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Solitude
隐居
Sweet spot
甜蜜点
A journey around living alone
独居之旅
Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga.
《森林的慰藉：针叶林中的木屋独居之旅》
Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga. By Sylvain Tesson, translated by Linda Coverdale.
《森林的慰藉：针叶林中的木屋独居之旅》，Sylvain Tesson著，Linda Coverdale译。
SYLVAIN TESSON, a French writer, is known for books about his journeys across the steppes and mountains of Central Asia. “Consolations of the Forest”, which won the Prix Médicis in 2011 and is his first book in English translation, is different. It is about staying put. For six months in 2010—from February to July—Mr Tesson lived alone in a forest cabin beside Lake Baykal in Siberia.
SYLVAIN TESSON，这位法国作家，因其在亚洲中部跋山涉水的一段旅程而知名。《森林的慰藉》，不仅荣获2011年度梅迪西斯文学奖，还是该作家的第一本英译作品，可谓与众不同。该书主要谈论居留定所，讲述2010年2月至7月，Tesson先生在西伯利亚贝加尔湖旁的森林小屋度过的六个月独居生活。
The nearest village was 75 miles away, the closest neighbour several hours' walk. There were no roads. Solar panels gave him some electricity, but otherwise, fortified by vodka and cigars, he lived the simple life, much of it reading and thinking—about nature, time and himself. “Nothing is as good as solitude,” he says, adding: “The only thing I need to make me perfectly happy is someone to whom I could explain this.” Instead he described the pleasures to himself in a diary; “Consolations of the Forest” is the happy result.
最近的村庄距他有75英里之远，最近的邻居家足有好几小时的路程。林中也无路。太阳能板为他提供基本的电力需要。除了伏特加和雪茄这点嗜好，他基本过着简单的生活，大多数时间用来读书、思考—关于自然、时间及自省。“独居是无可拟比的，”他说，“我唯一要做的就是向他人诠释这种感受，这让我欣喜若狂。”为此他以日记形式记载着这份喜悦，《森林的慰藉》便是这喜悦的成果。
Why did he do it? The question runs through the book like a tune. Was it a revulsion against modernity, against traffic and cheeseburgers? Or was it an act of political refusal? A hermit's life, he says, “is more anti-statist than a protest demonstration bristling with black flags”. Was it a wish to tread lightly on the earth, not to exploit it? Or perhaps it was a way to plumb his inner life—“the nuances of my own tectonics”. As he chops wood, guts fish and dodges brown bears, Mr Tesson considers these questions in the company of philosophers and poets, misfits and refuseniks.
他为何要独居呢？这一疑问犹如和谐曲般贯穿全书。是对现代生活，拥挤的交通，速食汉堡的反感？还是政治抗议行为呢？这种隐士般的生活，他说道，“比起举黑旗抗议游行更具有反国家主义精神。”或许这是对人与自然和谐相处、不再索取的希冀？又或许是他对内心生活的探索——“自身构造的细微差别”。伴随着砍柴、剖鱼、躲避棕熊，Tesson先生通过哲学家、诗人、那些格格不入、反抗主义者的视角思考这些问题。
Books inhabit Mr Tesson's inner and outer landscapes. Two ducks landing on open water remind him of reading and suddenly alighting on a good phrase. The sound of cracking ice brings Schopenhauer to mind. Staggered by the view from a mountaintop, he can think only of Hegel's words: So ist. His writing is elegant and urbane, full of paradoxes, aphorisms and conceits: “The sky has powdered the taiga [the northern forest], shaking velvety down over the vert-de-bronze of the cedars. Winter forest: a silvery fur tossed onto the shoulders of the terrain.” He verges on whimsy at times, and there are purple patches: “A russet moon rose tonight, its reflection in the shattered lake ice like a blood-red Host on a wounded altar.”
文学占据了Tesson的内心及现实。浮在水面的两只水鸭能让他想起曾经阅读时忽然捕捉到的优美措辞。冰裂之声让他想起叔本华。站在山顶俯视一切壮阔之景时，他心里只有黑格尔的那句：就是这样。他的作品语言优美、雅致，充满悖论、各种金句、天马行空的幻想：“天空粉饰那针叶林，轻柔地散落在青绿杉树之上。森林之冬：大地之肩披上一层银色毛皮。”他总会萌生些奇妙的念头，附上辞藻华丽的句子：“今夜，一轮黄褐色明月升起，倒影在破冰的湖面，就像那破败祭坛上血红的圣人。”
Tongue in cheek? Perhaps. Yet, for all his playfulness, Mr Tesson is in earnest. He loves thetaiga and understands the Russians' almost mystical attachment to it. He shudders at the occasional invasions of gun-toting businessmen in blaring 4x4s, and he walks for hours to meet odd loners in their scattered cabins. One of them gives him two puppies who become his much-loved companions and his wisest philosophers. Move over Schopenhauer. Aika and Bek know where the “sweet spot” is—the present moment, that special place “between longing and regret” that Mr Tesson is ultimately in search of.
华而不实？或许吧。但在他所有嬉言之下却有着一颗虔诚的心。他喜爱针叶林，并理解俄国人对针叶林近乎谜一样的依恋。他会被偶尔带枪入境、开着驱动车嘟嘟按喇叭的商人吓坏，还会徒步走上几小时去见一些奇怪的独居者，他们的木屋分散在森林中。其中一人给了他两只小狗，它们是Tesson钟爱的伴侣，是至贤的哲学家。胜过叔本华。Aika和Bek知道如何寻找“甜蜜点”—那个介于“渴望与遗憾”的特别存在，那正是Tesson的心之所向。
