Philip K. Dick Movie Blade Runner / Wiki Ubiquitous Computing

May 14, 2007《紐時周報全文精譯》科幻作家渴望成主流 身後如願 

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http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8F%B2%E5%88%A9%E6%99%AE%C2%B7%E7%8B%84%E5%85%8B

 

機器人會夢見電子羊嗎?

机器人梦到电动羊了吗?(1968)這篇小說是關於一個追捕機器人(android)逃亡者的賞金獵人，經歷了道德上的轉捩點。這個靈感影響了1982年的一部著名電影：銀翼殺手(Blade Runner)。它合併和加強了狄克的一個重要的質問：什麼是真實的 和 什麼是虛假的？是人模人樣的機器人冒牌貨還是真正的人們？我們應該將他們看作機械還是人類？ 這位賞金獵人必須在這兩難之中達成妥協。

http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010257254

 

 

[编辑] Ubik

Ubik (1969) uses extensive networks of psychics and a suspended state after death to create an eroding state of reality. 2005年時代雜誌(Time)將他名列於1923年以來百大最佳英語小說。[2].

 

Filmmakers have drawn heavily on the Philip K. Dick catalog of work for inspiration, including "A Scanner Darkly" last year.

 

Writer Gains Respect in Death That He Craved in Life

 

張佑生譯

 

科幻作家菲利浦‧狄克畢生渴望他所稱的主流。他想要成為嚴肅的文學作家。但一周最多能吞服一千顆安非他命藥丸的狄克，還不是普通的偏執狂。在1970年代早期，他終於贏得學院派評論家和文學理論家某些肯定，其中最知名的是波蘭作家史坦尼斯勞．萊姆。狄克卻突然攻擊他們，寫了一封信給美國聯邦調查局，聲稱他們是企圖接管美國科幻小說的前蘇聯國安會特務。

 

All his life the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick yearned for what he called the mainstream. He wanted to be a serious literary writer. But Mr. Dick, who popped as many as 1,000 amphetamine pills a week, was also more than a little paranoid. In the early '70s, when he had finally won some recognition from academic critics and literary theorists － most notably the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem － he turned on them all, writing a letter to the F.B.I, in which he claimed they were K.G.B. agents trying to take over American science fiction.   

 

因此很難知道，1982年以53歲之齡過世的狄克，對自己在這個月被推到文學尊崇的頂峰有什麼看法。他在1960年代完成的四部小說：《高堡奇士》、《艾德利治的三道印記》、《電子人是否夢見電子羊》和《睜開你的雙眼》，獲得美國圖書館（出版經典美國文學作品的非營利機構）再版發行。狄克也許會高興，他也可能質問為何其餘40多部作品沒有獲得如此推崇。

 

So it's hard to know what Mr. Dick, who died in 1982 at the age of 53, would have made of the fact that this month he has arrived at the pinnacle of literary respectability. Four of his novels from the 1960s － "The Man in the High Castle," "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," "DoAndroids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and "Ubik" － are being reissued by the Library of America. He might be pleased, or he might demand to know why his 40-odd other books weren't so honored.  

 

另一件事可能會讓狄克感到同樣快樂與惱怒交加，就是非常多電影取材自他的小說，始於「銀翼殺手」（改編自《電子人是否夢見電子羊》），電影今年問世25周年，今秋將發行特別「終極版」DVD。最新的電影「關鍵下一秒」取材自短篇故事《金人》，由尼可拉斯凱吉飾演能夠預見未來的魔法師，茱莉安摩爾飾演渴望獲得他援助的聯調局幹員，電影四月上映。進行中的是一部由保羅吉亞麥提主演的傳記片，他與作者不僅外型略微相似，晚年也和作者一樣不常在日間活動，因而面容蒼白。

 

Another thing that would probably amuse and annoy Mr. Dick in about equal measure are the exceptional number of movies that have been made from his work, starting with "Blade Runner" (adapted from "Do Androids Dream"), 25 years old this year and available in the fall on a special "final cut" DVD. The newest, "Next," taken from a short story, "The Golden Man," starring Nicolas Cage as a magician able to see into the future and Julianne Moore as an F.B.I. agent eager to enlist his help, opened in April. In progress is a biographical film starring Paul Giamatti, who bears more than a passing physical resemblance to the author, who by the end of his life had the pale look of a guy who didn't spend a lot of time in the daylight.  

 

狄克對科幻小說預測未來的一面比較沒興趣，他擁抱這種文類只因可以讓他的想像力自由奔馳。

 

Mr. Dick was relatively uninterested in the futuristic, predictive side of science fiction and embraced the genre simply because it gave him liberty to turn his imagination loose.  

 

相當程度上，狄克的未來很像我們的現在，除了更爛一點外。關於熱力學狀態函數「熵」的概念和消退，雷利史考特在「銀翼殺手」中以藏汙納垢，霪雨霏霏的街景精采重現，史蒂芬史匹柏在略帶精神分裂味道的「關鍵報告」卻未能掌握要旨。

 

To a considerable extent Mr. Dick's future is a lot like our present, except a little grungier. This sense of entropy and decline is what Ridley Scott evokes so well in "Blade Runner," with its seedy, rainy streetscapes, and what Steven Spielberg misses in his slightly schizoid "Minority Report."   

 

 

「關鍵報告」的主題是預知，就是某些人「預先認知」，能預見未來，不見得都有美好的結果，這是狄克在1950年代中期就開始探索的概念。

 

The theme of "Minority Report" － pre-cognition, or the idea that certain people, "precogs," can foresee the future, with not always happy results－ was an idea that Mr. Dick began exploring in the mid-'50s.  

 

狄克在1960年代將精力轉向寫小說，除了《電子人是否夢見電子羊》和《心機掃描》，他的小說並未立刻投合好萊塢的想像。

 

In the '60s Mr. Dick turned his energies to novel writing, and with the exception of "Do Androids Dream" and "A Scanner Darkly," the novels don't lend themselves so readily to the Hollywood imagination.  

 

那是因為，要將小說化約成單一概念或單一故事情節，難度更高。美國圖書館收集小說當中的三部：《電子人是否夢見電子羊》、《艾德利治的三道印記》和《睜開你的雙眼》，堪稱狄克的最佳作品。三部小說的故事噱頭都沒那麼炫，並全神貫注在兩大問題上，甚至專注到無法自拔的地步，分別是：我們怎麼知道什麼是真實，又如何知道什麼是人類？就我所知，你可能是機器人，或者我是機器人，只因程式被事先設定成自認是人，我們稱為真實的東西可能只是幻覺。

 

That's because they're much harder to reduce to a single concept or plot line. Three of the novels collected in the Library of America volume － "Do Androids Dream," "The Three Stigmata" and "Ubik" － are arguably Mr. Dick's best. All three are less gimmicky than the stories and are preoccupied with two big questions that became his obsession: How do we know what is real, and how do we know what is human? For all I know, you could be a robot, or maybe I am, merely preprogrammed to think of myself as a person, and this thing we call reality might be just a hallucination. 

 

這種臆測呈現狄克寫作的純粹興趣，因為他是認真的，因為他讓結果充滿熱切期望。他筆下的角色，像《電子人是否夢見電子羊》裡追捕電子人的賞金獵人瑞克狄卡德，拚命想要有些真實的事物好讓自己相信，而小說暗示相信的水準品質，也許比真實的程度更重要。

 

This kind of speculation takes on genuine interest in Mr. Dick's writing because he means it and because he invests the outcome with longing. His characters, like Rick Deckard, the android-chasing bounty hunter in "Do Androids Dream," desperately want something authentic to believe in, and the books suggest that the quality of belief may be more important than the degree of authenticity.  

 

狄克的小說無疑有個他親身經歷的因素：小說讀起來像某位體驗過幻覺的人所寫的作品。

 

There is doubtless an autobiographical element to Mr. Dick's novels; they read like the work of someone who knows from experience what it's like to hallucinate.  

 

最可靠的狄克傳記作者勞倫斯蘇汀說，狄克只試過幾次搖腳丸，並沒有特別喜歡。另一方面，狄克經常攝取安非他命和巴比妥鹽，隨手抓一把吞下，必然足以在他腦袋裡面作怪。狄克也不只一次擔心，自己可能會得精神分裂症。

 

Lawrence Sutin, who has written the definitive biography of Mr. Dick, says that he took LSD only a couple of times, and didn't particularly like it. On the other hand his regular regimen of amphetamines and barbituates, gobbled by the handful, was surely sufficient to play tricks with his head, and Mr. Dick worried more than once that he might be turning schizophrenic. 

 

但他的作品不僅製造幻覺。他的上乘之作富有想像力又超現實，從某個觀點而言，在深植於現實與觀察的美國文學中並不多見。

 

The books aren't just hallucinatory, though. The best of them are visionary or surreal in a way that American literature, so rooted in reality and observation, seldom is.

 

By CHARLES MeGRATH  

 

原文參照 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/08/arts/pulp.php

 

關鍵字句

 

本文介紹的一代科幻小說（science fiction）大師，渴望（yearn for）被認可為嚴肅的文學作家（serious literary writer）。英文serious art/music說的「嚴肅」不是題材內容，而是創作目的。作家追求的不是作品一時的洛陽紙貴，而是能藏諸名山。

 

作家在身後被推到文學尊崇的頂峰（arrived at the pinnacle of literary respectability）。Pinnacle是實際的山頂，也是象徵的顛峰。俄國文豪托爾斯泰名著《Anna Karenina》（安娜卡列尼娜）中有一段描述心情從快樂天堂墜入絕望深淵，英文翻譯很精采：He felt cast down from a pinnacle of happiness, peace, and dignity, into an abyss of despair, rage, and humiliation.

 

 

其實作家在生前就曾獲肯定，他卻突然攻擊（turn on）讚美者。使用動詞片語turn on時要注意人的位置，人放在後面時，意指突然攻擊。例如，自己突然成為眾矢之的，就可以反問：Why are you all turning on me?但是當人放在片語中間時，意思變成讓某人感興趣或興奮，特別是性慾方面。已故歌手Robert Palmer有首歌曲就叫做：I Didn't Mean To Turn You On。

 

堪稱（arguably）作家最好的三部小說，滿腦子思考兩個大哉問（are preoccupied with two big questions），其中之一是：我們怎麼知道什麼是真實（real）？另外兩個形容名副其實的字彙是authentic和genuine。Authentic的一個意思是與事實相符，因而可信，例如目擊者的可靠描述（an authentic account by an eyewitness）；也可指書畫作品的真跡，如：an authentic painting by Picasso。Genuine強調貨真價實，例如：genuine leather（真皮）。也可指血統純正，如：a genuine Hawaiian（正港夏威夷人）。 （張佑生）

 

【2007-05-14/聯合報/B6版/UNITED DAILY NEWS】