正骨匠的女儿
2024-10-26
谭爱美（Amy Tan)在华裔女作家中不一定是最成功的，但肯定是最高产的，之所以这样说，就是因为我书架上就至少有她四本大部头小说，其中的一部，就是正骨匠的女儿（The Bonesetter's Daughter）。
烫金的封面，精美的包装，畅销书的作家，自然非一般的自传体作家可比。在这一本小说中，谭爱美讲了她的姑妈和乡民们发现甲骨文和龙骨的故事，并说龙骨可以包治百病:
我有一根兽骨，可能是龟甲，她告诉我。她从袖子里把它捞出来。它看起来像一个带着麻点的干萝卜。我父亲差点把它磨碎当药。然后他看到上面写着字。她把骨头翻过来，我看到奇怪的字符在上下跑动。直到最近，由于有划痕，这类骨头还没有那么值钱。挖骨头的人过去常常用锉刀将它们磨平，然后再将它们卖给药店。现在学者们称这些为甲骨文，售价翻倍。（I have a bone, probably from a turtle, she told me. She fished it from a tuck in her sleeve. It looked like a dried turnip with pockmarks. My father almost ground this up for medicine. Then he saw there was writing on it. She turned the bone over, and I saw strange characters running up and down. Until recently, these kinds of bones weren't so valuable, because of the scratches. Bone diggers used to smooth them with a file before selling them to medicine shops. Now the scholars call these oracle bones, and they sell for twice as much.）
在山口村，穷汉们一有机会就会收集龙骨。女人们也如此，但如果是她们发现了骨头，她们就不得不说是男人们发现的，否则骨头就没有那么值钱了。后来，古董贩子到村里去收购龙骨，然后运到北京，高价卖给药店，药店又以更高的价格卖给病人。众所周知，这些骨头可以治愈任何疾病，从消耗性疾病到愚蠢。很多医生都这么做。宝姨的父亲也是如此。他用骨头来治愈骨头。（In the Mouth of the Mountain, every poor man collected dragon bones when he had a chance. So did the women, but if they found one, they had to say a man found it instead, because otherwise the bone was not worth as much. Later, middlemen went around the village buying the dragon bones, and then they took them to Peking and sold them to medicine shops for high prices, and the shops sold them to sick people for higher prices yet. The bones were well known for curing anything, from wasting diseases to stupidity. Plenty of doctors sold them. And so did Precious Auntie's father. He used bones to heal bones.）
九百多年来，宝姨的祖上一直从事正骨治疗。是祖传秘方。她父亲的顾客大多是在煤矿和石灰石采石场被压垮的男人和男孩。必要时宝姨的父亲也会治疗其他疾病，但接骨是他的专长。他不必去特殊学校就可以成为一名骨科医生。他从观察他的父亲行医的过程中学习，他的父亲也从他父亲的父亲那里学习。那是他们家族的传统。他们还建立了寻找最好龙骨的秘密地点，一个叫做猴颌的地方。是宋代的一位祖先最早在山里干涸的河床最深的峡谷中发现了这个洞穴。以后每一代人都接下来挖啊挖，越挖越深，洞里只有一条软缝通向更远的地方。确切位置的秘密是家族里的传家宝，代代相传，传子不传女，可是到了宝姨的那个时代，由父亲传给了女儿宝姨，又由宝姨传给了我。（For nine hundred years, Precious Auntie's family had been bone-setters. That was the tradition. Her father's customers were mostly men and boys who were crushed in the coal mines and limestone quarries. He treated other maladies when necessary, but bonesetting was his specialty. He did not have to go to a special school to be a bone doctor. He learned from watching his father, and his father learned from his father before him. That was their inheritance. They also passed along the secret location for finding the best dragon bones, a place called the Monkey's Jaw. An ancestor from the time of the Sung Dynasty had found the cave in the deepest ravines of the dry riverbed. Each generation dug deeper and deeper, with one soft crack in the cave leading to another farther in. And the secret of the exact location was also a family heirloom, passed from generation to generation, father to son, and in Precious Auntie's time, father to daughter to me.）
能把一次重大的科学发现和历史事件写进小说，不留痕迹，不能不说谭爱美，还是颇有文字功力和商业眼光的，这也是她得以成功的原因。