[Is it true that you have called Hemingway and Conrad "writers of books for boys"?] "That's exactly what they are. Hemingway is certainly the better of the two; he has at least a voice of his own and is responsible for that delightful, highly srtistic short story, 'The Killers.' And the description of the iridescent fish and rhythmic urination in his famous fish story is superb. But I cannot abide Conrad's souvenir-shop style, bottled ships and shell necklaces of romanticists cliches. In neither of those two writers can I find anything that I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, they are hopelessly juvenile, and the same can be said of some other beloved authors, the pets of the common room, the consolation and support of graduate students, such as -- but some are still alive, and I hate to hurt living old boys while the dead ones are not yet buried." (SO, p. 42)
〔問：你是否曾將海明威與康拉德評為「男童讀物的作家」﹖〕「他們確是如此。海明威自然是兩人當中較好的一個。他至少有他獨特的聲音，也產出過令人欣喜極為精巧的短篇小說《殺人者》。而他那個出名的魚的故事裡，在閃著彩光的魚兒與節奏有致的放尿上的著筆也堪稱妙絕。但我就是受不了康拉德那種紀念品店的風格，受不了那些瓶中船舶與貝殼項鍊一般的浪漫主義陳腔濫調。我在這兩位作家之中，找不到任何自己願意動手寫作的東西。就心態與感情而言，兩人都幼稚得無可救藥。而同樣的形容，也可以用於另外一些為人鍾愛的作家，那些平常廳室內的寵物，那些研究生的慰藉兼支柱，譬如——但他們有些還活著，而我實在不想在死的尚未入土之前去傷害活的兄弟。」*
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"(A)s I have well said somewhere before, I differ from Joseph Conradically. First of all, he had not been writing in his native tongue before he became an English writer, and secondly, I cannot stand today his polished cliches and primitive clashes. He once wrote that he preferred Mrs. Garnett's translation of ANNA KARENIN to the original! This makes one dream -- "ca fait rever" as Flaubert used to say when faced with some abysmal stupidity. Ever since the days when such formidable mediocrities as Galsworthy, Dreiser, a person called Tagore, another called Maxim Gorky, a third called Romain Rolland, used to be accepted as geniuses, I have been perplexed and amused by fabricated notions about so-called 'great books'. That, for instance, Mann's asinine DEATH IN VENICE or Pasternak's melodramatic and vilely written ZHIVAGO or Faulkner's corncobby chronicles can be considered 'masterpieces,' or at least what journalists call 'great books,' is to me an absurd delusion, as when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair. My greatest masterpieces of twentieth century prose are, in this order: Joyce's ULYSSES; Kafka's TRANSFORMATION; Biely's PETERSBURG; and the first half of Proust's fairy tale IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME." (OP, p. 57)
「我曾在別處說過，我與約瑟夫．康拉德大不相同。首先，他在變成英語作家之前不曾用過他的母語寫作；其次，我今日對他那些修飾的陳腔與原始的衝突已無法忍受。他有次寫說他對噶內特夫人《安娜‧卡列尼娜》譯本的喜愛勝於原著！這就真能叫人懵然入夢了——正如福婁貝爾在面對深邃無底的愚昧時所說的「ca fait rever」。自從高斯倭息、德萊瑟、一個叫泰戈爾的、另一個叫馬克辛．高爾基的、又一個叫羅曼‧羅蘭的這等可怕的庸才，被眾人尊為天才以來，關於所謂「名著」的一些製造出來的觀念，就總令我既感困惑又覺有趣。譬如曼那部蠢到極點的《死於威尼斯》，或派斯特奈克那部濫情兼濫寫的《齊瓦哥》，或福克納那些玉米梗式的記事錄，居然可以被尊為「鉅作」或至少是記者筆下所謂的「名著」，在我看來不過是場荒謬的騙局，正如一個被催眠的人同一張椅子做愛。我眼中二十世紀散文體最偉大的傑作，依次是喬艾斯的《尤利西斯》、 卡夫卡的《蛻變》、 別雷的《聖彼得堡》、和普魯斯特那部神話《往事追憶》 的前半部。」**
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【摘自《Strong Opinions》】
* Hemingway 的《The Killers》大陸譯為《兩個殺人者》。
** VN 在此把「I differ from Joseph Conrad radically」一句的後兩字併為「Conradically」這個謔詞。而其論及的作家，除了 Conrad 與被共產世界捧為「社會寫實主義」（social realism）之父的俄國作家高爾基（Maxim Gorky，1868-1936）之外，似乎都與諾貝爾文學獎有關：Hemingway 是1954年的得主；《The Forsyte Saga》一書作者英國小說家高斯倭息（John Galsworthy，1867-1933）是1932年的得主；印度作家泰戈爾（Rabindranath Tagore，1861 - 1941）是1913年得主；法國作家羅曼‧羅蘭（Romain Rolland，1866-1944）是1915年得主；《Death in Venice》（台灣譯為《威尼斯之死》）的作者湯馬斯‧曼（Thomas Mann，1875-1955）是1929年得主；《Dr. Zhivago》的作者派斯特奈克（大陸譯為帕斯捷爾納克）（Boris Leonidovich Pasternak，1890-1960）是1958年得主；福克納（William Faulkner，1897-1962）是1949年得主；而美國自然主義小說家《Sister Carrie》一書作者德萊瑟（Theodore Dreiser，1871-1945）也曾是1930年諾貝爾文學獎的最後入選人之一（當年得主為 Sinclair Lewis）。自然，VN 及其所推崇的四位大師 James Joyce（1882-1941）、Franz Kafka（1883-1924）、Andrei Bely（或 Andrey Biely，1880-1934）、與 Marcel Proust（1871-1922）則都與諾貝爾無緣。
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