What Is Tenderness?｜溫柔是什麼？Reading The Tender Narrator by Olga Tokarczuk
這就是為什麼我相信我必須講述那些故事，就好像世界是一個不斷在我們眼前成形、有生命力的一體，而我們則是其中既渺小又深遠的一分子。
That is why I believe I must tell stories as if the world were a living, single entity, constantly forming before our eyes, and as if we were a small and at the same time powerful part of it.
——奧爾嘉． 朵卡萩 Olga Tokarczuk
用最近感受到最多溫柔的AAA Tour跟大家開場
The AAA Tour by Sunset Rollercoaster and HYUKOH, where I was immersed in tenderness.
在閱讀 Olga Tokarczuk 的 Nobel Lecture《The Tender Narrator》時，我開始重新思考「溫柔」這個詞在文學、翻譯與敘事中的位置。以下是一則閱讀與翻譯交錯而成的筆記，也是一段關於如何觀看他者、理解世界的練習。
溫柔是一件好難掌握的事，在無情與多情之間，到底怎樣算溫柔？這對於 28 歲有時候會用力過猛的人類來說，這真是大難題。
即便如此，還是暗自期許自己成為更好的人，於是閱讀了大衛． 布魯克斯（David Brooks）的《深刻認識一個人》（How to Know a Person — The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen）。
書中，作者引用了奧爾嘉． 朵卡萩（Olga Tokarczuk）在 2018 年得了諾貝爾文學獎後於 Nobel Lecture 中說的一段話，對此有所感觸與學習 — — 雖然在人際間還是需要不斷平衡，但是更明確地感受到文學的愛（肯定是窒息的愛）（再度用力過猛，但對文學這樣沒關係）。
以下節錄自 The Nobel Prize 官網上由 Jennifer Croft 和 Antonia Lloyd-Jones 翻譯的版本。
While reading Olga Tokarczuk’s Nobel Lecture, The Tender Narrator, I began to reconsider the place of “tenderness” in literature, translation, and storytelling. What follows is a set of notes shaped by reading and translation—an attempt to reflect on how we look at others and make sense of the world.
Tenderness is a tricky thing to master. Where does it truly lie — somewhere between detachment and overflowing? As someone who often feels too much and tries too hard, balancing it remains a challenge.
In David Brooks’ How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, Brooks references a passage from Olga Tokarczuk’s Nobel Lecture after she won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. It struck a chord with me, offering both insight and reflection. Navigating human relationships will always be a balancing act, but it also reminded me—once again—of the kind of love literature carries. (To be honest, it might even be the kind that suffocates.) (But perhaps that’s okay, especially when that love is directed toward literature.)
Below is an excerpt from the translation by Jennifer Croft and Antonia Lloyd-Jones, published on The Nobel Prize website.
The Tender Narrator
溫柔的敘事者
That is what tenderness serves me for―because tenderness is the art of personifying, of sharing feelings, and thus endlessly discovering similarities. Creating stories means constantly bringing things to life, giving an existence to all the tiny pieces of the world that are represented by human experiences, the situations people have endured and their memories. Tenderness personalises everything to which it relates, making it possible to give it a voice, to give it the space and the time to come into existence, and to be expressed. It is thanks to tenderness that the teapot starts to talk.
這就是溫柔之於我的意義 — — 因為溫柔是一門藝術，一種將事物「人格化」、分享情感、進而無限發掘相似之處的藝術。創作故事的意義在於不斷地為事物帶來生命，讓世界上那些因人類經驗而存在、承載著人們所承受、所記憶情境的微小片段獲得存在的價值。溫柔為所有與之相關的事物注入人格，賦予它聲音，讓它有空間與時間使其成形、存在，並被表達。正是因為有了溫柔，茶壺得以說話。
Tenderness is the most modest form of love. It is the kind of love that does not appear in the scriptures or the gospels, no one swears by it, no one cites it. It has no special emblems or symbols, nor does it lead to crime, or prompt envy.
溫柔是愛中最謙遜的形式。這是一種既未出現在經文中，也未記載於福音中的愛，沒有人會以它起誓，也沒有人會引述它。它沒有特殊的象徵或符號，也不會帶來罪行或激起妒忌。
It appears wherever we take a close and careful look at another being, at something that is not our “self”.
當我們靠近並用心注視另一個存在，當我們目光所及超越「自己」時，就是溫柔出現的時候。
Tenderness is spontaneous and disinterested; it goes far beyond empathetic fellow feeling. Instead it is the conscious, though perhaps slightly melancholy, common sharing of fate.
溫柔是不經意而無私的；它遠遠超越了同理心這份情感。相較之下，溫柔是一種有意識的選擇，或許夾帶些許來自共同承擔命運的哀愁。
Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity to suffering and the effects of time.
溫柔是一種對另一個存在，深切的情感關懷：關懷它的脆弱、它獨特的本質，以及它面對無法免疫於苦難與隨時光而至的不可抗力。
Tenderness perceives the bonds that connect us, the similarities and sameness between us. It is a way of looking that shows the world as being alive, living, interconnected, cooperating with, and codependent on itself.
溫柔感知著連結我們的羈絆，體察我們之間的相似與共通之處。它是一種看待世界的方式，讓我們看見生命、生活、彼此相連、互相合作、並相依相存在世上的方式。
Literature is built on tenderness toward any being other than ourselves.
文學建立在對於我們自身之外萬物的溫柔之上。
…
That is why I believe I must tell stories as if the world were a living, single entity, constantly forming before our eyes, and as if we were a small and at the same time powerful part of it.
這就是為什麼我相信我必須講述那些故事，就好像世界是一個不斷在我們眼前成形、有生命力的一體，而我們則是其中既渺小又深遠的一分子。
有興趣的人可以感受一下影片的氣場
若你對翻譯、敘事與文化書寫有興趣，可以到這裡看更多我跟真實世界互動的故事。
