The Handmaid's Tale 시녀 이야기

Margaret Atwood

예전에 번역본으로 읽다가 말았는데, 저번에 마거릿 애트우드의 <페넬로피아드>를 읽고 다른 책들도 읽어보고 싶어서 원서로 재도전했다.

번역본은 잘 기억나지 않지만 원서로 읽으니까 확실히 문체나 묘사의 아름다움이 느껴져서 좋았다.

제목이 <The Handmaid's Tale>인데, 말 그대로 주인공이 이야기를 들려주는 형식이라 구어체이고 과거와 현재를 오가면서 진행된다.

주인공의 이야기로 끝나지 않고, 마지막에 역사학자의 강연이 덧붙여져 있다.

테이프에 녹음된 주인공의 이야기를 미래의 역사학자들이 발견했는데, 그 시점에서 주인공의 시대에 대해 설명하는 강연이다.

주인공의 이야기 속 디스토피아도 공포스러웠지만 부록처럼 덧붙여진 강연에 나오는 미래 사람들의 생각이 더 디스토피아적이라 소름 끼쳤다.

그 어둡고 암울한 이야기를 아름다운 문체로 묘사한 명작이다.

후속작도 있다는 걸 발견해서 얼른 읽어봐야겠다.

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I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance.
If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.

A story is like a letter. Dear You, I'll say. Just you, without a name. Attaching a name attaches you to the world of fact, which is riskier, more hazardous: who knows what the chances are out there, of survival, yours? I will say you, you, like an old love song. You can mean more than one.
You can mean thousands.

Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now.
We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

But who can remember pain, once it's over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.

How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.

Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it's heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket. I wish I could see in the dark, better than I do.

이걸 대체 어떻게 번역했을까? 원서로 읽어야 온전히 이해할 수 있는 묘사이다.

One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other.

기억에 많이 남았던 부분이다. 개체들을 뭉뚱그려 집단으로 바라보는 순간 고유한 이야기는 사라지며 개인은 집단의 일부로서만 존재한다. 그래서 나는 자연과학보다 의학을 사랑하나 보다. 개체를 바라보고 싶어서. 하나의 이야기를 가진 온전한 사람으로 바라보고 싶어서.

My God. Who Art in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within.
I wish you would tell me Your Name, the real one I mean. But You will do as well as anything.
I wish I knew what You were up to. But whatever it is, help me to get through it, please. Though maybe it's not Your doing; I don't believe for an instant that what's going on out there is what You meant.
I have enough daily bread, so I won't waste time on that. It isn't the main problem. The problem is getting it down without choking on it.
Now we come to forgiveness. Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.
I suppose I should say I forgive whoever did this, and whatever they're doing now. I'll try, but it isn't easy.
...
Maybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.
I think about the chandelier too much, though it's gone now. But you could use a hook, in the closet. I've considered the possibilities. All you'd have to do, after attaching yourself, would be to lean your weight forward and not fight.
...
Oh God. It's no joke. Oh God oh God. How can I keep on living?

I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.
So I will go on. So I will myself to go on.

We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her answer; and when we turn to look at her we glimpse her only for a moment, before she slips from ourgrasp and flees. As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.