Longreads Best of 2015: Arts & Culture

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories.

我们要求一些作家和编辑在特定类别中选择一些他们今年最喜欢的故事。

Here, the best in arts and culture writing.

这里有最好的艺术和文化写作。

* * *

** **

Shannon ProudfootSenior writer with Sportsnet magazine

Shannon Proudfoot《Sportsnet》杂志资深撰稿人

## The Late, Great Stephen Colbert (Joel Lovell, GQ)

## 已故的伟大的史蒂芬·科尔伯特（乔尔·洛弗尔，《GQ》）

Stephen Colbert has pulled off the rare feat of being a public figure for the better part of a decade while keeping his true self almost entirely obscured behind a braying façade.

史蒂芬·科尔伯特 (Stephen Colbert) 完成了一项罕见的壮举，在十年的大部分时间里成为公众人物，同时几乎完全掩盖了真实的自我。

Here, with such uncommon intelligence, sensitivity and nuance, Joel Lovell shows us who’s been under there the whole time.

在这里，乔尔·洛弗尔以非凡的智慧、敏感度和细微差别向我们展示了谁一直在地下。

The writer is very present in the story, sifting through the meaning of what he finds and tugging us along behind him through reporting and writing that starts out rollicking and then turns surprisingly raw and emotional.

作者在故事中非常投入，筛选他所发现的内容的意义，并通过报道和写作来拉着我们跟在他身后，这些报道和写作开始是欢快的，然后变得令人惊讶的原始和情感。

But Lovell never gets in his own way or turns self-indulgent; that’s a tough thing to pull off.

但洛弗尔从不按自己的方式行事或变得自我放纵。这是一件很难完成的事情。

The word I kept coming back to in thinking about this story was “humane”—it just feels so complex and wise, and unexpectedly aching, buoyed with perfect, telling details and effortlessly excellent writing.

在思考这个故事时，我不断想起的词是“人性化”——它让人感觉如此复杂和明智，却意外地令人心痛，完美的细节和毫不费力的出色写作让我感到振奋。

## Unfollow (Adrian Chen, New Yorker)

## 取消关注（Adrian Chen，纽约客）

It would have been easy—maybe even justified—to slip into a sneer when writing a profile of Megan Phelps-Roper, one of the most prominent young faces of the Westboro Baptist Church, which traffics in an almost cartoonish sort of hatred.

在写梅根·菲尔普斯-罗珀的简介时，很容易——甚至可能是合理的——陷入冷笑。她是威斯特布路浸信会最著名的年轻面孔之一，传播着一种近乎卡通化的仇恨。

It also would have made for a boring and cheap story.

这也会成为一个无聊而廉价的故事。

Instead, Adrian Chen begins with Phelps-Roper tweeting “Thank God for AIDS!” on World AIDS Day, and then lays out how she and the rest of her congregation arrived at their beliefs, and how it was that Phelps-Roper ultimately came to turn her back on almost every other thing she’d known.

相反，阿德里安·陈以菲尔普斯·罗珀的推文开头：“感谢上帝赐予艾滋病！”世界艾滋病日，然后阐述了她和她的其他会众如何达成他们的信仰，以及菲尔普斯·罗珀最终如何让她背弃了她所知道的几乎所有其他事情。

In Chen’s telling, Westboro’s tenets and practices become comprehensible, if still repellent, and a central character who could easily have been a two-dimensional villain instead reveals herself to be intelligent, engaging and reflective—someone you root for.

在陈的讲述中，威斯特布罗的原则和做法变得可以理解，尽管仍然令人厌恶，而一个很容易成为二维恶棍的中心人物却展现出自己聪明、迷人和善于反思——一个你支持的人。

This is a redemption tale for the social media age, without an ounce of the saccharine.

这是一个社交媒体时代的救赎故事，没有一丝糖精。

Doree ShafrirCulture writer at BuzzFeed News

Doree ShafrirBuzzFeed 新闻文化撰稿人

## The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison (Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, New York Times Magazine)

## 托妮·莫里森的激进愿景（Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah，纽约时报杂志）

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s profile of Toni Morrison is both a stunning portrait of one of America’s greatest authors and a keenly felt meditation on race, particularly in the publishing industry.

雷切尔·卡齐·甘萨 (Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah) 对托妮·莫里森 (Toni Morrison) 的描述既是对美国最伟大作家之一的令人惊叹的肖像，也是对种族问题的深刻思考，尤其是在出版业。

The first person can often be trying in profiles, but here Kaadzi Ghansah wields her perspective skillfully and judiciously to show just how significant Morrison’s contribution to the world has been — and why we have no right to expect anything more than what she’s given.

第一个人常常会在个人资料中尝试，但在这里，卡齐·甘萨巧妙而明智地运用她的视角来展示莫里森对世界的贡献有多么重要——以及为什么我们没有权利期望比她所给予的更多的东西。

## Taylor Swift Is Definitely In Her Zone (Jia Tolentino, Jezebel)

## 泰勒·斯威夫特 (Taylor Swift) 绝对适合她（Jia Tolentino、Jezebel）

I could read Jia Tolentino dissecting pop stars — or actually, pretty much anything — all day.

我可以整天读到贾·托伦蒂诺（Jia Tolentino）剖析流行歌星——或者实际上，几乎任何东西。

Here, she uses the occasion of a Swift concert in Washington, D.C. (and, nominally, the format of a concert review) to deliver a brilliant, hilarious, complicated consideration of what makes Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift.

在这里，她利用华盛顿特区一场斯威夫特演唱会的契机（名义上是音乐会评论的形式），对泰勒·斯威夫特为何成为泰勒·斯威夫特进行了精彩、搞笑、复杂的思考。

Tolentino is ruthless in her dissection of Swift’s outfits (“on Swift, lingerie is almost businesslike”), her dancing (“she’s phenomenal at posing and can’t move her hips”), her fans (their screams are aching with “ambient desperation”), and yet, she can’t help but admit that she had the time of her life at the show, “a 12-year-old having the best night of her life.”

托伦蒂诺无情地剖析了斯威夫特的服装（“在斯威夫特身上，内衣几乎是公事公办的”）、她的舞蹈（“她的姿势非常出色，但臀部无法移动”）、她的粉丝（他们的尖叫声因“周围的绝望”而刺痛），然而，她忍不住承认她在演出中度过了一生中的时光，“一个 12 岁的孩子度过了最美好的夜晚”生活”。

Josh DeanBrooklyn-based magazine writer.

乔什·迪恩 (Josh Dean) 布鲁克林杂志作家。

## Searching for Sugar Daddy (Taffy Brodesser-Akner, GQ)

## 寻找傍大款（Taffy Brodesser-Akner，GQ）

I’m not sure if this falls under the category of arts but it’s certainly culture of some kind — a culture of terrible humans occupying a realm that few of us will ever stumble into.

我不确定这是否属于艺术的范畴，但它肯定是某种文化——一种由可怕的人类组成的文化，占据着我们很少有人会误入的领域。

I like pretty much everything Taffy writes, because she is so incredibly entertaining in the way she types words into sentences that assemble to form stories, but I’m sure I’ve never had more fun reading her work than I had reading this one.

我几乎喜欢塔菲写的所有东西，因为她将单词输入句子并组合成故事的方式非常有趣，但我确信我读她的作品从来没有比读这一篇更有趣的了。

I’m aware that it created a bit of a kerfluffle with certain women who felt it was demeaning to sex workers, but I’m not sure I buy that or care because no one in here is doing anything he or she doesn’t want to be doing, everyone is rewarded in his or her own way, and I have to imagine all parties herein know how gross and terrible these transactions are and probably don’t care at all what we think of them because they are being paid well in money or, um, company.

我知道这在某些女性中引起了一些混乱，她们认为这对性工作者有辱人格，但我不确定我是否相信或关心，因为这里没有人在做他或她不想做的事情，每个人都以自己的方式得到回报，我必须想象这里的所有各方都知道这些交易是多么粗暴和可怕，并且可能根本不关心我们对它们的看法，因为他们得到了丰厚的金钱或，嗯，公司报酬。

Or at least that’s how I rationalized it over the past 60 seconds while forming that thought.

或者至少这就是我在过去 60 秒形成这个想法时如何合理化它的方式。

It’s a fun story.

这是一个有趣的故事。

I liked reading it.

我喜欢读它。

You will too.

你也会的。

## “THE STAGE WAS SET.

## “舞台已经搭建好了。

AND WE TURNED UP.

我们出现了。

AND THE PEOPLE SAID, ‘YES.’ AND THEN IT JUST EXPLODED.” (Alex Bilmes, Esquire UK)

人们说，‘是的’，然后就爆炸了。” （亚历克斯·比尔姆斯，《Esquire 英国》）

I realize that technically a Q&A isn’t what we think of as a piece of longform, but this is certainly a long read, and it’s a tremendous one.

我意识到从技术上讲，问答并不是我们所认为的长篇文章，但这无疑是一篇很长的文章，而且是一篇巨大的文章。

I would read literally any interview with Noel Gallagher —the guy is so honest and refreshing and hilarious — and this is maybe his longest and most entertaining yet.

我几乎会读诺埃尔·加拉格尔的任何采访——这个人是如此诚实、令人耳目一新、搞笑——这可能是他迄今为止最长、最有趣的采访。

Anyone who’s done celebrity stories, and I’ve done my share, understands that the biggest frustration and challenge is getting the famous person to say or do something, anything, interesting.

任何写过名人故事的人（我也写过我的故事）都明白，最大的挫折和挑战是让名人说或做一些有趣的事情。

That’s incredibly hard in most cases.

在大多数情况下，这非常困难。

So many of them aren’t that interesting, beyond their talent at acting/singing/painting/whatever, and those who are are trained to be boring – if you’re boring, you can’t create controversy.

他们中的很多人除了表演/唱歌/绘画/其他方面的天赋之外，并没有那么有趣，而那些被训练得很无聊的人——如果你很无聊，你就不能引起争议。

The mad science of celebrity PR is maximizing exposure of your client while not allowing said client to have a three-dimensional personality.

名人公关的疯狂科学是最大限度地提高客户的曝光率，同时又不允许客户拥有三维个性。

That’s why so many of these stories are conversations about “the project” over lunch.

这就是为什么这么多故事都是在午餐时谈论“项目”的原因。

But Noel – Noel doesn’t give a single fuck.

但诺埃尔——诺埃尔一点也不在乎。

He enjoys talking, and that’s evident from this interview’s opening moments, when Alex Bilmes asks him if he has a hobby.

他喜欢说话，从采访的开头就可以看出这一点，当时亚历克斯·比尔梅斯问他是否有爱好。

Noel answers: “This is my hobby!” Prompting Alex to ask, “You mean, music?” Noel: “No!

诺埃尔回答：“这是我的爱好！”亚历克斯问道：“你是说音乐？”诺艾尔：“不！

This: doing interviews.

这：进行采访。

I fucking love it.

我真他妈喜欢它。

I could do this all day long.

我可以整天这样做。

It’s sick.” Even if you don’t know Noel, or care about Oasis or Britpop or even rock, this is well worth your while.

它有病。”即使您不了解 Noel，也不关心 Oasis 或 Britpop 甚至摇滚，这也非常值得您花时间。

But you should also care about Oasis, because they were great.

但你也应该关心 Oasis，因为他们很棒。

Thanks mostly to Noel.

主要感谢诺埃尔。

Taffy Brodesser-AknerGQ correspondent and a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.

Taffy Brodesser-AknerGQ 通讯员和《纽约时报杂志》特约撰稿人。

## The Late, Great Stephen Colbert (Joel Lovell, GQ)

## 已故的伟大的史蒂芬·科尔伯特（乔尔·洛弗尔，《GQ》）

The best profile of the year, in my opinion, was Joel Lovell’s Stephen Colbert profile.

在我看来，今年最好的简介是乔尔·洛弗尔（Joel Lovell）的斯蒂芬·科尔伯特（Stephen Colbert）简介。

Lovell’s work has always been a big influence on me—my first-ever profile was published in the same issue of the New York Times Mag that had his excellent George Saunders cover story—but this one was especially devastating.

洛弗尔的作品一直对我产生了很大的影响——我的第一篇个人简介发表在《纽约时报杂志》的同一期上，该杂志刊登了他出色的乔治·桑德斯封面故事——但这一篇尤其具有毁灭性。

Lovell comes in sad, but we’re not quite sure why.

洛弗尔悲伤地到来，但我们不太清楚为什么。

And that’s the thing to me that is best about this story, that we don’t need to know, and to explain it would be to divert from the subject.

对我来说，这就是这个故事最好的地方，我们不需要知道，解释它就会偏离主题。

Lovell’s sadness is our sadness, whatever that sadness is on the day we read it.

洛弗尔的悲伤就是我们的悲伤，无论我们读到它的那天悲伤是什么。

Lovell is too smart and too compassionate to be critical or even too questioning of Colbert’s Catholicism, which was nice to see when so many articles ridicule people of faith.

洛弗尔太聪明、太富有同情心，不会批评甚至过度质疑科尔伯特的天主教，当这么多文章嘲笑有信仰的人时，看到这一点真是太好了。

Lovell accepts it as it is, and begins to tell the story of Colbert’s loss and the loss that surrounds him constantly.

洛弗尔接受了事实，并开始讲述科尔伯特的损失以及他周围不断发生的损失的故事。

Lovell gets out of his way and never pretends that this isn’t what it is, which is a writer seeking wisdom during a hard bout in his own life.

洛弗尔不碍事，从不假装事实并非如此，这是一位作家在自己生活的艰难时刻寻求智慧。

And yet somehow it is the most beautiful and life-affirming thing I’ve read, so illuminating about Colbert (which is the only purpose of a profile, in the end) right down to its heart-breaker of a finish, and the quiet grace that exudes from everything Lovell writes.

然而不知何故，这是我读过的最美丽、最肯定生命的东西，对科尔伯特如此有启发性（这最终是个人简介的唯一目的），直到其令人心碎的结尾，以及从洛弗尔写的所有作品中散发出的安静优雅。

## ‘I’m No Longer Afraid’ (Noreen Malone and Amanda Demme, New York Magazine)

## “我不再害怕”（Noreen Malone 和 Amanda Demme，纽约杂志）

I think a lot of people wouldn’t think of this story as culture journalism, but it is, overwhelmingly so.

我认为很多人不会认为这个故事是文化新闻，但绝大多数人确实如此。

Rape culture goes hand in hand with arts culture, simply because arts culture is such a perpetrator of rape culture.

强奸文化与艺术文化齐头并进，因为艺术文化就是强奸文化的肇事者。

What we’ve seen these past two years in terms of how hard it’s been for people to reconcile the fact that someone as beloved as America’s Dad was a serial rapist of the highest and most magnified order was terrifying.

过去两年我们看到，人们很难接受这样一个事实：像美国之父这样受人爱戴的人是一个最严重、最严重的连环强奸犯，这一事实令人恐惧。

This story was great because it quietly and calmly displayed the evidence with painstaking testimony, implicitly asking the reader if he or she still could have doubts after reading these testimonies.

这个故事很棒，因为它安静地、平静地展示了辛苦证言的证据，含蓄地问读者读完这些证言后是否还会有疑问。

This was the definitive story for anyone who was not compelled by woman after woman coming out.

对于那些不被一个又一个女人出柜所强迫的人来说，这是一个明确的故事。

It was seeing all these women together and collecting their stories that made this piece so powerful.

正是看到所有这些女性在一起并收集她们的故事，才使得这件作品如此强大。

When I read this, I was reminded of the power of testimony, and of journalism.

当我读到这篇文章时，我想起了证词和新闻的力量。

Jessica GrossWriter who lives in New York with her dog, Benji.

作家杰西卡·格罗斯 (Jessica Gross) 和她的狗本吉 (Benji) 住在纽约。

## A Very Revealing Conversation With Rihanna (Miranda July, T Magazine)

## 与 Rihanna 的一次非常有启发性的对话（Miranda July，T Magazine）

This is ostensibly a profile of Rihanna, but it reveals just as much about Miranda July and the strangeness of meeting a superstar to write an article about her.

这表面上是蕾哈娜的简介，但它同样揭示了米兰达·朱莉的情况，以及与一位超级巨星见面并写一篇关于她的文章的奇怪之处。

A substantial portion of the piece describes July’s trips to and from the interview, including long conversations with her Uber driver, and internal monologue.

这篇文章的很大一部分描述了 July 接受采访的旅程，包括与她的 Uber 司机的长时间对话，以及内心独白。

I can be overly bound by category and precedent, so I’m particularly drawn to writers and artists who eschew genre conventions.

我可能会过度受到类别和先例的束缚，所以我特别喜欢避开流派惯例的作家和艺术家。

(Oh, right, you can do that!

（哦，对了，你可以这么做！

You can do whatever you want!) This piece is full of gems that made me laugh, that offered a sense of shared humanity:

你可以做任何你想做的事！）这篇文章充满了让我发笑的宝石，它提供了一种共同的人性感：

I spent the next hour and a half with Jennifer Rosales, Rihanna’s ‘‘24/7’’ assistant.

接下来的一个半小时我和蕾哈娜的“24/7”助理詹妮弗·罗萨莱斯在一起。

We ordered drinks and discussed Jennifer’s reproductive future.

我们点了饮料，讨论了詹妮弗的生育未来。

Each time I realized I was getting drunk I nibbled some bread, and when I felt my head becoming too clear I drank more.

每次我意识到自己喝醉了，我都会啃一些面包，当我感觉自己的头脑变得太清醒时，我就会喝得更多。

It was hard work maintaining a light buzz for so long, but it paid off.

维持这么长时间的热闹是很辛苦的，但它得到了回报。

When Rihanna’s manager, Jay Brown, appeared to tell me that this was one of her first interviews in years I just laughed.

当蕾哈娜的经纪人杰伊·布朗似乎告诉我这是她多年来第一次接受采访时，我只是笑了。

And then choked.

然后就噎住了。

Because here she was.

因为她就在这里。

July manages to convey the cheesiest sentiments in a manner that is simply not cheesy: her main takeaway is that Rihanna exudes goodness, that she is a soul, that the two of them are, for the brief time-slice of the interview, in love.

七月成功地以一种不俗气的方式传达了最俗气的情感：她的主要收获是蕾哈娜散发着善良，她是一个灵魂，他们两个在采访的短暂时间内相爱了。

Corny, right?

老土了，对吧？

No. I was never all that interested in Rihanna, but since I read this piece, I’ve been listening to her constantly and googling photo upon photo of her eyes.

不。我对蕾哈娜从来没有那么感兴趣，但自从读了这篇文章后，我一直在听她说话，并在谷歌上搜索她眼睛的照片。

## The Broad Strokes (Rachel Syme, Grantland)

## 大笔画（Rachel Syme，Grantland）

Oh, for the love of this profile!

哦，出于对这个个人资料的热爱！

I read the piece, about “Broad City” stars Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, because I was already obsessed with the show: not a hard sell.

我读了这篇关于《大城》明星艾比·雅各布森和伊拉娜·格雷泽的文章，因为我已经对这部剧着迷了：这不是强行推销。

And yet, incredibly, Rachel Syme exceeded my desires, not just giving the dirt on Jacobson and Glazer—what their friendship is like, how they work—but also explaining my obsession with the show to myself.

然而，令人难以置信的是，雷切尔·赛姆超出了我的期望，不仅揭露了雅各布森和格雷泽的丑闻——他们的友谊是什么样的，他们是如何工作的——而且还向自己解释了我对这部剧的痴迷。

Syme deconstructs its brilliance without ruining the humor at all: a real feat.

赛姆在不破坏幽默的情况下解构了它的辉煌：一个真正的壮举。

“Their New York is the New York that can be experienced only as a duo: a kaleidoscopic playground made for two, the kind of cinematic, heightened fun-house version of the city that accompanies the most epic, swooning romances,” she writes.

“他们的纽约是只有二人组才能体验的纽约：一个为两人打造的万花筒游乐场，一种电影般的、高度娱乐室版本的城市，伴随着最史诗般、令人着迷的浪漫，”她写道。

And, later:

并且，稍后：

To end the debate once and for all, ‘Broad City’ and ‘Girls’ are very different shows that depict two very different New Yorks: The New York of ‘Girls’ is a kind of gray cloud in which to explore the low-level depression and self-absorption of millennials; the New York of ‘Broad City’ is a Choose Your Own Adventure, a colorful circus of multicultural weirdos.

为了一劳永逸地结束这场争论，《大城》和《女孩》是截然不同的节目，描绘了两个截然不同的纽约：《女孩》的纽约是一朵灰色的云，在其中探索千禧一代的低度抑郁和自我陶醉； 《大城》中的纽约是一场选择你自己的冒险，是一个由多元文化怪人组成的丰富多彩的马戏团。

It is the New York I remember from my twenties.

这是我二十多岁时记忆中的纽约。

I think of these lines often as I walk around New York, my city: how lucky to have art that can transform my perception of my own life, and writers to explain what’s happening.

当我在我的城市纽约漫步时，我经常想起这些话：拥有可以改变我对自己生活的看法的艺术，以及能够解释正在发生的事情的作家是多么幸运。

## Terry Gross and the Art of Opening Up (Susan Burton, New York Times Magazine)

## 特里·格罗斯和开放的艺术（苏珊·伯顿，纽约时报杂志）

This is the Terry Gross profile I have long awaited.

这是我期待已久的特里·格罗斯的个人资料。

YES!

是的！

A big, emphatic yes.

一个很大的、强调的“是”。

As with the “Broad City” piece, I was pretty much the target audience here, and pounced on this piece like a starving armadillo on a pile of grubs.

和《大城》这件作品一样，我几乎就是这里的目标观众，我像一只饥饿的犰狳扑向一堆幼虫一样扑向这件作品。

And oh, did it deliver.

哦，它交付了吗？

(Note: despite our identical last names, Terry Gross and I tragically are not related.) The piece is about Gross and about the art of the interview more broadly, and Susan Burton is sensitive and insightful on both counts.

（注：尽管我们的姓氏相同，但不幸的是，特里·格罗斯和我没有血缘关系。）这篇文章是关于格罗斯以及更广泛的采访艺术的，苏珊·伯顿在这两方面都很敏感和富有洞察力。

The bits I loved and longed to frame for my walls are too numerous to list, but here’s a sampling: “Gross is an interviewer defined by a longing for intimacy.

我喜欢并渴望为我的墙壁镶上的东西太多了，无法一一列举，但这里有一个样本：“格罗斯是一位渴望亲密的采访者。

In a culture in which we are all talking about ourselves more than ever, Gross is not only listening intently; she’s asking just the right questions.” And: “She is acutely attuned to the twin pulls of disclosure and privacy.” And: “In her, a fragility—fair skin, narrow bones—is fused with a powerful sense of self-containment.” Also: “She uses the very public space of the interview to access tenderly personal places.” Finally, some excellent numbers: Terry Gross is 4 feet 11 inches tall and has done around 13,000 interviews.

在我们比以往任何时候都更多地谈论自己的文化中，格罗斯不仅专注地倾听，而且还专心地倾听。她问的是正确的问题。”并且：“她对信息披露和隐私的双重吸引力有着敏锐的洞察力。”并且：“在她身上，一种脆弱——白皙的皮肤、狭窄的骨头——与强大的自我控制感融合在一起。”另外：“她利用采访的公共空间来进入温柔的私人场所。”最后，一些出色的数据：特里·格罗斯身高 4 英尺 11 英寸，接受了大约 13,000 次采访。

Can you believe that?

你能相信吗？

Maud NewtonWriter and critic, currently working on a book for Random House about the science and superstition of ancestry.

莫德·牛顿（Maud Newton）作家和评论家，目前正在为兰登书屋撰写一本关于祖先的科学和迷信的书。

## Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Lili Loofbourow, Post 45)

## 离开的人和留下的人（Lili Loofbourow，第 45 篇）

Last summer Lili Loofbourow read Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series while grappling with her sister’s suicide.

去年夏天，莉莉·卢夫伯罗 (Lili Loofbourow) 一边阅读埃琳娜·费兰特 (Elena Ferrante) 的《那不勒斯》系列，一边与姐姐的自杀作斗争。

In the way novels have of seeming to mirror one’s present experience, the story’s “intrusive literary excavation” cast light on the one Loofbourow herself was conflictedly but doggedly conducting.

就像小说似乎反映了一个人当前的经历一样，这个故事的“侵入性文学挖掘”揭示了卢夫伯罗本人矛盾但顽强的指挥。

Like Lenu, one of Ferrante’s characters, Loofbourow was struggling to reconstruct a woman who’d erased herself.

就像费兰特笔下的角色之一莱努一样，卢夫伯罗也在努力重建一个抹去了自己的女人。

She went through her sister’s house, photographed her phone bills and bank statements, contemplated a glass brick of a tablet hidden beneath the sink, covered with fingerprints but wiped clean of all the data it once held.

她走遍了姐姐的房子，拍下了她的电话账单和银行对账单，凝视着水槽下面藏着一块平板电脑的玻璃砖，上面布满了指纹，但曾经保存的所有数据都被抹掉了。

And then she found a sheaf of her sister’s writings: “Her poetry, her life story, and pages and pages on her fear, above all, of having her privacy compromised, of being hacked.” Loofbourow is one of my favorite essayists, and this piece, written as part of a group discussion of Ferrante’s novels, blends criticism and autobiography into the best kind of reading journal.

然后她找到了一叠姐姐的作品：“她的诗歌，她的人生故事，还有一页又一页的关于她的恐惧，最重要的是，她担心自己的隐私受到损害，被黑客攻击。”卢夫伯罗是我最喜欢的散文家之一，这篇文章是费兰特小说小组讨论的一部分，将批评和自传融为一体，成为最好的阅读日​​记。

## How Much Damage Can It Do?

## 它能造成多少伤害？

On the Intellectual Element in Modern Fiction (Christopher Beha, Harper’s)

论现代小说中的智力元素（克里斯托弗·贝哈，哈珀出版社）

In the past few years I’ve become increasingly less interested in reading literary criticism, and in this excellent essay Christopher Beha encapsulates many of the reasons why.

在过去的几年里，我对阅读文学批评越来越不感兴趣，克里斯托弗·贝哈在这篇优秀的文章中概括了许多原因。

On the one hand, talented but narrow critics like the New Yorker’s James Wood insist that literature is incompatible with “social comment,” or “preachy presentism.” An also-smart opposing camp rejects Wood’s concern with “the Jamesian ‘palpable present-intimate” but, Beha argues, accepts “the binary Wood had established—you can have the novel or you can have social criticism— n+1 accepted the choice and opted for the latter.” Unconvinced that “the warmth of humanity” and “the social novel” are incompatible, Beha finds hope in the criticism of Adam Kirsch, a poet and poetry critic who “writes for a general audience, under the assumption that a general audience is capable of caring about poetry if a critic makes it sound like something worth caring about.” Kirsch doesn’t write much about fiction, and I’ve never been drawn to his criticism, but Beha makes a strong case for it.

一方面，像《纽约客》的詹姆斯·伍德这样才华横溢但狭隘的批评家坚持认为文学与“社会评论”或“说教的当下主义”不相容。同样聪明的反对阵营拒绝伍德对“詹姆斯式‘明显的当下亲密’”的关注，但贝哈认为，接受“伍德已经建立的二元论——你可以拥有小说，也可以拥有社会批评——n+1接受了选择并选择了后者。”贝哈不相信“人性的温暖”和“社会小说”是不相容的，他在诗人和诗歌评论家亚当·基尔希的批评中找到了希望，他“为普通读者写作，假设如果批评家让诗歌听起来值得关心，那么普通读者就有能力关心诗歌”。基尔希写的小说不多，我也从来没有被他的批评所吸引，但贝哈对此提出了强有力的论据。

“What the contemporary novel needs,” he contends, “is a critic who combines Wood’s belief in the novel as a form with Kirsch’s belief in what literature can do.”

他认为，“当代小说需要的是一位批评家，他将伍德对小说作为一种形式的信念与基尔希对文学能做什么的信念结合起来。”

Longreads Editor Pick: Aaron Gilbreath

长读编辑精选：亚伦·吉尔布雷斯

## The Really Big One (Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker)

## 真正的大人物（凯瑟琳·舒尔茨，《纽约客》）

Measured by conversation-starting power, few culture articles had as much charge as this one.

以对话发起力来衡量，很少有文化文章能像这篇文章那样具有如此大的影响力。

An earthquake of enormous magnitude was going to strike the Pacific Northwest, Schulz said, and beloved Portland, Oregon was not prepared.

舒尔茨说，一场巨大的地震将袭击太平洋西北地区，而心爱的俄勒冈州波特兰市却没有做好准备。

I live in Portland.

我住在波特兰。

For months, everyone was talking about this article.

几个月来，每个人都在谈论这篇文章。

Friends, coworkers, baristas, wait staff and my family back in Arizona, even people who don’t subscribe to The New Yorker, all were asking: Aren’t you scared?

朋友、同事、咖啡师、服务员和我在亚利桑那州的家人，甚至那些不订阅《纽约客》的人，都在问：你不害怕吗？

Have you stockpiled food?

你储备食物了吗？

Do you have a generator?

你有发电机吗？

Are you going to secure your house to its foundation?

您打算将您的房子固定在地基上吗？

Type “New Yorker” and the first word Google auto-fills is ‘earthquake.’ This pending natural disaster revealed powerful fault lines and the power of storytelling.

输入“纽约客”，谷歌自动填充的第一个词是“地震”。这场即将发生的自然灾害揭示了强大的断层线和讲故事的力量。

In a narrative sense, it had everything: danger, visions of apocalypse, a vulnerable populace, a popular city having a cultural moment, and the looming dramatic question of “when?”.

从叙事的角度来看，它拥有一切：危险、世界末日的幻象、脆弱的民众、拥有文化时刻的热门城市，以及迫在眉睫的戏剧性问题“何时？”。

The paradisiacal vision of Portlandia suddenly looked less appealing to many people planning to live here.

对于许多计划住在这里的人来说，波特兰迪亚的天堂般的景象突然显得不再那么有吸引力。

Those of us who did fell into two camps: those who turned their terror into earthquake preparedness kits, and those who did not.

我们这些这样做的人分为两个阵营：那些将恐惧变成地震防备包的人，以及那些没有这样做的人。

The danger is real, but Portland’s greatest danger might not be quakes but good food.

危险确实存在，但波特兰最大的危险可能不是地震，而是美食。

There’s so much of it.

有这么多。

It isn’t safe to live in a place known for fried artisan dough balls, sausages containing “hand-cut fat” and restaurants named Gravy.

生活在一个以手工油炸面团、含有“手切脂肪”的香肠和名为“肉汁”的餐馆而闻名的地方并不安全。

In these conditions, Portland’s passionate eaters are likely to suffer cardiac arrest before civil unrest.

在这种情况下，波特兰的狂热食客很可能在内乱之前心脏骤停。

For now, enough time has passed since The New Yorker story that locals have gone back to our unsafe lives.

就目前而言，《纽约客》的报道已经过去了足够长的时间，当地人已经回到了我们不安全的生活中。

Our hospitals are still on hills.

我们的医院仍然在山上。

Our commutes take us over the river where some of us think, “What if this bridge fell?” Beyond that, people have stopped talking about the article and have gone back to talking about where we’re eating, and our food allergies.

我们上下班途中会经过河流，有些人会想：“如果这座桥塌了怎么办？”除此之外，人们不再谈论这篇文章，而是开始谈论我们在哪里吃饭，以及我们的食物过敏。

## Invisible and Insidious (William Vollmann, Harper’s)

## 隐形和阴险（William Vollmann，Harper’s）

For the second time, author William Vollmann traveled to Japan to investigate the Fukushima nuclear disaster’s effects on the Japanese people, landscape and psyche.

作家威廉·沃尔曼第二次前往日本，调查福岛核灾难对日本人民、景观和心理的影响。

Weeks after the 2011 meltdown, Vollmann entered the sinister-sounding forbidden zone to interview locals and explore the dangers of the unknown; he wrote about it in an Amazon single.

2011 年灾难发生几周后，沃尔曼进入了听起来很凶险的禁区，采访当地人并探索未知的危险；他在亚马逊的一首单曲中写到了这件事。

In his 2015 Harper’s piece, he returned to see what had happened during the last four years, and to measure not just isotopes, but the effects of corporate cover ups and government subterfuge on the Japanese public’s health and trust.

在 2015 年《哈珀》杂志的文章中，他回顾了过去四年中发生的事情，不仅测量同位素，还测量企业隐瞒和政府诡计对日本公众健康和信任的影响。

In towns near the power plant, he asked if people were afraid of eating the fish, breathing the air, or living there.

在发电厂附近的城镇，他询问人们是否害怕吃鱼、呼吸空气或居住在那里。

With so much conflicting information, what did they believe?

面对如此多相互矛盾的信息，他们相信什么？

Besides the compelling sense of danger and the thrill of peering inside a shadowy area, part of the story’s appeal is its tenor.

除了令人信服的危险感和窥视阴暗区域的刺激感之外，故事的部分吸引力还在于它的男高音。

Vollmann writes about official statistics and decontamination efforts with biting meta-commentary, crafting dry acerbic phrases to reveal the ridiculousness of certain claims.

沃尔曼在撰写关于官方统计数据和净化工作的文章时，用尖锐的元评论、精心设计的干巴巴的尖刻短语来揭示某些说法的荒谬性。

When the U.S. media moved on from Fukushima to other stories, most Americans did too, but Vollmann is here to tell us that Fukushima isn’t just a Japanese disaster.

当美国媒体从福岛转向其他故事时，大多数美国人也这样做了，但沃尔曼在这里告诉我们，福岛不仅仅是一场日本灾难。

Nuclear energy is a global danger.

核能是一种全球性的危险。

Look at Japan, he’s saying.

看看日本，他说。

This could be you.

这可能是你。