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Love on the lam
爱在潜逃路
A rare thing: a deeply moving thriller
奇葩：惊悚小说也催泪
Schroder. By Amity Gaige.
《父亲的罪》作者艾米蒂·盖奇
ERIC is the unlikeliest of characters to charm a reader. His life is a tabloid drama: man abducts daughter, gets arrested and confesses in a letter to his estranged wife. It is to the credit of Amity Gaige, an American writer, that her third novel, “Schroder”, transforms this thriller plot into a deeply moving tale.
埃里克的人生就像通俗小报刊登的故事：他拐跑亲生女儿，为此锒铛入狱，随后写信向分居的妻子表示忏悔。这种人物最不可能赢得读者的青睐。多亏美国作家艾米蒂·盖奇，她用妙笔将惊悚情节演绎成一个感人至深的故事，这就是盖奇的第三部小说《父亲的罪》。
Eric's story is one of multiple deceptions. At the age of eight, and named Erik Schroder, he landed in America with his father from East Germany. Six years later he assumed the name Eric Kennedy and never minded if people presumed he was related to the slain president. These primordial lies set the stage for his later unravelling. His marriage to Laura, which brought a happiness he hardly dared believe, breaks up when their daughter, Meadow, is four years old. Knowing that divorce will expose his pretence and endanger contact with his child, Eric flees with her into the wooded mountains of northern New York.
层层叠叠的谎言构成了埃里克的生活。八岁时以埃里克·施罗德的化名，跟随父亲从东德搬迁至美国。六年后，他更名埃里克·肯尼迪，有时被误认为那位惨遭暗杀的美国总统的亲戚，他也丝毫不介意。这些谎言为他日后的遭遇埋下祸根。和劳拉的婚姻生活竟然是如此的幸福，不过一切就在女儿麦朵四岁时烟消云散。一旦离婚，他不得不暴露真实身份，还有可能承受失去女儿的痛苦。想到这里，埃里克带着小麦朵逃匿到纽约州北部的森林里。
The description of the next six days, written by this serial liar, self-inventor and troubled, possibly dangerous man, is riveting. Ms Gaige's main achievement is to inhabit her protagonist so thoroughly that the reader cannot help but empathise. Eric is by turns insightful, funny, bizarre and irresponsible, at once self-deceiving and self-aware. Explaining his decision to cut and run, he writes: “I couldn't take it any more, the way the wind went out of the world whenever my daughter left.” In his apologetic, heartfelt voice, the novel becomes an intense, often beautiful meditation on the desperate love of a parent for a child.
这名落魄的父亲虽然满嘴谎言，善于编造身份，也许是个危险人物，他将跑路六日娓娓道来，语言却也赏心悦目。女作家不惜笔墨，主角形象丰满，读后令人同情，此乃小说最大亮点。她笔下的埃里克时而富有远见卓识，时而滑稽古怪不负责任，时而自欺欺人，时而头脑清醒。提到下定切断过去远逃异乡的决心时，埃里克如此解释：“每次我的女儿离开时，世界了无生机，我再也受不了了。”他的叙述充满歉意和真诚，成就一部深刻思考绝望亲情的惊悚小说，其中不乏美丽的语言。
Eric regards the kidnapping as a fairy-tale adventure; his daughter, wryly intelligent, is swept along. But Laura's lawyer accuses him of “bizarre, neglectful parenting”. On the lam he lets Meadow wade into a freezing lake, feeds her junk food and leaves her unattended. The question is not if he will be caught, but how and when.
明白一切的女儿嘲讽地看着事情发展的态势，跟着父亲匆匆赶路，而在埃里克眼里，这次绑架就是一次童话般的冒险。然而劳拉的律师指责他“行为古怪，缺乏为人父的责任心”。途中，他用垃圾食品喂养小麦朵，带她涉过冰冷的湖水，甚至留她孤身一人。他总会被逮捕，关键是何时以何种方式。
What distinguishes “Schroder” is its insight and language. Rain is “not rain but the liquid redistribution of collective conflict.” Laura has “such a careful way with the truth”. Ms Gaige excels at landscapes; her writing has the still, clear beauty of a mountain lake. Equally, she understands the terror of potential loss. Eric realises that there is only “one thing that really deranges us and that is the disappearance of love.” Linking too obviously to the symbolism of the cold-war Germany that Eric left behind, with its metaphors of flight and division, is the only misstep. Readers do not need such neat explanations to follow this flawed yet caring father.
《父亲的罪》脱俗之处不仅在于思想深刻，更在于语言奇妙。天上下的“不再是雨水，而是蒸发后重新分配的集体冲突。”劳拉“谨慎地认知真相”。女作家盖奇女士不仅擅长于描写景致，赋予笔下的山中湖一种静谧透彻的美，而且深谙可能失去某些人或事时的恐惧。埃里克认识到，“世上真正使我们疯狂的仅此一物，那就是爱的消逝。”唯一不足之处是，小说充斥着飞行和分裂的意象，影射主人公逃离的东德，这一比喻太露骨，反而减少品读并不完美却舐犊情深的父亲形象的乐趣。
