Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism (Ep. 12)
Today I am with Margalit Fox at Chelsea Market.
今天我和玛格丽特·福克斯一起在切尔西市场。
One of my readers wrote to me about Margalit, “She is by far the best writer amongst all those employed by the New York Times.” She is arguably the most humorous writer, has the best sense of irony, and the most inventive writer.
我的一位读者写信给我谈到玛格丽特，“她是迄今为止《纽约时报》雇用的所有作家中最好的作家。”她可以说是最幽默的作家，具有最好的讽刺意识，也是最有创造力的作家。
She is, in fact, one of the main writers of obituaries for the New York Times.
事实上，她是《纽约时报》讣告的主要撰稿人之一。
She also has written two very well-reviewed books, has a third book coming out about historical true crime in Edwardian England, and I’m here to talk with Margalit Fox.
她还写了两本广受好评的书，第三本关于爱德华时代英国历史上真实犯罪的书即将问世，我来这里是为了与玛格丽特·福克斯交谈。
Welcome.
欢迎。
Thank you very much, Tyler.
非常感谢你，泰勒。
The fact that you write obituaries makes you especially interesting.
你写讣告的事实让你特别有趣。
And my first question has to do with human lives.
我的第一个问题与人的生命有关。
How well do you feel family and friends actually know a person?
您觉得家人和朋友对一个人的了解程度如何？
You get to know them fairly well when you write their obit.
当你写下他们的讣告时，你就会对他们相当了解。
How well do others know them, those closest to them?
其他人和他们最亲近的人对他们的了解程度如何？
Of course, those closest to them are the ones by definition who know them best.
当然，最接近他们的人显然是最了解他们的人。
And so, for various reasons, including just one of basic reporting smarts, we are obliged to spend time on the phone with families and close friends where there are such people to be had.
因此，出于各种原因，包括基本的报告智慧之一，我们不得不花时间与家人和亲密的朋友通电话，因为那里有这样的人。
But how often is the family or the close friends surprised by what’s in the obituary?
但是，家人或亲密的朋友有多少次对讣告中的内容感到惊讶呢？
Divorces they didn’t know about; children they didn’t know about; they may have been an alcoholic when they were in their 20s; something they did in their career.
他们不知道的离婚；他们不认识的孩子；他们可能在 20 多岁时就酗酒；他们在职业生涯中所做的事情。
Remember that we the reporter are starting almost always from an agnostic state.
请记住，我们记者几乎总是从不可知论的状态开始。
Of course, there are essentially two categories of obituaries that the Times does.
当然，《泰晤士报》的讣告基本上分为两类。
One are the marquee names, the presidents, the kings, the queens, the captains of industry, old-time Hollywood film stars, and so on — people who are in the history books, people whom everyone has heard of.
其中之一是大名鼎鼎的人物，总统、国王、王后、工业领袖、老牌好莱坞电影明星等等——那些载入史册的人，每个人都听说过的人。
Their lives are well documented, and so there are rarely any surprises, either for the family or for the reporter working on the story.
他们的生活都有详细记录，因此无论是对于他们的家人还是对于报道这个故事的记者来说，很少有任何意外。
On the other hand, there is this whole other category of people whom I call history’s backstage players, these unsung men and women who are not household names but who, because they invented something, had an idea, wrote something, you know, way back perhaps in the 1940s — they put a wrinkle in the social fabric and changed the world.
另一方面，还有一类人，我称之为历史的幕后演员，这些无名男女，他们并不是家喻户晓的名字，但他们因为发明了一些东西，有一个想法，写了一些东西，你知道，也许早在 20 世纪 40 年代——他们给社会结构带来了皱纹，改变了世界。
I’ve done, for instance, the inventor of the Frisbee, the inventor of Etch A Sketch, the inventor of the plastic lawn flamingo, of Stove Top Stuffing.
例如，我做过飞盘的发明者、蚀刻素描的发明者、塑料草坪火烈鸟的发明者、炉顶填料的发明者。
Now, about those people, although clearly they did something that changed the culture — was transformative in some way — we reporters are almost always going in cold.
现在，对于这些人，尽管他们显然做了一些改变文化的事情——“在某种程度上具有变革性”——但我们记者几乎总是感到冷淡。
We’ve very often never heard the name, much less anything about what this person did.
我们常常从未听说过这个名字，更不用说知道这个人做了什么。
And so, for that, of course, we’re obliged to rely to an extent, with appropriate double-checking and backstopping, on family knowledge because their knowledge is better and of far, far longer duration than ours.
因此，当然，为此，我们必须在一定程度上依靠家庭知识，并进行适当的双重检查和支持，因为他们的知识比我们的知识更好，持续时间也长得多。
Margalit Fox reads her obituary for John Fairfax
玛格丽特·福克斯宣读约翰·费尔法克斯的讣告
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about an ordinary life writing one of these obituaries?
在撰写这些讣告时，您从平凡的生活中学到的最令人惊讶的事情是什么？
Not a famous person but — .
不是名人，但是 —— 。
Well, here’s one.
嗯，这是一个。
I brought one with me.
我随身带了一张。
There was a very good photographer who worked for the Village Voice for many years, a man named Fred McDarrah.
有一位非常优秀的摄影师，他在乡村之声工作了很多年，他的名字叫弗雷德·麦克达拉 (Fred McDarrah)。
He died in 2007.
他于 2007 年去世。
Now, his work as a photographer for the Voice alone would have been more than enough to get him a news obit in our pages, which it did.
现在，仅凭他作为《好声音》摄影师的工作就足以让他在我们的页面上刊登新闻讣告，事实也确实如此。
He took, for instance, a very famous photo of Bob Dylan, a young Bob Dylan all in black, in Sheridan Square Park in New York, facing the camera and saluting.
例如，他在纽约谢里登广场公园拍了一张非常著名的鲍勃·迪伦的照片，年轻的鲍勃·迪伦一身黑衣，面对镜头敬礼。
That photo has been everywhere.
那张照片到处都是。
That was taken by our guy, Fred McDarrah.
这是我们的伙计弗雷德·麦克达拉 (Fred McDarrah) 拍摄的。
And because of when he worked in the fifties and sixties, he was famous for documenting photographically the beat generation.
因为他在五六十年代工作时，因用摄影记录垮掉的一代而闻名。
To my surprise and delight, when I started pulling old clippings and researching the obit, we found that not only did he document the beat generation, but he enterprisingly started a business called Rent-a-Beatnik for these society matrons who wanted to be au courant, wanted to have a beatnik play the bongos or read poetry at their fancy parties in Scarsdale, but didn’t quite know how to go about it.
令我惊讶和高兴的是，当我开始翻出旧剪报并研究讣告时，我们发现他不仅记录了垮掉派一代，而且还大胆地为这些想要跟上潮流、想让垮掉派在斯卡斯代尔的华丽派对上演奏手鼓或朗诵诗歌的社会主妇们创办了一家名为“租用垮掉派尼克”的企业，但又不太知道如何去做。
With rental markets and everything, I would say.
我想说的是，有了租赁市场和一切。
Exactly.
确切地。
So the lede of our obit — we say, “Fred W.
所以我们讣告的开头——我们说，“Fred W.
McDarrah, a self-described square who was a longtime photographer for the Village Voice documented the unwashed exploits of the Beat generation, and as an enterprising freelance talent agent rented out members of that generation (washed or unwashed) to wide-eyed suburban society gatherings, died,” etc., etc. So that was great fun.
麦克达拉（McDarrah）自称为广场人，长期担任《乡村之声》（Village Voice）的摄影师，记录了“垮掉的一代”的不光彩的事迹，作为一名有进取心的自由职业人才经纪人，将那一代人（无论是干净的还是不干净的）出租给睁大眼睛的郊区社会聚会，“死了”，等等。所以这很有趣。
On the structure of obits
论讣告的结构
One thing I find interesting when I read obituaries is how much subtle humor is in them and how much of an attempt is made to make the first sentence be especially interesting.
当我阅读讣告时，我发现有趣的一件事是其中有多少微妙的幽默，以及有多少努力使第一句话特别有趣。
And often the last sentence contains a kind of nugget or surprise or twist on the story.
最后一句话通常包含故事的某种金点、惊喜或转折。
Now, the other parts of the newspaper typically aren’t like this, be it the New York Times or elsewhere.
现在，报纸的其他部分通常不是这样的，无论是《纽约时报》还是其他地方。
So why do obituaries have this special status where there’s room in them for this kind of humor and invention?
那么，为什么讣告具有如此特殊的地位，其中有空间容纳这种幽默和发明呢？
Or alternatively, why don’t more parts of the newspaper actually copy this if it works, which I think it typically does?
或者，如果它有效的话，为什么报纸的更多部分实际上不复制它，我认为它通常会这样做？
As to what more parts of the newspaper do or don’t do, I can’t speak, but of course, as you know, there are very ironclad conventions for the structure of news articles.
至于报纸的更多部分做了什么或不做了什么，我不能说，但当然，如你所知，新闻文章的结构有非常铁定的惯例。
Historically, obits were no exception to that.
从历史上看，讣告也不例外。
These conventions actually have been in place during the Civil War.
这些公约实际上在内战期间就已制定。
And it’s worth digressing about them quickly because they’re quite fascinating.
值得快速离题，因为它们非常迷人。
Anyone who’s ever taken Journalism 101 has heard about the inverted pyramid, which is this upside-down triangle that’s supposed to be the model for the lede paragraph of any news story and in fact for the structure of the news story as it flows along: broad-based information first and then finer- and finer- and finer-grained detail, down to stuff at the end that you could possibly dispense with if you’re short on space.
任何学过《新闻学 101》的人都听说过倒金字塔，这种倒三角形应该是任何新闻报道的前导段落的模型，事实上也是新闻报道的结构：首先是广泛的信息，然后是越来越细粒度的细节，最后是如果你的篇幅不够的话你可以省略的东西。
And that model is an information-processing model.
该模型是一个信息处理模型。
It has endured for over a hundred years because it’s cognitively perfect.
它已经存在了一百多年，因为它在认知上是完美的。
It came about during Civil War battle coverage, when they had the medium of telegraphy for the first time available to reporters.
它是在内战战争报道期间出现的，当时他们第一次向记者提供了电报媒介。
Like much new technology, it was bulky.
与许多新技术一样，它体积庞大。
Lines went down.
线路下降了。
And reporters learned in a do-or-die sort of way, “Get the broadest information through first, so if the lines go down, at least your readers back in Boston or Baltimore will have something.
记者们以一种生死攸关的方式了解到，“首先获得最广泛的信息，所以如果队伍排长，至少你在波士顿或巴尔的摩的读者会得到一些东西。
Your editor will have something to put in the paper.” That model has endured because it’s how we process information.
你的编辑会在报纸上写一些东西。”这种模式之所以得以延续，是因为它是我们处理信息的方式。
It’s cognitively perfect.
它在认知上是完美的。
Obits, too, were beholden to that model, plus weighed down further by all of this boilerplate that has to be there — so-and-so died, when, where, of what illness, at what age.
讣告也受制于这个模型，再加上所有这些必须存在的样板文件进一步加重了压力——某某去世的时间、地点、死于什么疾病、在什么年龄。
And that is why historically obits were considered one of the most boring sections of any daily paper.
这就是为什么历史上讣告被认为是任何日报中最无聊的部分之一。
Happily, in the last 20 or 30 years, particularly we at the Times have realized that underlying all of that potentially very leaden boilerplate is a pure narrative arc.
令人高兴的是，在过去的 20 或 30 年里，尤其是我们《纽约时报》已经意识到，所有这些潜在的非常沉闷的样板背后是一个纯粹的叙事弧线。
Because what does an obit do?
因为讣告有什么作用？
It’s charged with taking subjects from the cradle — John Doe was born on January 1st, 1900 — to the grave — John Doe died yesterday.
它的任务是从摇篮——“约翰·多伊出生于 1900 年 1 月 1 日”——“到坟墓”——“约翰·多伊昨天去世”。
That gives you a built-in narrative arc.
这为您提供了一个内置的叙事弧。
And indeed, obits turn out to be the most purely narrative genre in any daily paper.
事实上，讣告是所有日报中最纯粹的叙事体裁。
The reason we have these great ledes and we hope great kickers, as we call them, at the end is that we are exploiting very happily this inherent narrative potential that is a news obit.
我们之所以拥有这些伟大的线索，并希望最终能有伟大的踢球者，正如我们所说的那样，是因为我们正在非常愉快地利用新闻讣告这种固有的叙事潜力。
And indeed, obits turn out to be the most purely narrative genre in any daily paper.
事实上，讣告是所有日报中最纯粹的叙事体裁。
The reason we have these great ledes and we hope great kickers…at the end is that we are exploiting very happily this inherent narrative potential that is a news obit.
我们之所以有这些伟大的领导，我们希望有伟大的踢球者……最后，我们正在非常愉快地利用新闻讣告这种固有的叙事潜力。
But in terms of the structure of the newspaper, certain rules and procedures have not been imposed on obituaries that are imposed on other news stories.
但就报纸的结构而言，讣告并没有像其他新闻报道那样强加某些规则和程序。
What do you think it is about the nature of obituaries or maybe their role in the newsroom that has allowed that freedom to evolve?
您认为讣告的本质是什么，或者讣告在新闻编辑室中的作用是什么，使得这种自由得以发展？
Because people who report on crimes — you could imagine I’m talking to one of them, and they would say, “This is the perfect narrative arc.
因为举报犯罪的人 — 你可以想象我正在和他们中的一个人交谈，他们会说，“这是完美的叙事弧线。
We developed all these freedoms” — but typically not.
我们发展了所有这些自由” ——但通常情况下并非如此。
There’s a pretty rigid structure to a crime story.
犯罪故事有一个相当严格的结构。
See, I don’t know that I agree with your initial premise because there is also a pretty rigid structure to an obit.
看，我不知道我是否同意你最初的前提，因为讣告也有一个相当严格的结构。
It’s there.
它就在那里。
To put it in Chomskyan terms, in old-time Chomskyan terms, it’s the deep structure.
用乔姆斯基的术语来说，用旧时乔姆斯基的术语来说，它就是深层结构。
It’s there undergirding everything.
它支撑着一切。
Otherwise the story wouldn’t cohere.
否则故事就不会连贯。
It would fall apart.
它会崩溃。
There’s a birth and a death.
有出生和死亡。
Right.
正确的。
But all of the stuff is there.
但所有的东西都在那里。
The trick is — if you want to make it good art but also have complete fealty to the tenets of journalism, which we must adhere to, the trick is to disguise all of that infrastructure, all of those girders, and to make it — where thematically appropriate — to make it kind of light and frothy and dancing and a really good read.
诀窍是——“如果你想让它成为优秀的艺术，同时又完全忠于我们必须遵守的新闻原则，那么诀窍就是掩盖所有的基础设施、所有的大梁，并使它”——“在主题适当的地方”——让它变得轻松、泡沫、舞蹈和真正的好读。
Now, if I look at a lot of British obituaries, it seems to me they often have a different structure.
现在，如果我看很多英国讣告，在我看来它们通常有不同的结构。
You can tell me in a moment what you think that difference is.
您可以稍后告诉我您认为差异是什么。
But often I see the death buried in the middle of the British obituary.
但我经常看到死者被埋在英国讣告的中间。
There’s maybe a greater tendency to poke fun at the person who has passed away.
也许人们更倾向于取笑已故的人。
Often the obituary won’t be printed — say, several weeks later, which is not, say, how the New York Times typically operates.
通常，讣告不会被印刷——比如说，几周后，这不是《纽约时报》通常的运作方式。
Now, what do you think are the differences between British and American obituaries, and how have they evolved?
现在，您认为英国和美国讣告有何区别？它们是如何演变的？
What accounts for that?
这是什么原因？
That’s a huge question, and because I’m not a historian of journalism, I can’t account for how it’s evolved.
这是一个很大的问题，因为我不是新闻史学家，所以我无法解释它是如何演变的。
That’s beyond my ken.
这超出了我的认知范围。
British obituaries and British journalism generally — it’s that Fleet Street model — are more catty than news stories in almost any section of an American paper.
一般来说，英国讣告和英国新闻——“这就是舰队街模式”——比美国报纸几乎任何版面的新闻报道都更加尖酸刻薄。
Again, we have to have complete fealty to the truth.
再次强调，我们必须完全忠于真理。
We have to have complete impartiality.
我们必须完全公正。
We have to be disinterested in the pure sense of the term where we are detached observers.
我们必须对纯粹意义上的不感兴趣，即我们是超然的观察者。
And an obit is no different.
讣告也不例外。
But at the same time, because we have wonderful marquee-name writers in our section — Biff Grimes, Bruce Weber, Sam Roberts — .
但与此同时，因为我们的部门有出色的知名作家 —— Biff Grimes、Bruce Weber、Sam Roberts —— 。
Margalit Fox.
玛格丽特·福克斯。
Thank you.
谢谢。
We are able to put a really interesting gloss — gloss in perhaps both senses of the term — on top of this basic structure that has to be there.
我们能够在这个必须存在的基本结构之上添加一个非常有趣的注释——也许是该术语的两种含义的注释。
On being the gatekeeper for a highly exclusive club
成为一家高度独家俱乐部的看门人
Edward Lowe — he’s the man who invented Kitty Litter.
爱德华·洛（Edward Lowe）——他是 Kitty Litter 的发明者。
I believe you’ve heard of him.
我相信你听说过他。
Do you feel he should be more or less famous?
你觉得他应该出名多一点还是少一点？
In American society as a whole, do you feel the fame incentives for people like Edward Lowe are too strong or too weak?
在整个美国社会，你觉得对爱德华·洛这样的人的名誉激励是太强还是太弱？
Edward Lowe in 1947, as memorialized in the famous obituary by our late great obit writer Robert McG.
1947 年，爱德华·洛 (Edward Lowe)，我们已故的伟大讣告作家罗伯特·麦克 (Robert McG) 在著名的讣告中对此进行了纪念。
Thomas, was the man who, because he had an idea one day, invented the product that became known as Kitty Litter.
托马斯有一天灵机一动，发明了一种名为 Kitty Litter 的产品。
And it did indeed cause social change because it made cats much easier to keep indoors than formerly.
它确实引起了社会变革，因为它使猫比以前更容易呆在室内。
For the first time, a few decades later, cats actually passed dogs as the most popular American pet.
几十年后，猫第一次真正超过狗，成为美国最受欢迎的宠物。
So, again, here’s somebody who did something spontaneously because he was inspired and who put a wrinkle in the social fabric.
所以，再一次，这个人因为受到启发而自发地做了一些事情，并给社会结构带来了皱纹。
He changed the culture.
他改变了文化。
Now, he wasn’t doing it to get famous.
现在，他这样做并不是为了出名。
I don’t — you know, Andy Warhol hadn’t yet said, “In the world of the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” I think very few people about whom we write do things for fame.
我不知道——你知道，安迪·沃霍尔还没有说过，“在未来的世界里，每个人都会成名15分钟。”我认为我们所写的人很少是为了名誉而做事的。
The fame comes post hoc, applied by people like us in the news media.
这种名声是事后发生的，是由像我们这样的新闻媒体人士应用的。
I don’t think there’s any incentivization of fame for the vast majority of people about whom we write.
我认为我们所写的绝大多数人都没有任何名利的激励。
In fact, it never even occurred to me.
事实上，我从来没有想到过。
You’re one of the gatekeepers of one of the world’s most exclusive clubs.
您是世界上最独特的俱乐部之一的看门人之一。
Numbers I’ve seen — every year about two-and-a-half million Americans pass away.
我看到的数字——每年约有二百五十万美国人去世。
And in that same year, the New York Times might run about, what, a thousand obituaries?
同年，《纽约时报》可能会刊登一千篇讣告？
Right, for space reasons.
是的，出于空间原因。
I realize some of this process may be confidential, but apart from the obvious candidates — former presidents and the like — how is it determined who gets covered, who gets entrance into this highly exclusive club?
我意识到这个过程中的一些内容可能是保密的，但除了明显的候选人 ——“前总统之类”—— 如何确定谁被覆盖，谁可以进入这个高度排他的俱乐部？
What are the standards, and what kinds of discussions do you have?
标准是什么，你们有什么样的讨论？
What are some features about a person that maybe wouldn’t be so intuitive to our listeners that actually are quite dispositive for determining whether you let them through the gates?
一个人的哪些特征对于我们的听众来说可能不那么直观，但实际上对于决定你是否让他们通过大门非常具有决定性？
There is no one cookie-cutter model for who gets in and who gets out.
对于谁进入和谁退出，没有一种千篇一律的模型。
How could there be?
怎么可能有呢？
Lives are so different.
生活是如此不同。
Indeed, apart from the people who are the shoo-ins — the presidents, the kings and queens — there is this whole other 90 percent of the iceberg that’s hidden but which we may want to expose in our pages.
事实上，除了那些稳操胜券的人——“总统、国王和王后”——还有另外 90% 的冰山是隐藏的，但我们可能想在我们的页面中揭露它们。
These are these fascinating backstage players, the inventors of Kitty Litter and the lawn flamingo, etc.
这些是迷人的后台演员、Kitty Litter 和草坪火烈鸟等的发明者。
What we look for generally — and the question that’s asked by our three section editors, who agonize every day over the volume of submissions we get from families, from funeral homes, stories we read in out-of-town papers, foreign papers, the wire services, things come flooding in, and these decisions have to be made every day.
我们一般寻找什么——以及我们的三位编辑提出的问题，他们每天都在为我们从家庭、殡仪馆、我们在外地报纸、外国报纸、通讯社上读到的大量来稿而苦恼，事情蜂拥而至，每天都必须做出这些决定。
Indeed, it’s like a meeting of the admission committee of the most selective university in the world.
事实上，这就像世界上最挑剔的大学招生委员会的会议。
And it’s, what, three of you, five of you?
是，什么，你们三个，五个？
There are our section head, Bill McDonald, and his two deputies, Jack Kadden and Peter Keepnews.
其中包括我们的科长比尔·麦克唐纳 (Bill McDonald) 和他的两名副手杰克·卡登 (Jack Kadden) 和彼得·凯普新闻 (Peter Keepnews)。
The editors are charged first and last with the responsibility of deciding who gets in every day and roughly the length, to whom it’s assigned.
编辑们首先和最后的职责是决定每天的报道内容、大致时长以及分配给谁。
They often do it in consultation with the writers.
他们经常与作家协商来做到这一点。
My original training was as a cellist.
我最初的训练是作为一名大提琴手。
I later trained in linguistics.
后来我接受了语言学培训。
So if they have questions on classical musicians, linguists, they say, “Is this person important?
因此，如果他们对古典音乐家、语言学家有疑问，他们会说：“这个人重要吗？
Is this person worth doing?” I may weigh in.
这个人值得做吗？”我可以权衡一下。
My colleagues weigh in similarly in their subject areas.
我的同事们在他们的学科领域也有类似的看法。
The criterion we look for, if we had to pick a single question that can be asked of every applicant at our gates, is: Did he or she change the culture?
如果我们必须选择一个可以向我们门口的每位申请人提出的问题，那么我们寻找的标准是：他或她是否改变了文化？
The criterion we look for, if we had to pick a single question that can be asked of every applicant at our gates, is: Did he or she change the culture?
如果我们必须选择一个可以向我们门口的每位申请人提出的问题，那么我们寻找的标准是：他或她是否改变了文化？
Who invented the lawn flamingo?
谁发明了草坪火烈鸟？
A very interesting man, a Massachusetts man with the wonderful and appropriate name of Don Featherstone.
一个非常有趣的人，一个来自马萨诸塞州的人，他的名字叫唐·费瑟斯通（Don Featherstone），这个名字既美妙又恰当。
He trained as a sculptor.
他受过雕塑家训练。
He got work in the postwar years at a plastics factory.
战后，他在一家塑料厂找到了工作。
It’s like that wonderful, famous old line from The Graduate — “I have one word of advice for you: plastics.” Well, he took that advice.
这就像《毕业生》中那句精彩而著名的老台词——“我给你一个建议：塑料。”好吧，他接受了这个建议。
The plastics factory made all sorts of three-dimensional ornamental pieces for the home.
这家塑料厂生产各种三维家居装饰品。
He had the idea — and again, just in a stroke of inspiration — of making a creature that would connote the ongoing pleasure of endless summer.
他萌生了一个想法——“又一次，只是灵光一现”——创造一种生物，象征着无尽夏日的持续愉悦。
I think we say in the obit “the saturated pink promise of endless summer.” It took off in ways that he never imagined, sold millions and millions and millions, and literally changed the landscape of America.
我想我们在讣告中说“无尽夏天的饱和粉色承诺”。它以他从未想象过的方式起飞，卖出了数百万美元，并真正改变了美国的面貌。
Now we have the saturated pink promise of endless summer because of him.
现在，因为他，我们才拥有了无尽夏日的饱和粉色承诺。
We do.
我们做到了。
I mean, perhaps had he not done it, someone else would have.
我的意思是，也许如果他不这么做，其他人就会这么做。
But the point is, he did, and he was transformative enough — albeit in a perhaps campy way when viewed through a postmodern lens.
但关键是，他做到了，而且他具有足够的变革性——尽管从后现代的角度来看，这种变革可能有点做作。
The Times put him on page one.
《泰晤士报》把他放在了第一版。
Take his obituary.
看看他的讣告。
Was a version of that written in advance because you were thinking, “My goodness, the lawn flamingo.
是提前写好的一个版本，因为你在想，“天哪，草坪火烈鸟。
That fellow has to pass on sooner or later.
那家伙迟早要过世。
We’re going to be ready”?
我们准备好了吗？”
Or is there some other process through which you learned of his passing, maybe a local paper or a wire?
或者您是否通过其他途径了解到他的去世，也许是当地报纸或电讯？
In his case, it was the latter.
就他而言，是后者。
And I believe it was both a local paper and the wire.
我相信这既是当地报纸又是电讯报。
It is indeed the case that obits for many of these major historical figures — presidents, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, old-time silver screen stars — those are indeed written in advance.
许多重要历史人物的讣告确实如此——“总统、最高法院法官、国会议员、老银幕明星”——这些确实是提前写好的。
The selection criterion is: Does this person have a life that — it was so long in the public eye, so rich, so complex, and so deeply documented that we wouldn’t want to get caught short writing his or her obit on deadline?
选择的标准是：这个人的一生是否在公众眼中长久存在、如此丰富、如此复杂、如此深入记录，以至于我们不想在截止日期前写下他或她的讣告？
Of course, very often we do because we’re a small department, and things happen.
当然，我们经常这样做，因为我们是一个小部门，而且事情会发生。
People die suddenly.
人们突然死亡。
Right.
正确的。
Things happen.
事情发生了。
Rockers OD.
摇杆外径。
Planes go down.
飞机坠落。
Things happen.
事情发生了。
But in general, we try to have a certain level of preparedness with the major figures.
但总的来说，我们会尽力对主要人物做好一定程度的准备。
We do indeed have the advance obits — all but the top, as it were — written, edited, on file.
我们确实有预先讣告 ——可以说，除了顶部之外的所有讣告——都是书面、编辑、存档的。
We have about 1,700.
我们大约有 1,700 人。
That said, the vast majority of what my colleagues and I down in the trenches do, probably 90 percent of our working life, are daily obits that are found out about, reported, written, edited, copyedited, put in the paper all in the space of a single day, just like any other article in the paper.
也就是说，我和我的同事们在一线所做的绝大多数事情，可能是我们工作生活的 90%，都是在一天之内发现、报道、撰写、编辑、编辑、发表在报纸上的日常讣闻，就像报纸上的任何其他文章一样。
Of the thousand Times obituaries over the course of a year, how many of those have some early draft ready to go?
在一年的时间里，《纽约时报》发布了数千篇讣告，其中有多少已经准备好初稿？
Of course, it needs to be modified, but — .
当然需要修改，但是 —— 。
There’s no way to predict.
没有办法预测。
Sometimes we can literally have a day where three of our advances drop at once, and the editors get very busy trying to find either the original reporter or, if that person’s unavailable, someone else in the newsroom who can call the family, call the funeral home, get confirmation that, indeed, this person has died.
有时我们真的会有一天，我们的三笔预付款同时下降，编辑们会非常忙于寻找原始记者，或者，如果那个人不在，新闻编辑室里的其他人可以给家人打电话，给殡仪馆打电话，确认这个人确实已经去世了。
Sometimes you can go for six months without having an advance drop.
有时您可以连续六个月而无需提前下降。
Again, this is all in the hands of fate, and we are only men and women.
再说一遍，这一切都掌握在命运的手中，而我们只是男人和女人。
But on average, below half, above half, half?
但平均而言，低于一半、高于一半、一半？
I’ve never kept track of it because it’s not quite in my wheelhouse.
我从来没有跟踪过它，因为它不完全在我的驾驶室里。
This is the editor’s headache.
这是小编头疼的问题。
I have other headaches.
我还有其他的头痛。
But half of all the ones we have on file, half of all the ones we run — no, a very small percentage, I would say, of those we run in the print paper every year are advances.
但是，我们存档的所有项目的一半，我们运行的所有项目的一半——不，我想说，我们每年在印刷报纸上运行的项目中，只有很小一部分是预付款。
A number, I couldn’t tell you.
一个数字，我不能告诉你。
I’m sorry.
对不起。
Now, this is not all true of your work or the Times today, but it used to be a long-standing joke that in the obituaries pages, women and black people never die because there was an emphasis on white males, say, 30, 40 years ago.
现在，这并不完全适用于你的作品或今天的《泰晤士报》，但这曾经是一个长期存在的笑话，在讣告页面上，女性和黑人永远不会死，因为在 30、40 年前，人们强调白人男性。
No. But remember, think about what an obit is.
不。但请记住，想一想讣告是什么。
It is not only the most narrative genre in the paper; it is the most retrospective.
它不仅是报纸上最具叙事性的体裁，而且也是最具叙事性的体裁。这是最具回顾性的。
We are writing about the movers and shakers who made our world.
我们正在写的是那些创造了我们这个世界的影响力人物。
I think of obit writing as the act of looking through a sliding window onto the past, a kind of window that slides back along the rails of time.
我认为讣告写作是一种通过滑动窗口回顾过去的行为，一种沿着时间轨道滑回的窗口。
When I first started the job in 2004, we were writing overwhelmingly about the people on either side of World War II.
当我 2004 年第一次开始这份工作时，我们写的大部分内容都是关于二战双方的人们的。
We edged up into the Cold War.
我们逐渐陷入冷战。
We’re now writing about Vietnam and the civil rights era.
我们现在正在写关于越南和民权时代的文章。
I think of obit writing as the act of looking through a sliding window onto the past, a kind of window that slides back along the rails of time.
我认为讣告写作是一种通过滑动窗口回顾过去的行为，一种沿着时间轨道滑回的窗口。
When I first started the job in 2004, we were writing overwhelmingly about the people on either side of World War II.
当我 2004 年第一次开始这份工作时，我们写的大部分内容都是关于二战双方的人们的。
We edged up into the Cold War.
我们逐渐陷入冷战。
We’re now writing about Vietnam and the civil rights era.
我们现在正在写关于越南和民权时代的文章。
And no matter how we feel about it in light of modern sensibilities, the stark reality of our world is, pretty much the only people who were allowed to be actors on the world stage in the 1940s, ’50s, were overwhelmingly white men.
无论我们以现代人的感受如何看待它，我们世界的严峻现实是，在 20 世纪 40 年代和 50 年代，几乎唯一被允许在世界舞台上担任演员的人绝大多数是白人。
I’m happy to say that in the 12 years I’ve been doing this job, as that window has slid up into the civil rights era and even the women’s movement, that page of ours has started to diversify.
我很高兴地说，在我从事这项工作的12年里，随着那个窗口滑入民权时代，甚至妇女运动，我们的页面开始多样化。
I had the great privilege, for instance, of writing our page-one obit of Betty Friedan, knowing full well that had it not been for her writing The Feminine Mystique in 1963 and launching the modern women’s movement, I would very likely not be in the newsroom of the New York Times writing a page-one story.
例如，我非常荣幸地为贝蒂·弗里丹撰写了第一版讣告，我深知，如果不是她在 1963 年撰写了《女性的奥秘》并发起了现代妇女运动，我很可能不会在《纽约时报》的新闻编辑室里撰写第一版的故事。
Do you have a sense — which, by the way, I would completely favor — that somehow other people’s notions of history are not diverse enough but that with obituaries, by choosing a wiser selection or a deeper understanding of who is important, to bring a greater balance to our understanding of history by deliberately trying to introduce greater diversity to the selection of who gets covered?
你是否有这样的感觉——“顺便说一句，我完全赞成”——不知何故，其他人的历史观念不够多样化，但对于讣告来说，通过选择更明智的选择或更深入地了解谁是重要的，可以通过刻意地尝试在选择被报道的人时引入更大的多样性，从而为我们对历史的理解带来更大的平衡？
Again, I’m the wrong person to ask.
再说一次，我问错了人。
Our section editors make those calls.
我们的部门编辑负责做出这些决定。
Because we can write about so few people, we are writing by definition about newsworthy people who either made news while they were alive or who quietly did something that made news.
因为我们能写的人太少了，所以根据定义，我们写的是有新闻价值的人，他们要么在生前制造新闻，要么默默地做了一些制造新闻的事情。
Again — and I will repeat myself until I’m blue in the face — through no fault of anyone who is active in the world today, those people regrettably were overwhelmingly white men.
再说一遍——我会重复一遍，直到我脸色发青——尽管当今世界上活跃的任何人都没有错，但遗憾的是，这些人绝大多数是白人。
We are not in the revision business.
我们不从事修订业务。
We can’t revise history, no matter how much it may be painful to look on it with hindsight.
我们无法修改历史，无论事后回顾它会多么痛苦。
Are there obituaries of economists that stand out in your mind?
有哪些经济学家的讣告让你印象深刻？
Or maybe some you’ve written?
或者也许有些是你写的？
Well, interestingly, there is one.
嗯，有趣的是，有一个。
As I said, my original training was in classical music, so my editors almost jumped out of their skins with excitement when they discovered they could assign me the obituary of a Harvard economist named Richard T.
正如我所说，我最初接受的训练是古典音乐，所以当我的编辑们发现可以给我分配一位名叫理查德·T·哈佛的经济学家的讣告时，他们几乎兴奋得跳了起来。
Gill.
吉尔.
Now, why did they give that to me?
现在，他们为什么把它给我？
Because as we say in the lede of the obit, “Richard T.
因为正如我们在讣告的前言中所说，“理查德·T.
Gill, in all statistical probability the only Harvard economist to sing 86 performances with the Metropolitan Opera, died,” etc., etc.
从所有统计概率来看，吉尔是唯一一位在大都会歌剧院演出 86 场的哈佛大学经济学家，他去世了，”等等。
Yes, I remember reading that one.
是的，我记得读过那一篇。
That was before I knew that you were you.
那是在我知道你是你之前。
I was me then.
我就是那时的我。
You just didn’t know it.
你只是不知道而已。
Correct.
正确的。
It’s, again, one of these wonderful, unexpected twists for all concerned, no one more so than for Richard T.
对于所有相关人员来说，这又是一次奇妙的、意想不到的转折，对理查德·T·沃克来说尤其如此。
Gill.
吉尔.
He discovered when he was in his forties that he had this really good voice, started taking lessons, and amazingly was good enough to sing at the Met while teaching at Harvard.
当他四十多岁的时候，他发现自己的声音非常好，开始上课，令人惊讶的是，他在哈佛大学任教的同时，还能在大都会歌剧院唱歌。
Margalit Fox reads the kind of obituary that was “not possible a generation ago”
玛格丽特·福克斯读到的讣告“在一代人之前是不可能的”
Some newspapers don’t seem to run obituaries at all.
有些报纸似乎根本不登讣告。
I think one example would be the Wall Street Journal.
我认为《华尔街日报》就是一个例子。
What determines the level of interest in a newspaper in obituaries?
是什么决定了人们对报纸讣告的兴趣程度？
The Journal does.
《华尔街日报》确实如此。
And again, I can’t speak to that because I’m not in newsroom administration; I’m not a publisher.
再说一遍，我不能谈论这个，因为我不在新闻编辑室管理部门；我不是出版商。
But of course, you’re an economist.
但当然，你是一名经济学家。
It’s economics.
这是经济学。
I mean, sadly, even many major papers are scaling back or even eliminating their obit departments in this age of retrenchment, in the age of the incredible shrinking news hole, in the age where, heartbreakingly, newspaper are dying.
我的意思是，可悲的是，在这个紧缩的时代，在新闻漏洞令人难以置信的缩小的时代，在令人心碎的报纸正在消亡的时代，甚至许多主要报纸都在缩减甚至取消讣告部门。
I mean, I fear the last one to turn out the lights will be writing the obit of whatever is the last newspaper standing.
我的意思是，我担心最后一个关灯的人会写下最后一张报纸的讣告。
On finding a person’s story
寻找一个人的故事
Do people whose obituaries are being written — those where the draft is written in advance — do they engage in much rent-seeking, trying to sway what the paper will do, how they will be covered?
那些正在写讣告的人——“那些提前写好草稿的人”——他们是否进行了大量寻租活动，试图影响报纸的用途、如何报道他们？
They ask to see a draft.
他们要求看草稿。
Their publicists elbow people in the obituaries department.
他们的公关人员肘击讣告部门的人。
They try to manage their reputations.
他们试图管理自己的声誉。
Or does this really not much go on?
或者这真的没有什么进展吗？
Occasionally, although of course we would never let them.
偶尔，尽管我们当然不会让他们这么做。
It is absolutely verboten for anyone to see a draft of his or her obit.
绝对禁止任何人看到他或她的讣告草稿。
The Times is not permitted to comment on or divulge the contents of any forthcoming news story.
《纽约时报》不得评论或泄露任何即将发布的新闻报道的内容。
Of course, if you think about, an advance obit is kind of the ultimate forthcoming news story.
当然，如果你仔细想想，预告讣告是一种最终即将发布的新闻报道。
Famous people, for reasons of ego perhaps, can make an educated guess as to whether we have an obit of them on file, but they’re certainly never going to see it.
名人，也许出于自负的原因，可以对我们是否在档案中记录他们的讣告做出有根据的猜测，但他们肯定永远不会看到它。
But if they say, “Well, would you let me send you my bio?” do you just turn them away, or do you — .
但如果他们说：“好吧，你能让我给你发我的简历吗？”你是直接把他们拒之门外，还是 — 。
No, because it may be useful to us for study purposes.
不，因为它可能对我们的学习有用。
We’re not going to tell them whether we’re going to use it or not.
我们不会告诉他们我们是否要使用它。
And we do get — not for advance obits so much, but for daily obits on deadline where the subject has actually died — if a person has been in public life all of his or her life — and we usually see this for either politicians or particularly Hollywood people — and he or she has had a publicist in life, that publicist will occasionally send us this glossy press kit.
我们确实得到了——“不是提前讣告，而是在截止日期前的每日讣告，其中主题实际上已经死亡”——“如果一个人一生都在公共生活中”——“我们通常会在政客或特别是好莱坞人士身上看到这种情况”——而且他或她一生中有一位公关人员，该公关人员偶尔会向我们发送这份精美的新闻资料袋。
I find it quite fascinating that there is this one last act of spin control attempted in death.
我觉得非常有趣的是，死亡时尝试的最后一次旋转控制行为。
…
……
f a person has been in public life all of his or her life — and we usually see this for either politicians or particularly Hollywood people — and he or she has had a publicist in life, that publicist will occasionally send us this glossy press kit.
如果一个人一生都在公共生活中 ——我们通常会在政客或特别是好莱坞人士身上看到这种情况 ——并且他或她一生中有一位公关人员，那么该公关人员偶尔会向我们发送这份精美的新闻资料袋。
I find it quite fascinating that there is this one last act of spin control attempted in death.
我觉得非常有趣的是，死亡时尝试的最后一次旋转控制行为。
Every now and then, an especially tragic event happens.
时不时就会发生特别悲惨的事件。
Obvious example I guess for New York would be 9/11.
我想纽约的一个明显例子是 9/11。
My sense is an especially high proportion of well-known people died on 9/11.
我的感觉是，在 9/11 事件中死亡的名人比例特别高。
When there’s a large number of deaths you might be covering all at once, how is that handled?
当您可能同时报道大量死亡人数时，如何处理？
I was not involved with that in any way, nor was the obituary department directly.
我没有以任何方式参与其中，讣告部门也没有直接参与。
I would beg to differ with the contention that a large number of high-profile people died on 9/11.
我不敢苟同“9/11”事件中大量知名人士死亡的说法。
They became in a sense high-profile people because of the way they died, but very few of them were famous in conventional terms.
从某种意义上说，他们因为死亡方式而成为备受瞩目的人物，但他们中很少有人以传统的方式出名。
That was one of the great heartbreaks.
这是最令人心碎的事情之一。
It was these ordinary working men and women, the people who had to be at work at a quarter to eight here in New York.
正是这些普通的工人男女，他们必须在纽约八点一刻上班。
The Times of course did this marvelous, very moving series of little capsule obits on almost all of the 3,000 called “Portraits of Grief,” but that was not handled out of obits.
当然，《泰晤士报》在几乎所有 3,000 篇讣告中都做了这个奇妙、非常感人的系列小讣告，称为“悲伤的肖像”，但这并没有在讣告中处理。
A special team was convened in Metro to deal with that.
Metro 召集了一个特别小组来处理这个问题。
And this was long before I was on the obit desk, in any case.
无论如何，那是在我登上讣告台之前很久的事了。
Two individuals who are clearly obituary worthy, so to speak — one would be Thomas Pynchon, the other J.
可以说，有两个人明显值得讣告——一个是托马斯·品钦，另一个是 J.
D.
D .
Salinger.
塞林格。
Both disappeared from public view for decades on end.
两人连续数十年从公众视野中消失。
So, if one has to write the obituary of those individuals, what is it that one actually does?
那么，如果必须为这些人写讣告，那么人们实际上会写什么呢？
There are blank decades, or you know things already the rest of the world doesn’t know?
空白的几十年，或者你已经知道世界其他地方不知道的事情？
Well, again, I’ve not been involved with either, but I can make an educated guess as to what one would do.
好吧，再说一次，我没有参与其中，但我可以对人们会做什么做出有根据的猜测。
One would comb the clippings.
人们会梳理剪报。
This would be an advance obit where the reporter would be given the comparative luxury of time, which means a week or even two weeks instead of four or five hours, to put something together — combs the clippings, of course makes every attempt to get to this elusive person, which is probably going to be impossible, but you have to try.
这将是一份预先讣告，记者将获得相对奢侈的时间，这意味着一周甚至两周而不是四五个小时来整理一些东西——梳理剪报，当然，尽一切努力接近这个难以捉摸的人，这可能是不可能的，但你必须尝试。
And then you interview around them.
然后你围绕他们进行采访。
You interview their editors.
你采访他们的编辑。
You interview friends.
你采访朋友。
You interview neighbors.
你采访邻居。
You interview old lovers.
你采访旧情人。
You interview anyone and hope they haven’t been forbidden to talk or, if they have been, they don’t take it seriously.
你采访任何人，希望他们没有被禁止说话，或者，如果他们被禁止，他们也不会认真对待。
You assemble the best you can while, of course, explaining to readers, “This famously incommunicative person made sure that his life was obscure.
你尽你所能，同时向读者解释，“这个以沉默寡言着称的人让他的生活变得晦涩难懂。
Here’s what we know.” That’s all you can do.
这就是我们所知道的。”这就是你所能做的。
It’s an interesting question.
这是一个有趣的问题。
People who knew them and maybe who were told not to talk — do you think there are any privacy issues with obituaries that we should worry about?
认识他们的人，也许还被告知不要说话的人 ——你认为讣告存在我们应该担心的隐私问题吗？
So, in general, we believe in the public’s right to know, correct?
所以，总的来说，我们相信公众的知情权，对吗？
Absolutely.
绝对地。
If there’s a political candidate, a historical event.
如果有政治候选人，那就是历史事件。
But when people have passed away, obviously in some key ways they matter much less — and especially people who are not historical figures — but nonetheless, there’s an outline of a life.
但当人们去世时，显然在某些关键方面他们的重要性就小得多了——尤其是那些不是历史人物的人——但尽管如此，生命的轮廓还是存在的。
It may involve drug addiction or alcohol problems, illegitimate children, strange things that happened to them that maybe they want to keep secret.
它可能涉及毒瘾或酗酒问题、私生子、发生在他们身上的奇怪的事情，也许他们想保守秘密。
Do you think, for a person who’s passed away, there are privacy rights of a sort that we should not tread on?
您认为对于一个去世的人来说，我们不应该侵犯某种隐私权吗？
No, we’re not in the veneration business.
不，我们不从事崇拜活动。
We’re not eulogists.
我们不是歌颂者。
We will occasionally get families, particularly families who are not conversant in dealing with the press, who say, “Please put in, ‘He died surrounded by his loved ones.’ Please put in, ‘He touched the life of everyone he ever knew.’”
我们偶尔会遇到一些家庭，特别是那些不熟悉与媒体打交道的家庭，他们说：“请输入，‘他在亲人的陪伴下去世。’请输入，‘他触及了他所认识的每个人的生活。’”
Apart from the fact that we would never use such hoary Victorian clichés, we know that’s the first thing to go on the cutting room floor.
除了我们永远不会使用这种古老的维多利亚时代的陈词滥调之外，我们知道这是剪辑室地板上的第一件事。
It has no place in a modern news obit.
它在现代新闻讣告中没有地位。
A modern news obit is a news article like any other.
现代新闻讣告是与其他新闻文章一样的新闻文章。
The particular subtype it is — it’s a profile.
它是特定的子类型——它是一个配置文件。
Just as a profile of a living person you’d read in a newspaper or a magazine has to be balanced, so too do our portraits.
正如你在报纸或杂志上读到的人物简介必须平衡一样，我们的肖像也必须平衡。
Indeed, you sometimes get families who withhold information on Dad’s earlier marriages, other children.
事实上，有时有些家庭会隐瞒父亲早年婚姻和其他孩子的信息。
And you’ll get children calling you up the day an obit runs, understandably in tears, saying, “How dare you write me out of my father’s story?” The only answer you can give is, “We were never told you existed.” We learn to ask all kinds of preemptive questions to try to forestall omissions like that.
讣告发布的那天，孩子们会打电话给你，他们流着泪，这是可以理解的，他们说：“你怎么敢把我从我父亲的故事中删掉？”你能给出的唯一答案是：“我们从未被告知你的存在。”我们学会提出各种先发制人的问题，以防止出现类似的遗漏。
Part of your job must, in a sense, be as a therapist — that you’re handling grieving family members or non-family members, people who have agendas, maybe people jostling over the will or having that in mind.
从某种意义上说，你工作的一部分必须是作为一名治疗师——你要处理悲伤的家庭成员或非家庭成员、有议程的人，也许是那些在意志上相互争执或考虑到这一点的人。
Some occasionally may even be happy, but more often than not, they’re tragically bereaved.
有些人偶尔甚至可能很高兴，但更多时候，他们会悲惨地失去亲人。
All of these individuals you talk with, you have to manage, get them to cooperate.
你必须管理所有与你交谈的人，让他们合作。
In a sense, you’re a psychologist of sorts.
从某种意义上说，你是一位心理学家。
My oldest childhood friend actually has two degrees, one in journalism and one in counseling.
我儿时最年长的朋友实际上拥有两个学位，一个是新闻学学位，一个是咨询学位。
And she says the elicitation of information — that process is identical.
她说信息的获取——这个过程是相同的。
Where they diverge, of course, is what you do with the information once you have it.
当然，它们的分歧之处在于您获得信息后如何处理该信息。
Indeed, we need to be very careful.
确实，我们需要非常小心。
We’re calling families at vulnerable times.
我们在脆弱时期给家人打电话。
They’re grieving; they’re exhausted; they’re sleep deprived; they have a million things to do.
他们正在悲伤；他们已经筋疲力尽了；他们睡眠不足；他们有一百万件事要做。
We need to be very careful that we not, however unwittingly, present ourselves as their friend, their advocate, their grief counselors.
我们需要非常小心，不要把自己表现为他们的朋友、支持者、悲伤顾问，无论多么无意识。
That said, it behooves us — both journalistically, so they feel comfortable enough to talk to us and be candid, and in purely human terms — to treat them as well as possible within allowable, professional limits.
也就是说，我们有必要在允许的专业范围内尽可能地善待他们——“从新闻角度来说，这样他们就可以放心地与我们交谈并坦诚地、以纯粹人性的方式”。
On Fox’s attitude towards death
论福克斯对死亡的态度
Doing all this, what do you think you have learned about the psychology of death that, say, maybe I wouldn’t know?
做完这一切，你认为你对死亡心理学了解了什么，比如说，也许我不知道？
I don’t think there’s anything I’ve learned that any of us wouldn’t know.
我不认为我学到的任何东西是我们任何人都不知道的。
What I’ve learned is, death sucks.
我学到的是，死亡很糟糕。
But I think I pretty much knew that before, and I think you pretty much know that, too.
但我想我以前就知道这一点，我想你也知道这一点。
What I’ve learned is, death sucks.
我学到的是，死亡很糟糕。
But I think I pretty much knew that before, and I think you pretty much know that, too.
但我想我以前就知道这一点，我想你也知道这一点。
Worse than maybe you thought 15 years ago, before you were doing this?
也许比您 15 年前（在您这样做之前）想象的还要糟糕？
Actually, no. The reverse, if anything.
事实上，没有。反过来说，如果有的话。
I’m very often asked, “Oh, you write obits.
我经常被问到，“哦，你写讣告。
You’re around death every day.
你每天都在死亡的边缘。
Isn’t that depressing?” I must admit, when I started the job full-time in 2004, I worried about that a little bit going in.
这不是很郁闷吗？”我必须承认，当我 2004 年开始全职工作时，我有点担心这一点。
To my great joy and great relief, I found out right away, it’s almost never depressing.
令我非常高兴和宽慰的是，我立刻发现，它几乎从不令人沮丧。
For all of these reasons we’ve discussed, in an obit of perhaps a thousand words, when you’re writing about someone fascinating who did something really interesting, often really wonderful, maybe a sentence or two will be about the death.
出于我们已经讨论过的所有这些原因，在一篇大约一千字的讣告中，当你写的是一个令人着迷的人，他做了一些非常有趣的事情，通常非常精彩，也许一两句话会是关于死亡的。
The other 98 percent of the story is about the life.
故事的另外98%是关于生活的。
In a strange way, with rare exceptions, writing obits is a kind of very life-affirming thing to do — and also wonderful because my colleagues and I are paid to tell stories.
以一种奇怪的方式，除了极少数例外，写讣告是一种非常肯定生命的事情——而且也很美妙，因为我和我的同事们是付费讲故事的。
It doesn’t get much better than that.
没有比这更好的了。
It’s often said, for instance, that the greatest works in the theater are tragedies — Hamlet, one, King Lear, two examples of many.
例如，人们常说，戏剧中最伟大的作品是悲剧——《哈姆雷特》就是其中之一，《李尔王》就是其中的两个例子。
Maybe we’re attracted to tragedy because in a sense it’s life-affirming, or it’s somehow cathartic.
也许我们被悲剧所吸引，因为从某种意义上说，它是对生命的肯定，或者是某种宣泄。
Writing about the deaths of individuals, you feel, gives you a better or maybe healthier perspective on life, in the same way that going to see a tragic work in the theater might.
你觉得，写下个人的死亡可以让你对生活有更好或更健康的看法，就像在剧院看一部悲剧作品一样。
Again, think of what was just said.
再次，想想刚才所说的话。
It’s not tragedy.
这不是悲剧。
That’s my point.
这就是我的观点。
Writing about — it’s not the case that writing about obits is life-affirming because it’s tragedy.
写讣告——并不是说写讣告就是对生命的肯定，因为它是悲剧。
Writing about obits is life-affirming because it’s not tragedy.
写讣告是对生命的肯定，因为它不是悲剧。
There’s a custom in some cultures, often eastern European, that if an individual has a terminal disease, they don’t tell the patient that.
在某些文化中（通常是东欧文化）有一种习俗，如果一个人患有绝症，他们不会告诉患者。
The person gets sicker but doesn’t know he or she is going to die.
该人病情加重，但不知道自己即将死亡。
Do you have a view of this?
您对此有何看法？
I have never encountered that one.
我从来没有遇到过那种人。
But do you think it could possibly make sense?
但你认为这可能有意义吗？
Could you imagine, say, that a person might prefer not to know he or she is going to pass away?
你能想象，比如说，一个人可能宁愿不知道他或她会去世吗？
I would have to be a physician, a psychologist, a philosopher, or a cultural anthropologist to answer that.
我必须是一名医生、心理学家、哲学家或文化人类学家才能回答这个问题。
Again, that’s beyond my ken.
再说一次，这超出了我的能力范围。
I’m not going to take on something that’s beyond my ken.
我不会承担超出我能力范围的事情。
It would be horribly inappropriate.
这将是非常不合适的。
Is there any way in which you feel writing so much history — put aside the obituaries side of it, but just so much American and international history — has it changed how you think about your own life, what you should do with your time?
您是否觉得写了这么多历史 ——“抛开其中的讣告，只是写了这么多美国和国际历史”—— 它是否改变了您对自己生活的看法，以及您应该如何利用自己的时间？
It does give one a carpe diem sense.
它确实给人一种及时行乐的感觉。
Often when I lecture, particularly to young people, they who are so far from death are kind of obsessed with it.
通常，当我演讲时，尤其是对年轻人演讲时，那些距离死亡如此遥远的人都会对此着迷。
They always ask me, “What’s the weirdest cause of death you’ve ever had?” I say, “Well, one of my colleagues had a man who was eaten by a crocodile.
他们总是问我：“你经历过的最奇怪的死因是什么？”我说：“嗯，我的一位同事有一个人被鳄鱼吃掉了。
And he was a naturalist going down a river; crocodile just leapt up and grabbed him.” It’s a pretty horrific way to go.
他是一位顺流而下的博物学家；鳄鱼突然跳起来抓住了他。”这是一种非常可怕的方式。
But for me it became kind of a metaphor.
但对我来说，这成了一种隐喻。
You never know, as you go through life, whether or not that crocodile is around the next bend in the river.
在你的一生中，你永远不知道那条鳄鱼是否就在河的下一个拐弯处。
So you might as well try to live as good a life as you can and enjoy the hell out of life before you get to that crocodile.
所以，在遇到鳄鱼之前，你不妨尽可能过上美好的生活，享受地狱般的生活。
Do you ever think of what you’re doing in any kind of theological terms?
你有没有从神学角度思考过你正在做的事情？
For instance, I went back — I looked at a very good book by your husband.
比如说，我回去 —— 我看了你丈夫写的一本非常好的书。
It’s called Essential Judaism by George Robinson — that’s him?
乔治·罗宾逊（George Robinson）写的《基本犹太教》（Essential Judaism）——就是他？
It’s a wonderful book.
这是一本很棒的书。
There are two quotations from that book.
该书有两段引文。
I’ll read them.
我会读它们。
One is, “A dying person should not be left alone.” The other is, “Escorting the dead is one of the basic acts.” Not just those who are Jewish, but I think many people, would view this as an appropriate philosophy for thinking about death, dealing with death.
一是“一个垂死的人不应该被留下一个人”。另一个是“护送死者是基本行为之一”。不仅是犹太人，我想很多人都会认为这是思考死亡、处理死亡的适当哲学。
Do you ever think of what you’re doing as a kind of written version of carrying out some of this — escorting the dead in a literary way, and being with them, and having society process that in a matter which has a dimension which is not just news reporting but tied into views of the sacred and higher values?
你有没有想过你正在做的事情是一种书面版本，以文学的方式护送死者，与他们在一起，让社会处理这个问题，这个问题的维度不仅仅是新闻报道，还与神圣和更高价值观的观点联系在一起？
Or is that totally separate for you?
或者这对你来说是完全独立的吗？
Again, I’m not a columnist, so I am paid to have no opinion.
再说一次，我不是专栏作家，所以我是有报酬才没有意见的。
Which means — .
这意味着 — 。
Your personal opinion.
您的个人意见。
Which means I’m paid to have no discernible politics and also no discernible religion.
这意味着我的报酬是没有明显的政治色彩，也没有明显的宗教色彩。
Whether or not I am a religious believer in my private life is not germane.
我私下里是否是一个宗教信徒并不重要。
But metaphorically, indeed, there is an aspect of writing obits where one feels one is charged with the rather weighty responsibility of ushering people out.
但实际上，从隐喻的角度来说，写讣告的一个方面是，让人感觉自己肩负着引人出走的相当重大的责任。
Now, these are not always people to whom flights of angels will sing to rest.
现在，这些人并不总是天使的歌声让他们安息。
We are obliged to write news obits not only of the great heroes of history but also the great villains.
我们不仅有义务写历史上伟大英雄的新闻讣告，也有义务写历史上大恶棍的新闻讣告。
I wrote the obit of Jim Clark, Sheriff Jim Clark, the great enforcer of segregation in Jim Crow Alabama.
我写了吉姆·克拉克（Jim Clark）的讣告，吉姆·克拉克警长，阿拉巴马州种族隔离制度的伟大执行者。
It was his billy club that was coming down on demonstrators’ heads as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
当示威者试图穿过埃德蒙·佩特斯大桥时，正是他的比利棍棒击中了他们的头。
I’ve written obits of Nazi war criminals.
我写过纳粹战犯的讣告。
So we run the whole gamut.
所以我们涵盖了整个领域。
Again, the salient question is, “Did this person make history?” — for good but also for ill.
同样，最突出的问题是：“这个人创造了历史吗？” — 有好处，也有坏处。
And so, we have to usher those people out, too, and in those cases you don’t have a warm, fuzzy feeling.
所以，我们也必须把这些人赶出去，在这种情况下，你不会有一种温暖、模糊的感觉。
You feel like you want to go home, take a shower, and have a good, stiff drink afterward.
你想要回家，洗个澡，然后喝一杯烈酒。
But it’s part of the job.
但这是工作的一部分。
It has to be done right.
它必须做得正确。
I wrote the obit of Jim Clark, Sheriff Jim Clark, the great enforcer of segregation in Jim Crow Alabama.
我写了吉姆·克拉克（Jim Clark）的讣告，吉姆·克拉克警长，阿拉巴马州种族隔离制度的伟大执行者。
It was his billy club that was coming down on demonstrators’ heads as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
当示威者试图穿过埃德蒙·佩特斯大桥时，正是他的比利棍棒击中了他们的头。
I’ve written obits of Nazi war criminals.
我写过纳粹战犯的讣告。
So we run the whole gamut.
所以我们涵盖了整个领域。
Again, the salient question is, “Did this person make history?” — for good but also for ill.
同样，最突出的问题是：“这个人创造了历史吗？” — 有好处，也有坏处。
And so, we have to usher those people out, too, and in those cases you don’t have a warm, fuzzy feeling.
所以，我们也必须把这些人赶出去，在这种情况下，你不会有一种温暖、模糊的感觉。
You feel like you want to go home, take a shower, and have a good, stiff drink afterward.
你想要回家，洗个澡，然后喝一杯烈酒。
On things under- and overrated
关于被低估和高估的事情
Now, there’s a segment of all of these conversations.
现在，所有这些对话都有一部分了。
It’s called underrated/overrated.
这就是所谓的被低估/高估。
I mention a name or a thing; I ask you if you think it’s underrated or overrated.
我提到一个名字或一件事；我问你是否认为它被低估或高估了。
You’re free to pass on any of these, but I’ll try just a few.
你可以随意传递其中的任何一个，但我会尝试其中的一些。
The pet rock.
宠物岩石。
Overrated or underrated?
被高估还是被低估？
Well, I’m coming from a position of extreme bias — .
好吧，我的立场是极端偏见 —— 。
That’s fine.
没关系。
Because I, again, did the obit of the inventor of the pet rock, a man named Gary Dahl.
因为我再次讣告了宠物岩石的发明者，一个名叫加里·达尔的人。
And it was neither overrated nor underrated.
它既没有被高估也没有被低估。
It was a beautiful example of what it was.
这是一个很好的例子。
It was a totemic thing that caught the fancy of this kind of cheesy seventies pop culture.
这是一种图腾般的东西，引起了这种俗气的七十年代流行文化的青睐。
With hindsight, overrated perhaps.
事后看来，也许被高估了。
Had it not been overrated, we wouldn’t have gotten a story out of it.
如果它没有被高估，我们就不会从中得到一个故事。
Now, you have a background as a cellist, I understand.
现在，我明白你有大提琴手的背景。
Pablo Casals.
巴勃罗·卡萨尔斯。
Overrated or underrated?
被高估还是被低估？
Wonderfully rated.
评价非常好。
I mean, I think he can never be rated highly enough, but it was he — and this is well documented through his series of televised master classes around the world in the very early sixties — who really caused the instrument’s popularity to soar.
我的意思是，我认为他永远不会得到足够高的评价，但正是他————这通过他在六十年代初在世界各地举办的一系列电视大师班得到了充分的记录————真正使该乐器的受欢迎程度飙升。
Most people had really not conceived of the cello as a solo instrument before; it was just sort of going oompah-pah at the bottom of the orchestra.
大多数人之前并没有将大提琴视为一种独奏乐器。管弦乐队底部的声音有点嗡嗡作响。
He was rated magnificently, but by the same token, you can never rate him too highly because he was wonderful.
他的评价很高，但出于同样的原因，你永远不会对他评价太高，因为他很棒。
What if I say, “Well, Casals was a bit like Schnabel.
如果我说：“嗯，卡萨尔斯有点像施纳贝尔。
He had incredible profundity, but there’s just too much scraping on a lot of his recordings, and in some ways they’re hard to listen to today”?
他有着令人难以置信的深刻性，但他的很多录音中有太多的刮擦，从某些方面来说，今天很难听”？
He was path-breaking, but if you were to sit down and put on, say, the Bach cello suites, actually very few people, including cello lovers, would pick Casals, right?
他是开创性的，但如果你坐下来演奏巴赫大提琴组曲，实际上很少有人，包括大提琴爱好者，会选择卡萨尔斯，对吗？
They’d pick János Starker, they’d pick Heinrich Schiff, or — do you agree or not?
他们会选择亚诺斯·斯塔克，他们会选择海因里希·希夫，或者——你同意吗？
It’s true, in light of modern sensibilities, you can certainly hear squeaks and occasional bits of strangeness in Casals’s cello suites.
确实，鉴于现代人的感受，你肯定可以在卡萨尔斯的大提琴组曲中听到吱吱声和偶尔的奇怪声音。
I suspect he was older when he recorded them.
我怀疑他录制它们时年纪更大了。
He lived to be, of course, almost 100.
当然，他活到了将近 100 岁。
Recording technology has improved since then, and I think he was on such an exalted plane that he gets a bye.
从那时起，录音技术已经进步，我认为他在一个如此崇高的平面上，他得到了再见。
He can be and should be forgiven any of these little transgressions that make him seem mortal.
他可以而且应该原谅任何这些让他看起来像凡人的小过犯。
If you had to pick a favorite cellist — I know it’s hard to do, but do you have a pick?
如果你必须选出一位最喜欢的大提琴手 —— 我知道这很难做到，但是你有选择吗？
It depends on the genre.
这取决于类型。
I like different cellists for different things.
我喜欢不同的大提琴手做不同的事情。
The great, doomed Jacqueline du Pré, of course, was a wonderful cellist.
当然，伟大而注定失败的杰奎琳·杜普雷是一位出色的大提琴家。
Rostropovich.
罗斯特罗波维奇。
Starker, whose obit I wrote.
斯塔克，我为他写了讣告。
You have a wonderful book called The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code, where you study the world before ancient Greece.
你有一本很棒的书，名叫《迷宫之谜：破解古代密码的探索》，在这本书中你研究了古希腊之前的世界。
Fantastic book.
很棒的书。
It’s a story of how, after cracking the code, we learned a lot of it was actually about accounting, economic themes.
这是一个关于在破解密码后我们如何了解到很多内容实际上与会计、经济主题有关的故事。
But I’ll ask you.
但我会问你。
Homer’s Odyssey.
荷马的奥德赛。
Overrated or underrated?
被高估还是被低估？
Again, can’t rate it highly enough.
再说一遍，对它的评价还不够高。
Can’t rate it highly enough.
无法给予它足够高的评价。
We agree.
我们同意。
Adverbs.
副词。
Overrated or underrated?
被高估还是被低估？
Overused.
过度使用。
Overused, so they’re overrated, in a sense.
从某种意义上说，它们被过度使用，因此被高估了。
Maurice Sendak, the author of famous children’s stories — Where the Wild Things Are — maybe the wild things are the children, right?
莫里斯·桑达克，著名儿童故事的作者《野兽出没的地方》也许野兽就是孩子们，对吧？
Overrated or underrated?
被高估还是被低估？
Again, can’t rate him highly enough.
再说一遍，对他的评价还不够高。
And his legacy will endure.
他的遗产将持续下去。
Again, his obit, I had the privilege of doing.
再次，我有幸为他讣告。
The Times put it on page one.
《泰晤士报》将其放在第一版。
When is the Times ever going to put a picture-book author on page one?
《泰晤士报》什么时候会把图画书作者放在第一版？
That’s how magnificent he was and how newsworthy.
这就是他的伟大之处和新闻价值。
Was there something surprising you learned about him doing his obit?
关于他的讣告，您是否了解到一些令人惊讶的事情？
I think just what a melancholic he was.
我想他是多么忧郁啊。
Now, that’s far from unusual for creative people, but it was — his personal story was rather painful.
现在，这对于有创造力的人来说并不罕见，但事实是——他的个人故事相当痛苦。
He was someone who grew up poor, Jewish, knowing he was gay in this very repressive era.
他是一个出身贫穷的犹太人，在这个非常压抑的时代他知道自己是同性恋。
He was a deeply, deeply melancholy man.
他是一个非常非常忧郁的人。
Of course, it comes through in the work, as well.
当然，这也体现在工作中。
Studying all these different lives, from so many walks of life, different countries, to some extent different eras, what in life do you feel is underrated or overrated, say, by your readers?
研究来自各行各业、不同国家、某种程度上不同时代的所有这些不同的生活，你觉得生活中的哪些内容被你的读者低估或高估了？
Various clichés like, “Oh, I spend too much time in the office, not enough with family” — so many people say that.
各种各样的陈词滥调，比如“哦，我在办公室花了太多时间，与家人在一起的时间不够” ——很多人都这么说。
I don’t actually believe they necessarily really mean it.
我实际上并不相信他们一定是真心的。
But what do you feel on that after studying all this history?
但在研究了所有这些历史之后，您对此有何感想？
What in life is underrated?
生活中什么是被低估的？
Well, I think list questions are overrated, if you’ll forgive me.
好吧，我认为列表问题被高估了，请原谅我。
What in life is underrated?
生活中什么是被低估的？
Silence.
沉默。
Stillness.
寂静。
Reading real books on paper.
阅读真正的纸质书籍。
Those are all underrated.
这些都被低估了。
Having real human contact rather than the social media that’s become, in our atomized, postmodern lives, a substitute for real contact.
在我们原子化的后现代生活中，进行真正的人际接触而不是社交媒体，社交媒体已经成为真正接触的替代品。
How important do you think Dear Abby was for American life?
您认为《亲爱的艾比》对美国生活有多重要？
Dear Abby and her twin sister Ann Landers, both of whose obits I had the privilege of doing, were fascinatingly important and remain so, retrospectively, as barometers of the way the country was going to go.
亲爱的艾比和她的双胞胎妹妹安·兰德斯，我有幸为她们写了两篇讣告，她们的讣告都非常重要，而且回顾起来，它们仍然是这个国家未来发展方向的晴雨表。
They were both these very pragmatic women who, while not being firebrands in any sense, were just a little bit left of center because they embodied a kind of progressive mid-century humanism.
她们都是非常务实的女性，虽然在任何意义上都不是煽动者，但她们只是有点偏左，因为她们体现了一种进步的中世纪人文主义。
And so, they were a very, very interesting index of the direction in which progressives were trying to nudge the country in those years.
因此，它们是一个非常非常有趣的指标，反映了那些年来进步人士试图推动国家前进的方向。
On the pleasures of puzzle-solving
论解谜的乐趣
You have another book — it’s called Talking Hands.
你还有另一本书 — 它的名字是《会说话的手》。
It’s about the sign language which developed in a Bedouin village in Israel, correct?
这是关于以色列贝都因村庄发展起来的手语，对吗？
That’s right.
这是正确的。
Is that a fair way to describe it?
这是一个公平的描述方式吗？
Absolutely.
绝对地。
You have these two books.
你有这两本书。
There’s also an e-book of your obituaries, which you can buy for your Kindle.
还有一本关于你的讣告的电子书，你可以在 Kindle 上购买。
And then there are the obituaries you write.
然后是你写的讣告。
Do you see any underlying unity to your writings, including your next novel on — it’s a kind of Edwardian crime story.
你是否看到你的作品有任何潜在的统一性，包括你的下一部小说——这是一种爱德华时代的犯罪故事。
What ties it all together?
是什么将这一切联系在一起？
It’s a nonfiction book.
这是一本非小说类书籍。
My next book, which is my third after these two, is narrative nonfiction.
我的下一本书是继这两本书之后我的第三本书，是叙事非小说类书籍。
I’m capable only, it seems, of writing nonfiction.
看来我只能写非小说类作品。
I was born without the fiction-writing gene, alas.
唉，我生来就没有写小说的基因。
What underpins the two of my books that are out, the third book that’s coming, my work at the Times, is narrative.
我已经出版的两本书以及即将出版的第三本书，即我在《泰晤士报》的作品，支撑的就是叙事。
I care passionately about narrative.
我热衷于叙事。
I care passionately about storytelling and the privilege of telling stories, albeit in the nonfiction genre.
我热衷于讲故事和讲故事的特权，尽管是非小说类的。
Somehow the idea of cracking a code or unraveling a mystery, to me, seems to run throughout all your work.
对我来说，破解密码或解开谜团的想法似乎贯穿了你所有的工作。
There’s a kind of mystery of a life, which you’re never going to state but maybe very subtly hint at, especially with those first and last sentences.
生活有一种神秘，你永远不会说出来，但可能会非常微妙地暗示，尤其是在第一句话和最后一句话中。
Talking Hands is about figuring out a sign language and how it came to be.
《会说话的手》是关于弄清楚一种手语以及它是如何形成的。
Riddle of the Labyrinth is very explicitly about cracking a code.
《迷宫之谜》非常明确地讲述了破解密码的过程。
So, is that a common theme in your thought?
那么，这是您思想中的共同主题吗？
Or solving this Edwardian mystery — I haven’t read that book yet, but — .
或者解决这个爱德华时代的谜题 —— 我还没读过那本书，但是 —— 。
Yes, I think that’s right.
是的，我认为这是对的。
I’m passionately interested in heuristics.
我对启发法非常感兴趣。
When I was a kid, my friends and I — you know, back when kids engaged in real play and didn’t just sit with their palm devices — we used to make little treasure hunts for each other.
当我还是个孩子的时候，我和我的朋友们——你知道，当孩子们参与真正的游戏而不仅仅是坐在掌上设备上时，我们常常互相寻找宝藏。
It’s all about heuristically following clues from A to B to C to get — the goal is not the thing itself.
这一切都是为了启发式地遵循从 A 到 B 到 C 的线索来获得 —— 目标不是事物本身。
The treasure was just some silly little prize or nothing at all.
宝藏只是一些愚蠢的小奖品，或者什么也没有。
It was just the chance to work through all the clues and see if you were on the right lines.
这只是一个机会来解决所有的线索，看看你是否走对了路。
Here, too, unpacking a sign language that’s never been analyzed.
在这里，我们也解开了一种从未被分析过的手语。
In Riddle of the Labyrinth, unraveling this Aegean script that was unearthed on clay tablets in 1900, not solved for 50 years because they not only didn’t know what the tablets said when they were unearthed on Crete, they didn’t know what language they were in.
在《迷宫之谜》中，解开1900年在泥板上出土的爱琴海文字，50年来都没有解开，因为他们不仅不知道泥板在克里特岛出土时写的是什么，也不知道它们用的是什么语言。
It’s a black box.
这是一个黑匣子。
How do you penetrate that?
你如何穿透它？
In obits, too, what are the heuristics of a life that allows someone to get from A to B to C to D, all the way to Z when I get them, in his or her life?
在讣告中，当我得到这些东西时，一个人在他或她的生活中可以从A到B到C到D，一直到Z，那么生活的启发是什么？
How much of that is free will, and how much of that is determined by pure, blind fate?
其中有多少是自由意志，有多少是由纯粹、盲目的命运决定的？
I get that you may not have that much spare time, given all that you do.
我知道，考虑到你所做的一切，你可能没有那么多空闲时间。
But if you’re going to read something for fun in your spare time, what’s that likely to be, research aside?
但如果你打算在业余时间阅读一些有趣的东西，除了研究之外，那可能是什么？
Narrative nonfiction.
叙事非小说类作品。
The great contemporary masters — John McPhee, Tracy Kidder — plus the wonderful old masters of essays — E.
伟大的当代大师 ——约翰·麦克菲、特蕾西·基德——以及精彩的古代散文大师—— E。
B.
B.
White, Red Smith, Twain of course.
当然是怀特、雷德·史密斯、吐温。
Always Twain.
永远是吐温。
Twain is completely symptomatic for the people I love to read because you not only get the paramount stylist, the nonpareil of stylists, but you can also see through the writing.
吐温完全是我喜欢阅读的人的症状，因为你不仅得到了最重要的文体师，无与伦比的文体师，而且你还可以看透写作。
It’s a window onto how the man’s mind works.
这是了解男人思维如何运作的一扇窗户。
And that, I love.
我喜欢这一点。
On advice for young writers
给年轻作家的建议
Final question.
最后一个问题。
I know this is a tough one.
我知道这是一件艰难的事。
Someone comes up to you and says, “I so much admire your work.
有人走过来对你说：“我非常钦佩你的工作。
I would love to write obituaries for a living.” I know there are not many paths into this, but what advice would you give them?
我很想以写讣告为生。”我知道实现这一目标的途径并不多，但您会给他们什么建议？
I would say, don’t feel you can or should specialize.
我想说的是，你不觉得自己可以或不应该专攻。
The child has not been born who comes home from first grade clutching a theme that says, “When I grow up, I want to be an obituary writer.” Be a journalist first.
孩子还没有出生，他从一年级回家时就抱着这样一个主题：“长大后，我想成为一名讣告作家。”首先当一名记者。
Go to journalism school.
去新闻学院。
That’s what I did.
这就是我所做的。
When I was 30, I chucked my unfulfilling jobs in book and magazine publishing and went to Columbia journalism school, got a master’s, and have been in newspapers ever since.
30 岁时，我放弃了在书籍和杂志出版方面并不令人满意的工作，去了哥伦比亚新闻学院，获得了硕士学位，从那时起就一直在报纸上工作。
Go to journalism school.
去新闻学院。
Be a journalist.
做一名记者。
Writing obits — and here we’ve come nicely full circle — writing obits is just one way of doing journalism, a very satisfying narrative way.
写讣告 — 我们已经绕了一圈 — 写讣告只是新闻报道的一种方式，一种非常令人满意的叙事方式。
Thank you very much, and we all look forward to your next book coming out next summer.
非常感谢您，我们都期待您明年夏天出版的下一本书。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Margalit Fox answers questions submitted at Marginal Revolution
玛格丽特·福克斯回答在《边缘革命》上提出的问题