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聪明的消遣：毛姆谈英国文学

《书与你》第一篇|Books and You (Part 1)

属类： 双语小说 【分类】其他读物 -[作者: 毛姆] 阅读：[11904]
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一个人说话时，经常不注意。我在一本名为《总结》的书里说，年轻人经常问我应该读什么书好。我当时没有考虑说这话的后果，可是此后我就收到了各色人等的大量来信，问我给了什么建议。虽然我对来信尽量作答，但这事无法在私信中说清，再加上似乎有很多人希望得到指导，那么我想我不如从自身经历出发，简要陈述一下我的建议，让读者能够读一些既有趣又有益的书。

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One isn’t always as careful of what one says as one should be. When I stated in a book of mine called The Summing Up that young people often came to me for advice on the books they would do well to read, I did not reckon with the consequences. I received a multitude of letters from all manner of persons, asking me what the advice was that I gave. I answered them as best I could, but it is not possible to deal fully with such a matter in a private letter; and as many people seem to desire such guidance as I can offer, it has occurred to me that they might like to have a brief account of what suggestions I have to make from my own experience for pleasant and profitable reading.

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我想强调的第一件事是，读书应是令人享受的。当然有很多书是我们不得不读的，或为通过考试，或为获取信息，但是读那类书无法获得快乐。读它们是为了获取知识，我们至多能期待的就是坚持把书读完，且不觉得厌倦，谁让我们有需求呢。在读那些书时，我们是抱着不得不读，而不是喜欢去读的心态，但这不是我想谈的那种读书。以下我将提到的书既无法帮你获得学位、赚钱谋生，也不能教你驾驶船只，或使熄火的马达重新转动起来，但它们能使你活得更充实。不过，如果你不喜欢读那些书，它们也无法使你充实。

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The first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we all have to read, either to pass examinations or to acquire information, from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment. We are reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without tedium. Such books we read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of reading I have in mind. The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living, they will not teach you to sail a boat or get a stalled motor to run, but they will help you to live more fully. That, however, they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.

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我这里说的“你”是指成年人，是那些工作之余有一定闲暇并想读读书的人，而且，他想读的书是那类如果不读会让他觉得很可惜的书。我说的“你”不是“书虫”，“书虫”自可在书山中找到自己的一条路，他的好奇心会引他走上很多乏人问津的幽僻蹊径，自会在寻得几乎被人遗忘了的好书时收获乐趣。我想谈论的仅是那些“杰作”，那些长久以来被人们一致认为至高无上的作品。那些杰出的作品我们本应都读过，但可惜，其实只有少数人读过。有些杰作得到过最好的评论家们的一致认可，文学史家也曾花过相当篇幅对之进行讨论，但如今普通人已经无法读之乐之了。这类作品对研究者而言很重要，但是时代在变化，人们的品味在变化，书中滋味早已被剥夺殆尽，如今再读它们不靠意志力则难以卒读了。且让我略举一例。我曾读过乔治·艾略特的《亚当·比德》，但我无法以手扪心，说我读时愉快。我本就出于责任感而读，读完时我长出了一口气，庆幸自己终于读完了。

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The“you”I address is the adult whose avocations give him a certain leisure and who would like to read the books which cannot without loss be left unread. I do not address the bookworm. He can find his own way. His curiosity leads him along many unfrequented paths and he gathers delight in the discovery of half-forgotten excellence. I wish to deal only with the masterpieces which the consensus of opinion for a long time has accepted as supreme. We are all supposed to have read them; it is a pity that so few of us have. But there are masterpieces which are acknowledged to be such by all the best critics and to which the historians of literature devote considerable space, yet which no ordinary person can now read with enjoyment. They are important to the student, but changing times and changing tastes have robbed them of their savour and it is hard to read them now without an effort of will. Let me give one instance: I have read George Eliot’s Adam Bede, but I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that it was with pleasure. I read it from a sense of duty: I finished it with a sigh of relief.

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对于这类书，我不想置词。每个人都是最好的评论家。不管学者们如何评价一本书，哪怕他们对它一致称颂，但只要你对这本书不感兴趣，那它也与你无关。不要忘了批评家们也经常犯错，评论史也充满了最知名的评论家们所犯的错，读书的你才是你所读之书价值的最终评判者。这一点自然也适用于我将要给你推荐的书。我们人人不同，只是大略相像，因此不必假设对我有意义的书对你也会如此。不过，我读完这些书后感到充实，假如我没读过它们，我就不会是现在的我了。如果你们中有人因为听了我的话，而去读我推荐的书，却又无法卒读，那么我恳请你们，就放下它吧。一本书，你要是不喜欢读，就不会对你有任何用处。没有人有义务去读诗、读小说，或读我们归类为“美文”(1)（我希望我知道这个词的英文，但我不认为有这么一个英文词）的那类作品。人只需为了乐趣读书。谁能肯定地说，能给一个人带来乐趣的，也必能让另一个人觉得有趣？

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Now of such books as this I mean to say nothing. Every man is his own best critic. Whatever the learned say about a book, however unanimous they are in their praise of it, unless it interests you it is no business of yours. Don’t forget that critics often make mistakes, the history of criticism is full of the blunders the most eminent of them have made, and you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading. This, of course, applies to the books I am going to recommend to your attention. We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them. And so I beg of you, if any of you who read these pages are tempted to read the books I suggest and cannot get on with them, just put them down; they will be of no service to you if you do not enjoy them. No one is under an obligation to read poetry or fiction or the miscellaneous literature which is classed as belles-lettres. (I wish I knew the English term for this, but I don’t think there is one.) He must read them for pleasure, and who can claim that what pleases one man must necessarily please another?

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但是切勿以为享受乐趣是不道德的。乐趣本是一大善，所有乐趣都如此，只是它会造成不同的后果，理智者会刻意避开某些乐事。乐趣也无须粗俗或肉欲。那些懂得“智识之乐”最令人满足和最长久之人是一代人中的智者。人生在世，不如养成读书的习惯，那会让你受益匪浅。盛年之后，只有不多的几项消遣能令你满意。游戏中只有单人纸牌、解象棋残局和填字游戏是你无须对手就可以独自玩耍的。读书却无此不便，它是唯一一桩可以随时拿起，想做多久就做多久，有其他事来时又可以随时放下的事情。除此之外，大概只有针黹之事有同样功效，不过做针线会使焦躁不安的情绪越发焦躁。在如今有了公共图书馆和廉价版图书的幸福日子里，没有其他娱乐能像读书这样可以如此低价地获得。养成读书习惯等于给自己构筑了一个避难所，可以让你逃离人世间几乎所有的苦难。我说“几乎所有”，是因为我不假装读书能缓解饥饿的折磨，或减轻单相思的痛苦。但是，几本令人入迷的侦探小说和一个热水瓶足可以使任何人忽略最严重的伤风。相反，如果一个人被迫去读那些令他厌烦的书，他还怎么能养成为阅读而阅读的习惯呢？

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But let no one think that pleasure is immoral. Pleasure in itself is a great good, all pleasure, but its consequences may be such that the sensible person eschews certain varieties of it. Nor need pleasure be gross and sensual. They are wise in their generation who have discovered that intellectual pleasure is the most satisfying and the most enduring. It is well to acquire the habit of reading. There are few sports in which you can engage to your own satisfaction after you have passed the prime of life; there are no games except patience, chess problems and crossword puzzles that you can play without someone to play them with you. Reading suffers from no such disadvantages; there is no occupation—except perhaps needlework, but that leaves the restless spirit at liberty—which you can more easily take up at any moment, for any period, and more easily put aside when other calls press upon you; there is no other amusement that can be obtained in these happy days of public libraries and cheap editions at so small a cost. To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. Almost all, I say, for I would not go so far as to pretend that to read a book will assuage the pangs of hunger or still the pain of unrequited love; but half a dozen good detective stories and a hot-water bottle will enable anyone to snap hisfingers at the worst cold in the head. But who is going to acquire the habit of reading for reading’s sake, if he is bidden to read books that bore him?

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为方便起见，以下我将按时间顺序谈一下我要谈的书，可是如果你决定要读这些书的话，我却觉得你没有必要按此顺序去读。更好的建议是你爱怎么读就怎么读，我甚至觉得你没必要一本接一本地读。就我个人而言，同时读四五本书才更惬意。毕竟，你每天心境不同，即使是一天内，你也不是总抱着一样的急切感去读一本书。在这些事上随意即可，我当然选择最适合我的方案。于是上午开始工作前，我会先读一会儿科学或哲学书，因为读此类书要求头脑清醒、注意力集中。这样开始有助于我一天的工作。接下来工作做完，我感觉放松，却又不想做劳心费力之事时，我会读点历史、散文、评论或自传，晚上则读小说。除此之外，我手边还总有一卷诗，以便有心情之时展卷。我的床头也总放着一本那种难得一遇的书，哦，就是那种可以随意翻开一处，任意读上一段又可以平静放下的书。

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It is more convenient to take the books of which I am now going to speak in chronological order, but I can see no reason why, if you make up your mind to read them, you should do so in that order. I think you would be much better advised to read them according to your fancy; nor do I see even why you should read them one by one. For my own part, Ifind it more agreeable to read four orfive books together. After all, you aren’t in the same mood on one day as on another, nor have you the same eagerness to read a certain book at all hours of the day. We must suit ourselves in these matters, and I have naturally adopted the plan that best suits me. In the morning before I start work I read for a while a book, either of science or philosophy, that requires a fresh and attentive brain. It sets me off for the day. Later on, when my work is done and I feel at ease, but not inclined for mental exercise of a strenuous character, I read history, essays, criticism or biography; and in the evening I read a novel. Besides these, I keep on hand a volume of poetry in case I feel in the mood for that, and by my bedside I have one of those books, too rarely to be found, alas, which you can dip into at any place and stop reading with equanimity at the end of any paragraph.

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言归正传。我书单上的第一本书是笛福的《摩尔·弗兰德斯》。迄今为止，还没有一个英国作家比笛福写得更逼真。当你读他这本书的时候，你很难想起来自己是在读小说，你更像是在读一份写得精湛至极的报告。你确信他书中人物说的话是他们本来就会说的话，他们做的事也合情合理，你毫不怀疑他们在那种情况下一定会如此表现。《摩尔·弗兰德斯》不是一本符合道德准则的书。其内容驳杂、粗俗、野蛮，但我认为它有一种英国人性格里固有的活力。笛福几乎没有想象力，也不够幽默，但他有着宽广丰富的生活经历。他还是个优秀的记者，他对稀奇事和生动的细节有着敏锐的观察力。笛福没有高潮观念，也不试图构建什么模式，因此读者不会被自己不想抵抗的力量裹挟席卷，他会随波逐流一直向前走，可能当他来到一条小巷时，他就会溜进去走掉了。说得更清楚一点就是，写得一样的东西读完两三百页后，读者会厌倦。这其实没什么不好。就我个人而言，我倒是很愿意陪着作者一路前行，直到他最后给他那下流粗鄙的女主人公找到一个体面的、悔悟后的避难所。

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Now, the first book on my list is Defoe’s Moll Flanders. No English novelist has ever achieved a greater verisimilitude thanDefoe; it is hard, indeed, when you read him, to remember that you are reading a work of fiction; it is more like a consummate piece of reporting. You are convinced that his people spoke exactly as he made them speak, and their actions are so plausible that you cannot doubt that this is how, in the circumstances, they behaved. Moll Flanders is not a moral book. It is bustling, coarse and brutal, but it has a robustness that I like to think is in the English character. Defoe had little imagination and not much humour, but he had a wide and varied experience of life and, being an excellent journalist, he had a keen eye for the curious incident and the telling detail. He had no sense of climax, he attempted no pattern; and so the reader is not swept away by a power that he does not seek to resist; he is carried along in the crowd, as it were, and it may be that when he comes to a side street he will slip down it and get away. He may, to put it plainly, after a couple of hundred pages of very much the same sort of thing feel that he has had enough. Well, that’s all right. But for my part, I am quite willing to accompany my author till he brings his ribald heroine to the haven of respectability tempered with penitence.

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之后，我希望诸君读读斯威夫特的《格列佛游记》。我待会儿再讲约翰逊博士，但此处不妨先引用他对此书的评价：“你只要能想得出大人国和小人国来，其他就都好办了。”约翰逊博士是个极好的批评家，极富智慧，但他这话却是胡说。《格列佛游记》里有机智和反讽，独特的构思，出色的幽默，以及辛辣的讽刺和活力。它的风格很妙。没人能比斯威夫特更会紧凑、清晰、自然地驾驭我们国家的这门笨拙的语言了。我希望约翰逊博士评价斯威夫特能像他评价另一个人一样：“不管是谁，只要想获得一种亲切但不粗俗、文雅但不炫耀的英文写作风格，须得日夜研读艾迪生(2)的作品。”他还可以再加上一组形容词：刚健但不自负。

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Then I should like you to read Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. I am going to deal with Doctor Johnson later on, but here I must note that, speaking of this book, he said: “When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.”Doctor Johnson was an excellent critic and a very wise man, but here he talked nonsense. Gulliver’s Travels has wit and irony, ingenious invention, broad humour, savage satire and vigour. Its style is admirable. No one has ever written this difficult language of ours more compactly, more lucidly and more unaffectedly than Swift. I could wish thatDoctor Johnson had said of him what he said of another: “Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.”He could then have added a third to his pairs of adjectives: virile but not overweening.

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接下来是两本小说。菲尔丁的《汤姆·琼斯》，这本小说大概是英国文学里最健康的一本小说了。此书豪爽、勇敢、欢快，当然也很直率。英俊、活泼、人很友好的汤姆·琼斯是我们大家都想结识的人，但他做的某些事却遭到了卫道士的谴责。但是我们在乎吗？当然不！除非我们是一本正经的道学家。因为我们只知道汤姆·琼斯公正无私，他的心是金子做的。菲尔丁和笛福不同，他是个自觉的艺术家。他对小说的规划让他可以描述很多事，创造很多人物。这些人和事在一个因现实的喧哗与骚动而辛辣尖锐的世界里显得那么壮观和真实。菲尔丁很拿自己当回事——当然每个作家都理应如此——在很多重要问题上他都禁不住要发表看法。《汤姆·琼斯》的每部分开头处他都要写个小评论文，讨论点这事那事。这些评论文有其幽默真诚的一面，但我个人认为跳过不读也不会造成损失。我有个想法，觉得没有人读《汤姆·琼斯》会不感到愉悦，因为它充满男子气概，它阳光健康，毫无虚伪矫饰，能温暖你的心灵。

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Two novels come next. Fielding’s Tom Jones is, perhaps, the healthiest novel in English literature. It is a dashing, brave and cheerful book, sturdy and generous; it is, of course, very frank, and Tom Jones, with his good looks and vitality, a friendly fellow whom we should all like to have known, does certain things which the moralist will deplore. But do we care? Not unless we are solemn prigs, for he is disinterested and his heart is golden. Fielding was, unlike Defoe, a conscious artist; his scheme gave him the opportunity to describe a multitude of incidents and to create a great number of personages. They are splendidly alive in a world that is pungent with the bustle and turmoil of reality. Fielding took himself seriously—as, of course, every author should—and there were many subjects of importance on which he felt called upon to deliver himself. At the beginning of each part he puts a dissertation in which he discusses one thing and another. These have humour and sincerity, but for my part I think they can be skipped without disadvantage. I have a notion that no one can read Tom Jones without delight, for it is a manly, wholesome book, without any humbug about it, and it warms the cockles of your heart.

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斯特恩的《项狄传》性质则完全不同。约翰逊博士对《查尔斯·格兰迪森爵士》(3)的看法可以照搬给它：“如果你读它是为了故事情节，那还不如上吊。”读这本书要看你的性情，它可以非常通俗易懂，也可以非常无聊和做作。它不统一，不连贯，不断跑题，但它新颖、有趣、哀婉。它会增加你的精神财富，因为书中有五六个人物极有个性，非常可爱；你一旦认识了他们，就会觉得要是不认识他们，损失将会不可弥补。我也不希望你错过斯特恩的《多情之旅》，除了迷人之外我对它没有别的评价。

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Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is a novel of very different character. You might say of it what Doctor Johnson said of Sir Charles Grandison: “If you were to read it for the story, you would hang yourself.”It is a book that, according to your temperament, you will find either as readable as anything you have ever read, or tiresome and affected. It has no unity. It has no coherence. digression follows upon digression. But it is wonderfully original, funny and pathetic; and it increases your spiritual possessions with half a dozen characters so full of idiosyncrasy and so lovable that once you have come to know them, you feel that not to have known them would have been an irreparable loss. Nor would I have anyone fail to read Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey; I have nothing to say of it except that it is enchanting.

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现在让我们暂别小说，说说别的。我猜世人公认鲍斯威尔的《塞缪尔·约翰逊传》是英语写成的最伟大的传记。你在任何年纪读此书都会觉得既有益又有趣。任何时候你拿起此书，随意翻到哪一页读起，都能得到娱乐。不过时至今日还要夸赞这样一本已经很著名的书不免可笑，因为实在没有必要。不如让我加上一本不太著名的书，我认为此书不为人所知是不公平的。这就是鲍斯威尔的《赫布里底群岛(4)纪行》。我猜大家都知道，鲍斯威尔的手稿本来是马隆编辑的，而马隆为了迎合时代拘谨的文雅品味，删去了很多令此书有趣的东西。而伊沙姆上校在购买了鲍斯威尔的手稿后，出了一个未删节的新版本，这一版本会让你对约翰逊和鲍斯威尔的了解更加深入。如果说《赫布里底群岛纪行》增添了你对那个刚毅的老博士的爱和崇拜，它也一样会增添你对他那个曾受到大肆谩骂攻击的可怜传记作者的尊敬。可是这样一个作者岂容蔑视？他能敏锐地发现有趣的事物，他能欣赏生动的词句，他还有种罕见的天赋：能重现一个场景的气氛，还原一段生动的对话。

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Now let us leave fiction for a little. I suppose it is universally acknowledged that Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson is the greatest biography in the language. It is a book that you can read with profit and pleasure at any age. You can pick it up at any time, opening it at random, and be sure of entertainment. But to praise such a work at this time of day is absurd. I should like, however, to add to it a book that, to my mind undeservedly, is less well known. This is Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The purchase by Colonel Isham of the Boswell manuscripts has resulted in a new and unexpurgated edition of it, for, as I suppose everyone knows, Boswell’s manuscript was edited by Malone, who thought it proper to tone it down in accordance with the primly elegant taste of the day, and so left out much that gave the book flavour. It enlarges your knowledge both of Johnson and of Boswell, and if it increases your love and admiration for the sturdy old doctor, it adds also to your respect for his poor biographer who has been so much abused. This is not a writer to be despised who had such a quick eye for an amusing incident, so much appreciation of a racy phrase, and such a rare gift for reproducing the atmosphere of a scene and the liveliness of a conversation.

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约翰逊博士是影响了十八世纪整个英国的人物。他被认为最能代表英国的国民性，既具有那些纯粹的优点，也具有那些不讨喜的缺点。如果说我们都读过鲍斯威尔为他作的传，可能对他的了解会比对很多与我们共度一生的人了解都多，却很少有人读过约翰逊博士自己写的文章。还好，至少他写过一本令人得到至高享受的作品。在我看来，再没有一本书比约翰逊的《诗人传》更适合带去旅行或放在床头了。此书写得流畅、辛辣、幽默，充满常识。虽说有时他的一些看法会令我们吃惊，比如他认为格雷(5)沉闷，对弥尔顿的《利西达斯》也没有好话说，但你仍会乐见其说，因为这些观点是他个性的表达。他对他笔下的诗人和诗作同样感兴趣。那些诗哪怕你一个字都没读过，你一样会被他对诗人敏锐、生动、宽容的描述所娱乐。

12
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The figure of Doctor Johnson towers over the eighteenth century, and he has been accepted as representing the English character, with its sterling merits and unhappy defects, at its best. But if we have all read his biography, so that we know him more intimately than we know many of the people we have passed our lives with, few of us have read any of his writings; and yet he produced one work at least which is in the highest degree enjoyable. I know no better book to take on a holiday or to keep at one’s bedside than Johnson’s Lives of the Poets. It is written with limpidity. It has pungency and humour. It is full of horse sense. Though sometimes his judgments startle us—he found Gray dull and had little good to say of Milton’s Lycidas—you delight in them because they are an expression of his own personality. He was as much interested in the men he wrote of as in their works, and though you may not have read a word of these, you can hardly fail to be diverted by the shrewd, lively and tolerant observation with which he portrays their authors.

13
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接下来的这本书令我有些犹豫。因为我必须提醒读者，我原计划要谈的都是我认为不读会令人遗憾的书。而吉本的这本《自传》我虽喜欢，却不太肯定不读它会对我造成多大影响。如果我没读过这本书一定会失去一份强烈的乐趣，但是如果我在这里提它，我觉得我也必须提别的好多书——那些如果按照另一个标准来衡量，也非常值得一读但算不上经典的书，这些书将需要单独的一章来介绍。无论如何，吉本的《自传》可读性强，篇幅短，既庄重又幽默，行文有一种他所擅长的特殊优雅。我禁不住要举一例说明他的幽默。吉本在洛桑时恋爱了，但他父亲威胁要剥夺他的继承权，他只得谨慎地放弃了娶意中人为妻的想法。他对此事的吟诵是这样结束的：“作为恋人，我叹息；作为儿子，我服从；我的创伤，被时间、分离以及一套新的生活习惯无情地愈合了。”此书哪怕没有别的内容，仅凭这句妙语也值得一读了。

13
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I come next to a book that I name with hesitation, for, as I must remind the reader, I wish to speak here only of books that one would be the poorer for not having read, and though I have a great fondness for Gibbon’s Autobiography, I am not quite sure that it would have made much difference to me not to have read it. I should certainly have lost a keen pleasure, but if I mention it I feel that I should mention also a large number of other works, not so great as the greatest, to be judged by a different standard, and they would need a chapter to themselves. But Gibbon’s Autobiography is very readable; it is short, written with the peculiar elegance of which he was master, and it has both dignity and humour. Of the latter I cannot resist giving an example. When he was at Lausanne he fell in love, but his father threatening to disinherit him, he prudently gave up the thought of marrying the object of his affections. He ends his recital of the episode with these words: “I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son; and my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life.”I think if the book contained nothing else, it would be worth reading for that delicious sentence.

14
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现在我想放弃迄今为止都在大致遵循的时间顺序，谈谈两本伟大的小说：《大卫·科波菲尔》和巴特勒的《众生之道》。我这么做，不仅因为它们在英国长篇小说的伟大传统中占有重要的地位，同时也因为它们具备了英国文学的典型特征，我在上文简要提到的那些作品也都有这些特征。可能除《项狄传》外，所有这些书都有共同之处，如旺盛的活力、坦率、幽默和健康，而我愿意认为这些特征代表了我们的民族性。这些书并无特别微妙之处，也都少了点精致，但这是属于行动者而非思考者的文学，其中有很多常识、一些感伤，以及大量的人性。关于《大卫·科波菲尔》，除了说这是狄更斯最好的小说，还能说什么呢？狄更斯的缺点在这本书里最不明显，优点却最明显。《众生之道》后，又有很多长篇小说问世，我却认为《众生之道》是最后一部用伟大的方式写出的英国小说，是最后一部不受法、俄伟大小说家们影响的重要小说。它是《汤姆·琼斯》的正统继承者，它的作者有一种那个老字典编纂人(6)的气质，而后者，被公认是个典型的英国人。

14
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Now I want to abandon the chronological order to which I have till now roughly adhered, in order to speak of two great novels, David Copperfield and Butler’s The Way of All Flesh. This I do, not only because they are to a notable degree in the great tradition of the English novel, but also because they have eminently the features which, when I think of the works I have hitherto summarily considered, seem characteristic of English literature. With the possible exception of Tristram Shandy, all these books have in common something robust, straight-forward, humorous and healthy which, I like to think, is representative of the race. There is no especial subtlety in them and they are somewhat wanting in delicacy. It is a literature of men of action rather than of men of thought. There is a lot of common sense about it, some sentimentality and a great deal of humanity. Of David Copperfield there is nothing to be said but that it is Dickens’ best novel. His defects are here least noticeable and his merits most remarkable. Many long novels have been written since The Way of All Flesh, but I think it is the last English novel to have been written in the grand manner; it is the last, of any importance, that owes nothing to the great novelists of France and Russia. It is a worthy successor of Tom Jones, and its author had in him something of the old lexicographer whom we have agreed to regard as the typical Englishman.

15
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那么，让我再回过头来谈谈简·奥斯汀。我不会说她是英国最伟大的小说家，狄更斯才是，尽管狄更斯有无数毛病，比如喜欢夸张、粗俗、啰唆，还善感。但他是个有惊人天赋的小说家，他用不同的视角描述我们所知的世界；他创造了一个世界。他把悬念、戏剧性和幽默感运用到他的作品中，如此才让人感受到生活中的百态与忙乱喧闹。据我所知，另外只有一位小说家也做到了这点，那就是托尔斯泰。狄更斯以他无穷的活力塑造出了一系列的人物，他们各式各样，各具个性，每一个都随着生活而颤抖——不，“颤抖”这个词不对，是“动荡”。狄更斯以一种惊人的技巧掌控着他那些复杂的、经常还很不靠谱的故事情节，他竟然还处理得很好；或许只有身为小说家才能彻底理解他的技巧是多么高超。但是奥斯汀代表完美。她的写作范围确实狭小，因为她接触到的是一个由乡绅、牧师和中产阶级构成的小世界。但是，在对人物的洞察上，谁能与她匹敌？在对人物内心的精准与合理的探索上，谁又能超越她？她不需要我的赞美。我唯一想提醒你注意的是她的一个特点，一个她非常自然地在文中运用，以至于你都已经不以为奇的特点。那就是：整体而言，她的小说里一般不发生什么特别重大的社会事件，她也基本避免戏剧性事件的出现，但你仍然会被引诱着读了一页又一页，迫切想知道下边发生了什么（我真不知道她是怎么做到的）。这正是一个小说家最核心的才能。没这个本事，小说家就完了。我想不出还有谁比奥斯汀在这种才能上更圆满。现在，我唯一的难题是要决定在她不多的几本小说里到底推荐哪一本。就我个人而言，我最喜欢《曼斯菲尔德庄园》。我承认它的女主人公是个小假正经，男主人公又是个浮夸的笨蛋，但是我不在乎。因为《曼斯菲尔德庄园》写得机智、诙谐、感人，是一部集反讽的幽默与微妙的观察于一身的杰作。

15
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Then I go back to Jane Austen. I would not claim that she is England’s greatest novelist; with all his faults of exaggeration, vulgarity, wordiness and sentimentality, Dickens remains that. He was prodigious. He did not describe the world as we know it; he created a world. He had suspense, drama and humour, and thus was able to give the feel of the multifariousness and bustle of life as, so far as I know, only one other novelist, Tolstoy, has done. Out of his immense vitality he fashioned a whole series of characters, diverse, individual, and tremulous with—no, “tremulous”isn’t the right word—turbulent with life. He managed his complicated and often highly improbable stories with a dashing skill that perhaps you must be a novelist thoroughly to appreciate. But Jane Austen is perfect. It is true that her scope is restricted; she deals with a little world of country gentlefolk, clergymen and middle-class persons; but who has equalled her insight into character or surpassed the delicacy and reasonableness with which she probed its depths? She does not need my praise. The only characteristic I would like to impress upon your attention is one which she exhibits with so much ease that you might well take it for granted. Though, on the whole, nothing very much happens in her stories, and she mostly eschews dramatic incident, you are inveigled, I hardly know how, to turn from page to page by the urgent desire to know what is going to happen next; and that is the novelist’s essential gift. Without it he is done. I can think of no one who possessed it more fully than Jane Austen. My only difficulty now is to decide which of her few novels especially to recommend. For my part, I like Mansfield Park best. I recognize that its heroine is a little prig and its hero a pompous ass, but I do not care; it is wise, witty and tender, a masterpiece of ironical humour and subtle observation.

16
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行文至此，我想请大家注意一下黑兹利特。他的名气被查尔斯·兰姆掩盖了，但在我心目中他才是更好的散文家。兰姆迷人、温柔、机智，认识他就会爱上他，他也一直都能获得读者的欢心。黑兹利特不行，他为人粗鲁笨拙，好嫉妒，好争吵。说实话，他的性格不讨人喜欢。但是不幸的是，能写出最好的书的人并不总是最好的人，关键还是要看艺术家的性格。就我个人而言，我发现使我更感兴趣的是黑兹利特那痛苦、反叛而尖刻的灵魂，而不是兰姆隐忍却易感伤的和善。作为作家，黑兹利特有力、大胆、健康，他想说的话都说得很坚决。他的文章都是“肉”，读完一篇你会觉得像是吃了充实的一餐，满足了胃口。而读兰姆，你只会觉得这顿饭味道不错，做得讲究。黑兹利特最好的作品大都收录在《席间闲谈》中，他的散文也曾几次结集出版，每本选集无一例外都会包括《我与诗人的初相识》。在我看来，此文不仅是他写过的最令人激动的文章，也是英语散文中最好的一篇。

16
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At this point I would draw your attention to Hazlitt. His fame has been overshadowed by that of Charles Lamb, but to my mind he was the better essayist. Charles Lamb, a charming, gentle, witty creature whom to know was to love, has always appealed to the affections of his readers. Hazlitt could hardly do that. He was rude, tactless, envious and quarrelsome; a man, in truth, of an unpleasing character; but, unfortunately, it is not always the most worthy men who write the best books. In the end it is the personality of the artist that counts, and for my part Ifind more to interest me in the tormented, striving, acrimonious soul of Hazlitt than in Charles Lamb’s patient but somewhat maudlin amiability. As a writer, Hazlitt was vigorous, bold and healthy. What he had to say, he said with decision. His essays are full of meat, and when you have read one of them you feel, not as you do when you have read one of Lamb’s, that you have made a meal of savoury kickshaws, but that you have satisfied your appetite with substantial fare. Much of his best work can be found in his Table Talk, but there have been published a number of selections from his essays, and none of these can fail to contain My First Acquaintance with Poets, which, I suppose, is not only the most thrilling piece he ever wrote but the finest essay in the English language.

17
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现在要再介绍两本小说：萨克雷的《名利场》和艾米莉·勃朗特的《呼啸山庄》。篇幅不够，我不能说太多了。如今的批评家很爱挑剔萨克雷。他可能是那个时代的不幸者，他应该活在我们这个时代，写在我们这个时代，这样他就可以不受传统的制约，正是那种制约使得维多利亚时代的小说家不敢说出真相，不管这真相在他看来是多么苦涩。萨克雷的视角是现代的，他对人类的平庸深有觉悟，他对人性中的矛盾感兴趣。不管你如何不喜欢他的感伤和说教，如何遗憾他一味向公众的要求妥协时的软弱，有一个事实是无法改变的，那就是他创造的贝姬·夏普是英国小说里最真实、生动、有力的人物之一。

17
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Now, two more novels: Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, and Emily Bront?’s Wuthering Heights. I can say little about them, for my space is growing short. Critics nowadays are inclined to carp at Thackeray. Perhaps he was unfortunate in his period. He should have lived and written in our own time, when he would not have been hampered by the conventions which prevented the Victorian novelist from telling the truth, however bitter, as he saw it. His point of view was modern. He was deeply conscious of the mediocrity of human beings and he was interested in the contradictions of their natures. And however much you may deplore his sentimentality and his sermonizing or regret the weakness that led him to defer unduly to the demands of the public, the fact remains that in Becky Sharp he created one of the most real, living and forcible characters in English fiction.

18
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《呼啸山庄》非常独特。这本小说读起来别扭，有时太过出格离奇，会把你完全搞蒙。但它又无比热情激昂，非常动人，具有如同伟大诗篇一般的深度和力度。读《呼啸山庄》不像是在读小说，因为当你读小说时，哪怕再投入，必要时也总能提醒自己这只不过是个编出来的故事；而当你读《呼啸山庄》时，你却好似亲身经历了一场在你的生命中足以摧毁一切的不幸。

18
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Wuthering Heights is unique. It is an awkward novel to read, because sometimes it so outrages probability that you are completely bewildered; but it is passionate and profoundly moving; it has the depth and power of a great poem. To read it is not like reading a work of fiction, in which, however absorbed, you can remind yourself, if need be, that it is only a story; it is to have a shattering experience in your own life.

19
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篇幅所限，我只能再提三本不读会遗憾的小说。它们是乔治·艾略特的《米德尔马契》、特罗洛普的《尤斯蒂斯钻石》和梅瑞狄斯的《利己主义者》。

19
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I can but name three novels which I think it would be a pity to have left unread. They are George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds and Meredith’s The Egoist.

20
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读者可能已经惊讶地注意到了，迄今为止我没谈及诗歌。我不认为我们民族产生过能够媲美其他国家的画家、雕塑家和作曲家。虽然我们的绘画、雕塑和作曲的成就不错，却并没到杰出的程度。但是我会说我国的诗人是最优秀的，而且我不认为这是出于民族或国家的偏见。诗歌是文学之花、之冠，诗歌不能平庸。我记得埃德蒙·戈斯(7)跟我说过，他宁可读一卷并不出彩的诗集，也不愿读一本平庸的小说，因为读诗花的时间少，还不费脑子。然而只是押韵的东西却于我无用，不管格律多么无可挑剔。对我而言，诗歌必须伟大，否则就什么都不是，还不如读报纸。我无法随时随地地读诗，我希望处于特定情绪和称心的环境中才去读诗。我喜欢夏日将尽时在花园里读，也喜欢坐在一片能看到海的悬崖上，或是躺在树林里长满青苔的河岸上，然后再把口袋里的诗卷拿出来品读。可是哪怕最伟大的诗人也写过很多冗长乏味的诗，还有很多写诗者虽然创作出卷帙无数，最后能拿得出手的诗作却只有两三篇。虽然我认为这两三首已经足够证明诗人存在的合理性了，但我不想收获这么少而读那么多。我喜欢诗选。我知道评论家们对诗选嗤之以鼻，他们说想要了解一个作者必须读他的全集。但我不是一个评论家，而是一个普通人，我读诗只是因为需要慰藉、恢复活力和获得平静。我感谢那些感觉敏锐的学者，正是他们不避烦劳，从体量庞大的英国诗歌中去粗取精，才选出了适合我需要的读物。我读过的三本最好的诗选是帕尔格雷夫主编的《英诗金库》、牛津出版社的《牛津英诗选》，以及杰拉尔德·布利特选编的《英国短诗荟萃》。不过，我们既然生活在当今世界中，就不该忽视当代诗人的诗选，他们也是有可能给我们提供重要作品的。不幸的是，我知道的唯一一本当代诗选，作品选得非常不好，我甚至不愿提它的名字。

20
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The reader will have noticed, perhaps with surprise, that hitherto I have said nothing of poetry. I do not think our race has produced either painters, sculptors or composers who can rank with the best of other countries; their achievements have been respectable rather than pre-eminent; but I do not believe it is a racial or national bias that leads me to claim that our poets are supreme. But because poetry is the flower and crown of literature, it cannot afford to be mediocre. I remember Edmund Gosse telling me that he would much rather read a volume of minor Verse than an average novel; it took less time, he said, and required no mental effort. Well, I have no use for verse, however accomplished; to me, unless poetry is great, it is nothing, and I would sooner read a newspaper. I cannot read poetry at all times and in all places. I want to be in a particular mood and I want a favourable environment, I like to read poetry in a garden towards the end of a summer day; I like to sit on a cliff with a view of the sea or to lie on a mossy bank in a wood and take out the volume I have brought in my pocket. But even the greatest poets have written a great deal that is tedious to read; many versifiers have written endless volumes and in the end produced no more than two or three poems. I think that is enough to justify them, but I do not want to read so much to gain so little. I like anthologies. The critics, I understand, have a contempt for them; they say that in order to appreciate an author you must read him in full. But I do not read poetry as a critic; I read it as a human being in need of solace, refreshment and peace. I am thankful to the sensitive scholar who has taken the trouble to weed out from the great mass of English poetry what is not so good and has left for my perusal only what is to my purpose. The three best anthologies I know are Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, The Oxford Book of English Verse, and the admirable English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, by Gerald Bullett. But we live in the world of to-day and we should not neglect the writings of the poets of our own time. They, too, may have something important to give us. Unfortunately, the only anthology that, to my knowledge, has been made of them is so inadequate that I forbear even to name it.

21
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当然，每个人都应该读读莎士比亚的悲剧。他不仅是有史以来最伟大的诗人，还是我们民族的光荣。我本人虽然对莎士比亚的戏剧很熟，还是希望能有一位有品味、知识和判断力的人出来编一本莎士比亚的戏剧和诗歌精选集，不仅要包括我们人所共知的那些著名选段，也要包括一些极好的片段，甚至单独的诗行，如此好使我永远能于一册之中，便尽得莎翁所有诗歌的精华。（自从我写过这话以后，现已有乔治·瑞兰德编选的一个集子问世，名为《人生阶段》(8)。此书几乎达成了我的心愿，任何人对此类选

21
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Of course, everyone must read the great tragedies of Shakespeare. He is not only the greatest poet that ever lived but the glory of our race. But knowing, as I do, these plays pretty well, I wish that someone with taste, knowledge and discretion could be found who would make an anthology of Shakespeare’s plays and poems, putting in not only the famous passages with which we should all be familiar but also fragments, single lines even; so that I might have in a convenient volume a book to which I could always turn when I wanted the cream of all poetry. (Since I wrote these lines George Rylands has produced an anthology under the title of The Ages of Man which comes as near fulfilling the wish I have here expressed as, I suppose, anyone can expect. It is a welcome gift to a troubled world.)

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

multitude

[’mʌltɪtjuːd]

n.大量;多数;群众

enjoyable

[ɪn’dʒɔɪəbl]

adj.有趣的;愉快的

extract

[’ekstrækt]

vt.摘录;提取

leisure

[’leʒə(r)]

n.闲暇;休闲

savor

[’seɪvə]

n. 滋味，味道；风味;

blunder

[’blʌndə(r)]

n.大错

eminent

[’emɪnənt]

adj.著名的;卓越的

unreasonable

[ʌn’riːznəbl]

adj.不合理的;过度的;不切实际的

tempting

[’temptɪŋ]

adj.诱惑人的,

miscellaneous

[ˌmɪsə’leɪniəs]

a. 杂;

immoral

[ɪ’mɒrəl]

adj.不道德的

chess

[tʃes]

n.国际象棋

restless

[’restləs]

adj.不安宁的;焦虑的;得不到休息的

amusement

[ə’mjuːzmənt]

n.乐趣，娱乐;消遣

fancy

[’fænsi]

n. 【C】设想；幻想；空想;

eagerness

[’iːgənɪs]

n.渴望;热心

paragraph

[’pærəɡrɑːf]

n.段落

novelist

[’nɒvəlɪst]

n.小说家

bustle

[’bʌsl]

n.喧哗;匆忙;裙撑;衬垫

coarse

[kɔːs]

adj.粗糙的;粗俗的

climax

[’klaɪmæks]

n.高潮;极点;层进法;【生】顶极群落;巅峰，最高峰

haven

[’heɪvn]

n.港口;避难所

Johnson

[ˈʤɒnsən]

n.约翰逊(人名)

lucid

[’luːsɪd]

adj.明白易懂的;清晰的;神智清醒的

unaffected

[ˌʌnə’fektɪd]

adj.不受影响的;不矫揉造作的;自然的

Swift

[swɪft]

adj.快的;迅速的;敏捷的

adjective

[’ædʒɪktɪv]

n.形容词

sturdy

[’stɜːdi]

adj.强健的;坚固的;坚决的

frank

[fræŋk]

a. 坦白；率直;

vitality

[vaɪ’tæləti]

n.活力;生命力

moralist

[’mɒrəlɪst]

n.道德学家;卫道士

solemn

[’sɒləm]

adj.庄严的;严肃的;隆重的

personage

[’pɜːsənɪdʒ]

n.名流;要人;人物;角色

felted

[’feltɪd]

v. 把 ... 制成毡(使 ... 粘结)

sincerity

[sɪn’serəti]

n.真诚;诚实;诚挚

cockle

[’kɒkl]

n.【动】鸟蛤;海扇;麦仙翁;褶皱;轻舟

temperament

[’temprəmənt]

n.气质;性情

readable

[’riːdəbl]

adj.可读的;易读的;值得一读的

coherence

[kəʊ’hɪərəns]

n.一致;连贯

enchant

[ɪn’tʃɑːnt]

v.施魔法;使迷惑;使喜悦;使陶醉

Samuel

[ˈsæmjuːəl]

n.塞缪尔(男子名)

pick

[pɪkt]

采摘，挑选；

undeserved

[ˌʌndɪ’zɜːvd]

adj.不恰当的;不应得的

Colonel

[’kɜːnl]

n.上校

manuscript

[’mænjuskrɪpt]

n.手稿;原稿

accordance

[ə’kɔːdns]

n.一致;符合

prim

[prɪm]

adj.规规矩矩的;古板的;拘谨的;庄重的

enlarge

[ɪn’lɑːdʒ]

v.扩大;增大;详述

despise

[dɪ’spaɪz]

vt.轻视

conversation

[ˌkɒnvə’seɪʃn]

n.谈话;会话

tolerant

[’tɒlərənt]

adj.宽容的;容忍的

episode

[’epɪsəʊd]

n.一段情节;片段;轶事;插曲

obey

[ə’beɪ]

v.服从;遵守;顺从;听从

delicious

[dɪ’lɪʃəs]

adj.美味的;可口的

adhere

[əd’hɪə(r)]

vi.遵守;坚持;粘附

David

[’deɪvɪd]

戴维(男子名)

hitherto

[ˌhɪðə’tuː]

adv.到目前为止;迄今

robust

[rəʊ’bʌst]

adj.强健的

humorous

[’hjuːmərəs]

adj.幽默的;诙谐的

multifarious

[ˌmʌltɪ’feəriəs]

adj.多种的;各式各样的

turbulent

[’tɜːbjələnt]

adj.狂暴的;骚动的;动荡的;汹涌的

thorough

[’θʌrə]

adj.彻底的;完全的;详尽的;细致深入的

surpass

[sə’pɑːs]

vt.超越;胜过

probe

[prəʊb]

n.调查;探针;探测器

inveigle

[ɪn’veɪɡl]

v.诱骗;骗取

ironic

[aɪ’rɒnɪk]

adj.说反话的;讽刺的

appeal

[ə’piːl]

①[U][C]呼吁，要求;

rude

[ruːd]

adj.粗鲁无礼的;原始的;未加工的;粗糙的;猛烈的

torment

[’tɔːment]

n.苦痛;拷问;折磨;烦恼

thrill

[θrɪl]

n.激动;引起激动的事物;震颤(医学)

carp

[kɑːp]

n.鲤鱼

hamper

[’hæmpə(r)]

vt.妨碍;阻止

defer

[dɪ’fɜː(r)]

v.推迟;延期;使延期入伍

forcible

[’fɔːsəbl]

adj.强制的;强迫的;有说服力的;用力的

outrage

[’aʊtreɪdʒ]

n.暴行;愤怒;义愤

probability

[ˌprɒbə’bɪləti]

n.可能性

bewilder

[bɪ’wɪldə(r)]

vt. 使迷惑; 使 ... 不知所措

passionate

[’pæʃənət]

adj.热情的;激情的;易怒的

shatter

[’ʃætə(r)]

v.粉碎;毁坏;使震骇;使精疲力尽

Egoist

[’eɡəʊɪst]

n.自我主义者;利己主义者

sculptor

[’skʌlptə(r)]

n.雕刻家

composer

[kəm’pəʊzə(r)]

n.创作者(尤指乐曲的)

preeminent

[prɪ’emɪnənt]

adj.卓越的;优秀的;超群的

crown

[kraʊn]

n.王冠;王权;花冠

verse

[vɜːs]

n.诗;韵文;诗节

sooner

[’suːnə]

adv. soon的比较级

anthology

[æn’θɒlədʒi]

n.选集;文选

contempt

[kən’tempt]

n.轻视;轻蔑

thankful

[’θæŋkfl]

adj.感谢的;感激的

Oxford

[’ɒksfəd]

n.牛津城;牛津大学;牛津

Verse

[vɜːs]

n.诗;韵文;诗节

inadequate

[ɪn’ædɪkwət]

adj.不适当的;不充分的

Shakespeare

[ˈʃeɪkspɪə]

n.莎士比亚(英国诗人、剧作家)

discretion

[dɪ’skreʃn]

n.谨慎;慎重;自行决定

anthology

[æn’θɒlədʒi]

n.选集;文选

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