Wednesday, May 29, 2013

盡得風流

黃小姐的《夢餘說夢》,去年回香港就已買下了,但到最近幾天才拿出來讀。

裡面的文章,有好些是已讀過了,因為從前在香港時有追讀黃小姐文章的習慣,大部份她在信部上的文章,都有剪報收藏,那些剪報好好存在一個文件夾裡,如今仍在香港家中。

當年有幸與黃小姐在同一個機構工作,雖然不是直屬於她,但黃小姐也很樂意跟我們這些小人物交往。一開始是戰戰兢兢的,熟絡了以後斗膽跟她談起電影來,還談到很多人生的問題。最記得有一陣子為了一件事想不開,黃小姐特請我吃晚飯,飯後駕車順道送我回家,車上放著小津電影的配樂,悠悠然是輕快的,又有一抹莫明的傷感,但到底是開闊的,那晚我們談了甚麼已經不大記得了,但清清楚楚記得那就是像小津般的開闊;既然傷心與煩惱是免不過的,那麼就接受它為人生的一部份,但不要忘記人生還有其他的甘味。假如沒有那一晚,我對小津的理解不會有那麼深刻,也不會對小津境界那麼心折。後來我也把那一套 CD 買下了。

至於那件事,後來反反覆覆也有再跟黃小姐說起,那時覺得是天大,現在看來也不過是一件事了。

今早在巴士讀著本書,第一部有好幾篇文章是在2002-2008年間寫的,就是我們一同工作的日子,重讀起來感覺猶新。翻到寫 Chris Marker 及塔可夫斯基(Andrei Tarkovsky)的一章,忽然間各種回憶湧上心頭,淚水不自覺流個不停,我得把書合上,簡直不能集中了。

那是一種很強大的感覺,老土說一句,實在難而形容。但我彷佛首次明白普魯斯特吃馬德蓮餅、或在石板路上踏空了一步那種感覺。強大,不單是因為回憶與感覺一時浮現心頭,而是因為它們在你毫不預料、毫無準備之下襲來,而且那不是一種很實在的,說得出所以言的感覺,而是一種 encompassing 的感覺,因此,它又更像是波赫士(Jorge Borges)The Aleph 小說主人公目睹阿萊夫的感覺:

"...I saw the populous sea; I saw the twilight and the evening; I saw the crowds of the Americas; I saw a silver spiderweb at the center of a black pyramid; I saw a broken labyrinth (it was in London); I saw innumerable, immediate eyes looking at me as into a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on the planet, none of them bearing my reflection; I saw a backyard on Soler Street with the same tiles I had seen thirty years before on the hallway of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw clusters of grapes, tobacco, mineral veins, and water vapor; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of its sand grains; a saw in Inverness a woman I will never forget; I saw her wild, wavy hair and haughty countenance; I saw cancer growing inside a breast; I saw on a sidewalk a circle of dry soil where once stood a tree; I saw a country house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English version of Pliny by Philemon Holland; I saw at the same time each letter on each one of its pages (as a boy I marveled that the letters in a closed volume would not get scrambled or lost during the night); I saw night and day contemporaneously; I saw a sunset in Querétaro that seemed to reflect the color of a rose in Bengal; I saw my empty bedroom; I saw in a cabinet in Alkmaar a globe multiplied endlessly between two mirrors; I saw horses with twirling manes on a beach by the Caspian Sea at dawn; I saw the delicate bones in a hand; I saw the survivors of a battle sending postcards; I saw a Spanish deck of cards on a shop window in Mirzapur; I saw the oblique shadows cast by ferns on the floor of a greenhouse; I saw tigers, pistons, bison, heavy seas, and armies; I saw all the ants on the surface of the earth; I saw a Persian astrolabe; I saw in a desk drawer (the handwriting made me shudder) obscene, incredible, precise letters from Beatriz to Carlos Argentino; I saw a beloved monument in Chacarita; I saw the ghastly relic of what, deliciously, had once been Beatriz Viterbo; I saw the circulation of my dark bloodstream; I saw the workings of love and the decay from death; I saw the Aleph from all points; I saw the earth on the Aleph and the Aleph on the earth and yet again the earth on the Aleph; I saw my face and my insides; I saw your face and I had vertigo and I cried, because my eyes had seen the secret and conjectural object whose name men usurp, but no one has ever seen: the inconceivable universe."

是想起了當時在那個機構的種種,想起黃小姐給予我還有其他人的 inspiration ,我想,也夾雜了一點現在的鬱結。現在工作中有點小麻煩,對手是個苦心經營政治手段的人,職位比我低,也不是全職員工,但無時無刻不在爭取機會表現自己,刻意做一些份外的事;我見了她就頭痛,你要不跟她鬥,她也不肯放過你。唉,我自問處理這種問題的技巧是負分--我前半生也算是幸運,從來沒遇到過這樣的人。因不免也想起當年工作上最緊密的同事,這個同事百分百能幹,有主意,而且我毫無保留的信任(可以說,我幾乎是依賴她的),假如現在能夠向她「請教」就好了,不過這也是不可能的了。在合拍的時候,可以說我們是很合拍的,合作過的「計劃」簡直數不清。我想我這一生也不可能再在工作上遇到一個這樣的同事,一個性格合宜、比我能幹、有心計(!),但不會用心計算計我的同事。

最近為工作看多了 Screen Daily / Hollywood Reporter / Variety 那些專為業內人寫的影評,想法漸漸傾向了那一路,自己也覺得自己語言無味起來(當然,那些影評有它們的作用),幸好及時撿起了黃小姐的書。早前黃小姐在她編的《今天》雜誌談《一代宗師》,說王家衛是「風流人說風流夢」,我說黃小姐的文章也是盡得風流,不徐不疾的由電影談到愛情、藝術、悲喜的人生,這才是影評的最高境界,令人神往。再憂鬱也好,讀這書也就是開了一扇窗,令我不致忘記,人生還有很多很多其他的東西,可以令人有 spiritual 的安寧,與快樂。

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