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Books and Arts; Book Review; New fiction; Petals of blood;
David Grossman may have written his most important novel yet;
To the End of the Land. By David Grossman.
It is no accident that the prologue to David Grossman's new novel, “To the End of the Land”, takes place in a fever ward. As the stories unfold, the reader discovers that fever is not just a symptom of physical illness. It becomes a description of the existential state of Israel. Mr Grossman's characters are not so much in possession of their experiences as possessed by them. They are gripped by a deep uncertainty about what will happen next: a terrorist bomb, the violent death of someone close, the overwhelming of their country by the enemies that surround it. It is next to impossible to rest or be at peace. Some seek to withdraw from this situation, others to resist it. It pervades existence in ways that make a distinction between the personal and the political something that is longed for and quite impossible to achieve.
大卫·格罗斯曼的新小说《走向天尽头》以发烧病房作为开头并非偶然。随着小说情节的展开，读者发现发烧不只是身体病状。发烧成为了以色列生存状态的特征。大卫先生作品的人物与其说是具有了经验，不如说被经验缠住不得脱身。他们被不断要发生的种种深度不确定性事件引发了发烧症：恐怖分子的炸弹、至爱亲朋的死于非命、祖国四面受敌的严峻态势。 归于安定和平几无可能。一些人寻求躲之避之，另一些人则要斗之抗之。这个不确定性弥漫于存在状态的方方面面，其弥漫的方式却有截然不同的两种，各自代表了个人的或政治上极不可能实现的愿景。
Published first in Hebrew in April 2008, “To the End of the Land” is Mr Grossman's eighth novel to be translated into English. His first translated book was not a novel, but a documentary work that came out in 1987. “The Yellow Wind” engaged with the lives of Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli occupation. It showed Mr Grossman's scrupulous attention to the feelings and thoughts of a group of people who have often been met with suspicion and contempt. It was also unequivocal that Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories as much for the sake of Israeli Jews as for their Arab neighbours.
《行至天尽头》是大卫先生的译成英语的第八部小说，它首次出版是在2008年4月，用的是现代以色列语。他的首部翻译作品不是小说，而是1987年出版的纪实性作品《黄风》。《黄风》描述的是那些在以色列管制下、住在加沙和约旦河西岸的巴基斯坦人的生活。《黄风》表现了大卫对时常遭受怀疑和蔑视的巴基斯坦人的情感和思想细致而审慎的关注。为了犹太人，也为了其邻居阿拉伯人，以色列应当从占领区撤离，这是毫无疑问的。
The book made Mr Grossman, now 56, a contentious figure in Israel, and the controversy has not gone away. He is a vocal opponent of the extension of Jewish settlements. At the same time he has emerged in the last two decades as one of the most significant voices in Israeli and world literature. “To the End of the Land” is his most ambitious work to date. He began writing it in 2003 and, as a poignant endnote to the novel discloses, discussed it with his son, Uri, while he was on military service. In 2006 Uri was killed by an anti-tank missile during the second Israeli-Lebanon war. The event does not explicitly surface in the novel, but it adds a grave sadness to Mr Grossman's searching account of the psychological and physical costs of a seemingly endless state of war.
该书使现年56岁的大卫成为以色列的一位争议人物，且争议至今未消。他是犹太人定居点扩张主义者的旗帜鲜明的反对者；同时，也是近20年来蜚声以色列和世界文坛的重要作家之一。《行至天尽头》是大卫最具雄心的作品。他于2003年开始创作该小说，而且据该小说的一个令人伤感的尾注披露，他当时还与在军中服役的儿子尤利一同为该小说的谋篇布局讨论过。2006年，尤利在第二次以黎战争中被一颗反坦克导弹夺去生命。虽然丧子之痛在他的小说中未予特别披露，但是，就大卫对似无止息的战争带给人们的身心创伤所作的探索性叙述而言，丧子之痛增添了作品沉重的悲伤气氛。
“To the End of the Land” follows the course of the feverish state of Israel in the lives of its three main characters. The prologue, set in 1967, tells of their first meeting as teenagers in a hospital ward. There are two boys and a girl. Ora cries out in her sleep, haunted by the accidental death of her best friend. Avram is witty, talkative, consoling. Ilan seems the sickest of the three. As their individual temperatures scale up and down, they form a trinity, each becoming an aspect of the other's identity. Without knowing it, the three enter into a relationship that will determine the rest of their lives.
《走向天尽头》以三个主人公的人生经历来追踪以色列的发烧进程。小说的开篇场景设定在1967年，描述的是三个少男少女在医院病房的初遇，其中有两个是男孩。奥拉因闺友意外死亡，备受伤悲，常在梦中惊叫；埃弗拉姆机智健谈、善抚他人；依蓝似乎病得最重。随着各自体温的升升降降，他们的性格彼此同化，形成了三位一体。他们尚不知道，他们之间形成的是一种将会影响其余生命运的关系。
The novel then moves forward to 2000. The setting is a long walk that Ora and Avram take through northern Israel. The stories told in the course of it piece together what has happened in the intervening years. There has been a lot of damage. The fever has taken its toll. Avram has never recovered from imprisonment and torture in the Yom Kippur war. Ilan's and Ora's marriage has broken up. Ora can no longer bear the burden of living in a country that requires all its citizens to be soldiers. She feels that a military state has destroyed the family she has so lovingly and painfully brought to life.
随后，小说情节推进到了2000年。背景是奥拉和埃弗拉姆徒步穿越以色列北部。在穿越途中，小说讲述了他们仨人数十年间经历的零零种种。途中艰难险阻不断。发热症也逐渐产生。埃弗拉姆在赎罪日战争中受到关押和折磨，症状再不能消除了。依蓝和奥拉的婚姻破裂。奥拉再不能忍受生活之重——生活在要求人人皆兵的国家。她感到，这个好战之国毁了她的家，毁了她如此热爱且艰辛付出的家。
Their walk is a pilgrimage of sorts. Ora tells Avram the story of her life. She wants to bring him to a state where he can acknowledge that one of her two sons is his and not Ilan's—and he can come to love the boy, now a serving soldier. Their capacity to listen to each other might be a form of therapy; or it might not. Nothing is made explicit.
他们的徒步穿越是某种朝圣之旅。奥拉向埃弗拉姆述说了她的生活经历。她想把他引入一种氛围，在此氛围下他能承认她的两个儿子之一就是他的儿子，不是依蓝的；她也希望他能够爱这个在服兵役的儿子。他们能够互相听得进对方的话，这就可能是一种疗伤止痛的方法； 但也可能不是。没有什么是清楚确定的。
The question of a cure for their lives, of some kind of forgiveness, hovers around their words. The novel alludes to the hopes for redemption in the stories of the Jewish tradition: the journey into the promised land, the coming of the Messiah, the renewal of the covenant between God and his chosen people. But these allusions are not endorsements. Mr Grossman's imagination is secular, worldly, self-questioning and ironic. The Israel he imagines, beautifully and sorrowfully, is not going to be saved by any divine intervention.
用几许宽恕来医治他们人生中的发热症，是他们朝圣之旅中挥之不去的话题。该小说提示了几种希望——几种用犹太历史故事来实施救赎的希望：踏上希望的朝圣之旅，以期救世主的降临，进而重履救世主和其子民间的契约。不过，这些提示不是大卫的本意。大卫的的内心是世俗而非宗教的、具有自省及冷讽精神。他以凄美情怀思虑着的以色列没有打算靠神的力量救赎自己。
