【经济学人】东方的爱之歌丨2017.04.08丨总第870期

“THE East is a career,” wrote Disraeli in his novel “Tancred”. Lately, the Western devotion to that compass-point has fallen into intellectual disrepute. Critics such as Edward Said (who took Disraeli’s axiom as an epigraph to his influential study, “Orientalism”) have indicted scholars and travellers as the outriders of a predatory imperialism in Asia and the Middle East. “Compass”, Mathias Enard’s epic wrangle over the meanings of a passion for the East, won the Prix Goncourt in 2015, has been long-listed for the Man Booker International prize, and has just been published in English. The novel offers both a celebration and interrogation of the Orientalist imagination. With its torrential erudition, Mr Enard’s insomniac monologue has inspired plaudits —and perplexity. “Desire for the Orient”, admits Mr Enard’s narrator, after citing Flaubert’s erotic escapades in Egypt, “is also a carnal desire.”

“东方是一种职业，”迪斯雷利在他的小说《坦克雷德》中这样写道。 （期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~） 《指南针》，马迪亚斯·埃纳尔这部关于东方文明的热情内涵的史诗级争论在2015年赢得了龚古尔奖，它被布克国际文学奖长期提名，并刚刚出版了英文版。这本小说对东方学家的想象既有颂扬又有质询。埃纳尔先生的这本学识渊博的失眠独白令人喝彩同时又让人困惑。书中的叙事人在引用福楼拜的在埃及情色冒险后，称“对东方的渴望也是情欲。

• Orientalist：n.东方学者，东方通

• Prizewinning：n.有奖可得的，获奖的

• Disrepute：n.不光彩的

• Axiom：n.公理，格言

• Epigraph：n.题词，碑文

• Indict：v.控告，起诉

• Outrider：n.先驱者

• Erudition：n.博学，学识

• Insomniac：n.失眠症患者

• Monologue：独白，独角戏

• Plaudit：n.鼓掌，喝彩

• Escapade：n.越轨行为，恶作剧

• Carnal：肉体的

Mr Enard, an Arabic and Persian specialist, makes his lover of the East, Franz Ritter, a thwarted musicologist in Vienna. Over one delirious night, struck down by a mysterious ailment, Franz remembers perilous research trips to Aleppo and Palmyra (today, his beloved sites are “burning or burnt” by civil war), and to revolutionary Tehran. He re-imagines the lives of Orient-struck writers such as Goethe and Heine, or intrepid voyagers such as Jane Digby and Lady Hester Stanhope. And he evokes Orientalism as “reverie”, as “lament”; as “a forever disappointing exploration”.

埃纳尔是研究阿拉伯与波斯的专家，他将他的主人公东方学家弗朗茨·里特设定为一位受挫败的维也纳音乐学家。由于受到一场奇异小病的打击，弗朗茨整晚都精神错乱的，想起了前往阿勒颇、巴尔米拉（如今，他珍爱的历史遗迹在内战中“正遭焚烧或已燃烧殆尽“）以及重大变革中的德黑兰的研究冒险旅程。他重新描绘了那些被东方文明影响的作家（如歌德与海涅）的一生；还有那些勇敢的旅行家，如简·迪格拜和海斯特·斯坦霍普。他想起东方学，称之为”“幻想”、“哀歌”与“永远失望的探索”。

• Delirious 精神错乱的

• Perilous 危险的

• Intrepid 勇敢的