Best Of 2023: Features
At the time of this writing, Longreads editors have created nearly 650 recommendations in 2023, and just about every one of them can be considered a feature.
截至撰写本文时，Longreads 编辑已在 2023 年创建了近 650 条推荐，几乎每一条都可以被视为一项功能。
However, you’ll find that the stories contained herein are features in the classic sense: marriages of deep reporting and indelible prose.
然而，你会发现这里包含的故事具有经典意义的特征：深度报道和不可磨灭的散文的结合。
Some are light, others emotionally taxing.
有些是轻松的，有些则是情感上的负担。
Their subjects range from subcultures to ideas to life itself.
他们的主题范围从亚文化到思想到生活本身。
And just as they do every year, they represent the very best that narrative journalism has to offer.
正如他们每年所做的那样，他们代表了叙事新闻所能提供的最好的东西。
We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
我们希望您和我们一样喜欢它们。
## When Wizards and Orcs Came to Death Row
## 当巫师和兽人来到死囚牢房时
Keri Blakinger | The Marshall Project | August 31, 2023 | 4,440 words
克里·布莱金格 |马歇尔计划 | 2023 年 8 月 31 日 | 4,440 字
This piece by Keri Blakinger is an extraordinary look at how world-building, through the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, became a form of escape for incarcerated men in Texas.
Keri Blakinger 的这篇作品以非凡的方式展示了如何通过角色扮演游戏《龙与地下城》构建世界，成为德克萨斯州被监禁人员的一种逃生方式。
The story centers around two men, Tony Ford and Billy Wardlow, both of whom land on death row as young adults and meet in the late ’90s in Polunsky, one of the most restrictive death row units in the US.
故事围绕托尼·福特 (Tony Ford) 和比利·沃德洛 (Billy Wardlow) 两个人展开，两人在年轻时就被关进死囚牢房，并于 90 年代末在美国限制最严格的死囚牢房之一的波兰斯基 (Polunsky) 相遇。
Through D&D, the men transcend their utterly isolating circumstances to find both camaraderie and a therapeutic outlet.
通过《龙与地下城》，人们超越了完全孤立的环境，找到了友情和治疗的出路。
Despite death row’s restrictive conditions, D&D crews find a way to play—passing secret notes from cell to cell, constructing handmade game spinners in lieu of dice, and hand-drawing detailed maps and character sheets, the latter of which are included in the piece and offer a peek into the vast worlds they built, and the personas they developed and inhabited.
尽管死囚牢房的条件有限，《龙与地下城》的工作人员还是找到了一种游戏方式——在牢房之间传递秘密笔记，建造手工游戏旋转器来代替骰子，以及手绘详细的地图和人物表，后者包含在作品中，让人们一睹他们建造的广阔世界，以及他们开发和居住的角色。
(Wardlow’s magical alter ego, Arthaxx d’Cannith, was a better version of himself—one that had never shot and killed a man during an attempted robbery.) “Sometimes, through their characters, they opened up about problems they would never otherwise discuss,” writes Blakinger, “unpacking their personal traumas through a thin veil of fantasy.” Like the intricate worlds Ford and Wardlow imagined, Blakinger—herself formerly incarcerated—builds this world behind bars in a way only she can.
（沃德洛神奇的另一个自我，阿尔萨克斯·德卡尼斯，是他自己的一个更好的版本——一个从未在抢劫未遂中开枪射杀过人的人。）“有时，通过他们的角色，他们会敞开心扉谈论他们永远不会讨论的问题，”布莱金格写道，“通过一层薄薄的幻想面纱揭开他们的个人创伤。”就像福特和沃德洛想象的错综复杂的世界一样，布莱金格——她自己也曾被监禁过——以她独有的方式构建了这个监狱世界。
I wondered at first whether to call this piece uplifting, given the fates of most death-row prisoners.
考虑到大多数死囚的命运，我一开始想知道这篇文章是否令人振奋。
But Blakinger beautifully illustrates here the transformative power of storytelling and play, and how humans can come together to spark a bit of hope in the most unexpected places.
但布莱金格在这里完美地阐释了讲故事和游戏的变革力量，以及人类如何团结起来，在最意想不到的地方点燃一点希望。
—CLR
—CLR
## Molly’s Last Ride
## 莫莉的最后一次骑行
Peter Flax | Bicycling Magazine | January 31, 2023 | 8,136 words
彼得·弗莱克斯 |自行车杂志| 2023 年 1 月 31 日 | 8,136 字
Twelve-year-old Molly Steinsapir was riding an e-bike with her friend on a residential street in California called, of all things, Enchanted Way, when she crashed and suffered injuries she would not survive.
十二岁的莫莉·斯坦萨皮尔 (Molly Steinsapir) 和她的朋友在加利福尼亚州一条名为“魔法之路”(Enchanted Way) 的住宅区街道上骑电动自行车时，发生车祸并受重伤，最终无法生还。
Her parents sued the bike manufacturer, claiming it was liable for Molly’s death.
她的父母起诉这家自行车制造商，声称该制造商对莫莉的死亡负有责任。
Peter Flax tells this tragic story exceedingly well by all the traditional measures of feature-writing (excellent prose, delicate tone).
彼得·弗莱克斯用所有传统的专题写作手段（优秀的散文、细腻的语气）很好地讲述了这个悲惨的故事。
But this piece has stuck with me all year chiefly for two other reasons: because it delves into Big Questions about the human toll of rapid innovation, ones that go well beyond the e-bike industry, and because it demonstrates the incredible value of niche magazines.
但这篇文章一整年都让我难以忘怀，主要还有另外两个原因：因为它深入探讨了有关快速创新对人类造成的损失的重大问题，这些问题远远超出了电动自行车行业的范围，而且因为它展示了小众杂志令人难以置信的价值。
Flax used to be the editor-in-chief of Bicycling, and he is himself an avid cyclist.
Flax曾是《Bicycling》杂志的主编，他本人也是一名狂热的自行车爱好者。
His expertise and insight elevate the story.
他的专业知识和洞察力提升了这个故事。
So does the fact that the magazine let him go deep on the mechanics and economics of e-bikes, as well as the community of consumers who know this increasingly popular equipment better than anyone else.
该杂志让他深入了解电动自行车的机械原理和经济学，以及比其他人更了解这种日益流行的设备的消费者社区，这一事实也是如此。
Put another way, this is an insider’s story.
换句话说，这是一个内部人士的故事。
But to this outsider—I am not a cyclist—it still feels both accessible and urgent.
但对于这个局外人来说——我不是骑自行车的人——它仍然感觉既容易理解又紧迫。
It changed the way I view the e-bikes zipping up and down my block.
它改变了我看待电动自行车在我的街区来回穿梭的方式。
Maybe it will do the same for you.
也许它也会为你做同样的事情。
—SD
—SD
## Three Falls in The Alps
## 阿尔卑斯山的三瀑布
Xenia Minder | FT Magazine | December 21, 2022 | 4,475 words
森尼亚·明德 |英国《金融时报》杂志 | 2022 年 12 月 21 日 | 4,475 字
I first stumbled upon this piece last year, in that blur of days between Christmas and the New Year, when time is lost to endless cycles of family conversations and cheese.
我第一次偶然发现这件作品是去年，当时圣诞节和新年之间的那段模糊的日子里，时间被无休止的家庭谈话和奶酪所浪费。
It made enough of an impression on me to not only cut through the haze of over-indulgence but to stay in mind for the whole year.
它给我留下了足够的印象，不仅驱散了过度放纵的阴霾，而且让我一整年都铭记在心。
(As it was published after our “Best of 2022” was released, it still qualifies for this year’s list.) Xenia Minder tells her story to her brother, Raphael Minder—the Financial Times Central Europe correspondent—and I do not doubt that the closeness of this relationship helped the Minders create such a vivid, candid account.
（由于它是在我们的“2022 年最佳”发布后发布的，因此仍然有资格进入今年的榜单。）Xenia Minder 向她的兄弟 Raphael Minder（英国《金融时报》中欧记者）讲述了她的故事，我毫不怀疑这种密切的关系帮助 Minders 创造了如此生动、坦率的叙述。
As the title suggests, it is the story of three catastrophic falls.
正如标题所示，这是三个灾难性坠落的故事。
In one, Xenia breaks her back, resulting in months in a back brace, and in the other two, she loses men she loves—first Erhard Loretan, then Jean-François.
在其中一场中，齐尼娅摔断了背部，导致背部支架需要几个月的时间，而在另外两场中，她失去了她所爱的男人——首先是艾哈德·洛雷坦，然后是让-弗朗索瓦。
I live near a mountain resort, where tales of big falls are part of the mantra, but not three, not with such consequences.
我住在一个山区度假胜地附近，那里的口头禅是大瀑布的故事，但不是三个，不会产生这样的后果。
Searing sentences pull the reality of such tragedy brutally to the surface, with Erhard being found “still tied to my waist.
灼热的句子将这种悲剧的现实残酷地浮出水面，艾哈德被发现“仍然绑在我的腰上”。
I never realized that he had been right there, within touching distance,” while “Jean-François died on the mountain that he knew like the back of his hand.” But while the descriptions of the events are powerful, Xenia’s thoughtful reflections—and her pragmatism and strength—struck me most about this piece.
我从来没有意识到他就在那里，触手可及”，而“让-弗朗索瓦死在他熟悉的山上。”虽然对这些事件的描述很有力，但 Xenia 的深思熟虑的反思——以及她的实用主义和力量——这篇文章给我留下了最深刻的印象。
She reminds us “that key events in our lives are unknown to us, particularly the moment of our death” and comes to see herself as just a tenant inside her own body.
她提醒我们“我们不知道生活中的关键事件，尤其是我们死亡的那一刻”，并开始将自己视为自己身体内的一个房客。
Quitting her job as a judge in Geneva, she starts a new chapter feeling both “light” and “solid,” moving to a chalet on the outskirts of a village—in the mountains.
她辞去了日内瓦法官的工作，开始了新的篇章，感觉既“轻松”又“坚实”，搬到了山上村庄郊区的一间小屋。
Combined with some beautiful, otherworldly photography from Olivo Barbieri, it’s haunting, poetic, and inspiring.
与奥利沃·巴比耶里 (Olivo Barbieri) 的一些美丽、超凡脱俗的摄影相结合，它令人难以忘怀、富有诗意且鼓舞人心。
—CW
—CW
## Hitting Zero
## 打零
Jana G.
贾娜·G.
Pruden | The Globe and Mail | June 2, 2023, | 3,231 words
普鲁登 |环球邮报 | 2023 年 6 月 2 日，| 3,231 字
Jana G.
贾娜·G.
Pruden takes us into the frenzy that is the Canadian National Cheer Championships, a space blaring Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, arcing with the energy of sparkly young heroines who “compete by performing short, highly technical acrobatic routines in unison at the highest energy, with scores based on execution, difficulty, creativity and showmanship.” Pruden goes behind the sequins to discover that while cheer requires much from those who compete, the sport welcomes every body shape and size including “small flyers, lithe tumblers,” and “powerful bases” who each have their own precise and perfect role to play in helping their squad to “hit zero”—cheer speak for an error-free performance.
普鲁登带我们进入了加拿大全国啦啦操锦标赛的狂热，这是一个充满Lady Gaga和泰勒·斯威夫特的空间，充满了闪闪发光的年轻女英雄的能量，她们“以最高的能量齐声表演短小、高技术的杂技动作，根据执行力、难度、创造力和表演技巧来得分。”普鲁登深入亮片后发现，虽然啦啦队对参赛者的要求很高，但这项运动欢迎各种体型和体型的人，包括“小飞行者、轻盈的翻滚者”和“强大的基地”，他们每个人都有自己精确和完美的角色来帮助自己的球队“击中零”——为无差错的表演而欢呼。
“There is nothing quite like cheer, which combines the hyper-feminine aesthetic of a pageant with the posturing and swagger of boxing, the performative flair of pro wrestling, the tribal fandom of football and the raucous atmosphere of a rock concert,” writes Pruden.
普鲁登写道：“没有什么比欢呼更能将选美比赛的超女性美感与拳击的姿态和招摇、职业摔跤的表演天赋、足球的部落狂热以及摇滚音乐会的喧闹气氛结合在一起的了。”
Streamers and glitter aside, cheer is serious—and dangerous—business.
除了彩带和闪光之外，欢呼是一件严肃而危险的事情。
Participants get injured, sometimes severely, while performing their physically and mentally demanding routines.
参与者在进行体力和精神要求较高的活动时会受伤，有时甚至很严重。
Vomit buckets stand ready and a clean-up protocol is in place should the intensity of performance press the buckets into service.
呕吐桶已经准备好，并且如果性能强度迫使呕吐桶投入使用，清理协议也已到位。
Pruden fortifies you with this and oh, so much more necessary (and fascinating!) background information to prepare you for an intense, high-flying finale that will leave you cheering for more.
普鲁登用这个来强化你，哦，还有更多必要的（而且令人着迷的！）背景信息，让你为激烈、高涨的结局做好准备，这会让你欢呼雀跃。
—KS
—KS
## What If the Robots Were Very Nice While They Took Over the World?
## 如果机器人在统治世界时非常友善会怎样？
Virginia Heffernan | Wired | September 26, 2023 | 3,874 words
弗吉尼亚·赫弗南 |有线| 2023 年 9 月 26 日 | 3,874 字
Quick, name the topic you got most tired of reading about in 2023.
快速说出 2023 年您最厌倦阅读的主题。
Assuming you didn’t mention a certain musical artist who managed both a #1 tour and a #1 movie, I’m gonna go ahead and guess your answer involved two letters: A and I.
假设你没有提到某个音乐艺术家，他管理了排名第一的巡演和排名第一的电影，我会继续猜测你的答案涉及两个字母：A 和 I。
(Sure, said musical artist’s name also involves those two letters, but let’s not get caught up in technicalities.) It’s been just over a year since ChatGPT became available to the general population, and in those 12 months we’ve seen everything from “AI will save the world” to “AI could destroy humanity,” with nearly every flavor of equivocation in between.
（当然，音乐艺术家的名字也涉及这两个字母，但我们不要陷入技术细节。）ChatGPT 向普通大众开放才一年多，在这 12 个月里，我们看到了从“人工智能将拯救世界”到“人工智能可能毁灭人类”的一切，以及其间几乎各种模棱两可的说法。
But none of that makes for a good story, and that’s exactly why Virginia Heffernan’s Wired feature was a lock for my pick in this category.
但这些都不足以构成一个好故事，这正是弗吉尼亚赫夫南的《连线》专题片锁定我在这一类别中的选择的原因。
Nominally about Cicero, an AI model created to play the strategy game Diplomacy, the piece contends with AI’s potential less than it does human psychology.
名义上讲的是西塞罗（Cicero），这是一个为玩策略游戏《外交》而创建的人工智能模型，这篇文章更多地探讨了人工智能的潜力，而不是人类心理学。
Heffernan correctly pegs that much of our discomfort with chatbots lies in their ersatz personalities.
赫弗南正确地指出，我们对聊天机器人的不满很大程度上在于它们的仿制品个性。
“An entity that feigns human emotions is arguably a worse object of affection than a cold, computational device that doesn’t emote at all,” she writes.
“一个假装人类情感的实体可以说是比一个根本不表达情感的冰冷的计算设备更糟糕的情感对象，”她写道。
Enter Cicero, and its programmers’ quest to make it unbeatable at a game that is, at its heart, about negotiation.
西塞罗（Cicero）登场，其程序员致力于让其在一款本质上是关于谈判的游戏中无与伦比。
Not deception or guile, but finding a path forward so that both sides benefit.
不是欺骗或欺骗，而是找到一条使双方受益的前进道路。
Diplomacy isn’t an end in itself, but rather a means: how can AI relate better to people, and how can we reach a state of allyship and even trust, something more R2-D2 than HAL?
外交本身并不是目的，而是一种手段：人工智能如何才能更好地与人类建立联系，我们如何才能达到一种比 HAL 更 R2-D2 的盟友甚至信任状态？
(That Cicero is a Meta project goes only lightly acknowledged here, but it certainly makes Cicero’s victory over the world’s best Diplomacy player feel just a touch more ominous.) Heffernan is the perfect writer for this kind of piece—she’s long found the joy in everything from semiconductors to particle physics—though it also may just be that this wouldn’t be a piece in another writer’s hands.
（西塞罗是一个元项目，在这里只是轻轻地承认，但这确实让西塞罗战胜世界上最好的外交玩家感觉更不祥。）赫弗南是这类文章的完美作家——她长期以来在从半导体到粒子物理的一切事物中找到了乐趣——尽管这也可能不会是另一个作家手中的作品。
Either way, consider it the one AI story this year that’s not just thought-provoking, but narratively satisfying.
不管怎样，这都是今年唯一一个不仅发人深省、而且叙事令人满意的人工智能故事。
—PR
——公关
You can also browse all of our year-end collections since 2011 in one place.
您还可以在一处浏览我们自 2011 年以来的所有年终系列。