喬治馬丁與電視劇《權力的遊戲》

Halfway through lunch at the Delaunay, a fashionable European-style brasserie in London, George RR Martin compares the giant slab of breaded chicken on my plate to a map of a fantasy kingdom. The fact that he is one of the world’s biggest-selling fantasy writers, and creator of the books on which the hit television series Game of Thrones is based, makes this a little less surprising than it might otherwise be. But not much. Pointing at my irregularly shaped food with his knife, he elaborates: “There are various little inlets where cities could be,” he says jovially, as if he were making the most obvious comparison in the world.

我們在倫敦的時尚歐式餐廳Delaunay的午餐吃到一半時，喬治•R•R•馬丁(George RR Martin)把我盤中一大塊裹着麪包屑的炸雞比作一張夢幻王國的地圖。他是世界上作品最暢銷的奇幻作家之一，他創作的小說被改編成了熱播電視劇《權力的遊戲》(Game of Thrones)，因此，他作出這樣的比喻並不奇怪。他用餐刀指着我盤中形狀不規則的炸雞塊，解釋道：“上面有各種各樣的小海灣，城市就可能在這裏，”他開心地說，彷彿自己作出了世界上最一目瞭然的比喻。

It’s an entertaining moment and Martin, 63, does seem to be enjoying life. As well he might - 9m copies of his books were sold last year. The five volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, his dizzying saga of medieval kingdoms locked in internecine warfare, total more than 5,000 pages and there are two more (very long) books to come before the cycle is complete.

這是非常愉快的一刻，67歲的馬丁的確似乎在享受生活。他也應該享受生活——截至2015年4月，他的書已賣出逾6000萬冊。《冰與火之歌》(A Song of Ice and Fire)是一部令人眼花繚亂、描繪中世紀王國間血腥混戰的奇幻鉅作，已完成的五部共有5000多頁，再有（很長的）兩部之後，該系列纔會完結。

The first, called A Game of Thrones, took Martin five years to write, and was published in 1996. By 2005, when the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows, came out, he was a successful genre author, nudging the mainstream bestseller lists. Then, in April 2011, things changed utterly for Martin. Overnight, he became globally famous when HBO, the American pay-TV channel renowned for making high-quality drama, put out the first episode of its new series Game of Thrones. This lavish, faithful, and very expensive (a reported $60m per series) adaptation of Martin’s tale of sorcery – and a lot of sex – became a huge hit. As the second series reaches its climax this week in the US and the UK, it has become HBO’s most successful series, shown in 29 countries and with average US viewing figures of more than 10m per episode. Fans include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who held a Game of Thrones-themed barbecue (featuring goat and “obscure animal parts”) for close friends last month.

馬丁用5年時間完成了第一部《權力的遊戲》(A Game of Thrones)的寫作，並於1996年出版。到2005年，當第四部《羣鴉的盛宴》(A Feast for Crows)問世時，他已成爲一名成功的流派作家，躋身主流暢銷書作家排行榜。然後是在2011年4月，馬丁的生活發生了翻天覆地的變化。當以製作高品質電視劇聞名的美國付費電視頻道HBO推出的新劇《權力的遊戲》(Game of Thrones)首集開播時，馬丁一夜之間在全球成名。這部根據馬丁的奇幻小說（包括很多性描寫）改編的、陣容豪華、忠實原著且成本高昂（據稱每季耗資6000萬美元）的電視劇取得了巨大的成功。該劇已成爲HBO史上最成功的系列劇，在170個國家播出，平均每集在美國的收視人數超過1000萬。Facebook創始人馬克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)也是該劇的粉絲，他還爲密友們舉辦了一場《權力的遊戲》主題的燒烤派對（有羊和“不明動物部位”）。

I arrive early, only to find my guest is already waiting, settled on a green leather banquette. There’s a jug of water and two glasses on the crisp white tablecloth, along with some artisan-looking breadsticks and butter. It’s a simple, peaceful scene and Martin looks as though he might have been here for hours. In his richly-imagined world of the kingdoms of Westeros, fortune favours the quick and the well-prepared.

我提前來到餐廳，卻發現馬丁已在等我，坐在綠色的皮質長軟座上。潔白無瑕的桌布上放着一壺水、兩個玻璃杯，還有一些精緻的麪包棒和黃油。這一幕看起來簡單而又寧靜，馬丁似乎已經在這裏待了好幾個小時。在他極富想象力的維斯特洛(Westeros)大陸諸王國的世界裏，運氣總是青睞那些行動迅速、準備充分的人。

With his lavish beard and big glasses, Martin cuts a striking figure. He is wearing a dark purple embroidered waistcoat over a black shirt. Most eye-catching is his black fisherman’s cap, which has a small brooch in the shape of a turtle pinned to its front. It’s not a look much favoured at the Delaunay, where the other tables are starting to fill with men in suits. From snatches of conversation I overhear, deals are done here, and takeovers hatched – a modern take on the scheming courtiers of King’s Landing, the affluent, southern capital of Westeros.

濃密的鬍鬚、大號眼鏡很容易讓他成爲引人注目的人物。他身穿一件深紫色、帶刺繡的馬甲，裏面搭配黑色襯衫。最惹眼的是他的黑色漁夫帽，帽子正面彆着一枚海龜形狀的小別針。在Delaunay，這樣的打扮並不常見，陸續入座其他桌的男士都西裝革履。從我無意中聽到的一些談話片斷可以推斷，他們在這裏達成了交易，敲定了收購——就像維斯特洛南部富庶的首都君臨城(King's Landing)中詭計多端的廷臣的現代版。

Keen to find out more about his inspiration, I ask Martin about his childhood. His accent is pleasingly gravelly to a British ear. It comes from Bayonne, New Jersey (“a blue-collar town”), where he was born and brought up, the son of a longshoreman. Was he solitary? “Well, I had a couple of friends but I was mostly the kid with his nose in a book.” He was mad about comic books (he still has a valuable collection of comics) and read widely.

我很想更多地探尋馬丁的靈感來源，便問起了他的童年生活。他的口音在英國人聽來有一種愉悅的沙啞感。他出生在美國新澤西州的貝永（Bayonne，一個“藍領小鎮”），在那裏長大，父親是一名碼頭裝卸工。我問他是否感到孤獨？“嗯，我有幾個朋友，但大多數時間我都是一個埋頭看書的孩子。”他曾經對漫畫書極度癡迷（仍收藏有很多珍貴的漫畫書）且閱讀廣泛。

The Martin family – he has two younger sisters – lived near Bayonne’s harbour front in a federal housing project. Money was scarce – his war veteran father had periods of unemployment. George’s world was made up of just five blocks, bounded by the water. “There was this little grassy place where I would go and sit and just dream, and no one else knew about it. I could see not only the ferries but big ships going into Newark Bay, freighters from all around the world, with their flags.

馬丁有兩個妹妹，他們一家住在貝永港口附近聯邦政府提供的住房中。家裏很拮据，作爲退役老兵的父親經常處於失業狀態。馬丁那時的世界只有五個街區大小，三面環水。“有一小塊草地，我可以去那裏閒坐，做做美夢，沒有別的人知道。我不僅可以看到渡船，還可以看到開往紐瓦克灣的巨輪，以及來自世界各地、掛着各自國旗的貨輪。”

“I had this desire to see the world. I couldn’t see any of it but I saw it in my imagination, and that’s why I always read books, and I could go to Mars or Middle Earth or the Hyborian age.” (The latter is Robert E Howard’s imagined world, home to Conan the Barbarian).

“我渴望見識世界。雖然我不能親身見識任何地方，但我在自己的想象中見到了，這就是爲什麼我總是在讀書，（在書中）我可以去火星、中土世界(Middle Earth)或者海波瑞恩時代(Hyborian Age)。”（後者是羅伯特•E•霍華德(Robert E Howard)設想的世界，蠻王柯南(Conan the Barbarian)的故鄉）。

Back in present-day London, the menus have arrived. “The schnitzel was recommended to me,” he says, as we ponder an overwhelming number of menu choices. We order Wiener schnitzel for him, chicken for me. What does it come with? Nothing, says the waitress, shrugging helplessly and miming a big plate. I picture an empty space on the plate and we order sides. “Buttery mash sounds good,” says Martin. I choose sprouting broccoli with almonds. In anticipation of these heavy main courses we stick to salad starters – endive, pear and rocket for him; avocado, radish and butter leaf lettuce for me. He motions for me to order wine. “Go ahead! A rosé would be nice, you are having chicken, after all.”

回到如今的倫敦，菜單已經送來了。我們看着菜單上令人目不暇接的菜品不知道該點什麼時，他說：“有人向我推薦炸肉排。”於是他點了維也納炸小牛排，我點了炸雞排。有配菜嗎？沒有，服務員說，她愛莫能助地聳聳肩，比劃着說盤子很大。我想象了一下空蕩蕩的盤子，於是點了一些配菜。馬丁說：“黃油土豆泥聽起來不錯。”我則選了杏仁花椰菜。由於預計這些主菜很油膩，我們又點了沙拉開胃菜——他點了菊苣、梨和芝麻菜，而我點了鱷梨、蘿蔔和黃油生菜。他示意我點紅酒。“點吧！紅葡萄酒會很不錯，別忘了，你點了雞肉。”

Martin, who is closely involved in the Game of Thrones TV series and writes one episode of each series himself, believes its success lies in its universal appeal. “HBO have done some classic shows: The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire – which many people consider the greatest TV show of all time. But most of their shows are very American. What does it mean to someone in Thailand to watch Tony Soprano in New Jersey struggling with his family? But Game of Thrones, being fantasy, and set in an imaginary kingdom, and about certain universal issues – of power and family, and love and duty, and all that – does hopefully speak to many different cultures.”

馬丁密切參與了系列電視劇《權力的遊戲》的製作，親自爲每一季寫一集劇本。他認爲該劇的成功在於其廣泛的吸引力。“HBO製作了一些經典電視劇：《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)、《戴德伍德》(Deadwood)和《火線》(The Wire)——許多人認爲《火線》是史上最偉大的電視劇。但他們的電視劇大多非常美國化。一名泰國觀衆觀看新澤西州的託尼•索普拉諾(Tony Soprano)與家族爭鬥，有什麼意思呢？但《權力的遊戲》是奇幻題材，以一個想象中的王國爲背景，講一些普遍問題——權力和家族、愛情和責任，諸如此類——的確很可能迎合許多不同的文化”。

Game of Thrones has also become famous for its use of “sexposition” – keeping viewers hooked by combining complex plot exposition with explicit sexual goings-on. “That is something that is not in the books, of course,” he says. “There is lots of sex in the books but no sexposition. I have lots of ways of doing exposition that are not available to David and Dan [Benioff and Weiss, Game of Thrones’ writer-producers].” Warming to the theme, he goes on riffing on the possible wider uses for sexposition. “It should be adopted by industry. Think how much more interesting staff meetings would be if, while they were briefing you ... ” He tails off but the mental picture makes me snort with laughter.

電視劇《權力的遊戲》也因使用“以性愛發展情節”的手法——在赤裸裸的性愛場景中混合複雜的情節發展來吸引觀衆——而聞名。他說：“當然，在書中是沒有這個的。書中有大量的性，但沒有藉助性愛發展情節。我有許多方法來發展情節，而大衛•貝尼奧夫(David Benioff)和丹•韋斯(Dan Weiss)（電視劇《權力的遊戲》的編劇和製片人）無法使用這些方法。”他對這個話題來了興致，不停設想“以性愛發展情節”可能的更廣泛運用。“行業裏應該用它。想想員工會議多有趣啊，如果他們在跟你作簡報的時候……”他越說聲音越低，不過想象中的畫面讓我噴笑出來。

Martin is not new to TV. He sold his first science fiction story in 1970, while he was in college, and his first novel was published in 1977. By 1983 he was expecting to hit the big time with his fourth book, Armageddon Rag, about a rock band. However, he recalls, “it was the worst-selling of all my novels and essentially destroyed my career as a novelist at the time. Oddly enough, the same book that essentially crippled my career as a novelist started my career in Hollywood.” The book was optioned for a feature film by a writer and, though the film was never made, the writer drafted Martin into working on a remake of cult TV series The Twilight Zone. In the following years, he worked on pilots and reworked scripts for others. “I made a lot of money but got very little [TV] made,” he says.

馬丁並非電視界的新人。他在1970年賣掉了自己的首篇科幻故事，當時他還在上大學。1977年，他出版首部小說。到1983年，他本來預計自己的第四本書、講一支搖滾樂隊的《末日狂歌》(Armageddon Rag)會取得巨大成功。然而，他回憶道：“這是我所有小說中銷量最差的，在當時實際上毀掉了我作爲小說家的職業生涯。怪異的是，就是這本毀掉我的小說家職業生涯的書，開啓了我在好萊塢的職業生涯。”這本書被一位編劇選中製作一部故事影片，雖然這部影片從未製作出來，但這位編劇邀請馬丁參與重新制作非主流電視系列劇《陰陽魔界》(The Twilight Zone)。在隨後的幾年裏，他製作試播節目併爲其他人改編劇本。他說：“我賺了很多錢，但很少製作（電視）。”

Our starters arrive. Mine looks like an upturned iceberg lettuce. Martin’s, on the other hand, is an edible work of art, its pile of endive leaves beautifully arranged. We munch in companionable near-silence, until I ask how Martin’s fame has affected his writing: millions are depending on him to keep ahead of the TV series, and to tell us how the saga ends. “I have an assistant and I recently hired a second assistant,” he explains. “I am kind of dealing with the fact that I have become a small industry – ‘Westeros Incorporated’ – so to speak.”

我們的開胃菜送來了。我的菜看起來就像是一個倒過來的捲心萵苣。而馬丁的菜則是一件可以食用的藝術品，菊苣葉子擺放精美。我們愉快地默默吃了一會，然後我問馬丁，出名如何影響了他的寫作：無數粉絲指望靠他讓電視劇拍下去，並向我們劇透。他解釋說：“我有一個助理，最近還僱了第二個助理。可以說我在適應一個事實，就是我已經變成了一個小產業——‘維斯特洛公司’(Westeros Incorporated)——可以這麼說。”

The extra help, he says, frees him up to retreat into writing. “When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world. When the writing is going really well, whole days and weeks go by and I suddenly realise I have all these unpaid bills and, my God, I haven’t unpacked, and the suitcase has been sitting there for three weeks.” (Martin lives in Santa Fe with his wife Parris, whom he met at a science fiction fan convention.)

他說，兩位助理讓他解放出來重新投入寫作。“當我以最佳狀態寫作的時候，我真的沉浸在自己的世界裏。我與外面的世界失去了聯繫。我會很難平衡真實世界和虛幻世界。當寫作漸入佳境的時候，好幾天、好幾周就這樣過去，然後我突然意識到所有那些賬單都沒付，天啊，我沒有拆開行李，箱子就在那裏放了三個星期。”（馬丁和他妻子帕里斯(Parris)住在聖達菲，他們是在一場科幻迷大會上認識的）。

Martin’s fictional world is not a sunny one. Lead characters tend to die. Horribly. There was, for example, an internet outcry after Sean Bean, who played noble Ned Stark in series one of Game of Thrones, was – spoiler alert – beheaded. “I was startled to the reaction to that scene in the show,” Martin says, brightly. “Sean Bean has died a lot, this is not his first death. In fact there is a YouTube video where you can see him die 21 times in 21 different films, so it’s not as if the idea of him dying is entirely original to us.”

馬丁的小說世界並不光明。主角往往會死。慘死。例如，在《權力的遊戲》第一季中肖恩•比恩(Sean Bean)扮演的貴族奈德•斯塔克(Ned Stark)被斬首之後，互聯網上一片譁然。馬丁燦爛地說道：“觀衆對劇中這一幕的反應讓我吃驚。肖恩•比恩‘死’了很多次，這不是他第一次‘死’。實際上，在YouTube上有一段視頻，你可以看到，他在21部不同的電影裏‘死’了21次，因此並不是說讓他‘死’的想法完全是我們首創的。”

He is methodically working through his endive. Having given up on my lettuce, I suggest that Westeros is, perhaps, the most richly imagined “other” civilisation since JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and has, similarly, broken into the mainstream literary consciousness. Martin, who has long acknowledged a huge debt to Tolkien, says: “There were thousands of years of fantasy before Tolkien but the way it is shaped as a modern commercial publishing genre and the fantasy books that have been written in the past half century have all been influenced by Tolkien. So it still sort of defines the playing field.”

他有條不紊地吃着菊苣。我不再吃自己的萵苣。我說，維斯特洛或許是自J•R•R•托爾金(JRR Tolkien)的中土世界以來想象最豐富的“其他”文明，同樣也闖入了主流文學意識。馬丁早就承認從托爾金那裏得到很多啓發。他說道：“在托爾金之前的數千年就有奇幻小說，但奇幻小說之所以能成爲現代商業出版的一種文學類別，以及過去50年創作的奇幻著作，全都受到托爾金的影響。因此托爾金的小說仍在某種程度上定義着奇幻小說。”

Have his own books redefined fantasy fiction for the 21st century? “Maybe. They have certainly added some elements that were missing.” I ask if that includes really good parts for women – and dwarves. Women in Martin’s saga are just as morally compromised and sexually pragmatic as the men. And the dwarf Tyrion Lannister (played in the series by Peter Dinklage, in an Emmy-winning performance) is the closest the books have to a hero.

馬丁自己的書是否爲21世紀重新定義了奇幻小說？“或許吧。它們當然是增添了一些缺失的元素。”我問，這是否包括對女性——和侏儒——真正精彩的描寫？馬丁的史詩鉅著中的女人跟男人一樣，會在道德上妥協，在性方面採取實用主義態度。侏儒提利昂•蘭尼斯特(Tyrion Lannister)（劇中由彼得•丁克拉格(Peter Dinklage)出演，獲得了艾美獎）是他書中最接近英雄的侏儒。

Martin is roused to take me on. “But I think Tolkien had at least one great part for a woman. I love Eowyn, she is really the only woman in it. Arwen was created for the movie.

馬丁來了精神，向我發起挑戰。“但我認爲，托爾金起碼寫出了一個偉大的女人。我熱愛伊歐玟(Eowyn)，她是書中唯一真正的女人。阿爾文(Arwen)是爲了電影塑造的。”

“Tolkien was a 19th-century guy, a world war one veteran, and the fact that his books still speak to the modern reader, and are enjoyed by millions of people today, is a sign of his brilliance. I think he will continue to be read for centuries to come.”

“托爾金是19世紀的人，一個一戰老兵。他的書仍對現代讀者有吸引力，受到今天無數人的喜歡，這證明了他的才華橫溢。我認爲，未來幾個世紀裏，他的書仍將有讀者。”

He is preaching to the fantasy-converted. I tell him that in my teens I had a map of Middle Earth pinned to the wall, with the route of Frodo’s journey picked out with drawing pins. Maps are very important in fantasy, Martin says (there is a book of detailed maps of his imagined worlds coming out soon). “When you are reading historical fiction and the character says, ‘I must go to Cornwall,’ you know where Cornwall is, you don’t need a map. But when a character in Westeros says, ‘I must go to Dorne’ – you don’t know where that is. So we had to include a map in the opening credits [of the TV series].”

他在向我這個奇幻迷“佈道”。我告訴他，在十幾歲時，我就把一幅中土世界的地圖釘到牆上，用圖釘標出弗羅多(Frodo)的遠征路線。馬丁說，地圖在奇幻故事中的地位很重要（一本他想象中世界的詳細地圖書不久後將問世）。“你讀歷史小說時，當裏面的人物說，‘我必須去康沃爾(Cornwall)了’，你不用看地圖，就知道康沃爾在什麼地方。但當維斯特洛的一個人物說，‘我必須去多恩(Dorne)了’，你不知道那是哪裏。所以，我們得在（電視劇的）片頭字幕里加入一張地圖。”

Our main courses have arrived. We stare at the plates, each filled with a single giant slab of breaded, apparently fantasy-kingdom-shaped meat. I am grateful for the side order of broccoli, while Martin scoops up his mash. Between mouthfuls, he tells me about how he wrote his first fantasy saga in childhood. “In America at the time, in places like Woolworths, you could buy ‘dime store turtles’ – they came in a little plastic bowl, it had water down one side and a divider down the middle, gravel on the other side and a little fake palm tree.” He demonstrates the layout with his hands. “Those were the only pets we could have. I had a toy castle set up near my bed, made of tin, and the courtyard was just big enough for two turtle tanks, and I had five or six turtles who lived in the castle. I decided they were knights, lords and kings, so I started writing this whole fantasy series about the turtle kingdom and the king of the turtles.

主菜上來了。我們瞪着盤子，每人的盤子上裝着一塊裹了麪包屑、就像奇幻王國形狀的巨大肉塊。我很慶幸配菜點了花椰菜，馬丁則舀了土豆泥吃。一邊進餐，他一邊告訴我，他在孩提時代是怎麼寫出第一個奇幻故事的。“那時的美國，在沃爾沃斯(Woolworths)這樣的地方，你可以買到‘折扣店專供海龜’——裝在一個塑料碗裏，碗中間有一個隔斷，一側有水，另一側鋪着碎石子，還有一棵小小的假棕櫚樹。”他用手比劃着碗裏的佈局。“那是我們能擁有的唯一寵物。我用金屬罐在牀邊搭起了一個玩具城堡，城堡庭院的空間剛好放下兩個海龜罐，我有五六隻海龜，它們都住在那城堡裏。我把它們定爲騎士、貴族和國王，於是，我開始寫有關海龜王國和海龜國王的整個系列奇幻故事。”

“And these particular turtles seemed to die very easily. I don’t think it was really a very good environment for them. Sometimes they would escape and you would find them under the refrigerator a month later, all dead. So my turtles kept dying, which was very distressing but it also made me think, ‘Why are they dying? Well, they are killing each other in sinister plots.’ I started writing this fantasy about who was killing who, and the wars for succession. So Game of Thrones originally began with turtles, I think.”

“這些特別的海龜似乎很容易死掉。我想那對它們不是真的好環境。有時，它們會逃跑，1個月之後你會在冰箱底下找到它們的屍體。於是，我的海龜們不斷地死去，這讓我很難過，但也迫使我去思考，‘它們爲什麼會死？好吧，它們使用陰謀詭計互相殘殺。’我開始寫誰殺死誰、以及王位繼承鬥爭的奇幻故事。我認爲，《權力的遊戲》就源於這些海龜。”

And that’s the meaning of the turtle badge on the cap, I realise. He nods and laughs.

我意識到，那就是他帽子上海龜別針的含義。他點頭大笑。

I have abandoned the schnitzel. Martin eventually gives up, too, and the plates are taken away. He is looking forward to going home. “These trips are fun but they do interfere with my writing. I always had trouble with deadlines and still do, as you know,” he tells me, a wry reference to the late arrival last summer of A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in the saga, which prompted some impatient fans to vent their anger online. He says book six, The Winds of Winter, is “well under way” but still a couple of years from completion.

我沒有吃炸肉排。馬丁最後也放棄了，盤子被收走了。他迫不及待地想回家了。“這些旅程很有趣，但跟我的寫作有衝突。你知道的，截稿期限總是讓我很苦惱，現在也還是，”他對我說。他這麼講，是自嘲系列小說中的第五部《魔龍的狂舞》(A Dance with Dragons)推遲到2011年夏天才問世，導致有些急躁的粉絲在網上宣泄憤怒。他說，第六部《凜冬的寒風》(The Winds of Winter)正在“寫作中”。

There are more than 1,000 characters in the books, and deeply complex plots that span years. Has he, I ask, got the timelines on a spreadsheet?

他的書裏有超過1000個人物，故事情節極其複雜，時間跨越很多年。我問，他有沒有在電子表格裏寫下要事年表？

He taps his head and laughs. It’s all in there, he signals.

他輕拍了一下頭，笑了。他的意思是，都記在了腦子裏。