A Man of Sheep, and a Man of Letters
成為暢銷書作者的牧羊人
By Roslyn Sulcas

MATTERDALE, England – James Rebanks picked up a newborn lamb by the scruff of its neck and set it on its feet. It stood, shaking and weak. “We’re going to lose that one,” he said. He got back onto the quad bike that he uses to patrol his farm, 120 hectares of hilly land near this parish in the Lake District, where his family has farmed for about 600 years. “Sometimes it happens,” he said stoically.
詹姆斯．瑞班克斯從頸背拎起一頭新生小羊，讓它靠自己的腳站立。小羊站是站著了，可顫顫巍巍，軟弱無力。「這隻是保不住了，」他說。瑞班克斯坐回四輪機車的座椅上，淡淡地說：「這種事有時候難免會發生」。他都是用這輛四輪機車巡視牧場。占地120公頃的牧場，是靠近湖區麥特戴爾行政教區的一片丘陵地，瑞班克斯家族在此地放牧已六百年。

Birth, death and everything in between are Mr. Rebanks’s daily bread as a sheep farmer in this beautiful but inhospitable part of the country. But he is no isolated, anachronistic figure striding into the hills. He has a degree from Oxford, a Twitter account with almost 65,000 followers, a best-selling book and a part-time job as an adviser to Unesco (on managing tourism in developing economies.)
出生、死亡，以及生死過程中的一切，牧羊人瑞班克斯在這個風光明媚卻不宜人居的一隅，以此維持生計。但他可不是離群索居、不合時宜，才大搖大擺入山的。他有牛津大學的學位，推特帳戶的跟進者將近六萬五千人，他還是暢銷書的作者，以及聯合國教科文組織的顧問（有關開發中經濟體的觀光業管理）。

“There is a James who can put a suit on and talk to people,” Mr. Rebanks, known on Twitter as the Herdwick Shepherd, said one evening last month at his modest home, a repurposed barn that he shares with his wife of 13 years, Helen, and their three children. “And there is the James at home, obsessing about sheep.”
「有一個詹姆斯可以衣冠楚楚，與人侃侃而談，」在推特上叫做「賀德威克牧羊人」（譯註：賀德威克是一種產於英格蘭西北部湖區的綿羊）的瑞班克斯，某個晚上在自家如是說。他的住家相當樸素，是改裝過的穀倉。他和結褵十三年的妻子海倫，以及三名子女同住。「還有一個居家的詹姆斯，滿腦子都是綿羊。」

Mr. Rebanks’s book, “The Shepherd’s Life,” was a surprise hit on the British best-seller lists after its publication in April. It describes the passage of the seasons and the realities of farming: herding, shearing, feeding, castrating, mucking, chopping. But it is also a memoir about his family, a love letter to the land, to his forebears and to a way of life that is centuries old.
瑞班克斯的書《牧羊人的生活》四月出版後，意外登上英國暢銷書排行榜。書本描述季節變換與畜牧業的真實面：放牧、剪毛、飼養、閹割、清除糞便、宰殺。這本書也是有關瑞班克斯家庭的回憶錄，一封情書，寫給這片土地、列祖列宗及延續數百年的生活方式。

In prose, Mr. Rebanks, 40, evokes a world unknown to the 16 million tourists who visit the Lake District each year. He is part of a tiny community – perhaps 300 families – that he describes in “The Shepherd’s Life” as “the forgotten people who live in our midst, whose lives are often deeply traditional
四十歲的瑞班克斯在散文中，呈現一個每年造訪湖區的一千六百萬名遊客所不知道的世界。他是這個大概有三百戶人家的小社區的一部分，小社區在《牧羊人的生活》書中，被描述成「住在我們當中，被遺忘的一群人，他們的生活通常非常傳統。」

“We live in arguably the most literary landscape in the world,” he said. “For 200 years, it has been defined in words by Arthur Ransome, Beatrix Potter, Wordsworth, Coleridge. So you have an outsider’s version and insiders not bothering to explain to people, this is what we have to say.”
「我們住在堪稱是全球文藝氣息最濃厚的土地上，」他說。「二百年來，這片土地在亞瑟．蘭塞姆（譯註：兒童文學作家）、碧翠絲．波特（譯註：彼得兔的插畫家）、華茲華斯、柯立芝（譯註：兩人均為英國浪漫時期大詩人）的筆下被細說。所以有個局外人的版本，內行人懶得多做解釋，這是我們必須要說的。」

Life changed for Mr. Rebanks after he began to post on Twitter scenic photographs and brief reports about the daily life of the farm in 2012. He acquired thousands of followers. Among them was The Atlantic, which commissioned an article about the odd intersection of Twitter and his traditional way of life. Then in 2013, a literary agent asked if he had ever thought about writing a book. Mr. Rebanks told him that he had already written one.
2012年時，瑞班克斯開始在推特上張貼風景如畫的照片，並簡報牧場的日常生活起居後，人生就此改變。他獲得數以千計的跟進者。其中一位是《大西洋雜誌》，雜誌委請瑞班克斯撰寫一篇文章，談談推特和他的傳統生活方式二者奇異的交織。然後在2013年時，一名文學出版的經紀人問他，是否曾考慮過寫本書。瑞班克斯告訴對方，自己已經寫好了一本。

In fact, he has been writing since he was in his early 20s: poems that became the basis for some of “The Shepherd’s Life” and short stories.
其實，瑞班克斯從二十歲出頭起就一直在寫作。他寫的詩成為《牧羊人的生活》的某些部分和短篇故事的基礎。

“But life got in the way,” he said. “I had to juggle two or three jobs to keep the farm going; we had kids. I got really depressed, and Helen said, ‘Don’t worry, it will all happen by the time you are 40.’ ”
「但是開門七件事要顧好，」他說。「我必須同時身兼二到三份工作，才能讓牧場維持運作。我們有小孩。當時我真的很沮喪。海倫說，『別擔心，等你四十歲的時候，想寫就能寫了。』」

It has happened. “The Shepherd’s Life” has been greeted with laudatory reviews. But farming, he said, comes first.
果真如此。《牧羊人的生活》獲得的佳評如潮。但他說，農事優先。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/books/james-rebanks-man-of-sheep-man-of-letters.html

2015-06-23聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 張佑生譯 原文參見紐時週報十二版下