きのうからまだ１話しか進んでいないが、Alice Munro って、やっぱりいいなあ、というのが率直な感想だ。
こう書くと昔からのファンのように聞こえるが、とんでもない。Munro の世界にふれたのは、今年の正月休みに読んだ最新短編集 "Dear Life" [☆☆☆☆] が初めてだ。
同書の評価はすこし甘い。彼女の力量はこんなものではないだろうと思い、つづいて４月に取り組んだのが唯一の長編小説、"Lives of Girls and Women" (1971)。これは文句なしに☆☆☆☆だった。
つまり、この "Dance of the Happy Shades" はぼくにとって３冊めの Munro である。それくらいで「やっぱりいいなあ」などと利いたふうな口をたたくな、と熱心なファンからお叱りを受けそうだが、いいものはいいとしか言いようがありません。
たとえば第１話 "Walker Brothers Cowboy" のこんな一節はどうだろう。"Dance with me, Ben." / "I'm the world's worst dancer, Nora, and you know it." / "I certainly never thought so." / "You would know." / She stands in front of him, arms hanging loose and hopeful, her breasts, which a moment ago embarrassed me with their warmth and bulk, rising and falling under her loose flowered dress, her face shining with the exercise, and delight. / "Ben." / My father drops his head and says quietly, "Not me, Nora." (中略) "We've taken a lot of your time now." / "Time," says Nora bitterly. "Will you come by ever again?" / "I will if I can," says my father. / "Bring the children. Bring your wife." / "Yes I will," says my father. "I will if I can." / When she follows us to the car he says, "You come to see us too, Nora. We're right on Grove Street, left-hand side going in, that's north, and two doors this side―east―of Baker Street." / Nora does not repeat these directions. She stands close to the car in her soft, brilliant dress. She touches the fender, making an unintelligible mark in the dust there. (pp. 16-17)
主人公は少女で、少女の視点から、父親の Ben と、おそらく父親とその昔いい仲だったと思われる Nora の再会、そして別れのシーンが描かれる。２人の関係は明示されず想像するしかない。両者の深い複雑な思いが行間にこめられた場面である。
次いで家路のシーンには、こんなくだりがある。My father does not say anything to me about not mentioning things at home, but I know ...(中略)... that there are things not to be mentioned. (pp. 17-18)
この「あうんの呼吸」のあと、こんな結びが待っている。So my father drives and my brother watches the road for rabbits and I feel my father's life flowing back from our car in the last of the afternoon, darkening and turning strange, like a landscape that has an enchantment on it, making it kindly, ordinary and familiar while you are looking at it, but changing it, once your back is turned, into something you will never know, with all kinds of weathers, and distances you cannot imagine. / When we get close to Tuppertown the sky becomes gently overcast, as always, nearly always, on summer evenings by the Lake. (p.18)
説明をくわえたい誘惑にもかられるが、きょうは「やっぱりいいなあ」のひと言だけにしておきましょう。
