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Excerpt：李維史陀的《憂鬱的熱帶》
2016/05/04 05:11
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Excerpt：李維史陀的《憂鬱的熱帶》
書名：憂鬱的熱帶 (Tristes Tropiques)
作者：克勞德‧李維史陀 (Claude Lévi-Strauss)
中譯：王志明 (聯經出版)
英譯：John Russell (New York : Criterion Books)
(https://archive.org/details/tristestropiques000177mbp)
【Excerpt】
I was, as yet, so little of an anthropologist that I never thought to take advantage of these opportunities. I’ve learnt, since, that these brief glimpses of a town, a region, or a way of life, offer us a school of attention. Sometimes so great is the concentration required of us in the few moments at our disposal they may even reveal to us characteristics which in other circumstances might have long remained hidden. But other things attracted me more; and it was with the ingenuousness of a beginner that I stood on the empty deck and watched, each day at sunrise and again at sunset, the supernatural cataclysms which were played out in full, as it seemed to me, with beginnings, development, and end, across the four corners of a sky vaster than any I had as yet seen. I felt that if I could find the right words to describe these ever-changing phenomena, if I could communicate to others the character of an event which was never twice the same, then I should have penetrated or so I felt to the inmost secrets of my profession: bizarre and peculiar as might be the experiences to which I should be subject in my career as an anthropologist, I could be sure of putting them, and their implications, at the disposal of the common reader.
不過，當時我還不懂人類學的研究觀點與方法，無法充分利用這些好機會。在那以後我學習到，對某個城鎮、地區或文化這樣匆匆一瞥，可以有效地訓練觀察力，因為停留的時間很短暫，便不得不盡力集中精神。極為短暫的觀察有時候甚至可以讓人捕捉到一些特質，那是在其他情況下即使經過很長的時間也無法看到的。但是當時我覺得 (人文以外的) 其他現象更為迷人，帶著生手的天真，每天我都站在空蕩蕩的甲板上，興奮地望著那片我從來沒有看過的那麼寬廣的地平線，花上好幾分鐘的時間極目四望，觀看日出日落的完整過程，猶如大自然巨變之起始、發展與結束。如果我能找到一種語言來重現那些現象，如此千變萬化又如此難以描述的現象的話，如果我有能力向別人說明一個永遠不會以同樣的階段與順序再度出現的獨特現象，那麼——當時我是這麼想的——我就能夠一口氣發現我這一行裡最深處的祕密：不論我從事人類學研究的時候會遇到如何奇怪特異的經驗，我還是可以向每一個人說明白它們的意義和重要性。 (p.82~83)
All life had gone from the sea. No longer did dolphins cut gracefully through the white waves ahead of us; nothing spouted on the horizon; and we had lost the spectacle of the pink-and-mauve-veiled nautiluses. Should we find, on the far side of the deep, the marvels vouched for by the navigators of old? When they moved into unknown regions they were more anxious to verify the ancient history of theOld World than to discover a new one. Adam and Ulysses were authenticated by what they saw. When Columbus , on his first journey, stumbled on the Antilles, he thought that they might be Japan New World was spared the agitations of history for some ten or twenty millennia. Something of this must remain, even if on another level. I soon found out that even if South America was no longer Eden before the Fall, it was still, thanks to that mysterious circumstance, in a position to offer a Golden Age to anyone with a bit of money. Its good fortune was melting like snow in the sun. How much of it is left today? Already the rich alone had access to its remnants, and now its very nature has been transformed and is historical, where once it was eternal, and social, where once it was metaphysical. The earthly paradise which Columbus
海上看不到任何生命的跡象。前方原本有海豚黑色的背脊起伏，比船首激起的水花泡沫更穩定更有節奏，現在牠們已優雅地引著海浪的白色波峰撒退了，地平線不再被海豚噴出的水柱劃開，海水也不再那麼藍，成群的船蛸不見了，不再看見它們纖柔的紫粉紅色腕膜外展如帆。然後，當我們去到深邃汪洋的彼岸時，昔日航海家見過的神奇景象是不是依然在那裡歡迎我們到來呢？近代航海者行經這片尚未被探索過的海域時，他們所想的並不是「發現新世界」，而是想印證遠古的歷史，他們堅信亞當與尤利西斯確實存在過。當哥倫布第一次橫越大西洋抵達西印度群島時，他或許曾以為自己看見了印度，不過，他更確信的是自己再次發現了地上的天堂。從那時到現在，四百年過去了，仍然無法完全消除新世界隔絕於舊世界之外長達一、兩萬年的巨大時間斷裂。有些東西還留著，不過是以另一種方式存在，我很快就了解，雖然南美洲不再是什麼人類墮落之前的伊甸園——得益於這裡神祕的氛圍——它依然具體展現著某種黃金時代，對有錢人來說尤其如此。南美洲得天獨厚的地位猶如積雪在陽光下消融，至今只剩下少少的可貴的一小片；同時，只有享有特殊恩寵的少數人可以進入這一小片區域，也因此而讓它變質了：以前是永恆的，現在成為歷史的；以前是形上學的，現在變成社會學的。哥倫布瞥見的地上天堂還是會繼續存在，同時也會變質，變成富人豪奢生活的禁鬻。 (p.96~97)
I had wanted to pursue *the primitive* to its furthest point. Surely my wish had been gratified by these delightful people whom no white man had seen before me, and none would ever see again? My journey had been enthralling and, at the end of it, I had come upon my savages. But alas they were all too savage. Having encountered them only at the last moment, I could not put aside the time that was indispensable if I were to hope to know them properly. My resources needed careful husbanding, my companions and I myself were physically near to exhaustion a state shortly to be aggravated by the fevers which would follow the rains. Consequently, where I should have spent a month in serious consecutive study, I could match at most a few days for the purpose. There they were, all ready to teach me their customs and beliefs, and I knew nothing of their language. They were as close to me as an image seen in a looking-glass: I could touch, but not understand them. I had at one and the same time my reward and my punishment, for did not my mistake, and that of my profession, lie in the belief that men are not always men? That some are more deserving of our interest and our attention because there is something astonishing to us in their manners, or in the colour of their skins? No sooner are such people known, or guessed at, than their strangeness drops away, and one might as well have stayed in one’s own village. Or i as in the present case, their strangeness remained intact, then it was no good to me, for I could not even begin to analyse it. Between these two extremes, what are the equivocal cases which afford us the excuses by which we live? Who is, in the end, the one most defrauded by the disquiet which we arouse in the reader? Our remarks must be pushed a certain distance, if we are to make them intelligible, and yet they must be cut off half-way, since the people whom they astonish are very like those for whom the customs in question are a matter of course. Is it the reader who is deceived by his belief in us? Or ourselves, who have not the right to be satisfied before we have completely dissolved that residuum which gave our vanity its pretext?
我以前很想接觸到野蠻的極限；我的願望可以說是達到了，我現在面對著這群迷人的印第安人，在我之前沒有任何白人與他們接觸過，也許以後也不會有白人和他們接觸。經過這一趟迷人的溯河之旅以後，我的確找到我要找的野蠻人了。但是，老天，他們是過分的野蠻了。由於我是在探險旅程的尾聲才找到他們，沒有足夠的時間真正去了解他們。我手中有限的資源，我自己和同伴們疲憊至極的身體狀況，更因雨季而引發的熱病變得更糟，使我只能做短暫的停留，像在叢林中學習一小段時間那樣，而不能待幾個月做研究。他們就在眼前，很樂意教我有關他們的習俗與信仰的一切，但是我卻不懂他們的語言。他們就像鏡中的影像一樣近在眼前，我可以觸摸得到，卻不能了解他們。我自己——還有人類學這門專業——或許都犯了錯誤，誤以為人未必都是相同的；誤以為有些人較值得注意，因為他們的膚色或習俗讓我們驚訝；誤以為我只要成功地猜到這是怎麼一回事，他們的奇特性就不復存在，那我大可留在自家的村落就好。抑或，像在這裡的情況，他們保有著奇特性，結果，這對我而言一點用處也沒有，因為我甚至無法窺得這奇特性的一絲端倪。在全然了解與全然不解的兩極之間，我們人類學家是拿什麼樣曖昧含混的案例當作藉口生存下去的呢？歸根究柢，人類學的研究觀察只進行到「可以理解」的程度，然後就中途停止。用一些被某些人 (土著) 視為理所當然的習慣來使其他人 (讀者) 感到驚訝——而事實上兩種人是十分相似的。當這麼作使讀者感到迷惑的時候，受騙的到底是那些對我們深信不移的讀者呢？還是我們這些人類學家？在還沒有把我們的虛榮心所依賴的最後那點殘渣完全去除之前，我們都不應該感到自滿。 (p.494~495)
書名：憂鬱的熱帶 (Tristes Tropiques)
作者：克勞德‧李維史陀 (Claude Lévi-Strauss)
中譯：王志明 (聯經出版)
英譯：John Russell (New York : Criterion Books)
(https://archive.org/details/tristestropiques000177mbp)
【Excerpt】
I was, as yet, so little of an anthropologist that I never thought to take advantage of these opportunities. I’ve learnt, since, that these brief glimpses of a town, a region, or a way of life, offer us a school of attention. Sometimes so great is the concentration required of us in the few moments at our disposal they may even reveal to us characteristics which in other circumstances might have long remained hidden. But other things attracted me more; and it was with the ingenuousness of a beginner that I stood on the empty deck and watched, each day at sunrise and again at sunset, the supernatural cataclysms which were played out in full, as it seemed to me, with beginnings, development, and end, across the four corners of a sky vaster than any I had as yet seen. I felt that if I could find the right words to describe these ever-changing phenomena, if I could communicate to others the character of an event which was never twice the same, then I should have penetrated or so I felt to the inmost secrets of my profession: bizarre and peculiar as might be the experiences to which I should be subject in my career as an anthropologist, I could be sure of putting them, and their implications, at the disposal of the common reader.
不過，當時我還不懂人類學的研究觀點與方法，無法充分利用這些好機會。在那以後我學習到，對某個城鎮、地區或文化這樣匆匆一瞥，可以有效地訓練觀察力，因為停留的時間很短暫，便不得不盡力集中精神。極為短暫的觀察有時候甚至可以讓人捕捉到一些特質，那是在其他情況下即使經過很長的時間也無法看到的。但是當時我覺得 (人文以外的) 其他現象更為迷人，帶著生手的天真，每天我都站在空蕩蕩的甲板上，興奮地望著那片我從來沒有看過的那麼寬廣的地平線，花上好幾分鐘的時間極目四望，觀看日出日落的完整過程，猶如大自然巨變之起始、發展與結束。如果我能找到一種語言來重現那些現象，如此千變萬化又如此難以描述的現象的話，如果我有能力向別人說明一個永遠不會以同樣的階段與順序再度出現的獨特現象，那麼——當時我是這麼想的——我就能夠一口氣發現我這一行裡最深處的祕密：不論我從事人類學研究的時候會遇到如何奇怪特異的經驗，我還是可以向每一個人說明白它們的意義和重要性。 (p.82~83)
All life had gone from the sea. No longer did dolphins cut gracefully through the white waves ahead of us; nothing spouted on the horizon; and we had lost the spectacle of the pink-and-mauve-veiled nautiluses. Should we find, on the far side of the deep, the marvels vouched for by the navigators of old? When they moved into unknown regions they were more anxious to verify the ancient history of the
海上看不到任何生命的跡象。前方原本有海豚黑色的背脊起伏，比船首激起的水花泡沫更穩定更有節奏，現在牠們已優雅地引著海浪的白色波峰撒退了，地平線不再被海豚噴出的水柱劃開，海水也不再那麼藍，成群的船蛸不見了，不再看見它們纖柔的紫粉紅色腕膜外展如帆。然後，當我們去到深邃汪洋的彼岸時，昔日航海家見過的神奇景象是不是依然在那裡歡迎我們到來呢？近代航海者行經這片尚未被探索過的海域時，他們所想的並不是「發現新世界」，而是想印證遠古的歷史，他們堅信亞當與尤利西斯確實存在過。當哥倫布第一次橫越大西洋抵達西印度群島時，他或許曾以為自己看見了印度，不過，他更確信的是自己再次發現了地上的天堂。從那時到現在，四百年過去了，仍然無法完全消除新世界隔絕於舊世界之外長達一、兩萬年的巨大時間斷裂。有些東西還留著，不過是以另一種方式存在，我很快就了解，雖然南美洲不再是什麼人類墮落之前的伊甸園——得益於這裡神祕的氛圍——它依然具體展現著某種黃金時代，對有錢人來說尤其如此。南美洲得天獨厚的地位猶如積雪在陽光下消融，至今只剩下少少的可貴的一小片；同時，只有享有特殊恩寵的少數人可以進入這一小片區域，也因此而讓它變質了：以前是永恆的，現在成為歷史的；以前是形上學的，現在變成社會學的。哥倫布瞥見的地上天堂還是會繼續存在，同時也會變質，變成富人豪奢生活的禁鬻。 (p.96~97)
I had wanted to pursue *the primitive* to its furthest point. Surely my wish had been gratified by these delightful people whom no white man had seen before me, and none would ever see again? My journey had been enthralling and, at the end of it, I had come upon my savages. But alas they were all too savage. Having encountered them only at the last moment, I could not put aside the time that was indispensable if I were to hope to know them properly. My resources needed careful husbanding, my companions and I myself were physically near to exhaustion a state shortly to be aggravated by the fevers which would follow the rains. Consequently, where I should have spent a month in serious consecutive study, I could match at most a few days for the purpose. There they were, all ready to teach me their customs and beliefs, and I knew nothing of their language. They were as close to me as an image seen in a looking-glass: I could touch, but not understand them. I had at one and the same time my reward and my punishment, for did not my mistake, and that of my profession, lie in the belief that men are not always men? That some are more deserving of our interest and our attention because there is something astonishing to us in their manners, or in the colour of their skins? No sooner are such people known, or guessed at, than their strangeness drops away, and one might as well have stayed in one’s own village. Or i as in the present case, their strangeness remained intact, then it was no good to me, for I could not even begin to analyse it. Between these two extremes, what are the equivocal cases which afford us the excuses by which we live? Who is, in the end, the one most defrauded by the disquiet which we arouse in the reader? Our remarks must be pushed a certain distance, if we are to make them intelligible, and yet they must be cut off half-way, since the people whom they astonish are very like those for whom the customs in question are a matter of course. Is it the reader who is deceived by his belief in us? Or ourselves, who have not the right to be satisfied before we have completely dissolved that residuum which gave our vanity its pretext?
我以前很想接觸到野蠻的極限；我的願望可以說是達到了，我現在面對著這群迷人的印第安人，在我之前沒有任何白人與他們接觸過，也許以後也不會有白人和他們接觸。經過這一趟迷人的溯河之旅以後，我的確找到我要找的野蠻人了。但是，老天，他們是過分的野蠻了。由於我是在探險旅程的尾聲才找到他們，沒有足夠的時間真正去了解他們。我手中有限的資源，我自己和同伴們疲憊至極的身體狀況，更因雨季而引發的熱病變得更糟，使我只能做短暫的停留，像在叢林中學習一小段時間那樣，而不能待幾個月做研究。他們就在眼前，很樂意教我有關他們的習俗與信仰的一切，但是我卻不懂他們的語言。他們就像鏡中的影像一樣近在眼前，我可以觸摸得到，卻不能了解他們。我自己——還有人類學這門專業——或許都犯了錯誤，誤以為人未必都是相同的；誤以為有些人較值得注意，因為他們的膚色或習俗讓我們驚訝；誤以為我只要成功地猜到這是怎麼一回事，他們的奇特性就不復存在，那我大可留在自家的村落就好。抑或，像在這裡的情況，他們保有著奇特性，結果，這對我而言一點用處也沒有，因為我甚至無法窺得這奇特性的一絲端倪。在全然了解與全然不解的兩極之間，我們人類學家是拿什麼樣曖昧含混的案例當作藉口生存下去的呢？歸根究柢，人類學的研究觀察只進行到「可以理解」的程度，然後就中途停止。用一些被某些人 (土著) 視為理所當然的習慣來使其他人 (讀者) 感到驚訝——而事實上兩種人是十分相似的。當這麼作使讀者感到迷惑的時候，受騙的到底是那些對我們深信不移的讀者呢？還是我們這些人類學家？在還沒有把我們的虛榮心所依賴的最後那點殘渣完全去除之前，我們都不應該感到自滿。 (p.494~495)
自訂分類：Selected & Extracts
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