读过 Mother Mary Comes to Me 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
2026/02/21-2026/03/21
如果不是book club，这本书大概率会被我错过。刚好和它一起读的还有《在阿尔巴尼亚长大》——I came to this (late) realisation that history repeats itself, not just across time as I've always known (covid China vs the Cultural Revolution), but across entirely different countries and cultures. 原来世界上不只有一个专制主义政府，而他们采取的控制手段如此相似：压迫弱者，迫害异见者，传播民族主义。Arundhati Roy真的很勇敢——她不只是一个作家，也是一个活动家，就像《[[即使以最微弱的光]]》里的希荣。

这本书写的是她的母亲。母女关系真的是一种很复杂的关系。Coincidentally (or not), almost every significant creative work I've encountered this year has circled back to this constant tension between mother and daughter. 包括我最近刚看完的《还有明天》：女儿怨恨妈妈不反抗施暴的父亲、不逃离那个有毒的家庭，但这种恨意的出发点又是来自于她对妈妈的爱。女儿后来选择的伴侣也和妈妈一样是个控制狂、施暴者——很难说这不是家庭的影子在作祟。我们总是在学习自己的妈妈，就像Arundhati Roy和Mary Roy是一个模子里刻出来的反骨。也只有Mary会在Arundhati离开去森林前打出那个电话——她对女儿的安排一无所知，却说：I've been thinking... what this country really needs is a revolution.

我总是想起《她来劈开这山》里青狼王说的那句话："母亲跑得远，女儿才能跑得远。"

Mother and daughter -- they resent each other, envy each other, love each other, and see each other with an intimacy no third person could ever access. Arundhati给她妈妈写的这本书，是悼词，也是记录。她不掩饰Mary的残忍和rage，也不掩饰Mary为女性权益和教育所做的一切。她在第一章里说，this book is an attempt to "fathom her":

> In my effort to *fathom* my mother, to see things from her perspective, to accommodate her, to understand what hurt her, what made her do the things she did and to predict what she may or may not do next, I turned into a maze, a labyrinth of pathways that zigzag underground and surface in strange places, hoping to gain a vantage point for a perspective other than my own.

我觉得fathom这个词好精准——去丈量一个人的深度。我们每个人都是一座迷宫，对于别人和对于自己来说都如此。Arundhati did an excellent job at watching, studying and deciphering the labyrinth named Mary Roy. 小扎写过：

> 对于我的母亲来说，她也许永远无法理解我。但是我可以理解她，因为我比她经历了更丰富的人生。

Arundhati dived in, and saw her through.