The House on Mango Street 芒果街上的小屋·笔记篇

知道此书源于大学时泛读课老师发的阅读材料，彼时读原版书只觉似懂非懂，因而并没有把全书读完。最近在某英文读书app翻到此书，想着不如读完，才发现原来行文居然如此简单。想来英文阅读能力确实是大大地提高了，也是乐事一桩。现将书中我以为作者着笔之妙处逐一记录分析如下。

（1）第二章《头发》

Everybody in our family has different hair. My Papa's hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands. Carlos' hair is thick and straight. He doesn't need to comb it. Nenny's hair is slippery--slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who is the youngest, has hair like fur.

But my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pin curls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama's hair that smells like bread.” (Chapter Two “Hairs”)

《头发》一章中第二段开头长句读来印象深刻。全书语言简单朴实，多用日常生活词汇，句子也多短小，突然来了一个好长的句子，令人措手不及，免不了多读上几遍，因对外语阅读者来说，长句使得阅读的节奏被小小地扰乱了：你得停下来理清一下这个句子的逻辑。然而这实在是一个写得很好的句子，越读越有意思，让人觉得没有白读这几遍。短短的插入语带入的简单比喻极大地丰富了信息量，描写了母亲头发的形态、味道及给人的感受，“玫瑰花结rosettes”“糖果圈儿candy circle”和“烤面包的甜美香味the warm smell of bread”这些意象引出读者对一位富于爱的母亲的无限遐想，也使人想起被母亲所爱的美好与温馨。

（2）第六章《我们的好日子》

People on the bus wave. A very fat lady crossing the street says, You sure got quite a load there.

Rachel shouts, You got quite a load there too. She is very sassy.

Down, down Mango Street we go. Rachel, Lucy, me. Our new bicycle. Laughing the crooked ride back. (Chapter Six “Our Good Day”)

无忧无虑的少女时光。虽然我读的时候总是担心她们买自行车被骗，担心她们三人一起骑车会摔倒，担心自行车会散架，以我自己的性格而言，我是绝对不会拿出这五美金的。但Esperanza的快乐是实实在在的。她又何尝不知道这五美金有去无回呢，但她实在太想要能一起玩耍的朋友了。拿五美金买一天的快乐，你买吗？好了，我现在知道我从小到大都错过些什么了。

对Lucy和Rachel这对小姐妹的描写十分生动。妹妹Rachel明显比姐姐精明能干，对话多由妹妹主导，前文所写（此处未引用）在三人骑车的分配上妹妹表现得十分凶悍，差点儿没把姐姐的眼睛给抠出来“[…]Rachel almost put out Lucy’s eye about who was going to get to ride it first”，怼胖太太的善意玩笑也带着股泼辣劲儿。但因嘲笑胖太太的身材属人身攻击，不够礼貌，因此被“我”评为“sassy”（新牛津释义：lively, bold, and full of spirit; cheeky）。

（3）第七章《笑声》

Nenny and I don’t look like sisters… not right away. Not the way you can tell with Rachel and Lucy who have the same fat popsicle lips like everybody else in their family. But me and Nenny, we are more alike than you would know. Our laughter for example. Not the shy ice cream bell’s giggle of Rachel and Lucy’s family, but all of a sudden and surprised like a pile of dishes breaking. And other things I can’t explain. (Chapter Seven “Laughter”)

形容笑声的一段。Lucy 姐妹是“大珠小珠落玉盘间”，“我”和Nenney 是“银瓶乍破水浆迸”。

（4）第八章《吉尔的旧家具买卖》

The owner, he is a black man who doesn’t talk much and sometimes if you didn’t know better you could be in there a long time before your eyes notice a pair of gold glasses floating in the dark. Nenny who things she is smart and talks to any old man, asks lots of questions. Me, I never said nothing to him except once when I bought the Statue of Liberty for a dime. (Chapter Eight Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold)

对旧家具店主吉尔的一段十分幽默的描写。吉尔是一个黑人，话不多，而且（据上文说明）十分节kou约men，只在顾客掏出钱买东西时才开灯。于是，如果你不是很了解这个店里的情况的话， 也许你在昏暗的店里呆了很长一段时间以后，才会发现有一副闪着金光的眼镜漂浮在空中。

[…] Then he starts it up and all sorts of things start happening. It’s like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and sawn-neck shadows and in our bones. It’s like drops of water. Or like marimbas only with a funny little plucked sound to it like if you were running your fingers across the teeth of a metal comb.

And then I don’t know why, but I have to turn around and pretend I don’t care about the box so Nenney won’t see how stupid I am. But Nenny, who is stupider, already is asking how much and I can see her fingers going for the quarters in her pants pockets.

This, the old man says shutting the lid, this ain’t for sale. (Chapter Eight Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold)

有一次在吉尔的旧家具店里，“我”和妹妹Nenny 发现了一个旧木盒，据店主说是个音乐盒，并且打开放了一下。“我”以三个清奇的比喻描写了听到音乐时的感受：像放飞的千百万只蛾子从体内腾起，像潺潺水声，像发出金属音色的马林巴琴。

其后对“我”和妹妹Nenny的不同反应描写也很令人回味。据前文所说“我”和Nenny对店主显然有着不同的态度，妹妹话多，什么都问，而我除了买过一次东西之外不与其交谈。在听过这个神奇的音乐盒（也许是个旧的唱片机？）之后，姐妹俩的反应也截然不同：“我”掩饰了自己的羡慕，妹妹则直率地表示想买下。想来Esperanza比妹妹大些，已经略通世故，知道受经济等各种条件限制，这世上有些东西是不可拥有的，而在商人面前坦露欲望是愚蠢的。而老人的回答也很耐人寻味。既是摆在店里的东西，当然是用来卖的，不过是知道小孩子没钱，不愿与其纠缠罢了。但他既没向小姐妹炫耀，也没有以此物诱惑她们，更没有直言嘲讽这是你们买不起的东西，大约在世故之中也还是留着一份善良？

（5）第九章《么么·奥提兹》

Down at the base of the tree, the dog with two names barks into the empty air, and there at the end of the block, looking smaller still, our house with its feet tucked under like a cat. (Chapter Nine “Meme Ortiz”)

猫和狗。头一回见到把一座房子比作猫的。

（6）第十章《路易，他的表姐和表兄》

The seventh time we drove into the alley we heard sirens…real quiet at first, but then louder. Louie’s cousin stopped the car right where we were and said, Everybody out of the car. Then he took off flooring that car into a yellow blur. We hardly had time to think when the cop car pulled in the alley going just as fast. We saw the yellow Cadillac at the end of the block trying to make a left-hand turn, but our alley is too skinny and the car crashed into a lamppost. (Chapter Ten “Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin”)

路易的一个表兄有回偷了一辆黄色的凯迪拉克开进街区给大家看，后来有人报了警，就想急忙逃走，然而最后还是被抓了。其中一个比喻很妙 “Then he took off flooring that car into a yellow blur”, 试翻译下：

接着他驾车飞驰而去，仿佛在地上铺开一层黄晕。

take off 急速驶离；floor 做动词解，铺地毯；blur雾蒙蒙、模模糊糊的一团

潘帕的译文：接着他猛踩油门，汽车飞出去变成一团黄色。

（7）第十三章《有一个老女人她有很多孩子不知道该怎么办》

But after a while you get tired of being worried about kids who aren’t even yours. One day they are playing chicken on Mr. Benny’s roof. Mr. Benny says, Hey ain’t you kids know better than to be swinging up there? Come down, you come down right now, and then they just spit.

See. That’s what I mean. No wonder everybody gave up. Just stopped looking out when little Efren chipped his buck tooth on a parking meter and didn’t even stop Refugia from getting her head stuck between two slats in the back gate and nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an “Oh”. (Chapter Thirteen There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn’t Know What to Do)

像前面第二章描写一家人的头发一样，短句之中夹杂着超长句的窒息操作又来了。这个长句子里讲了三件事：Efren在停车计时器上把虎牙磕了，Refugia把自己的头夹进了自家后门的木板缝里，Angel想要学习飞翔从天上掉了下来死了。一口气读完这个长句，其中的三个事故后果一个比一个严重，使人心里五味杂陈。然而此句虽长，作者在文中没有点明的导致Vargas家种种悲剧的社会及种族背景则更是一言难尽吧。

（8）第十四章《瞧见老鼠的阿莉西娅》

Close your eyes and they’ll go away, her father says, or You’re just imagining. And anyway, a woman’s place is sleeping so she can wake up early with the tortilla star, the one that appears early just in time to rise and catch the hind legs hide behind the sink, beneath the four-clawed tub, under the swollen floorboards nobody fixes, in the corner of your eyes.

Alicia, whose mama died, is sorry there is no one older to rise and make the lunchbox tortillas. Alicia, who inherited her mama’s rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university. Two trains and a bus, because she doesn’t want to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin. Is a good girl, my friend, studies all night and sees the mice, the ones her father says do not exist. Is afraid of nothing except four legged fur. And fathers. (Chapter Fourteen “Alicia Whose Sees Mice”)

很多人表示这章第一段第二句长句看不懂，大概是由于作者隐晦地把两种意象结合在了一起的缘故。一种意象是玉米饼星星tortilla star，意为Alicia每天需要早起为全家人做玉米饼，有多早呢，在天还没亮星星还在天上挂着的时候就得起来了。起得这么早的Alicia在睡眼朦胧中用眼角瞥见了厨房水池底下，四脚浴缸底下，没人修的起拱的地板底下有老鼠（的后腿the hind legs）。她害怕老鼠，所以跟父亲讲了。但是父亲却只是说闭上眼睛吧，它们就不见了。几次三番再讲后，父亲烦了，责怪这只是Alicia的假想，说女孩子应该早点睡觉。

Alicia为什么不睡觉呢？因为她整夜学习希望能在大学念书。即使离家很远，她也不想留在家里成为家庭主妇（behingd a rolling pin）或者在工厂做一辈子工。天上的玉米饼星星是指被认为女性应当承担的家务，地上的老鼠是贫穷，而父亲和哥哥是男权社会的权威，这些都是压在Alicia身上的重山。Alicia无所畏惧，只害怕贫穷和父权的欺压，想要摆脱这些，唯有通过读书。作者笔下的Alicia是所有想要改变命运的贫穷的西班牙女孩儿的剪影。

（9）第十五章《大流士和云》

You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it. (Chapter Fifteen Darius & the Clouds)

好美的文字。潘帕的译文也很喜欢。

“你永远不能拥有太多的天空。你可以在天空下睡去，醒来又沉醉。在你忧伤的时候，天空会给你安慰。可是忧伤太多，天空不够。蝴蝶也不够，花儿也不够。大多数美的东西都不够。于是，我们取我们所能取，好好地享用。”

（10）第二十九章《四棵细瘦的树》

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach.

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be. (Chapter Twenty-Nine “Four Skinny Trees”)

继第十五章《大流士和云》开头一段后全文最喜欢的一章。作者在夜深人静之时看着马路边的四棵树沉思，向它们汲取精神力量。作者苦苦抵抗的众多砖块（so many bricks）是什么？是美国主流社会对有色人种的歧视，是西班牙男权社会体系和宗教观念主导下女性的地位低下，是西班牙移民家庭普遍的生活贫困，是西班牙女性受长久压迫后的自我设限。作者想要抵抗层层叠叠的社会重压，无疑是孤独的，在她苦苦挣扎无以支撑的时候，唯有以路边四棵冲破钢筋混凝土向天空生长的瘦弱的树为伴，暗自鼓励自己坚持再坚持。

（11）第四十四章《芒果有时说再见》

They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out. (Chapter Forty-Four “Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes”)

Esperanza 明白了没有人会帮助他们的这群漂泊异乡的墨西哥人改变命运，只有他们自己。所以她许诺：离开是为了回来以后能更好地帮助大家脱离困境。然而不管是离开或是归来或是回来以后实现改变，都是长途漫漫吧。