【经济学人】来一场移民的冒险|2017年3月16日|总第847期

IF THE history of human civilisation is of the collapse of distance—from walking to horses to carriages to motorised transport to jet engines—then what happens when you take that thread to its logical conclusion, when it becomes possible to move from any one place on Earth to another simply by walking through a door? This is the central conceit of “Exit West”, Mohsin Hamid’s fourth novel, which is set in a world wracked by war and poverty, a world not unlike our own, in which mysterious doors allow passage from London to Namibia or from Amsterdam to Brazil.

如果人类文明的历史就是消除距离阻碍的历史——从步行到骑马，再到马车、机动车、喷气式引擎——那么，当你顺着这种逻辑得出结论，，即当你能仅仅穿过一扇门便可从地球的某处移动到另一处时，会发生什么呢? 这便是穆赫辛·哈米德第四部小说《西方出口》的中心假定，这个故事中设定的世界饱受战争与贫穷摧残而破败不堪，这与我们生活中的世界一样，在那个世界里存在一种神秘门，可以使你在伦敦与纳米比亚之间或阿姆斯特丹与巴西之间传送。

In an unnamed country at war with itself live Saeed and Nadia, who in the span of a few short chapters see their world transform, without fuss, into a barbarous place of violence and brutality. When they hear about secret black doors that will spirit them away, they take their chance, arriving first at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Mykonos, and later in London, where they share a house with others fleeing third-world problems. There is not much by way of plot except constant movement and a tender—and, given the circumstances, surprisingly familiar—love story of coupling and conscious uncoupling. But plot, as has become a habit with Mr Hamid, is just scaffolding.

在这个充满战火的无名国家里，居住着赛义德和纳迪娅。在短短几章的篇幅里他们见证了自己的世界逐步转变成了一个充斥着暴力、残忍行为的野蛮地方。当他们听说了黑色密门能把他们偷偷带走，就抓住了机会，先抵达希腊的米科诺斯岛的难民营，后来转移到伦敦，与其他逃离第三世界国家的人们合住。（期待您的翻译，明天将会有针对这句话的长难句接续哟~）但情节，由于对哈米德先生来讲已经成为习惯，只起框架作用。

• Fuss n 忙乱；大惊小怪

• Barbarous a 粗野的；野蛮的

• Brutality n 残忍；野蛮

It is tempting to characterise “Exit West” as magic realism. But it is better read as a sharply pointed story of migration. No matter how long the coils of razor wire or how beautiful the walls or how legion the border guards, migrants will continue to move around the world, Mr Hamid seems to be saying with his black doors. And no matter how persistent the efforts at integration or how good the intentions of migrants or how recently settled the local population, those who see themselves as natives will always see their homes and their way of life as under threat. In one of the book’s most elegant diversions, a woman is born and brought up, orphaned and married and widowed in the same house in Palo Alto. But in the course of her lifetime a new industry grows up around her, old neighbours move out and new ones move in, and she becomes the outsider, the migrant, without ever moving. Migration is not only a physical state or a voluntary one, but a universal experience.

人们很容易将《西方出口》划分成魔幻现实主义文学，但是将其解读为尖锐的移民故事更为妥当。哈米德先生似乎在用黑门述说：无论多么长的铁丝网，多么美的墙，多么多的边境保卫都抵挡不住移民全球移动的步伐。而且虽然移民努力融入当地社区，移民的出发点很好，或是刚刚才定居下来，但那些觉得自己才是原生居民的当地人总是认为自己的家和生活方式受到了威胁。这本书中最精妙的一条支线是一名女士，她在帕罗阿尔托的同一所房子里出生，成长，变为孤儿，结婚，成为寡妇。但在她的一生中，一个新行业在她身边兴起，旧友离，新人进，而她则变成了一个外人，一个移民，虽然她未曾移动。移民已不仅是一个物理状态或自主状态，而是一个全球性的经历。

• Magic realism：魔幻现实主义

• Coils：n.线圈，卷

• Integration：n.集合，综合

• Elegant：adj.高雅的，优雅的，讲究的

• Orphan：v.使……成为孤儿

“Everyone migrates,” writes Mr Hamid, “because we can’t help it.” Despite the black doors of “Exit West”, the world it depicts it less magical than it is real.

“每个人都成了移民，因为我们对此无能为力”。哈米德这样写道。撇开《西方出口》里的黑门，这本书描绘的世界更多是写实而不是魔幻。

翻译 ▍E-R-3

审核 ▍白夜叉

编辑 ▍毛毛