America’s Favorite Novel: To Kill a Mockingbird美国最受欢迎的小说《杀死一只知更鸟》

罗伯特·麦克拉姆

Her second novel has arrived2， but Harper Lee’s first did enough alone to secure her lasting fame， and remains a truly popular classic.

In the 19th century， much of the phenomenal popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin （1852） derived from its timely advocacy of abolition in the run-up3 to the American civil war. Similarly， To Kill a Mockingbird owed some of its success to extra-literary circumstances： it was published in the year JFK went to the White House4， then caught the mood of the civil rights movement， sold tens of millions of copies， and inspired a movie5 classic starring Gregory Peck. But， where Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a simple tale with an explicit moral， intended to change hearts and minds， Harper Lee’s only published book to date is a complex and subtle work of literature that has inspired and influenced generations of schoolchildren in the US and， most especially， in the UK. It’s that rare thing： a truly popular classic.

Narrated by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch， at the outset the six-year-old tomboy daughter of widowed small-town lawyer Atticus Finch， To Kill a Mockingbird is ostensibly about race prejudice in the American south. At the core of its main plot is the trial of Tom Robinson， an African-American accused of raping a white girl. When Atticus Finch is instructed to conduct Robinson’s defence， his fortune-cookie6 declaration that “You never really understand a person until ... you climb inside his skin” becomes the rhetorical heart of a novel based on Nelle Harper Lee’s formative years in the Alabama of the 1930s. Scout’s coming of age， another major strand in the story， will involve her realisation that “Boo” Radley is a benign mystery in her life and that many childhood terrors have mature meaning.

For all Atticus Finch’s noble defence， Robinson is convicted by an all-white jury， condemned to death， and shot dead while attempting a jailbreak. The death of an innocent man is linked to the dominant metaphor expressed in the novel’s title. The mockingbird7 （Mimus polyglottos）， a thrush-like bird with a long tail， creamy grey breast and white flashes， is a popular creature in American folklore. For Harper Lee it is the quintessence of innocence and the goodness of the natural world. Mockingbirds， says one character8， “don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”.

A note on the text

To Kill a Mockingbird was published by J. B. Lippincott on 11 July 1960. It was initially titled Atticus but Lee renamed it to represent a novel that went far beyond a character study. Her editor at Lippincott warned Lee to anticipate a modest sale of a few thousand copies. She herself once said， “I never expected any sort of success”， and claimed that she was “hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers”. This is disingenuous9. She also remarked that “at the same time， I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. I hoped for a little， but I got rather a whole lot， and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick， merciful death I’d expected.” Instead of a “quick and merciful death”， a Reader’s Digest reprint gave the novel an immediate audience， with sales eventually topping 40m worldwide （and counting）. Despite her publisher’s warnings， the book soon brought acclaim to Lee in her hometown of Monroeville， and throughout Alabama.

Critical reactions varied. To The New Yorker it was “skilled， unpretentious and totally ingenious”. Time magazine declared that the novel “teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life”. Some reviewers lamented the use of poor white southerners， and one-dimensional black victims. The great southern writer， Flannery O’Connor10， said： “I think for a child’s book it does all right. It’s interesting that all the folks that are buying it don’t know they’re reading a child’s book. Somebody ought to say what it is.”

Within a year of its publication To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated into 10 languages. In the years since then it has been translated into more than 40， has never been out of print in hardcover or paperback， and has become part of the standard school curriculum. A 1991 survey by the Book of the Month Club11 found that To Kill a Mockingbird was rated behind only the Bible in books that are “most often cited as making a difference”. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie12， writing in the Guardian， stated that Lee writes with “a fiercely progressive ink， in which there is nothing inevitable about racism and its very foundation is open to question”， and compared her to Faulkner13， who wrote about racism as an inevitability.

哈珀·李的第二本小說已问世，而她的第一本小说已经足以确保其经久不衰的声名，至今仍是一部真正意义上受欢迎的经典作品。

哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托的《汤姆叔叔的小屋》成为19世纪现象级流行小说，主要原因是它在美国内战前期及时地为废除奴隶制发声。同样地，《杀死一只知更鸟》的成功部分来自文学外部环境：该书于肯尼迪入主白宫当年出版，恰逢美国民权运动情绪高涨，出版后售出数千万册，由格利高里·派克主演的同名电影成为了电影史上的经典之作。然而，两书相较而言，前者故事简单，寓意明显，目的是改变人心、启蒙思想;后者作为哈珀·李迄今为止唯一出版的小说，是一部复杂而精巧的文学作品，激励并影响了美国一代又一代的学龄儿童，对英国儿童的影响尤为深远。这就是那种罕见的、真正意义上广受欢迎的经典作品。

小说的叙述者为小镇律师、鳏夫阿蒂克斯·芬奇的假小子女儿琼·路易丝·“斯考特”·芬奇，作家以故事开始时才六岁的孩子的视角展开叙述，揭示了美国南方的种族歧视问题。故事的核心情节为对非裔美国人汤姆·罗宾逊的审判，他被控强奸，受害者为一白人女孩。阿蒂克斯·芬奇被指派为罗宾逊辩护，他的格言“除非穿过表面进入内心，否则你永远都不能真正了解一个人”成为了这本小说修辞结构的核心。20世纪30年代，内尔·哈珀·李在阿拉巴马度过了成长阶段，小说便是基于那几年的经历。故事的另一条主线是斯考特的成熟，她长大后才明白，“布”·拉德利是出现在她人生中的一个善良的神秘人物，而童年时的许多恐怖经历在人成年后才会显现出其深刻影响。

尽管阿蒂克斯·芬奇尽全力做出了精彩的辩护，罗宾逊还是被一个清一色白人陪审团宣判死刑，之后在试图越狱时被射杀。无辜之人的死亡跟小说标题的中心隐喻紧密相关。反舌鸟（拉丁文Mimus polyglottos），一种长着长尾巴、胸口奶灰色、身披白色鲜亮羽毛的鸟，常常出现在美洲民间传说中。而对于哈珀·李来说，反舌鸟是自然界纯真善良的典范。小说中一个人物说：“反舌鸟什么都不做，只是用心为我们歌唱。那就是为什么杀死一只反舌鸟是罪过。”

小说的出版

《杀死一只知更鸟》于1960年7月11日由J. B.利平科特出版社出版。书名最初叫《阿蒂克斯》，但李之后将小说改为现名，以示小说要探究的远不止书中的某个角色。负责这本书的编辑告诉李，这本书的销量可能也就普通的几千册。李本人曾经说过：“我从未期待什么成功”，并且声称她所希望的是“在书评家的手里死得痛快”。这未免有点言不由衷了。她还说道：“与此同时，我也希望有人能真的喜欢这本书以给我一些鼓励。期待不高的情况下，我收获的远远超出自己的期望值，某种意义上甚至跟我所希冀的死得痛快一样吓人。”小说并没有“痛快地死掉”，《读者文摘》的重印骤然吸引了大批的读者，销量大增，最终在全球范围内卖出超过4000万册（数量还在增加）。虽然一开始李的出版商对这本小说的销量并不看好，这本书的出版很快使李在其家乡门罗维尔市声名鹊起，之后在整个阿拉巴马州都广受赞誉。

小说收获的批评见解不一。《纽约客》给予其“技巧娴熟、文风朴实、绝妙之作”的评价。《时代周刊》宣称该小说“就小女孩和[美国]南方生活教给了读者太多有用的真理”。另外一些评论家为小说消费南方的白人贫困群体和单线条描绘黑人受害者而扼腕。知名南方作家弗兰纳里·奥康纳表示：“作为童书我觉得还不错，有意思的是很多买这本书的人都不知道他们在读的是一本童书。应该有人道出真相。”

出版不到一年，《杀死一只知更鸟》就被翻译为10种语言，此后多年间又被翻译为40多种语言，不论是精装本还是平装本，一直不断重印，从未绝版，更是被列为课标必读书目。1991年每月一书俱乐部针对读者做了一项调查，发现《杀死一只知更鸟》在“最具影响力”书籍的评选中位列第二，仅仅排在《圣经》之后。奇马曼达·恩戈齐·阿迪契为《卫报》撰文，认为李的创作“带有非常强烈的进步开明意识，认为种族主义并非不可避免，并质疑了种族主义基础本身”。她还将李跟福克纳进行对比，后者的作品中种族主义具有必然性。

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖选手）