半个多世纪前的美国和今日美国---读Steinbeck游记

美国作家John Steinbeck的小说，我也是第一次读，读的第一本是随手从女儿留下的一堆书里捡起的Travel with Charley - in Search of America。 作者John Steinbeck 为了真正了解自己笔下的美国这块土地和美国人，在他58岁那年，在他觉得自己会不久人世之际，独自一个人开着改装了等同于今日房车一样的一辆车，带着家中的一条老狗Charley，从东部Long Island出发，一路向西，直至加州Salinas, 他的故乡，他成长的地方。John Steinbeck在1962年获诺贝尔文学奖，虽然国人对他的获奖有争议，然而大作家就是与众不同，文字好，思想深刻，剖析起美国问题来针针见血。作者在这部1960完成的游记作品中指出的一些美国问题，半个多世纪后再看，依然存在，依然在蔓延。小说读完已经快一个星期了，想用英语写一篇读书笔记，发现写不出来。至此 用中文把作者Steinbeck书中提到的自己比较有同感的，加上自己的理解，概括于此，并附上摘抄的原文，做个小结。

 

(一) 美国的浪费现象

来美以后，看到美国漫长的海岸线，宽阔的海域，无边无际的森林树木，人们对自然生态环境的保护和爱惜，感慨美国真是个资源大国。同时也看到它的浪费现象，从我们住的周遭，到公司到整个国家，浪费现象比比皆是。美国就像有钱的大户人家，过日子是大手大脚，扔掉的垃圾够穷人捡起来用一阵子或一辈子的。书中提到，"我们扔掉的(成山)，比我们用的多。如果在法国或是意大利，这些扔掉的东西一定是会被保存起来另作他用的。"

美国东西的最大特征之一就是大，地大，房子大，冰箱大，连土鸡长得也特别大。瞧瞧Costco的那些购物者，常常推着满满一车的物品，海吃狂用，吃成大胖子，吃不了的，扔; 用了没几年的东西，七成新的，也扔，买新的; 为鼓励消费者消费，各种广告刺激，买一送一，折扣卷，免费赠送; 新产品层出不穷， 手机新版升级，电脑更新换代，新车款每几年出笼。总而言之， 美国人民最豪气，最爽气，银行户头空空不要紧，借钱，信用卡刷了再说， 反正它是大国强国，有印钞机，有全世界人愿意为它生产加工价廉物美的产品，连垃圾都可以倒到别人的地盘上。更何况，它自己巨大的资源都没怎么用，用掉的都是别人的资源。美国真是一块被上帝祝福的土地，而美国人民无疑是上帝的宠儿。

 

但是就像作者在书中说的，他不是在批评这个那个体制，而只是怀疑，这样的浪费能不能持续，有一天是不是就无法承受了? 

 

（二）美国的城镇化，村落的消失

书中提到存在于二十世纪五六十年代的城镇化，村落渐渐消失，变成城镇，然后再一步步向城市推进。 村子里村店，不管是杂货店，五金店等等，都无法与超市连锁店竞争。人们常常聚众交流信息，畅谈国事的小型餐饮店也急剧消失，取而代之的是，车辆拥挤的街道，雾霾的天空，工业气体的排放，膨胀的城市。

这些书中描述的现象在今天已经全球化了，这种发展中的阵痛，时代变迁的产物，让个性化的东西存在的空间越来越小，已经不足为奇了。就像作者说的，自动化，产业化的推广，求速度，求安全，最后成批机器统一做出来的面包，整齐划一，又索然无味。而今天，连造出来的房子像是从cookie cutter 里切出来的，没有特征。

 

这又令我想起Amazon, 这个电子商业巨头，它挤垮了无数家实业店，还宣称要做成无所不能的everything company。我们无法预估Bezos的野心是不是有实现的那一天，如果有，世界会如何变换?

正如作者在书中所预言的，"世上所有事物都像钟摆，左右晃动的，总有反方向摆动的一天，因为臃肿的城市会像破裂的子宫，把子孙后代重新撒播回到农村"。现如今不就是如此吗? 城市的老龄化、拥挤喧嚣又让有钱人逃之夭夭，回到乡村，把房子建在高山上，大海边，以求换回宁静安逸的生活。

 

（三）方言的逐渐消失

书中写到，随着收音机电视的普及，方言(local accent)渐渐消失。方言也是一种文化，就像我们语言中歇后语之类的，它的存在赋予了语言的多样性。想起有一年旅行，经过大沙漠时，导游煞有其事地说起一个战争时代的故事--印第安人的方言让破译情报的情报人员犯难。那一刻，让我想起温州方言，估计破译者也很难破译。几年前温州堂弟来美自驾游，发现堂弟的小孩都讲一口纯正的普通话，说是现在的小孩温州话都不太会讲，学校也都是讲普通话了。这几年回家也发现这个现象，方言渐渐被普通话取代。不过听说最近又好像开始提倡恢复地方文化，包括方言。

有点扯远了。但是问题是一个问题。方言存在的意义有多大?人们只是因为怀旧才想起恢复，还是总有一天，方言只存在人的怀旧记忆里。

 

（四）引进劳工

二十世纪五六十年代，美国一到收获季节，丰收的土豆堆得比山还高(作者言：一百年全世界人民都吃不完)，那样就需要劳力。在Maine, 作者遇见一批从加拿大过来的法国裔劳力。他们每到旺季，在中间商的牵引下拖家带口地来美国做季节工。他们住在车里，抑或住帐篷，辛勤劳动着。就像当今的大量墨西哥移民，他们都是低端的劳动力。作者在书中说了的这样一句发人深省的话，"当我们美国人引进人员做苦力时，希望有一天，我们不会充斥着是因为太骄傲，太懒惰或是太软弱无力，以至于不能弯下腰来捡我们自己口中食物的人。"

 

（五）种族歧视

这个话题太大，我只摘录作者书中的描述。作者在书中写了这样一个故事。作者开着车，看到路边一位黑人疲惫不堪地走着，好心停了下来，想载黑人一程。黑人非常勉为其难地上了车，拘谨地回答着作者的提问(因为作者此行主要是体恤民情，了解民风的)。 黑人在回答时，每一句话的结尾都毕恭毕敬地加上Sir这样一个称呼。不知过了多久，如坐针毡的黑人问作者，他就住附近，可不可以放他下车了? 作者只有放他下车，无奈地从后视镜里看着劳动一天的黑人拖着沉重的脚步继续走。 他知道， 黑人不住在附近，但是"自己走路，比坐在我(作者)的车里安全" (but walking was safer than riding with me.)

 

作者还花了一定的篇幅讲述白人的抗议集会，抗议杜绝黑人的孩子和白人的孩子进同一所学校学习。后来作者又遇见一位白人，邀他上他的车喝咖啡，讨论这个问题。这个白人告诉他，改变一个的感情很难，白人很难改变对黑人的情感，反之亦然。黑人一直是当奴隶使唤，现在他们想做人，想平等，不是那么容易接受。

 

我想，半个多世纪后，黑人兄弟通过自己的努力改善了自己在这个社会上的地位。但是正如这位白人所说，人的观念情感有时又是根深蒂固的。 所以今天，种族歧视依旧存在，存在于各种有色人种之间。

 

历史在重复，人类又是在重复中前行或是倒退着。

 

 

原文摘抄:

1）American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash—all of them—surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered with rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index. Driving along I thought how in France or Italy every item of these thrown-out things would have been saved and used for something.  This is not said in criticism of one system or the other but I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness. (P.26)

2）….The big towns are getting bigger and the villages smaller. The hamlet store, whether grocery, general, hardware, clothing, cannot compete with the supermarket and the chain organization. Our treasured and nostalgic picture of the village store, the cracker-barrel store where an informed yeomanry gather to express opinion and formulate the national character, is very rapidly disappearing. People who once held family fortresses against wind and weather, against scourges of forest and drought and insect enemies, now cluster against the busy breast of the big town. (p71-72)
2）The new American finds his challenge and his love in traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the townlets wither a time and die.  … And I am sure that, as all pendulums reverse their swing, so eventually will the swollen cities rupture like dehiscent wombs and disperse their children back to the countryside. This prophecy is underwritten by the tendency of the rich to do this already. Where the rich lead, the poor will follow, or try to. (P.72)
2）Since I hadn’t seen the Middle West for a long time many impressions crowded in on me as I drove through Ohio and Michigan and Illinois. The first was the enormous increase in population. Villages had become towns and towns had grown to cities. The roads squirmed with traffic; the cities were so dense with people that all attention had to be devoted to not hitting anyone or being hit.  (p.105)

3）It seemed to me that regional speech is in the process of disappearing, not gone but going. Forty years of radio and twenty years of television must have this impact. Communications must destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process. I can remember a time when I could almost pinpoint a man’s place of origin by his speech. That is growing more difficult now and will in some foreseeable future become impossible. It is a rare house or building that is not rigged with spiky combers of the air. Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, package and sold without benefit of accident or human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech.  (p.106)
I who love words and the endless possibility of words am saddened by this inevitability. For with local accent will disappear local tempo. The idioms, the figures of speech that make language rich and full of the poetry of place and time must go. And in their place will be a national speech, wrapped and packaged, standard and tasteless. Localness is not gone but it is going. … What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless. (p. 107)

4）We Americans bring in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat. (p.64)
These Canucks were a hardy people. They traveled and camped by families and groups of families, perhaps even clans: men, women, boys, girls, and small children too.  (p64)
4）Most of these people traveled in big trucks covered with dark canvas tarpaulins, but there are some trailers and a few camper tops like Rocinante. At night some slept in the trucks and trailers, but there were tents pitched in pleasant places,….(p.69）