家庭娱乐专栏--"高原"病

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Books & arts
文艺版块
Home Entertainment
家庭娱乐栏目
Illness in literature
文学中的疾病
Climb every mountain
攀爬每一座山

A classic German saga of high-altitude sickness is oddly uplifting
一篇关于“高原”病的德国经典传奇故事，奇怪地令人振奋
When Hans Castorp makes a midsummer visit to Davos, where his tubercular cousin, Joachim, is being treated, he expects to be there for three weeks. A job at a shipbuilding firm awaits Hans, the unassuming son of a merchant family from Hamburg. But he develops a fever, and ends up staying in the Swiss Alps for seven years. In the mountains, time moves elastically— days lengthen and years hurry past—as it can in a lockdown.
汉斯·卡斯托普在仲夏时访问达沃斯，当时他患有结核病的堂兄阿希姆正在那里接受治疗，他预计会在那里呆三个星期。汉斯出身卢森堡的一个商人家庭，作为家中不爱出风头的儿子，他正在一家造船公司找工作。但他发烧了，最后在瑞士阿尔卑斯山住了七年。在山里，时间有弹性地推移——日复一日，岁月匆匆流逝——就像是在封锁期。
The action of “The Magic Mountain”, wrote Thomas Mann in a foreword, takes place “a very long time ago”— and even though his novel, published in 1924, is set in the preceding decade, it evoked a vanished world. It refers to a Germany not yet crushed by the first world war and the subsequent reparations, a country that still has an empire, as well as strict hierarchies and conventions. These are scrupulously observed by the pan-European characters in the story, a Bildungsroman and dark comedy of manners in which even the dining tables are classified by social status.
托马斯·曼恩在前言中写道，“魔山”的故事发生在“很久之前”——尽管这篇小说出版于1924年，以前十年为背景，但它唤起了一个消失的世界。它指的是一个尚未被第一次世界大战及其后的赔款所摧毁的德国，一个仍然拥有帝国、严格的等级制度和传统风格的国家。故事中的泛欧人严格遵守着这些，这是一部成长小说和黑暗的礼仪喜剧，甚至餐桌也是按照社会地位分类的。
Mann’s fictional sanatorium, the Berghof, is probably modelled on the Schatzalp, a mansion reachable only by foot or funicular, which today is a hotel. Practically the whole cast of his novel have tuberculosis, which at the turn of the 20th century killed one in seven people in Europe and America. He presents the symptoms unflinchingly, including “a coughing that had no conviction and gave no relief, that did not even come out in paroxysms, but was just a feeble, dreadful welling-up of the juices of organic dissolution”.
曼恩小说中的疗养院，伯格霍夫疗养院，很可能是仿照沙茨阿尔卑建造的，这是一座只有步行或缆车才能到达的豪宅，现在成为了酒店。实际上，他这部小说的所有角色都患有肺结核，在20世纪之交，在欧洲和美国有七分之一的人死于肺结核。他毫不犹豫地提出了这些症状，包括“这是一种奄奄无生气的咳嗽，它不是阵发性的，而像是某种有机溶液的粘稠物质一阵阵无力而令人嫌恶地泛上来”。

Yet though the disease is everywhere, it is discussed euphemistically. Newcomers are diagnosed as anaemic. As is still the case in the rich world, death is hidden. “You hear nothing of them, or only by chance afterwards,” Joachim says of patients who succumb. “Everything is kept strictly private.”Hans learns that corpses are brought down the mountain by bobsleigh.
尽管这种病无处不在，人们还是委婉地讨论它。新来的人会被诊断为贫血。与发达国家情况一样，死亡要隐藏起来。“你不会听说过他们，或者只是事后偶然会听说。”阿希姆谈到死亡的病人时说，“一切都要严格保密。”汉斯得知尸体是由大雪橇运下山的。
Surprisingly for a tale of fatal lung disease, however, the tone is gently ironic, a levity that offsets the symbolism and philosophy. Officially, Hans is a visitor, but he lives the life of a patient, which revolves around gossip, walks, infatuations, intellectual discussions, five hearty meals a day and a strict regimen of bed rest, temperature- taking and alcohol rubs. Hans takes to this high-altitude life better than Joachim, an officer who longs to return to the army. He does—and comes back to the mountain even sicker. Hans, by contrast, seems cured, and at the close leaves for the even deadlier battlefield.
然而，令人惊讶的是对于这样一个致命的肺病的故事，讲述的语气中带有温和的讽刺意味，是一种可以弥补象征主义和哲学的轻浮。从官方角度讲，汉斯是一个来访者，但他过着病人的生活，他的生活围绕着闲聊、散步、热恋、学术讨论、一天五顿丰盛的饭菜以及严格的卧床休息、量体温和酒精按摩。比起渴望重返军队的军官阿希姆，汉斯更渴望这种高原上的生活。他的确是这样——回到山上，病得更重。相比之下，汉斯似乎已经痊愈，即将奔赴更加惨烈的战场。
As with his elongated stay at the sanatorium, so with the novel itself. Based on Mann’s own impressions of Davos, where his wife was treated, it was conceived as a short story, a humorous companion piece to “Death in Venice” (itself set during an outbreak of cholera). The author expected “The Magic Mountain” to find only a small audience. But in one of the strange transformations that illness can effect, it grew into an elegant, 900-page reflection on mortality, read and revered by millions.
就像他长期待在疗养院一样，小说本身也是如此。根据曼恩自己对达沃斯的印象，他的妻子在那里接受治疗，这本书被以为会是一部短篇小说，是“威尼斯之死”（背景是霍乱爆发期间）的幽默姐妹篇。作者预计“魔山”只能有一小部分观众。但是疾病的影响给这部小说带来了奇怪的转变，它发展成一部优雅的、思考死亡的900页小说，被数百万人阅读和崇敬。

来源：经济学人

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