PEN World Voices Festival Director Laszlo Jakab Orsos and Giannina Braschi at the penthouse at the Standard Hotel.
Russian sculptor Arcady Kotler and Giannina Braschi on the roof of the Standard Hotel at the PEN afterparty.
Lovers of the vanguard and rebels at heart are invited to celebrate the life and work of the late underground publishing hero Barney Rosset, founder of the Evergreen Review and former owner of Grove Press. The public memorial will take place on May 9, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY. Barney Rosset debuted pivotal works by Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Marguerite Duras, Jean Genet, Allen Ginsberg, Gunter Grass, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Pablo Neruda, Vladimir Nabokov, Frank O’Hara, Kenzaburo Oe, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz, Harold Pinter, Susan Sontag, Tom Stoppard, Derek Walcott, Giannina Braschi, Dennis Nurkse, and Malcolm X. Opening the memorial service is Rosset’s lifelong best friend Haskell Wexler, best known as the cinematographer of such films as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The event will feature poetry by Giannina Braschi, a Latin American poet and author of United States of Banana who was published and championed by Rosset during his final years. Also speaking is Martin Garbus, the First Amendment attorney who, in the AP’s obituary (see below), was quoted describing Mr. Rosset as “the guy who fundamentally broke down censorship barriers in this country.”
http://www.evergreenreview.com/128/review_us_of_banana.shtml
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BARNEY ROSSET (AP)
Barney Rosset, the fiery and fearless publisher who introduced the country to countless political and avant-garde writers and risked prison and financial ruin to release such underground classics as “Tropic of Cancer” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” has died. He was 89.
Rosset died at a Manhattan hospital Tuesday night, said Kelly Bowen, publicity manager for Algonquin Books, which was to publish Rosset’s autobiography. Rosset had recently had heart surgery.
As publisher of Grove Press, Rosset was a First Amendment crusader who helped overthrow 20th century censorship laws in the United States and profoundly expanded the American reading experience. Rosset had an FBI file that lasted for decades and he would seek out fellow rebels for much of his life.
Between Grove and the magazine Evergreen Review, which lasted from 1957 to 1973, Rosset published Samuel Beckett, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence and William Burroughs. He was equally daring as a film distributor, his credits including the groundbreaking erotic film “I Am Curious (Yellow),” and art-house releases by Jean-Luc Godard, Marguerite Duras and others.
Rosset himself was the subject of a movie, “Obscene,” a 2008 documentary that included commentary from John Waters, Gore Vidal and Amiri Baraka. The same year, he received honorary citations from the National Coalition Against Censorship and from the National Book Foundation, which sponsors the National Book Awards.
A bon vivant who enjoyed long lunches and strong martinis, Rosset was a slightly built man with a brisk, peppery voice; and a breathless laugh, often at his own expense. His longtime editor in chief at Grove, Richard Seaver, would remember him as “often irascible, a control freak, prone to panic attacks,” with a “sadistic element” that shadowed his “innate generosity.” Rosset, interviewed by The Associated Press in 1998, called himself an “amoeba with a brain,” ever slipping into enemy territory.
“I’m half-Jewish and half-Irish, and my mother and grandfather spoke Gaelic,” he explained. “From an early age my feelings made the IRA look pretty conservative. I grew up hating fascism, hating racism.”
A Chicago native, he was the only child of a banker, a rich kid with a passion for the arts and a rage to make trouble. His hero was John Dillinger, the nation’s foremost bank robber. By eighth grade he was printing a newspaper called Anti-Everything and he had joined the left-wing American Student Union.
“By the time I was a sophomore in college, second year at UCLA, I had reports that government agents had entered my apartment and took books and that they followed my mail and who I sent things to,” he said.
“At the time it was not fashionable to be against Hitler. It was called ‘premature anti-fascism.’ Then I volunteered in the infantry and that confused them.”
Rosset’s first interest was film. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler was a childhood friend and during World War II Rosset met the directors John Huston and Frank Capra while attending the Signal Corps photographic school. After leaving the service, he moved to Manhattan and produced “Strange Victory,” a docudrama about racism in the post-war United States.
A minor investment changed his life, and changed the world. In 1951, he paid $3,000 for Grove Press, a publishing house with only three titles to its credit. Rosset put the books in a suitcase, carried them to his apartment and opened shop. The story of Grove soon became one of turning the obscure and the forbidden into the best-selling and the essential, from Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” to Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”
Rosset waged long and costly war on behalf of free expression. When he started Grove, his wish list included two erotic books, both decades old, that had never been distributed unexpurgated in the Uni ted States: Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer.”
In 1954 a copy of “Chatterley” was mailed from Paris to New York. Officials seized it and charged Rosset with promoting “indecent and lascivious thoughts,” a policy that dated back to obscenity legislation passed in the 1870s. Rosset sued the U.S. Post Office in 1959 and his attorney, Charles Rembar, crafted a defense based on a Supreme Court decision written two years earlier by Justice William Brennan that “all ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance – unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion – have the full protection of the guarantees.”
A federal judge, Frederick van Pelt Bryan, ruled in Rosset’s favor. An appeals court upheld Judge Bryan and the government declined to take the case to the Supreme Court. The Post Office’s ability to declare a work obscene had effectively been ended.
In 1961, over a ga me of Ping-Pong, Rosset and Miller agreed to let Grove Press distribute “Tropic of Cancer.” The book sold a million copies in its first year, but led to dozens of court cases; Rosset himself was arrested, fingerprinted and taken before a Brooklyn grand jury.
“The district attorney said, ‘Do you realize that members of the grand jury have children who are buying that book at newsstands right near their school?’” Rosset recalled.
“And I looked at him and said, ‘If that’s true and they buy it and read it all the way through, you as parents are to be commended.’”
The jury refused to indict and in 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for Grove.
“It’s hard to remember how puritanical America is and was,” Martin Garbus, a First Amendment lawyer and friend of Rosset’s, told the AP in 1998. “Barney was the guy who fundamentally broke down censorship barriers in this country. He put up the money. There’s a very famous picture of him in the Saturday Evening Post: Ba rney coming out of the sewer, lifting up the lid – the whole idea of him as this purveyor of filth.”
Grove was equally busy defending its film releases. It was sued in the 1960s by the State of Massachusetts for releasing “Titicut Follies,” Frederick Wiseman’s horrifying documentary about the abuse of patients at Bridgewater State Hospital. The film was kept out of circulation until the 1990s. In 1968, Rosset attempted to distribute the erotic Swedish film “I Am Curious (Yellow).” The movie was seized by the U.S. Customs Office, screened in some communities and banned in others. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 4-4 on this case, with Justice William O. Douglas recusing himself because one of his books had been excerpted in Evergreen Review.
An appeals court later ruled the film could not be banned.
Other Grove books included “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” the anonymous erotic classic “The Story of O” and Che Guevara’s “The Bolivian Diary.” Rosset also attempt ed an ambitious union of film and avant-garde literature, short works written by Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Harold Pinter. The trilogy was never completed, but the project did lead to one of the movies’ most unusual collaborations, “Film,” released in 1965 with a script by Beckett and a cast featuring Buster Keaton, just a year before his death.
Rosset only enjoyed limited profits from his legal victories. Although “I Am Curious (Yellow)” made millions and “Lady Chatterley” and other books sold well, he had to cover not only his own legal bills, but those of stores that carried his publications. Grove was also harmed by rival publishers who released cheaper editions of “Tropic of Cancer” and other works that had no copyright in the U.S.
By the late 1960s, the times were outrunning Rosset. When Grove employees attempted to unionize, he was enraged and fired the key organizers. The Grove offices were soon taken over by feminist protesters demanding that a union be permitted, among other concessions, and accusing Grove of treating women poorly. Rosset, the one-time upstart, called in the police. The occupiers left and the union was eventually voted down.
As longtime Random House editor Jason Epstein once observed, Rosset was “a gifted and courageous publisher and a terrible businessman.” Using profits from “I Am Curious (Yellow),” he had overextended Grove, moving into fancy new offices the publisher couldn’t afford. In 1985, to his lasting regret, Rosset was persuaded by British publisher George Weidenfeld to sell Grove to Ann and Gordon Getty. Rosset was supposed to remain president, but a year later he was fired. Grove, now Grove Atlantic Inc., still owns the list Rosset built.
In his later years, he ran the erotic publisher Blue Moon Books, although legal troubles left him nearly penniless. He worked on a memoir, revived the Evergreen Green Review online and even started a blog. Upon receiving his honorary National Book Award, Rosset reviewed his long history of defiance and stated that the “principal that no one has the right to tell us what we can and cannot read is one that has always been dear to me.”
Rosset was married four times, including to the artist Joan Mitchell. He had three children, of them named Beckett.
HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
| PEN World Voices Festival: Special Event |
| Thursday, May 3, 2012 at Baruch Performing Arts Center, Engelman Recital Hall, 55 Lexington Ave., New York City, from 2:30pm–4 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.
Enjoy a free, lively panel discussion with PEN festival writers Gabriel Adamesteanu, Giannina Braschi, Ib Michael, and Laurie Sheck, moderated by John Brenkman. In his famous essay “Why Read the Classics?” Italo Calvino writes: “The classics are books that exert a peculiar influence, both when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and when they conceal themselves in the folds of memory, camouflaging themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.” How does this “peculiar influence” resonate for the writer? For Giannina Braschi characters like Hamlet, Zarathustra, and Segismundo mingle and debate with common folk and icons such as the Statue of Liberty in modern day New York. The Associated Press calls Braschi’s new book UNITED STATES OF BANANA–a work of limitless imagination and a fushion of irony and fearlessness. For the fifth consecutive year, Baruch College’s Great Works Program invites international authors to select a classic from the school’s curriculum and discuss its influence within their life and work. |
| http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/6448/prmID/2206 |
The New Censorship: A Free Literary Event produced by PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature
Thursday, May 3, 2012, 6pm to 7:30pm at Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery Street, NY NY
Moderated by the co-editor of Book Forum Albert Mobilio, this free, lively panel discussion features dynamic writers from around the globe as part of the 2012 PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. The topic is The New Censorship/Corporate Censorship. The panelists are Iranian novelist Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Hispanic-American poet Giannina Braschi, Spanish scriptwriter Jaume Cabré, Norwegian novelist Karl O. Knausgaard, and Adam Mansbach. These dynamic voices will debate whether the aim of anti-piracy legislation is tantamount to censorship. As corporations move to the forefront in the quest for control over information and its flow, the battle over censorship has changed, and its newest champions are found not in the statehouse, but in the boardroom. After a public outcry against industry-backed copyright and anti-piracy bills in both the House and Senate, PEN invites these panelists to discuss their perspective as published poets, novelists, and scriptwriters.
The event is sponsored by Bookforum, Institut Ramon Llull, and Royal Norwegian Consulate General. http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/6453/prmID/2206
A Special Event of PEN World Voices Festival 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012 6:30pm check-in
7:00pm – 9:00pm readings and cocktails
at Westbeth Center for the Arts, 155 Bank Street, Manhattan, NY 10014
Price: $15/$10 PEN Members and students
Phone: (212) 334-1660, ext. 120
This year marks the 8th edition of the PEN World Voices of International Literature Festival and features writers from Austria, Russia, Germany, Puerto Rico, Lebanon, Mexico, Spain, Denmark, Israel, Iran, Bosnia, Romania, Colombia, and the United States, including: Tony Kushner, Herta Müller, Julya Rabinowich, Colson Whitehead, Salman Rushdie, Giannina Braschi, Yusef Komunyakaa, Edwardson, Stéphane Hessel , Edgar Morin, Jaume Cabré, Jennifer Egan, Wenguang Huang, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Wojciech Jagielski, Etgar Keret, Elias Khoury and many others.
SPECIAL EVENT:
On Friday, May 4, 2012 at 6:30pm, the public is invited to wander the hallways of Westbeth Center for the Arts, a converted industrial space, map in hand, to find an entire evening’s worth of literary events. Audience members will enjoy intimate readings by Pen Festival authors inside the homes of famous Westbeth residents and end the night at a cocktail reception with their favorite authors at the event’s closing party at Westbeth’s legendary art gallery.
嘉尼娜•布拉斯奇（Giannina Braschi）
Author by Cato Lein
嘉尼娜•布拉斯奇是一位独具开创性的波多黎各小说家兼诗人，她创作了一部新的寓言讽喻小说《香蕉合众国》，持续探讨西语裔美国人的遭遇。这是作者首次英文原创小说。
作品故事发生在后9/11时期纽约市自由女神像旁，哈姆雷特、查拉图斯特拉、和嘉尼娜三人在寻求释放波多黎各囚犯西吉斯蒙多。西吉斯蒙多被他父亲——香蕉合众国国王——藏匿并囚禁在自由地牢里超过百年，罪名仅因为他的降生。国王再婚后，将儿子释放，同时为了和解，将波多黎各变成第五十一州，还给所有拉丁美洲公民颁发美国护照。这一惊人的慷慨之举震撼全球社会，不期造成意义深远的权力转移。在一场为自由而重新结盟的全球斗争中，香蕉合众国大书特书了一则个人独立宣言。
嘉尼娜•布拉斯奇是波多黎各最具影响的作家，她多才多艺，擅长诗歌、小说、散文。从事写作之前，十来岁上得过网球冠军，当过时装模特。曾住马德里、巴黎、罗马、和伦敦，后定居纽约，在高露洁大学、罗格斯大学、纽约市立大学任教。她拥有西班牙黄金时代文学博士学位，曾书评过塞万提斯（Cervantes）、加尔西拉索(Garcilaso)、洛尔卡(Lorca)、马沙杜（Machado）、巴列霍(Vallejo)、贝克尔(Becquer)。布拉斯奇是《梦想帝国》（Empire of Dreams）和《悠悠宝！》（Yo-Yo Boing!）的作者，其文笔犀利，获得多个文学团体和基金的认可，如国家艺术基金会、纽约艺术基金会、《每日新闻报》（El Diario）、国际笔会、福特基金会、丹福斯奖学金、波多黎各文化研究院、里德基金会等。她采用三种语言写作——西班牙文、西班牙式英文、英文——以探讨西班牙语拉美移民的文化适应过程，并表达她对自己岛国——母土、殖民地、州——三种政治选择的态度。布拉斯奇一生的工作都在唤起解放。
香蕉合众国 商人之死 这是世界末日。整个情景令我激亢。是啊，如果人人都要死，就死顶，臭屎，可我知道啥。这是颗原子弹吗——世界末日——千年末日？还怕什么着火——排字错误还是耽搁——离题了还是大衰退——竟是这样着火——一下化作熊熊火焰——没有提前两周通知——也没有失业六个月期限——没有请病假，放假，补假——要出什么事一字未提——在一个清朗之晨——人的事天也不察——一下突发将阳光白昼转为黑夜地狱——到处是纸屑、电脑、窗户、砖块、坠落的尸体、和奔跑惊呼的人。 我看到一具人体躯干在跌落——没腿——没头——就一躯干。我有点罗嗦，因为我现在还无法相信当时看到的情景。我看到一具人体躯干在跌落——没腿——没头——就一躯干——在半空翻滚——披一件亮白衬衣——商人的衬衣——束在——整齐地束在腰带里——束得很紧身——还连着已没有腿的外裤。他撞到钢梁上——他死了——死定了，死了——在甜甜圈商店那一层楼——撒了糖粉的甜甜圈——刚出炉——又松脆又圆——又热又可口——这个商人躺在地上手里还提着皮包——指头上还带着婚戒。我设想，他以为这皮包是他的生命——或者他的妻子——亦或两者合一，因为这皮包他是抓得那么紧，就跟那只婚戒一样。 我看见那商人的太太走进斯坦利鞋店，手拿一张粉红单据。她来取那商人的皮鞋。他们总算找到他的脚，她希望让脚穿上皮鞋后再下葬。我站在那儿，与斯坦利鞋匠说话，因为我也在他鞋店里修鞋，一双粉红皮靴。他告诉我——你不会相信我当时看到什么。我看到查理，圣查理烧烤店老板，目睹了一场二十世纪的葬礼。查理正走出去挂牌子，停止营业，他抬头看，飞机燃油一下烧着了他，将他熔化。而你知道那躯干是如何，如何撞击地面，如何落到地上的。只见一滩血泡落下来，撒溅下来几乎觉察不出，没有声响，融进水泥地，无声熔化。 我看见一个路人挂在桥边——脚悬空——腿乱踢——双手紧拽着桥上一根松脱的钢梁——钢梁就要垮塌——带下那位路人——他踢着腿——好似可以荡到另一边——有沙的那一边——沙和水——深水——好似他可以游上岸逃命。沙与骆驼时代再现。困难时代。现在你必须攀爬砖块泥浆的沙丘。街道不再平整，到处都是路障，坑道，洞穴，你必须穿过迷宫，有时还在里面迷路，找不到尽头——也没有出口——你会绝望——但你会看到一束微弱的亮光——忽明忽灭——光一消失——你的希望也消失——你会惊讶——因为你的步伐变化。我曾经是小兔子而现在是老乌龟——并非我迷路——而是我的步伐——因为死尸就在我肩上扛着——在驼峰上——在沙漠风暴里——看不到绿洲——只有想象中的乐土闪烁着欣慰的亮光。 我看见男人手上抓着一只女人的手。他们要冲出火海——就在男人以为他已经救出了女人——一大块天花砸下来——而他手上抓住的——就只剩她的手——从她身上解肢的手。对于上帝造人，现在我们不再持有文艺复兴时代的观念——在西斯廷教堂上两只互相伸出的手——上帝之手和男人的手——他们几乎指尖相触——身体和灵魂结合。我们这儿有一场战争——物质与精神的战争。在古典主义时代，精神与物质和谐相处。物质曾经凝聚着精神。看不见的——哈姆雷特父亲的亡灵——看得见的——国王的良知。精神受限于剧院的物质。而剧院又使看不见的，可以看见。在浪漫主义时期，精神压倒了物质。香槟酒杯里容不了泡末。但综观人类历史精神从未与物质交战。而今天我们遭遇的正是这种战争。银行与宗教的战争。这也是我在《黎明的祈祷》中提及的，在纽约市，银行君临教堂。银行是美国的庙堂。这是一场圣战。我们的经济就是我们的宗教。袭击一周后我返回中城，我哀伤——并非以个人的方式——这是一种人类的哀伤——为我无法具体化的某些东西而哀伤，因为死者我一个也不认识。我悲痛因为我不了解他们的来历。也许这是一种移民的悲痛，无根的悲痛。在整个事件中不能以家庭成员的身份而只能以外来者身份参与，一个陌生人——自我疏远并困惑的陌生人。我看到伯格多夫和萨克斯商店的橱窗——那是怎样一种出乎意料的场景——我母亲见了一定会哭泣——只有黑色窗帘，黑色布幔——传达着商品的哀悼——没摆模特，只披面纱——黑色面纱。数周后才摆上模特——所有模特全不是金发。我不清楚这是出于哀悼的礼貌亦或模特都害怕用金发——恐怖分子袭击的对象。它们甚至不愿长得像美国人。双塔坍塌，这些都不再时尚。直说吧，尽管我已将头发染成金色，是因为我在写哈姆雷特，而哈姆雷特是金发，但我还是立即回去告诉我的理发师——将我的头发染黑。这是关乎生死的问题，我的自然长相像阿拉伯人走路像埃及人，为什么要搞得像美国人。 我住在中城第50街——又搬到下城——离世界贸易中心南面两个街区——那是在袭击之前六个月——所以我可以从炮台公园岸边就近研究自由神像。我乘搭轮渡去，带上有关雕塑家弗雷德里克•奥古斯特•巴托尔迪的书籍。他有次于1871年来自由岛时，当时还叫贝德罗岛，看到一座石头地堡，形状像一颗十一角的星——便意识到——他的雕塑作品就应树立在这个十一角星的位置。当我在一本儿童书里看到巴托尔迪的卡通画，他在画雕塑的草图，我便考虑，巴托尔迪树立自由神像的这个地堡就应该是关押西吉斯蒙多的同一个地堡。 我当时考虑：对，他正要打破那个地牢挣脱全部锁链。但我还考虑——他应该没有能力打破。就让他关在里面，以证明自由的存在。雕像只是雕像。但在里面关进一个人就不同了——呼吁他想获得自由——而从未得到自由。我们应该要求见他，但不释放他。如果他不能自己解放自己——那谁也解放不了他，大众、警察、消防员、军队都不能。他必须自己做。如果他老了，要推倒支柱——而无力去推——推、推、推——而媒体的注意力，因赤字混乱，转向其他人，大众也完全遗忘了他——这对他太糟糕。这个城市的麻烦太多，无法只关注一个人。如果他死去，腐烂的尸臭侵入到城里，带来疾病和瘟疫——这会不会是打开自由陵墓的充足理由呢？如果有一位贤哲开口说除非我们打开雕像——否则尸体会持续带给城市瘟疫——城市将无宁日——谁也无法安寝。 并非我们救不了西吉斯蒙多，要是愿意我们就能，但那样会损失一笔财产。西吉斯蒙多认为他必须依靠自由神像，但事实是——自由神像需要他更胜过他需要自由神像。他越光光铛挡摇晃枷锁和锁链，卖出的门票就越多。军方害怕有恐怖组织预谋解救他。人民也想解放他，特别是他自己的人民——来自全世界的移民和囚徒。所以，为避免闹事，创造出一个投票机制，让人民以为西吉斯蒙多的命运就在他们手中。他们有三种选择： 希望 希望不希望 不希望 如果他们投希望票——西吉斯蒙多从地牢获得解放。如果他们投希望不希望票，保持现状。如果他们投不希望票，他将判以死刑，也就不会有人有幸听到从自由地牢铁窗里传来他的歌声了。每隔四年自由岛的公民都要举行希望不希望投票。他们可以在土豆泥、炸薯条、和烤土豆中选择。不过无论怎么选，反正都一样是土豆。 我看过2001年8月11日的《邮报》，关于在耶路撒冷枷发大街的一起自杀式炸弹袭击，发生在萨布罗比萨店——印象深刻的是报道了一个3岁小女孩，站立在滚动的头颅中间，像拉撒路一样，从死人堆里出来，又回去对大家说——起来——她看到了她妈妈——躺在地上的睡美人——对她叫喊： ——妈咪，起来。 那个母亲已经死了。就在这时，我手中光溜溜的油炸圈饼掉了一小块在女孩脸上，另有一小块掉在她妈妈的腿上。我将它们都拿起来吃了——跟我对待街上的乞丐一样——他们装得越难看就讨得越多而我就越不理睬他们，避免与穷人和有需求的人对视——翻过这一页——我看到一个商人的上身躯干，他的睾丸都炸没了。他冲着旁边经过的一名警察哭喊： ——请救救我！我不想死！请救救我！我不想死！ 警察看了那人一眼，在那人的腿根残部呕吐起来——我感到恐怖——但照旧在吃油炸圈饼，心想： ——真幸运我不在现场，我在这儿沾着饮料吃油炸圈饼，而别人被炸得粉身碎骨。好运气。但愿能活下去。 一个月后，当我又要吃那种同样光溜溜的油炸圈饼时，第一架飞机袭击了世界贸易中心。 ——苔丝！苔丝！你在哪儿？走吧！ ——我要拿相机，还有那张粉红色的票据。 ——干什么用？ ——去取鞋啊。 ——在哪儿？ ——斯坦利鞋店。 ——你疯了！快跑吧！ ——不——苔丝说——我必须在最高观察点上思考人生。这是爱默生的话，去祈祷。 于是我们上到顶层平台——在那儿，我们看到第二架飞机袭击了第二栋楼。 ——楼要倒了！——我惊呼起来。 ——要倒，也只会往下倒——苔丝说。 牛瞰。预言得真准。当年年初，我在找公寓时曾告诉苔丝： ——我只在乎离那两栋楼的距离。它们会砸到咱们这栋楼的。要是阿拉伯人曾经来过想把它们炸塌——他们一定还会再来完成这件事。我了解他们。他们在西班牙呆了八个世纪。他们计算时间的方法不同。他们是乌龟，我们是兔子。 ——但这楼是日本人设计的——苔丝说。如果要倒，就切腹自杀，也会往下倒。 ——我不希望它们倒——我说。 ——它们不会倒——苔丝说——要倒，也只会往下倒。 于是2001年2月5日，在我生日那天，我签下租赁合同。 叫人吃惊的是，你知道，当年我还是个孩子，我和朋友们却常常说： ——新千年来的时候，我们有多大？ ——我45了，一个老太太——我常说——到时候我会死的。 可看看我现在，我正在逃命，而且想一直逃下去。 我曾经劝苔丝离开，但她执意要上屋顶。等我们下到大厅——我发觉我没穿鞋。所以我们又返回房间，拿鞋拿手稿，再下楼，来到大厅。这时，整栋建筑在隆隆作响——烟雾弥漫——突奔的狗——叫嚷的门卫——推着婴儿车的母亲。邻居把狗递给我。有手快的人打开应急医疗箱，取出面罩。外面已经一片碎屑滚滚。我们无法看清眼前的路，便朝一辆巡逻车的频闪灯光奔去——并敲着车窗： ——怎么能到街对面去？ ——祈祷吧。 ——走哪条路？ ——随命吧。 我们向南朝克林顿城堡走，经过伊利莎白西顿教堂，这里是美国第一圣人之家，也是我的一个导师的出生地。导师的胸像仍雕刻在墙上，并附题词：赫尔曼•梅尔维尔，《白鲸》作者。在炮台公园岸边，我看到一艘船，船长在宣布目的地： ——自由岛！ 我把船长看作冥府摆渡神，带我们渡过黄泉——苔丝就是我的维吉尔——而周遭的水就是穿过地狱的水。此刻，我将邻居的那条狗紧贴在胸前，这使我想起我那条早就失踪了的苏格兰犬杜西尼——一边回望曼哈顿那边的黑云——杜西尼毛发的气息，油乎乎很爽心——我深吸一口气，思想着： ——怎么你头上仍然笼罩着阴云？ 我不知道怎么会这样，但我可以告诉你阴云一直在怀孕——用他们乳房的奶水——而奶水在流——那些乳房——给全世界供奶——我吸吮着那些充盈奶水的乳房——那是我灵感的源泉——来自那些白色的乳房——两只乳房在流汁——两栋楼宇在坍塌——黑云在继续笼罩——笼罩——通常在晚上，它们越压越低——你会感到笼罩的压力，将你吊在绳索上——五花大绑——驱使你做苦役——这是一种不测的笼罩——不知道何时或如何发生——因为我们不知道它如何来临，带着火，带着怒，带着水，带着死亡。
