Reviewed by:

• Milkman by Anna Burns
• Jeanette Farrell (bio)

Anna Burns' book Milkman felt astoundingly relevant when it was published in 2018. It tells the story of a young woman growing up amidst the Troubles in Northern Ireland during the 1970s and is a brilliant depiction of how the strains of a traumatized society impact the psyche. Since then, the novel has won the Man Booker Prize and the world has tumbled even further toward the fraught polarization the book captures. In particular, Brexit threatens to awaken the light sleep of the Troubles and rekindle the conflict the novel recounts. This is a horrible prospect: a 2008 study found 39% of Northern Ireland's population experienced at least one traumatic event during the Troubles, with the legacy that the country has the highest rate of psychiatric illness in the UK, 25% higher than any other country in that region (Bunting et al., 2012). This is a country that desperately needs healing, not more trauma. Another terrible irony is that the same type of polarization that tore the country apart is on the rise throughout the world. As the Northern Irish poet and novelist Nick Laird writes in a recent New York Review of Books article: "we already did identity politics in Northern Ireland: it didn't work out so well. And while we were waiting around for Northern Ireland to become more like the rest of the world, the rest of the world turned into Northern Ireland: partisan, oppositional, identity-focused" (2020, p. 52).

As the world becomes increasingly polarized, and environmental devastation due to climate change amps up the stakes, many more communities mimic the stultifying dividedness Burns so vividly describes. The strains inherent in these communities, and the pressure that places on individuals' psyches becomes increasingly relevant. As analysts and therapists in this world, we need wise, articulate guides—like Burns' unnamed narrator of Milkman—to inform us about the experience of our patients and indeed ourselves. We all need to ask and strive to answer: how do we adequately help our patients articulate what cannot be spoken in the traumatized world we both inhabit? [End Page 816]

The story follows a young woman being pursued by an older, married, prominent terrorist, known as the milkman. To describe who he is in the context of "The Troubles" as seen from the outside, we would say IRA-affiliated terrorist, and as such, on the same "side" in the struggle as our protagonist's family. But part of the genius of this book is that we are never experiencing the conflict from the outside, the conflict is described only as relative to those in the midst of it. From this perspective deep inside the Troubles, nothing is as straight-forward as it would seem from the distance. In the baroque logic of this insular community vitrified by violence, this man's interest in her becomes a terrible social liability and an inevitability that she becomes increasingly unable to resist. The story is told by the narrator looking back on this period from the distance of some years, which enables her to articulate aspects of the story she could not have told at the time. In particular, she is able to describe how her circumstances kept her from even being able to think about what was happening to her.

Our narrator's experience is a vivid demonstration of how a community engaged in sectarian conflict is not merely traumatized by the extraordinary exposure to violence; the way the community responds to that trauma becomes another form of violence inflicted upon its members. This violence is enacted through the strictures it places on the minds of its members, limiting their ability to be guided by their feelings, to acknowledge reality, and to maintain enough flexibility to respond, grow, and change in order to successfully navigate through their lives. And as Burns vividly demonstrates, women are particularly impacted. The implicit misogyny in a society acts as a lever to amplify the subjugation and traumatization of women.

Our wise and funny narrator gradually introduces her reader to the layers of impingement of her...

审核人：

• 挤奶者安娜·伯恩斯（Anna Burns）
• 珍妮特·法瑞尔（Jeanette Farrell）

安娜·伯恩斯（Anna Burns）的书《挤奶者》当它于2018年出版时，我感到非常重要。它讲述了一个年轻女人在1970年代北爱尔兰麻烦中成长的故事，并且很好地描绘了受灾社会的压力如何影响心理。从那以后，这部小说就获得了曼布克奖，而世界也朝着这本书所捕捉的两极分化滑落了。特别是，英国退欧威胁要唤醒麻烦的轻睡，并重新点燃小说所叙述的冲突。这是一个可怕的前景：2008年的一项研究发现，北爱尔兰39％的人口在“麻烦”期间经历了至少一次创伤事件，这使得该国的精神病患病率在英国最高，比其他任何国家都高25％在该地区（Bunting等，2012）。这个国家迫切需要康复，而不是更多的创伤。另一个具有讽刺意味的讽刺是，使国家四分五裂的两极化现象在全世界范围内都在增加。正如北爱尔兰诗人和小说家尼克·莱尔德（Nick Laird）在最近的著作中所写《纽约书评》文章：“我们已经在北爱尔兰进行了身份政治：效果不佳。当我们在等待北爱尔兰变得更像世界其他地方时，世界其他地方变成北爱尔兰：游击队，反对派，以身份为中心”（2020年，第52页）。

随着世界日益分化，由于气候变化造成的环境破坏加剧了风险，越来越多的社区模仿了Burns生动描述的惊人分裂。这些社区固有的压力以及对个人心理施加的压力变得越来越重要。作为这个世界上的分析家和治疗师，我们需要明智，明确的指南，例如Burns的Milkman匿名叙述者，来向我们介绍患者以及我们自己的经历。我们大家都需要提出疑问并努力回答：我们如何充分帮助我们的患者阐明我们俩所生活的世界上无法言说的内容？[结束页816]

故事发生在一位年轻妇女被一个年长，已婚，著名的恐怖分子追随，该恐怖分子被称为送牛奶者。从外部来看，要描述他在“麻烦”中所处的位置，我们可以说是与爱尔兰共和军有关的恐怖分子，因此，与我们的主角家人在斗争的同一“方面”。但本书的天才之处在于，我们从来没有经历过来自外部的冲突，该冲突仅被描述为相对于其中的冲突。从这个问题的内心深处来看，没有什么比从远处看起来更直接了。在这个因暴力而变得玻璃化的岛国社区的巴洛克式逻辑中，这个男人对她的兴趣变成了可怕的社会责任和必然性，她变得越来越无法抗拒。叙述者从几年的距离回望这段故事，讲述了这个故事，这使她能够清楚地表达当时无法讲述的故事的各个方面。特别是，她能够描述自己的处境如何使她无法思考自己所发生的事情。

我们的叙述者的经历生动地展示了一个社区发生的宗派冲突，不仅受到暴力事件的极大伤害，而且受到了极大的伤害。社区应对这种创伤的方式成为对其成员施加的另一种暴力形式。这种暴力是通过其成员思想上的束缚而制定的，从而限制了他们以自己的感受为指导，承认现实并保持足够的灵活性以应对，成长和改变的能力，从而成功地度过了他们的生活。正如伯恩斯生动地表明的那样，妇女受到的影响尤其大。社会中的隐性厌女症是扩大对妇女的屈服和遭受创伤的杠杆。

我们明智而有趣的叙述者逐渐向她的读者介绍了她...