那會兒 查爾斯王子還是小孩

In 1957, when Americans took for granted electric ovens, hand-held mixers and finned cars, their British cousins were, comparatively speaking, just emerging from the cave. In a telling indicator, only 5 percent of working-class Britons owned a refrigerator, and only 12 percent over all. Yet this was the year that Harold Macmillan, the new prime minister, proclaimed, “Most of our people have never had it so good.”

1957年，當電烤箱、手持攪拌機、有側翼轎車在美國已司空見慣的時候，他們的英國親戚相對來說好像還剛從洞穴裏鑽出來。一個數據很有說服力：在當時的英國，只有5%的工薪階層擁有冰箱，在整個人口中，只有12%擁有冰箱。同年，新上任的首相哈羅德·麥克米倫(Harold Macmillan)稱：“我們當中的大多數人從來沒有過這樣的好日子。”

It was true. As David Kynaston documents, exhaustively and exhaustingly, in “Modernity Britain: 1957-1962,” the Macmillan years felt good to a country recovering from war, austerity and rationing. It was a period of full employment, rising wages, affordable consumer goods and artistic ferment, as new working-class voices made themselves heard in fiction, drama and film.

這是真的。正如大衛·基納斯頓(David Kynaston)在他的《現代性英國：1957-1962》(Modernity Britain: 1957-1962)一書中詳盡記述的，對於一個剛剛從戰爭中恢復過來、厲行節約、實行配給制的國家來說，麥克米倫的年代已經很好了。這個時期實現了充分就業、工資上漲，生活消費品更便宜了，藝術的發展也在醞釀之中，新興工人階層開始在小說、戲劇與電影中發出自己的聲音。

The book, an all-enveloping and mesmerizing social panorama, continues Mr. Kynaston’s grand project of chronicling everyday life in Britain from the end of World War II to the beginning of the Thatcher era. Under the collective title “Tales of the New Jerusalem,” he has already completed “Austerity Britain: 1945-1951” and “Family Britain: 1951-1957,” whopping big books in which the author marshals vast quantities of data to create, dot by pointillistic dot, a vivid national portrait.

這本書是一幅包羅萬象、非常迷人的社會全景圖，是基納斯頓按時間順序記述從“二戰”後到撒切爾時代初期英國的日常生活的宏偉計劃的一部分。這個計劃合稱《新耶路撒冷故事》(Tales of the New Jerusalem)，除了本書，他已經完成了《節衣縮食的英國：1945-1951》和《家庭英國：1951-1957》兩卷，在這幾本鉅著之中，他列舉了大量數據，如同點彩派畫家一樣，一點點爲這個國家描繪出一幅生動鮮明的肖像。

No fact is too large, no fact too small for Mr. Kynaston, whose scrutinizing eye delights in particulars drawn from diaries, memoirs, the daily press and a host of other primary sources.

對於基納斯頓來說，沒有絕對的大事，也沒有絕對的小事，他那洞察一切的雙眼從日記、回憶錄、日報和其他重要來源中悉心尋找細節與詳情。

“On Monday, 6 January 1958,” a typical passage begins, “a disgruntled housewife in Paddington gave her Detergent Survey interview to Mass-Observation; Dennis Dee in Winestead did ‘hedging and ditching at the farm’ amidst ‘heavy rain nearly all the day’; Madge Martin in Oxford went to ‘Barnacle Bill’ at the Ritz (‘amusing enough, but a little too farcical’).” There is more. Queen Elizabeth, we learn, “took Charles and Anne to the Bertram Mills Circus at Olympia (both the Royal children bounced up and down in the seats with excitement’); and all three treasury ministers resigned — a unique event in 20th-century British political history.”

他的書中，典型的一段是這樣寫的：“1958年1月6日星期一，帕丁頓一個悶悶不樂的家庭主婦接受了關於洗滌劑的民意調查採訪；溫斯蒂德的丹尼斯·迪伊(Dennis Dee)冒着‘持續整日的傾盆大雨’，‘在農場裏扎籬笆，挖溝渠’”；牛津的馬奇·馬丁(Madge Martin)去了里茲影院看《巴納寇·比爾》(Barnacle Bill)這部電影（‘它很有趣，不過有點太荒唐了’）。”還有更多內容，我們在書中讀到，伊麗莎白女王“帶着查爾斯和安妮去奧林匹亞看波特拉姆·米爾斯馬戲團演出（兩位皇子在座位上興奮得跳上跳下）；同時三位財政大臣都辭職了——這在20世紀的英國政治史上是唯一一次。”

The fact stream flows on, page after page, like an unending newsreel. This is half the fun of the book, which proceeds at a lively pace in a brisk, appealing style. Mr. Kynaston, who seems to miss nothing, is like an air traffic controller, picking up incoming planes when they are tiny blips and following their progress intently throughout the book.

一頁一頁，無數事實流淌而過，就像永無止境的新聞電影膠片。這還只是這本書趣味的一半。除此之外，它還有着生動的節奏與輕鬆美妙的文風。基納斯頓似乎什麼都不會放過，就像空中交通管制員盯着屏幕上的小光點，密切注視着飛機的飛行情況。

Conservatives select a promising young woman, Margaret Thatcher, as their candidate for Finchley. The headline in the local newspaper: “Tories Choose Beauty.” Mike Jagger (not yet Mick) attends a Buddy Holly concert. A young actress named Judi Dench makes her debut as Ophelia at the Old Vic. The Evening Standard says she has talent and may get somewhere if she acquires some technique.

保守黨選擇了瑪格麗特·撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)這位大有前途的年輕女子作爲芬奇利選區的議員，當地報紙當天的頭條是：“保守派選了美女”。邁克·賈格爾（Mike Jagger，當時還沒改名“米克”）去看了巴迪·霍利(Buddy Holly)的演唱會。一個名叫朱迪·鄧奇(Judi Dench)的女演員在老維克劇團首演，出演奧菲莉亞一角。《旗幟晚報》(The Evening Standard)說她很有才華，如果再掌握點技巧一定大有可爲。

The cultural markers of the period shower down like confetti: the first E-type Jaguar, the birth control pill, “Dr. No,” holidays in Spain, Beyond the Fringe, the first flavored potato chips (cheese and onion), the satirical journal Private Eye, the first legal betting shops and the 8.5-mile Preston Bypass, Britain’s first highway. Bronco toilet paper, described by Mr. Kynaston as “cheap, traditional, notoriously nonabsorbent,” tests new pastel colors, and on Dec. 9, 1960, the working-class soap opera “Coronation Street” airs for the first time. A critic for The Daily Mirror found it “hard to believe that viewers will want to put up with continuous slice-of-life domestic drudgery two evenings a week.” The show is still on the air.

這個時期的文化標誌性事件像婚禮上的五彩紙屑一樣向讀者灑來：第一輛E-type捷豹汽車、避孕藥、《諾博士》(Dr. No)、去西班牙度假、《邊緣之外》(Beyond the Fringe)、奶酪味和洋蔥味薯片、諷刺日報《私密之眼》(Private Eye)、第一批合法的彩票銷售點，還有8.5英里長的普萊斯頓大路，這是英國的第一條高速公路。基納斯頓說，野馬牌廁紙“便宜、歷史悠久，出了名的不吸水，”它開始嘗試使用新的淡彩色；1960年12月9日，工人階層肥皂劇《克羅內申街》(Coronation Street)首播。《每日鏡報》(The Daily Mirror)的評論家說，“很難相信觀衆願意每週花兩天時間，忍受這樣一部乏味的家庭瑣事劇。”

Mr. Kynaston does not have an argument, but he does have some big themes. He traces the rise of a consumer society enjoying, for the first time, televisions and cars and washing machines — all the outward signs of the good life — and undergoing profound change as a result. Increasingly, the industrial proletariat — visible as never before in novels and films like “Room at the Top” and “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” — began to think of itself as middle-class, setting off an identity crisis for the Labour Party that continues to this day.

基納斯頓並不爭論，但他的書中確實有重大的主題。他追溯消費社會如何第一次開始享受電視、汽車和洗衣機——這是美好生活的外在特徵——以及因此而帶來的深刻變革。勞工階級前所未有地在小說和電影中大量出現，諸如《頂層房間》(Room at the Top)和《星期六的夜晚與星期日的早晨》(Saturday Night and Sunday Morning)，他們開始自視爲中產階級，開始有了身份認同危機，今日的工黨也仍舊如此。

Race is another big topic. Open immigration from the Commonwealth, attracting thousands of West Indians, put Britain on the road to becoming a multiracial society, a fraught process, underscored by race riots in Notting Hill in the summer of 1958.

種族是另一個大的主題。隨着英聯邦開放移民的政策，成千上萬西印度移民開始涌入，英國開始走向多種族社會，這是一個令人憂慮的過程，1958年夏的諾丁山種族暴動更是其間的重大事件。

A hefty portion of the book is devoted to housing. Horizontal cities became vertical, as ambitious slum-clearance projects plunked down high-rise apartment blocks in cities from London to Glasgow and relocated Britain’s poorest citizens, in a vast social experiment that did not always end happily. “Across much of urban Britain, modernism was being imposed upon a deeply unmodernist populace,” Mr. Kynaston writes.

全書也有很大一部分寫了住房問題。平房變成了樓房，從倫敦到格拉斯哥，雄心勃勃的貧民窟改造計劃在城市裏建起了高層公寓，令英國最窮困的城市居民有了住處，而這項宏大的社會實驗的結果並不總是好的。“在英國城市的很多地方，現代主義被強加給非現代主義的大衆，” 基納斯頓寫道。

Still, for the average Briton, life seemed sweet — or at least diverting — a far cry from the years of gray, postwar deprivation and slow recovery. It was not just appliances; it was Harold Pinter, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Caine, Albert Finney, Peter Hall, Peter O’Toole, Benny Hill and many others. Mr. Kynaston’s lists and factoids really do go on and on and on, and American readers will be lost when it comes to many of the popular television shows, athletes, comedians and singers who figure in the narrative. Still, his total-recall approach does get across the flavor and excitement of the time.

不過，對於普通英國人來說，生活似乎很美好，至少也是在好轉，和戰後那段貧窮、灰色、緩慢康復的時光大不相同。不僅有家電，也有哈羅德·品特(Harold Pinter)、凡妮莎·雷德格雷夫(Vanessa Redgrave)、邁克爾·凱恩(Michael Caine)、阿爾伯特·芬尼(Albert Finney)、彼得·霍爾(Peter Hall)、彼得·奧圖(Peter O’toole)、本尼·希爾(Benny Hill)等許多人。基納斯頓的清單和陳述確實冗長，美國讀者讀到敘述中大量出現的流行電視劇，還有當紅的體育運動員、喜劇演員和歌手時，可能會感到混亂。不過，作者的整體回憶確實把握住了那個時代的韻味與令人興奮之處。

In the book’s final pages, a turning point looms. The Beatles perform on national radio for the first time, taking second billing to the Trad Lads on the show “Teenagers Turn.” John Profumo meets Christine Keeler for the first time. A new era beckons. But that is a story — a long one — for another day.

在全書的最後幾頁，一個轉折點出現了。“披頭士”(The Beatles)首次在全國廣播電臺演出，他們在“青少年節目”這個欄目中成了二號頭牌，僅次於“傳統孩子”(Trad Lads)。約翰·普羅富莫(John Profumo)第一次遇到克里斯汀·基勒(Christine Keeler)。一個新時代即將到來，但這將會是另一天的故事——另一個很長的故事。