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There are few authors regarded as quintessentially American as Mark Twain. With his preternatural gift for capturing vernacular expression and his roguish wit, Twain is still widely seen as the founder of the American voice. More than a century after his death, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Twain’s most celebrated work, remains a mainstay of middle school and high school English classes. Ernest Hemingway famously declared it the book from which “all modern American literature comes.”
《竞选州长》这篇短文以幽默的口吻讲述了吐温参加1870年纽约州长选举的虚构经历，与毛泽东的文章，以及中国其他著名思想家和文学家的作品，一同收入了中国各地的中学语文课本。在40多年的时间里，人数庞大的几代中国人都读到了这篇文章，于是马克·吐温成了中国最为人熟知的外国作家之一，《竞选州长》也成了他最著名的作品。 “Just about anyone who has had a middle-school education in China knows Mark Twain and ‘Running for Governor,’ ” Su Wenjing, a comparative literature professor at Fuzhou University, said in a telephone interview. “And everyone remembers the specific cultural moment and social critique represented in the story, this is certain.” “在中国，几乎每个接受过中学教育的人，都知道马克·吐温和《竞选州长》，”福州大学研究比较文学的苏文菁教授在接受电话采访时说。“所有人都会记得故事里反映的具体的文化背景和社会批评，这一点可以肯定。” Published in the literary magazine Galaxy just after the New York gubernatorial election in 1870, “Running for Governor” is a satire that takes aim at what Twain saw as the hypocrisy of the American electoral process and the dog-eat-dog nature of party politics. In the brief yet imaginative sketch, Twain finds himself nominated to run for New York governor on an independent ticket, only to be overwhelmed by a slew of false ad hominem attacks from several unnamed accusers. 在1870年纽约州长选举之后不久，这篇文章最初发表在了文学杂志《银河》(Galaxy)上。《竞选州长》是一篇讽刺故事，嘲弄的目标是吐温所看到的美国竞选过程的虚伪性，以及政党政治“狗咬狗”的本质。在这篇言简意赅而又富有想象力的短文中，吐温发现自己被提名为候选人，以独立参选人的身份参加纽约州长选举，结果却被若干个匿名攻击者捏造的一连串人身攻击打得措手不及。 In the face of charges that he had, among other things, robbed a poor widow and her family of a small plantain patch in “Wakawak, Cochin China,” as well as slandered the incumbent governor’s dead grandfather, Twain concludes the story with his characteristic élan: 他遭受的一连串扑面而来的攻击中，有一则声称他在“交趾支那的瓦卡瓦克”从一名贫穷的寡妇及她的家人手中，夺取了一小块种植地，另一则说他诽谤了现任州长已经过世的祖父。在小说的结尾，吐温以他惯有的力道写道： “我拿不定主意了——真的拿不定主意了。最后，党派斗争的积怨对我的无耻迫害达到了自然而然的高潮：有人教唆九个刚刚在学走路的包括各种不同肤色、穿着各种各样的破烂衣服的小孩，冲到一次民众大会的讲台上来，紧紧抱住我的双腿，叫我做爸爸！ I gave up. I hauled down my colors and surrendered. I was not equal to the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the State of New York, and so I sent in my withdrawal from the candidacy, and in bitterness of spirit signed it, “我放弃了竞选。我降下旗帜投降。我不够竞选纽约州州长运动所要求的条件，所以，我呈递上退出候选人的声明，并怀着痛苦的心情签上我的名字： Truly yours, Once a decent man, but now MARK TWAIN, I.P., M.T., B.S., D.T., F.C., and L.E. “你忠实的朋友，过去是正派人，现在却成了伪证犯、小偷、拐尸犯、酒疯子、贿赂犯和讹诈犯的马克·吐温。”吐温在无情嘲讽美国竞选程序的同时，也讥讽了媒体扮演的角色。在这段虚构的竞选过程中，媒体给他取了各种各样的绰号，吐温在文末的落款中一一提到了这些字眼：无耻的伪证犯、蒙大拿州的小偷、拐尸犯、酒疯子、肮脏的贿赂犯和可憎的讹诈犯。 (A cursory examination of the New York Times’s archives does not disprove Twain’s view of the theatricality of the press. In its Oct. 1, 1870 statement of support for the Republican challenger in the real-life New York gubernatorial race, The Times painted a doomsday scenario for New York City — “the streets given over to rowdies and murderers, the Central Park made the hunting-ground of the castaways of the Fourth and Sixth Wards!” – in the event of victory by the incumbent Democrat, who in the end did in fact win.) （粗略地查阅一下《纽约时报》的存档，当时的文章并不能表明吐温笔下耸动的媒体报道言过其实。在当年真实的纽约州长竞选中，《纽约时报》于1870年10月1日刊出声明，支持共和党挑战者，文中描绘道，一旦在任的民主党在选举中获胜，纽约就会天塌地陷——“流氓和杀人犯横行街头，第四区和第六区的贱民和暴徒就会霸占中央公园抢夺行凶！”实际上，民主党当年的确获胜了。） That “Running for Governor” was a critique of the United States written by an American as highly esteemed as Twain was precisely what made it so appealing to the Chinese. Soon after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, it was selected as a required reading for middle school students across the country along with other short stories that were seen to reinforce the anti-Western, anti-capitalist, socialist education agenda. 像吐温这样很受尊重的美国人撰文批评美国，正是中国人喜欢它的原因。在1949年中华人民共和国成立后，这篇文章就被选为全国中学生的必读文章，同样入选的还有其他被认为可以推进反西方、反资本主义议程，强化社会主义教育的短篇小说。 “One of the major reasons why ’Running for Governor’ is rarely taught in the U.S. is because it satirizes the embarrassing corrupt political community in the U.S. that Twain saw at the time,” said Selina Lai, a lecturer in American Studies at Hong Kong University who is currently writing a book titled “Mark Twain in China.” “Not surprisingly, that makes it an extremely popular piece to teach in Chinese classrooms.” 香港大学美国研究项目讲师黎雪莲(Selina Lai)正在撰写一部题为《马克·吐温在中国》(Mark Twain in China)的书。她说，“在美国《竞选州长》一文之所以很少教授，一个主要的原因在于，它讽刺了吐温在当时见到的，美国政治群体中让人难堪的腐败状况。并不意外，这一点让它在中国的课堂里成了极受欢迎的一篇文章。” Teachers were instructed to emphasize the anti-capitalist message of the story prior to any considerations of the story’s style or form. “The ideas in this story extend far beyond the era in which it takes place,” reads a popular teacher’s guide for “Running for Governor” that is available online. “Today, it is still as before: A good lesson in the sham and deception of the democracy of the capitalist classes.” 教学参考书也会指导老师们，在对这篇文章的风格或形式做任何探讨之前，首先要强调文中的反资本主义观点。一则阐述如何教授《竞选州长》的流行教学指导说道，“这篇小说的思想意义远远超出了它所产生的那个时代，今天，它依然是我们认识资产阶级民主的虚伪和欺骗性的好教材。” For more than 30 years, my uncle, Wang Lifeng, taught “Running for Governor” in accordance with these guidelines in a small village school in rural Shaanxi Province. Classroom conditions, particularly before the market-oriented economic changes that began in the late 1970s, were poor, with drafty mud-walled classrooms and few resources for either teachers or students. 30多年来，我的大伯王立峰一直在陕西省农村的一所学校，按照这些指导性解释讲解《竞选州长》。教室的条件很糟糕，在上世纪70年代市场化的经济改革实施前，条件更加糟糕，穿堂风会从土坯墙的教室里吹过，教师和学生几乎都没有任何资源。 Nonetheless, Mr. Wang fondly recalls teaching “Running for Governor” along with other stories deemed suitably critical of social injustice, such as Guy de Maupassant’s “My Uncle Jules” and Anton Chekhov’s “A Chameleon.” But for Mr. Wang, who is retired from teaching but still farms wheat and corn, “Running for Governor” is a favorite, not only because of its humor or its supposed vindication of the Chinese socialist system, but because Twain himself was someone who, as a self-taught, self-made man, knew what it was like to “live in the lower rungs of society.” 王立峰已经退休，不再任教，他现在种植小麦和玉米。尽管如此，他还是会饶有兴味地回忆起教授《竞选州长》，以及其他被认为对社会的不公提出了恰当批评的小说时的情景，比如居伊·德·莫泊桑(Guy de Maupassant)《我的叔叔于勒》(My Uncle Jules)和安东·契诃夫(Anton Chekhov)的《变色龙》(A Chameleon)。但在王立峰看来，《竞选州长》是他最喜欢的一篇，并不只是因为行文幽默，也不是因为它据称能论证中国社会主义制度的优越性，而是因为吐温本人自学成才、独自奋斗，了解“社会底层的生活”是怎样的。 “Twain understood the happiness and unhappiness of the people, their pains and difficulties,” Mr. Wang said by telephone from his home in Shicao, a village about a one-hour drive from the city of Xi’an. “He lived in that environment. He was at that level.” 王立峰从他在石槽村的家中打电话说，“吐温理解人民的幸福和不幸，理解他们的痛苦和艰辛。他生活在那种环境里，他也处在那个阶层。”石槽村距离西安市有一小时车程。 Even before “Running for Governor” became popular in China, Twain’s reputation in China as a social critic had been cemented. Though his colloquial humor did not always translate well into Chinese, his unaffected satires and consistent willingness to take on what he saw as the pervasive inequality and injustice in his own country endeared Twain to many of the most prominent writers and thinkers of early 20th-century China. A fervent anti-imperialist, he even famously once pronounced himself a Boxer in support of the violent nationalistic uprising against foreigners in China in 1900. 远在《竞选州长》一文在中国广为人知之前，吐温作为社会批评家的声誉就已经广为人知。尽管他口语化的幽默表达在翻译成中文后有时会无法传达，但他的讽刺很质朴，而且一贯乐于针砭时弊，抨击他在自己的国家里观察到的比比皆是的不平和不公。因而在20世纪早期的中国，许多著名作家和思想家都很喜爱马克·吐温。作为一个热情的反帝国主义者，吐温还曾著名地宣称自己是“义和团”(Boxer)，以此声援1900年在中国发生的抗击外国势力的民族主义武装起义。 In a speech delivered in 1960 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Twain’s death, the eminent Chinese writer Lao She hailed Twain as an “outstanding writer of critical realism in the United States” and a bracing social critic who had been reduced by Americans to a figure who told jokes. 在1960年马克·吐温去世50周年之际，中国著名作家老舍发表讲话，称赞吐温是“美国杰出的批判现实主义作家”，也是一名活跃的社会批评家，可是他却被美国人贬低成了一个讲笑话的人物。 That Twain was until recently remembered more as a humorist than as a satirist or social critic in the United States is not inaccurate, said Shelley Fisher Fishkin, an English professor and expert on Twain at Stanford University. 在美国，直到近些年，人们记忆中的马克·吐温更多的是一名幽默作家，而不是讽刺作家或社会批评家。斯坦福大学(Stanford University)英语教授、研究吐温的专家谢莉·费希尔·菲什金(Shelley Fisher Fishkin)认为，上述论断并非不恰当。 “In a sense we threw out the baby with the bath water,” said Professor Fishkin, citing the imperatives of the Cold War as a major reason for the distortion of Twain’s more serious accomplishments. For much the same reasons that China played up Twain’s social commentary and critiques of imperialism, the United States, she said, played them down. “在某种意义上，这仿佛是在泼水时把澡盆里的孩子也扔掉了，”菲什金教授说。她指出，冷战时的需求是马克·吐温较为严肃的成就受到扭曲的一个主要原因。她说，吐温对社会的评论和对帝国主义的批评之所以在美国受到了忽视，和这些特点在中国被大书特书的原因是相同的。 “Running for Governor” was moved to the optional reading list by the state-run People’s Education Press in 2003. That decision, said Professor Su of Fuzhou University, may be a reflection of the government’s realization that blunt, anti-Western propagandistic messages are no longer so effective in today’s China, which has itself increasingly come to exhibit the corruption and garish excess documented in “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today,” the novel Twain co-wrote with Charles Dudley Warner. 国有的人民教育出版社在2003年将《竞选州长》列为了选读篇目。福州大学的苏文菁说，这个决定或许反映了政府意识到，直白的反西方宣传信息在今天的中国已经不再有效了，况且中国自身暴露出的腐败和奢靡挥霍也越来越多，就像吐温与查尔斯·杜德利·华纳(Charles Dudley Warner)合著的小说《镀金时代》(The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today)描写的一样。 But it does not diminish the fact that today in the United States, more than a hundred years after Twain’s death, many of his critiques of hypocrisy, ignorance and greed — “Running for Governor” included — still ring true. “Twain the social critic who uses satire to skewer his society’s foibles is a Twain that is increasingly of value to us today,” Professor Fishkin said. 但即使这样，一个事实在今天的美国也仍然成立：吐温去世一百多年后，他对虚伪、无知和贪婪的批评，包括《竞选州长》一文，仍然成立。菲什金教授说，“吐温作为一个用讽刺来猛击社会弊病的批评家，其价值对今天的我们来说越发巨大。” 翻译：王童鹤 |
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