Letters

Letter 6 ：如果到北极圈驻地写作会怎样？

Zixin Li

Nov 6, 2024 — 12 min read

Rovaniemi, Finland

日常的写作，我发现自己越来越想用英文写了。我对自己中文语感目前不太满意，英文反而表达起来流畅很多，而且更接近我想表达的方式。所以在一场10天的北欧旅行结束前，我在飞机上，在女儿不停的干扰下，仍然写下了下面大部分的句子。她对我用英文写作也很感兴趣…因为比起中文，她更看得懂：

Looking out from the slats of the jalousie of the room, I find the city full of whiteness. It is covered up by the snow last night, which dropped silently, but I realize how heavy it was when I take my step out of the apartment.

In lower latitude areas, it could be called a snowstorm. And yes it is, all the landscapes here have been stormed through and swept over, creating a sense of equality: Colors disappear, with only white, grey and black remaining, day and night, continuously.

I dream of a writing residency here Rovaniemi, a Finnish city right on the Arctic Circle that I haven’t heard of until two weeks ago. This idea came out suddenly when I arrived at Kaisa’s apartment. “A three-bedroom beautiful & cozy boho style condo”, says at the Airbnb App. I thought it was just a commercial slogan until I came here, after climbing up three flights of stairs, knocking on the white metal door.

Kaisa received us with big smiles. Even before she spoke, the red carpets throughout the living room, the lyrics of Beatles’s Imagine framed on the wall, the velvet cushions on the solo sofas were all emitting a sense of warmth and welcome.

“The yellow patterned bricks are original from 1964.” She pointed to the kitchen walls.

“The same year that the Beatles came on stage!” I suddenly recalled a piece of work by my UEA classmate who is researching the correlation of Beatles and LSD - hallucinogenic drugs.

“Exactly.” Kaisa says.

It turns out that Kaisa is a musician — violinist, to be precise, and a music therapist. This is her city home, and sometimes serves as the meeting room for her clients. She herself lives thirty minutes drive from the city. Somewhere in the rural Arctic villages I guess. I was always obsessed with those villages or towns in these remote areas, marked as small circles on the map, scattering randomly like pearls from a broken necklace on the white cloth, or like bubbles drifting from the mouths of fishes.

Here I am, in the Arctic Circle. A one-hour flight from Helsinki took me here. I feel warmer than in Helsinki, oddly. The coldness reflecting from the ice surfaces takes a while to soak me in. It hits my body like a fist, or a thick wooden stick, clumsy and stiff, but easier to be defended by heavy coats and scarves, compare to the damp, biting coldness in temperate cities like Shanghai or London.

Through a documentary in the Arctic Science Museum, I realize there is half a year in Rovaniemi isn’t winter - Spring, summer or autumn, whatever you choose to call it. And that time, trees are green, creeks are flowing. Snow can end in May, but come back as early as in October, a local Uber driver told me. Kaisa also told me that she would like to visit England in March or April for the spring, when winter still dwells here.

But I am dreaming of a possibility: get myself stuck in the cosy room here, and write, regardless of the weather outside. There is a sizable supermarket called K around the corner. I dragged a suitcase to shop essentials, and found walking in the snow not as difficult as I imagined. A tasty Spanish wine costs only 7 euro. And there is a sliced beef steak tasted a bit like pork. Next time I will use the Google Translate to identify the Finnish labels.

Uber is available here. This is important. There are only two set fares: 12 euros to get to downtown and 24 euros for a ride to the airport or to the Santa Claus Christmas Village, a theme park to continuously cheat or treat the kids about the myth. I could imagine myself as a writer-for-hire, personalizing postcards or letters sent from the address of so-called Santa Claus office, which would certainly keep me busy throughout December.

At night, crowds gather in buses or private tour vans, venturing beyond the city in search of the Northern Lights. Yet, this too feels like a myth. If I were to stay here longer, I might be able to tell you the truth about it.

I spent a long time exploring the museum’s exhibition on the Sami people. it’s a fascinating Anthropological topic. Their traditions, from fishing and marriage customs to the everyday small talk at a gas station café, I feel a certain connection to the indigenous culture here, though it’s clear I’d need to learn some Finnish or even Sami to truly engage with them.

Is this just a daydream conjured by the Arctic Circle’s polar nights? All it would take is a Schengen visa, a budget to cover Kaisa’s rent and living expenses, and a plan for my nine-year-old daughter—a task that’s undoubtedly the most challenging of all.

👩

Guest Writer 作家朋友来作客

钱佳楠 Jianan Qian

中英双语作家。毕业于Iowa Writer’s Workshop, 即将于南加州大学（USC）完成英文博士学位。

本周我邀请到好朋友钱佳楠来回答我几个问题。她的作品将在本周五发布的Granta China Issue当中出版。

李：这次给Granta的中国专刊写了一个什么样的故事？
钱：这个小说叫《食人鱼》，收录于我早前的小说集《人只会老，不会死》，设置于上海，带有一点超现实的元素，就不重复故事情节了。翻译的过程很有意思，第一稿是我翻的，以我现在的英语水平，翻译自己的中文小说依旧非常吃力，幸好我有合作译者Alyssa Asquith帮忙，我们还一起发现了一个我年轻时想当然犯下的常识性错误。

李：恭喜你从南加大英语系博士毕业，可以和大家介绍一下研究主题是什么吗？
钱：还没完全毕业，不过刚把毕业论文的初稿写完了。我的论文把不同时期的中国文学的英译和亚裔美国文学的中译进行配对，因为译者翻译的过程中会犯有心或无心的错误，做有意或无意的改动，我从这些错误和改动中看中美双方对彼此的想象和预判，也看这些想象和预判如何随着时代而发生改变。

李：这几年读博士需要进行大量学术写作，如何保持创意写作的热情和质感？
钱：诚实的答案是没有保持。我仍在修复学术对我的写作和阅读所造成的伤害。

李：我自己的体验，中英文创意写作的语感非常不同，两者能互相帮助但有时也会有干扰。你自己会在中英文创意写作里找到两个不同的自己吗？
钱：中英文写作中所构建的声音（voice）肯定是完全不同的。但如今的我并不觉得这是个问题，我用中文写非虚构，用英文写虚构。

李：在英文小说中，如果你创造的主人公超越了你自己熟悉的身份、阶层、肤色、国籍，你会如何去让ta落地？这方面是否会碰到挑战？
钱：现在操作起来要比几年前刚来美国时好多了，因为我积累了更丰富的在地经验。但是，如果我想写的主人公超越自己熟悉的身份认知，我一般会去采访符合这个设定的人群，读他们推荐的资料，看他们推荐的视频，等我觉得这个主人公某种程度上成了自己的“熟人”，我才动笔。

Granta #169 China

“Split into six sections: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, interview and Dongbei renaissance, this issue is themed 'China'. Issue #169 offers a critical insight into Chinese literary culture and the writers from there who bring a distinct writing style that Granta describes as not only intertwined with China's political history, but also playful and surreal. What's interesting about this issue is the translation of the literature included from the Chinese language to English, by Paper Language and translators such as Jeremy Tiang; this in itself being a learning point of the unique use of structural techniques within Chinese fiction. “

下周等我收到这本书，我会来谈一谈读后感。

📙

What I Read this Week 本周阅读

在上周的旅行中，我从芬兰首都赫尔辛基乘轮船，两个小时后到了爱沙尼亚首都塔林，这座联合国文化城市中，唯一的一家英文书店，Ruutel & Matilda English Bookshop, 我找到了一本1990年出版的Granta, 第31期，花了10欧把它买了下来。

Granta # 31

Published in 1990

这本书里面收录了很多今天看来都赫赫有名的作家，加西亚·马尔克斯、Salman Rushdie、玛格丽特·阿特伍德、Bill Bryson等等。但令我意外的是，这期Granta大部分的文章都是文学性非虚构作品，整本书我翻了一下，只有阿特伍德的写作是小说。封面故事The General是一个关于巴拉圭前独裁者General Alfredo Stroessner 的长篇。马尔克斯的作品是The Future of Colombia, 关于哥伦比亚国家命运的探讨。Bill Bryson是旅行写作。里面还有一位罗马尼亚摄影师拍摄的东欧剧变影集。以至于我怀疑我看的是一本假Granta, 因为印象中，Granta所倡导的New Writing基本都是小说作品。

我看了一下主编，Bill Buford。确实是Granta的创始主编。1979年，25岁刚从剑桥毕业的他和同学创办了Granta(或者说复活，因为19世纪末也有一本同名学生杂志）。 Buford是美国人，所以他引入了大批北美作家，甚至在纽约设立了办公室。他从1979年开始一直担任主编到1995年，后来杂志所有权几度易手，慢慢变成一本非常英国化的杂志，办公室也在离我家不远的诺丁山区域。