文字之战：哪些书籍改变了世界？

《经济学人》。

The Economist.

你好，欢迎收听《经济学人》的智识节目。

Hello, and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

我是您的主持人，罗斯·布洛尔。

I'm your host, Rosie Bloor.

今天，我们要讨论我最喜爱的话题——书籍。

And today, we're discussing my very favorite thing, books.

每年圣诞节，我们都会邀请我们的记者推荐符合特定主题的书籍。

Every Christmas, we ask our correspondents to talk about books that fit a particular theme.

去年，我们谈论了预测未来的书籍，而今年，我们打算更进一步。

Last year, we talked about books that predict the future, and this year, we thought we're gonna go one bigger.

我们想聊聊那些改变世界的书籍。

We want to talk about books that have changed the world.

为了帮助我翻阅这些书页，我邀请了凯瑟琳·尼克斯来到演播室，她撰写了《黑暗时代》，是我们文化记者，同时也为英国版块撰稿。

To help me leaf through the pages, I'm joined in the studio by Catherine Nixie, who wrote A Darkening Age and is our culture correspondent and also writes for the Britain section.

嗨，凯瑟琳。

Hi, Catherine.

嗨，罗斯。

Hi, Rosie.

我也很高兴邀请到奥利弗·莫顿，他撰写了《月球：未来的历程》，同时也是《经济学人》的高级编辑。

And I'm also joined by Oliver Morton who wrote The Moon, a History for the Future, and is also a senior editor at The Economist.

很高兴你来，奥利。

Nice to have you, Ollie.

很高兴能来这里，罗斯。

Nice to be here, Rosie.

凯瑟琳、奥利，我的第一个问题是：一本书能改变世界吗？

Catherine Ollie, my first question is, can a book change the world?

我认为，几乎没有什么能像书籍那样改变世界。

I think almost nothing other than books changes the world.

当然，最明显的例子是《圣经》。

I mean, obvious one is the bible, of course.

不可能去推演，如果那本书、那些书从未存在，世界会是什么样子。

It's impossible to run a counterfactual on what the world would have been like had that book, books.

这其实更像是一整座图书馆，而不是单本书，如果没有它们，情况就会不同。

It's really a library rather than a book not happened.

但纵观历史，一次又一次，重大的转折点都源于书籍，比如亚里士多德著作的重新发现，文艺复兴时期卢克莱修著作的重现，再到更现代的、改变世界的著作，如《物种起源》。

But, I mean, you go through history, and again and again, the great turning points will come from books, from the rediscovery of Aristotle, from the rediscovery of Lucretius in the Renaissance to more obvious modern books that have changed the world, like On the Origin of Species.

你认为，如果没有神恩的运作，《圣经》还能改变世界吗？

Do you think that the Bible would have changed the world without the operation of divine grace?

一开场就抛出个意外问题。

A curveball right at the beginning.

我不相信上帝。

Well, I don't believe in God.

所以对我来说，是的。

So for me, yes.

好吧。

Okay.

但有趣的是，对于大多数因《圣经》而改变世界或改变自己生活的人来说，这种改变正是因为他们相信上帝。

But the interesting thing is that for most of the people for whom the Bible has changed the world or changed their world, it's changed that because they do believe in God.

不。

No.

所以。

So

是的。

Yes.

嗯，也不是。

Well, no.

我认为这是因为基督徒掌控了罗马帝国。

I think it's changed it because Christians took control of the Roman Empire.

但他们之所以这么做，是因为他们相信上帝。

But that they did that because they believed in God.

好的。

Okay.

我插一句，因为有趣的是，尽管我们都同意《圣经》《古兰经》以及许多其他重要著作值得我们花全部时间讨论，但我更想思考一些可能出人意料、却真正改变了世界的书籍。

I'm gonna cut in here because, funnily enough, although I think we would all agree that the Bible, the Quran, lots of important books there that we could spend our entire time discussing, I wanted to have a think about some more surprising titles that we might think have changed the world.

奥利，我相信你不会推荐《圣经》。

Ollie, I believe you're not recommending the bible.

告诉我们你选择的书是什么。

Tell us what your chosen book is.

我认为改变了世界的书是玛丽·雪莱的《弗兰肯斯坦》。之所以这么说，部分原因是我自己也深受这本书影响。

The book that I would say changed the world, and it's partly, I think, we'll think we may find this in many of these discussions partly because it changed my world, is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

这本书之所以改变了世界，是因为它描绘了世界如何转变：从帕拉塞尔苏斯和炼金术士的旧知识，转向科学的新知识；从将上帝视为创造者，转向人类成为创造者；从个体转向双人关系，作为理解社会与人性的一种方式——也就是‘影子分身’的概念。

It's a book that changed the world in part because it is a book about how the world is changing, about a turning away from the old knowledge of Paracelsus and the alchemist towards the new knowledge of science, a turning away from God as a creator to humans as creators, a turning away from the individual to the dyad as one of the ways in which we understand society and human nature, the idea of a shadow double.

不仅如此，根据英国著名科幻作家兼文学人物布莱恩·奥尔迪斯的说法，这本书是现代科幻小说的基石，而这个说法也确实非常有说服力。

And for all that, as well as that, it's, according to the great British science fiction author and literary figure Brian Aldis, It's the foundation of modern science fiction, and it's certainly as good a call as any as you would have for that.

此后，科幻小说持续影响了人们对未来的思考，甚至塑造了未来本身。

And science fiction has subsequently gone on to change how people think about the future and indeed how people make the future.

那里确实有一些《圣经》的元素。

Definitely some biblical elements there.

凯瑟琳，是的。

Catherine Well, yeah.

我的意思是，你知道，这位女士在写书的时候，她丈夫正在给她朗读《失乐园》，你知道的。

I mean, you know, this is this is a woman who's writing a book while her husband is reading Paradise Lost aloud to her, you know.

是的。

Yeah.

当然。

Absolutely.

凯瑟琳，你对这个选择有什么看法？

Catherine, what do you think of that choice?

好吧，你看。

Well, look.

我得说，科幻小说对我来说是左耳进右耳出。

I have to say science fiction is water off a ducks back to me.

我几乎不读任何科幻小说。

I read almost none of it.

我想问奥利的是，科幻小说如何通过改变科学来改变世界？

And what I'd be interested in asking Ollie is is how does science fiction change the world by changing science?

某种程度上，文学评论家达科·苏文对科幻小说的定义是，它涉及‘新奇物’的引入。

To some extent, the definition of science fiction given by Darko Suvin, a literary critic, that it's about the introduction of the novum.

‘新奇物’是科幻小说中一种必须通过科学来理解的新事物，它会改变书中的世界。

The novum is a is a novelty in science fiction that has to be understood through science and which changes the world of the book.

这使它成为思考普遍变化的一种非常有力的方式。

And that makes it a very powerful way of thinking about change in general.

所以有时候你可以说，是的。

So sometimes you can say, yes.

恰好，独立提出如何制造火箭进入太空并绕地球轨道运行的三个人，都受到了儒勒·凡尔纳的影响。

It so happens that all three of the people who independently worked out how rockets could be made to go into space and orbit the Earth, all three of them were influenced by Gervain.

但更广泛地说，未来变得不可预知，同时又是一个陌生的地方，我认为这在十八世纪、几乎十九世纪的文学中几乎不存在，但在二十世纪的各类小说中，不仅限于类型科幻小说，都能找到这种特征。

But there's also a broader sense that the future becomes unknowable and yet at the same time strange place, which I think is really not present in eighteenth century, almost nineteenth century literature, but which you can find not just in genre science fiction, but in all sorts of fiction in the twentieth century.

好的。

Okay.

我认为我们应该从科幻转向真正的科学。

I think we should go from science fiction to actual science.

我们的同事马特·卡普兰提出了两个建议。

One of our colleagues, Matt Kaplan, had two recommendations.

让我们听听他的建议。

Let's listen to them.

我想推荐的两本书是伽利略的《星际信使》和达尔文的《物种起源》。

The two books that I wanna recommend are Il Sagittari by Galileo Galilei and Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.

先说伽利略。

So Galileo first.

《星际信使》出版于1623年，当时伽利略与阿莱西奥·格拉齐之间爆发了一场激烈的争论。

Published in 1623, Il Sagittari followed a fierce dispute between Galileo and Aracio Gracie.

他们争论的焦点是这些明亮的彗星究竟是围绕地球运行，还是根本不是，从而质疑地球是否为宇宙中心——这在当时是教会极为敏感的话题。

The two of them were going back and forth about whether or not these bright comets were in fact going around the Earth or whether they weren't and that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe, which was a rather hot topic with the church at the time.

伽利略采取了非凡的举措反击格拉齐，指出他的方法一塌糊涂，并在政治上彻底驳斥他：你只是基于信仰和信念，而不是用望远镜进行实际测量。

Galileo made the extraordinary move to fight back against Grassy by pointing out that his methods sucked, and he eviscerated him politically by saying, look, you're just basing this on belief and faith as opposed to actually measuring anything with a telescope.

从那时起，它彻底改变了我们所有的科学研究。

And it transformed everything we did in science from that point forward.

达尔文也做了类似的事情。

Darwin did some very similar stuff.

他通过指出生命是随着时间演化而来的，并解释这种演化是由于自然选择，极大地撼动了科学界。

He shook up science in a big way by pointing out that life evolved over time and explaining that that that occurred because of natural selection.

他还做了许多类似的事情，通过寻求其他科学家的大量专业建议来支持自己，以便在他提出这些极具革命性的观点时，有人能保护他。

He also did a lot of the same stuff by backing himself up by getting a lot of expert advice from other scientists who were gonna protect him when he came out with his pretty revolutionary ideas.

查尔斯·达尔文所讨论的内容也包含巨大的文化层面，因为人们将他的观点解读为：等等，这意味什么？

There was a huge cultural element to what Charles Darwin was writing about too, and that's because Charles Darwin's ideas were taken by human cultures to mean, oh, wait a minute.

并不是一个物种因为占据主导地位就演化并统治生态系统。

So it's not that one species is dominant over another and therefore it evolves and and and dominates an ecosystem.

如果人类社会也是如此呢？

What if human societies are the same way?

因此，无论好坏，他的著作确实以一些相当深远的方式改变了世界。

So for better or for worse, his book really changed the world in some pretty substantial ways.

奥利，我看出你在思考了。

Ollie, I can see a thought brewing.

哦，好吧，有很多想法。

Oh, well, the many thoughts.

对这个建议，你怎么看呢？

Go on many think of that suggestion?

我觉得《射手座》是一本非常有趣的书，但它并不是关于地球不是宇宙中心的。

Well, I think Sagittarius is a it's a very interesting book, but it's not about the earth not being the center of the universe.

它明确不是讲这个的。

It's explicitly not about that.

你可以看到，这本书是献给教皇的，而且它在科学方法这一概念上也不算新颖，因为其中很多内容，培根或格沃斯特特都会完全认同，比如自然是一本数学之书，以及《启示录》——《圣经》。

This you can see this by the fact that the book is dedicated to the pope, and it's also not that novel in its notion of the scientific method because, you know, there's lots in there that Bacon or Gwurstet would be absolutely happy with about the mathematical book of nature as well as the book of Revelation, the Bible.

但考虑到我们今天讨论的方式，将自然比作一本著作来使其显得像上帝的话语，这一点确实很有趣。

But it is interesting given the way we're talking today, though, that the way to make nature seem like the word of God was to analogize it to a book.

这是一个非常有趣的观点，但并非伽利略首创。

So that's a very interesting point, but it's not original to Galileo.

《物种起源》中，马特的观点当然是完全正确的。

On the origin of Species, Matt's, of course, completely right.

这是一本改变世界的书，它提出了关于世界的新且真实的见解，此前从未有人这样说过。

It is a world changing book and that it says something new and true about the world that hasn't been said before.

我认为，从某种意义上说，它的重要性更在于它对世界的阐述，而非赫伯特·斯宾塞等人后来如何运用它——斯宾塞确实曾在《经济学人》工作，他们提出了诸如‘适者生存’之类的观念。

And I think that it's actually more important in some ways for what it says about the world than for what it what is then done with it by Herb Spencer, who indeed worked at The Economist and others with notions such as survival of the fittest.

因此，我认为，在十九世纪的著作中，除了《弗兰肯斯坦》，《物种起源》以及《资本论》或《共产党宣言》无疑都名列前茅。

So I think there's no doubt that of the nineteenth century books, which aren't Frankenstein, I would say on the origin of species and, you know, either Capital or, The Communist Manifesto would definitely be high up on the list.

但难道伽利略不是完美地证明了：即使没人读你的书，或者根本误解了它，你依然可以改变世界吗？

But isn't Galileo a perfect example of the fact that you can change the world even if no one reads your book or indeed doesn't necessarily interpret it correctly.

因为伽利略在我们生活中如此重要，是因为我们知道他挑战了关于世界运行方式的既有观念，也挑战了宗教权威。

Because Galileo is such a figure in our lives because we know that he challenged the received wisdom on how the world worked and also challenged the religious order.

当时这非常震撼，而这也正是他——至少对我来说——所代表的意义。

So at the time, that was very striking, and that's what he, for me anyway, represents.

我从未读过这本书，也永远不会去读。

I've definitely never read the book, and I'm never going to.

我仍然认为，你可以说这本书改变了世界。

I still think you could make the case that that book changed the world.

但你不能，因为这不是那本书。

But you can't because it's not that book.

真正改变世界的，是《关于两门新科学的对话》，它在你所谈论的方面改变了世界。

It's the dialogue on the two new sciences which changes the world in the respect that you're talking about.

这不是以戏剧的形式写的吗？

Isn't it written in the form of a play?

不是。

No.

它是以三边对话的形式写的，就是那种三角色对话。

It's written in the form of a three corn whatever a three corner dialogue is.

它是以对话的形式写的。

It's written as a conversation.

对吧？

Right?

好的。

Okay.

十九世纪的许多人热衷于宣扬伽利略甚至更早的布鲁诺是被教会迫害的科学英雄这一观点。

A lot of nineteenth century people go around bigging up the whole idea that these were that people like Galleo or even more Giordani Bruno were heroes of science persecuted by the church.

其实并没有那么严重。

Really not so much.

我的意思是，布鲁诺确实被烧死了，但那是因为他说了——是因为他说了

I mean, Bruno was admittedly burnt at the stake, but it was for saying but it was for saying

我敬佩你的修正主义忏悔。

I salute your revisionist atonement.

但不是因为他说地球绕着太阳转。

But but it but it was for saying not that the earth goes around the sun.

而是因为他宣称地球绕着太阳转，而且我们应该崇拜太阳。

It was to say that the earth goes around the sun, and we should worship the sun.

你看，这才是困难的地方。

You see, that's the difficult thing.

你知道，这是一个相当困难的立场。

You know, that is a rather difficult position.

我觉得你有点在针尖上讨论天使。

I feel you're slightly angels on pinheads.

你以为你会用余生去思考？不。

Think you spend the rest of your life No.

十九世纪的人们那里有

Nineteenth century people there's

我们可以谈一个很大的问题，我的意思是，我们并不生活在达尔文的时代。

a huge thing we can come into this about I mean, we don't live about about Darwin.

十九世纪的科学家们有一种冲动，想表明自己战胜了宗教，这真是非常自我服务。

There's an there's an urge by nineteenth century scientists to show themselves as vanquishing religion, is so, like, self serving.

凯瑟琳，你写过关于宗教的内容。

Catherine, you write about religion.

我对宗教当局如何回应达尔文的著作感兴趣。

I'm interested in how the religious authorities responded to Darwin's work.

到那时，宗教权威已经相当分散了。

Well, religious authorities were quite dispersed by that point.

我的意思是，存在

I mean, there is

禁书目录，这一目录当时仍在运作；如果你在本世纪上半叶作为天主教徒长大，你上学时借的图书馆书籍上都会盖有天主教会的‘准印’标志。

the index of prohibited books, which was still going, which if you were brought up as a Catholic in the first half of this century, you would have gone to school and your library books would have been stamped with the Imprimata sign of the Catholic church.

我父亲在他就读的天主教寄宿学校就见过这种标志，意思是‘准予出版’。

My father had this at his Catholic boarding school, meaning let it be printed.

这本书适合天主教徒阅读。

This book is acceptable reading for Catholics.

因此，宗教权威在相当长的时间里，对欧洲和美洲的出版内容产生了巨大影响。

So the religious authorities in some senses had a huge impact on what was printed in Europe and America until relatively recently.

但我认为，宗教影响事物的方式远比这更微妙。

But I think I think the way that religion changes things is much more subtle than that.

据我理解，达尔文的一个特点是，他犹豫不决、踌躇不前，担心出版这部作品。

I think one of the things with Darwin, as I understand it, is that he hesitated and havered and was worried about publishing it.

他的妻子非常虔诚。

His wife was very Christian.

他本人曾是基督徒，内心经历了巨大的挣扎。

He himself had been Christian, and he has a huge internal wrestle.

他并不认为自己是那种要斩杀教会的真理之焰。

He doesn't see himself as the sort of flaming sword of truth that's going to kind of decapitate the church.

他一生最初是宗教的，要摆脱自己的宗教信仰对他来说并不容易。

He begins life religious, and it's not an easy thing for him to be removed from his religiosity.

有一个关于他的精彩记载：他得知了一种黄蜂，它通过将卵产在另一种动物的体内来繁殖，然后幼虫会吃掉宿主。

There's a wonderful account of him finding out about this wasp which reproduces by laying its eggs in the stomach of another animal, and then it eats the animal.

但它会从内到外吃掉那只动物，这对那只动物来说可一点都不好受。

But it eats the animal from the inside out, which is no fun for that other animal.

他说：我无法相信，一个神圣而全能的创造者会创造出这种黄蜂。

And he said, I cannot believe that a divine, all powerful creator would have created this wasp.

但我想，这正是宗教无法自圆其说的地方。

But that, I think, is how religious it it doesn't work.

几乎总是，任何形式的压迫，人们都认为它来自被烧死在火刑柱上。

Almost always, oppression of any kind, people think it it comes from being burnt at the stake.

如果你是这样，这显然会让人感到不适。

And and obviously, that's a bit off putting if you are.

但大多数情况下，它表现为在推特上被网络暴力攻击。

But mostly, it comes through the modern equivalent as being flamed on Twitter.

它来自于感受到被同龄人社会排斥。

It's through feeling socially excluded from your peers.

它来自于担心会伤害你所爱的人。

It's through feeling you might hurt people that you love.

你提前在自己的心中设下障碍，以预想他人会设下的障碍。

You put the barriers on your own mind in anticipation of what the other barriers are going to be.

所以我认为这就是宗教如何改变这一切的。

So I think that's how religion changes it.

而且，每打开一本书，开启一个新世界，另一个世界就会随之关闭。

And also that with every book that opens a world, another world is closed.

因此，维多利亚时代的基督教对达尔文做出了回应，当然，还有与威尔伯福斯那场著名的辩论。

So that the the Christianity in the Victorian era responded to Darwin, of course, and there's the famous debate with Wilberforce.

但如果你阅读这个时代的书籍，会感受到一种失落感。

But if you read books of this era, there's a sense of loss too.

人们真的为失去宗教所带来的慰藉和安慰而感到悲伤。

People are really sad to have the thing, the comfort, the sucker of religion removed from their lives.

你知道，马修·阿诺德在《多佛海滩》中写道，那漫长的退潮轰鸣。

You know, Matthew Arnold on Dover Beach, the long withdrawing roar.

拉斯金写道，他希望相信，但每次翻开圣经，总能听到地质学家那该死的锤击声。

Ruskin writes of saying that he wants to believe, but he keeps hearing the damn hammers of the geologists every time he opens the Bible.

在这场书籍的宏大博弈中，有胜利者，而我们正在谈论他们。

There are victors in this great game of books, and we're talking about them.

也有失败者，每次当我们面对失败者时，我们自己也都会失去一些东西。

And there are losers, and we all lose a little every time with the losers too.

凯瑟琳，我觉得你刚刚为我们提供了完美的过渡。

Catherine, I feel like you've given us the perfect segue there.

你谈到了内心中的障碍，当然，这些障碍并不总是在我们的脑海中。

You talked about barriers in one's own mind, and, of course, they're not always in our mind.

跟我们说说你的推荐吧。

Tell us about your recommendation.

哪一本书改变了世界？

What book changed the world?

所以我选择了弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的《自己的房间》，这本书确实改变了我的人生。

So I've chosen Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, which changed my life, definitely.

我读它的时候就像遭到了雷击，它改变了女性文学。

I I it was like a thunderbolt when I read it, and it has changed women's literature.

它无疑改变了女性小说。

It has changed women's fiction without a doubt.

我的意思是，伍尔夫无论如何都会做到的。

I mean, Woolf would have done anyway.

对于那些还没读过她作品的人，她是二十世纪伟大的现代主义作家， arguably 是二十世纪最伟大的现代主义作家。

For those who haven't read her, she was a great modernist of the twentieth century, arguably the greatest modernist of the twentieth century.

我看到奥利弗挑了挑眉毛。

I Oliver's raising his eyebrows.

我我

I I

我反对把我的眉毛扯进来。

object to having my eyebrows brought into this.

我替我的膈肌说话，而不是替我的前额说话。

I I I I will speak for my for my diaphragm, not for my forehead.

但这本书有趣的地方在于，我们刚才谈论的都是些高大上的理想，而她的《一间自己的房间》却非常具体。

But what's interesting about the book is is that we're going to talk we we are talking we have been talking in quite highfalutin ideals, and her book of Rum of One's Own is very concrete.

这正是我喜欢伍尔夫的一点。

And this is one of the things I love about Woolf.

如今，当人们谈论女权主义时，他们会使用诸如父权制、结构性这和那种废话之类的词语。

Today, when people talk about feminism, they will use words like patriarchy and structural this and nonsense that.

这些词我从来都不喜欢，我实在不擅长写那些我摸不着的东西。

Words that I can never I don't really like writing about things that I can't touch.

我觉得这正是伍尔夫在这本书中精准把握的地方。

And I feel that this is what Woolf absolutely nails in this book.

她被要求撰写关于女性与小说的话题，这是一件非常宏大的事。

She is asked to write on women and fiction, and it's a very grand thing.

她说，也许我应该对简·奥斯汀提出一些看法，或者谈一谈夏洛特·勃朗特。

And she says, well, maybe I should offer some thoughts on Jane Austen, or maybe I should say a little bit about Charlotte Bronte.

而事实上，她指出，女性要写小说，需要一间属于自己的房间和一些钱。

And in fact, what she says is to write fiction, a woman needs a room of one's own and some money.

这正是最有趣的地方，因为文学界的人从不谈论金钱。

And that's the really interesting thing because literary people don't talk about money.

金钱似乎低于文学关怀的范畴。

Money is sort of beneath literary concerns.

我读过一部文学史，它的索引里什么都有。

I was reading a history of literature, and it had in the index, it had everything.

它包含了文学中的女性、文学中的龙、文学中的巨人。

It had women in literature, dragons in literature, ogres in literature.

但你可能会以为，书籍只是出于善意和充满热情的心灵，急切地将文字从纸上搬下来。

But money, you would assume that books had just been made by goodwill and and brimming hearts that were just eager to take words off the page.

但金钱很重要，对女性而言尤其如此。

But money matters, and it matters to women.

这本书细致入微，始终具体实在，充满了精彩的片段。

And this book is nitty gritty and always concrete all the way through, and it has these wonderful vignettes.

它以她在剑桥的场景开篇，她想去图书馆。

It opens with her in Cambridge, and she wants to go to a library.

她沿着河岸漫步，思考着自己要写些什么。

And she's walking along the banks of the river, and she's she's thinking about what she's going to write.

就在她觉得自己的意识流中有一条思想之鱼游过时，她突然意识到一个男人正朝她走来，大声喊叫。

And just at the moment when she thinks she's sort of a fish of thought has swung through her stream of consciousness, she realizes a man is approaching at her and shouting at her.

他走到她面前，因为她走在草地上。

And he comes up to her because she's walking on the grass.

如果你曾去过牛津或剑桥，就知道那里到处都是用大写字母写着‘请勿踩踏草地’的标牌。

Now if any of you have visited Oxford and Cambridge, you know, it's peppered with signs saying keep off the grass in capitals.

大写字母。

Capitals.

她慌乱地离开了草地，他说只有学者和院士才能走在草地上。

And she's flustered, and she gets off the grass, and he says only scholars and fellows can go on the grass.

于是她说，碎石路才是我的地方。

And so she says, the gravel is the place for me.

事情就这样继续下去。

And it goes on like that.

她去了图书馆。

She goes to the library.

她被拒之门外。

She's barred from the library.

她去男子学院吃午餐。

She goes to a lunch at a man's college.

有饮品。

There's drink.

有波特酒。

There's port.

有羔羊肉，还有精彩的对话。

There's lamb, and there's great conversation.

她去参加女性的午餐，吃的是李子干和蛋奶酥。

She goes to a woman's lunch, and there's prunes and custard.

她说，我们从这些事情中能学到关于女性与小说的什么？

And she says, what what do we learn from this about women and fiction?

事实上，这些都是一些无关紧要的小事。

And and in fact, these are these are nothings.

被要求离开草坪、不被允许进入图书馆，这些事稍微严重一点，但午餐吃李子干，这有什么关系呢？

Being told to get off the grass, being not allowed into a library is is is a bit bigger, but eating prunes for lunch, why does this matter?

她在六章的叙述中，明确告诉你为什么这至关重要，而这关乎一切。

And she, in the course of six chapters, tells you exactly why it matters, and it's everything.

她对挫折的描述也很到位。

And she's good on discouragement.

我们之前提到过挫败感。

We mentioned discouragement earlier.

但一些小事对你的生活有着巨大影响，比如挫败感，比如因为有个小孩子跑过来你就什么也做不了。

But how small things have big impacts on your life, like discouragement, like not being able to do anything because a little child is coming up to you.

而她在这段中著名地谈到了莎士比亚的妹妹。

And she and and this is the one where she famously talks about Shakespeare's sister.

如果莎士比亚有个妹妹会怎样？

What if Shakespeare had had a sister?

我想很多人会通过这一点来记住这篇散文，但它充满了这些美好而细微却至关重要的细节。

And I think that's how many people will will remember this essay, but it's full of these wonderful, tiny, yet huge details.

毫无疑问，从你描述的方式来看——这非常精彩——这是现代人检视自身特权的一个绝佳例子，她清楚地知道自己拥有属于自己的房间。

It is undoubtedly from the way you portray it, which is wonderful, the one of the great examples of the modern tendency to check your privilege, that she absolutely knows that she does have a room of her own.

是的。

Yes.

是的。

Yes.

她还说，你知道，我不能只想着我的宏大思想。

And and and she's and she's saying, you know, and I can't just think my grand thoughts.

我必须考虑那些让我能够产生这些想法的物质条件。

I have to think about the material circumstances which allow me to have these thoughts.

我觉得这太棒了。

I think that's I I think that's wonderful.

是的。

Yeah.

她也非常坦率地谈到了自己是如何获得这些的。

And she's very open about how she gets it as well.

她还写到了自己赚了多少钱，而作家们通常不会这么做，因为他们往往不会。

And she also writes about how much she has paid, which writers don't usually, like, often because they're not.

但她谈到了自己从《泰晤士报文学增刊》获得的第一篇评论稿酬，我认为这大概和现在你从《泰晤士报文学增刊》获得的稿酬差不多。

But she talks about how much she gets for her first review from The Times Literary Supplement, which I think is probably about the same as you get for a review now the Times Literary Supplement.

但这很重要，对作家们来说很重要。

But this matters, and it matters to writers.

如果你吃不饱，你就无法思考。

And you can't think if you're not fed.

如果你为账单发愁，你就无法思考。

You can't think if you're worried about bills.

如果孩子拉着你的围裙角，你就无法思考。

You can't think if if if a child is tugging at your apron strings.

我觉得这对我来说意义重大。

And I think it meant a lot to me.

我的确写了几本书，而且这两本书都是在照顾幼儿的同时写成的。

I mean, I I've written a couple of books, and and both of them I wrote while also looking after small children.

我记得有些《格列佛游记》的插图中，描绘了格列佛躺在小人国里，被上千根细小的绳子捆住。

And I remember there's an illustration in some books of Gulliver's Travels of a picture of Gulliver lying down in the Lilliputian land, and he's tied over by a thousand tiny, tiny ropes.

每根绳子都很细小，但整体效果却让他无法起身。

And each rope is tiny, yet the overall effect is that he can't get up.

我认为对那些正在挣扎的人而言，这可能就是他们的处境，而你需要自由才能写作。

And I think for those who are struggling, this can be what it's like, and you need to be free to write.

凯瑟琳，你为我们精彩地引出了小说的话题。

Catherine, you've brought us beautifully to fiction.

当我们向同事们征询哪些书被认为改变了世界时，有一个观点频繁出现。

And when we asked colleagues for recommendations of what books they thought had changed the world, one aim came up a lot.

因此，为了讨论这一点，我想我们现在连线的是我们的中东编辑乔西·德拉普。

So to discuss that, I think we're joined on the line by Josie DeLapp, our Middle East editor.

乔西，你好。

Josie, hi.

嗨，罗斯。

Hi, Rose.

我想你一直在听。

You've been listening in, I think.

是的，我在听。

I have.

是的。

Yes.

非常享受。

With great enjoyment.

我

I'm

真惊讶你没插话。

amazed you didn't butt in.

告诉我们你的选择吧，乔西。

Tell us about your choice, Josie.

正如你所说，我认为凯瑟琳说得非常到位。

Well, as you said, I think Catherine brings us perfectly.

是简·奥斯汀的《傲慢与偏见》。

It is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

今年是简·奥斯汀诞辰二百五十周年，因此备受关注，但这本书确实是一部伟大的作品。

It's the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Jane Austen's birth this year, so I think there is a lot of attention on it, but it is just truly a great book.

我认为凯瑟琳之前谈到弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫时提到的许多观点，其实都与简·奥斯汀有关。

And I think actually a lot of what Catherine was talking about in relation to Virginia Woolf ties in with Jane Austen.

《傲慢与偏见》讲述了班纳特姐妹的浪漫与婚姻经历，以及这些经历对她们命运的影响。

Pride and Prejudice is the story of the Bennett sisters and their romantic and marital adventures and the effect that all of this has on their fortunes.

我认为《傲慢与偏见》最引人注目的地方在于，它以极其轻盈的笔触严肃对待人们的日常事务，尤其是女性的日常生活。

And I think what's so striking about Pride and Prejudice is the way that it takes seriously, although always with a very light touch, the domestic concerns of people, but predominantly women.

她将女性塑造为不仅仅是男性之间争夺的战利品，或统治者之间交易的物品，而是拥有自主选择并承担后果的行动者，对她们而言，婚姻无疑是生活中最重要的事情。

She sets women up not just as trophies to be exchanged by men to be won on the battlefield or between rulers, but as actors whose choices have consequences and for whom marriage was understandably the most important thing in their life.

这种选择的影响远不止浪漫，尽管浪漫确实是其中一部分，更重要的是，婚姻是一种极其重要的社会与经济制度。

That the impact of this choice, which wasn't all about romance, though that was clearly a part of it, but was this incredibly important social and economic institution.

我认为她以一种改变了人们对婚姻制度、女性在社会中的地位以及她们关切之重要性的理解方式，认真对待了这一切。

And I think she took that seriously in a way that changed how people think about marriage as an institution and how people think about women's place in society and the significance of their concerns.

而且，它的文笔优美至极。

And, of course, it's beautifully written.

美得令人惊叹。

It's gorgeous.

事实上，我们在讨论书籍时竟然很少提到这一点：你得真的想读它们。

Which is actually surprisingly something that hasn't come up in our discussion about books is that you gotta want to read them.

我确信，正如你所说，除了社会评论和书中的亲密感之外，这本书依然是一部绝佳的读物。

And I'm sure that aside, as you say, from the social commentary and the sort of intimacy of the book, it's also just still a fantastic read.

没错。

Right.

她很幽默，也很机智，你知道吗，当柯林斯先生向莉齐求婚时，她能让你脚趾都蜷起来。

She's funny and she's witty and, you know, she can make your toes curl when mister Collins proposes to Lizzie.

你就坐在那儿，感觉简直等不及这一切快点结束。

You just sit there with, you know, feeling like you just can't wait for it to be over.

她通过如此精彩的对话做到了这一点。

And she does it with such brilliant dialogue.

我觉得，这正是为什么《傲慢与偏见》——以及她许多其他作品——能够非常成功地改编成影视作品的原因之一。

You know, I think that's one of the reasons why I mean, Pride and Prejudice in particular, but so many of her books have translated very well to the screen.

我读这些书时，对此感到非常惊讶。

This is what I was amazed at when I read them.

我想我是在读《傲慢与偏见》之前就看过它的电影。

I think I saw Pride and Prejudice before I read it.

是的。

Yeah.

我以为是安德鲁·戴维斯执导的著名版本，由科林·费尔斯和詹妮弗·艾莉主演。

And I thought Andrew Davis the famous Andrew Davis, Colin Firth, Jennifer Ealy adaptation.

我以为安德鲁·戴维斯是对话大师，然后我

And I had thought that Andrew Davis was a master of dialogue, then I

读了之后，我想，没错，就是这样。

read it, and I thought, you know Exactly.

他擅长删减叙述部分。

He's a master of crossing out the the narration.

我的意思是，这

I mean, it

一定是史上最容易改编的作品了。

must have been, like, the world's easiest adaptation to do.

她的书几乎就是剧本，不是吗？

Her books are more or less plays, aren't they?

而且，它们非常、非常、非常依赖对话。

And, they're they're very, very, very dialogue heavy.

完全正确。

Totally.

完全正确。

Totally.

它们和托马斯·哈代那样的作家作品截然不同，哈代的作品有大段描写荒凉田野和苦难的段落。

And they're sort of so different from the work of somebody like Thomas Hardy where you have those long descriptions of bleak fields and misery.

它们只是熠熠生辉。

They just sparkle.

不过，我认为你也得回应罗斯的观点，即从改变世界的角度来看，两个世纪以来《傲慢与偏见》带给人们的巨大愉悦，绝不能被轻视。

I think, though, you've got you've got to speak also to to Rose's point, which is that in terms of changing the world, the sheer amount of delight that has been afforded to people for two hundred years by Pride and Prejudice should not be set at naught.

没错。

No.

没错。

No.

确实如此。

It's true.

快乐是一种强烈的

Joy is a much I

我记得在东京的一家酒店房间里重读这本书，感到无比愉悦。

remember rereading it in a hotel room in Tokyo and just being absolutely delighted.

乔西，请再留一会儿，因为我很好奇你是否读过一位同事推荐的另一本书，这本书以婚礼开头，稍微让人联想到《傲慢与偏见》，但背景完全不同。

Josie, stay with us for a minute because I'm interested to know whether you've read another book that a colleague suggested, which begins with a wedding, so it slightly recalls Pride and Prejudice, but very different setting.

这是我们的全球商业作家沙利斯·奇特尼斯。

Here's Shalis Chitnis, who's our global business writer.

我选的这本书叫《一个合适的男孩》，作者是维克拉姆·塞思。

The book I have picked is called a suitable boy by Vikram Seth.

我第一次读这本书是在大学当学生的时候。

I read this as a as a young student in college for the first time.

表面上看，这是一个相当简单的故事。

And on surface, it's a pretty simple story.

故事讲述了一位印度母亲，正如书名所示，想为她的女儿找一个合适的丈夫。

It's about an Indian mother who wants to find a suitable boy, as the title suggests, for her daughter.

它生动地描绘了印度刚刚获得独立时期的景象，我认为它以一种非常优美的方式做到了这一点。

It paints a very vivid picture of India at a time when it the country had just gotten independence, and I think it does in it a very beautiful way.

我认为，在《合适的男孩》之前，至少从我的角度来看，每当我阅读印度英语文学时，很多作品都以西方为参照，或反映西方对印度的看法。

I think before Suitable Boy, at least from my perspective, whenever I read English Indian literature, a lot of it was with reference to the West or how the West perceived it.

因此，尽管印度可能是世界上英语使用者最多的国家之一，但长期以来，在英语文学领域，其风格要么受英国影响，要么受美国影响，决定了作品应该如何书写。

So even though India is probably one of the largest English speaking countries in the world, for a long time in terms of English literature, it took its skews either from Britain or America in terms of how things need to be written.

我认为有两本书真正打破了这种模式。

I think two books really broke that mold.

一本是阿兰达蒂·洛伊的《微物之神》，另一本就是我们正在讨论的这本书——维克拉姆·塞思的《合适的男孩》。

One is a god of small things by Arundhati Roy, and the other is, a suitable boy by Vikram Seth, the book we are talking about right now.

我认为它之所以重要，是因为它拥有鲜明的印度声音，故事背景设定在一个许多印度人自己都能产生共鸣的印度，而非外来者的视角。

And I think the reason it was important is because it had a very distinctive Indian voice, and it was set in an India that a lot of Indians themselves could identify with, not really an outsider in perspective.

所以，这就是我觉得这本书非常有趣的原因。

So that's the reason I thought it was it was really interesting.

我记得这本书也是一本巨著。

It was also, as I remember, an absolutely giant book.

我认为这是有史以来最长的书籍之一。

I think it's one of the longest books ever published.

页数将近1500页。

There's nearly 1,500 pages.

是吗？

Isn't it?

我还没读过，就是这个原因。

That's the thing that I have not read it.

这真是件令人遗憾的事。

That is that is the the sad thing.

我也没读过，原因完全一样。

I have not read it for exactly the same reasons.

但Chesh说得好像我真的应该读一读似的。

But Chesh makes it sound like maybe I really should read it.

我希望他真的和我们在一起，因为我想问他关于《午夜之子》的事。

I wish he was actually with us because I'd like to ask him about Midnight's Children.

是的。

Yeah.

我想到一本进入我脑海的书。

I was was a book that came in that came into my mind.

和《微物之神》以及阿兰达蒂·洛伊的作品相契合。

Fit in with with set and with Arundhati Roy.

所以我们只能明年再聚，看看情况如何。

And so we'll just have to reconvene next year and find out about that.

我会的。

I will.

我对此也有过一些想法。

I I had a thought about that as well.

但是，乔西，你读过《合适的人》吗？

But, Josie, have you read A Suitable Boy?

没有。

No.

原因完全一样。

For exactly the same reason.

sheer 的篇幅。

The sheer heft.

但正如你所说，沙伊莱什让这本书听起来极具吸引力，我被这个故事的描述及其普遍性深深打动了。

But but as you say, Shailesh makes it sound extremely appealing, and I'm struck by the the description of the story and and the universality.

我想我们通常不会把简·奥斯汀和维克拉姆·塞特经常放在一起讨论，但你知道，婚姻这类主题的核心地位，以及它们在我们所谈的书中所占的重要分量。

I think we probably wouldn't talk about Jane Austen and and Vikram Seth very often together, but, you know, the centrality of the themes of things like marriage and and how much they feature in the books that we're talking about.

这是一本非常出色的小说，充满讽刺和犀利的笔触，背景设定在独立后的印度，极为非凡。

It is a very brilliant book, and it's very kind of satirical and sharp, and it's got this, you know, extraordinary backdrop of of post independence India.

但你刚才提到了萨尔曼·鲁西迪。

But you referred to Salman Rushdie there.

我觉得维克拉姆·塞特之所以有趣，是因为他真正带我们走进了印度的内心，而《撒旦诗篇》虽然也极难读懂，却因教令引发了巨大争议。

I mean, I think one of the reasons why Vikram Seth is interesting is because it really does take us into the heart of India, whereas I think the satanic verses was also greatly unread, but was a huge controversy because, of course, of the fatwa.

我认为，维克拉姆·塞斯的这部作品实际上是早期作品之一，它展现了来自南印度、背景设定在当地的文学繁荣，而这种繁荣并未因有人对某事发表评论而引发争议。

And I think that actually, Vikram Seth was one of the early books where we've had such a flourishing of of literature from South India that's absolutely set there that hasn't been controversial because someone said this about that.

因为它是一部杰出的文学作品。

It's because it's fantastic literature.

它很有趣，并且确实触及到

It is interesting, and it does touch on the

我的意思是，拉什迪自己也说过，大多数讨厌他这本书的人其实根本没读过，或许是因为意识形态的原因，但书籍即使无人阅读，也能改变事物。

point of I mean, Rushdie said this himself, that most people who hated his book had not read his book, perhaps for ideological reasons, but how books can change things even when no one's read them.

所以我们现在谈论的是出版界的轰动之作，如果不提《哈利·波特》似乎就欠妥了，这是我们的另一位同事提出的建议。

So we're talking about publishing sensations, and it feels like it would be remiss not to mention Harry Potter, which was suggested by another of our colleagues.

我是雷切尔·劳埃德。

I'm Rachel Lloyd.

我是《经济学人》副文化编辑，我想推荐《哈利·波特》系列书籍。

I'm The Economist Deputy Culture Editor, and I would like to offer the Harry Potter books.

是的。

Yes.

整个系列，而不仅仅是一本书

The whole series rather than just

作为改变世界的作品

one book as the books that

改变了世界。

changed the world.

这些书改变世界的方式有很多显而易见之处。

And there are many obvious ways in which these books changed the world.

它们在全球售出了超过六亿册，构成了一个价值数十亿美元的商业帝国。

They've sold more than 600,000,000 copies at the basis of a multibillion franchise.

哈利·波特在出版界引发了深远变革。

Harry Potter changed publishing itself in its wake.

无数作者试图复制J.K.罗琳那种神奇的配方，但极少有人成功。

Umpteen authors tried to find that same magical recipe that JK Rowling had, and very few succeeded.

凯瑟琳，你认为哈利·波特为何如此成功？

Katherine, why do you think Harry Potter has been quite so successful?