理直气壮坏趣味

[CAVA]

刚听完E M Forster的小说Where Angels Fear to Tread，也是个英国与意大利文化冲突的故事，但比A Room with a View暗黑。现在我才明白过来A Room with a View是Forster“悲惨而现实的世界”中之唯一乐观作品。

Where Angels Fear to Tread批评当时英国中上社会的虚伪狭隘尖利得多，对意大利的天然魅力陶醉赞美外，也一针见血指出男性沙文主义社会的杀伤力，及冲动婚姻的可怕结果。不是个愉快的故事，结局悲惨而虐心，但有些段落非常好。

"Remember," he concluded, "that it is only by going off the track that you get to know the country. See the little towns—Gubbio, Pienza, Cortona, San Gemignano, Monteriano. And don't, let me beg you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy's only a museum of antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land."

以上是开场时男主角的台词。电影《看得见风景的房间》里，Judi Dench演的女作家说过这段话，移用得很聪明恰当。不过也从此让我相信托斯卡纳有Monteriano这么个镇子，其实呢，根本是E M Forster虚构的。 91年拍电影的时候选在San Gemignano，但这部电影并不如《看得见风景的房间》出名。

There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy; it is not the bad taste of a country which knows no better; it has not the nervous vulgarity of England, or the blinded vulgarity of Germany. It observes beauty, and chooses to pass it by. But it attains to beauty’s confidence. This tiny theatre of Monteriano spraddled and swaggered with the best of them, and these ladies with their clock would have nodded to the young men on the ceiling of the Sistine.

这段写三个英国青年在Monteriano看歌剧的故事，华彩飞扬。意大利人的坏品味一段听得我扑嗤笑出声来。但轻喜剧幕后，总觉得影影憧憧的悲剧在酝酿着。

这本书在古登堡计划网站有免费下载。

[Jun]

不打算看小说的人问：EM Forster 对趣味好坏的标准是啥？

[tiffany]

funny....

[CAVA]

对对对，context很重要。这里说的是剧院里喜气洋洋的俗艳装饰、布景与服装，我联想到的是有些家常馆子里五颜六色的桌布、盘碗、餐巾纸、墙纸和假花，虽然这些并不影响饭菜的味道

He had been to this theatre many years before, on the occasion of a performance of "La Zia di Carlo." Since then it had been thoroughly done up, in the tints of the beet-root and the tomato, and was in many other ways a credit to the little town. The orchestra had been enlarged, some of the boxes had terra-cotta draperies, and over each box was now suspended an enormous tablet, neatly framed, bearing upon it the number of that box. There was also a drop-scene, representing a pink and purple landscape, wherein sported many a lady lightly clad, and two more ladies lay along the top of the proscenium to steady a large and pallid clock. So rich and so appalling was the effect, that Philip could scarcely suppress a cry. There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy; it is not the bad taste of a country which knows no better; it has not the nervous vulgarity of England, or the blinded vulgarity of Germany. It observes beauty, and chooses to pass it by. But it attains to beauty's confidence. This tiny theatre of Monteriano spraddled and swaggered with the best of them, and these ladies with their clock would have nodded to the young men on the ceiling of the Sistine.