福尔摩斯如何改变了世界

文/珍妮弗·凯欣·阿姆斯特朗 译/金瑶 刘莉

福尔摩斯如何改变了世界

文/珍妮弗·凯欣·阿姆斯特朗 译/金瑶 刘莉

I n 1893, author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shoved1shove 推。detective Sherlock Holmes off a cliff. The cliff was fi ctionally located in Switzerland, over the Reichenbach Falls. But Conan Doyle did the dirty work from his home in London where he wrote. “It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished,”narrator Dr John Watson says in Conan Doyle’s story The Final Problem, which appeared in The Strand Magazine in December 1893.

[2] Conan Doyle himself seemed a little less emotional in private. “Killed Holmes,” he wrote in his diary. He later said of his famous character: “I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras2pâté de foie gras 鹅肝酱。, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.”

18 93年，阿瑟·柯南·道尔爵士将其笔下的侦探歇洛克·福尔摩斯推下悬崖。小说中这道悬崖位于瑞士，俯瞰莱辛巴赫瀑布，但柯南·道尔却是在自己伦敦的家中干下这个勾当的。在1893年12月刊登于《斯特兰杂志》的《最后一案》中，故事叙述者华生医生说道：“怀着十分沉痛的心情，我最后一次提笔叙写我朋友歇洛克·福尔摩斯，叙写他秀出群伦的独特本领。”

[2]柯南·道尔本人似乎并没有受到多大触动。他在日记中写道：“杀掉福尔摩斯了。”后来谈起自己笔下这个著名人物时，他说：“我写他写得太多了，以致对他的感觉就像对鹅肝酱一样：有次吃多了，直到现在，一提起鹅肝酱这几个字我就浑身不舒服。”

[3demise死亡。] Conan Doyle may have thought, at the time of finishing Holmes off in print, that that was that. If he did think this, he did not understand fans—ppaarr---ticularly fans of Holmes—very well. More than 20,000Strandreaders cancelled their subscriptions, outraged by Holmes’ premature demise3demise死亡。. The magazine barely survived.

[3]柯南·道尔当时可能认为，福尔摩斯的故事一结束，不再出版，就万事大吉了。如果他确实是这么想的，那他就太不了解自己的粉丝，尤其是福尔摩斯的粉丝了。两万多名《斯特兰杂志》读者因福尔摩斯的早亡而怒不可遏，纷纷取消了订阅，致使杂志濒临停刊。

[4legend has it that据传说，据传言。] Legend has it that4legend has it that据传说，据传言。young men throughout London wore black mourning crêpes5crêpe（悼亡用的）黑纱。on their hats or around their arms for the month of Holmes’ death, though that has recently been questioned. Outraged readers wrote to the magazine in protest: “You brute!” one letter addressed to Conan Doyle began. Americans started “Let’s Keep Holmes Alive” clubs. Conan Doyle stuck to his guns in the face of the protests, calling the death “justi fi able homicide”—referring, presumably, to his own justi fi cations, not Moriarty’s.

[4]有传言说，福尔摩斯去世的那个月，伦敦随处可见年轻人在帽子上或手臂上缠戴黑纱以示悼念——不过这一说法最近遭到了质疑。愤怒不已的读者纷纷写信向杂志社抗议。一封指名寄给柯南·道尔的信开头就是：“你这个畜生！”美国读者甚至建起了“让福尔摩斯活着”俱乐部。面对抗议声，柯南·道尔坚持己见，将福尔摩斯之死称作“正当杀人”——这很可能是在为他自己辩护，而不是为莫里亚蒂。

[5]这些批判的声音，其实就跟如今任何一天的网络舆论一样。但在当时，滚滚而来的尖刻批判足以令柯南·道尔目瞪口呆。因为粉丝们以前从未这样做过。［事实上，那个时候他们还不叫“粉丝”。“粉丝”（fans）一词是“入迷者”（fanatic）的简称，近年才开始使用，代指狂热的美国棒球迷。］在此之前，读者一般会接受他们最爱的书里描述的情节，然后翻篇向前。而现在，他们开始将流行文化看得更加私人化，期待自己最爱的作品能与心中所想一致。看来他们是真的想和心爱的作品建立一种互动关系。

[5] This sounds, of course, like just another day on the internet in 2015. But at the time, Conan Doyle had every reason to be shocked by the torrent of vitriol6vitriol 尖刻批判。. Fans simply did not do this before then. (In fact, they weren’t even called “fans” yet. The term, short for “fanatic”, had only recentlybegun use in reference to American baseball enthusiasts.) Readers typically accepted what went on in their favourite books, then moved on. Now they were beginning to take their popular culture personally, and to expect their favorite works to conform to certain expectations. They seemed to actually expect a reciprocal7reciprocal 互动的。relationship with the works they loved.

Fan frenzy

[6] Sherlock Holmes’ avid8avid 热衷的，着迷的。readers helped to create the very modern practice of fandom. Interestingly enough, Holmes’ intense following continues to this day, spawning endless reimaginings, such as the US crimesolving seriesElementaryand the BBC’sSherlock.

粉丝的疯狂

[6]歇洛克·福尔摩斯的忠实读者帮助塑造了现代粉丝文化。非常有趣的是，时至今日，福尔摩斯的追随者声势不减，引发了无数再创作——如破案类系列美剧《基本演绎法》，以及BBC的《神探夏洛克》。

[7] Holmes first appeared in 1887, in the novelette9novelette 中篇小说。A Study in Scarlet. He was popular from the start—so popular that soon Conan Doyle began to regret having created him, since Holmes stories so completely overshadowed what Conan Doyle considered his serious work, such as his historical novelMicah Clarke. Readers lined up at newsstands forThe Strandon publication day whenever a new Holmes story was to appear inside.

[7]福尔摩斯首次出场是在1887年的一部中篇小说《暗红习作》里，刚一亮相便大受欢迎，以至于柯南·道尔很快就后悔创造了这一形象，因为福尔摩斯故事的风头完全盖过了他创作的所谓严肃作品，比如他的历史小说《米卡·克拉克》。每到刊载福尔摩斯新故事的《斯特兰杂志》出刊的日子，读者就会在报摊前排起长龙。

[8] Holmes fans were truly the emerging middle-class, the exact sort of group whose tastes would be denigrated10denigrate诽谤，诋毁。by snooty11snooty 妄自尊大的。critics as populist12populist 符合大众口味的。for more than a century to come. They were the ones priced out of concerts, the ones who had to wait for the cheaper versions of popular novels. Historian David Payne describes them as “largely the lower-middle and middle-middle classes of the cities, the non-intellectual, non-public school13public school公学，最早是为穷人或平民子弟提供教育的场所，但到18世纪逐渐发展成贵族学校，入读这种学校的基本条件并不是学费，而是家庭背景。, hardworking, rising… people—the first true mass moderns.”The Strandtargeted them with what we’d now recognise as exciting, high-concept14highconcept 高度刺激性的，亦有直译为“高概念”，意指情节抓人且颇具感染力。genre stories—mysteries and science fiction—from writers such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

[8]福尔摩斯的粉丝其实是当时正在兴起的中产阶级，这一群体的品味在之后一百多年都被自视甚高的批评家当作“庸众趣味”大加鞭挞。他们会因票价过高而放弃音乐会，热门小说得等便宜版本出来再买。历史学家戴维·佩恩这样形容道，他们“大多是城市中产阶级的中下层，既非知识分子，也没有公学教育背景，靠着勤奋努力，一点点发达——他们是第一批真正意义上的现代大众”。《斯特兰杂志》以他们为目标读者，刊载了一些在我们今天看来激动人心、挑动神经的类型小说——悬疑故事和科幻小说，作者包括H. G.威尔斯和儒勒·凡尔纳等人。

[9] The demand for Holmes stories seemed endless.The Strandwould pay Conan Doyle nicely for whatever he could give them. But he hadn’t meant to spend the rest of his life inventing and solving fi ctional crimes. He’d meant to make some money to support his real art, novels full of what he felt were important ideas and political statements.

[9]读者对福尔摩斯的故事似乎永不餍足。只要柯南·道尔写，《斯特兰杂志》就乐意支付优厚稿酬。但他并不想将余生都花在编造、解决这些虚构的案件上。他本来只想赚一些钱来支持他眼中真正的艺术——包含他认为的重要观点和政治立场的小说。

[10]到1893年，34岁的柯南·道尔已经名利双收，应有尽有了。他还是想成为沃尔特·司各特爵士那样的历史小说家。所以，他让邪恶的莫里亚蒂教授将福尔摩斯推下了瀑布。然而，停笔的8年间，社会舆论压力越积越重，1901年，柯南·道尔只好又写了一个新故事——《巴斯克维尔的猎犬》，故事设定在福尔摩斯坠崖前。1903年，在《空屋子》中，他干脆更进一步，让福尔摩斯复活了，解释说只有莫里亚蒂坠崖摔死了，而福尔摩斯伪造了自己的死亡。粉丝们欢呼雀跃。

[10] By 1893, when Conan Doyle was 34, he’d had enough. He wantedto be Sir Walter Scott15沃尔特·司各特，英国历史小说家的一代鼻祖。柯南·道尔一直想要成为一名严肃的历史小说家。. So he had the evil Professor Moriarty push Holmes down the falls. It took eight years, but by 1901, however, public pressure grew so great that Conan Doyle wrote a new story,The Hound of the Baskervilles, featuring Holmes before his fall. In 1903, inThe Adventure of the Empty House, he went one step further, resurrecting16resurrect 使复活。Holmes with the explanation that only Moriarty had died in the fall, while Holmes had faked his own death. Fans rejoiced.

来生

[11]自那之后，福尔摩斯粉丝的痴狂有增无减。唯一的不同就是，我们如今已对超级粉丝见怪不怪。即便如此，BBC的系列电视剧《神探夏洛克》一时还是激起了难得一见的粉丝狂潮。剧中，本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇饰演现代版福尔摩斯，他和华生（马丁·弗瑞曼饰）很喜欢伦敦的一家小吃店——史皮迪斯咖啡屋。于是该剧的粉丝也经常光顾那里。剧组拍外景的时候，他们将街道挤得水泄不通，甚至影响了正常拍摄。

Life after death

[11] Holmes fans have only grown more obsessive since then. The only difference is that now we’re used to super-fandom. Even so, the BBC seriesSherlock, in particular, has stoked the most passionate strand of Holmes fandom in some time. Fans of the show, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a modern-day Holmes, frequent17frequent 常常光顾。the London sandwich shop favoured by Sherlock and his Watson (MartinFreeman), Speedy’s Café. They crowd the streets when the crew films on location, to such a point that it has caused production problems.

[12] In China, fans have popularised elaborate fan fiction positing this particular Sherlock (whom they call“Curly Fu”) and Watson as a gay couple. Japanese fans pore over18pore over 仔细阅读。Sherlock manga. Korean pop group SHINee recorded a tribute song. Cumberbatch fans have their own squad name:“Cumberbitches”.

[12]在中国，由粉丝创作的同人小说大受欢迎。这些小说构思精巧，将歇洛克（被昵称为“卷福”）和华生假想为一对好基友。日本的粉丝则认真追看歇洛克连环漫画。韩国流行乐团SHINee还录制了一首致敬歌曲。康伯巴奇的粉丝们甚至拥有自己的专属团名Cumberbitches（康伯巴痴）。

[13] As a TV show,Sherlockhas maintained a complicated relationship with its fans. Sometimes the producers throw in a scene to wink at fans—or in the fi rst episode of series three, an entire episode built out of fan theories about how Sherlock faked his own death. But the show’s co-creator, Steven Moffat, has often been dismissive of fans, while Cumberbatch uncomfortably wrote off Sherlock fan fi ction as absurd19write off…as把……看作。. Never mind that the show itself could be considered ‘fan fi ction’ based on Conan Doyle’s Victorian-age work.

[13]作为一部电视剧，《神探夏洛克》与粉丝之间维系着一种复杂的关系。制作人有时会在剧中穿插一个片段向粉丝致意，或像第三季第一集那样，整整一集呈现的都是粉丝对歇洛克假死之谜的种种看法。但是该剧的联合制片人史蒂文·莫法特常常对粉丝们不屑一顾，主演康伯巴奇则认为粉丝创作的同人小说十分荒唐，令人不快。其实这部剧本身就可视为一部“同人小说”，是以柯南·道尔反映维多利亚时代的作品为蓝本创作的。

[14]当然，《神探夏洛克》在粉丝当中激起如此强烈的反响，仅仅是粉丝深挚爱意的一种表现。真正了不起的是，120多年来，福尔摩斯故事集经过了无数次改编，歇洛克·福尔摩斯的粉丝们始终热衷这个虚构侦探的各种演绎。

[14] Of course,Sherlock’s ability to cause such intense emotion among its fans is only an indication of how much they love it. What’s remarkable is that Sherlock Holmes fans have been engaging in such histrionics20histrionic 戏剧表演，舞台艺术。over thefictional detective for more than 120 years, through many, many adaptations.

[15] Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss, who also plays the detective’s brother Mycroft, has credited Conan Doyle for creating characters that transcend time: “I think more than anything, what people have responded to is the fun of the show, which is so much what Doyle’s stories were actually like,”he told Al Jazeera America21Al Jazeera半岛电视台，一家立足阿拉伯、面向全球的国际性媒体，被称为“阿拉伯的CNN”或“海湾的CNN”。其美国频道于2016年4月停播。. “Over years and years of accumulating various versions and Victoriana, people had slightly lost sight of the fact that they’re enormous fun! They’re quick reads, they’re jolly thrilling, blood-curdling thrilling adventures and really, that’s what we wanted to do.”

[16] Gatiss has also pointed out that Holmes is one of the original fictional detectives—most other crime-solvers created thereafter were copies of him or a direct reaction to him: “Everything onwards is people drawing a line from Sherlock and Doctor Watson. Agatha Christie does it explicitly and makes Poirot short and round as opposed to tall and lean. He needs a Watson, so she creates Captain Hastings. Everywhere you go, this is the model. That’s why it’s imperishable I think.”

[15]马克·加蒂斯是《神探夏洛克》的另一位联合制片人，他还在剧中饰演了这位侦探的哥哥迈克罗夫特。他认为柯南·道尔的卓绝之处在于，其创造出的人物超越了时间，他在接受半岛电视台美国频道的采访时说：“我认为最重要的是，这部剧非常有意思——这就是吸引观众的地方，道尔的故事本来就是这样。多年来，各种版本层出不穷，对维多利亚时代的呈现也愈加深入，但人们反倒有些忽视了这样一个事实，那就是这些故事其实非常有趣！它们轻松易读，讲述了各种紧张刺激、令人不寒而栗的冒险经历，而这，也正是我们一直想表现的。”

[16]加蒂斯还指出，福尔摩斯是原创的虚构侦探形象之一，之后出现的其他破案高手大多不是照搬他就是直接受到他的影响。“此后的一切创作都是在与福尔摩斯和华生划界。阿加莎·克里斯蒂做得很明显，她笔下的大侦探波洛又矮又胖，与福尔摩斯的高大纤瘦正相反。他还需要一个华生，所以她创造了黑斯廷斯上尉。不论怎么写，模板都是这个。我想这就是它不朽的原因吧。”

[17] Just look at the landscape of current TV heroes, many of which play on Holmes’s brilliant-but-damaged formula.“Even outside the world of detection, I think Doyle began the idea that superintelligence comes at the price of some kind of social dysfunction, something that we’ve grasped as a narrative possibility ever since,” Moffat has said. “He’s a genius, therefore he’s a bit strange. I don’t know how often that happens in real life, but it happens a lot in fi ction.”

[18] In other words, pushing Sherlock Holmes off a cliff has no chance of killing him. He’ll always come back, in this lifetime and the next. The fans will see to it.

[17]只消看看现在电视剧主人公的形象，就会发现，他们中的许多人都是按照福尔摩斯“有缺陷的天才”这一模式设计的。“我认为道尔引入了这样一种观点——超高智商往往伴随某种社交障碍，而这不仅仅适用于侦探界。从那以后，我们就把这种观点当作一个可能的叙述点。”莫法特曾这样表示，“他是个天才，所以有点古怪。我不知道现实中这样的人有多少，但小说中很多。”

[18]换句话说，把歇洛克·福尔摩斯推下悬崖是绝对杀不死他的。他总会回来，不仅此生还有来生。粉丝们将拭目以待。

（译者单位：复旦大学奇境译坊）

How Sherlock Holmes Changed the World

By Jennifer Keishin Armstrong