【龙腾网】Goodreads书评：《暗算》

【书名】《暗算》 （In the Dark – 400页，企鹅出版社2015年出版）

作者：麦家

五星：10%（10）
四星：24%（23）
三星：51%（48）
二星：11%（11）
一星： 1%（1）

评论翻译

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com转载请注明出处

（书评部分）

1、 四星，Vanessa，英国，女

Putting the dreadful Decoded aside, In TheDark is a much better prospect.

把糟糕透顶的《解密》扔在一边，《暗算》的前景要好得多。

The reader is lead through four shortstories all of which involve people with unusual and genius talents which areto be used and exploited by China's Secret Service - at the mysteriouscryptography Unit 701.

该书将读者引入发生在神秘保密单位701的四个短故事，涉及被中国保密单位利用乃至剥削的有着超乎寻常天赋的人们。

Although Mai Jia's writing is sometimesquite surreal In The Dark is very readable and moves along nicely. ReadingChinese literature, is always interesting, because characters often don't reactas we in the West would. Perhaps this is because they are often portrayed asParty members - all work, no play and the Party comes first.

虽然麦家的作品有时会相当离奇，《暗算》的可读性却很强，而且故事的推进恰到好处。阅读中国文学一直都是很有意思的，因为人物的反应通常都会和我们西方人不一样。这可能是因为他们常被描绘成党员的样子：只工作不休闲，而且会把党的事业放在第一位。

Reading Chinese cliches, similes andmetaphors is quite enjoyable but also very strange and at times almost opaquefor a western reader. Take for example "There is a saying that some womenare quite shrewish and some men toadying." Or what seems to be a classicChinese proverb "you always save the best steel for knives". Thesecond I can kind of understand but the first seems to need the culturalcontext of having grown up in China and it diminishes your appreciation of thetext without that background. Contrast that to how easily a western audiencedigests the General Patton quote used towards the end. "There's only oneproper way for a professional soldier to die: the last bullet of the lastbattle of the last war". It's so easy for a western audience tounderstand.

读读中国人的陈词滥调，明喻以及暗喻是相当有乐趣的，但也会觉得古怪，而且对西方读者来说有时会晦涩难懂。比如说，“有句话叫做：泼女人，谄男人”。或是有些看着像古典中国谚语的话，“好钢用在刀刃上”。第二句我还是勉强能懂的，但理解第一句似乎需要从小在中国长大的文化背景，而没有这种背景，就会阻碍你对原文的鉴赏。与之相比，一个西方读者轻轻松松就能领会《巴顿将军》中临近结局时引述的那句话，“一个职业士兵只有一种像样的死法：死于最后一次战争中最后一场战斗的最后一颗子弹”。这对于一个西方读者来说就很容易理解了。

（译注：安在天的原话为：“这个世界上有两种人最讨厌：泼女人，谄男人”）

In saying all this you'll still be delightedby Abing, Huang Yiyi, Chen Erdu and a few of the others, you'll keep readinglargely to find out what happens to these tortured geniuses. Unfortunately, themain characters are mostly interesting in contrast to the bland supporting castand surrounding characters and you'll be worn down by the way the brutal regimecelebrates them in the shadows.

说了这么多，阿炳、黄依依、陈二湖以及其他一些人还是会让你很欣喜，基本上你得反复去读才能发现这些深受折磨的天才身上所发生的事。不幸的是，相比于乏味的配角和外围角色，大部分主角都很有趣，而且残忍的政权在暗处祝贺他们的方式会让你厌烦。

5、三星，James，英国，男
In China, Mai Jia is the king of spynovels, a Chinese equivalent to someone like John Le Carré, but whose work hasa distinctly surrealist element to it. In The Dark tells three tales of themysterious code-breakers at Unit 701 - China's top-secret intelligence unittasked.

在中国，麦家是间谍小说之王，是中国版的约翰·勒卡雷，但他的作品有一种独树一帜的超现实主义色彩。《暗算》讲述的是中国绝密情报单位701中神秘的密码破译者的三个故事。

（译注：约翰·勒卡雷（John le Carre，1931—），英国20世纪最著名的间谍小说家，代表作有《柏林谍影》、《锅匠，裁缝，士兵，间谍》）

The three stories share this common settingand a similar cast of characters - all are linked also by their obsessiontowards codes and ciphers. There is the "wind listener" -a blind manwhose supernatural hearing enables him to discern even the sex of a barkingdog; there is an unstable maths genius who cracks the Kuomintang's newest, bestcode but meets an unfortunate end at the hands of her lover's wife; an old manso obsessed with codes he deciphers them in his dreams; and lastly, a tale ofsubterfuge and deception during the Vietnam War.

这三个故事出于同一背景，选取的人物也类似，也都和他们对密码的痴迷有关。里面有一个“听风者”，一个有超常听觉的瞎子，他甚至都可以辨别出一只狂吠的狗的交配行为；里面还有一个情绪不稳定的数学天才，她破解了国民党最新也是最厉害的密码，她情人的老婆（刘丽华）却让她的结局很是不幸；一个过于沉迷密码的老人，他会在梦中破解它们；最后，是越战期间的一个关于诡计和欺骗的故事。

7、三星，Faridz Ilham，印尼，男
a decent fantasy book tells China's secretagency 'Unit 701' comrades unique stories during wartime. This book told thatlove/passion for someone or things can led a person to their death in strangeways.

一本挺像样的幻想书籍，讲述了中国秘密机关“701”里的同志们在战时那些很独特的故事。该书告诉我们，对某人或某个对象的爱或激情会让一个人以各种奇奇怪怪的方式死去。