Rebecca F. Kuang on National Literatures, Book Publishing, and History in Fiction (Ep. 202)
Special thanks to listener Kelly Dance for sponsoring this transcript.
特别感谢听众凯莉·丹斯赞助这份文字记录。
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 Rebecca Kuang, who is a New York Times #1 best-selling author with her earlier book, Babel.
今天我和丽贝卡·匡 (Rebecca Kuang) 在一起，她凭借她的早期著作《巴别塔》(Babel) 成为《纽约时报》排名第一的畅销书作家。
Her latest work is Yellowface, which I loved.
她的最新作品是《黄脸》，我很喜欢。
Stephen King described it as the following: “This is a great read.
斯蒂芬·金这样评价它：“这是一本很棒的书。
Crime, satire, horror, paranoia, questions of cultural appropriation.
犯罪、讽刺、恐怖、偏执、文化挪用问题。
Plenty of nasty social media pile-ons, too, but basically, just a great story.
社交媒体上也有很多令人讨厌的内容，但基本上，只是一个很棒的故事。
Hard to put down, harder to forget.” My friend Henry Oliver described it as “immorally entertaining.”
难以放下，更难忘记。”我的朋友亨利·奥利弗将其描述为“不道德的娱乐”。
She also has a fantasy trilogy, The Poppy War, which is not quite a young adult’s novel, but maybe not not a young adult’s novel, also.
她还有奇幻三部曲《罂粟战争》，这不完全是一部年轻人的小说，但也许也不是一部年轻人的小说。
And she has master’s degrees in Chinese and contemporary Chinese studies from Oxford and Cambridge and is now getting a PhD in East Asian languages and literature from Yale.
她拥有牛津大学和剑桥大学的中国和当代中国研究硕士学位，目前正在耶鲁大学获得东亚语言和文学博士学位。
Rebecca, welcome.
丽贝卡，欢迎。
Thank you so much for having me.
非常感谢你邀请我。
I’m very excited to chat.
我很高兴能聊天。
If you had to describe in general terms how you think Chinese science fiction is different from Western science fiction, how would you explain that to an educated Western reading audience?
如果你必须笼统地描述一下你认为中国科幻小说与西方科幻小说有何不同，你会如何向受过教育的西方读者解释这一点？
I really resist these broad generalizations of national literatures because you always find a lot more diversity within a genre, within a national literature, than you do differences between two national literatures, I think.
我真的很抗拒对民族文学的这些广泛概括，因为我认为，你总是会在一个流派、一个民族文学中发现更多的多样性，而不是两种民族文学之间的差异。
So, it’s really hard to talk about significant ways in which Chinese science fiction is different from American science fiction because there’s no broad quality that you could subscribe to American science fiction, either.
因此，很难谈论中国科幻小说与美国科幻小说的显着差异，因为美国科幻小说也没有广泛的品质可供订阅。
There’s also a lot more transpacific movement than people realize.
跨太平洋运动也比人们意识到的要多得多。
There’s so much translation going back and forth, and authors are mutually influenced by one another.
翻译有很多来回，作者之间也相互影响。
It’s well documented that Liu Cixin was heavily influenced by the golden age of anglophone science fiction like Arthur C.
有据可查的是，刘慈欣深受英语科幻小说黄金时代的影响，比如亚瑟·C.
Clarke.
克拉克.
My fiancé is reading 2001: A Space Odyssey right now and its sequels, and he was a big fan of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem trilogy, and he’s telling me he can see where the Clarke influence comes from.
我的未婚夫现在正在读《2001太空漫游》及其续集，他是刘慈欣的《三体》三部曲的忠实粉丝，他告诉我他可以看到克拉克的影响来自哪里。
As somebody who really likes to get into the nitty-gritty of how literary movements come to be and those specific transpacific multicultural influences, I hate making claims like, “Oh, all Chinese fiction is this way,” when clearly, it’s not.
作为一个真正喜欢深入了解文学运动的本质以及那些特定的跨太平洋多元文化影响的人，我讨厌提出“哦，所有中国小说都是这样的”这样的说法，但显然事实并非如此。
And so many writers within those movements occupy very different social positions, have very different prose styles, and have different concerns with what they’re trying to accomplish in their fiction.
这些运动中的许多作家占据着截然不同的社会地位，拥有截然不同的散文风格，并且对他们试图在小说中实现的目标有着不同的关注。
Why is “Folding Beijing” an important short story?
为什么《北京折叠》是一部重要的短篇小说？
I liked it.
我喜欢它。
I thought it was smart.
我认为这很聪明。
It was critically acclaimed.
它受到了好评。
What is our standard for important?
我们衡量重要的标准是什么？
People remember it, the idea that there are three layers of Beijing that correspond to socioeconomic status, but has a physical instantiation.
人们记得这个想法，即北京有三层，与社会经济地位相对应，但有一个物理实例。
There’s nothing I know of like that in Western science fiction.
据我所知，西方科幻小说中没有这样的内容。
Oh, really?
哦真的吗？
When I read “Folding Beijing,” I was amazed.
当我读到《北京折叠》时，我感到很惊讶。
“This is incredible.
“这太不可思议了。
I need to read more Chinese science fiction,” was my immediate response.
我需要读更多的中国科幻小说。”这是我的第一反应。
If I had to send a person to one place to learn Chinese science fiction, assuming they’re not going to read three volumes or Three-Body Problem, I’d send them to “Folding Beijing.”
如果我必须派一个人去一个地方学习中国科幻小说，假设他们不读三卷本或《三体》，我会派他们去“折叠北京”。
Where would you send them?
你会把他们送到哪里？
Someone wants to start.
有人想开始。
What do you tell them?
你告诉他们什么？
“Folding Beijing” is a fine place to start.
“折叠北京”是一个很好的起点。
I do really like that story, so I’m not registering shock that you call it important.
我真的很喜欢这个故事，所以我并没有因为你认为它很重要而感到震惊。
I will say, there’s also an interesting way in which what is canonical or what is deserving of critical acclaim or what gets the anglophone audience really relies on the role of the translator and the venue and the literary economics of it all.
我想说的是，还有一种有趣的方式，即什么是规范的、什么是值得批评的、什么是吸引英语读者的，实际上取决于译者的角色、场地以及这一切的文学经济学。
When we talk about Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang and their work, we can’t leave out of the picture Ken Liu, who is both a critically acclaimed writer of science fiction and fantasy in English and a critically acclaimed translator.
当我们谈论刘慈欣和郝景芳以及他们的作品时，我们不能忽略刘宇昆，他既是一位广受好评的英文科幻奇幻作家，也是一位广受好评的翻译家。
There’s a lot of ink spilled on this already, so I’ll just direct readers to go look up his work.
关于这一点已经有很多墨迹了，所以我只是引导读者去查找他的作品。
I think a lot of this Chinese-language science fiction comes to us mediated by what Ken has decided is interesting, and it occupies that platform and gains an audience — rightfully deserved — because Ken has decided to introduce it to that audience.
我认为很多中文科幻小说都是由肯认为有趣的东西介导的，它占据了这个平台并赢得了观众 ——“当之无愧”——因为肯决定将它介绍给这些观众。
I’m thinking a lot about the economics of how texts travel and what gets platformed and what doesn’t.
我思考了很多关于文本如何传播、什么可以平台化、什么不能平台化的经济学问题。
Without arguing that I don’t think that these works are interesting or important or innovative, I think we also have to consider, why is it these authors that have been put in front of us?
不争论我不认为这些作品有趣或重要或创新，我想我们也必须考虑，为什么这些作者会被摆在我们面前？
Why do you think that is?
你认为这是为什么？
Their work might just be good, and Ken might have found it interesting and worthy of our attention.
他们的工作可能很好，肯可能会发现它很有趣并且值得我们关注。
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about Chinese fantasy literature?
关于中国奇幻文学，你了解到的最令人惊讶的事情是什么？
It’s not one of my objects of study, so I couldn’t say.
这不是我的研究对象之一，所以我不能说。
What is it that you think from Western fantasy in recent times people will still read 50 or 100 years from now?
您认为近代西方奇幻小说中的哪些内容在 50 或 100 年后人们仍然会阅读？
Clearly, Tolkien will last, right?
显然，托尔金会持续下去，对吧？
What else will last?
还有什么会持续下去？
Tolkien will last.
托尔金会持续下去。
Tolkien will be around forever.
托尔金将永远存在。
I really hope that Susanna Clarke lasts.
我真的希望苏珊娜·克拉克能够坚持下去。
I’m a big fan of her work.
我非常喜欢她的作品。
I hope Piranesi becomes one of those immortal works of fiction.
我希望皮拉内西成为那些不朽的小说作品之一。
I love Piranesi, but very few of my friends have read it.
我喜欢皮拉内西，但我的朋友很少读过它。
I’m surprised by that.
我对此感到惊讶。
It’s also short, as you know.
正如你所知，它也很短。
Do you think that Piranesi was a lot less accessible than Jonathan Strange was?
你认为皮拉内西比乔纳森·斯特兰奇更难亲近吗？
I think it’s much more accessible.
我认为它更容易获得。
There’s something about long books that attract a certain kind of person that’s quite an extreme minority but can give something a durable reputation, and Piranesi somehow doesn’t attract that person.
长篇书籍有一种吸引特定类型的人的特质，这种人虽然是极少数，但却能给某些东西带来持久的声誉，而皮拉内西不知怎的并没有吸引那种人。
That’s true.
这是真的。
I love Piranesi.
我爱皮拉内西。
I like it more than Jonathan Strange.
我比乔纳森·斯特兰奇更喜欢它。
I was very surprised to see that it has gotten such a mixed reception, though.
不过，我很惊讶地看到它得到了如此褒贬不一的评价。
I think Jonathan Strange is more palatable on a genre front.
我认为乔纳森·斯特兰奇在类型方面更受欢迎。
You go in knowing what it’s going to read like.
你进去就知道它读起来会是什么样子。
You go in expecting a certain kind of story, but Piranesi challenges you, and either you’re along for the ride or you aren’t.
你期待着某种类型的故事，但皮拉内西向你提出挑战，你要么随波逐流，要么不随波逐流。
To get back to your original question, I really, really hope that stories like that last.
回到你最初的问题，我真的真的希望这样的故事最后会发生。
Jonathan Strange is historical in a somewhat expected way, right?
乔纳森·斯特兰奇以某种预期的方式成为历史，对吧？
That’s not what’s original about it.
这不是它的原创之处。
Yes, that’s true.
是的，确实如此。
Piranesi doesn’t follow an exact template.
皮拉内西并没有遵循精确的模板。
If you go in thinking that it’s going to be like Jonathan Strange and map precisely onto some historical metaphor, or even have that much of a linear plot, then you may be disappointed.
如果你认为它会像乔纳森·斯特兰奇一样，并精确地映射到一些历史隐喻，或者甚至有那么多线性情节，那么你可能会失望。
But if you read to be transported, I think, into a different frame of mind, then you come away delighted and enchanted.
但我认为，如果你读书是为了进入一种不同的心态，那么你会感到高兴和着迷。
On footnotes
关于脚注
Which other authors do you feel use footnotes well, other than yourself?
除了您自己之外，您认为还有哪些作者使用脚注得当？
Mark Danielewski.
马克·丹尼尔斯基.
You mean House of Leaves?
你是说木叶之家吗？
That’s right.
这是正确的。
I actually haven’t finished House of Leaves.
其实我还没有看完《树叶之家》。
My fiancé loves it.
我的未婚夫喜欢它。
He thinks it’s one of the scariest books he’s ever read, but that’s part of why I can’t finish it.
他认为这是他读过的最恐怖的书之一，但这也是我无法读完它的部分原因。
I always get a third of the way through and then become too frightened, and my mind’s not in a good place, so I put it down.
我总是读到三分之一，然后就变得太害怕了，我的心不在一个好地方，所以我就把它放下了。
But it’s such a massive book that if you put it down, you’ll have to start from the beginning to tackle it all over again.
但这是一本厚重的书，如果你放下它，你就必须从头开始，重新开始。
I felt I was reading a great book, but never felt that I wanted to keep on reading.
我觉得我正在读一本好书，但从未觉得我想继续读下去。
And I was not sure if that meant there’s something wrong with me or something wrong with the book.
我不确定这是否意味着我有问题或者这本书有问题。
Maybe a little bit of both.
也许两者都有一点。
It has to be the right book at the right time.
它必须是在正确的时间出现的正确的书。
Probably, yes.
可能是的。
How about Pale Fire?
微弱的火怎么样？
I love Pale Fire.
我喜欢微弱的火。
For my birthday this year, one of my friends, Rodrigo, got me this special edition that has the cantos printed on index cards, so you can go through the index cards as you’re reading the narrative proper or the notes on the poem.
今年我的生日那天，我的一位朋友罗德里戈给了我一本特别版，其中的诗章印在索引卡上，这样你就可以在阅读诗的叙述或注释时浏览索引卡。
Once I have a bit of spare time, I’m going to sit down and read Pale Fire the way that perhaps Nabokov intended, with the index cards in hand.
一旦我有一点空闲时间，我就会坐下来阅读《微暗的火》，也许是纳博科夫想要的方式，手里拿着索引卡。
There’s a very good guide to it by Brian Boyd, which if you don’t already know, I would recommend.
Brian Boyd 有一个非常好的指南，如果您还不知道，我会推荐它。
Okay.
好的。
I don’t like footnotes in David Foster Wallace.
我不喜欢大卫·福斯特·华莱士的脚注。
Do you agree or disagree?
你同意还是不同意？
I still haven’t read any of his novels.
我还没读过他的小说。
I read the essay about cruises and enjoyed that greatly, but I don’t have a position on his fiction.
我读了一篇关于游轮的文章，非常喜欢，但我对他的小说没有立场。
On book publishing
论图书出版
Now, a lot of your latest book, Yellowface, deals with the book trade, being a bestselling author.
现在，你的最新著作《黄脸》中的很多内容都与图书贸易有关，是一位畅销书作家。
What concretely would you change about publishing in the book trade if we put you in charge of it?
如果我们让你负责图书出版业，你会具体改变什么？
The change has to be broadly sustainable, so it can’t be utopian, like every author gets a million-dollar advance.
这种变化必须是广泛可持续的，所以它不能是乌托邦式的，就像每个作者都获得一百万美元的预付款一样。
What would you do?
你会怎么办？
Nobody has asked me this question, in part because it seems so utopian.
没有人问过我这个问题，部分原因是它看起来太乌托邦了。
I think I would increase entry-level wages to make publishing jobs livable in cities like New York and London.
我想我会提高初级工资，让出版工作在纽约和伦敦等城市变得更加宜居。
I say this because, based on conversations with friends who are either part of the HarperCollins Union or folks who are trying to enter the publishing industry and become one of those gatekeepers — one of those people who can decide which manuscripts are valuable, worthy of getting a platform, worthy of being put in front of readers — everyone circles back to the same problem: that it’s nearly an impossible industry to enter unless you have previous connections, and more importantly, inherited family wealth — some situation that lets you live in London or New York without worrying too much about your income because entry-level wages are really so atrocious.
我这么说是因为，根据与哈珀柯林斯联盟成员或试图进入出版业并成为守门人之一的朋友的对话， ——那些能够决定哪些手稿有价值、值得获得平台、值得呈现在读者面前的人 ——每个人都会回到同一个问题：除非你有以前的关系，更重要的是，有继承的家庭，否则这几乎是一个不可能进入的行业财富 ——这种情况可以让你住在伦敦或纽约，而不必过多担心你的收入，因为入门级工资实在是太糟糕了。
And this trickles up, right?
这会慢慢增加，对吗？
When we think about the editors — specifically the acquiring editors who are deciding which new talent is worthy of getting a book deal, worthy of being put on bookshelves — it’s unfortunate that the makeup of that room has largely seemed unchanged year after year.
当我们想到编辑们时——尤其是那些正在决定哪些新人才值得获得出书合同、值得被放在书架上的收购编辑——不幸的是，这个房间的构成似乎年复一年基本上没有变化。
There are many reports on industry statistics that back this up.
有许多行业统计报告支持这一点。
It’s a very homogenous group of people who are deciding which books to buy, and we want that to change.
这是一群非常同质的人在决定购买哪些书，我们希望改变这种情况。
If we want different editors selecting stories, pruning them, and cultivating them for readers, then it has to be a livable industry to enter in the first place.
如果我们想让不同的编辑为读者挑选故事、修剪故事、培育故事，那么它首先必须是一个宜居的行业。
There would be both higher wages and more people looking through the manuscripts.
工资会更高，浏览手稿的人也会更多。
I would hope so.
我希望如此。
A higher P and higher Q.
更高的 P 和更高的 Q。
Would authors earn less?
作者的收入会减少吗？
Maybe some authors can earn less, but this is a related conversation.
也许有些作者可以赚得更少，但这是一个相关的对话。
It’s not just that the amount of the advance is not livable — and I say this for the average book deal.
这不仅仅是因为预付款的数额不适宜居住 ——而且我是针对平均图书交易说的。
Obviously, I’m in a very lucky position now, where my advances are sizable.
显然，我现在处于一个非常幸运的位置，我的进步是可观的。
But if you look at the average advance that’s paid out, and you subtract the agent fee and you subtract taxes, if you’re writing a book a year, you probably aren’t making enough to live on.
但如果你看看支付的平均预付款，减去代理费和税费，如果你每年写一本书，你的收入可能不足以维持生计。
Then you think about the schedule according to which an advance is paid out.
然后您考虑支付预付款的时间表。
You don’t get your entire advance up front.
您无法预先获得全部预付款。
Currently, the advances are divided — I think they’re paid out in fifths now.
目前，预付款已分成 —— 我认为现在已按五分之一支付。
Say you get $100,000 advance; you might get $20,000 paid immediately when you sign the contract, which, by the way, can take months, sometimes over a year to negotiate.
假设您预付了 100,000 美元；当你签署合同时，你可能会立即收到 20,000 美元，顺便说一下，这可能需要几个月，有时甚至一年多的时间来谈判。
I’ve had contracts take over a year, so you don’t get the money right away.
我的合同为期一年多，所以你不会立即收到钱。
Then you get another fifth upon delivering and acceptance of the manuscript, and that comes at the end of the editorial process.
然后，在提交并接受稿件后，您将获得另外五分之一的收入，这是在编辑过程结束时获得的。
You get another fifth when the book actually comes out on publication date.
当这本书真正在出版日期出版时，你会得到另外五分之一。
Then you get another fifth 12 months and then 18 months after the fact.
然后你会得到另外五个 12 个月，然后是事后 18 个月。
This whole process can stretch out over two to three years.
整个过程可能会持续两到三年。
It might seem at the start that $100,000 is quite a lot of money, but if you’re realistically making about $30,000 a year, then you can’t just write and make a living.
乍一看，100,000 美元似乎是一笔很大的钱，但如果你实际上每年赚 30,000 美元左右，那么你就不能只靠写作谋生。
You have to be doing something else at the same time.
你必须同时做其他事情。
What do you enjoy most about going on book tour?
参加巡回售书活动你最喜欢什么？
I just turned in an essay to British Vogue about all the things I hate about going on book tour, which is the indignities of travel and worrying about making my flights and worrying about showering and composing myself before I come downstairs and say hi to booksellers.
我刚刚向英国《Vogue》杂志提交了一篇文章，讲述了我讨厌参加巡回售书活动的所有事情，其中包括旅行的侮辱、担心赶不上航班、担心洗澡、在下楼向书商打招呼之前如何让自己平静下来。
I think the thing that makes it all worth it is interactions with readers.
我认为最值得的就是与读者的互动。
I wonder if you feel this way when you do public events.
不知道你在做公共活动的时候是否有这样的感觉。
You can be exhausted, your face can be strained from smiling, you can wish you were in bed, but then somebody comes up to you and has a conversation, and you remember why you went on the road in the first place.
你可能会精疲力竭，你的脸可能因微笑而紧张，你可能希望自己躺在床上，但随后有人走到你身边并与你交谈，你会记得你最初上路的原因。
It’s great fun for me.
这对我来说很有趣。
I have relatively few complaints about it, but I also am in a different position than you are and have another income I can fall back upon.
我对此的抱怨相对较少，但我的处境也与你不同，而且我还有另一种收入可以依靠。
And I think whether you do it as a man or do it as a woman, you’re also treated differently, especially by your readers.
我认为，无论你作为男性还是女性，你都会受到不同的对待，尤其是你的读者。
That’s probably true.
这可能是真的。
People have been very kind to me on tour, though, so I really don’t have too much to complain about.
不过，在巡演中人们对我非常友善，所以我真的没有太多可抱怨的。
What makes for a good writing instructor?
怎样才能成为一名优秀的写作导师？
Hmm, I should probably have a quick answer to this, given that I really enjoy teaching and I hope to teach writing.
嗯，鉴于我真的很喜欢教学并且我希望教写作，我可能应该快速回答这个问题。
You are a writing instructor, right, part-time?
你是一名写作教练，对吧，兼职？
I am, yes.
我是，是的。
I’ve given lectures on craft, but I think that’s a bit different.
我曾做过有关工艺的讲座，但我认为这有点不同。
You can be good at lecturing about craft, and you can deliver talks to an audience, but I’m thinking about writing instructors who work with you over a sustained period of time and read and critique your work.
你可以擅长讲授工艺，也可以向观众发表演讲，但我正在考虑写一些与你长期合作、阅读和批评你的作品的讲师。
I’ve only worked with one of these, Jeanne Cavelos, who runs the Odyssey Writing Workshop, which used to be a six-week sci-fi–fantasy writing workshop in New Hampshire but now has become a year-long, more accessible model.
我只与其中一位合作过，珍妮·卡维洛斯 (Jeanne Cavelos)，她经营着奥德赛写作研讨会，该研讨会曾经是新罕布什尔州为期六周的科幻奇幻写作研讨会，但现在已成为为期一年、更容易理解的模式。
I think she was absolutely fantastic.
我认为她绝对棒极了。
I’m just trying to figure out exactly what it was about her approach that I found so effective.
我只是想弄清楚到底是什么让我觉得她的方法如此有效。
I think one thing is that she recognized that she was very good at isolating the problem but gave you space to generate the solution.
我认为有一件事是，她认识到自己非常擅长隔离问题，但给了你空间来生成解决方案。
People say this about editors as well.
人们也这样评价编辑。
When editors point out flaws in a manuscript, they’re almost always right about the problem — a point of data that says this sentence, this plot twist, this piece of character development is not sticking, not resonating.
当编辑指出手稿中的缺陷时，他们对问题的看法几乎总是正确的——用数据点来说明这句话、这个情节转折、这个人物发展不粘人，不引起共鸣。
But the solutions they offer aren’t necessarily the right ones.
但他们提供的解决方案不一定是正确的。
Jeanne was very good at explaining to you where structurally things had fallen apart and then stepping back and letting you figure out how to fix it, because you can’t fix it in the voice of somebody who thinks they know their story better than you.
珍妮非常擅长向你解释结构上的问题，然后退后一步，让你弄清楚如何修复它，因为你无法用自认为比你更了解自己故事的人的声音来修复它。
You have to find an organic solution that helps you express what you were trying to say all along.
你必须找到一个有机的解决方案来帮助你表达你一直想说的话。
I think that would make for a good writing instructor: someone who’s not too overbearing, basically.
我认为这将成为一名优秀的写作导师：基本上是一个不太专横的人。
On history in fiction
论小说中的历史
There’s a lot of history in your novels.
你的小说里有很多历史。
Early on in Yellowface, you mentioned, I think, the Treaty of Versailles.
我想，在《黄脸》的早期，你提到了《凡尔赛条约》。
Was China treated fairly in the Treaty of Versailles?
《凡尔赛条约》是否公平对待中国？
The Chinese certainly didn’t think so, and it kicked off a whole lot of domestic protests that led to — a lot of people would argue — some sense of national awakening.
中国人当然不这么认为，它引发了一系列国内抗议活动，导致了“——很多人会争辩说”——某种民族觉醒的感觉。
The development of national consciousness, a rally-around-the-flag motivating effect.
民族意识的发展，有团结在旗帜周围的激励作用。
Certainly, the Chinese did not get what they were hoping for from the Treaty of Versailles.
当然，中国人并没有从《凡尔赛条约》中得到他们所希望的东西。
Was Woodrow Wilson at fault?
伍德罗·威尔逊有错吗？
Was it the internally corrupt Chinese warlords who were willing to sign off on all kinds of things and hand rights to the Japanese?
是那些内部腐败的中国军阀愿意签署各种协议并将权利交给日本人吗？
How did it all go so wrong?
这一切怎么变得如此糟糕？
Oh, you’d have to ask a historian that.
哦，这个你得问历史学家。
I only know the effect.
我只知道效果。
I thought you were a historian
我以为你是历史学家
No. Actually, I did history as an undergrad once I realized .
不。事实上，当我意识到这一点时，我在本科生时就学过历史。
.
。
.
。
I started off doing international economics, and then I came back and realized I only wanted to do history.
我开始研究国际经济学，然后我回来意识到我只想研究历史。
But then, as I did my master’s degrees, I realized that in studying history, I was drawn towards narratives and the stories people told about historical events and literary history much more than I was interested in things like military history.
但后来，当我攻读硕士学位时，我意识到在研究历史时，我对人们讲述的历史事件和文学史的叙述和故事所吸引，远远超过对军事史等事物的兴趣。
There was a time when I thought I would become a military historian, and obviously, I’m not.
曾经有一段时间，我以为自己会成为一名军事历史学家，但显然我不是。
Now I do literature.
现在我做文学。
I came back and applied to study modern Chinese literature, specifically the modern Sinophone literature.
回来后申请学习中国现代文学，特别是华语现代文学。
There’s a distinction between Sinophone and Chinese, which really has to do with, are we talking about writers who are writing in Chinese but not necessarily for or from the mainland?
华语和中文之间有区别，这确实与我们谈论的是用中文写作但不一定是为大陆或来自大陆的作家有关吗？
Now, I look at the history of literary movements and how historical events are represented in fiction, but I could not tell you much more about the Treaty of Versailles.
现在，我研究了文学运动的历史以及小说中如何再现历史事件，但我无法告诉你更多有关《凡尔赛条约》的信息。
Do you know what your dissertation will be on?
你知道你的论文将讨论什么吗？
I don’t, and I think it’s good that I don’t because I am in one of my last years of absolute freedom and exploration, which is the year that I study for my qualifying exams, which means that I have about 50 texts that I have to read for three subfields, which is 150 to 180 texts total.
我不这样做，而且我认为不这样做是件好事，因为我正处于绝对自由和探索的最后几年，这一年是我为资格考试而学习的一年，这意味着我必须阅读三个子领域的大约 50 篇课文，总共 150 到 180 篇课文。
And this is spread across modern Sinophone literature, Asian-American literature, and Asian-American history.
这贯穿了现代华语文学、亚裔美国文学和亚裔美国历史。
The hope is that at the end of all this intensive reading and thinking and drawing connections, I will have solidified the questions that I will write my dissertation on.
希望在所有这些深入的阅读、思考和联系结束后，我能够巩固我将要写论文的问题。
Right now, I’m still mucking around and having fun and casting about for new ideas.
现在，我仍然在闲逛，享受乐趣，寻找新的想法。
I did just finish Hua Hsu’s A Floating Chinaman, which is a text that thinks very much about the transpacific imagination.
我刚刚读完徐华的《漂流的中国人》，这是一篇非常思考跨太平洋想象的文章。
Who has the authority to talk about China?
谁有资格谈论中国？
Who do we consider a Chinese expert or an expert on China?
我们认为谁是中国专家或中国问题专家？
And how do those imaginations of foreign countries change over time?
外国的这些想象随着时间的推移发生了怎样的变化？
I think those are some of the questions that I gravitate towards and might end up dissertating about.
我认为这些是我所关注的一些问题，并且最终可能会讨论这些问题。
On the penetration of Chinese fiction in the West
论中国小说在西方的渗透
China, as you know, has a large population, quite a high rate of literacy, some of the world’s best and most amazing bookstores, but there aren’t many Chinese novels known outside of China.
如你所知，中国人口众多，识字率相当高，有一些世界上最好、最令人惊叹的书店，但在中国以外为人所知的中国小说并不多。
Why do you think that is?
你认为这是为什么？
Is it a translation problem?
是翻译问题吗？
Is it cultural differences are large?
难道文化差异很大？
What’s your account of that?
你对此有何看法？
Not many people have read Soul Mountain or Mo Yan.
读过《魂山》和《莫言》的人并不多。
Just not that much, the way they might have read Rushdie or Mahfouz or other not-Western writers, but nonetheless from different countries.
只是没有那么多，就像他们阅读拉什迪或马哈福兹或其他非西方作家的方式一样，但尽管如此，他们来自不同的国家。
Do you think the dominance of English as a language of literary prestige has anything to do with it?
您认为英语作为一种文学声望语言的主导地位与此有什么关系吗？
I don’t because plenty of people read, say, Márquez or Vargas Llosa or many other Latin American authors — Borges.
我不这么认为，因为很多人都读过马尔克斯、巴尔加斯·略萨或许多其他拉丁美洲作家——博尔赫斯的作品。
Most well-read, educated, say, Americans would have read them, or people in England.
大多数博览群书、受过良好教育的美国人或英国人都会读过这些书。
But again, you get into Chinese fiction, or if you look at a classic work, Dream of the Red Chamber — other than people with some kind of background in China or Chinese studies, I know very few people who’ve read Dream of the Red Chamber.
不过，你再看中国小说，或者看一部经典作品《红楼梦》——除了有一些中国背景或国学背景的人之外，我知道很少有人读过《红楼梦》。
Some would say that’s the greatest Chinese novel or even the greatest novel of all time.
有人会说这是最伟大的中国小说，甚至是有史以来最伟大的小说。
Is it that the modes of storytelling are different?
是不是讲故事的方式不一样？
Or we’re too closed?
还是我们太封闭了？
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
I’ve actually never thought about this comparison.
其实我从来没有考虑过这种比较。
It wouldn’t have been my instinct to argue that more educated or literate anglophone readers would have read Márquez or Borges than they would have the Chinese Nobel laureates, but I don’t know.
我本能地认为，受过更多教育或识字的英语读者会比中国诺贝尔奖获得者更容易阅读马尔克斯或博尔赫斯的作品，但我不知道。
We don’t have the data on that, or maybe somebody does.
我们没有这方面的数据，或者也许有人有。
I don’t have it at hand right now.
我现在手边没有。
My instinct, though, is to make an argument about translation and global literary prestige and linguistic inequality.
不过，我的本能是对翻译、全球文学声望以及语言不平等进行争论。
There’s a whole host of theory and literature about this, so none of this is really original argument.
关于这一点有大量的理论和文献，所以这些都不是真正原创的论点。
It gets back to a paradigm called world literature, which means a lot of different things.
它回到了一种称为世界文学的范式，这意味着很多不同的事情。
But broadly, when we think about literature is produced in different languages and the movements within those literatures, and we compare them on a global stage and look at what’s gaining a readership, what isn’t, what is moving through translation, what isn’t, and which languages we associate with literary prestige, this is clearly influenced by history, geopolitical movements.
但从广义上讲，当我们考虑文学是用不同的语言创作的以及这些文学中的运动时，我们在全球舞台上对它们进行比较，看看什么赢得了读者，什么没有，什么通过翻译而发展，什么没有，以及我们将哪些语言与文学声望联系起来，这显然受到历史和地缘政治运动的影响。
Doesn’t just boil down to, are good works being produced, but what routes have been created for those works to travel?
归根结底不只是有没有好的作品产生，而是为这些作品创造了什么样的传播路径？
And what reception have they been anticipated to receive before they’ve even had the opportunity to travel?
在他们有机会旅行之前，他们预计会受到什么样的接待？
The kind of theories of literary economy and world literature I’m thinking of really start with Pascale Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters.
我所思考的文学经济和世界文学理论实际上是从帕斯卡尔·卡萨诺瓦的《世界文学共和国》开始的。
She makes some good points about the Latin American authors here and how they have traveled in translation.
她对这里的拉丁美洲作家以及他们如何进行翻译提出了一些很好的观点。
She also brings up the fact that you see a lot of writers from formerly colonized territories becoming, her term, “self-translated men,” men who deliberately choose to move into English in order to get closer to the literary center of the anglophone.
她还提出了这样一个事实，即你看到许多来自前殖民地的作家成为她所说的“自译者”，这些人故意选择转向英语，以便更接近英语国家的文学中心。
Casanova doesn’t talk specifically about the Chinese case, but a lot of people employing her framework later do.
卡萨诺瓦并没有具体谈论中国的案例，但很多人后来使用了她的框架。
You may also be interested in Julia Lovell’s work on China’s quest for the Nobel Prize.
您可能还对朱莉娅·洛弗尔（Julia Lovell）关于中国争取诺贝尔奖的研究感兴趣。
Why, in fact, did it take so long for any Chinese writer to win a Nobel Prize in literature?
事实上，为什么中国作家花了这么长时间才获得诺贝尔文学奖？
I’ve quoted a lot of existing literature here, but the point, basically, is it’s not that good works are not being produced in Chinese or that they’re being produced in narrative frames or writing styles that are indecipherable or unattractive to anglophone audiences.
我在这里引用了很多现有的文献，但要点是，基本上，并不是说好的作品不是用中文创作的，也不是它们的叙事框架或写作风格对英语读者来说难以理解或没有吸引力。
I think that kind of cultural determinism is a little bit silly.
我认为这种文化决定论有点愚蠢。
I do think that there just aren’t enough routes of translation and routes through the market so that the average anglophone reader either hears about these works or has access to them from a publisher that’s poured a significant amount of marketing money into them.
我确实认为，没有足够的翻译途径和市场途径，以至于普通英语读者要么听说这些作品，要么从投入大量营销资金的出版商那里获得这些作品。
I do think that most of the readers I know who are curious about reading outside of English have heard of Mo Yan and have heard of Gao Xingjian and Dream of the Red Chamber, but maybe my circle of acquaintances is much more China-focused than the average circle.
我确实认为，我认识的大多数对英语以外的阅读感兴趣的读者都听说过莫言，也听说过高行健和红楼梦，但也许我的熟人圈子比一般圈子更关注中国。
No, I think people have heard of them, but actually read them compared to, say, Pamuk — it seems to me obviously many fewer readers when it comes to the Chinese works.
不，我认为人们听说过它们，但实际上与帕慕克相比，在我看来，中国作品的读者显然要少得多。
Pamuk is from Turkey, Islamic background.
帕慕克来自土耳其，有伊斯兰教背景。
It’s not obviously something that would take off in the United States.
这显然不会在美国流行起来。
I would think the ratio of people who have read Pamuk to any Chinese writer would be at least five to one, of the people I’ve known.
我认为，在我认识的人中，读过帕慕克的人与任何中国作家的比例至少是五比一。
On The Three-Body Problem
论三体问题
Why do you think The Three-Body Problem took off the way it did?
您认为《三体》为何能如此火爆？
It is very, very good, right?
非常非常好，对吧？
I think the hardness of the science fiction in volumes two and three is immediately recognizable, even to people who are not science fiction fans but have seen a lot of cinema.
我认为第二卷和第三卷中的科幻小说的难度是可以立即识别的，即使对于那些不是科幻小说迷但看过很多电影的人来说也是如此。
I am surprised volume one did so well.
我很惊讶第一卷做得这么好。
It’s my favorite of the three volumes, but it’s maybe the most Chinese.
这是三卷中我最喜欢的，但它可能是最中国化的。
The narrative is not, to an American eye, extremely linear.
在美国人看来，这种叙述并不是极其线性的。
It can be confusing and that people never got —
这可能会令人困惑，人们永远不会明白 -
Can I ask you to be specific on what you mean when you say the narrative is the most Chinese?
请问你说这个叙事最中国化是什么意思？
I’m just curious.
我只是好奇。
It could be the translation.
可能是翻译吧。
I’m reading it in English, but volume maybe two in particular, but both two and three — there’s something very Arthur C.
我读的是英文版，但可能特别是第二卷，但第二卷和第三卷都 —— 有一些非常亚瑟·C.
Clarke about them, as you mentioned.
正如你提到的，克拉克谈到了他们。
Volume one is the uncovering of a lot of different strands of the story and a lot of mysteries at the beginning.
第一卷从一开始就揭开了故事的许多不同线索和许多谜团。
It becomes clear by the end, but you can start the book, read the first half, and then feel the need to reread the first half again to understand what’s going on.
到最后一切都会变得清晰，但你可以开始阅读这本书，阅读前半部分，然后觉得有必要再次阅读前半部分以了解发生了什么。
Not true with volumes two and three, would be my sense.
我的感觉是，第二卷和第三卷并非如此。
Now, if it were somehow only volumes two and three, I would obviously expect it to be popular, but I’m surprised volume one was not more of an obstacle.
现在，如果它只是第二卷和第三卷，我显然会期望它会受欢迎，但令我惊讶的是第一卷并没有成为一个障碍。
I had only read volume one for a while, and then I read volumes two and three later on, after it became more of a global phenomenon, and I really loved volume one.
我有一段时间只读了第一卷，后来我读了第二卷和第三卷，在它成为一种全球现象之后，我真的很喜欢第一卷。
I think in part —
我认为部分 ——
It’s my favorite, yes.
这是我最喜欢的，是的。
— the aliens’ plot twist was spoiled for me very early on, so I went in knowing who the Trisolarans were and what everything was gearing up towards, so I wasn’t confused for the first hundred pages.
— 外星人的情节转折很早就让我被宠坏了，所以我进去就知道三体人是谁，一切都在朝着什么方向发展，所以我对前一百页没有感到困惑。
I’ve heard from other people that you’re actually not supposed to know that they’re aliens, and it’s supposed to be a great shock when you find out.
我从其他人那里听说，你实际上不应该知道他们是外星人，当你发现时应该会感到非常震惊。
Are you reading these in Chinese or in English?
您读的是中文版还是英文版？
Both.
两个都。
I was going to ask you, which of the translations was your favorite?
我想问你，你最喜欢哪一个翻译？
I didn’t know there was more than one.
我不知道有不止一个。
I’m pretty sure I read just the one you see in all the bookstores.
我很确定我读的只是你在所有书店看到的那一本。
Oh, sure.
哦，当然。
There isn’t a single official translation for each one of them, but there are different translators for the novel.
每一篇都没有单一的官方翻译，但小说有不同的译者。
Oh, yes.
哦是的。
Without revealing who translated what, which translation did you like the best?
在不透露谁翻译了什么的情况下，您最喜欢哪一个翻译？
Obviously, I can’t compare to the originals.
显然，我无法与原作进行比较。
Two strikes me as oversimplified, but the original might be as well, so I prefer one.
两个让我觉得过于简单化了，但原来的也可能是这样，所以我更喜欢一个。
It seemed closer to the original, but that’s quite subjective from a great-distance point of view.
它看起来更接近原作，但从远距离的角度来看，这是相当主观的。
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
One and three are by Ken Liu and two is by Joel Martinsen, who’s since done several of Liu Cixin’s other works.
其中一和三是刘宇昆的作品，二是乔尔·马丁森的作品，此后他又创作了刘慈欣的其他几部作品。
I like all of them.
我喜欢他们所有人。
I think I have a slight preference for Ken’s literary style.
我想我对肯的文学风格有一点偏爱。
It might be because he’s also quite an accomplished writer of his original fiction.
这可能是因为他也是一位颇有成就的原创小说作家。
I do not like the prose in Chinese.
我不喜欢中文的散文。
Or I guess I wouldn’t say I actively dislike it; I just find it incredibly utilitarian.
或者我想我不会说我非常不喜欢它；我只是觉得它非常实用。
He’s clearly more interested in the ideas than he is in writing very beautiful, elegant, descriptive sentences.
显然，他对这些想法更感兴趣，而不是写出非常美丽、优雅、描述性的句子。
I think this comes through especially in his character work.
我认为这一点尤其体现在他的角色作品中。
Oh, let me ask you, what do you make of the non-Chinese characters and how they’re represented?
哦，我问你，你如何看待非汉字以及它们是如何表示的？
I get a kick out of it, so I enjoy it, but I think I enjoy it because it’s not entirely accurate.
我从中得到了乐趣，所以我喜欢它，但我认为我喜欢它是因为它并不完全准确。
It’s a Chinese view of how Western establishment people ought to be running around and talking to each other.
这是中国人对西方当权派人士应该如何四处奔波、相互交谈的看法。
For me, that’s fantastic.
对我来说，这太棒了。
I thought it was entertaining as well.
我认为这也很有趣。
I guess the point I was going to make is that he uses shorthand and cardboard caricatures of characters much more than he’s really interested in the interiority of much of his secondary cast.
我想我要表达的观点是，他对角色的速记和纸板漫画的使用远多于他对大部分次要演员的内在真正感兴趣。
I think this is related to his prose being very simple and unadorned and really just interested in the science ideas.
我认为这与他的散文非常简单和朴素，并且真正只对科学思想感兴趣有关。
I think Ken’s done a very good job with this simple prose and rendering it elegant without significantly distorting the voice or adding a kind of lyricism that wasn’t there to begin with.
我认为肯在这篇简单的散文上做得非常好，并且使其优雅，没有明显扭曲声音或添加一种本来就不存在的抒情性。
Have you seen the Chinese series?
你看过中国系列吗？
I think it was for television.
我认为这是为了电视。
I have not.
我没有。
Have you?
你？
No. People have told me it’s boring.
不，人们告诉我这很无聊。
It is now on YouTube with subtitles, which is not how I would prefer to watch it.
它现在在 YouTube 上有字幕，这不是我喜欢的观看方式。
There’s a Netflix Americanized version of it coming, which I fear for and probably won’t watch, but I’ll look out for the reviews.
Netflix 的美国化版本即将推出，我很担心，也可能不会看，但我会留意评论。
What is it you do to follow what’s new and coming out in China that’s interesting to you?
您会做什么来关注您感兴趣的中国最新动态？
This is actually something I need to figure out because I am scaling back significantly from all social media and following people whose opinions I respect.
这实际上是我需要弄清楚的事情，因为我正在大幅减少所有社交媒体的使用，并关注那些我尊重的观点的人。
Seeing what’s trending used to be my way of following not just what’s coming out in China, but what’s going on all over the world.
查看流行趋势曾经是我关注的方式，不仅关注中国正在发生的事情，还关注世界各地正在发生的事情。
I no longer find Twitter a very interesting place to be.
我不再觉得 Twitter 是一个非常有趣的地方。
I’ve recently read a lot of literature about how it would help us if we slow down.
我最近读了很多关于如果我们放慢速度会对我们有什么帮助的文献。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
There’s this term, slow news, that I really can’t define for you, but it boils down to being much more careful about the ideas that we’re ingesting and turning them over and reading thorough, comprehensive coverage rather than quick takes.
有一个术语，“慢新闻”，我真的无法为你定义，但它归根结底是要更加谨慎地对待我们正在吸收和翻转的想法，并阅读彻底、全面的报道，而不是快速报道。
But I have yet to figure out exactly what those sources should be.
但我还没有弄清楚这些来源到底是什么。
I’ll take recommendations if you have them.
如果您有建议，我会接受。
No, I have zero.
不，我有零。
I count on people like you.
我依靠像你这样的人。
Maybe you tweet something, or it’s in one of your talks, one of your interviews, but I have no sources anymore.
也许你在推特上发了一些东西，或者在你的一次演讲、一次采访中，但我已经没有消息来源了。
I don’t go to China anymore.
我不再去中国了。
I’m afraid to, frankly.
坦白说，我害怕。
You see, my great advantage is that I have Chinese family members.
你看，我最大的优势就是我有中国家庭成员。
I also have Chinese classmates and colleagues, a department that focuses specifically on these topics, so I can just wander into a department talk or ask people what they’re researching.
我也有中国的同学和同事，这是一个专门关注这些主题的部门，所以我可以随意参加部门演讲或询问人们他们正在研究什么。
But I would like to find some new sources and newsletters and podcasts that aren’t just the hottest underdeveloped new take on Twitter, but that’s a work in progress for me.
但我想找到一些新的资源、时事通讯和播客，它们不仅是 Twitter 上最热门的、尚未开发的新内容，而且对我来说也是一项正在进行的工作。
On Taiwan
关于台湾
What surprised you most about your recent Taiwan trip?
最近的台湾之行最让你惊讶的是什么？
This is a great question because a lot of things were delightful and new and interesting.
这是一个很好的问题，因为很多事情都是令人愉快、新鲜和有趣的。
I’m trying to sort through preconceptions about what life would be like and if any of those is proven false in a really significant way.
我正在尝试理清关于生活会是什么样子的先入之见，以及这些先入之见是否以一种非常重要的方式被证明是错误的。
This is hard because I’d previously been to Taiwan in 2017, I want to say, so I knew a bit about what I was going to get into.
这很难，因为我想说，我曾在 2017 年去过台湾，所以我对自己将要进入的领域有所了解。
It surprises me each time how retro it feels.
每次它的复古感觉都会让我感到惊讶。
That’s what I would say.
这就是我想说的。
The first time I went there, I think was 1988 or ’89.
我第一次去那里，我记得是 1988 年或 89 年。
If I go more recently, of course, it’s different, but it’s not nearly as different as I would expect.
当然，如果我最近去的话，情况会有所不同，但并不像我想象的那么不同。
It’s not different in the way that either, say, South Korea or even Thailand would be different.
这与韩国甚至泰国的情况没有什么不同。
It looks to me early 1990s somehow.
在我看来，这有点 90 年代初的感觉。
It has changed an enormous amount, but in terms of the externals, I’m always surprised how little it’s changed.
它发生了巨大的变化，但就外部而言，我总是惊讶它的变化如此之小。
I can’t compare with the ’80s and ’90s, so I couldn’t say.
我无法与80、90年代相比，所以我不能说。
I will say, one thing that comes up in conversations with all my friends in Boston who are asking, “Oh, what’s Taipei like?” is that the public transportation is just so vastly superior to most public transportation in the US.
我想说的是，在与我所有波士顿朋友的谈话中都会出现一件事，他们会问：“哦，台北是什么样的？”是公共交通比美国的大多数公共交通都要优越得多。
The jiéyùn system comes regularly, frequently.
结云系统定期、频繁地出现。
There’s a little sign that tells you at five-second intervals how long until the next train.
有一个小标志每隔五秒告诉您距离下一趟火车还有多长时间。
People line up.
人们排队。
They queue to get on the train.
他们排队上火车。
There are actually little lines drawn on the platform so that people politely wait their turn.
站台上实际上画了很少的线，以便人们礼貌地等待轮到。
People don’t eat or drink.
人们不吃不喝。
Oh, actually, okay, here’s my answer for what surprised me the most.
哦，实际上，好吧，这是我最令我惊讶的答案。
I knew there were rules about no eating or drinking on the subway, but I thought this was just things that could have an odor or could possibly make a mess.
我知道地铁上有禁止饮食的规定，但我认为这只是可能有气味或可能造成混乱的东西。
We were on the Red Line headed to Beitou, and the old lady across from me — I take a sip of water, and she says, “You can’t do that.”
我们坐红线去北投，对面的老太太 — 我喝了一口水，她说：“你不能这么做。”
I’m stunned, first of all, that she’s talking to me, but also that you can’t even drink water on the subway, but apparently, this is a rule.
我很惊讶，首先是她在和我说话，而且你甚至不能在地铁上喝水，但显然，这是一条规则。
Supposedly, most people are relaxed about it, and not everybody will get up all in your grill like that old lady did, but that rule did surprise me.
据说，大多数人对此都很放松，并不是每个人都会像那位老太太那样在烤架上站起来，但这条规则确实让我感到惊讶。
I’m not sure what the reasoning is.
我不确定原因是什么。
It surprises me how Japanese a lot of Taiwanese infrastructure feels, including the subway, the way the electric lines are laid out, the way many of the streets or corners or intersections look and feel.
日本很多台湾基础设施的感觉让我感到惊讶，包括地铁、电线的布局方式、许多街道、角落或十字路口的外观和感觉。
It’s more Japanese in origin than I would have ever thought until I went.
在我去之前，它比我想象的更具有日本血统。
Would you prefer the food in Taipei or Beijing if you had to choose?
如果必须选择，你更喜欢台北还是北京的美食？
I haven’t lived in Beijing since 2015, so I couldn’t say.
我从2015年开始就没有在北京住过，所以我不能说。
I do think the food in Taipei was incredible, and I miss it every day.
我确实觉得台北的食物棒极了，我每天都想念它。
I very much like western Chinese food and Sichuan and Yunnan.
我非常喜欢中西餐和四川、云南。
Those, to me, are better represented in Beijing.
对我来说，这些在北京得到了更好的体现。
It may have changed since I’ve been there, but I don’t think it has.
自从我去过那里以来，它可能已经改变了，但我认为没有改变。
If anything, there’s probably more of it, so I would vote for Beijing.
如果有的话，可能还有更多，所以我会投票给北京。
It’s the one place in China where you can get food from almost all other parts of China.
这是中国唯一一个可以从中国几乎所有其他地方获得食物的地方。
Maybe.
或许。
I do remember eating very well when I was in Beijing, but I was especially delighted with the soybean pudding in Taipei because that’s a little difficult to get here in the States.
我记得在北京的时候吃得很好，但我特别喜欢台北的豆花，因为在美国有点难吃。
I recall that even at the local dim sum restaurant, you can only get it on Sundays at specific hours.
我记得即使是在当地的点心店，也只能在周日的特定时间才能吃到。
In Taipei, it’s everywhere, and it’s so inexpensive.
在台北，到处都是，而且很便宜。
There were weeks where I had it for breakfast every single day, and it was marvelous.
有几个星期我每天都把它当早餐，真是太棒了。
Going back to the distant past, what is it about the 1830s in Victorian England that you find so interesting?
回到遥远的过去，1830 年代的英国维多利亚时代有什么让您如此感兴趣的地方？
Everyone has such a preference for the late 19th century.
每个人对19世纪末都有这样的偏爱。
When we think about the Victorian era and contemporary film and novels that are set in the Victorian era, they’re all post the Industrial Revolution, they’re post Dickens, they’re post the inventions of all sorts of technologies that linger in our imagination as the steampunk Victorian-era aesthetics.
当我们思考维多利亚时代以及以维多利亚时代为背景的当代电影和小说时，它们都是后工业革命的，它们是后狄更斯的，它们是后各种技术的发明的，这些技术在我们的想象中以蒸汽朋克维多利亚时代的美学的形式徘徊。
When I was drafting Babel and doing some research into what technologies existed, what my characters’ lives would have been like, I was at first disappointed to find that I couldn’t rely on shows like Penny Dreadful, things set in the late 19th century because a lot of that stuff had not been invented yet.
当我起草 Babel 并对存在的技术、我的角色的生活会是什么样子进行一些研究时，我一开始很失望地发现我不能依赖像《Penny Dreadful》这样的电视剧，这些剧的背景设定在 19 世纪末，因为很多东西还没有被发明出来。
The reason why is because the Industrial Revolution was really kicking off in the early half of the 20th century.
之所以如此，是因为工业革命真正拉开帷幕是在20世纪上半叶。
As I sat with that for a while, I realized I should not be so disappointed to be on the early end of the Victorians, but rather that this too was an era of incredible change and also the start of incredible social inequality.
当我思考这个问题一段时间后，我意识到我不应该对维多利亚时代的早期结束感到如此失望，而这也是一个令人难以置信的变化的时代，也是令人难以置信的社会不平等的开始。
This is when the movements that later Disraeli and Gaskell and Dickens were describing — this is the seed of all that tremendous social change.
这就是后来迪斯雷利、加斯凯尔和狄更斯所描述的运动——这是所有巨大社会变革的种子。
Why do you think that British imperialism worked so much better in Singapore and Hong Kong than most of the rest of the world?
你认为为什么英帝国主义在新加坡和香港比世界其他地方表现得更好？
What do you mean by work so much better?
工作好得多是什么意思？
Singapore today, per capita — it’s a richer nation than the United States.
今天的新加坡，按人均计算，是一个比美国更富裕的国家。
It’s hard to think, “I’d rather go back and redo that whole history.” If you’re a Singaporean today, I think most of them would say, “We’ll take what we got.
很难想象，“我宁愿回去重做整个历史。”如果你今天是新加坡人，我想他们中的大多数人都会说：“我们会拿走我们所得到的。
It was far from perfect along the way, but it worked out very well for us.” People in Sierra Leone would not say the same thing, right?
一路走来，它远非完美，但对我们来说效果非常好。”塞拉利昂人不会说同样的话，对吧？
Hong Kong did much better under Britain than it had done under China.
香港在英国统治下的表现比在中国统治下要好得多。
Now that it’s back in the hands of China, it seems to be doing worse again, so it seems Hong Kong was better off under imperialism.
现在它又回到了中国的手中，它的表现似乎又变得更糟了，所以香港在帝国主义的统治下似乎过得更好。
It’s true that there is a lot of contemporary nostalgia for the colonial era, and that would take hours and hours to unpack.
确实，当代人对殖民时代有很多怀旧之情，而这需要花上好几个小时才能解开。
I guess I would say two things.
我想我会说两件事。
The first is that I am very hesitant to make arguments about a historical counterfactual such as, “Oh, if it were not for the British Empire, would Singapore have the economy it does today?” Or “would Hong Kong have the culture it does today?” Because we don’t really know.
首先，我非常犹豫是否要对历史反事实提出论点，例如“哦，如果没有大英帝国，新加坡会拥有今天的经济吗？”或者“香港会有今天的文化吗？”因为我们真的不知道。
Also, I think these broad comparisons of colonial history are very hard to do, as well, because the methods of extraction and the pervasiveness and techniques of colonial rule were also different from place to place.
另外，我认为对殖民历史进行广泛的比较也很难进行，因为不同地方的榨取方式、殖民统治的普遍性和技术也不同。
It feels like a useless comparison to say, “Oh, why has Hong Kong prospered under British rule while India hasn’t?” Et cetera.
“哦，为什么香港在英国统治下繁荣，而印度却没有？”这样的比较感觉毫无用处。等等。
It seems, if anywhere we know, it’s Hong Kong.
如果我们知道有什么地方的话，那就是香港了。
You can look at Guangzhou — it’s a fairly close comparator.
你可以看看广州 ——这是一个相当接近的比较。
Until very recently, Hong Kong was much, much richer than Guangzhou.
直到最近，香港还比广州富裕得多。
Without the British, it would be reasonable to assume living standards in Hong Kong would’ve been about those of the rest of Southern China, right?
如果没有英国人，我们可以合理地假设香港的生活水平与中国南方其他地区的生活水平相当，对吗？
It would be weird to think it would be some extreme outlier.
如果认为这会是一些极端的异常值，那就很奇怪了。
None others of those happened in the rest of China.
其他这些情况都没有发生在中国其他地区。
Isn’t that close to a natural experiment?
这不是很接近自然实验吗？
Not a controlled experiment, but a pretty clear comparison?
不是对照实验，而是相当清晰的比较？
Maybe.
或许。
Again, I’m not a historian, so I don’t have a lot to say about this.
再说一次，我不是历史学家，所以对此我没什么可说的。
I just think it’s pretty tricky to argue that places prospered solely due to British presence when, without the British, there are lots of alternate ways things could have gone, and we just don’t know.
我只是认为，争论这些地方的繁荣完全是由于英国的存在是相当棘手的，因为如果没有英国，事情可能会有很多其他的发展方式，而我们只是不知道。
On co-authoring
关于共同创作
Your book Yellowface — quite a bit of the plot revolves around what one might call a co-authored novel.
你的书《黄脸》——相当多的情节都是围绕着一部合着小说展开的。
Why are there not more co-authored novels?
为什么没有更多合着的小说？
There are plenty of co-authored works in scholarship, often to the benefit of the work.
学术界有很多合着的作品，通常都是为了工作的利益。
Certainly, movies and television, by their nature, are co-authored.
当然，电影和电视本质上是共同创作的。
A lot of great music, most great music is done in groups rather than, oh, just Bob Dylan, though he’s wonderful.
很多伟大的音乐，大多数伟大的音乐都是集体创作的，而不是，哦，只有鲍勃·迪伦，尽管他很棒。
What is it about fiction that makes co-authorship so difficult?
小说为何让合着变得如此困难？
Perhaps just that writers are impossible to work with and will become possessive and act like divas about their creative territory.
也许只是因为作家们无法合作，并且会变得占有欲强，在他们的创作领域表现得像个女主角。
I don’t play in a band, so I don’t know if writing music as part of a group is different in that everyone has their designated roles, like the vocalist focuses on the vocals, the guitarist focuses on the guitar, et cetera.
我没有在乐队中演奏，所以我不知道作为一个团体的一部分写音乐是否有所不同，因为每个人都有自己指定的角色，比如主唱专注于人声，吉他手专注于吉他等等。
Maybe watching that Beatles documentary would help with this, actually.
实际上，也许观看披头士乐队的纪录片会对此有所帮助。
But the problem with co-writing a book is that it’s really hard to designate who’s in charge of what when all the pieces are constantly in flux, and at least my writing process means that anything can change at any given moment.
但共同撰写一本书的问题在于，当所有内容都在不断变化时，很难指定谁负责什么，至少我的写作过程意味着任何事情都可能在任何特定时刻发生变化。
A sentence that I really like in act 3 might mean that I go back and change any number of things about act 1.
我在第三幕中非常喜欢的一句话可能意味着我会回去改变第一幕中的许多事情。
First of all, logistically, that just makes it a nightmare for the other person, to keep announcing that you’ve changed your mind about the direction of the book.
首先，从逻辑上讲，不断宣布你改变了对这本书的方向的想法，这对其他人来说只是一场噩梦。
Unless you are writing a book such as, for instance, This Is How You Lose the Time War, which is told in an epistolary format where the two co-authors just wrote the two different perspectives of the two main characters.
除非你正在写一本书，例如《这就是你如何输掉时间战争》，这本书以书信体的形式讲述，两位合著者只是写了两个主角的两种不同视角。
Aside from cases where the narrative chunks are very clearly delineated, I think it becomes almost impossible to merge your voices into an organic whole while taking into account the multiple changes and creative differences that are going to crop up along the way.
除了叙事块被非常清晰地描绘出来的情况之外，我认为几乎不可能将你们的声音合并成一个有机的整体，同时考虑到一路上会出现的多重变化和创造性差异。
I’m so territorial and persnickety about my work that I refuse to show early drafts to anybody until there’s a fairly clean initial version that we can then hack apart and make edits to.
我对自己的工作非常有领地意识和挑剔，所以我拒绝向任何人展示早期草稿，直到有一个相当干净的初始版本，然后我们可以对其进行分解和编辑。
But if somebody asked me to co-write a novel with somebody else, only one of us would be alive at the end of the process.
但如果有人要求我与其他人共同写一本小说，那么最终我们中只有一个人会活着。
You could appoint a dictator, someone in charge, and have that settled by contract.
你可以任命一个独裁者，一个负责人，并通过合同解决这个问题。
One of you pays the other some share of the royalties, and you could have the final word.
你们中的一个向另一方支付一定份额的版税，你们可以拥有最终决定权。
I’ve co-authored plenty of things.
我与人合着了很多东西。
Never fiction, not deliberately fiction at least, and they’ve all worked out great in fact.
绝不是虚构，至少不是故意虚构，事实上，它们都取得了很好的效果。
I’m sure that it’s much easier to do with nonfiction.
我确信用非小说类作品来做到这一点要容易得多。
I also can only speak for my own relationship to writing.
我也只能谈谈我自己与写作的关系。
I’m sure there are lots of other authors who would happily work with co-authors, but it is such an intimate process that involves a deep understanding of every character and also a deep understanding of yourself.
我相信还有很多其他作者很乐意与合著者合作，但这是一个如此亲密的过程，需要对每个角色的深刻理解，也需要对自己的深刻理解。
I think that I become a different person with each novel I write, and everything is a bit like therapy in a sense.
我认为我写的每部小说都会让我变成一个不同的人，从某种意义上说，一切都有点像治疗。
Not that I’m exactly chronicling my emotional journeys, but they have to do with what’s troubling me at the time and what questions are acutely bothering me.
并不是说我完全在记录我的情感旅程，而是它们与当时困扰我的事情以及哪些问题严重困扰我有关。
To split this psychological burden across two people would mean that not only do we have to clarify our relationships to the text, but we’d also have to clarify our relationships to each other.
将这种心理负担分摊给两个人意味着我们不仅必须澄清我们与文本的关系，而且还必须澄清我们彼此之间的关系。
So yes, we would end up killing each other or getting married, I think, and I’m already getting married, so that’s not interesting to me.
所以是的，我想我们最终会互相残杀或结婚，而我已经结婚了，所以这对我来说并不有趣。
Another theme in Yellowface — why is it that the internet brings out the mean side of people so much?
《黄脸》的另一个主题——“为什么互联网如此暴露出人们的卑鄙一面？”
Why do you think this is the case?
您认为为什么会出现这种情况？
I’ve thought about it a long time.
我想了很久。
I don’t feel I understand it very well, but it could be that we’re naturally somewhat mean and judgmental, and there’s something softening about face-to-face contact, but it’s the absence of the face-to-face contact that matters, not because it’s the internet.
我觉得我不太理解这一点，但这可能是因为我们天生有点刻薄和评判性，面对面的接触会让人变得软化，但重要的是缺乏面对面的接触，而不是因为有互联网。
That’s the closest I’ve come to an answer — that our internet selves are not so far from our real selves, and the other is an adjustment that we’re used to making to live in civilized society.
这是我得到的最接近的答案——我们的网络自我与真实的自我并没有那么远，另一个是我们习惯于生活在文明社会中所做的调整。
I think that’s right.
我认为这是对的。
There is the protection of anonymity.
有匿名保护。
If you’re just a string of letters, you can spew whatever you want and not deal with the consequences the same way you would if you were sitting next to somebody in real life.
如果你只是一串字母，你可以随心所欲地吐出任何东西，而不必像现实生活中坐在某人旁边那样处理后果。
I think another complicating factor is that the internet is so distracting, and it doesn’t encourage us to think in nuance or to slow down or consider multiple sides of a problem.
我认为另一个复杂的因素是互联网是如此分散注意力，它不鼓励我们细致入微地思考或放慢速度或考虑问题的多个方面。
It is an immense amount of stimulation all at once that rewards quick, easy, reductive judgments.
这是一次巨大的刺激，奖励快速、简单、简化的判断。
This is how many tweets go viral.
这就是有多少推文被疯传。
They’re very funny, but they also use a shorthand to capture some kind of emotion or quick judgment statement about a problem, and usually, it’s problems that resist and are very vulnerable to these quick judgment statements.
他们很有趣，但他们也使用速记来捕捉某种情感或对问题的快速判断陈述，通常，问题会抵制并且非常容易受到这些快速判断陈述的影响。
When you look at everything in binary, reductive terms, then of course, tribalism becomes a threat, and it’s easy to devolve into the easiest cruelest judgments about others rather than considering that even people you disagree deeply with might have a point.
当你以二元、简化的方式看待一切时，部落主义当然会成为一种威胁，而且很容易陷入对他人最简单、最残酷的判断，而不是考虑到即使是你极不同意的人也可能有道理。
From one of your short stories in From a Certain Point of View: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back — why don’t imperial walkers have a lower center of gravity?
从你的一篇短篇小说《从某种角度来看：星球大战、帝国反击战》中——“为什么帝国步行者的重心不低？”
I don’t know.
我不知道。
You have to ask their engineers.
你得问他们的工程师。
I understand almost nothing about the manufacture of spaceships, but —
我对宇宙飞船的制造几乎一无所知，但是 ——
They have these little spindly legs, and they fire these very weak charges.
它们有细长的小腿，发射的电荷非常微弱。
And presumably they’re shooting at things on the ground, so they don’t need to be up that high.
大概他们是在射击地面上的东西，所以他们不需要那么高。
If anything, that makes the charges weaker.
如果说有什么不同的话，那就是这使得指控变得更弱。
I don’t know, I just think it looks really fun on screen.
我不知道，我只是觉得它在屏幕上看起来很有趣。
I think there’s something to be said for spaceships or alien craft that resemble animals to us because it’s an easy pattern that we can fit them to in terms of how they move and how we assess them as threats.
我认为对于我们来说类似于动物的宇宙飞船或外星飞船是有道理的，因为这是一种简单的模式，我们可以根据它们的移动方式以及我们如何将它们评估为威胁来适应它们。
Also, importantly, it gives an easy solution for low-tech rebels to attack.
此外，重要的是，它为低技术叛乱分子的攻击提供了一个简单的解决方案。
Some questions about your own history.
关于您自己的历史的一些问题。
How do you feel it influenced you to grow up in Dallas?
您觉得在达拉斯长大对您有何影响？
Well, for a long time, I had a bit of a southern twang in my English, and my parents were very tickled by this.
嗯，很长一段时间，我的英语带有一点南方口音，我的父母对此感到非常高兴。
Well, first I had a pretty obvious Chinese accent, and then as I spent more time in American public schools, I lost that and developed quite a Texan accent.
嗯，一开始我有很明显的中国口音，然后随着我在美国公立学校待的时间越来越长，我就失去了这种口音，并发展出了相当明显的德克萨斯口音。
They thought it was the funniest thing in the world, so sometimes they would have dinner parties and invite their Chinese American friends, and they would ask my sister and I to come downstairs and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the most exaggerated Texan accent we could, and everyone thought it was great fun.
他们认为这是世界上最有趣的事情，所以有时他们会举办晚宴并邀请他们的华裔美国朋友，他们会请我和姐姐下楼，用我们能做到的最夸张的德克萨斯口音背诵效忠誓词，每个人都认为这很有趣。
There’s some deeper point here about identity and accents and linguistic play, but that’s just the first thing that comes to mind.
这里有一些关于身份、口音和语言游戏的更深层次的观点，但这只是我首先想到的事情。
On debate
关于辩论
How is it you think that doing so much debate influenced your writing?
您认为进行如此多的辩论对您的写作有何影响？
I am still friends with a lot of debate coaches.
我仍然是很多辩论教练的朋友。
A lot of the folks who I competed against or was on a debate team with — they still work in debate education, and they coach debates.
许多与我竞争或与我一起参加辩论队的人——他们仍然从事辩论教育工作，并指导辩论。
We actually have a lot of conversations about how we think it benefits high schoolers, how it trains us to think what debate is good for and also what debate is not good for.
实际上，我们进行了很多讨论，讨论辩论如何使高中生受益，如何训练我们思考辩论有什么好处，以及辩论没有什么好处。
I think there are two main benefits I took from debate.
我认为我从辩论中获得了两个主要好处。
The first is that I’ve never been afraid of public speaking, at least not since ninth grade.
首先，我从不害怕公开演讲，至少从九年级开始就这样。
This is a tremendous advantage, especially if you’re being sent out on a book tour.
这是一个巨大的优势，尤其是当你被派去进行图书巡回演出时。
It is really good not to get stage fright before you step out in front of hundreds of people.
在数百人面前走出来之前不要怯场，这真的很好。
The second thing I took away from debate is this electric sense of knowing when you’ve connected with an audience, especially in the final speeches, when you have to tie everything together and you only have three minutes to make all your most important points, and especially later on in a tournament where the rooms might be packed with spectators.
我从辩论中学到的第二件事是，当你与观众建立联系时，尤其是在最后的演讲中，当你必须将所有内容联系在一起并且你只有三分钟的时间来提出所有最重要的观点时，尤其是在比赛后期，房间可能挤满了观众，这种强烈的了解感。
You have this spidey sense of when a sentence you’ve just uttered resonates with the crowd.
当你刚刚说出的一句话引起了人群的共鸣时，你会有一种微妙的感觉。
You can feel the crowd’s energy.
你可以感受到人群的能量。
You know exactly what to say that will get people on your side.
你清楚地知道该说什么才能让人们站在你一边。
You know how to phrase things in the most concise and effectively compelling way.
您知道如何以最简洁、最有效、最引人注目的方式表达事物。
Which is not to say I’m always very good at this, but I always knew when I had done it successfully.
这并不是说我总是很擅长，但我总是知道什么时候我成功了。
I think that translates into writing compelling fiction because you know when you’re boring the audience.
我认为这可以转化为写出引人入胜的小说，因为你知道什么时候你会让观众感到无聊。
You know when you’ve gone on too long about a tangent that nobody really cares about.
你知道当你在没有人真正关心的切线上聊得太久的时候。
You have that ticking clock in the back of your head, and you know you’ve got to come around and get right to the point, the core, the center, the electric sentence that the reader is really there for.
你的脑后有一个滴答作响的时钟，你知道你必须转过来，直奔主题、核心、中心，说出读者真正想要的句子。
I don’t strike that chord all the time, but I know when I have, and I think debate has been very valuable in inculcating that instinct.
我不会一直引起人们的共鸣，但我知道什么时候我会引起人们的共鸣，而且我认为辩论对于灌输这种本能非常有价值。
Well, you didn’t ask this, but I think there are lots of things that debate is not good for.
好吧，你没有问这个，但我认为辩论有很多事情是没有好处的。
What is it not good for?
它有什么不好呢？
Well, you simply can’t affirm or negate most of the resolutions that high school debaters are asked to talk about.
好吧，你根本无法肯定或否定高中辩手被要求谈论的大多数决议。
I think debate encourages thinking about these statements in terms of the truth and in terms of who’s right or wrong, rather than what are all the sides of the statement and how can we sift through all the voices and conversations going on to arrive at a compromise that benefits the most people?
我认为辩论鼓励人们从真相和谁对谁错的角度来思考这些陈述，而不是从陈述的各个方面来思考，以及我们如何筛选所有的声音和对话，以达成对大多数人有利的妥协方案？
Since the point of debate is to win, you are naturally not thinking about, “Well, what are the things my opponent is right about?” This is not a good instinct to take into college.
既然辩论的目的是为了赢，你自然不会想：“那么，我的对手在哪些方面是正确的？”这对于进入大学来说并不是一个好的本能。
It will make you the asshole in discussion seminars if you are only concerned with being right and getting the crowd on your side rather than seeking the truth.
如果你只关心自己是正确的并让群众站在你一边而不是寻求真相，那么你就会在讨论研讨会上成为混蛋。
It’s especially not good for public office.
这对于担任公职尤其不利。
I think it’s devastating, actually, when we have public figures who are more interested in putting each other down and proving that they’ve done more research, they’re more clever, they have quippier turns of phrase, rather than pursuing some collaborative search for the truth.
我认为，事实上，当我们的公众人物更感兴趣的是互相贬低、证明他们做了更多研究、他们更聪明、他们有更俏皮的措辞，而不是寻求合作寻找真相时，这是毁灭性的。
You once said that your writing is inspired by place and a sense of place.
您曾经说过，您的写作灵感来自于地方和地方感。
What does that mean?
这意味着什么？
Oh, that’s really simple.
哦，这真的很简单。
I just end up writing stories about where I am, what I’m eating, what I’m looking at, where I’m walking, what language I’m living in, what stories I’m hearing.
我最终只是写关于我在哪里、我在吃什么、我在看什么、我在哪里行走、我使用什么语言、我听到什么故事的故事。
I think all writers are inspired by where they are.
我认为所有作家都会受到他们所在的地方的启发。
When I was writing The Poppy War trilogy, or at least when I started, I was living in Beijing.
当我写《罂粟战争》三部曲时，或者至少当我开始创作时，我住在北京。
Then, when I started writing Babel, I was at Oxford.
然后，当我开始写 Babel 时，我正在牛津。
When I wrote Yellowface, this was during mid-2021, so we were all at home and largely existing on the internet, which was the worst place to be.
当我写《黄脸》时，正值 2021 年中期，所以我们都待在家里，大部分时间都在互联网上，这是最糟糕的地方。
Now I’m writing a book that is nominally set in hell but psychologically set in a PhD program.
现在我正在写一本名义上以地狱为背景但在心理上以博士课程为背景的书。
On depression amongst graduate students
关于研究生的抑郁症
Rates of depression amongst graduate students — they measure as being very high today in the United States and also, I think, in England.
研究生的抑郁症发病率——据测量，今天美国的研究生抑郁症发病率非常高，我认为在英国也是如此。
Why is that?
这是为什么？
It feels like it should be this wonderful time in one’s life.
感觉这应该是一个人一生中最美好的时光。
You get to work with ideas.
你可以带着想法去工作。
There’s some chance you’re not pressured to earn money — not true for everyone but for many people.
有可能你不会面临赚钱的压力 ——虽然不是每个人都这样，但对于很多人来说都是这样。
And yet, rates of serious depression can be 25 percent or higher.
然而，严重抑郁症的发病率可能高达 25% 或更高。
You’re in graduate school now.
你现在在读研究生。
How do you think about what’s going on there?
您如何看待那里发生的事情？
Do you work with graduate students now?
你现在和研究生一起工作吗？
All the time.
一直以来。
Absolutely.
绝对地。
I don’t feel it’s true of the ones I have contact with, but when I meet others, I hear about it plenty in other institutions.
我不认为我接触过的人是这样，但当我遇到其他人时，我在其他机构听到很多这样的事情。
To me, my own institution feels very high morale for whatever reasons.
对我来说，无论出于何种原因，我自己的机构都士气高昂。
Do you have a guess about why your students might be different?
您猜出为什么您的学生可能会有所不同吗？
I think they have somehow a greater sense of purpose, of using economics to improve the world, and less a sense of, “Well, I need to write this 90-page paper and make it perfect or no one will give me a job.” Missing out on some of that latter form of social anxiety is, in some ways, bad for them, but it keeps them happier and actually fairly productive.
我认为他们在某种程度上有更大的使命感，利用经济学来改善世界，而不是“好吧，我需要写这篇 90 页的论文并使其完美，否则没有人会给我一份工作。”在某些方面，错过后一种形式的社交焦虑对他们来说是不好的，但它会让他们更快乐，而且实际上相当高效。
So I think sense of mission is the difference.
所以我认为使命感就是区别。
That’s interesting.
那很有意思。
I am tempted to agree with you that grad school should be the happiest time of your life and that really, grad students don’t have all that much to complain about because when you think about the setup, you’re being paid to just read and talk and research about the questions that are the most interesting questions to you in the world.
我很想同意你的观点，研究生院应该是你一生中最快乐的时光，而且实际上，研究生没有那么多可抱怨的，因为当你考虑设置时，你被付钱只是为了阅读、谈论和研究世界上对你来说最有趣的问题。
That’s why you would’ve entered the field.
这就是你进入这个领域的原因。
There are very few obligations other than teaching.
除了教学之外，几乎没有什么义务。
Again, teaching should be a great pleasure because you get to enter the classroom and talk about that which is most interesting to you.
再说一次，教学应该是一种很大的乐趣，因为你可以进入课堂并谈论你最感兴趣的事情。
That being said, there are a lot of reasons why grad students I know today are deeply depressed and pessimistic about their future prospects.
话虽如此，我今天认识的研究生对自己的未来前景深感沮丧和悲观的原因有很多。
The first is that the job market is awful.
首先是就业市场很糟糕。
I mostly know humanities students, right?
我认识的大多是人文系的学生吧？
People who study English literature or comparative literature or philosophy or American studies, et cetera.
研究英国文学或比较文学或哲学或美国研究等的人。
I’m curious if you disagree.
我很好奇你是否不同意。
This might be one difference between the grad students I know and economists, which is that if they don’t get a job in which they’re able to teach and research those subjects, then there aren’t a lot of other all-academia prospects where they can put those skills to good use.
这可能是我认识的研究生和经济学家之间的一个区别，那就是，如果他们没有找到一份能够教授和研究这些科目的工作，那么就没有很多其他全学术界的前景可以让他们充分利用这些技能。
I can think of vanishingly few tenure-track jobs in English and even fewer industry jobs that value the ability to critically read — I don’t know — Jane Austen.
我可以想到，英语中的终身教职职位很少，而重视批判性阅读能力的行业职位则更少——“我不知道”——“简·奥斯汀”。
So maybe that’s part of it: knowing that they are spending their 20s in a field that will not reward them, and means that they probably will have to start completely over in a different career once they’ve graduated.
所以也许这就是其中的一部分：知道他们在一个不会给他们带来回报的领域度过了 20 多岁，这意味着他们毕业后可能不得不在不同的职业生涯中完全重新开始。
I agree that’s a difference.
我同意这是有区别的。
On writing prodigiously
论写得惊人
Let’s say one thinks about you and writing — I’ve never counted the number of pages you’ve written, but it’s a pretty high number, right?
假设有人想到你并写作 —— 我从来没有数过你写了多少页，但这是一个相当高的数字，对吧？
I know plenty of other graduate students.
我认识很多其他研究生。
They have trouble writing anything at all.
他们根本无法写出任何东西。
That’s not you.
那不是你。
What’s the thing in you that makes you so extreme and different from a lot of other people who have trouble writing?
你身上的什么东西让你如此极端，并且与其他许多写作困难的人不同？
Well, for me, it’s a compulsion.
嗯，对我来说，这是一种强迫。
If I’m not writing, then I don’t feel right.
如果我不写，我就会感觉不对劲。
I feel extremely unsatisfied.
我感到非常的不满意。
I am the kind of person who’s really bad at being on holiday, and if I go on holiday, then it must be a productive holiday, the kind where I am up and walking and roaming the city from sunrise to sunset and absolutely exhausting myself because I do very badly at sitting around and twiddling my thumbs.
我是那种不擅长度假的人，如果我去度假，那一定是一个富有成效的假期，那种我起床、散步、在城市里从日出到日落漫步的假期，绝对让自己筋疲力尽，因为我不擅长坐着闲逛。
I think there is a great pleasure in creation and playing around with words and figuring out how not just to express myself but to summarize strains of history or retell myths or anecdotes that I’ve heard in the past.
我认为创作和玩弄文字以及弄清楚如何不仅表达自己而且总结历史的线索或重述我过去听到的神话或轶事是一种巨大的乐趣。
This is just such an ongoing compulsion that if I stop, then that doesn’t feel like rest or a default to normal.
这就是一种持续的强迫，如果我停下来，那感觉不像是休息或默认正常。
The normal state is writing, and I think I’m just built like this, and it’s not a productivity hack.
正常状态是写作，我想我就是这样构建的，这不是生产力黑客。
Some people really want to write, and other people have other hobbies and passions and things that are pleasurable to them.
有些人真的很想写作，而另一些人则有其他的爱好、激情和令他们愉快的事情。
I tell people who want to write they should try to write every single day without exception.
我告诉那些想写作的人，他们应该尝试每一天都写作，无一例外。
They don’t all like hearing that.
他们都不喜欢听这个。
Obviously, it’s not how every writer works, but it’s a good initial test to see whether you really want to be a writer.
显然，这不是每个作家的工作方式，但这是一个很好的初步测试，看看你是否真的想成为一名作家。
Your writing side, which has been very successful, and your scholarly study side — how do those two asymptote together into something that you will keep on doing?
你的写作方面非常成功，而你的学术研究方面 —— 这两个方面如何渐近，成为你将继续做的事情？
Do you have a take on that?
你对此有什么看法吗？
This is an ongoing problem for me because like —
这对我来说是一个持续存在的问题，因为就像 ——
Is it a problem, though?
但这有问题吗？
Sorry to interrupt.
抱歉打扰。
It’s something that I’m trying to figure out.
这是我正在努力弄清楚的事情。
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of value in having published five, six novels on the job market in the fields that I would like to get hired in.
在我想受聘的领域出版五六本关于就业市场的小说似乎没有多大价值。
So there seems to be a significant tradeoff between focusing on my fiction career and doing well in my studies.
因此，专注于小说事业和取得好成绩之间似乎存在重大权衡。
I’m also at a period in my studies where it’s sink or swim.
我的学习也正处于一个要么沉要么浮的阶段。
Either I commit now or I don’t because you can muddle through an undergraduate degree while having your sole focus elsewhere.
我要么现在就承诺，要么不承诺，因为你可以在把注意力集中在其他地方的同时，混过本科学位。
I think this is even true for master’s degrees and the first few years of a PhD program.
我认为对于硕士学位和博士课程的前几年来说也是如此。
But reading for your qualifying exams and writing a dissertation, I think, involves the all-encompassing focus that I’m used to bringing to my manuscripts, and they demand that I’m thinking about those problems every second of every day.
但我认为，为资格考试而阅读和撰写论文需要我习惯于对手稿进行全面的关注，并且它们要求我每天每时每刻都在思考这些问题。
At the same time, I’m on contract for at least three new books at the moment, so this makes scheduling very difficult.
与此同时，我目前签订了至少三本新书的合同，所以这使得日程安排变得非常困难。
The only way I’ve been able to strike some balances in between is to become a devotee of Cal Newport.
我能够在两者之间取得平衡的唯一方法就是成为加州纽波特的信徒。
I don’t know if you’ve had Cal Newport on the podcast.
我不知道你是否在播客上收听过卡尔·纽波特。
No, but I know him, and I know his work.
不，但我了解他，也了解他的工作。
I recently read Digital Minimalism because I was fed up with social media.
我最近读了《数字极简主义》，因为我厌倦了社交媒体。
I found it very compelling.
我发现它非常引人注目。
Then I read Deep Work, too.
然后我也读了《深度工作》。
I know lots of people have strong feelings — good or bad — about all those books.
我知道很多人对所有这些书都有强烈的感觉——“好或坏”。
I think I’m the kind of person who that advice is very helpful for, the extremist approach to deep work.
我认为我是那种建议对深度工作的极端方法非常有帮助的人。
This is just what I do now.
这就是我现在所做的。
I have gotten pretty strict about whose emails I answer, when I answer emails, who I make time for and who I don’t, so that I’m able to spend the most productive and focused hours of my day, which is from 9:00 to 12:00 in the morning, writing fiction.
我对我回复谁的电子邮件、何时回复电子邮件、我为谁腾出时间、不为谁腾出时间等要求非常严格，这样我就能够将一天中最高效、最专注的时间（早上 9:00 到 12:00）用来写小说。
Then, as the hours trickle on after that and my brain becomes more and more tired, I shift to tasks that are less and less engaging until, by the end of the day, I’m just firing off, “Yes, thank you.
然后，随着时间的流逝，我的大脑变得越来越疲劳，我转向越来越不感兴趣的任务，直到一天结束时，我只是开火，“是的，谢谢。
Sounds good,” in my inbox.
听起来不错”，在我的收件箱中。
We have the same most productive hours to the moment also.
到目前为止，我们也有同样最高效的时间。
Do you at all worry, if your writing is inspired by a sense of place and you stop moving around a lot, which might happen in your life, that you’ll asymptote into a single style of writing, or that’s something you would welcome?
你是否担心，如果你的写作受到地方感的启发，而你不再经常走动（这可能发生在你的生活中），你会逐渐陷入单一的写作风格，或者这是你会欢迎的事情？
Because all your books are in quite different styles, genres.
因为你所有的书都有不同的风格、流派。
Some of them you couldn’t easily categorize, right?
其中一些你无法轻易分类，对吧？
Will you asymptote, or does it become a big thing moving outwards in all directions at once?
你会渐近，还是会变成一件大事，同时向各个方向向外移动？
This is not a worry for me because I never intend to settle in one place.
这对我来说并不担心，因为我从来没有打算在一个地方定居。
I like the sense of adventure too much.
我太喜欢冒险的感觉了。
Even if I’m based for nine months of the year at some academic institution, that still leaves the summer to explore and learn and think in new languages.
即使我一年中有九个月在某个学术机构工作，仍然有夏天的时间用新语言探索、学习和思考。
I very much make it a priority to have the flexibility to pick up everything and move to a different city at any stage in my life, and this is what I’ve structured a lot of my life around: having that ability to learn and become a new person and shed my skin every few years.
我非常重视在人生的任何阶段都能灵活地接受一切并搬到不同的城市，这就是我生活中的大部分内容：有能力学习并成为一个新人，每隔几年就脱掉自己的皮肤。
This is not a worry to me because it is the thing that I’ve made all my decisions to allow me to do.
这对我来说并不担心，因为这是我做出的所有决定都允许我做的事情。
On travel
旅行时
Last two questions, and they’re related.
最后两个问题，它们是相关的。
First, if you could be a tourist of sorts, going back into the past, you spend six months in a time and place of your choosing.
首先，如果你可以成为一名游客，回到过去，你可以在自己选择的时间和地点度过六个月。
You automatically know the language.
您自动就知道该语言。
You have whatever immunological protections you might need.
您拥有您可能需要的任何免疫保护。
Where do you spend that six months?
这六个月你在哪里度过？
I am fascinated by the Cold War psyche.
我对冷战心理很着迷。
This might be because we’re reading Watchmen right now, which is a comic book that I’d slept on for many years, and I hadn’t realized what a Cold War work of fiction it was.
这可能是因为我们现在正在读《守望者》，这是一本我睡了很多年的漫画书，我没有意识到这是一部什么样的冷战小说。
I was born in ’96, so all I know from that period is mediated through film and from novels, and it’s just such an extraordinary mindset to think that any moment now, the whole world might go extinct.
我出生于96年，所以我对那个时期的了解都是通过电影和小说来传达的，认为现在任何时候整个世界都可能灭绝真是一种非同寻常的心态。
To be told at school that if you duck under your desk, you might survive a nuclear blast.
在学校被告知，如果你躲到桌子下面，你可能会在核爆炸中幸存下来。
I would really like to just walk around and talk to people to understand how people felt and how people were living.
我真的很想四处走走，与人们交谈，了解人们的感受和生活方式。
Some of that you can still pick up by talking to older people now, of course.
当然，其中一些你现在仍然可以通过与老年人交谈来了解。
You can’t live in it, but it’s not completely gone.
你不能住在其中，但它并没有完全消失。
Yes, that’s true.
是的，确实如此。
Last question.
最后一个问题。
You get to spend six months in the future somewhere now.
你现在可以在未来的某个地方度过六个月。
Imagine you finished up at Yale, done whatever, and you can pick six months and live there, somewhere you haven’t lived yet.
想象一下，你在耶鲁大学毕业了，无论做了什么，你都可以选择六个月并住在那里，一个你还没有住过的地方。
Where do you pick and why?
你选择哪里以及为什么？
The next place, so to speak, unconstrained.
接下来的地方，可以说，不受约束。
Well, I’d like to go somewhere where they speak Chinese because I don’t spend enough time living in Chinese.
嗯，我想去一个说中文的地方，因为我没有花足够的时间生活在中文里。
When I was in Taipei this past summer and living in it for most hours during the day, I felt that pathways were being unlocked in my brain, and my ability to read and interpret texts was improving by huge margins.
去年夏天，当我在台北，白天大部分时间都生活在其中时，我感觉我的大脑中的通路被打开了，我阅读和解释文本的能力也得到了巨大的提高。
But I’ve already lived in Taipei, so I can’t say that.
但我已经住在台北了，所以我不能这么说。
I might just go on a backpacking trip for six months across all of the cities and villages in Taiwan that I haven’t been to.
我可能会去背包旅行六个月，走遍台湾所有我没去过的城市和乡村。
I’ve only been to Taipei.
我只去过台北。
I haven’t been to Tainan or Kaohsiung or any of the other major regions.
我没有去过台南或高雄或任何其他主要地区。
It’s a bit of a cheaty answer, but these are very new places for me, so that’s what I would want to do, and also something that is a realistic journey for me in the near future.
这个答案有点作弊，但这些对我来说是非常新的地方，所以这就是我想做的事情，也是我在不久的将来的一次现实旅程。
The rest of the country is very different, very different from Taipei, I think, at least the parts I’ve been to.
这个国家的其他地方非常不同，与台北非常不同，我想，至少是我去过的地方。
Anyway, Rebecca, thank you very much.
不管怎样，丽贝卡，非常感谢你。
Her new book — loved it — Yellowface, out this year.
她的新书 — 喜欢它 — Yellowface，今年出版。
And she tells us, over time, there will be at least three more books coming, I’m sure many more.
她告诉我们，随着时间的推移，至少还会有三本书问世，我确信还会有更多。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Thank you so much.
太感谢了。
Image credit: John Packman
图片来源：约翰·帕克曼