英語世界文摘:Top 10 Parties in Fiction

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Top 10 Parties in Fiction

小說中的十大聚會(huì)

From Bridget Jones’s curry calamity to Vanity Fair’s historic ball, these social dramas have inspired many novelists. You are invited to enjoy 10 favourites.

從布里奇特·瓊斯在咖喱火雞自助宴上遭遇的倒霉事件，到《名利場》聞名歷史的舞會(huì)，這些社會(huì)劇給很多小說家?guī)砹遂`感。接下來為您介紹十部我最喜愛的劇。

By Elizabeth Day

文/伊麗莎白·戴

I’ve always loved a good party. When I was a child, I started planning for my birthday party in July. By August, I’d sent out hand-drawn invitations. By September, I was impatiently dreaming of cake, balloons and pass-the-parcel. I was born in November.

我一向喜歡宴會(huì)。小時(shí)候，7月我就開始策劃生日聚會(huì)；到了8月，我已經(jīng)寄出了手寫邀請(qǐng)函；9月的時(shí)候，我迫不及待地幻想蛋糕、氣球和禮物，而我的生日11月才到。

I continue to find them alluring. At a good party, there’s a sense that normal behavioural constraints are relaxed; a feeling that anything goes and that anything could happen. It’s why they make such perfect backdrops for fiction: you see the constant tension between who someone is and who someone wants to be. In life, as in novels, they are the perfect place to people-watch.

我依然喜歡各種宴會(huì)。在美好的宴會(huì)上，平時(shí)被約束的各種行為都會(huì)得到釋放，感覺人們什么都能做得出來，任何事都有可能發(fā)生。這也是人們以其為場景創(chuàng)作諸多小說的原因：你能看到一種持續(xù)不斷的張力，存在于某人的本性以及他向往的姿態(tài)之間。與小說一樣，現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中的宴會(huì)是觀察人的最佳場所。

That’s why I chose to set my new novel at a party. The story takes place over one evening at a glamorous 40th birthday in a stately home in the English countryside, where two best friends are brought together and reveal dark truths about each other.

這是我把宴會(huì)作為我的新小說發(fā)生背景的原因。故事發(fā)生在英國鄉(xiāng)村的一所豪宅，當(dāng)晚某人正在舉辦一場美妙的40歲生日宴會(huì)。兩個(gè)好朋友參加了這場宴會(huì)，并互揭對(duì)方的短。

A lot of my real-life experiences went into in the scene-setting (I used to be a newspaper diarist—essentially getting paid to party every night). But I was also influenced by great festivities in fiction. Here are 10 of my favourites.

我的很多現(xiàn)實(shí)生活經(jīng)驗(yàn)被用作了小說場景（我曾做過報(bào)社的日記作者，幾乎每晚都會(huì)參加派對(duì)）。但我也曾受小說中的重大宴會(huì)影響，以下是我最喜愛的十大宴會(huì)。

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

1. 列夫·托爾斯泰的《安娜·卡列尼娜》

Oblonsky’s ball in Anna Karenina is perhaps not as famous as the scene in War and Peace when Andrei and Natasha waltz for the first time, but its impact is as quietly devastating. Kitty (the unwitting rival for Count Vronsky’s affections) has earlier urged Anna to wear a flashy lilac dress. But Tolstoy puts his heroine in a modest black velvet gown. Kitty notes sadly that Anna’s charm “consisted precisely in the fact that she always stood out from what she wore”. Vronsky notices it too and swiftly falls in love. The rest is (doomed) history.

雖然不如《戰(zhàn)爭與和平》里安德烈和娜塔莎的首支華爾茲舞那般著名，但《安娜·卡列尼娜》中奧布隆斯基舉辦的舞會(huì)卻也令人印象極為深刻。起初，基蒂（因想博得渥倫斯基的愛意而無意中成了安娜的情敵）建議安娜穿華麗的淡紫色連衣裙。但托爾斯泰卻讓女主角穿上了一件簡樸的黑色天鵝絨禮服?；禀鋈话l(fā)現(xiàn)，安娜的魅力“恰恰在于她無論身著何種服裝都能引人注目”。渥倫斯基也注意到了這點(diǎn)，并迅速愛上了安娜。接下來的（悲?。┕适?，就是眾所周知的了。

2. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

2. F. 斯科特·菲茨杰拉德的《了不起的蓋茨比》

All parties in fiction have a neo-Platonic ideal of the perfect occasion to which they aspire. In my case, it was Jay Gatsby’s parties during the long, hot summer of 1922. Gatsby’s gatherings epitomise the spirit of prohibition-era decadence: endless champagne, chorus girls, flappers and bootleggers. And Fitzgerald writes them like a dream.

小說中描寫的舞會(huì)都渴望成為新柏拉圖式理想中的完美之所。在我看來，達(dá)成此想的就是杰伊·蓋茨比在1922 年那個(gè)漫長炎熱的夏天舉辦的那些舞會(huì)。他的舞會(huì)是美國禁酒令時(shí)期頹廢之態(tài)的縮影：數(shù)不盡的香檳、歌女、時(shí)髦女郎和私酒販子。菲茨杰拉德把它們描寫得如夢如幻。

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

3. 簡·奧斯丁的《傲慢與偏見》

Austen’s books are liberally scattered with wonderfully observed balls and dances. But for my money, the most memorable is the one at Meryton where Mr Darcy refuses to dance with glorious Lizzy Bennet, dismissing her as “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”. He sees the error of his ways before long.

各種絕妙的舞會(huì)和宴會(huì)在奧斯丁的書中隨處可見。但依我看，最令人印象深刻的是在麥里屯的那場舞會(huì)，達(dá)西先生拒絕與美麗的莉齊·班納特跳舞，貶損她“長得還行，但不足以吸引到他”。但不久，他就意識(shí)到自己錯(cuò)了。

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7. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

7. 威廉·薩克雷的《名利場》

Not strictly a fictional party, but a fictional rendering of a real-life event, namely the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, held in 1815 as a celebration for the Duke of Wellington’s officers in Brussels. It was here that Wellington received word that Napoleon’s forces were on the march. As a result, the story goes, many of the guests ended up fighting in evening dress. Amelia Sedley’s husband, George Osborne (no relation to the former chancellor), is one of those called to battle: “Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement…”

這不完全是虛擬的宴會(huì)，而是對(duì)真實(shí)事件的再創(chuàng)造。1815年，為威靈頓公爵效力的軍官們駐扎在布魯塞爾，為振奮軍心，里士滿公爵夫人舉辦了這場宴會(huì)。正是在這里，威靈頓收到拿破侖軍隊(duì)長驅(qū)直入的消息。故事的結(jié)局是，很多嘉賓身穿晚禮服去參戰(zhàn)了。愛米麗亞·賽特笠的丈夫喬治·奧斯本（與當(dāng)今的前財(cái)務(wù)大臣沒有關(guān)系）也是參戰(zhàn)的嘉賓之一：“喬治走了，他激動(dòng)地顫抖著……”

8. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

8. 海倫·菲爾丁的《BJ單身日記》

Another Darcy[1], but this time dressed in a horrible golfing jumper (“what seemed from the back like a harmless navy sweater was actually a V-neck diamond-patterned in shades of yellow and blue”) and a guest at Geoffrey and Una Alconbury’s horrific New Year turkey curry buffet. Poor old Bridget is hungover and late because she got lost on the motorway and can’t think of anything to say when Mark Darcy asks her what books she’s read lately.

又是“達(dá)西”，但這次卻穿著難看的高爾夫套頭衫（“雖然從后面看像一件普通的海軍風(fēng)格毛衣，其實(shí)是件黃藍(lán)相間的菱形格子V 領(lǐng)毛衣”），前來參加杰弗里和尤娜夫婦舉辦的可怕的新年咖喱火雞自助餐會(huì)。可憐的大齡女郎布里奇特經(jīng)歷了宿醉還遲到，因?yàn)樗诟咚俟飞厦月妨恕．?dāng)達(dá)西問她最近在看什么書的時(shí)候，她都不知道如何應(yīng)答。

[1] 男主人公名叫馬克·達(dá)西，與奧斯丁筆下的“達(dá)西先生”重名。這篇小說被譽(yù)為現(xiàn)代版的《傲慢與偏見》。

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［譯者單位：中國礦業(yè)大學(xué)（北京）］