歹毒的人。我是一个其貌不扬的人。我想我的肝脏有病。但是我对自己的病一窍不通，甚至不清楚我到底患有什么病。我不去看病，也从来没有看
过病，虽然我很尊重医学和医生。再DRAGON'S DIGEST
说，我极其迷信；唔，以至于迷信到敬重医学。（我受过良好的教育，决不至于迷信，但是我还是很迷信。）不，您哪，我不想去看病是出于恶意。您大概不明白这是什么意思。可是，我明白。当然，我向你们说不清楚我这种恶意损害的到底是谁；我非常清楚，我不去找医生看病，对他们丝毫无损；我比任何人都清楚，我这样做只会有损于自己的健康，而损害不到任何人。但是我之所以不去看病，毕竟是出于恶意。肝疼，那就让它疼好了，让它疼得更厉害些吧！
Zhu Yue (朱岳) , a 37-year-old lawyer
turned writer and editor, was named the “Chine Jorge Luis Borges” by
the publishing hou of his 2006 short story collection The Blindfolded Traveler (《蒙着眼睛的旅行者》). Despite Zhu’s rejection of the moniker, it does speak to his style, short stories compod
of surreal, imaginative fantasy. Many of his stories start with an absurd
premi, only to unfold in surprisingly plausible and logical fashion: a man who writes the biography of a table
and invents a robot in constant pain, a movie trilogy that eras reviewers’ memories, and masters skilled in the art of deep sleep. Humor and absurdity abound in his language: “I hate when a watermelon disguis itlf as a taxi driver,” “My poor girlfriend’s 10 fingers were removed becau of her illness. The doctor installed 10 pieces of
noodle to replace them,” or “He makes wine with skylark, which induces
hallucinations of soaring in the sky.” Having also been published in People’s
Literature magazine, Zhu reprents a伴奏的英文
breath of fresh air in otherwi realist
dominated contemporary Chine
literature.
ZHU YUE
朱岳
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I T he whole incident began long ago with the babbling of
a baby boy. The first words out of his mouth were not
“mom” or “dad”, but rather complex fragments, such as
“it makes no difference”, “all through you” and “ugh,
sir!”, which naturally stunned his parents. They believed
that people cretly introduced the baby to the words, so they
decided to move him to a relatively isolated environment. However,
the boy’s language proficiency grew of its own volition, emingly
free of any external control. He began to articulate complicated
ntences: “The driver gazed at me, sighing and astonished,” “I
shouted savagely,” “You are certainly out of your mind,” and “I
am alone, and they are EVERYONE.” The frightened parents took
the boy to various specialists, from otolaryngology to neurology,
to have him studied inside and out. Without any accompanying
symptoms, not a single doctor could find anything wrong with the
boy. With modern medical science exhausted, the couple turned
to witch doctors, shamans, and priests; they provided all kinds of explanations but they still couldn’t cure the boy. After many futile attempts to remedy the situation, the child’s father started to record every single word the boy said. He had a vague idea that all the words belonged to an integrated system. He also began to show the record to everyone he knew. Finally, a long-parted friend who came back from overas saw it and told them the origin—the novel Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The friend even fetched an old translation from the library and marked everything the boy said. But the boy was far from a prodigy—he simply recited the ntences randomly and mechanically without comprehending them. The story attracted extensive attention when it was expod. People were baffled by this emingly supernatural phenomenon. Psychologists, linguists, philosophers, geneticists, and even experts in artificial intelligence participated in the study. Eventually, the only explanation from the standpoint of science was a “coincidence”, which really equaled no explanation at all. The expert opinion was no more than “continue obrvation”; implying, “until you are tired and forget all about it.” However, the incident quickly grew beyond the experts’ expectations. Notes from the Underground recited by a baby boy
was just an early sign, much like a mysterious crack on a cup’s rim. Soon, people discovered that the boy was not alone, as another odd ca surfaced. An old, dying man on a hospital bed recited entire passages from Wuthering Heights while half conscious. His family testified that he rarely read any novels. It is said that to name an inconceivable thing can somehow suppress its power. Bad on this belief, the medical world gave the “dia” a beautiful name: romantism. In the beginning, the term was only ud in the professional field, but the situation soon worned, turning it into a houhold name. People who involuntarily uttered excerpts from fictions, victims of romantism,
incread in number. Besides reciting ntences, their consciousness
was emingly invaded and occupied by different
fictional worlds. The patients would fall into a
sleepwalking state. Left unattended, they could still
find water and food out of instinct. But, they would
remain listless and nless, without ever being
conscious or lf-aware again. The dia spread
rapidly and became unstoppable. No one was able
to find the cau; therefore, nothing could be done
for prevention or treatment. People began to blindly
destroy fiction books and fled in all directions. All
patients were strictly quarantined. However, none
of the efforts were effective. In a matter of a few
years, the entire world gradually collapd.
We obtained all the above information from the
newspapers of the time much later, which inevitably
平房图片
contain elements of imagination. As to how we, Lu
De and mylf, managed to escape, it was a mystery.
It, perhaps, was becau we were far enough from
human civilization at the time, both physically and
psychologically.
In the first few years after the disaster hit, we were
in an unmanned area of the western region, living
a life of clusion. This was thanks to Lu De, who
accidentally discovered a legend in the historical
records about the ancient Tuvas. Lu De’s discovery
was that a black dragon once broke out of the
ground to terrorize the Tuvas; even their sorcerers
ran out of tricks to defend against it. At that
moment, a wandering monk happened to pass by this
wild land. He subdued the black dragon and aled
上海私立学校
it underground with a small talisman. The Tuvas all
vanished around the fourth century, but the legend
aroud Lu De’s inten interest.
He believed that the black dragon was in fact
petroleum erupting, which indicated a possibly rich oil rerve in the land on which the Tuvas had lived. He urged his friends to investigate, but they all dismisd him as a crackpot—such legends were common in various ancient civilizations and were not concrete proof of anything. However, Lu De was persistent in this theory, even somewhat obsd. He was the kind of person who was inte
nt on destroying his own idealism with failures, but he could never succeed. The reason I agreed, immediately, with Lu De to venture into the untamed land at the time was down to vere misanthropy induced by a failed relationship. I just wanted to go to a trackless, wild land as soon as possible to hide.It was a futile attempt toward archeology and discovery—there was only dert. Lu De ended up with nothing, but my wish to be left alone was granted. I thought we were sufficiently prepared, but later our supplies were exhausted and passing caravans disappeared. We almost became savages. Faced with this brutal reality, Lu De had to compromi and agreed to return to civilization, replenish our supplies, and resume the expedition. After the great difficulties inherent in returning to the city, we found it wracked beyond recognition by romantism.We spent more than a year looking for our family and friends, but they had already fallen into oblivion among the chaotic a of people. As a matter of fact, along with the confusion of human consciousness, the world appeared to be dislocated as well. In our city, large groups of foreigners with romantism were en in every corner. Later we realized that it was the result of a great civil disorder and large-scale exodus around the globe. They poured into the city on a tide of insanity. When the tide receded, they were left stranded like scattered rubbish.We decided to ttle down before considering the next move. So, we picked a university campus as our temporary ba and drove all the sleepwalking people infected with romantism away. We managed to find a generator to restore the power supply t
o the campus. We stored bottled water, petrol, gas tanks, medicine, all kinds of food, tobacco, coffee, and even alcohol. We had an old pick-up truck that we could drive around to gather the things we needed. One day, without premeditation, we picked two unkempt girls from the street. After they were tidied up, the two girls looked pale, fragile, and in a daze, with empty eyes and slight frames, almost like a pair of dolls. The only difference was that they still had basic survival instincts and
mobility. They could speak, but all they said were AFTER THE GREAT DIFFICULTIES INHERENT IN RETURNING TO THE CITY, WE FOUND IT WRACKED BEYOND RECOGNITION BY ROMANTISM
inscrutable ntences from unrecognizable fictions. We took the girls in, and not just becau of our lust. Our desires were reduced to sand in the untamed wilderness. Perhaps we were just trying to create illusions of life through the prence of women. That was also the day that Lu De went for a drive at sunt and returned late at night with a rifle and two boxes of bullets—who knows from where.We turned two spacious top-floor offices in the main building into bedrooms and lived there with our respective female partners, like two small families. Just like that, we ttled down on the campus. Lu De was up very early everyday, had breakfast, and went to the big school library to “do r
earch”. At noon, he would get a bite on the bench outside the library and work until half past five, only resting during the weekend. I was puzzled by his insistence on keeping regular hours. He then explained to me in great detail about his motives. As a matter of fact, his reasons were simple. He believed that our existence had lost all frame of reference. Therefore, saving the human race was the only meaningful thing left to do. Since the disaster originated in books, he believed the solution to be in books—tho books stacked in the library. This idealist with infinite energy invited me to work with him, just as we did in the dert. However, I was unmoved by his words. I didn’t believe in “meaning”. To me, the world is a grand enigma, and we are just subtle branches within it—like the stream deep in an abyss shrouded by thick fog; all we have to do is to flow in silence and roll with the tides.A short while later, Lu De propod a plan of salvation to me. His strategy was as follows: put together all the possible ntences that could have been said by a normal person in their entire life; then he would construct a novel using the ntences. When this novel occupied the conscience of a subject, this person would be able to master the language of a
学写倡议书
normal person. Lu De was looking through books such
as Daily English 900 to find examples. After gathering all possible permutations, he would start on the novel.
I had to point out that the plan wouldn’t have any
real effect, becau though the number of ntences a person utters during their lifetime is limited, the
permutations are infinite; to put it in another way, a田蕴章
person masters not just ntences, but a core method
for generating ntences. Lu De agreed that I was right.
Unable to contain his disappointment, he aborted
his plan to create an “example ntence novel”. After
that, he propod many other plans of salvation, but
all failed to stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny.
His moods ro and fell dramatically with increasingly long hours spent in the library. He gradually became a stranger to me.
I had chon an alternative way of life. The assignment I put mylf to was “to patrol”. Twice every morning and evening, I walked along the quiet boulevard to watch over the entire campus with an Akita dog I picked up from the streets for company. After I finished with the patrol, I would spend a little extra time taking a walk on the empty school sports field. Along the racetrack, I walked in circles without thinking about anything. There ud to be a well-kept lawn encircled by the racetrack. Now, only a few spots of wild grass were left. Sometimes, I would take my female companions and t them in the stands, letting them enjoy the sunshine. In the afternoon, I loved to spend time in a garden tucked in a corner of the campus. The garden may have belonged to botany or horticulture students. There was also a small glass green hou outside, which held a board of withered Chine peony surrounded by excessively growing wild grass. Creepers covered the walls. Under the evening twilight, the glass room reflected a faint yellow luster. The field of flowers, though faded and decayed, was still able to display distinctive layers of color. Before the afterglow died, I would start my evening patrol. I also liked to pick a book or two from a small bookstore clo to the library, taking them back to my bedroom and flipping through the pages in bed. I would return them once I’d finished. I never t foot inside the library for a book, as I was terribly afraid of
the place. It was the territory of the mad Lu De. From time to time, for some reason, I would imagine the library as a giant aquarium and Lu De as a latent a monster in one of its deep tanks.
Another pastime was listening to my female
companion reciting long passages from different novels, SINCE THE DISASTER ORIGINATED IN BOOKS, HE BELIEVED THE SOLUTION TO BE IN BOOKS
like a radio broadcast—all while steady patterns of rain and night roared with wind.
“As the train left the station, Robert tarried at the window of his compartment and took a last unemotional look at the island shrouded in a pale, reddish grey mist, and at the a, where the violet afterglow of the tting sun floated in distant waves…”
“A camp in the open, a countless number of men and army, a people, under a cold sky on cold earth, collapd where once they had stood…”
“The three of us remained silent for a while; blankly standing by the gate, staring at the lawn ran riot and the dry, old pond…”
The words were uttered by my female companion, sounding alien and pleasant. She gazed straight ahead, her expression calm and peaceful; her consciousness emed to be locked away in a fictional world created by novels. But how could I be sure that I was free? Perhaps I was in the middle of a fiction as well, revisiting the same paragraph again and again.
I ud to be keen on literature. In many cas,
I could recognize a novel by just a few ntences. However, I had no idea about the fictions my female companion sang. Most of them were obscure to me; after all, there are too many novels in the world.
Winter replaced summer. Just like that, we spent two years on the school campus. It could be
孕妇吃什么菜said that I enjoyed the distinctive tranquility of surviving the apocalyp, until one gloomy winter afternoon when Lu De came to me to propo his latest theory.
Lu De was emaciated due to his lengthy stays in the library. His skin had become unhealthily pale. He wore his hair long and his eyes were red. The way he spoke sounded nervously excited. Extensive reading over the two years had greatly enhanced his literary merit, making his theory sound delightful and well-verd.
He asked me to read through “The Chamber of Statues” by Jorge Luis Borges carefully. The story states that, in Andalucía, there was a strong castle with gates that were always locked. Every new king to the throne would add a new lock to the gate. A usurper later ordered the locks removed against the advice of the court and entered the impenetrable castle. In its first room, there were many metal and wooden carvings of Arabic figures. In its last room on the back wall, an inscription could be found, stating that any intruder would be overtaken by warriors that looked like the statues. Before long, the kingdom was indeed conquered by the Arabs. Borges added a note at the end of the story, stating that it was bad on the story told on the 272th night of A Thousand and One Nights.
“What’s the point?” I asked, unable to put my finger on it. Lu De immediately pasd me a copy坐便器十大名牌
of the Outlaws of the Marsh, asking me to read the first chapter “Zhang the Diving Teacher Prays to Dispel a Plague, Marshal Hong Releas Demons
by Mistake”, in which Marshal Hong discovered the Suppression of Demons Hall during his visit to a mountain. A dozen als crosd and overlapped each other on the gate to the hall. The accompanying abbot explained to him: “A Divine Teacher known as the Royal Master of the Way loc
ked the demons in there in the age of the Tang. Each subquent Divine Teacher added his own al, prohibiting any successor from opening the doors. If tho demons escaped, it would be awful.” Marshal Hong didn’t believe the abbot and opened the gate against his advice, releasing the demons inside.
Lu De then pasd me a third fiction, Life:A Ur’s Manual by French writer Georges Perec. On the 20th page, Perec retold the small story of Borges with a larger background: When every king dies and a new king comes to the throne, he would add a new lock to a gate, resulting in 24 locks, each reprenting a king. After I finished reading, Lu De prented his theory. From A Thousand and One Nights to Outlaws of the Marsh, from Borges to Perec, why did they retell the same story of adding a lock or al? It was very likely that, by writing the novel, they were performing the action of “adding a lock or al”. They were trying to contain the “demon of fiction”. Originally, fiction was printed on paper, static like statues. Without
a al, they would become dynamic, even alive, invading people’s minds and running rampant. The breaking of the al led to the great disaster we were experiencing. In order to save mankind and squash the chaos induced by fiction, one had to carry on the work of the author of A Thousand and One Nights, Shi Nai’an, Borges, Perec and many others like them, to retell the story of adding a lock
or al.
When Lu De prented his strange, absurd theory, I was already working on refuting him. I reminded him of the fact that Borges had read Shi Nai’an
