Jan Morris. By Sara Wheeler. Harper; 432 pages; $37.50. Faber & Faber; £25
《简·莫里斯》。萨拉·惠勒著。哈珀出版社；432页；37.50美元。费伯与费伯出版社；25英镑。
In July 1972 the man once known as “James Morris” walked into a clinic in Casablanca. Days later, after a brisk(干脆利落的) operation, Jan Morris walked out. “I really am me!” She felt instantly different. As a man her role had been to “push and initiate(推动和发起)”; now it was to “yield and accept(顺从和接受)”. She felt closer to animals. She found herself “talking to the garden flowers, wishing them a Happy Easter”. Women are like that. You can barely move in London parks for women talking to flowers.
1972年7月，曾名叫“詹姆斯·莫里斯”的男子走进卡萨布兰卡的一家诊所。几天后，经过一次干脆利落的手术，简·莫里斯走了出来。“我真的就是我！”她立刻感到不同。作为男人，她的角色是“推动和发起”；现在是“顺从和接受”。她觉得自己与动物更亲近了。她发现自己“对着花园里的花说话，祝它们复活节快乐”。女人都是那样的。在伦敦的公园里，你几乎寸步难行，到处都是跟花说话的女人。
Not all women were so nice. Some, when they read “Conundrum(难题；谜团)” (1974), Morris’s account of her transition, did not smile at flowers and think pretty, yielding thoughts. Instead they said some pretty unyielding(不妥协的；固执的) things. Morris is “to me a man who has eaten a great many pills”, wrote Germaine Greer, an Australian feminist. Morris was “a man’s idea of a woman(男人眼中的女人)”, said Rebecca West, a British critic. Though not wholly a man’s idea of a woman. When it came to domestic labour, Morris’s daughter observed, “she did nothing.”
并非所有女人都这么友好。有些人读到莫里斯1974年描述其转变过程的《难题》时，并没有对着花微笑，也没有产生什么美好顺从的想法。相反，她们说了些相当不妥协的话。澳大利亚女权主义者杰梅茵·格里尔写道，莫里斯“在我看来是一个吃了很多药的男人”。英国评论家丽贝卡·韦斯特说，莫里斯是“男人眼中的女人”。但不完全是男人眼中的女人。在家庭劳动方面，莫里斯的女儿评论道，“她什么也不做。”