口译：Howard Jacobson-On Manchester 汉译

There are cities that revealtheir charms on introduction, shamelessly, and there are others that give youmore time to get to know them, cities which are not voluptuous but viable, easyto get around, good humored, self-effacing without being apologetic.

Manchester, 200 miles to thenorthwest of London, and just a half-hour drive from its noisier neighborLiverpool, is one of the latter. It would be incorrect to say it lacks beauty,for the great mills and warehouses built in the days when cotton was king, andManchester was its Versailles, are on the scale of Italian Renaissance palazziand can indeed look like Italian Renaissance palazzi on sunny days and when,standing on a bridge over, say, the Rochdale Canal, you are in the mood to seethe best in things. Hotels, clubs, apartment blocks now, the old mills andwarehouses have made the change well from temples of ceaseless industriousnessto palaces of ceaseless pleasure. Victorian neogothic architecture enjoyed aflowering in Manchester too, most notably in the great spired almost fairy-taleTown Hall, a sort of cathedral to commerce that exudes confidence andprosperity yet is not without delight in magniloquence for its own sake.

Moonlight on wet streets, thedistant prospect of chimneys made phosphorescent by their own smoke, industrialvalleys looking nostalgic in these nonproductive times, and on Saturday nights,whatever the weather, girls with mottled thighs and boys in short-sleevedshirts drinking mojitos en plein-air—such are the city’s sights. But it’ssubstance rather than poetry that Manchester has always sought to convey, ano-nonsense stolidity reflected in all the public buildings, squares, andstatuary, commemorating men of affairs, free traders, and reformers rather thanartists or adventurers.

If Manchester wears its culturalachievements lightly, that is because it finds showiness, like itsgeography—the city is positioned in the very path of wet clouds coming in lowoff the Pennine Hills—absurd. A hundred years ago Manchester rivaled Berlin andVienna as a city of music. The Hallé, founded by a German immigrant 50 yearsbefore, had become one of the world’s great orchestras. It tells you somethingabout Manchester at that time that a young Westphalian musical prodigy such asCharles Hallé should have chosen to make Manchester his home. A small butactive population of German expatriates—some in flight from religiousintolerance, others simply doing business—was already established inManchester, making music, meeting to discuss ideas, encouraging an interest inliterature and in art. If the native Mancunian needed this spur to his ownhesitant creativity, it is to his credit that he welcomed it wholeheartedly.

Though the Jewish population wassmall when I was growing up, Manchester seemed a Jewish city to me, so at homedid we feel in it and so in tune with its energetic comic pessimism. Foremostamong the pleasures of the city today is the Rusholme Curry Mile, a stretch ofAsian restaurants a short walk from the university, which, if you were droppedthere at night, you might take for a street in Bangladesh or Pakistan. A greatcity knows it is never more itself than when it can make room for what isdifferent to itself, the corollary of which has been, in Manchester’s case, theadoption by other cultures of Mancunian modesty and sense of the ridiculous.You will hear better Jewish jokes in Manchester, as a consequence, than youwill ever hear in London. And I suspect the same holds true of Bangladeshijokes.

The presiding genius of the placeremains, though he died in 1976, the painter L.S. Lowry, famous for hisindustrial landscapes, canvasses that simultaneously teem with life and expressthe desolation of the northerner over whom the clouds too rarely lift. It tooka while for Lowry’s greatness to be recognized, so determinedly plain about hisart was he, so bent on downplaying his gifts. Outside of football—which is afiefdom of its own—it’s not done to blow your own trumpet in Manchester. Peoplewill laugh with you on buses or in shops because they take the human comedy, ofwhich they are no less the butts than anybody else, to be universal. This isnot a population of a once fabulously rich cottonopolis making the best of itsdecline; Manchester’s laconic mirth was always its strength. And you breathe itin on the streets still like a tonic.

曼彻斯特

霍华德·雅各布森

有些城市一见面就向你展露妩媚风姿，也不觉得难为情，可有些却让你慢慢品味，它们不花枝招展，但却相当实惠中用，四处走动方便，城市和蔼可亲，非常低调，却不自惭形秽。

曼彻斯特就是那第二种城市，它位于伦敦西北两百英里处，开车半小时就是更为喧闹的邻城利物浦。说曼彻斯特不美并不正确。在棉花是君王，曼彻斯特就是凡尔赛时建造的大厂房大仓库，堪比意大利文艺复兴时期的辉煌建筑。若正逢晴日，心情大好，放眼望去万物因心悦而生辉，此时你站在罗奇代尔运河的桥上望去，曼彻斯特的建筑看上去确实美似文艺复兴时辉煌的城堡，怎能说曼城不美。由老旧的厂房和仓库改造的旅馆、夜总会、公寓房都换了新装，当年人们昼夜不停辛勤劳作的大殿，已转变为日夜不休寻欢娱乐的殿堂。维多利亚新哥特式的建筑也在曼城落地开花，最招人眼目的就是神话般的尖塔市政大厅，它有点像商务大教堂式的建筑，显出自信与繁荣，还带有几分故显浮华的得意。

月光洒在湿漉漉的街上，远处的烟囱由于烟火看上去磷光熠熠，在此并无工业生产的年代里，工业谷地让人看了免不了怀旧。周六的晚上，不管是什么天气，穿着紧身花裤的姑娘和身着短袖衫的男孩喝着莫吉托在街上闲逛，这就是城市的晚照。但是曼彻斯特刻意传递的却是实质，不是诗意，在所有的公共建筑、广场和雕像中透露出的是严肃、冷静和稳重，纪念着工商界人士、自由贸易者、改革家，而不是艺术家或是冒险者。

如果说曼彻斯特仅着文化成就的淡妆，那是因为它觉得炫耀和浮华太荒唐，就像这个城市的地处一样荒唐——曼彻斯特恰坐落在雨云飘过的道上，低压的云层从宾宁山脉缓缓而来。一百年前，曼彻斯特是个音乐之城，可与柏林和维也纳媲美。哈莱管弦乐团由一个德国移民创建，当时一有50年的历史，跻身于国际顶尖管弦乐团之列。威斯特伐里亚的音乐天才，如查尔斯·哈莱，竟会选择曼彻斯特安家，足见曼城当时的地位有多重要。那时一些人数不多但却异常活跃的德国移民，为了逃避宗教迫害，会哦这仅为了经商，早已在曼彻斯特安身立命，他们创作音乐，聚会商讨新想法，鼓励对文学艺术的兴趣。假如说曼彻斯特的当地人需要这样的刺激来激发他们呆滞的创造力，那么正是由于这些当地人，曼彻斯特才毫无保留地欢迎了这种刺激。

我长大时这里犹太人不多，可曼彻斯特对我来说似乎就是犹太城，在这么我们感到非常自在，觉得和它那有活力、既幽默又悲观的基调很切合。今天这个城市最好玩的一个地方是罗索姆美食街，从曼彻斯特大学走路就能到，那条街上亚洲餐馆林立，要是晚上谁把你撂在那儿，你会以为那是孟加拉或巴基斯坦的一条街道。一个伟大的城市知道，最显出城市伟大的恰是它能为异己留有空间的胸襟，而在曼彻斯特，曼城人的谦逊和幽默就自然被其他文化所接纳。结果，你在这里听到的犹太笑话要比伦敦的更地道，我想这儿孟加拉的笑话也更地道。

曼城精神的首席代表依旧是画家L.S.劳瑞，尽管他早在1976年就已去世。他以画工业社会景观著称，其作品既充满生命活力，又表达了头顶阴云的北方人之孤寂。人们经过了一段时间采认识劳瑞的伟大。画家刻意淡看自己的艺术，刻意不张扬本人的才华。在曼彻斯特，除了说到足球，人们从不喜欢自吹自擂，而足球是一个独立的王国。在车上，在店里，人们会和你一起欢笑，因为他们把喜剧场面看作是普世的笑料，而且每个人都一样是喜剧的讽刺对象，曼城人也不例外。棉都的富丽辉煌固然已成为往事，但今日的曼城人却并不是在面对衰落佯欢强笑。曼彻斯特明快的欢笑永远是城市的力量所在。你在街上将这欢笑吸入，无异于饮入了滋补养料。

（叶子南 译）