A new book explores the hidden history of the banjo 一本新書探索班卓琴的隱藏歷史

第 9316 期 (2022/1008 出刊) 的《經濟學人》在文化區塊中刊出對《靈魂深井 Well of Souls》一書的評論，書中主角是道地的美國樂器班卓琴。本篇書評內容有趣，遣詞用字也不難，可以當作寫作訓練素材，適合參加留學考試、英文教甄的考生。

需要參加考試的朋友，一定要先看英文，有看不懂的單字也不要一下子放棄，也不要馬上看中文翻譯，盡量利用前後文推想，猜猜不懂的單字是什麼意思，好逼出自己的潛力。這對於參加考試來說，至關重要。

英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下，每個段落附有該段主題導引。如果不想受到引導，可以點選前面所附原文連結。練習閱讀時若有對語意不清楚之處，可供查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

1. 從電影配樂引導出文章主題

   It was created by enslaved Africans, Kristina Gaddy explains in “Well of Souls”

   Well of Souls. By Kristina Gaddy. W.W. Norton; 304 pages; $30 and £22

   Near the beginning of “Deliverance”, a horror film of 1972 about four men from Atlanta who go canoeing in the backwoods of north Georgia, one of the city types takes a guitar from his car and trades melodies with a dead-eyed boy on a porch, who strums a banjo. The locals and visitors smile and dance, but things soon turn sour. What follows helped convince a generation of urbanites to holiday at the beach. It also solidified the banjo’s image as a totem of white rural culture.

   它是由被奴役的非洲人創造的，克莉絲蒂娜．嘉迪在《靈魂深井》中解釋說

   《靈魂深井》作者：克莉絲蒂娜-嘉迪。W.W. Norton；304頁；30美元和22英鎊

   在 1972 年的驚悚電影《激流四勇士》（Deliverance）的開頭，講述了四個來自亞特蘭大的男人在喬治亞州北部的窮鄉僻壤泛舟的故事，其中一個城市佬從他的車裡拿出一把吉他，和陽台上一個眼光死沉彈著班卓琴的男孩互尬琴藝。當地人和訪客都笑逐顏開手舞足蹈，但事情很快就變味了。接下來的故事強力說服了一個世代的都市人要去選海灘度假。同時也坐實了班卓琴作為白人農村文化圖騰的形象。

2. 班卓琴出自被奴役人之手

   Kristina Gaddy’s beguiling new book aims to subvert that reputation by excavating the banjo’s history. Her thesis is simple and well-supported. The banjo was created in America by enslaved Africans, and for much of its history was integral to African-American culture, celebration, spirituality and resistance.

   克莉絲蒂娜．嘉迪引人入勝的新書旨在透過挖掘班卓琴的歷史來顛覆此一名聲。她的論點很簡單，而且有據可依。班卓琴是由被奴役的非洲人在美國創造出來的，在它的大部分歷史中，它與非裔美國人文化、慶典、性靈和抗爭息息相關。

3. 追本溯源

   She weaves her story together from sources including paintings, diaries and letters, and tells it chronologically. In a less daring writer’s hands, this might have become a slog, but Ms Gaddy successfully blends archival skills with imagination. The opening, for instance, describes an engraving of a “strum strump”—a sort of ur-banjo made from a hollowed gourd covered in animal hide—found in Jamaica in the 17th century. Ms Gaddy goes on to evoke the island as it was then and the music the instrument would have made.

   她用繪畫、日記和書信等資料將她的故事串聯起來，並按時間順序講述。如果落在一個沒那麼別出心裁的作家手中，這可能會成為一場磨難，但嘉迪女士成功地將檔案整理技能與想像力結合起來。例如，開篇描述了一幅 “strum strump” 的雕刻—一種由 17 世紀在牙買加發現的覆蓋著獸皮的空心葫蘆製成的小班卓琴。嘉迪女士接著喚起了當時島嶼的樣貌以及此樂器所彈奏出的音樂。

4. 發展與早期評價

   Her narrative moves across the Americas, following enslaved Africans, their descendants and their instruments. Strum strumps become banzas, banjas and banjers. For most of its history, many people looked down on the banjo. James Hollyday, a landowner in Maryland, sent a “bangeau” to his niece in London in 1758; she thought the artefact was “a great curiosity” on which she hoped to make “pretty music”. Hollyday himself associated it with the enslaved people who played it. He “should not have thought of sending so rude an instrument of music”, he said, had his wife not wanted him to.

   她的敘述穿越美洲，跟隨被奴役的非洲人、他們的後代和他們的樂器。Strum strumps 成為 banzas、banjas 和 banjers。在其大部分歷史中，許多人瞧不起班卓琴。馬里蘭州的一個地主詹姆斯．霍利代（James Hollyday）在1758 年給他在倫敦的侄女寄了一把「班戈」；她認為這件工藝品是「一件傑出的珍品」，她希望用它來演奏出「美妙的音樂」。霍利代本人把它與演奏的奴役聯想在一起。他說，如果不是他的妻子希望他這樣做，他「根本不會想到要送這麼粗魯的音樂器具」。

5. 既世俗又神聖

   Ms Gaddy depicts the ways the enslaved used these instruments in dances and other forms of celebration that were tolerated reluctantly, if at all, by white authorities, who feared rebellion and secret communication through music. The banjo was “sacred”, she writes; “it fit into a cultural complex of music, dance and spirituality.” This part of her narrative is slightly over-egged. Banjos were used in dances and celebration, which often had a spiritual component, but it does not follow that they were wholly sacred rather than secular.

   嘉迪女士描述了受奴役者在舞蹈和其他形式的慶祝活動中使用這些樂器的方式，白人當權者對這些樂器就算有所容忍，也是心不甘情不願，因為他們害怕透過音樂從事叛亂與進行秘密交流。班卓琴是「神聖的」，她寫道；「它符合音樂、舞蹈和精神的文化複合體」。她敘述中的這部分內容略顯誇張。班卓琴用於舞蹈和慶祝活動，這往往帶有精神成分，但並不意味著它們是完全神聖而無世俗成分。

6. 時代精神

   The most heartening aspect of this book is the most contemporary. The last chapter discusses African-American musicians rediscovering the banjo and reclaiming their rightful place in Appalachian, country and old-time music—“white” genres that adopted the banjo, so contributing, over the centuries, to the erasure of its origins. The Carolina Chocolate Drops, an African-American old-time string band whose founder, Rhiannon Giddens, wrote the book’s foreword, won a Grammy. Others will follow the trail they have blazed, and American music and culture will be richer for it, and more whole. ■

   本書最振奮人心的地方是最具時代性的。最後一章討論了非裔美國音樂家重新發掘班卓琴，並在阿帕拉契、鄉村和古典音樂中重新獲得應有的地位—這些「白人」音樂類型幾個世紀以來採用了班卓琴，因而使其起源被抹滅隱去。贏得格萊美獎的非裔古典弦樂團「卡羅萊納黑人女孩」(註：Chocolate Drop 字面意思是巧克力糖，暗指黑人女孩。本文封面照片即是此團體) 的創辦人 Rhiannon Giddens 為本書作序。其他人將沿著他們開闢的道路前進，而美國的音樂和文化將因此變得更加豐富，更加完整。