[新聞]路透社訪問伊坂《Golden Slumbers》

（英文原文來自路透社文章，中譯 by 明明英文苦手卻硬要翻譯的 Lynyu，感謝 chichi yeung 修正補足。）

Book Talk: What happens when society turns on you
書籍話題：當社會背叛了你，會發生什麼事？

By Elaine Lies　TOKYO | Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:04am EDT
東京　2011/03/24 星期四 上午06:04

(Reuters) - Masaharu Aoyagi is meeting a college friend in his car for a brief chat by the side of the road. But as they talk, the Japanese Prime Minister is blown up just blocks away -- and Aoyagi becomes the top suspect.
（路透社）當青柳雅春正在自己的車內和大學友人談話時，日本首相卻在數個街區外遭遇爆破意外，而青柳成為了頭號嫌疑犯。

His life turned upside down, the former package delivery man and hero of Kotaro Isaka's "Remote Control" is forced to run as a net of media and police closes relentlessly around him for no reason he can understand.
他的人生變得天翻地覆。當媒體和警察基於未知的原因毫不留情地逼近他時，這位送貨員，也就是伊坂幸太郎《Golden Slumbers》小說的男主角，被迫逃亡。

Set in a near-future Japan where "security pods" track citizens' every move and based roughly on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the book looks at what can happen when a witch-hunt mentality is given free reign.
本書將時間設定在近未來的日本，保安盒追蹤著市民的一舉一動。故事內容粗略根據甘迺迪暗殺事件寫成，著眼於當捕獵女巫的心態無止盡地瀰漫時會有什麼樣的情況發生。

Isaka, who lives in Sendai -- hit hard by the recent Japanese earthquake -- spoke with Reuters about how he writes.
住在仙台（近日地震的重災區）的伊坂和路透社談論了他的小說。

Q: How did you come up with the idea for this?
問：你是怎麼想到這個點子的？

A: I basically wrote this wondering what would happen if I tried to write something like a Hollywood movie. Before this I'd never really been able to write something in this style. What I had in mind to start with was "Die-Hard" and "The Fugitive."
答：基本上，我是想要知道如果我嘗試寫些像是好萊塢電影的小說會怎麼樣。在此之前，我從未真正能夠寫出這種類型的作品。要開始執筆時，我心裡想到的是《終極警探》和《絕命追殺令》。

So I borrowed a lot of movies and watched a lot of fugitive-style movies, getting an idea of what it was like, how it flowed. There were a lot of things that I didn't like and decided to get rid of. For example, in fugitive movies there's always the side that's chasing and the side that's being chased, which to me almost seems as if it's giving a sense of security: ah, the next scene we'll see will show the police, the scene after that will be the fugitive. I didn't think that was so exciting. So, what if you only write from the point of view of the person who's being chased, and stick with that throughout?
於是我租了許多電影，也看了很多逃亡式的電影，從中瞭解故事樣貌和情節如何流轉。有很多東西是我不喜歡並決定去除掉的，比方說在逃亡電影中總有追捕的一方和逃亡的一方，這些彷彿會讓人確信：「啊，我們看到的下一幕會出現警察，再下一幕會出現逃亡者。」我覺得這樣不會很令人興奮。因此，如果從頭到尾只跟著逃亡者的角度來描寫會怎麼樣？

Also, if you know who's doing the chasing, it's actually kind of boring. Somebody really close to them betrays them, or there's somebody within the police. That pattern came up a lot. If you know who's doing the chasing, it's exciting at first but gets dull after that, especially toward the end.
此外，如果你知道誰是追捕者，實際上會有點無趣。某個真的很親近的人背叛了他們，或是警察當中有老鼠屎，這個模式出現了很多次。如果你知道誰是追捕的那一方，起初會很刺激，但之後會越來越乏味，接近結尾時更是如此。

Q: Then you had to decide who was being chased.
問：所以你已經決定好誰是逃亡者了。

A: Yes, that was a key point. Doing the work I do makes my world pretty narrow. But every day, a guy from a delivery service comes to my house, bringing me packages from Amazon and other things from the world. I wanted him to be my main character. Once I decided that my character would be a delivery man, then I realized he'd know addresses, and a lot of other topics came together. Then I thought OK, why would a guy like this be chased, and came up with the idea that in the past, he was a hero. So after that it was just adding things like that.
答：沒錯，那是最關鍵的地方。這份工作讓我的生活圈很狹小，但每天都會有個宅配員到我家來，送來亞馬遜的包裹或其他來自全世界的物品，我希望他來擔任我的小說主角。一旦我決定筆下的人物是個送貨員，我就知道他對地址很熟悉，很多主題也都浮現出來了。於是我開始思考為什麼像他這樣的人會開始逃亡，並想出過去他曾經是個英雄。之後只要像這樣繼續加進東西就好了。

Q: Do you plan everything in advance of writing?
問：在你開始寫作之前，你會先把所有內容設定好嗎？

A: I don't really plan out the story that much. First I decided I'd start with his former girlfriend eating soba noodles and there's an explosion, then after I finished that part I thought it would be interesting to show some people in hospital watching the news... I'd decided that things would really start by him jumping off a pedestrian overpass onto the back of a truck, that was as much as I'd come up with beforehand. Basically I thought of the next bit just before I'd start to write.
答：我不會事先想好那麼多的內容。首先我先決定故事開頭是他的前女友正在吃蕎麥麵，而且發生了爆炸案。在我完成第一部之後，我覺得讓醫院裡的人看到新聞應該會很有趣……我已經先想好青柳跳下貨車平台後會發生的事情，而這就是我事前計畫的全部了。基本上在我開始寫作之前，我才會稍微想一下接下來的情節。

Q: I've always thought this sort of writing style led to a lot of discoveries for the reader as well as the writer.
問：我一直都認為這種寫作方式會讓讀者和作家都產生很多新發現。

A: I'm not sure why I write like that. I think it's something to do with my character -- I get bored of things pretty easily. When I think of something, I want to write it right away. If I plan something out, all the work gets kind of boring. Also, if you don't write it you don't really know how it will turn out. If it doesn't work, well, you can always rewrite.
答：我不太確定自己為什麼喜歡這樣，我想這和我的個性有關。我很容易對一件事情失去興趣。當我一想到什麼東西，我就想要立刻寫下來。如果我在事先都計畫好，整個創作都會變得有點無聊。此外，如果不寫下來的話，就不會真的知道故事會如何演變。如果寫得不好，無論何時都可以重寫。

Rather than make something that's pulled together from the start, I like to make things like building with clay, to rewrite if needed. Sometimes -- but not that often -- I have things that work out from the start, and that's a special kind of pleasure.
與其讓某些東西從一開始就組織好，我比較想要像用黏土來建造的方式來創作，有必要的時候就重寫。有時候（但不太常）我從一開始就有了靈感，而這是一種特別的樂趣。

Q: You said you had a vague sense of dread when you were writing this. Was it something in society that made you feel this way or something in your life?
問：你說過在寫作這本小說前，你感到有點擔憂。是社會上的某種事物，或是你生活中的事物讓你有這種感覺嗎？

A: I wrote this in 2007. The "security pods" are a big part of this book, but it's not as if I felt any kind of danger due to surveillance in society. I just thought it would make the story more interesting. But personally -- well, I tend to be a bit of a worrier, things seem scary to me. This unavoidably shows up in my work... I was a child during the Cold War. Add the chance of earthquakes and there was a sense that the world could end at any time. I've basically spent the last 40 years trying to think how to be positive. Almost all of the things I've written are like that too, they tend to try to figure out what to enjoy within a generally dark situation.
答：我在2007年寫了這本小說。保安盒在本書中佔了很大的部份，但這並不是我對監視社會感到危險，只是因為我認為這會讓故事更有趣。但我個人很容易感到煩惱，事物對我來說似乎很令人害怕，這一點不可避免地出現在我的小說中……冷戰時期我還是個小孩。再加上地震發生的可能性，和世界末日隨時都可能來臨的意識。基本上我花了過去四十年來試著思考如何正面積極一點，我的創作也幾乎全部都是這樣，那些人物傾向於想出如何在困境中作樂。


（以下有《Golden Slumbers》小說雷）



"Remote Control" is a more drastic expression of this. He's chased, he flees, he even changes his face, but he hasn't lost. This is the real meaning of this. It's entertainment but I think it's also about how you manage to go on living.
對於這一點，《Golden Slumbers》正是個更有力的體現。青柳遭到追捕，他逃亡甚至整形，但他並沒有認輸，這就是本書真正的意義。它是一種娛樂，但我認為它也和你如何努力活下去有關。

(Editing by Steve Addison)

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天啊太痛苦了囧，英翻中時其實很想大喊：直接給我日文原文大概還比較看得懂Orz

回到正題。《Remote Control》是《Golden Slumbers》英譯本的書名。透過推特的情報看到這篇英文稿，發表日期是 3月 24日，但路透社應該是在 311 地震前去採訪的。

伊坂老師邊寫邊想讓我覺得有點意外，他的小說總是埋梗埋得很好，劇情前後呼應，原以為是先想好故事之後，再一邊寫一邊埋下想好的梗，現在看來應該是經過不斷更改、編輯才呈現出一個最好的成果。看了這篇訪談才知道，原來青柳的誕生是這樣來的啊XD 此外，最後兩段真是說中了我喜歡他作品的原因，能看到這篇訪談真是太好了。