在這疑神疑鬼的氣氛中,1974年8月,一位年輕的美國(guó)作家決定探尋福爾摩斯的精神世界,寫下了可能是最好的福爾摩斯小說模仿作品。
"The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", by Nicholas Meyer, proved a sensation, remaining on the New York Times' Best Seller list for 40 weeks, and winning the praise of PG Wodehouse, who was lost in admiration for the way which the young writer had captured Conan Doyle's style.
《百分之七溶液》 作者尼古拉斯·梅耶引起轟動(dòng),它雄踞《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》暢銷書榜長(zhǎng)達(dá)40周,獲得PG·沃德豪斯的嘉獎(jiǎng),他對(duì)這位年輕作家把握柯南·道爾風(fēng)格的能力贊不絕口。
"The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" was written as a kind of protest against all the Holmes movies and earlier pastiches that I thought...rightly or wrongly, had got it wrong.
《百分之七溶液》是種抗議,抗議所有福爾摩斯電影和之前的模仿作品,不論我是對(duì)是錯(cuò),他們都錯(cuò)了。
Meyer's story, pretending to be a lost manuscript by the late Dr Watson, promises to solve the mystery of Holmes's missing years after his Reichenbach fall.
梅耶假托本書是丟失的華生的手稿,要解決福爾摩斯在萊辛巴赫瀑布后失蹤多年的謎題。
The solution being that he fetches up in Vienna, where he encounters the father of psychoanalysis, Dr Sigmund Freud.
原來他去了維也納,遇見了精神分析之父西格蒙·弗洛伊德醫(yī)生。
Doyle knew about the life and writing of Freud. And I thought, well, they're both doctors, that's kind of interesting.
道爾了解弗洛伊德的生平和作品,我想他們都是醫(yī)生,這很有趣。
Then I realised that Holmes is a cocaine addict and Freud had been an earlyproponent of cocaine, starting as a use for anaesthetic during eye surgery, but he also was a user.
然后我意識(shí)到福爾摩斯有可卡因毒癮,弗洛伊德早期擁護(hù)可卡因,將它作為眼部手術(shù)的麻醉劑,但是他也吸食。
And a lot of people were very angry at my book because it was a book about an addict.
很多人對(duì)我的書很不滿,因?yàn)橹鹘鞘且粋€(gè)癮君子。
It's not really a Sherlock Holmes story, "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution".
《百分之七溶液》其實(shí)不是一本夏洛克·福爾摩斯小說。
It's a story about Sherlock Holmes, not quite the same, and that Holmes's addiction is something that he has to overcome and the fact that he does overcome it and function while chained to it, renders him more remarkable, and not less.
這是關(guān)于夏洛克·福爾摩斯的,這是兩碼事,福爾摩斯要戰(zhàn)勝毒癮,他也做到了,雖然繼續(xù)吸食,卻能保持理智,這使他更偉大,而不是卑鄙。