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During a cocktail party in Robert Galbraith’s (a.k.a. J. K. Rowling’s) endlessly entertaining detective novel “The Silkworm,” the publisher Daniel Chard gives a toast in which he observes that “publishing is currently undergoing a period of rapid changes and fresh challenges, but one thing remains as true today as it was a century ago: Content is king.”
罗伯特·加尔布雷思（Robert Galbraith，又名J·K·罗琳[J.K. Rowling]）的侦探小说《蚕》(The Silkworm)非常有趣，书中写到了一次鸡尾酒会，席间出版商丹尼尔·查德(Daniel Chard)做了致辞，说：“出版业目前正在经历巨变与崭新的挑战，但是有一件事百年至今从未改变：内容为王。”
Coming from an obscure, midlist, mystery author named Robert Galbraith such a statement might go unnoticed. But when the same passage is written by J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and one of the most successful authors of all time, the words cannot help having a far greater impact.
这样的话若是来自籍籍无名、在书榜上名列中游、名叫罗伯特·加尔布雷思的神秘作家，可能根本不会有人注意。但同样的话如果是由哈利·波特(Harry Potter)系列的作者，也是史上最成功的作家之一J·K·罗琳写下来的，影响力可就大多了。
Therein lies the problem and the great joy of this book.
问题就在这里，它也是这本书给人带来的巨大乐趣之一。
You want to judge “The Silkworm” on its own merit, author be damned. It is, in fact, this critic’s job to do so. But writing that type of blind review in this case, while a noble goal, is inauthentic if not downright disingenuous. If an author’s biography always casts some shadow on the work, here, the author is comparatively a total solar eclipse coupled with a supermassive black hole.
你希望以《蚕》本身的价值来评判这本书，不去管作者怎么样。事实上，这是评论家的责任。但是，在这种情况下，写这种“盲评”，虽然目的是高尚的，但却显得不真诚，至少也是不大可靠。如果一个作家的生平总会在他的作品中投下阴影，在这本书里，这位作家投下的不只是日全食，简直就是一个特大号黑洞。
This is especially true because Rowling (let’s stop pretending) makes matters worse (or better) by taking on the world of publishing. Leonora Quine, the dowdy wife of the novelist Owen Quine, hires our hero, the British private detective Cormoran Strike (first seen last year in Rowling’s “The Cuckoo’s Calling”), to investigate the disappearance of her husband. Owen Quine has just written a nasty novel that reveals dark, life-ruining secrets of almost everyone he knows. Owen, his wife tells Strike, is probably at a writer’s retreat. Finding him should be a routine matter.
更何况罗琳（还是别用假名称呼她了）还挑战了出版界，这让事情变得更糟（或更好）。本书主角是英国私家侦探克莫伦·斯特莱克(Cormoran Strike)，去年在罗琳的《布谷鸟的呼唤》(The Cuckoo’s Calling)中首度登场；小说家欧文·奎恩的妻子利奥诺拉·奎恩(Leonora Quine)长相俗气，她雇用斯特莱克寻找失踪的老公。欧文·奎恩刚写完一本令人不快的小说，几乎所有熟人的黑暗丑陋秘密都被他端出来了。奎恩太太告诉斯特莱克，欧文可能呆在一个作家的疗养地，寻找他可能会变成常事。
But, of course, nothing here is what it seems. When Owen Quine ends up gruesomely slaughtered — in a murder scene ripped from his new novel — Strike and his comely sidekick, Robin Ellacott (think Sherlock and Watson, Nick and Nora, Batman and, well, Robin), enter the surprisingly seedy world of book publishing. They investigate those who were thinly disguised in Quine’s final manuscript, all of whom offer insights into the world of the writer.
但是，当然啦，一切都不是表面上看起来的那样。欧文·奎恩最后被残酷地杀害了，犯罪场景正来自他的新小说。斯特莱克和他的漂亮助手罗宾·埃拉科特（Robin Ellacott，他俩的关系就像福尔摩斯和华生、尼克和诺拉、蝙蝠侠和，那个，也是罗宾）进入了图书出版的世界，这个世界令人惊讶地名声狼藉。他们调查了奎恩最后的手稿中那些几乎没做任何掩饰就提到的人，他们都能让人洞察到作家世界的内部。
The suspect pool includes his editor, Jerry Waldegrave (“Writers are different. . . . I’ve never met one who was any good who wasn’t screwy”); his agent, Elizabeth Tassel (“Have you any idea . . . how many people think they can write? You cannot imagine the crap I am sent”); his publisher, Daniel Chard (“We need readers. . . . More readers. Fewer writers”); and the pompous literary novelist Michael Fancourt (“Like most writers, I tend to find out what I feel on a subject by writing about it. It is how we interpret the world, how we make sense of it”).
嫌疑人中包括奎恩的编辑杰里·沃德格雷夫（Jerry Waldegrave，“作家们都很不一样……我从来没见过不古怪的作家能写出好东西”）；他的经纪人伊丽莎白·塔塞尔（Elizabeth Tassel，“你知不知道……到底有多少人觉得自己能写作？你没法想像人们拿给我什么样的垃圾”）；他的出版商丹尼尔·查德（“我们需要读者……更多的读者。更少的作家”）；还有高傲的文学小说家迈克尔·范克特（Michael Fancourt，“和大多数作家一样，我也喜欢通过写作某个主题来找出自己对它的真实感受。这是我们阐释世界的方式，是我们为之赋予意义的方式”）。
As written by Rowling, “The Silkworm” takes “write what you know” and raises it to the 10th power. Is this crime fiction, a celebrity tell-all, juicy satire or all of the above? The blessing/curse here is that you turn the pages for the whodunit, but you never lose sight that these observations on the publishing world come from the very top. This makes complete escape, something mandatory for a crime novel, almost impossible — but then again, who cares? If you want a more complete escape, pick up another book. Reading Rowling on writing is delicious fun.
《蚕》由罗琳创作，是那种“写你熟悉的事情”，然后再把它增加到十级马力的小说。它究竟是一部犯罪小说，还是一部名流曝光，抑或生动的讽刺文学，或者以上皆是呢？这里面的好处/坏处在于，你把它当做一部侦探小说来阅读，但你总会注意到书中充满对出版界的观察，这种观察正来自出版界的顶层。这使得纯粹的消遣——对于一本侦探小说来说所必须提供的——成为几乎是不可能的事情；但是这里问题又来了，谁会在乎呢？如果你想要更彻底的放松，那还是换一本书吧。不过读罗琳谈写作还是很有意思的。
Even the title of the novel (and the English translation of the poisoned-pen manuscript) is “The Silkworm” because a silkworm’s life is “a metaphor for the writer, who has to go through agonies to get at the good stuff.” On envy: “If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.” On Internet trolls: “With the invention of the Internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani.” On a literary male writer’s inability to create realistic female characters: “His women are all temper . . . and tampons.” On a writer named Dorcus Pengelly (some of these names are straight out of Hogwarts): “She writes pornography dressed up as historical romance,” but our murder victim still would “have killed for her sales.”
小说的名字叫做《蚕》（小说中那本毒舌手稿的名字也是这个），就连这个名字也和写作有关系，因为蚕的一生“是对作家的隐喻，他们经历痛苦去获得好东西”。她谈起嫉妒时说，“如果你希望一生都只能获得暂时的同盟者，这些伙伴们还会对你的每次失败欢呼雀跃，那就去写小说吧。”她谈起互联网上的喧嚣：“有了互联网，随便什么会写几个字的白痴都能当角谷美智子（美国著名评论家——译注）了。”还有一个无法写好逼真女性角色的男作家：“他笔下的女人都很情绪化……像经前综合征。”关于一个名叫多克斯·潘格利（Dorcus Pengelly，书中有些名字是直接从霍格沃兹学校来的）的女作家：“她写的是伪装成历史浪漫小说的色情文学”，而我们的受害者“会因为她的销量而杀人”。
There is even a debate on the merits of self-publishing when Quine’s mistress whines that she’s going the “indie” route because “traditional publishers wouldn’t know good books if they were hit over the head with them.”
书中甚至还讨论了自费出版的价值，奎恩的情妇抱怨说自己走上了“独立”的道路，因为“传统出版社不知道什么才是好书，就算好书砸到他们脑袋上也认不出来”。
Are these opinions shared by Rowling? Don’t know, don’t care. In the end, despite the window dressing, Rowling’s goal is to entertain and entertain she does. If we can’t forget that she is a celebrity, we’re also constantly reminded that she is a master storyteller. Push aside J. K. Rowling (a gender-neutral pseudonym Joanne Rowling took so that boys would read Harry Potter) and judge the book on the merits of Robert Galbraith (a full-fledged male pseudonym with no such neutrality), and “The Silkworm” is still a suspenseful, well-written and assured British detective novel.
这些观点罗琳都认同？没人知道，也没人关心。尽管有这些装点门面的东西，罗琳最终的目的还是娱乐，她也提供了娱乐。如果我们总忘不了她是个名人，那么也应该时常提醒自己，她是讲故事的大师。抛开J·K·罗琳（这是个中性化的笔名，用来代替她的原名“琼尼·罗琳”，好让男孩子也来读哈利·波特）的名气，独立判断罗伯特·加尔布雷思（一个完全是男性化的笔名，并没有做中性化处理）这本书的价值，会发现《蚕》同样是一本充满悬疑、文笔精彩、彻头彻尾的英国侦探小说。
Strike, who lost his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, is described as a “limping prize fighter,” a man who looms so large, “the room seemed much smaller with his arrival.” Potter fans will want to make a connection between Cormoran Strike and Rubeus Hagrid, the beloved giant in the Harry Potter novels, but such comparisons feel forced. If J. K. Rowling never leaves our minds while reading “The Silkworm,” the world of Harry Potter, to Rowling/Galbraith’s credit, never enters it. We are squarely in the gritty, gloomy and glitzy real world of the Muggles, except maybe when she describes a noisy piece of furniture in Strike’s office as the “farting leather sofa.” For a moment, the reader can almost see the sofa coming to life in the halls of Slytherin House.
斯特莱克在阿富汗战场上因为地雷而失去了一条腿，被描述为“跛脚的荣誉战士”，一个非常有存在感的男人，“因为他的到来，房间显得小多了。”哈利·波特的粉丝们会希望在克莫伦·斯特莱克和哈利·波特小说里受人喜爱的巨人鲁伯·海格(Rubers Hagrid)找到共同点，但这样的比较感觉很牵强。如果在在阅读《蚕》的时候，J·K·罗琳从未离开你的脑海，那么，值得称道的是，罗琳或加尔布雷思从未让哈利·波特的世界进入这本书。我们完全置身于这个坚实、阴郁、浮华，由麻瓜组成的现实世界里，或许只除了她描写斯特莱克办公室里一件吱嘎作响的家具是“老放屁的皮沙发”。在那一刻，读者可能会感觉斯莱特林学院大厅里的沙发回来了。
“The Silkworm” most often feels like a traditional British crime novel albeit set in the present day, complete with eccentric suspects, a girl Friday (Oh, when will they see that they are meant for each other?) and a close friend in the police department whose life Strike saved in the war. But Rowling gives some of the old saws a new spin. Robin, for example, isn’t a longtime friend or ex-lover — she starts out as a young temp Strike first meets in “The Cuckoo’s Calling.”
虽然发生在现在，《蚕》几乎可以被视为传统的英国犯罪小说，再加一堆古怪的嫌犯，一个女孩版“礼拜五”（啊，他俩什么时候才能明白他们是天生一对？），一个在警察局的密友，斯特莱克曾在战争中救了他的命。不过罗琳给这些老套路赋予了新元素。比方说，罗宾不再是斯特莱克的老朋友或前女友，她和斯特莱克在《布谷鸟的呼唤》中初遇时是个年轻的临时秘书。
Strike himself may at first appear to be something we have seen too often — a brooding, damaged detective, with a life-altering war injury, financially on the brink, who’s recently lost his longtime girlfriend — but there is an optimism to him that is refreshing and endearing. Even though he’s hobbling down the street, often in great pain, “Strike was unique among the men not merely for his size but for the fact that he did not look as though life had pummeled him into a quiescent stupor.”
斯特莱克本人一开始可能很像我们经常遇到的那种形象——一个多思、受过伤害的侦探，战争中受的伤改变了他的生活、经济在崩溃边缘，前不久又失去了多年女友——但他身上有一种乐观主义，这非常令人喜爱，也让人耳目一新。尽管他在街上一瘸一拐地走着，时常都很痛苦。“斯特莱克是独一无二的，不仅是因为他的身材，也因为他并不觉得生活一直在打击他，把他打到人事不省。”
Strike also shares a trait with many great fictional detectives: He is darn good company.
斯特莱克还有一个特点是很多伟大的虚构侦探都具有的：他是个好伙伴。
There are musings on fame (Strike is the illegitimate son of the rock star Jonny Rokeby), the media (the book opens with a passing shot at the British phone hacking scandal that engulfed many celebrities, including Rowling), book marketing (Quine’s wife on her husband’s sluggish sales: “It’s up to the publishers to give ’em a push. They wouldn’t never get him on TV or anything like he needed”), not to mention e-books and the digital age of publishing.
书中有很多思考，诸如名誉（斯特莱克是摇滚明星约翰尼·洛克比[Jonny Rockeby]的私生子）、媒体（这本书一开头就写了英国电话窃听丑闻，包括罗琳在内的很多名人都身陷其中）、图书市场（奎恩的妻子谈起丈夫的书卖不动：“完全要靠出版商来推动。他们从不让他上电视，或者提供他类似的机会”），当然还有电子书和数字出版时代了。
But Rowling saves her most poignant observations for the disappointments of marriage and relationships. The likable Robin is engaged to a pill named Matthew and cannot see, as Strike and the reader can, that “the condition of being with Matthew was not to be herself.” When he thinks about his own sister’s marriage and those like it, Strike wonders about the “endless parade of suburban conformity.” His private-eye job of catching straying spouses makes him lament “the tedious variations on betrayal and disillusionment that brought a never-ending stream of clients to his door.” He sees the “willfully blind allegiance” of long-suffering wives and the false “hero worship” of male writers by the women who supposedly love them. When his sister asks Strike if he puts up with his destructive ex-girlfriend “because she’s beautiful,” Strike’s honest answer is devastating: “It helps.”
但罗琳最深刻辛酸的观察还要算是对婚姻和恋爱关系的失望。可爱的罗宾和一个名叫马修的讨厌鬼订婚了，但她看不到斯特莱克和读者们所能看出的东西——“她和马修在一起时的状态完全不是她自己。”斯特莱克想起自己姊妹的婚姻，还有那些有着相似婚姻的人，不禁思忖，这是一条通往“市郊常规生活的漫长队列”。他的寻找失踪配偶的私家侦探工作让他哀叹“背叛与幻灭是冗长乏味的变奏，为他带来永无穷尽的客户”。他看到长期受苦的妻子们保持着“故意盲目的忠诚”，以及那些声称爱着男性作家们的女人虚假的“英雄崇拜”。他的姊妹问他能够忍受那冤家前女友是不是“只因为她很漂亮”，斯特莱克的回答诚实而可怕：“的确有帮助”。
Do these observations take on more weight when we know that the writer is a superstar female author rather than a semi-obscure male one? I think they do.
如果我们知道这些观察来自一位明星女作家，而不是一个几乎没有名气的男作家，会不会觉得它们更有分量？我觉得是这样。
The book isn’t perfect. It’s a tad too long, and the suspect interrogations grow repetitive. Sometimes the reader feels Rowling may be trying too hard to move away from Hogwarts. The fair amount of swearing reminds one of a rebellious teenager set free.
这本书并不完美。它稍微有点冗长，对疑犯的质询愈来愈啰嗦。有时候读者会觉得罗琳过于努力摆脱霍格沃茨。大堆脏话有点像叛逆的青少年好不容易得到自由。
Some will also argue that while Harry Potter altered the landscape in a way no children’s novel ever has, here Rowling does the opposite: She plays to form. “The Silkworm” is a very well-written, wonderfully entertaining take on the traditional British crime novel, but it breaks no new ground, and Rowling seems to know that. Robert Galbraith may proudly join the ranks of English, Scottish and Irish crime writers such as Tana French, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Kate Atkinson and Peter Robinson, but she wouldn’t overshadow them. Still, to put any author on that list is very high praise.
有些人会说，从没有任何一本童书像哈利·波特这样改变了出版界，在这里罗琳做的事正相反，她在努力建设。《蚕》是一本文笔极佳、极具娱乐性的读物，以传统英国犯罪小说的面目出现，没有打破任何常规，罗琳似乎也知道这一点。罗伯特·加尔布雷思可能会骄傲地加入塔娜·法兰琪(Tana French)、伊恩·兰金(Ian Rankin)、薇儿·麦克德米德(Val McDermid)、约翰·康诺利(John Connolly)、凯特·阿特金森(Kate Atkinson)和彼得·罗宾森(Peter Robinson)等英格兰、苏格兰和爱尔兰犯罪小说作家的行列，但她不会超越他们。不过，能跻身这些作家的行列已经是很高的荣誉了。
The upside of being as well known as Rowling is obvious — sales, money, attention. That’s not what she’s after here. The downside — and her reason for using the pseudonym — is that telling a story needs a little bit of anonymity. Rowling deserves that chance, even if she can’t entirely have it. We can’t unring that bell, but in a larger sense, we readers get more. We get the wry observations when we can’t ignore the author’s identity and we get the escapist mystery when we can. In the end, the fictional publisher Daniel Chard got it right: “Content is king,” and on that score, both J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith triumph.
随“罗琳”的名气而来的好处是显而易见的——销量、金钱和关注。但这并不是她所追求的。至于坏处——这也正是她使用化名的原因——就是讲故事确实需要一点匿名性。就算无法彻底享有，罗琳也理应获得这样的机会。我们不能忘记她的名气，但从大一点的角度来说，我们读者获得的东西更多。如果我们注意到作者的身份，就会理解到书中观点的讽刺之处；如果我们忘记作者的身份，就能体会到一种避世的神秘感。不管怎样，书中虚构的出版商丹尼尔·查德说得对——“内容为王”，就这一点而言，J·K·罗琳和罗伯特·加尔布雷思都赢了。
