一本以北京爲陰謀中心的間諜小說

It has been almost a quarter century since the fall of the Soviet Union, but the settings for classic espionage and suspense novels have been slow to take root in the obvious new center of intrigue: Beijing. Adam Brookes, formerly a longtime China correspondent for the BBC, changed all that this year with the publication of “Night Heron,” a page turner that takes the reader from China’s far west to the streets of the fascinating Chinese capital, pulsing with power and flawed hero, Philip Mangan, is, like Mr. Brookes, a British journalist. Mr. Mangan finds himself enmeshed in a spy ring when an escapee from a labor camp, a burly man known as Peanut, reactivates a decades-old espionage network he had set up with British intelligence. In an interview, Mr. Brookes discussed his novel, which is published by a division of the Hachette Book Group. Excerpts follow:

蘇聯解體已經過去將近四分之一個世紀，如今新的陰謀中心顯然是北京，但是經典間諜懸疑小說在這裏紮根的速度還很慢。曾長期擔任BBC駐京記者的亞當·布魯克斯(Adam Brookes)今年出版了《夜鷺》(Night Heron)，改變了這種情況。這本引人入勝的小說把讀者從中國的西部邊陲帶到迷人首都的街頭，這裏涌動着權力和危險。書中性格上有缺陷的主人公菲利普·曼根(Philip Mangan)和布魯克斯一樣是英國記者。一個名爲“花生”(Peanut)的壯實男人從勞改營中逃出來，重新激活幾十年前他與英國情報機構建立的間諜網絡，曼根發現自己陷入了該網絡。在採訪中，布魯克斯談論了自己的小說。該書由阿歇特出版集團(Hachette Book Group)的旗下出版社出版。以下是採訪節選：

Q. What was the inspiration behind “Night Heron”? Is it something you always wanted to do?

問：《夜鷺》的靈感來源是什麼？它是你一直想寫的東西嗎？

A. I didn’t harbor a deep ambition to be a fiction writer. I’d always thought of myself as a reporter. Fiction sort of crept up on me. I trace the start of the process back to an odd experience I had in Beijing when I was based there as a correspondent for the BBC.

答：我並沒有特別想成爲小說家。我一直認爲自己是記者。寫小說的想法是悄悄在我頭腦中產生的。它起源於我在北京擔任BBC駐外記者時的一次奇特經歷。

An elderly Chinese man came to the bureau and tried to hand me classified documents. He strongly implied he wanted to pass secrets to the British government, and wanted me to help him do it. I’m pretty certain it was a provocation of some kind, someone dangling secrets at me to see what I’d do. I sent him packing. But in the months and years that followed, I kept thinking about him sitting there on the sofa, clutching his documents and spouting these ludicrously dangerous suggestions, and I found myself spinning a story around him. As the story took shape, the elderly man morphed into a rotund, sharp-eyed rogue named Peanut, and the story became “Night Heron.”

一個上了年紀的中國男人來到社裏，想交給我一些機密文件。他強烈暗示我，他想向英國政府傳送機密，想讓我幫忙。我確信他是在挑撥，向我炫示機密，想看看我的反應。我把他打發走了。但是在之後的幾個月甚至幾年裏，我不斷想起他坐在沙發上，拿着文件，喋喋不休地說着荒唐、危險的建議，我圍繞着他編了一個故事。這個故事成形後，那個上了年紀的男人變成了一個名叫“花生”的圓圓胖胖、目光敏銳的無賴，這個故事就是《夜鷺》。

Q. Were there any models that you used? Any famous espionage thrillers that you consulted? Robert Ludlum? John le Carré?

問：你參考了任何樣本嗎？有沒有參閱什麼著名的間諜驚悚小說？比如羅伯特·勒德拉姆(Robert Ludlum)或約翰·勒卡雷(John le Carré)的作品?

A. I’ve read every word of le Carré and marveled at how he puts the spy novel to serious purpose, how he combines suspense and superb character-driven writing. For atmosphere and economy, Alan Furst. For pace and plot, well, all the greats, Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, Robert Littell. “Night Heron” is first and foremost a suspense novel, but when it aspires to be a little more, it looks up at le Carré for instruction.

答：我讀了勒卡雷的所有作品，爲他把間諜小說用於嚴肅目的，把懸疑和極佳的角色導向寫作融爲一體而驚歎。我向艾倫·弗斯特(Alan Furst)學習氣氛的營造和行文簡潔；向所有偉大的作家學習節奏的把握和情節的設計，比如羅伯特·勒德拉姆、倫恩·戴頓(Len Deighton)和羅伯特·裏特爾(Robert Littell)。《夜鷺》首先是一部懸疑小說，但它想不至於此時，就向勒卡雷學習。

Q. Were any of the characters drawn from your own experiences? And you? How much is Philip Mangan like Adam Brookes, BBC Beijing correspondent?

問：有沒有哪個人物是根據你的親身經歷創作的？菲利普·曼根與你有多少相似之處？

A. Plenty of “Night Heron” ‘s characters draw on encounters that I’ve had over my years as a correspondent: the officious policeman; the quiet, dangerous security type; the smooth and conniving diplomat; Chinese men and women bewildered by change. Philip Mangan, who is my journalist character, shares both my love of reporting and my frustrations with it. But the big difference between him and me is that I told the man who came to my bureau to take his secrets and leave. Philip Mangan didn’t, and through his own vanity, restlessness and misplaced curiosity, was drawn into espionage.

答：《夜鷺》中的很多人物源於我當記者這麼多年遇到的各種人：指手畫腳的警察；沉默危險的國安人員；搞密謀的圓滑外交官；面對變化不知所措的中國男人和女人。我筆下的記者菲利普·曼根跟我一樣，熱愛記者工作，也爲它感到沮喪。但我跟他最大的區別是我讓那個來社裏找我的男人帶着他的機密離開；菲利普·曼根則不然，由於虛榮、不安分以及不合時宜的好奇心，他被捲入了間諜網絡。

Q. There haven’t been too many spy thrillers set in China. Why do you think that is and is it changing?

問：以中國爲背景的間諜驚悚故事不多。你覺得原因是什麼？你覺得情況在變化嗎？

A. I think many readers find China quite forbidding territory. The history can seem bleak and alien, the terrain hard to visualize and navigate. Names are a big problem. The Romanization of Chinese words in the pinyin system makes them very hard to recognize unless you’ve learned the rules of pinyin while studying Chinese. What on earth is a non-Chinese speaker to make of words like xue, or qiu or zhi?

答：我覺得很多讀者認爲中國是一片禁土，認爲那裏的歷史陰暗、陌生，那裏的地貌難以想像和駕馭。名字是個大問題。除非你在學中文時學過拼音規則，否則很難辨識漢字的拼音系統。一個不懂中文的人怎麼可能會念xue、qiu和zhi這樣的拼音呢？

I’ve tried in “Night Heron” to keep the reader who is new to China oriented, and to make sure that I chose names and locations that people can pronounce and keep straight. I’ve tried to show something of China in all its variousness, in its humor, the scope of its culture. In the novel, you’ll come across a little Chinese poetry, some history as experienced and felt by the characters. People have said they like the description of food in the novel because that’s something that everyone can relate to.

爲了讓不太熟悉中國的讀者不至於一頭霧水，我在《夜鷺》中選用的人名和地名都是容易念、不會混淆的。我儘量展示中國的多樣性、精神氣質和文化廣度。在小說中，你會讀到一點中國詩歌以及書中人物經歷過或感受到的歷史。有讀者說他們喜歡小說中的食物描述，因爲它跟每個人都有關係。

I think there is lots of room for spy fiction that takes China seriously as a subject. We know that China spies energetically on Western countries, and there’s a growing body of evidence that we spy vigorously on China, the opaque and complex emerging power. As someone said to me at the beginning of the process of getting “Night Heron” published, Beijing is the new Berlin. The West’s future with a strong and unpredictable China is undefined. The stakes are there. The stories should be there, too.

我覺得以中國爲嚴肅主題的間諜小說還有很大寫作空間。我們知道，中國針對西方國家的間諜活動十分活躍，有越來越多的證據表明，我們也在中國積極進行間諜活動，因爲中國是個不透明的、複雜的新興大國。在《夜鷺》的出版過程之初，有人對我說，北京是新的柏林。由於中國的強大和不可預測，西方國家的未來也變得難以預料。那裏利害攸關。故事也應該發生在那裏。

Q. The novel’s pace is really fast. How hard was it to craft the plot in a way that kept things moving so fast?

問：這本小說的節奏非常快。設計如此快速推進的情節有多難？

A. Hard. The editing process was everything, and I had some very serious help. Professional editors know how to do this stuff, and I listened and learned. I think coming from a background in broadcast journalism might have helped a little with the pacing. Writing for broadcast makes you write tight, and gives you a feel for the rhythms of speech.

答：挺難的。編輯過程是關鍵，我得到了一些非常重要的幫助。專業編輯知道如何做這件事，我傾聽他們的意見，向他們學習。我覺得我的廣播新聞背景可能對把握節奏也有所幫助。爲廣播撰稿會讓你行文緊湊，注意話語韻律。

Q. How much research did you do for the novel in China? Did you go out to Qinghai Province, for example, for the labor camp breakout scene? And how much time did you spend in Beijing? How did you learn about the details of the government agencies in both the Chinese and British governments?

問：你爲這部以中國爲背景的小說做了多少研究？比如說，你是否曾爲勞改營越獄的場景而遠赴青海？你在北京待了多長時間？你是怎麼知道中國和英國的政府機構的細節的？

A. I’ve traveled a lot in China over the years, beginning back in the 1980s when I was a student in Beijing. Seven years as a reporter there gave me a sort of reservoir of scenes and atmospheres to draw on. As for the elements of the novel related to the intelligence agencies — Chinese, British and American — I assembled what I could about how these agencies work and I imagined outwards from there. I had some help from people who know the intelligence trade, and there’s more than you might imagine in the public domain these days — in academia, court records and such like. Living in Washington helps. This city is full of intelligence types, and you can listen to the way they speak. It’s always going to be hard for an outsider to portray the spy world with verisimilitude, but some of the plot threads in “Night Heron” mirror real-life cases. I’ll leave you to figure out which ones.

答：這麼多年我去過中國的很多地方，最早是在20世紀80年代，當時我在北京讀書。我在北京做了七年記者，積蓄了很多可以借用的場景和氛圍。至於小說中與情報機構有關的元素——中國的、英國和美國的——我盡我所能蒐集關於這些機構運行情況的資料，然後展開想像。我從瞭解情報行業的人那裏得到了一些幫助，如今你能在公共領域得到的信息超乎你的想像，比如學界和法庭筆錄等。住在華盛頓也有所幫助。這座城市充滿了各種情報機構，你可以傾聽他們講話的方式。讓一個外行人逼真地描繪間諜世界總會比較難，不過《夜鷺》中的某些情節線索反映的是真實情況。具體是哪些我還是留給你來猜測吧。

Q. That big corporation, Shady Creek, is ominous. Anything analogous in real life? How did the idea of having it as an alternate power come about?

問：那個龐大的公司——暗溪(Shady Creek)——非常兇險。現實生活中有沒有類似的機構？讓它作爲替代勢力的想法是怎麼產生的？

A. I put a quotation at the start of the novel which refers to the growth of an “espionage-industrial complex.” It’s clear that the private sector now plays a significant role in the intelligence activities of the U.S. and U.K. Private corporations supply equipment, manpower, analytic expertise and computing and communications capacity to the intelligence agencies, and on occasion they appear to supply people to carry out operations. With Shady Creek, I’ve tried to imagine how private equity might view opportunities in this growing world of intelligence contracting. Espionage may have been one of the last activities to be conducted solely by the state. Not anymore.

答：我在小說開頭有一段引語，說的是“間諜工業聯合企業”的增長。如今私營公司在美國和英國的情報活動中顯然扮演着重要角色。私營公司爲情報機構提供設備、人力、專業分析意見以及計算機和通訊能力，它們似乎偶爾也提供從事間諜活動的人員。我想通過暗溪公司來想像私營企業如何看待不斷膨脹的情報外包業的機會。間諜活動可能是最後幾項單獨由國家從事的活動之一。不再會有了。

Q. When will the next book be out? And with Hollywood so entranced with the Chinese movie market, is there a chance of this becoming a movie? Or is the small screen more realistic?

問：下一本書何時出版？現在好萊塢對中國電影市場非常着迷，這本小說是否有可能拍成電影？還是更有可能拍成電視劇？

A. The manuscript of “Night Heron” ‘s sequel has just gone to the editors at Little, Brown and is due out in the first half of next year. “Night Heron” has been optioned for the small screen, which I think would suit it well. We wait to see how that develops!

答：《夜鷺》續集的草稿已經交給利特爾&布朗出版社(Little, Brown)的編輯們，計劃明年上半年出版。《夜鷺》的電視劇改編權已經賣出，我覺得它非常適合拍成電視劇。結果如何，讓我們拭目以待！