亚洲富豪不为人知的故事

发布时间：2013-09-02 17:10:39 来源：文档文库

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The Crazy Rich Are Different From You And Me

亚洲富豪不为人知的故事

'Crazy Rich Asians' is very much a first novel. It is clumsy, overwrought and badly edited. But the subject matter — the lives of Asia's vacuous rich — is underreported and important. For those concerned with Asia and with pool-side time to spare this summer, the book is worth consideration.

《疯狂的亚洲富豪》(Crazy Rich Asians)在很大程度上是一部新人小说。它技巧笨拙、过于雕饰而且编辑粗陋。然而，它所讲述的题材——精神空虚的亚洲富豪的生活——虽然重要，却少有作品涉及。对于那些关注亚洲，今夏有充裕的休闲时间可供打发的人来说，这本书值得考虑一读。

All the necessary ingredients are present. Private jets, 300-foot yachts, designer-dressed security details, a $40 million wedding. Misogyny, manipulative mothers, eligible girls running spreadsheets on potential husbands' net worth, damaged kids matriculating from elite schools in Singapore, Hong Kong and England. Confused identities, mindless envy, vicious bitching, parvenu mainland Chinese looking to get in the social game and, of course, those obligatory bible-study-and-designer-shopping combo luncheon clubs.

所有必备元素都在这部作品中有所体现，比如私人飞机、300英尺长（约合91米）的游艇、身着品牌服装的私人保镖及耗资4000万美元的婚礼；还有厌恶女人的人、极具控制欲的母亲、盘算潜在夫婿净资产的合乎条件的女郎，以及被新加坡、香港和英国的贵族学校录取的宠坏的孩子。不仅于此，你还可在书中看到错乱的身份、没头没脑的嫉妒、恶毒的说三道四和期待参与这场社交游戏的中国大陆新富。当然，必须要学习圣经外加购置高端品牌服饰的午餐俱乐部也是该书没有错漏的元素。

Unfortunately much of the promise of this material is thrown away because the characters — excepting the heroes and heroines — are too thinly drawn. Much of the book reads like the celebrity magazines it would denigrate. It is Evelyn Waugh or F. Scott Fitzgerald re-imagined by Hello!, and with an editor who four times allows the word 'disinterested' to appear where the author means 'uninterested.'

可惜的是，这些素材可被利用之处大多都被浪费了。究其原因，除了男女主人公之外，其他人物都刻画得太过单薄。这本书读上去大体就像它本身可能会不屑一顾的名人八卦杂志。它就像伊夫林•沃(Evelyn Waugh)或F•斯科特•菲茨杰拉德(F. Scott Fitzgerald)的作品经过了《Hello!》杂志的重新想象，而且它的编辑还让“disinterested”这个词（“公正无私”之意）四次出现在了作者原要表达“uninterested”（不感兴趣）之意的地方。

This is a shame because the basic conceit of the book is parsimonious and clever. Two ethnic Chinese outsiders — a Caltech-trained computer whiz and a New York University professor of economics — form relationships with scions of two of Singapore's wealthiest dynasties. Yet despite their educated, beautiful partners and flourishing, monogamous sex lives, neither can survive monstrous in-laws. Both run for the Southeast Asian hills, emotionally shredded by their experiences of the Asian high life. The denouement of the book concerns the question of whether they might return.

这点真是可惜，因为这本书本身的基本想法还是比较节制和巧妙的。两名原为局外人的华人，其中一人为曾就读加州理工学院(Caltech)的电脑奇才，另一人为纽约大学(New York University)的经济学教授，他们与新加坡最富有的两个世家的继承人确立了恋情。尽管他们的恋人受过优良教育、容貌姣好，而且他们与恋人都忠于对方且享有和美的鱼水之欢，但最终他们谁也忍受不了自己的那些姻亲。他们跑到了东南亚山区，其情感都因为这段在亚洲上流社会的生活经历而破碎。该书的结局就与他们是否可能会回去这一问题有关。

This basic structure holds the book together, but much narrative cellulite surrounds it. There is a lot of reported conversation. Only occasionally is it funny: 'I could have brought my latest Chanel resort wear, ' opines one desolate young thing. 'I bought this season's entire collection at Carol Tai's Christian Helpers fashion benefit.'

这个基本的故事结构支撑了整本书的内容，但它的叙事还是有不少累赘之处，其中就有大量被转述的谈话。只有偶尔一些谈话还有点意思，比如一个可怜的年轻人说道：“我本来可以把我最新的香奈儿(Chanel)度假服带来的，我在卡罗尔•塔伊(Carol Tai)的基督徒互助会的时装义卖会上买下了本季的整个系列。”

Where in 'Crazy Rich Asians' is the excruciating self-doubt of the super-rich? Or the cancerous ennui?

但是，在这本书中，那些超级富豪极度痛苦的自我怀疑或逐步蔓延的厌倦之心又体现在了何处？

Most conspicuously, the relations between the generations of super-rich are poorly parsed. Here is where real pain, and hence weeping humor, could be mined. There is nothing as gripping as the recent real-life struggle between Hong Kong's Kwok brothers — two of them evangelical Christians, one an ex-kidnappee and one in receipt of anger-management therapy. At stake is Sun Hung Kai, a real-estate business worth $36 billion, in which mother Kwong Siu-hing controls the biggest block of shares.

最显著的是，几代超级富豪之间的关系剖析得不足，而这正是真正的痛苦所在，因此也成为那些令人伤感的幽默可被得到挖掘的地方。再没什么事情能像不久前香港郭氏兄弟在现实生活中上演的争斗那样扣人心弦了。他们兄弟二人都是福音派基督徒，一个曾经遭到过绑架，另一个则在接受愤怒情绪管理治疗，处于利益纠葛中心的是市值达360亿美元的新鸿基地产，他们的母亲邝肖卿是这家地产公司的最大股东。

Also barely touched upon is the identity confusion of Asia's older overseas Chinese — condemned in one lifetime to be all things to all persons, from British colonials to mainland Chinese communists.

此外，这本书几乎未涉及的还有亚洲老一代海外华人的身份困惑。在他们的一生中，他们注定要成为受到从英国殖民者到中共等各方面驱使的人。

By the end, a novelistic flag has been planted on fertile terrain. But that land remains to be explored in much detail. One hopes that author Kevin Kwan will go on to do so, for this book is far from a failure. In the meantime, aficionados of the Asian tycoon genre will still treasure their copies of 'El Filibusterismo' (by José Rizal), 'Eastern Windows, Western Skies' (by Jean Gittins, daughter of Hong Kong tycoon Sir Robert Ho Tung), 'No Feast Lasts Forever' (by Madame Wellington Koo, daughter of Chinese-Indonesian magnate Oei Tiong Ham) and, in nonfiction, the more salacious details contained in Philip Snow's magisterial 'The Fall of Hong Kong.'

最后，这些丰富的元素被披上了小说的外衣，但是这些元素还有待于细致的探究。希望作者Kevin Kwan能继续这样写下去，因为这部小说远非失败之作。同时，喜爱看描写亚洲巨富这种类型作品的读者仍然会喜欢《反对党》(EL Filibusterismo，若泽•里萨尔(Jose Rizal)着)、《东方的窗口，西方的天空》(Eastern Windows, Western Skies，作者为香港巨贾何东爵士(Sir Robert Ho Tung)之女琼•吉廷斯(Jean Gittins))以及《天下无不散的宴席》(No Feast Lasts Forever，黄蕙兰(Madame Wellington Koo，印尼华裔巨贾黄仲涵(Oei Tiong Ham)之女着)这些作品。非小说类的著作则包括菲利普•斯诺(Philip Snow)的权威作品《香港的沦陷》(The Fall of Hong Kong)，该书包含一些更加色情的细节描写。

Mr. Studwell is author of 'How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region' (Grove, 2013) and 'Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia' (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007).

本文作者乔•斯塔威尔(Joe Studwell)为《亚洲模式：全球最具活力地区的成败教训》(How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region，由Grove出版公司在2013年出版)及《亚洲教父：香港、东南亚的金钱和权力》(Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia，由大西洋月刊出版社(Atlantic Monthly Press)在2007年出版)这两本书的作者。