阅读小说如何影响我们的想象力和心理健康？

大家好，欢迎收听《心灵全貌》。

Hello and welcome to All in the Mind.

今天我们在海伊节现场，身边有一群非常棒的听众。

Today we are at the Hay Festival with a lovely audience.

请大家鼓个掌，让我们知道你们在这里。

Give us a cheer to show us you're here.

除了我们BBC帐篷里的观众，节庆现场还有数百人排着队，等着听作家们聊他们的小说。

Now as well as our audience here in the BBC tent, there are hundreds of people here on the festival site queuing up to hear authors talk about their novels.

今年正好是英国的全民阅读年。

And it's The UK's National Year of Reading.

所以我们想聊聊，读小说到底对我们的思维、想象力和身心健康有什么影响。

So we thought we would delve into what reading fiction does for our minds, our imaginations and our well-being.

我们经常听到，孩子读书有多重要。

We hear a lot about why it's good for children to read.

那成年人呢？

But how about adults?

你有没有发现，读完一本小说后，它还会在你心里久久挥之不去？

Do you find that novels stay with you in your mind long after you finish them?

当你看到小说改编的电影，发现角色长相和声音都完全不对劲时，会不会觉得特别失望？

Are you disappointed when you see a film adaptation and the characters look and sound all wrong?

读小说会不会让我们变得更有人性？

And does reading novels make us more human?

为了深入探讨这些话题，我请来了一位深谙小说创作的人。

And to discuss all this and more, I have with me someone who knows all about writing fiction.

获奖小说家乔安娜·卡文纳，她今年早些时候刚出版了新作《七》。

Award winning novelist, Joanna Kavenna whose latest novel Seven came out earlier this year.

还有来自杜伦大学的心理学教授本·奥尔德森-戴，他是‘读者银行’项目的首席研究员，这个项目专门研究阅读、想象力与心理健康。

And Ben Alderson-Day who is professor of psychology at Durham University and lead researcher for ReaderBank which is a project studying reading, imagination and well-being.

他还写了《存在》这本书。

And he's the author of Presence.

博士。

And Doctor.

保拉·伯恩，小说家，简·奥斯汀的传记作者，也是英国ReLit疗愈阅读基金会的联合创始人。

Paula Byrne, who's a novelist, biographer of Jane Austen and a co founder in The UK of ReLit, The Bibliotherapy Foundation.

她还是一名心理治疗师，最新作品是《海边六周》。

And she's a psychotherapist and her latest book is Six Weeks by the Sea.

非常感谢您抽空来到海伊参加这次活动。

Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here at Hay.

乔安娜，我想先从你开始。

Joanna, I want to start with you.

你是小说家，我猜你平时也读很多书吧。

You are a novelist and so of course you I'm guessing read a lot as well.

你是什么时候真正爱上小说和阅读的呢？

But when did your love of fiction and reading fiction really begin?

我小时候家里常说自己是‘工人阶级的书虫’。

So I grew up in a house where the phrase in my childhood was always working class bibliophiles.

这是我父母对自己的描述，他们特别热爱阅读。

That was my parents' self description and they absolutely loved to read.

我们家到处都是翻得破旧却特别珍爱的平装书，架子上、角落里，哪儿都是。

And so, our house was just full of much loved, much thumbed paperbacks everywhere, piled up on shelves, absolutely everywhere.

直到我离家后才意识到，洗澡时看书其实并不算正常——我父母在窗边放了一大堆被水浸过的书。

It was only when I left home actually that I realized it wasn't strictly speaking normal to read in the shower because my parents had a great stack of these soaking books by the window.

从小我就觉得，随便从书架上拿一本书，就能被带入另一个世界。

So, I think it was there and I really had that feeling as a child that you could pick up a book from the shelves and be transported to another world.

你可能一下子穿越到十九世纪，在富足人家的花园里喝茶，或者跑到火星，甚至别的什么地方。

You could suddenly be in the nineteenth century drinking tea in a well-to-do garden or on Mars or somewhere else entirely.

现在回想起来，那栋房子简直像是藏了无数个世界。

Really that house strikes me now as a house of many worlds.

我就是这样看待它的。

That's how I Sounds think of

很好。

great.

宝拉，有没有哪一本小说对你的影响比其他任何书都更深？

Paula, is there one novel that has changed you more than any other would you say?

我觉得，简娜，我的童年跟你一模一样。

I think probably, Jana, my childhood was exactly like yours.

其实大部分书都是我七个兄弟姐妹从图书馆偷回来的。

I think most of the books were stolen from the library actually by my seven siblings.

不过，简娜，我九岁那年读了这本书，特别能跟主角产生共鸣。

But anyway, Jana, so I think I read it when I was nine and I identified very strongly with the main character.

因为是第一人称叙述，那天我根本没法出门走动。

I think because it was first person narration, there was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

从第一句话开始，我就身临其境了，躲在窗帘后面，正读着书，这时候约翰进来，把一本书扔到了简娜头上。

From that opening line I was there and I was behind the curtain reading the book behind the curtain when John comes in and throws a book at Jana's head.

就这样结束了。

Done.

就这事儿。

That was it.

挺有意思的。

Interesting.

听起来，书籍在某种程度上激发了你们两人的想象力。

And it sounds as though books have really kind of fueled both your imaginations in a way.

本，你研究过读者读小说时的内心体验。

And Ben, you have studied the inner experience that we have as readers when we read novels.

你具体在关注哪些方面？

What have you been looking at?

我们多年来一直和爱丁堡书展紧密合作，探讨阅读体验的各个层面，因为构建阅读想象力涉及许多不同的因素。

Well, we've been working closely with Edinburgh Book Festival for a number of years, looking at different aspects of the reading experience because many different ingredients and components go into the reading imagination.

其中最重要的一点可能是内心的独白。

Probably one of the main ones is inner speech.

也就是人们在脑子里跟自己说话的倾向。

So the tendency to talk to yourself in your head.

大多数成年人都会在日常生活中这样，而这正是我们构建小说或故事内心世界的关键部分。

Majority of adults would do this on a kind of day to day basis, but it's also a really key part of how we build a kind of inner world of a novel or a story.

我们这儿有几个问题想问问现场的观众。

Well, we've got a couple of questions to ask our audience here about that.

第一个问题，当你读书时，如果会不自觉地在脑子里模仿某个角色或叙述者的语气，请鼓掌示意。

So the first question, can you cheer if when you're reading you sometimes simulate the voice of a character or a narrator in your head?

那边好多人举手了。

A lot of people there.

第二个问题，如果你读完一本书后，还时不时听到书里角色的声音，请鼓掌。

And the second question, please cheer if you sometimes experience the voices of characters from a book even after you've finished reading.

有些人举手了，但比刚才少一些。

Some people there, fewer people.

本，你对这些反应怎么看？

Ben, what did you make of those answers?

这些现象和你的研究有什么关联？

How do they fit in?

因为你在研究中也问过大家类似的问题。

Because you've been asking people in your research questions like that.

这些发现和你的研究怎么对应起来？

How do these fit in?

是的，我们特别喜欢问一些关于阅读的奇怪问题。

Yeah, we love asking people strange questions about reading.

实际上，刚才第一个问题关于角色声音的，我估计有大概八成的人在场都积极响应了。

And actually, the amount of people who cheered, I reckon it was about 80% of the room maybe cheered a lot with that in the first question about characters' voices.

这跟我们2017年在爱丁堡做的研究结果一致，当时还通过《卫报》招募了一些读者。

That fits with a study we did in 2017 with readers at Edinburgh, but also readers recruited via The Guardian newspaper.

那项调查中，大约八成的受访者表示，他们在读故事时经常会在心里模拟角色的声音。

Around about 80% of people in that survey said they often simulated a character's voice while they were reading a story.

但我们更感兴趣的，其实是那些对第二个问题回答‘是’的少数人。

But we were actually more interested in the smaller minority who answered yes to the second question.

在那项针对一千五百多名读者的研究中，有四百多人给了我们非常详细的描述，讲了他们在阅读时经历的生动体验。

So in that study we did with over 1,500 readers and about 400 of them gave us really in-depth descriptions of their experiences, very vivid experiences they'd had during reading.

在这四百人里，有百分之二十的人说，读完小说后，角色仿佛还一直陪着他们，甚至会继续在他们日常生活中‘说话’，好像他们的思维方式已经和角色的思维方式慢慢融合了。

20% of those 400 described the feeling that characters stayed with them in some way after the novel, even narrating their everyday lives, almost as if the way they were thinking was merging with how a character would think as well.

我们给这种现象起了个稍微正式一点的名字。

And we gave it a slightly fancy name.

我们团队里一位神经学家马可·伯恩给它起了个名字，叫‘体验交叉’。

Marco Byrne, who's a neurotologist on our team, called Experiential Crossing.

就好像小说里的内心世界突然闯入了我们的日常生活。

As if the inner world of the novel would break out into our everyday experience.

乔安娜，你能理解这种感觉吗？

Can you relate to that, Joanna?

读完一本书之后，你也会有这种体验交叉的感觉吗？

Do you have this experiential crossing after you've finished reading a book?

哦，当然有，完全能理解。

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

我十五六岁的时候，一直觉得自己就是《麦田里的守望者》里的霍尔顿·考尔菲德。

When I was 15, 16, was convinced I was Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.

我怎么也想不通，为什么我不能真的活在那本书里。

I just couldn't understand how I wasn't there in that book.

那种声音还留在脑子里的感觉，我确实记得，尤其是读《夫人》的时候。

I think absolutely that sense of the voice still in your head, I remember that with Mrs.

达洛维夫人，我常常想起克拉丽莎·达洛维的声音，那种清晨，仿佛是给海滩上的孩子们发的新鲜礼物。

Dalloway, often think of Clarissa Dalloway's voice, what a morning fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

那种声音，她内心独白里那种诗意的韵律，真的会一直留在你心里，我觉得。

That sound, the way she has that very poetic sound to her inner voice, that stays with you, I think.

我的意思是，本，为什么我们的大脑会把不同的叙事体验搞混呢？

I mean, Ben, why do our minds get confused between these different narrative experiences?

为什么我们有时候读完书之后，还会身临其境？

How come we can sometimes experience them afterwards?

因为构建一个叙事世界，其实是一项非常精妙的技艺。

Well, the construction of a narrative world is a really skilled act.

这是我们大脑能做的最复杂的事情之一。

It's one of the most complex things our minds can do.

不是说我们一打开想象力，它就自动运行了。

It's not as if we just turn on an imagination and then off it goes.

我们必须调动自己所有的亲身经历。

We have to draw on all our own experiences.

而且我们每个人在构建时，都会有些微妙的不同。

And we'll all be different subtly in the way that we do that too.

但要建立起一个故事世界，理解它的运行机制，弄清楚角色在做什么、为什么这样行事，都需要时间。

But it takes time to build up a story world, to understand the mechanics of that world, to understand what characters are doing, why they behave in the way that they do.

我们实际上是在构建一套对这种微型世界和另类现实的预测。

What we're building up is essentially a set of predictions about this kind of miniature world and alternative reality.

而之后，要放下它并不容易。

And then that's hard to put down afterwards.

因为某种程度上，我们得同时在脑中维持两种不同的现实。

Because in a way, we're having to represent two different realities at the same time.

你想想，我们在进行各种创作活动时，其实一直在这么做。

If you think about it, we do this all the time when we engage in different sorts of creative acts.

不过，我们早就习惯了在两者之间自如切换。

Yet we're experts at switching between the two.

尽管如此，构建这些预测模型还是需要投入大量心力。

Nevertheless, it's a big investment when we're kind of making these predictive models.

有时候，这两者的界限会变得有点模糊。

Sometimes the lines get a little blurry.

我特别感兴趣的是，你们还在研究人们大脑的反应——人们的大脑会对带引号的句子和不带引号的句子做出不同的反应，也就是直接引语和间接引语之间的区别。

And I was really intrigued to see that, because you're studying what happens in people's brains as well, that people's brains will actually react differently depending on whether a sentence is in quotes or not, whether it is reported speech or not.

没错。

That's right.

2011年，格拉斯哥的一项研究使用了核磁共振成像，让受试者阅读一些简短的故事，故事里的人物有的是用引号直接说话，有的则不是。

So there was a study in 2011 that was run-in Glasgow that used MRI, magnetic resonance imaging, and got people to read very short stories involving characters speaking out loud in quote marks or not.

到了2020年，我们做了后续研究，这次还加入了人物的内心独白和声音。

Then we ran a follow-up study in 2020 where we also included voices and thoughts of characters.

在这两项研究中，当观察听觉皮层——也就是负责听觉的大脑区域——那些专门处理人声的部分，只要一遇到带引号的直接对话，这些区域就会被激活。

In both those studies, when you looked at the parts of the auditory cortex, so bits of brain responsible for hearing, the parts of their brains which were specifically for voices, whenever you came across a character speaking out loud just with speech marks, the voice selective areas would light up.

这些都是一些非常基础的大脑区域。

And these are very basic areas of the brain.

它们并不是那种高级区域，比如你去判断‘这个角色说话的声音听起来像什么样’的时候才用到的。

They're not necessarily kind of high level areas where you're deciding to do something about, oh yeah, this character sounds like this.

这其实是一个更底层的过程，你的大脑会自动判断：这是一个人的声音。

It's actually a much lower level where automatically your brain is going, this is a voice.

这是一个重要的社交信息，我需要详细地还原它。

This is an important social object that I need to represent in detail.

声音得够真实，我才能理解角色的情绪、意图，以及接下来会做什么。

It's got to sound right for me to understand how the character's feeling, what they're trying to say and what they're going to do next in the story.

是的。

Yeah.

真不可思议，仅仅看到这些引号，大脑就会产生这样的反应。

It's amazing that happens just from seeing those quotes there.

乔安娜，你写小说的时候，会考虑到读者的想象吗？

And Joanna, when you're writing novels, do you have your readers' imaginations in mind?

当然会。

Yes, definitely.

读者的存在感其实很模糊，但这种关系非常私密——当你阅读时，你是在深入走进作者的内心世界。

It's quite an undefined sense of the reader as a presence and in this really private relationship where when you read, you're going deep into the mind of a writer.

当你写作时，你想到的是那种非常私密、亲密的过程——读者拿起这本书，深入到内心，去体会其中发生的一切。

And when you write, you're thinking of that very private intimate process where a reader picks up this book and you're dealing with the inner mind with what's happening there.

我觉得，根据本说的，声音真的非常重要。

And I think sound, from what Ben was saying, the sound is really important.

你几乎是在努力营造一个世界，让它在读者的脑海中栩栩如生地响起。

It's almost that sense you're trying to create a world that sounds within that mind in as vivid a way as possible.

不过，有个难题是，研究表明，人们的想象力并不总是一样的，对吧？

Now, course, one of the difficulties is we know from research that imaginations don't always work the same way, do they?

每个人在这方面都会不一样，本。

Individuals will differ in this, Ben.

没错。

Absolutely.

就在过去十年里，我们才开始真正理解，不同人的想象力差异有多大。

So, it's only really in the past ten years that we've started to get a grasp on how radically different some people's imaginations are.

在座的有些人可能听说过‘想象缺失症’，就是完全无法在脑海中形成任何图像的倾向。

So some of you in the room may have heard of aphantasia, which is the tendency to not experience any kind of mental imagery at all.

大约有百分之四的人，他们的心理图像非常模糊。

About four percent of the population will have very, very dim imagery.

大约百分之一的人则完全没有任何心理图像。

About one percent will have none whatsoever.

但这个词本身，我记得是2015年才被提出来的。

But the term itself was only coined in, I believe, 2015.

这直接启发了我们在ReaderBank里的研究，我们想，不如把这一点应用到阅读上吧。

That really inspired some of our current work in ReaderBank because we thought, well, actually, let's apply that to reading.

人们阅读的方式其实各不相同，有时候差异还特别大。

People are going be reading in different ways, sometimes radically different ways.

有些人更多依赖视觉想象。

They might be drawing more on visual imagery.

有些人则更依赖内心的声音。

They might be drawing more on inner voice.

也有人更关注角色之间的互动，慢慢构建出他们各自的形象。

Or they might be thinking more about how the characters are engaging with one another, kind of building up a model of who they are.

你可以访问我们的项目 ReaderBank。

So you can go to our project ReaderBank.

去 readerbank.org 做个想象力测试，看看你在这些不同维度上是个什么样的读者。

Go to readerbank.org and take our imagination quiz to find out what kind of reader you are along those different dimensions too.

它会帮你更了解自己和你的阅读体验。

And it'll tell you hopefully a little bit about yourself and your reading experience.

不过，接续乔安娜的观点，这其实说明阅读是一种心灵的交汇。

But I guess just to follow on from Joanna's point, it really shows that reading is a meeting of minds.

我们并不能只是打开一扇窗，就直接看到作者的本意。

It's not as if we can just open a window and see what a writer is intending.

实际上，我们带入了太多东西，是根据作者提供的内容，共同构建出这段想象体验的。

Actually, we are bringing so much, and we are kind of co creating that imaginative experience based on what the writer provides us.

当然，有时候我们心里对角色的长相或声音已经有很鲜明的想象。

And of course, sometimes we have these really strong ideas in mind about what a character looks like or sounds like.

但后来可能会有影视改编，比如简·奥斯汀的作品，经常被拍成电影或电视剧。

And then there might be a film adaptation, say, you know, lots of Jane Austen, obviously, or TV adaptation.

而且它们看起来可能完全不对劲。

And they can kind of look all wrong.

就是根本不是那么回事。

Know, it can just not be right at all.

本，你专门研究过声音这方面的问题。

And Ben, you have studied this with voices in particular.

我很想知道听众们对这个怎么看。

And I'd love to know now what the audience think about this.

如果你觉得电影或电视剧里角色的声音和你想象的不一样，能给大家鼓个掌吗？

Can you give me a big cheer if you often feel the voices of characters in film or TV adaptations are not as you imagine them?

是的。

Yes.

对。

Yes.

看来这种情况确实很普遍啊，本。

Seems very common there, Ben.

那你是怎么研究这个问题的呢？

And how are you researching this?

我们目前在ReaderBank上做了一个叫‘声音匹配’的小实验，让参与者想象一个他们非常熟悉、脑海中形象特别清晰的书中角色。

Well, we're trying to research this with a little kind of task that we've got on ReaderBank at the moment called Voice Match, where what we do is we try and ask people to imagine a character from a book that they know very well and they have a really clear sense of in their head.

然后我们会播放几段声音，大致符合角色的年龄和性别，问他们：哪一个听起来最像你心里的那个声音？

And then we play them different voices that kind of roughly match for, say, the age and the gender of the character and go, all right, which one sound most like the voice in your head?

比如《爱丽丝梦游仙境》里的角色。

So an example might be Alice in Wonderland.

我们选的角色必须是广为人知的，但又不能有太固定的影视形象。

We had to choose characters that were well known but also maybe didn't quite have a definitive representation.

像哈利·波特这种，就不适合做这个实验。

So you can't really do this with, say, Harry Potter, for example.

我们真正想测量的是那种强烈的否定反应——‘完全不对’。

And what we wanted to do was really try and measure that response of, yep, no, definitely not.

实际上，当你真去做这种测试时，‘完全不对’的反馈多得惊人。

And actually, you get an awful lot of definitely not when you try and measure this.

人们往往能立刻察觉到某种声音或长相根本不适合某个角色。

People seem to really know when something doesn't fit a character, whether it's a voice, whether it's a face.

仔细想想，这其实挺奇怪的，对吧？

And when you think about it, in a way that's quite strange, right?

因为这些角色根本不是真实存在的人。

Because these aren't real people.

他们只是你脑子里构建出来的形象。

This is just a construction of your mind.

可有时候，你就是能百分百确定哪里不对劲。

And yet you're absolutely certain sometimes when that doesn't fit.

原因在于，我们在辨识声音方面，就像辨识面孔一样精通。

And the reason for that is actually we are experts at voices in the same way that we are experts at faces.

我们特别擅长从声音里听出一个人的性格。

We are brilliant at pulling out personality from voice.

在英国，我们尤其擅长从口音里判断一个人的社会阶层。

In The UK, we're brilliant at pulling out class from voice.

所以我们做的，就是构建出非常细致的模型，来还原一个人该有的声音样子。

And so what we do is we build some really detailed constructions and representations of how a person should sound.

当我们产生那种‘这绝对不对’的感觉时，其实正是撞上了这些界限。

And it's those sorts of barriers we're running up against when we get that kind of feeling of no way.

乔安娜，你有没有过这种感觉，觉得完全不对劲？

Have you had this experience, Joanna, of it being all wrong?

其实我刚想到一个特别正面的例子。

Well, actually, was just thinking of a really positive example.

比如《搏击俱乐部》，查克·帕拉尼克创造了一种极其强烈的第一人称叙述声音。

Maybe I can give a where I think Fight Club, where Chuck Palinuk creates this incredibly intense first person voice.

我本来觉得这种声音根本不可能被搬上银幕，因为它对小说的整体氛围和诡异感太关键了。

And I would have thought that would be impossible to render because it's so fundamental to the drive and strangeness of that novel.

但电影版的表现真的非常出色。

And actually, film does a really remarkable job.

就连我这么说的时候，台下可能也有人觉得《搏击俱乐部》根本没拍好。

And even as I'm saying that, there are people in the audience who perhaps didn't feel that Fight Club works.

我觉得这非常个人化。

It's very personal, I think.

对，所以有些人会觉得有效，有些人则不会。

Yes, so it'll work for some people and then not for others.

您正在收听BBC广播四台的《心灵全貌》。

You are listening to All in the Mind on BBC Radio four.

今天我们在海伊节现场，和观众一起探讨阅读小说对心灵的影响。

And today we're with an audience at the Hay Festival, and we're looking at what reading fiction does for the mind.

读小说当然有疗愈作用，能让你脱离自己的世界，进入一个想象中的世界。

Reading novels can of course be very therapeutic, taking you out of your own world and into an imagined one.

宝拉，你是一名心理治疗师，还创办了一个叫ReLit的组织，推广用阅读来疗愈，也就是所谓的阅读疗法。

Now Paula, you're a psychotherapist and you've set up an organization called ReLit which promotes the practice of using reading as therapy, also known as Bibliotherapy.

但回溯历史，人们并不总是对读小说持正面看法。

But when we look back in history, reading novels hasn't always been viewed positively.

是这样吗？

Does it?

有些人觉得阅读小说可能有害，尤其是对女性而言。

Some of it's been seen as a thing that could be bad for you, particularly if you're a woman.

没错。

Exactly.

十八世纪是小说兴起的时期。

In the eighteenth century, which is when we have the rise of the novel.

小说是一种新兴的文学体裁。

So it's a new genre, the novel.

当时人们对此颇有微词，尤其认为小说会诱发女性歇斯底里。

It's frowned upon and it's particularly frowned upon because certain writers believe that it incites women to hysteria.

简·奥斯汀在《诺桑觉寺》里就反驳这种观点。

People like Jane Austen is fighting against this in Northanger Abbey.

她是在讽刺这种看法。

She's parodying that very view.

所以那时候，女性被要求不准读小说。

So women are told they mustn't read novels.

别太激动了。

Get too excited.

阅读疗法本身大约有一百年的历史，但它的根源可以追溯到古代，那时人们把图书馆称为灵魂的良药。

Bibliotherapy itself, it's about 100 years old but it goes back to the ancient world when libraries were called medicine for the soul.

柏拉图谈到阅读疗法时说，诗歌对你有害。

Plato says, in terms of bibliotherapy, Plato says poetry is bad for you.

别读它。

Don't read it.

那真的对你很不好。

It's really bad for you.

亚里士多德却站出来说：等等，柏拉图，你这话不对。

And Aristotle comes along and says hang on a minute Plato.

它并不会害我们。

It's not bad for us.

他说，实际上，诗歌的作用是帮我们处理各种情绪，比如羞耻、厌恶和恐惧。

He says actually what it does enables us to do is it enables us to process all of these emotions like shame and disgust and fear.

这种现象被称为宣泄。

And that's known as catharsis.

所以我更认同亚里士多德的观点，认为宣泄对我们很有好处。

So I take the Aristotelian view which is that catharsis is very good for us.

所以这是一次非常积极的阅读体验。

So that was a very positive reading.

但到了十八世纪，小说开始被批得一无是处，说它们会让人脑子变空，甚至让人精神失常。

But during the eighteenth century, we really get this dip in novels are really, they'll make you brain dead, they'll make you hysterical.

这种情况后来才慢慢转变，到了第一次世界大战前夕，图书疗法突然变得非常流行。

This starts to change a little bit and then leading up to the First World War, Bibliotherapy becomes huge.

那些患有炮弹休克症的士兵，都会被分到书来读。

Shell shocked soldiers are given books to read.

所以它经历过低谷，也经历过低点。

So it goes through troughs and pits.

但毫无疑问，在十八世纪，读小说是不被认可的。

But certainly in the eighteenth century reading novels is frowned upon.

简·奥斯汀对这种看法非常不满。

Jane Austen really takes issue with this.

她在《诺桑觉寺》第五章里大声疾呼：各位，别再指责女性读小说了。

She shouts at everybody in chapter five of Northanger Abbey and she says, now come on people, stop having a go at women reading novels.

我们都清楚小说有多好。

We all know they're great.

我们都明白小说能让人开心。

We all know they make us happy.

那就放手去读吧。

Let's just go for it.

这挺有意思的，对吧？

It's interesting, isn't it?

你想啊，要是现在有人抬头一看，发现孩子不是在玩手机，而是在读小说，大家肯定都乐坏了。

Because think how people would love it now if they looked up and every time they looked down their children were reading their novels instead of on their phones.

那可真是再好不过了。

It would be encouraging.

那你当初设立ReLit、关注小说疗愈潜力的灵感是从哪儿来的？

But what was your inspiration for setting up ReLit and for looking more at the therapeutic opportunities that novels can offer?

这源于我个人的经历。

It was a personal experience.

我有个孩子病得很重。

I had a very poorly child.

在那段最黑暗的时光里，我觉得孩子可能挺不过去，连医生们都束手无策，我无意中从包里翻出一本诗集，就是那本书救了我。

And during this sort of dark night of the soul when I didn't think my child was going to come through and all the doctors didn't, I just found a book of poetry in my bag and it just I feel it saved my life.

后来我去见了家庭医生，我们聊了很多，他是个狂热的书迷。我就跟他说，如果更多人能在极度压力、情绪失控、神经系统完全处于应激状态时，转向阅读来寻求慰藉，那文学的平静力量该有多好。

Then I went to see my GP and he said we talked a lot about he was a great bibliophile and I said if more people could be encouraged to turn to reading for solace in times of very acute stress, emotional dysregulation, nervous system in full flight or fight, just the calming powers of literature.

从那时起，我对书籍疗法产生了兴趣。

So that's when I became interested in Bibliotherapy.

我对丈夫说，咱们干脆成立一个书籍疗法慈善机构吧。

I said to my husband, come on, let's set up a Bibliotherapy charity.

所以我们现在在监狱、学校和精神健康医院里都开展工作。

So we do work in prisons, schools, mental health hospitals.

所以我已经做这件事很久了。

So I've been doing this for a long time.

我真心相信，阅读就像灵魂的良药，就像古希腊人说的那样。

I really passionately believe that reading is a sort of medicine for the soul, as the Greeks would say.

乔安娜，有没有哪一本书在你度过黑暗时期时帮过你？

And Joanna, is there one particular book that has helped you through a dark time?

你能感同身受吗？

Can you relate to any of this?

是的，完全能。

Yes, absolutely.

我很认同托妮·莫里森说的，关于形式与无形式——世界本来是混沌的，并不会主动向我们展现自己。

So, I love what Toni Morrison says about form and formlessness, that the world is formless and it doesn't readily present itself to us.

但当我们感到彻底压垮时，形式却能给我们极大的帮助。

But then form can help us so much when we're feeling completely overwhelmed.

我觉得，我们所热爱的小说，正是这样发挥作用的。

I think that's what novels we love can do.

它们为我们提供了一种看待事物的方式，或者一种结构。

They give us a form or some way of seeing things.

我十几岁的时候，特别为死亡感到沮丧，生活显得压得人喘不过气，怎么去面对‘每个人终将一死’这个事实呢？

When I was a teenager, I was incredibly depressed about mortality and life seemed overwhelming and how can you live with this knowledge that everyone must perish.

我妈妈什么也没说，只是默默递给我加缪的《鼠疫》。你可能会觉得，这本讲一切皆无意义的黑暗荒诞经典，似乎不是个安慰人的选择，但它直面了存在的荒诞，并告诉我们：正因为人人都在经历同样的困境，才更需要彼此共情。

And I went to my mother who just silently passed me Camus' The Plague, which you might say one of those dark absurdist classics about how everything is pointless wasn't perhaps the most But jolly book to the fact it acknowledged that reality of the strangeness of existence and said we have to have empathy because everybody's in the same situation.

那时候我明白了，共情很重要——你得继续往前走，尽力而为，而每个人其实都在拼尽全力。

And I think that lesson of empathy at that age of realizing that you've got to keep going and try your best and everybody's trying the same.

对我来说，这真的特别重要。

For me, it was really important.

保拉，在你做监狱工作的过程中，有没有遇到过诗歌比小说更管用的时候？

And, in your work in prisons, Paula, do you find there are times when poetry might work better than say novels?

我觉得是有的。

I think so.

我觉得我们一些工作坊背后的思路是，诗歌篇幅短小，更容易消化。

I think the principle behind some of our workshops was that poetry is very bite sized.

语言精炼，形式也紧凑。

It's condensed language and condensed form.

就算你情绪低落、注意力不集中，四行诗也容易读完。

So even when you're depressed and you might lose concentration, for example, four lines of a poem is manageable.

所以我们发现效果特别好。

So we found it was very effective.

我们曾在一所B级监狱做了很多工作。

So we did a lot of work at a category B prison.

我们经常选《未选择的路》，因为每个囚犯都说：我记得自己人生走上那条路的那一刻，其实我本可以走另一条。

And we'd often just do the road not taken because every single one of those men said I remember the exact moment my life went down that road and I could have gone down that road.

就这首诗《未选择的路》的几段，就打开了他们的话匣子。

Just a couple of stanzas from that poem, The Road Not Taken, just opened up.

这成了他们深入反思人生轨迹的绝佳起点。

It was a great jumping off pad for them to really analyze where their paths went.

所以我发现，诗歌之所以容易亲近，正是因为它的简短。

So I found poetry just very accessible precisely because of its brevity.

那

Has the

阅读诗歌对心理健康的影响有没有被研究过？

impact of reading poetry on mental health been studied?

有研究过。

It has.

我的意思是，研究得不多。

I mean, it hasn't been studied a lot.

书籍和小说被研究得更多，诗歌相对少一些。

Books have been studied and novels more so than poetry.

但就在几个月前，有一篇综述发表了。

But there was a review that came out only a few months ago.

他们整合了迄今为止所有的相关数据，发现了15项关于不同诗歌疗法干预的研究。

That did a meta analysis when they pooled all the available data so far, which found 15 studies of different types of poetry therapy interventions.

结果发现，诗歌疗法对创伤后应激障碍、抑郁、焦虑和压力确实有不错的效果。

They actually found some pretty good effects specifically for PTSD, depression, anxiety, and stress.

他们对韧性与疼痛这类方面没找到那么强的证据。

They didn't find as strong evidence for things like resilience and pain.

但这并不意味着个人阅读时不会产生这样的体验。

And that's not to say that individual readers won't have that experience.

但从群体层面能测量的结果来看，像创伤后应激障碍这类情况的证据更明显。

But in terms of what we can measure in a group, it seemed to be things like PTSD where you get the more, the stronger evidence.

不过，和以往一样，这里也有一些限制。

Now, as ever, there's caveats.

要设计出真正贴合人们读诗和相关治疗情境的对照实验，其实相当困难。

It's quite hard to design controlled experiments for these sorts of things to really match what people are doing when they're engaging in a poem and the therapy context around that.

但至少有一些初步证据表明，这种方式确实可能非常有效。

But there seems to be some preliminary evidence at least that actually it can be really effective.

想想看，试着用一种新的方式讲述经历，诗歌正好能提供这种可能。

Think going back to that idea of trying to narrate an experience in a new way, a poem could offer that.

保拉，你有一首诗要念给我们听一部分，对吧？

And Paula, you've got a poem for us that you're going to read part of.

你待会儿要读几节诗。

You're going to read a couple of verses of.

这首诗很悲伤，但描写的是一个非常具体的情境。

And It's a very sad poem but a very specific situation.

你能告诉我们这首诗的作者是谁，什么时候写的吗？

Can you tell us who it's by and when it was written?

这是我最喜欢的诗之一。

It's one of my favorite poems.

作者是一位女诗人，写于1655年。

It's written by a female poet in 1655.

她一共经历了十六次流产。

She'd had 16 miscarriages.

后来终于生下一个男孩，但几天后就夭折了。

She finally gave birth to a little boy and he died after a few days.

我来读几段。

I'll read a couple of stanzas.

我之所以在刚才那些场合选用这首诗，是因为它能给那些觉得自己并不孤单的人带来慰藉。

The reason I've used this poem in those sort of settings we talked about is it can bring great comfort for people who don't feel alone.

很多人经历流产时，都会觉得特别孤独，觉得没人能理解自己正在经历什么。

So many people when they have a miscarriage feel so alone that nobody else can understand what I'm going through.

而一首诗，恰恰能让人感受到这种联结。

So somehow a poem can give us that sense of connection.

这首诗叫《悼我首个也是最亲爱的孩子赫克托·菲利普斯》。

So it's called On the death of my first and dearest child, Hector Phillips.

我婚后整整四十个月，一直守着婚姻的誓言。

Twice forty months in wedlock I did stay.

终于，我的誓言化作一个可爱的男孩，可才四十天，他就离我而去，啊，人间欢乐何其短暂无常。

Then had my vows crowned with a lovely boy And yet in forty days he dropped away, O swift vicissitude of human joy.

我刚看见他，他就消失了。

I did but see him and he disappeared.

我刚触到那朵玫瑰花苞，它就凋落了。

I did but touch the rosebud and it fell.

一种尚未完全降临、却已令人不安的悲伤。

A sorrow unfulfilled and scarcely feared.

凡人往往无法真正看清自己的苦难。

So ill can mortals their afflictions spell.

这真是一首令人心碎又动人的诗，对吧？

It's such a sad moving poem isn't it?

我想，乔安娜，这首诗让我们得以窥见她当时的心境。

And I guess Joanna, that it gives us an insight into what she was experiencing at that time.

文学确实有一种特别的力量，能让我们走进他人的内心世界，你说是不是？

And there is something, isn't there, about literature that allows us to get inside the heads of other people.

为什么文学能让我们如此真切地感受到人性呢？

Why is it that it makes us feel so human in a way?

是的，现实生活中我们根本无法真正进入他人的内心。

Yes, and it's in normal life we can't enter the minds of others.

我们可以想象、可以共情，但别人的心灵本质上对我们是封闭的。

So, other people's minds we can imagine, we can empathize, but actually those minds are closed to us.

而小说恰恰提供了一种美妙的共情幻想，让你能走进他人的内心，从他们的角度去感受世界。

Whereas fiction has that glorious empathetic fantasy really that you can alight in the minds of others and experience things from their perspective.

我觉得我们生活在一个充满极端和对立的世界里，网络算法把很多事情都简化成非黑即白：零或一、上或下、点赞或点踩，无穷无尽的好恶评判。

I think we're living in a world where there's a lot of extremes and polarization and there's this strange algorithmic internet where lots of things are calibrated in very oppositional terms zero, one, up, down, thumb up, thumb down, that sort of endless likes and dislikes.

而我认为，小说恰恰能带来那种不确定性和模糊感，重新呈现生活的本质——它充满神秘、惊喜、美丽与恐惧，而我们每个人都在经历着这一场非凡的旅程。

And I think fiction does offer that uncertainty and ambiguity and that re dramatization of the fact that life is very mysterious and surprising and beautiful and terrifying and that we're all doing this extraordinary thing.

所以，正是小说中这种奇妙的幻想，让我们最终触碰到真实的人生体验。

And so, with that strange fantasy within fiction, I think you arrive at this truth of experience.

本，你看，

And Ben, there

有一位著名的加拿大心理学家把阅读称为心灵的飞行模拟器。

is an eminent Canadian psychologist who calls reading a flight simulator of the mind.

我想知道，研究数据能告诉我们阅读如何影响共情能力吗？

I was wondering what does the evidence show us about how reading can affect empathy?

小说真的能有所帮助吗？

Can novels help?

大约十五年前，有一批研究大力主张，如果我们阅读小说，尤其是文学小说，就能激发我们的同理心和心理理论能力，也就是理解他人内心的能力。

Well, there was a spate of studies about fifteen years ago which really pushed hard this case that if we read novels, and in particular if we read literary fiction, then that could unlock your empathy skills, your theory of mind skills, so the ability to represent other minds.

人们常常通过测试人们对他人眼神情绪的识别能力，再结合一个叫‘作者识别测试’的问卷，来统计他们读过多少本小说，以此衡量这种影响。

And often people would try and measure that by looking at how people did on a test of recognizing emotions from people's eyes and then compare it to how many different novels they've read on something called an author recognition test.

但这些数据的问题在于，很多时候难以重复验证。

The problem with some of that data was that it didn't always replicate very well.

而且，要证明因果关系一直很困难，因为读更多小说的人，可能本来就属于某种特定类型的人。

And also it was always really hard to show cause and effect because the more novels you read might just be because you are of a particular persuasion.

也许他们本来就特别喜欢思考他人的想法，或者类似的事情。

It might be that you are actually really into thinking about other minds or this sort of thing.

所以，曾经有一阵子大家很关注这个话题，但后来证据却越来越难确证。

So there was a wave of interest, then it was harder to really pin down the evidence.

但这并不意味着同理心在我们与小说和文学作品互动时不是至关重要的部分。

Now, that doesn't mean that empathy isn't a really important part of how we engage with fiction and novels.

如果你对人的大脑进行扫描，对比阅读小说和非虚构作品时的反应，

If scan people's brains, you compare fiction and non fiction.

你看到的是大脑中负责社交的区域在高度活跃。

What you see are parts of the social brain being really, really active.

但我认为，单靠阅读来显著提升共情能力，这一点还很难下定论。

But I think the jury's still out on how much you can shift your empathy skills just through reading.

这又回到了你作为个体读者，在这个过程中带入了什么。

Goes back to what are you bringing yourself as an individual reader in that process.

所以，宝拉，你写作的时候，会刻意塑造让读者产生共鸣的角色吗？

So, Paula, when you're writing, would you be deliberately trying to create characters that readers can empathize with?

你之前提到，你挺喜欢反派女主角。

You mentioned earlier that you quite like the antiheroine.

我写第一本小说的时候惹了麻烦。

I got in trouble when I wrote my first novel.

我的编辑，那位小说编辑说，你主角简直太糟糕了。

My editor was the fiction editor said your central character is absolutely horrible.

但她真的特别有趣。

She's really, really funny.

但我完全没有同理心。

But I have no empathy.

我说了，我根本不关心。

I said I don't care.

我特别喜欢斯嘉丽·奥哈拉。

I loved Scarlet O'Hara.

我特别喜欢《曼斯菲尔德庄园》里的玛丽·克劳福德。

I loved Mary Crawford and Mansfield Park.

我就爱反派女主角。

I love anti heroines.

我不想读那些讨人喜欢的角色。

I don't want to read about people that are likable.

他们根本引不起我的兴趣。

They don't interest me very much.

所以我跟她吵得特别厉害。

And so I had this enormous fight with her.

所以回到你刚才说的共情这个想法，我觉得

So I think going back to your idea about empathy, it

这非常个人化。

is very individual.

你不介意，但乔安娜，你呢？

So you don't mind, but Joanna, what about you?

你是不是故意创造一些让人能产生共鸣的角色？

Are you trying to deliberately create characters that people will empathize with?

哦，但我超爱反英雄。

Oh, but I love anti herons.

没错，这太棒了。

Yeah, it's great.

而且我们都清楚，人总有缺点，总有心情糟糕的日子，情绪也是千变万化。

And also because we all know that we have our flaws and we have our days when we're really grumpy and there's an endless plenitude of emotions that we experience.

所以我一直觉得，伊丝特·索默森——我是说，《荒凉山庄》里的伊丝特，她几乎就是狄更斯心目中理想的行为典范。

So of course, I always thought Esther Somersen, I mean, love Bleak House, but Esther Somersen, she's almost an ideal of how Dickens wants her to behave.

这里面好像给了不少关于理想主妇的建议。

There's quite a lot of advice being given, it seems, about the ideal housewife in there.

她总是精神饱满，特别热爱做家务，每天还喜欢叮当作响地摆弄那串钥匙。

The way that she's always up and she really loves housework and she wants to jangle those keys every day.

我一直希望埃斯特·索默森在某个时刻能崩溃一下，直接说：我真的懒得干了。

And I think I really always wanted Esther Somersen just at one point to break and just say, actually I can't be bothered to do this.

今天我真的特别烦，这一切都太压人了。

Actually I'm really crossed today and it's just all too much.

但她一直维持着那个完美无瑕的角色。

But she sustains that perfect, perfect role.

我能插一句吗？

Can I just interject?

简·奥斯汀说过，完美的人物让我反胃。

Jane Austen famously wrote pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked.

她是最早明确表示‘我的所有女主角都必须有严重缺陷’的小说家之一。

And she was one of the first novelists to say no, all of my heroines are going to be deeply flawed.