Emily St. John Mandel on Fact, Fiction, and the Familiar (Ep. 92)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎收看《与泰勒对话》。
Today we’re here with Emily St. John Mandel, who has written two of my most favorite contemporary novels.
今天我们邀请的是艾米丽·圣约翰·曼德尔，她写了我最喜欢的两本当代小说。
Her new book out is The Glass Hotel, which, I think, is her very best, deepest, most subtle novel.
她的新书是《玻璃旅馆》，我认为这是她最好、最深刻、最微妙的小说。
Her biggest-selling book to date is Station Eleven.
她迄今为止最畅销的书是《第十一站》。
Now, it so turns out that Emily’s two books are about a pandemic and, in part, a financial crisis.
现在，事实证明艾米丽的两本书是关于流行病的，部分是关于金融危机的。
Believe it or not, it is pure coincidence that I am speaking to her today.
不管你信不信，我今天和她说话纯属巧合。
It is, in fact, that I enjoyed these novels so much, and thus a reality is, in some modest ways, catching up to what she’s been writing about.
事实上，我非常喜欢这些小说，因此，现实是，以某种适度的方式，赶上了她一直在写的内容。
Emily, thank you for being with us.
艾米丽，谢谢你和我们在一起。
My pleasure.
我的荣幸。
Thanks for interviewing me.
感谢您采访我。
Let me start with an unusual question.
让我从一个不寻常的问题开始。
Okay.
好的。
How bad would it be for you to be exiled to Dubai for the rest of your life?
如果你的余生被流放到迪拜，那该有多糟糕？
Your family can come with you, but you have to stay in Dubai.
你的家人可以和你一起去，但你必须留在迪拜。
You can still write and publish books.
您仍然可以写作和出版书籍。
How would that be?
那会怎样呢？
Well, here’s a follow-up question.
嗯，这是一个后续问题。
Do I have to stay in Dubai?
我必须留在迪拜吗？
Or do I have to stay in a country with no extradition treaty with the United States?
或者我必须留在与美国没有引渡条约的国家吗？
Because that’s a broader range of locales.
因为这是一个更广泛的区域设置。
You have to stay in Dubai.
你必须留在迪拜。
My impression of Dubai, which I have to admit I haven’t visited — I’ve just read about it a lot — is that, like most places in the world, with enough money, you can have a really pleasant life, so I think it would depend on my financial situation.
我对迪拜的印象，我不得不承认我没有去过 —— 我只是读了很多关于它的信息 —— ，就像世界上大多数地方一样，只要有足够的钱，你就可以过上非常愉快的生活，所以我认为这取决于我的经济状况。
I could certainly imagine worse fates.
我当然可以想象更糟糕的命运。
On the other hand, I do sunburn quite easily, so it’s probably not the ideal location for me.
另一方面，我很容易晒伤，所以这可能不是我的理想地点。
If you were to pick a self-contained area, country, that has no extradition treaty with the United States that you would be self-exiled to, which one would it be?
如果你要选择一个与美国没有引渡条约的自给自足的地区、国家作为自我流放地，你会选择哪一个？
Could I invent the lack of an extradition treaty?
我可以发明没有引渡条约吗？
Or does it have to be one that actually has no extradition treaty?
还是必须是实际上没有引渡条约的国家？
Let’s do both versions of the question.
让我们做一下这个问题的两个版本。
Okay, okay.
好吧，好吧。
That is a really tough call.
这是一个非常艰难的决定。
None of the countries without extradition treaties really called to me.
没有一个没有引渡条约的国家真正打电话给我。
Full confession: I finished writing this book some time ago, and I don’t actually remember what that list was.
坦白说：我不久前写完了这本书，但我实际上不记得那个清单是什么。
But I don’t remember feeling a burning desire to relocate to any of those places.
但我不记得有搬迁到这些地方的强烈愿望。
I do often wonder if Canada might not have been a better idea.
我确实经常想知道加拿大是否是一个更好的主意。
That’s where I’m from originally.
那是我原来的地方。
I’ve lived in the US since I was 22, so it’s been a while.
我从 22 岁起就住在美国，已经有一段时间了。
Yeah, Canada is looking pretty good these days.
是的，加拿大最近看起来不错。
So in an imaginary alternate universe where Canada had no extradition treaty, that’s probably where I’d go.
因此，在一个虚构的平行宇宙中，加拿大没有引渡条约，那可能就是我要去的地方。
On fleeing crimes and faking deaths
关于犯罪潜逃和假死
Given that you think living in Dubai with family would not be so terrible for you, why don’t, in fact, more white-collar criminals flee to Dubai or other places?
既然您认为与家人一起生活在迪拜对您来说并没有那么可怕，那么事实上，为什么更多的白领犯罪分子不逃往迪拜或其他地方呢？
That is a great question that I almost feel like you’d need to interview a psychologist, not a novelist, to figure that one out.
这是一个很好的问题，我几乎觉得你需要采访一位心理学家，而不是小说家，才能弄清楚这个问题。
But a novelist is a psychologist somewhat, right?
但小说家在某种程度上也是心理学家，对吗？
I wouldn’t quite call myself qualified, but something that fascinated me about the Bernie Madoff story on which the crime in The Glass Hotel is based .
我不太认为自己有资格，但《玻璃酒店》中犯罪事件所依据的伯尼·麦道夫的故事让我着迷。
.
。
.
。
And just to backtrack a little bit, none of the people in The Glass Hotel are real.
回想一下，玻璃酒店里的人都不是真实的。
It’s not a novel about Madoff, but the crime is the same, so I did a lot of reading about it.
这不是一本关于麦道夫的小说，但犯罪是一样的，所以我读了很多关于它的书。
What Madoff says is that it never occurred to him to flee, which I find absolutely baffling.
麦道夫说他从来没有想过要逃跑，这让我感到非常困惑。
Imagine yourself in that position.
想象一下你自己处于那个位置。
You have an extraordinary amount of money.
你有非常多的钱。
You realize that your Ponzi scheme is falling apart.
您意识到您的庞氏骗局正在崩溃。
What are you doing going home to your house in New York?
你回到纽约的家做什么？
Go to the airport!
去机场吧！
Get out of town!
出城吧！
It’s honestly baffling to me.
老实说，这让我感到困惑。
I don’t know if it’s a manifestation of guilt, this subconscious desire to be caught and to face consequences, but it would not be difficult for these people to flee, and yet they usually don’t.
我不知道这是否是一种内疚的表现，这种潜意识里渴望被抓住并承担后果的愿望，但这些人逃跑并不困难，但他们通常不会。
I don’t know what that’s about.
我不知道那是怎么回事。
It is interesting.
这很有趣。
Maybe it’s the bias of routine.
也许这是惯例的偏见。
Or with white-collar criminals, you might be selecting for people who think they’re invulnerable, right?
或者对于白领犯罪分子，你可能会选择那些认为自己刀枪不入的人，对吗？
That’s a good point.
这是一个很好的观点。
They’ve always gotten away with it so far, so why would this moment be any different?
到目前为止，他们总是侥幸逃脱惩罚，那么为什么这一次会有所不同呢？
Yeah, there’s probably something there.
是的，那里可能有东西。
How easy do you think it is for a well-educated person of means — say in the top 1 percent, but not a billionaire — to fake his or her own death?
你认为对于一个受过良好教育、有财力的人（比如收入最高的 1%，但不是亿万富翁）来说，伪造自己的死亡有多容易？
I think it depends on what else is going on.
我认为这取决于其他情况。
There’s this—
有这个——
No pandemic, normal world.
没有疫情，世界正常。
You want to fake your own death.
你想伪造自己的死亡。
Okay, normal world.
好吧，正常的世界。
That’s not easy.
这并不容易。
I feel like we live in an era where you need a body for that to be convincing.
我觉得我们生活在一个需要身体才能令人信服的时代。
On the other hand, what if you’ve been thinking about faking your own death, and some spectacularly unexpected event happens?
另一方面，如果你一直在考虑伪造自己的死亡，并且发生了一些令人震惊的意外事件怎么办？
To give an example, I used to be obsessed with this website called PostSecret.
举个例子，我曾经很迷恋这个叫PostSecret的网站。
I read it every day in my 20s and early 30s.
我在20多岁和30岁出头的时候每天都会读这本书。
I know the site.
我知道这个网站。
It’s great, yes.
太棒了，是的。
Yeah, it’s a great site.
是的，这是一个很棒的网站。
It’s wonderful.
太棒了。
I’m haunted by this one postcard on the site.
我被网站上的这张明信片所困扰。
I don’t remember what the image is, but let’s say it’s the Twin Towers burning.
我不记得图片是什么，但可以说是双子塔在燃烧。
That’s the theme.
这就是主题。
The back of it says, “Everyone who knew me before September 11th thinks I’m dead.”
背面写着：“9 月 11 日之前认识我的每个人都认为我死了。”
Imagine if that’s true.
想象一下如果这是真的。
Of course, there’s no way of knowing if any of the PostSecret secrets are real, but imagine that position.
当然，我们无法知道 PostSecret 的秘密是否真实，但想象一下那个位置。
You come up the stairs from the subway into Lower Manhattan.
您从地铁上楼梯进入曼哈顿下城。
You look up.
你抬头看。
You see the towers falling, and you think, “This is my opportunity,” and you disappear.
你看到塔楼倒塌，你想，“这是我的机会”，然后你就消失了。
So I think if life presents some horrific moment like that, then faking your own death would not be difficult.
所以我认为，如果生活中存在这样的可怕时刻，那么假装死亡并不困难。
But otherwise, I think it’s hard to pull off.
但除此之外，我认为很难实现。
If I needed to fake my own death today, I think I would go out on a cargo ship manned by people from a fairly corrupt country, and I would offer them money to simply report I had fallen overboard —
如果我今天需要假死的话，我想我会乘坐一艘由相当腐败的国家的人驾驶的货船出去，我会给他们钱，简单地报告我落水了 ——
That would do it.
这样就可以了。
— and then walk off in some semi-disguise.
——然后半伪装地走开。
How would you fake your own death?
你会如何假装自己死亡？
That’s actually a pretty good method as long as you have enough money to pay off a couple of crew members.
只要你有足够的钱支付几个船员的钱，这实际上是一个很好的方法。
There are cargo ships that will accept passengers on a very small scale, and there’s nothing luxurious about it.
有些货船只接受很小规模的乘客，而且没有什么奢华的。
The point is that it’s not a luxury cruise, that you are on a cargo ship.
关键是这不是豪华游轮，而是一艘货船。
But you eat dinner with the officers.
但你和军官们一起吃晚饭。
You hang out on the ship and read all day.
你在船上闲逛并阅读一整天。
Yeah, your method is good.
嗯，你的方法很好。
Pay off a couple of crew members and you’re good.
付清几个船员的钱就可以了。
People in that industry are not particularly well paid, so you wouldn’t even have to be terribly wealthy to pull that off.
这个行业的人工资不是特别高，所以你甚至不需要非常富有就能实现这一目标。
They could take your money and then not report you dead.
他们可以拿走你的钱，然后却不报告你死亡。
Or they could take your money, intend to report you dead, but tell the other people, and then you would be discovered.
或者他们可以拿走你的钱，打算报告你的死亡，但告诉其他人，然后你就会被发现。
So I’m not sure what the chance of success actually is.
所以我不确定成功的机会到底有多大。
Although, here’s something working in your favor: crews are small.
不过，有一点对你有利：工作人员规模很小。
People don’t realize this, but these massive cargo ships — there are maybe 20 guys on board.
人们没有意识到这一点，但是这些巨大的货船 ——船上大约有20个人。
That’s a lot of payoffs, but you might be able to make it work if you paid off the whole crew.
这是很多回报，但如果你付清了整个团队的薪水，你也许就能成功。
If you were trying to hide from a small team of professional assassins — let’s say there’s three of them.
如果你试图躲避一小队职业刺客 ——假设他们有三个。
They’re Russian mobsters.
他们是俄罗斯黑帮。
They’re skilled but not geniuses, and you have enough money.
他们很熟练，但不是天才，而且你有足够的钱。
Do you think you could do it?
你认为你能做到吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Again, putting aside your family.
再次，抛开你的家庭。
I think I could.
我想我可以。
And how would you do it?
你会怎么做呢？
I have dual citizenship with Canada and the US, so I would think about the Canadian location to which people would least expect me to go.
我拥有加拿大和美国的双重国籍，所以我会考虑人们最不希望我去的加拿大地点。
You might expect a New Yorker to flee to Toronto.
你可能会认为纽约人会逃到多伦多。
That’s the closest equivalent in Canada, so I wouldn’t go to Toronto.
这是加拿大最接近的同等水平，所以我不会去多伦多。
I would go to some province that I’d never visited, like Manitoba.
我会去一些我从未去过的省份，比如曼尼托巴省。
Yeah, change my appearance and slip into life in, I guess, the biggest city I can find in a relatively low-population place.
是的，改变我的外表，融入生活，我想，这是我能在人口相对较少的地方找到的最大的城市。
I think that would be my method.
我想这就是我的方法。
I would be worried about credit card tracing for one thing.
一方面，我会担心信用卡追踪。
You can’t use your credit cards.
您不能使用信用卡。
That’s bad.
那很糟糕。
But then you’d have to store your money, or your bank account can be traced.
但这样你就必须储存你的钱，否则你的银行账户就会被追踪。
Right.
正确的。
So how you would protect yourself on the financial side, seems to me to be the hard part —
因此，在我看来，如何在财务方面保护自己是最困难的部分 —
Definitely.
绝对是。
— assuming the Russian mobsters could bribe someone to trace either your bank or credit card information.
— 假设俄罗斯黑帮可以贿赂某人追踪您的银行或信用卡信息。
It’s a risk, yeah.
这是一个风险，是的。
Obviously, the moral of the story is, try to stay on the right side of the Russian mob.
显然，这个故事的寓意是，尽量站在俄罗斯暴徒的正确一边。
Yes.
是的。
But if you are in that position .
但如果你处于那个位置。
.
。
.
。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
It might be something that I’d want to think through a little bit more than in the context of a podcast interview.
这可能是我想要比在播客采访中更多地思考的事情。
There’s got to be a way.
一定有办法的。
People do it.
人们这样做。
I think I’d be more inclined to pick a country with a lot of highly informal financial institutions —
我想我会更倾向于选择一个拥有很多高度非正式金融机构的国家 ——
That might work.
这可能有用。
— which I’m sorry to say would rule out Manitoba, as much as I love Canada.
— 我很遗憾地说，这排除了曼尼托巴省，尽管我很爱加拿大。
Yeah, Manitoba is not informal.
是的，曼尼托巴省并不非正式。
Somewhere like Mexico or Brazil.
像墨西哥或巴西这样的地方。
Yeah.
是的。
But then you have to protect your money from other kinds of thieves, so it seems always tricky.
但你必须保护你的钱免受其他类型的小偷的侵害，所以这似乎总是很棘手。
Exactly.
确切地。
On weird Canada
在奇怪的加拿大
If you want to have a weird event or character in one of your stories, and you want to put it in a weird state or province, what, to you, is the weirdest place to put it?
如果你想在你的一个故事中出现一个奇怪的事件或人物，并且你想把它放在一个奇怪的州或省，对你来说，最奇怪的地方是什么？
Often in American fiction, Florida is the weird state.
在美国小说中，佛罗里达州常常是一个奇怪的州。
What in Canada is the weird province?
加拿大有什么奇怪的省份？
You can make an argument for Newfoundland, which I feel like Newfoundlanders — Newfies — of my acquaintance might actually agree with that statement.
你可以为纽芬兰提出一个论点，我觉得我认识的纽芬兰人 — 纽菲斯 — 实际上可能会同意这种说法。
They are offset by a half hour in the time zones from any other part of the country.
它们与该国任何其他地区的时区相差半小时。
That’s already weird, right?
这已经很奇怪了，对吧？
That’s already weird, yeah.
这已经很奇怪了，是的。
What is that half time zone thing?
半时区是什么？
All of the Newfies I’ve met — they just have these amazing, slightly warped senses of humor that I love.
我见过的所有新人都拥有我喜欢的令人惊叹的、略带扭曲的幽默感。
It’s a place that lived in a state of economic collapse for really a very long time.
这是一个长期处于经济崩溃状态的地方。
The fisheries collapsed, and it was devastating economically there.
渔业崩溃，那里的经济遭受了毁灭性的打击。
So there’s a dark sense of humor and way of getting by happily in difficult circumstances that, I think, offsets it a little bit from the rest of Canada.
因此，这里有一种黑色幽默感，以及在困难的情况下快乐地度过的方式，我认为，这与加拿大其他地方有所抵消。
On the other hand, British Columbia — where I’m from — that’s where all of the hippies and draft dodgers went in the ’60s and ’70s.
另一方面，不列颠哥伦比亚省——我的家乡——那里是 60 年代和 70 年代所有嬉皮士和逃避兵役者的聚集地。
That’s a coast that attracts some weirdness.
那是一个吸引一些奇怪事物的海岸。
But there’s no clear Canadian Florida.
但没有明确的加拿大佛罗里达州。
There’s no “Florida man” meme equivalent in Canada.
加拿大没有类似的“佛罗里达人”模因。
And you don’t have the animals for it, or do you?
而且你们没有足够的动物，不是吗？
No, there’s just nothing that deadly.
不，没有什么那么致命的。
You can talk about polar bears, but very few people deal with those.
你可以谈论北极熊，但很少有人与它们打交道。
They’re way up north.
他们在北方。
The thing with Canada is that it’s not as weird as the United States because we don’t really have the population base, is really the situation.
加拿大的问题是，它并不像美国那么奇怪，因为我们没有真正的人口基础，这确实是情况。
There are ten Americans for every one Canadian, basically.
基本上，十个美国人对应一个加拿大人。
And you get weirdness in a big population that you just don’t see where there’s a smaller pool to draw from.
在一个庞大的群体中你会感到奇怪，你只是看不到哪里还有更小的群体可供借鉴。
Yeah, there really is no Canadian Florida.
是的，确实没有加拿大佛罗里达州。
The big islands you grew up in, right?
你长大的那些大岛屿，对吗？
In British Columbia?
在不列颠哥伦比亚省？
Mm-hmm.
嗯嗯。
They have quite a significant off-the-grid culture, don’t they?
他们有相当重要的离网文化，不是吗？
They do.
他们确实这么做了。
It’s interesting.
这很有趣。
How weird is that?
这有多奇怪？
Only semi-weird.
只是半奇怪。
It depends on how weird you find it for people to bake their own bread and grow pot.
这取决于你觉得人们自己烤面包和种花盆有多奇怪。
It was pretty mild, to tell you the truth.
说实话，这很温和。
There was never that edge of anarchy that you get in the Florida-man stories.
佛罗里达人的故事中从来没有那种无政府状态的边缘。
Is that a good place to hide from the Russian mafia?
那是躲避俄罗斯黑手党的好地方吗？
Not for you because you’re from there.
不适合你，因为你来自那里。
Right.
正确的。
They might look there.
他们可能会看那里。
But say for me.
但对我来说。
Could I go there?
我可以去那里吗？
I don’t know because there are so few people.
我不知道，因为人太少了。
The Russian mafia would show up at the one café in town and say, “Who’s that new guy from the US?” They’d be like, “Oh, he lives down that street.” They’d find you in 20 minutes.
俄罗斯黑手党会出现在镇上的一家咖啡馆并说：“那个来自美国的新人是谁？”他们会说，“哦，他住在那条街上。”他们会在 20 分钟内找到你。
How quickly would the locals know I’m from the US?
当地人多久会知道我来自美国？
Two seconds?
两秒？
Yeah, two seconds.
是的，两秒钟。
Accent?
口音？
Yeah, accent.
是的，口音。
I feel like I can say this because I have dual citizenship.
我觉得我可以这么说，因为我拥有双重国籍。
There’s a real strain of anti-Americanism that I, frankly, find a little bit embarrassing.
坦率地说，存在着一种真正的反美主义，这让我觉得有点尴尬。
But I grew up with it.
但我是伴随着它长大的。
It’s pervasive.
它是普遍存在的。
It’s like they’re on the lookout for Americans.
就像他们在寻找美国人一样。
And when I say “they,” I should say I was one of them.
当我说“他们”时，我应该说我是他们中的一员。
I grew up there.
我在那里长大。
There’s not a lot of acceptance of Americans, put it that way.
这么说吧，美国人的接受度并不高。
Why does Alberta seem, at least superficially, to be less anti-American than, say, British Columbia?
为什么阿尔伯塔省似乎（至少表面上）不如不列颠哥伦比亚省那么反美？
It’s generally more right wing politically, and the stated reason why so many British Columbians I grew up with were anti-American — it had to do with US foreign policy.
一般来说，在政治上更偏右，而与我一起长大的许多不列颠哥伦比亚省人的既定原因是反美——这与美国的外交政策有关。
It wasn’t really personal.
这并不是真正的个人行为。
I think in Alberta — because it is a little bit more right wing — there’s, very broadly speaking, less of an issue with certain aspects of US foreign policy.
我认为在阿尔伯塔省——“因为它更偏右一点”——“从广义上讲，美国外交政策的某些方面问题较少。
Also oil — that’s a huge thing in Alberta, so you have Texas oil executives flying up into Alberta all the time.
还有石油——这在艾伯塔省是一件大事，所以德克萨斯州的石油高管一直飞到艾伯塔省。
Maybe just encountering more Americans helps.
也许只是遇到更多的美国人会有帮助。
Let’s say a fantasy can come true.
假设幻想可以成真。
You can go back and visit any era in world history.
你可以回去参观世界历史上的任何时代。
You’re protected from disease, so no pandemic risk, and you’re given the native language, and you spend three months there.
您可以免受疾病侵害，因此没有流行病风险，并且您可以使用母语，并且可以在那里度过三个月。
Where would you visit?
您会去哪里参观？
Fall of the Roman Empire?
罗马帝国衰落？
Ancient Greece?
古希腊？
What would it be?
会是什么？
Ancient Greece, and then, much more recently, the fall of the Berlin Wall.
古希腊，以及最近的柏林墙倒塌。
I think that just would have been an incredible thing to see.
我认为这将是一件令人难以置信的事情。
You wouldn’t even need three months there.
你甚至不需要在那里呆三个月。
Just give me a half hour of it.
就给我半个小时吧。
That would be amazing.
那真是太棒了。
I did actually go right after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
事实上，我在柏林墙倒塌后就去了。
Did you?
你有吗？
Okay.
好的。
It was incredible.
这太不可思议了。
I saw a performance of Fidelio in Berlin.
我在柏林看了费德里奥的演出。
I’ll never forget that.
我永远不会忘记这一点。
That’s cool.
这很酷。
People were just sobbing when the opera ended because, of course, it’s about liberty.
当歌剧结束时，人们只是哭泣，因为当然，它是关于自由的。
Right.
正确的。
Now, to get to your book, The Glass Hotel, which, again, is fantastically subtle and interesting but also engaging and entertaining.
现在，让我们来看看你的书《玻璃酒店》，这本书同样非常微妙、有趣，但也引人入胜、有趣。
It’s gotten rave reviews.
它得到了好评如潮。
Overall, how good or bad do you think are the lives of trophy wives?
总的来说，你认为奖杯妻子的生活有多好或多坏？
It depends on the trophy wife.
这取决于奖杯妻子。
It depends on the husband.
这取决于丈夫。
But as a class of people, if you put them in the hat, happiness — in percentile terms, how well are they doing?
但作为一个阶层的人，如果你把他们放在幸福的帽子里——用百分位数来表示，他们的表现如何？
I would say probably pretty well if you can reconcile yourself to that tradeoff, which it would not be crazy to call an offshoot of prostitution.
我想说，如果你能接受这种权衡的话，情况可能会很好，称其为卖淫的分支也不算疯狂。
There’s a pretty clear mercenary trade happening there.
那里发生着相当明显的雇佣军贸易。
If you’re okay with that, then you could live a pretty great life.
如果你能接受这一点，那么你可以过上美好的生活。
You have what you need.
你有你需要的。
You have a lot of downtime.
你有很多停机时间。
You can develop some deep friendships.
你可以发展一些深厚的友谊。
You have time to read.
你有时间读书。
I think that the risk would be the kind of emptiness that comes from not having a fulfilling career.
我认为风险是由于职业生涯没有成就感而产生的空虚感。
But there’s no reason why you couldn’t be a trophy wife and have something you were passionate about on the side.
但你没有理由不能成为一个奖杯妻子，同时拥有你热爱的东西。
I’d say, as jobs go, you could do a lot worse.
我想说，随着工作的进行，你可能会做得更糟。
Do you think it’s harder for trophy wives to have fulfilling friendships?
你认为奖杯妻子更难拥有令人满意的友谊吗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I think you’d have to have it with other trophy wives.
我想你必须和其他奖杯妻子一起拥有它。
COWEN: Other trophy wives?
COWEN：其他奖杯妻子？
Yeah, which is definitely the case in The Glass Hotel.
是的，玻璃酒店就是这样。
Vincent’s closest friend is Mirella, who’s basically a trophy wife, although you could argue her relationship is a little more real, so to speak.
文森特最亲密的朋友是米雷拉，她基本上是一个奖杯妻子，尽管你可以说她的关系更真实一些，可以这么说。
She’s in love, right?
她恋爱了，对吧？
At least according to you.
至少根据你的说法。
She’s in love, yeah.
她恋爱了，是的。
But this factor of what you call not having to think about money — how big a happiness benefit is that?
但是，这个你所说的不必考虑金钱的因素——这对幸福感有多大的好处呢？
That is huge.
那是巨大的。
If you grow up without money, which I did, and then you have really no money in early adulthood, so much of your brain is taken over through all of every day with these endless tedious calculations.
如果你在没有钱的情况下长大，就像我一样，然后你在成年初期就真的没有钱了，那么你的大脑每天都会被这些无休止的乏味计算占据。
If I buy a metro card this week, can I afford groceries?
如果我这周购买地铁卡，我可以买得起杂货吗？
What if I just get half the amount of groceries and a $5 metro card?
如果我只得到一半的杂货和一张 5 美元的地铁卡怎么办？
What if I didn’t get the metro card and walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge?
如果我没有拿到地铁卡并通过布鲁克林大桥步行回家怎么办？
Then I’ll get paid on Friday.
然后周五我就会收到工资。
It wears you down.
它会让你疲惫不堪。
It’s exhausting.
这很累。
So not having to have that constant calculation running in the back of your head can feel like freedom.
因此，不必在脑后进行不断的计算，就会感觉很自由。
I would say it’s a huge impact.
我想说这是一个巨大的影响。
And, of course, we’re all human, so we find other things to worry and obsess about, but not having to worry about that is incredible.
当然，我们都是人类，所以我们会寻找其他值得担心和困扰的事情，但不必担心这一点是令人难以置信的。
How much do you think earning money makes people happier compared to either inheriting it or marrying into it?
你认为，与继承金钱或嫁入金钱相比，赚钱能让人们更幸福多少？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Something that I think about a lot is just the element of luck involved, even in earning money.
我经常思考的事情就是运气的因素，即使是赚钱也是如此。
Any money that I have comes from the wild success of Station Eleven, my previous book.
我所有的钱都来自我上一本书《第十一站》的巨大成功。
Which is also going to be a miniseries, right?
这也将是一个迷你剧，对吗？
Yeah, yeah.
是啊是啊。
And when does that happen?
那什么时候发生？
In 2021, I think in the spring.
2021年，我想是在春天。
We’ll get to that book, but please continue.
我们将讨论那本书，但请继续。
That book — this is not to denigrate the book.
那本书 ——这并不是要诋毁这本书。
I believe in my work, but I’ve always been aware that there are any number of books in the world that were at least as good as Station Eleven, if not better, that didn’t sell nearly as many copies.
我相信我的作品，但我一直都知道，世界上有很多书至少和《第十一站》一样好，即使不是更好，但销量也没有《第十一站》那么多。
There’s just an incredible level of luck, even in “earned money.” Yeah, it did always feel like a lottery ticket to me.
即使是“赚来的钱”，也有令人难以置信的运气。是的，对我来说，这确实就像一张彩票。
Then, by the same token, I see kids who are raised in these upper-middle-class families that allows for, say, SAT tutoring to get into a really good college, say, go from there into the internship, from there into a really well-paying job.
然后，出于同样的原因，我看到在这些中上层阶级家庭中长大的孩子可以通过 SAT 辅导进入一所非常好的大学，比如说，从那里进入实习，从那里进入一份非常高薪的工作。
They’re earning their money, but they had lottery tickets too.
他们有钱，但他们也有彩票。
It’s not clear to me that it feels very different to earn your money versus inheriting it.
我不清楚赚钱和继承钱的感觉是否有很大不同。
Either way, there’s just such an element of luck involved.
不管怎样，都涉及到运气的因素。
Do you think the very wealthy now feel a bit lost during coronavirus time because they’re used to having these large household staffs around, and now, perhaps, they’re afraid to keep those people in the house, and everything’s suddenly very empty and quiet?
你是否认为现在非常富有的人在冠状病毒时期感到有点失落，因为他们习惯了这些大家庭工作人员在身边，而现在，也许他们害怕把这些人留在家里，一切突然变得非常空虚和安静？
It’s a great question.
这是一个很好的问题。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I don’t know enough incredibly wealthy people.
我认识的超级富有的人还不够多。
Yeah, these households have gone quiet.
是的，这些家庭都安静了。
I do know a lot of people who have nannies, which is pretty common in New York City because none of us live in the same city as our parents, pretty much, so any childcare, you have to pay for.
我确实认识很多人有保姆，这在纽约市很常见，因为我们几乎没有人和父母住在同一个城市，所以任何托儿服务都必须付费。
And that’s just been a different challenge.
这只是一个不同的挑战。
All of a sudden, we’re all homeschooling because nobody has childcare.
突然之间，我们都在家上学了，因为没有人有托儿服务。
That does make your house a bit quieter when your kid’s nanny stops coming.
当你孩子的保姆不再来时，这确实会让你的房子变得安静一些。
There’s an idea you mention in Glass Hotel that if your time left in freedom is limited — perceived as limited — that you might seek to do things to make time slow down.
你在《玻璃旅馆》中提到了一个想法，如果你自由的时间有限————被认为是有限的————你可能会寻求做一些事情来让时间慢下来。
What would you do, for you, to make time slow down?
为了让时间慢下来，你会做什么？
I would travel.
我会去旅行。
It’s interesting — during periods when I’m traveling a lot .
这很有趣 —— 在我经常旅行的时候。
.
。
.
。
I’ve done a lot of lectures over the past few years for Station Eleven.
过去几年我为第十一站做了很多讲座。
The months when I’m out on the road, like every week for a couple of days, or every 10 days — those months are so unbelievably long.
我出差的几个月，比如每周出差几天，或者每十天出差——那些月份真是长得令人难以置信。
And I’ll have these moments of, not quite panic, but thinking, “Oh my God.”
我会有这样的时刻，不是很恐慌，而是想，“哦，天哪。”
My friend emailed me two weeks ago, and I never got back to her.
我的朋友两周前给我发了电子邮件，但我再也没有回复她。
I’ll go back to the email, and the email came in four days ago.
我会回到电子邮件，电子邮件是四天前收到的。
It’s just that time has been incredibly extended.
只是时间被延长得令人难以置信。
My feeling is that the way to slow down time is to have a lot of experiences, to see different places, to meet new people.
我的感觉是，放慢时间的方法就是去经历很多，看看不同的地方，结识新朋友。
That makes every day feel longer.
这让每一天都感觉更长。
It’s interesting, I got a glimpse of the flip side of this a few years ago.
有趣的是，几年前我瞥见了这一点的另一面。
I was in a festival with Kay Ryan, the American poet, and we were talking about this phenomenon.
我和美国诗人凯·瑞安一起参加一个节日，我们正在谈论这种现象。
She’s done some work in the prison system, teaching inmates how to write or running writing workshops, and she talked about women in prison practicing this opposite strategy of trying to make every day as similar as possible in order for time to speed up.
她在监狱系统做了一些工作，教囚犯如何写作或举办写作研讨会，她谈到监狱中的女性采取相反的策略，试图让每一天尽可能相似，以便时间加快。
It’s just the days run together in that rhythm.
日子就这样一起过着。
Yeah, I think the way to slow down time is to have a lot of experiences.
是的，我认为放慢时间的方法就是拥有很多经历。
You mention prison.
你提到监狱。
In The Glass Hotel, you mentioned the idea that perhaps everyone in prison is depressed, but of course that’s a third person reporting.
在《玻璃酒店》中，您提到也许监狱里的每个人都很沮丧，但当然这是第三人报道。
Do you agree?
你同意？
Do you think everyone in prison is depressed?
你认为监狱里的每个人都很沮丧吗？
No. I think that’s a simplification, but, God, that’s a depressing environment, so I would expect there to be a much higher baseline level of depression in the population in prison.
不，我认为这是一个简单化的说法，但是，天啊，那是一个令人沮丧的环境，所以我预计监狱里的人的抑郁基线水平会高得多。
I have some general questions about books and writing.
我有一些关于书籍和写作的一般性问题。
Sure.
当然。
I’m going to read you a Franz Kafka quotation, and you tell me what you think of it.
我要给你读一段卡夫卡的名言，你告诉我你的想法。
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us.
“我认为我们应该只读那些伤害或刺伤我们的书。
If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?”
如果我们正在读的书不能让我们头部受到重击，我们还读什么？”
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
You’ve written a book about a pandemic, right?
你写了一本关于流行病的书，对吗？
Yeah.
是的。
I’m going to disagree with Kafka on this one.
在这一点上我不同意卡夫卡的观点。
Why does reading have to be something that stabs you in the heart every time you pick up a book?
为什么读书一定是每次拿起一本书都会刺痛你的心？
Isn’t it nice, in a moment when the country is reeling under a historical pandemic, to just read something that transports you to a different world for a minute?
在这个国家正遭受历史性大流行的时刻，读一些能让你进入另一个世界的东西，这不是很好吗？
I would maybe flip that around and say that if you’re a fiction writer, maybe just any writer of books, maybe you should .
我可能会反过来说，如果你是一名小说作家，也许只是任何书籍作家，也许你应该这样做。
.
。
.
。
I need to think this through, but maybe you shouldn’t write books that don’t knock you over, and stab you in the heart, and gut you, and push you to the furthest remotest edge of your talent.
我需要仔细考虑一下这个问题，但也许你不应该写那些不会把你击倒、刺伤你的心、刺伤你、把你推向你才能的最远边缘的书。
But as a reader, I don’t really agree with that.
但作为一个读者，我不太同意这种说法。
I think it’s important to read those books, but —
我认为阅读这些书很重要，但是 -
But so many more people are reading your books exactly now, right?
但现在有更多的人在读你的书，对吧？
Especially Station Eleven because we’re in some kind of pandemic, admittedly a much milder one.
尤其是第十一站，因为我们正处于某种流行病之中，诚然是一种温和得多的流行病。
Mm-hmm.
嗯嗯。
So don’t readers somewhat agree with Kafka?
那么读者是不是有点同意卡夫卡的观点呢？
It’s possible, but Station Eleven is a fundamentally hopeful book.
这是有可能的，但《第十一站》从根本上来说是一本充满希望的书。
Just going from the extremely unscientific metric of my Twitter timeline, I get the impression that a lot of people are reading it because of the hope at the end of the pandemic, not necessarily because the pandemic sends them reeling when they read about it.
从我的推特时间线的极其不科学的衡量标准来看，我的印象是，很多人阅读它是因为对大流行结束的希望，不一定是因为大流行让他们在读到它时感到震惊。
But probably they don’t know what the book will be like, right?
但他们可能不知道这本书会是什么样，对吧？
They’ve just heard it’s by you and that it’s about a pandemic.
他们刚刚听说这是你写的，而且是关于流行病的。
That’s a good point.
这是一个很好的观点。
What do you think of the idea that people might read very scary books or watch very scary movies as a kind of protection against the phenomenon?
人们可能会阅读非常恐怖的书籍或观看非常恐怖的电影来作为一种针对这种现象的保护，您对此有何看法？
A bit like wanting to hear the worst up front, and then all subsequent news comes as a relief.
有点像想先听到最坏的情况，然后所有后续消息都让人松了一口气。
Yeah, there’s something real there.
是的，那里有真实的东西。
When I started seeing a lot of people talking about Station Eleven in the last few weeks, my reaction was total bafflement.
过去几周，当我开始看到很多人谈论第十一站时，我的反应是完全困惑。
Why would anybody in their right mind want to read Station Eleven during a pandemic?
为什么头脑正常的人会在大流行期间阅读《第十一站》？
I was like, “God, that’s crazy.” So I closed the Twitter tab, went to iTunes and bought Contagion, Steven Soderbergh movie.
我当时想，“天啊，这太疯狂了。”于是我关闭了 Twitter 选项卡，前往 iTunes 购买了史蒂文·索德伯格的电影《传染病》。
I realized —
我意识到 ——
So you’re like Franz Kafka, too.
所以你也像弗朗茨·卡夫卡。
Exactly.
确切地。
But what I realized, in buying Contagion, was — which I haven’t watched yet; I came to my senses — there’s just such a longing in times of uncertainty to see how it ends.
但我在购买《传染病》时意识到，“我还没看过”；我醒悟过来——在不确定的时期，人们非常渴望看到事情的结局。
We just don’t know what the world will look like in three weeks, so there’s something soothing about narrative in these moments.
我们只是不知道三周后世界会是什么样子，所以在这些时刻的叙述中有一些令人舒缓的东西。
But that was the only way I could rationalize that impulse purchase of that movie on my part.
但这是我能够合理化我对那部电影的冲动购买的唯一方法。
There’s just such a longing in times of uncertainty to see how it ends.
在不确定的时期，人们非常渴望看到事情的结局。
We just don’t know what the world will look like in three weeks, so there’s something soothing about narrative in these moments.
我们只是不知道三周后世界会是什么样子，所以在这些时刻的叙述中有一些令人舒缓的东西。
There was an article in The Guardian a few days ago that, at least in the United Kingdom, sales of long classic fiction were up by a considerable amount.
前几天《卫报》有一篇文章说，至少在英国，经典长篇小说的销量有了相当大的增长。
Does that make sense to you?
这对你来说有意义吗？
Is that how things should be?
事情就应该这样吗？
Yeah, it does.
是的，确实如此。
There’s this longing for familiarity in really chaotic times.
在真正混乱的时代，人们渴望熟悉。
I think that’s what that’s about.
我想就是这样的。
I see it in my four-year-old, frankly.
坦率地说，我在我四岁的孩子身上看到了这一点。
I’m pretty strict with screen time, except now we’re in quarantine, so that’s out the window.
我对屏幕时间非常严格，但现在我们处于隔离状态，所以这是不可能的。
So she gets a movie every morning.
所以她每天早上都会看电影。
She can watch any from a long list of Disney movies.
她可以观看一长串迪士尼电影中的任何一部。
She just wants to watch Frozen II.
她只是想看《冰雪奇缘2》。
She’s watched it for the last seven consecutive mornings.
她已经连续七个早上看了这部电影。
For a while, I was trying to push her out of the comfort zone, like, “Come on, Ratatouille?
有一段时间，我试图将她推出舒适区，就像，“来吧，料理鼠王？
Mulan?” There are a lot of great options out there.
木兰？”有很多很棒的选择。
No, she wants Frozen II.
不，她想要《冰雪奇缘2》。
And I realized, she’s lost a lot in the last two weeks.
我意识到，过去两周她失去了很多。
Her school’s closed.
她的学校关门了。
She loves her school.
她爱她的学校。
We were going to go visit her favorite cousin, and now we can’t go.
我们本来要去拜访她最喜欢的表弟，但现在不能去了。
So she just wants familiarity.
所以她只是想要熟悉。
I think that’s exactly the same thing with sales of classic books.
我认为这与经典书籍的销售完全一样。
How good is Frozen II, if I may ask?
请问《冰雪奇缘2》有多好？
It’s pretty good.
非常好。
Pretty good?
不错？
Yeah.
是的。
This is a controversial statement.
这是一个有争议的说法。
I know a lot of parents who hate it, but I find it more interesting than Frozen I.
我知道很多家长讨厌它，但我发现它比《冰雪奇缘 I》更有趣。
On the future of fiction
论小说的未来
If you speak to people in the book trade, they often have the belief that we have been in an age of nonfiction selling very well.
如果你与图书行业的人士交谈，他们常常相信我们正处于非小说类图书畅销的时代。
And if you look at the relative space in bookstores, at least for a while, more and more was being given over to nonfiction.
如果你看看书店的相对空间，至少在一段时间内，越来越多的书被留给了非小说类书籍。
Do you think that will reverse and now an age of fiction will somewhat return?
您认为这种情况会逆转吗？现在小说时代会有所回归吗？
I’m not sure.
我不知道。
It seems intuitive to me that it might.
从我的直觉看来，可能是这样。
Kind of for the opposite of Franz Kafka’s formulation.
有点与弗朗茨·卡夫卡的表述相反。
There’s a certain desire for escapism just at the moment.
此刻有一种逃避现实的渴望。
It’s intuitive to me that it would, but I’d be curious to see what the numbers look like in a year.
对我来说，直觉是会的，但我很好奇一年后的数字会是什么样子。
When I see many novels — and this, I think, is true for many of yours — there will be the title of the book, and then below it, in smaller print, or on Amazon, it will say “A Novel.” I find this depressing.
当我看到很多小说时——我想，这对你们中的许多人来说也是如此——就会有书名，然后在它的下面，用较小的字体，或者在亚马逊上，会写着“一本小说”。我觉得这很令人沮丧。
Right.
正确的。
I prefer a world where the reader ought to know.
我更喜欢读者应该了解的世界。
How do you respond to this, “A Novel”?
您如何看待这本“小说”？
To be honest, I appreciate the guidance just because, as a matter of personal preference, I prefer novels to short story collections.
说实话，我很欣赏你的指导，因为就个人喜好而言，我更喜欢长篇小说而不是短篇小说集。
If it’s in fiction, I just want to know what I’m getting into.
如果是在小说中，我只是想知道我正在了解什么。
It’ll either say “A Novel,” or it’ll say “Stories.” To be clear, I do sometimes read short stories, but I want to know what it is.
它要么说“一本小说”，要么说“故事”。需要明确的是，我有时会读短篇小说，但我想知道它是什么。
If you walked into your favorite bookstore — whether it be the Strand, Barnes & Noble in Canada, whatever — and looked at the front table of new fiction books and simply chose a book by its cover — the old cliché — how well do you think you could do, matching that book to your tastes, going only by the cover?
如果你走进你最喜欢的书店 ——无论是加拿大的Strand书店、Barnes & Noble书店，还是其他书店 —— 看着新小说书的前台，然后简单地根据封面选择一本书—— 陈词滥调 ——你认为你能做得多好，让那本书符合你的口味，只看封面？
Pretty badly.
非常糟糕。
There are a lot of seriously mediocre books with gorgeous covers because there’s a lot of talent in the art departments.
有很多非常平庸的书，但封面却很华丽，因为艺术部门有很多人才。
Occasionally, I have picked up books based on the cover, but it’s got to be backed up in some way.
偶尔，我会根据封面挑选书籍，但它必须以某种方式进行备份。
Sometimes you see a gorgeous cover, and then you turn it over, and it’s like, “Wow, this looks like something that would hold zero interest for me,” and it goes back down.
有时你看到一个华丽的封面，然后你把它翻过来，就像，“哇，这看起来对我来说是零兴趣的东西，”然后它又会下降。
But shouldn’t you choose a smart-looking cover rather than a gorgeous cover?
但你不应该选择一个看起来漂亮的封面而不是一个华丽的封面吗？
Because a gorgeous cover is trying to appeal to many people.
因为华丽的封面是为了吸引很多人。
A somewhat hermetic cover that has tricks or is subtle, you might think, “Oh, this is a book I should read.”
一个有点封闭的封面，有技巧或微妙，你可能会想，“哦，这是一本我应该读的书。”
Yeah, but doesn’t that make you feel manipulated when you see a clever cover and it calls out to you?
是的，但是当你看到一个巧妙的封面并且它在召唤你时，你不会感到被操纵吗？
You’re like, “That book wants me to believe that I’m smart enough to be attracted to that book.” It’s like this circular thing that happens.
你会说，“那本书让我相信我足够聪明，会被那本书所吸引。”就像发生的这种循环一样。
Sometimes beautiful and interesting — I feel like they’re almost the wrong words.
有时美丽又有趣 —— 我觉得这些词几乎是错误的。
It’s more like, “Is it striking?
更像是，“这很引人注目吗？
Does it grab your attention?” And sometimes my attention is grabbed by sheer beauty, but sometimes the opposite.
它引起你的注意了吗？”有时我的注意力会被纯粹的美丽所吸引，但有时却恰恰相反。
I love black-and-white covers or books where it’s just a white cover with black text.
我喜欢黑白封面或只有白色封面和黑色文字的书籍。
The simplicity of that is striking to me.
这种简单性令我震惊。
So do I, but I think we’re both suggesting that, maybe, our own choosing can out-manipulate the manipulators.
我也是，但我认为我们都在暗示，也许我们自己的选择可以超越操纵者。
We can spot the covers trying to manipulate us, right?
我们可以发现封面试图操纵我们，对吗？
Right.
正确的。
And not buy those books.
并且不买那些书。
And then, here’s something weird in the corner that’s not trying very hard, so maybe it has something else going for it.
然后，角落里有一些奇怪的东西，它并没有非常努力，所以也许它还有其他的用途。
That’s possible.
这是可能的。
How do you see novels changing to keep up with so much competition from the internet?
您如何看待小说为了跟上互联网如此激烈的竞争而发生的变化？
I don’t know if it’s competition from the internet.
不知道是不是来自网络的竞争。
I was going to say competition for TV, but, of course, that’s the same thing sometimes.
我本来想说的是电视竞争，但当然，有时这是同一件事。
I see novels being much more fragmented, it seems to me, in the last few years, where you have really short chapters, really strong visuals, where you read the little fragment of text and you feel like you can see it.
在我看来，最近几年的小说变得更加支离破碎，章节非常短，视觉效果非常强烈，读到一小段文字就感觉自己能看到它。
To me, that seems like a clear influence from television, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.
对我来说，这似乎是电视的明显影响，而且我认为这根本不是一件坏事。
There have been some pretty amazing TV shows the last few years.
过去几年出现了一些非常精彩的电视节目。
You could argue that it’s a bad thing, that it implies that our attention spans might be shorter.
你可能会说这是一件坏事，它意味着我们的注意力持续时间可能会更短。
But I don’t know if they are, or if it’s just we’ve become used to this more staccato rhythm to novels.
但我不知道是不是这样，或者只是我们已经习惯了小说这种断断续续的节奏。
I like those books, to be honest.
老实说，我喜欢那些书。
If the main competitor to Netflix is simply going to sleep, as has been suggested, what is the main competitor for the novel?
如果像有人暗示的那样，Netflix 的主要竞争对手只是去睡觉，那么这部小说的主要竞争对手是什么？
Probably the same.
大概是一样的。
Yeah, I can’t read at night.
是的，我晚上不能看书。
I’ll fall asleep.
我会睡着的。
That’s not doing anything.
那什么也没做。
The competitor to the novel, in all seriousness, is probably Netflix, too.
严肃地说，这部小说的竞争对手可能也是 Netflix。
The quality of TV is so high now that there’s a great argument to be made that you’re experiencing an equally complex and deep and artistic narrative through the medium of your laptop as you are on the page.
现在电视的质量如此之高，以至于有一个很好的论据，即您通过笔记本电脑媒介体验到了与在页面上一样复杂、深刻和艺术的叙事。
Yeah, I would say those two are in competition.
是的，我想说这两个人是竞争者。
The quality of TV is so high now that there’s a great argument to be made that you’re experiencing an equally complex and deep and artistic narrative through the medium of your laptop as you are on the page.
现在电视的质量如此之高，以至于有一个很好的论据，即您通过笔记本电脑媒介体验到了与在页面上一样复杂、深刻和艺术的叙事。
What’s your favorite recent TV show?
你最近最喜欢的电视节目是什么？
The Night Manager.
夜班经理。
It’s not super recent.
这不是最近的事情。
It was a few years ago, but a limited series of my favorite John le Carré novel.
那是几年前的事了，不过是我最喜欢的约翰·勒卡雷小说的限量版。
It was adapted by Susanne Bier.
它是由苏珊娜·比尔改编的。
It was something like six episodes.
大概有六集。
It departed wildly from the book, but I felt like it worked.
它与书本相差很大，但我觉得它有效。
It had a lot of style, great writing, fantastic acting, really high stakes.
它有很多风格、出色的写作、精彩的表演、非常高的风险。
If I had to pick one, it might be that.
如果一定要我选一个的话，可能就是这个。
Why are so few novels set in Toronto?
为什么以多伦多为背景的小说这么少？
It’s like this secret city.
就像这座秘密城市。
It’s weird.
这很奇怪。
If you grow up in Canada, Toronto is the city, but this goes back to the population thing I alluded to earlier.
如果你在加拿大长大，多伦多就是那个城市，但这又回到了我之前提到的人口问题。
There are just not that many Canadians relative to Americans.
相对于美国人来说，加拿大人并不多。
So, for us, it’s a major city, and I think a lot of Canadian novels are set there.
所以，对我们来说，这是一个大城市，我认为很多加拿大小说都以那里为背景。
But those novels don’t necessarily even find American publishers.
但这些小说甚至不一定能找到美国出版商。
It’s weird — living in the States, thinking about Toronto.
这很奇怪——生活在美国，却想着多伦多。
It’s this secret metropolis of 2.8 million people right on the other side of the border, and Americans never think about it.
这座拥有 280 万人口的秘密大都市就位于边境的另一边，而美国人却从来没有想过它。
How has science fiction changed since you read so much of it as a teenager?
自从你十几岁时读了这么多科幻小说以来，科幻小说发生了哪些变化？
It’s become, I think, more subtle, or maybe that’s just what I was reading as a teenager.
我认为，它变得更加微妙，或者也许这就是我十几岁时读到的东西。
My memory of the sci-fi I read as a teenager — it was a lot of Isaac Asimov, a lot of space stations and androids and space opera–type stuff.
我对青少年时期读过的科幻小说的记忆 ——里面有很多艾萨克·阿西莫夫、很多空间站、机器人和太空歌剧类型的东西。
Whereas now, it seems to me that recent sci-fi books I’ve read .
而现在，在我看来，我最近读过的科幻小说。
.
。
.
。
A great one in the last decade or so was How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu, whose writing I really admire.
过去十年左右的一部伟大著作是查尔斯·余（Charles Yu）写的《如何在科幻小说宇宙中安全生活》，我非常钦佩他的作品。
That was just such a subtle exploration of humanity in the context of this very surreal sci-fi novel.
这正是这部超现实科幻小说背景下对人性的微妙探索。
But I don’t know if it’s that the form has changed, or if I’m just reading better sci-fi now then I was as a teenager.
但我不知道是形式发生了变化，还是我现在读的科幻小说比十几岁的时候更好了。
What’s Asimov’s greatest work?
阿西莫夫最伟大的作品是什么？
The one that sticks with me is Prelude to Foundation, but I read him so long ago, I feel like I’m no longer qualified to comment.
令我印象深刻的是《基地前奏》，但我很久以前就读过他的书，我觉得我已经没有资格发表评论了。
If you reread them, would they seem crazy to you?
如果你重读它们，你会觉得它们很疯狂吗？
Or would you think, “This is still wonderful?”
或者你会想，“这仍然很棒吗？”
I think I might still find it wonderful.
我想我可能仍然会觉得它很棒。
I think about that book a lot.
我经常想起那本书。
On things under- and overrated
关于被低估和高估的事情
Now, in the middle of most of these dialogues, we have a segment, overrated versus underrated.
现在，在大多数对话的中间，我们有一个片段，被高估与被低估。
I’ll toss out some names, ideas, places, and you tell me if you think they’re underrated or overrated, okay?
我会抛出一些名字、想法、地点，然后你告诉我你是否认为它们被低估或高估了，好吗？
Sure.
当然。
First up, Patricia Highsmith.
首先是帕特里夏·海史密斯。
Underrated.
被低估了。
Why?
为什么？
I just think she’s a genius.
我只是觉得她是个天才。
I feel like, somehow, her work should be more appreciated than it is.
我觉得，不知何故，她的工作应该比现在更受赞赏。
I know it is, but I’m not going to call her overrated because I think she’s good.
我知道是这样，但我不会说她被高估了，因为我认为她很好。
If I had to compare you to some other author, it might be her.
如果我必须将你与其他作家进行比较，那可能就是她。
Is that fair of me, or am I off base there?
这对我来说公平吗？还是我有偏差？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
That seems reasonable.
这似乎很合理。
Her work had a literary quality, but it was also heavily plotted, so I think that’s reasonable.
她的作品有文学性，但情节也很重，所以我认为这是合理的。
Calvin and Hobbes — underrated or overrated?
卡尔文和霍布斯——被低估还是被高估？
Same problem.
同样的问题。
I’m struggling with this because I love them, but it’s not like they’re underrated.
我正在为此挣扎，因为我爱他们，但这并不是说他们被低估了。
Everybody loves them.
每个人都爱他们。
I wish there were a happy medium, but I guess I’d go with underrated because I’m not going to call that work of genius overrated.
我希望有一个折衷的办法，但我想我会选择被低估，因为我不会认为天才的作品被高估了。
David Foster Wallace.
大卫·福斯特·华莱士。
Overrated.
被高估了。
Why?
为什么？
You can write a book that is a profound and fascinating— no, I’m not going to say fascinating — a profound exploration of boredom and the vacuity of entertainment culture.
你可以写一本深刻而迷人的书——不，我不会说迷人——对娱乐文化的无聊和空虚进行深刻的探索。
That doesn’t mean it’s not a boring book.
这并不意味着这不是一本无聊的书。
I just found Infinite Jest to be really overrated.
我刚刚发现《无限笑话》真的被高估了。
But that being said, I loved The Pale King, even though he never finished that novel.
但话虽这么说，我喜欢《苍白之王》，尽管他从未完成那本小说。
So it’s hard for me to really categorize an entire body of work in that way.
所以我很难以这种方式对整个作品进行真正的分类。
If you’re going with his most famous book, then I guess I would say overrated.
如果你要读他最著名的书，那么我想我会说被高估了。
But I would say that The Pale King was underrated.
但我想说《苍白之王》被低估了。
That was a chaotic book in fragments that he didn’t get a chance to finish, but there was great stuff there.
那是一本杂乱的书，支离破碎，他没有机会读完，但里面有很棒的东西。
Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet.
埃德娜·圣文森特·米莱，诗人。
Same problem.
同样的问题。
I can’t call her underrated because she’s famous, and she filled stadiums in her lifetime with poetry readings, which is a fairly spectacular achievement.
我不能说她被低估了，因为她很有名，而且她一生中的体育场都充满了诗歌朗诵，这是一项相当惊人的成就。
So she’s not overrated.
所以她并没有被高估。
She’s incredible.
她太不可思议了。
Can you call somebody underrated if they’re widely read?
如果某人被广泛阅读，你能说他被低估了吗？
Of course.
当然。
LeBron James might be underrated, right?
勒布朗·詹姆斯可能被低估了，对吧？
Yeah, underrated.
是的，被低估了。
Okay.
好的。
Not finishing books you have started, underrated or overrated?
没有读完你已经开始的、被低估或高估的书？
Underrated.
被低估了。
That’s never happened to me, which is something I’m really grateful for.
这从来没有发生在我身上，这是我非常感激的事情。
But I have friends whose “first novel” was actually their fourth or fifth book.
但我有一些朋友的“第一本小说”实际上是他们的第四本书或第五本书。
Writers tend to see that as an awful thing, like, “God, I wasted two years of my life writing this novel, and now it lives in a drawer.” But that was how you were learning how to write a novel, so I would see that as a valuable experience.
作家们往往认为这是一件可怕的事情，比如，“天啊，我浪费了两年的时间来写这本小说，现在它却被放在抽屉里了。”但这就是你学习如何写小说的方式，所以我认为这是一次宝贵的经历。
But I mean as a reader — not finishing books, just tossing them at page 752.
但我的意思是，作为一名读者，并不是读完书，只是把它们扔到第 752 页。
Yeah, that is underrated.
是的，这被低估了。
You should absolutely toss books you don’t like.
你绝对应该扔掉你不喜欢的书。
I meet people sometimes that have these hard and fast rules.
我有时会遇到有这些硬性规定的人。
“I’ll never put down a book before page 150.” Or “I have to finish every book I start.” And I just think, “Life is pretty short.
“读到 150 页之前我绝不会放下一本书。”或者“我必须完成我开始的每一本书。”我只是想，“生命很短暂。
I don’t want to spend a lot of time reading work that doesn’t interest me.” Yeah, that is underrated.
我不想花很多时间阅读我不感兴趣的作品。”是的，这被低估了。
You should put down a book if you don’t like it.
如果你不喜欢一本书，你应该放下它。
If you start 10 books, on average, how many do you finish?
如果您开始读 10 本书，平均而言您会读完多少本？
Nine.
九。
I finish most of them.
我完成了其中的大部分。
Favorite film noir?
最喜欢的黑色电影？
Brick.
砖。
I can’t remember the name of the writer-director.
我不记得编剧兼导演的名字了。
He just put out Knives Out.
他刚刚推出了《利刃出鞘》。
Rian Johnson.
莱恩·约翰逊。
That was an amazing movie.
那是一部很棒的电影。
Now, your previous book, Station Eleven, which, of course, is about a pandemic.
现在，你的上一本书《第十一站》当然是关于流行病的。
A reader writes to me, “I believe that she has described Station Eleven as, paraphrasing, ‘a valentine to the modern world.’ Is that true?”
一位读者写信给我，“我相信她将第十一站描述为‘现代世界的情人节’。这是真的吗？”
Definitely.
确实。
The project of Station Eleven was, I wanted to set a novel in a post-technological world because I thought it might be interesting to think about and write about the modern world by contemplating its absence in the same way that you can talk about a person by delivering a eulogy.
《第十一站》的项目是，我想以后技术世界为背景写一部小说，因为我认为通过思考现代世界的缺席来思考和书写现代世界可能会很有趣，就像你可以通过发表悼词来谈论一个人一样。
It can absolutely be read as a love letter to electricity, plane travel, antibiotics, insulin, all the trappings of civilization we tend to take for granted.
它绝对可以被解读为一封写给电力、飞机旅行、抗生素、胰岛素以及我们往往认为理所当然的文明标志的情书。
If a pandemic came on the scale of what is portrayed in Station Eleven, which is that it wipes out most of the known world, where would be the safest place to be?
如果一场流行病的规模达到第十一站所描绘的规模，即它消灭了已知世界的大部分地区，那么哪里是最安全的地方？
Would it be on a Navy ship?
会在海军舰艇上吗？
It might be.
可能是这样。
Yeah, because they have supplies for a long time.
是的，因为他们有很长一段时间的供应。
And they can fish, right?
他们还能钓鱼，对吧？
They can fish, exactly.
确切地说，他们可以钓鱼。
Fresh water, I guess, would eventually become an issue, but if you have the equipment for desalinization, then you’d be okay for a while.
我想，淡水最终会成为一个问题，但如果你有海水淡化设备，那么暂时不会有问题。
Yeah, I think your best bet would be to stay onboard until the pandemic burned itself out.
是的，我认为你最好的选择是留在船上，直到大流行自行消失。
What are other candid places to be?
还有哪些其他坦诚的地方？
Anywhere away from other people with enough supplies to be self-sufficient.
任何远离他人、有足够物资自给自足的地方。
So New York City is the worst-case scenario, but if you had some kind of secluded place far away from other people, where you could feed yourself and have enough water — that would absolutely be the best scenario.
所以纽约市是最坏的情况，但如果你有一个远离其他人的僻静地方，在那里你可以自己吃饭并有足够的水 ——那绝对是最好的情况。
Say we have an intermediate kind of pandemic: worse than COVID-19 but better than what’s in your book, where you have a reasonable chance of recovering, given adequate medical care.
假设我们有一种中等程度的流行病：比 COVID-19 更严重，但比你书中描述的要好，只要给予足够的医疗护理，你就有合理的康复机会。
How densely populated an area do you wish to live in?
您希望居住在人口密度如何的地区？
It’s not even the area anymore.
它甚至不再是该地区了。
It’s become clear to us in New York City in the last couple of days, it’s the amount of equipment.
在过去的几天里，我们在纽约市已经清楚地意识到，这是设备的数量。
The problem in New York with COVID-19 — it’s not that there are too many of us.
纽约的 COVID-19 问题 ——并不是我们人数太多。
It’s that there aren’t enough ventilators.
就是没有足够的呼吸机。
I see it as more an equipment problem than a population density issue.
我认为这更多的是设备问题而不是人口密度问题。
In so many postapocalyptic novels, it seems that people wander a lot.
在这么多的末世小说中，人们似乎都在徘徊。
Do they wander too much?
他们流浪太多了吗？
Should they just stay put?
他们应该留在原地吗？
I had this conversation with another postapocalyptic novelist.
我和另一位后世界末日小说家进行了这次对话。
Would everybody stop walking?
大家都停下脚步吗？
Why is everybody wandering endlessly in a postapocalypse?
为什么每个人都在后世界末日中无休止地徘徊？
Yes!
是的！
That’s a fair question.
这是一个公平的问题。
I think that in the same way that in our modern, hopefully still pre-apocalyptic world, some people are content to live their entire lives in their hometowns, while others get out, really, as soon as they possibly can, and that was me.
我认为，就像在我们现代的、希望仍然是世界末日之前的世界一样，有些人满足于在自己的家乡度过一生，而另一些人则尽快离开，这就是我。
I think some people can live quite happily in a very small, probably inevitably insular community in your postapocalyptic wasteland.
我认为有些人可以在世界末日后的荒原上一个非常小的、可能不可避免地与世隔绝的社区里幸福地生活。
Whereas others would be like, “If I have to look at these same 300 people in the same place for one more day, I’m going to go crazy.” I think those are the people who would start wandering.
而其他人可能会说，“如果我必须在同一个地方再看这 300 个人一天，我会发疯的。”我认为这些人会开始流浪。
How, at all, have you been influenced by the postapocalyptic Noah story in the Bible, Book of Genesis?
《圣经》创世记中的后世界末日诺亚故事对您有何影响？
Not really at all.
完全不是。
I’m not from a religious household, so I didn’t grow up with that story.
我不是来自宗教家庭，所以我并不是伴随着这个故事长大的。
I guess it doesn’t grab my imagination in a way that some other postapocalyptic stories do.
我想它不会像其他一些后世界末日故事那样抓住我的想象力。
The one that really grabs my imagination is a 1960 novel called A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, which is one of my favorite books.
真正激发我想象力的是沃尔特·米勒 (Walter Miller) 1960 年写的一本名为《莱博维茨赞歌》的小说，这是我最喜欢的书之一。
I read that when I was about 15, and it blew my mind.
我在 15 岁左右读到这本书，它让我大吃一惊。
It’s a very different apocalypse than Station Eleven, but I think of it as the book that made me first think about what a postapocalyptic world might look like.
这是一个与第十一站截然不同的世界末日，但我认为这本书让我第一次思考世界末日后的世界会是什么样子。
And that is highly religious, that book, yes?
那本书是高度宗教性的，是吗？
It is, yeah.
是的，是的。
It’s true.
这是真的。
Do you think that Glass Hotel is a more pessimistic vision of human nature than Station Eleven?
你觉得玻璃酒店是不是比十一站更加悲观的人性愿景？
You could definitely make that argument.
你绝对可以提出这样的论点。
On the other hand, most people in The Glass Hotel are not actually horrible.
另一方面，玻璃酒店里的大多数人实际上并不可怕。
Something I was really interested in was thinking about the permeability of our moral borders, I guess you can say.
我真正感兴趣的是思考我们道德边界的渗透性，我想你可以说。
It seems to me that, probably, most of us are corruptible and that you probably don’t have to be an entirely horrible person to find yourself participating in a Ponzi scheme, even though that is a horrible thing to do.
在我看来，我们大多数人可能都是腐败的，而且你可能不必是一个完全可怕的人就会发现自己参与了庞氏骗局，尽管这是一件可怕的事情。
That moral slide was interesting to me.
那个道德幻灯片对我来说很有趣。
You could say that the people behaved worse in The Glass Hotel than Station Eleven, but at the same time, they’re not awful people.
你可以说玻璃酒店里的人比第十一站的人表现得更糟糕，但同时，他们也不是坏人。
How do the two novels fit together in your mind?
这两部小说在你心目中是如何结合在一起的？
They have a number of common characters.
他们有许多共同的性格。
Miranda, I think, is the same Miranda.
我认为米兰达就是同一个米兰达。
Leon Prevant is the same first and last name.
Leon Prevant 的名字和姓氏相同。
What’s your meta take on the two novels and their overleaf?
您对这两本小说及其背页有何看法？
Parallel universes.
平行宇宙。
All of my novels are standalone works, but sometimes I’ll have a character who I really want to use again.
我所有的小说都是独立作品，但有时我会遇到一个我很想再次使用的角色。
In Station Eleven, I really liked Miranda, and I really liked Clark, and I really liked Leon, even though by the final draft of that book he was basically a cameo character.
在《第十一站》中，我真的很喜欢米兰达，我真的很喜欢克拉克，我真的很喜欢莱昂，尽管在那本书的最终稿中他基本上只是一个客串角色。
I wanted to reuse at least a couple of those people, but that’s a little tricky when you’re about to kill off the entire population with a flu.
我想至少重用其中的几个人，但当你要用流感杀死整个人口时，这有点棘手。
So I tried to cover my tracks in Station Eleven with this chapter toward the end of the book in one of the postapocalyptic sections, where two characters — I think it’s Kirsten and August — are talking about .
所以我试图用这一章来掩盖我在第十一站的踪迹，在书的最后一个后世界末日的章节中，两个角色 —— 我认为是克尔斯滕和奥古斯特 ——正在谈论。
.
。
.
。
They’re playing this game they play sometimes, where they trade alternate universe ideas: an alternate universe where I didn’t lose all my teeth, or an alternate universe where the Georgia flu never happened and civilization moved on.
他们有时会玩这个游戏，交换替代宇宙的想法：一个我没有失去所有牙齿的替代宇宙，或者一个乔治亚流感从未发生且文明继续前进的替代宇宙。
And then, in The Glass Hotel, I tried to plant that seed again with that chapter where Vincent is wandering down the street, thinking to herself this own kind of game that she plays — imagining a world where, for example, that terrifying new flu in the Republic of Georgia hadn’t been quite so swiftly contained.
然后，在《玻璃酒店》中，我试图在文森特在街上闲逛的那一章中再次种下这种种子，她心里想着她玩的这种游戏——想象一个世界，例如，乔治亚共和国可怕的新流感并没有那么迅速得到遏制。
I know that a certain number of readers will read The Glass Hotel waiting for the flu pandemic to arrive, but I see them as operating in parallel realities.
我知道一定数量的读者会在等待流感大流行到来时阅读《玻璃酒店》，但我认为它们是在平行的现实中运作的。
One recent review of Glass Hotel — I think it was from the Washington Post — it suggested that contingency was the fundamental theme of most of your novels.
最近对《玻璃酒店》的一篇评论——我想是来自《华盛顿邮报》——它表明偶然性是你大多数小说的基本主题。
Do you agree?
你同意？
I do, yeah.
我愿意，是的。
I’m fascinated in the what-if.
我对假设很着迷。
You went right instead of left in the intersection.
你在十字路口向右走，而不是向左走。
How would everything be different if you’d made that choice?
如果你做出了这样的选择，一切会有什么不同？
Anna Mundow in the Wall Street Journal — she wrote this about your novels, and I quote: “The question of what is real — be it love, money, place, or memory — has always been at the heart of Ms. Mandel’s fiction.” Do you agree?
《华尔街日报》上的安娜·蒙多（Anna Mundow）——她为你的小说写了这篇文章，我引用一下：“什么是真实的问题——无论是爱情、金钱、地方还是记忆——一直是曼德尔女士小说的核心。”你同意？
I do.
我愿意。
It’s a topic that interests me.
这是我感兴趣的话题。
From what writer or source do you think you get those emphases?
您认为这些强调是从哪位作家或来源得到的？
Or it just comes from your personality?
或者这只是来自于你的个性？
I think it comes from my personality.
我认为这来自于我的个性。
Sometimes the world can seem, not quite unreal, but somehow improbable.
有时，世界看起来并非完全不真实，但在某种程度上是不可能的。
You can look around at your life .
您可以环顾自己的生活。
.
。
.
。
Speaking for myself, I can look around at my life and think, “This seems implausible.” I don’t think it’s quite as severe as any kind of disassociation syndrome, but it is this idea that plays at the back of my mind sometimes.
就我自己而言，我可以环顾自己的生活并思考：“这似乎难以置信。”我不认为它像任何一种解离综合症那么严重，但有时我的脑海里却萦绕着这个想法。
So I think that absolutely comes out in my fiction.
所以我认为这绝对会出现在我的小说中。
In Station Eleven, as you know, an airport serves as a museum of civilization.
如您所知，在第十一站，机场是一座文明博物馆。
If we had an airport as our museum of civilization, what is the biggest bias we would come away with, trying to understand our civilization?
如果我们有一个机场作为我们的文明博物馆，那么在试图了解我们的文明时，我们最大的偏见是什么？
Say you’re born in that airport.
假设你出生在那个机场。
You’re homeschooled in that airport.
你在那个机场在家接受教育。
What’s the biggest thing you get wrong?
你犯的最大的错误是什么？
I think you would just assume that everybody flew.
我想你会假设每个人都会飞。
You’d be like, “Well, something everybody did in that lost world was get on an airplane on a regular basis.
你会说，“嗯，在那个失落的世界里每个人都会做的事情就是定期乘坐飞机。
There are 5,000 boarding passes here in this museum.” I think it’s actually a fairly small percentage of the population that flies regularly.
这个博物馆里有5000张登机牌。”我认为定期乘坐飞机的人口实际上只占相当小的比例。
Yeah, that might be the biggest thing.
是的，这可能是最重要的事情。
On the surprising thing about living through a pandemic
关于经历流行病的令人惊讶的事情
Now you live in Brooklyn, correct?
现在你住在布鲁克林，对吗？
Yes, I do.
是的，我愿意。
And we’re speaking in late March.
我们是在三月底说话。
The situation with the coronavirus — you’ve obviously thought a good deal about pandemics in writing your novel, but what, in the real world, has been the biggest surprise to you so far?
冠状病毒的情况 ——显然，你在写小说时对流行病进行了很多思考，但在现实世界中，迄今为止最令你惊讶的是什么？
I don’t mean about politics, but just human beings.
我指的不是政治，而是人类。
The biggest surprise for me, I guess .
我想这对我来说是最大的惊喜。
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。
.
。
I did do a bit of research into pandemics when I was writing Station Eleven.
当我写《第十一站》时，我确实对流行病做了一些研究。
But something I never really thought about was the dread of waiting for a pandemic to arrive.
但我从未真正想过的是等待大流行到来的恐惧。
That’s been really unexpected to me, that we were in this long period over the last three weeks or so, when intellectually we all knew it was coming, but somehow, at the same time, didn’t really feel real, so we weren’t really stocking up on Lysol wipes, like the things you want to have.
这对我来说真的出乎意料，在过去三周左右的时间里，我们经历了这么长的一段时间，从理智上我们都知道它即将到来，但不知何故，同时，感觉并不真实，所以我们并没有真正储备来苏尔湿巾，就像你想要的东西一样。
Yeah, that atmosphere of anticipatory dread was something that I hadn’t really considered or expected.
是的，那种预期的恐惧气氛是我没有真正考虑或预料到的。
Have people been more or less cooperative than you had thought?
人们比你想象的更合作还是更不合作？
My impression — and the problem is, we don’t see people anymore — but my overall impression is they’ve been more cooperative.
我的印象 ——问题是，我们再也见不到人们了 ——但我的总体印象是他们更加合作了。
Definitely in the literary community, I’ve seen a lot of people really trying to support their independent bookstores, which has always been a thing.
当然在文学界，我看到很多人真的在努力支持他们的独立书店，这一直是一件事。
But I think there’s been a greater awareness that if you don’t buy your books from your independent bookstore — and by the way, they do all sell online mostly — then that store might not be there when all of this ends.
但我认为人们越来越意识到，如果你不从独立书店购买书籍 ——顺便说一句，它们大多都是在网上销售的——那么当这一切结束时，那家书店可能就不存在了。
So I see people pulling together like that, to try to support the businesses they love.
所以我看到人们像这样齐心协力，努力支持他们热爱的企业。
That’s been a major one.
这是一件大事。
I wish I could see people and bring back a report from actual humanity, but that is my impression.
我希望我能见到人们并带回一份来自实际人类的报告，但这只是我的印象。
There’s been more cooperation.
合作也更多了。
What have you learned about New York City in particular?
您对纽约市有什么特别了解？
About New York?
关于纽约？
That’s a good question.
这是一个好问题。
I’ll have to think about that more because I’m trying to think of something I’ve learned about New York that wouldn’t be true of other places at the moment, and I’m drawing a blank.
我必须更多地思考这个问题，因为我试图回想一些我在纽约学到的东西，而这些东西目前在其他地方是不可能的，但我却一片空白。
Is there anything you’re doing or planning on doing with your quarantine time that you feel free to divulge to us that would be interesting or surprising?
您在隔离期间正在做或计划做的事情有哪些是您可以随意向我们透露的有趣或令人惊讶的事情吗？
At this point, most of my contact with human beings is email and Twitter.
此时，我与人类的大部分接触是电子邮件和推特。
I feel like everybody is divided into one of two groups.
我觉得每个人都分为两类。
In group A, you have these people who are saying, “At least I have time to read in quarantine.
在 A 组中，有些人会说：“至少我在隔离期间有时间读书。
By the way, I’m accepting recommendations for TV shows to binge-watch.” The second group, of which I’m a part, we’re homeschooling our kids.
顺便说一句，我正在接受值得追看的电视节目的推荐。”第二组，我是其中的一员，我们正在在家教育我们的孩子。
There is zero time.
时间为零。
To be honest, my day is pretty much consumed with hanging out with my four-year-old and trying to create as good and as structured a day as I can for her, and then working frantically.
说实话，我的一天几乎都花在了和我四岁的孩子一起出去玩，努力为她创造尽可能好的、有条理的一天，然后疯狂地工作。
She naps for an hour or so, and I can maybe get a couple hours of childcare in the afternoon and after she goes to bed.
她小睡一个小时左右，我也许可以在下午和她上床睡觉后花几个小时照顾孩子。
Every day is just this crazy juggling act.
每一天都只是这种疯狂的杂耍表演。
Is homeschooling harder or easier than you had thought?
在家上学比你想象的更难还是更容易？
It’s about what I would have expected.
这与我的预期相符。
I was homeschooled when I was a kid, so I have some background from the other side of the equation.
我小时候在家接受教育，所以我有一些来自等式另一边的背景。
It is intensely time consuming.
这是非常耗时的。
The wonderful thing about preschool is you drop off your child, and you come back six hours later, and somebody’s done the work for you.
学前班的美妙之处在于，你把孩子送走，六个小时后你回来，有人已经帮你完成了工作。
But it’s about what I expected.
但这与我的预期相符。
How do you think being homeschooled influenced or shaped you?
您认为在家上学对您有何影响或塑造？
I think it pushed me, to a large degree, on the path that I’m on, in both a positive and negative way.
我认为它在很大程度上以积极和消极的方式推动我走上我所走的道路。
The negative of homeschooling, in my case, was it was not a particularly well-rounded education.
就我而言，在家上学的缺点是它不是一种特别全面的教育。
I really didn’t get much of a grounding in science or math, and that’s regrettable.
我确实没有太多的科学或数学基础，这很遗憾。
On the other hand, my parents really loved books.
另一方面，我的父母非常喜欢书籍。
We always had a ton of books in the house.
我们家里总是有很多书。
We went to the library every week.
我们每周都去图书馆。
I had an enormous amount of time to read, and I was encouraged to read.
我有大量的时间来阅读，并且我被鼓励去阅读。
And there was a period of time when one of the requirements of the curriculum was I had to write something every day.
有一段时间，课程的要求之一是我必须每天写一些东西。
That’s what got me writing in the first place.
这就是我最初写作的原因。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I might have had a completely different life if I hadn’t had so much time to spend reading and such a focus on books at such an early age.
如果我没有在这么小的时候花这么多时间读书并如此专注于书籍，我可能会有完全不同的生活。
For how long do you think an extreme form of lockdown is stable?
您认为极端形式的封锁能稳定多久？
At what point will we see large numbers of individuals simply going out and deciding to have fun, maybe even just as an act of rebellion?
什么时候我们会看到大量的人只是出去玩，甚至可能只是一种叛逆行为？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
There are obviously people who are already there.
显然已经有人在那里了。
I’ve been hearing these crazy stories — I live in Brooklyn, pretty close to Prospect Park — about people congregating for big group playdates, like 10 or 15 adults and kids in Prospect Park.
我一直在听这些疯狂的故事 — 我住在布鲁克林，离展望公园很近 — 关于人们聚集在一起进行大群玩耍的故事，比如 10 或 15 个成人和孩子在展望公园。
That seems insane to me, and it actually seems really unethical.
这对我来说似乎很疯狂，而且实际上似乎非常不道德。
Because if you need a ventilator because you recklessly mingled with a crowd of people, that’s a ventilator that somebody else won’t get.
因为如果你因为鲁莽地混入人群而需要呼吸机，那么其他人就无法获得呼吸机。
It’s reckless and crazy.
这是鲁莽和疯狂的。
For myself, I feel like with our household, my husband and I both have jobs that we can do remotely.
就我自己而言，我觉得我们的家庭、我的丈夫和我都有可以远程完成的工作。
We can handle our child.
我们可以照顾我们的孩子。
We could keep going this way for a very long time if we needed to.
如果需要的话，我们可以继续这样下去很长一段时间。
I could do this for months.
我可以这样做几个月。
But there are a lot of people who might not be able to, just very different family circumstances.
但也有很多人可能做不到，只是家庭情况不同而已。
I’m aware of how privileged I am in this.
我知道我在这方面有多么荣幸。
You also have a background in contemporary dance, is that correct?
您也有现代舞背景，对吗？
It is.
这是。
How has that shaped your writing and your thinking?
这对你的写作和思维有何影响？
In a couple of ways.
有几种方式。
One way is that dance requires the most incredible discipline, and I think that that’s helpful for writing.
一种方式是舞蹈需要最令人难以置信的纪律，我认为这对写作很有帮助。
Actually, it would be helpful for anything.
事实上，这对任何事情都会有帮助。
It probably would make you a more disciplined attorney if you’ve been a dancer first.
如果你首先是一名舞者，这可能会让你成为一名更有纪律的律师。
It’s just pretty hardcore.
这实在是太硬核了。
It’s also, to be honest, a much harder career than writing, and I think that’s pretty good.
老实说，这也是一个比写作更艰难的职业，我认为这很好。
There are difficult moments as a writer, but at the same time, what I find myself thinking is, “My worst day writing, or the terrible review, or whatever it is I’m dealing with — that’s still better than a dance audition.”
作为一名作家，也有困难的时刻，但与此同时，我发现自己在想的是，“我最糟糕的一天写作，或者糟糕的评论，或者我正在处理的任何事情 —— 这仍然比舞蹈试镜要好。”
Never again, hopefully, will I be in a room with 200 other women competing for one job, wearing skintight clothes with a number pinned to my chest.
希望我再也不会和另外 200 名女性一起在一个房间里竞争一份工作，穿着紧身衣服，胸前别着号码。
That’s dehumanizing.
这是非人性的。
Yeah, it’s helpful to writing in that contrast.
是的，这种对比对写作很有帮助。
I think everything you do after dance probably seems a little bit easier.
我认为跳舞后你所做的一切可能看起来都会更容易一些。
How impressive do you think is your own level of discipline and conscientiousness?
您认为您自己的纪律和责任心水平有多令人印象深刻？
I’m very disciplined and conscientious, but I don’t really know how I compare to other writers, to be honest.
我非常自律、认真，但说实话，我真的不知道自己与其他作家相比如何。
I only have one other close friend who’s a writer, and she’s at least as disciplined and conscientious as I am.
我只有一个亲密的朋友，她是一名作家，她至少和我一样自律和认真。
I have a lot of acquaintances that I don’t know well enough to really know what their day-to-day is like.
我有很多熟人，但我不太了解他们的日常生活。
I feel like I don’t have a good enough pool of comparison.
我觉得我没有足够好的比较池。
Who first spotted your writing talent, and how did they do it?
谁最先发现了您的写作天赋，他们是如何做到的？
What did they see in you?
他们在你身上看到了什么？
It was really nice.
真的很好。
I have no training as a writer.
我没有受过作家训练。
I never even took a workshop.
我什至从未参加过研讨会。
But I wrote a novel, which I finished in my mid-20s, and I started querying literary agents.
但我写了一本小说，在二十多岁时完成，我开始询问文学经纪人。
I was cold-querying.
我冷冷地询问。
I didn’t know anybody.
我谁也不认识。
I would send out a cover letter and three sample chapters, and I just worked my way down a list of New York City literary agents who represented literary fiction.
我会寄出一封求职信和三个样本章节，然后我就列出了一份代表文学小说的纽约市文学经纪人名单。
The 13th or 14th person on that list was Emilie Jacobsen at Curtis Brown.
该名单上的第 13 或第 14 人是柯蒂斯·布朗 (Curtis Brown) 的艾米莉·雅各布森 (Emilie Jacobsen)。
She requested the full manuscript and then rejected it.
她索要完整的手稿，然后拒绝了。
But she rejected it with the most thoughtful, detailed editorial letter.
但她用最深思熟虑、最详细的社论信拒绝了它。
It was the first really substantial feedback that I’d gotten on the book, and it was basically a list of problems that she had with the book.
这是我收到的关于这本书的第一个真正实质性的反馈，基本上是她在这本书中遇到的问题的列表。
“I didn’t understand why character X did Y.
“我不明白角色 X 为什么要这么做 Y。
I didn’t understand this plot point.”
我没看懂这个情节。”
I read that, and I thought, “Well, there’s no guarantee of future representation here, but worst-case scenario, if I take these suggestions, I’ll have a better book.” So I spent six months revising and then she agreed to read it again and took me on as a client.
我读到了这篇文章，我想，“好吧，不能保证未来在这里有代表性，但最坏的情况是，如果我接受这些建议，我会写一本更好的书。”所以我花了六个月的时间修改，然后她同意再读一遍并接受我作为客户。
Yeah, Emilie Jacobsen of Curtis Brown — she was in her 80s, and she took me on.
是的，柯蒂斯·布朗 (Curtis Brown) 的艾米莉·雅各布森 (Emilie Jacobsen)——她已经 80 多岁了，她接纳了我。
She died four years later, pneumonia.
四年后，她因肺炎去世。
She’s a real role model for me.
她是我真正的榜样。
She was incredibly sharp right up until the end.
直到最后，她都非常敏锐。
Incredible sense of style, and she was really my first champion.
令人难以置信的时尚感，她确实是我的第一个冠军。
She was wonderful.
她很棒。
Your first three novels, which we haven’t had time to discuss — they’re especially popular in France, correct?
你的前三部小说，我们还没来得及讨论——它们在法国特别受欢迎，对吗？
That is correct.
这是正确的。
Why France?
为什么是法国？
Is it the film noir tradition, the French love of film noir?
是黑色电影的传统，还是法国人对黑色电影的热爱？
I think it is.
我认为是的。
Genres work a little bit differently in different countries.
不同国家的流派运作方式略有不同。
In France, there’s this genre that doesn’t really exist here.
在法国，这种类型实际上并不存在。
It’s called polar, and the scope of things that fit under polar — it’s huge.
它被称为极地，极地之下的事物范围 ——它是巨大的。
It’s everything from vaguely atmospheric literary fiction with a slight noir tinge to it, to Three Days of the Condor.
从带有轻微黑色色彩的大气文学小说到《秃鹰三日》，应有尽有。
My first three novels were categorized as noir.
我的前三本小说被归类为黑色小说。
I’d go to these noir or polar festivals.
我会去参加这些黑色或极地的节日。
I’d sit next to the guy who wrote Three Days of the Condor.
我坐在写《秃鹰三日》的人旁边。
In France, I was a crime writer for my first three books.
在法国，我的前三本书都是犯罪小说作家。
And it was really interesting and great.
这真的很有趣而且很棒。
I had a Wikipedia page in France long before I had one in the US.
早在美国建立维基百科页面之前，我就在法国建立了维基百科页面。
In what country do you think you’re most popular per capita?
您认为您在哪个国家/地区的人均人气最高？
Probably the US.
可能是美国。
Not Canada?
不是加拿大吗？
No, not Canada.
不，不是加拿大。
I don’t know why that is, but I definitely feel like I have a much better career in the US than I do in Canada.
我不知道为什么，但我确实觉得我在美国的职业生涯比在加拿大好得多。
I’ve been short-listed for major American awards, but there are three big awards in Canada every year, and I never even made the long list.
我曾入围美国各大奖项的候选名单，但加拿大每年都有三个大奖项，我什至从未进入过长名单。
Do you think there’s ever a feeling in Canada that somehow you’re not Canadian enough as a writer, and that you’re just writing books?
你是否认为在加拿大有一种感觉，不知何故，你作为一名作家还不够加拿大化，而你只是在写书？
The thought has occurred to me.
我已经想到了这个想法。
It’s possible.
这是可能的。
It’s a weird thing.
这是一件很奇怪的事情。
I did think in the back of my mind that setting so much of Station Eleven in Toronto would make people in Canada think of me more as a Canadian writer, and I don’t know if it did or not, to be honest.
我确实在内心深处认为，将第十一站的大部分场景设置在多伦多会让加拿大人更多地认为我是一名加拿大作家，说实话，我不知道是否如此。
I did win the Toronto Book Award, which is cool.
我确实赢得了多伦多图书奖，这很酷。
But there’s such a randomness to awards.
但奖项的授予具有很大的随机性。
Ultimately, it’s just whichever books the five people on the jury liked, so I try not to put too much weight on it.
最终，这只是评审团中的五位成员喜欢的书，所以我尽量不要太重视它。
But yeah, it’s definitely a better career in the US.
但是，是的，这在美国绝对是更好的职业。
When you were younger, you used to unload trucks at 7:00 am, is that correct?
当您年轻的时候，您经常在早上 7:00 卸货，对吗？
I did.
我做到了。
That is correct.
这是正确的。
That’s the kind of job you can get in Montreal if you don’t speak a word of French.
如果你不会说法语，那么你在蒙特利尔就能找到这样的工作。
I speak some French now, but I didn’t speak any back then, and that was a job I could find.
我现在会说一些法语，但那时我不会说，那是我能找到的工作。
It was actually okay.
其实还好。
It was really cold — 7:00 am in Montreal in the winter — minus 20 Celsius.
天气真的很冷——冬天的蒙特利尔早上7:00——零下20摄氏度。
It’s pretty brutal.
这非常残酷。
At the same time, though, if you start work at 7:00 am, you’re done by 1:00 in the afternoon, so I had time to write in the afternoons, and I was working on my first novel.
但同时，如果你早上 7:00 开始工作，下午 1:00 就完成了，所以我下午有时间写作，我正在写我的第一部小说。
So it worked out okay.
所以结果还好。
Even then, you thought you would be a writer while unloading the trucks?
即便如此，你还以为自己会一边卸货一边当作家吗？
Yeah, that was a weird in-between time in my life, where I didn’t want to be a dancer anymore, and I was just starting to write.
是的，那是我生命中一段奇怪的中间时期，我不想再成为一名舞者，而我才刚刚开始写作。
I was very drawn to being a writer.
我非常喜欢成为一名作家。
And then you worked for seven years at the Rockefeller University Cancer Research Lab?
然后你在洛克菲勒大学癌症研究实验室工作了七年？
Yeah.
是的。
There are a lot of cancer research labs at Rockefeller.
洛克菲勒有很多癌症研究实验室。
It’s a cool place.
这是一个很酷的地方。
It’s all science.
这都是科学。
I was in the Tavazoie Lab, which was researching the role of micro RNAs and cancer metastasis.
我当时在 Tavazoie 实验室，该实验室正在研究 micro RNA 和癌症转移的作用。
I have no science background, but I’d been an administrative assistant in various companies for years before that, so I could do anything with an Excel spreadsheet.
我没有科学背景，但在此之前我曾在多家公司担任行政助理多年，所以我可以使用 Excel 电子表格做任何事情。
It was a lot of budgets, booking travel for my boss, trying to make the lab run as smoothly as I could.
我需要大量的预算，为我的老板预订旅行，并尽可能让实验室顺利运行。
It was a great job.
这是一项很棒的工作。
I held onto it for maybe longer than I should have.
我坚持的时间可能比我应该坚持的时间更长。
When did you stop it?
你什么时候停止的？
When?
什么时候？
I stopped it a year after Station Eleven came out.
《第十一站》问世一年后我就停止了它。
I was on something like my second tour of the UK and still booking plane travel for my boss, but I didn’t book my own travel anymore.
我正在进行第二次英国之旅，仍然为我的老板预订飞机旅行，但我不再预订自己的旅行了。
It just didn’t really make sense anymore.
它只是不再有意义了。
Do you have a unified theory of you?
你有一个统一的理论吗？
Your success?
你的成功？
No.
不。
No?
没有？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
No — that’s my gut response without actually thinking it through.
不——这是我的直觉反应，没有经过深思熟虑。
COWEN: But other than talent at writing, of course, if you try to think about what are your career strengths that have gotten you to the position you’re in, there’s discipline, right?
考恩：当然，除了写作天赋之外，如果你想一下是什么让你达到了现在的职位，你的职业优势是什么，那就是纪律，对吧？
Right.
正确的。
And what else is there?
还有什么？
Nerves of steel, which I definitely didn’t always have, but by my fifth book I’ve gotten to the point where I’m pretty impervious to criticism in a way that I wouldn’t have been when I was younger.
我并不总是拥有钢铁般的意志，但到了第五本书，我已经达到了对批评毫不动摇的地步，这是我年轻时不会有的。
I got a bad review in the New York Times, and I didn’t find that it even really ruined my evening, which is surprising.
我在《纽约时报》上得到了差评，但我并没有发现它真的毁了我的夜晚，这令人惊讶。
That definitely would have laid me low a couple of books ago.
如果是在几本书之前，那绝对会让我沮丧。
Yeah, tenaciousness and nerves of steel, I guess.
是的，我想是坚韧和钢铁般的意志。
A kind of sturdiness, right?
一种坚强，对吗？
Exactly.
确切地。
Last question — your next project, whatever it may be — is there anything you can tell us about it?
最后一个问题 — 你的下一个项目，无论它是什么 — 你能告诉我们什么吗？
No.
不。
No, but there is a next project?
没有，但是还有下一个项目吗？
There is a next project.
还有下一个项目。
I’m working on a new novel.
我正在写一本新小说。
I can tell you about another project I’ve been working on, which is the television adaptation of The Glass Hotel.
我可以告诉你我一直在做的另一个项目，那就是《玻璃酒店》的电视改编。
That’s been fun.
这很有趣。
It’s my first time writing for TV.
这是我第一次为电视写作。
So you’re actually writing part of the script?
所以你实际上正在写剧本的一部分？
I am.
我是。
I love writing novels, but after five novels, it’s fun to try something completely different.
我喜欢写小说，但在写了五本小说之后，尝试一些完全不同的东西很有趣。
That’s been a cool collaborative experience.
这是一次很酷的协作体验。
I’ve been enjoying it.
我一直很享受。
Does that feel like a new skill?
这感觉像是一项新技能吗？
Or you just feel like you’re still writing?
或者你只是觉得你还在写？
It feels like a very different skill, and it gives me a new appreciation for why film adaptations are so different from the source material.
这感觉像是一种非常不同的技能，它让我对为什么电影改编与源材料如此不同有了新的认识。
As a reader, your favorite book is adapted to the screen, and there’s this moment of “Wow, they mangled this thing.
作为一名读者，你最喜欢的书被改编成屏幕，然后就会有这样的时刻：“哇，他们把这本书弄坏了。
It’s completely different.”
这是完全不同的。”
There’s a reason for that.
这是有原因的。
In screenwriting, every scene has to drive the plot forward in a way that it just doesn’t really have to in novels.
在剧本创作中，每个场景都必须以小说中不需要的方式推动情节发展。
Learning that skill has been great.
学习这项技能非常棒。
Emily St. John Mandel, thank you very much.
艾米丽·圣约翰·曼德尔，非常感谢你。
To all our listeners and readers, I very much recommend Emily’s latest book, The Glass Hotel.
对于我们所有的听众和读者，我非常推荐艾米丽的最新书《玻璃酒店》。
Also, Station Eleven, the book about a pandemic, and she has three earlier novels, which are beloved in France and deservedly so.
此外，《第十一站》是一本关于流行病的书，她还有三本早期的小说，这些小说在法国很受欢迎，这是当之无愧的。
Emily, thank you very much.
艾米丽，非常感谢你。
My pleasure.
我的荣幸。
Thanks a lot.
多谢。