They wait, they meet, and they have another chance.
————lines from the lake house
Anyone who sparks interests in Jane Austen may get the hang of her sorrowful love story. When she was very young, about 20,she was submerged in love with a young man from Ireland for a few months. But being constrained by the poor family background and gloomy future, they were persuaded to give up the relationship. What a different future would be if Jane didn’t subject to the persuasion, but the truth was that she never ever met him again. And she never loved anyone else in the rest of her life!
In declining health, she allowed herself to deal with it in fiction, expressing those deep and bitter-sweet emotions in a permanent way. In the moving tale, Anne ,the heroine, had waited for her lover, Captain Wentworth, for 8years and finally had another chance. In reality, however, Jane had waited for her Captain Wentworth for whole life. Sadly, the chance never came.
Given the sad experience of the author and the suggestions in the story, many readers deem it unwise to accept the persuasion and feel pity for years of solitude. However, from my own perspective, it was years of waiting and trials and tribulations that made the love between Anne and Captain Wentworth become valuable and praiseworthy. The love from Anne Elliot and was so deep and desperate that it saddened every gentle person. Even though they met again, she never had the hopes of regaining the lost love.
You may deplore their 8 years of separation. But the truth was that these 8 years were not idled away in vain. Were they filled with missing and regrets, but they were also filled with changes and progress. The hands of time had taken Anne’s beauty and vigor away, but it had polished her nature, nurturing her into a persevering,responsible and mature young lady. Likewise, after 8 years of hardships, Wentworth became a successful young captain, with property, wisdom and attraction. Most importantly, their love for each other never faded away. Though their conditions changed so much, the inner corner in their hearts was still vacant for each other. They had met all manner of people thorough the years, but they never met anyone replaceable. And when the suffering waiting came to an end, they were trapped in the sea of obstacles, which brought out their best and displayed their firm inner fiber for each other.
In other words, their reunion had to be distinguished from the short-lived love or the pleasures of the flesh. Instead, it was the profound recognition of each other’s moral excellence, truth and attachment that made their love be in the highest form. And it was the greatest difference from the teen love. What’s more, they might lead a happy life if they turned down the persuasion 8 years ago, but they wouldn’t value and appreciate each other as they were now. For this time, they knew that love never came easily.
Though we tend to stimulate the youth to seize every opportunity, we can’t deny that it was years of waiting and sufferings that strengthened and perfected this love. Furthermore, the felicity carved by time revealed the truth that it is perseverance and constancy that makes love never end. And that’s what Jane Austen tried to convey to us.
In the beginning, Jane Austen may just reckon to free herself from years of bitter love. But when she set down the pen, and finished the most beautiful one of her works, she passed on the meaning of true love to human beings.
Finally, I would like to end with a poem written by Christina Rossetti.
He and She
‘Should one of us remember,
And one of forget,
I wish I know what each will do-
But who can tell as yet?’
‘Should one of us remember,
And one of forget,
I promise you what I will do-
And I’m content to wait for you,
And not be sure as yet.’
"Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be hard, indeed" (with a faltering voice), "if woman's feelings were to be added to all this."
*********************
"...I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as-if I may be allowed the expression-so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex(it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."
*********************
" I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I read your feelings, as I think you have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creatures! You do us justice, indeed you do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F.W."
不論讀過多少次---安妮和哈維爾上校談論愛情的忠誠,溫特沃斯上校飽含深情的信、八年后更為堅定的表白---我都忍不住熱淚盈眶。感謝孫致禮先生的中譯本,字字珠璣,即使是與簡小姐精致的原文對比也毫不遜色。在多年前,我還是一個中學生時,那本殘破的96版《勸導》已讓我心生溫暖??v觀奧斯丁筆下的所有女主人公,安妮絕對不是最出彩的那位,但是她的溫柔善良卻最能打動我。多年后,我重讀原文,同樣的情感不會褪色, "I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me." 我仿佛可以感受到溫特沃斯是懷著如何跳躍激動的心情一邊寫字一邊聆聽著安妮和他人的對話,八年前的怨恨早已被時光磨去,八年來以為消磨殆盡的思念卻亦發(fā)強烈。07年BBC出品的《勸導》,結局處是安妮向心上人狂奔而去,影視作品中如此處理更能吸引眼球升華情感,但是我認為這沒有必要,甚至是個敗筆。真正的愛情是對等的,不需要戲劇化來錦上添花,書中兩人的月下互訴衷腸,小巷漫步足矣。
感謝《勸導》再次治愈了我。借用原文結尾的一句話略作修改,All the surprise and suspense, and every other painful part of the evening dissipated by this reviewing...
從簡?奧斯丁的《勸導》可以看出她的作品與通常的韓劇類電視劇的本質區(qū)別,盡管都是浪漫的。浪漫也是需要基礎的,只有擁有合適的條件,浪漫才能不顯得虛無縹緲。這里的基礎并不是指所謂簡的作品中男女主人公之間的門當戶對,這事實上是源自英國人自身的根深蒂固的教育:婚姻要門第相當。這不是簡的獨特之處,也更不是這部作品的精髓所在。在《The lake house》里面,這部作品被犀利地概括為“they wait, they meet, and they have another chance”。精髓在于是they而不是he或是she。也就是無論多么離奇的浪漫,都需要兩個人相戀作為基礎。久遠的分離不能造成困境,因為相戀的人會用一種矛盾的模仿來延長分離到死亡之間的間隔。一旦從they變成了he或she,往往意味著戀人在相戀意義上的死亡,也就是戀愛不再,浪漫缺乏了必需的基礎,即雙方必須處在相戀的狀態(tài)。
就拿《勸導》的女主角來說,生于Elliot家族的,首先是不會難看的,基因就擺在那兒了。只是由于Sir Walter過于自戀、挑剔,在他眼里只有他自己和大女兒Elizabeth是容貌姣好的,其他都是ugly。He has no affection for his own daughters.有哪個父親會認為自己女兒haggard, coarse的?與之形成鮮明對比的Musgrove一家,父母都十分愛自己的兒女,無論他們做什么都是最好的(當然,我并不說這種愛才是對的),這種warm affection和Sir Walter的coldness一比,更是一個天上一個地下,飛流直下三千尺!這也是為什么Anne在Musgrove家會更開心,也只有離家后,她才有可能迎來人生的第二春(”second spring” 好像原文是這么說的)。所以說文中Sir Walter關于Anne 美貌的評價是不可信的。
第二,我讀下來覺得那個時候的人,關于beauty還有一個標準就是spirit,光有皮肉相不行,必須由內(nèi)而外煥發(fā)一種青春、令人振奮的氣息,像林黛玉一樣是肯定不行的。看書中是如何描寫Anne的:
“A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early.”因為受到家人的竭力反對,她被迫忍痛與戀人Captain Wentworth分手,于是“Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect.”佛說“相由心生”,年紀輕輕就心中悲苦,顯然少女的青春風采是煥發(fā)不起來的,自然早凋了。再看故事發(fā)展到后來,當她煥發(fā)了第二春之后,書中寫道“She was looking remarkablely well; her very regular, very pretty features, having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine wind which had been blowing her complexion, and by the animation of eye which it had also produced.”當人煥發(fā)光彩的時候,眼睛都在唱歌!并且最有說服力的是,作者借別人的嘴再一次肯定了Anne的美貌,在Volume Ⅱ中,一群初次見到Anne Elliot 的Ladies在Anne走后這么說:
“She is pretty, I think, Anne Elliot; very pretty, when one comes to look at her. It is not the fashion to say so, but I confess I admire her more than her sister.”
“So do I.”
“And so do I. No comparison. But the men are wild after Miss Elliot. Anne is too delicate for them.”
從中還可以看出男女的審美還是有點差別的,就像有些男的喜歡“肉彈”which is the kind of beauty I could never learn to appreciate.
第三,就是Anne的氣質與品格。Anne讀過很多書,由于冷酷的父親與姐姐對她長久的忽視,這也使她免于諸多世俗的污染,留給她許多獨自思考的空間,因此使得她寵辱不驚,身上有種tranquility的氣質。這也是為什么我覺得Johdi May更適合演Anne的原因。此外,她身上generosity 的品格也是非??少F的。書中有一段,我看得十分心酸,但通過此也可以一窺她品格的力量:
“She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgroves; but having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond of parents to sit by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others, as she was well aware. She know that when she played, she was giving pleasure only to herself; but this was no new sensation: except one short period of her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, known the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste. In music she had been always used to feel alone in the world; and Mr. and Mrs. Musgroves’ fond partiality for their own daughters’ performance, and total indifference to any other person’s, gave her much more pleasure for their sakes than mortification for her own.”
Jane Austen和夏洛蒂勃朗特不一樣,后者說平庸,就真平庸了,也不考慮下我的感受,看看BBC的《Jane Eyre》, 說她平庸都是flatter 她了。Jane可是很小資的,生在中產(chǎn)階級家庭,自己也小有姿色,she has no taste for real common features.實在平庸的像P&P里Bannet家的三小姐,Jane著墨不多,一著墨肯定是embarrassment。所以說Jane Austen對姿色平平的女人沒興趣,除非他們有過人的品格,否則是不會有“好下場”的。看看,就連那些男反派們要夠格都得非常handsome才行啊,何人又忍心說Anne姿色平庸呢?
這是我看Jane Austen的第三部作品,她對人物的描寫技術十分精湛,足見她內(nèi)心的豐富,才華橫溢。她無疑也是個十分挑剔的女人,把看在眼里的丑惡,化在紙上,對他們毫不留情的進行鞭笞。雖然我很喜歡她的作品,也不可否認的認為,小說說教的意味太重;但是,這也是Jane Austen的特點,完完全全把自己對女子高尚品德的要求灌注在她的小說中。不怎么聰明,思想也不怎么樣深刻,品德也不見得高尚的女子可以得到幸福,但是,如果女子修養(yǎng)更高一點業(yè)更有助于婚姻的幸福,比如安妮妹夫的婚姻,“一樁更般配的婚姻本可以使他更加精神煥發(fā)”。
Jane Austen也是強調(diào)婚姻般配的,兩個人必須站在同等的高度上才會幸福。這是高度不僅僅是兩人要有一定的經(jīng)濟基礎,還是生活中所扮演角色上的地位平等。像克羅夫特將軍夫婦一般,克羅夫特夫人不僅陪伴丈夫在海上生活,并且參與討論、謀劃兩人生活中的各種事務,并不是居于從屬地位的妻子。否則悲劇的發(fā)生就像《杜拉拉2》里面的孫建冬和葉美蘭的婚姻,兩個人沒有交流,沒有樂趣,常年分居兩地,就這么不停的延續(xù)著沉默。
Volume II
Chapter XI. Wentworth writes to Anne, they are reunited
I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I read your feelings, as I think you have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creatures! You do us justice, indeed you do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in
F.W
I must go, uncertain for my fate, but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.