Ruth Scurr on the Art of Biography (Ep. 137)
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 Ruth Scurr, a historian at Cambridge.
今天我和剑桥大学历史学家露丝·斯科尔一起来。
Ruth’s latest book has received rave reviews, and it’s called Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows.
露丝的最新书广受好评，书名是《拿破仑：花园与阴影中讲述的一生》。
She is also a biographer of Robespierre, has written a wonderful book on the 17th-century British figure John Aubrey, and is a frequent writer for Times Literary Supplement and just about everywhere else.
她也是罗伯斯庇尔的传记作家，写过一本关于 17 世纪英国人物约翰·奥布里的精彩著作，并且经常为《泰晤士报文学增刊》和其他地方撰稿。
Ruth, welcome.
露丝，欢迎。
Thank you so much, Tyler.
非常感谢你，泰勒。
Who was the hero or heroine of the French Revolution?
谁是法国大革命的英雄或女英雄？
I’m going to say it was Danton because he was a revolutionary who saw the error of his ways after he had directly participated in setting up the Revolutionary Tribunal, and before he went to his death, he begged forgiveness for the part that he had played.
我之所以说是丹东，是因为他是一名革命者，在直接参与建立革命法庭后看到了自己的错误，在临终前，他为自己所扮演的角色请求宽恕。
For me, he is a hero because he travels the full spectrum of the Revolution, and he also takes very clear responsibility for what had happened.
对我来说，他是一位英雄，因为他经历了整个革命，而且他对所发生的事情承担了非常明确的责任。
Robespierre is a more complicated figure.
罗伯斯庇尔是一个更为复杂的人物。
By the end of his life, I think he was in no position to be taking responsibility, and for me, he also was far more deluded by the end of his life than Danton ever was.
在他生命的尽头，我认为他没有能力承担责任，对我来说，他在生命的尽头也比丹东更加迷惑。
Is there a counterfactual path where the French Revolution simply works out well as a liberal revolution?
是否存在一条反事实的道路，让法国大革命就像一场自由主义革命一样顺利进行？
If so, what would have needed to have been different?
如果是这样，需要有什么不同呢？
In terms of counterfactuals, the one I thought most about was, What would have happened if Robespierre hadn’t fallen at Thermidor and the relationship between him and Saint-Just had continued?
就反事实而言，我想到最多的是，如果罗伯斯庇尔没有在热月倒下并且他和圣茹斯特之间的关系继续下去，会发生什么？
But that’s not the triumph of the liberal revolution.
但这并不是自由主义革命的胜利。
That would have merely been a continuation of the point they had gotten to.
那只是他们已经达到的目标的延续。
For a triumph of the liberal revolution, that would have needed to be much, much earlier.
为了自由主义革命的胜利，这需要更早得多的时间。
I think that it was almost impossible for them to get a liberal constitution in place in time to make that a possibility.
我认为他们几乎不可能及时制定一部自由主义宪法来实现这一目标。
What you have is 1789, the liberal aspirations, the hopes, the Declaration of Rights; and then there is almost a hiatus period in which they are struggling to design the institutions.
你所拥有的是 1789 年，自由主义的愿望、希望、《权利宣言》；然后几乎有一个间歇期，他们在努力设计机构。
And that is the period which, if it could have been compressed, if there could have been more quickly a stability introduced .
如果可以压缩这个时期，如果可以更快地实现稳定的话。
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。
.
。
Some of the people I’m most interested in in that period were very interested in what has to be true about the society in order for it to have a stable constitution.
那个时期我最感兴趣的一些人对社会必须有什么真相才能拥有稳定的宪法非常感兴趣。
Obviously when you’re in the middle of a revolution and you’re struggling to come up with those solutions, then there is the opening to chaos.
显然，当你处于一场革命之中并且正在努力想出这些解决方案时，就会出现混乱。
Was Crane Brinton correct that all revolutions impose some kind of period of puritanism?
克兰·布林顿（Crane Brinton）关于所有革命都会强加某种清教主义时期的说法正确吗？
I think that depends on what you mean by puritanism.
我认为这取决于你所说的清教主义是什么意思。
If you mean something approaching political fanaticism or a moralistic expectation of not just the people participating in the revolution but also those in whose name the revolution is being carried out, then yes, absolutely.
如果你的意思是接近政治狂热或道德期望，不仅是对参与革命的人，而且是对那些以他们的名义进行革命的人，那么是的，绝对是这样。
That is a necessary part of the revolution.
这是革命的必要部分。
Is that what you meant by puritan?
这就是你所说的清教徒吗？
Yes.
是的。
You see it after the Russian Revolution, for instance.
例如，你可以在俄国革命后看到这一点。
Robespierre, who seems quite rigid, right?
罗伯斯庇尔这个人看上去很刻板吧？
He rises to power.
他掌权了。
He’s not that old; he’s not really a member of the previous elite.
他没那么老；他并不是真正的前精英成员。
Why is it, other than his ability to give a lot of ideological speeches, does he become, at least for a while, the apparent leader?
除了他能够发表大量意识形态演讲之外，为什么他至少在一段时间内成为表面上的领导人？
Well, you’re talking about a very, very short space of time.
嗯，你说的是非常非常短的时间。
That was the thing that struck me most, working on his life.
那是最让我印象深刻的事情，为他的生活而努力。
You could say there was elements of luck and timing involved.
可以说，其中有运气和时机的因素。
He did have a very distinctive rhetoric, the rhetoric of speaking for the people, of sacrificing his personal interest for those of the people.
他确实有一个非常鲜明的说辞，就是为人民说话、为人民牺牲个人利益的说辞。
That was powerful in the circumstances.
在当时的情况下，这是很强大的。
It resonated with some of his fellow revolutionaries.
这引起了他的一些革命同僚的共鸣。
But I think when you look at the period and you reconstruct it on a day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month basis, what you understand is this is a tremendous scrabble, and his ascendancy was always insecure.
但我认为，当你审视这个时期，并日复一日、周复一周、月复一月地重建它时，你会明白这是一场巨大的混乱，而他的统治地位总是不稳定的。
I don’t think it’s correct to ever describe him as a tyrant.
我认为把他描述为暴君是不正确的。
He’s basically one of the people struggling to ride that revolutionary wave.
他基本上是努力驾驭革命浪潮的人之一。
If we think of the thought of Robespierre, it seems in some areas he was extremely radical, but in other areas, such as family and gender, he was remarkably conservative — arguably more conservative than the status quo ex ante.
如果我们想想罗伯斯庇尔的思想，似乎在某些领域他极其激进，但在其他领域，比如家庭和性别，他却非常保守——可以说比之前的现状更加保守。
What’s the principle that delineates where he becomes radical and where he becomes conservative?
区分他在哪里变得激进和在哪里变得保守的原则是什么？
It’s much easier for him, and I think for everybody else, to be radical in opposition.
对他来说，我认为对其他人来说，激进地反对要容易得多。
In the early years of the Revolution, he is an ardent critic of those people who are trying, for example, to defend some kind of distinction between active and passive citizens.
在革命的早期，他是那些试图捍卫主动和被动公民之间某种区别的人的热心批评者。
He’s an advocate of more public surveillance of the debates.
他主张对辩论进行更多的公共监督。
He’s a pioneer.
他是一位先驱。
He’s definitely a radical at that point.
那时他绝对是一个激进分子。
Once he is himself in power, once he is trying to stabilize the Revolution, then he becomes much less radical.
一旦他自己掌权，一旦他试图稳定革命，那么他就会变得不那么激进。
He’s basically recognizing the need to impose order because he is now on the inside.
他基本上认识到了施加秩序的必要性，因为他现在处于内部。
He is a person who has taken on the role and the responsibility for trying to impose order on the Revolution.
他是一个承担起试图给革命施加秩序的角色和责任的人。
Why were the Jacobins, in general, so male-obsessed?
总的来说，为什么雅各宾派如此痴迷于男性？
It’s a very male movement.
这是一个非常男性化的运动。
Ideologically, there’s not much talk about freedom for women.
从意识形态上来说，关于女性自由的讨论并不多。
For all the changes that were made, it seems reactionary on that issue.
对于所做的所有改变，似乎在这个问题上是反动的。
Well, certainly, you have other intellectuals who identify themselves in the opposing group, the Girondins — Condorcet, for example — who, right from the very beginning, is fighting the gender distinctions.
嗯，当然，还有其他知识分子将自己视为对立群体，例如吉伦特派——例如孔多塞——他们从一开始就在与性别差异作斗争。
He is the person who says very, very clearly, straight off from the Declaration, a universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen: it makes absolutely no sense not to extend these to women.
他直接从《世界人权和公民权利宣言》中非常非常明确地说：不将这些权利扩展到妇女是绝对没有意义的。
He’s arguing in a context where there are the usual excuses for not doing that.
他是在一个通常有借口不这样做的背景下进行争论的。
You have very forward-thinking members of the Jacobin party saying, “Well, in principle we would like to do this, but now is not the time,” and “That can wait.”
雅各宾党中非常有远见的成员说：“嗯，原则上我们愿意这样做，但现在还不是时候”，“那可以等等。”
Should we adopt Condorcet’s idea of a mechanical king?
我们应该采用孔多塞的机械国王思想吗？
Why did that make sense to him?
为什么这对他有意义？
Well, that’s a humorous contribution from him.
嗯，这是他的幽默贡献。
Actually, I’m completely with him on that.
事实上，我完全同意他的观点。
I have no problem.
我没有问题。
We have these debates in Britain about the role of the monarch and how important — Condorcet was like, “Hey, you just need an automaton, and you can bring him out or her at Easter and any other time you feel like, Wimbledon or for the football, and it doesn’t need to be an actual person.”
我们在英国有关于君主的角色和重要性的辩论——孔多塞说，“嘿，你只需要一个机器人，你可以在复活节和任何其他你喜欢的时间，温布尔登或足球比赛中把他或她带出来，而且它不需要是一个真实的人。”
I think he was, obviously, being very witty — but he’s a republican.
我认为他显然非常机智——但他是一名共和党人。
He’s one of the first to come out as a straightforward republican.
他是最早公开表态为直率共和党人的人之一。
How was Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments influential during the Terror?
亚当·斯密的道德情感理论在恐怖期间有何影响？
Well, that is a really interesting question.
嗯，这是一个非常有趣的问题。
Actually, I did some work on this exact topic.
事实上，我在这个主题上做了一些工作。
There were people who had been influenced by Adam Smith before the Revolution.
革命前有人受到亚当·斯密的影响。
The Abbé Sieyès is one of the most prominent.
西耶斯神父是其中最杰出的一位。
His archive is full of notes and annotations to The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
他的档案充满了《道德情操论》的笔记和注释。
The Abbé Sieyès has colleagues and friends who have been influenced by him, and they are interested in trying to understand how you think about the stability in a society that occurs naturally and spontaneously and what the gap is between that and political order: how you tailor your political institutions to effectively fit with your expectation of spontaneous sociability or social order.
西哀士神父的同事和朋友都受到他的影响，他们有兴趣尝试了解您如何看待自然而自发发生的社会稳定性，以及它与政治秩序之间的差距：您如何调整政治制度，以有效地适应您对自发社交或社会秩序的期望。
Definitely, they look to Adam Smith.
当然，他们会指望亚当·斯密。
Condorcet’s wife, Sophie, translates The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
孔多塞的妻子索菲翻译了《道德情操论》。
It’s not quite finished during the Terror, but when they survive — Condorcet does not survive the Terror.
恐怖时期还没有完全完成，但是当他们幸存下来时——孔多塞并没有在恐怖中幸存。
He dies in prison, either a suicide or an assassination.
他死在监狱里，要么是自杀，要么是被暗杀。
But afterwards, his widow continues with that translation, and the people who do survive and are interested in social theory build on what they think Adam Smith had already understood.
但后来，他的遗孀继续翻译，而那些幸存下来并对社会理论感兴趣的人则建立在他们认为亚当·斯密已经理解的基础上。
If we think about 18th-century French thinkers, they seem obsessed with a particular theme: the notion of what kind of virtue is required for commercial states to persist.
如果我们思考 18 世纪的法国思想家，他们似乎痴迷于一个特定的主题：商业国家需要什么样的美德才能持续存在。
Why is that such an important question at that time?
为什么这在当时是一个如此重要的问题？
They’re trying to understand the forms of government that are going to fit with the emerging markets.
他们试图了解适合新兴市场的政府形式。
They are very aware that international competition for trade is becoming hugely politically important, and they want to understand what needs to be true about a society and its political institutions in order to fit with those market forces.
他们非常清楚，国际贸易竞争在政治上变得非常重要，他们希望了解一个社会及其政治制度需要什么，才能适应这些市场力量。
As you know, France is right next to Switzerland.
如您所知，法国毗邻瑞士。
The Swiss have no king or queen.
瑞士没有国王或王后。
There were plenty of reports coming from the Jesuits and others that the Native Americans in the New World typically don’t have kings; they might have chiefs.
来自耶稣会士和其他人的大量报告称，新世界的美洲原住民通常没有国王；他们的统治者是国王。他们可能有酋长。
Why wasn’t the notion of dispensing with the monarchy more central to French liberal thought leading up to the Revolution?
为什么废除君主制的观念不是导致大革命的法国自由主义思想的核心？
The physiocrats: they’re obsessed with the king.
重农主义者：他们痴迷于国王。
Why is the king so important to the French?
为什么国王对法国人如此重要？
In the lead-up to the Revolution, it’s absolutely right that there are very, very few people who even consider that you could get rid of the monarchy.
在革命前夕，很少有人认为可以废除君主制，这是绝对正确的。
In contrast to America, they recognized that this is a very well-established, old monarchy; that it’s integrated into the society.
与美国相反，他们认识到这是一个非常完善的、古老的君主制国家。它已融入社会。
They can see that in America there has been an opportunity to experiment with a completely new form of government, and they recognize that they’re not going to have that opportunity in that completely pure form, that they’ve got a monarchy and they’re focused upon reforming it.
他们可以看到，在美国，有机会尝试一种全新的政府形式，他们认识到，他们不会有那种完全纯粹的形式的机会，他们有一个君主制，他们专注于对其进行改革。
That’s the energy that’s going into it.
这就是其中的能量。
The physiocrats, as you mentioned, other groups — for them, the question is, “How do we reform?
正如你所提到的，重农主义者和其他群体——对他们来说，问题是“我们如何改革？
We can take ideas from the republican tradition; we can think about how to maybe come up with some sort of hybrid.” But essentially (for them) it’s a reform project — until suddenly it’s not.
我们可以从共和传统中汲取思想；我们可以考虑如何想出某种混合体。”但本质上（对他们来说）这是一个改革项目 ——直到突然间它就不是了。
Here’s a thinker near and dear to your heart — forgive my pronunciation, but Pierre Louis Roederer: Why is he still a political thinker of relevance?
这是一位与你心心相印的思想家 ——请原谅我的发音，但是皮埃尔·路易斯·王妃：为什么他仍然是一位重要的政治思想家？
Well, he is one of the people I was referring to earlier.
嗯，他是我之前提到的人之一。
He really tries to find a political application for some of these ideas of stabilizing the constitution.
他确实试图为其中一些稳定宪法的想法找到政治应用。
He’s someone who’s giving public lectures during the Terror, and he’s really trying to take his inheritance from the Enlightenment, which includes exposure to Adam Smith but also Montesquieu, Voltaire, others; Rousseau as well, obviously.
他是一个在恐怖期间进行公开演讲的人，他确实试图从启蒙运动中继承自己的遗产，其中包括接触亚当·斯密以及孟德斯鸠、伏尔泰等人；显然，卢梭也是如此。
He’s trying to use those ideas and — how do you say — the landscape of intellectual contributions to actually work through the practical political problems in the middle of the Terror.
他试图利用这些想法和“——你怎么说”——知识贡献的格局来实际解决恐怖时期的实际政治问题。
I found that very, very interesting.
我发现这非常非常有趣。
But what’s his theory of political economy?
但他的政治经济学理论是什么？
Like, why is some particular system more stable in his view, compared to what others thought?
比如，为什么在他看来某些特定的系统比其他人的想法更稳定？
How does the model differ?
模型有何不同？
He has, I would say it’s fair to say, a very optimistic view of political economy.
公平地说，他对政治经济抱有非常乐观的看法。
He’s a liberal through and through.
他是一个彻头彻尾的自由主义者。
He thinks that you need to facilitate the free markets, that if you do that, you will see the principle of work integrate people into a harmonious society.
他认为你需要促进自由市场，如果你这样做，你就会看到工作原则将人们融入和谐社会。
He and someone exactly contemporary to him, Benjamin Constant: they’re both interested in this possibility that actually, the free markets are going to really prosper, and it will be possible to have stable societies that fit with that.
他和与他完全同时代的人本杰明·康斯坦斯（Benjamin Constant）：他们都对这种可能性感兴趣，即实际上，自由市场将真正繁荣，并且有可能建立与之相适应的稳定社会。
A very broad question, but if we look at the Enlightenment as a whole and not just the French Enlightenment, but what is the underlying principle that gives it a unified flavor?
这是一个非常广泛的问题，但如果我们将启蒙运动视为一个整体，而不仅仅是法国启蒙运动，那么赋予其统一风味的根本原则是什么？
What is enlightenment, to paraphrase Kant?
用康德的话来说，启蒙是什么？
For me, it’s liberty.
对我来说，这就是自由。
It’s the evaluation of liberty above all else.
这是对自由高于一切的评价。
I see this most in Tocqueville, because he is, obviously, the first generation who has no personal memories of the Revolution.
我在托克维尔身上看到最多，因为他显然是第一代对革命没有个人记忆的人。
But when he looks back on the Revolution and he tries to explain what has happened and, in fact, to explain not just the beginnings of democracy in France but also, of course, in America, he sees a fundamental conflict between liberty and equality.
但当他回顾革命并试图解释所发生的事情时，事实上，不仅解释法国民主的起源，当然也解释美国的民主起源，他看到了自由与平等之间的根本冲突。
And he is always prioritizing, if he can, liberty whilst expecting that equality will win out as the stronger value.
如果可以的话，他总是优先考虑自由，同时期望平等将成为更强大的价值。
Was Hayek correct that the French Enlightenment theorists were too rationalistic, assigned too strong a power to human reason, and thus inevitably were led down a kind of slippery slope where their liberty was self-undercutting — and that the British empiricist tradition is far superior?
哈耶克是否正确地认为，法国启蒙运动理论家过于理性主义，赋予人类理性过于强大的力量，因此不可避免地陷入了一种自我削弱的滑坡，而英国的经验主义传统则更为优越？
Agree or disagree?
同意还是不同意？
I disagree with that, actually.
事实上，我不同意这一点。
I don’t think you can be too rational.
我觉得你不能太理性。
In that regard, I’m a real signed-up Enlightenment person.
从这方面来说，我是一个真正的启蒙运动人士。
You have to be very careful about thinking — I recognize, of course, there are limits to reason and what it can achieve.
你必须非常小心地思考 —— 当然，我承认理性及其所能实现的目标是有限度的。
I think Edmund Burke was exactly right about that: a profound political thinker
我认为埃德蒙·伯克（Edmund Burke）在这一点上是完全正确的：一位深刻的政治思想家
Ultimately, I think we have to be very careful about accepting, in the first instance, that there are limits to what reason can achieve.
最终，我认为我们首先必须非常谨慎地接受理性所能实现的目标是有限的。
We’ve got to — that’s where I disagree with Burke.
我们必须——这就是我不同意伯克的地方。
I have more sympathy for the revolutionaries and what they were trying to do than he did.
我比他更同情革命者和他们正在尝试做的事情。
Are the origins of today’s woke and cancel culture found in the French Revolution?
今天的觉醒和取消文化的起源是否可以在法国大革命中找到？
I don’t think the origins of it are.
我不认为它的起源是。
I think there are resonances, and I think that’s a very important difference.
我认为这是有共鸣的，我认为这是一个非常重要的区别。
I think you can definitely look at the revolutionary rhetoric, the prescription of certain views, and the radical attempt in the French Revolution to cancel the past.
我认为你绝对可以看看法国大革命中的革命言论、某些观点的处方以及取消过去的激进尝试。
This was absolutely explicit, right down to changing the calendar.
这绝对是明确的，甚至包括更改日历。
They said, “We do not want to continue with this oppressive framework that we have inherited from the church, and therefore, we are going to have a new calendar based upon the natural world, etc.” That’s just one example of the determined attempt to cancel what was, by the revolutionaries, perceived as an inextricably oppressive past.
他们说：“我们不想继续使用从教会继承下来的这种压迫性框架，因此，我们将有一个基于自然世界等的新历法。”这只是革命者坚决试图取消被视为难以摆脱的压迫的过去的一个例子。
Of course, it’s very interesting to use the Revolution as a prism.
当然，用革命作为棱镜是很有趣的。
You can look at it, you can see what happened as a result of that.
你可以看看它，你可以看到结果发生了什么。
You can think about the resonances.
你可以考虑一下共振。
But I don’t think what we see today is directly related or in any sense caused by that.
但我认为我们今天所看到的情况与此没有直接关系，或者在任何意义上都是由其引起的。
What do you think of the common criticism of Napoleon that he lacked diplomatic talent and always had to make up for that with battlefield advantage?
人们普遍批评拿破仑缺乏外交才能，必须用战场优势来弥补，你对此有何看法？
I think that’s part of the anti-Napoleonic group.
我认为这是反拿破仑团体的一部分。
He’s a very divisive figure.
他是一个非常有争议的人物。
You’re going to have people who attempt to diminish him.
会有人试图贬低他。
That would be one way: to say, “This guy is basically some kind of yawp; he can’t negotiate.
一种方式是：“这家伙基本上就是个爱发脾气的人；他不会谈判。
He doesn’t even have great French.
他甚至没有流利的法语。
Therefore he has to start going for battles.”
因此他必须开始战斗。”
I don’t think that’s right.
我认为这是不对的。
I think he absolutely does diplomacy.
我认为他绝对擅长外交。
You could argue that a lot of the battles are started by other people, not necessarily by him.
你可能会说，很多战斗都是由其他人发起的，不一定是由他发起的。
But what we’re hitting here the moment we bring his name up is the very, very polarized attitudes to him.
但当我们提到他的名字的那一刻，我们所感受到的是人们对他的态度非常非常两极分化。
Now, if we view Napoleon’s life through his gardens, which is a main theme in your new book, Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows, what do we learn about Napoleon that we don’t learn by viewing Napoleon through the lens of his artistic emissions: David, Canova, many others.
现在，如果我们通过他的花园来观察拿破仑的一生，这是你的新书《拿破仑：花园和阴影中讲述的一生》的一个主题，那么我们对拿破仑的了解是通过他的艺术排放的镜头来了解拿破仑的：大卫、卡诺瓦和许多其他人。
What’s the difference?
有什么区别？
By situating him in the gardens, I broadened the cast list.
通过把他安排在花园里，我扩大了演员名单。
Of course, you could look at him and his influence on the arts, the high arts.
当然，你可以看看他和他对艺术、高雅艺术的影响。
David, Canova — they enter into my book, but so does a whole cast of lesser-known, literally more down-to-earth people: botanists, scientists, other people in his household, architects, etc. The point really was to have a broad cast but a principle of selection as well, which would enable a more diverse set of perspectives on him.
大卫、卡诺瓦——他们进入了我的书，但一整套不太知名、实际上更脚踏实地的人也进入了我的书：植物学家、科学家、他家里的其他人、建筑师等。真正的重点是要有一个广泛的演员阵容，但也要有一个选择原则，这将使人们对他有更多样化的看法。
There’s a common stereotype of the differences between English and French gardens, that the English supposedly like gardens to be wild, diverse, spontaneous; the French insist on a kind of top-down control.
英国和法国花园之间的差异有一个共同的刻板印象，即英国人喜欢花园是狂野的、多样化的、自发的；法国人坚持一种自上而下的控制。
Almost a mirror of Hayek’s portrait of the thinkers.
几乎是哈耶克思想家肖像的一面镜子。
Is that overdrawn, or do you agree?
这是透支了还是你同意？
I think it was, in that period, a very definite difference.
我认为，在那个时期，这是一个非常明显的差异。
This was a fashion.
这是一种时尚。
There was a fashion for picturesque English-style gardens, which actually also drew upon an Italian and Chinese inheritance; it’s not just that it’s English.
当时流行一种风景如画的英式花园，实际上也借鉴了意大利和中国的遗产。不仅仅是因为它是英语。
But it became known as the English style, and it became very popular in France in contrast to the formal and regulated style, which was associated with traditional French gardens, especially in very grand places.
但它后来被称为英式风格，并且在法国非常流行，与正式和规范的风格形成鲜明对比，后者与传统的法国花园相关，尤其是在非常宏伟的地方。
By the time you get to the end of your John Aubrey book, which is called My Own Life, titled by you, you describe Aubrey as, and I quote, “a wonderful friend.” Could you say the same about Napoleon?
当你读完约翰·奥布里的书时，这本书名为《我自己的生活》，由你命名，你将奥布里描述为（我引用一下）“一位很棒的朋友”。你能对拿破仑说同样的话吗？
Absolutely not.
绝对不是。
And by the way, that description of Aubrey is picking up on my first book with Robespierre where, at the very beginning of the book, I say that he has friends and enemies even to this day.
顺便说一句，对奥布里的描述出现在我与罗伯斯庇尔的第一本书中，在书的开头，我说他直到今天都有朋友和敌人。
Like Napoleon, he’s a very, very divisive figure.
和拿破仑一样，他是一个非常非常分裂的人物。
And that I had tried to be his friend — to see things from his point of view — but that friends, as he always suspected, have opportunities for betrayal that enemies only dream of.
我曾试图成为他的朋友——“从他的角度看问题”——但正如他一直怀疑的那样，朋友有背叛的机会，而这是敌人梦寐以求的。
Actually, my editor was quite nervous about — this was my first book, and she was very nervous about me putting that sentence into my introduction because she thought people might just think this was mad, to try and be Robespierre’s friend.
事实上，我的编辑非常紧张——这是我的第一本书，她对我把这句话放在引言中感到非常紧张，因为她认为人们可能会认为这很疯狂，试图成为罗伯斯庇尔的朋友。
And I insisted.
我坚持说。
It really mattered to me that if you give someone the benefit of the doubt, if you don’t start off vilifying them — even if they have been responsible for the Terror — then the portrait that you construct at the end of the day is going to be far, far more damning because you’ve included the good.
对我来说真的很重要的是，如果你给予某人无罪推论，如果你不开始诽谤他们——即使他们对恐怖事件负有责任——那么你在一天结束时构建的肖像将变得更加可恶，因为你已经包含了好的一面。
You’ve included the things that there are to approve of; you’ve included those sides, and you haven’t started off basically telling people, “We’re going to write a book from this particular position.”
你已经包括了需要批准的事情；你已经包括了这些方面，而且你还没有开始基本上告诉人们，“我们将从这个特定的立场写一本书。”
When it came to Aubrey, I had, obviously, a huge contrast in topics for these books.
当谈到奥布里时，我显然对这些书的主题有巨大的反差。
Aubrey was a wonderful friend, and I felt that being in his company, I had actually — and this is literally true — made new and wonderful friends through him.
奥布里是一位很棒的朋友，我觉得在他的陪伴下，我实际上通过他结识了新的、很棒的朋友。
Because he still continues to attract friends.
因为他仍然继续吸引朋友。
He is just that kind of charming guy.
他就是那种有魅力的人。
And nobody’s really going to say this about Robespierre or Napoleon.
没有人真的会这样评价罗伯斯庇尔或拿破仑。
But Napoleon did charm people, right?
但拿破仑确实迷住了人们，对吗？
That was part of how he rose to success.
这是他走向成功的一部分。
He absolutely did charm people.
他确实迷住了人们。
There’s something I quote in my book that I keep thinking about, which Madame de Staël said about him, which is that his eyes and his smile were never actually synchronized.
我在书中引用了一句话，让我一直在思考，德·斯塔尔夫人对他的评价，那就是他的眼睛和微笑从来没有真正同步过。
She said, “People have said he had a charming smile, but actually, it was more like a grimace.” It wasn’t a genuine smile, and you could see he was calculating what he was going to need or how he was going to advance his purposes through this person.
她说：“人们都说他笑容迷人，但其实更像是一个鬼脸。”这不是一个真诚的微笑，你可以看出他正在计算他需要什么，或者他将如何通过这个人来实现他的目的。
She takes a very, very negative view of him.
她对他的看法非常非常消极。
She says, “Actually, for Napoleon, other people don’t really exist.
她说：“实际上，对于拿破仑来说，其他人并不真正存在。
They are means to an end for him.” Now, she had reason to be extremely negative about him, but she did represent the deep liberal voice of the French Revolution.
对他来说，它们是达到目的的手段。”现在，她有理由对他极度消极，但她确实代表了法国大革命中深刻的自由主义声音。
It’s very interesting to me that although she says people claim he had a charming smile, people claim he was charming, actually what she sees is manipulation and actually a lot of power there.
对我来说很有趣的是，虽然她说人们声称他有迷人的微笑，人们声称他很有魅力，但实际上她看到的是操纵，实际上那里有很多权力。
Insofar as we make history more biographical, how would that bias history itself?
如果我们让历史更加具有传记性，那么这会对历史本身产生怎样的偏见呢？
Well, I don’t think history can be too biographical because, at the end of the day, we are interested in people who went before us and understanding the frameworks of their lives and the choices they made.
嗯，我认为历史不能太传记化，因为归根结底，我们感兴趣的是那些走在我们之前的人，了解他们的生活框架和他们所做的选择。
I think it’s important to be as broad and inclusive in who we are interested in — that is very, very important to me.
我认为对我们感兴趣的人保持广泛和包容性很重要——这对我来说非常非常重要。
Certainly, it was one of the ideas behind the “shadows.”
当然，这是“阴影”背后的想法之一。
It was about the people that Napoleon’s shadow fell upon that I began, really, trying to think about him, to get away from the idea that he is the center, he’s the sun, he’s the ego, and that we can think about history as a series of great egos, great men.
正是关于拿破仑阴影落在他们身上的人们，我开始真正地尝试思考他，摆脱他是中心、他是太阳、他是自我的观念，以及我们可以将历史视为一系列伟大的自我、伟人的观念。
Obviously, that is something I am deeply opposed to.
显然，这是我强烈反对的。
I’m very interested in trying to broaden the biographical approach.
我对尝试拓宽传记方法非常感兴趣。
Many other people are doing this as well, which brings me huge pleasure: to actually acknowledge that every one of these iconic figures was situated densely amongst other people whose lives were actually as important to them as Napoleon or Robespierre’s was to them.
许多其他人也在这样做，这给我带来了巨大的快乐：真正承认这些标志性人物中的每一位都密集地生活在其他人中间，这些人的生命对他们来说实际上和拿破仑或罗伯斯庇尔的生命对他们一样重要。
What makes Keynes’s Essays in Biography so good?
凯恩斯的传记散文为何如此出色？
So there’s a biography of Marshall, of Malthus, right?
那么有一本马歇尔、马尔萨斯的传记，对吗？
Yes, sure —
是的，当然 ——
The Versailles figures.
凡尔赛宫的人物。
Why does that book work so well?
为什么这本书效果这么好？
Well, I’m sorry to say I have not read that book very recently.
好吧，我很遗憾地说我最近没有读过那本书。
I have read it in the past, so I wouldn’t like to tell you, as one biographer speaking to another, what he does so well.
我过去读过这本书，所以我不想像一位传记作者对另一位传记作者那样告诉你他做得这么好。
What do you think works so well?
你认为什么效果这么好？
Keynes puts himself into the book.
凯恩斯将自己写进了这本书。
He was remarkably perceptive as an observer of features he knew.
作为一个观察者，他对他所熟悉的特征有着非常敏锐的洞察力。
With the other Cambridge economists, such as Malthus and Marshall — you can read Keynes’s account as a running rivalry that he’s afraid to admit up front.
与其他剑桥经济学家，如马尔萨斯和马歇尔，你可以将凯恩斯的叙述解读为一场他不敢预先承认的持续竞争。
But he’s always comparing himself to them.
但他总是拿自己和他们比较。
And the Straussian reading of that book is that half of it is about Keynes.
施特劳斯式地解读这本书，其中一半是关于凯恩斯的。
Yes, I think that’s absolutely right, and I don’t have any problem with that.
是的，我认为这是绝对正确的，我对此没有任何问题。
You could say, is he explicit enough about that?
你可能会说，他说得够清楚吗？
Perhaps since Keynes, we’ve reached a state of biographical writing where people feel freer to be more honest about that, to actually highlight it, to say — I very much approve of the idea that the biographer is going to present a portrait that they can of whoever.
也许自凯恩斯以来，我们已经达到了一种传记写作的状态，人们可以更自由地更诚实地表达这一点，真正强调它，说“我非常赞同这样的想法，即传记作者将呈现出他们可以描绘的任何人的肖像。
So if Keynes is writing about people he feels competitive with, he’s going to be motivated to do that in a particular way.
因此，如果凯恩斯写的是他觉得自己有竞争力的人，他就会有动力以某种特定的方式这样做。
I personally don’t feel competitive with my biographical subjects.
我个人并不觉得我的传记主题有竞争力。
Insofar as I would put myself into the text, it is through what I’ve seen rather than, in any sense, paralleling their lives and mine.
就我将自己融入到文本中而言，这是通过我所看到的而不是在任何意义上将他们的生活和我的生活进行比较。
Perhaps Keynes, perhaps rightly, had a much higher opinion of himself.
也许凯恩斯对自己的评价要高得多，这也许是正确的。
Why in Cambridge, in particular, do you think there’s a preoccupation with biography, if you would —
为什么在剑桥，你认为人们对传记特别关注，如果你愿意的话 ——
There isn’t.
没有。
To be honest, there absolutely is not.
说实话，绝对没有。
Who were you thinking of?
你想到了谁？
You, first off.
你，首先。
Well, that’s very kind of you, but I don’t think that —
嗯，你真是太好了，但我不认为 ——
Eminent Victorians, right?
维多利亚时代的杰出人物，对吧？
Yes, well —
是的，嗯 ——
The Bloomsbury circle.
布卢姆斯伯里圈子。
Virginia Woolf!
弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫！
Yes, but they are outsiders.
是的，但他们是外人。
They are absolutely outsiders.
他们绝对是局外人。
Virginia — I was so, so flattered that one of my friends who read an early draft of my book said she couldn’t, at first, think what it reminded her of, and then she suddenly thought it was like Jacob’s Room.
维吉尼亚——我感到非常非常受宠若惊，我的一位朋友读了我书的初稿，说她一开始无法想象这本书让她想起了什么，然后她突然觉得这就像雅各布的房间。
Of course, it’s nothing like Jacob’s Room in so many ways, but I know the resonance thing, and the thought that I was in any way building on the deep and profound biographical achievements of Virginia Woolf — which, by the way, I think they cross the boundaries between nonfiction and fiction, certainly in her case and I’m sure in other people’s.
当然，它在很多方面都不像《雅各布的房间》，但我知道其中的共鸣，并且认为我无论如何都是建立在弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫深刻而深刻的传记成就的基础上的——顺便说一句，我认为它们跨越了非小说类和小说类之间的界限，尤其是在她的例子中，我相信其他人的例子也是如此。
But she and Strachey — I see them as subversive outsiders; I don’t see them as Cambridge.
但她和斯特雷奇——我认为他们是具有颠覆性的局外人；我不认为他们是剑桥。
And I don’t think they would have seen themselves like that.
我认为他们不会这样看待自己。
Do you find it striking how much Virginia Woolf is no longer known for her writings on biography?
弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫不再因其传记作品而闻名，您是否对此感到震惊？
She wrote herself, “Even Dr. Johnson as created by Boswell will not live as long as Falstaff as created by Shakespeare.” Is that true?
她自己写道：“即使是博斯韦尔笔下的约翰逊博士，也不会像莎士比亚笔下的福斯塔夫那么长寿。”这是真的吗？
If biography is not so enduring, why is it so important?
如果传记不是那么经久不衰，为什么它如此重要？
Because it is about how we understand another life.
因为它关系到我们如何理解另一种生活。
For me, it’s a relationship.
对我来说，这是一种关系。
It is trying to find the form in which to capture something that you have been able to see in another life.
它试图找到一种形式来捕捉你在另一种生活中能够看到的东西。
I think that you’re right.
我认为你是对的。
People do know that Virginia Woolf was very interested in biography; they know, for example, clearly, that Orlando is one of the greatest experimental essays on biography, and many of her other writings: they’re so rich and very numerous.
人们确实知道弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫对传记非常感兴趣。例如，他们清楚地知道，《奥兰多》是关于传记的最伟大的实验论文之一，以及她的许多其他著作：它们非常丰富且数量众多。
Maybe we should be more optimistic.
也许我们应该更加乐观。
Perhaps people are very engaged with this.
也许人们对此非常感兴趣。
I really hope so.
我真的希望如此。
She means an enormous amount to me.
她对我来说意义重大。
Should we worry that possibly biography, especially long biography, is the least-read genre today relative to purchases?
我们是否应该担心传记，尤其是长篇传记，可能是当今相对于购买而言阅读量最少的类型？
So people will buy a biography of Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt — they put it on their shelf; it signals something about what kind of person they are, but they don’t read very much of it, if any.
因此人们会购买艾森豪威尔、西奥多·罗斯福的传记——他们把它放在书架上；它表明了他们是什么样的人，但他们并没有读太多（如果有的话）。
Does biography have that problem more than history or fiction or smart nonfiction?
传记是否比历史、小说或聪明的非小说类更存在这个问题？
I doubt it.
我对此表示怀疑。
I think that kind of person probably buys the Pulitzer Prize winners and puts them on their shelf ready for their guests to arrive.
我认为这种人可能会购买普利策奖获得者并将它们放在架子上以备客人的到来。
As an author, well, good luck to them.
作为作者，祝他们好运。
If that’s how they want to furnish their rooms, then that’s absolutely fine by me.
如果这就是他们想要布置房间的方式，那对我来说绝对没问题。
I think one of the concerns is with publishers and their fear about biography — that now people will not invest in reading a long life, and perhaps it’s difficult for writers to get these books commissioned.
我认为出版商的担忧之一是他们对传记的恐惧——现在人们不会投资于阅读长寿，也许作家很难委托创作这些书。
Writers, in general, are struggling very much, indeed, to survive.
总的来说，作家们确实在为生存而苦苦挣扎。
I have an academic job.
我有一份学术工作。
I could not possibly live off my writing.
我不可能靠写作生活。
I need to have another job.
我需要找到另一份工作。
I’m fortunate that I do.
我很幸运我做到了。
I think perhaps there are publishers who would be reluctant to give even a small advance to what they saw as traditional biography.
我认为也许有些出版商不愿意为他们所认为的传统传记提供哪怕是一小部分预付款。
The problem with biography is it’s hard to win.
传记的问题在于它很难获胜。
You come along and you say, “Oh, I would like to write about Robespierre.” And they say, “Well, surely there’s enough books on Robespierre.” “We don’t need another Napoleon book.
你走过来说：“哦，我想写一些关于罗伯斯庇尔的文章。”他们说：“嗯，关于罗伯斯庇尔的书肯定足够多了。” “我们不需要另一本拿破仑的书。
We don’t need another Robespierre book.
我们不需要另一本罗伯斯庇尔的书。
We have many, many biographies of them already.” Then you come along and you say, “I’d like to do a biography of John Aubrey,” and they’re like, “Who’s that?
我们已经有很多很多他们的传记了。”然后你走过来说，“我想写一本约翰·奥布里的传记，”他们会说，“那是谁？
Nobody’s going to buy that because nobody knows who he is.”
没有人会买这个，因为没有人知道他是谁。”
It’s very difficult to pitch the biographical project.
推销传记项目非常困难。
You’ve either got to be saying, “Listen, nobody’s heard of this woman or this guy, and I’m going to write the book that changes that,” and maybe someone will take a punt on it or not.
你要么必须说，“听着，没有人听说过这个女人或这个家伙，我要写一本改变这一点的书，”也许有人会押注，也可能不会。
Or you’ve got to convince someone, “Listen, I know this has been done before, but I want to bring something new to the table.” Well, that’s a tall order, actually.
或者你必须说服某人，“听着，我知道以前已经这样做过，但我想带来一些新的东西。”嗯，实际上这是一个艰巨的任务。
It’s probably easier to just sit there and write your novel and hope that somebody likes it enough to publish it.
坐在那里写小说并希望有人喜欢它并出版它可能会更容易。
I went to the Arlington County Public Library this morning, and there they have it: a separate section called “biographies.” And in that section are all the biographies.
今天早上我去了阿灵顿县公共图书馆，那里有：一个名为“传记”的单独部分。那部分是所有的传记。
But that’s actually a funny kind of segregation.
但这实际上是一种有趣的隔离。
Should they do that?
他们应该这样做吗？
I think about that in bookshops a lot.
我在书店里经常思考这个问题。
I’m not sure.
我不知道。
I think it’s better to integrate them with the history books.
我觉得还是把它们和历史书结合起来比较好。
I don’t want to tell other people, either, how to do their jobs.
我也不想告诉其他人如何做好他们的工作。
Sometimes I go into a bookstore or a library and I’m thinking, “What is this?
有时我走进书店或图书馆，我会想：“这是什么？
Why is it organized that way?” Maybe there’s something I’m not seeing.
为什么要这样组织？”也许有些东西我没有看到。
But I’m always very disappointed if I go to the biography section, because — apart from anything else — it kind of looks so random.
但如果我去传记部分，我总是会非常失望，因为 —— 抛开其他事情不说—— 它看起来很随意。
It’s just like the recent biographies — and you’re jumping between periods.
就像最近的传记一样，你会在各个时期之间跳跃。
I think it would be much more interesting to have, at least with the historical biographies, them integrated by period.
我认为，至少对于历史传记来说，将它们按时期整合起来会更有趣。
That’s what I would do, but I’m not running a bookstore or a library.
这就是我想做的，但我不是在经营书店或图书馆。
As you may know, Daunt Books in London, in fact, organizes by country.
正如您所知，伦敦的 Daunt Books 实际上是按国家/地区组织的。
A biography of Napoleon is in the France section.
拿破仑的传记位于法国部分。
That, to me, seems much better.
对我来说，这似乎好多了。
Daunt’s is a wonderful bookshop.
Daunt’s 是一家很棒的书店。
I’m very grateful.
我非常感激。
It’s my favorite.
这是我最喜欢的。
I’m very, very grateful to Daunt and, indeed, to many other bookstores as well.
我非常非常感谢 Daunt 以及许多其他书店。
One good thing is that bookstores are having some independence and creativity on an individual level, especially the independent ones.
一件好事是书店在个人层面上有一定的独立性和创造力，尤其是独立书店。
They can put unusual combinations together.
他们可以将不寻常的组合放在一起。
They can experiment a bit more.
他们可以多做一些实验。
I think that’s very, very valuable.
我认为这是非常非常有价值的。
Which other historical figure, if you would name one, might we understand better through the lens of his or her gardens?
如果您能说出哪一位历史人物的名字，我们可以通过他或她的花园的镜头更好地理解？
Oh, wow.
哦，哇。
That’s a very interesting question.
这是一个非常有趣的问题。
Coleridge, Hardy, Kipling, Newton, Churchill, someone else?
柯勒律治、哈代、吉卜林、牛顿、丘吉尔，还是其他人？
Well, Hardy — I don’t think we’d understand him better.
嗯，哈代——我认为我们不会更好地理解他。
I’ve been to Hardy’s Cottage.
我去过哈迪小屋。
I’ve seen the remnants there of what must have been his garden.
我在那里看到了一定是他的花园的遗迹。
I think what you have — it is a very interesting question, but the point here is that the method, the idea of doing it this way, came from the material, not the other way around.
我认为你所提出的——这是一个非常有趣的问题，但这里的要点是，这种方法、这样做的想法来自于材料，而不是相反。
So it’s difficult for me because I didn’t .
所以这对我来说很困难，因为我没有。
.
。
.
。
Actually, someone asked me the same question about my Aubrey book.
事实上，有人问过我关于我的奥布里书的同样的问题。
They said, “OK.
他们说：“好吧。
If you were going to imagine a diary based on the historical evidence for another figure, who would that be?” And I was just like, “Well, I can’t answer that because I invented that approach to fit Aubrey.” Actually, even now with Napoleon, I think if you said to me, “Well, your next book has to be in the same mode; you’ll have to do another figure, and it has to be through their gardens,” I would really struggle with that.
如果你要想象一本基于另一个人物的历史证据的日记，那会是谁？”我当时想，“好吧，我无法回答这个问题，因为我发明了这种方法来适应奥布里。”事实上，即使是现在拿破仑，我想如果你对我说，“好吧，你的下一本书必须采用同样的模式；你必须做另一个人物，而且必须穿过他们的花园，”我真的会为此而挣扎。
Now, in most of these conversations, we have a middle segment called “Underrated vs. Overrated.” Are you ready for some of that?
现在，在大多数对话中，我们有一个中间部分，称为“被低估与被高估”。你准备好接受其中的一些了吗？
OK.
好的。
I toss out something .
我扔掉了一些东西。
.
。
.
。
Montesquieu.
孟德斯鸠。
Overrated or underrated as a thinker?
作为思想家，高估还是低估？
Underrated.
被低估了。
He’s my desert-island choice.
他是我在荒岛的选择。
I love The Spirit of the Laws.
我喜欢《法律的精神》。
What is the depth in there that most people fail to see?
其中的深度是大多数人看不到的吗？
They don’t read it.
他们不读。
It’s huge.
这是巨大的。
That’s one reason for it being a desert island .
这就是它成为荒岛的原因之一。
.
。
.
。
Montesquieu is a brilliant, brilliant man, and he’s a true, true liberal.
孟德斯鸠是一个才华横溢的人，他是一个真正的自由主义者。
I absolutely adore that text.
我非常喜欢那个文字。
And he’s also one — I think he’s probably, in France, the very earliest social scientist as well.
他也是一个——我认为他可能也是法国最早的社会科学家。
Stonehenge, as a monument: overrated or underrated?
巨石阵，作为一座纪念碑：被高估还是被低估？
It’s a megalith, right?
这是一块巨石，对吧？
Stonehenge could never ever be too overrated.
巨石阵永远不会被高估。
It is so important.
这非常重要。
I am part of the dismayed group of people who are having to fight and trying to fight this plan to sink a tunnel under Stonehenge and cause God knows what kind of destruction.
我是一群沮丧的人中的一员，他们不得不战斗并试图反对这个在巨石阵下挖一条隧道的计划，天知道会造成什么样的破坏。
It’s really, really terrible, and the idea that we would do this to those megaliths that we have actually so fortunately — and largely, also, with help in some very important respects from Aubrey.
这真的非常非常可怕，而我们对那些我们实际上非常幸运地拥有的巨石这样做的想法——并且在很大程度上也得到了奥布里在一些非常重要方面的帮助。
They’re part of our posterity.
他们是我们后代的一部分。
I can’t believe that we would underrate them enough to be doing this road traffic system.
我不敢相信我们会低估他们来建立这个道路交通系统。
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, the play.
汤姆·斯托帕德的戏剧《阿卡迪亚》。
I love Tom Stoppard’s plays, and especially Arcadia —
我喜欢汤姆·斯托帕德的戏剧，尤其是《阿卡迪亚》——
That’s my favorite.
这是我最喜欢的。
That’s an absolutely brilliant play.
这绝对是一场精彩的表演。
Everything’s underrated.
一切都被低估了。
Here’s another easy one —
这是另一个简单的 ——
Absolutely, everything’s underrated.
绝对，一切都被低估了。
The composer Robin Holloway.
作曲家罗宾·霍洛威。
He has the office downstairs to me.
他的办公室就在我楼下。
I know.
我知道。
Of course Robin Holloway should be much, much more famous and much, much more rated.
当然，罗宾·霍洛威应该更加出名、更加受好评。
Actually, he is pretty rated.
其实他的评价还是蛮高的
He doesn’t have a bad time compared, by the way, to a lot of musicians and composers.
顺便说一句，与许多音乐家和作曲家相比，他的日子还算不错。
Very often, he has a prom.
他经常举办舞会。
This guy has attention, but I think he should have more.
这个人很受关注，但我认为他应该有更多关注。
Destutt de Tracy, the French ideologue: overrated or underrated?
法国理论家德斯塔特·德·特雷西：被高估还是被低估？
Also underrated.
也被低估了。
I love him, too.
我也爱他。
He’s a very important figure in continuing the development of social science in that early period after the Revolution.
他是革命后早期继续发展社会科学的一个非常重要的人物。
Obviously, you can criticize some of his ideas, but for me, without him, Comte and Saint-Simon — they don’t even make sense.
显然，你可以批评他的一些想法，但对我来说，没有他、孔德和圣西门——它们甚至没有意义。
Here’s maybe the only tricky one: Oxford, the town?
这也许是唯一棘手的一个：牛津，那个小镇？
.
。
.
。
.
。
Yes.
是的。
Yes, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
You don’t have to be polite on this podcast, you know.
你知道，你不必在这个播客上保持礼貌。
I infinitely prefer living in Cambridge, but —
我非常喜欢住在剑桥，但是 -
Why?
为什么？
It’s the way the river goes through the center of the city, for me.
对我来说，这就是河流穿过市中心的方式。
Water is very important to me.
水对我来说非常重要。
It’s the way the colleges back onto the river.
这是大学回到河边的路。
There are many — my college, for example, is divided by the river, so we have some on one side, some on the other.
有很多——比如我的学院，是被河隔开的，所以我们有的在一侧，有的在另一侧。
I think at a certain level, it reminds me of Paris a little bit.
我认为在某种程度上，它让我想起了巴黎。
Whereas Oxford — you have to go slightly hunting: it’s there, of course, but it seems more peripheral to the city.
而牛津 — 你必须去稍微打猎：当然，它就在那里，但它似乎更靠近城市的边缘。
The city seems closer to London — the other thing that’s interesting is in Cambridge, the colleges house all of their students, even our graduate students.
这个城市似乎离伦敦更近——另一件有趣的事情是在剑桥，学院容纳了所有的学生，甚至包括我们的研究生。
We have a lot of investment in doing that.
我们为此投入了大量资金。
Whereas in Oxford, they don’t, not even their undergraduates.
而在牛津，他们不这样做，甚至他们的本科生也不这样做。
And that means that there is a huge market in basic landlords who are making money out of the students.
这意味着从学生身上赚钱的基本房东有一个巨大的市场。
They are housing them in very, very shabby accommodation.
他们把他们安置在非常非常破旧的住所里。
It’s really run down, lots of Oxford, even quite central Oxford, for this reason.
由于这个原因，牛津的很多地方，甚至是牛津的中心地带，都非常破旧。
I think that does make a big difference.
我认为这确实有很大的不同。
I think the colleges and their approach to looking after the housing of the undergraduates in Cambridge is actually a big contribution here.
我认为剑桥大学的学院和他们照顾本科生住宿的方法实际上是一个很大的贡献。
Now, you’ve reviewed a great deal for the Times Literary Supplement.
现在，您已经为《泰晤士报文学副刊》评论了大量内容。
We live in an internet-driven world, and although there’s online TLS, it doesn’t actually circulate that much.
我们生活在一个互联网驱动的世界，虽然有在线 TLS，但实际上它的流通量并不大。
The links are not always open.
链接并不总是打开的。
How would you articulate how and why the TLS remains important today?
您如何阐明 TLS 如何以及为何在今天依然重要？
It’s partly the readership.
部分是读者群。
It’s interesting.
这很有趣。
Academics all over the world really, really care about their reviews in the TLS.
世界各地的学者都非常非常关心他们在 TLS 中的评论。
I remember my supervisor explaining this to me: You can be in a university in Israel and your book comes out, and it really matters what happens to the book in the TLS, in a way in which, arguably, it doesn’t so much matter in the broadsheets or the literary magazines.
我记得我的导师向我解释过这一点：你可以在以色列的一所大学里，你的书出版了，这本书在 TLS 中发生的情况确实很重要，在某种程度上，可以说，它在大报或文学杂志上并不那么重要。
So I think that’s one argument.
所以我认为这是一个论点。
There’s that sense of — it’s not peer review; it’s better than peer review because peer review is always so fraught.
有这样一种感觉：“这不是同行评审，而是同行评审”。它比同行评审更好，因为同行评审总是令人担忧。
You’re basically trying to find people to find fault or something.
你基本上是在找人挑剔什么的。
There’s a certain amount of that in the TLS, but there is also a platform for an international exchange of ideas and books.
TLS 中有一定数量的内容，但也有一个国际思想和书籍交流的平台。
And noting — when I started writing for the TLS, I was — and I still do a lot of fiction for them.
并注意到 — 当我开始为 TLS 写作时，我是 — 而且我仍然为他们写了很多小说。
Sometimes that would be the only review that a first novel would get.
有时，这将是第一部小说得到的唯一评论。
Maybe that person went on to write other things.
也许那个人还写了其他东西。
You look back on that, and you think, “Yes, the TLS was .
当您回顾这一点时，您会想：“是的，TLS 是。
.
。
.”
”。
I remember Mary-Kay Wilmers once saying to me — because she was, obviously, London Review of Books, but she said — and she had previously worked at the TLS, and she said that what she really valued in the TLS was that it was a journal of record.
我记得玛丽·凯·威尔默斯曾经对我说过——因为她显然是《伦敦书评》，但她说她之前曾在 TLS 工作过，她说她真正看重 TLS 的是它是一份有记录的期刊。
And I think that’s right.
我认为这是对的。
Why is Elena Ferrante special to you?
为什么埃琳娜·费兰特对你来说很特别？
Like millions of other people, I was completely captivated by the quartet, the Brilliant Friend, in ways in which I almost haven’t been since childhood reading.
和其他数以百万计的人一样，我完全被《聪明的朋友》四重奏迷住了，这是我自童年起阅读以来几乎从未有过的。
I’m nervous to go back and read those books because I had the most intense, immersive experience with them.
我很紧张回去读那些书，因为我对它们有最强烈、身临其境的体验。
Then I read her other shorter fiction, and I think she is an amazing.
然后我读了她的其他短篇小说，我认为她是一个了不起的人。
I’m reading her in translation, obviously, by the way.
顺便说一句，显然我正在读她的译本。
But she’s a terrific writer.
但她是一位出色的作家。
She reflects upon language, the power of language.
她反思语言，思考语言的力量。
Deeply, deeply feminist.
深刻、深刻的女权主义。
I was absolutely enthralled by discovering her.
我对她的发现感到非常着迷。
On a second read they held up quite well for me, but I would say one and two rose in status and three and four fell a bit.
在第二次阅读时，它们对我来说表现得很好，但我想说，一号和二号的地位上升了，三号和四号的地位下降了一点。
Yes, that I can imagine.
是的，我可以想象。
I can imagine that.
我可以想象。
I haven’t done it yet, so I don’t know, but that makes sense.
我还没做过，所以我不知道，但这是有道理的。
You know there is a recent machine-learning study that suggests they were written by a man, Domenico Starnone.
您知道，最近的一项机器学习研究表明它们是由多梅尼科·斯塔诺 (Domenico Starnone) 编写的。
It may or may not be true, but it’s plausibly true.
这可能是真的，也可能不是，但它似乎是真的。
I find that disturbing as a thought.
我觉得这个想法令人不安。
I didn’t see this study.
我没有看到这个研究。
I did follow the outing of her and all of the controversy around the fact she had wished not to be — her real name to be publicized.
我确实关注了她的外出以及围绕她不希望公开她的真名这一事实的所有争议。
Starnone is the husband of the woman who was outed.
Starnone 是被出柜女子的丈夫。
I’m not really on board with this idea, at all.
我根本不同意这个想法。
Apart from finding it disturbing, I would need very, very strong proof to even start engaging with that.
除了觉得它令人不安之外，我还需要非常非常有力的证据才能开始参与其中。
Is there any proof?
有什么证据吗？
Do you believe in machine learning?
你相信机器学习吗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
A computer says it’s the same style; take that as you wish.
电脑说是同款；就如你所愿吧。
I’m going to be passing over that.
我将略过这一点。
Now a few questions about the Ruth Scurr production function for our final segment.
现在有几个关于我们最后一段的 Ruth Scurr 生产函数的问题。
In one of your essays on Finella, which is the house you work in, you said, and I quote, ‘‘I am attracted to calm, order, and symmetry.” If so, why write a biography of Napoleon?
在你写的一篇关于菲内拉（你工作的房子）的文章中，你说：“我被平静、秩序和对称所吸引。”我引用了这一点。如果是这样，为什么还要写拿破仑传记呢？
Why?
为什么？
Well, he’s attracted to symmetry and order — maybe not calm, but actually, I think he does like calm when he can get it.
嗯，他被对称和秩序所吸引——也许并不平静，但实际上，我认为当他能得到平静时，他确实喜欢平静。
I’m talking there aesthetically, about my surroundings.
我正在谈论我的周围环境的美学。
I have a real aversion to a lot of clutter around me.
我真的很讨厌周围有很多杂乱的东西。
One of the reasons I have so many books here in my office is that I made a deal with myself when I bought my first house that I would only have books in it that I was either working on or would want to read if I came awake in the middle of the night, and that’s it.
我的办公室里有这么多书的原因之一是，当我买第一套房子时，我就和自己做了一笔交易，里面只会放我正在写的书或半夜醒来时想读的书，仅此而已。
That’s because I didn’t want that sense of being overwhelmed by books and them being out of control, etc. Sometimes people are very surprised when they come to my house, and they’re like, “Where are your books?
那是因为我不想那种被书淹没、失控的感觉等等。有时人们来到我家时会感到非常惊讶，他们会说，“你的书在哪里？
We thought you’d — ” etc. But there was something about maintaining an orderly environment that was very important.
我们认为你会 — ”等等。但是维持有序的环境非常重要。
To be fair, in that article, I have caused chaos in Finella in my office in order to have this calm environment at home.
公平地说，在那篇文章中，我为了让家里有这个平静的环境，在我的办公室里制造了混乱。
You also wrote, and I quote, “When I was an adolescent, Wuthering Heights appealed to me much more than Sense and Sensibility, but now the reverse is true.” How did that happen?
你还写道，我引用一下：“当我还是个青少年的时候，《呼啸山庄》比《理智与情感》更吸引我，但现在情况恰恰相反。”这是怎么发生的？
Age.
年龄。
Why does age flip you away from Wuthering Heights?
为什么年龄会让你远离呼啸山庄？
Wuthering Heights is the —
呼啸山庄是 —
It’s over the top, right?
太夸张了，对吧？
— high passion; Heathcliff, Cathy out on the moors.
—— 高度的热情；希斯克利夫和凯茜在荒野上。
I thought that was it: I thought that was what it meant to love someone, to the extent where they’d be visiting you after their death and trying to get in through the window.
我想就是这样：我想这就是爱一个人的意义，爱到他们死后会来看望你，并试图从窗户进来。
Actually, I completely changed my understanding of what’s involved in loving another person and actually being gentle with another person, whoever they are — my children, my relationships with my parents, and other significant relationships in my life.
事实上，我完全改变了我对爱另一个人以及真正温柔地对待另一个人的理解，无论他们是谁——我的孩子、我与父母的关系，以及我生活中其他重要的关系。
I think the Wuthering Heights model has not weathered well.
我认为《呼啸山庄》的模式还没有经受住考验。
How has continuing to live in Cambridge shaped how you think, speaking of environment?
继续住在剑桥对您对环境的看法有何影响？
It’s an enormous privilege to have spent so much time living here and to have brought up my children here.
能够在这里生活并抚养我的孩子们，我感到非常荣幸。
They do — in all seriousness, my younger one now is applying to university, and she’s like, “Oh my God, why did you bring us up in Cambridge?
他们确实——严肃地说，我的小女儿现在正在申请大学，她说：“天哪，你为什么把我们带到剑桥？
We don’t want to go anywhere else.
我们不想去其他任何地方。
We love it so much.”
我们非常喜欢它。”
How has it helped how I think?
它对我的思考有何帮助？
I am constantly making new friends in Cambridge.
我在剑桥不断结交新朋友。
It’s a very vibrant and also, to a certain extent, transient place.
这是一个充满活力的地方，在某种程度上也是一个短暂的地方。
People come — they come for a year, they come for three years.
人们来了——他们来了一年，他们来了三年。
I really have benefited from having the contacts through my college as well, interdisciplinary — I’m good friends with scientists, engineers.
我确实受益于通过我的大学建立的跨学科联系——我与科学家、工程师是好朋友。
I feel I’m living alongside their work as well as my work and trying to understand it as best I can.
我觉得我和他们的工作以及我的工作一起生活，并试图尽我所能地理解它。
Who first spotted your talent as a historian, before you were a historian?
在您成为历史学家之前，谁首先发现了您作为历史学家的天赋？
Oh, I don’t know.
哦，我不知道。
COWEN: But you ended up in your current job somehow, right?
COWEN：但你最终还是以某种方式完成了目前的工作，对吧？
Yes, sure.
是的，当然。
Sure.
当然。
I think — I have a combination.
我想 — 我有一个组合。
Talent as a historian is a very specific question.
作为历史学家的天赋是一个非常具体的问题。
I would say, there would be some of my fiercer colleagues who would be happy to recognize my talent as a biographer and as a writer.
我想说，我的一些更激烈的同事会很高兴认识到我作为传记作家和作家的才华。
I remember my supervisor saying to me — he was a brilliant, brilliant man, István Hont, a Hungarian — he came to Harvard and was absolutely a huge intellectual influence on me.
我记得我的导师对我说：“他是一个非常非常出色的人，István Hont，匈牙利人”，他来到哈佛，对我的智力影响绝对是巨大的。
I remember him once saying to me when I would give him drafts of my work, he said, “Well, you’ve got this big disadvantage, Ruth, because you write so well that it takes me quite a long time to realize that you actually don’t know what you’re talking about.”
我记得有一次他对我说，当我给他我的作品草稿时，他说，“好吧，你有一个很大的劣势，露丝，因为你写得很好，我花了很长时间才意识到你实际上不知道你在说什么。”
That was his contribution.
这就是他的贡献。
I would say he perhaps — there were many different kinds of history.
我想说他也许“——”有许多不同类型的历史。
The first real deep support for my Robespierre book came from Norman Hampson, who was a brilliant historian and had written an experimental book about Robespierre in his time.
对我的罗伯斯庇尔书的第一个真正深入的支持来自诺曼汉普森，他是一位杰出的历史学家，并在他那个时代写了一本关于罗伯斯庇尔的实验书。
We had a very important exchange about that.
我们就此进行了一次非常重要的交流。
Perhaps he was the first to really engage with what I was trying to do as a historian as well as as a biographer.
也许他是第一个真正参与我作为历史学家和传记作家所做的事情的人。
Let’s say a talented young person, a prospective biographer, comes to you and they say, “Well, I’m thinking of having a life where I’m essentially a biographer, with some other job attached, maybe in academia.” You’re trying to figure out, “Does this person make sense as a biographer?” Other than the obvious — hard work, intelligence — what is it you look for in a good or great biographer, to spot one?
假设一个有才华的年轻人，一个未来的传记作家，来找你，他们说：“好吧，我正在考虑过一种基本上是传记作家的生活，并附带一些其他工作，也许是在学术界。”你试图弄清楚，“这个人作为传记作家有意义吗？”除了明显的 ——“勤奋、智慧”——你在一位优秀或伟大的传记作家身上还寻找什么？
You’ve got to be brave and completely open, in my view, to finding the form in which to tell the life.
在我看来，你必须勇敢并完全开放，才能找到讲述生活的形式。
You can’t go in there with a workmanlike attitude saying, “I’m going to do cradle to grave,” or “I’m going to do it this — ” You’ve got to somehow connect and resonate with the life, and then things will develop from that.
你不能以工匠般的态度进入那里，说“我要从摇篮到坟墓”，或者“我要这样做 - ”你必须以某种方式与生活联系并产生共鸣，然后事情就会由此发展。
That would be my advice.
这就是我的建议。
But, you know, I’m not teaching biographical writing.
但是，你知道，我不是在教传记写作。
I’m not sure I would be particularly good at that.
我不确定我会特别擅长这一点。
I have friends who teach creative writing.
我有一些教创意写作的朋友。
I always had the deepest respect for it, but I can’t begin to imagine how you do it.
我一直对它抱有最深切的敬意，但我无法想象你是如何做到的。
I always think of Muriel Spark’s novel The Finishing School, which was her last novel, where she sends up a creative writing course with — and it’s so, so brilliant.
我总是想起穆里尔·斯帕克（Muriel Spark）的小说《精修学校》（The Finishing School），这是她的最后一部小说，其中她开设了创意写作课程，内容非常非常精彩。
It’s one perfect first paragraph, and she’s explaining how you’ve got to set the atmosphere (in the voice of the creative writing teacher) — you’ve got to set the atmosphere, you can say that the visibility is very poor, etc., etc. And she says, “It’s much too early to write, ‘Everything was covered by the (beep) fog.’”
这是完美的第一段，她正在解释如何营造气氛（用创意写作老师的声音） —— 你必须营造气氛，你可以说能见度非常差，等等。她说，“现在写‘一切都被（嘟嘟的）雾气覆盖了’还为时过早。”
What do you do, personally, to stay open as a biographer, if that’s such an important trait?
作为一名传记作家，如果这是一个如此重要的特质，你个人会怎样做才能保持开放呢？
I wait for my subjects to find me, in a strange way.
我以一种奇怪的方式等待我的拍摄对象找到我。
I’m open to jumping between periods, centuries, kinds of lives.
我愿意在不同时期、几个世纪、不同的生活之间跳跃。
I have a kind of adventurous approach to what I might do next.
对于下一步可能要做的事情，我有一种冒险的态度。
I feel very privileged to be able to pursue that.
我感到非常荣幸能够实现这一目标。
I remember when I finished my Robespierre book and I decided I was going to do this Aubrey book, and I was still married to my first husband.
我记得当我读完罗伯斯庇尔的书并决定写奥布里的书时，我仍然和我的第一任丈夫结婚。
He was very kind about it, but I think he thought I’d actually gone crazy.
他对此非常友善，但我想他认为我真的疯了。
I think he thought this was so inexplicable, and lots of people do still say that to me: “What on earth — why did you make that jump?
我想他认为这太令人费解了，很多人仍然对我这么说：“到底是什么 —— 你为什么要跳下去？
Why didn’t you do one of Saint-Just, or why didn’t .
你为什么不做圣茹斯特之一，或者为什么不做。
.
。
.”
”。
Or even if I’d gone from Robespierre to Napoleon, OK, that would have been a certain kind of conventional path.
或者即使我从罗伯斯庇尔走向拿破仑，好吧，那也会是某种传统的道路。
But that is not what happened, and I have absolutely no regrets about that.
但事实并非如此，我对此绝对不后悔。
Last question: What is it you will be working on next?
最后一个问题：你接下来要做什么？
I can’t tell you.
我不能告诉你。
It’s too wild, I think —
我觉得这太狂野了 ——
But you know what it is, right?
但你知道它是什么，对吧？
I suspect what it is.
我怀疑那是什么。
I have to find out if that’s going to happen or not.
我必须弄清楚这是否会发生。
I thought I was going to have a big gap.
我以为我会有很大的差距。
I just got married and I thought, “OK, we came through the pandemic, and I’m going to have a long rest now.” My children are pretty much grown up.
我刚结婚，我想，“好吧，我们已经度过了疫情，我现在要好好休息一下了。”我的孩子们已经长大了。
I’m starting this new life, but then suddenly, I’m starting to think quite seriously about another book.
我正在开始新的生活，但突然间，我开始认真思考另一本书。
Ruth Scurr, thank you very much.
露丝·斯科尔，非常感谢你。
Again, everyone, I loved Ruth’s latest book, Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows.
再说一遍，大家，我喜欢露丝的最新书《拿破仑：花园与阴影中讲述的生活》。
I’m also a big fan of John Aubrey: My Own Life, also by Ruth, and finally, her Robespierre biography, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution.
我也是露丝的《约翰·奥布里：我自己的生活》的忠实粉丝，最后是她的罗伯斯庇尔传记《致命的纯洁：罗伯斯庇尔和法国大革命》。
Ruth, thank you.
露丝，谢谢你。
Thank you, Tyler.
谢谢你，泰勒。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Thumbnail photo credit: Dan White
缩略图照片来源：Dan White