性、婚姻、爱情，年长女性的文化突围

Erica Jong’s ‘Fear of Dying’ Defies the Sunset of Sex
性、婚姻、爱情，年长女性的文化突围

Two words have vexed Erica Jong for the last 42 years. The first is “zipless,” and the word that follows is not printable in this newspaper.

过去42年里，有两个词一直困扰着埃丽卡・容(Erica Jong)。第一个是“zipless”，第二个词则不适宜刊在这张报纸上（即“zipless fxxk”――译注）。

The two-word phrase, immortalized in her 1973 best-selling novel, “Fear of Flying,” which has sold more than 27 million copies, entered the cultural lexicon as a shorthand for casual, consequence-free sex. It turned Ms. Jong into a feminist heroine of sorts and avatar of female sexual liberation, and helped propel and define her career.

这两个词组成的短语因她1973年的畅销小说，售出2700万多册的《怕飞》(Fear of Flying)而不朽，成为随意、不顾后果的性爱的代名词，被载入文学史册。它令容在某种意义上成为女权主义的英雄，乃至女性性解放的化身，在促进她事业发展的同时，也限定了她的事业生涯。

It was also meant to be satirical, Ms. Jong said, but was misconstrued as an endorsement of unbridled lust.

容说，这个短语也带有讽刺意味，但是却被错误地理解为对不节制的性欲的一种赞许。

“People so misinterpreted ‘zipless,’ ” Ms. Jong, 73, said during an interview at her Upper East Side apartment. “I say in ‘Fear of Flying’ that it’s a Platonic ideal and a fantasy, and I have never had one, but people seem to overlook that.”

“人们误解了‘zipless’这个词”，73岁的容女士在上东区公寓中接受采访时说。“我在《怕飞》中说过，这是一种柏拉图式的理念和幻想，我自己从来没有过这样的性爱，但是人们似乎忽视了这一点。”

Now, decades later, she has exhumed and rebranded the phrase in her new novel, “Fear of Dying,” which is being billed as the “spiritual” sequel to “Fear of Flying” and is being released on Tuesday.

如今，几十年过后，她的新小说《怕死》(Fear of Dying)将在周二出版，它被成为《怕飞》的“精神”续集，书中她重新挖掘出这个短语，并且重新塑造它的形象。

While “Fear of Flying” shocked readers with its frank depiction of the sexual appetite and independence of its protagonist, Isadora Wing, “Fear of Dying” takes on an another, more persistent taboo by depicting ― in blunt, unvarnished detail ― sex between older adults. Ms. Jong’s new character, a grandmother in her 60s, is lusty and vivacious and searching for carnal satisfaction at a casual-sex site called zipless.com.

《怕飞》中直白地描写性欲，以及主人公伊莎多拉・温(Isadora Wing)独立的性格，令读者大为震惊；而《怕死》则以直率质朴的细节描写老年人的性爱，从而触及另一个更为持久的禁忌。容笔下新的主人公是一位60岁的祖母，充满欲望，性格活泼，在一个名叫zipless.com的约炮网站上寻觅肉体的满足。

“I’ve always wanted to write the books for women that didn’t yet exist, so I thought, I have to write about an older woman who is sexual, attractive and wants to reach out for life,” Ms. Jong said. “That’s not celebrated, sadly, and I would hope that a lot of older women who read this book realize that sex doesn’t disappear, it just changes forms.”

“我一直都想为那种尚不存在的女人写书，所以我想，我应该写一个年长的女人，她性感、迷人，愿意去探索生命，”容说。“悲哀的是，这并不受到赞美，我希望会有很多年长的女人读这本书，让她们意识到性爱并没有消失，只是换了种形式。”

The story centers on Vanessa Wonderman, a former actress terrified of aging and death. She seeks escape from her sexless marriage to a much older man with erectile dysfunction by searching for lovers online. The surreal encounters that follow ― an email exchange with a man who introduces himself by sending lewd photos, another who wants her to wear a black rubber suit, an unsatisfying hotel tryst with an old married flame ― leave Vanessa reeling and worried that her sex life might be over. (This being an Erica Jong novel, it isn’t.)

故事的主线是退休女演员凡妮莎・范德曼(Vanessa Wonderman)对衰老与死亡的恐惧。她想逃离与比自己老得多，有勃起障碍的丈夫的无性婚姻，于是在网上寻觅情人。接下来是一串超现实的邂逅一个男人写来电子邮件，以猥亵的照片作为自我介绍，还有一个男人希望她穿黑色橡胶紧身衣。和一个已婚老年情人在酒店的幽会不能令人满足，凡妮莎心烦意乱，担心自己的性生活就此告终了（不过这毕竟是埃丽卡・容的小说，她的性生活还完不了）。

Some of Ms. Jong’s fans and peers are calling the novel a long overdue corrective in a cultural landscape that deifies youth and often ignores older women, or relegates them to the role of spinsters or crones.

有些容的书迷和同龄人觉得，当前的文化将青春神圣化，无视年老女人，或者一味把她们贬低为老处女或者丑陋老太婆，容的小说是对这种现象的矫正，早就应该出现了。

“There is this giant void in the culture about women in that age group as heroines, as romantic beings, as sexual beings and as creative beings, and there’s not that void for men,” said Naomi Wolf, author of “The Beauty Myth.” “Women don’t stop being all those things as their lives continue into those decades.”

“文化中有一个巨大的空白，没有人把年老的女人塑造为女主角，塑造成浪漫的人，性感的人，富于创造性的人，男性就没有这样的空白，”《美丽迷思》(The Beauty Myth)一书的作者娜奥米・伍尔夫(Naomi Wolf)说。“女人就算步入老年，也仍然会成为这样的人。”

“Fear of Dying” is landing in the middle of a long-festering debate about the social and cultural obstacles older women face. The comedian Amy Schumer has skewered the frequent sidelining of older actresses in a widely viewed skit built around the farcical ― though just barely ― premise that an aging actress’s desirability could dissipate in a single day. Sex therapists and gurus have published dozens of manuals and self-help books with titles like “Sex for Seniors” and “Sex Over 50.” There is also the gag book “Sex After 60,” which is blank inside.

关于年老女性所面临的社会与文化困境的讨论还在持续加剧，《怕死》的出现恰逢其时。喜剧演员艾米・舒默(Amy Schumer)在一则被广泛收看的小品里讽刺年长女演员经常被边缘化的现象，它建立在一个滑稽的前提之下（其实几乎已经不滑稽了）――一个年老女演员的魅力一夜间就消失了。性爱治疗师和上师们出版了几十本 《老年人性爱》、《50岁后的性爱》之类的指导手册和励志书。还有一本恶作剧的书名叫《60岁后的性爱》(Sex After 60)，里面全是空白。

But the subject hasn’t been widely explored in popular fiction. “Women were not allowed to have passion at 60,” Ms. Jong writes in “Fear of Dying.” “We were supposed to become grandmothers and retreat into serene sexlessness.”

但是通俗小说从未广泛探索过这个题材。“女人一旦年过60，就不再被允许拥有激情，”容在《怕死》中写道。“人们觉得我们应该成为祖母，回到宁静的无性状态中去。”

Ms. Jong started out as a poet, and published two volumes of verse before selling “Fear of Flying” to Aaron Asher, an editor whose roster of writers included Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Arthur Miller. Mr. Asher told Ms. Jong to expect sales of 3,000 copies, she recalled.

容早年曾是诗人，在《怕飞》之前出版过两本诗集，后来她把《怕飞》卖给亚伦・阿舍(Aaron Asher)，此人曾为索尔・贝娄(Saul Bellow)、菲利普・罗斯(Philip Roth)和阿瑟・米勒(Arthur Miller)担任编辑。容记得当时阿舍告诉她，这本书大概能卖出3000册。

Instead, the novel, about a young poet who travels to Vienna with her husband and attempts to live out her fantasies by having an affair, became a blockbuster and cultural touchstone. John Updike compared it to “The Catcher in the Rye,” and Henry Miller praised it as a groundbreaking literary achievement. The book was translated into 40 languages and was credited by second-wave feminists with paving the way for women’s self-expression.

结果这本描写一个年轻女诗人和丈夫一起去维也纳旅行，试图靠外遇实现幻想的小说成了畅销书和文化里程碑。约翰・厄普迪克(John Updike)将它同《麦田守望者》(The Catcher in the Rye)相提并论，亨利・米勒(Henry Miller)说它是开创性的文学成就。这本书被译为40种语言，为女性的自我表达开辟了道路，经常被第二代女权主义者引用。

“What was really distinctive about it at the time was the notion that a woman could break out of the conventions of how a woman writer should write, and write with candor and humor about topics that were taboo for women,” said Shelley Fisher Fishkin, an English professor at Stanford University.

“在当时，这本书的特别之处就在于它带来一种观念，一个女人可以突破女性作家写作的传统，带着热情与幽默书写那些女性的禁忌题材，”斯坦福大学英语系教授雪莉・费舍・费什金(Shelley Fisher Fishkin)说。

Ms. Jong has since published three memoirs, five more volumes of poetry and eight other novels, including historical fiction and a work about Sappho, but nothing has matched the popularity of “Fear of Flying.” At times, she says, she has felt oppressed by being so closely associated with her brash fictional alter ego Isadora.

后来容出版过三本回忆录，五本诗集和八部小说，包括关于萨福(Sappho)的历史小说与研究，但它们都无法与《怕飞》的流行程度相比。她说，人们常常把她和小说中她那个大胆的虚构人格伊莎多拉密切联系在一起，这有时让她觉得受到压抑。

“Fear of Flying’ follows me everywhere,” she said.

“《怕飞》如影随形地跟着我，”她说。

She has been struggling to write “Fear of Dying” for a decade. At first she tried to make an older, wiser Isadora the heroine. But bringing back that character felt forced. “There was so much baggage around ‘Fear of Flying,’ ” she said. “The weight of those expectations was very frightening.”

她努力想写《怕死》已经有十年了。起先，她想让上了年纪，变得更聪明一点的伊莎多拉做女主角。但是重新带回这个角色让她感觉不自然。“《怕飞》有太多包袱，”她说。“期待的重量非常可怕。”

Ms. Jong eventually sidelined Isadora to a cameo role as a worldly friend, and created Vanessa, who shares some obvious traits with the author. She used the book to explore the wrenching process of watching her parents’ slow demise, her fear of losing her looks and vitality, the joys of being a grandmother and her relationship with her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, who, like Vanessa, struggled with drug addiction.

最后，容让伊莎多拉成了客串出场的配角，一个老成世故的朋友，而凡妮莎则与作者本人有着明显的相似之处。她用这本书来探索目睹父母缓慢逝去的痛苦过程、对失去自身美貌和活力的恐惧、当上外祖母的喜悦之情，乃至和自己女儿莫莉・容-法斯特(Molly Jong-Fast)之间的关系她的女儿和凡妮莎一样，也要和毒瘾作斗争。

Ms. Jong’s warm, chatty persona and her tendency to blur the boundaries between her life and fiction often results in juicy reading. She once wrote about a one-night stand she had with Martha Stewart’s then-husband, Andy Stewart, at the Frankfurt Book Fair. But the autobiographical tropes can be trying for friends, family members, ex-husbands and former lovers. (Her fourth marriage, to Ken Burrows, a divorce lawyer, has lasted 26 years.) Her sister, Suzanna Daou, confronted her publicly at a 2008 conference about “Fear of Flying,” and has said that the book embarrassed her and her husband by modeling characters after them.

容有着温暖、饶舌的性格，喜欢打乱生活与小说之间的界限，这常常会勾起读者的八卦之心。她写过自己和玛莎・斯图尔特(Martha Stewart)当时的丈夫安迪・斯图尔特(Andy Stewart)在法兰克福书展上搞一夜情。但是自传式的影射也可以用到朋友、家人、前夫和前情人们身上（她的第四次婚姻是与离婚律师肯・巴罗斯[Ken Burrows]，持续了26年）。2008年，她的姊妹苏珊娜・达奥乌(Suzanna Daou)在一次关于《怕飞》的研讨会上公开质问她，说这本书从她和她丈夫身上取材，让他们觉得尴尬。

Ms. Jong-Fast, who is also a writer, said she had not read “Fear of Dying” and did not plan to, noting that her having her time in treatment rehashed in fiction “would not have been my first choice.” The scenes from a mother-daughter trip to a rehabilitation clinic appear to be barely fictionalized, and several paragraphs match an account of the episode in Ms. Jong’s most recent memoir nearly verbatim, with identical dialogue and descriptions.

她的女儿容-法斯特也是作家，说自己还没读过《怕死》，也不想读，她说，书里重现了她当时接受戒毒治疗的过程，“这并不是我的首选”。书中母女一起参加康复野餐的情形几乎不像是虚构，还有几段，和容最新回忆录中描写她发病经历的内容几乎一字不差，有同样的对话和描写。

“I don’t read her books,” Ms. Jong-Fast said. “For my mental health, it’s probably better not to.”

“我不看她的书，”容-法斯特说。“为了我的精神健康，我最好别看。”

A few literary critics have taken aim at Ms. Jong’s self-referential style and habit of recycling material. A caustic review of her 2006 memoir in The Atlantic posited that Ms. Jong was doomed to “eternal self-imitation” after the success of “Fear of Flying,” and skewered her “stunning self-absorption.”

几位文学评论家已经批评容这种指向自我的风格和习惯是炒冷饭。2006年，《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)对她当年出版的回忆录发表了尖刻的评论，认为容在《怕飞》大获成功之后，注定要陷入“永远的自我模仿”，还批评她那种“惊人的自我陶醉”。

In an advance review of “Fear of Dying,” a critic for Kirkus Reviews said that “spending almost 300 pages with Vanessa is like enduring a trans-Atlantic flight with a seat mate who never stops talking but doesn’t have a whole lot to say.”

《科克斯评论》(Kirkus Reviews)发表了对《怕死》的预先评论，写道，“连看300页凡妮莎的故事就像在飞越大西洋的航班上，身边坐着一个不停说话的人，其实他根本没多少值得一说的东西。”

Ms. Jong said she had a thicker skin than she did earlier in her career and is more philosophical about negative reviews. “We can’t really control our image in the world,” she said. “But it still hurts if you spend a decade on a book and people don’t like it.”

容说，和事业生涯早期，她的脸皮厚了一些，对待差评也有了更加哲学的态度。“我们不能控制自己在这个世界上的形象，”她说。“但是如果你花了十年时间写一本书，人们却不爱看，这仍然会让你觉得伤心。”

She has many vocal supporters, among them Susan Cheever; the historical novelist Ken Follett, who said the new novel represented “Erica at her best”; and the novelist Jennifer Weiner, who counts “Fear of Flying” as one of her literary influences.

她也拥有不少声援者，其中包括苏珊・契弗(Susan Cheever)；历史小说家肯・福莱特(Ken Follett)说，《怕死》展现了“埃丽卡最好的一面”；小说家詹妮弗・韦纳(Jennifer Weiner)曾说《怕飞》影响了她的文学创作。

“ ‘Fear of Flying’ opened a lot of doors and eyes and made people look differently at that nice woman sitting next to them on the train, and I think ‘Fear of Dying’ is going to have the same effect,” Ms. Weiner said.

“《怕飞》为很多人打开了大门，让他们大开眼界，让人们以不同的视角去看待火车上坐在他们身边的体面女人，我觉得《怕死》也会有同样效果，”韦纳说。

Ms. Jong also found a fan in one of her comic heroes, Woody Allen, who loved “Fear of Dying” and unexpectedly gave it a blurb.

容热爱的喜剧明星里也有她的拥趸，伍迪・艾伦(Woody Allen)喜欢《怕死》，并且出人意料地为它做了腰封推荐。

“I was thinking of his famous quote, I’m not afraid of dying; I just don’t want to be there when it happens, so I thought he should read this,” Ms. Jong said. “The first thing he said when we sent it was, ‘I never blurb anything.’ Then he relented.”

“我记得他的名言：‘我不怕死；我只是希望到时候自己别在场才好’，所以我觉得他应该看看这本书，”容说。“送书的时候，他的第一句话就是，‘我从不写腰封推荐’。后来他反悔了。”