Lydia Davis on Language and Literature (Ep. 146)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today I’m here with a very special guest, Lydia Davis.
今天我和一位非常特别的客人一起来到这里，莉迪亚·戴维斯。
Lydia is unique.
莉迪亚是独一无二的。
She is one of America’s best and best-known short-story writers.
她是美国最优秀、最著名的短篇小说作家之一。
Her short stories are indeed very short.
她的短篇小说确实很短。
She is a leading translator, best known for translating parts of Proust and also Flaubert.
她是一位领先的翻译家，以翻译普鲁斯特和福楼拜的部分作品而闻名。
She is a wonderful essayist.
她是一位出色的散文家。
Her latest book, which I loved, is Essays Two, Lydia Davis, just out.
我很喜欢她的最新书《莉迪亚·戴维斯随笔二》，刚刚出版。
Of course, there is also Essays One, which is excellent as well.
当然，还有《随笔一》，也很精彩。
She has, in fact, done much more than that.
事实上，她所做的远不止这些。
Lydia, welcome.
莉迪亚，欢迎。
Thank you.
谢谢。
It’s a pleasure to be here.
很高兴来到这里。
I have a question about writing very short stories, and that is, what’s the content bias that’s introduced by making them very short?
我有一个关于写很短的故事的问题，那就是，让它们变得很短会带来什么内容偏见？
If I think about Thomas Bernhard — who also wrote very short stories — he tends to use either a very bad event or some kind of misanthropy to hook the reader.
如果我想到托马斯·伯恩哈德（Thomas Bernhard）——“他也写过非常短的故事”——“他倾向于使用非常糟糕的事件或某种厌世的态度来吸引读者。
That’s not what you do, but what is the content bias in writing very short stories?
那不是你所做的，但是写很短的故事的内容偏见是什么？
I suppose it’s limited by something that is short in duration, necessarily, either an action that’s very short in duration or a perception that’s very brief and glancing.
我认为它必然受到持续时间较短的事物的限制，要么是持续时间非常短的动作，要么是非常短暂和一瞥的感知。
It might be a perception that could lead to a great many more perceptions or could be developed, but for the moment, it’s very brief.
它可能是一种可以导致更多感知或可以发展的感知，但就目前而言，它非常简短。
That is the constraint.
这就是限制。
The stories are born very spontaneously from these immediate perceptions or immediate actions that are there and over in a blink of an eye.
这些故事是从这些转瞬即逝的即时感知或即时行动中自然而然地诞生的。
Do you think the writer has to use something that is incongruent to hook the reader in the very short story?
你认为作者必须使用一些不协调的东西来吸引读者在这个非常短的故事中吗？
It seems to me, a lot of your stories — there’s an element of the paradoxical or the ironic or the quizzical instead of Bernhardt’s misanthropy, but you share this interest in the incongruent.
在我看来，你的很多故事都有一种悖论、讽刺或古怪的元素，而不是伯恩哈特的厌世情绪，但你对不一致的东西也有同样的兴趣。
I suppose.
我想。
It’s always easier for me to work from examples because I forget that there are so many of these stories by now, many volumes, so hundreds.
对我来说，从例子开始工作总是更容易，因为我忘记了现在有很多这样的故事，很多卷，几百个。
I tend to remember the stories about ants just because I still have dealings with ants and interactions with ants and trying to —
我倾向于记住有关蚂蚁的故事，只是因为我仍然与蚂蚁打交道并与蚂蚁互动，并试图 -
You mean A-N-T-S, ants?
你是说A-N-T-S，蚂蚁？
Yes.
是的。
I had interactions with A-U-N-T-S in the past, but the little insects that come to the cat bowls if we’re not careful.
我过去曾与 A-U-N-T-S 有过互动，但如果我们不小心，小昆虫就会来到猫碗里。
The incongruous would be probably perceiving myself as a person who actually respects ants and tries to deal with them in a respectful way.
不协调的可能是认为自己是一个真正尊重蚂蚁并试图以尊重的方式对待它们的人。
In other words, not squashing them, but persuading them to leave.
换句话说，不是压制他们，而是劝他们离开。
That would be the incongruity, perhaps.
也许这就是不协调之处。
How do you persuade an ant to leave?
如何说服蚂蚁离开？
Do you really want to know?
你真的想知道吗？
I usually don’t brush them away because that might harm their little tiny bodies.
我通常不会把它们赶走，因为这可能会伤害它们小小的身体。
I blow them away and then remove the reason for their interest.
我把他们吹走，然后消除他们感兴趣的理由。
It’s always food.
总是食物。
I blow them away and clean up the food very thoroughly, and I do usually persuade them not to come back.
我把它们吹走，把食物清理得非常彻底，而且我通常会劝它们不要回来。
In very short stories, does the difference between poetry and prose blur?
在很短的故事中，诗歌和散文之间的区别是否模糊？
Because every word counts so much in a very short story.
因为在一个很短的故事中，每个词都很重要。
I think it only blurs in that sense.
我认为它只是在这个意义上变得模糊。
I think of a poem as more lyrical, and I think that’s a test that I can depend on to some extent.
我认为一首诗更抒情，我认为这是一个在某种程度上我可以依赖的测试。
There are poems that aren’t very lyrical, but they’re clearly poems for other reasons.
有些诗不是很抒情，但由于其他原因它们显然是诗。
I go back to the idea of song with poems, and I don’t see my very short stories as songs.
我回到了歌曲与诗歌的想法，我不认为我的短篇小说是歌曲。
I see them as sort of pedestrian, in other words, thump, thump, thump.
我认为它们就像行人一样，换句话说，扑通，扑通，扑通。
They’re not rhythmical or majestically beautiful most of the time.
大多数时候它们并不具有节奏感或雄伟美丽。
I’m talking about the very, very short ones.
我说的是非常非常短的。
There are longer short ones that are a paragraph or a page, and some of those are lyrical.
有较长的较短的段落或一页，其中一些是抒情的。
Are there any great writers who don’t have a great sense of humor?
有没有伟大的作家没有幽默感？
Oh, yes, absolutely.
哦，是的，绝对是。
I don’t know, did Conrad have a great sense of humor?
我不知道康拉德很有幽默感吗？
It depends who you think is great in the first place.
这首先取决于你认为谁是伟大的。
Maybe we are leaving Conrad for certain other reasons, but he was one I was reading recently.
也许我们因为某些其他原因而离开康拉德，但他是我最近读过的一位。
I don’t detect much of a sense of humor there, but I do in Beckett and Proust.
我在其中没有发现多少幽默感，但我在贝克特和普鲁斯特身上发现了幽默感。
People usually don’t think of Proust as very funny, but he’s quite funny.
人们通常不认为普鲁斯特很有趣，但他确实很有趣。
If one reads Conrad, for instance, there’s a thickness to the language.
例如，如果一个人读康拉德的作品，就会发现其中的语言很厚重。
You have to cut through it with a machete.
你必须用砍刀把它切开。
A little bit.
一点点。
Proust — there’s an elaborate nature to the language.
普鲁斯特——语言具有复杂的本质。
The Irish writers — whether older or contemporary — there’s something quite mellifluous about it.
爱尔兰作家——“无论是古代的还是当代的”——都有一些相当美妙的东西。
Do you think it’s hard for a contemporary American writer to develop a truly appealing language?
您认为当代美国作家发展一种真正吸引人的语言很难吗？
No, but it would be very different.
不，但情况会非常不同。
We do tend towards shorter sentences now anyway.
无论如何，我们现在确实倾向于较短的句子。
Every writer’s very different, but in general, we have less tolerance for long, elaborately constructed sentences.
每个作家都有很大的不同，但总的来说，我们对长而精心构造的句子的容忍度较低。
I think with very short sentences, you can also be very sparkling, lyrical, magical.
我认为用很短的句子，你也可以非常闪闪发光、抒情、神奇。
One of Lydia’s short stories
莉迪亚的短篇小说之一
Do you think the late Thomas Pynchon became unreadable, that somehow it was just a pile of complexity and it lost all relation to the reader?
您是否认为已故的托马斯·品钦（Thomas Pynchon）变得难以阅读，不知怎的，它只是一堆复杂的东西，并且与读者失去了所有联系？
Or are those, in fact, masterworks that we’re just not up to appreciating?
或者说，这些实际上只是我们无法欣赏的杰作？
Since I hesitated to even open the books, I can’t answer you, because I do find — not all long books — but very long, very fat books a little hard to approach, and some of them, I try over and over.
由于我什至犹豫是否要打开这些书，所以我无法回答你，因为我确实发现 — 并非所有长书 — 但非常长、非常厚的书有点难以接近，其中一些我一遍又一遍地尝试。
If I sense that it’s really a load of verbiage, I really don’t.
如果我觉得这确实是一堆废话，我真的不这么觉得。
I fault myself for not having the patience to get through at least one, say, late Pynchon, but I haven’t.
我责怪自己没有耐心读完至少一部作品，比如晚期的品钦作品，但我没有。
If, for you, long books are hard to approach, and you’ve translated the first section of Proust, how is it you approached Proust in a way that helped it make sense for you?
如果对你来说，长篇书籍很难理解，而你已经翻译了普鲁斯特的第一部分，那么你是如何以一种让你理解普鲁斯特的方式来理解普鲁斯特的呢？
Maybe it helps that he conceived of the individual books or the parts that make up the whole book — he conceived of them one at a time or published them one at a time, wrestled with them one at a time.
也许这对他构思单本书或构成整本书的部分有帮助——他一次构思一本书，一次出版一本，一次一本地与它们搏斗。
He didn’t set out to write as much as he ended up writing in that one novel, which I can really understand.
他在那本小说中并没有开始写那么多，而最终却写了那么多，我真的能理解。
There are a lot of projects — if you realized how long they were going to be and how long they were going to take, you might not start them.
有很多项目 ——如果你意识到它们需要多长时间以及需要多长时间，你可能不会启动它们。
He thought it was going to be a matter of, say, three small volumes, or even two in the beginning, two small volumes or reasonable volumes.
他认为这将是一个问题，比如说，三小卷，甚至一开始就两卷，两小卷或合理的卷。
It grew and grew, which I can also sympathize with.
它不断成长，我也对此表示同情。
I didn’t have a problem with that.
我对此没有任何问题。
I had a problem a long time ago trying to read Ulysses by Joyce, and started it twice, and finally read it when I lived in Ireland, which made it much easier because I had his context.
很久以前，我在尝试阅读乔伊斯的《尤利西斯》时遇到了一个问题，开始读了两次，最后在我住在爱尔兰时读到了它，这让阅读变得容易多了，因为我有他的背景。
That too — I suppose because it had different chapters, each of which approached the ongoing story in a very different way — I found that possible too.
这也是——我想是因为它有不同的章节，每一章都以非常不同的方式处理正在进行的故事——我发现这也是可能的。
It’s tricky.
这很棘手。
There’s a book by a Catalan writer called Josep Pla that’s called The Gray Notebook.
加泰罗尼亚作家何塞普·普拉（Josep Pla）写了一本书，名叫《灰色笔记本》。
That’s very fat, but I keep going back to it and delighting in it, but I’m not reading it all at once.
那很厚，但我会不断地回顾它并为之感到高兴，但我不会一次读完它。
I’m going back to it and just sort of nibbling away at it.
我会回去继续思考它。
It was an amazing project.
这是一个了不起的项目。
He took an early, very brief diary of his when he was 21, I think, and it only covered a year and a half.
我想，他在21岁的时候就写了一本很早的、非常简短的日记，而且只涵盖了一年半的时间。
He kept going back to it rather than publishing it.
他不断地回顾它而不是发表它。
He kept going back to it and expanding it with more memories and more material, and I love that idea.
他不断地回顾它，并用更多的记忆和更多的材料来扩展它，我喜欢这个想法。
Maybe that’s why I can read it.
也许这就是我能读懂它的原因。
What language are you reading it in?
您用什么语言阅读？
I’m reading it in English.
我正在读英文版。
I can actually read Catalan if I put my mind to it, but I see no reason to in this case.
如果我用心的话，我实际上可以阅读加泰罗尼亚语，但在这种情况下我认为没有理由这样做。
A number of readers have written me and complained that when it comes to reading Proust, the secondary literature is of no use to them, or very little use.
许多读者写信给我抱怨说，在阅读普鲁斯特时，二手文献对他们来说没有用处，或者几乎没有用处。
Do you think that’s a fair characterization?
你认为这是一个公平的描述吗？
Or, if one wants to read something on Proust that’s useful, where does one start?
或者，如果一个人想读一些关于普鲁斯特的有用的东西，该从哪里开始呢？
The fact is that I, as a matter of principle, did not read any secondary material before I started translating Proust, and even now would not want to read a great deal of it.
事实是，原则上我在开始翻译普鲁斯特之前没有读过任何二手资料，甚至现在也不想读太多。
I like the one-on-one confrontation with the text.
我喜欢与文字的一对一对抗。
I really think that’s where a reader should begin and maybe end.
我真的认为这就是读者应该开始的地方，也许也是结束的地方。
I’ll modify this in a minute, but I don’t initially like the idea of some so-called expert coming between me and my perception of the book.
我稍后会对此进行修改，但一开始我不喜欢某个所谓的专家介入我和我对这本书的看法之间的想法。
That was particularly true translating it.
翻译它尤其如此。
I didn’t want someone else to tell me what was important or what I should look out for.
我不想让别人告诉我什么是重要的或者我应该注意什么。
Then, I suppose, if you’ve read all of the Proust novel and read it again or whatever, and then you just want to read more about it and share the experience in a way with another person who’s written about it .
然后，我想，如果你读完普鲁斯特的全部小说并再次阅读它或其他什么，然后你只是想阅读更多有关它的内容并以某种方式与另一个写过它的人分享经验。
.
。
.
。
there are people like Roger Shattuck who’ve written a great deal about Proust.
像罗杰·沙特克这样的人写了大量关于普鲁斯特的文章。
There’s Beckett’s essay on Proust, which I think I probably did read that.
有贝克特关于普鲁斯特的文章，我想我可能读过。
It’s short, but in a way .
它很短，但在某种程度上。
.
。
.
。
In that case, I would be curious what another favorite writer of mine thought about Proust, although he was quite young at the time.
在这种情况下，我很好奇我最喜欢的另一位作家对普鲁斯特有何看法，尽管他当时还很年轻。
That would be my answer.
这就是我的答案。
I guess the easiest answer really, or the most sensible, is to dip in and out of the different writings on Proust and see which writer you feel comfortable with.
我想最简单的答案，或者说最明智的答案，就是深入研究普鲁斯特的不同著作，看看你对哪位作家感到满意。
Some you’ll hate, and some you’ll love.
有些你会讨厌，有些你会喜欢。
“Oh, yes.
“哦，是的。
I want to hear what he has to say.”
我想听听他要说什么。”
Now, your first foreign language was German.
现在，你的第一门外语是德语。
What do you think of the German translation of Proust by Eva Rechel-Mertens?
您如何看待伊娃·雷切尔·梅尔滕斯 (Eva Rechel-Mertens) 的德文版《普鲁斯特》？
I haven’t read it —
我还没读过 —
It’s very good.
非常好。
You’re saying it’s very good?
你说这很好？
It’s much funnier than Proust in English.
这比英文的普鲁斯特有趣多了。
That’s interesting.
那很有意思。
Speaking of studies, has anyone done a study of the difference in the humorous passages between the German and the English?
说到研究，有人研究过德语和英语幽默段落的差异吗？
That would be fun to read.
读起来会很有趣。
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
I think what works well in German and French is, the difference between a very long Proustian sentence and a very short observation fits those two languages well.
我认为在德语和法语中效果很好的是，很长的普鲁斯特句子和很短的观察之间的区别非常适合这两种语言。
It doesn’t really work in English.
它在英语中实际上不起作用。
You just end up a little bit confused.
你最终只是有点困惑。
I love the fact that Proust does have very, very short sentences.
我喜欢普鲁斯特确实有非常非常短的句子。
People kind of forget that.
人们有点忘记了这一点。
Why isn’t Franz Kafka funny in English?
为什么弗朗茨·卡夫卡的英语不好笑？
Well, I think he is.
嗯，我认为他是。
I think some of these writers are burdened by their reputations.
我认为其中一些作家受到了名誉的负担。
That would be true of Kafka and Proust, that we hear so much more about how important they are that we tune out the moments that are really funny.
卡夫卡和普鲁斯特就是如此，我们听到太多关于他们的重要性，以至于我们忽略了真正有趣的时刻。
With Kafka, I’m thinking his diaries have very funny entries, not because he was trying to be funny, but he described people walking in the street as, I think, trying to unstick their feet from where they are to stick them down in another place.
对于卡夫卡，我认为他的日记中有非常有趣的条目，不是因为他想搞笑，而是他把走在街上的人们描述为，我认为，试图把脚从原来的地方脱下来，放到另一个地方。
He’s observing, and what he observes ends up seeming funny to us, and probably to him.
他在观察，而他所观察到的东西最终对我们来说似乎很有趣，也可能对他来说。
If one, as a writer, sets out to create an intentionally fragmentary or intentionally incomplete literary work, can that succeed?
如果一个人作为一名作家，着手创作一部故意支离破碎或故意不完整的文学作品，能成功吗？
Or does it have to, in a sense, be accidentally fragmentary?
或者，从某种意义上说，它是否必须偶然变得支离破碎？
I think it can succeed.
我认为它可以成功。
In fact, not to bring it back to myself necessarily, but obviously, I am so well acquainted with my own work — pretty well acquainted anyway.
事实上，不一定要带回我自己，但显然，我对自己的工作非常熟悉——无论如何都非常熟悉。
I think the novel I wrote, the one novel, The End of the Story, was meant to give the impression of fragmentation because the narrator was trying to remember incidents, so the memories come back in fragments.
我认为我写的小说，唯一的小说，《故事的结局》，是为了给人一种碎片化的印象，因为叙述者试图记住事件，所以记忆会以碎片的形式出现。
I was thinking even first of a book that influenced me a lot in my writing of that, and that was Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights, which I haven’t revisited in a while.
我首先想到的是一本对我的写作影响很大的书，那就是伊丽莎白·哈德威克的《不眠之夜》，我已经有一段时间没有重读这本书了。
But that, too, gave the impression of being fragmented, but was written that way deliberately.
但这也给人一种支离破碎的感觉，但却是故意这样写的。
I think also A Sorrow beyond Dreams — which I’m about to revisit — by Peter Handke also gives that impression of fragmentation.
我认为彼得·汉德克的《梦外之忧》——《我即将重温》——也给人一种支离破碎的印象。
In his case, I think it may be a combination of actually trying to retrieve memories that he had trouble retrieving and allowing the book to work that way and be that way.
就他而言，我认为这可能是实际尝试检索他难以检索的记忆和允许这本书以这种方式运作并成为那样的结合。
Do you worry, as a translator, that some languages are word poor?
作为一名翻译，您是否担心某些语言的词汇匮乏？
This charge is sometimes leveled against French and Spanish relative to English and German.
有时，相对于英语和德语，这种指控是针对法语和西班牙语的。
Or do you think that is not correct?
或者您认为这是不正确的？
I would be very cautious about accusing another language of having deficiencies, but I do think English has a wonderful advantage in having the doubled vocabulary: the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and the Latin vocabulary.
我对于指责另一种语言存在缺陷会非常谨慎，但我确实认为英语在拥有双重词汇方面具有巨大的优势：盎格鲁-撒克逊词汇和拉丁词汇。
Examples being, “underground” would be the Anglo-Saxon version, and “subterranean” would be the Latin of the same idea.
例如，“地下”是盎格鲁-撒克逊语版本，而“地下”则是同一概念的拉丁语版本。
Not all languages — or most don’t have that advantage.
并非所有语言 ——或者大多数语言都不具备这种优势。
We can play with the different vocabularies and speak more plainly or speak more abstractly and intellectually.
我们可以使用不同的词汇，说得更直白，或者说得更抽象、更理智。
We have that great facility because of our vocabulary.
由于我们的词汇量，我们拥有如此便利的设施。
As a translator, why do you think that film subtitles are so often so bad?
作为翻译者，您为什么认为电影字幕常常如此糟糕？
There’s certainly enough money in cinema compared to literary translation.
与文学翻译相比，电影确实有足够的钱。
That’s fun.
这很有趣。
Are they pressed for time?
他们时间紧迫吗？
I’d have to guess, because often people press translators to get things done overnight, and more and more so.
我不得不猜测，因为人们经常要求翻译人员在一夜之间完成工作，而且越来越多。
The constraints are, obviously, you have to translate.
显然，限制是你必须翻译。
You can’t translate faithfully what you’re hearing.
你无法忠实地翻译你所听到的内容。
You have to translate it in such a way, more briefly so that someone can read it quickly.
你必须以更简短的方式翻译它，以便人们可以快速阅读。
It’s very hard to retain all of the flavor of the original.
想要保留所有原汁原味的味道是非常困难的。
I usually don’t see any that are really bad, but I think I’ve learned something from some of them.
我通常不会看到任何非常糟糕的事情，但我认为我从其中一些事情中学到了一些东西。
When I was stuck on a vocabulary word or something, I actually might have learned something.
当我被某个词汇或其他东西困住时，我实际上可能学到了一些东西。
I’d hesitate there to blame the translator because I think, usually, it is a time constraint.
我不太愿意责怪译者，因为我认为通常这是时间限制。
I used to discover that I could not earn much of a living if I translated very, very carefully.
我曾经发现，如果我翻译得非常非常仔细，我就无法谋生。
That was, simply, I could not take so much time.
简单地说，我不能花那么多时间。
I did take time when it mattered and got paid very poorly, like $1 an hour on some books.
我确实在重要的时候花时间，但报酬很低，比如有些书每小时 1 美元。
Time and money and film industry — I bet it doesn’t work too well.
时间、金钱和电影业 —— 我敢打赌效果不会太好。
How would you best describe your own motives for being a translator?
您如何最好地描述您自己成为一名翻译的动机？
My motives?
我的动机？
Your motives.
你的动机。
What do you get from it?
你从中得到什么？
I really just love foreign languages, which may sound a little dumb because it’s such a blanket statement, but even here at home, I find myself wanting to just break into German or French just for a second.
我真的很喜欢外语，这可能听起来有点愚蠢，因为它是一个笼统的声明，但即使在家里，我发现自己也想尝试一下德语或法语。
I don’t know what it is.
我不知道那是什么。
I obviously don’t tire of English because that’s my language.
我显然不厌倦英语，因为那是我的语言。
I write in it.
我写在里面。
I love it, but I love the sound of other languages.
我喜欢它，但我喜欢其他语言的声音。
And also, as soon as you speak another language or read it, you enter a completely different culture and a completely different history, and I really love that.
而且，一旦你说另一种语言或阅读它，你就会进入一种完全不同的文化和完全不同的历史，我真的很喜欢这一点。
I do think sometimes that my first experience of another language made me want to translate the rest of my life.
我确实认为有时我第一次接触另一种语言让我想要翻译我的余生。
That was being in that Austrian classroom and not understanding anything anyone said, yet feeling that the surroundings were hospitable and friendly.
那就是在奥地利的教室里，听不懂别人说的话，却感觉周围的环境热情友好。
It wasn’t an alienating experience.
这并不是一次疏远的经历。
Then learning gradually what they were saying.
然后逐渐了解他们在说什么。
I think I’ve wanted to repeat that, maybe, over and over.
我想我可能想一遍又一遍地重复这一点。
Do you think that reading fiction can be a better experience simply because you don’t understand the language as well as your own language?
您是否认为阅读小说会是一种更好的体验，仅仅因为您不了解该语言以及您自己的语言？
Reading fiction in another language?
阅读另一种语言的小说？
That you understand less well than English — can it be better because you understand it less well?
你听得不如英语 —— 能因为你听得不好就更好吗？
No, I don’t think I experience the fiction itself or the content in a more enjoyable way.
不，我认为我并没有以更愉快的方式体验小说本身或内容。
I’m experiencing both at the same time, the content probably less well, and then the language is a pleasure in itself.
我同时体验两者，内容可能不太好，然后语言本身就是一种乐趣。
That doesn’t mean I would enjoy reading a washing machine how-to manual in French or German and get the same enjoyment.
这并不意味着我会喜欢阅读法语或德语的洗衣机操作手册并获得同样的乐趣。
I read two different Peter Handke books in German, just because I wanted to.
我读了两本不同的彼得·汉德克的德语书籍，只是因为我想读。
One was The Left-Handed Woman, and that he wrote in such a straightforward style and the material repeated so much that I was able to read it without a problem.
一本是《左撇子女人》，他写得非常直白，而且内容重复得太多，我读起来毫无问题。
Then I tried reading whatever it is, The Afternoon of a Writer, I think it’s called.
然后我试着读什么，我想它叫《作家的下午》。
That was terribly complicated with difficult constructions and huge vocabulary.
这是非常复杂的，具有困难的结构和庞大的词汇量。
I had terrible trouble with it.
我对此遇到了很大的麻烦。
I already knew it in English, so it was more the challenge of the language I was after.
我已经知道英语了，所以这更多的是我所追求的语言的挑战。
Which languages do you dream in?
你用哪种语言做梦？
I don’t think there’s much language in my dreams, actually, come to think of it, but I think it would be mostly English.
事实上，我认为我的梦中没有太多语言，但我认为主要是英语。
Sometimes in waking life, another word in another language will just pop into my head spontaneously, and I don’t ever quite know why.
有时在清醒的生活中，另一种语言的另一个单词会自发地出现在我的脑海中，但我不太清楚为什么。
Could you translate from the Norwegian if you were asked to?
如果有人要求你翻译挪威语，你能翻译吗？
I actually have.
我确实有。
I never translated that long book which I learned Norwegian by reading, but I did translate some short stories by Gunnhild Øyehaug.
我从未翻译过那本通过阅读学习挪威语的长书，但我确实翻译了冈希尔德·奥耶豪格的一些短篇小说。
It’s hard to say her last name.
很难说出她的姓氏。
They were actually in the other Norwegian language, Nynorsk.
它们实际上是另一种挪威语——尼诺斯克语。
Norwegian has two languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk.
挪威语有两种语言：博克马尔语和尼诺斯克语。
It was in that language.
是用那种语言。
I found her short stories so delightful that I did translate at least one of them.
我发现她的短篇小说非常令人愉快，所以我至少翻译了其中一篇。
Also, some other works by a friend, by my Norwegian translator, actually, but these were all very short.
另外，实际上还有我的挪威翻译朋友的其他一些作品，但这些都很短。
Putting aside your husband’s own work, what in the visual arts excites you the most?
抛开你丈夫自己的作品不谈，视觉艺术中最让你兴奋的是什么？
It’s hard to put aside his work since we live with it, and I think about it the most.
很难抛开他的工作，因为我们和它一起生活，而且我想得最多。
Oh, dear, that’s very hard — not because there aren’t painters that I love.
哦，亲爱的，这很难 ——并不是因为没有我喜欢的画家。
It was Velázquez that I paid a lot of attention to for a while.
我有一段时间非常关注委拉斯开兹。
That was partly because I was in Europe on many different trips and would often go to a museum, and I found museums overwhelming.
部分原因是我在欧洲进行了多次不同的旅行，经常去博物馆，而我发现博物馆让人难以抗拒。
I just thought, “I can’t do this.
我只是想：“我做不到。
I feel ill after an hour.
一小时后我感觉不舒服。
What I’m going to do is just look at two areas of painting.” One is Velázquez.
我要做的只是看看绘画的两个领域。”其中之一是委拉斯开兹。
I almost made a game of it.
我差点就做了一个游戏。
“How many Velázquez paintings can I find in the different museums?
“在不同的博物馆里我能找到多少委拉斯开兹的画作？
Make a running list.”
列一个运行清单。”
The other area was early Flemish paintings.
另一个区域是早期佛兰德斯绘画。
Very, very different, but I love them, and I’m partly interested in them sometimes — a lot of them are interiors — but I’m interested in the landscapes.
非常非常不同，但我喜欢它们，有时我对它们有部分兴趣 ——很多都是室内设计——但我对风景感兴趣。
I like to just look at what was going on in their landscapes at that time.
我喜欢看看他们当时的风景发生了什么。
Part of my interest was documentary.
我的部分兴趣是纪录片。
They were there, and they were painting what they saw.
他们在那里，正在画他们所看到的东西。
They’re not trying to imagine what life was like back then.
他们并没有试图想象当时的生活是什么样的。
Does your own work ever remind you of Joseph Cornell?
您自己的作品是否曾让您想起约瑟夫·康奈尔？
No. I like Joseph Cornell, and I like what he was doing and why, but I don’t do collages, and I never have.
不。我喜欢约瑟夫·康奈尔，我喜欢他所做的事情和原因，但我不做拼贴画，而且从来没有这样做过。
I don’t know if I ever would, but you never know.
我不知道我是否会这样做，但你永远不会知道。
My pieces are always composed in a very unified way from beginning to end in the first place.
我的作品从头到尾总是以非常统一的方式创作。
I go back to them and work on them.
我回到他们身边并为他们工作。
The collage idea doesn’t appeal to me.
拼贴的想法对我没有吸引力。
Although just once, a neighbor and friend here in New York State — he was writing haikus, and he said, “Would you like to collaborate on a poem?” I usually don’t want to, but I said, “Well, okay, if we can do it this way.
尽管只有一次，纽约州的一位邻居兼朋友正在写俳句，他说：“你愿意合作写一首诗吗？”我通常不愿意，但我说：“好吧，如果我们能这样做的话。
I’ll give you a poem, and what inspires you by what you read, you can compose something and intersperse it with mine.” That worked out quite well, but that wasn’t me responding to him, which is not quite fair.
我会给你一首诗，你读到的诗对你有什么启发，你可以创作一些东西，然后把它和我的诗穿插在一起。”效果很好，但这不是我对他的回应，这不太公平。
What is it in the music repertoire that most captured your imagination when you were young?
在您年轻时，最能激发您想象力的音乐曲目是什么？
I was very, very much into classical music from a pretty early age.
我从很小的时候就非常非常喜欢古典音乐。
I tried to branch out into moments of pop music, folk music, rock and roll.
我尝试涉足流行音乐、民间音乐、摇滚乐。
I always managed to like some of it for a little while, but I always went back to classical music.
我总是能暂时喜欢其中的一些音乐，但我总是会回到古典音乐。
Bach and the Schubert songs were very important to me, maybe because there was a little narrative element in them, but I keep coming back to Bach.
巴赫和舒伯特的歌曲对我来说非常重要，也许是因为其中有一些叙事元素，但我不断回到巴赫。
In high school, there was a very good program in which I played in the orchestra and sang in the choral groups and so on, studied music theory, and that was very heavily oriented towards Bach.
高中时，有一个非常好的项目，我在管弦乐队中演奏，在合唱团中唱歌等等，学习音乐理论，这非常注重巴赫。
Again, it’s like with writers — how could I do without Fauré, and how could I do without Verdi’s Requiem, so on and so forth?
再说一次，这就像作家一样——“没有福雷我怎么能行，没有威尔第的安魂曲我怎么行，等等？”
How would you articulate why you don’t like the Harry Potter novels?
您如何阐明为什么您不喜欢哈利·波特小说？
That’s fairly easy, although I should have a page in front of me.
这相当简单，尽管我面前应该有一页。
It’s always better if you have the page, and you can say, “Look at this sentence, look at that sentence.” At a certain point, my son was reading Harry Potter as kids do and did.
如果你有这个页面，你可以说，“看看这句话，看看那句话”，那就更好了。在某个时刻，我的儿子像孩子一样阅读《哈利·波特》。
I think he was probably 11 or 10 or 11, 12, 9 — I don’t know.
我想他可能 11 或 10 或 11、12、9 —— 我不知道。
Also, the Philip Pullman trilogy, whose name I always forget.
还有菲利普·普尔曼三部曲，我总是忘记它的名字。
I thought it would be a lot of fun to read the Harry Potter books because I knew a lot of grownups were reading them and enjoying them.
我认为阅读《哈利·波特》书籍会很有趣，因为我知道很多成年人正在阅读它们并享受它们。
I thought, “This is great.
我想：“这太棒了。
There are a lot of them.”
他们有很多。”
But when I tried to read them, I didn’t like the style of writing, and I didn’t like the characters, and I didn’t like anything about them.
但当我尝试阅读它们时，我不喜欢它们的写作风格，我不喜欢其中的人物，我也不喜欢它们的任何内容。
Whereas, I opened the first Philip Pullman book and read the first page and said, “This is wonderful.
然而，当我打开第一本菲利普·普尔曼的书并读到第一页时，我说：“这太棒了。
The writing here is wonderful.” I really think there’s an ocean of difference.
这里的文字写得很棒。”我真的认为存在巨大的差异。
I wouldn’t put down the Harry Potter books because, as we know, they got a lot of kids reading and being enraptured with books.
我不会放下《哈利·波特》系列书籍，因为据我们所知，它们吸引了很多孩子阅读并着迷。
I think that matters more than anything, really — getting kids hooked on reading.
我认为这比什么都重要，真的——让孩子们爱上阅读。
On page 418 of your new book, Essays Two, you imply that you don’t finish most of the books you read.
在你的新书《随笔二》的第 418 页上，你暗示你没有读完大部分读过的书。
Is that correct?
这是正确的吗？
Yes.
是的。
How do you think about that?
您对此有何看法？
You get to try more books?
你可以尝试更多的书吗？
Because I’m very much the same way.
因为我也有同样的情况。
I’m not sure that I finish 1 in 10 that I pick up, but that’s, for me, mostly nonfiction.
我不确定我是否完成了我所学的十分之一，但对我来说，这大部分是非小说类的。
For me, it’s both.
对我来说，两者都是。
I’m always annoyed by it.
我总是对此感到恼火。
I won’t say that I pride myself on it or it’s a wonderful thing.
我不会说我为此感到自豪或者这是一件美妙的事情。
I’m always annoyed by it, and now I’m trying to develop the ability to skim.
我总是对此感到恼火，现在我正在努力培养浏览的能力。
I know how to skim, but it doesn’t usually occur to me to skim a book that I should take seriously.
我知道如何浏览，但我通常不会想到浏览一本我应该认真对待的书。
But now I’m thinking, “Well, I either skim it, or I don’t read it at all, or don’t finish it.”
但现在我在想，“好吧，我要么浏览一下，要么根本不读，或者不读完。”
I think the reason over the years, usually, was that I got what the writer was doing in the first 30 pages or whatever I read carefully, and I seldom felt that I really had to read every word to get it.
我认为多年来的原因通常是我在前 30 页中理解了作者在做什么，或者我仔细阅读的任何内容，而我很少觉得我真的必须阅读每个字才能理解它。
I did feel that way, say, as I mentioned, with Ulysses.
我确实有这种感觉，就像我提到的，《尤利西斯》。
I felt I really wanted to read every word.
我觉得我真的很想读每一个字。
For example, we mentioned Conrad.
例如，我们提到康拉德。
I started the Heart of Darkness.
我开始了黑暗之心。
I had read it years ago, and I started it a few months ago and really liked the writing and wanted to go on.
我几年前就读过这本书，几个月前我开始读它，非常喜欢它的写作，并想继续读下去。
The other problem is that there’s always a new book coming into the house, another and another and another, and the temptation to open a brand-new book and start reading it is just too difficult for me to resist.
另一个问题是，家里总是有一本新书进来，一本又一本，又一本，打开一本全新的书并开始阅读的诱惑对我来说太难以抗拒。
Sometimes I think, “I’m going to go back to this bookcase and I’m going to finish every single book that I started.” But so far, I haven’t done it.
有时我想，“我要回到这个书柜，我要读完我开始读的每一本书。”但到目前为止，我还没有做到。
What do you think is your most unusual productivity habit?
您认为您最不寻常的生产力习惯是什么？
Unusual.
异常。
And successful, that is.
成功了，就是这样。
It’s hard to say because I imagine that a lot of writers share some of the things I do.
这很难说，因为我想很多作家都会分享我所做的一些事情。
So, unusual.
所以，不寻常。
I know that I have a more chaotic approach than some writers would want to have, and that’s always been true.
我知道我的写作方式比一些作家想要的更加混乱，这一直都是事实。
It’s, in a way, very wasteful, like the books I don’t finish reading.
从某种程度上来说，这是非常浪费的，就像我没有读完的书一样。
There are also a number of very interesting projects — or very interesting to me — that I’ve done a lot of work on and then gone on to another project.
还有一些非常有趣的项目 ——或者对我来说非常有趣 —— 我做了很多工作，然后继续另一个项目。
I have at least three or four or five big projects.
我至少有三四五个大项目。
These are not small stories.
这些都不是小故事。
These are biographical projects or grammar projects or history projects — crossing genres — that I’ve done a lot of work on and then gotten distracted from.
这些是传记项目、语法项目或历史项目 ——“跨流派”—— 我做了很多工作，然后就分心了。
But then, when you say productive or successful, it does work very well with shorter things that you can actually finish.
但是，当你说富有成效或成功时，它确实适用于你实际上可以完成的较短的事情。
The way I work on stories is to get busy immediately and write down what occurs to me, and write it until I’ve exhausted that vein for the moment.
我写故事的方式是立即忙碌起来，写下发生在我身上的事情，一直写到我暂时筋疲力尽为止。
Then I usually have enough to come back to later.
然后我通常有足够的时间稍后再回来。
I’ll have 10, 15, 20, 30 unfinished stories, and every now and then, I’ll pick one up again.
我会有 10、15、20、30 个未完成的故事，时不时地，我会重新拾起一个。
Sometimes I don’t even remember what it is.
有时我什至不记得那是什么。
I’ll see a title and think, “I don’t know what that story was.” I’ll pick it up again and try to discern what it was that moved me, and what it was that made me want to write it, and get back into that and see if I could finish it.
我会看到一个标题并想：“我不知道那个故事是什么。”我会再次拿起它，试着找出是什么让我感动，是什么让我想写它，然后再重新开始，看看我是否能完成它。
That’s a chaotic method that works pretty well.
这是一种效果很好的混沌方法。
How ambitious are you?
你有多大的野心？
I’m not ambitious in the worldly sense.
我没有世俗意义上的野心。
I’ve never been someone who was driven by, “Oh, the public’s going to forget me, so I’ve got to get another book out within the next two years,” which I know does motivate some writers.
我从来都不是一个被“哦，公众会忘记我的，所以我必须在未来两年内出版另一本书”的人，我知道这确实激励了一些作家。
Or at least if they prefer not to think that way, they sometimes have an agent or a publisher who says, “You’ve got to give us another book in two years.”
或者至少，如果他们不愿意这样想，他们有时会有代理人或出版商说，“你必须在两年内给我们另一本书。”
But that’s never been the case for me.
但对我来说从来没有这样过。
That’s why some books are seven years later, and I’m doing other things.
这就是为什么有些书是七年后才写的，而我却在做其他事情。
Often, I’m working on, say, another project that won’t bear fruit.
通常，我正在从事另一个不会取得成果的项目。
I think George Steiner has a book, which I have not read — I haven’t even opened it — but a book detailing all the books he didn’t write.
我认为乔治·斯坦纳有一本书，我没有读过——“我什至没有打开过它”——但是一本详细介绍了所有他没有写过的书的书。
Yes, that’s quite interesting.
是的，这很有趣。
Yes.
是的。
Have you read the whole of that one?
你读过那篇全文吗？
I think so, yes.
我想是的，是的。
That seemed lovely, and I thought, “Someday, that’ll have to be my last project.” Maybe I’ll have to write a book like that, modeled on that, about all the projects I didn’t finish.
这看起来很可爱，我想，“有一天，这将成为我的最后一个项目。”也许我必须以此为蓝本，写一本类似的书，讲述我未完成的所有项目。
My ambition, if you call it that, is really just in terms of what I’m interested in doing and doing next, and so on.
我的野心，如果你这么说的话，实际上只是我感兴趣的事情和下一步要做的事情，等等。
Will you ever publish your diaries?
你会出版你的日记吗？
I’m already doing that, actually, in magazines, and I will do it in book form.
事实上，我已经在杂志上这样做了，而且我将以书的形式这样做。
I have lots and lots of notebooks and journals — depending how you count, 90 to 100 to more.
我有很多很多的笔记本和日记 ——取决于你怎么数，90 到 100 甚至更多。
Some of them don’t have much in them, so I wouldn’t even count them, but some are very full.
有的东西不多，我都懒得数，但有的却很饱。
I’ve been going through them and picking out the entries that are of general interest.
我一直在浏览它们并挑选出人们普遍感兴趣的条目。
They’re not the autobiographical ones as much as just observations, again, or interesting things from my reading, and putting them together and publishing them.
它们不是自传体，而只是我的观察，或者是我阅读中的有趣的事情，并将它们放在一起并出版。
Some have been in the magazine, NOON, that Diane Williams edits and founded.
其中一些出现在黛安·威廉姆斯编辑和创办的《NOON》杂志上。
Because she asks for something each year, I give her something, and if I don’t have stories, I give her journal excerpts.
因为她每年都会要求一些东西，我就给她一些东西，如果我没有故事，我就会给她日记摘录。
Sooner or later, I’ll publish a volume of excerpts of journals.
迟早，我会出版一本期刊摘录集。
Then, much, much later when I don’t have to know about it, maybe more complete books will come out of journal entries.
然后，很久很久以后，当我不需要知道这件事时，也许更完整的书会从日记条目中出现。
Dana Goodyear wrote in the New Yorker, and I quote, “When Davis was younger, the obsessions of her narrators tended to be amorous.
达纳·古德伊尔在《纽约客》上写道，我引用一下：“当戴维斯年轻时，她的叙述者的痴迷往往是多情的。
Now they are philosophical.” Do you agree or disagree?
现在他们是哲学的了。”你同意还是不同意？
Oh, I suppose.
哦，我想。
One writer friend — I forget which book it was, Almost No Memory maybe, or an earlier one — because of the subject matter of those stories, she said, “Oh, now Lydia discovers marriage,” or something like that.
一位作家朋友 ——我忘了那是哪本书，也许是《几乎没有记忆》，或者是更早的一本——因为这些故事的主题，她说，“哦，现在莉迪亚发现了婚姻”，或者类似的话。
It’s true that my stories — maybe they were more about .
确实，我的故事 ——也许它们更多的是关于。
.
。
.
。
I don’t think they were really about love in the beginning.
我不认为他们一开始就真的是关于爱情的。
They’re not only about love, because I think, in the first collection, there was a story called “What an Old Woman Will Wear.” That may have been in the second collection.
它们不仅仅是关于爱情，因为我认为，在第一个系列中，有一个故事叫做“老妇人会穿什么”。这可能是在第二个集合中。
I was thinking about other things, not just love.
我在想其他的事情，不仅仅是爱情。
Then the latest ones will have much more about ants in them because I wasn’t thinking about ants quite so much when I was in my 30s.
那么最新的作品中将会有更多关于蚂蚁的内容，因为当我 30 多岁的时候，我并没有那么多地考虑蚂蚁。
So, yes, the stories will reflect what’s going on in my mind.
所以，是的，这些故事将反映我脑海中发生的事情。
To put it more generally, you have taught, and you still read other people’s work.
更笼统地说，你教过，而且你还在读别人的作品。
If you’re looking for talent in a young writer — just from the page, not from the person — what is it you look for?
如果你正在寻找一位年轻作家的才华 —— 只是从书页上，而不是从人身上 —— 你在寻找什么？
What gets you excited?
什么让你兴奋？
I don’t mean finished product, but in what do you see potential?
我指的不是成品，但您认为有哪些潜力？
Just a certain spark.
只是某种火花。
A certain way of being able to look with his or her own eyes at the world and see it the way he or she sees it.
一种能够用自己的眼睛观察世界并以他或她的方式看待世界的方式。
What discourages me completely, of course, is the clichéd observations, one after another, a student just picking and using what everyone else picks up and uses.
当然，让我完全泄气的是那些陈词滥调的观察，一个又一个，一个学生只是挑选和使用其他人挑选和使用的东西。
I’ve had some students who were exciting.
我有一些令人兴奋的学生。
It’s partly the use of language, but the use of language implies that they are really thinking about language and paying attention to what language can do.
部分是语言的使用，但语言的使用意味着他们真正在思考语言，关注语言能做什么。
So it’ll be use of language, and then use of their own honest vision.
所以这将是使用语言，然后使用他们自己诚实的愿景。
Usually, if the grammar and syntax are just too bad — you can have a spark, but if it’s too bad, I’ve learned from experience, it’s really hard to change that at that point — the students in college or after.
通常情况下，如果语法和句法太差了 ——你可以擦出火花，但如果太差了，我从经验中学到，到了那个时候就很难改变了 —— 大学或以后的学生。
It’s not that I didn’t try my best, but there has to be a minimum recognition of how language is used.
并不是我没有尽力，而是对语言的使用方式要有起码的认识。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
There are so many things you look for in teaching writing that gets very complicated.
在写作教学中你需要寻找很多东西，而这些东西变得非常复杂。
Do you feel that meeting them or interviewing them gives you a better sense of how good a writer they can become?
您觉得与他们见面或采访他们是否能让您更好地了解他们可以成为多么优秀的作家？
Or that’s worthless, and don’t get distracted; just look at the printed page?
或者那是毫无价值的，不要分心；只看打印页？
In my experience, I have not had to, or really wanted to, interview students in person before accepting them into a class.
根据我的经验，在录取学生进入班级之前，我没有必要或真的想亲自采访他们。
It’s been either that they were already signed up and enrolled, and I did what I could, or with some of the classes at the Writers Institute in SUNY Albany — those are for continuing education, general public, and graduate students — you’re handed a pile of samples, 30 samples, anonymous.
要么是他们已经报名并注册了，我做了我能做的，要么是纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼作家学院的一些课程 ——那些是为继续教育、普通公众和研究生开设的—— 你会收到一堆样本，30个样本，都是匿名的。
I really think that’s the best way if you’re selecting students for a class.
我真的认为如果你要为课程选择学生，这是最好的方法。
I always wanted to balance the genders.
我一直想平衡性别。
That was a bit of a game with me, to say, “This seems like a guy.
这对我来说有点像一个游戏，我说：“这看起来像一个人。
This seems like a woman.” Nowadays, who cares?
这看起来像个女人。”如今，谁在乎呢？
I thought it was good to have the balance, but I was often wrong, and that was fine too.
我认为保持平衡很好，但我经常犯错，但这也没关系。
How do you teach differently?
你如何以不同的方式进行教学？
Differently?
不同吗？
Yes.
是的。
What is it you do that other teachers of writing don’t do, when you do master classes or when you taught at Albany?
当你上大师课或在奥尔巴尼教书时，你做了哪些其他写作老师不做的事情？
Again, we get back to the lack of being systematic.
我们再次回到缺乏系统性的问题。
For one thing, I didn’t like to give out a curriculum at the beginning, “This is what we’re going to do every week till the end of the term,” because I never knew.
一方面，我不喜欢一开始就给出课程表，“这是我们每周都会做的事情，直到学期结束”，因为我从来不知道。
I liked to see what they needed or see what I was reading or see what occurred to me, and give the next assignment based on that rather than something I had already decided.
我喜欢看看他们需要什么，或者看看我在读什么，或者看看我发生了什么，并根据这些而不是我已经决定的事情来分配下一个任务。
That was one difference.
这是一个区别。
That led to some very fun things, like I myself was trying to think of all the words that begin with wr.
这导致了一些非常有趣的事情，就像我自己试图思考所有以 wr 开头的单词一样。
This was just something I happened to be doing walking around the house, realizing there weren’t very many of them.
这只是我在房子里走来走去时碰巧做的事情，意识到他们的数量并不多。
I thought, “Okay, I’ll give that as an assignment next week.
我想：“好吧，我会把它作为下周的作业。
The students will have to think of all the words they can that begin with wr.
学生们必须尽可能地想出所有以 wr 开头的单词。
They’re allowed to ask other people, but obviously they’re not allowed to look online or in the dictionary to find them.” That was a lot of fun because we also realized that all the words beginning with wr, except for one in the Cornish language or something, had to do with twisting: wrench or wrist or wrangle.
他们可以询问其他人，但显然他们不可以在网上或字典中查找答案。”这很有趣，因为我们还意识到所有以 wr 开头的单词，除了康沃尔语或其他语言中的单词外，都与扭曲有关：扳手、手腕或争论。
Wrong.
错误的。
Why is that?
这是为什么？
That’s the kind of thing I love.
这就是我喜欢的事情。
I can’t really tell you why, except that I’m sure if you go back to the Indo-European or the Gothic or go way back, you’ll find it there.
我真的不能告诉你为什么，但我确信如果你回到印欧语或哥特语或者追溯到很久以前，你会在那里找到它。
The answer is there somewhere.
答案就在某处。
I sometimes think that the sounds are related to the meaning in the sense of ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.
有时我认为这些声音与“ma，ma，ma，ma，ma”的含义有关。
The M is good for mamama.
M 对妈妈有好处。
But WR, I’m not sure, raaah.
但是WR，我不确定，raaah。
Is it something to do with that?
跟这个有关系吗？
That’s a bit of a mystery.
这有点神秘。
I don’t think I ever went and really tried to answer that.
我想我从来没有去过并真正尝试过回答这个问题。
But I like having these discoveries.
但我喜欢这些发现。
I liked, I should say in the past tense, having these discoveries with the students and having that freshness, like I didn’t plan it.
我喜欢，我应该用过去时态说，与学生们一起发现这些发现，并拥有那种新鲜感，就像我没有计划过一样。
I haven’t done that with the students every year from time immemorial.
自古以来，我并没有每年都对学生这样做。
Have you read Don Quixote yet?
你读过《堂吉诃德》吗？
Actually, I belong to a pretty high-minded book club — Zoom, a remote book club.
事实上，我属于一个相当高尚的读书俱乐部 —— Zoom，一个远程读书俱乐部。
I say high-minded because I have another one that’s much more casual, and we read detective novels, or we read — I don’t know.
我说高尚是因为我还有另一本更随意的，我们读侦探小说，或者我们读 —— 我不知道。
We’re not very ambitious, but this one — we’re willing to tackle difficult things.
我们的野心不是很大，但是这个 — 我们愿意解决困难的事情。
I thought my choices will all be books that I’ve been meaning to read, and I’ll make them read them with me.
我以为我选择的都是我一直想读的书，我会让他们和我一起读。
That way, I’ll actually read them.
这样，我就会真正阅读它们。
We did read 100 pages of Don Quixote.
我们确实读了 100 页的《堂吉诃德》。
We all agreed we couldn’t try to read the whole thing.
我们都同意我们无法尝试阅读整篇文章。
This is the Edith Grossman translation?
这是伊迪丝·格罗斯曼的翻译吗？
It was.
是的。
I asked someone once, “Which one do you think is the best?” He was someone who was in a position to know.
有一次我问别人：“你认为哪一个最好？”他是一个有能力了解情况的人。
He did have to think a bit, but he decided that, all in all, that was the best one.
他确实需要考虑一下，但他认为，总而言之，这是最好的。
We read the first four books or whatever — “books” meaning not books but long sections, about 100 pages, and I was very glad, and so was everyone else.
我们读了前四本书或其他什么 —— “书”的意思不是书，而是长篇，大约100页，我很高兴，其他人也很高兴。
We also read Beowulf because that was another one I’d never read and thought that I should read.
我们还读了《贝奥武夫》，因为那是另一本我从未读过但认为我应该读的书。
That was the Heaney translation or which?
那是希尼的翻译还是哪个？
I think it was several.
我想有好几个。
I read the Heaney but also referred to, was it a Nabokov?
我读了希尼的著作，但也提到，这是纳博科夫吗？
What am I thinking of that was much more literal?
我在想什么更字面的意思？
Did he attempt a very literal one, or am I mixing him up with someone else?
他是否尝试过一种非常字面的方式，还是我把他和其他人混淆了？
I think of his as quite poetic — Heaney.
我认为他的诗意十足——“希尼”。
Heaney’s was farther from the original.
希尼的作品与原作相差甚远。
I read it alongside the original because it’s not impossible.
我把它和原著一起读，因为这并非不可能。
His departed much more from the original than whichever one it was that I was comparing it to, but that was very interesting.
他与原作的差距比我所比较的任何一个都大得多，但这非常有趣。
We all enjoyed that, too.
我们也都喜欢这样。
There’s something about the cumulative effect of Don Quixote that I quite enjoy.
我非常喜欢《堂吉诃德》的累积效应。
Book two, to me, is much better than book one.
对我来说，第二本书比第一本书好得多。
Oh, yeah?
哦，是吗？
If your 100 pages were from book one, book one makes book two better.
如果你的 100 页来自第一本书，那么第一本书会让第二本书变得更好。
But on trying to reread it, I found I was experiencing a certain impatience, that I kept on wanting to skip ahead to the better book two, but that’s also a mistake.
但在尝试重读时，我发现自己有些不耐烦，一直想跳到更好的第二本书，但这也是一个错误。
Have you read the whole of Don Quixote?
你读过整部《堂吉诃德》吗？
Yes, but I have not reread the whole recently.
是的，但我最近没有重读全文。
I think when I read it, it was maybe the Walter Starkie translation, which I suspect isn’t that good, but it’s a good book to read.
我想当我读这本书时，它可能是沃尔特·斯塔基的翻译，我怀疑它不是那么好，但它是一本值得一读的好书。
Like some of the early Dostoevsky translations.
就像陀思妥耶夫斯基的一些早期翻译一样。
Like, maybe, Constance Garnett is not very good as a translator, but she might be quite good to read, especially if you’re young.
也许，康斯坦斯·加内特作为翻译不是很好，但她可能很适合阅读，尤其是如果你年轻的话。
That was true of Steegmuller’s translation of Flaubert, I think.
我认为斯蒂格米勒翻译的福楼拜就是如此。
It’s also a good book to read, but it goes quite far away from Flaubert.
这也是一本好书，但它与福楼拜相差甚远。
How would you put what you did with Flaubert in contrast to that translation?
您如何将您对福楼拜的研究与该翻译进行对比？
Staying much closer to the French.
与法国人保持更密切的联系。
That was something I tried to do with Proust and Flaubert, was really not stray too far, no farther than absolutely necessary.
这是我试图对普鲁斯特和福楼拜做的事情，实际上并没有偏离太远，也没有超出绝对必要的范围。
Whereas Steegmuller would put in a phrase that isn’t even in the Flaubert.
而斯蒂格米勒会加入一个甚至在福楼拜中都没有的短语。
“Poor thing” is the one I remember.
“可怜的东西”是我记得的那个。
After Charles’s first wife dies — the wife that precedes Emma Bovary — the narrator says, “Poor thing.” I don’t remember if Charles says it or it’s just in the narration, but “poor thing” is not in the Flaubert.
查尔斯的第一任妻子——爱玛·包法利之前的妻子——去世后，叙述者说，“可怜的东西。”我不记得查尔斯是否说过这句话，或者只是在叙述中，但福楼拜的诗中并没有“可怜的东西”。
Steegmuller was making a readable, very vibrant novel out of it.
斯蒂格米勒正在用它创作一部可读性强、充满活力的小说。
That’s okay as far as that goes.
就目前而言，这样就可以了。
I think that’s what you mean by a good book to read that a scholar would not necessarily approve of the approach.
我想这就是你所说的一本值得读的好书的意思，但学者不一定会赞同这种方法。
At current margins, what is your dream translation job?
在目前的利润水平下，您梦想的翻译工作是什么？
Oh, I actually don’t want to translate anymore.
哦，其实我不想再翻译了。
What I decided at a certain point — it’s partly because I have a lot of other things I want to do urgently — at a certain point, I thought I do want to go on translating, but they will all have to be very, very short stories.
我在某个时刻做出的决定——部分是因为我还有很多其他紧急要做的事情——在某个时刻，我想我确实想继续翻译，但它们都必须是非常非常短的故事。
I, at that point, switched over to translating.
那时我就转而从事翻译工作。
There’s a Swiss writer I like a lot called Peter Bichsel.
我很喜欢一位瑞士作家，名叫彼得·比克塞尔。
Some of his early books were translated here, but these are newspaper columns — autobiographical — that I really like a lot.
他早期的一些书是在这里翻译的，但这些是我非常喜欢的报纸专栏“自传体”。
I translated a few of those, and they’re only a page and a half long.
我翻译了其中一些，它们只有一页半长。
If I wanted to answer your question properly, I’d say that’s my dream translation job — texts like that that are autobiographical and short.
如果我想正确地回答你的问题，我会说这就是我梦想的翻译工作 —— 这样的自传体短文本。
The last question: As readers, in terms of publication, what can we expect next from you?
最后一个问题：作为读者，在出版方面，我们对您下一步有何期待？
I actually have a pile of stories that have been sitting here and accumulating.
我实际上有一堆故事一直坐在这里并积累。
They’re in a folder called “new book,” and it’s very fat.
它们位于一个名为“新书”的文件夹中，而且非常厚。
There are a lot of them, but I keep having to put it aside because of all the other things I’m doing that get in the way, but that should be the next book because it’s all there.
它们有很多，但我一直不得不把它放在一边，因为我正在做的所有其他事情都妨碍了我，但这应该是下一本书，因为它都在那里。
I just need to organize it, maybe complete one or two of the longer ones, and there it’ll be — another book of stories.
我只需要把它组织起来，也许完成一两本较长的故事，然后它就会出现——另一本故事书。
Lydia Davis, thank you very much.
莉迪亚·戴维斯，非常感谢你。
It’s been a real honor.
这真是一种荣幸。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
It’s been enjoyable.
这很愉快。
Thumbnail and header photo credit: Theo Cote
缩略图和标题照片来源：Theo Cote