Haruki Murakami and the Tokyo Gas Attack

By Murray Sayle

Most countries would need a lot to upstage1. upstage: 使……相形見絀，搶鏡頭。a natural disaster that took 5,000 lives, but not Japan. The Great Kobe Earthquake of January 17, 1995, is already halfforgotten; the Sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system,two months later, that killed twelve and put hundreds in hospital,has rarely been out of the Japanese media or consciousness since.2. 1995年1月17日的神戶大地震幾乎已被人遺忘；而兩個(gè)月之后發(fā)生在東京地鐵的沙林神經(jīng)毒氣攻擊事件，致使12人死亡和成百上千人受傷入院，至今仍未淡出日本媒體和公眾的記憶。

The subway attack was, so far, unique. It not only alarmed the five million or so daily users of the Tokyo subway and the inhabitants of other big cities around the world; worse, it roused memories of a brutal war, fire raids, and atomic bombs, the barbarous past a now peaceful and still prosperous Japan thought was gone forever.3. 這次事件不單單使五百多萬名每天乘坐東京地鐵的日本人和全世界其他大城市的居民感到驚慌；更糟糕的是，它勾起日本人關(guān)于殘酷的戰(zhàn)爭、燃燒彈空襲和原子彈的回憶——和平繁榮的日本曾以為這段野蠻的歷史已永遠(yuǎn)成為過去。inhabitant: 居民，住民；fire raid: 燃燒彈空襲；barbarous: 野蠻的，殘暴的。Yet surprisingly little has been written about the Tokyo subway horror. Japan has many able journalists, but none has seen fit to tackle in any depth their most sensational story since Hiroshima.4. 日本不乏有能耐的新聞?dòng)浾?，但自廣島事件后，好像沒人能夠?qū)懗錾钊朕Z動(dòng)的報(bào)道來。sensational: 轟動(dòng)的，聳人聽聞的；Hiroshima: 廣島市，這里指二戰(zhàn)末期美國在日本廣島和長崎投下兩顆原子彈這一事件。Instead, a fashionable and commercially successful Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, has written two books on the subject, both big sellers in Japan, now translated into English and bound together as Underground5. Underground: 《地下》， 發(fā)表于1997年，是關(guān)于日本沙林毒氣事件的紀(jì)實(shí)作品。: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, translated from the Japanese.

1995年3月20日上班早高峰，有人在人流如梭的五列東京地鐵上扔下不明包裹后逃跑。隨后人們開始嘔吐暈倒，惶恐不安，整個(gè)東京交通系統(tǒng)陷入混亂。日本人對地震等天災(zāi)已經(jīng)習(xí)以為常，但這次毒氣攻擊的人禍?zhǔn)录两駞s仍然牽動(dòng)著他們脆弱的神經(jīng)。日本著名作家村上春樹在采訪了幸存者、甚至始作俑者奧姆真理教前成員之后，寫出《地下》一書，從親歷者的角度為人們描述那場發(fā)生在東京黑暗隧道里的浩劫。

Murakami seems out of his depth in trying to understand what the guru of the AumShinrikyo was all about, and why so many bright young people have followed him, some, quite possibly, as far as the gallows.6. 村上春樹竭力想要理解這個(gè)他力所不及的問題：奧姆真理教的領(lǐng)袖究竟有著什么魔力，為什么能讓那么多聰明的年輕人死心塌地地追隨他，有些甚至追隨他至絞刑架前。out of one’s depth: 超出了某人知識/理解力的范圍；guru: 領(lǐng)袖，專家；AumShinrikyo: 奧姆真理教，一個(gè)日本代表性的邪教團(tuán)體；gallows: 絞刑架。But his effort is interesting just the same and gives us many clues to his own question: What exactly is going on in Japan?

Who Is Murakami?

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949, the only child of two lecturers in Japanese literature. As a form of rebellion7. rebellion: 叛逆，反叛。,he says, he refused to read the Japanese classics. Instead, when his parents moved to the port city of Kobe, he discovered usedbook shops stacked with American paperbacks8. paperback: 平裝書。. He mostly read hard-boiled detective stories by Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane, later moving on to Scott Fitzgerald and Truman Capote.9. 他讀得最多的是雷蒙德·錢德勒和米奇·斯皮蘭的硬漢派偵探小說，之后轉(zhuǎn)讀司各特·菲茨杰拉德和杜魯門·卡波特。hardboiled detective story: 硬漢派偵探小說，偵探小說的一種流派，主要以描寫艱苦的環(huán)境和打斗的場面來贏得讀者的喜愛。“They provided a small window in the wall of my room through which I could look out onto a foreign landscape, a fantasy10. fantasy: 幻想的，空想的。world,” he recalls.

村上春樹2011年反核演講

Murakami was a teenager in the 1960’s. By the time he was 25,in 1974, he was running a Tokyo jazz and coffee bar called Peter Rabbit and like a good host was listening to his customers, mostly a shade younger than himself.11. 1974年，他時(shí)年25歲，在東京經(jīng)營著一家名叫“彼得兔子”的爵士咖啡吧。跟其他友善的老板一樣，他喜歡聽客人說話，大部分客人稍微比他年輕一點(diǎn)。a shade: 細(xì)微差別地，一丁點(diǎn)兒地。The last cause in which young Japanese have showed even a flicker of interest, “Crush the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty,” ran out of steam with the treaty’s renewal in 1970.12. 最后一件能讓日本年輕人表現(xiàn)出一絲興趣的事——撕毀《美日安全保障條約》，隨著1970年條約的自動(dòng)延期，日本人也對此失去熱情。a flicker of: 一丁點(diǎn)兒的，一絲的；run out of steam:筋疲力盡，失去動(dòng)力。With unemployment close to zero and hunger not even a memory, Japan’s good times had started to roll, and Chandler’s world—jazz, coffee, hamburgers, wise-cracking13. wise-cracking: 滿嘴俏皮話的，妙語連珠的。babes, and fast cars—seemed, thirty years late, to have come to earth in New Japan.

Murakami wrote nothing until he was 29, when his novel,Hear the Wind Sing14. Hear the Wind Sing: 《且聽風(fēng)吟》， 村上春樹第一部作品，發(fā)表于1979年，獲得日本群像新人獎(jiǎng)。, won a minor literary prize. Two years later he closed Peter Rabbit and has written full-time, with enviable, not to say15. not to say: 雖說不上。astonishing financial success ever since.His 1987 novel Norwegian Wood (titled for the Beatles song that runs through the nameless narrator’s head) sold four million copies in Japan, and several of his other string of hits have topped a million.16. 1987年，他的小說《挪威的森林》（這位當(dāng)時(shí)還默默無聞的小說家，用他喜愛的披頭士的歌曲《挪威的森林》為小說取名）在日本賣出400萬冊，其他幾本暢銷系列叢書銷量也超過100萬。Sales on this scale suggest sociological rather than literary forces at work. Murakami is one of the handful of writers who have made it big at a time of a pronounced generational changeover, usually after wars.17. 村上春樹是在明顯的代際交替時(shí)期，特別是戰(zhàn)爭后，能夠獲得成功的為數(shù)不多的作家之一。pronounced: 明顯的，顯然的。His model, Scott Fitzgerald, hit a similar jackpot18. hit the jackpot: 獲得頭獎(jiǎng)，獲得驚人成功。with the now unreadable This Side of Paradise (1920) about the lives of students at Princeton.Noel Coward did much the same with his plays I’ll Leave It To You (1920) and The Vortex (1924).

The selling point of these commercial coups has been the same. Young people believe that their generation is special,utterly unlike any that went before, and they flock to buy a writer who speaks their own language.Their parents buy the books in an attempt to understand their offspring19. offspring: 子孫后代。. Murakami’s characters are all young. They have few names,or none—in one story everyone including the cat is called Noboru Watanabe (i.e., John Smith).They have neither parents nor children and, if they work at all, it is in new un-Japanese trades like advertising and PR.20. 他們沒有父母，也沒有孩子，即便有工作的話，也是從事一些非日本傳統(tǒng)的行業(yè)，如廣告和公關(guān)。PR: Public Relations，公共關(guān)系。They have no religion,family, or social concerns. Far from working for Honda, they drive a Mercedes Benz. Murakami’s books have no coherent story lines, because young people never seem interested in how a situation will end, or a life will work out. Reality blurs, thoughts derail, scenes intercut,just like on TV (or in Chandler).21. 現(xiàn)實(shí)模糊混亂，思緒如天馬行空，畫面不斷交切，就像電視畫面或錢德勒的作品。Murakami has followed foreign fashion with the now dated spice-up for bland writing,“magical realism.”22. 村上春樹追隨國外流行的文學(xué)手法，在平淡樸實(shí)的敘事中加入“調(diào)味料”——魔幻現(xiàn)實(shí)主義。spice-up: 增添的趣味；bland: 溫和的，平淡的；magical realism: 魔幻現(xiàn)實(shí)主義，其特點(diǎn)為在反映現(xiàn)實(shí)的敘述中，客觀地融入荒誕或神話的元素。Like the child in most of us, he has a thing about23. have a thing about: 對……特別感興趣，特別向往。smoke-filled tunnels where, in one story, aliens called INKlings breed under Tokyo, no one above ground knowing they are there.

小說《挪威的森林》

村上春樹

The Underground Gas Attack

Murakami thus stood where many another novelist has been, or would have liked to have been, before him—rich, famous, bored, getting on for fifty, fast running out of material—when, on March 20, 1995, an utterly uninventable event convulsed Japan, and incidentally showed up magical realism for what it is, bookish daydreaming.24. 于是，村上春樹跟其他很多小說家已經(jīng)經(jīng)歷過或可能會(huì)經(jīng)歷的一樣：年近五十，腰包鼓脹，名揚(yáng)天下，卻備感無聊，寫作素材一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)耗盡。1995年3月20日，一件捏造都捏造不出來的事件震驚整個(gè)日本，并且說明了所謂的魔幻現(xiàn)實(shí)主義不過是書呆子的白日夢而已。convulse: 使……劇烈震驚，使……不安。Murakami had taken no interest in the earthquake and conflagration that ravaged his boyhood home, Kobe, two months earlier. We can guess why: too boringly old-style Japanese, not magical enough. AumShinrikyo’s nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in the morning rush hour was another story,all the more disorienting because it confirmed what Murakami was beginning to fear: that he really knew very little about his own country.25. 奧姆真理教在清晨上班高峰對東京地鐵的神經(jīng)毒氣攻擊則是另外一回事。整個(gè)事件讓人困惑不已，它證實(shí)了村上春樹開始擔(dān)心的問題：他對自己的國家了解甚少。disorienting:使人迷失方向的。Around 8 a.m. that morning five two-man Aum teams in business suits boarded different crowded trains,all timed to converge at Kasumigaseki, the deepest underground station and the hub of the Tokyo system, which also happens to be closest to parliament, police headquarters, and major ministries—a scientifically efficient commando raid, at least in planning, on the control centers of the Japanese government.26. 那天早上大約八點(diǎn)，五隊(duì)兩兩組成的奧姆真理教徒身穿商務(wù)套裝，分別擠上五列擁擠的地鐵，所有的地鐵都將開往霞關(guān)——東京地鐵最深的地下站和換乘樞紐，同時(shí)也是距離國會(huì)、警察總部和幾大部委最近的地鐵站。這是一次針對日本政府控制中心的科學(xué)高效的突襲，至少策劃上如是。converge: 匯聚，匯集；commando raid: 突襲攻擊。

Aboard the trains the fake businessmen, more terrifying in their ordinariness than any dreamed-up aliens, dropped parcels wrapped in newspaper, prodded them with the sharpened tips of umbrellas they carried (on a rainless day) and got off at the next stop.27. 這些假商務(wù)人士擠上列車——外表與常人無異，卻比人類想象的外星人更為恐怖——丟下用報(bào)紙裹著的包裹，用他們隨身攜帶的雨傘尖（在一個(gè)晴朗的日子里）戳破，然后在下一站下車。dreamed-up: 想象中的；alien: 外星人，異類；prod: （用手指或尖物）戳，捅。Within minutes Japanese and world TV, the realistic magic of our time, was showing scenes from a waking nightmare.People came stumbling out of the subway exits, retching,28. stumble: 跌跌撞撞地走，蹣跚；retch:干嘔，惡心嘔吐。choking, and falling on the grass outside. Underground, some fought to get off the trains while others, fearful of being late for work, fought to get on. Above ground, emergency vehicles stalled in already clogged traffic.29. stall: 堵塞，暫緩；clogged: 堵住的，塞住的。As in Hiroshima half a century earlier, no one knew what was causing all this, only that it was something out of science’s latest shop of horrors. Gas of some kind, seemingly; but what? And why?

Fire crews in gas masks descended into the subway; then soldiers of the Ground Self Defense Force in capes and goggles to swab out the trains, the first time Japanese servicemen had been in harm’s way in Tokyo since the 1945 fire raids.30. 戴著防毒面具的消防員進(jìn)入地鐵；陸上自衛(wèi)隊(duì)士兵戴著盔帽和護(hù)目鏡在清洗地鐵。這是自1945年日本受襲以來日本軍人第一次在東京執(zhí)行危險(xiǎn)任務(wù)。Ground Self Defense Force: 日本陸上自衛(wèi)隊(duì)；goggle: 護(hù)目鏡；swab:（用拖把、抹布等）擦洗，擦拭；harm’s way: 危險(xiǎn)的處境。In a day of things never seen before, Japanese and then others learned how pathetically vulnerable our great cities, that seem so safe, are to high-tech assailants who know their chemistry.31. pathetically: 可悲地，可憐地；assailant:攻擊者，襲擊者。

By his own account none of this made much of an impact on Murakami, immersed in his then invariable daily routine of writing, jogging ten kilometers, writing, swimming, writing,and going to bed early. Only later, he recounts, he saw a letter in a magazine from a woman whose husband, injured in the subway attack, had not fully regained his energy, had been coldshouldered by his boss and colleagues because he wasn’t quite like them anymore, and felt obliged to resign.32. 他說，后來他在雜志上看到一位女性的來信，她的丈夫在這次地鐵毒氣攻擊事件中受傷，未能完全恢復(fù)，從此再也不能像正常人，因而受到其上司和同事的歧視，最后不得不辭職。recount:描述，講述；cold-shoulder: 冷漠，輕視?！癏ow could Japanese society perpetrate such a double violence?” he asks,and soon after he decided to interview the survivors of the attack, with interesting results.

Unlike many celebrities who try journalism (one notorious example, Alexander Solzhenytsin, banished guests from his Russian TV talk show because they kept interrupting him), Murakami is a good listener who keeps his questions short and general. Nights behind the bar at Peter Rabbit probably helped.

Murakami takes us into a city of Japanese with jobs,kids, and debts, utterly unlike the empty characters of his fiction. He talks to clerks, shop assistants, computer engineers, printers, “office ladies”—people with nothing in common except the need to get to work. He discovers spontaneous heroism and devotion to duty, very Japanese,among everyday, taken-for-granted people—the assistant stationmaster at Kasumigaseki who died dragging the parcels of Sarin out of a carriage with his bare hands, a ticket collector fatally gassed helping victim after victim to safety.33. 從司空見慣的普通人中，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了自發(fā)的英雄主義、勤勉努力的日本人，包括因赤手將沙林包拖出車廂而致死的霞關(guān)站助理站長，以及協(xié)助將一個(gè)又一個(gè)受害人挪至安全地方而導(dǎo)致自己中毒身亡的收票員。spontaneous:自發(fā)的，無意識的；fatally: 致命地。Murakami found no Aum sympathizers among the victims,who had barely heard of the cult and made wild guesses at what the motive of the attack might be: “people are too assertive in Tokyo these days,” “children are not taught to respect human life,” and similar explanations just as wide of the mark.34. sympathizer: 同情者，支持者；cult: 邪教，宗教團(tuán)伙；assertive: 武斷的，獨(dú)斷的。

After the first dozen or so, the victims’ accounts do get monotonous: strange smell, panic, confusion, vision slowly fading to black as the gas affects the optic nerves—an eerie reprise of Murakami’s sci-fi fantasies about dark tunnels under Tokyo but telling us nothing about Aum or its guru.35. 采訪了十幾個(gè)人之后，受害者的講述變得單調(diào)起來：聞到一股怪異的味道，人們驚慌失措。毒氣傷害人們的視覺神經(jīng)，受害者的視力開始慢慢衰弱直至完全失明——村上春樹描繪的發(fā)生在東京黑暗隧道里的科幻小說場景一再重復(fù)，但卻未涉及奧姆真理教或其教主。monotonous: 單調(diào)的，無聊的；optic nerve: 視覺神經(jīng)；eerie: 可怕的，怪異的；reprise: 重演，再次發(fā)生；scifi: science fiction，科幻小說。The editors of Bungei Shunju36. Bungei Shunju:《文藝春秋》，日本著名雜志。, where this account was first published, seem to have thought much the same, and therefore invited Murakami to do a second set of interviews with members and ex-members of the Aum sect. These ran in the magazine in 1998 and make up the second half of the book later.