Written by 秋如綫 
在这里读者扎堆看书籍死亡。它们死得很突然，就像被从飞机上扔下去，或者死于自发的心脏骤停。它们活着，然后突然死掉了，读者看着它们死同时看着那些在死亡现场出现的涂着口红微笑的记者脸纪录下的死亡图像的狂轰滥炸。牛奶是有毒的造成42个婴儿死亡，当她抚弄着死去的书的灰烬。42个婴儿的死亡相等于这本书的死亡相等于一个90岁的老太太当警长拿着驱逐令站在她门口时开枪自杀相等于全球经济的崩溃相等于XYZ国的军队占领了已经在雨林里靠半游牧和种玉米生活了几千年的原住民的土地。读者打开一本死去的书在绑线之间发现无穷的灰烬，当风吹走这些灰烬的时候那个口红嘴说世界上的每一个死亡都相等于其他的死亡也相等于世界上的每一个新生儿相等于每一次分尸相等于丛林的消失相等于全球经济的崩溃；还有嗨看呐这儿又有一位女士从窗户里摔出来；她大约相等于那些被从一个国家赶出去的诗人因为他写的字但那些字又不属于他而他的死又大约相等于那个今早上学时在公车上被枪击的女孩而她大约相等于那个留胡子的男人他的头被推进一个口袋而口袋里灌满了水他死去了一会儿后来又活过来了一直说啊说啊说啊不停地说而这大约相等于类固醇被注射在一个漂亮男人的胳膊里他每年能赚4000万美元因为他注射类固醇所以他可以更熟练地用木杆击球，在这灰烬中我们看到有史以来最真实的民主：嗨看呐这儿有一个婴儿被从垃圾堆里发现是多么地相等于那个口红嘴在说的在文明国家公民穿过发洪水的街道寻找他们的房子，在这死去的书和死去的街道的灰烬里这些又相等于电影明星的饮食失调相等于那些全垒打相等于ABC国家在XYZ国家的村庄婚礼上投下炸弹相等于地球拱起大包吞没所有生活在上面的异类又大约相等于在地球上教育程度最高的国家文学水平的下降。这本书永无止境。它没有段落空行来打断微笑的口红嘴关于一个化为灰烬的词汇的说啊说她说的是为什么和平声明相等于重新开战为什么跌落的婴儿相等于下降的鸟儿为什么艾菲尔铁塔上的炸弹相等于天然气价格的上升，那些在污泥里的呻吟相等于当昂贵的西装从楼上掉下去时的念叨而这一切都相等于那可以用一次呼吸杀人而用另一次呼吸宠爱人的寂静。
作者 / [美国] 丹尼尔·波祖兹基
翻译 / 光诸
Here the readers gather to watch the books die. They die suddenly, as if thrown from an airplane, or from spontaneous cardiac arrest. They live, and then suddenly they die, and the reader who watches this is at the moment of the books’ death bombarded with images documented through the smiling lipstick face of a journalist who has shown up to report on the death of the books. The milk was poisoned and forty-two babies died, she laughs, as she fondles the ashes of the dead books. And the death of forty-two babies is equal in value to the death of this book which is equal in value to the ninety-year old woman who shot herself while the sheriff waited at her door with an eviction notice which is equal in value to the collapsing of the global economy which is equal to the military in country XYZ seizing the land of the semi-nomadic hunters and cultivators of crops who have lived in the local rain forest for thousands of years. The reader opens a dead book and finds an infinite amount of burnt ash between the bindings, and when the ash blows in the wind the lipstick says that every death in the world is equal to every other death in the world which is equal to every birth in the world which is equal to every act of dismemberment which is equal to the death of a jungle which is equal to the collapse of the global economy; and hey look there’s another lady falling out of a window; she looks about equal to the poet hurled out of his country for words he wrote but which did not belong to him and whose death is about equal to the girl who was shot on the bus on her way to school this morning which is just about the same as the bearded man whose head was shoved into a sac while water was dumped over it and he died for an instant and came back to life and talked and talked and that’s about equal to the steroid illegally injected into the arm of a beautiful man who makes forty million dollars a year for injecting his arms with steroids so he can more skillfully wave a wooden stick at a ball, and in the ash we see the truest democracy there ever was: hey look it’s a little baby found in a dumpster how equal you are says the smiling lipstick to the civilized nation whose citizens walk the flooded streets looking for their homes, and in the ashes of the dead book the dead streets are equal to the eating disorders of movie stars which are equal to the dead soldiers who are equal to the homeruns which are equal to the bomb dropped by country ABC over weddings in the village of country XYZ which is equal to the earth swallowing up and devouring all of its foreigners which is just about equal to the decline in literacy in the most educated nation in the planet. There is no end to this book. There are no paragraph breaks to interrupt the smiling lipstick that goes on and on in one string of ashy words about how the declaration of peace is equal to the resumption of war and how the bodies that fall are equal to the birds that ascend and how the bomb in the Eiffel Tower is equal to the rising cost of natural gas, and the murmurs of the voices in the mud are equal to the murmurs of the expensive suits falling out of buildings and these are equal to the silence that kills with one breath and coddles life with another.
Daniel Borzutzky
我承认，我今天选这首诗是为了挑战“读睡”声优的能力。初看这首诗会脱口而出“这是什么鬼”，但仔细读一读，会发现这首诗除了“标点符号需要充值”之外，每句话的结构都还是相当清楚的，只是就像相声中的“灌口活儿”，需要很强的嘴上功夫才能朗读。
本诗的作者波祖兹基是美国的智利移民的后代，从他的诗中可以看出南美文学魔幻现实和讽刺的影子。他的专长是将来自各个源头的文本进行拼贴，并且能够唯妙唯肖地模仿这些文本来源的独特的词汇和语气。《相等之书》是波祖斯基的代表作之一。它可能会有多种解读，我提供其中一种解读。这首诗有两层意义，第一，是作为书写者的焦虑。作为数本图书的作者，我每次走进书店都会感到非常焦虑：这里有成千上万本书，大多数的书都是作者耗费相当长时间精心完成的，但在书海里也只是一粒沙，我费力再添一粒沙有什么意义？书店似乎是书籍的陈尸所，大多数的书一印出来就已经死了。另一层意思是，关于悲剧事件的报道让人麻木，它们无法让人获得关于悲剧的真实感觉，更让人感到行动的无力，甚至缺乏方向。这两层意思通过高超的叙述结合在一起。仔细品味，会发现这首诗并非简单的罗列和重复，它变换手法探讨了好几个方向的社会问题，语气在变换中逐渐加强，具有很强的可朗读性。
然后，我必须要说，作者在诗中表现了信息爆炸的焦虑，但对于信息的流通仍然受阻的人们来说，谈论这种焦虑有些超前。如果看到别人的社会也有问题而长出一口气，就是对自己人格的辱没了。
感谢格雷斯、不系舟、王威、秋的童话、球球、饶舌的哑巴和诗歌原作者丹尼尔·波祖兹基的精彩朗读，正是声优们的投入和奉献，让“读睡”越来越丰富和精彩。你也一定不要错过作者本人的英文朗读，那种节奏感和雄辩力听起来真是太过瘾了，让人想起电影《V字仇杀队》中的独白和《低俗小说》里塞缪尔·杰克逊杀人之间背诵的那段《圣经》。
荐诗 / 光诸
2015/12/21
近期评论