Of Love and Lightsabers
来源:http://www.vogue.com/article/love-stories-luke-skywalker-my-hero
[1]It happensmidwaythroughThe Empire Strikes Back: “I won’t fail you—I’m not afraid,”Luke Skywalkersays, sittingcramped/kræmpt/in the mudhutthatYodacalls home. He'sadamant/'ædəmənt/about his desire to become a Jedi, toavenge/ə'vɛndʒ/his master, and do right by the universe.Wizened/'wizənd/by time, war, and years ofself-imposedsolitude/'sɑlətud/, Yoda isunimpressed, and responds with theMuppet/'mʌpɪt/equivalent of side-eye. “You will be,” Yoda warns, raising his pointed earsincredulously[in'kredjuləsli]. “Oh, you will be.”
Luke Skywalkerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Skywalker
The Empire Strikes Backhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_Strikes_Back
Yodahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda
cramped/kræmpt/adj. 狭窄的
hut/hʌt/n. 小屋；临时营房
adamant/'ædəmənt/adj. 坚定不移的
avenge/ə’vɛndʒ/vt. 替…报仇
Wizened/'wizənd/adj. 干瘪的；枯萎的；消瘦的
self-imposedadj. 自愿接受的；自己强加的
solitude/‘sɑlətud/n. 隐居
Muppet/'mʌpɪt/n. 提线木偶
incredulously[in’kredjuləsli] 不相信的
[2]Unlike Yoda, I have no doubts about Luke. At 8, sitting cross-legged/ˈkrɔsˈlɛɡɪd/on the floor of my parent’s apartment, I watch him work his way though the Dagobah swamps/swɔmp/. I am instantly taken by his zeal/zil/. He glides/ɡlaɪd/through the air, flips and twists through space, and exuberantly[iɡ'zju:bərənt]climbs vines/vaɪn/,exerting/ɪɡ'zɝt/himself to the point where his body gives out. Cable is still a novelty/'nɑvlti/in our house, but the sight of Luke sweat/swɛt/-drenched/drentʃd/and breathless/'brɛθləs/is enough to convince/kən'vɪns/me of its necessity.
cross-legged/ˈkrɔsˈlɛɡɪd/盘着腿的
swamps/swɔmp/n. [地理] 沼泽；湿地
zeal/zil/n. 热情；热心；热诚
glides/ɡlaɪd/
vines/vaɪn/葡萄藤,葡萄树
exuberantly[iɡ'zju:bərənt]ad v. 生气勃勃地；丰富地；繁茂地
exerting/ɪɡ’zɝt/vt. 运用，发挥；施以影响
novelty/'nɑvlti/N-UNCOUNTNoveltyis the quality of being different, new, and unusual. 新奇
sweat/swɛt/vi. 出汗
drenched/drentʃd/Todrenchsomething or someone means to make them completely wet. 使湿透
[3]My mother sits behind me,braidingmy hair into twinplaitsas I am drawn deeper into the story. Talk of Jedi and strange powers goes over my head as she pulls and twists my ’fro into submission. When she drags me towards our kitchen and the walls that block my view of the television, I start towhine. Seeing the adventure play out is more important than the fact that I need to look presentable for school, I say. I need towitnesswhateverheroicsLuke would get up to next.
[4]Eventually, my mother relents. Ostensibly fed up with my antics (though just as likely eager to see the story play out, herself), she moves us back to the living room, closer to the action. We take in the galaxy’s wonders, Luke being one of them. Even without an ounce of backstory, it is clear to me that Luke is infallible. In blockbusters, the lines between light and dark, wrong and right are immutable. You needed only to look at Luke—to take in his wide-eyed willfulness, his bravery, his stark understanding of right and wrong—to understand his goodness. I watch as he ignores Yoda’s wisdom, gets his hand sliced off, receives a Maury-worthy paternity test result, and has to be rescued by his sister. The story offers him plenty of dramatic moments and few favors—yet he is dogged in his efforts to do the right thing.
[5]I resolve to follow him wherever he goes. This capacity for character judgment did not extend into my real life. As compelling as they are, big blue eyes and dimples do not always signify a pure heart, and sorting the villains from the heroes is a process of trial and error that was difficult for a child who trusted everyone. Open and unafraid, I constantly reached outward in search of new friends and experiences. My parents amuse themselves today with stories of my youthful brashness, the times I jumped into conversations or walked up to strangers and introduced myself. Feeding off the energy of interaction and excitement, I was, for a time, a people person, or so I’ve been told.
[6]Watching The Empire Strikes Back is one of the last fully formed memories of my childhood. It all comes back with perfect clarity: the patterns of the oriental rug I sat on, our old tube television, the view from the seventh-floor window that faced toward Manhattan and the infinite world beyond. Unlike the majority of my recollections from that time period, it is all intact. How best to put it? The trust I gave so indiscriminately then was betrayed. And the subsequent protective machinations of my young mind swept away huge blocks of time; moments consumed by trauma that now only emerge as fragments. I have spent much of my adult life trying to recount my steps in order to piece those days and weeks back together into something that feels “real.”
[7]When your past is nebulous, the appeal of fantasy—with its backstories and intricate, traceable histories that you can point to, re-read, re-visit—grows. As a teenager, I soon realized that losing myself in the infinity of space was the easiest way to escape. The worlds built by George Lucas were immersive, filled with details and trivia that rewarded closer looks. Five minutes spent perusing Wookieepedia will show you that in Star Wars even the smallest, throwaway moments come with pages of supplementary information. I would rush home after school to re-watch the entire trilogy on VHS, study a copy of Lawrence Kasdan’s screenplay I’d bought on the street in Soho, and page through the official magazine as I prepared myself for the then-novel concept of prequels.
[8]Luke moved from fascination to crush, a shift I found mortifying, if unavoidable. Star Wars offers plenty in the way of lust objects; there’s Han Solo, with his reckless bravado, and the smooth charm of Lando Calrissian, and if you’re feeling adventurous, you can opt for whatever lurks beneath Boba Fett’s armor. Falling for a smuggler or a bounty hunter makes sense—the allure of bad boys being a near universal conceit—but Luke Skywalker is none of those things. He begins the trilogy as a whiny, poncho-wearing orphan, and ends it as the member of a celibate mystical order. He doesn’t get the pleasure of an on-screen love interest, or even anon-incestuous kiss. Caught up in the whole saving-the-galaxy-while-redeeming-his-father thing, Luke engages in duty, rather than romance.
[9]Not that any of that mattered to me. The blank slate of Luke’s romantic history allowed for ingenuity. Ignoring the extended universe of books and games—sincerest apologies to Mara Jade—I could mentally pair him off with anyone, or no one at all. My Luke was a wellspring of untapped desire; he ached with needs that could only be addressed off-screen. In the gallows of the Internet I engaged in heated discussions about the minutiae of Jedi codes of conduct. It wasn’t technically against orders for him to have relationships. He just couldn’t form attachments! (In time, I would come to realize that many men living in New York City adhere to this same set of rules.)
[10]Were my interest motivated solely by lust, it would have ended then, but it wasn’t, and it hasn’t. Luke has stayed with me, and evolved over time into a permanent fixation. I have strong opinions about which film presents the best version of Luke—Empire, duh—which of his many outfits was the most flattering—Return of the Jedi black tunic with matching patent boots—and why he apparently takes terrible care of his cybernetic arm—it didn’t come with an instruction manual, okay?
[11]Though my interest always originated with the character, not the actor who played him, it does extend to Mark Hamill, who I know more about than is healthy, and who, at every turn, has surprised me by being as endearing as the characters he plays. If you wrestle my phone out of my hands you will find that I’ve favored an absurd number of his tweets. There are folders in my bookmarks dedicated to his acerbic readings of Trumpisms, and vintage snapshots of him and Carrie Fisher beaming into the camera. Our paths may never cross beyond the temporal space of the Internet, but still, he, too makes my heart flutter. Enjoying celebrities or fictional characters isn’t novel—we’ve all been swooning over Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy for more than a century—but it does mean sharing your devotion with the masses. I am invested in Luke Skywalker, but so are millions of other people. This does have the potential to technically cheapen our relationship; only it hasn't done that at all. Great characters are unifying, and they can mean so many incongruent things, depending on your perspective. Everyone has their own read, and when there’s just the right amount of ambiguity, everyone is right. The hard facts of Luke’s life are fixed, but whole portions of his persona remain mysterious. Save some exposition in the expanded universe’s canon, it’s hard to get a full read on his inner life. We’re left to decide, and Luke becomes whatever we want him to be—a fact that Mr. Hamill seems extraordinarily mindful of.
[12]When the news hit that the next installment in the series would be entitled The Last Jedi, my heart sank. Though the title’s subject is debatable—do they mean Jedi plural? Singular? Luke? Rey? The thought of a world without Luke filled me with dread. I took to social media to unleash the petulant gif spam that defines my online presence, threatening revolt, were anything to befall the final Skywalker. The franchise has shown no qualms about killing off its core characters, and as much as I still want the story to continue, the idea of Luke’s last hurrah seems unbearable.
[13]My Luke lives forever. He said he wouldn’t fail me, and he meant it. When I was lost and vulnerable he showed me that when bad things happen to decent people, they rise from it. When I lost myself, he reminded me of who I was, once: the outspoken kid who wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. He was a man I could trust when I needed him the most, and he taught me how to be brave, and how to be weird, and that the latter was okay. Talking about him provided me with a community—and a reason to want one again. One of the jobs of a hero is to lead by example—and in Luke Skywalker, I found that. I also found myself.
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