲与祖父。从祖父家开车回程的途中，索尔，我的父亲，失声痛哭，以至于不得不把车停在路旁。过了好几分钟，父亲才为自己的情绪失控作出解释：“大人哭鼻子也是正常的。”我当时已能明白他的心碎。我能明白是因为在我与父亲的柔弱心灵之间有着一条不可割裂的纽带。

我成长在一个充满书籍与欢声笑语的家庭环境中，这样的家庭环境还要求每位成员恪守寻求和辨明真理的承诺。我慢慢学会了分享父母赋予家庭文化的价值，其中包括安静独处，父亲认为这对于写作来说至关重要。每天清晨，父亲书房的门都紧闭着，这扇门是一个符号，是他将写作与生活隔开的屏障。几十年来，我竭力保护着父亲文学创作与个人生活的隐私，这也是在父亲写作的日子里我与他的共通之处。小时候，我就学会不去打扰父亲。长大成人以后，我对他笔下的文学形象以及公众对父亲声望的狂热故意视而不见，特别是在斯德哥尔摩的时候。1976年以后，我抵制了所有以父亲名义举办的活动。父亲被激怒了，而我却感到外界的过度曝光玷污了我力图保护的那层父子私人关系。

索尔·贝娄

作家总是试图用自己敏锐的洞察力和犀利的笔触，对人与人性作出精妙的分析与思考。然而他们自己又是怎样在别人的眼中或笔下被诠释的呢？索尔·贝娄，这位被公认为美国当代最负盛名的作家之一，在公众看来，是诺贝尔文学奖、普利策奖光芒照耀下的文坛巨匠。他对当代文化富于人性的理解和分析让人景仰，无数的作家追随他，以能成为他的文学后裔为荣；在亲人眼中，他却褪尽铅华，真实而可爱可敬。大众媒体对一个人的解读往往随波逐流，挟持了人们的认知与良知。对于那些逝去的伟大灵魂我们是其盗墓者还是守陵人，值得深思。

The posthumous5. posthumous： 死后的，逝世后的。tributes to the author who altered American literature came as no surprise.Hoping that my son Andrew, who took no interest in Saul’s literary career, would learn a bit about a grandfather who had paid him scant attention,I urged him to watch the discussion of Saul that aired soon after his death on thePBS NewsHour.The next day Andrew said, “What was all the fuss about Grandpa changing American literature?He was just a grouchy6. grouchy： 脾气不好的，易怒的。old man.” Andrew’s response succinctly captured a distinction between the private man and the literary lion that was beginning to dawn on me.

一位改变了美国文学的作家在其死后仍受到赞美与敬仰，这不足为奇。我的儿子安德鲁却对祖父的文学生涯毫无兴趣，但我依然希望他能多了解一些他祖父的生平，尽管他的祖父生前对这位孙儿的关注并不多。我急切地要求安德鲁观看公共电视台《新闻时间》节目在父亲逝世后不久对其生平进行的讨论。第二天，安德鲁对我说：“爷爷改变了美国文学，有什么值得大惊小怪？他不就是个脾气古怪的老头儿吗？”儿子的话一针见血地道明了一位至亲和一名文坛巨匠的区别，让我恍然大悟。

As soon as Saul died, his lawyer, Walter Pozen,set the tone for what was to come. Instead of calling the family, Walter phoned the public media.I learned of my father’s death on my car radio. The chosen speakers at Saul’s funeral were Martin Amis,the literary “son”, and Ruth Wisse, the dutiful7. dutiful： 忠实的，顺从的。Jewish“daughter”. Though no family members were asked to speak, I rose to praise Saul’s widow, Janis, for her devotion during my father’s last years. Strangely silent was another literary heir, Philip Roth, who, like a kind of brooding Hamlet, wandered the edges of the funeral in deep thought. Soon thereafter, theNew Yorkerpublished a series of rambling letters Saul had written to Philip about the origins of his novels,which I thought underlined the uniqueness of the deep literary connection between them.

To keep my grief private, I avoided the flood of obituaries until urged to read Leon Wieseltier’s tribute in theNew Republic. I was not surprised that he looked up to my father as an intellect or found him a man of great charm and wit. But his tribute was so complete a conflation8. conflation： 合并，合成。of the famous author and my father, the man, that I could barely recognize Saul. As well, Mr. Wieseltier seemed to have found the basis of a deep rapport with my father that touched on personal affections I considered my birthright. In the following weeks I heard and read many anecdotes and accounts that claimed a similar special closeness with Saul Bellow the literary patriarch9. patriarch： 族长，元老。. I took them to be distinctly filial and soon came to feel that dozens of self-appointed sons and daughters were jostling in public for a position at the head of a parade that celebrated my father’s life. By now irked10. irk： 使烦恼，使厌倦。by the shoving match at the front of the line, I asked myself, “What is it with all these filial narratives? After all, he was my father! Did they all have such lousy fathers that they needed to co-opt mine?”

Infuriating11. infuriating： 令人愤怒的。as they were, the filial narratives and flood of posthumous tributes awakened me to the powerful effect of my father’s novels, to his status as a cultural hero, and to my lack of appreciation of the public side of him that I had been trying to avoid.

父亲刚离世，他的律师沃尔特·波曾就为接下来的事情定下了基调。他并没在第一时间告知家属，而是给媒体打了电话。我是从车载收音机里得知父亲的死讯。在父亲的葬礼上，被选作发言人的是被誉为其“文学之子”的马丁·艾米斯，以及孝顺的犹太裔“女儿”露丝·威斯。尽管葬礼上没有一位真正的家庭成员受邀发言，我站起来赞美了父亲的遗孀，詹妮丝，感谢了她在父亲最后的日子里所奉献的一切。而父亲的另一位文学后裔，菲利普·罗斯却出奇地沉默， 他就像是忧伤的哈姆雷特，在葬礼现场的四周来回踱步沉思。此后不久，《纽约客》杂志发表了一系列父亲写给菲利普的信，这些漫无边际的信件揭示了父亲小说的起源。我想，这也凸显了他们在文学上不同寻常的不解之缘。

为了独自怀念父亲，我避开了洪水般的讣告，直到被要求去读读里昂·威塞尔迪阿在《新共和国周刊》上发表的一篇悼文。对他对父亲才能的敬仰以及对父亲伟大人格魅力与智慧的发掘，我并未感到惊讶。但他在这篇文章里将我的父亲和他伟大作家的身份结合在一起，我几乎无法认出他笔下的人物就是我父亲。此外，威塞尔迪阿先生似乎还找到了与我父亲建立深层次关系的基础，而我认为其所涉及的个人情感应是我与生俱来的权利。在接下来的数周里，我听到并读到了许多人回忆与我父亲的轶事，他们都宣称自己与索尔·贝娄这位文坛元老有着类似的、独一无二的亲密关系。起初，我认为他们这样做是出于对父亲真心的孝顺，可很快我便察觉好些自诩为文学后裔的人，为了在悼念父亲生平的游行中争夺最前面的位置而公开推搡。现在，这些发生在队伍前端的角斗已让我恼怒，我问自己：“这都是些什么孝顺的故事？不管怎样，他是我的父亲！他们自己的父亲是有多糟以至于要来抢我的父亲？”

那些孝顺的故事，以及铺天盖地的悼念令我愤慨，但同时也让我清醒地认识到父亲小说的影响力有多么强大，他作为文化英雄这一地位有多么重要，以及我对他作为公众人物的影响力缺乏欣赏，甚至一直都在刻意回避这一点。

童年的格雷格·贝娄和父亲索尔·贝娄

As I grieved and as the distinctions between the private man and the public hero were filtering through my consciousness, someone suggested I might find solace12. solace： 安慰，慰藉。in reading Philip Roth’sPatrimony. Roth’s decision to write about his father’s last days forced me to think about what to do with the father who resides within me—a man whose deepest desire was to keep his thoughts and his feelings strictly to himself…

Despite my doubts about writing publicly, I have determined to learn more about my father, to reassess my patrimony as a writer’s son, and to have my say. I can no longer climb into Saul’s lap as he sat at the typewriter, hit the keys, and leave my gibberish in his manuscripts as I did at three. Nor can I visit Saul in his dotage and stir up fading embers of our past. I can visit his gravestone and, in the Jewish tradition, put another pebble on it. But my “Pop”deserves more from his firstborn, as full and as honest a written portrait as I can render. Shutting my study door and struggling to find my voice on paper as I listen to Brahms or Mozart, as he did every day for more than seventy years, is as close as I can now get to my dead father.

在我悲痛的时候，在我的意识将至亲与公众英雄两者相区别的时候，有人建议我或许能从菲利普·罗斯的作品《遗产》中找到些许慰藉。罗斯打算写写他父亲最后的那段日子，他的这一决定迫使我开始思考应如何对待那个住在我内心深处的父亲——那个男人最深刻的欲望就是将他的思想和情感藏在自己心里，不让别人知晓。

尽管我对公开地写作心存疑虑，我依旧下定决心去更多地了解父亲，去重新衡量作为一名作家的儿子所拥有的遗产，让外界听到我的声音。父亲再也不会坐在打字机前敲击键盘并让我爬上他的膝间，我也再不能像三岁孩童那样将自己的胡言乱语留于他的手稿。同样，我也再没有机会在他耄耋之年进行探望，或重新点燃我与他渐渐熄灭的过去。我只能来到他的墓前，按犹太人的传统，再添上一枚卵石。作为长子，我所受到的关注本应更多，起码我可以真实饱满地写出我父亲的形象。如今我如父亲七十多年来每天要做的那样，关上书房的门，一边听着布拉姆斯和莫扎特，一边在纸上竭力找寻着自己的声音——这也是现在最能拉近我与逝去父亲的方式。

格雷格·贝娄