扭曲的房子 (1)

　　Walking through the capital's university district, Yu Hua looks more like a migrant worker than one of China's best-selling authors. His hair short and spiky, his clothes simple and plain, he does not fit in -- and clearly doesn't make much of an effort to do so.

　　余華走在北京的大學區里，看上去更像是一個農民工，而不像是中國一流的暢銷書作家。他短短的頭發直豎起來，衣服簡單而樸素，而且不大合身──很顯然，他也沒在這方面下什么功夫。

　　That attitude extends to his view of contemporary society, which he says is so sick that a writer can't pretend to be a doctor. Instead, the best one can do is admit that one is ill and try to describe the symptoms. This ethos underpins 'Brothers,' a sprawling, two-part novel that has just come out in an English translation in the U.S. and will be published in April in Britain.

　　這種態度延伸到了他對當代社會的看法。他說，這個社會已經無藥可救，作家也不能再扮作社會的醫生。一個人所能做的就是承認自己有病，并且盡力去描述病情。這一思想貫穿著《兄弟》，一部分為上下兩部的長篇巨制。這部小說的英文版剛剛在美國問世，今年四月該書還將在英國上市。

　　The book is a manic, hyperactive account of two brothers whose stories span the past 50 years of hardcore communism and today's no-holds-barred capitalism. 'At times the novel is grotesque and crude, but there's nothing I write about that is more absurd than what goes on in society,' he says as we rush past crowds of university students en route to a restaurant that serves the cuisine of Mr. Yu's native Zhejiang province.

　　余華以一種瘋狂而亢奮的筆觸敘述了兩兄弟的故事。整個小說從過去純粹的共產主義寫到今天不折不扣的資本主義，橫跨了五十年。余華在我們匆匆穿過一群群大學生，去往一家經營浙江菜的餐廳途中說，這部小說有時候顯得怪誕而粗俗，但社會上真實發生的事情比我筆下所有的故事更為荒誕不經。浙江是余華的老家。

　　Politics is one of the 46-year-old's main interests. His most famous work, 'To Live,' is a brutal, mythic tale of a man who loses all to the political movements that tore across China during the first three decades of Communist Party rule, but manages to keep going through his sheer will to live. The book, which was filmed by the star director Zhang Yimou, remains a bestseller in China. His other works are symbolic almost to the point of caricature. His 1995 'Chronicles of a Blood Merchant' tells the story of a man who sells his blood to get by. 'Cries in the Drizzle,' published in 2003, is about a boy who seems to bring bad luck to everyone he touches.

　　政治是46歲的余華最感興趣的領域之一。他最知名的作品《活著》講述的是一個虛構的殘忍故事。在共產黨執政的頭三十年里，故事的主人公在席卷中國的政治運動中失去了自己的所有，但他憑著活下去的決心生存了下來。這部小說至今在中國還是本暢銷書，這個故事還被著名導演張藝謀搬上了大熒幕。他的其他作品很有象征意味，簡直和漫畫有異曲同工之妙。他1995年的小說《許三觀賣血記》講述了一個男人為維持生計而賣血的故事。2003年出版的《在細雨中呼喊》是關于一個男孩的故事。這個男孩碰誰一下，誰似乎就會倒霉。