居間的翻譯：以《紅樓夢》的片段英譯為例

Abstract

形而上學將二二作對的思維方式推向極端，形成非此即彼的絕對對立，複又把這樣的二項對立化為規定事物的構成、世界的本質的法則甚或普世大法。居中存在，同時也是居間思考，作為破解“結構”的一種方式，可能就是人類現世生存的一種基本狀態。海德格爾以及德里達都曾予以強調。《紅樓夢》小說中所描述的有無交合、真假混同的“第三世界”的那種“間性”是理解小說的一個關鍵。其中的“有無”的相互作用和“虛假”的相互滲透，始終是值得注意的。因此，余英時將小說中的故事一刀切地劃分為“兩個世界”難免產生疑問。英譯者大衛•霍克斯則將重要的聯語中的第一層面的“有無”化約為第二層面的“真假”，因而也就將“有”之“假”以及“無”之“真”簡化成了只有真假的那種對峙。人生存在“大是大非”的複雜描述，如此也就成為對其中“是是非非”的某種“判斷”。實在的文學由此被消解為扁平的邏輯推論。而楊憲益與戴乃迭的譯文則一樣運用being和non-being這樣的形而上學術語來翻譯文學作品，讓人的聯想回到了本體論以及它所支撐的本質主義。就翻譯及其研究而論，文學並非哲學，因而不應走形而上學的路子，將本來虛構的硬說成是原理，原本具象的畫面變為非此即彼的抽象邏輯判斷，同時也不應在哲學意欲回歸隱喻化的情勢下，仍不顧及形而上學所造成的危害。

To divide things into two categories, as a traditional mode of thinking, is pushed in its pair-makings to extreme in metaphysics, where it is transformed into an absolute “either/or” opposition that is in time formulated as the rule or universal principle regulating and dominating the description of things and the nature of the world. Be-ing in the between or thinking in-between, as a way to deconstruct such a way of “structuring”, can also be conceived as the basic style of man’s living in this world, as stressed by both Heidegger and Derrida. Hongloumeng（《紅樓夢》）is used in such a case study, with its author’s intention defined in its description of the vicissitudes of man in this world in those situations in which be-ing is mixed up with non-be-ing, and the real with the non-real. The “betweenness” of the “third world” as depicted in the novel is therefore a key to the understanding of the text, where the interaction between be-ing and non-be-being and the interpenetration between the real and the non-real always invites its readers’ attention. Thus it is not unreasonable to argue that the division of the artistic world of the story into two as proposed by Yu Ying-shi（余英時）is problematic. As for the English translation of the novel, David Hawkes, with the key words in an important couplet in the novel translated into a detrimental opposition between the real and the non-real in his version of the novel, puts aside the fundamental problems concerning the interaction between be-ing and no-be-being, and relegates things of the primary level to its secondary counterpart, while forgetting the inter-relationships between the two levels. In doing so, the elaboration of the most significant elements in the novel is leveled to a “flat” rendition of a trivial “true or false” judgment, thus turning a revealing of the real into logic reasoning, implausible as it is. In the same way, Yang Xian-Yi and Gladys Yang regresses to metaphysical thinking and its derivatives of essentialism by using such words as being and non-being, restricting their reader’s imagination to a place where art may not dwell. As far translation and its studies are concerned, Literature, quite different from philosophy, should not follow the way of the metaphysicians who arbitrarily take fiction for principles, and turn the concrete pictures into abstract logic reasoning. It is also quite unthinkable to ignore the harmful influences of metaphysics when philosophers tend to return to metaphorization.