Published in 2018 by 发表于 2018 年

(C) Simon Sellars 2018

All rights reserved. 保留所有权利。

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
未经出版商事先书面许可，不得以任何形式或通过任何电子或机械手段，包括影印、录制或任何其他信息存储或检索系统，复制或传播本书的任何部分。

A full catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
这本书的完整目录记录可从大英图书馆获取

This is a work of non-fiction based on unreal events.
这是一部根据虚幻事件改编的非虚构作品。

Printed and bound in the UK by
英国印刷和装订

TJ International, Padstow
TJ 国际，帕德斯托

K-Pulp: New Adventures in Theory-Fiction
K-Pulp：理论小说新冒险

For Sarah, Hazel and Marlo
献给莎拉、海泽尔和马洛

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2023 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation
在 Kahle/Austin 基金会的资助下，互联网档案馆将于 2023 年数字化

There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story is really a confession, then so is mine.
如果不讲述我自己的故事，就无法讲述他的故事。如果他的故事真的是忏悔，那么我的故事也是。

-Willard, Apocalypse Now -威拉德，《现代启示录》

I can trace my decline. That is one of the bittersweet benefits of survival. I can locate the exact moment in time when I joined the theatre of the unwell. I was a high school dropout, pinballing between dead-end jobs.
我可以追溯到我的衰落。这是生存的苦乐参半的好处之一。我可以准确地找到我加入 "不健康剧场 "的时间点。当时我高中辍学，在没前途的工作间辗转。
Once a bright student, I'd squandered my ambition, melting like a fuse under excessive voltage. No one knew why, let alone me. I turned inwards but nothing held my stare. The void was too deep.
我曾经是个聪明的学生，但我的雄心壮志被挥霍一空，就像过高电压下的保险丝一样熔化了。没有人知道为什么，更不用说我了。我转向内心，但没有任何东西能吸引我的目光。虚空太深了。

I lost sight of myself within an interminable fever dream.
我在无休止的狂热梦境中迷失了自我。

I awoke inside an anomalous world.
我在一个异常的世界里醒来。

Something was waiting, oddly familiar.
有什么东西在等待着，奇怪的是，它很熟悉。

Another version of me. 另一个我

A clone, threatening me with erasure.
一个克隆人，威胁要抹去我的记忆。

I was left with no choice but to spark an internal war. The mission: take out the clone. But the fight would expose me to interdimensional radiation. I became sick with time, unable to distinguish between the past, present and future.
我别无选择，只能引发一场内部战争。任务：干掉克隆人。但这场战斗会让我暴露在次元辐射中。我对时间产生了厌恶，无法区分过去、现在和未来。
What's more, I was unskilled in psychic combat, asking the wrong questions and opening the wrong doors.
更重要的是，我不擅长通灵战斗，问错了问题，开错了门。

The dark matter burned me from inside.
黑暗物质从内心深处灼烧着我。

It was the early 90 s, the zenith of cyberculture, an incandescent moment when the embryonic internet went nova.
那是 90 年代初，网络文化的顶峰，互联网雏形初现的炽热时刻。
The net was wild and untamed, a frontier zone occupied by hackers, digital pirates and online insurgents-a cadre of undesirables romanticised in glossy cyberphile magazines. But in the land of the terminally unhip, it was a different story.
网络是狂野的、桀骜不驯的，是黑客、数字盗版者和网上叛乱者占据的前沿地带--光鲜亮丽的网络爱好者杂志浪漫地描绘了这群不受欢迎的人。但在 "无知 "的国度里，情况却截然不同。
Distinguished TV personalities made fools of themselves live on air, asking 'What is internet, anyway?' and struggling to pronounce the '(a)' symbol. The divide was clear.
电视名人在现场直播中出洋相，他们问 "互联网到底是什么？"，并努力发音"（a）"符号。分歧显而易见。
You were either a fearless cybertrooper storming the gilded gates of tomorrow or a clueless rube snowblind from pixel blizzards.
你要么是一个无所畏惧的电子士兵，冲进了未来的金色大门，要么就是一个被像素暴风雪弄得懵懵懂懂的傻瓜。

The net was hyped as a step change in human evolution. One day, thundered the cyberprophets, consciousness would be uploaded to computer mainframes, ditching the body like a booster rocket.
网络被誉为人类进化史上的一个里程碑。网络预言家们如雷贯耳地说，总有一天，人们的意识会被上传到计算机主机上，像助推火箭一样脱离肉体。
The body was dead weight, so much 'meat', and cyber fads like body modification displayed contempt for physical limitations.
身体是死物，是那么多的 "肉"，而身体改造等网络时尚则显示出对身体限制的蔑视。
Swept up in the fervour, I pierced my nose in three places and my tongue in two, but instead of ascension to an enlightened state, all I received was a nasty sinus infection and a speech impediment that lasted for months.
我沉浸在狂热之中，在鼻子上穿了三个洞，舌头上穿了两个洞，但我并没有升华到开悟的境界，而是得了讨厌的鼻窦炎和持续数月的语言障碍。

A gaggle of Californian cyberhippies had come to dominate cyberculture, peddling snake oil about digital utopias and the net as 'the new home of mind', but their dull rhetoric, forged from white-male privilege, left me cold. Where was the danger, the excitement, the diversity?
加利福尼亚的一群网络嬉皮士主宰了网络文化，他们兜售关于数字乌托邦和网络是 "心灵的新家园 "的蛇油，但他们沉闷的言辞，白人男性的特权，让我心寒。危险、刺激和多样性在哪里？
My discontent drew me to cyberpunk, the nihilistic science fiction genre that would expunge forever the hippy communes transplanted from the desert to the net. It was a stark corrective to cyberutopianism. In cyberpunk, virtual reality is the new normal. Alienated loners onto
我的不满情绪把我引向了赛博朋克，这种虚无主义的科幻小说流派将把从沙漠移植到网络上的嬉皮士公社永远清除出去。这是对赛博乌托邦主义的严厉批判。在赛博朋克中，虚拟现实是新常态。被异化的孤独者 到
cyberspace via neural interface, their minds conjoined, their bodies lifeless and slack, but when things go bad the nervous system is destroyed and the mind is warped. Sometimes, death is the consequence. It was a worldview I could buy into.
他们通过神经接口进入网络空间，他们的思想连在一起，身体没有生命，松弛无力，但一旦情况不妙，神经系统就会遭到破坏，思想也会扭曲。有时，死亡就是后果。这是我可以接受的世界观。

Cyberpunk was a more accurate summation of the era, predicting startling research that exposed a sickness at the heart of our culture.
赛博朋克是对这个时代更准确的概括，它预测了令人震惊的研究，暴露了我们文化核心的病态。
In the wake of the cyberprophets, the global news agency Reuters had released a provocative report on information overload that was beginning to unnerve even the staunchest adherents.
在网络预言家之后，全球新闻机构路透社发布了一份关于信息超载的挑衅性报告，甚至连最坚定的拥护者也开始感到不安。
It detailed how the sum total of all available information was doubling in increasingly shorter amounts of time-a tsunami of data swamping the mind, streaming uncontrollably from the new overlapping technologies of faxes, mobile phones, modems, internet and online conferencing.
它详细介绍了所有可用信息的总和如何在越来越短的时间内翻倍--数据海啸淹没了人们的头脑，从传真、移动电话、调制解调器、互联网和在线会议等新的重叠技术中不受控制地涌出。
Meanwhile, the human cost of assimilating and processing this material was increasing exponentially. The result was 'Information Fatigue Syndrome', a peculiarly 90 s phenomenon that atrophied attention spans, shut down the mind and depleted the body.
与此同时，吸收和处理这些材料的人力成本也在成倍增加。其结果就是 "信息疲劳综合症"，这是一种 90 年代特有的现象，它使人的注意力萎缩、思维停滞、体力不支。
Symptoms included 'hyper-aroused psychological condition', 'paralysis of analytical capacity', 'anxiety and self-doubt', and a capacity for 'foolish decisions and flawed conclusions'.
症状包括 "过度亢奋的心理状态"、"分析能力瘫痪"、"焦虑和自我怀疑"，以及做出 "愚蠢决定和得出错误结论 "的能力。
These matched my own situation, for I was nothing if not indolent, and I made an appointment with the doctor to complain about my malaise, which now had a name.
这些都与我的情况相符，因为我如果不懒散的话，那就什么都不是了。我约见了医生，抱怨我的不适，现在我的不适有了名字。

The so-called medical practitioner regarded me with barely concealed contempt as I shrouded my condition in pseudointellectual babble, quoting the Reuters report in a pathetic attempt to make my situation appear more significant than what it was: the torpor of a degenerate slacker.
当我用伪知识分子的胡言乱语来掩饰自己的病情时，这位所谓的医生几乎毫不掩饰地用蔑视的目光看着我，他引用路透社的报道，试图让我的情况看起来比实际情况更重要：一个堕落的懒汉的倦怠。
Information Fatigue Syndrome seemed heroic, an unavoidable consequence of serving in the Info War, of sustained immersion within the new cyber dawn of virtual reality and wraparound technology.
信息疲劳综合征似乎是一种英雄主义，是在信息战争中服役的不可避免的后果，是持续沉浸在虚拟现实和包裹技术的新网络黎明中的不可避免的后果。

'I'm a cyberwarrior,' I told him. 'And my mind is going.'
我是一名网络战士，"我告诉他。'我的大脑正在运转。

The doctor rose wearily from his seat and walked to the medicine cabinet. On his desk was a set of golden blades. I supposed they were scalpels of some kind, but in any case medical scenes always made me nervous and paranoid, and the implements induced a rising panic.
医生疲惫地从座位上站起来，走到药柜前。他的桌子上放着一套金色的刀片。我想那应该是某种手术刀，但无论如何，医疗现场总是让我紧张和疑神疑鬼，而这些工具让我的恐慌不断升温。
The blades were alarming, their geometry mystifying. One of the handles resembled a human knuckle, attached to a point so sharp it seemed to disappear into thin air, and I shuddered at the thought of the atrocities that could be committed with this sacrificial weapon.
这些刀片令人震惊，其几何形状令人费解。其中一个手柄像人的指关节，连着一个锋利的尖头，仿佛消失在空气中，一想到用这种牺牲品武器可能犯下的暴行，我就不寒而栗。

He returned with an unmarked box of pills. He explained their purpose and gave me instructions for taking them, but the details failed to register, since I was distracted by an attractive middle-aged nurse who'd been observing our interaction. I felt a deep stirring of the loins.
他拿着一盒没有标记的药片回来了。他向我解释了这些药的用途，并告诉我如何服用，但我没有注意到这些细节，因为我被一位迷人的中年护士分散了注意力，她一直在观察我们的互动。我感到一阵深深的悸动。
She seemed completely present in some recondite way, as if I'd always known her.
她似乎以某种隐秘的方式完全存在，就好像我一直都认识她一样。

I left the clinic carrying the box, remembering nothing of the doctor's instructions. I opened it. A small, shiny disc fell into my hand.
我抱着盒子离开了诊所，对医生的嘱咐一点也不记得了。我打开盒子。一张闪闪发光的小光盘落在了我的手里。

It was mauve in colour, engraved with the crude outline of a dove.
它是淡紫色的，刻着一只鸽子的粗略轮廓。

The pills generated monstrous side effects. After ingesting them, I'd fail to remember thoughts I'd had moments before. Sometimes, I'd lose contact with critical childhood memories, even my own name and age, as if entire swathes of my brain had been wiped.
药片产生了可怕的副作用。服药后，我会记不起自己刚才的想法。有时，我会失去童年的重要记忆，甚至连自己的名字和年龄都不记得了，就好像整个大脑都被抹去了一样。
This freefall within mindspace would always be accompanied by chaotic spatial disorientation. Walls would fall away, exposing an inky blackness. Floors would vanish, plunging me into a bottomless chasm.
这种心灵空间的自由坠落总是伴随着混乱的空间迷失。墙壁会倒塌，露出一片漆黑。地板会消失，让我陷入无底的深渊。

In the precious moments between these apocalyptic hallucinations, I managed to hold down a part-time job in a warehouse on the outskirts of town. The warehouse belonged to a wholesale distributor, which supplied stationery and magazines to a chain of newsagents.
在这些世界末日般的幻觉之间的宝贵时间里，我设法在城郊的一个仓库里找到了一份兼职工作。仓库属于一家批发商，为连锁报刊亭提供文具和杂志。
My job was to heat-seal ballpoint pens into plastic blister packs. At the rear of the building was a storeroom for remaindered stock. One day, during a tea break, I scavenged it looking for something to read.
我的工作是将圆珠笔热封到塑料泡罩包装中。大楼后面有一个存放剩余存货的储藏室。一天茶歇时间，我在里面找东西看。
Tempted by a cache of softporn periodicals, my eye was drawn to one cover above all. It featured a seductive young woman, her face flushed by a lurid red filter. Sporting devil horns and a saucy grin, she extended her tongue and winked at the camera.
在一堆软色情期刊的诱惑下，我的目光被其中一个封面所吸引。封面上是一位诱人的年轻女子，她的脸被红色滤镜染得通红。她长着恶魔般的犄角，咧开嘴俏皮地笑着，伸出舌头对着镜头眨了眨眼睛。
It wasn't a porno rag but an edition of magazine, the popular fashion chronicle from the 80s, titled 'The Fear Issue'.
这不是一本色情杂志，而是一本 80 年代流行的时尚纪事 杂志，名为 "恐惧特刊"。

On the cover, arranged around the woman in the largest font, blared the headline for an interview with trash-metal musician Zodiac Mindwarp. Progressively smaller fonts advertised other attractions: an interview with legendary gonzo writer Hunter S.
封面上用最大的字体围绕着这位女士，赫然写着垃圾金属音乐家 Zodiac Mindwarp 的专访标题。逐渐变小的字体还宣传了其他景点：采访传奇怪谈作家亨特-S.
Thompson and a heading that simply screamed 'UFOS!'.
汤普森和一个简单地叫着 "UFOS！"的标题。
Tantalised by this vivid mishmash of faded heroes and hypercurrent fads, I scanned the contents, only to discover an essential field guide to the future: an interview with cult author J.G. Ballard, nestled among the back pages.
我被这些生动的英雄人物和超时空潮流的混合体所吸引，扫了一眼内容，却发现了一本通往未来的重要实地指南：在书的后页中夹着对邪教作家 J.G. 巴拉德的采访。

In the 60 s , Ballard had made his name as a science fiction writer, but he was on an elliptical orbit far distant from planets Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. As a boy, I devoured science fiction but I never read him. He was too far underground.
60 年代，巴拉德作为科幻小说家声名鹊起，但他所处的椭圆轨道与阿西莫夫、海因莱因和克拉克的星球相距甚远。我从小就爱读科幻小说，但从未读过他的作品。他太遥远了
I knew of him through blurbs for his work tucked away in the endpapers of less esoteric novels. I was a simple lad keen on Doc Smith's Lensmen series, the sappiest of 'Boy's Own' space operas.
我是在一些不太深奥的小说封底里看到他的作品简介才知道他的。我还是个单纯的孩子，热衷于史密斯博士的《Lensmen》系列，这是 "男孩自己的 "太空歌剧中最悲情的一部。
What was I to make of works described by shell-shocked copywriters as 'chill splinters of unreality' and 'the source of a bleak new evil'?
我如何看待那些被震惊的广告撰稿人描述为 "不真实的寒冷碎片 "和 "凄凉的新邪恶之源 "的作品？

Clearly, for the -D crowd, Ballard was not a drawcard like Mindwarp, for he was nowhere to be found on the cover-rejected by the devil-babe. Admittedly it was weird to find him there at all, this peripheral figure from my youthful forays into science fiction, mixing it with 's bleeding-edge cast of 'Greboes, Waifs, Wannabes, Heavy Metal Christians, Sloane Rebels and Nocturnal Vampettes'. Yet he was more punk, more post-punk, more cyberpunk than any of them.
显然，对于 D人群来说，巴拉德不像《心灵战警》那样吸引人，因为封面上找不到他的身影--他被魔鬼宝贝拒绝了。诚然，发现他出现在封面上很奇怪，他是我年少时接触科幻小说时的边缘人物，与 的 "Greboes、Waifs、Wannabes、Heavy Metal Christians、Sloane Rebels和Nocturnal Vampettes "等边缘人物混杂在一起。然而，他比他们任何人都更朋克、更后朋克、更赛博朋克。

The interview was incendiary, showcasing his deadly ability to pinpoint the moment when technology strafes the uncanny valley.
这次访谈极具煽动性，展示了他的致命能力，能准确地指出技术扫射 "不可思议谷 "的时刻。
He predicted the exact form social media would assume when it came to be invented twenty years into the future, including the psychological fallout from heavy use.
他预测了二十年后社交媒体发明时的确切形态，包括大量使用社交媒体所带来的心理影响。

'Deregulation of the airwaves,' he said, 'will lead to a deregulation of the imagination. People will start screening themselves. They will become their own TV programs.'
他说："放松对电波的管制，'将导致放松对想象力的管制。人们将开始自我筛选。他们将成为自己的电视节目。

He reframed television as a cyborg extension of the mind's eye.
他将电视重新定义为心灵之眼的机械延伸。

'The TV tube is like a flagging piece of nervous tissue-you need a bigger and bigger charge to get a kick out of it.'
电视管就像一块神经组织的旗帜--你需要越来越大的电荷才能从它身上得到刺激。

As a bonus, he explained the theme of suburban breakdown that defines his work.
此外，他还解释了他的作品中 "郊区崩溃 "这一主题。

'Suburban life is a big strain. To maintain this fabric of absolute normality requires powerful repressive forces.'
'郊区生活是一种巨大的压力。要维持这种绝对正常的结构，需要强大的镇压力量。

Perversely, the suburbs animated him. He was fascinated by their existential stasis.
反常的是，郊区给他带来了活力。他被郊区的死寂所吸引。
For Ballard, dystopia is a world where everyone is completely sane, where deviance is factored out of the architecture, bleached from the landscape, siphoned off from human behaviour-the very terms and conditions of suburbia. In the suburbs, he reckons, time is empty.
对巴拉德来说，乌托邦是一个每个人都完全理智的世界，在那里，偏差被从建筑中剔除，被从景观中漂白，被从人类行为中抽离--这正是郊区的条款和条件。他认为，在郊区，时间是空的。
There is no past, no future, just enervation, an eternal present where nothing ever changes, a desert of the soul where memories are replaced by the fictional overlays of consumer goods and the future is always out of reach.
没有过去，也没有未来，有的只是 "窒息"，一个什么都不会改变的永恒的现在，一个灵魂的荒漠，在那里，记忆被虚构的消费品覆盖所取代，未来总是遥不可及。

'The future is going to be boring,' he announced. 'The suburbanisation of the planet will continue, and the suburbanisation of the soul will follow soon after.'
未来将会很无聊，"他宣布。'地球的郊区化将继续下去，灵魂的郊区化也将很快随之而来。

But he also identified a radical counterpoint, a mutant strain. Perhaps a node of resistance. The tedium of the suburbs 'forces the imagination into new areas. I mean, one's got to get up in the morning thinking of a deviant act, merely to make certain of one's freedom.'
但他也发现了一个激进的对立面，一个突变株。也许这是一个抵抗的节点。郊区的乏味'迫使想象力进入新的领域。我的意思是，一个人早上起来就得想一个离经叛道的行为，仅仅是为了确保自己的自由"。

'It needn't be much,' he clarified. Nothing so dramatic as, say, bombing the local video store or beating up homeless immigrants, although characters in his later works would do just that.
不需要太多，"他澄清道。比如说，炸掉当地的音像店或殴打无家可归的移民，尽管在他后来的作品中，人物也会这么做。

'Kicking the dog will do.'
踢狗也行

Accompanying the interview, a monochrome photo portrait enhanced the casual brutality of Ballard's truth bomb. The grain of the photo was large, gritty-as if it might scuff the surrounding pages.
伴随着采访，一张单色肖像照片增强了巴拉德真相炸弹的随意性和残酷性。照片的颗粒很大，很粗糙--仿佛会刮花周围的书页。

Ballard wears a black shirt. He gazes off camera. Framing his left eye with his thumb and forefinger, he pulls the cheek down to reveal a wide, opaque pupil.
巴拉德身穿黑色衬衫。他凝视着镜头外。他用拇指和食指勾住左眼，向下拉动眼颊，露出宽大而不透明的瞳孔。

I was struck by that visual cryptogram and tried to crack its code. What exactly was he signalling?
我被这幅视觉密码图所震撼，并试图破解它的密码。他究竟在暗示什么？
I never knew until years later, when, reading the local newspaper, the answer came at last, surfacing from a random connection before announcing its presence with alien electricity, like an unpredictable spark jagging from a Tesla coil.
直到多年以后，当我阅读当地报纸时，答案终于出现了，它从一个偶然的连接中浮现，然后用外来的电流宣布它的存在，就像特斯拉线圈中迸发出的不可预知的火花。
On the front page, there was a lurid account of a brawl at Sydney Airport between rival biker gangs who'd found themselves on the same flight.
头版头条报道了悉尼机场的一场斗殴，斗殴双方是搭乘同一航班的摩托车帮。
Neither was happy about being cooped up in a claustrophobic tube with sworn enemies, and when the plane landed a brutal skirmish erupted.
两人都不乐意与死敌一起被关在幽闭的管子里，飞机着陆后，双方爆发了激烈的冲突。
One biker was sacrificed, his head caved in by a metal crowdcontrol bollard, wielded like an axe by his assailant, as desperate parents shielded their children's eyes from his brains splattered across the sleek terminal floor. How would these hapless
一名摩托车手牺牲了，他的头被一根金属制的人群控制柱砸得凹了进去，袭击者像挥舞斧头一样挥舞着他的头，绝望的父母们护住他们孩子的眼睛，不让他的脑浆溅到光滑的航站楼地板上。这些无助的
holidaymakers cope with the savage event that shattered the unreality of their jet-lagged state?
度假者们如何应对这一野蛮事件？

According to a witness, the simmering tension aboard the plane was ignited when a biker sent a bizarre message to a rival: he 'put his hand to his face and with his finger pulled down his cheek to reveal the pink of his eye'.
据一名目击者称，一名摩托车手向一名竞争对手发送了一条奇怪的信息："他把手放在脸上，用手指拉下脸颊，露出粉红色的眼球"，这点燃了飞机上一触即发的紧张气氛。
When I read that detail, it hit me like a captive bolt to a cow's head, for suddenly I knerw.
当我读到这个细节时，就像牛头被拴住了一样，我突然明白了。

In the photo portrait, Ballard sends the exact same signal, an arcane intimation that his fictional experiments were aiming for an identical result: the awakening, by any means possible, of complacent suburban stiffs from their dreamlike existence.
在照片肖像中，巴拉德发出了完全相同的信号，一种神秘的暗示，他虚构实验的目的是为了一个相同的结果：不择手段地唤醒自满的郊区人，让他们从梦幻般的生活中清醒过来。

However, at the time I encountered I was yet to receive that insight. It would not be revealed to me until a far-future time, when events had taken their full course and I was in thrall to a black force beyond reason.
然而，在我遇到 的时候，我还没有领悟到这一点。直到很久很久以后，当事件发展到一定程度，我被一股超乎常理的黑色力量所控制时，我才恍然大悟。

For the moment, all I could do was read and re-read the interview, staring into Ballard's open eye, inadvertently setting the wheels in motion, willing the Ballardian signal to overpower the broadcast feed that had colonised my brain, as if he were a pirate of the airwaves splicing pornographic material into prime-time television.
此时此刻，我所能做的就是反复阅读这篇访谈，凝视着巴拉德睁开的眼睛，不经意间启动了车轮，希望巴拉德的信号能够压倒占据我大脑的广播信号，就好像他是一个在电视黄金时段拼接色情内容的电波海盗。

When my shift ended, I commenced the long walk home from the warehouse. The weather was hot and dusty, and the deadly rays from the high sun reflected off the vicious concrete expanses that passed for public space.
下班后，我开始从仓库步行回家。天气炎热，尘土飞扬，高悬的太阳照在作为公共空间的水泥地上，反射出致命的光芒。
The intense glare, blotting out all life and colour, was like an atomic flash, and I half-expected my shadow to be seared onto the bleak pavement. I passed unpeopled industrial areas, hissing power substations and
强烈的眩光遮蔽了所有的生命和色彩，就像原子弹的闪光，我半信半疑自己的影子会被灼伤在荒凉的人行道上。我经过了没有人烟的工业区、嘶嘶作响的变电站和
cavernous breaker yards. I negotiated the back streets that surrounded an infestation of dun-coloured brick factoryettes, each small and foreboding, with iron-bar windows, like private torture dens rented out to the highest bidder to do whatever they liked behind closed doors.
洞穴式的断路器堆场。我在小巷中穿梭，周围是一片片灰褐色的砖瓦厂房，每间都小而阴森，窗户都是铁栅栏，就像私人刑讯室，出租给出价最高的人，让他们关起门来为所欲为。
On the road I discovered a slaughtered chicken, spattered with blood and innards. Its belly had been ripped open, presumably by a large knife, and someone had drawn a chalk circle around the miserable carcass.
在路上，我发现了一只被宰杀的鸡，鸡身上溅满了鲜血和内脏。它的肚子被撕开了，估计是被一把大刀，有人用粉笔在这具惨不忍睹的尸体周围画了一个圈。
The bird's feathers were stuck to the chalk with blood and appeared to be deliberately arranged to form inscrutable symbols-a satanic suburban crop circle.
这只鸟的羽毛被鲜血粘在粉笔上，似乎被故意排列成难以捉摸的符号--撒旦郊区的麦田怪圈。

I passed three battered baby carriages discarded on a nature strip. The wheels and handles were missing and the hoods were in shreds, as if the demented prams had been chewed up and spat out.
我经过三辆被丢弃在自然地带的破旧婴儿车。车轮和把手都不见了，车盖也破破烂烂，就像被嚼碎吐掉了一样。
While people worldwide pondered the modern-day mystery of why sneakers were being suspended by the laces over suburban power lines, here these occult prams materialised instead, their origin and purpose unknown.
当全世界的人们都在思考为什么运动鞋的鞋带会被悬挂在郊区的电线上这一现代之谜时，这些神秘的婴儿车却在这里出现了，它们的起源和目的都不得而知。
Indeed, that trio of unholy carriages was not the first I'd discovered (they always appeared in threes), and I wondered whether their former occupants had been herded behind the heavy steel doors of those evil factoryettes to suffer the fate of the miserable chicken.
事实上，这三辆邪恶的马车并不是我发现的第一辆（它们总是三三两两地出现），我不知道它们的前主人是否已经被赶到那些邪恶工厂沉重的铁门后面，遭受悲惨的鸡的命运。

I reached my house. I knew that I was utterly trapped, that I would suffer the slow burn of suburban death if I didn't take swift action. I opened the front door. The fuses had blown and the power was off.
我到了家门口。我知道，我被彻底困住了，如果不迅速采取行动，我就会在郊区慢慢死去。我打开前门。保险丝烧断了，电源也断了。
The hallway was pitch black, the darkness hemming me in with the coordinates of madness, as if I was suffering another spatial hallucination from the damned pills. Ballard's peircing eye probed my mind, beckoning me into the mirror world.
走廊里漆黑一片，黑暗以疯狂的坐标将我包围，仿佛我又一次因该死的药丸而产生了空间幻觉。巴拉德那双窥视的眼睛探入我的脑海，召唤我进入镜像世界。

I crossed the threshold. 我跨过门槛。

With my senses reeling from the satanic breadcrumbs I'd
我被撒旦的面包屑弄得晕头转向。
followed to find my way home, I decided to risk all and 'kick the dog'. I decided to read Crash, Ballard's most notorious novel. After all, those were the days when consuming dangerous literature could be a liberating act.
为了找到回家的路，我决定冒险 "踢狗"。我决定读巴拉德最臭名昭著的小说《撞车》。毕竟，在那个年代，阅读危险文学作品是一种解放行为。
And Crash was certainly in the danger zone, a work so depraved it was originally rejected by the publisher's reader, who could only issue a desperate plea: 'This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do not publish.'
而《撞车》无疑处于危险地带，这部作品如此堕落，最初被出版商的读者拒绝，他们只能发出绝望的请求：'这位作者已经无法接受精神治疗了。不要出版。

With a come-on like that, I was unable to resist.
面对这样的诱惑，我无法抗拒。

I became a Ballardian. 我成了巴拉迪主义者。

Crash changed my life by torching everything that came before. It reversed the negativity that engulfed me, channelling it into something new, radical and sensuous. The narrator of this seditious work is called 'James Ballard'.
撞车 "改变了我的生活，焚毁了之前的一切。它扭转了吞噬我的负面情绪，将其转化为新的、激进和感性的东西。这部煽动性作品的叙述者名叫 "詹姆斯-巴拉德"。
He's a rough copy of the real Ballard, a flawed clone, who infiltrates a group of urban professionals bored with their jobs and their marriages-bored with themselves.
他是真实巴拉德的翻版，是一个有缺陷的克隆人，他潜入了一群对工作和婚姻感到厌倦的城市专业人士之中。
They pledge allegiance to Vaughan, a 'hoodlum scientist' who nurtures their darkest desires, promising to recalibrate their android lives in 'a nightmare marriage of sex and technology'.
他们向沃恩宣誓效忠，这位 "流氓科学家 "培养了他们最阴暗的欲望，并承诺在 "性与技术的噩梦结合 "中重新调整他们的机器人生活。

Vaughan has a master plan. He wants to induce global 'autogeddon', a primitive singularity uniting man and machine 'in a terminal congress of spurting loins and engine coolant'.
沃恩有一个总体计划。他想在全球范围内引发 "自动毁灭"（autogeddon），一种原始的奇异现象，让人类和机器 "在喷涌而出的乳汁和发动机冷却液的终极大会上 "结合在一起。
Tuned in to police radio, his damaged crew descend like vultures upon car accidents and even cause and stage their own, inhaling the atmosphere of trauma like perfume, bearing the scars of numerous accidents as they fuck each other's crash wounds or pleasure themselves while watching crash-test dummies pulverised to oblivion.
他的损友们收听警方广播，像秃鹰一样捕食车祸，甚至制造和制造自己的车祸，像香水一样吸入创伤的气氛，带着无数事故留下的伤痕，他们互相干对方的车祸伤口，或者看着车祸试验假人被撞得粉身碎骨而自得其乐。

When they admit crash-induced pain into their flesh, a hybrid lifeform bursts from its cocoon.
当它们将撞击引起的疼痛植入自己的肉体时，一个混合生命体就会破茧而出。
The body is indelibly altered and the resultant scars become conduits to a new and more intense sexuality, accelerated by the logic of the car crash and its intimate reshaping of the human form.
身体发生了不可磨灭的改变，由此留下的伤疤成为一种新的、更强烈的性欲的通道，车祸的逻辑及其对人体形态的亲密重塑加速了这种性欲。
There can be no return, an insight revealed to 'Ballard' when he takes LSD and drives across the motorway system that defines his world.
当 "巴拉德 "服下迷幻药，驾车穿越定义了他的世界的高速公路系统时，他发现自己已经无法回头。
As the acid trip peaks, he hallucinates that he has become one with the machine, the bones in his arms 'forming a solid coupling with the shift of the steering column', the vibrations from the gears shooting down his legs and spine as if he were 'lying in the transmission tunnel'.
当迷幻药的药效达到顶峰时，他产生了与机器融为一体的幻觉，手臂上的骨头 "与转向柱的移动形成了牢固的耦合"，齿轮的震动顺着他的双腿和脊柱射下，仿佛他 "躺在变速箱隧道里"。

I knew that on some level Crash's cyborg metaphor warned against the outsourcing of bodily functions to technology, but still it turned me on. I couldn't help it. At heart I remained a cyberfetishist, despite my injurious prior flirtation with body modification.
我知道，在某种程度上，克拉舍的半机械人隐喻警告人们不要把身体机能外包给技术，但它仍然让我兴奋不已。我情不自禁。尽管我之前曾对身体改造有过伤害性的调戏，但从内心来说，我仍然是一个网络恋物癖者。
I became obsessed with Gabrielle, one of Vaughan's initiates, a disabled woman clad in leg braces.
我迷上了加布里埃尔，她是沃恩的入门者之一，一个戴着腿部支架的残疾女人。
Her physical frame has been reconfigured by her willing participation in numerous crashes, and she proudly displays the unique contours of her scarred hands and deformed knees, radiating a humid fetishistic charge.
她的身体因自愿参与无数次撞车事故而被重组，她自豪地展示着自己伤痕累累的双手和变形的膝盖的独特轮廓，散发出一种潮湿的恋物情结。
Ballard's prose isolates her jagged body parts, placing them in geometric conjunctions with leather car seats, disability-enhanced steering wheels and the chromium trim of vehicles.
巴拉德的散文将她锯齿状的身体部位分离出来，将它们与真皮汽车座椅、增强残疾功能的方向盘和汽车的铬饰面形成几何组合。
Her movements form a cryptogram of prosthetics, flesh and metal, obliterating the boundaries between woman and machine.
她的动作由假肢、肉体和金属组成一个密码图，抹去了女人和机器之间的界限。
Naturally, her callipers and wounds are worshipped by 'Ballard', his hypnotic obsession with them leading ineluctably to the moment when the couple fulfil their technolust. He strokes Gabrielle's leg irons as if admiring the finish on a new car, then fucks the vaginal, crash-borne scar on her thigh, 'irrigating' it with his semen.
自然而然，她的卡钳和伤口受到了 "巴拉德 "的崇拜，他对这些催眠般的痴迷不可避免地导致了这对情侣实现技术性性欲的那一刻。他抚摸着加布里埃尔的脚镣，仿佛在欣赏一辆新车的漆面，然后用精液 "灌溉 "她大腿上那道车祸留下的阴道疤痕。

In -D, Crash is described as 'technoporn', a trashy, gleaming
在《 -D》中，《撞车》被描述为 "技术色情"，是一部庸俗的、闪闪发光的作品。
portmanteau word that reflected my soul back to me. When the novel was first published in the 70s, Ballard said it had 'a small intense following-a few psychopaths and amputees-sending me their porno photos'.
巴拉德说："这是我的灵魂在我身上的反映。巴拉德说，这本小说在上世纪70年代首次出版时，"有一小部分追随者--一些精神病患者和截肢者--给我寄来他们的色情照片"。
It was as if it could warp the mind to become attracted to what was once considered repugnant.
它仿佛能扭曲人的心灵，使人被曾经被认为是令人厌恶的东西所吸引。

Desperate to break free of my inexplicable stupor, I succumbed to Crash's spell.
我拼命挣脱莫名其妙的昏迷，屈服于克拉舍的魔咒。
Gabrielle's machinic curves continued to beguile, merging with my ongoing fantasy of the middle-aged nurse, who, having first materialised in the doctor's surgery, had taken up residency in my imagination.
加布里埃尔机械般的曲线继续诱惑着我，与我对中年护士的幻想融为一体，她最初出现在医生的手术室里，现在已经在我的想象中占据了一席之地。

The thought of Gabrielle's shimmering chromium callipers, offset by the blinding white of the nurse's uniform, cleaved my mind in two.
一想到加布里埃尔闪闪发光的铬合金卡钳被护士服刺眼的白色所抵消，我的心就被劈成了两半。

I never recovered. 我从此一蹶不振。

It was, I suppose, a response to a sort of spiritual afflictionthe sickness of no-time.
我想，这是对一种精神折磨的回应--没有时间的疾病。

One night, I drove while under the influence of the pills. I wanted to use them to my advantage for once, hoping their altered reality would replicate Crash's LSD insights.
一天晚上，我在药片的作用下开车。我想利用这一次，希望它们改变的现实能复制克拉舍的迷幻药洞察力。
But instead of a rapturous vision of my own union with technology, I experienced only a crippling loss of self. I should've known mass-produced pharmaceuticals would never do. Only an artisanal synthesised high, like the narrator's, could marry me with the machine.
但是，我并没有体验到自己与科技结合的喜悦，而是体验到了自我的残缺。我早该知道，大批量生产的药品永远不会奏效。只有像叙述者那样的人工合成的高潮，才能让我与机器结合。

After an hour of reckless driving, I pulled over into a slip road, convinced I would meet my doom if I remained mobile. I could see myself driving off an overpass in a moment of heightened panic and bursting into flames below, or hallucinating a
经过一个小时的鲁莽驾驶，我把车停在了一条支路上，我确信如果我继续行驶，就会遭遇灭顶之灾。我可以看到自己在高度恐慌的一瞬间驶下高架桥，在下面燃起熊熊大火，或者幻觉中出现一个
phantom truck surging headlong towards me, forcing me to swerve onto the oncoming lane and into the path of an actual vehicle.
幽灵卡车一头冲向我，迫使我转向迎面而来的车道，冲向一辆真正的汽车。

Through the shatterproof glass of the windscreen, I saw a sign scarred with an index of trauma.
透过挡风玻璃的防碎玻璃，我看到了一个伤痕累累的标志。

1990: 601

1991: 876

1992: 548

1993: ?

I tried to decode this numerical mystery. Why had the stars aligned so catastrophically in 1991? What would 1993's tally be? The sign instilled heavy dread.
我试图破解这个数字之谜。为什么 1991 年的星相如此灾难性？1993 年的数字又会是多少呢？这个征兆给我带来了沉重的恐惧。

Why? 为什么？

I lived in Melbourne, a blighted place, one of the world's largest exurban conglomerates, machine calibrated for vehicles to move rapidly across long distances.
我住在墨尔本，那是一个满目疮痍的地方，是世界上最大的外城综合体之一，是专门为车辆长距离快速行驶而设计的机器。
From a young age, I was forced to bathe in that metallic glow, developing a subliminal awareness of the status symbols and hidden meanings embedded in car culture. As a child, I lived in a suburb in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges.
从小，我就被迫沐浴在金属光泽中，潜移默化地意识到汽车文化中蕴含的地位象征和隐含意义。小时候，我住在丹顿农山脉山麓的郊区。
The area was crosshatched by endless freeways perpetually crawling with heavy-duty industrial road trains, military-grade enforcement vehicles and juiced-up, high-speed muscle cars.
该地区被一望无际的高速公路所覆盖，这些高速公路上永远行驶着重型工业道路列车、军用执法车辆和加满油的高速肌肉车。
Service roads scarred the landscape, lined with tyre outlets, truck mechanics and car showrooms. The stench of oil, petrol and rubber coated the air like industrial perfume.
辅路两旁布满了轮胎销售点、卡车修理工和汽车展厅。空气中弥漫着机油、汽油和橡胶的臭味，就像工业香水一样。

There was a pub wedged into the intersection between the two major freeways, isolated like a remote Pacific island. Beer flowed like water there. There were no footpaths leading to the pub.
在两条主要高速公路的交叉路口，有一家酒吧与世隔绝，就像一个偏僻的太平洋小岛。那里的啤酒像水一样流动。没有通往酒馆的人行道。

The only way to reach it was by car. The only way to leave it was by car. The quickest way to die was by car, drunk at the wheel. On the surrounding roads, there were no pedestrian refuge islands, nowhere walkers could gain respite. Walking? Unheard of.
到达那里的唯一方式是乘车。离开它的唯一方法就是开车。醉酒驾车是最快的死亡方式。在周围的道路上，没有行人避难岛，步行者无处喘息。步行？闻所未闻。
No one walks anywhere in outer-suburban Melbourne, not in an environment designed to wipe us all from the face of the earth.
在墨尔本郊外，没有人在任何地方行走，在这样一个旨在将我们从地球表面抹去的环境中也没有人行走。

Staring at the sign, I felt a chill sense of cosmic entrapment, as if I'd imagined parking in that remote slip road many years ago, drawing my body closer to the location until finally it was inhabiting the prediction.
凝视着这个标志，我感到一种被宇宙禁锢的寒意，仿佛多年前我就想象着把车停在那条偏僻的支路上，把我的身体拉近这个地方，直到最后它栖息在这个预言中。
Clearly, my childhood had delivered me there, but as soon as I'd formed that thought I'd forgotten it.
显然，我的童年把我送到了那里，但我刚有这个想法，就把它忘了。
The realisation that I was once again adrift in mental space was the last straw for my battered psyche and I steeled myself for a return of the terrifying hallucinations, defeated by the medical terror pulsing relentlessly through my bloodstream.
我意识到自己又一次在精神空间中漂泊了，这是我饱受打击的心灵的最后一根稻草，我为再次出现可怕的幻觉做好了准备，我被血液中无情涌动的医学恐怖打败了。
Nonetheless, I knew I had to wait it out, to let the horror wash over me in whatever form it might take, no matter the risk to my sanity, so that I might be cleansed as I emerged from the other side.
尽管如此，我知道我必须等待下去，让恐怖以任何形式冲刷我，不管我的理智会冒多大风险，这样我才能在从另一边出来时得到净化。

The sign continued to interrogate my soul.
这个标志继续拷问着我的灵魂。

Growing up in Melbourne, I was subjected to an endless stream of roadkill public safety announcements. We all were.
我在墨尔本长大，耳濡目染的是层出不穷的 "马路杀手 "公共安全公告。我们都是如此。
Made by the Transport Accident Commission, these horrific productions warned of the nightmare on our roads and were filled with scenes of carnage, yet I was ashamed to discover that their primal jolt thrilled me to the bone.
这些由交通事故委员会制作的恐怖片警示着我们道路上的噩梦，充满了屠杀的场面，然而我却羞愧地发现，这些原始的刺激让我兴奋到了骨子里。
The TAC staged their cautionary accidents with machine-gun editing, speed-cranked action and hyperfluid camerawork, all trademarks of the film Mad
TAC 用机关枪式的剪辑、速度极快的动作和超流畅的摄影，上演了一出出令人警醒的事故，这些都是《疯狂的赛车》的标志。

Max, which fourteen years earlier had reinvented the cinematic car crash.
十四年前，《麦克斯》重新发明了电影中的车祸。

The film's tortured anti-hero is Max Rockatansky, a burntout, speed-addicted cop in a decaying, pre-apocalyptic society, where hotted-up cars sanction the murderous impulses of the dehumanised psychos behind the wheel.
麦克斯-罗卡坦斯基是影片中饱受折磨的反英雄人物，他是一名嗜速如命的警察，生活在一个末世前的腐朽社会中，在那里，热气腾腾的汽车助长了那些丧失人性的疯子的杀人冲动。
Max captures precisely the seductive, split-second cyborg rhythm of high-octane driving, but what was the TAC's real intent? To manipulate the viewer to climax with state-sanctioned illicit thrills? There can be no other conclusion.
《麦克斯》准确捕捉到了高速行驶中极具诱惑力的瞬间机械节奏，但 TAC 的真正意图是什么？操纵观众达到国家认可的非法刺激的高潮？没有其他结论。
The Max aesthetic is triggered at the point of impact, the precise moment when we're supposed to solemnly condemn the terror of the roads, to feel the fullest revulsion at the casual violence underpinning our lives.
麦克斯的美学是在撞击点触发的，也就是我们应该庄严谴责道路上的恐怖，对我们生活中的偶然暴力感到最强烈反感的时刻。
Just as the hyperstylised Max implicates us in the total horror of the road crash, seducing us with the undeniable pleasures of speed, so the TAC embraces the total aesthetic experience of the film crash. They are two versions of reality, separated by ideology.
就像夸张的《麦克斯》将我们卷入了车祸的恐怖之中，用无可否认的速度快感诱惑着我们，《TAC》也将电影中车祸的美学体验融入其中。它们是被意识形态隔开的两个现实版本。

Doubtless the Transport Accident Commission films were designed to evoke the iconic role Max plays in the Australian psyche, mimicking the film's stylistic tropes, drawing upon its cultural resonance as a storied symbol of our predilection for vehicular carnage.
毫无疑问，交通事故委员会的电影旨在唤起麦克斯在澳大利亚人心目中扮演的标志性角色，模仿电影的风格套路，利用其文化共鸣，将其作为我们嗜好车辆屠杀的传奇象征。
Yet placed within their shocking, 'naturalistic' context, the Max-style impulses generated by the TAC productions are unnaturally disavowed.
然而，在其令人震惊的 "自然主义 "背景下，TAC 作品所产生的马克思式的冲动被不自然地否定了。

Crash sutures the duelling ideologies.
碰撞缝合了对立的意识形态。
The novel embeds Ballard's concept of 'inner space', an alternative mindscape generated when his characters react against totalising systems of control so that 'dream and reality become fused together, each retaining its own distinctive quality and yet in some way assuming the role of its opposite'.
这部小说包含了巴拉德的 "内在空间 "概念，当他笔下的人物对全面化的控制系统做出反应时，就会产生另一种心灵景观，从而 "梦想与现实融合在一起，各自保留其独特的品质，但又在某种程度上扮演其对立面的角色"。
He frames this paradox in the simplest terms: 'By an undeniable logic black simultaneously becomes white.'
他用最简单的语言阐述了这一悖论：根据一种不可否认的逻辑，黑色同时变成了白色。

Inner space is the engine of ambivalence that powers Crash,
内心空间是《撞车》的矛盾引擎、
since for all the novel's radical sexuality its side effects are queasy and disturbing, revealing the flipside of Ballard's subversive dream logic.
尽管小说的性描写十分激进，但其副作用却令人不安，揭示了巴拉德颠覆性梦境逻辑的另一面。
One particular sequence, riven with existential dread, forced me to plot my uneasy childhood, with its normalised backdrop of violence, onto new coordinates.
其中一段充满了生存恐惧，迫使我在新的坐标上描绘自己不安的童年，以及暴力常态化的背景。

For many years, the narrator had been 'bludgeoned by billboard harangues and television films of imaginary accidents', the British equivalent of the TAC ads, bequeathing him a 'vague sense of unease that the gruesome climax of my life was being rehearsed years in advance'.
多年来，叙述者一直被 "广告牌上的煽动和电视上关于假想事故的影片所冲击"，这相当于英国的 TAC 广告，给他留下了 "一种模糊的不安感，即我生命中可怕的高潮正在多年前就被排练好了"。
He even has a premonition of how he will die: filmed unwittingly for one of these televised psychodramas on a secret road, its location known only by the filmmakers.
他甚至预感到了自己的死亡方式：在一条秘密的道路上，他无意中被拍成了电视心理剧，而这条道路的位置只有电影制作人知道。

One day, he crashes into another car on the motorway and admits his fate: 'After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda, it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.'
有一天，他在高速公路上撞上了另一辆车，他承认了自己的命运："在无休止地被道路安全宣传轰炸之后，发现自己遭遇了一场真正的事故，这几乎是一种解脱。

Although I was dimly aware that his rendezvous was a symptom of the inexorable logic driving Vaughan's program of posthumanism, that night I understood only this: white had become black.
虽然我隐约意识到他的约会是沃恩的后人道主义计划中不可阻挡的逻辑的一个征兆，但那天晚上我只明白了一点：白色变成了黑色。
Under the watch of the ominous sign, the slip road where I'd parked had become the mysterious road upon which 'Ballard' would meet his doom, and I was marked for death simply by having viewed the TAC ads, thrilling guiltily to their superbly crafted Max aesthetic, my attraction to technique absorbing me into a hyper-simulated world where there was no escape from the vectors of speed and trauma.
在不祥标志的注视下，我停车的那条支路成了 "巴拉德 "遭遇厄运的神秘道路，而我仅仅因为看了 TAC 的广告就被打上了死亡的标记，我为其精湛的马克思美学而感到内疚，我对技术的吸引力将我带入了一个超模拟的世界，在那里，我无法摆脱速度和创伤的矢量。

For the historian Graeme Davison, 'the apocalyptic violence of Mad Max recalls a moment when Melbourne's roads were truly killing fields'. The sign, with its confronting statistics, begged a return to form. It sent a message: the killing fields had re-opened for business.
在历史学家格雷姆-戴维森（Graeme Davison）看来，"《疯狂的麦克斯》中世界末日般的暴力让人回想起墨尔本道路真正成为杀戮战场的时刻"。这块标牌上的统计数据令人触目惊心，它乞求人们恢复正常生活。它传递了一个信息：杀戮战场已重新开始营业。
The sign's single question mark, bolded in a bloodred font, press-ganged us all into a drive towards death, coercing us to beat the record, as if we were powerless to halt the carnage.
牌子上的一个问号用血红的字体加粗，把我们所有人都逼上了死亡之路，强迫我们打破纪录，仿佛我们无力阻止这场大屠杀。

Davison is a sober writer, not prone to hyperbole. In fact, Max's director, George Miller, developed the film's script after experiencing two threshold moments.
戴维森是一位冷静的作家，不喜欢夸张。事实上，《麦克斯》的导演乔治-米勒（George Miller）就是在经历了两次 "临界点 "之后，才完成了电影剧本的创作。
During the global oil crisis of the mid-70s, he read in the paper about frustrated motorists who'd turned feral at a Melbourne petrol station, attacking each other for the last drops of fuel.
在上世纪 70 年代中期的全球石油危机期间，他在报纸上读到，在墨尔本的一个加油站，沮丧的驾车者变得疯狂，为了最后一滴油而互相攻击。
Later, working as a doctor in Melbourne, he treated numerous road-accident victims and was struck by the nightmarish intensity and frequency of the crashes. For Miller, these events were interconnected, as if the city had been possessed by a malevolent force.
后来，他在墨尔本当医生，治疗了许多交通事故受害者，并被噩梦般的车祸强度和频率所震撼。对米勒来说，这些事件都是相互关联的，就好像这座城市被一股邪恶的力量占据了一样。
In the 70s, drinkdriving was horrifyingly common in Melbourne, frequently accompanied by savage aggression. There were so many road deaths, around a thousand every year, that Miller said it was 'as though we are operating under some immutable law of nature.
上世纪 70 年代，墨尔本的酒驾现象非常普遍，经常伴随着野蛮的攻击行为。每年大约有一千人死于交通事故，以至于米勒说 "就好像我们是在某种永恒不变的自然法则下运行"。
We make funny noises, but none of us really understands what's happening. The USA has its gun culture, we have our car culture.'
我们发出滑稽的声音，但没有人真正明白发生了什么。美国有它的枪支文化，我们有我们的汽车文化。

Mad Max upholds this view of technological carnage as natural law. After Max's wife and son are slaughtered on the open road by a biker gang, he seeks revenge.
《疯狂的麦克斯》坚持这种将技术屠杀视为自然法则的观点。麦克斯的妻子和儿子在公路上被摩托车团伙屠杀后，他开始复仇。
He steals the police force's fastest car, a Ford V8 Interceptor, and brutally kills the bikers one by one, running them off the road or chaining them to homemade bombs.
他偷了警队最快的汽车--一辆福特 V8 拦截者，残忍地将飙车族一个个杀死，或将他们撞出马路，或将他们拴在自制炸弹上。
Max has been stripped of his humanity, savaged by the ongoing car wars and hopelessly addicted to speed and violence (he's like a kid in a candy store when he first sees the Interceptor).
麦克斯已被剥夺了人性，在持续不断的汽车战争中饱受摧残，并无可救药地沉迷于速度和暴力（他第一次看到拦截者时，就像一个在糖果店里的孩子）。
He has become as psychotic as the gang he hunts, and when he walks into police headquarters to retrieve his secret weapon, a clever screen wipe shows the Interceptor instantly driving back out, replacing the broken man from a moment before-as if Max has become the machine.
当他走进警察总部取回他的秘密武器时，一个巧妙的屏幕擦除显示拦截者瞬间又开了出来，取代了刚才那个残缺的人--仿佛麦克斯已经变成了机器。
To Melburnians, Mad Max is not fiction but a documentary.
对墨尔本人来说，《疯狂的麦克斯》不是小说，而是一部纪录片。

As I waited within the confines of my car for the end to arrive, I replayed that screen wipe in my mind.
当我在车内等待终点到来时，我在脑海中重现了那一幕幕画面。

Melbourne's killing fields... an immutable laze... We make apocalyptic noises but we'll never understand.
墨尔本的杀戮战场......亘古不变的慵懒...我们发出世界末日的声音 但我们永远不会明白

I imagined myself propelled to my death by forces I could not fathom, just like the victim in Crash who smashes into the narrator's car and is hurled through the windscreen, striking the bonnet.
我想象着自己被一种我无法理解的力量推向死亡，就像《撞车》中的受害者一样，他撞上了叙述者的汽车，被抛出挡风玻璃，撞到引擎盖上。
In that frozen moment, as 'Ballard' watches the man die, a pattern forms on the victim's hand, puffed up 'into a huge blood-blister-the triton signature of my radiator emblem'.
在那个凝固的瞬间，当 "巴拉德 "眼睁睁地看着那个人死去时，受害者的手上形成了一个图案，"膨胀成一个巨大的血泡--我的散热器徽章上的三元标志"。
This stark incident underscores a key insight of the narrator's acid trip: when incomplete bodies, fractured by the demands of capitalism, are rebuilt, they're bound together by the signs and symbols of banal technology.
这一严酷的事件凸显了叙述者 "迷幻之旅 "中的一个重要观点：当因资本主义的要求而支离破碎的不完整的身体被重建时，它们被平庸的技术符号和象征物捆绑在了一起。

And as my disordered mind aligned this with the ciphers of Melbourne's auto-death, I received a personal epiphany. Miller's immutable natural law was inextricably linked with my own pathetic death-drive, with the reason I'd been prescribed the accursed pills in the first place.
当我混乱的大脑把这一切与墨尔本自动死亡的密码联系起来时，我获得了个人的顿悟。米勒永恒不变的自然法则与我自己可悲的死亡驱动力密不可分，这也是我一开始就被处方可恶药片的原因。
Even before reading Crash, I'd been fully primed by Mad Max and those nasty road safety ads, so that when Ballard's novel finally revealed its secrets to me, I experienced a mighty temporal shift, the outline of my physical body syncing out of phase with my soul, ontological layers rubbing together and moving apart again like tectonic plates.
甚至在读《撞车》之前，我就已经被《疯狂的麦克斯》和那些恶心的道路安全广告完全吸引了，所以当巴拉德的小说最终向我揭示它的秘密时，我经历了一次强大的时空转换，我的肉体轮廓与我的灵魂同步失调，本体论的各层次像构造板块一样摩擦在一起，然后又分开。

I placed my hands under the dull luminescent glow of the car's dashboard display. They took on a purplish hue, as if I'd photosynthesised the electric light through the skin.
我把双手放在汽车仪表盘显示屏的暗淡荧光下。它们呈现出紫红色，仿佛我通过皮肤对电光进行了光合作用。
I sat there for hours, minutes or seconds, basking in the purple light until the car battery had drained and the dashboard glow was no more.
我在那里坐了几个小时、几分钟或几秒钟，沐浴在紫色的光芒中，直到汽车电池耗尽，仪表盘上的光芒不再。

Until my skin was full, head to toe, and I could no longer recognise myself.
直到我的皮肤从头到脚都变得饱满，我再也认不出自己了。

Something snapped inside me that night. I'd glimpsed the operating system that propped up reality.
那天晚上，我的内心突然崩溃了。我瞥见了支撑现实的操作系统。
Crash exposed shape-shifting narratives in media, advertising and politics, where every version of reality has a negative image, a shadow reality, all part of a synchronous system that keeps us endlessly consuming new promises, new lifestyles, new identities, new tomorrows.
撞车事件揭露了媒体、广告和政治中不断变化的叙事，在这些叙事中，每一个现实版本都有一个负面形象，一个影子现实，所有这些都是一个同步系统的一部分，它让我们无休止地消费新的承诺、新的生活方式、新的身份和新的明天。
Endlessly consuming ourselves. What could be more normalised than the metal skin donned every time we enter a car? What could be more pathetic than a roadrager indulging in reckless pursuit of another vehicle after being held up for a few seconds on the public tarmac?
无休止地消耗自己。还有什么能比我们每次上车时所穿的金属外壳更正常？还有什么比在公共柏油路上被耽搁几秒钟后，肆无忌惮地追赶另一辆车更可悲的呢？
Within inconsequence lurks death, as the philosopher Paul Virilio admits: 'When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution.
正如哲学家保罗-维利里奥（Paul Virilio）所说："当你发明了轮船，你也发明了沉船；当你发明了飞机，你也发明了坠机；当你发明了电，你也发明了触电。
Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.'
每种技术都有自己的负面性，这种负面性与技术进步同时被发明出来'。

Crash is concerned with the logic of the accident, deploying the mechanism of ambivalence to record a vision of humanity simultaneously enthralled and destroyed by its technological environment.
《撞车》关注事故的逻辑，利用矛盾机制记录了人类同时被技术环境所迷惑和摧毁的景象。
It was an equation that Jean Baudrillard, Virilio's fellow prophet of the apocalypse, understood all too well.
让-波德里亚（Jean Baudrillard）是维利里奥的启示录预言家，他对这个等式深有体会。

'Is it good or bad?' Baudrillard asks of Crash. 'We cannot say. It is simply fascinating, without this fascination implying any kind of value judgment whatsoever. And this is the miracle of Crash.'
是好是坏？鲍德里亚这样问《撞车》。我们不能说。它只是令人着迷，而这种着迷并不意味着任何价值判断。这就是《撞车》的奇迹。

Naturally I subscribed to the 'miracle' and announced my conversion by quitting my deadbeat job. I also kicked the pills, wanting to meet my demons head on, with the aid of Crash, of course, my self-help manual for the post-cyber age.
我自然而然地相信了这个 "奇迹"，并辞去了那份不务正业的工作，宣布了我的改变。我还戒掉了药片，想在 "崩溃 "的帮助下直面我的心魔，当然，"崩溃 "是我在后网络时代的自助手册。

Driven by a fanaticism I'd never known, I enrolled as a mature-age humanities student at Hartwell University, among Melbourne's less prestigious institutes of higher education but the only one that would have me given my poor marks in school.
在从未有过的狂热驱使下，我进入哈特威尔大学（Hartwell University）攻读成熟期人文学科，这所大学是墨尔本名气较小的高等学府之一，但也是唯一一所考虑到我在学校成绩不佳而愿意录取我的大学。
As my undergraduate years unfurled, besides Ballard, I read little beyond Baudrillard and Virilio, hoping their insights would allow me to make sense of Ballard's ostensible subject matter: the interlocking grid of capitalism, consumerism and social control.
在我的本科阶段，除了巴拉德，我几乎没有读过鲍德里亚和维里略以外的其他作品，希望他们的见解能让我理解巴拉德表面上的主题：资本主义、消费主义和社会控制相互交织的网格。
At least, that's what I told my tutors. In reality I wanted my philosopher-gurus to jailbreak me into the Ballardian mirror-world.
至少，我是这么告诉我的导师的。实际上，我想让我的哲学家大师们把我关进巴拉德的镜像世界。

As it happened, I received high distinctions for most subjects and in due course I was offered a scholarship to commence a PhD. This was thrilling news, affording me the chance to focus completely on an earth-shattering phenomenon: the prescience of Ballardian insight.
结果，我的大部分科目都获得了优异成绩，并在适当的时候获得了开始攻读博士学位的奖学金。这是一个令人激动的消息，让我有机会完全专注于一个震撼人心的现象：巴拉德式洞察力的先见之明。

Soon after accepting the offer, I witnessed the culmination of a disturbing trend: the gutting of cyberpunk.
接受邀请后不久，我就目睹了一个令人不安的趋势的顶点：赛博朋克被大卸八块。
The process had been initiated by Billy Idol's album Cyberpunk, a bland, bleeping electro catastrophe punctuated by cock-rock guitar solos and lyrics awash with appalling cliches (such as a jilted cyborg imploring the object of his desire to 'suck on my love meat').
比利-偶像（Billy Idol）的专辑《赛博朋克》（Cyberpunk）掀起了这一进程，这是一张平淡无奇的电子灾难专辑，其间夹杂着鸡巴摇滚吉他独奏，歌词则充斥着骇人听闻的陈词滥调（比如一个被抛弃的电子人恳求他的意中人 "吸吮我的爱肉"）。
On the cover, Idol, warped by pixelated green-and-purple washes, looked like a badly rendered character in a low-rent video game, an appropriate metaphor for cyberpunk's fate.
封面上的偶像，被像素化的绿色和紫色洗刷所扭曲，看起来就像低级电子游戏中的一个糟糕的渲染角色，恰如其分地隐喻了赛博朋克的命运。

The virus was accelerated by the film fohnny Mnemonic, scripted by William Gibson, the most iconic cyberpunk writer. I was eager to see Mnemonic, since it featured a version of Information Fatigue Syndrome, the phenomenon I'd hijacked to excuse my earlier malaise.
由最具代表性的赛博朋克作家威廉-吉布森（William Gibson）编剧的电影《记忆》（fohnny Mnemonic）加速了病毒的传播。我迫不及待地想看《记忆》，因为里面有一个版本的 "信息疲劳综合症"，我曾用这种现象来为自己之前的萎靡不振开脱。
In the film, half the world's population suffers from the Black Shakes, a debilitating condition that attacks the central nervous system, induced by overexposure to information and technology.
在影片中，世界上有一半人口患有 "黑震病"，这是一种因过度接触信息和技术而导致的中枢神经系统衰弱病症。
Equating the concept with my own experience, I felt connected to Big Ideas, cementing the (hardly
将这一概念与我自身的经历等同起来，我感到自己与 "大理念 "联系在一起，从而巩固了我的 "大理念"（几乎不可能）。
original) view I'd begun to form: that science fiction was the only accurate representation of the era.
我开始形成的观点是：科幻小说是那个时代唯一准确的代表。

Alas, Mnemonic was a cinematic turkey, a lazy hack job. The script was not the problem.
唉，《记忆》就像一只电影火鸡，一个懒惰的黑客作品。剧本不是问题。
Rather, the production gorged on tacky cyber special effects, resulting in a messy, overdriven and incoherent narrative, a fast-paced, explosion-riddled ride through Silicon Valley that killed any point Gibson tried to make.
相反，该片大肆渲染俗气的网络特效，导致叙事混乱、过度、不连贯，快节奏、爆炸肆虐的硅谷之旅，扼杀了吉布森试图表达的任何观点。
Rubbing salt into the wound, it starred histrionic rappers and overacting rock stars. The sum total was nothing more than a big, dumb video clip, ripe for instantly forgettable consumption by its MTVprimed target audience.
更糟糕的是，说唱歌手和摇滚明星的表演也过于夸张。总的来说，这不过是一个大而无当的视频短片，MTV 的目标受众一看就忘。
Cyberpunk had been killed off at last, no longer the preserve of underground adepts but a margarine substitute available to even the most clueless of popcult magpies.
赛博朋克终于被扼杀在摇篮里，不再是地下潜行者的专利，而是连最懵懂的流行文化喜鹊都能获得的人造黄油替代品。

In contrast to this rapid obsolescence, I valorised Ballard's work as a surpassing of science fiction, a mutated form able to avoid absorption by the media landscape because it actively satirises generic baggage.
与这种迅速过时形成鲜明对比的是，我认为巴拉德的作品超越了科幻小说，是一种能够避免被媒体吸收的变异形式，因为它积极地讽刺了一般的包袱。
Crash forensically examines our fascination with sexualised violence as entertainment, using the wraparound ubiquity of car culture as an extreme metaphor. Its aim, said Ballard, was 'to rub the human face in its own vomit, then force it to look in the mirror'.
《撞车》以汽车文化的无处不在为极端隐喻，对我们迷恋性暴力的娱乐方式进行了鉴证性的审视。巴拉德说，这部作品的目的是 "用人类自己的呕吐物擦拭人类的脸，然后迫使它照镜子"。
Science fiction is that mirror, but Crash is not a science fiction novel.
科幻小说就是这面镜子，但《撞车》不是科幻小说。

It is not Crash that is science fiction, but the world.
科幻的不是克拉什，而是这个世界。

After a year of heavy immersion in postgraduate research, I flew to Madrid to attend a conference on cyberculture. I then travelled to Liverpool, where I presented on Ballard at a conference on contemporary science fiction.
在沉浸于研究生研究一年之后，我飞往马德里参加了一个关于网络文化的会议。之后我又去了利物浦，在那里我在一个关于当代科幻小说的会议上发表了关于巴拉德的演讲。
The Madrid event promised an advance screening of Crash, David Cronenberg's adaptation of
马德里活动承诺提前放映大卫-柯南伯格（David Cronenberg）改编的《撞车》（Crash）。
the novel, undeniably thrilling news, although the keynote papers were less enticing, covering hackneyed cyberutopian topics such as 'immersive virtual bodies' and 'the new capabilities of techno-humans'.
尽管主题演讲的内容并不那么诱人，涉及的都是 "身临其境的虚拟身体 "和 "技术人类的新能力 "等老生常谈的网络乌托邦话题，但这些新颖的、无可否认的消息还是令人振奋的。
Thankfully, a shadowy group of hacktivists anchored the proceedings in a mood of heavy realism.
值得庆幸的是，一群阴暗的黑客活动家在浓重的现实主义氛围中将整个过程固定下来。

Ten in number, they never revealed their names, a thuggish charisma enhanced by their head-to-toe black paramilitary outfits. I was struck by their compelling presence.
他们共有十人，但从不透露自己的姓名，从头到脚的黑色准军事服装更增强了他们的暴徒魅力。我被他们的气势所震撼。
They were necessary dirt in the bloodstream, distributing photocopies of their incendiary anti-net manifesto to the bemused crowd and holding impromptu talks outside the lecture halls, corralling anyone who would listen before engaging in stylised fights with the security guards that tried to move them on.
他们是血液中不可或缺的污垢，他们向茫然的人群散发煽动性的反网络宣言影印件，在报告厅外举行即兴演讲，先是拉拢任何愿意倾听的人，然后再与试图驱赶他们的保安进行风格化的搏斗。

I caught one of their guerrilla lectures.
我赶上了他们的一次游击讲座。
A crippling ennui had stained the new cyber dawn, they announced, and the promised dream of universal access to the net had failed to materialise, replaced by stifling commercialism and a divide between the cyber elite (those with access to the net and the power to control it) and the cyber drones (those lacking the cultural capital to break down the virtual walls).
他们宣布，一种令人窒息的颓废情绪给新的网络黎明蒙上了污点，承诺的普及网络的梦想未能实现，取而代之的是令人窒息的商业主义和网络精英（那些有机会使用网络并有能力控制网络的人）与网络无产者（那些缺乏打破虚拟墙壁的文化资本的人）之间的鸿沟。
Earlier that year, a prominent cyberprophet had gained ascendancy with a declaration that called for the net to become self-governing in a bid to evade corporate assimilation, but his hippy utopianism disgusted the Balaclava People.
那年早些时候，一位著名的网络预言家发表了一份声明，呼吁网络自治，以避免被企业同化，他的嬉皮士乌托邦主义令 "巴拉克拉瓦人 "感到厌恶。
They saw his declaration as wholly maladapted to the currents of discontent and dysfunction fraying the edges of cyberculture, because for them the net had already gone bad and its final collapse had to be accelerated from within so that something new could emerge from the debris.
在他们看来，他的宣言完全不适应网络文化边缘的不满和功能失调的潮流，因为对他们来说，网络已经变质，必须从内部加速其最终崩溃，这样才能从碎片中产生新的东西。
The Balaclava People championed an emergent net activism that was multifarious, perpetually in conflict and therefore resistant to all sides of the political equation, and I was attracted to their worldview for much the same reason I was attracted to Ballard: they shone a light on an overlooked fold in the overdetermined
巴拉克拉瓦人 "倡导一种新兴的网络行动主义，这种行动主义五花八门，长期处于冲突之中，因此对政治等式的所有方面都有抵触情绪，我被他们的世界观所吸引，原因与我被巴拉德所吸引的原因大致相同：他们照亮了过度确定的世界中被忽视的褶皱。
map of an overly documented world.
一个记录过多的世界的地图。

After the first day of the conference, I managed to sneak into the launch party, a hedonistic rave in an abandoned warehouse on Madrid's exurban rim.
第一天会议结束后，我设法溜进了发布会的现场，那是在马德里郊区一个废弃仓库里举行的享乐主义狂欢派对。
I could never have gained legitimate entry, since I was not friends with the right theorists, who stalked the space like Kings and Queens of the Cyberverse, acolytes hanging from their coat tails to feed them drugs and sex at regular intervals.
我不可能合法进入，因为我和那些正确的理论家不是朋友，他们就像网络宇宙的国王和王后一样在这个空间里逡巡，他们的追随者吊在他们的衣尾上，每隔一段时间就给他们提供毒品和性服务。
The rave boasted sadomasochism as routine entertainment. A back room hosted mass whippings of willing initiates, while in the middle of the dance floor a naked woman reclined on a hospital bed as a stream of revellers danced around her.
该狂欢派对以虐恋为例牌娱乐项目。在一间密室里，人们对自愿入会的人进行集体鞭打，而在舞池中央，一名裸体女子躺在病床上，一群狂欢者围着她翩翩起舞。
Her expression was one of perpetual boredom, unchanging even as two shirtless muscle men began to pierce her labia, one gently holding back the folds of skin, the other tenderly pushing a large stainless steel needle through her puckered flesh.
她的表情永远是无聊的，即使两个不穿上衣的肌肉男开始刺穿她的阴唇时也是如此，其中一个轻轻地按住褶皱的皮肤，另一个温柔地将一根大号不锈钢针穿过她撅起的肉。

Fermented within that turbocharged sexual atmosphere, polymorphous perversity swept through the crowd like a Mexican wave.
在这种火力全开的性氛围中，多态的变态像墨西哥浪潮一样席卷了整个人群。
Seduced by the pulsating animal heat released by hundreds of thrillseekers, I ended up in a plush hotel bed back in the centre of Madrid with two other party people-a New Zealand woman, Dana, and an Australian man, Brett.
在数百名寻求刺激者释放出的动物脉动热量的诱惑下，我和另外两名派对参与者--新西兰女子丹娜和澳大利亚男子布雷特--一起回到了马德里市中心一家豪华酒店的床上。

For a few hours the three of us formed a secret society.
在几个小时里，我们三个人组成了一个秘密社团。
We were strangers in a strange land, swapping down-under slang and the post-ironic attitude that comes from being shunted away in the former colonies, condemned to watch Asia, Europe and America compete for global cultural dominion.
我们是异乡的异客，交换着南方的俚语，以及在前殖民地被分流后产生的后讽刺态度，只能眼睁睁地看着亚洲、欧洲和美洲争夺全球文化主导权。
We ended up together because I was attracted to Dana, Brett was attracted to me and Dana was attracted by the idea. But I found the threein-a-bed scenario too artificial, too clinical, too expected.
我们在一起是因为我被丹娜吸引了 布莱特被我吸引了 而丹娜也被我们的想法吸引了但我觉得三人同床的场景太做作、太临床、太预料之中了。
After some perfunctory groping, I bid them farewell and walked back to my pension.
敷衍了几句后，我告别了他们，走回养老院。

The next day, I bumped into Dana as I lined up to enter the conference auditorium.
第二天，我在排队进入会议礼堂时碰到了丹娜。

'We made love,' she said. 'It was Brett's first time with a woman.'
我们做爱了，"她说。这是布雷特第一次和女人做爱。

Ahead, a rake-thin man raised his head to the sky and barked loudly for no apparent reason. He sported long dreadlocks and wore a PVC corset under his pinstripe suit jacket. Dana said he was one of the keynote speakers, but I didn't stick around to find out.
前方，一个耙子般瘦弱的男人仰天长啸，无缘无故地大声吠叫。他留着长辫子，细条纹西装外套下穿着 PVC 紧身胸衣。丹娜说他是主讲人之一，但我没有留下来一探究竟。
I didn't even stay to see Crash. As I watched the Barking Man, I knew I had to leave.
我甚至没有留下来看《撞车》。当我看到 "巴金人 "时，我知道我必须离开了。
I no longer had the stomach for this serried mass of true believers, all of them harbingers of a chromium-plated Valhalla, all oblivious to the dispiriting libertarianism leaking from cyberculture's rotting hull.
我再也无法忍受这一大群虔诚的信徒，他们都是镀铬瓦尔哈拉的预兆，都对网络文化腐朽的外壳中渗出的令人沮丧的自由主义视而不见。
Although the Balaclava People had distributed their manifesto to the delegates and continued to rudely crash the presentations, their ratissages had little effect.
尽管 "巴拉克拉瓦人 "向代表们分发了他们的宣言，并继续粗暴地冲击发言，但他们的谩骂收效甚微。
Everything was tainted by the most absurd type of cyber cool, and if you didn't know the codes for entry to that world you were erased from existence, ignored and made to feel like trash.
一切都被最荒诞的网络酷所玷污，如果你不知道进入这个世界的密码，你就会被从这个世界上抹去，被忽视，被当成垃圾。

'Goodbye Dana. I'm sure you and Brett will be very happy together.'
再见 丹娜我相信你和布莱特在一起会很幸福的。

I left the auditorium and gave my conference pass to an indigent man.
离开礼堂后，我把会议通行证交给了一位穷人。
Expecting money, he scrunched it up and threw it at me in disgust. I was convulsed by a sharp current of anger, furious at his insolence, and curled my hand into a fist, only to let it hang impotently by my side.
他把钱揉成一团，厌恶地扔给我。我被一股尖锐的气流抽搐着，对他的无礼感到愤怒，把手握成拳头，却无力地垂在身旁。
Madrid was hot and dusty and the sun was blood-red, sieved through a shroud of polluted smog. It put me in mind of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the film's suggestion that monstrous solar flares were somehow the cause of the revolting human behaviour about to unfold.
马德里天气炎热，尘土飞扬，太阳被污染的烟雾笼罩成血红色。这让我想起了《德州电锯杀人狂》，影片中暗示畸形的太阳耀斑是即将发生的令人厌恶的人类行为的罪魁祸首。

I stared at the evil sun, receiving its disturbing signal, waiting to be told what to do next.
我盯着邪恶的太阳，接收着它发出的令人不安的信号，等待着它告诉我下一步该怎么做。

I travelled around Europe for a while, eventually washing up in Amsterdam, where I finally saw Crash. It was a confusing experience.
我在欧洲旅行了一段时间，最终来到阿姆斯特丹，在那里我终于见到了克拉舍。这是一次令人困惑的经历。
Although I deeply admired Cronenberg, the film's softporn sheen failed to deliver the metaphysical jolt the novel had given me, and its identification with body modification and the sexual possibilities of the practice left me cold after Madrid.
虽然我非常欣赏柯南伯格，但这部电影的软色情光泽并没有给我带来小说中那种形而上学的震撼，它对身体改造的认同以及这种做法的性可能性让我在《马德里》之后感到冷淡。

The camera lingers on every fibre, Cronenberg's hypergrotesque style fetishising bodies modified by the car crash. Scars are heightened and bulbous, like extra limbs. Tattoos are inscribed with ritual significance, markers of a secret society.
镜头停留在每一根纤维上，克罗嫩伯格的超怪诞风格将因车祸而改变的身体表现得淋漓尽致。疤痕增大、隆起，就像多出的四肢。纹身被刻上了仪式的意义，成为秘密社会的标记。
Vaughan's face and torso form a map of scar tissue, sweat irrigating his physical form like rivers and valleys.
沃恩的面部和躯干形成了一幅疤痕组织地图，汗水像河流和山谷一样灌溉着他的身体。
In heightening the connection between technology and body modification, Cronenberg paid tribute to Crash as cyberculture's foundation stone, yet I felt cheated by what cyberculture had become, by its crass appropriation of that relationship.
克罗嫩伯格在《撞车》中强调了技术与身体改造之间的联系，并将其视为网络文化的基石，但我却对网络文化的现状感到失望，因为它粗暴地挪用了这种关系。
Where was the resistance, the desire to interrogate the world? All that remained was solipsistic narcissism.
哪里还有反抗，哪里还有审问世界的欲望？只剩下孤芳自赏的自恋。

Suitably dejected, I checked into a huge, four-storey hostel, nothing but a holding pen for degenerates. One night in the hostel's cavernous bar, I found myself talking to an American.
我垂头丧气地住进了一家四层楼高的大旅店，那里简直就是一个堕落者的收容所。一天晚上，在旅店宽敞的酒吧里，我发现自己正在和一个美国人聊天。
He was short and stocky, with wiry hair and a permanent five o'clock shadow, and he rubbed me raw with an abrasive arrogance.
他个子矮胖，头发蓬乱，永远留着五点钟方向的影子，他的傲慢让我觉得很不舒服。

'I'm gonna make wads,' he said, spit flying. 'I want dudes to come up to me in the street and ask me questions about life and basketball.
他说，"我要打球，"唾沫星子飞溅。我想让那些家伙在街上走过来问我关于生活和篮球的问题。
I'm gonna change cultures like Plato, like Aristotle, like Kareem Abdul Jabbar, like Woody fucking Allen, philosophical slam dunks coated in a candy shell palatable to the masses.'
我要改变文化，就像柏拉图、亚里士多德、卡里姆-阿卜杜勒-贾巴尔、伍迪-艾伦那样，用大众喜闻乐见的糖果包装哲学灌篮。

'What are you? An actor?'
你是什么人？演员？

'Actor? I'm a comedian, dropping truth bombs like Newton dropped the apple. So remember the name: Hollyreood Dave.'
演员？我是喜剧演员，像牛顿丢苹果一样丢真相炸弹。所以请记住这个名字：好莱坞戴夫。

I turned away for respite. The bar was a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape, filled with depraved creatures enslaved to the basest of urges.
我转身离开，以求喘息。酒吧就像希罗尼穆斯-博斯（Hieronymus Bosch）笔下的地狱，到处都是被最卑劣的冲动所奴役的堕落生物。
In every nook and cranny of the barn-like space, packed with two hundred people, revellers were engaged in various stages of fornication, vomiting, fighting, crying, screaming.
在这个挤满了两百多人的谷仓式空间的每个角落，狂欢者们都在进行着不同程度的私通、呕吐、打斗、哭泣和尖叫。

I winked at Dave. 我对戴夫眨了眨眼睛。

'Why don't you do a gig here? I mean, if you really want to start at the bottom.'
你为什么不在这里演出？我是说，如果你真的想从基层做起的话。

The girl across the table giggled and Dave scowled, annoyed to be the butt of the joke. Miraculously, for the first time in ages he fell silent. The girl introduced herself. Her name was Alenka. She was Slovenian.
桌子对面的女孩咯咯笑了起来，戴夫皱起了眉头，恼怒自己成了别人的笑柄。奇迹出现了，他好久以来第一次沉默了。女孩做了自我介绍。她叫阿伦卡。她是斯洛文尼亚人。
I told her I'd recently visited the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, becoming lost when I tried to take a bus back to the hostel from the city. The bus driver didn't speak English and I couldn't read the signs.
我告诉她，我最近去了斯洛文尼亚首都卢布尔雅那，当我试图从市区搭乘公共汽车返回旅舍时，我迷失了方向。公交车司机不会说英语，我也看不懂路标。
When the bus came to the end of the line, I realised we were in the countryside. It was midnight. I was distressed but the driver pointed to the door, his face blank. He would not speak to me, would not answer my questions, and I could not read what was behind his eyes.
当公交车行驶到终点站时，我才意识到我们已经到了乡下。此时已是午夜时分。我很难过，但司机指着车门，面无表情。他不跟我说话，不回答我的问题，我也看不懂他的眼神。
I disembarked and headed down the nearest road, not knowing in which direction the city lay. There was no footpath so I had to walk on the edge of the road as a stream of cars filled with sadistic youths sped past, hurling bottles and abuse, making me their target.
我下了车，沿着最近的一条路走，不知道城市在哪个方向。由于没有人行道，我只能走在路边，一辆辆满载虐待狂青年的汽车飞驰而过，向我投掷瓶子和辱骂，我成了他们的目标。
Somehow, I found my way back after a nerve-shredding two-hour journey.
不知怎么的，我在经历了两个小时令人神经紧绷的旅程后，终于找到了回去的路。

'Yes, that's us,' Alenka said. 'We don't give a fuck.'
是的，就是我们，"阿伦卡说。我们才不在乎呢。

'So, what's your story?' 你有什么故事？

'Me? I'm an angel. My hair fell out, all of it, when I was five, and all my fingernails. Before, my hair was blonde and straight, but when it grew back-curly and black. The doctors don't know
我 我是个天使我五岁的时候头发全掉光了 指甲也掉光了以前，我的头发是金色的，直直的，但当它长回来的时候--卷卷的，黑黑的。医生不知道
what happened, but I know. I'm an angel. That's the only explanation. My purpose is to help people. That's why I was put here. I'm a guide, but I fell down. It was something I did and they took my power away from me. Made me mortal. Something I did. I was only young.
发生了什么，但我知道我是个天使这是唯一的解释我的使命是帮助人们这就是我被放在这里的原因我是个向导 但我摔倒了因为我做的事 他们夺走了我的力量把我变成了凡人这是我做的事我那时还年轻
Maybe they know in advance.'
也许他们事先就知道了'。

She sounded rueful and vulnerable, although she was probably just drunk, and Hollywood Dave leaned in to kiss her, entranced, I suppose, by her magic and loss, powerful exotica that salved his own pain at being a failed comedian.
好莱坞戴夫俯身吻了她，我想，他被她的魔力和失落感迷住了，这种强烈的异域风情减轻了他作为一个失败喜剧演员的痛苦。
To my great surprise she reciprocated, leaving me to sit there in silence, watching the cut-price bacchanal unspool in that vast pit of spilled beer and pustulent dreams.
令我大吃一惊的是，她也回应了我，留下我一个人默默地坐在那里，看着在那个洒满啤酒和脓包的梦的大坑里上演的减价狂欢。

The spark between Alenka and Dave soon turned hot and heavy, so I decamped and tried to sleep in a room filled with four bunk beds, all containing loudly fornicating couples.
阿伦卡和戴夫之间的火花很快就变得炽热而猛烈，于是我逃了出来，想在一个放满四张双层床的房间里睡觉，里面都是大声私通的情侣。
I was sick of Europe, sick of its dayglo colours, fluro orange and lime green, the height of fashion that season. Amsterdam was filled with beautiful people and it depressed me.
我厌倦了欧洲，厌倦了那一季最流行的日光色、荧光橙和青绿色。阿姆斯特丹到处都是漂亮的人，这让我很沮丧。
I was sick with a serious stomach problem, an old health worry that had resurfaced, distending my belly and crippling me with intense abdominal cramps. I felt like a freak.
我得了严重的胃病，健康的老毛病又犯了，肚子胀得难受，腹部剧烈绞痛。我觉得自己像个怪物。
Sex was now the last thing on my mind but it was everywhere in every combination, mirroring Crash, where men fuck men, women fuck men, women fuck women and everyone fucks machines.
现在，性是我最不关心的事情，但它在各种组合中无处不在，与《克拉什》如出一辙，男人操男人，女人操男人，女人操女人，每个人都操机器。

In the early days, when I'd first read Ballard's novel, I might have acquiesced. By this time, all I wanted to do was shed my skin, release my diseased and spasming internal organs, and swan-dive into the void.
在早期，当我第一次读巴拉德的小说时，我可能会默许。而此时，我只想褪去皮囊，释放病痛和痉挛的内脏，向虚空俯冲。

The remaining days passed slowly, like swimming in molasses, until I caught the ferry to London, where I attended two Ballard events.
剩下的日子过得很慢，就像在糖浆里游泳一样，直到我搭上前往伦敦的渡轮，在那里我参加了巴拉德的两个活动。
At a bookshop in Charing Cross, I watched the man himself read excerpts from Cocaine Nights, his just-released novel about a typically Ballardian sub-cult: a hermetic group of pleasure seekers in the Spanish coastal resort of Estrella de Mar.
在查林十字路口的一家书店里，我看到了他本人朗读《可卡因之夜》的节选，这是他刚刚出版的一部小说，讲述了一个典型的巴拉德式亚文化：西班牙海滨度假胜地埃斯特拉德玛（Estrella de Mar）的一群追求享乐的隐士。
Conversing in his cultured tones, he was a theatrical presence, sipping wine throughout, his shoulder-length silver hair swept from his face, his large frame filling out a blue shirt, red tie and check sports jacket.
他用有教养的语调交谈，自始至终都在啜饮葡萄酒，齐肩的银发从脸上掠过，魁梧的身材与蓝色衬衫、红色领带和格子运动夹克相得益彰。

During the Q&A afterwards, he held court on a range of provocative topics.
在随后的问答中，他就一系列具有煽动性的话题展开了讨论。
He spoke with ironic affection about the 'loveable psychopaths' that populate his work and the role they play in exposing the sordid underside of mediatised dreams. He discussed gated communities and the attendant phenomena of 'total security' and private militias, suggesting that suburbia was becoming a low-level warzone.
他以讽刺的口吻谈到了他作品中的 "可爱的精神病患者"，以及他们在揭露媒体化梦想的肮脏底层中所扮演的角色。他讨论了门禁社区以及随之而来的 "全面安保 "和私人民兵现象，认为郊区正在成为一个低级别的战场。
He analysed the banning in London of Cronenberg's Crash (one critic called it 'beyond the bounds of depravity'), concluding that 'we're policing ourselves and that's the ultimate police state, where people are terrified of challenge'.
他分析了克罗嫩伯格的《撞车》在伦敦被禁一事（一位评论家称其 "超出了堕落的界限"），并得出结论："我们在管理自己，这就是终极的警察国家，人们害怕挑战"。
Afterwards, he signed my copies of his books and posed for a photo, although I was so nervous I took it in a hurry before he had time to compose himself. That is why my one and only photo of J.G. Ballard features his face half obscured by his hand reaching up to fix his hair.
之后，他在我的书上签了名，还和我合影留念，不过我太紧张了，在他还没来得及整理好仪容时就匆忙拍了照。这就是为什么我唯一一张 J.G. 巴拉德的照片上，他的脸被伸手整理头发的手遮住了一半。
No matter what I did, I could never get a clear bead on him.
无论我怎么做，都无法清楚地看到他。

The following week, he appeared on stage at the British Film Institute to talk about Cronenberg. During question time, I raised my hand and was selected. In the novel, the narrator's
接下来的一周，他出现在英国电影学院的舞台上，谈论柯南伯格。在提问时间，我举起了手，并被选中。在小说中，叙述者的
wife Catherine thinks Vaughan is just a pervert, although she is corrected by 'Ballard', who argues that Vaughan is more interested in technology than sex. In the film the reverse is true: it's not technology that Cronenberg is interested in but sex.
妻子凯瑟琳认为沃恩只是个变态，但 "巴拉德 "纠正了她的看法，认为沃恩对技术比对性更感兴趣。在影片中，情况恰恰相反：柯南伯格感兴趣的不是技术，而是性。
The proof is in the film's hyperreal fixation on body modification and the sexual possibilities of the practice.
影片对身体改造的超现实固着以及这种做法的性可能性就是最好的证明。

I wanted to ask Ballard what he thought about that reversal of focus, but my heart was in my mouth from nerves and all that came out was incoherent verbiage, the breathless tonal spew of an imbecile. I could not get to the point and droned on and on, stumbling over my words.
我想问巴拉德对这种焦点转移有何看法，但我紧张得心都提到嗓子眼了，说出来的都是语无伦次的废话，像一个低能儿气喘吁吁地吐出的音调。我无法切入主题，滔滔不绝，语无伦次。
I grew mortified when the audience began to laugh, although Ballard, ever the gentleman, pretended that he hadn't heard the question before moving onto the next person.
当观众们开始大笑时，我开始感到羞愧，尽管巴拉德一直是个绅士，在换下一个人之前，他假装没有听到这个问题。

For an anguished moment, I felt as though I was in an anxiety dream, the kind that generates panicky scenarios where no matter how many times you call a phone number it fails to connect, or you just miss a bus, or you can't make it to an exam on time.
有那么一瞬间，我觉得自己好像做了一个焦虑的梦，就是那种无论你打多少次电话都无法接通，或者你错过了一辆公共汽车，或者你无法按时参加考试的慌乱场景。

Ballard was always just out of reach, the connection fading at the last frustrating instant.
巴拉德总是遥不可及，联系在最后令人沮丧的瞬间消失。

12

Depressed by my failure to connect with the man who was effectively my spiritual advisor, I immersed myself in London's night life. At a jungle club in Brixton, I purchased two ecstasy pills from a weasel-faced dealer who wore a Burberry cap.
由于无法与这位实际上是我精神导师的人取得联系，我感到非常沮丧，于是便沉浸在伦敦的夜生活中。在布里克斯顿（Brixton）的一家丛林俱乐部，我从一个戴着巴宝莉帽子的黄鼠狼脸毒贩手里买了两粒摇头丸。
I thought he said they were called 'doves' and I felt my body shudder as I recalled my former medication with its crude avian engraving. But although the pills were mauve, a dislocating detail, their surfaces were smooth and blank.
我记得他说这些药丸叫 "鸽子"，回想起以前吃的药丸上粗糙的鸟类图案，我的身体不禁颤抖了一下。不过，虽然药片是淡紫色的，这是一个令人不安的细节，但它们的表面却是光滑而空白的。

I swallowed them and fell into a mental black hole. The walls of the club receded and the music echoed distantly.
我吞下了它们，陷入了精神黑洞。俱乐部的墙壁渐渐退去，音乐声遥遥回荡。
I couldn't feel my body, exactly what I wanted because I loathed it and its useless failings, and at that point I was closer to the body-asmeat-and-mind-over-all cybercultists than I'd dared imagine.
我感觉不到自己的身体，这正是我想要的，因为我厌恶它和它无用的缺陷，在这一点上，我比我想象的更接近于身体肉体和心灵至上的网络崇拜者。
I hated dancing at the best of times, but given my spatial disarray there was no chance of that happening. I slumped into a corner and watched the people around me.
在最好的情况下，我讨厌跳舞，但鉴于我的空间混乱，根本不可能跳舞。我瘫坐在角落里，看着周围的人。

The club was a shrine to jungle, the new and thrilling dance music that was unlike anything anyone had ever known. The five-level building was a rabbit warren of different dance floors. Each floor contained different beats per minute. Different dancers. Different pills.
该俱乐部是丛林音乐的圣地，这种新颖刺激的舞曲与以往任何时候都不同。这座五层建筑就像一个由不同舞池组成的兔子窝。每层楼每分钟都有不同的节拍。不同的舞者不同的药丸
Different ideals for living. Yet all were linked in a cornucopia of psychic energy, a multiverse of mind-bending complexity. The DJs were incredibly exciting, their hyperfast hands wired to the decks. The music was phenomenal.
不同的生活理想。然而，所有这些都联系在一起，形成了一个精神能量的聚宝盆，一个令人心驰神往的复杂多元宇宙。DJ 们的表演令人兴奋，他们的双手飞快地挥舞着。音乐是惊人的。
Clattering metallic percussion that injured the brain. Skittering, liquid-synthetic bass lines that ruptured the bowels. Helter-skelter rhythms pierced with dialogue samples from Blade Runner, Predator, Robocop and The Terminator.
哗哗作响的金属打击乐让人伤透脑筋。滑动的液态合成低音线让人肠断。桀骜不驯的节奏，穿插着《银翼杀手》、《掠食》、《机械战警》和《终结者》的对白采样。
It was a sci-fi dystopian soundscape, an alien planet brought to life by artificial mindstates and synthetic beats.
这是一个科幻的乌托邦音景，一个由人工心智状态和合成节拍带来生命的外星星球。

As I sat there, catatonic but incredibly present, plugged into the pulsating grid that enveloped me, I realised I'd forgotten my humiliation at the feet of Ballard.
当我坐在那里，精神错乱却又难以置信地存在着，被包裹着我的脉动电网所吸引时，我意识到自己已经忘记了在巴拉德脚下的屈辱。
In fact I was greatly looking forward to giving my paper in Liverpool, if only to prove to myself a point about my argument-that science fiction was dead in any kind of prophetic sense. The club was proof.
事实上，我非常期待在利物浦发表论文，哪怕只是为了向自己证明我的论点--科幻小说在任何预言意义上都已经死亡。俱乐部就是最好的证明。
Science fiction had become the air we breathed and Ballard had predicted it.
科幻小说已经成为我们呼吸的空气，而巴拉德已经预见到了这一点。

An attractive girl sat by my side. She wore full clubbing regalia, complete with purple wig, and I was startled to realise it was Alenka, although when I spoke her name she corrected me.
一个迷人的女孩坐在我身边。她戴着紫色假发，穿着全套俱乐部服装，我惊愕地发现她竟然是阿伦卡，不过当我说出她的名字时，她纠正了我。

'Hush now, love. Everyone calls me Lamb.'
"嘘，亲爱的。大家都叫我羔羊

'But how did you get here? You're in Amsterdam.'
'但你是怎么来的？你在阿姆斯特丹

She didn't answer. She just kept staring at me and stroking my hand. The ecstasy was so overwhelming, I panicked about how disembodied I felt.
她没有回答。她只是一直盯着我，抚摸着我的手。狂喜是如此的压倒性，我惊慌失措，感觉自己是如此的失魂落魄。
I was about to tell her that I couldn't feel my body, that I wanted to go downstairs, leave the club and return to the hotel, but how could I when I had no legs?
我正想告诉她，我感觉不到自己的身体了，我想下楼，离开俱乐部，回到酒店，但我没有腿，怎么能这样做呢？

She spoke first, but not in the broken English I was used to hearing from her in Amsterdam. In Brixton, she was word perfect.
她先开口说话，但不是我在阿姆斯特丹听惯的蹩脚英语。在布里克斯顿，她说得字正腔圆。

'I know, my love. You can't feel your body. You want to go downstairs, leave the club and return to the hotel, but how can you when you have no legs?'
我知道，亲爱的你感觉不到自己的身体了。你想下楼，离开俱乐部，回到酒店 但你没有腿，怎么能这样做呢？

I must have looked like I was about to pass out because she whispered in my ear.
她在我耳边轻声说道："我一定是快晕过去了。

'Come back to the music. Everything's alright. Resurface. Tune into the signal.'
回到音乐中来一切都好重新浮出水面。接收信号

A vicious breakbeat ruptured the sound system.
一阵凶狠的霹雳啪啦声打破了音响系统。

'You might recognise that,' she said.
她说：'你可能认得出来。

I began to babble. 我开始胡言乱语。

'You're an angel... my guide... your hair fell out, all of it, when you were five ... what's under the wig... curly and black... let me see your fingernails.'
你是个天使......我的向导......你的头发掉光了，在你五岁的时候......假发下面是什么......卷卷的，黑色的......让我看看你的指甲。

I noticed a badge pinned to the breast of her blue vinyl jacket. In a black font on a cream-and-blue background, beneath a mysterious coat of arms, it read: NSK. LONDON Veleposlaništvo.
我注意到她蓝色乙烯外套胸前别着一枚徽章。在一个神秘的盾形纹章下面，用黑色字体写着 "NSK"：NSK。LONDON Veleposlaništvo。

'The badge. What does it mean?'
徽章。是什么意思？

I closed my eyes and leaned in to kiss her, desperate to experience the sublime pleasure Hollywood Dave must've felt when he'd entered her heavenly inner sanctum. I opened my eyes but Lamb had disappeared.
我闭上双眼，俯身亲吻她，急切地想体验好莱坞戴夫进入她天堂般的内心圣殿时的那种崇高快感。我睁开眼睛，兰姆却不见了。
The music de-escalated, and as it slowed to a treacle pace so did my heart, until it seemed like there were ten seconds between each beat and I thought I would die on the spot.
音乐逐渐减弱，我的心跳也随之减慢，直到每一次跳动之间似乎间隔了 10 秒钟，我以为自己会当场死去。

Then the music sped up, along with my entire mechanism. My body was electrified, coursing with adrenalin.
然后，音乐加速，我的整个机制也跟着加速。我的身体通了电，肾上腺素汹涌澎湃。

I'd been cured, it seemed.
我似乎被治好了。

Just like that. 就这样

The Liverpool conference was supposed to stimulate debate about the value of science fiction in the contemporary world, but I knew it would attract a battery of academics forming a palisade of tedious theory that would repel any investigations of my own.
利物浦会议本应激发关于科幻小说在当代世界中的价值的讨论，但我知道它将吸引一大批学者，形成一个乏味理论的栅栏，排斥我自己的任何调查。
To my disgust, a phalanx of hardcore science fiction fanboys also turned up, armed with an embarrassing devotion to space opera and little green men from Mars. The academics had political boundaries to patrol and ideological agendas to serve. Fine, they were a known quantity.
更让我反感的是，一群铁杆科幻迷也来了，他们对太空歌剧和来自火星的小绿人情有独钟，令人尴尬。学者们要巡视政治边界，要为意识形态议程服务。好吧，他们是众所周知的。
But the fanboys were devoutly uninterested in science fiction's radical function and treated the conference as if it were a role-playing convention, arriving in Star Trek and Star Wars outfits, in stark contrast to the art-terrorist chic of the Balaclava People, which I'd suddenly become nostalgic for.
但是，科幻迷们对科幻小说的激进功能毫无兴趣，他们把会议当成了角色扮演大会，穿着《星际迷航》和《星球大战》的服装来到会场，与我突然怀念的 "巴拉克拉瓦人 "的艺术恐怖主义时尚形成了鲜明对比。
The odds were stacked against me. All I had was Ballard, the cult author, and a series of trite observations about his prescience that barely did him justice.
我面临的困难可想而知。我所拥有的只是巴拉德这位邪教作家，以及一系列关于他先见之明的陈词滥调，对他的评价勉强算得上公正。

My presentation was a disaster. I thought I'd be able to effortlessly produce a startling hybrid of theory-fiction, like Baudrillard and Virilio, but I simply wasn't talented enough in either theory or fiction.
我的演讲是一场灾难。我以为自己能像鲍德里亚和维里略那样，毫不费力地创作出理论与小说的惊人混合体，但我在理论和小说方面都没有足够的天赋。
All that emerged was tortuous, meaningless phraseology crudely shoehorned into an incoherent framework.
所有出现的都是迂回曲折、毫无意义的措辞，被粗暴地塞进了一个不连贯的框架。
At the expense of deploying rigorous academic analysis, I screened advertisements and other popcult artefacts, intending to highlight Ballard's contention that true science fiction
我没有进行严谨的学术分析，而是对广告和其他流行文化艺术品进行了筛选，旨在强调巴拉德的论点，即真正的科幻小说
is the language of the everyday, secure in the belief that I was charismatic and talented enough to hold it all together.
这是日常用语，我坚信自己的魅力和才华足以支撑起这一切。
Swaddled within this slow dive, this epic descent into obscurity, lost among its spiralling, messy intricacies, I became black-dogged by the most pathetic of psychological untruths: the addled delusion of creative genius. Yet I was powerless to apply the brakes.
我沉浸在这种缓慢的沉沦之中，史诗般地坠入了默默无闻的境地，迷失在螺旋式上升、错综复杂的混乱之中，我被一种最可悲的不真实的心理蒙蔽了：那就是对天才创作的痴迷妄想。然而，我却无力刹车。

'Science fiction is dead,' I announced to the audience, 'stripped of its capacity to predict the future.'
科幻小说已经死了，"我向观众宣布，"失去了预测未来的能力。

How did I know? Because I'd seen it on TV. To prove the point, I screened an advertisement made by Telstra, the Australian telecommunications conglomerate.
我是怎么知道的？因为我在电视上看到过。为了证明这一点，我放映了澳大利亚电信集团 Telstra 制作的一则广告。
A man is led into a room containing banks of TVs, watching in amazement as the wonders of advanced telecommunications are demonstrated on the monitors: fibre-optic cables, satellite communications, modems. Awestruck, he exclaims: 'This was all science fiction not so long ago.'
一名男子被带进一个装有成排电视机的房间，惊奇地看着显示器上展示的先进电信奇迹：光纤电缆、卫星通信、调制解调器。他惊叹不已：这在不久前还是科幻小说。

I regaled the audience with the benefit of my insight.
我向听众介绍了我的见解。

'Since science fiction is now a report from the coalface of the media landscape, the air we reflexively breathe, we need new tools to combat the colonisation of our psyches. What better weapon than Crash?
既然科幻小说现在已经成为媒体报道的核心，成为我们呼吸的空气，我们就需要新的工具来对抗对我们心灵的殖民。还有什么比《撞车》更好的武器呢？
To record the uncanny present, the novel appropriates science fiction's base tropes: estrangement, cognitive dissonance, inversion of reality.
为了记录不可思议的当下，小说采用了科幻小说的基本套路：疏离、认知失调、现实颠倒。
For example, when the narrator's wife Catherine has sex with Vaughan in his vehicle as it enters a car wash, refracted light from the soapy windows covers their bodies with luminescent hues, "like two semi-metallic human beings of the distant future making love in a chromium bower".
例如，当叙述者的妻子凯瑟琳与沃恩在他的车内做爱时，当车驶入洗车场时，肥皂水从车窗折射出的光线将他们的身体笼罩在荧光色调中，"就像两个来自遥远未来的半金属人在铬制的花房里做爱"。

'Yet Crash defies categorisation. As far as Ballard was concerned, he'd abandoned science fiction in the late 60s when his experimental novel The Atrocity Exhibition was published, but he didn't "have any substitute terminology to offer for what I actually write".
然而，《撞车》却无法归类。就巴拉德而言，60 年代末他的实验小说《暴行展》出版后，他就放弃了科幻小说，但他 "没有任何可以替代我实际写作的术语"。
All he could suggest was that "for some years I have
他只能说："几年来，我
been trying to show the present from an unusual angle". As a result, Baudrillardian simulacra become ripe for inscription with brand-new auratic powers.
一直在试图从一个不同寻常的角度展示当下"。因此，波德里亚式的模拟变得成熟起来，蕴含着全新的灵气。
In Crash, science-fictional tropes transform the narrative into a subversive agenda, the negative value seeping in and invading the commercialised, conventionalised shell.'
在《撞车》中，科幻小说的套路将叙事转化为颠覆性的议程，负面价值渗入并侵入商业化、传统化的外壳。

Auratic powers. Negative value. Conventionalised shell.
极光能力。负值。传统外壳

What did any of it mean? The audience didn't know. I didn't know. It was simply words smashed together, an artless stab at significance.
这一切意味着什么？观众不知道我也不知道。这不过是把词语拼凑在一起，毫无艺术性地表达意义。
I pushed on regardless, trying to sound mysterious, as if I were a techno-shaman able to hotwire the zeitgeist with a sagacity unavailable to mere mortals.
我不管不顾地继续往前走，努力让自己听起来神秘兮兮的，仿佛我是一个技术巫师，能够以凡人无法企及的洞察力引领时代潮流。

'Today,' I droned on, oblivious to my impending doom, 'global events are couched in the logic of dreams, mediated by cinematic, visual language. Angles and fields of vision are alternated, transmitted via textual pans and zooms, a multitelevisual universe.'
今天，"我絮絮叨叨地说着，对即将到来的厄运浑然不觉，"全球事件以梦境为逻辑，以电影和视觉语言为媒介。角度和视野交替出现，通过文字的平移和缩放来传播，这是一个多视角的宇宙。

In the audience, a woman (Princess Leia) winced. Behind her, Captain Kirk snored. Under blinding stage lights, my arguments evaporated into vaporous tentacles of nothing. I withdrew into a deep inner space and blanked out the external world. Time passed.
观众席上，一个女人（莱亚公主）在抽泣。在她身后，柯克船长打起了呼噜。在刺眼的舞台灯光下，我的争论烟消云散，化为虚无的触角。我遁入内心深处，对外部世界一片空白。时间一分一秒地过去了。

Eventually, my voice took shape around me.
最终，我的声音在我身边成形。

'Recently, I watched a concert by the Rolling Stones live on TV. They were playing in some huge, impersonal stadium when suddenly Mick Jagger caught a glimpse of himself on the Sony Jumbotron high above the stage.
最近，我在电视上观看了滚石乐队的现场演唱会。当时他们正在一个巨大的、没有人声的体育场里演出，突然，米克-贾格尔在舞台上方的索尼投影仪上看到了自己的身影。
For the first time he could see what the audience saw when they watched him: a hyperactive stick-figure engaging in the most ludicrous pratfalls.
他第一次看清了观众在看他时所看到的东西：一个活泼好动的棍子形象，正在表演最可笑的滑稽动作。
For an instant his craggy face rippled and stained with confusion, like a twig dropped in cement, as if the image of himself was not what he'd imagined he was projecting to the world, but like a true
一瞬间，他嶙峋的脸上泛起了涟漪，染上了迷茫，就像一根树枝掉进了水泥里，仿佛自己的形象并不是他想象中的那样，而是真实地投射给了这个世界。
professional he recovered swiftly, the cement-face reforming as if nothing had happened. He pranced off to the other side of the stage and never went near the Jumbotron again.
他迅速恢复了专业水准，水泥脸又恢复了原样，就像什么都没发生过一样。他蹦蹦跳跳地走到舞台的另一边，再也没有靠近过巨型屏幕。

'I changed channels. On The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah was contemplating her existence, debating the true nature' of her mediated reality. She looked lost, in a daze, talking to herself and ignoring the audience.
我换了频道。在《奥普拉-温弗瑞秀》节目中，奥普拉正在思考她的存在，辩论她的媒介现实的'真实本质'。她一脸茫然，自言自语，对观众视而不见。
In a strangely uncomfortable moment, she discussed her life as a mega-celebrity and how it had warped her sense of self.
在一个奇怪的令人不舒服的时刻，她谈到了自己的巨星生活，以及这种生活如何扭曲了她的自我意识。
She referred to her televisual persona as the "Oprah-Oprah Thing" and marked it as distinct from her real self, asking the audience: "Why would you confuse it with ?" No one answered. Her acolytes were as stunned as she was.
她把自己的电视形象称为 "奥普拉-奥普拉"（Oprah-Oprah Thing），并将其与真实的自己区分开来，她问观众："为什么你们会把它与 混淆呢？"你为什么要把它和 混为一谈？"没有人回答。她的信徒们和她一样目瞪口呆。

'After an extended period of silence, she changed the subject, dissecting some mindless piece of celebrity gossip that had recently made the news, desperate to remove herself as quickly as possible from whatever satanic psychological force she'd just uncovered, nuking it with trivialities.
'在长时间的沉默之后，她转移了话题，剖析最近上了新闻的一些无谓的名人八卦，急切地想让自己尽快从刚刚揭露的撒旦心理力量中抽离出来，用琐碎的事情将其击碎。
I was struck by these megastars and their confrontations with their virtual doppelgangers.
这些巨星以及他们与虚拟二重身的对抗给我留下了深刻印象。
They treated their media clones with extreme suspicion, as if the doubles could somehow trick them and their audiences, as if the clones could take their place and no one, not even themselves, would know.'
他们以极端怀疑的态度对待自己的克隆媒体，仿佛替身可以以某种方式欺骗他们和他们的受众，仿佛克隆人可以取代他们的位置，而没有人会知道，甚至他们自己也不会知道。

I watched a group of people fleeing the auditorium. Among them was a well-known scholar, a superstar in the small academic cult that had begun to form around Ballard.
我看着一群人逃离礼堂。其中有一位知名学者，他是巴拉德周围开始形成的小型学术崇拜中的超级明星。
He looked over his shoulder at me with disgust and I was overcome by a razorsharp anxiety attack, his pure disdain for my work exposing my ego like nerves at the root of a diseased tooth.
他厌恶地侧过头来看着我，我顿时焦虑不安，他对我工作的蔑视暴露了我的自负，就像病牙根部的神经。

Wait... don't leave... there's more...
等等......别走......还有...

But he was gone. 但他走了。

I considered making an exit stage left, to stalk him, to plead with him to stay, but I decided to tough it out for reasons I didn't fully understand.
我考虑过从舞台左侧退场，跟踪他，恳求他留下来，但出于我不完全理解的原因，我决定硬撑下去。

'Ballard foresaw the metaphysical affliction that blighted the working lives of Jagger and Winfrey.
巴拉德预见到了困扰贾格尔和温弗瑞工作生活的形而上学问题。
In 1962, operating as a radical science fiction writer, he announced: "The only truly alien planet is Earth." In the brave new dawn of mass advertising and mass communications that had detonated in the 60 s , Ballard claimed the psychological subconscious, or "inner space", was becoming a more compelling subject for science fiction than the genre's traditional arena of outer space.
1962 年，作为一名激进的科幻小说家，他宣布："唯一真正的外星球是地球"巴拉德认为，在 60 年代大众广告和大众传播蓬勃发展的新时代，心理潜意识或 "内部空间 "比科幻小说的传统领域 "外太空 "更有吸引力。

'Turbocharged by this insight, he joined forces with Michael Moorcock to lead the British New Wave of Science Fiction.
在这一洞察力的推动下，他与迈克尔-摩尔科克（Michael Moorcock）联手引领了英国科幻小说新浪潮。
As the movement's figurehead, Ballard composed a series of experimental, non-linear and highly interiorised short stories that addressed the schismatic psychosocial effects of mass media.
作为这一运动的代表人物，巴拉德创作了一系列实验性、非线性和高度内在化的短篇小说，探讨了大众媒体对社会心理的分裂性影响。
Collected as The Atrocity Exhibition, these established his reputation as a dark magus, a writer able to face the most extreme aspects of our culture and divine a hidden logic within the chaos.
这些作品结集为《暴行展》，奠定了他作为黑暗魔法师的声誉，他是一位能够直面我们文化中最极端的一面，并在混乱中发现隐藏逻辑的作家。
With their film-script layout, absence of linking narration and collaged formal quality, the Atrocity stories were an imaginative response to the alien terms and conditions imposed by the media landscape.
暴行 "故事采用电影脚本式的布局，没有连贯的旁白，形式上也是拼贴而成，是对媒体环境所强加的陌生条款和条件的一种富有想象力的回应。

'The central character is a psychiatrist suffering a nervous breakdown. He's referred to by different names, all beginning with "T"—Travis, Traven, Talbot, Trabert.
中心人物是一位精神崩溃的精神病医生。他有不同的名字，都以 "T "开头--Travis、Traven、Talbot、Trabert。
This shifting identity reflects his fractured personality, an affliction generated from exposure to pop culture and mass media, and each chapter functions as a retelling of that breakdown, filtered through different angles and perspectives, sieved through his multiple identities until there is no solid grounding anywhere for "reality" to find purchase.'
这种不断变化的身份反映了他破碎的人格，一种因接触流行文化和大众传媒而产生的痛苦，每一章都是对这种破碎的重述，通过不同的角度和视角进行过滤，通过他的多重身份进行筛选，直到'现实'在任何地方都找不到坚实的基础。

I barrelled on, lost within the sonic vortex of my voice, as if I were listening to someone else, someone without fear, my thoughts welling up from somewhere nameless, disconnected from my terrified brain.
我继续往前走，迷失在自己声音的声波漩涡中，仿佛在听别人说话，一个没有恐惧的人，我的思绪从某个无名的地方涌出，与我惊恐的大脑断开了联系。

'Throughout the 60s, politicians like Ronald Reagan became expert in the use of advertising tactics to sell their dubious messages, while TV screens were saturated with coverage of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War and Marilyn Monroe's death.
在整个 60 年代，罗纳德-里根等政客成为了利用广告策略推销其可疑信息的专家，而电视屏幕上则充斥着有关约翰-肯尼迪遇刺、越南战争和玛丽莲-梦露之死的报道。
All were shrouded in conspiracy and multiple retellings. One shooter or two? Legal war or illegal bloodbath? Overdose or suicide? Blanket coverage of these events, in between mind-numbing commercials and vacuous sitcoms, blunted the effect.
所有这些都笼罩在阴谋和多重复述之中。一个枪手还是两个？合法战争还是非法屠杀？用药过量还是自杀？在令人头疼的广告和空洞的情景喜剧之间，对这些事件的一揽子报道削弱了效果。
Horror and empathy were replaced by spectacle and ambivalence, heralding what Ballard calls the "most terrifying casualty of the century: the death of affect"-the loss of feeling and emotion in the face of tragic events.
恐怖和同情被奇观和矛盾所取代，预示着巴拉德所说的 "本世纪最可怕的伤亡：情感的死亡"--在悲剧事件面前丧失感觉和情感。
For the first time, the world was enveloped within a schizophrenic buzz of media fictions that touched, reordered and reshaped even the most intimate details of everyday life.
世界第一次被媒体虚构的精神分裂的喧闹声所笼罩，甚至连日常生活中最隐秘的细节都被触及、重组和重塑。
Atrocity revealed the fragmentation of consciousness and the overlay of numerous realities and identities that ordinary people experienced from that first toxic blast, irradiated from ground-zero exposure to what we now understand as mass media.
《暴行》揭示了普通人从第一次毒气爆炸、从地面零距离接触到我们现在所理解的大众媒体所经历的意识分裂以及无数现实和身份的叠加。

'Atrocity examines the ceaseless flow of media imagery and asks what happens on the subconscious level when we watch disparate TV images in rapid succession: actors making love in a soap opera, followed by documentary footage of a child dying of disease, followed by a mindless ad for car insurance, followed by the beheading of a hostage in some guerrilla war, followed by an ad for luxury apartments, followed by a news report of a tsunami sweeping away an entire town.
《暴行》审视了媒体图像的无休止流动，并追问当我们快速连续地观看不同的电视图像时，潜意识中会发生什么：演员在肥皂剧中做爱，接着是一个孩子因病奄奄一息的纪录片镜头，接着是无意识的汽车保险广告，接着是游击战中人质被斩首，接着是豪华公寓广告，接着是海啸席卷整个城镇的新闻报道。
Ballard compares the process to the act of dreaming. Just as the sleeping brain weaves together fantastical narratives from the memories of random events, so too the waking mind must knit together narratives from the new overlay of media fictions it encounters.
巴拉德将这一过程比作做梦。就像熟睡的大脑从随机事件的记忆中编织出幻想的叙事一样，清醒的头脑也必须从它所遇到的新的媒体虚构叠加中编织出叙事。

'If configured correctly, Ballard argues, the new narrative becomes a type of survival tactic. "The most prudent and effective
巴拉德认为，如果配置得当，新叙事就会成为一种生存策略。"最谨慎有效的
method of dealing with the world around us," he says, "is to assume that it is a complete fiction-conversely, the one small node of reality left to us is inside our own heads." If misconfigured, of course, psychosis ensues, a precipice that Winfrey and Jagger almost stumbled over when they stopped just short of allowing media simulations to replace reality-indeed, to replace themselves.'
他说："处理我们周围世界的方法，就是假定它完全是虚构的--相反，留给我们的现实的一个小节点就是我们自己的头脑。温弗瑞和贾格尔几乎就是在这样的悬崖边跌跌撞撞地走过来的，因为他们并没有让媒体模拟取代现实--事实上，取代他们自己。

I paused. Given the temper of the crowd, what I was about to say next might start a riot.
我停顿了一下。考虑到人群的情绪，我接下来要说的话可能会引发骚乱。

'In the face of this cultural tidal wave, what is science fiction? Does it matter anymore? Does the genre matter? What possible purpose could be served by marking its boundaries if the only alien planet is Earth? Forget outer space.
面对这股文化浪潮，科幻小说是什么？它还重要吗？这个流派重要吗？如果唯一的外星球是地球，那么标明科幻小说的界限还有什么意义？忘掉外太空吧。
It doesn't exist. Inner space is a vast new cosmos about which we know little, if anything.
它并不存在。内太空是一个巨大的新宇宙，我们对它知之甚少，甚至一无所知。
Reality has haemorrhaged uncontrollably, rendering genre policing a pointless pursuit, the preserve of those unwilling or unable to confront the fluidity of a phenomenon that threatens to erase us at the same time as it promises to liberate.
现实已经无法控制地大出血，使流派管理成为一种毫无意义的追求，成为那些不愿意或无法正视这一现象的流动性的人的专利，而这一现象在承诺解放我们的同时，也有可能抹杀我们。
By contrast, Crash and The Atrocity Exhibition confirm that we all speak science fiction and that questions regarding the health of the genre are best left to fanboy networks and the precepts found in Star Wars and the like.'
相比之下，《撞车》和《暴行展》证实，我们都在说科幻小说，而关于科幻小说健康与否的问题，最好留给影迷网络和《星球大战》之类的电影来回答。

A volley of catcalls erupted from the audience, drowning me out. A shrill voice cut through, loudest of all.
观众席上爆发出一阵阵叫好声，把我淹没了。一个尖锐的声音穿透了一切，成为最响亮的声音。

What did these people expect to hear? If only I'd presented on the iconography of Mr Spock's ears. Morons. I remembered an old Ballard interview.
这些人到底想听什么？要是我介绍一下斯波克先生耳朵的图标就好了。白痴我想起了巴拉德的一次访谈
Typical science fiction fans, he said, are 'a collection of very unintelligent people, almost illiterate', with 'no interest whatever in the serious and interesting possibilities of science fiction'.
他说，典型的科幻小说迷是 "一群非常不聪明的人，几乎是文盲"，"对科幻小说严肃而有趣的可能性毫无兴趣"。
Locked into an ultra-conservative view of the genre, especially the juvenile fixation on outer space, they would always hobble its potential to shine a light on the present.
他们对电影类型持极端保守的看法，尤其是对外太空的稚嫩固执，始终阻碍着其照亮当下的潜力。

I was bolstered by the master's command.
主人的命令给了我力量。

To hell with it. I won't let these nerds get the better of me.
见鬼去吧我不会让这些书呆子占上风的

I filled my lungs with air and yelled back.
我肺里充满了空气，大声回喊。

'For the rest of us, there is WORK TO DO!'
对于我们其他人来说，还有工作要做！'

14

After the conference, I was an empty shell. Despite the revolutionary zeal with which I'd approached Crash, despite how it had transformed my thinking, I knew my thesis could not progress.
会议结束后，我像一具空壳。尽管我对克拉舍充满了革命性的热情，尽管它改变了我的思维，但我知道我的论文无法取得进展。
Yes, there was work to do, as I'd promised the audience, but deep down I knew I was not the man to undertake it. The glorious high from my rebellious confrontation with the Liverpool crowd had dissipated into abject self-loathing and a deep internal wound had begun to fester.
是的，正如我向观众承诺的那样，我还有工作要做，但在内心深处，我知道自己不是承担这项工作的人。我从与利物浦群众的反叛对抗中获得的光荣感已经消散，变成了赤裸裸的自我厌恶，内心深处的伤口开始溃烂。
Rocked back on my heels by this intellectual crash, I became lost trying to plot my route back to the hotel and found myself in a side street near Liverpool Cathedral. It was dark and I couldn't see much.
这次智力碰撞让我重新振作起来，我开始迷失方向，试图规划回酒店的路线，结果发现自己身处利物浦大教堂附近的一条小街上。天色很暗，我看不清东西。
I heard a swift 'whoosh'-how I imagined a samurai sword would sound when sliced through the air. Behind me, a young man was swinging a long bike chain above his head. He possessed an abnormal dress sense, sort of a mashup between Dickensian street urchin and modern youth.
我听到一阵急促的 "嗖嗖 "声--我想象着武士刀划过空气时的声音。在我身后，一个年轻人正把一根长长的自行车链条举过头顶。他的穿着很反常，有点像狄更斯笔下的街头顽童和现代青年的混搭。
He wore a hoodie and a top hat, dayglo trainers and baggy plus-fours, and his weapon glinted menacingly under the street lights.
他穿着连帽衫，戴着高帽，穿着日光色的运动鞋和宽松的大衣，他的武器在路灯下闪闪发光，气势汹汹。

'Hear that sound?' he hissed, whipping the chain through the air, centimetres from my skull. 'That's the sound of you: dead.'
听到那声音了吗？"他嘶吼着，在空中挥舞着铁链，距离我的头颅只有几厘米。这就是你的声音：死了。

I hurried ahead and stumbled into a busy main street, losing him in the crowd. I remembered a strange theory I'd read online about a Liverpool street, one of the super-virulent urban legends that the internet had allowed to proliferate. Apparently, the
我匆匆前行，跌跌撞撞地走进了一条繁忙的主干道，在人群中失去了他的踪影。我想起了在网上读到的关于利物浦一条街道的奇怪理论，这也是互联网上泛滥成灾的都市传说之一。显然，这条
street was a portal to an alternate reality, a present-day version of Liverpool yet different in vital details. On a paranormal web forum, a variety of witnesses had testified that they'd seen this portal manifest before their very eyes.
这条街是通往另一个现实世界的入口，是利物浦的现今版本，但在重要细节上又有所不同。在一个超自然现象网络论坛上，许多目击者都证实，他们亲眼看到这个入口出现在他们眼前。
Even upstanding citizens such as pilots, doctors and police officers had come forward. A fuzzy discharge would ripple the air, they said, dissipating to reveal people going about their everyday business.
甚至连飞行员、医生和警察等正直的公民也站了出来。他们说，模糊的放电会在空气中激起涟漪，消散后，人们会发现他们正在做着日常的工作。
Yet these people were dressed in anachronistic clothing, entering shops that no longer existed or that had never existed. After a few minutes, so it went, the scene would fade and normality would return, occluding the alternate reality like an overlay of mist.
然而，这些人却穿着不合时宜的衣服，走进不复存在或从未存在过的商店。几分钟后，这样的场景会逐渐消失，恢复正常，像一层薄雾笼罩着另一个现实。

Although I couldn't recall the name of the street, I wondered whether I'd stumbled onto it. Was the chain-wielding thug part of the same phenomenon? Obviously, the witnesses had taken leave of their senses.
虽然我想不起这条街的名字，但我想知道我是否偶然发现了它。那个挥舞着铁链的歹徒也是同一现象吗？显然，目击者已经失去了理智。
I suppose even pilots, cops and doctors can lose their grip on reality from time to time. Whatever the case, the implications were grim. Say for argument's sake there was an actual portal to a parallel dimension.
我想，即使是飞行员、警察和医生，也会时不时地失去对现实的控制。不管是什么情况，影响都是严峻的。假设真的有一个通往平行空间的入口。
Everyone that saw it spoke only of the materialisation of a peaceful street scene. Not me. I was almost beheaded. Say the theory was nonsense. In that case, I'd been in Liverpool just over a day and already I was attracting steampunk street toughs. The message was crystal clear.
每个看到它的人都只是在谈论一个宁静街景的具体化。我却没有。我差点被砍头。说这是无稽之谈。在这种情况下，我刚到利物浦一天多，就已经吸引了蒸汽朋克街头悍匪。信息非常明确

I didn't belong there, not in either reality.
我不属于那里，不属于任何一个现实世界。

It was that obvious, that simple.
就是这么明显，这么简单。

I escaped Liverpool, resuming my death march around Europe's hedonistic backpacker circuit, but the effort drained me completely as I trudged from hostel to hostel, bar to bar, hookup to hook-up. In a halfhearted attempt to reset my mind and
我逃离了利物浦，重新开始在欧洲享乐主义背包客的环游路线上死磕，但当我在一个又一个旅店、一个又一个酒吧、一个又一个勾搭对象之间艰难跋涉时，这种努力彻底耗尽了我的精力。我半信半疑地试图重新调整心态，并
follow some vague mental compass, I unmoored myself from the party scene and caught the ferry from southern Spain to Tangier, hot on the trail of 'Interzone', the setting for William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch.
根据模糊的思维指南，我脱离了派对现场，搭乘渡轮从西班牙南部前往丹吉尔，紧追威廉-巴勒斯（William S. Burroughs）的小说《裸体午餐》（Naked Lunch）的取景地 "Interzone"。
Interzone is a dark realm of the imagination, a drug-induced parallel universe where the novel's 'William Lee' hides after shooting his wife.
Interzone是一个黑暗的想象世界，是一个由毒品引发的平行宇宙，小说中的 "威廉-李 "在射杀妻子后就躲藏在这里。
Somewhat reminiscent of Ballardian inner space, Interzone is suspended between dreams and reality, a surreal environment awash with interspecies sex (between aliens and humans, no less), bizarre terrorist groups and rogue doctors trafficking in human flesh and black-market narcotics.
有点像巴拉德式的内部空间，《星际迷航》悬浮于梦境与现实之间，在这个超现实的环境中，充斥着物种间的性行为（外星人与人类之间也不例外）、诡异的恐怖组织以及贩卖人肉和黑市毒品的流氓医生。

Interzone was based on Tangier during the period when it was partitioned between France, Spain and Britain from 1923 to 1956.
在 1923 年至 1956 年法国、西班牙和英国瓜分丹吉尔期间，Interzone 以丹吉尔为基地。
Declared an 'international zone', Tangier was a hybrid city beyond laws and regulations, notorious for unrestricted trade in drugs, smuggling, sex and espionage. It wasn't the promise of vice that attracted me but the very idea of the place, its reason for being.
丹吉尔被宣布为 "国际区"，是一座法律法规之外的混合城市，因毒品、走私、性交易和间谍活动等不受限制的贸易而臭名昭著。吸引我的不是罪恶的承诺，而是这个地方的理念，它存在的理由。
Interzone, this nebulous state, was immensely attractive to the sort of blurred, in-between man I had become, a dilettante scholar neither here nor there.
区间，这种虚无缥缈的状态，对我这种模糊不清、夹在两者之间的人，一个既不在这里也不在那里的二流学者，有着巨大的吸引力。

However, my enquiries annoyed the locals.
然而，我的询问惹恼了当地人。
Near the train station I was stalked by a gang of moody, malnourished youths who did not appreciate my enquiries as to the whereabouts of Dr Benway, Naked Lunch's sadistic antagonist. When I dived into a taxi to escape, they ran to their car and followed.
在火车站附近，我被一帮喜怒无常、营养不良的年轻人盯上了，他们对我打听《裸体午餐》中的虐待狂反面人物本威博士的下落并不领情。当我跳进一辆出租车逃跑时，他们跑上自己的车紧随其后。
As we drove deeper into the labyrinthine casbah, I realised I would be lost if I didn't make a move, since the taxi driver showed no sign of stopping or slowing, even after we'd escaped the angry mob.
当我们驶入迷宫般的古城深处时，我意识到如果再不采取行动，我就会迷路，因为出租车司机没有任何停车或减速的迹象，即使在我们逃离愤怒的暴徒之后。
I had no idea what his intentions were-he would not speak to me or answer my questions. I repeated the name of my hostel but we drove further away in silence as the meter ticked over.
我不知道他的意图是什么--他不跟我说话，也不回答我的问题。我重复着我的旅店的名字，但随着计价器的滴答声，我们默默地把车开得更远了。
Desperate, like a cornered animal, I took a deep breath, opened the door and jumped from the moving vehicle. I landed on a grass
走投无路的我像一只被逼入绝境的野兽，深吸一口气，打开车门，从行驶中的汽车上跳了下来。我落在草地上
verge, but the only injury I sustained was a bruised elbow. The taxi sped away without stopping, as if I'd never been inside it.
但我唯一受的伤就是肘部擦伤。出租车马不停蹄地开走了，好像我从来没有进过车一样。

Somehow I found my way back to the hostel, but I was too wired to sleep. I sat on the bed in the dark, listening to the sounds of the street, syncing my thoughts to the rhythmic hum emanating from the high-voltage distribution box grafted to the powerlines outside the window.
不知怎的，我回到了旅店，但却无法入睡。黑暗中，我坐在床上，聆听着街道的声音，将思绪与窗外电线上高压配电箱发出的有节奏的嗡嗡声同步。

16

The next day I wandered the streets before settling at a cafe atop a high cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
第二天，我在街上闲逛，然后在俯瞰大西洋的高崖顶上的一家咖啡馆落座。
The vast expanse of water, dotted with sluggish cargo ships, generated an immensely peaceful scene and I sat there drinking glass after glass of mint tea, apparently the only customer around. After two hours, I felt pangs of hunger and consumed a garden salad.
一望无际的水面上，点缀着几艘迟缓的货船，景色无比宁静，我坐在那里喝了一杯又一杯薄荷茶，显然是周围唯一的客人。两个小时后，我感到饥肠辘辘，于是吃了一份花园沙拉。
Only later did I learn that it was unwise to eat food washed under Moroccan tap water, given the parlous state of the country's sewage system. An hour after the meal, I became violently ill with unbelievable stomach cramps.
后来我才知道，由于摩洛哥的污水处理系统非常糟糕，吃用摩洛哥自来水冲洗的食物是不明智的。饭后一小时，我就病倒了，胃痉挛得厉害。
I managed to return to the hostel, crawling the last few metres, and collapsed onto the bed. I was delirious and hyperventilating, dripping with sweat, and suffered a severe disorder of perception in which I appeared to take leave of my own body.
我设法回到宿舍，爬行了最后几米，倒在床上。我神志不清，呼吸急促，浑身大汗淋漓，出现了严重的知觉障碍，似乎离开了自己的身体。

First, the bed began to shake. Then, the clothes I'd discarded at the foot of the bed began to whirl around in the air, as if caught in a mini-tornado. Finally, I began to fly around the room (although my actual body remained inert down below).
首先，床开始摇晃。然后，我丢弃在床脚的衣服开始在空中旋转，就像被卷入了一场小型龙卷风。最后，我开始在房间里飞来飞去（虽然我的身体在下面仍然没有动静）。
I crashed into the wardrobe, then bounced upwards, becoming wedged in the angle between two walls. Disengaged from my physical self, observing my diseased mortal shell from above,
我撞上了衣柜，然后向上弹起，卡在两面墙之间的夹角里。我脱离了我的肉体，从上面观察着我病态的躯壳、

I could see that the cracks were showing, that my PhD was nothing more than a set of rusted and broken callipers for a crippled mind.
我可以看出，我的博士论文已经出现了裂痕，我的博士论文只不过是一个锈迹斑斑、残缺不全的卡钳而已。
My mode of enquiry was scattershot, attempting to weave too many popcult reference points into an inexpert attempt to pitch Ballard as a hero for the times. Why couldn't I write about him with clarity? Why was it all so messy and diffuse?
我的探究方式很零散，试图将太多的流行文化参照点编织成一个不成熟的作品，试图将巴拉德塑造成一个时代英雄。为什么我不能清晰地写他呢？为什么一切都如此凌乱和散漫？

The madness was unrelenting. It was the sickest I have ever felt, and by the time the illusion had evaporated and I'd returned to Earth I was a wasted and defeated creature, albeit gifted with true insight.
疯狂是无情的。这是我有生以来感觉最恶心的一次，当幻觉消失、我回到地球时，我已是一个虚弱的失败者，尽管我拥有真正的洞察力。
Although I was intellectually out of my depth, I knew in the cleansing torture of my food poisoning that if I could only reveal the mechanism by which The Atrocity Exhibition worked then I would solve the puzzle, since it had become quite apparent that, even supplanting Crash, Atrocity was the urtext, a volume that worked in truly mysterious ways.
虽然我在智力上已经力不从心，但在食物中毒的折磨下，我知道只要能揭示《暴行展》的运作机制，我就能解开这个谜题，因为很明显，《暴行》甚至取代了《撞车》，成为了一卷以真正神秘的方式运作的文本。

In Atrocity, fragments of stories contain the informational density and complexity of much longer pieces and can even subvert and rewrite themselves.
在《暴行》中，故事片段包含了长篇小说的信息密度和复杂性，甚至可以自我颠覆和改写。
One chapter, 'The Death Module', comprises a disjunctive series of impressions rather than the standard chain of linked paragraphs. It is a bricolage of snapshots from the media landscape, giving the impression of a viewer changing TV channels every few seconds.
其中一章 "死亡模块 "由一系列互不关联的印象组成，而不是标准的段落链。它是媒体景观快照的拼凑，给人一种观众每隔几秒钟就更换电视频道的感觉。
Texturally, the sections are very brief, yet culturally they represent a super-dense compaction of meaning.
从文字上看，这些章节非常简短，但从文化上看，它们代表了一种超密集的意义压缩。
Ballard dubbed such paragraphs 'condensed novels', borrowing the term from Borges, and in that form they appear throughout Atrocity, retrofitting nominal literary devices to become portals to past and future works, even to parallel worlds that explode the main narrative.
巴拉德借用博尔赫斯的说法，将这种段落称为 "浓缩小说"，它们以这种形式出现在《残暴》中，改装了名义上的文学手段，成为通往过去和未来作品的门户，甚至是通往平行世界的门户，从而打破了主线叙事。

In the critical chapter 'Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan', Ballard analyses the media image of Reagan, the Governor of California at the time and a former actor who sold personal style over political action.
在批判性的一章 "为什么我想操罗纳德-里根 "中，巴拉德分析了里根的媒体形象，里根当时是加利福尼亚州州长，曾是一名演员，他将个人风格置于政治行动之上。
Reagan's homely, TV-salesman body language and voice masked his reactionary politics, an elemental
里根的家常话、电视推销员的肢体语言和声音掩盖了他的反动政治，这是他的一个基本特征。
deceit that Ballard reflects across the chapter.
巴拉德在全章中反映出的欺骗性。
Seven 'condensed novels' are preceded by seven apparently unrelated subheadings, yet if the reader stitches these subheadings together a full sentence is revealed, a substratum that cuts against the grain of Reagan's public image in the dominant narrative, calling out the disturbing undercurrents that powered his political career.
七部 "浓缩小说 "的前面有七个看似毫不相干的小标题，然而如果读者将这些小标题拼接起来，就会发现一个完整的句子，这个句子与主流叙事中里根的公众形象背道而驰，呼唤出推动其政治生涯的令人不安的暗流。

'The motion picture studies of Reagan,' the excavated sentence reveals, 'created a unique ontology of violence and disaster.'
挖掘出的句子揭示了'里根的电影研究'，'创造了一种独特的暴力和灾难本体论'。

As this black magic preyed on my diseased mind, I imagined a matrix of overlapping time tracks, a hypertext of such complexity that it seemed to hold the key to Ballard's entire output.
当这种黑魔法侵蚀我病态的心灵时，我想象出一个由重叠的时间轨迹组成的矩阵，一个如此复杂的超文本，它似乎掌握着巴拉德全部作品的关键。
Not only were the paragraphs themselves dense with meaning, they also supported the weight of Ballard's entire oeuvre, including novels and stories he'd already written and those that were yet to come.
这些段落不仅本身内涵丰富，而且还承载了巴拉德全部作品的重量，包括他已经写完的和即将写完的小说和故事。
For example, the subheading that introduced one condensed novel, 'The Concentration City', was also the title of a short story published thirteen years before.
例如，介绍一部浓缩小说的小标题 "集中之城"，也是十三年前发表的一篇短篇小说的标题。
The subheading that presided over another, 'The 60 -Minute Zoom', would become the title of a story published seven years later.
另一篇文章的副标题 "60 分钟放大 "将成为七年后发表的一篇小说的标题。

How many portals were available?
有多少门户网站？

How many parallel universes?
有多少个平行宇宙？

Zones within zones? 区中之区？

Where did the Ballardian multiverse begin and end?
巴拉德多元宇宙的起点和终点在哪里？

In trying to parse this cosmic mechanism, it was as if I were the hapless man in M.C. Escher's famous lithograph, Belvedere. Escher renders the eponymous building as a three-storey architecture of uncanny dimensions, its interior folding into its exterior at regular intervals.
在试图解析这个宇宙机制的过程中，我仿佛成了埃舍尔（M.C. Escher）著名石版画《美景宫》（Belvedere）中那个无助的人。埃舍尔将这座同名建筑描绘成一座三层楼高的不可思议的建筑，内部每隔一段距离就会折叠到外部。
Sitting on a bench outside, the man stares thoughtfully at a cube built to the same specifications as the structure.
他坐在外面的长椅上，若有所思地注视着一个与建筑结构规格相同的立方体。
At his feet lies a diagram from which the cube seems to have been built, or perhaps both diagram and cube have been constructed to explain the impossible building, which has always existed. Next to the man, an anguished
在他的脚下放着一张图，立方体似乎就是根据这张图画出来的，或者说，图和立方体都是为了解释这座一直存在的不可能的建筑。在这个人的旁边，一个痛苦的
prisoner pokes his head through the bars of a dungeon at the base of the belvedere. Perhaps he'd tried to decode the mystery and was driven mad by the task, locked away for his own safety. Perhaps the man in the dungeon was me.
囚犯从美景宫底部地牢的栅栏里探出头来。也许他曾试图破解这个谜团，结果被这个任务逼疯了，为了自身安全被关了起来。也许地牢里的那个人就是我。

Although I had seen the past, present and future of the Ballardian universe, this was useless knowledge, for what could I do with it? Analysing Atrocity was like dissecting a hologram.
虽然我已经看到了巴拉德宇宙的过去、现在和未来，但这些知识毫无用处，因为我能用它做什么呢？分析暴行就像解剖全息图。
When a hologram is cut in half, the cross section reveals the same information as the hologram in its entirety, as in genetic sequencing where the divided cell contains the entire code that allows a clone to be made.
当全息图被切成两半时，横截面显示的信息与全息图的整体信息相同，就像在基因测序中，被分割的细胞包含了可以制造克隆人的全部代码。
Holographic information can be dissected this way infinitely-just keep cutting the cross section.
全息信息可以这样被无限剖析--只需不断切割横截面。

In Atrocity, information encoded in one part contains information that explains the whole. Yet the more I attempted to track and contain these connections, the more his entire body of work dispersed until in the end I had nothing.
在《残暴》中，一部分编码的信息包含了解释整体的信息。然而，我越是试图追踪和包含这些联系，他的整个作品就越是分散，直到最后我一无所获。

There was nothing. 什么都没有。

I was nothing. 我什么都不是

I recovered from the illness and flew home, but there would be no respite. I walked straight into a burst of friendly fire delivered by my PhD supervisor, Anthony, who gave me a copy of the journal Science-Fiction Studies in which Ballard had been interviewed.
我病愈后飞回了家，但并没有得到喘息的机会。我的博士生导师安东尼给了我一本《科幻研究》杂志，巴拉德曾在这本杂志上接受过采访。
I read it eagerly, only to discover a broadside aimed squarely at the dominant theoretical fad of the 90 s: postmodernism, an intellectual fraud, according to Ballard, 'elaborated by people with not an idea in their bones'.
我迫不及待地读完了这本书，却发现书中的矛头直指90年代的主流理论时尚：后现代主义，巴拉德认为这是一场知识界的骗局，"是由骨子里没有思想的人精心策划的"。

As the standard bearers for my critical review of his work, I'd championed Baudrillard and Virilio. In Liverpool I'd even tried
作为我对他的作品进行批判性评论的标杆人物，我支持鲍德里亚和维里略。在利物浦，我甚至尝试过
to emulate their opaque, futuristic style, yet Ballard spared no bile for the sort of pseudointellectual I aspired to become, launching a blistering attack on the lumpen mass of cybertheorists that were using him, and other science fiction writers, to make sense of the postmodern condition.
然而，巴拉德对我渴望成为的那种伪知识分子毫不留情，对那些利用他和其他科幻小说家来理解后现代状况的网络理论家进行了猛烈抨击。
Ballard excluded Baudrillard from the carnage, it must be noted, stating that he admired his writing greatly, reserving his ire for those who tried to be Ba (udri)llardian.
必须指出的是，巴拉德将鲍德里亚排除在这场大屠杀之外，他说自己非常欣赏鲍德里亚的写作，但对那些试图成为鲍德里亚主义者的人保留了愤怒。
Instead, he denounced postmodernism as a sad, desperate and directionless trifle promulgated by 'an over-professionalised academia with nowhere to take its girlfriend for a bottle of wine and a dance'. He ended his rude missive with a desperate plea: 'You are killing us!
相反，他谴责后现代主义是'过度专业化的学术界无处带女友去喝酒跳舞'所鼓吹的可悲、绝望和没有方向的琐事。他在这封粗鲁的信的结尾发出了绝望的恳求："你们正在杀死我们！
Stay your hand! Leave us be! But I fear you are trapped inside your dismal jargon.'
不要动别管我们'但我担心你们被困在你们那令人沮丧的行话里了。

Like a model paranoiac, I believed Ballard's global 'you' to be directed squarely at me as I recalled the 'dismal jargon' that had emanated from my lips in Liverpool.
就像一个典型的偏执狂，我相信巴拉德所说的 "你 "完全是针对我的，因为我想起了在利物浦时从我嘴里说出的 "令人沮丧的行话"。

Auratic power. 极光能量

Negative value. 负值。

I entered a deep depression, mortified that my chosen analytical model was the subject of so much derision-not only from fanboys but from Ballard himself.
我陷入了深深的抑郁之中，因为我所选择的分析模式遭到了如此多的嘲笑--不仅是粉丝们的嘲笑，还有巴拉德本人的嘲笑。

This uncomfortable truth pierced my brain like a prison shiv, wreaking maximum damage in the crudest possible fashion.
这个让人不舒服的事实像监狱里的利器一样刺穿了我的大脑，以最粗暴的方式造成了最大的伤害。

That night, I drove to the summit of Arthur's Seat, a hill on the Mornington Peninsula overlooking Port Philip Bay. I was accompanied by Alyssa, an on-again-off-again girlfriend. I had no real purpose in mind other than to go for a drive, to clear my
当晚，我驱车前往亚瑟王座山顶，这是莫宁顿半岛上的一座小山，俯瞰菲利普港湾。陪伴我的是阿丽莎，一个断断续续的女朋友。我并没有真正的目的，只是想开车兜兜风，清理一下我的思绪。
mind, to try to work out how to get my life back on track. At the top of Arthur's Seat, we parked in the lookout area, taking in the magnificent view across the bay towards the You Yangs mountain range.
我一直在思考如何让我的生活重回正轨。在亚瑟王座山顶，我们把车停在了瞭望区，欣赏着海湾对面酉阳山脉的壮丽景色。

After half an hour, my forehead began to throb softly. The sensation was odd yet pleasurable, like a rubber band stretching beneath the skin.
半小时后，我的额头开始轻轻跳动。这种感觉很奇怪，但又很愉悦，就像一根橡皮筋在皮肤下面拉伸。
I was filled with a micro-dose of excitement, as if I was about to greet a loved one for the first time in years, and became fixated on the horizon at a point just beyond the You Yangs. I heard a neutral voice inside my mind, weirdly genderless, echoing distantly.
我的内心充满了微微的激动，就像多年来第一次迎接亲人一样，我的目光紧紧地盯着酉阳山外的地平线。我听到一个中性的声音在我的脑海里，诡异地没有性别，遥遥地回响着。

Instantly, four bright orange orbs appeared in the sky over the mountains, arranged in a quarter circle. After a few minutes they reformed into a cross, then a square, then a triangle trailing a single orb.
瞬间，四个明亮的橙色球体出现在群山的上空，排成四分之一个圆圈。几分钟后，它们变成了一个十字，然后是一个正方形，接着是一个三角形，后面还拖着一个球体。
Periodically, they would 'switch off' and reappear in another part of the horizon, many kilometres away, zigzagging across the sky at impossible speeds. A group of strangers were at the lookout. They all saw the display.
它们会不时地 "熄火"，然后在地平线的另一个地方重新出现，在许多公里之外，以不可能达到的速度 "之 "字形划过天空。瞭望台上有一群陌生人。他们都看到了这一景象。
One woman dissolved into tears, repeating the same question over and over.
一位妇女泪流满面，一遍又一遍地重复着同一个问题。

'What is it? What is it?'
是什么？是什么？

We shared an electric feeling, beyond the limits of understanding. It was a threshold moment. I surveilled the orbs through the pay telescope. Up close, they looked like fireballs, all swirling, angry energy, each with a ring of red around the middle.
我们分享了一种电光石火的感觉，超越了理解的极限。这是一个门槛时刻。我通过付费望远镜观察这些球体。从近处看，它们就像火球，都是旋转的、愤怒的能量，每个中间都有一圈红色。
It wasn't a natural phenomenon. The orbs were intelligent, their formations saturated with purpose. Then without warning, they switched off, vanishing forever. We were tired and wanted to go home, and as we drove away we watched the group of strangers.
这不是自然现象。这些球体是有智慧的，它们的形成充满了目的性。然后，它们毫无征兆地关闭了，永远消失了。我们累了，想回家，开车离开时，我们看着那群陌生人。
They were rooted to the spot like waxwork dummies, mouths agape, still transfixed by the experience.
他们像蜡像一样呆立当场，嘴巴张得大大的，仍然目不转睛。

The wind was incredible, and coming down off Arthur's Seat our car was buffeted. As we turned into the Nepean Highway,
风大得惊人，从亚瑟王座下来时，我们的车被吹得摇摇晃晃。当我们驶入内皮恩公路时、
we entered a dense patch of fog. The fog was unnaturally still, despite the wind, and as we drove through it my throat and chest became constricted. I felt cold and clammy, and caught my face in the rear-view mirror.
我们进入了一片浓雾之中。尽管有风，雾还是静得不像话，当我们驶过雾中时，我的喉咙和胸口都变得憋闷起来。我感到浑身冰冷，从后视镜中看到了自己的脸。
In the reflection, I suffered a dislocating visual hallucination. I thought I could see a doctor's surgery behind my face, not the car's familiar interior. A white-clad nurse was visible for a micro-instant, before disappearing to the side.
在反光镜中，我产生了错位的视觉幻觉。我以为我的脸后看到了一个医生的手术室，而不是熟悉的车内。一位白衣护士的身影在一瞬间出现在我的眼前，然后又消失在一旁。
I could see my eyes: they were wide and startled, inflected with animal fear, and I had difficulty breathing. I was on the verge of telling Alyssa about it when she spoke first.
我可以看到自己的眼睛：它们睁得大大的，怔怔的，带着动物般的恐惧，我呼吸困难。我正想告诉阿丽莎这件事，阿丽莎先开口了。

'I know, love. You want to breathe but how can you when your throat is so tight and your chest is killing you?'
我知道，亲爱的。你想呼吸，但喉咙如此紧绷，胸口难受得要命，你怎么能呼吸呢？

I stared at her. 我盯着她。

'What did you say?' 你说什么？

'I said, I can't breathe. My chest is killing me and my throat is really tight.'
我说，我无法呼吸。我的胸口疼得要命，喉咙也很紧。

'Same here,' I replied, but I was beginning to doubt everything around me. I returned to the mirror. The car's interior had been reinstated. Now, it was clear. I was at fault, not Alyssa. My brain was broken.
我也一样，"我回答道，但我开始怀疑周围的一切。我回到镜子前。汽车的内饰已经恢复原样。现在，一切都清楚了。是我的错，不是阿丽莎的错。我的大脑坏掉了。

We arrived at her house. The drive had taken longer than expected, so in the morning we retraced the route at the same speed. It took 15 minutes. We'd lost half an hour that night, victims of missing time.
我们到了她家。开车的时间比预计的要长，所以早上我们以同样的速度重走了一遍路线。花了 15 分钟。那天晚上我们损失了半个小时，我们都是错过时间的受害者。

A few days later, we were in bed. Alyssa looked troubled. She said there were three scars at the base of my spine, like incision marks, arranged in a triangle.
几天后，我们躺在床上。阿丽莎看起来很不安。她说我的脊柱底部有三道疤痕，就像切口一样，呈三角形排列。
She said she'd never noticed them before and I was positive I'd never had an operation there, but I checked with my parents.
她说她以前从未注意到过它们，我也确信我从未在那里做过手术，但我还是向父母确认了一下。

'An accident from when I was little?'
我小时候的意外？

'No. What scars?' 什么伤疤？

I'd read plenty of books about UFOs and was more than a little paranoid about the combination of scars and missing time,
我读过很多关于不明飞行物的书，对伤疤和时间缺失的结合更多了几分偏执、
although the thought of alien abduction was too ridiculous to entertain. I was interested in the subject of UFOlogy not solely because of the obvious science fictional connections but also because it was such a compelling psychological phenomenon.
尽管外星人绑架的想法太荒谬了，但我还是乐在其中。我之所以对飞碟学感兴趣，不仅仅是因为它与科幻小说有明显的联系，还因为它是一种引人入胜的心理现象。
Regardless of arguments about the provenance of anomalous sky objects, why were so many people reporting sightings worldwide? The 90 s was a hotbed for UFO activity. Was it a mass psychosis?
不管人们对异常天空物体的来源如何争论，为什么全世界有那么多人报告目击事件呢？90 年代是 UFO 活动的温床。这是群体性精神病吗？
Was it the decade when popular culture had reached such saturation that mediated dreams were bleeding out into the skies? Nonetheless, to satisfy my deep curiosity about the incident, I searched the phone book and found the number for the local UFO hotline.
难道是这十年流行文化达到了饱和状态，以至于中介的梦境都渗入了天空？尽管如此，为了满足我对这一事件的强烈好奇心，我还是搜索了电话簿，找到了当地飞碟热线的号码。
I rang and explained the sighting and its aftermath. The operator, as calmly as if he were a plumber describing a malfunctioning toilet, said it wasn't extraterrestrials that had scarred me but 'psychic witches'-evil cultists who enslaved their victims with mind control.
我打电话解释了目击事件及其后果。接线员就像水管工描述马桶故障一样平静，他说给我留下伤痕的不是外星人，而是 "通灵女巫"--用精神控制奴役受害者的邪恶邪教。

He told me about his 'holographic' theory of the universe, returning me to Tangier and my sickness-inflected Atrocity theory. Reality is a hologram, he said, and every now and then certain parts become broken and need repairing.
他向我讲述了他的宇宙 "全息 "理论，让我又回到了丹吉尔，回到了我那被疾病影响的 "残暴 "理论。他说，现实就是一幅全息图，每隔一段时间，某些部分就会破损，需要修复。
He said the orange orbs were 'bleeding through' into reality, courtesy of a kink in the holographic system that mind-control cultists could somehow exploit. I was livid with rage and couldn't believe he was fuelling my fear.
他说，橙色球体 "渗入 "了现实，这是因为全息系统出现了问题，而精神控制邪教分子可以利用这个问题。我气得脸色铁青，不敢相信他竟然助长了我的恐惧。
Why couldn't he tell me the orbs were a weather formation or hot-air balloons?
为什么他不能告诉我那些球体是气象编队或热气球？
He continued to question me, asking whether I'd associated with any unsavoury types at university who might have had cause to mess with my head, but I couldn't understand his nonsense and became most concerned when I realised how much it was costing me to listen to it.
他继续质问我，问我在大学里是否与任何不怀好意的人交往过，他们可能有理由扰乱我的思想，但我听不懂他的胡言乱语，当我意识到听他的胡言乱语让我付出了多少代价时，我变得非常担心。
The hotline charged three dollars per minute and I'd been on the phone for 40 minutes. I hung up and tried to forget everything that had happened, but the effort was wasted.
热线电话每分钟收费 3 美元，而我已经打了 40 分钟。挂断电话后，我试图忘记发生的一切，但这些努力都白费了。

In the following weeks, my research was entirely derailed into
在接下来的几周里，我的研究完全偏离了轨道，变成了
musings on the UFO phenomenon, and in due course Alyssa stopped seeing me altogether. We were never a serious item, but she distanced herself completely, refusing to answer my calls.
在适当的时候，阿丽莎完全不再见我。我们从未认真交往过，但她完全疏远了我，拒绝接听我的电话。
She'd accepted a version of the reality we'd experienced, believing the orbs were nothing more than Chinese lanterns released into the sky by pranksters and the scars relics of a long-forgotten childhood surgery, but she couldn't handle how it had affected me.
她已经接受了我们所经历的现实，相信那些球体只不过是恶作剧者放飞到天空的中国灯笼，以及被遗忘已久的童年手术留下的疤痕，但她无法接受这一切对我的影响。
I'd allowed my research to crumble, and with my scholarship almost exhausted I was nowhere near completing my PhD.
我任由自己的研究陷入困境，而我的奖学金也几乎用尽，我离完成博士学位还差得很远。

With crushing inevitability, I withdrew my candidacy and Alyssa withdrew from me, for I was dead inside.
我无可奈何地退出了竞选，阿丽莎也离开了我，因为我的内心已经死了。

No thought, no feeling, no life.
没有思想，没有感觉，没有生命。

And now completely delusional.
现在完全是妄想。

Throughout my postgraduate years, I'd eked out a meagre living as a sessional tutor in the Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies at Hartwell University, but after quitting my PhD there was no more work.
研究生期间，我一直在哈特威尔大学比较文化研究中心担任临时导师，勉强维持生计。
I signed on for unemployment benefits and wasted my days drinking, clubbing and writing sub-Ballardian fiction, since I was still in thrall to Ballard's benign influence yet no longer had recourse to an academic structure that could exorcise it. Let me be clear.
我领到了失业救济金，整天酗酒、泡吧、写巴拉德式的小说，因为我还沉浸在巴拉德的良性影响中，却再也没有学术机构可以驱除它。让我把话说清楚。
These fictionalised excretions could hardly be called 'stories', more exactly stream-of-consciousness drivel that poached superficially Ballardian elements and molested them like a teenager bursting blackheads.
这些虚构的排泄物很难被称为 "故事"，更确切地说，它们是意识流的胡言乱语，偷取了表面上的巴拉德式元素，并像青少年爆黑头一样对其进行猥亵。

At the core of these efforts was a narrator who engaged in bestiality on freeway median strips, watched by bored passengers in onrushing motor vehicles while UFOs patrolled the skies. Indeed, my sighting was becoming a real problem, an obsession
这些努力的核心是一个在高速公路中央隔离带上进行兽交的叙述者，在飞碟在空中巡逻的时候，在急驶的机动车辆上无聊的乘客们也在观看。事实上，我的目击事件正在成为一个真正的问题，一个令人着迷的问题
that would not abate. I seized any available chance to tell friends, even strangers, about the orange orbs. I would draw them on napkins, drink mats, tissues, scratching out the formation over and over.
这一点不会减弱。我抓住一切可以利用的机会，向朋友甚至陌生人讲述橙色球体的故事。我会把它们画在餐巾纸、饮料垫、纸巾上，一遍又一遍地划出它们的形状。
That insidious quarter circle was significant somehow, the shape of it, and I could not drive it from my mind, like the man in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, who cannot explain why he is obsessed with the shape of the Devil's Tower in Wyoming where an alien starship eventually lands.
就像电影《第三类亲密接触》（Close Encounters of the Third Kind）中的男主角一样，他无法解释自己为什么对怀俄明州魔鬼塔的形状如此着迷，而外星飞船最终就降落在那里。

Anthony thought I was deranged.
安东尼以为我疯了。
Instead of giving papers on Ballard at important cultural studies conferences around the world, I'd chosen to read my demented fictional leavings at minor spoken-word events in Melbourne where they were met with embarrassed silence every single time.
我没有在世界各地重要的文化研究会议上发表关于巴拉德的论文，而是选择在墨尔本的小型口语活动上朗读我那些癫狂的虚构作品，每次都是尴尬的沉默。
On and on it went, as if I was possessed, unable to stop despite the crushing uselessness of my efforts. Taking leave of the academy was just the beginning. Abandoning my senses was the logical extent.
我就像着了魔一样，不停地重复着，尽管我的努力毫无用处，却无法停止。离开学院只是一个开始。放弃我的感官才是合乎逻辑的程度。

The millennium came and went, and in the wilderness years that followed, as I decompressed from academia and attempted to regroup, I found myself inexplicably returning to the cyber elements of sadomasochism.
千禧年来了又去，在随后的荒野岁月里，当我从学术界解压并试图重整旗鼓时，我发现自己又莫名其妙地回到了施虐受虐的网络元素中。
For some reason, it had entered my head that I desperately needed to publish an anthology of science fiction stories about alternate sexualities.
出于某种原因，我的脑海中闪现出这样一个念头：我迫切需要出版一本关于另类性别的科幻小说选集。

I suppose it was a combination of factors that drove me to that point, namely my delusions of grandeur, my UFO obsession and my still-smouldering desire to defeat the worst excesses of cyberculture, since I was convinced I could colonise the futurehuman terrain that Crash inhabits.
我想，是多种因素促使我走到了这一步，即我的妄想症、我对 UFO 的痴迷，以及我仍在萌生的战胜网络文化最恶劣的过激行为的愿望，因为我相信我可以在《撞车》所栖息的未来人类领土上殖民。

What a feeble plan. What an embarrassment to Ballard.
多么软弱无力的计划。真是让巴拉德难堪。

Yet the impulse remained.
然而，冲动依然存在。

Seeking seed money for the anthology, I found myself in the front room of a fetish brothel along with my co-publisher, a poetaster named Davis. We were waiting for a decrepit madame to emerge from the back room.
为了给这本选集寻找种子基金，我和我的合作出版人、一位名叫戴维斯的诗人来到了一家恋物癖妓院的前厅。我们正在等待一位衰老的老鸨从里屋出来。
We could hear her torturing someone, a high-flying businessman we later learned, for we saw him as he skulked out of the building and subsequently identified him from a newspaper story that featured his corporate mugshot.
我们可以听到她在折磨一个人，我们后来知道那是一个飞黄腾达的商人，因为我们看到他从大楼里溜走，后来又从报纸上刊登的他的公司照片中认出了他。
We sat on Madame's black-vinyl couch like two turnips fallen from the truck, hoping we could persuade her to funnel some of her sordid profits into the production of our anthology. The subject matter, we were certain, would delight her.
我们坐在夫人的黑色乙烯基沙发上，就像两个从卡车上掉下来的萝卜，希望能说服她将一些肮脏的利润用于制作我们的选集。我们确信，这个主题一定会让她高兴。

A seven-foot-tall butler-gimp served us tea and biscuits. He walked on his hands and knees, the tray resting on his back in a delicate balancing act as his huge pot belly touched the ground like an overfed Labrador retriever.
一位身高七英尺的管家瘸子为我们端茶送饼干。他手脚并用地走着，托盘放在他的背上，做着微妙的平衡动作，巨大的肚皮触地，就像一只吃得过饱的拉布拉多猎犬。
Sporting a shaven head, he must have been in his 60 s and was clad only in PVC underpants and a spiked dog collar. Stopping at our knees, he remained silent as we gingerly lifted our cups from this human Lazy Susan.
他剃着光头，应该有 60 多岁，只穿着 PVC 内裤和带刺的狗项圈。当我们轻轻地从这个 "人形懒人 "手中端起杯子时，他停在我们的膝盖上，一言不发。

Eventually, Madame completed her duties and joined us in the parlour. She wore a blood-red corset and pink garters. Although she was quite elderly, I was surprised to discover she was very beautiful.
最后，夫人完成了她的工作，和我们一起来到了客厅。她穿着血红色的紧身胸衣和粉红色的吊袜带。虽然她年事已高，但我惊讶地发现她非常漂亮。
She took one look at us, squares in sneakers, jeans and band T-shirts, and shook her head.
她看了一眼穿着运动鞋、牛仔裤和乐队 T 恤的我们，摇了摇头。

'No. I am afraid I cannot help you.'
不，恐怕我帮不了你。

She clapped her wizened hands with surprising force for her bird-like frame, causing us to flinch in our seats.
她用那双枯瘦的手拍了拍，以她小鸟依人的身躯来说，力道之大令人吃惊，让我们在座位上不由自主地后退了几步。

'Boris! See these gentlemen to the door.'
鲍里斯送这些先生到门口

The giant, fat human retriever sprang from his resting position by our feet, the tray on his back clattering to the ground as
这只巨大、肥胖的人类猎犬从我们脚边的休息位置窜了出来，背上的托盘哐当一声掉在地上。
he uncoiled to a standing position. He pointed soundlessly at the front door. Once again, I had misread the codes for entry into this shadowy underworld.
他站了起来。他无声地指着前门。我又一次看错了进入这个阴暗世界的密码。

'It's okay,' I whispered to Davis as we beat an ignominious retreat. 'My mother has some money.'
没事的，"我低声对戴维斯说，一边打着退堂鼓。我妈妈有一些钱。

To my eternal shame, I persuaded my poor mother to fund the anthology, although I was careful to conceal the exact details.
让我永远感到羞愧的是，我说服了我可怜的母亲资助这本选集，尽管我小心翼翼地隐瞒了具体细节。
She thought it was a PhD project and didn't even know I'd left university, unaware she was bankrolling a volume of such depravity that the printer removed the company name from the inside cover at the eleventh hour, mortified at the content and unwilling to be associated with it in any way, since the book detailed every perversion, and then some, in lurid fantastical prose written by contributors responding to the call for submissions we had placed in underground zines.
她以为这是个博士项目，甚至不知道我已经离开了大学，也不知道她正在资助一本如此堕落的书，以至于印刷商在最后一刻把公司名称从封面内页上删掉了，她对书的内容感到羞愧，也不愿意以任何方式与这本书扯上关系，因为书中详细描述了各种变态行为，还有一些是投稿人响应我们在地下杂志上发出的投稿号召，用淫秽的幻想散文写成的。
I myself was later to disown it, losing my nerve and burning what I thought were all remaining copies to spare my family embarrassment, although a few escaped onto eBay, released by some mysterious person, where they sat as unloved, unnoticed and unsold as they had been at the time of publication (the book was far from a success, with sales so disappointing it was as if it had been boycotted).
后来，我自己也不认这本书了，我失去了勇气，为了不让家人为难，我烧掉了我认为剩下的所有副本，尽管有一些副本逃到了 eBay 上，被某个神秘人放出，在那里，它们和出版时一样无人喜爱、无人关注、无人售出（这本书远非成功，销售情况如此令人失望，就好像被抵制了一样）。

Although cyberculture had dissipated, sadomasochism remained the popcult flavour of the times, used as window dressing in films, TV and advertising, and it fuelled a delirium from which I never emerged. These were my people, or so I thought.
虽然网络文化已经消散，但施虐受虐仍然是那个时代的流行文化，在电影、电视和广告中被用作装点门面的装饰，它助长了我的谵妄，而我却从未从中走出来。这些都是我的人，我是这么认为的。
In graphic detail, in words and artwork, the anthology featured stories about sex with aliens, alienating sex, sex with clones, sex with artificial humans, confused sex, violent sex, sex with inanimate objects, sex with hallucinations, images, colours.
这本选集以图文并茂的方式，讲述了与外星人的性爱、异化的性爱、与克隆人的性爱、与人造人的性爱、混乱的性爱、暴力的性爱、与无生命物体的性爱、与幻觉、图像、色彩的性爱。
As editor, I composed the introduction as if it were a manifesto for living, promising the book would reveal a secret society of gender-bending, alt.sex cyber-warriors, a brave new world of
作为编辑，我在撰写序言时，把它当成了生活宣言，承诺这本书将揭示一个由性别弯曲、alt.sex 网络战士组成的秘密社团，一个勇敢的新世界，一个由性别弯曲、alt.sex 网络战士组成的秘密社团，一个勇敢的新世界。
sexually recombinant adepts telepathically communicating with high-tech aliens on a hyperstimulated orgasmic plane of existence.
性重组专家与高科技外星人进行心灵感应，在一个高度刺激的性高潮世界里交流。
If anything, I had only succeeded in herding an enervated crew of misfit writers united solely by their failure in the real world to connect emotionally, spiritually or sexually with any other human being.
如果有的话，我只是成功地把一群不合群的作家团结在一起，因为他们在现实世界中无法与其他人建立情感、精神或性方面的联系。

I contributed yet another sub-Ballardian blackhead to the anthology, since I was still so delusional as to believe the stream of rejections I had received from real publishers was due to their failure to recognise my talent (after leaving university, I'd been consistently knocked back for philosophy essays, film and book reviews, fiction, poetry-the lot).
我为这本选集贡献了另一个巴洛克式的黑头，因为我仍然妄想着，我从真正的出版商那里收到的源源不断的退稿是因为他们没有认识到我的才华（离开大学后，我的哲学论文、电影和书评、小说、诗歌--很多）。
Naturally, self-publishing would exact sweet revenge, but this time, instead of aping Ballard, I turned his methods against him, channelling my frustration with the repetitiveness of his later novels, especially Cocaine Nights, which seemed to repeat themes and motifs from his previous work at the expense of new ideas.
自费出版自然是一种甜蜜的报复，但这一次，我没有模仿巴拉德，而是反其道而行之，将我对他后期小说重复性的不满发泄出来，尤其是《可卡因之夜》，它似乎是在重复他之前作品的主题和图案，而忽略了新的想法。

I massaged that stupid rage and idiot energy into the story like a two-bit parlour whore, producing a cheap cut-and-paste job smuggled inside a straight medical documentary. Online, I'd found a doctor's report about a patient undergoing voluntary penile enhancement.
我把这种愚蠢的愤怒和白痴的劲头揉进了故事里，就像一个二流妓院的妓女，制作了一部廉价的剪贴作品，偷偷塞进了一部纯医学纪录片里。我在网上找到了一份医生的报告，是关于一个病人自愿接受阴茎增强手术的。
I simply reproduced the text wholesale, substituting the patient's name with 'Ballard'. This type of surgery, I reasoned, was an appropriate metaphor for Ballard's supposedly waning narrative powers and his (in my mind) desperate attempts to rejuvenate them.
我简单地复制了全文，用 "巴拉德 "代替了病人的名字。我的理由是，这种手术恰好可以隐喻巴拉德所谓的叙事能力的衰退，以及他（在我看来）为恢复叙事能力而不择手段的尝试。

I'd copied the idea from his own 'surgical fiction' series, which included the stories 'Mae West's Reduction Mammoplasty', 'Princess Margaret's Facelift', 'Queen Elizabeth's Rhinoplasty' and 'Jane Fonda's Augmentation Mammoplasty'.
我从他自己的 "外科小说 "系列中复制了这个想法，其中包括 "梅-韦斯特的缩小乳房整形术"、"玛格丽特公主的整容术"、"伊丽莎白女王的隆鼻术 "和 "简-方达的增大乳房整形术"。
Ballard lifts whole passages from medical textbooks, changing nothing but the patients' names, which he replaces with those of the respective celebrity figure, the ultra-realism of this method
巴拉德从医学教科书中摘录了整段文字，除了病人的名字外，其他地方都没有改动，他用相关名人的名字代替了病人的名字，这种方法的极端写实性在于
forcing a confrontation between the reader and the forensic detail of hyper-celebrity bodies immensely familiar from the media landscape.
迫使读者与超名人尸体的法医细节发生冲突，而这些细节在媒体报道中已是司空见惯。

For Ballard, a celebrity's face, mediated via the close-up lens of a TV or movie camera, is as intimate as a map of our immediate urban neighbourhood.
对巴拉德来说，通过电视或电影摄像机特写镜头呈现的名人面孔，就像我们身边的城市街区地图一样亲切。
It becomes a virtual 'landscape' that we can remake and remodel with the power of the imagination, enabled by the metaphor of plastic surgery and emboldened by a new 'stick-to-the-skin' relationship to images forced upon us by mass media's wraparound ubiquity.
通过整形手术的隐喻，以及大众传媒无处不在的强加给我们的 "贴在皮肤上 "的图像新关系，我们可以用想象力重塑和改造虚拟的 "景观"。

But despite the brilliance of Ballard's technique, I was unable to acknowledge it and could only steal, misappropriate and parody it.
但是，尽管巴拉德的技巧非常高明，我却无法承认，只能窃取、挪用和模仿。
In the postscript to the story, I even had the temerity to suggest that I and my depraved literary cohorts could pick up the baton he had so 'evidently' dropped, since I believed that by turning his own method onto him I was free to destroy his relevance and thus his importance to my thinking.
在故事的后记中，我甚至厚颜无耻地建议，我和我那些堕落的文学伙伴们可以接过他 "显然 "丢下的接力棒，因为我相信，把他自己的方法转嫁到他身上，我就可以自由地摧毁他的相关性，从而摧毁他对我思想的重要性。
But what is parody in its purest form if not an obsessive-compulsive desire to render inert an aspect of a person that has caused annoyance or has sparked a painful moment of self-revelation in the mind of the 'accuser'? Why not simply ignore that aspect, turn the other cheek?
但最纯粹的模仿又是什么呢？如果不是一种强迫症式的欲望，想要让一个人的某个方面失去活力，而这个方面曾在 "指控者 "的心中引起恼怒或引发痛苦的自我揭露？为什么不干脆忽略这个方面，转过脸去？
The parodic tormenter cannot, and the obsession smoulders until the object of derision is tamed, imprisoned and ultimately inhabited.
戏仿的折磨者无法做到这一点，而这种痴迷会一直持续下去，直到嘲笑的对象被驯服、囚禁并最终居住下来。

I was disgusted to realise that my attempts to 'kill my father' in this useless experiment bore the stench of the horrific film Silence of the Lambs, which incarnates the extremities of such compulsion in the serial killer Buffalo Bill, who mocks his female victims in a subterrancan prison before slaughtering them, flaying them and wearing their skins as the ultimate prize.
我厌恶地意识到，我试图在这个无用的实验中 "杀死我的父亲"，这散发着恐怖电影《沉默的羔羊》的恶臭，影片中的连环杀手 "水牛比尔 "将这种蛊惑发挥到了极致。
Yet while the killer wears the skin, the victim's soul remains forever elusive, something Bill realises as it dawns upon him that he will never, no matter how many women he slays, become a
然而，当凶手披着凶手的皮囊时，受害者的灵魂却永远难以捉摸。
woman himself-a transformation that remains his secret desire. The film's extreme psychological force painfully underscored my disastrous attempts to divine the essence of Ballard's work through academic assessment, then fictive imitation, then inarticulate rage.
他的秘密愿望。这部影片极强的心理感染力让我痛苦不堪，我曾试图通过学术评价，然后是虚构的模仿，最后是语焉不详的愤怒，来窥探巴拉德作品的精髓，但结果却是灾难性的。

With sick force, I was reminded that each phase of this escape plan had failed spectacularly, miring me deeper in the thick mud of depression.
病态的力量提醒我，这个逃离计划的每个阶段都以失败告终，让我在抑郁的深渊中越陷越深。

My anthology of alien sex failed to find an audience but succeeded in destroying my friendship with Davis. To drum up sales, we took the show on the road, coaxing a few of the more outré contributors to give spoken-word renditions of their stories.
我的外星人性爱选集没有找到读者，却成功地破坏了我和戴维斯的友谊。为了增加销量，我们把这本选集搬到了路上，哄骗一些比较离经叛道的撰稿人用口语演绎他们的故事。
As master of ceremonies, Davis inhabited a series of characters marked by outlandish costumery, spurred on by my demands for more controversy, more extreme states of being.
作为司仪，戴维斯在我的要求刺激下，扮演了一系列角色，这些角色的服装奇特怪异，我要求更多的争议、更极端的存在状态。
His personas included an insane astronaut wearing a nappy, and a deviant monk sporting a robe studded with bloodied baby dolls and brown-stained dildos.
他的角色包括一个穿着尿布的疯狂宇航员，以及一个穿着镶满血迹的婴儿玩偶和沾满棕色污渍的假阳具的袈裟的变态僧侣。

One night, at an after-party, Davis snapped when I criticised him for not pushing his performance far enough. I wanted him to provoke the crowd, to start a fight, but he was growing tired of all that.
有一天晚上，在一个余兴派对上，当我批评他的表演不够精彩时，戴维斯突然发飙了。我想让他激怒观众，挑起事端，但他已经厌倦了这一切。
He saw himself as a poet, a pure artist who had no need for crass circus tricks. Bolstered by his own self-importance and his repulsion at my unsound methods, he punched me in the face before drunkenly stumbling out onto the street, still wearing his astro-nappy.
他认为自己是一个诗人，一个纯粹的艺术家，不需要粗俗的马戏团把戏。他自视甚高，又对我不靠谱的表演方式深恶痛绝，于是给了我一拳，然后醉醺醺地跌跌撞撞地跑到大街上，还穿着他的天体泳衣。
I never saw him again.
我再也没见过他。

Someone I did see a lot more of was Catherine, a friend of a friend. I'd met her a few times before but we'd only exchanged
我见过的比较多的人是凯瑟琳，一个朋友的朋友。我以前见过她几次，但我们只交流过
brief pleasantries. Nonetheless, I was having vivid dreams about her. In fact, I'd dreamed the same dream three nights in a row. I would be standing outside a building at night, part of a large crowd milling about. Catherine would appear from nowhere.
简短的寒暄。尽管如此，我还是生动地梦到了她。事实上，我已经连续三个晚上做同一个梦了。夜里，我站在一幢大楼外，是熙熙攘攘的人群中的一员。凯瑟琳会突然出现

'Hello,' she would say. 'Remember me?'
她会说'你好'。还记得我吗？

Then we would start talking, but I could never remember the details. Then the dream would end. Three nights in a row. Always the same.
然后我们开始交谈，但我总是记不住细节。然后梦就结束了。连续三个晚上总是一样

The after-party was held in a bar in a large warehouse. The fire alarm went off and the manager hustled us outside. I stood among a large group of people. A woman emerged from the crowd. It was Catherine.
余兴派对在一个大仓库的酒吧里举行。火警警报响起，经理把我们赶了出去。我站在一大群人中间。一个女人从人群中走了出来。她就是凯瑟琳。

'Hello. Remember me?' 还记得我吗？还记得我吗？

I froze, stunned by the dreamworld bleeding into reality, embarrassed by my nocturnal attraction to her.
我愣住了，被淌入现实的梦境惊呆了，为自己夜间对她的吸引力感到尴尬。

She stared at me. 她盯着我。

'What is it? Your face is pale.'
怎么了？你的脸色很苍白

'It's nothing. Good to see you, Catherine.'
没什么很高兴见到你，凯瑟琳

I watched the crowd return to the bar.
我看着人群回到酒吧。

'False alarm. Let's go inside. I need a drink.'
虚惊一场我们进去吧。我要喝一杯

Catherine was striking, with shoulder-length brown hair and high cheekbones. She was interested in critical theory and philosophy, and we shared an appreciation for Baudrillard and Virilio.
凯瑟琳长相出众，棕色长发及肩，颧骨高耸。她对批判理论和哲学很感兴趣，我们共同欣赏鲍德里亚和维里略。
She had never read Ballard, although I managed to stimulate her interest in his work (I was careful to emphasise the Baudrillardian and Virilian correspondences).
她从未读过巴拉德的作品，尽管我设法激发了她对巴拉德作品的兴趣（我小心翼翼地强调了波德里亚和维利尔的对应关系）。

We started seeing each other, but six months in, after the initial sexual and intellectual spark had died, she began to keep me at arm's length. She was emerging from the ashes of a long-term relationship and her heart, I knew, still lay with the other man.
我们开始交往，但六个月后，在最初的性爱和思想火花熄灭后，她开始与我保持距离。她正从一段长期关系的灰烬中走出，我知道，她的心还在另一个男人身上。
I suspected she was seeing him on the side, which caused me to want her even more.
我怀疑她和他有私情，这让我更想得到她。

Previously, I'd had semi-serious relationships with women
在此之前，我曾与一些女性有过半认真的关系
but they were never intense. This was different. I'm not sure how it happened, but I became utterly consumed by her, for Catherine entering my life was nothing less than an invasion, a viral takeover.
但它们从不激烈。这次不同我不知道是怎么发生的，但我完全被她迷住了，因为凯瑟琳进入我的生活无异于一次入侵，一次病毒式的占领。
Or rather, Catherine entering my body was a pathogen that consumed me from within, a flesh-eating disease that, once given licence to feed, could never be quelled.
或者说，进入我身体的凯瑟琳是一种从内部吞噬我的病原体，是一种一旦获得进食许可就永远无法平息的食肉疾病。

J.G. Ballard's best-known novel is the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun. It tracks the adventures of an English boy, Jim Graham, who lives in Shanghai with his expatriate parents and survives the Japanese occupation of the city during the Second World War.
J.G. 巴拉德最著名的小说是半自传体的《太阳帝国》。小说讲述了一个英国男孩吉姆-格雷厄姆（Jim Graham）与他的外籍父母一起生活在上海，并在第二次世界大战日本占领上海期间幸存下来的冒险故事。
Empire is drawn from Ballard's own life. Born in Shanghai, he lived in the International Settlement there, a zone within a zone.
《帝国》取材于巴拉德自己的生活。他出生于上海，住在那里的国际定居点，一个区中之区。
Shanghai, lawless and decadent, wasn't like the rest of China, and the International Settlement, full of sheltered expats erecting a simulacrum of England in the colonies, was nothing like Shanghai.
上海无法无天、颓废堕落，与中国其他地方完全不同，而国际移民区也与上海完全不同，那里住满了受庇护的外籍人士，在殖民地建立起了英国的模拟模型。
Then the war came, Japan invaded Shanghai and the Ballards were interned in Lunghua, a civilian camp. Lunghua was another Interzone, another nested reality-a zone within a zone within a zone. During the occupation, Ballard witnessed horrors that would never fade.
后来战争爆发，日本入侵上海，巴拉德一家被关押在一个平民集中营--龙华。龙华是另一个国际区，另一个嵌套的现实--区中之区，区中之区。在被占领期间，巴拉德目睹了永生难忘的恐怖。
Public stranglings in the city square. Chinese soldiers beheaded in the street. Coolies beaten to death. Bodies floating in canals.
城市广场上的公开绞刑。中国士兵当街被斩首。苦力被殴打致死尸体漂浮在运河中
He roamed abandoned houses and derelict streets, and the apocalyptic scent of death would later warp his fiction, forming a lightbox of imagery cloned in story after story.
他漫步于废弃的房屋和荒芜的街道，死亡的末日气息后来扭曲了他的小说，形成了一个又一个故事中克隆的意象灯箱。

The ripples from that autobiographical shockwave refused to dissipate. In 1987, when Steven Spielberg turned Empire into a big-budget motion picture, he shot it partly in the studios at Shepperton, the Surrey town where Ballard lived.
这股自传式的冲击波所激起的涟漪久久不能消散。1987 年，当史蒂文-斯皮尔伯格将《帝国》拍成一部大制作电影时，他在巴拉德居住的萨里郡谢珀顿的摄影棚里拍摄了这部电影的部分场景。
When the film was released, Ballard speculated about his subconscious motives for moving there thirty years previously. Had he done so knowing that one day he would write a novel about his Shanghai childhood and watch it come to life in these studios?
影片上映后，巴拉德猜测自己三十年前搬到上海的潜意识动机。他是否知道有一天自己会写一部关于上海童年生活的小说，并在这些摄影棚里看到它栩栩如生？

'Deep assignments run through all our lives,' he concluded. 'There are no coincidences.'
他总结说："深刻的任务贯穿我们的一生。没有巧合。

Deep assignments. 深度任务。

Soon, I would understand the devastating implications of that occult phrase. I would learn how everything is deeply connected in ways the conscious mind cannot possibly fathom.
很快，我就明白了这句玄妙的话所蕴含的毁灭性意义。我将了解到万事万物是如何以意识无法理解的方式深深联系在一起的。

23

Despite the uneasy, compromised nature of our union, within a year Catherine and I found ourselves living together in Japan. She had landed a job teaching English in Osaka and I had followed to eke out a living as her assistant.
尽管我们的结合充满了不安和妥协，但不到一年，凯瑟琳和我就在日本住到了一起。她在大阪找到了一份教英语的工作，而我则作为她的助手勉强度日。
I performed menial chores such as typing up tests and researching classroom topics in return for a modest stipend from the school. Outside of work, I tried to make sense of my environment.
我做一些琐碎的工作，比如打试卷、研究课堂主题，以换取学校微薄的津贴。工作之余，我努力了解自己所处的环境。
I embarked on long, aimless walks around Osaka, allowing myself to feel as displaced as possible. Knowing little of the Japanese language, I survived on instinct, drifting from moment to moment like a speck of dirt buffeted by the churning bubbles in a glass of Alka Seltzer.
我开始在大阪漫无目的地长途跋涉，尽可能地让自己感到颠沛流离。我对日语知之甚少，只能靠本能生存，就像被一杯阿尔卡苏打水（Alka Seltzer）中翻滚的气泡冲刷过的一粒尘埃，一刻不停地漂移。

I was fascinated by micro detail, such as the way Osakans stand to the right on escalators while Tokyoites stand to the left. I asked our Japanese friends about this but there was no definitive answer. Some said it was a hangover from the feudal era.
我被一些微小的细节所吸引，比如大阪人在自动扶梯上站在右边，而东京人则站在左边。我向日本朋友打听过，但没有确切的答案。有人说这是封建时代遗留下来的。
Tokyo was dominated by samurai, who preferred to draw their swords to the left, while Osaka was home to merchants, who opened their money bags to the right.
东京是武士的天下，他们喜欢在左边拔剑；而大阪则是商人的天下，他们喜欢在右边打开钱袋。
I spent hours people-watching, trying to solve such elemental mysteries, and at night I experimented with long camera exposures, trying to catch every fibre in the visual overload that was neon-lit Osaka, bending light through the aperture to bathe Osakans and their city in alien hues.
我花了几个小时观察人群，试图解开这些元素之谜。晚上，我尝试用相机长时间曝光，试图捕捉大阪霓虹灯下超负荷视觉效果中的每一根纤维，通过光圈弯曲光线，让大阪人和他们的城市沐浴在异色之中。

I hoped that eventually I would bend time as easily as I did
我希望最终能像我一样轻松地弯曲时间
streaks of light. But that superpower was beyond me.
光的条纹。但这种超能力超出了我的想象。

I remained depressingly mortal.
我仍然是令人沮丧的凡人。

One evening, we were watching TV in our small apartment when the living room began to violently shake. I was holding a red soft drink, which jumped from the glass as if it were trying to escape.
一天晚上，我们正在小公寓里看电视，客厅开始剧烈摇晃。我手里拿着一杯红色的汽水，汽水从杯子里跳了出来，好像要逃走一样。
Trapped in that micro-moment of panic and confusion, the airborne liquid reminded me of the sentient alien blood in the film The Thing, which leaps into the air when touched with a red-hot wire.
被困在恐慌和混乱的微瞬间，空气中的液体让我想起了电影《怪形》中有生命的外星血液，只要用烧红的铁丝一碰，它就会跳到空中。
Under stress, I always immediately reached for parallels with film, especially science fiction film, a habit that drove Catherine mad (she regarded it as a total abandonment of reality).
在压力下，我总是立刻想到电影，尤其是科幻电影，这个习惯让凯瑟琳抓狂（她认为这是对现实的彻底抛弃）。

'Earthquake!' she yelled, diving under the kitchen table. I scampered after her as plates and glasses flew from the shelves. Breathless, on all fours, we stared at each other like wild animals. The quake shook the apartment with violent force.
地震了！"她大叫着，跳到了厨房的桌子下面。当盘子和杯子从架子上飞起来时，我赶紧追了上去。我们气喘吁吁，四肢着地，像野兽一样互相凝视着对方。地震猛烈地摇晃着公寓。
My vision was blurred and the floor felt like rubber. Then it was over. We switched on the TV. The news anchor said the quake's epicentre was in the ocean. Catherine translated the report.
我的视线变得模糊，感觉地板像橡胶一样。一切都结束了。我们打开电视。新闻主播说地震的震中在海里。凯瑟琳翻译了报道。

'Osaka: all clear. Tokyo: all clear. Tohoku: multiple tidal waves and tsunami alert.'
大阪：安全东京：一切正常。东北：多重潮汐和海啸警报。

That night, I couldn't sleep for thinking about my life. The quake was the perfect metaphor for all the draining emotional turmoil passing between myself and Catherine. We knew we were finished.
那天晚上，我因为思考自己的生活而无法入睡。地震完美地隐喻了我和凯瑟琳之间令人窒息的情感波动。我们知道我们完了。
Aside from Catherine's ongoing issues with her previous partner, she'd grown tired of my negativity and chronic self-doubt, of my permanent regret at leaving my thesis unfinished, of the way I could only view life through the lens
除了凯瑟琳与前伴侣之间持续存在的问题外，她已经厌倦了我的消极和长期的自我怀疑，厌倦了我因论文未完成而留下的永久遗憾，厌倦了我只能通过镜头来看待生活的方式。
of science fiction films. Lying immobile beside her in the dark, knowing we would never be intimate again, I resolved to travel to Tohoku.
科幻电影。黑暗中，我躺在她身边一动不动，知道我们再也不会有亲密接触，于是我决心去东北旅行。
I wanted nothing more than to enter the eye of the storm, to test myself, to travel in an environment where I wasn't relying on the support of a dominant partner who felt utter contempt for me.
我最想做的就是进入暴风眼，测试自己，在一个我不依赖于对我极度蔑视的占主导地位的伴侣的支持的环境中旅行。

I was fascinated by Tohoku, this agricultural region in northern Honshu, and its status as a backwater feared by outsiders.
东北是本州北部的一个农业地区，也是外人畏惧的穷乡僻壤，这一点令我着迷。
Travel books painted a picture of an insular, depressing place blighted by drab industrial towns and hostile, superstitious locals living resolutely in the past. Occult myths saturate the fabric of the place.
旅游书上描绘的是一个闭塞、压抑的地方，单调乏味的工业城镇和充满敌意、迷信的当地人生活在过去。神秘的神话充斥着整个地方。
According to local legend, chameleon foxes live in the mountains, as big as ponies when seen from the front and as small as a human baby when viewed from behind.
据当地人传说，山里住着变色狐狸，从正面看大如小马，从后面看小如人类婴儿。
These creatures exist side by side with kappa, violent water spirits of low intelligence who can be easily tricked, and fertility goddesses with a penchant for marrying horses.
这些生物与卡帕（Kappa）并存，卡帕是暴躁的水神，智力低下，很容易上当受骗，而生育女神则喜欢与马结婚。

In a way, Tohoku was like Tasmania, the Australian island state. In the 70s, Tasmania was unloved, forgotten and ignored, the butt of jokes about inbreeding and general redneck behaviour. Like Tohoku, it was a 'backwater' where occult tales were common.
在某种程度上，东北就像澳大利亚的岛州塔斯马尼亚。上世纪 70 年代，塔斯马尼亚不被人喜爱、遗忘和忽视，成为近亲繁殖和乡巴佬行为的笑柄。和东北一样，它也是一个 "穷乡僻壤"，在那里，神秘的传说屡见不鲜。
The hunt for the extinct Tasmanian tiger caused fanatics to lose their minds in order to prove the animal had not vanished, with reports emerging of unnatural creatures hiding in the hills.
为了证明塔斯马尼亚虎并没有消失，追捕已灭绝的塔斯马尼亚虎的行动让狂热的人们失去了理智。
Tasmania was also Australia's busiest UFO hotspot, with sightings all over the state, and for decades ships and aircraft vanished off the coast with alarming regularity.
塔斯马尼亚也是澳大利亚最繁忙的 UFO 热点地区，全州各地都有目击事件发生，几十年来，船只和飞机在海岸附近消失的频率令人震惊。

One of the most famous disappearances occurred in 1978, when the young pilot Frederick Valentich flew his Cessna from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne on a routine flight over Bass Strait, the channel separating Tasmania from the mainland.
最著名的失踪事件之一发生在 1978 年，年轻的飞行员弗雷德里克-瓦伦蒂奇驾驶塞斯纳飞机从墨尔本的摩拉宾机场起飞，例行飞越巴斯海峡（塔斯马尼亚与大陆之间的海峡）。
His destination was King Island, a tiny outpost just off Tasmania's northwestern tip, and his last radio transmission was
他的目的地是国王岛，塔斯马尼亚西北端的一个小前哨，他的最后一次无线电传输是
terrifying. With his voice cracked and trembling, he told the control tower that he was being stalked by an enormous UFO. The object, he relayed, was a 'long shape', flying 'at such speed', but then it began to hover right on top of him.
太可怕了他用颤抖的声音告诉控制塔，他被一个巨大的不明飞行物盯上了。他说，那个物体呈 "长条形"，"以极快的速度 "飞行，然后开始在他头顶盘旋。
An abrasive noise was heard-metal on metal-and the radio went dead. No trace was ever found of Valentich or his plane.
一阵金属撞击的摩擦声响起，无线电失灵了。再也找不到瓦伦蒂奇和他的飞机的踪迹。

As a boy, I lived near Moorabbin Airport and the story haunted everyone who lived in the area, cementing the perception of Tasmania as a zone of high strangeness surrounded by a cutprice Bermuda triangle.
我小时候住在莫拉宾机场附近，这个故事一直萦绕在住在该地区的每个人的心头，使人们对塔斯马尼亚的印象更加深刻，认为它是一个高度陌生的地区，周围是价格低廉的百慕大三角区。
Tasmania's remoteness was romantic to someone as withdrawn as I was then, just as Tohoku appeared to the awkward, directionless adult I'd become. No one rated untouristed Tohoku, but for me, now that it was quake ridden, it seemed deliriously exciting.
塔斯马尼亚的偏远对我这样孤僻的人来说是浪漫的，就像东北对我这个笨拙、没有方向感的成年人来说一样。没有人对未游览过的东北作出评价，但对我来说，现在地震肆虐的东北似乎让人兴奋不已。
There was nothing like the possibility inherent in a disaster zone, with its promise of rebooting society from the ruins, for luring someone as disconnected from reality as myself.
没有什么比灾区固有的可能性，以及从废墟中重启社会的承诺，更能吸引像我这样与现实脱节的人了。

The next morning, I quit my dispiriting job as Catherine's research slave. She wasn't happy.
第二天早上，我辞去了凯瑟琳令人沮丧的研究奴隶工作。她并不高兴。

'If you go to Tohoku,' she warned, 'don't bother coming back to me.'
如果你去了东北，"她警告说，"就别再回来找我了。

She fell silent, biting her lip in contemplation.
她沉默不语，咬着嘴唇陷入沉思。

'Actually, we're through,' she said. 'Good luck with your life. You'll need it. All I did was try to help you but you're incapable of receiving love. You're a blank clock, a dead fish. I've never seen anything like it.'
事实上，我们已经结束了，"她说。祝你好运。你会需要它的。我所做的一切都是为了帮助你，但你无法接受爱。你是一个空白的时钟，一条死鱼。我从未见过这样的人。

It was the last straw for her. My urge to travel spontaneously to a dangerous place was the final vindication of her suspicions as to my emotional immaturity.
这是她的最后一根稻草。我自发前往危险地方的冲动最终证实了她对我情感不成熟的怀疑。
Feeling the life-force drain from me, I gathered my few possessions and trudged off to the internet cafe, where I used my dwindling savings to book the bullet train to Aizu-Wakamatsu, a small town in Fukushima prefecture and the gateway to Tohoku.
我感觉自己的生命力正在流失，于是收拾好为数不多的东西，蹒跚着走到网吧，用越来越少的积蓄预订了前往会津若松的新干线。

I slept the night in a capsule hotel and stared at the room, amazed at how the boundaries of my world had suddenly shrunk to minuscule dimensions: two metres long, one metre wide, one metre high. I passed out and when I awoke, hours or minutes later, the power had gone off.
我在一家胶囊旅馆里睡了一夜，盯着房间，惊讶地发现我的世界的边界突然缩小到了极小的尺寸：两米长、一米宽、一米高。我昏睡过去，几小时或几分钟后醒来时，已经停电了。
I opened my eyes to pitch-black confinement. Groggy from half-sleep, I was convinced the capsule was my coffin.
我睁开眼睛，眼前一片漆黑。半梦半醒之间，我确信这个胶囊就是我的棺材。

Trapped within that delusion, as I waited patiently for my air to run out in the final seconds of forever, I tried, unsuccessfully, to make peace with myself for all the mistakes I'd made in my life.
我被困在这种错觉中，耐心地等待着我的空气在永远的最后几秒钟耗尽，我试图为我一生中犯下的所有错误与自己和解，但没有成功。

In the morning, I boarded the bullet train. When I arrived at Aizu-Wakamatsu, it was midnight and I became confused about the directions to the hostel.
早上，我登上了新干线。到达会津若松时，已是午夜时分，我对前往旅店的路线感到困惑。
I thought the streets were empty and was astonished when a mob of rake-thin youths emerged from the shadows thrown by the train station.
我本以为街上空无一人，没想到从火车站的阴影中走出来一群耙子般瘦弱的年轻人，让我大吃一惊。
Ten in number, they were dressed head to toe in skintight black outfits, each with long black hair spiked to the heavens like deep-space antennae.
他们一共有十个人，从头到脚都穿着黑色的紧身衣，每个人都留着黑色的长发，像深空的触角一样，尖尖地插向天空。

'Sumimasen,' I said to their leader. 'Youth hostel?'
'住马森，'我对他们的领队说。青年旅舍？

He bared his teeth. They'd been sharpened to fangs and I had a foreboding that he was about to lunge forward and bite me. As I stepped back in fright, he snapped his fingers and the gang reached en masse for their hoodies, pulling them over their faces.
他呲牙咧嘴。牙齿已经磨成了獠牙，我预感到他要扑过来咬我。当我吓得后退时，他打了个响指，那帮人集体伸手去拿连帽衫，把它蒙在脸上。
Walking backwards towards the station, they disappeared into the shadows, merging with the night. As I stumbled away, I had a nasty flashback to the steampunk street thug in Liverpool, to the Tangier youths. Why did I always attract such weird violence?
他们倒退着向车站走去，消失在阴影中，与夜色融为一体。当我跌跌撞撞地离开时，我突然想起了利物浦的蒸汽朋克街头暴徒，想起了丹吉尔的年轻人。为什么我总是会招来如此怪异的暴力？
The menace was never straightforward, always bizarre
威胁从来都不是直接的，总是离奇的
and tinged with a palpable sense of unreality.
并带有明显的不真实感。

I was still trying to process the phenomenon when I bumped into an elderly fishmonger returning to his van. He wore white rubber boots, a white smock and white cap, and in the darkness his uniform shone with a heavenly glow, in contrast to the voidblack of the gang's outfits.
我还在试图处理这一现象时，迎面碰上一位年迈的鱼贩正返回他的面包车。他穿着白色的胶鞋，穿着白色的罩衫，戴着白色的帽子，在黑暗中，他的制服闪着耀眼的光芒，与那帮人空洞的黑色服装形成了鲜明的对比。
The effect was enhanced when he passed under some street lights and his clothes shone like ice. I was as stunned by this apparition as I had been by the gang.
当他从一些路灯下经过时，效果更佳，他的衣服像冰一样闪闪发光。我被这个幽灵惊呆了，就像被那帮人惊呆了一样。

He pointed to his van.
他指了指自己的面包车。

'Youth hostel?' 青年旅舍？

We drove off. He was quiet the entire time, in contrast to the synthetic voice of the GPS, which guided him all the way.
我们开车出发了。他一直都很安静，与之形成鲜明对比的是，GPS 的合成声音一路指引着他。

After ten minutes, we arrived at the hostel. Aizu-Wakamatsu was desolate and bleak. I disembarked and was greeted by the hostel manager, who was full of conversation, but I was tired and made my excuses, collapsing into bed fully clothed.
十分钟后，我们到达了旅店。会津若松荒凉凄清。我下了车，旅店经理热情地接待了我，他和我聊了很多，但我很累，便找了个借口，衣衫不整地躺在了床上。
The wind that night was savage, battering the structure of the hostel with a horrendous banshee wail. The next morning I was a wreck.
当晚的狂风肆虐，带着可怕的女妖哀嚎声敲打着宿舍的结构。第二天一早，我就成了一个废人。

'Bad night. The wind. No sleep.'
糟糕的夜晚风。没有睡意

The manager laughed. 经理笑了。

'Don't cry. Thirty-four people dead on coast overnight during treacherous typhoon. Tohoku hit by ten typhoons this year. This only your first!'
别哭险恶台风一夜之间造成 34 人死亡。东北今年遭受了十次台风袭击。这只是你的第一次！'

I panicked at the thought of what I was getting myself into, but I knew I had to push on. My destination was unknown. I wanted to keep moving until I couldn't take it anymore.
一想到自己的处境，我就感到恐慌，但我知道我必须继续前行。我的目的地是未知的。我想继续前进，直到我无法忍受为止。

I left Aizu and kicked around the northern towns for a few days. In Morioka, I visited an izakaya and met a local man. He wore an anonymous denim shirt and a ridiculous blow-waved hairstyle, yet somehow radiated a powerful charisma. He told me I looked out of place.
离开会津后，我在北部城镇转了几天。在盛冈，我去了一家居酒屋，遇到了一位当地人。他穿着一件不知名的牛仔衬衫，梳着一个可笑的波浪发型，但不知为何却散发出一种强大的魅力。他告诉我，我看起来格格不入。

'What do you mean? Because I'm Australian?'
你什么意思？因为我是澳大利亚人？

I'd barely seen any other Westerners in Tohoku.
我在东北几乎没见过其他西方人。

'No, because you are lost.'
不，因为你迷路了。

He meant spiritually lost. And by spiritually, he wasn't referring to God.
他指的是精神上的迷失。他所说的 "精神上 "并不是指上帝。

'You have lost your bearings in time and space. You will be dead by age forty, if not careful. Heart attack or something else.'
你在时间和空间上都迷失了方向。一不小心，你到四十岁就会死掉。心脏病发作或其他原因'。

I asked him how he knew this and he said that he was telepathic, that he came over to talk to me because 'in my mind' I'd asked him to.
我问他是怎么知道这些的，他说他有心灵感应，他过来和我说话是因为 "在我的脑海里 "我让他过来的。

'I don't understand.' 我不明白

'It's okay. You have interest in magic, in alien life. I know this. You have told me, in your mind. Well, let me help you realise potential. I can call UFOs at will. Let me show you.'
没关系你对魔法和外星生命感兴趣。这我知道你在心里告诉过我好吧，让我来帮你实现潜能。我可以随意召唤飞碟让我演示给你看

For five minutes, he sat stock still, his face a stone mask.
在长达五分钟的时间里，他一动不动地坐着，脸上的表情就像一张石头面具。

'Look outside.' 看看外面

I did so. High in the sky, three white blobs appeared from nowhere, not much bigger than stars yet intensely bright. They zigzagged around the atmosphere as if an impossibly powerful laser pointer had been aimed at the heavens.
我照做了。在高高的天空中，不知从哪里冒出了三个白色的圆球，比星星大不了多少，但却异常明亮。它们在大气层中 "之 "字形盘旋，就好像有一支强大无比的激光笔瞄准了天空。

'Any one of us can use telepathy. Any one of us can call into being UFO with telepathy. This seems madness to Westerners but not to Japanese. In Japan psyche, there is principle of non-verbal communication. Deeply found in every social interaction.
'我们任何人都可以使用心灵感应。我们中的任何人都可以用心灵感应召唤出 UFO。这对西方人来说似乎很疯狂，但对日本人来说并非如此。在日本人的心理中，存在着非语言交流原则。它深深地存在于每一次社会交往中。

Deeply embedded in language. For example, Japanese word ishin-den-shin means "communicating with unspoken meaning, with no voice"'
深植于语言之中。例如，日语中 "ishin-den-shin "一词的意思是 "无声无息的交流"。

I looked again. The sky lights had vanished.
我又看了看。天空中的灯光消失了。

'Try to relax,' he said. 'You make too much of everything. Preserve your life. Stop drinking. There is much more to come. Human understanding begins with acceptance. UFOs answer my call and appear when I please. But anyone can do same. I am not unique person.
试着放松，"他说。你把一切都想得太复杂了。保留你的生命。别再喝酒了。还有很多事情等着你去做。人类的理解始于接受。UFO响应我的号召，在我高兴的时候出现。但任何人都能做到这一点。我不是独一无二的人。
Not many people watch the skies day and night, every day. I am just ordinary man who never gives up. When it happens, I receive soft vibration on my forehead. Throbbing yet pleasurable. Like rubber band. It is very exciting and makes me grateful.
没有多少人每天日夜不停地注视着天空。我只是一个永不放弃的普通人。当它发生时，我的额头会受到轻微的震动。刺痛却又愉悦。就像橡皮筋一样。这让我非常兴奋和感激。
It is like lover you have not seen for some time. After it happens, I am filled with knowledge. I can understand concepts I never knew before. UFOs I think are trying to open our minds to something hidden, yet essential to our future.'
它就像你许久未见的情人。在这之后，我充满了知识。我可以理解以前不知道的概念。我认为 UFO 试图打开我们的心智，让我们了解一些隐藏的、但对我们的未来至关重要的东西。

I tried to rationalise what I had just seen, even though the light display confirmed what I'd always known to be true.
我试图把刚才看到的一切合理化，尽管灯光显示证实了我一直知道的事实。

'I don't know,' I spluttered, 'The idea of telepathy, let alone UFOs-it seems ridiculous.'
我不知道，"我吞吞吐吐地说，"心灵感应的想法，更不用说不明飞行物了--这似乎很荒谬。

For some reason, I thought of Ballard. Despite everything, he refused to leave me and on this occasion even appeared to issue a warning.
出于某种原因，我想到了巴拉德。尽管发生了这么多事，他还是不肯离开我，这一次甚至似乎发出了警告。
In his story 'A Question of Re-Entry', a man disappears into the Amazon jungle, where he is worshipped as a god because of his ability to commune with sky spirits.
在他的故事《重新进入的问题》中，一个人消失在亚马逊丛林中，因为他能与天空中的精灵交流，在那里他被奉为神灵。
In reality, the man has duped the indigenous people by consulting a logbook of transit times for an orbiting satellite. Just before the satellite passes across the night sky, he gathers the tribe and pretends to summon the spirits.
实际上，这个人是通过查阅轨道卫星的过境时间日志来欺骗土著人的。就在卫星划过夜空之前，他召集部落，假装召唤神灵。
When the satellite flashes overhead, right on cue, his legend is assured.
当卫星在头顶闪过时，他的传奇也就水到渠成了。

Had the Man from Morioka pulled the same trick? Were the zigzagging lights simply manmade objects that he knew were
难道盛冈人也玩了同样的把戏？人字形灯光是否只是他知道的人造物体？
due to appear? In the interim period since my own sighting, I'd become a full-blown sceptic and had accepted Alyssa's viewpoint. The formation of orange orbs was just a prank played by kids. Nothing to it. This must be a con, then. It was too similar to the Ballard story.
即将出现？在我亲眼目睹之后的这段时间里，我成了一个十足的怀疑论者，并接受了阿丽莎的观点。橙色球体的形成只是孩子们的恶作剧。没什么大不了的。那这一定是个骗局。这和巴拉德的故事太相似了
Had I been conned by a fellow Ballardian? That would be the ultimate indignity.
难道我被一个巴拉迪同胞骗了？那可真是无地自容了。

But how could he know I'm a Ballardian? Because he's telepathic.
但他怎么知道我是巴拉德人？因为他有心灵感应

Such were the mental contortions I put myself through to make sense of my life. I thought of the UFO hotline operator and his insistence that I'd opened my mind to malevolent forces. No doubt, I was a very gullible man.
为了让自己的生活有意义，我让自己经历了这样的心理扭曲。我想起了 UFO 热线接线员，想起了他坚持说我向邪恶势力敞开了心扉。毫无疑问，我是一个非常容易受骗的人。
It was a longstanding failing that made me susceptible to even the slightest hint of paranormal activity. My academic training, my supposed ability to think critically and analytically, was of no use and only exacerbated the problem.
这是一个长期存在的缺陷，它使我很容易受到超自然活动的影响，哪怕是最轻微的暗示。我所接受的学术训练，我所谓的批判性思维和分析能力，都毫无用处，只会让问题更加严重。
It convinced me that paranormality could be rigorously catalogued rather than debunked, and I had to fight such temptations, otherwise I was a dead man walking. So what exactly was happening here?
它让我相信，超常现象可以被严格编目，而不是被揭穿，我必须与这种诱惑作斗争，否则我就是行尸走肉。那么，这里究竟发生了什么呢？
If it was a trick with scheduled satellites, or maybe drones under his control, what was the point of it all? Would I be scammed, robbed, hoodwinked into revealing personal details that could be used against me? Brainwashed? Enslaved? What did this person want from me?
如果这是用预定卫星，或者他控制的无人机玩的把戏，那么这一切又有什么意义呢？我会不会被骗、被抢、被蒙蔽而泄露可能对我不利的个人隐私？被洗脑？被奴役？这个人到底想从我这里得到什么？

'I want nothing from you,' he said, 'except for you to understand that telepathy is not voice in my head. I feel it, it vibrates deep inside my mind, and it is my job to translate it into words, but it is not relying on any type of language.'
他说："我对你没有任何要求，只是希望你明白，心灵感应不是我脑海中的声音。我感觉到了，它在我脑海深处振动，我的工作就是把它转化成语言，但它并不依赖于任何一种语言。

I rose from my seat.
我从座位上站了起来。

'I have to go.' 我得走了

My head was swimming. I had no desire to enter this hellworld again.
我的脑袋一片空白。我再也不想进入这个地狱世界了。

'Please,' said the man. 'When it happens, try to relax. Tune into signal. Understand, it is not language.'
'求你了，'那人说。'当它发生时，试着放松。接收信号。要明白，这不是语言。

He tapped his temple. 他轻敲了一下太阳穴。

'Remember: I can hear you. Nothing escapes.'
记住：我能听见你。什么都逃不掉

This time, his mouth did not move: Deep inside your mind.
这一次，他的嘴没有动：在你的心灵深处

27

I caught the night bus back to Tokyo. Tohoku had defeated me. I hadn't even found the ruins I so desperately craved, the devastation and destruction that, perversely, I believed could reanimate my diseased soul. It was as if the tsunami had never arrived.
我搭乘夜班巴士返回东京。东北打败了我。我甚至还没有找到我极度渴望的废墟，我甚至还没有找到我极度渴望的废墟，我甚至还没有找到我极度渴望的废墟，我甚至还没有找到我极度渴望的废墟，我甚至还没有找到我极度渴望的废墟，我甚至还没有找到我极度渴望的废墟。就好像海啸从来没有来过一样。
Yet on the TV inside the bus, a news reporter told a different story, portraying a reality that somehow had completely eluded me-or so I thought. She was explaining how small towns in Tohoku had been submerged by tidal waves.
然而，在巴士内的电视上，一位新闻记者讲述了一个不同的故事，描绘了一个我完全无法理解的现实--我是这么认为的。她正在介绍东北地区的小镇是如何被海啸淹没的。
Trucks, cars and houses had been overturned by the quake and many lives had been lost in the chaos. But it would be her next observation that dealt the killer blow.
卡车、汽车和房屋被地震掀翻，许多人在混乱中丧生。但是，她的下一个观察结果才是致命的一击。

'In the aftermath of the disaster, the Ghosts of Tohoku have been sighted. Reports are streaming in of apparitions wandering the neighbourhoods of small towns.
灾难发生后，人们看到了东北的幽灵。有关幽灵在小镇附近游荡的报道不绝于耳。
They knock on the doors of random houses, waiting to be invited in for dinner, their skin bloated and green from drowning in the tsunami, their clothes soaking wet.
他们随意敲开一户人家的门，等着被邀请进屋吃饭，他们的皮肤因为被海啸淹没而变得臃肿发绿，衣服也湿透了。
Then, without warning, the dead turn on their heel and walk away, melting into the night, depositing puddles of water on the doorstep. Taxi drivers have been flagged by spectral passengers whose heads have been ripped apart by flying debris from the quake.
然后，毫无征兆地，死者转身离去，融化在夜色中，在门口留下一滩水渍。出租车司机被幽灵般的乘客招手示意，这些乘客的头被地震中飞溅的碎片撕裂。
When the drivers hurry the victims to the hospital for treatment, upon arrival they discover that the victims have vanished at sume point on the journey, leaving behind only specks of blood on the upholstery.'
当司机匆忙将受害者送往医院接受治疗时，他们在到达医院后发现，受害者在旅途中的某个地方消失了，只在室内装潢上留下了斑斑血迹。

Was the Man from Morioka another Ghost of Tohoku? Although he bore no obvious marks of trauma, our entire
盛冈人是东北的另一个幽灵吗？虽然他身上没有明显的创伤痕迹，但我们的整个
conversation had been shrouded in a powerful sense of unreality, a sort of lucid dreaming, as if I was awake but deep within the dreamworld.
谈话一直笼罩在一种强烈的不真实感中，一种清醒的梦境，就好像我是醒着的，但却在梦境深处。

When the bus reached Tokyo at 6.30 am , I still had no definitive answer and felt tired and confused. I had no place to go and no one to see. Desperately needing to rest, I remembered how Japanese kids often sleep in internet cafes after a big night out.
当巴士于早上 6 时 30 分抵达东京时，我仍然没有确切的答案，感到疲惫和困惑。我没有地方可去，也没有人可以见。我急需休息，于是想起了日本孩子在大夜之后经常在网吧睡觉的情景。
As long as you can pay, you'll be left alone in your tiny cubicle.
只要你付得起钱，你就可以独自呆在你的小隔间里。

Two girls walked past the bus stop, dressed identically in the weirdest get-up I'd ever seen. Of course, outlandish costumes are the norm for a certain strata of Tokyo youth and no one, not even the most decrepit senior citizen, bats an eyelid. Even so, I was amazed.
两个女孩从公交车站走过，她们穿着相同的衣服，是我见过的最怪异的打扮。当然，奇装异服是东京某些阶层年轻人的常态，没有人，甚至最衰老的老人也不会眨一下眼睛。即便如此，我还是大吃一惊。
They wore shiny skintight bondage outfits, one red, one black, with what looked like frosting on the shoulders. They sported bizarre masks complete with beaks-one black metal, the other red metal.
他们穿着闪亮的紧身束缚服，一红一黑，肩膀上像是涂了霜。她们戴着怪异的面具，面具上有鸟嘴，一个是黑色金属，另一个是红色金属。
Completing the look, huge razor-sharp claws were attached to their hands in their respective liveries. They looked like Edward Scissorhands emerging from a meat locker.
此外，他们的手掌上还长着锋利的巨爪，使他们的造型更加完美。他们看起来就像从肉柜中走出来的剪刀手爱德华。

I caught their attention.
我引起了他们的注意。

'Sumimasen. Internetto?' Sumimasen.Internetto?

My little weirdos pointed their claws in the direction of the internet cafe. I thanked them and took off. Once there, I paid and slumped into a comfortable leather seat. I looked around the room. On the far side was a cubicle in which someone had been living for some time.
我的小怪兽们用爪子指了指网吧的方向。我向他们道谢后就离开了。到了网吧，我付了钱，瘫坐在舒适的真皮座椅上。我环顾了一下房间。远处有一个隔间，有人在里面住了一段时间。
There was a suit jacket on a coat hanger over one partition and a pair of shoes by the chair. Two dirty towels were slung over the opposite partition and a tarpaulin had been placed over the top of the cubicle, pinned to the flimsy walls and obscuring the sleeping occupant.
隔板上的衣架上挂着一件西装外套，椅子旁放着一双鞋。对面的隔板上挂着两条脏毛巾，隔间顶上盖着一块防水布，钉在脆弱的墙壁上，遮住了睡觉的人。
Japan has no welfare system for people who lose their jobs and homes, and 'cardboard cities' for the homeless can be found outside many of the major train stations (in Japan, homeless people use large
日本没有为失去工作和家园的人提供福利制度，在许多主要火车站外都可以看到为无家可归者设立的 "纸板城"（在日本，无家可归者使用大型的 "纸板城"）。
cardboard boxes to sleep in, although I'd never heard of it happening in net cafes).
虽然我从来没听说过网吧里会有这种情况）。

I drifted off until a loud American voice jerked me awake.
我昏昏欲睡，直到一个响亮的美国声音把我惊醒。

'Buddy. Hey, buddy!' 巴迪嘿，伙计！

The voice belonged to a porky man in a cheap suit. He leaned over from the adjacent cubicle, sporting a bowl haircut that in its perfect, shiny roundness was utterly ludicrous, even in this land of shadow gangs, telepathic UFO hunters and scissor girls.
声音来自一个穿着廉价西装的肥头大耳的男人。他从旁边的隔间靠了过来，留着碗形发型，即使在这个充斥着影子帮派、心灵感应飞碟猎人和剪刀手女孩的国度里，完美、闪亮的圆形也显得十分可笑。

'Where've you been, man?'
你去哪儿了，伙计？

'Tohoku.' 东北

'Tohoku! Say, what's that island up there? Fire Island?'
东北上面那个岛是什么？火岛？

'Never heard of it.' 没听说过

The American was fit to burst, jumping up and down in his seat.
美国人高兴得要爆炸了，在座位上上蹿下跳。

'Say, they're breeding cyborg dogs up there! Some kind of whacked-out research facility.'
"他们在那里培育生化狗某种疯狂的研究设施

I waited for him to continue but he fell silent, as if he'd drained his brainpower too quickly.
我等着他继续说下去，但他沉默了，似乎他的脑力消耗得太快了。

'What are you doing here?' I asked.
你在这里做什么？"我问。

'Me? I work in Guam. Own a hotel there. Lotsa Japs in Guam, man. It's like a second home for 'em. I come to Tokyo for business, to drum up trade, promote the hotel. I'm telling ya, if you can tap into the Jap tourist market, you've got it made. Filthy rich in no time.'
我 我在关岛工作我在关岛工作关岛有很多日本人就像他们的第二个家一样我来东京是为了做生意，拉生意，宣传酒店。 I come to Tokyo for business, to drum up trade, promote the hotel.我告诉你，如果你能开发日本旅游市场 你就成功了。很快就会富得流油

When he said 'Guam', I felt a shiver of recognition. Years ago, while researching my thesis, I had come across a reference to this North Pacific island in a passage from The Atrocity Exhibition.
当他说到 "关岛 "时，我不禁打了个寒颤。多年前，在研究我的论文时，我曾在《暴行展览》的一段文字中看到过这个北太平洋岛屿。
When T -, at the height of his madness, crawls into a derelict hut in a portside industrial area, there is an extended description of the urban wasteland with its old tyres, beer bottles and burst cement bags.
当 T - 在最疯狂的时候爬进港口工业区的一间废弃小屋时，有一段对城市废墟的描述，其中有旧轮胎、啤酒瓶和爆裂的水泥袋。
Inexplicably, the passage is interrupted by the intertitle 'Guam in 1947', which I assumed was a signifier of T-'s troubled relationship with the war (he is a former air force
令人费解的是，这段话被 "1947 年的关岛 "这一间题打断，我以为这是 T- 与战争关系不和的象征（他曾是一名空军）。
pilot), as if the trauma of violent conflict was a permanent substratum of time that could be revealed by rubbing away the top layers of reality.
试点），就好像暴力冲突的创伤是时间的永久底层，只要擦去现实的表层就能显现出来。

In 1898, after the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Guam to the US, which held it until the Second World War, when the Japanese invaded.
1898 年，《巴黎条约》签订后，西班牙将关岛割让给美国，美国一直占领关岛，直到第二次世界大战日本入侵。
Japan occupied Guam for thirty-one months, renaming it Omiyajima ('Great Shrine Island') and forcing the indigenous Chamorro population to submit to Japanese culture.
日本占领关岛长达 31 个月，将其改名为大宫岛（Omiyajima），并强迫土著查莫罗人接受日本文化。
In 1944, the Americans returned with 55,000 troops and retook the island, a conflict that claimed 17,000 Japanese and 5,000 American lives.
1944 年，美军带着 5.5 万名士兵返回，重新占领了该岛，这场冲突夺去了 1.7 万名日本人和 5000 名美国人的生命。
However, in the postwar era, as my American friend gleefully highlighted, Guam had morphed into a haven for Japanese tourists attracted by this tropical island in their backyard. I asked him how the locals felt about the Japanese today, given that brutal history.
然而，正如我的美国朋友兴高采烈地强调的那样，战后关岛蜕变成了日本游客的天堂，他们被这座位于后院的热带岛屿所吸引。我问他，鉴于那段残酷的历史，当地人如今对日本人有什么看法。

'Yeah, war's pretty fucked up, but it's all about the moolah now. When you're talking millions of dollars pumped into the economy year on year, what's a little genocide between friends?'
"是啊，战争很糟糕，但现在一切都为了钱。每年都有数百万美元注入经济，朋友之间的种族屠杀又算得了什么？

He stared at the ceiling.
他盯着天花板。

'Hey, you know Tohoku's fulla ghosts, right?'
你知道东北到处都是鬼吧？

'Yes, I know.' 是的，我知道。

'You like samurai castles?'
你喜欢武士城堡？

'Sure, I guess. I visited the replica castle in Aizu, but it looked like what it was: prefab and fake.'
'当然，我想是的。我参观了会津的复制品城堡，但它看起来就像预制件一样，是假的。

He gave me a distant look.
他遥遥地看了我一眼。

'I saw a ghost in a Jap castle once. Little midget ninja dude.' He held his downturned palms four feet from the ground.
"我曾经在日本城堡里见过鬼。是个侏儒忍者他低垂的手掌离地四英尺。

'He was only this big. Jesus! He ran straight at me, waving this huge freaking sword at my knees, but I managed to hurdle him, and he just disappeared. Vanished.'
他只有这么大天啊他直直地冲向我，挥舞着巨大的怪剑砍向我的膝盖，但我成功地躲过了他，他就这样消失了。消失了

Silence. 沉默

'So, you like Tohoku?' 你喜欢东北吗？

'I suppose, but I feel a little unusual right now. I've had no
我想是的，但我现在感觉有点不正常。我没有
sleep, I've been on too many trains and buses, and I just saw two girls dressed like sexy nightmares.'
'睡觉，我坐过太多的火车和公交车，我刚看到两个女孩穿得像性感的噩梦。

'Hey, don't sweat it. You don't need trains to travel around Tohoku. You just need this.'
'嘿，别担心。在东北旅行不需要火车。你只需要这个

The American tapped his temple, like the Man from Morioka had done but on the opposite side. He grabbed my shoulders and fixed me with a level stare. His lips moved but I could no longer hear what he was saying. His voice sounded like he was underwater.
美国人敲了敲太阳穴，就像盛冈人所做的那样，但敲的是另一侧。他抓住我的肩膀，平视着我。他的嘴唇在动，但我已经听不清他在说什么。他的声音听起来像是在水下。

I passed out from fatigue in my little cubicle, and when I awoke the American was gone. Despite his overbearing manner, he'd said something that stayed with me.
我在我的小隔间里累昏了过去，当我醒来时，那个美国人已经走了。尽管他盛气凌人，但他说的话让我记忆犹新。

You don't need trains to travel around Tohoku.
在东北旅行不需要火车。

He'd tapped his head. I'd assumed he was talking about the mind, the imagination. This Ballardian trope, the examination of inner space, placed the Man from Morioka's monologue in deeper perspective. It was as if the two of them were in league.
他敲了敲头。我以为他说的是心灵和想象力。这种巴拉迪式的套路，对内心空间的审视，让盛冈先生的独白有了更深刻的视角。仿佛他们两人是一伙的。
How does the mind negotiate time and space, they seemed to ask. Telepathy on the one side, or imagination on the other? However, I would not allow myself to follow that train of thought and instead wallowed in useless nostalgia for Catherine and my former life.
他们似乎在问，心灵是如何沟通时空的？是心灵感应，还是想象力？然而，我不允许自己跟着这个思路走，而是沉浸在对凯瑟琳和我以前生活的无用怀念中。

Thus infected, I visited the discussion forum for the English school that had once employed me. Someone had posted an ad for Rough Planet, the world's largest travel publisher, calling for writing samples from aspiring travel writers.
受此感染，我访问了曾经雇用过我的英语学校的讨论区。有人为全球最大的旅游出版商《Rough Planet》刊登了一则广告，向有抱负的旅行作家征集写作样本。
With the memory fresh in my mind of everything I'd seen and experienced in Japan, I wrote up my misadventures and sent them on, accompanied by a timid query: 'Is this the sort of writing you're looking for?'
我对在日本的所见所闻记忆犹新，于是我写下了我的不幸遭遇，并把它们寄了出去，同时还怯生生地问了一句：'这是你想要的写作类型吗？这是你想要的文章吗？

I'd pitched my essay as an outsider's view of Japan, a cliched angle to be sure and one that did not fill me with hope that it would be accepted, since no matter how I tried to articulate
我把自己的文章定位为 "局外人眼中的日本"，这无疑是一个老生常谈的角度，但我并不抱有被接受的希望。
my adventures they sounded like ludicrous pulp fiction. Unable to escape that defeatist mindset, I flew home to Australia; further pursuit of Catherine was futile. A week later, I checked my emails. A Rough Planet editor had answered my call.
我的冒险经历听起来就像可笑的纸浆小说。我无法摆脱这种失败主义的心态，于是飞回了澳大利亚；继续追寻凯瑟琳也是徒劳。一周后，我查看了我的电子邮件。一位《粗糙星球》的编辑回复了我的电话。

'Yes. This is the sort of writing we're looking for.'
是的，这就是我们正在寻找的写作类型。

I was back in the game.
我又回到了游戏中。

My initiation was quick and painless. On the strength of my Tohoku sample, I was contracted by Rough Planet as a freelance guidebook author, working mainly on country-specific publications.
我的入职过程既快又轻松。凭借东北样本，我与 Rough Planet 签订了合同，成为一名自由导游作者，主要负责针对特定国家的出版物。
It was not that I wanted to be a travel writer as such, but I was addicted to writing and after my ejection from academia I had to find an outlet for it. The impulse was like gas in a bloated stomach that had to be expelled before severe cramp set in.
这并不是说我想成为一名旅行作家，而是我沉迷于写作，从学术界退学后，我必须为写作找到一个出口。这种冲动就像胀大的胃里的气体，必须在严重抽筋之前排出。
On another level, I suppose I wanted to distance myself as completely as possible from my inglorious failure by selecting a writing career with no connection to the objective truth and machine-tooled language that academic discourse strives for.
在另一个层面上，我想我是想尽可能地与我那不光彩的失败拉开距离，因为我选择的写作职业与学术话语所追求的客观真理和机器工具化的语言毫无关联。
Yet far from providing an escape from my former life, my travel-writing adventures would be underwritten and stitched together by my Ballardian awareness, allowing me to travel instantaneously through wormholes to any point in inner space.
然而，我的旅行写作冒险不仅没有让我逃离以前的生活，反而会被我的巴拉德意识所支撑和缝合，让我能够瞬间穿越虫洞，到达内部空间的任何一点。

For my first job, I was dispatched to the Netherlands to cover the main cities: Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Maastricht. I didn't know much about the Dutch, except for a few standard reference points: film and football.
我的第一份工作是被派往荷兰的主要城市进行采访：阿姆斯特丹、乌得勒支、登哈格、鹿特丹和马斯特里赫特。我对荷兰人了解不多，只有几个标准的参照点：电影和足球。
I worshipped the science fiction movies Dutch director Paul Verhoeven had made after moving to Hollywood-Robocop, Total Recall and
我崇拜荷兰导演保罗-费尔霍文（Paul Verhoeven）转战好莱坞后拍摄的科幻电影--《机械战警》（Robocop）、《全面回忆》（Total Recall）和《侏罗纪世界》（Monitorious World）。

Starship Troopers, an unholy triptych that became a touchstone in my undergraduate essays, underpinning my laboured points about resisting the Americanisation of popular culture.
《星舰奇兵》是我本科论文中的试金石，它是抵制流行文化美国化的基础。
I deeply admired how Verhoeven destabilised standard action-film tropes to create a pure, unflinching critique of American values using the tools of Hollywood itself, like the square-jawed jocks in Starship Troopers-introduced as all-American heroes by dint of their privileged upbringing and wholesome good looks, in the end they are nothing more than cannon fodder, massacred wholesale by their fearsome alien enemy.
我非常钦佩弗尔霍文如何颠覆标准动作片的套路，利用好莱坞本身的工具，对美国价值观进行纯粹、毫不留情的批判，就像《星际战队》中的方颚运动员一样--他们凭借优越的成长环境和健康的外表被介绍为全美英雄，但最终他们不过是炮灰，被可怕的外星敌人大肆屠杀。

I associated Verhoeven's iconoclasm with the qualities of his homeland, an indomitable national psyche that values freedom of expression above all else. That vital spirit was reflected in the great Dutch football teams of the 70s.
我将 Verhoeven 的反传统精神与他祖国的特质联系在一起，那是一种不屈不挠、将表达自由看得高于一切的民族精神。这种不屈不挠的民族精神体现在 70 年代伟大的荷兰足球队身上。
These wizards of the pitch deployed a system known as 'Total Football', in which players performed in any position, switching from attack to defence and back again with ease, their mercurial skills making them impossible to mark, counteract or categorise, much like Verhoeven waging his one-man war on Hollywood.
这些球场奇才部署了一套被称为 "全面足球 "的系统，球员们在任何位置上都能表现出色，从进攻到防守，再从防守到进攻，转换自如，他们多变的技能使他们无法被标记、抵消或归类，就像维尔霍文对好莱坞发动的单兵作战一样。

Dutch footballers carved up the opposition with unexpected and beautifully executed moves, expanding the pitch into a fourth dimension, an ability the writer David Winner traces back to the nation's longstanding efforts to rescue and protect its land from the sea.
作家戴维-温纳（David Winner）认为，荷兰足球运动员用出其不意的漂亮动作将对手撕成碎片，将球场扩大到第四个维度，这种能力源于荷兰长期以来从海洋中拯救和保护陆地的努力。
The Netherlands is an artificial world, reclaimed from water over hundreds of years.
荷兰是一个人工世界，是几百年来从水中开垦出来的。
Surrounded by 2,400 kilometres of dykes, dunes and a complex infrastructure of locks, surge barriers, canals and pumping stations, the nation has performed a topographical sleight of hand, creating a habitable landscape where previously there was only water.
在长达 2400 公里的堤坝、沙丘以及由水闸、防浪屏障、运河和泵站组成的复杂基础设施的环绕下，这个国家施展了地形魔术，在以前只有水的地方创造出了宜居的景观。
In confounding the opposition by playing out of position, in conjuring up space on the pitch where previously there was nothing at all, Total Football expresses the historical propensity of the Dutch to make the most of a restricted topography.
全攻全守足球 "表现了荷兰人充分利用受限地形的历史倾向，他们通过不在位置上踢球来迷惑对手，在球场上创造出以前根本没有的空间。

It wasn't long before I ditched the cliched sights I was contracted to cover, such as Amsterdam's canals, coffee shops and mindnumbing tulip fields.
没过多久，我就放弃了合同规定的老套景点，比如阿姆斯特丹的运河、咖啡馆和令人头疼的郁金香花田。
I'd had my fill of them all those years ago when I was wasting my days with Alenka and Hollywood Dave, and I could easily write about them by drawing upon their ubiquity in popular culture.
多年前，当我和阿伦卡以及好莱坞戴夫一起虚度光阴的时候，我就已经饱尝了他们的滋味，我可以很容易地利用他们在流行文化中无处不在的特点来写他们。
Instead, I focused my energies on the hidden banks of water beyond the artificial boundaries that perpetually threaten to overwhelm the nation.
相反，我把精力集中在人工边界之外的隐蔽水岸上，这些水岸永远有可能淹没整个国家。

Ballard pushed to the surface again, although I hadn't read anything by him in years. After my academic disaster, I could barely stand to see his name in print, let alone read an entire Ballard novel. His work reminded me of everything I was not.
巴拉德再次浮出水面，尽管我已经很多年没有读过他的作品了。在经历了学术上的灾难之后，我几乎无法忍受看到他的名字出现在报刊上，更不用说读一整本巴拉德的小说了。他的作品让我想起了我所不是的一切。
It was a painful memory of a future that had never materialised, of a time when I'd fantasised about spearheading a movement that positioned him as the Patron Saint of the Cyber Age, so convinced was I of my ability to interpret his unparalleled genius in a way others could not.
那是一段痛苦的回忆，回忆着从未实现的未来，回忆着我曾幻想领导一场运动，将他定位为网络时代的守护神，我坚信自己有能力以他人无法企及的方式诠释他无与伦比的天才。
What a puny dream. What an embarrassing memory. What an insult to Ballard. Yet I saw the world through his imagination, whether I liked it or not.
多么微不足道的梦想多么难堪的回忆这是对巴拉德的侮辱但我通过他的想象看到了这个世界 不管我喜欢与否

I remembered an interview he gave long ago, when he revealed the genesis of The Drowned World, his novel about a future London submerged in swamps and lagoons after solar radiation melts the polar ice caps and raises the planet's temperature.
我想起很久以前他接受过的一次采访，当时他透露了《淹没的世界》的创作缘起，这部小说讲述了太阳辐射融化极地冰盖并使地球温度升高之后，未来的伦敦淹没在沼泽和泻湖之中。
In the 60s, after arriving in Shepperton, he had been struck by how the town was effectively a marine landscape hidden from view. Shepperton is beneath the flight path to London.
上世纪 60 年代，他来到谢珀顿之后，就被这座小镇隐约可见的海洋景观所震撼。谢珀顿位于通往伦敦的航线下方。
From the air, if you look towards the town, a watery landscape is revealed, dominated by the Queen Mary reservoir-the centrepiece of a network of smaller reservoirs, canals and settling beds.
从空中俯瞰，如果你朝小镇方向望去，就会看到一片水景，其中以玛丽皇后水库为主--它是小型水库、运河和沉淀池网络的核心。
According to Ballard, Shepperton's streets are 'causeways' between the reservoirs, but the vast expanses of water are not discernible at street level, since they're concealed by high dunes and fencing.
根据巴拉德的说法，谢珀顿的街道是水库之间的 "堤道"，但由于被高高的沙丘和围栏遮挡，在街道上无法看到广阔的水面。

'One is aware of a sort of invisible marine world,' he explains,
他解释说："人们意识到一种无形的海洋世界、
'of living below the water line. It works on you imaginatively after a while.'
'生活在水线以下。时间久了，你就会产生想象力"。

When it worked on him, The Drowned World was born, a strange and beautiful novel in which Shepperton's 'submerged' landscape becomes a potent metaphor for a world that has lost its bearings in time and space.
在这部奇特而美丽的小说中，谢珀顿的 "淹没 "景观成为一个有力的隐喻，隐喻着一个在时间和空间上失去了方向的世界。
Triggered by the inundation of London and the attendant threat to civilisation, the main character, Kerans, becomes obsessed by dreams of the sun and the obliteration of all life within its intense corona.
由于伦敦被洪水淹没以及随之而来的文明威胁，主人公凯兰斯开始沉迷于关于太阳的梦境，以及在强烈的日冕下所有生命的消亡。
Rather than retreat to the cooler northern hemisphere like everyone else on this climate-changed planet, he follows his solar dreams and heads for the hellish inferno in the south, where it has become too hot for life to survive but where he believes the last vestiges of the old world will be shed forever.
他没有像这个气候已发生变化的星球上的其他人一样退缩到凉爽的北半球，而是追随自己的太阳梦，前往南半球地狱般的地狱，那里已经变得太热，生命无法生存，但他相信旧世界的最后残余将在那里永远消失。
Is his quest merely a futile, mythic drive towards death, or does it signify the evolution of a new mode of being?
他的追求究竟是徒劳无益的、神话般的走向死亡，还是意味着一种新的存在模式的进化？
Whatever the case, for Kerans the blasted landscape functions as a 'zone of transit', harbinger of 'a radically new environment, with its own internal landscape and logic, where old categories of thought would merely be an encumbrance'.
无论如何，对于 Kerans 来说，被炸毁的景观就像一个 "过渡区"，预示着 "一个全新的环境，它有自己的内部景观和逻辑，而旧的思维模式在这里只是一种束缚"。

Critics often perpetuate the myth that Ballard writes in the classical dystopian mode, mining pessimism, repression and the negativity of a post-industrial age, but such an assertion is a category error.
评论家们经常将巴拉德以经典的反乌托邦模式写作、挖掘后工业时代的悲观主义、压抑和消极情绪的神话永久化，但这种说法是一种分类错误。
His characters prefer to remain within their 'dystopia' rather than react against it, and if such a union isn't mischaracterised as dystopian it is invariably dismissed as nihilism, a fatal acceptance of the brutality the world has fallen into.
他笔下的人物宁愿留在他们的 "乌托邦 "中，也不愿对其做出反应。如果这种结合没有被错误地定性为乌托邦，那么它总会被斥责为虚无主义，是对这个世界已经陷入的残酷的致命接受。
But they are not disengaged from the world. They want desperately to change it for the better, even if that means accessing the rate of change via extreme imaginative ends, embracing disaster for the chance it affords to strip away old modes of being and begin again.
但他们并没有脱离这个世界。他们迫切希望改变世界，让世界变得更好，哪怕这意味着要通过极端的想象力来获取变化的速度，拥抱灾难，因为灾难给了他们一个机会，可以剥离旧的存在模式，重新开始。

Kerans hurtles single-mindedly towards a seam of transcendence that radiates out from Ballard's intense documentation of
凯兰斯一心一意地朝着超越的缝隙前进，而这一缝隙正是从巴拉德的紧张记录中散发出来的。
decay, entropy and ruins, and, in its own way, my impulse to travel to tsunami-wrecked Tohoku was underwritten by his personal odyssey, a fact that I was not fully aware of at the time, given that I was operating as a sheer reflex mechanism, a human insect incapable of rational thought or deed.
我当时并没有完全意识到这一事实，因为我只是作为一种条件反射机制在运作，是一只无法进行理性思考或行动的人类昆虫。
It was only later, with the full benefit of hindsight, that I could understand exactly what it was that I had been seeking after I'd traded the cyber conference for the Madrid sun.
直到后来，事后诸葛亮才让我明白，当我把网络会议换成马德里的阳光之后，我一直在寻找的到底是什么。
I was dimly reiterating Kerans' solar dreams, subconsciously preparing myself for the day when finally I would be able to face oblivion and begin again. In that sense, Ballard's fictions anticipated everything I felt, everything I did.
我朦朦胧胧地重复着凯兰的太阳梦，下意识地为有朝一日终于能够面对遗忘、重新开始做好准备。从这个意义上说，巴拉德的小说预示了我的一切感受和行为。

They anticipated me. 他们预料到了我。

Distracted by my remembrance of the future past, I detached from the cities to travel throughout the provinces.
在对未来过去的回忆中，我心不在焉地离开了城市，前往各省旅行。
In Zeeland, I explored the Delta Project, a vast storm-surge network designed to avoid a repeat of the 1953 North Sea Flood that overwhelmed Zeeland's estuaries, submerging most of the land and killing 2,551 people.
在泽兰，我考察了三角洲项目，这是一个巨大的风暴潮网络，旨在避免 1953 年北海洪灾重演，当时洪水淹没了泽兰的河口，大部分土地被淹没，2551 人丧生。
The psychological impact of the Netherlands' reclamation from the sea, of living below the water line, recalled Shepperton's sub-aquatic ambience.
荷兰填海造地、生活在水线以下所带来的心理影响，让人联想起谢珀顿的水下氛围。
Walking the N57 motorway perimeter between Noord-Beveland and Schouwen-Duiveland, I photographed this 'invisible marine world', a landscape peppered by surge barriers, artificial islands, moveable inlets and long, thin causeways.
在诺德-贝弗兰（Noord-Beveland）和舒文-迪弗兰（Schouwen-Duiveland）之间的 N57 高速公路上，我拍摄了这个 "看不见的海洋世界"，这里到处都是防浪堤、人工岛、可移动的海湾和细长的堤道。
The subliminal fear of the embankments breaking again colours every aspect of Dutch life, and in its desire to avert future inundation the Netherlands has become a nation defined by infrastructure, yet an infrastructure so vital,
荷兰人潜意识里对堤坝再次溃决的恐惧充斥着荷兰生活的方方面面，为了避免未来的洪水泛滥，荷兰成为了一个以基础设施为基础的国家，而基础设施又是如此重要、
so present, it has become a form of architecture in itself-an overt display of miraculous fortitude.
它的存在，本身已成为一种建筑形式--一种奇迹般地坚韧不拔的公开展示。

After wandering Zeeland's motorways, storm networks and wind farms for a week, I reluctantly returned to my Rough Planet schedule, boarding the train to Den Haag, where I stayed at the Hotel Imperial near the Holland Spoors train station, a shabby part of town frequented by men with shifty eyes.
在泽兰的高速公路、风暴网络和风力发电厂游荡了一周后，我无奈地回到了《粗略星球》的日程表上，登上了前往登哈格的火车，住在荷兰斯波尔斯火车站附近的帝国酒店，那里是城里一个眼神阴晴不定的男人经常光顾的破旧区域。
The area was in stark contrast to the centre, which radiated a stately air befitting Den Haag's old-world status in art and society (I didn't know much about this quiet city except that it was once home to Vermeer and is the Dutch seat of government).
该地区与市中心形成了鲜明对比，后者散发着与登哈格在艺术和社会中的古老地位相称的庄严气息（我对这座宁静的城市了解不多，只知道它曾是维米尔的故乡，也是荷兰政府所在地）。
The Imperial was a classically compact, brown-brick Dutch building, barely a few metres wide and sandwiched between two taller buildings.
帝国饭店是一座典型的紧凑型棕砖荷兰式建筑，只有几米宽，夹在两座更高的建筑之间。
The proprietor handed me the key and gave me instructions in bad English, an unusual detail, since everyone I'd encountered in this country spoke better English than I did. Upon departure, I was to drop the key into a secure container in the hallway.
店主把钥匙递给我，并用蹩脚的英语给了我指示，这是个不寻常的细节，因为我在这个国家遇到的每个人的英语都比我说得好。离开时，我要把钥匙扔进走廊上的一个安全容器里。
I never saw the proprietor again.
我再也没有见过老板。

My top-floor room was tiny and musty. The one window overlooked the main street, which was filled with clattering noise at all hours, although mysteriously there didn't seem to be many people about at any particular time.
我住在顶楼，房间狭小，散发着霉味。一扇窗户可以俯瞰大街，大街上随时都充斥着嘈杂的声音，不过奇怪的是，任何时候似乎都没什么人。
That room struck me as a place where a person utterly defeated by life would go to die. No wonder I'd ended up there.
那个房间给我的印象是，一个被生活彻底打败的人会在那里死去。难怪我会死在那里

Deep assignments. 深度任务。

Through the window, I saw a 7 -Eleven across the way and wondered whether it sold razor blades. Unlikely. One would need to be more creative in order to liquidate the self in the age of hyper-convenience.
透过窗户，我看到对面有一家 7 -Eleven 连锁店，不知道它是否出售剃须刀片。不太可能。在这个超级便利的时代，人们需要更多的创意来实现自我清算。

One day, I promised myself, I'd put more effort into finding a solution.
我向自己保证，总有一天，我会更加努力地寻找解决方案。

The following morning, I ticked off the major sights. The small Mauritshuis museum was a highlight, I suppose, with its collection of Dutch and Flemish art, including Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp.
第二天上午，我游览了主要景点。我想，小巧的毛里求斯博物馆（Mauritshuis）是一个亮点，它收藏了荷兰和佛兰德斯的艺术品，包括维米尔（Vermeer）的《戴珍珠耳环的少女》和伦勃朗（Rembrandt）的《尼古拉斯-图尔普医生的解剖课》。
All I really knew about the latter was that it had induced such rapture in the narrator of W.G. Sebald's novel The Rings of Saturn, who, standing before it, entered a kind of fugue state as a result of his deep contemplation of the work and imagined the wartime horrors of the past rising to the surface of the immediate present.
关于后者，我真正知道的是，W.G. 塞巴尔德的小说《土星环》的叙述者曾对它产生过这样的狂喜，他站在它面前，由于对作品的深思，进入了一种迷幻状态，想象着过去的战争恐怖浮现在眼前。
As I tried to absorb meaning from the painting, I felt less affinity with Sebald's avatar and rather more with Scarlett Johansson's character in the film Lost in Translation, when she visits an ancient Japanese temple.
当我试图从这幅画中汲取意义时，我觉得自己与塞巴尔德的头像并不那么亲近，而更像是电影《人在囧途》中斯嘉丽-约翰逊（Scarlett Johansson）所饰演的角色，当她参观一座日本古寺时。

'Am I shallow?' she asks her husband, assessing her ambivalent reaction to the temple. 'I didn't feel anything.'
我很肤浅吗？"她问丈夫，评估自己对寺庙的矛盾反应。我什么都没感觉到。

Similarly, I was not versed in the lore of Rembrandt's work and the context in which it was created, and the feeling of time-travel gifted to Sebald's narrator would not come.
同样，我不了解伦勃朗作品的传说和创作背景，塞巴尔德笔下的叙述者也不会有那种穿越时空的感觉。

I found the Mondrian and De Stijl collection in the Gemeentemuseum a good deal more stimulating, as I did the collection of works by M.C. Escher housed in the Escher in Het Paleis Museum.
我发现 Gemeentemuseum 博物馆收藏的蒙德里安和 De Stijl 作品更能激发我的兴趣，就像 Escher in Het Paleis 博物馆收藏的 M.C. Escher 作品一样。
However, upon sighting the original print of Belvedere, I received a sudden hit of my food-poisoned incomprehension at the mysteries of The Atrocity Exhibition. My body recoiled at the memory.
然而，当我看到《美景宫》的原版印刷品时，我对 "暴行展览 "之谜的不解突然被食物毒害了。我的身体在回忆中后退。
I knew that my failure to sync with Rembrandt had marked me for what I was: a popcult idiot savant paddling in the shallows, far distant from the likes of Sebald, not well-read enough to be an intellectual, too disconnected from reality to be a cultural commentator, too absorbed in the
我知道，我与伦勃朗的失之交臂已经给我打上了这样的烙印：我是一个在浅滩上荡舟的流行文化白痴，与塞巴尔德等人相去甚远，没有足够的阅读量成为一个知识分子，与现实脱节得太厉害，无法成为一个文化评论家，太沉溺于
familiar to be a philosopher.
熟悉的哲学家。

A travel writer was just about my level, corroborating my decision to leave Ballard and academia far behind. Yet I could never be content, for something deep and unnameable continued to corrode me from inside.
旅行作家和我的水平差不多，这也证实了我远远离开巴拉德和学术界的决定。然而，我永远不会满足，因为有一种深沉而难以名状的东西不断从内心腐蚀着我。

Bored and restless after a morning of museums, I caught the quaint tram to Scheveningen, a northern district of Den Haag.
逛了一上午的博物馆后，我百无聊赖，坐上了前往海牙北部地区谢维宁根（Scheveningen）的古色古香的有轨电车。
Although this seaside strip attracts ten million visitors a year, the weather was inclement that day and there were just a few souls wandering up and down the elongated beach. I walked to the end of the once-famous pleasure pier. It was deserted.
虽然这条海滨大道每年吸引上千万游客，但那天天气恶劣，只有几个人在长长的海滩上来回徘徊。我走到曾经闻名遐迩的欢乐码头的尽头。那里空无一人。
Pleasure piers, such as the iconic structure in Brighton, England, have always instilled a deep melancholy in me.
游乐码头，如英国布莱顿的标志性建筑，总是给我带来一种深深的忧郁。
Their decrepit state in the modern era stands in sharp contrast to their lost function as repositories of amusement and fun-filled dreams, and their sad projection into the sea is a baleful invitation to immersion in an unknown dimension of time.
它们在现代的衰败状态，与它们作为娱乐和充满乐趣的梦境的遗失功能形成了鲜明对比，而它们向大海的悲哀投射，则是一种沉浸在未知时间维度的可怕邀请。
The Scheveningen pier was especially forlorn, its old, rotting rafters and beams providing a dank frame for unused vending machines and crumbling posters promoting Hollywood blockbusters to an audience of ghosts.
斯海弗宁恩码头尤为荒凉，陈旧腐朽的椽子和横梁为闲置的自动售货机提供了阴暗的框架，破败不堪的海报向鬼魂观众宣传好莱坞大片。
Repulsed by the miserable spirit that infested the pier, I returned to the beach and walked east.
我被肆虐在码头上的悲惨灵魂击退，回到海边，向东走去。

Eventually, I passed a WWII bunker half hidden by dunes. It was part of the Atlantic Wall defence system built by the Nazis from 1942 to 1944 to repel an Allied landing, a chain of 1500 bunkers lining coastal Europe from southern France to northern Scandinavia.
最后，我经过了一个被沙丘遮住一半的二战碉堡。它是纳粹在 1942 年至 1944 年期间为击退盟军登陆而修建的大西洋墙防御系统的一部分，从法国南部到斯堪的纳维亚半岛北部的欧洲海岸线上有 1500 个碉堡。
I nearly missed it, since it was hidden behind long grass. However, unlike The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes
我差点错过它，因为它藏在长长的草丛后面。不过，与《尼古拉斯博士的解剖课》不同的是

Tulp, once sighted it captured my attention in an instant and I scrambled over the high dunes to gain a closer view. The squat, ominous structure was green from weather and decay. In the mid-section, concentric semi-circles were stacked on top of one another.
图尔普一出现，就立刻吸引了我的注意力，我慌忙翻过高高的沙丘，想要近距离观察。由于风吹日晒和腐烂的缘故，这个矮小、不祥的建筑呈现出绿色。在中段，同心的半圆形堆叠在一起。
At the bottom was the gun encasement. A rusting gun turret was visible through a wide, thin slit.
底部是火炮外壳。透过一条又宽又细的缝隙，可以看到一个锈迹斑斑的炮塔。
On either side of the semi-circles were two enormous bulkheads pressed up tight, as if the squat bunker were a concrete creature fighting the crushing gravity of an alien planet in a futile bid to avoid implosion.
在半圆的两侧，有两块巨大的舱壁紧紧地压在一起，就好像这个蹲碉堡是一个混凝土生物在与外星球的重力搏斗，徒劳地避免内爆。
For once the inevitable science fiction metaphor was apt-the bunker's compact, spherical shape was oddly reminiscent of the killer robot ED 209 in Verhoeven's Robocop.
这一次，科幻小说中不可避免的隐喻恰到好处--地堡紧凑的球形外形让人不禁联想到韦尔霍文的《机械战警》中的杀手机器人ED 209。

Perhaps this was no coincidence. Verhoeven was born in Amsterdam but moved with his family to Den Haag in 1943, when construction of the Atlantic Wall was in full swing and the Netherlands was occupied by Germany.
也许这并非巧合。Verhoeven 出生于阿姆斯特丹，1943 年随家人搬到登哈格，当时大西洋墙正在如火如荼地修建，荷兰被德国占领。
In Den Haag, the Verhoev ens lived near a strategic Nazi military base under continual attack from the Allies. Like Ballard in Shanghai, the young Verhoeven witnessed gruesome scenes of violence and destruction.
在登哈格，维尔霍夫一家住在一个纳粹军事战略基地附近，该基地不断受到盟军的攻击。就像巴拉德在上海一样，年轻的韦尔霍文目睹了令人毛骨悚然的暴力和破坏场面。
He remembers war as an action-packed adventure that tested his mettle and developed his apocalyptic mindset, fuelling the vision behind his brutal science fiction blockbusters.
在他的记忆中，战争是一次充满行动的冒险，考验了他的意志，培养了他的末日思维，激发了他对残酷科幻大片的想象力。

'I was a small boy during the war,' he said, 'but the mind takes these images like a sponge at that age, and the images were so extreme: bombs exploding, buildings collapsing, the whole sky turning red because the city was on fire.'
战争期间，我还是个小男孩，"他说，"但在那个年纪，大脑就像海绵一样吸收这些画面，而且这些画面是如此极端：炸弹爆炸、建筑物倒塌、整个天空变成红色，因为城市着火了。

Amid that devastation, it is not hard to imagine the young Verhoeven sneaking off to Scheveningen beach, echoing Jim in Empire, who, in Lunghua, makes sport of his ability to give adults the slip.
在一片废墟中，我们不难想象年轻的费尔赫芬偷偷跑到谢凡宁根海滩，这与《帝国》中的吉姆如出一辙。
Perhaps Verhoeven had even encountered the same bunker I had, his memory of the concrete sentinel flowing into the future design of ED 209. This possible connection transfixed me and I tried to make sense of it, but I lacked the
也许维尔霍文也曾遇到过我遇到过的地堡，他对混凝土哨兵的记忆融入了 ED 209 的未来设计中。这种可能的联系让我着迷，我试着去理解它，但我缺乏
brainpower to do so in any meaningful way.
脑力来做任何有意义的事情。

My quest was especially futile, since the Atlantic Wall continues to beguile men and women much smarter than myself, including Virilio, the greatest theorist of war ruins.
我的探索尤其是徒劳的，因为大西洋墙仍然在迷惑着比我聪明得多的人，包括最伟大的战争废墟理论家维利里奥。
In Bunker Archaeology, his book-length photo essay on the development of military technology, Virilio records his walks among the remains of the French portion of the wall.
维利里奥在他的长篇摄影论文《碉堡考古学》（Bunker Archaeology）一书中记录了他在法国部分城墙遗迹中的行走。
On his first encounter with a wartime bunker, he immediately became overwhelmed by 'a feeling, internal and external, of being immediately crushed' by the structure's relationship to time and space.
第一次接触战时掩体时，他立即被这种结构与时间和空间的关系 "一种从内到外的立即被压垮的感觉 "所征服。
The bunker featured an imposing base set deep into the earth, but its interior had been colonised by sand from the encroaching dunes, creating a claustrophobic narrowness amplified by half-buried, abandoned objects such as rusted bicycles and ragged clothing.
地堡的特点是底座深埋地下，气势恢宏，但内部已被侵蚀沙丘的沙子填满，半埋的废弃物品（如生锈的自行车和褴褛的衣服）使地堡显得更加幽闭狭窄。
It was as if he'd stumbled onto a subterranean civilisation, the bunker's impervious modernity offset by its abandoned state, rendering what was once contemporary, the architecture's brutal lines, thoroughly ordinary and forgotten, 'a collage of two dissimilar realities'.
他仿佛无意中发现了一个地下文明，地堡的不透光现代感被其废弃状态所抵消，使曾经的现代感、建筑的粗犷线条变得彻底普通和被遗忘，"两种不同现实的拼贴"。

Like Ballard and Verhoeven, Virilio was a war child. He lived through the blitzkrieg of French cities, the supreme unleashing of technology's potential: total destruction.
与巴拉德和费尔赫芬一样，维利里奥也是战争年代的孩子。他经历过法国城市的闪电战，那是技术潜力的最大释放：彻底毁灭。

'For a kid,' he recalled, 'a city is like the Alps, it's eternal, like the mountains.'
对于一个孩子来说，"他回忆道，"城市就像阿尔卑斯山，它是永恒的，就像群山一样。

But the war changed all that.
但战争改变了这一切。

'One single bombardment and all is razed. These are the traumatising events which shaped my thinking. War was my university.'
一次轰炸，所有一切都被夷为平地。这些创伤性事件塑造了我的思想。战争是我的大学。

Likewise, the annihilation of war had impressed upon Ballard 'the sense that reality itself was a stage set that could be dismantled at any moment, and that no matter how magnificent anything appeared, it could be swept aside into the debris of the past'.
同样，战争的毁灭给巴拉德留下了 "现实本身就是一个随时可能被拆掉的舞台布景，无论任何事物看起来多么壮观，都可能被扫到一边，成为过去的碎片 "的印象。
As did Virilio, and, one suspects, Verhoeven, Ballard
正如维里略以及人们怀疑的维尔霍文、巴拉德一样
channelled his bunker obsession into his work. Clearly, the refusal of these structures to disappear appealed to these men who'd each felt reality disintegrating before their very eyes.
他将对地堡的痴迷融入了自己的作品中。显然，这些拒绝消失的建筑吸引了这些人，他们每个人都感受到了现实在眼前的瓦解。

From time to time, Ballard took his holidays in France.
巴拉德时常去法国度假。
One day, walking along Utah Beach in Normandy, scene of the Allied landing on D-Day, he noticed an edifice in the near distance, partially obscured by mist. It was a bunker, part of the Atlantic Wall, and his immediate thought was that it was like the pyramids, that is, eternal, a structure completely outside of time.
有一天，他沿着诺曼底犹他海滩（盟军在 D 日登陆的地点）散步，注意到不远处有一座建筑物，部分被薄雾遮挡。他立刻想到，这就像金字塔一样，是永恒的，是完全超越时间的建筑。
The bunker's decrepitude pitched it beyond history. Its modernist form had been corroded by urine, ossified faeces and the campfire remains left by decades of tramps.
碉堡的衰败使其超越了历史。尿液、僵化的粪便和几十年流浪汉留下的篝火残骸腐蚀了它的现代主义外形。
But within that form, or rather within its decay, Ballard had glimpsed an echo of contemporary England, since the bunker recalled the crumbling high-rise blocks and motorway overpasses back home, designed by bored planners indifferent to the long-term demands of a socially inclusive, robust urban form.
但在这种形式中，或者说在它的衰败中，巴拉德瞥见了当代英国的影子，因为这座地堡让人想起家乡那些摇摇欲坠的高楼大厦和高速公路立交桥，这些都是由无聊的规划师设计的，他们对社会包容、稳健的城市形态的长期需求漠不关心。

Architectural materiality and cultural atemporality are the abiding themes in the bunker meditations of Virilio and Ballard: the collapse of the past into a dystopian future as seen from the present-the contemplation of ruins.
建筑的物质性和文化的时空性是维利里奥和巴拉德在地堡中沉思的永恒主题：从现在看过去的崩溃，变成一个乌托邦式的未来--对废墟的沉思。
That super-dense black hole would also define my experience of the Netherlands, and very soon after encountering the bunker I was struck down by a cruel and unusual disease: time sickness.
那个超级密集的黑洞也决定了我在荷兰的经历，在遇到地堡之后不久，我就患上了一种残酷而不寻常的疾病：时间病。

32

I retreated to Den Haag and walked to Madurodam, one of the many boring tourist attractions I had to endure in order to complete the assignment that was my ostensible reason for being. Madurodam is a theme park that is essentially a
我回到海牙，步行前往马杜罗丹，这是我为了完成任务而不得不去的众多无聊旅游景点之一，也是我来到这里的表面原因。马杜罗丹是一个主题公园，本质上是 。
scale model of the Dutch landscape, with heavy emphasis on the attractions that in their life-size incarnations inspired such yawning indifference in me: canals, windmills, tulip fields, all the rest. Yet, bracing myself for a tacky experience, I came away deeply shocked.
荷兰风景的比例模型，重点是那些在真人大小的化身中让我感到漠不关心的景点：运河、风车、郁金香花田等等。然而，我本以为会是一次俗不可耐的体验，结果却被深深震撼了。
Gazing at Madurodam's Dutch landscape in miniature, I felt as though I'd again taken leave of my body.
望着马杜罗丹的荷兰风光缩影，我仿佛又一次离开了自己的身体。
The memory of my Tangier ordeal flooded back and once more I imagined myself floating above my physical self, adrift in inner space, looking down upon the entirety of the Netherlands, able to see it all in microscopic detail, as if nothing could escape my gaze.
丹吉尔苦难的记忆再次涌上心头，我再一次想象自己漂浮在身体之上，漂流在内部空间，俯视着整个荷兰，能够看到所有的微观细节，仿佛没有什么能逃过我的目光。
Struck by a feeling of desperate unease, I removed myself from the theme park, the experience of Madurodam coming on like a torture knot cutting off the circulation to a limb the more I struggled to free myself.
我被一种绝望的不安感击中，从主题公园里走了出来，马杜罗丹的经历就像一个切断肢体血液循环的死结，我越是挣扎，越是无法挣脱。

I stalked the streets until I found my next port of call, the Panorama Mesdag, a 360 -degree painting of Scheveningen beach completed by Hendrik Willem Mesdag in 1881. I entered the building in which it was housed, but the artwork only intensified my fevered state.
我在街上漫步，直到找到下一个目的地--梅斯达格全景画馆（Panorama Mesdag），这是亨德利克-威廉-梅斯达格（Hendrik Willem Mesdag）于 1881 年完成的一幅 360 度的谢凡宁根海滩油画。我走进了这幅画所在的建筑，但这幅艺术品却让我更加热血沸腾。
From within a cylindrical, sand-covered room, the painting is viewed from wooden bleachers atop an artificial dune in the middle of the space. The dune is surrounded by period-replica beach chairs, with birdsong and the sound of crashing waves emerging from the sound system.
在一个铺满沙子的圆柱形房间内，人们可以站在空间中央人工沙丘上的木质看台上欣赏这幅画作。沙丘周围摆放着仿古沙滩椅，音响系统中传来鸟鸣和海浪拍打的声音。
As I took in the panorama, a simulacrum of the beach I'd just visited, I could not shake the sense that I was watching myself traversing that lonely strip, out of my mind with grief and self-doubt, battered by the ghosts of my past failures.
当我欣赏着这幅全景图--我刚刚游览过的海滩的模拟画卷时，我无法摆脱一种感觉，那就是我正在看着自己走过那条孤独的地带，因为悲伤和自我怀疑而失去了理智，被过去失败的阴影所笼罩。
At the same time I (the man on the beach) could quite clearly see my desperate and lonely future, which I was enacting in the present-marooned on an absurd fake dune.
与此同时，我（沙滩上的那个人）可以非常清楚地看到我绝望而孤独的未来，而我的未来就在现在--荒诞的假沙丘上--上演。
Just as Mesdag's simulation superimposed a crude double onto the real beach, I laboured under two outof-phase bodily outlines, for I was so removed from the world I could no longer locate my true self.
就像梅斯达格的模拟在真实海滩上叠加了一个粗糙的替身一样，我也在两个不相称的身体轮廓下苦苦挣扎，因为我已经远离了这个世界，再也找不到真正的自我。

Exhausted from trying to parse my confused inner state, I returned to the Imperial, where I caught an early episode of the reality TV program Big Brother, which asks strangers to live together for weeks on end in a microsocial war of attrition until only one is left, their every move filmed and broadcast to the world.
为了解析自己混乱的内心状态，我筋疲力尽地回到了帝国剧院，在那里我提前观看了一集真人秀节目《老大哥》，该节目要求陌生人在一起生活几个星期，进行微观社会的消耗战，直到只剩下一个人，他们的一举一动都被拍摄下来并向全世界播出。
I was stunned by what I'd found. The episode was shot in the Netherlands, although that fact was not remarkable in itself as the show's wild popularity has delivered the franchise worldwide.
我被自己的发现惊呆了。这一集是在荷兰拍摄的，尽管这一事实本身并不引人注目，因为该剧的疯狂热播已将这一特许经营权推向了全世界。
No, it was the fact that, judging by the clothes and set design, it was clearly filmed in the late 90 s, a time well before the format had become famous.
不，从服装和布景设计来看，这显然是在 90 年代末拍摄的，当时这种形式还远未成名。

I was so puzzled by this that I braved the bleak night-time streets, locating the nearest net cafe in order to research the origins of Big Brother. To my amazement, I discovered it was in fact a Dutch invention, developed in 1999.
我对此百思不得其解，于是冒着夜色，找到最近的一家网吧，研究 "老大哥 "的起源。令我惊讶的是，我发现它其实是荷兰人的发明，开发于 1999 年。
I thought it had originated in the US and far more recently, given its all-American premise of surveillance as entertainment. The original Dutch season even had a survivalist feel, featuring a sparse house devoid of the creature comforts that characterised later series.
我还以为它起源于美国，而且是最近才出现的，因为它的前提是把监视当作娱乐。最初的荷兰季甚至有一种生存主义的感觉，其特点是没有后来剧集所特有的生物舒适感的稀疏房子。
Unsurprisingly, this distorted domesticity triggered a deep psychosis, a quintessentially Ballardian notion, with contestants reportedly suffering post-traumatic stress disorder upon leaving the house.
不出所料，这种扭曲的家庭生活引发了深刻的精神错乱，这是典型的巴拉德式观念，据说参赛者在离开家后会患上创伤后应激障碍。

The discovery turned my world upside down. Admittedly, in those days it did not take much to plunge me into a deadly tailspin.
这一发现颠覆了我的世界。诚然，在那些日子里，让我陷入致命的低谷并不难。
However, when I quelled my mind enough to think straight, I realised that the concept of watching other people's lives is endemic to the Netherlands, Europe's most densely populated country, with seventeen million people jammed into an area of just 41,526 square kilometres.
然而，当我静下心来认真思考时，我才意识到，"关注他人生活 "的概念是荷兰这个欧洲人口最稠密的国家所特有的，1700 万人口挤在 41526 平方公里的土地上。
Many Dutch people leave 许多荷兰人离开