艺术市场的一角……卡塔尔多哈的国家博物馆。《世界》——本·伊斯塔姆（Ben Eastham）评论——一部关于艺术与金钱、权力关系的引人入胜的处女作。妻子去世后，一位评论家兼教师在一家艺术洗白跨国公司就职，这部电影化的小说充满了思想。
Slice of the art market … the National Museum of Qatar in Doha. World by Ben Eastham review – a compelling debut of art’s relation to money and power Following the death of his wife, a critic-teacher takes a job with an art-washing multinational, in a cinematic novel that is full of ideas t the end of a night in a London pub, after last orders have been called, three friends are joking about what role they’d serve on a remote desert island, with no one but their fellow plane crash survivors for company.
在伦敦一家酒吧的夜幕降临、点完最后一轮酒后，三位朋友在荒岛上开玩笑，讨论如果他们被困在只有同机坠机幸存者的荒岛上，各自会扮演什么角色。当其中一位原本是艺术评论家、后来被迫转行当教师的人说他会成为艺术家时，自然遭到嘲笑。他的朋友西比尔（Sybil）实际上是一名画家，她更理性地把自己设想为荒岛上的半神女王，并利用她新近的创意伙伴“为她的荣耀作证”。
When one of them, an art critic turned reluctant schoolteacher, says that he would become an artist, he is, naturally, mocked. His friend Sybil, who actually is a painter, casts herself more sensibly as a demigod-queen of the island and employs her newly creative companion to “certify her glory”.
她说：“这就是艺术家的职责，我用发酵椰子水付给你，你自己说自己是自由的，然后喝死自己。”这几乎是对当代艺术在权力关系中所处位置的最清晰表述：后者的靴子牢牢踩在前者的喉咙上。这种关系是《漂浮的世界》（The Floating World）——本·伊斯塔姆的处女小说——的核心主题，叙述者是一位有些倒霉且未具名的评论家兼教师。
“That’s what artists are for,” she says, “I pay you in fermented coconut water and you tell yourself you’re free and drink yourself to death.”This is about as clear a statement as one could wish for regarding the position of contemporary art as it relates to power: the boot of the latter is placed firmly on the former’s throat. This relationship is the central theme of The Floating World, Ben Eastham’s debut novel, which is narrated by the somewhat hapless and unnamed critic-teacher.
导致这场存在主义酒吧对话的，是一次意外的机遇：在叙述者的妻子于一个未指明的战区去世后，他被莫雷尔基金会（Morel Foundation）提供了一份工作。该基金会是一个武器制造跨国公司的艺术洗白分支，利用战乱世界的各个角落获取利润，而其文化部门则支撑着同名首席执行官的自尊。
And what has led to this existential pub conversation is an unexpected opportunity: following the death of the narrator’s wife in an unnamed war zone, he has been offered a job with the Morel Foundation, an art-washing spin-off of an arms-manufacturing multinational which extracts profit from all corners of a wartorn world while its cultural wing props up the ego of its eponymous overlord CEO.
叙述者对于是否接受一个他明知在道德上站不住脚、但薪水颇丰的职位感到犹豫不决。如果他接受这份为期九个月的合同——“协助研究、撰写新闻稿、编辑出版物”，他将从伦敦搬到一个希腊小岛，那里莫雷尔正在建设“漂浮世界”，一个巨大圆顶内的科技乌托邦式聚居地。一场盛大的艺术活动已计划好，以庆祝叙述者另一位朋友口中“字面意义上的亿万富翁末日掩体”正式开放。这真的是他想参与的事情吗？
The narrator is unsure about taking up a position he knows to be morally indefensible, but which pays pretty well. Should he accept the nine-month contract – “helping with research, writing the press releases, editing the publications” – he would move from London to a tiny Greek island, where Morel is building “The Floating World”, a techno-utopian settlement inside a giant dome. A spectacular artistic event is planned to celebrate the official opening of what another of the narrator’s friends calls “literally a doomsday bunker for billionaires”. Is this really something he wants to be part of?
伊什汉对当下的艺术圈了如指掌。作为视觉艺术与文学杂志《White Review》的联合创始人，同时也是一位活跃且富有洞察力的评论家，伊什汉多年来始终身处当代艺术与文学的前沿。作为策展人与作家，他亲眼见证了全球化艺术市场与国际金融之间日益紧密的联系：从石油及鸦片贩售商对艺术界的广泛资助，到阿布扎比卢浮宫这类项目背后所蕴含的地缘政治博弈，甚至艺术品被用于洗钱、避税及其他各类金融操作。
Eastham knows this artistic milieu inside out. As a co-founder of the visual arts and literature magazine White Review and a busy and perceptive critic, Eastham has spent many years at the vanguard of contemporary art and literature. As a curator and writer, he has witnessed first-hand the tightening bonds between a globalised art market and international finance, from the widespread sponsorship of oil and opiate sellers to the geopolitical game-playing of projects like the Louvre Abu Dhabi, not to mention the use of artworks for money laundering, tax breaks and other kinds of financial engineering.
伊什汉在书中穿插了大量此类相互依存的实例；有时只是含蓄地暗示给读者，但更多时候则直截了当——比如书中描写主人公参观伦敦一家博物馆时，一名年轻女子突然向画作泼洒红色颜料，高喊道：“这一切正在发生，睁大眼睛看看吧！”最终，叙述者接受了这份工作。他首先抵达雅典，迎接他的是那些刻意用英语书写的涂鸦，内容直指旅游短租行业的泛滥——这些涂鸦几乎是他能看懂的唯一标识。
Eastham threads examples of this interdependence throughout the book; sometimes as a nod to the knowing, but often more directly, as when a visit to a London museum is interrupted by a young woman throwing red paint at one of the paintings, screaming, “This is happening, open your eyes!”The narrator takes the job. He lands first in Athens, where he is welcomed by graffiti decrying the spread of short-term rentals for tourists, written deliberately in English – it is just about the only sign he can understand.
希腊堪称本书的理想背景地：在欧洲，恐怕再没有哪个地方能如此清晰地展现这样一个世界的矛盾性：资本可以自由流动，而人却无法自由迁徙。在雅典，最贫困的人群在无国籍状态与贫困中苦苦挣扎，而卫城则始终矗立在他们身后；在希腊的诸岛屿上，战争、种族灭绝、剥削与气候灾难的受害者们，则被从富人们逃避现实的幻想中彻底抹去。
Greece is the ideal setting for this book because there is arguably no place in Europe where it is easier to witness the contradictions of a world in which capital moves freely but people do not. In Athens, the most destitute struggle in statelessness and poverty, with the Acropolis as a backdrop. On the islands, victims of war, genocide, exploitation and climate catastrophe are airbrushed out of the escapist fantasies of the rich.
这部小说值得称道的是，它成功地将这种政治意识提升到超越形式化布景的层面；它正是全书真正的核心。伊斯特姆尝试了一项雄心勃勃的平衡：一方面是当代高端艺术界的愤世嫉俗的权谋游戏，另一方面是一个因亡妻记忆而备受折磨的男人的情感内心世界。随着故事的发展，神秘感与动作元素日益增强，两条线索最终通过一个决定性的叙事结局融合在一起变得不可避免。
It is to the novel’s immense credit that it manages to make this political awareness more than dutiful stage‑dressing; it is the real heart of the book. Eastham attempts an ambitious balancing act: on one side, the cynical gamesmanship of high-end contemporary art, and on the other, the emotional inner life of a man haunted by the memory of his deceased wife. The story becomes increasingly mysterious and action-packed, and it becomes inevitable that the two strands will be integrated through a conclusive narrative denouement.
形式的要求促使伊斯特姆以一种模糊、梦幻般的悲伤、恐慌与复仇的交织作出回应。整体呈现非常电影化，处理也很利落——也许最终显得有些过于利落。《浮世》是一部充满思想与好奇心的书籍，尽管它对艺术世界的幻灭是经过深思熟虑且值得肯定的，但它最终仍保留着令人惊讶的感伤色彩。
The form demands, and Eastham obliges with a blurry, dream-like conflagration of grief, panic and revenge. It’s all very cinematic, and neatly done – too neat, maybe, in the end. The Floating World is a book full of ideas and curiosity, but for all its well earned disillusion with the art world, it remains surprisingly sentimental.