Katherine Rundell on the Art of Words (Ep. 168)
Hello, everyone.
大家好。
Welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
欢迎回到与泰勒对话。
Today I’m chatting with Katherine Rundell.
今天我正在与凯瑟琳·伦德尔聊天。
Katherine is a fellow at All Souls College.
凯瑟琳是万灵学院的研究员。
She is the best-selling author of numerous children’s books.
她是众多儿童读物的畅销书作者。
Every morning, she wakes up and does a cartwheel.
每天早上，她醒来都会做侧手翻。
But most prominently for me, she is the author of the recent book Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which is, this year so far , probably my favorite book of the year.
但对我来说最重要的是，她是最近出版的《超级无限：约翰·多恩的转变》一书的作者，今年到目前为止，这本书可能是我今年最喜欢的书。
Katherine, welcome.
凯瑟琳，欢迎。
Thank you so much for having me.
非常感谢你邀请我。
John Donne — he’s an English poet, born in 1572.
约翰·多恩——英国诗人，出生于 1572 年。
What is your origin story of how you became obsessed with him?
你是如何迷上他的？
I have parents who believed in the power of memorizing poetry and in the idea that even if you memorize poetry that you don’t understand, there will be a time in your life when it will come back for you.
我的父母相信背诵诗歌的力量，并且相信即使你背诵了你不懂的诗歌，在你的生命中总有一天它会回来找你。
So I was paid to memorize poetry, and my mother used to put it on the wall next to the sink where we would brush our teeth.
所以我被雇来背诗歌，我母亲常常把它放在我们刷牙的水槽旁边的墙上。
A lot of it was T.S.
其中很多都是 T.S.
Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, but there was also some John Donne poetry.
艾略特的《老负鼠的实用猫之书》，但也有一些约翰·多恩的诗歌。
Even though I didn’t fully grasp it, I found it to be faintly alchemic.
虽然我没有完全领会，但我发现它隐隐有炼金的味道。
I loved it.
我喜欢它。
I loved its strangeness and its difficulty.
我喜欢它的陌生和困难。
I’ve loved him for a very long time now.
我已经爱他很长时间了。
How old are you at that initial point?
最初的时候你多大了？
I was probably about 8.
我当时大概8岁左右。
When does the flipping age come when you think, “This is my thing.
当你认为“这是我的事”时，翻转时代什么时候到来？
I’m going to do something with this”?
我要用这个做点什么”？
I think probably in my teen years, he became my favorite poet and a talismanic author.
我想可能在我十几岁的时候，他就成为我最喜欢的诗人和护身符作家。
I found him a place of refuge against that which seemed to me often ungenerous.
我发现他是一个避难所，可以抵御那些在我看来常常不慷慨的行为。
So much of popular culture now offers a quite unexciting vision of what your mind and language might be capable of.
现在，许多流行文化都对你的思想和语言的能力提供了一种相当平淡的愿景。
I found him a brilliant antidote to that, a bulwark against a kind of anti-intellectualism.
我发现他是对此的一剂绝妙解药，是抵御某种反智主义的堡垒。
Then also, of course, I had boyfriends who would send it to me, and I found that very romantic.
当然，我也有男朋友会寄给我，我发现这非常浪漫。
The early John Donne — he writes poetry about the transmigration of souls.
早期的约翰·多恩——他写关于灵魂轮回的诗歌。
He writes a tract defending suicide that even suggests, possibly, Christ committed suicide on purpose.
他写了一本为自杀辩护的小册子，甚至暗示基督可能是故意自杀的。
Was early John Donne at all a Christian?
早期的约翰·多恩到底是不是基督徒？
It’s a really good question.
这是一个非常好的问题。
The one that we will never know the answer to is what precise shape did his inner religious life take because, of course, the central thing that most people who know a little bit about Donne know is that he was born into a Catholic family at a time when to be Catholic was to be persecuted, and he died the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
我们永远无法知道答案的是他内心的宗教生活究竟是什么样的，因为当然，大多数对多恩有一点了解的人都知道，最重要的一点是，他出生在一个天主教家庭，而在那个时代，成为天主教徒就会受到迫害，而他去世时担任圣保罗大教堂的院长。
That necessitated both a conversion and an emphaticness in his allegiance to the religion of the crown.
这使得他必须皈依并强调对王室宗教的忠诚。
He didn’t just cease to be a Catholic.
他不仅仅不再是一名天主教徒。
He wrote two major tracts against Catholicism, Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius His Conclave.
他写了两本反对天主教的主要小册子：《伪烈士》和《伊格内修斯秘密会议》。
The question of how far he ever believed, how far his Christianity, his Catholicism was real, and how far his later religion was real, and how far it was a necessity born of poverty or a questing ambition is something that a huge number of people will never agree on.
他的信仰在多大程度上是真实的，他的基督教、天主教在多大程度上是真实的，他后来的宗教在多大程度上是真实的，以及它在多大程度上是出于贫困或追求野心的必然性，这是很多人永远不会同意的问题。
Personally, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
就我个人而言，我倾向于相信他。
It was a time when many people changed religions throughout their lives.
那是许多人一生都改变宗教信仰的时期。
I think that his writing, the passion and fervor in his religious poetry, the focus and intelligence in his sermons, the breadth of dedication of thought, and the time it will have taken — I find it very easy to believe both in the reality of his Catholicism and in the reality of his Protestant conversion.
我认为他的写作、宗教诗歌中的激情和热情、布道中的专注和智慧、思想奉献的广度以及所花费的时间——我发现很容易相信他的天主教信仰和他皈依新教的现实。
Just a general question for perspective: If you take poets and intellectuals in early to mid-19th-century England, or London life, what percentage of them do you think believed, not in God, but in the Trinity, in literal Christian doctrine?
只是一个关于观点的一般性问题：如果你以 19 世纪早期到中期的英国或伦敦生活中的诗人和知识分子为例，你认为他们中有多少人不相信上帝，而是相信三位一体，相信真正的基督教教义？
19th century?
19世纪？
No, no. Donne’s time, 17th century.
不，不。多恩时代，十七世纪。
I think belief is such a difficult word because it will have meant different things.
我认为信仰是一个很难的词，因为它意味着不同的事情。
You will have had someone like Kit Marlowe, who played very openly with the idea of real atheism, the idea that we live in an empty universe.
你会遇到像基特·马洛这样的人，他非常公开地主张真正的无神论，即我们生活在一个空虚的宇宙中。
Of course, some people believe that he was murdered for it.
当然，也有人认为他是因此被谋杀的。
Other people believe that it was a brawl in a pub when he got knifed in the eye for not paying a bill, and we’ll never know.
其他人认为，他因未付帐单而被刀刺伤眼睛，是在酒吧里发生的一场斗殴，但我们永远不会知道。
Do you ask me to put a number on it?
你要我在上面加一个号码吗？
A number, yes.
一个数字，是的。
This is a podcast.
这是一个播客。
Okay, I’m going to say 70 percent of people found .
好吧，我想说 70% 的人都找到了。
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。
.
。
if you read the letters that we have of the time, people are often, in their private lives, expressing very real comfort and hope from certain forms of religious doctrine.
如果你读过当时的信件，就会发现人们在私生活中常常从某些形式的宗教教义中表达出非常真实的安慰和希望。
The amount of knowledge that people would’ve had, what the Bible actually said, the amount of access people would have had to Bibles in English, was of course, very limited.
人们拥有的知识量，圣经实际上所说的内容，人们能够接触到的英文圣经的数量，当然是非常有限的。
But I think a lot of people believed because it was offered as a way to put down your anxiety, your hopes, your chaos.
但我认为很多人都相信，因为它是作为一种放下你的焦虑、你的希望和你的混乱的方式而提供的。
It was a structure that gave people purpose and meaning.
它是一种赋予人们目的和意义的结构。
Then, of course, I think there will have been a lot of people who went to church — it was against the law not to go to church — but who went to church out of conformity, out of duty, out of not really caring that much.
当然，我认为会有很多人去教堂——“不去教堂是违法的”——但他们去教堂是出于顺从、出于责任、出于不太关心。
I’m sure, in every church service, there were the passionate devotees and the people who were thinking about lunch — as there are now.
我确信，在每次教堂礼拜中，都有热情的奉献者和正在考虑午餐的人——就像现在一样。
For Donne, can the meaning of a suicide ever be truly transparent?
对于多恩来说，自杀的意义能够真正透明吗？
No. I think, for Donne, suicide is one of the things that dogs his life.
不。我认为，对于多恩来说，自杀是困扰他生活的事情之一。
It was illegal during Donne’s lifetime to commit suicide.
在多恩生前，自杀是违法的。
It was a crime, in that most strange of ironies, punishable by death.
这是一种犯罪，最奇怪的讽刺，可判处死刑。
Suicides could be buried with a stake put through their hearts at the crossroads.
自杀者可以在十字路口用一根木桩穿过他们的心脏来埋葬。
In France, there have been accounts of dead bodies of suicides dragged through the streets as a warning.
在法国，有报道称自杀者的尸体被拖过街道以示警告。
Of course, it was against religious doctrine.
当然，这是违反宗教教义的。
John Donne’s letters tell us about his very real and urgent keening towards death.
约翰·多恩的信告诉我们他对死亡的真实而迫切的渴望。
He was a man who felt the pull of, he says, his own sword.
他说，他是一个感受到了自己的剑的拉力的人。
And he wrote the first full-length treatise in the English language, Biathanatos, on suicide, which argues that in very specific, limited circumstances, suicide is not a sin, that Christ himself was the one great suicide.
他用英语写了第一篇关于自杀的长篇论文《Biathanatos》，其中认为，在非常具体、有限的情况下，自杀不是罪，基督本人就是一个伟大的自杀者。
For Donne, to be pulled towards suicide was both, for him, to feel he was being pulled towards sin, but also to feel that it would be a shortcut, a leaping into infinity and into the presence of God.
对于多恩来说，被拉向自杀对他来说，既是感觉自己被拉向罪恶，也是感觉这将是一条捷径，是跳入无限、进入上帝面前的捷径。
For him, it was never going to be, in any way, straightforward or transparent.
对他来说，无论如何，事情都不会是直接或透明的。
What’s the political meaning of Biathanatos, Donne’s tract on suicide?
多恩关于自杀的小册子《Biathanatos》的政治意义是什么？
Is it asserting a right of self-ownership?
它是否主张自我所有权？
How do we think about it?
我们如何看待这个问题？
Is it egalitarian, or what is it doing, politically, in a very political time?
它是平等主义的吗？或者它在政治上、在一个非常政治化的时代在做什么？
Politically, of course, it’s complicated by the fact that he wrote it, but not to be read.
当然，从政治角度来说，这本书是他写的，但却不是供人阅读的，这让事情变得很复杂。
He wrote a text that he explicitly told a friend, when he went to Germany later in life, “Neither burn it nor publish it.
他写了一篇文章，当他后来去德国时，他明确地告诉一位朋友：“不要烧掉它，也不要出版它。
Give it not to the fire, but show it to no one,” because he was aware that it was a text that could lead him to be put in very real peril, not necessarily of anything dramatic like court cases, but he would’ve probably lost his job.
不要把它扔进火里，但不要给任何人看，”因为他知道这条短信可能会让他陷入非常现实的危险，不一定是像法庭案件那样的戏剧性危险，但他可能会丢掉工作。
For him, the politics of it — profoundly opaque and probably informed by a lot of his own desire to justify his own suicidal tendencies.
对他来说，其中的政治意义极其不透明，而且可能是因为他自己想要为自己的自杀倾向辩护的愿望。
There are those within Donne’s scholarship who think that Biathanatos was, in fact, a personal bid to write out of himself his desire towards suicide, that in some ways, those who talk about it a great deal are perhaps the least likely to commit it, and that he was in some way protecting himself in that way, so that it was a personal text in a way that it doesn’t look.
多恩学术界的一些人认为，《比亚塔纳托斯》实际上是个人试图写出他对自杀的渴望，在某些方面，那些经常谈论自杀的人可能最不可能自杀，而且他在某种程度上以这种方式保护自己，因此，从某种意义上说，这是一篇私人文本。
I don’t think that it is arguing anything as radical as absolute self-ownership because I think that would be anachronistic for the time.
我不认为它在争论像绝对自我所有权这样激进的事情，因为我认为这在当时是不合时宜的。
But I think it’s one of the texts that come closest to arguing that our certainties .
但我认为这是最接近论证我们的确定性的文本之一。
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It famously says we have been sure about so many things, and we have been wrong about them.
有句名言说，我们对很多事情都确信无疑，但我们却错了。
We have been wrong about the stars.
我们对星星的看法是错误的。
He is certainly saying all certainty has in it the peril of being not just wrong, but wrong in a way that will create misadventuring chaos.
他肯定是在说，所有的确定性都存在着错误的危险，而且错误的方式会造成不幸的混乱。
He is doing something quite radical there.
他在那里做了一些相当激进的事情。
He is saying there is no single great truth upon which we can base anything, and that was bold.
他说没有任何一个伟大的真理可以作为任何事情的基础，这是大胆的。
Whether or not you agree with it, what is the best Straussian reading of John Donne?
无论您是否同意，约翰·多恩最好的施特劳斯解读是什么？
Straussian reading?
读施特劳斯？
Yes.
是的。
I don’t think I know the answer to that.
我想我不知道答案。
Can you think of one?
你能想到一个吗？
If you think he might be an atheist — I don’t think he was, but I think it’s a plausible reading that he never believed in the Anglican Church.
如果你认为他可能是一个无神论者 —— 我不认为他是，但我认为他从不相信英国圣公会的说法是合理的。
He became a dean for survival and for income and for security.
他成为院长是为了生存、收入和安全。
What he cared about was his art, and a lot of it was a charade.
他关心的是他的艺术，而且很多都是一个谜语。
Even in the early work, he was a very high-class entertainer, and in some way, it wasn’t sincere.
即使在早期的工作中，他也是一个非常高级的艺人，但在某种程度上，这并不真诚。
I don’t know if I would defend that, but I would give it a chance of 10 percent.
我不知道我是否会捍卫这一点，但我会给它10%的机会。
Yes, I think so.
是的，我想是的。
It’s certainly a position that was very popular in the 1980s.
这无疑是 20 世纪 80 年代非常流行的一个职位。
John Carey’s completely spectacular book, John Donne: Life, Mind, and Art, certainly gives truck to that as a possible position.
约翰·凯里（John Carey）的著作《约翰·多恩（John Donne）：生活、思想和艺术》（John Donne: Life, Mind, and Art）非常精彩，无疑对此给予了高度重视，将其作为一种可能的立场。
One of the reasons that that vision has really been shifted in the last 10 years or so has been the discovery of new letters and the dating of old letters to suggest that, even after he had started to reach some form of real middle-class wealth and solidity, he still kept pushing in a way that could have, in fact, been detrimental to him towards being ordained.
这种愿景在过去十年左右的时间里真正发生转变的原因之一是新信件的发现和旧信件的年代表明，即使在他开始达到某种形式的真正的中产阶级财富和稳固性之后，他仍然继续以一种实际上可能不利于他被任命的方式推动。
The king’s favorite, Buckingham, was trying to put him off and was trying to offer him various forms of secretarialship — maybe going to Venice, maybe going to Ireland.
国王最宠爱的白金汉试图阻止他，并试图为他提供各种形式的秘书职位——也许去威尼斯，也许去爱尔兰。
That he, in the face of these letters, was pushing back and insisting on the pursuit of God .
面对这些信，他正在反击并坚持追求上帝。
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Also, he reads to me, in his letters, like a man bent on some form of sincerity.
而且，他在信中读给我听，就像一个一心追求某种真诚的人。
For every letter where there is flattery and ornate rhetoric that seems to have, at the heart of it when you burrow through, only a joke, there are also letters that seem to express a man who wanted to be able to lay down truth in words.
每一封信中都充满了奉承和华丽的言辞，当你深入挖掘时，其核心似乎只是一个笑话，但也有一些信似乎表达了一个人希望能够用语言说出真相。
Therefore, I do believe in his religion.
因此，我确实相信他的宗教。
Now, there’s a superficial but possibly true view of Donne that he wrote too many verses and epithalamiums for pay, and the world would’ve been better if he had just done more songs and sonnets.
现在，对多恩有一种肤浅但可能真实的看法，即他为了报酬写了太多的诗句和诗句，如果他写更多的歌曲和十四行诗，世界会更好。
Do you agree?
你同意？
Yes, of course.
是的当然。
Just flat out, you agree?
就这么简单，你同意吗？
I absolutely agree.
我绝对同意。
But then, you can say that of almost any poet of the period, for whom the need to make money meant that they had to compose in all ways which absolutely were, step by step, in the fashion of the time, and therefore held back their more radical and inventive impulses.
但是，你可以说，那个时期的几乎所有诗人都是如此，对他们来说，赚钱的需要意味着他们必须以一切绝对符合当时时尚的方式进行创作，因此抑制了他们更激进和创造性的冲动。
So, when they weren’t being paid, they often wrote their best work.
因此，当他们没有报酬时，他们通常会写出最好的作品。
For so long, why was Ben Jonson so much more popular a poet than Donne?
长期以来，为什么本·琼森（Ben Jonson）作为诗人比多恩（Donne）更受欢迎？
Partly because he was more famous; partly because he wrote plays, and the plays pleased first the queen and then the king; partly because he wrote for the boys of the boy players, and the boy players had a real glamour at the time, and Queen Elizabeth was borderline obsessed with them.
部分是因为他更有名；部分是因为他更出名。部分原因是他写了戏剧，而戏剧首先令王后满意，然后又令国王满意。部分原因是他为男孩球员的男孩们写作，而男孩球员在当时确实具有魅力，伊丽莎白女王对他们近乎痴迷。
Was Jonson ever a great poet, or is it all just pretty good?
琼森曾经是一位伟大的诗人，还是一切都很好？
None of it sticks with me.
这些都不适合我。
Am I missing something?
我错过了什么吗？
Donne sticks with me.
多恩和我在一起。
If you are missing something, I’m missing it too.
如果你错过了什么，我也错过了。
I admire Jonson’s structural ingenuity, and I admire his flair, and I really admire his capacity for gossip because it gave us a lot of the knowledge that we have of the time.
我钦佩琼森的结构独创性，我钦佩他的才华，我真的很钦佩他八卦的能力，因为它给了我们很多当时的知识。
But I have never managed to find him a poet who gets into your intestines.
但我一直没能找到一位能深入你内心的诗人。
There’s a recent book by Clare Jackson called Devil-Land, which I very much admire.
克莱尔·杰克逊最近写了一本叫做《魔鬼之地》的书，我非常欣赏。
It stresses how much British thought and life in the 17th century was — I think she even uses the word “deranged,” crazy.
它强调了 17 世纪英国的思想和生活是多么的 —— 我认为她甚至用了“精神错乱”这个词，疯狂。
It was a highly ideological era.
那是一个高度意识形态化的时代。
People started believing, writing, doing all kinds of crazy things.
人们开始相信、写作、做各种疯狂的事情。
Do you agree?
你同意？
If so, why did that happen then?
如果是这样，为什么会发生这种情况？
I know that’s a big question, but I’ve been very interested in this issue.
我知道这是一个很大的问题，但我一直对这个问题非常感兴趣。
I think it does look, to us now, like a time where a febrile intensity of thought became not just commonplace but contagious.
我认为，现在对我们来说，确实是一个狂热的思想不仅变得司空见惯，而且具有传染性的时代。
Certainly, you could wake up in the morning, and you could see acts of great devotion and great violence before breakfast.
当然，你可以在早上醒来，在早餐前看到伟大的奉献和伟大的暴力行为。
You could see a man burned for his belief.
你可以看到一个人因为他的信仰而被烧死。
You could see a woman hung for hers.
你可以看到一个女人为了她的而被吊死。
You could see people willing to push large beliefs on themselves to the point of death.
你可以看到人们愿意将自己的大信念推向死亡。
Certainly, I think it was also exacerbated by plague, by the fact that, every few years in Britain, the plague would come galloping through major cities, and thousands of people would die overnight.
当然，我认为瘟疫也加剧了这种情况，因为在英国，每隔几年，瘟疫就会席卷各大城市，一夜之间就会有成千上万的人死亡。
I think that closeness to death, to war, to pestilence, also to beauty, to an influx of money, to the fact that suddenly we had access to far greater knowledge because of the boom of the printing press — that’s enough to create a febrile moment, both intellectually and emotionally, I think.
我认为，与死亡、战争、瘟疫、美、金钱的涌入以及由于印刷机的繁荣而突然获得更多知识这一事实的接近——我认为，这足以创造一个智力和情感上的狂热时刻。
Are we, in some ways, reentering a time somewhat analogous to the 17th century in England?
在某些方面，我们是否正在重新进入一个类似于 17 世纪英国的时代？
I think it does sometimes feel like we are, that there is a similarly explosive moment, where we have newly explosive possibilities and newly explosive fears.
我认为有时我们确实感觉有一个类似的爆炸性时刻，我们有新的爆炸性的可能性和新的爆炸性的恐惧。
There feels like something similarly extreme happening, although I would say from different causes.
感觉就像发生了类似的极端事情，尽管我会说是出于不同的原因。
When you’re writing about John Donne, what is the proper music to listen to?
当你在写约翰·多恩时，适合听什么音乐？
Is it William Byrd or is it Simon and Garfunkel?
是威廉·伯德还是西蒙和加芬克尔？
One could, if one wanted to, listen to Doctor Atomic, which has set “Batter My Heart” into an aria, which is very beautiful.
如果愿意的话，可以听一下Doctor Atomic，它把《Batter My Heart》写成了一首咏叹调，非常美丽。
You could listen to some semi-contemporary adaptations, though none absolutely contemporary, the Campion version of “Break of Day.” I wouldn’t, personally.
你可以听一些半现代的改编作品，尽管没有绝对现代的，坎皮恩版本的《黎明》。就我个人而言，我不会。
I would say maybe some Mahler, someone who believed in both chaos and glory.
我想说也许是马勒，一个既相信混乱又相信荣耀的人。
Our next podcast guest is, in fact, John Adams, and I’m planning on asking him about Donne.
事实上，我们的下一位播客嘉宾是约翰·亚当斯，我打算向他询问有关多恩的事情。
Wonderful.
精彩的。
What’s your favorite word invented by John Donne?
您最喜欢约翰·多恩发明的词是什么？
The reason the book is called Super-Infinite.
这本书被称为《超级无限》的原因。
I do love impossibility.
我确实喜欢不可能。
I think it speaks highly to his sense of that which did not look impossible, but in fact, when you look at it closely, is so.
我认为这充分说明了他的感觉，这看起来并非不可能，但事实上，当你仔细观察时，事实就是如此。
But most of all, I love his talent for the “super” prefix that he added to so many things.
但最重要的是，我喜欢他为很多东西添加“超级”前缀的才华。
Insistence on things which lead outside language: super-infinite, super-miraculous, super-eternal, super-dying.
对引导外部语言的事物的坚持：超级无限、超级奇迹、超级永恒、超级死亡。
These are the linguistic habits of a man who longs for immensities.
这是一个渴望无限的人的语言习惯。
I like just simple “emancipation.” That’s from Donne, isn’t it?
我喜欢简单的“解放”。那是多恩寄来的，不是吗？
It is, although, of course, I think it would be amiss of me not to offer the caveat that often, the OED has always found first uses in canonical authors, in part because they’re just the ones who survived fire.
当然，我认为我不经常提出警告是不对的，《牛津英语词典》总是首先在经典作者身上找到用途，部分原因是他们只是在火灾中幸存下来的人。
So of course, he may have just been noting down a word in common parlance rather than being its inventor.
所以当然，他可能只是记下了一个常用语单词，而不是它的发明者。
Why did Donne visit Johannes Kepler?
多恩为什么拜访约翰尼斯·开普勒？
I think, a fascination with the stars.
我想，是对星星的迷恋。
I think that Donne was compelled by the idea of heavens and compelled by the idea, which he found deeply troubling, of scientific discoveries which were casting in doubt the great certainties of the previous generations.
我认为多恩受到了天堂观念的驱使，也受到了科学发现的观念的驱使，他对此深感不安，这些科学发现对前几代人的伟大确定性产生了怀疑。
He had a complicated relationship with innovation.
他与创新有着复杂的关系。
I think he went to Kepler to understand more about the ways that we moved around the sun and that the moons moved around us.
我认为他去开普勒是为了更多地了解我们绕太阳运动和月亮绕我们运动的方式。
In what ways was Donne a typical homeschooled child?
多恩在哪些方面是一个典型的在家上学的孩子？
I was very briefly a homeschooled child, so I take that personally.
我曾短暂地在家接受过教育，所以我认为这是针对我个人的。
I figured as much, yes.
我也是这么想的，是的。
Of course, the vast majority of boys of his class and religion were homeschooled boys because it was very hard to go to school as a young Catholic.
当然，他的班级和宗教信仰中的绝大多数男孩都是在家上学的男孩，因为作为一名年轻的天主教徒很难上学。
And, as the book discusses, going to school at the time would’ve introduced you to a ruthless brutality that would’ve been difficult to recover from.
而且，正如书中所讨论的那样，当时上学会让你遭遇残酷的暴行，而这种暴行将很难从中恢复。
Boys were beaten, some of them to death.
男孩们遭到殴打，其中一些被打死。
It was expected that you would fight your colleagues, your compatriots from the age of about 12, and boys routinely died at school.
人们期望你从 12 岁左右就开始与你的同事、同胞打架，男孩们经常在学校里死亡。
I think that he certainly has some of the idiosyncrasies of thought of someone who did not grow up with a huge cohort of friends, but also, he became a great maker and keeper of bosom friends.
我认为他确实具有一些没有与一大群朋友一起长大的人的思想特质，但他也成为了一位伟大的知音创造者和守护者。
His love for his friends is something I believe very truly in.
我非常相信他对朋友的爱。
“Letters, more than kisses, mingle souls,” he wrote to Henry , a man who we know he would’ve given up a great deal to help.
“书信比亲吻更能沟通灵魂，”他写信给亨利，我们知道他会放弃很多来帮助他。
Now, you have two books, Rooftoppers and Skysteppers, about rooftop walking.
现在，您有两本书，《Rooftoppers》和《Skysteppers》，讲述屋顶漫步。
Some might call them children’s books.
有些人可能称它们为儿童读物。
I’m not sure that’s exactly the right description, but what is the greatest danger with rooftop walking?
我不确定这个描述是否正确，但是屋顶行走最大的危险是什么？
Oh, it’s falling off.
哦，它掉下来了。
What leads you to fall off?
是什么导致你跌倒？
If you’re rooftop walking, if you were to fall off, what would be the proximate cause of that event?
如果你在屋顶行走，如果你摔倒了，导致该事件的直接原因是什么？
Philippe Petit, who is, of course, one of the great roof walkers of the world and the man who strung the wire between the Twin Towers in 1977, talks about vertigo as a beast that has to be tamed piece by piece, that can never be overcome all at once.
Philippe Petit 当然是世界上最伟大的屋顶行走者之一，也是 1977 年在双子塔之间架起钢丝的人，他将眩晕视为一头野兽，必须一点一点地驯服，永远无法一下子克服。
Vertigo, he says, is not the fear that you will fall.
他说，眩晕并不是害怕摔倒。
It is the fear that you will jump.
这是害怕你会跳下去。
That, of course, is the thing that, when you are roof walking, you are taming.
当然，当你在屋顶行走时，你正在驯服这一点。
You are trying to unmoor your sense of danger and of not being able to trust yourself not to jump from your sense of beauty and the vision of a city that you get up high.
你正试图摆脱你的危险感，并且无法相信自己不会从你的美感和你高高在上的城市的愿景中跳出来。
I roof-walk for very practical reasons: to see views that would otherwise be not really available to me in an increasingly privatized City of London.
我在屋顶漫步是出于非常实际的原因：为了看到在日益私有化的伦敦金融城中我无法真正看到的景色。
You’re also learning to fly a small plane.
您还将学习驾驶小型飞机。
Is that correct?
这是正确的吗？
That’s true, yes.
确实如此，是的。
For the same reason?
出于同样的原因？
Again, for the feeling of height.
再次，为了高度的感觉。
I come from a family of pilots.
我来自一个飞行员家庭。
Both my grandfathers flew Spitfires in the Second World War, and my uncle can fly a plane.
我的祖父都曾在第二次世界大战中驾驶过喷火式战斗机，而我的叔叔会驾驶飞机。
About five years ago, I started learning for the huge pleasure of being above the world and being given a vision of the sweep of it.
大约五年前，我开始学习，是为了获得凌驾于世界之上并看到世界的广阔视野的巨大乐趣。
If we’re trying to build a unified theory of you, how does wanting to see things from above fit into the theory?
如果我们试图建立一个关于你的统一理论，那么想要从上面看事物如何融入这个理论？
I enjoy seeing things from above, but I don’t put a lot of time into it, and that’s not unusual.
我喜欢从上面看东西，但我不会花很多时间在上面，这并不罕见。
You’re somewhat different, right?
你有点不同，对吧？
I think I love the idea.
我想我喜欢这个主意。
I think it might be connected to fiction.
我想这可能与小说有关。
It is very difficult, when writing a story, to hold the whole of it in one’s head.
当写一个故事时，很难将整个故事牢牢地记在脑子里。
If you complete a book that you feel you have achieved that, that feels like a great gift you have given yourself.
如果你读完一本你觉得自己已经实现了这一目标的书，那感觉就像是你送给自己的一份伟大的礼物。
It is very difficult to conceptualize a place that I have not seen from above.
很难想象一个我没有从上面看到过的地方。
I like the idea of being able to understand the way a city works by seeing its movements from above.
我喜欢通过从上方观察城市的运动来理解城市的运作方式的想法。
Also, cities are more beautiful seen from above.
而且，从高空俯瞰城市更加美丽。
Things that look, down at street level, grubby and deeply human — crisp wrappers and old burger papers — from up high, show the prehistoric elements of the way that people move in crowds.
从街道上往下看，肮脏而充满人情味的东西——“脆皮包装纸和旧汉堡纸”——从高处看去，展示了人们在人群中移动方式的史前元素。
Does rooftop walking also improve your research at All Souls?
屋顶漫步是否也能改善你在万灵学院的研究？
I don’t think that I could claim that rooftop walking really feeds into my research, on the grounds that most of my research is done in cold archives in libraries around the world, looking at manuscripts and hunting for traces of Donne in old books.
我不认为我可以声称屋顶漫步真正有助于我的研究，因为我的大部分研究都是在世界各地图书馆的冷档案中完成的，查看手稿并在旧书中寻找多恩的踪迹。
My hypothesis is that, in the true unified theory of you, which I do not have, that rooftop walking does, in fact, improve your research, that there’s somehow a convex combination of way down low and way up high that you need to maintain intellectual balance.
我的假设是，在你真正的统一理论中（我没有这种理论），屋顶行走实际上确实改善了你的研究，在某种程度上，你需要保持智力平衡，从低处到高处存在某种凸组合。
That could be an argument that, if you are someone whose work necessitates dwelling entirely on detail — because of course, academic study of John Donne, which is slightly different from my book, requires just burrowing into these very small details to understand about the conditions of production of the moment.
这可能是一个论点，如果你的工作需要完全关注细节——当然，约翰·多恩的学术研究与我的书略有不同，只需要深入研究这些非常小的细节即可了解当时的生产条件。
The flip side of that is the totalities of the view that you get up high in the cold, outside, alone in the dark.
另一方面，你站在寒冷的高处，独自在黑暗中，所看到的一切。
At current margins, where would you most like to do more rooftop walking?
在目前的利润范围内，您最想在哪里进行更多的屋顶步行？
Where would I most like to do more rooftop walking?
我最想在哪里进行更多屋顶漫步？
Paris has the best rooftops, I think, and they are quite easy to access.
我认为巴黎有最好的屋顶，而且很容易到达。
I have quite a few friends who have spent quite a lot of time — most of them are dancers or acrobats — on the rooftops of Paris.
我有不少朋友，他们在巴黎的屋顶上度过了很多时间——“他们中的大多数是舞者或杂技演员”。
What epitaph do you want on your tomb?
你想在你的坟墓上刻什么墓志铭？
Because you’ve written on this, right?
因为你已经写过这个了，对吧？
I have reviewed books about epitaphs.
我读过有关墓志铭的书籍。
I don’t know, I need a few more years to decide — a few decades, if I may.
我不知道，如果可以的话，我还需要几年的时间才能做出决定——如果可以的话，需要几十年。
What will you have on yours?
你身上会有什么？
I don’t want a tomb.
我不想要坟墓。
I want my body disposed of in an effective altruist kind of way, and somehow the proceeds liquidated and used for something productive.
我希望以一种有效的利他主义方式处置我的身体，并以某种方式清算收益并将其用于富有成效的事情。
That sounds entirely reasonable.
这听起来完全有道理。
Should children be more mischievous?
孩子应该更调皮一些吗？
Yes, and I think we should have more patience with childhood mischief because children whose mischievousness is quashed become difficult, thwarted, and sometimes quite vile adults.
是的，我认为我们应该对童年的恶作剧更有耐心，因为那些恶作剧被压制的孩子会变得很难相处、受挫，有时甚至会成为非常卑鄙的成年人。
What are the most important lessons of governance from what are called children’s novels?
从所谓的儿童小说中获得的最重要的治理教训是什么？
Children’s novels tend to teach the large, uncompromising truths that we hope exist.
儿童小说往往教导我们希望存在的宏大的、不妥协的真理。
Things like love will matter, kindness will matter, equality is possible.
像爱很重要，善良很重要，平等是可能的。
I think that we express them as truths to children when what they really are are hopes.
我认为我们把它们当作真理向孩子们表达，而它们实际上只是希望。
I suppose the best politics of children’s fiction will be those that argue that, as Ursula Le Guin would say, all that we have made, we have made by man, and it can be undone by man.
我认为儿童小说中最好的政治观点是，正如乌苏拉·勒吉恩所说，我们所创造的一切，都是由人类创造的，并且可以由人类来毁灭。
That often, the first way that we transform the world is through the art that she calls her art, the art of words.
通常，我们改变世界的第一种方式是通过她称之为艺术的艺术，即文字的艺术。
She would say it is the utopianism of children’s fiction that allows us to imagine something better.
她会说，儿童小说的乌托邦主义让我们能够想象出更好的东西。
She might be right.
她可能是对的。
Should the rest of fiction be more like what we call children’s fiction?
其余的小说应该更像我们所说的儿童小说吗？
I would say it would be more that more people should read children’s fiction, because the rest of fiction performs other urgently necessary tasks.
我想说的是，更多的人应该阅读儿童小说，因为其余的小说还执行着其他迫切需要的任务。
I think the right to elongate and experiment are jobs more of adult fiction.
我认为延长和实验的权利更多的是成人小说的工作。
I would argue, rather, that adults should occasionally read children’s fiction for pleasure, but also for the unabashed politics of idealism that they have.
相反，我认为成年人应该偶尔阅读儿童小说以获取乐趣，但也应该为了他们所拥有的毫不掩饰的理想主义政治。
If I think of some fictional works I read as a child, like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, there was a thrill to the complete newness of it that I now find harder to create because things are less new to me.
如果我想起小时候读过的一些虚构作品，比如艾萨克·阿西莫夫的《基金会》，我会因为它的全新性而感到兴奋，但现在我发现创作起来更加困难，因为事情对我来说不再那么新鲜了。
How can we get back to what it was like to read as a child?
怎样才能回到小时候读书的感觉呢？
Of course, to an extent it’s impossible because it is the freshness of new discovery that children — almost every scene they read feels to them unlike anything, they have so few collocates.
当然，在某种程度上这是不可能的，因为这是新发现的新鲜感，孩子们——几乎他们读到的每一个场景都让他们感觉与众不同，他们的搭配太少了。
But my argument — I wrote a book called Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, which you very kindly have.
但我的论点是——我写了一本书，名叫《为什么你应该读儿童读物，即使你如此年长而睿智》，你非常好心地拥有这本书。
My argument would be that reading books intended for people in the process of early discovery can remind you, if not what it feels like, then something adjacent enough to that to remember that it existed.
我的观点是，阅读为处于早期发现过程中的人们而写的书籍可以提醒你，如果不是那种感觉，那么也可以提醒你足够接近的东西，让你记住它的存在。
Therefore, it might give you a galvanic push towards seeking out other versions of that feeling of discovery.
因此，它可能会给你一种动力，去寻找这种发现感的其他版本。
Because, of course, although we feel like our discovery time has largely passed, that’s fake.
当然，因为尽管我们觉得我们的发现时间已经基本过去，但那是假的。
That’s not real.
那不是真的。
Your discovery time has not passed.
你的发现时间还没有过去。
There are still astonishments that await.
仍有惊喜等待着我们。
Should we let children vote?
我们应该让孩子投票吗？
There’s a very brilliant long read in the New Yorker by someone arguing that 6-year-olds should have the vote, and it’s very impressive in its sweep of the objections.
《纽约客》上有一篇非常精彩的长篇文章，作者认为六岁的孩子应该有投票权，并且它对反对意见的扫荡令人印象深刻。
In England, I would like to lower the voting age to 16 because I stand quite far to the left of center, and the youth, of course, tend to skew more left, and currently, Britain skews right.
在英国，我想把投票年龄降低到16岁，因为我站在中间偏左很远的地方，而年轻人当然更倾向于左倾，而目前英国则偏右。
If much younger children voted, do you think the equilibrium is that more religious families would, in essence, have more voting power because, say, the 8-year-olds — you might think, “Oh, they’ll care more about climate change.” But it might just be they do what their parents tell them.
如果年龄小得多的孩子投票，你认为平衡是更多的宗教家庭本质上会拥有更多的投票权，因为，比如说，8 岁的孩子 ——你可能会想，“哦，他们会更关心气候变化。”但他们可能只是按照父母告诉他们的去做。
There’s some Coasian arrangement, and it’s more power to the religious, which one may or may not mind.
有一些科斯式的安排，对宗教来说有更多的权力，人们可能介意也可能不介意。
But probably you don’t want that, right?
但你可能不希望这样，对吧？
It’s certainly true that the demographics of it might well not have the impact that we think it would, because children’s idealism would be very much tempered by the fact that they would be voting in accordance with their parents.
确实，它的人口统计数据很可能不会产生我们想象的影响，因为孩子们的理想主义会因为他们会按照父母的意见投票这一事实而受到很大的影响。
But then, would they?
但那么，他们会吗？
Would children vote the way that their parents told them to?
孩子们会按照父母告诉他们的方式投票吗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Maybe they wouldn’t.
也许他们不会。
I frequently did things my parents told me not to do.
我经常做父母告诉我不要做的事情。
Perhaps I would also have voted against their wishes, although I actually vote according to their wishes.
也许我也会投票反对他们的意愿，尽管我实际上是按照他们的意愿投票的。
What they taught me, I still believe.
他们教给我的东西，我仍然相信。
There’s some heritability to political views, right?
政治观点有一定的遗传性，对吧？
There is, exactly.
确实有。
What’s your favorite UK bookshop and why?
您最喜欢的英国书店是哪家？为什么？
I live very close to a UK bookshop called Primrose Hill Books, which is very close to where Dodie Smith lived, the woman who wrote 101 Dalmatians and I Capture the Castle.
我住的地方离一家叫 Primrose Hill Books 的英国书店很近，离多迪·史密斯 (Dodie Smith) 住的地方很近，她是《101 只斑点狗》和《我占领城堡》的作者。
It’s both beautiful and in the sight of Dodie Smith’s house.
它既美丽又在多迪·史密斯的房子的视野范围内。
Are you up for a quick round of overrated versus underrated?
您准备好进行一轮高估与低估的快速较量了吗？
Yes.
是的。
These will be easy.
这些都会很容易。
First, Edmund Spenser — overrated or underrated?
首先，埃德蒙·斯宾塞——被高估还是低估？
Underrated.
被低估了。
Why?
为什么？
Because he is no longer read.
因为他不再读书了。
I think the estimation we hold him in is correct, but nobody reads him, and people should put aside about a week of their lives and read The Faerie Queene.
我认为我们对他的估计是正确的，但没有人读他的书，人们应该抽出大约一周的时间来阅读《仙后》。
It’s painful, but it’s worth it when you come out the other side.
虽然很痛苦，但当你走出另一边时，一切都是值得的。
I agree with that, but it took me much more than a week, just to be clear.
我同意这一点，但我花了一周多的时间才弄清楚。
Diana Wynne Jones — overrated or underrated?
戴安娜·韦恩·琼斯 — 被高估还是低估？
Underrated, only because infinite estimation is what she deserves, and therefore no matter how high her stock —
被低估，只是因为无限的评价是她应得的，因此无论她的股票有多高 ——
Why is she interesting?
她为什么有趣？
I think she’s a writer’s writer who is somebody who believed that children should never be spoken down to.
我认为她是一位作家中的作家，她认为永远不应该对孩子说话。
And I think a lot of her children’s fiction is so weird and so full of the furies and anxieties that are extending from childhood into adulthood, that those books would also read as great texts for adults, the obvious one being maybe something like Fire and Hemlock or Howl’s Moving Castle.
我认为她的很多儿童小说都很奇怪，充满了从童年延伸到成年的愤怒和焦虑，这些书也适合成年人阅读，最明显的可能是《火与铁杉》或《哈尔的移动城堡》。
Sir Walter Raleigh — overrated or underrated?
沃尔特·罗利爵士 — 被高估还是低估？
Overrated because we have given him such credit for so many things he didn’t do.
被高估是因为我们对他没有做的许多事情给予了如此高的评价。
He didn’t bring back the potato.
他没有把土豆带回来。
That’s nonsense.
那是无稽之谈。
The speed of wombats.
袋熊的速度。
I think they don’t get enough credit for the fact that, over long distances, they are faster than Usain Bolt.
我认为他们没有得到足够的认可，因为在长距离上，他们比尤塞恩·博尔特更快。
I think we have underrated that.
我认为我们低估了这一点。
Seventeenth-century British entertainment.
十七世纪的英国娱乐。
How good was it?
有多好？
You read about bear baiting — it doesn’t sound fun to me at all.
你读到过关于诱熊的故事 —— 这对我来说一点也不有趣。
There’s a cruelty-to-animals issue, but it just doesn’t sound fun.
虽然存在虐待动物的问题，但这听起来并不有趣。
How good was it?
有多好？
Overrated or underrated?
被高估还是被低估？
Bear-baiting — definitely overrated.
诱熊——绝对被高估了。
I just don’t believe it can have been that exciting.
我只是不相信它会那么令人兴奋。
I assume it was partly just faute de mieux.
我想这部分只是faute de mieux。
People didn’t have much to do.
人们没有太多事可做。
But the theater, even though madly rated in Britain with gold, still underrated because of what came before, of how staggeringly new it was.
但是，尽管这座剧院在英国获得了金奖，但由于之前发生过的事情以及它的新奇程度，它仍然被低估了。
Belgium — overrated or underrated?
比利时 — 被高估还是被低估？
You lived there.
你住在那里。
Belgium, probably accurately rated.
比利时，可能是准确评价的。
I am aware that because I spent my teenage years there, I have an entirely unjustified fury against it, and therefore all of my books have one joke against Belgium.
我知道，因为我在那里度过了青少年时期，所以我对它怀有一种完全没有道理的愤怒，因此我所有的书中都有一个针对比利时的笑话。
But I hope Belgium is strong enough as a nation not to take it too personally.
但我希望比利时作为一个国家足够强大，不要把这件事看得太个人化。
I’m not sure Belgium is strong enough, is it?
我不确定比利时是否足够强大，是吗？
Where, in Belgium did you live?
您住在比利时哪里？
In Brussels.
在布鲁塞尔。
I see.
我懂了。
Mary Poppins — overrated or underrated as a figure?
《欢乐满人间》——作为一个人物，被高估还是低估？
Perfectly rated.
完美评价。
As a figure or as a film or as a book?
作为一个人物、一部电影或一本书？
Whichever.
任何。
I’m going to say underrated because the books are much stranger and wilder than we know.
我想说的是被低估了，因为这些书比我们所知的更加陌生和狂野。
Let’s say you’re back in the time — some version of you — but you don’t know how things turn out.
假设你回到了过去 —— 你的某个版本 —— 但你不知道事情会如何发展。
Which side of the Glorious Revolution would you have been on and why?
您会站在光荣革命的哪一边？为什么？
Oooh, I don’t know because it’s so impossible to forget the way it turned out.
哦，我不知道，因为不可能忘记结果。
Which side would you be on?
你会站在哪一边？
I would be very skeptical.
我会非常怀疑。
I would think, these Dutch people are going to come over and rule us?
我想，这些荷兰人会过来统治我们吗？
I wouldn’t think the resulting constellation of interest groups would be so stable, it would mean perpetual civil war, which is not how it turned out, so I think I would’ve been wrong.
我不认为由此产生的利益集团会如此稳定，这将意味着永久的内战，而事实并非如此，所以我认为我错了。
Yes, I think I might have had a wariness of the dramatic shifts.
是的，我想我可能对这些戏剧性的转变持谨慎态度。
I might have been anxious about what might come, but then, again, we would’ve been completely misplaced.
我可能对可能发生的事情感到焦虑，但话又说回来，我们就完全迷失了方向。
That’s right.
这是正确的。
You cut out the word “adamantine” from one of your books but kept the word “renunciation.” Why did you make that decision?
你从一本书中删去了“金刚”这个词，但保留了“放弃”这个词。你为什么做出这个决定？
Because “adamantine” was coming at a peak moment in the narrative.
因为“金刚”出现在叙事的高峰时刻。
It was the key showdown between a child and a gangster figure, and I didn’t want anything that would slow children.
这是一个孩子和一个黑帮人物之间的关键对决，我不想让孩子们放慢脚步。
But my general stance is, with children’s writing, you can use pretty much any vocabulary you want because they will either guess or step over or find out the word, and it rarely puts children off as much as we worry that it will.
但我的总体立场是，对于儿童写作，你几乎可以使用任何你想要的词汇，因为他们要么猜测，要么越过，要么找出这个词，而且它很少像我们担心的那样让孩子们感到厌烦。
Are there any children’s stories improved by the addition of social media to the story?
有没有哪些儿童故事通过在故事中添加社交媒体而得到改善？
Do you mean featured in the story, or you can follow the story on Twitter?
您是指故事中的特色内容，还是您可以在 Twitter 上关注故事？
No, featured in the story.
不，是故事里的人物。
Can that possibly improve a child’s story?
这能改善孩子的故事吗？
Or is it just a bad thing?
或者这只是一件坏事？
I feel absolutely sure it could improve a children’s story, but I have never yet seen it done.
我绝对确信它可以改善儿童故事，但我还从未见过它被完成。
Are social media — their general existence out there — making children’s literature harder to pull off?
社交媒体————它们普遍存在————是否让儿童文学变得更难实现？
Yes.
是的。
Why?
为什么？
We now compete, of course, with so many other forms of entertainment, and it is a form of entertainment that offers your insatiable hunger for being wooed absolute constant satiety.
当然，我们现在与许多其他形式的娱乐竞争，而这种娱乐形式可以为您提供绝对持续的满足感，让您对被追求的永不满足的渴望。
What we are trying to offer to children — something slower and richer and ultimately, you would hope, punchier — is vastly harder to sell to them.
我们试图向孩子们提供的东西——“更慢、更丰富，最终，你会希望更有力的东西”——却很难卖给他们。
Should we be getting boys to read more stories about girls?
我们应该让男孩读更多关于女孩的故事吗？
Or are we at an optimum there?
或者我们处于最佳状态吗？
We should, of course, get boys to read more stories about girls.
当然，我们应该让男孩读更多关于女孩的故事。
The data constantly reports that boys are, by and large, reading stories about boys, and girls are, by and large, reading stories about both genders.
数据不断表明，男孩总体上正在阅读关于男孩的故事，而女孩总体上正在阅读关于两种性别的故事。
There is a difficulty that there is a self-fulfilling prophecy in saying boys don’t read books about girls, and I don’t know how we get around that problem.
有一个困难是，说男孩不读关于女孩的书是一种自我实现的预言，我不知道我们如何解决这个问题。
Children’s movies — again, I know that’s a fraught term, but what would normally be called children’s movies — what’s your favorite one?
儿童电影 ——我知道这是一个令人担忧的术语，但通常所说的儿童电影 —— 你最喜欢哪一部？
Oh, The Railway Children.
哦，铁路孩子们。
Why is that interesting?
为什么这很有趣？
Because of that final moment.
因为那最后一刻。
The Railway Children is the story of some children whose father has been falsely accused and taken away, and they go to live by a railway.
《铁路孩子》讲述了一些孩子的父亲被诬告并被带走，来到铁路边生活的故事。
At the end, there is a moment in which the young girl — the oldest of the children, who has had to step into the adult world of secret keeping and adult care — sees her father return to her.
最后，有一个时刻，年轻的女孩——“孩子们中最年长的，不得不进入成人的秘密保守和成人照顾的世界”——看到她的父亲回到了她身边。
She runs into his arms and she says, “Oh, daddy, my daddy.” In that moment, she is allowed to return to childhood.
她扑进他的怀里，说：“哦，爸爸，我的爸爸。”那一刻，她仿佛回到了童年。
It’s a staggering moment of filmmaking, so beautiful.
这是电影制作中令人惊叹的时刻，如此美丽。
I like A Little Princess very much.
我非常喜欢《小公主》。
Do you know that movie?
你知道那部电影吗？
No, I’ve never seen it.
不，我从没见过。
Cuarón — it’s a Mexican director but set in England.
卡隆——这是一位墨西哥导演，但故事发生在英国。
It’s highly unusual, and it’s dark and nasty but cheery in some ways too.
这是非常不寻常的，它是黑暗和肮脏的，但在某些方面也很令人愉快。
Wonderful.
精彩的。
Ideal.
理想的。
What is it that T.S.
T.S. 到底是什么？
Eliot failed to understand about John Donne?
艾略特无法理解约翰·多恩？
Oh, that’s a really interesting question because, of course, usually T.S.
哦，这是一个非常有趣的问题，因为当然，通常 T.S.
Eliot is given the credit of rediscovering John Donne after the Victorian period in which his fashionability had really waned.
艾略特因在约翰·多恩的时尚度真正衰退的维多利亚时期之后重新发现了他而受到赞誉。
I think he got a lot right about John Donne when he says he’s trying to picture in John Donne, somebody for whom every element of his life modifies his sensibility, that he is able to couple religion and body and the smell of a rose and the cooking of dinner into one great whole.
当他说他试图在约翰·多恩身上描绘一个他生活中的每一个元素都改变了他的情感的人时，我认为他对约翰·多恩的看法是对的，他能够将宗教、身体、玫瑰的气味和晚餐的烹饪结合成一个伟大的整体。
That, I think, he got right.
我认为他是对的。
I think what he got wrong was he did not accentuate the strangeness of John Donne.
我认为他的错误在于他没有强调约翰·多恩的奇怪之处。
I think he offered to us a John Donne who was trying to make things whole, but of course, John Donne’s poetry often carries with it a beautiful salute to human fracturing and human strangeness.
我认为他向我们提供了一个试图使事情变得完整的约翰·多恩，但当然，约翰·多恩的诗歌常常带着对人类破碎和人类陌生感的美丽致敬。
He was writing at a time when people were offering a profoundly coherent vision of love: Walter Raleigh writing about Queen Elizabeth as the rose, or Philip Sidney constantly iterating this image of the woman as the white dove, that her shoulders are two white doves and her cheeks are two white doves.
他写作的时候，人们正在提供一种深刻而连贯的爱情愿景：沃尔特·罗利（Walter Raleigh）将伊丽莎白女王描述为玫瑰，或者菲利普·西德尼（Philip Sidney）不断地重复这个女人作为白鸽的形象，她的肩膀是两只白鸽，她的脸颊是两只白鸽。
John Donne stood up in the center of that fashion and said, “No, you are stranger than that.
约翰·多恩站在那群人的中央，说道：“不，你比那更奇怪。
You deserve poetry that is stranger than that.
你值得拥有比这更奇怪的诗歌。
You deserve poetry that uses the images of fleas and sucking fish and suns rising and compasses to express the vertiginous and labyrinthine quality of human desire.” I don’t think that T.S.
你应该得到这样的诗歌，它使用跳蚤、吸吮鱼、太阳升起和指南针的形象来表达人类欲望的令人眼花缭乱和迷宫般的品质。”我不认为 T.S.
Eliot had a mindset at the time to recognize that.
艾略特当时就意识到了这一点。
What do you think of the view that Donne is all about metaphysical beauty, and there’s an extreme shortage of physical beauty in his writings?
对于多恩只注重形而上的美而他的作品中极度缺乏形而上的美的观点，你有何看法？
I think it’s certainly true that, if you were to turn to John Donne to find images of his lovers and specifically of his wife, Anne Donne — whom he met when she was very young, 14, and they married when she was 17 — you will find no physical descriptor.
我认为，如果你去约翰·多恩那里寻找他的情人，特别是他的妻子安妮·多恩的照片——他在她 14 岁的时候就认识了她，他们在她 17 岁时结婚了——你将找不到任何身体描述。
You will find no sense of whether she was curvy or slim or large or tall, but what you will have is an understanding of what it is that physical beauty does to the person witnessing it.
你不会感觉到她是曲线美、苗条、高大还是高大，但你会了解身体美对目睹者的影响。
I think the poems are more about him looking at her than they are about her.
我认为这些诗更多的是关于他看着她，而不是关于她。
They’re more about his startlement and embracing and wariness and bitchiness about love than they are about the specific bodily facts of the women he was with.
它们更多地是关于他对爱情的震惊、拥抱、警惕和恶毒，而不是关于与他在一起的女人的具体身体事实。
How well do you think Samuel Johnson understood Donne?
您认为塞缪尔·约翰逊对多恩的理解程度如何？
Of course, the obvious answer would be not at all, because Johnson loathed Donne and felt that there was something in Donne that was genuinely slightly dangerous, because Johnson’s vision of poetry still leaned towards the fashion of thinking of it as a monovocal exercise, that there was a correct form of poetry, that its correctness was something to be prized, and that the chipping away at that correctness would lead to social breakdown.
当然，显而易见的答案根本不会，因为约翰逊厌恶多恩，并觉得多恩身上有一些确实有点危险的东西，因为约翰逊对诗歌的看法仍然倾向于将其视为单声练习的时尚，诗歌存在一种正确的形式，它的正确性是值得珍惜的，而削弱这种正确性将导致社会崩溃。
I think he was wrong about that.
我认为他的想法是错误的。
But I nonetheless remain grateful to him because he did read Donne, and he did think about Donne, and as such, even if he didn’t intend to, kept him alive.
但我仍然感激他，因为他确实读过多恩，他确实想到了多恩，因此，即使他无意，也让他活了下来。
For you, what is most interesting in Donne’s sermons?
对你来说，多恩的布道中最有趣的是什么？
The thing I find most interesting would be the radical honesty that he has — that you will find in so few other sermons of the time — about the difficulty of finding God.
我发现最有趣的事情是他对寻找上帝的困难所表现出的彻底的诚实——你会在当时为数不多的其他布道中发现这一点。
He is a man who writes often with certainty about the idea of reaching the infinite, the divine.
他是一个经常在写作中坚定地表达达到无限、神圣的想法的人。
But he also writes this famous passage where he says, “I summon God and my angels, and when God and the angels are there, I neglect them for .
但他也写了这段著名的段落，其中他说：“我召唤上帝和我的天使，当上帝和天使在那里时，我忽略了他们。
.
。
.” I forget what it is.
”。我忘记那是什么了。
“The sound of a carriage, a straw under my knee, a thought, a chimera, and nothing and everything.”
“马车的声音，膝盖下的一根稻草，一个想法，一个幻想，什么都没有。”
That sense that, even though he had a brain that could control incredibly rigorous poetry, he did not have a brain that would control itself in prayer.
这意味着，尽管他有一个可以控制极其严格的诗歌的大脑，但他没有一个可以控制祈祷的大脑。
He offered that to his congregation as a vulnerability and a piece of honesty that so few sermoners of the time — who thought of themselves more as a regulatory ideal that should never admit vulnerability — would offer.
他向他的会众提出了这一点，作为一种脆弱性和一种诚实，而当时很少有布道者会提供这种脆弱性和诚实，他们认为自己更像是一个永远不应该承认脆弱性的监管理想。
How do you think your life has been shaped by having grown up in Zimbabwe?
您认为在津巴布韦长大对您的生活有何影响？
Oh, I think it was profoundly lucky to grow up in Zimbabwe at a time .
哦，我认为在津巴布韦长大是非常幸运的。
.
。
.
。
I grew up with parents who allowed me an enormous amount of freedom, and I don’t know if they would’ve done that now, but we were allowed to vanish for the day without adult supervision — me and my siblings and friends.
我和父母一起长大，他们给了我巨大的自由，我不知道他们现在是否会这样做，但我们被允许在没有成人监督的情况下消失一天——我和我的兄弟姐妹和朋友。
The shining quality of that childhood time, even quite young, say 10 or 11, spent entirely without the presence of adults — the freeing quality that gives your imagination, I imagine has something to do with the fact that I became a children’s writer.
那个童年时光的光辉品质，即使是很小的时候，比如10岁或11岁，完全没有成年人在场的情况下度过的——“赋予你想象力的自由品质，我想这与我成为一名儿童作家有关。
Do you think these free, unruly childhoods like yours generate a better class of elites?
你认为像你这样自由、不守规矩的童年会造就更好的精英阶层吗？
Oh, I would question the terms of that question because I’m not sure that many people with free, unruly childhood become elites, and I wouldn’t cast myself as one.
哦，我会质疑这个问题的措辞，因为我不确定是否有很多拥有自由、不守规矩童年的人成为精英，而我也不会把自己定位为精英。
But ceteris paribus, if you took people who, maybe, had a high chance of becoming elites, and you gave them freer, more unruly childhoods, would they turn out better?
但在其他条件不变的情况下，如果你把那些可能很有可能成为精英的人，给他们更自由、更不守规矩的童年，他们会变得更好吗？
Right, as a kind of retro engineering.
是的，作为一种复古工程。
Not cross-sectionally, but ceteris paribus.
不是横截面的，而是在其他条件不变的情况下。
I would not be surprised if they did because the forms that that kind of unruly quality takes — mostly spending huge amount of time outside — might give you a more urgent sense of the necessity of outside, and that might be something that ongoing elites are going need to hold hard and fast at the center of all their thoughts.
如果他们这样做，我不会感到惊讶，因为这种不守规矩的品质所采取的形式——“主要是在户外花费大量时间”——可能会让你对户外的必要性有一种更紧迫的感觉，而这可能是当前的精英们需要坚定不移地牢牢占据他们所有思想中心的东西。
What is it like to eat a tarantula?
吃狼蛛是什么感觉？
Not delicious.
不好吃。
I hoped it would be because some children I met in the Amazon rainforest had told me that it was.
我希望这是因为我在亚马逊雨林遇到的一些孩子告诉我确实如此。
But I think there’s a very real difference between fresh and canned tarantula, and my tarantula was from a can.
但我认为新鲜的狼蛛和罐装狼蛛之间有很大的区别，而我的狼蛛是罐装的。
Who sells canned tarantula?
谁有卖狼蛛罐头？
The same people who stock Selfridges with little scorpions in whiskey.
那些在塞尔福里奇百货公司（Selfridges）存有小蝎子威士忌的人。
There’s a big market for that kind of thing, it turns out.
事实证明，这种东西有很大的市场。
I was surprised.
我很惊讶。
It’s a markets-in-everything phenomenon.
这是一种万物皆有市场的现象。
If you just eat a fresh tarantula, do you get poisoned or are you fine?
如果你刚吃了一只新鲜的狼蛛，你会中毒还是没事？
No, you are fine.
不，你很好。
I think the poison is only dangerous when administered by the stingers immediately.
我认为只有立即用毒刺注射毒药才危险。
I was not warned about any danger, and none came to me.
没有人警告我有任何危险，也没有人来找我。
As a kid, how was it that you broke your bones?
小时候，你是怎么摔断骨头的？
Oh, I fell out of a lot of things, trees mostly.
哦，我从很多东西上摔下来，主要是树上。
So you wanted to see things from above, even early on.
所以你想从上面看东西，即使是在很早的时候。
Even early on.
即使很早。
Because I didn’t have the skill to match the ambition, I ended up with quite a few broken bones.
因为我没有能力与野心相匹配，所以我最终摔断了好几根骨头。
What, for you, is the most fun part of writing?
对你来说，写作中最有趣的部分是什么？
The early stage, where there is no imperative towards structural cohesion, and you can just write scenes that seem to you vivid and funny and interesting and joyful.
早期阶段，没有必要结构衔接，可以写一些你觉得生动、有趣、有趣、欢乐的场景。
Then later, when you have to make it cohere into something where the narrative itself is a form of metaphor — that bit’s harder and less fun.
然后，当你必须让它凝聚成某种叙事本身就是一种隐喻形式的东西时，那就更难了，也更不那么有趣了。
What is your most unusual writing habit?
你最不寻常的写作习惯是什么？
I no longer really have one.
我不再真正拥有了。
When I was younger, I used to have many in a bid to make myself meet deadlines that were broadly my own imagining.
当我年轻的时候，我曾经有很多努力让自己在最后期限前完成，这基本上是我自己的想象。
I would, when writing my PhD, have a pact with a friend that if we didn’t do the requisite number of words — usually a thousand words a day of our doctoral theses — we had to give £100 to a donkey sanctuary.
在写博士论文时，我会与一位朋友达成协议，如果我们没有完成必要的字数——“我们的博士论文通常每天一千字”——我们就必须向驴子保护区捐赠 100 英镑。
It was chosen on the grounds that it wasn’t harmful to give that money to a donkey sanctuary, but it also wasn’t particularly beneficial because we picked the richest donkey sanctuary in England, where they’re bathing in ass’s milk and covered in diamonds.
选择它的理由是，把这笔钱捐给驴保护区并没有什么害处，但它也不是特别有益，因为我们选择了英格兰最富有的驴保护区，在那里它们沐浴在驴奶中，全身覆盖着钻石。
You couldn’t tell yourself that it was a good, but it wouldn’t do harm if we screwed up.
你不能告诉自己这是一件好事，但如果我们搞砸了也没什么坏处。
We wouldn’t, for instance, give money to the British National Party or something like that.
例如，我们不会向英国国家党或类似机构提供资金。
And it really does work.
它确实有效。
I didn’t want the donkeys to have my money.
我不想让驴子拿走我的钱。
I only failed once.
我只失败过一次。
So you’ve stopped doing it because you don’t need to do it, not that you think it’s a terrible idea.
所以你停止这样做是因为你不需要这样做，而不是你认为这是一个糟糕的主意。
Because I no longer need to do it with quite such urgency.
因为我不再需要如此紧迫地去做这件事。
A PhD is the hardest form of writing, I think, in terms of galvanizing yourself into wanting to do it.
我认为，就激励自己想要这样做而言，博士学位是最难的写作形式。
Why do so few writers use markets and self-constraint?
为什么很少有作家利用市场和自我约束？
So many people will say, “I want to finish.
很多人会说：“我想完成。
I want to finish earlier, want to finish my thesis.” But very few people do what you did, I find.
我想早点完成，想完成我的论文。”但我发现很少有人做你所做的事情。
You claim it’s effective.
你声称它有效。
I suspect that’s correct.
我怀疑这是正确的。
Incentives matter, and no one copies that.
激励措施很重要，这一点没有人效仿。
What’s going on?
这是怎么回事？
I think it might be that people want to keep their writing as a form of joy and delight, especially if it’s not something they do professionally, and that adding those sharp-edged incentives will remove the feeling of luxury that writing often has, that it’s a luxury to spend time with the imagination.
我认为人们可能希望将写作作为一种快乐和愉悦的形式，特别是如果这不是他们专业做的事情，而增加这些尖锐的激励措施将消除写作通常具有的奢侈感，即花时间在想象力上是一种奢侈。
Do you feel that the Irish still have an especially rich version of the English language, even today?
即使在今天，您是否认为爱尔兰人仍然拥有特别丰富的英语版本？
I’m not sure I really have enough knowledge about that.
我不确定我对此是否真的有足够的了解。
Certainly, I think my Irish friends have a deep well of folk stories that they were given in a cohesive body in a way that perhaps English children are not, but I’m not sure about the linguistic portion.
当然，我认为我的爱尔兰朋友有很多民间故事，他们以一种有凝聚力的方式讲述，而英国孩子可能不会，但我不确定语言部分。
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
It seems to me they are still more narrative, more engaged with longer trains of thought.
在我看来，它们仍然更具叙事性，更具有更长的思路。
The fact that, not too long ago, so many Irish people had to learn English as a second language, so to speak, I think still exercises an influence and makes people more self-conscious about language.
事实上，不久前，许多爱尔兰人不得不学习英语作为第二语言，可以这么说，我认为仍然产生影响并使人们对语言更加自觉。
Certainly, my Irish friends have a form of linguistic dexterity that a lot of my English friends lack.
当然，我的爱尔兰朋友有一种我的许多英国朋友所缺乏的语言灵活性。
Of course, the stereotype that the Irish are witty — although my Irish friends find it profoundly annoying — does still push them towards enhancing that stereotype, and they are all very funny.
当然，爱尔兰人机智的刻板印象——尽管我的爱尔兰朋友觉得这非常烦人——仍然促使他们强化这种刻板印象，而且他们都很有趣。
And per capita, there’s really quite a bit of excellent Irish literature.
按人均计算，优秀的爱尔兰文学确实相当多。
Even not per capita.
甚至不是人均。
If you thought, well, it was a nation of 30 million people, you would think, “Well, this makes sense, how many good novels they have.”
如果你认为，这是一个拥有 3000 万人口的国家，你会想，“嗯，这是有道理的，他们有多少好小说。”
Yes, it is remarkable, and they keep coming too.
是的，这很了不起，而且他们也不断地来。
If we think about continental novels of ideas, what is your true love in that genre?
如果我们考虑一下大陆的思想小说，您对这种类型的真正喜爱是什么？
That’s a really lovely question.
这是一个非常可爱的问题。
I’m wondering what counts as a continental novel of ideas, though.
不过，我想知道什么才算是一部大陆思想小说。
What counts as continental?
什么才算是大陆？
Don Quixote, Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka.
堂吉诃德、陀思妥耶夫斯基、托马斯·曼、弗朗茨·卡夫卡。
Kafka was going to be the obvious one that I would say.
我想说的是，卡夫卡是最明显的一个。
I was wondering if Madame Bovary counts as a novel of ideas —
我想知道《包法利夫人》算不算思想小说 ——
I’ll say yes.
我会说是的。
Okay.
好的。
In that case, Madame Bovary, which I remember reading as a teenager and feeling like it kicked the knees from under me with a kind of awe at the speed and richness and occasional cruelty and generosity of that narrative.
在这种情况下，《包法利夫人》，我记得我十几岁的时候读过这本书，感觉它让我的膝盖从脚下踢开，对那个叙述的速度和丰富性以及偶尔的残酷和慷慨感到敬畏。
Also, Kafka — I have a picture book called My First Kafka, which is a children’s book retelling — I didn’t write it, I just read it — of Metamorphosis.
还有，卡夫卡 ——我有一本图画书，叫《我的第一个卡夫卡》，是一本儿童读物，复述 —— 不是我写的，我只是读的 ——《变形记》。
Now, I give them to all the toddlers I know.
现在，我把它们送给我认识的所有幼儿。
I think they need to start young.
我认为他们需要从年轻开始。
For the toddlers?
对于幼儿？
Yes.
是的。
I think it’s an ideal time to get to grips with Kafka — the 3- to 4-year-olds.
我认为现在是了解卡夫卡——3 到 4 岁孩子的理想时机。
What’s a book you can no longer stand to read?
有什么书让你读不下去？
For instance, I find it very difficult to now read Dostoevsky.
例如，我发现现在很难读陀思妥耶夫斯基。
I don’t think he’s a terrible author, but it somehow doesn’t click with me.
我不认为他是一个糟糕的作家，但不知怎的，我并不喜欢他。
It fascinated me in high school, but now it just falls flat.
它在高中时让我着迷，但现在却平淡无奇了。
I still love Dostoevsky, but I can’t read Dickens anymore.
我仍然喜欢陀思妥耶夫斯基，但我不能再读狄更斯了。
I used to be wildly in love with the atmospheres that he conjured of London and smoke and smog, but I now find very vividly visible the fact that he was getting paid per word.
我曾经非常喜欢他所营造的伦敦烟雾和烟雾的氛围，但现在我清楚地发现他按字付费的事实。
What do you think is both best and worst about the intellectual environment at All Souls?
您认为万灵学院的学术环境最好和最差的是什么？
Oh, I think best would be the fact that it is a mix of old and young.
哦，我认为最好的一点是它是老年人和年轻人的混合体。
Often it’s thought of as a place largely populated by older white men, but in fact, a huge proportion of the fellows are under 40.
人们通常认为这里主要居住着年长的白人男性，但事实上，其中很大一部分人年龄在 40 岁以下。
The thing that I loved about it, coming of age there — I was made a fellow at 21 — was that you would come down to dinner, and you would meet people who were unabashedly keen to talk about their work in terms that were not compromising in detail or technicality or passion, and that was a brilliant coming of age.
我喜欢在那里长大的事情——“我21岁就被任命为研究员”——就是你会下来吃晚饭，你会遇到那些毫不掩饰地热衷于谈论他们的工作的人，他们的语言不会在细节、技术性或热情上妥协，这是一个辉煌的成年。
The least good thing?
最不好事？
We are still struggling with both the overwhelming whiteness and the overwhelming maleness of the place because of its inheritance.
由于它的继承性，我们仍然在与这个地方压倒性的白人和压倒性的男性作斗争。
They only had women in 1980, and that does still show.
1980 年他们只有女性，这一点至今仍然可见。
Let’s say, for a friend, you’re designing a two-week trip through the British Isles.
假设，您正在为一位朋友设计一次为期两周的不列颠群岛旅行。
No London, forget about Stonehenge.
没有伦敦，忘记巨石阵吧。
It has to be something weird.
一定是有什么奇怪的事情。
Where do you send them and what do you tell them to do?
你把他们送到哪里以及你告诉他们做什么？
I would tell them first, you need to go to Norfolk, a place that is underrated in its beauties.
我会首先告诉他们，你需要去诺福克，一个被低估的美丽地方。
There’s a place called Stiffkey, where Rachel Cusk, the novelist, used to live.
有一个叫斯蒂夫基的地方，小说家雷切尔·卡斯克曾经住过。
If you wade out, it starts to look like you could film Martian-like films, and indeed several extraterrestrial films have been filmed on that beach.
如果你涉水而出，看起来你可以拍摄类似火星的电影，事实上，已经有几部外星电影在那个海滩上拍摄过。
If you go right to the sea, there’s a colony of seals who will come to greet you, and that feels faintly like being churched.
如果你直接走到海边，就会有一群海豹来迎接你，这感觉有点像在教堂里。
That part of England is very interesting to me because it’s one part where the Industrial Revolution never quite came, so it feels much older, still, in some ways.
英格兰的那个地区对我来说非常有趣，因为这是工业革命从未真正到来的地区，所以在某些方面感觉仍然古老得多。
Exactly.
确切地。
Its landscape is often compared by people from places like Texas or places like South Africa.
来自德克萨斯州或南非等地的人们经常将其景观进行比较。
They often say that it has the same prairie feel to it.
他们常说它有同样的草原感觉。
Not where you’ve been, but moving forward, how do you think of how travel fits into your work and your writing?
不是你去过的地方，而是展望未来，你如何看待旅行如何融入你的工作和写作？
It used to be something that I would do in a way to offer rich detail and the plots that I was doing.
这曾经是我会做的事情，以提供丰富的细节和我正在做的情节。
I think that I will stay more put these days, in part because of fears of the burning world and what air travel does to that, and in part, a sense that I might be at a period of my life when rhythm and structure might be valuable.
我想这些天我会更加呆在原地，部分原因是对燃烧世界的恐惧以及航空旅行对此的影响，部分原因是我感觉自己可能正处于生命中节奏和结构可能有价值的时期。
I get much more tired than I used to.
我比以前更累了。
The thing about doing a cartwheel every day — that was true when I was 25, but it’s not true now I’m 35.
每天做侧手翻这件事 ——在我 25 岁的时候确实如此，但现在我 35 岁了就不再是这样了。
It’s become too hard?
变得太难了吗？
Actually, you can see my flat isn’t big enough.
事实上，你可以看到我的公寓不够大。
I would hit the wall.
我会撞墙。
You mean the ceiling or the wall?
你说的是天花板还是墙壁？
The walls.
墙壁。
There isn’t enough space for a cartwheel across without hitting that pole.
没有足够的空间让侧手翻不撞到那根杆子。
You must live near Oxford.
你必须住在牛津附近。
I actually live in London, and I commute.
我实际上住在伦敦，而且我上下班。
I’ll go to Oxford tonight.
今晚我要去牛津。
You take the train?
你坐火车吗？
Yes.
是的。
What is it that you plan on doing next that you are able to talk about?
您接下来打算做什么并且可以谈论的是什么？
I want to write a children’s book that I am truly proud of, and I’ll keep going until that happens.
我想写一本让我真正感到自豪的儿童读物，我会继续努力，直到实现这一目标。
I’m currently writing a children’s novel that I’ve been working on for five years, and I think I might end up proud of it by the end.
我目前正在写一本儿童小说，我已经写了五年了，我想到最后我可能会为此感到自豪。
I’m not yet.
我还没有。
I think that’s what my version of success would look like — something that I didn’t read and wince.
我想这就是我对成功的理解——我没有读到它，也没有皱起眉头。
That, I think, is my next step.
我想，这就是我的下一步。
If you think of your children’s-novels side and your All Souls–John Donne side, how do those two fit together in your mind, but also in the minds of those at All Souls?
如果你想到你的儿童小说方面和你的万灵-约翰·多恩方面，这两者在你的脑海中是如何结合在一起的，在万灵的那些人的心中也是如此？
In my mind, I think it’s that John Donne’s sense of the capacity of language to be something that you shake out of the confines of the day and use in a way that, as much as possible, fits the rhythms of your own imagination.
在我看来，我认为约翰·多恩（John Donne）认为语言的能力是让你摆脱当今的束缚并以尽可能符合你自己想象力的节奏的方式使用的东西。
He insisted on the necessity of building your own language.
他坚持认为建立自己的语言的必要性。
I think that I grew up with that, and it is why my novels are often referred to as idiosyncratic and literary.
我认为我是伴随着这一点长大的，这就是为什么我的小说经常被认为是独特的和文学的。
I want language that belongs to me, so I think they refer to each other in that way.
我想要属于我的语言，所以我认为他们以这种方式互相引用。
Also, I think, a love of poetry.
我认为还有对诗歌的热爱。
He taught me to love poetry and other poetry as well as his, and I think that probably affects my prose.
他教我热爱诗歌和其他诗歌以及他的诗歌，我认为这可能会影响我的散文。
All Souls — I think they would note that most of the novels have a John Donne joke in them, and that’s a very obvious throughline.
《万灵》——我想他们会注意到大多数小说都有约翰·多恩的笑话，这是一个非常明显的主线。
They don’t know about the Belgium jokes, or do they?
他们不知道比利时的笑话，不是吗？
Oh, I haven’t told them, and I don’t think they’ve read many of the books, so hopefully not.
哦，我还没有告诉他们，而且我认为他们没有读过很多书，所以希望没有。
What do you find most frustrating about interacting with the world of publishing?
在与出版界的互动中，您觉得最令人沮丧的是什么？
It’s commercial publishing in your case, right?
你的情况是商业出版，对吗？
It is commercial publishing in my case.
就我而言，这是商业出版。
There is a great deal that I love.
有很多我喜欢的东西。
Truthfully, it’s the necessity of deadlines.
说实话，这是最后期限的必要性。
I have never handed in a book without it being clawed from my hands, because I always want to do one last go, and I would love there to be an extra four months built into it so that when it looks like a book, I’m allowed to read it like it’s a book and then make the changes that I would like to make, but I realize that would be ruinous for the publishing industry.
我从来没有交过一本书而不被从我手中夺走，因为我总是想做最后一次，我希望能有额外的四个月时间，这样当它看起来像一本书时，我就可以像一本书一样阅读它，然后做出我想做的改变，但我意识到这对出版业来说是毁灭性的。
That’s the most rewarding side, but what’s the most frustrating?
这是最有价值的一面，但最令人沮丧的是什么？
Or is it both?
或者两者兼而有之？
Oh, that’s also the most frustrating — the fact that I’m not allowed to do that, that they don’t allow you to rewrite your books four years later.
哦，这也是最令人沮丧的——事实上，我不被允许这样做，他们不允许你在四年后重写你的书。
If they would let us do that, I know it would cause absolute havoc for both the reading and writing populations of the world, but my great dream would be to be allowed to look back at Super-Infinite in about three years’ time.
如果他们允许我们这样做，我知道这会对世界上的阅读和写作人群造成绝对的破坏，但我伟大的梦想是允许在大约三年后回顾《超级无限》。
There are already some adverbs that annoy me.
已经有一些副词让我恼火了。
I would go back and take them out.
我会回去把它们拿出来。
Pierre Boulez did that with compositions.
皮埃尔·布列兹（Pierre Boulez）在作曲中做到了这一点。
You could, in fact, do that.
事实上，你可以这样做。
It may not be profitable, but is there actually anyone stopping you?
可能不赚钱，但是真的有人阻止你吗？
My publishers wouldn’t let me.
我的出版商不让我这么做。
I have asked my children’s publishers, and they say, “No, you need to write your next book.
我问过我孩子的出版商，他们说：“不，你需要写你的下一本书。
You can’t just keep rewriting your past texts.”
你不能只是继续重写你过去的文本。”
They wouldn’t let you pick out those adverbs in Super-Infinite?
他们不让你挑《超级无限》里的那些副词？
What if you just say it was a typo?
如果你只是说这是一个错字怎么办？
You would lie, and maybe they would know it wasn’t quite true, but rather than fight the battle, if it didn’t require too much re-typesetting —
你会撒谎，也许他们会知道这并不完全正确，但与其打仗，如果不需要太多的重新排版 ——
I will try, and I’ll let you know if I have success.
我会尝试，如果成功我会告诉你。
Now, let’s say you’re meeting younger writers, and you’re looking for someone who, in very broad terms, is like you, and I’m not even sure what that means because you have quite an atypical career.
现在，假设你正在结识年轻的作家，并且你正在寻找一个从广义上讲与你相似的人，我什至不确定这意味着什么，因为你的职业生涯相当非典型。
But what would you look for in that person as a sign of their talent?
但你会在这个人身上寻找什么来作为他们才华的标志呢？
Obviously, smarts, work ethic, and so on, but beyond the usual, what do you look for in young writing talent?
显然，聪明、职业道德等等，但除了平常之外，你在年轻的写作人才中寻找什么？
The difficulty with that is you are asking an English person that, which requires me to accept that I would look for someone like myself.
困难在于你问的是一个英国人，这要求我接受我会寻找像我这样的人。
I wouldn’t.
我不会。
I would look for someone different and better.
我会寻找不同的、更好的人。
I can’t deal with a question that presupposes assuming myself to have excellence, but if I were looking for excellence —
我无法回答一个以假设自己优秀为前提的问题，但如果我正在寻找卓越 ——
Looking for someone better than you, yes.
寻找比你更好的人，是的。
It would be really important to me that somebody had understood that it matters as much or far more the way you say the thing as what you say, because the thing you want to say is probably a very similar thing that everyone else wants to say: love, love, my season, patience, courage, valiance, attention.
对我来说非常重要的是，有人明白，你说话的方式和你所说的内容一样重要，甚至更重要，因为你想说的事情可能是其他人想说的非常相似的事情：爱，爱，我的季节，耐心，勇气，勇敢，关注。
But there are only some people who have found a way to say those things with such flair and originality that they cut through your interlocutors, complacent inattention, and cut through time, cut through space, cut through cultural difference, and grab you by the wrist.
但只有一些人找到了一种方式，以如此有天赋和独创性的方式说出这些话，他们穿过你的对话者，沾沾自喜的注意力不集中，穿过时间，穿过空间，穿过文化差异，抓住你的手腕。
So, it would be a sense that somebody understood — you are going to have to find a new and better way to say this.
所以，感觉有人理解了——你必须找到一种新的、更好的方式来表达这一点。
How do you value the King James translation of the Bible?
您如何评价钦定版圣经？
Oh, very highly, because, of course, that is the version that infuses much of the work I love most.
哦，非常高度，因为，当然，这是注入了我最喜欢的大部分作品的版本。
Not just, obviously, Donne and Shakespeare, but also Philip Pullman talks about being an atheist, but a King James atheist — someone who was informed by the language of the King James Bible.
显然，不仅仅是多恩和莎士比亚，菲利普·普尔曼也谈到自己是无神论者，而且是詹姆斯国王无神论者——一个接受了詹姆斯国王圣经语言的人。
How about The Book of Common Prayer?
《公祷书》怎么样？
Is that just boring?
这只是无聊吗？
No, it’s wildly —
不，这太疯狂了——
It’s awfully widely read.
它被广泛阅读。
But wildly underrated.
但被严重低估了。
The Book of Common Prayer is more beautiful, I think, than we give it credit for.
我认为，《公祷书》比我们想象的更美丽。
Again, I think its cadences have informed a lot of the poetry that we hold dear.
再说一次，我认为它的节奏已经影响了我们所珍视的许多诗歌。
I don’t think we would have Seamus Heaney without the rhythms of The Book of Common Prayer.
我认为如果没有《公祷书》的节奏，我们就不会有谢默斯·希尼。
So how do we approach reading The Book of Common Prayer so that it makes sense to us rather than boring us?
那么，我们如何阅读《公祷书》，让它对我们有意义而不是让我们感到无聊呢？
Oh gosh, that’s really interesting.
天哪，这真的很有趣。
How do you approach The Book of Common Prayer, which is, I agree, not an obviously galvanic text, particularly if you don’t happen to believe in Christianity.
你如何看待《公祷书》，我同意，这本书并不是一本明显的电流文本，特别是如果你碰巧不相信基督教的话。
I think you would have to remember what it was intended to do, the hope and comfort it was intended to give, and you would have to remember the many, many battles that were fought to have it.
我想你必须记住它的目的是什么，它要给人带来希望和安慰，你必须记住为了拥有它而进行的许多很多的战斗。
And that, I think, might make it feel alive.
我认为，这可能会让它感觉充满活力。
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
约翰·班扬的《天路历程》。
Is that book actually good?
那本书真的好吗？
Yes, it is, in some moments.
是的，在某些时刻确实如此。
I think it is another one, a little like The Faerie Queene, that requires your patience, that requires you to do something to take the edge off your panic at the boredom that will ensue.
我认为这是另一种，有点像仙后，需要你的耐心，需要你做一些事情来消除你对随之而来的无聊的恐慌。
For some people, that will be resignation, I’m sure.
我确信对于某些人来说，这将是辞职。
For some people, that will be — I don’t know — alcohol.
对于某些人来说，那将是 — 我不知道 — 酒精。
For some people, it will be a kind of exhaustedness, but something that will allow you to give in to being quite substantially bored on the grounds that it will slow down the beat of your heart, and it will force your imagination to grapple with something slower and broader.
对于某些人来说，这将是一种疲惫，但它会让你屈服于相当无聊的感觉，因为它会减慢你的心跳，它会迫使你的想象力去应对更慢、更广泛的事情。
The way that Spenser talks about fashioning his ideal reader, the texts tell you how to read them.
斯宾塞谈论塑造他的理想读者的方式，文本告诉你如何阅读它们。
Katherine Rundell.
凯瑟琳·伦德尔。
I’d just like to recommend to you all, first, Katherine has a short book called Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise.
我想向大家推荐，首先，凯瑟琳有一本小书，名叫《为什么你应该读儿童读物，即使你这么老了，这么聪明》。
She has a wide variety of best-selling children’s books, but her most recent book is Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which I recommend very, very highly.
她有各种各样的畅销儿童读物，但她最近的书是《超级无限：约翰·多恩的转变》，我非常非常推荐这本书。
And of course, I recommend Donne as well.
当然，我也推荐多恩。
Katherine, who also goes by the name Kate, it has been great chatting with you.
凯瑟琳，也叫凯特，很高兴与你聊天。
We thank you very much, and good luck with the books.
我们非常感谢您，祝您书籍顺利。
Thank you so much.
太感谢了。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Photo credit: Nina Subin
照片来源：尼娜·苏宾