The Left Hand of Darkness——和平的信使

陳榕

厄休拉·勒奎恩（Ursula Le Guin） 1929年出生于美國加州的伯克利，父親是加州大學的人類學教授，母親是一位作家。她1951年畢業(yè)于拉德克利夫大學，1952年獲得哥倫比亞大學碩士學位，1960年代開始創(chuàng)作科幻小說。勒奎恩既是美國當代最重要的科幻小說家之一，也是最優(yōu)秀的奇幻小說家之一，曾多次獲得雨果獎和星云獎。她在作品中用瑰麗的想象搭建了一個又一個神奇的異域世界，其中又往往蘊含了對人性、對人類文明的深層思考。她的代表作有科幻小說《黑暗的左手》（The Left Hand of Darkness）、《一無所有》（The Dispossessed）、《傾訴》（The Telling）等?！逗诎档淖笫帧肥撬l(fā)表于1969年的作品，書中描寫了一種沒有性別的獨特異星文化，并借此對性別、社會、生命等議題進行了深入探討。該作品獲得1969年的星云獎和1970年的雨果獎。

Guyrny Thanern2）. Some snow， rising wind and falling temperature. Thirteen miles again today， which brings our distance logged since we left our first camp to 254 miles. We have averaged about ten and a half miles a day； eleven and a half omitting the two days spent waiting out the blizzard3）. 75 to 100 of those miles of hauling gave us no onward gain. We are not much nearer Karhide than we were when we set out. But we stand a better chance， I think， of getting there.

Since we came up out of the volcano-murk4） our spirit is not all spent in work and worry， and we talk again in the tent after our dinner. As I am in kemmer5） I would find it easier to ignore Ais presence， but this is difficult in a two-man tent. The trouble is of course that he is， in his curious fashion， also in kemmer： always in kemmer. A strange lowgrade sort of desire it must be， to be spread out over every day of the year and never to know the choice of sex， but there it is； and here am I. Tonight my extreme physical awareness of him was rather hard to ignore， and I was too tired to divert it into untrance6） or any other channel of the discipline. Finally he asked， had he offended me？ I explained my silence， with some embarrassment. I was afraid he would laugh at me. After all he is no more an oddity， a sexual freak， than I am： up here on the Ice each of us is singular， isolate， I as cut off from those like me， from my society and its rules， as he from his. There is no world full of other Gethenians7） here to explain and support my existence. We are equals at last， equal， alien， alone.

He did not laugh， of course. Rather he spoke with a gentleness that I did not know was in him. After a while he too came to speak of isolation， of loneliness.

“Your race is appallingly alone in its world. No other mammalian species. No other ambisexual8） species. No animal intelligent enough even to domesticate9） as pets. It must color your thinking， this uniqueness. I dont mean scientific thinking only， though you are extraordinary hypothesizers10）—its extraordinary that you arrived at any concept of evolution， faced with that unbridgeable11） gap between yourselves and the lower animals. But philosophically， emotionally： to be so solitary， in so hostile a world： it must affect your entire outlook.”

“The Yomeshta12） would say that mans singularity is his divinity.”

“Lords of the Earth， yes. Other cults on other worlds have come to the same conclusion. They tend to be the cults of dynamic， aggressive， ecology-breaking cultures. Orgoreyn is in the pattern， in its way； at least they seem bent on pushing things around. What do the Handdarata13） say？”

“Well， in the Handdara … you know， theres no theory， no dogma … Maybe they are less aware of the gap between men and beasts， being more occupied with the likenesses， the links， the whole of which living things are a part.”

Tormers Lay14） had been all day in my mind， and I said the words，

Light is the left hand of darkness

and darkness the right hand of light.

Two are one， life and death， lying

together like lovers in kemmer，

like hands joined together，

like the end and the way.

My voice shook as I said the lines， for I remembered as I said them that in the letter my brother wrote me before his death he had quoted the same words.

Ai brooded， and after some time he said， “Youre isolated， and undivided. Perhaps you are as obsessed with wholeness as we are with dualism15）.”

“We are dualists too. Duality is an essential， isnt it？ So long as there is myself and the other.”

1. 節(jié)選部分選自小說的第16章，以卡亥德（Karhide）前首相伊斯特拉凡的口吻，講述了他和地球特使金瑞·艾（Genly Ai）從另一個國家歐格瑞恩（Orgoreyn）的勞改營逃出來后，在冰雪里艱難行路和休息閑談時的情景。

2. 此處為格森星球紀年法中的記月和記日方法。

3. blizzard [?bl?z?（r）d] n. 大風雪

4. murk [m??（r）k] n. 黑暗

5. kemmer：克慕期，即發(fā)情期

6. untrance：非眠，一種意念功，練習者先使自己的感受力和意識達到極度敏銳和極度清醒的程度，再由此進入忘我的狀態(tài)。

7. Gethenian：格森人，格森星球上居住的人類

8. ambisexual [amb??s?k???l] adj. 兩性的，具有兩性特征的

9. domesticate [d??mest?ke?t] vt. 馴養(yǎng)

10. hypothesize [h???p?θ?sa?z] vt. 假設，假定，猜測

11. unbridgeable [?n?br?d??b（?）l] adj. 不能逾越的

12. Yomeshta：堯米西主，小說中堯米西教的創(chuàng)始人

13. Handdarata：韓達拉信徒。韓達拉教（Handdara）是格森星上的一個教派，沒有教義、牧師、盟誓和信條。

14. lay [le?] n. 短敘事詩

15. dualism [?dju??l??z（?）m] n. 二元論