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The author of the V. I. Warshawski novels, most recently “Critical Mass,” was hugely influenced by “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”: “I felt as though I’d fallen into words and wanted to drown in them.”
我努力想读托马斯·皮克迪(Thomas Piketty)的《二十一世纪资本论》(Capital in the Twenty-First Century)，但总想转去看小说。现在正在看的是约翰·威廉姆斯(John Williams)的《斯托纳》(Stoner)和克劳德·艾兹内(Claude Izner)的《巴黎扼杀案》(Strangled in Paris)。 Who is your favorite novelist of all time? And your favorite novelist writing today? 有史以来你最喜欢的小说家是谁？现在仍在写作的小说家中你最喜欢的是谁？ I don’t have an all-time favorite. There are books I reread or wish I’d written. I love the Victorians: Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, in that order. I loved “Gilead” and “Wolf Hall,” which is a staggering achievement. I reread Barbara Pym and Jane Austen and my old detective favorites when I’m stressed out. 我没有最喜欢的小说家。有些小说我会反复读，希望是自己写的。我很喜欢维多利亚时代的小说家：依次是伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔(Elizabeth Gaskell)、查尔斯·狄更斯(Charles Dickens)和乔治·艾略特(George Eliot)。我很喜欢《基列家书》(Gilead)和《狼厅》(Wolf Hall)，后者是了不起的成就。压力大的时候，我会重读芭芭拉·皮姆(Barbara Pym)和简·奥斯汀(Jane Austen)的小说以及我最喜欢的老侦探小说。 Who are your favorite writers of detective fiction? 你最喜欢的侦探小说作家是谁？ Margery Allingham among the classics. Peter Dickinson, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Dorothy Hughes. 玛格丽·阿林厄姆(Margery Allingham)是其中一位经典作家。还有彼得·迪金森(Peter Dickinson)、多萝西·索尔兹伯里·戴维斯(Dorothy Salisbury Davis)和多萝西·休斯(Dorothy Hughes)。 Which do you consider the best detective stories of all time, and why? 你认为有史以来最好的侦探故事是哪些？为什么？ Anna Katharine Green, for defining the consulting detective for the 19th century; Wilkie Collins, for playing with the form and transforming it; Dashiell Hammett, for reinventing the form for the 20th century; the Holmes oeuvre, for making detective fiction popular in both Great Britain and America; Amanda Cross and Lillian O’Donnell, for opening the door that enabled Marcia Muller, Linda Barnes, Sue Grafton and me to challenge the form in new ways. 安娜·凯瑟琳·格林(Anna Katharine Green)描绘了19世纪的顾问侦探；威尔基·科林斯(Wilkie Collins)尝试并改造了这个题材；达希尔·哈米特(Dashiell Hammett)在20世纪重新创作了该题材；福尔摩斯系列让侦探小说在英国和美国都很流行；阿曼达·克罗斯(Amanda Cross)和莉莲·奥唐奈(Lillian O’Donnell)打开了一扇门，让马西娅·马勒(Marcia Muller)、琳达·巴尔内斯(Linda Barnes)、苏·格拉夫顿(Sue Grafton)和我能够用新的方式挑战这种题材。 What makes a good detective novel? 怎样才能写出一部好看的侦探小说？ Believable characters first, a good story, an understanding of how to pace dramatic action. I like commitment by a writer, to the form, to the story — there are lots of slick writers of crime fiction who aren’t writing out of passion, but for the market. They write good English sentences, but for me, the lack of commitment makes them uninteresting. 首先要有可信的人物，然后得有个好故事，而且要知道如何推动情节发展。我喜欢作家的投入，对这种题材和这个故事的投入——有很多圆滑的犯罪小说作家不是出于热爱而是为了市场写作。他们写出了很好的英文句子，但是在我看来，他们不够投入，所以写出的小说没有趣味。 Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite? 你最喜欢自己写的哪本小说？ My books all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if I had to choose, I’d pick “Hardball.” It’s very personal because the back story is in the civil rights movement in Chicago in the 1960s. That’s when I first came here, working as a volunteer on the city’s extremely turbulent South Side. 我的书各有优缺点，但是如果我必须选一本的话，我会选《强硬手段》(Hardball)。它非常有个人色彩，因为它是以20世纪60年代芝加哥的民权运动为背景的。那时候我刚到这里，在极度混乱的南区做志愿者。 You earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. Do you still enjoy reading history? Who are your favorite historians to read? 你在芝加哥大学获得了历史学博士学位。现在你还喜欢读历史学方面的书吗？你最喜欢读哪些史学家的作品？ Richard Hofstadter was a great stylist; 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of his “Paranoid Style in American Politics,” which is as insightful a dissection of our country today as it was when he first published it. My dissertation dealt with the 19th-century roots of fundamentalism in America. I read a fair amount of natural history as background — Darwin, some of the early geologists, a lot of the moral philosophers. I still like to read natural history — Neil Shubin’s “Your Inner Fish” is also on my night stand. 理查德·霍夫施塔特(Richard Hofstadter)有独特的风格。2014年是他的《美国政治的偏执风格》(Paranoid Style in American Politics)出版50周年。这本书是对我们国家的深刻剖析，和它刚出版时一样意义重大。我的学位论文与19世纪美国基要主义的根源有关。为此我读了大量自然历史方面的书——达尔文(Darwin)的书、一些早期地质学家的书和很多道德哲学家的书。现在我仍然喜欢读自然历史方面的书，尼尔·舒宾(Neil Shubin)的《你是怎么来的》(Your Inner Fish)也在我的床头柜上。 What do you like to read when you travel? 你旅行的时候喜欢读什么书？ Partway through “Wolf Hall” I went to England on tour. I carried that big, fat book across the Atlantic, couldn’t wait to finish my events so I could go back to it — I’d read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. 《狼厅》读到一半时，我去英国旅行。我带着那本厚重的书越过大西洋，往往是活动还没结束我就迫不及待地想回去读它，一直读到眼睛睁不开才停下来。 What do you like reading right before bed? 你喜欢在入睡前读什么书？ Short stories, mostly. Joan Wickersham’s “The News From Spain” and Jaan Kross’s “The Conspiracy” are two that I’ve just finished. I have insomnia, and sometimes at 3 in the morning, I read from “The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon,” a journal kept by a woman at the 11th-century Japanese imperial court, and then write in my own journal in her style: Seven Things That Bring Me Pleasure; Eight Things Over Which I Have No Control. 大多是短篇小说。我刚读完的两本——琼·威克沙姆(Joan Wickersham)的《来自西班牙的消息》(The News From Spain)和扬·克罗斯(Jaan Kross)的《阴谋》(The Conspiracy)。我经常失眠，有时会在凌晨3点读清少纳言的《枕草子》，它是11世纪日本宫廷的一个女子写的日记，然后我也用她的风格写日记：给我带来快乐的七件事；我完全无法控制的八件事。 What kind of reader were you as a child? 你小时候是什么样的读者？ I was a flashlight-under-the-covers reader. I loved books about girls doing active things — biographies of women like the astronomer Maria Mitchell, or Harriet Tubman or Marie Curie. I read Laura Ingalls Wilder, all the Alcott books and a wonderful out-of-print German novel, “The Wicked Enchantment.” As an adult, I realize it is a parable of the Nazi takeover of Germany, but as a child I loved the brave heroine, her little dog Winnie and the aunts who look after them both. 我小时候喜欢躲在被窝里打着手电筒看书。我很喜欢关于积极主动的女孩子的书——比如天文学家玛丽亚·米切尔(Maria Mitchell)，还有哈丽雅特·塔布曼(Harriet Tubman)和玛丽·居里(Marie Curie)等女人的传记。我读过劳拉·英戈尔斯·怀尔德(Laura Ingalls Wilder)的书，奥尔科特(Alcott)所有的书，还有一部精彩的绝版德国小说《邪恶的魔法》(The Wicked Enchantment)。长大后，我才知道它是关于纳粹控制德国的寓言故事，但小时候我很喜欢里面那位勇敢的女主人公、她的小狗维尼以及照顾她俩的姨妈们。 If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be? 如果你必须选一本对你影响最大的书，你会选哪本？ When I first read “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” at 17, I felt as though I’d fallen into words and wanted to drown in them. I reread the book 20 or 30 times and longed to write like Joyce. I used to practice Joycean sentences and punctuation. 17岁时，我第一次读《一个青年艺术家的画像》，感觉自己好像掉进了文字里，想一直沉浸在其中。这本书我读了二三十遍，渴望自己能像乔伊斯那样写作。我过去常常练习乔伊斯式的句子和断句方式。 If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? 如果你能要求总统读一本书，你会选哪一本？ Kafka’s “The Trial,” so he realized how futile it is to try to find meaning in the ways Congress reacts to his initiatives. 卡夫卡(Kafka)的《审判》(The Trial)，这样他就会明白，努力寻找国会对他提案的反应方式的意义是徒劳无功的。 You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited? 假如你要举办一个文学宴会派对，你会邀请哪三位作家？ P. D. James, who is always witty and engaging; Shakespeare, to hear that language spoken by himself; and Sappho. The four of us would all miraculously understand modern and Renaissance English and ancient Greek. P·D·詹姆斯(P. D. James)，他总是幽默迷人；莎士比亚(Shakespeare)，听他本人朗读自己的作品；萨福(Sappho)。而且我们四个奇迹般地都能听懂现代英语、文艺复兴时期的英语和古希腊语。 Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing? 失望，评价过高，不好看：哪些书让你觉得自己应该会喜欢但实际上不喜欢？你还记得上一本没看完就放下的书吗？ “War and Peace.” I read all 1,400-plus pages. The first 100-page riff on the great Russian soul was interesting. During the second hundred-page riff, I thought, This is dull, but maybe it’s a reinforcing literary device. When I got to the third, I wanted to take a blue pencil to the text. And then I reached the end, and it turns out that Natasha’s brooding artistic yearnings are symptoms of a mental illness for which pregnancy is the cure. She’s become fat and is ecstatically inspecting a soiled diaper. 《战争与和平》(War and Peace)。我读完了全部1400多页。前100页反复讲述那个伟大的俄罗斯灵魂，挺有趣的。到第二个100页，我心想，这很无趣，但它可能是个用于强化的文学手段。到了第三个100页，我想删除某些段落。读到最后我发现，娜塔莎(Natasha)徘徊不去的艺术渴望是一种精神疾病的症状，而怀孕能治这种病。她变胖了，如醉如痴地检查一块脏尿布。 Last book I didn’t finish — “The Luminaries.” I read 120 pages and couldn’t get engaged by any of the characters. 我没有读完的上一本书是《发光体》(The Luminaries)。我读了120页，里面没有一个人物吸引我。 What’s the one book you wish someone else would write? 你希望将来有人写一本什么书？ A history of the women in physics in the 20th century. I read as much as I could find for background to my recent novel, “Critical Mass.” Maria Rentetzi has written some of that story, but very little is known about women who did major work in the field (Ellen Gleditsch, Marietta Blau and others). 20世纪女物理学家的历史。我在写最新小说《临界物质》时，为了了解背景知识读了所有我能找到的书。玛丽亚·伦特茨(Maria Rentetzi)写了一些这方面的故事，但我们对在这一领域做出重要贡献的女人（埃伦·格莱迪奇[Ellen Gleditsch]和玛丽埃塔·布劳[Marietta Blau]等）知之甚少。 Whom would you want to write your life story? 你想让谁来写你的人生故事？ I’d love Elizabeth Gaskell to do for me what she did for Charlotte Bront"e. 我想让伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔(Elizabeth Gaskell)写我的故事，就像她写夏洛蒂·勃朗特(Charlotte Bront"e)那样。 What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet? 有哪些书你还没读过并为此感到难为情？ Lots. “Don Quixote,” “The Canterbury Tales,” “Gravity’s Rainbow.” I know I’ll never read “Paradise Lost.” 很多。《堂吉诃德》(Don Quixote)、《坎特伯雷故事集》(The Canterbury Tales)和《万有引力之虹》(Gravity’s Rainbow)。我知道我永远都不会读《失乐园》(Paradise Lost)。 What do you plan to read next? 你接下来打算读什么书？ I’m lucky to live a few blocks from a great bookstore — Seminary Co-op. I’ll go there and browse and see what fits my mood at the moment. 幸运的是，就在我的住所几个街区之外有个很棒的书店——神学院合作社(Seminary Co-op)。我会去那里，四处浏览，看看有什么书符合我那一刻的心情。 本文最初发表于2014年9月14日。 翻译：王相宜 |
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