性&婚姻&愛情 年長女性的文化突圍

Two words have vexed Erica Jong for the last 42 years. The first is “zipless,” and the word that follows is not printable in this newspaper.

過去42年裏，有兩個詞一直困擾着埃麗卡·容(Erica Jong)。第一個是“zipless”，第二個詞則不適宜刊在這張報紙上（即“zipless fxxk”——譯註）。

The two-word phrase, imMortalized in her 1973 best-selling novel, “Fear of Flying,” which has sold more than 27 million copies, entered the cultural lexicon as a shorthand for casual, consequence-free sex. It turned Ms. Jong into a feminist heroine of sorts and avatar of female sexual liberation, and helped propel and define her career.

這兩個詞組成的短語因她1973年的暢銷小說，售出2700萬多冊的《怕飛》(Fear of Flying)而不朽，成爲隨意、不顧後果的性愛的代名詞，被載入文學史冊。它令容在某種意義上成爲女權主義的英雄，乃至女性性解放的化身，在促進她事業發展的同時，也限定了她的事業生涯。

It was also meant to be satirical, Ms. Jong said, but was misconstrued as an endorsement of unbridled lust.

容說，這個短語也帶有諷刺意味，但是卻被錯誤地理解爲對不節制的性慾的一種讚許。

“People so misinterpreted ‘zipless,’ ” Ms. Jong, 73, said during an interview at her Upper East Side apartment. “I say in ‘Fear of Flying’ that it’s a Platonic ideal and a fantasy, and I have never had one, but people seem to overlook that.”

“人們誤解了‘zipless’這個詞”，73歲的容女士在上東區公寓中接受採訪時說。“我在《怕飛》中說過，這是一種柏拉圖式的理念和幻想，我自己從來沒有過這樣的性愛，但是人們似乎忽視了這一點。”

Now, decades later, she has exhumed and rebranded the phrase in her new novel, “Fear of Dying,” which is being billed as the “spiritual” sequel to “Fear of Flying” and is being released on Tuesday.

如今，幾十年過後，她的新小說《怕死》(Fear of Dying)將在週二出版，它被成爲《怕飛》的“精神”續集，書中她重新挖掘出這個短語，並且重新塑造它的形象。

While “Fear of Flying” shocked readers with its frank depiction of the sexual appetite and independence of its protagonist, Isadora Wing, “Fear of Dying” takes on an another, more persistent taboo by depicting — in blunt, unvarnished detail — sex between older adults. Ms. Jong’s new character, a grandmother in her 60s, is lusty and vivacious and searching for carnal satisfaction at a casual-sex site called .

《怕飛》中直白地描寫性慾，以及主人公伊莎多拉·溫(Isadora Wing)獨立的性格，令讀者大爲震驚；而《怕死》則以直率質樸的細節描寫老年人的性愛，從而觸及另一個更爲持久的禁忌。容筆下新的主人公是一位60歲的祖母，充滿慾望，性格活潑，在一個名叫的約炮網站上尋覓肉體的滿足。

“I’ve always wanted to write the books for women that didn’t yet exist, so I thought, I have to write about an older woman who is sexual, attractive and wants to reach out for life,” Ms. Jong said. “That’s not celebrated, sadly, and I would hope that a lot of older women who read this book realize that sex doesn’t disappear, it just changes forms.”

“我一直都想爲那種尚不存在的女人寫書，所以我想，我應該寫一個年長的女人，她性感、迷人，願意去探索生命，”容說。“悲哀的是，這並不受到讚美，我希望會有很多年長的女人讀這本書，讓她們意識到性愛並沒有消失，只是換了種形式。”

The story centers on Vanessa Wonderman, a former actress terrified of aging and death. She seeks escape from her sexless marriage to a much older man with erectile dysfunction by searching for lovers online. The surreal encounters that follow — an email exchange with a man who introduces himself by sending lewd photos, another who wants her to wear a black rubber suit, an unsatisfying hotel tryst with an old married flame — leave Vanessa reeling and worried that her sex life might be over. (This being an Erica Jong novel, it isn’t.)

故事的主線是退休女演員凡妮莎·範德曼(Vanessa Wonderman)對衰老與死亡的恐懼。她想逃離與比自己老得多，有勃起障礙的丈夫的無性婚姻，於是在網上尋覓情人。接下來是一串超現實的邂逅――一個男人寫來電子郵件，以猥褻的照片作爲自我介紹，還有一個男人希望她穿黑色橡膠緊身衣。和一個已婚老年情人在酒店的幽會不能令人滿足，凡妮莎心煩意亂，擔心自己的性生活就此告終了（不過這畢竟是埃麗卡·容的小說，她的性生活還完不了）。

Some of Ms. Jong’s fans and peers are calling the novel a long overdue corrective in a cultural landscape that deifies youth and often ignores older women, or relegates them to the role of spinsters or crones.

有些容的書迷和同齡人覺得，當前的文化將青春神聖化，無視年老女人，或者一味把她們貶低爲老處女或者醜陋老太婆，容的小說是對這種現象的矯正，早就應該出現了。

“There is this giant void in the culture about women in that age group as heroines, as romantic beings, as sexual beings and as creative beings, and there’s not that void for men,” said Naomi Wolf, author of “The Beauty Myth.” “Women don’t stop being all those things as their lives continue into those decades.”

“文化中有一個巨大的空白，沒有人把年老的女人塑造爲女主角，塑造成浪漫的人，性感的人，富於創造性的人，男性就沒有這樣的空白，”《美麗迷思》(The Beauty Myth)一書的作者娜奧米·伍爾夫(Naomi Wolf)說。“女人就算步入老年，也仍然會成爲這樣的人。”

“Fear of Dying” is landing in the middle of a long-festering debate about the social and cultural obstacles older women face. The comedian Amy Schumer has skewered the frequent sidelining of older actresses in a widely viewed skit built around the farcical — though just barely — premise that an aging actress’s desirability could dissipate in a single day. Sex therapists and gurus have published dozens of manuals and self-help books with titles like “Sex for Seniors” and “Sex Over 50.” There is also the gag book “Sex After 60,” which is blank inside.

關於年老女性所面臨的社會與文化困境的討論還在持續加劇，《怕死》的出現恰逢其時。喜劇演員艾米·舒默(Amy Schumer)在一則被廣泛收看的小品裏諷刺年長女演員經常被邊緣化的現象，它建立在一個滑稽的前提之下（其實幾乎已經不滑稽了）——一個年老女演員的魅力一夜間就消失了。性愛治療師和上師們出版了幾十本 《老年人性愛》、《50歲後的性愛》之類的指導手冊和勵志書。還有一本惡作劇的書名叫《60歲後的性愛》(Sex After 60)，裏面全是空白。

But the subject hasn’t been widely explored in popular fiction. “Women were not allowed to have passion at 60,” Ms. Jong writes in “Fear of Dying.” “We were supposed to become grandmothers and retreat into serene sexlessness.”

但是通俗小說從未廣泛探索過這個題材。“女人一旦年過60，就不再被允許擁有激情，”容在《怕死》中寫道。“人們覺得我們應該成爲祖母，回到寧靜的無性狀態中去。”

Ms. Jong started out as a poet, and published two volumes of verse before selling “Fear of Flying” to Aaron Asher, an editor whose roster of writers included Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Arthur Miller. Mr. Asher told Ms. Jong to expect sales of 3,000 copies, she recalled.

容早年曾是詩人，在《怕飛》之前出版過兩本詩集，後來她把《怕飛》賣給亞倫·阿舍(Aaron Asher)，此人曾爲索爾·貝婁(Saul Bellow)、菲利普·羅斯(Philip Roth)和阿瑟·米勒(Arthur Miller)擔任編輯。容記得當時阿舍告訴她，這本書大概能賣出3000冊。

Instead, the novel, about a young poet who travels to Vienna with her husband and attempts to live out her fantasies by having an affair, became a blockbuster and cultural touchstone. John Updike compared it to “The Catcher in the Rye,” and Henry Miller praised it as a groundbreaking literary achievement. The book was translated into 40 languages and was credited by second-wave feminists with paving the way for women’s self-expression.

結果這本描寫一個年輕女詩人和丈夫一起去維也納旅行，試圖靠外遇實現幻想的小說成了暢銷書和文化里程碑。約翰·厄普迪克(John Updike)將它同《麥田守望者》(The Catcher in the Rye)相提並論，亨利·米勒(Henry Miller)說它是開創性的文學成就。這本書被譯爲40種語言，爲女性的自我表達開闢了道路，經常被第二代女權主義者引用。

“What was really distinctive about it at the time was the notion that a woman could break out of the conventions of how a woman writer should write, and write with candor and humor about topics that were taboo for women,” said Shelley Fisher Fishkin, an English professor at Stanford University.

“在當時，這本書的特別之處就在於它帶來一種觀念，一個女人可以突破女性作家寫作的傳統，帶着熱情與幽默書寫那些女性的禁忌題材，”斯坦福大學英語系教授雪莉·費舍·費什金(Shelley Fisher Fishkin)說。

Ms. Jong has since published three memoirs, five more volumes of poetry and eight other novels, including historical fiction and a work about Sappho, but nothing has matched the popularity of “Fear of Flying.” At times, she says, she has felt oppressed by being so closely associated with her brash fictional alter ego Isadora.

後來容出版過三本回憶錄，五本詩集和八部小說，包括關於薩福(Sappho)的歷史小說與研究，但它們都無法與《怕飛》的流行程度相比。她說，人們常常把她和小說中她那個大膽的虛構人格伊莎多拉密切聯繫在一起，這有時讓她覺得受到壓抑。

“Fear of Flying’ follows me everywhere,” she said.

“《怕飛》如影隨形地跟着我，”她說。

She has been struggling to write “Fear of Dying” for a decade. At first she tried to make an older, wiser Isadora the heroine. But bringing back that character felt forced. “There was so much baggage around ‘Fear of Flying,’ ” she said. “The weight of those expectations was very frightening.”

她努力想寫《怕死》已經有十年了。起先，她想讓上了年紀，變得更聰明一點的伊莎多拉做女主角。但是重新帶回這個角色讓她感覺不自然。“《怕飛》有太多包袱，”她說。“期待的重量非常可怕。”

Ms. Jong eventually sidelined Isadora to a cameo role as a worldly friend, and created Vanessa, who shares some obvious traits with the author. She used the book to explore the wrenching process of watching her parents’ slow demise, her fear of losing her looks and vitality, the joys of being a grandmother and her relationship with her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, who, like Vanessa, struggled with drug addiction.

最後，容讓伊莎多拉成了客串出場的配角，一個老成世故的朋友，而凡妮莎則與作者本人有着明顯的相似之處。她用這本書來探索目睹父母緩慢逝去的痛苦過程、對失去自身美貌和活力的恐懼、當上外祖母的喜悅之情，乃至和自己女兒莫莉·容-法斯特(Molly Jong-Fast)之間的關係――她的女兒和凡妮莎一樣，也要和毒癮作鬥爭。

Ms. Jong’s warm, chatty persona and her tendency to blur the boundaries between her life and fiction often results in juicy reading. She once wrote about a one-night stand she had with Martha Stewart’s then-husband, Andy Stewart, at the Frankfurt Book Fair. But the autobiographical tropes can be trying for friends, family members, ex-husbands and former lovers. (Her fourth marriage, to Ken Burrows, a divorce lawyer, has lasted 26 years.) Her sister, Suzanna Daou, confronted her publicly at a 2008 conference about “Fear of Flying,” and has said that the book embarrassed her and her husband by modeling characters after them.

容有着溫暖、饒舌的性格，喜歡打亂生活與小說之間的界限，這常常會勾起讀者的八卦之心。她寫過自己和瑪莎·斯圖爾特(Martha Stewart)當時的丈夫安迪·斯圖爾特(Andy Stewart)在法蘭克福書展上搞一夜情。但是自傳式的影射也可以用到朋友、家人、前夫和前情人們身上（她的第四次婚姻是與離婚律師肯·巴羅斯[Ken Burrows]，持續了26年）。2008年，她的姊妹蘇珊娜·達奧烏(Suzanna Daou)在一次關於《怕飛》的研討會上公開質問她，說這本書從她和她丈夫身上取材，讓他們覺得尷尬。

Ms. Jong-Fast, who is also a writer, said she had not read “Fear of Dying” and did not plan to, noting that her having her time in treatment rehashed in fiction “would not have been my first choice.” The scenes from a mother-daughter trip to a rehabilitation clinic appear to be barely fictionalized, and several paragraphs match an account of the episode in Ms. Jong’s most recent memoir nearly verbatim, with identical dialogue and descriptions.

她的女兒容-法斯特也是作家，說自己還沒讀過《怕死》，也不想讀，她說，書裏重現了她當時接受戒毒治療的過程，“這並不是我的首選”。書中母女一起參加康復野餐的情形幾乎不像是虛構，還有幾段，和容最新回憶錄中描寫她發病經歷的內容幾乎一字不差，有同樣的對話和描寫。

“I don’t read her books,” Ms. Jong-Fast said. “For my mental health, it’s probably better not to.”

“我不看她的書，”容-法斯特說。“爲了我的精神健康，我最好別看。”

A few literary critics have taken aim at Ms. Jong’s self-referential style and habit of recycling material. A caustic review of her 2006 memoir in The Atlantic posited that Ms. Jong was doomed to “eternal self-imitation” after the success of “Fear of Flying,” and skewered her “stunning self-absorption.”

幾位文學評論家已經批評容這種指向自我的風格和習慣是炒冷飯。2006年，《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)對她當年出版的回憶錄發表了尖刻的評論，認爲容在《怕飛》大獲成功之後，註定要陷入“永遠的自我模仿”，還批評她那種“驚人的自我陶醉”。

In an advance review of “Fear of Dying,” a critic for Kirkus Reviews said that “spending almost 300 pages with Vanessa is like enduring a trans-Atlantic flight with a seat mate who never stops talking but doesn’t have a whole lot to say.”

《科克斯評論》(Kirkus Reviews)發表了對《怕死》的預先評論，寫道，“連看300頁凡妮莎的故事就像在飛越大西洋的航班上，身邊坐着一個不停說話的人，其實他根本沒多少值得一說的東西。”

Ms. Jong said she had a thicker skin than she did earlier in her career and is more philosophical about negative reviews. “We can’t really control our image in the world,” she said. “But it still hurts if you spend a decade on a book and people don’t like it.”

容說，和事業生涯早期，她的臉皮厚了一些，對待差評也有了更加哲學的態度。“我們不能控制自己在這個世界上的形象，”她說。“但是如果你花了十年時間寫一本書，人們卻不愛看，這仍然會讓你覺得傷心。”

She has many vocal supporters, among them Susan Cheever; the historical novelist Ken Follett, who said the new novel represented “Erica at her best”; and the novelist Jennifer Weiner, who counts “Fear of Flying” as one of her literary influences.

她也擁有不少聲援者，其中包括蘇珊·契弗(Susan Cheever)；歷史小說家肯·福萊特(Ken Follett)說，《怕死》展現了“埃麗卡最好的一面”；小說家詹妮弗·韋納(Jennifer Weiner)曾說《怕飛》影響了她的文學創作。

“ ‘Fear of Flying’ opened a lot of doors and eyes and made people look differently at that nice woman sitting next to them on the train, and I think ‘Fear of Dying’ is going to have the same effect,” Ms. Weiner said.

“《怕飛》爲很多人打開了大門，讓他們大開眼界，讓人們以不同的視角去看待火車上坐在他們身邊的體面女人，我覺得《怕死》也會有同樣效果，”韋納說。

Ms. Jong also found a fan in one of her comic heroes, Woody Allen, who loved “Fear of Dying” and unexpectedly gave it a blurb.

容熱愛的喜劇明星裏也有她的擁躉，伍迪·艾倫(Woody Allen)喜歡《怕死》，並且出人意料地爲它做了腰封推薦。

“I was thinking of his famous quote, I’m not afraid of dying; I just don’t want to be there when it happens, so I thought he should read this,” Ms. Jong said. “The first thing he said when we sent it was, ‘I never blurb anything.’ Then he relented.”

“我記得他的名言：‘我不怕死；我只是希望到時候自己別在場纔好’，所以我覺得他應該看看這本書，”容說。“送書的時候，他的第一句話就是，‘我從不寫腰封推薦’。後來他反悔了。”