名人軼事：王爾德在美國

‘Wilde in America,’ by David M. Friedman

王爾德在美國

Chances are you’ll never have a conversation as scintillating as the one Oscar Wilde was overheard conducting at a gathering in San Francisco in 1882. At the time, the 27-year-old Irish upstart had yet to write any of the works that would earn his fame. Undercredentialed as Wilde then was, his verbal verve and outlandish dress (satin breeches, velvet jackets, black cape) had made him a sought-after dinner guest in London and prompted a 10-month American tour, where his brio met with an ecstatic reception. “It was a superb performance, a masterpiece of sparkling wit and gaiety,” wrote one audience member in an account of the event. “Never before, or since, have I heard anything that compared to it.” Who was Wilde’s lucky interlocutor? It was a dressmaker’s dummy: The man was, in essence, talking with himself.

1882年，有人碰巧聽到奧斯卡·王爾德(Oscar Wilde)在舊金山的一次聚會上和人說話，如此妙趣橫生的交談，恐怕難得再有了。當時，這位27歲的愛爾蘭后起之秀還未寫出那些為他贏得聲譽的作品，但已經(jīng)憑著他充滿活力的辭藻和華麗的衣著(絲緞長褲、天鵝絨外套、黑色斗篷)獲得認可，令他在倫敦成為宴會上大受歡迎的賓客，并得到機會，在美國做為期10 個月的巡回宣傳。他的生動氣質(zhì)令美國人心醉神迷。“這是精彩的表演，智慧與歡樂火星四濺的杰作，”一個聽眾描述他的談話。“我之前從沒聽過能與之相媲美的東西，今后也不會再有。”而王爾德對面這位幸運的談心對象又是誰呢——一個裁縫用的人體模型——他其實是在自言自語。

Wilde captivated an even unlikelier audience at the bottom of a mine shaft in Leadville, Colo., when he regaled a dozen silver miners with chat of Cellini and Renaissance metal working, then drank them under the table. By his own account, “I brilliantly performed, amidst unanimous applause.” Lest you underestimate the dramatist’s (self-dramatist’s?) powers, keep in mind that Wilde also won over Walt Whitman, who invited him to his Camden, N.J., home for elderberry wine. Whitman approved Wilde’s mission of bringing the British aesthetic movement to the Yanks. “You are young and ardent,” Whitman told him. “The field is wide, and if you want my advice,” he added, “go ahead.” Wilde didn’t need to be told twice.

在科羅拉多州里德維爾的礦井深處，王爾德還迷倒了另一群更加不可思議的聽眾，他在井底款待十幾個銀礦礦工，與他們大談塞里尼和文藝復興金屬制品，然后鉆到桌子底下和他們開懷暢飲。用他自己的話說：“我做了精彩的表演，獲得全體一致的掌聲。”為免你低估了這位劇作家(抑或自編自演的劇作家?)的實力，別忘了，連沃爾特·惠特曼(Walt Whitman)也為王爾德所傾倒。他邀請王爾德來到他在新澤西州卡姆登的家中喝接骨木果酒?；萏芈J可了王爾德把英國美學運動帶到美國的使命。“你年輕熱忱，”惠特曼對他說，“你面前一片廣闊，如果你還需要我的建議的話，”他補充道，“那就是，繼續(xù)向前吧。”王爾德當然用不著再多說就能領(lǐng)會。

Without Wilde’s aptitude for self-­promotion, there might have been no Andy Warhol, no Paris Hilton, no Kim Kardashian. In his new biography of the Irish playwright, novelist and provocateur, “Wilde in America,” the journalist and cultural historian David M. Friedman argues that Wilde was among the very first to realize that celebrity could come before accomplishment. “Fame would launch Wilde’s career,” Friedman explains, “not cap it.” Wilde’s choice of America as his rocket platform was serendipitous, but in hindsight it seems prescient; our country’s revved-up reporters furnished Wilde’s jet pack. “No one before Wilde had used the press so skillfully to establish a claim to renown,” Friedman argues, ably proving his point by following his subject from ­interview to interview, state to state, charting the shrewd steps Wilde took to build his brand, “devising a formula for creating fame that other modern celebrities — all of them far more shallow than he — are using today, whether they know it or not.”

沒有王爾德那種自我推廣的天分，可能就不會有后來的安迪·沃霍爾(Andy Warhol)、帕麗斯·希爾頓(Paris Hilton)和金·卡戴珊(Kim Kardashian)。記者與文化史學家大衛(wèi)·M·弗里德曼(David M. Friedman)的新著《王爾德在美國》(Wilde in America)是關(guān)于這位愛爾蘭劇作家、小說家與煽動家的傳記。弗里德曼在書中提出，王爾德是最早意識到名聲是可以先于成就到來的人。“是名聲令王爾德的事業(yè)起飛，而不是限制它，”弗里德曼解釋。王爾德選擇美國作為自己一飛沖天的平臺純屬偶然，但事后看來卻頗具先見之明;美國這些狂熱的記者們?yōu)橥鯛柕聹蕚淞藝姎獗嘲?ldquo;在王爾德之前，沒有人能如此嫻熟地利用媒體去建立自己的聲望，”弗里德曼說，他追隨筆下主人公的足跡，從一個采訪到另一個采訪、從一個州到下一個州，追溯王爾德為打造自己的品牌所采取的狡黠步驟，從而巧妙地證實自己的結(jié)論。“他發(fā)明了一種創(chuàng)造名聲的公式，直到今日，那些名人們還在自覺或不自覺地使用著它，而他們都比王爾德膚淺多了。”

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 to Dr. William Wilde, a rakish eye doctor and folklorist, and his “extravagantly extroverted” wife, the poet and saloniste Jane Francesca Agnes Elgee. Lady Wilde gave weekly soirees at the family’s Dublin home, where her young son absorbed the raconteur’s art. “It was from Lady Wilde that Oscar learned that identity is a kind of fiction,” Friedman writes, “and that being oneself is a form of playacting.” Wilde carried that lesson to Oxford, where he swiftly created a new role for himself, losing his Irish accent, buying new clothes and polishing his aphorisms. His aim, Friedman explains, was not merely to “become the self-anointed leader of Oxford’s student aesthetes, preaching to his classmates the Divine Gospel of Beauty.” “Somehow or other I’ll be famous,” he said, “and if not famous, I’ll be notorious.”

奧斯卡·芬格爾·奧夫拉赫蒂·威爾斯·王爾德(Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde)于1854年出生于都柏林，父親威廉·王爾德醫(yī)生(Dr. William Wilde)是一位縱情酒色的眼科醫(yī)生和民俗學研究者，母親簡·弗蘭西斯卡·艾格尼絲·埃爾吉(Jane Francesca Agnes Elgee)是個“社交無度”的詩人和沙龍女主人。王爾德夫人每星期都在都柏林家中主辦黃昏聚會，她的小兒子便沉浸在軼聞趣談的藝術(shù)之中。“奧斯卡從王爾德夫人那里學到，身份也是一種虛構(gòu)，”弗里德曼寫道，“而‘做自己’也是一種演戲。”王爾德帶著他學到的東西來到牛津，很快為自己創(chuàng)造出一個新角色，他拋棄了愛爾蘭口音，買來新衣服，精心打造警句。弗里德曼說，他的目標不僅僅是“成為牛津?qū)W生審美學家中自我神圣化的領(lǐng)袖，向同學們傳播美的福音書。”王爾德還說，“不管怎樣我都會出名的，不是流芳千古，就是遺臭萬年。”

He would achieve both goals nearly simultaneously, in 1895, when he was put on trial for “gross indecency” (the words his era conferred upon the “crime” of homosexuality) six weeks after the premiere of his play “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Wilde would serve two years in prison and die soon after, at the age of 46. But on his American trip, there were no augurs of this unbeautiful denouement, only six-foot-high placards bruiting his name. The signs were in poor taste, he wrote to a friend, but “anything is better than virtuous obscurity.”

這兩個目標幾乎是在同時達成，1895年，他因為“嚴重猥褻”的罪名(這個詞在他那個年代是指‘同性戀罪’)接受審判，被判入獄六個星期，此時他的劇本《認真的重要性》(The Importance of Being Earnest)剛剛開始公演。后來王爾德在獄中度過了兩年時光，出獄不久就與世長辭，享年46歲。但在他出訪美國時，沒有人能預見這丑陋的結(jié)局，只有六英尺高的海報上印著他的大名。他給朋友寫信說，這張海報品味不佳，但是“再怎樣也比默默無聞要強”。

About the only thing of note Wilde had accomplished in London before boarding the ocean liner that took him to New York — apart from dropping bons mots at parties, wearing a coat that looked like a cello to an art opening and hosting an occult séance attended by the Prince of Wales — was to incur the mockery of the popular musical librettist W. S. Gilbert, who was so exasperated by the peacocking ways of Wilde and his ilk that he wrote an operetta satirizing the aesthetic movement. Called “Patience,” it starred a “grandiose boob” named Bunthorne who was given to “dandyish dishonesty and nattering narcissism.” When “Patience” hopped the Atlantic to Broadway, Gilbert and Sullivan’s producer, Richard D’Oyly Carte, feared New Yorkers weren’t getting the joke. To fix the problem, he persuaded Wilde to travel to America and give talks on his decorative philosophy, clad in Bunthorne get-up. D’Oyly Carte’s office sold Wilde to promoters as a humbugging figure of fun, but Wilde got the last laugh. His tour earned him a small fortune; and he garnered more American press coverage in 1882 than any other Briton, including Queen Victoria.

除了在派對上妙語如珠、在某次藝術(shù)展開幕式上穿得活像一把大提琴、主持過一場神秘降神會(威爾士王子也出席了)，王爾德登船趕赴紐約之前，在倫敦取得的真正成就只有一個劇本，而且還招來了流行音樂劇作家W·S·吉爾伯特(W.S. Gilbert)的嘲笑。吉爾伯特早就厭惡王爾德的花枝招展，以及他在這部諷刺美學運動的輕歌劇里寫的那種和他很相似的人。這個歌劇名叫《耐心》 (Patience)，主角是個“浮夸的傻瓜”，名叫班瑟尼，他總是沉浸在“虛飾的欺騙與啰嗦的自戀”之中。當《耐心》越過大西洋，在百老匯登場后，吉爾伯特與蘇利文的制作人理查德·多伊利·卡特(Richard D’Oyly Carte)擔心紐約人看不懂笑點。為了解決這個問題，他說服王爾德到美國來舉辦演講，講述他的裝飾性哲學，再為它披上一層班瑟尼的外衣。多伊利·卡特的公司把王爾德當做一個滿口花言巧語的好玩人物推銷給演講承辦者們，但王爾德笑到了最后。他的巡回演講為他贏得了一小筆財富，1882年，他成了被美國媒體報道最多的英國人，甚至超過了維多利亞女王。

If Wilde had left his public relations fate to D’Oyly Carte’s handlers, he might have bombed in Boston and quipped no more. Instead, he stewarded his own reputation, using his eloquent éclat and letters of introduction to gain access to the drawing rooms of America’s best-connected writers, scholars, salonistes and politicians, though he jawed just as jauntily with farmers, miners and cowboys. In his first weeks in Manhattan, Wilde arranged to sit for a formal portrait with the photographer Napoleon Sarony, whose sultry images of the actress Sarah Bernhardt (one of Wilde’s many diva friends) had fanned the flames of her notoriety. At the time of Wilde’s visit, New Yorkers were obsessed with collecting 4-by-6 cardboard-backed celebrity portraits, the Pokémon cards of the fin de siècle. The image-conscious Wilde instantly saw the value of the trend: The right photograph would burnish his image and magnify his mystique. Bringing his own costumes to the shoot, he made sure his pose projected “intelligence, poetic sensibility and the self-­possessed attitude of a young artist coming into his own.” The results of that photo session so beguiled the public (“Wilde’s face ‘went viral,’ ” Friedman writes) that unscrupulous merchants stole his visage to advertise cigars, stoves, freckle cures and bust-enhancing tonics.

如果王爾德繼續(xù)讓多伊利·卡特的經(jīng)紀人打理他的公共關(guān)系，他或許就會在波士頓遭到慘敗，再也說不出什么俏皮話了。相反，他開始自行經(jīng)營自己的口碑，用他富于說服力的技巧與介紹信打開美國最有人脈的作家、學者、沙龍主人與政治家們的客廳大門，與此同時也不忘和農(nóng)民、礦工與牛仔們談笑風生。王爾德來到曼哈頓后，很快就安排了一次正式的照相，攝影師是拿破侖·薩羅尼(Napoleon Sarony)，他曾為女演員莎拉·貝納爾(Sara Bernardt)照了一組非常性感的照片，令她艷名四播(貝納爾也是王爾德的眾多歌劇女星密友之一)。王爾德訪美時，紐約人正流行收集4x6英寸硬紙襯底的名人照片，相當于19世紀末的神奇寶貝(Pokémon)卡片。王爾德格外注重形象，他馬上就意識到這股潮流的價值：好的照片可以提升他的形象，進一步增強他的神秘感。他帶著自己的服裝來到攝影棚，確保自己的姿態(tài)可以反映出“一個獲得認可的青年藝術(shù)家的智力、詩意敏感與鎮(zhèn)靜自若的風度”。其成果是一組令公眾為之心醉神迷的照片(“王爾德的面孔‘以病毒級傳播’，”弗里德曼寫道)，不擇手段的商人們盜用他的形象，用在香煙、火爐、除雀斑劑和豐胸藥水廣告上。

The Sarony close-ups weren’t the only shots Wilde stage-­managed. The scores of reporters who followed him on tour found the same set dressing in every hotel room he occupied: lilies and sunflowers perching among teacups, party invitations and ­leather-bound books; animal skins tossed over a sofa. Upon entering, they would behold the main attraction — the pallid, 6-foot-3 orator himself — languidly lounging with a book of poetry, dressed in cloak, satin breeches and velvet slippers, primed for beauteous disquisition. Journalists who reviewed his public performances, expecting them to be fatuous, often found themselves enthralled by Wilde’s rhetorical flights. A reporter from The San Antonio Express, impressed by Wilde’s call for “inculcating in the minds of our rising youth a love of the beautiful,” wrote that he had wanted to mock the “much talked of and extensively advertised” speaker but couldn’t. “We can recall nothing to ridicule, even though we were so disposed,” he admitted. Wilde himself was surprised when he noticed that he was being taken “seriously.” In a letter to James Whistler bewailing his earnest interviewers, he asked, with plaintive self-parody, “What would you do if it happened to you?”

薩羅尼的特寫照片并不是王爾德唯一的舞臺手段。大約有20多個記者跟隨報道他的巡回演講，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)他在各處下榻的酒店房間都采取同樣的布置：茶杯、派對邀請函和皮面書籍旁邊放著百合花與向日葵，沙發(fā)上搭著動物皮草。一進門，他們的目光就被面前出現(xiàn)的人所吸引——正是這位面色蒼白，身高6英尺3英寸的演說家本人，他身穿長袍，絲緞長褲和天鵝絨拖鞋，疲憊懶散地坐在那兒，手里拿著一本詩集，正等著發(fā)表美麗動人的演講。寫評論的記者們本來覺得他的公共演講可能會很愚蠢，結(jié)果往往是被王爾德華麗的言辭迷住。王爾德呼吁“要把對美的熱愛灌輸進新一代年輕人的心田”，一位《圣安東尼奧快報》(The San Antonio Express)的記者深受打動，他寫道，自己本希望嘲笑這位“經(jīng)常被人提起，而且廣受宣傳”的演講者，結(jié)果卻做不到。“我們回想不起任何值得嘲笑的東西，盡管我們非常想這樣做，”他承認道。而王爾德本人發(fā)現(xiàn)自己被“嚴肅地對待”時，感到很驚訝。在一封致詹姆斯·惠斯勒(James Whistler)的信中，他為這些熱情的采訪者們感到悲哀，他帶著憂傷的自嘲問到“如果這種事發(fā)生在你身上，你又當如何?”