Everyman《你我皆凡人……》

《Everyman》，菲利浦·罗斯2006年出版的小长篇，写了一个凡人的一生，从他的葬礼开始写起，然后回顾了他的一生。此人早年喜欢画画，却没有走上为艺术而献身的道路，而是选择了一条更保险的道路，进入广告公司成为不算太成功的职场人士。离婚三次后到老仍是单身。退休后，他又想追求艺术之梦，重提画笔，却仍毫无成就，包括对艺术女老年的追逐。

他的一生尽显其平凡，但是多亏一直有富有的哥哥照顾，一次次关键时间对他伸出援手，并不是每个人都如此幸运。最后他的葬礼上，来送行的亲人除了兄长，还有一位前妻和最爱的女儿。

就像在《垂死的肉身》中一样，步入老境的罗斯把这本小说也写得让人看得很无奈。我们每一个人，每一个平凡的人，每天都在走向自己的终点。读这样一本书，让人不时有唏嘘之感，预先尝到了老年的滋味，用作者的话来说就是：“Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.”不过，作为读者，伤感完毕，还是努力加餐饭吧，be positive，且惜取眼前。

彭伦兄已经译竣，想来不久大陆中译本就会出版。

摘录：

这就是一个凡人的心理：

P31

Contrary to what his wife told everyone he hadn't hungered after the wanton freedom to do anything and everything. Far from it. He hungered for something stable all the while he detested what he had. He was not a man who wished to live two lives. He held no grudge against either the limitations or the comforts of conformity. He'd wanted merely to empty his mind of all the ugly thoughts spawned by the disgrace of prolonged marital warfare. He was not claiming to be exeptional. Only vulnerable and assailable and confused. And convinced of his right as an average human being to be pardoned ultimately for whatever deprivations he may have inflicted upon his innocent children in order not to live deranged half the time.

P60

He wanted to tell them to stop to command them to go no further – he did not want them to cover his father's face and block the passages through which he sucked in life. I've been looking at that face since I was born – stop burying my father's face!

P61

He had watched his father's disappearance from the world inch by inch. He had been forced to follow it right to the end. It was like a second death one no less awful than the first.

P70

He'd married three times had mistresses and children and an interesting job where he'd been a success but now eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay his entire story.

P76

Sometimes it seemed that everything was a mistake except Nancy. So he worried about her and he still never passed a woman's clothing shop without thinking of her and going in to find something she'd like and he thought I'm very lucky and he thought some good has to come out somewhere and it has in her.

P79

Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There's no other way.

P85

When you are young it's the outside of the body that matters how you look externally. When you get older it's what's inside that matters and people stop caring how you look.

P104

“The reason you weren't a painter ” Nancy explained “is because you've had wives and children. You had mouths to feed. You had responsibilities. ”

P157

As if there weren't already fewer and fewer people present who mantnt anything to him had had completed the decomposition of the original family. But decomposing families was his spcialty.