Writer Andrew Rice: My Top Longreads of 2011
Andrew Rice is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget: Murder and Memory in Uganda.
安德鲁·赖斯（Andrew Rice）是《纽约时报》杂志的特约撰稿人，也是《牙齿会微笑但心不会忘记：乌干达的谋杀与记忆》一书的作者。
(See recent longreads by Rice.)
（参见莱斯最近的长篇读物。）
***
***
Selected according to a complicated (read: entirely arbitrary) judgment of their degree of difficulty and technical execution, and listed in no particular order.
根据对其难度和技术执行的复杂（阅读：完全任意）判断进行选择，并且不按特定顺序列出。
Full disclosure: I’ve written for several of the publications cited on this list, but I’ve excluded from consideration any writer with whom I’m personally acquainted.
全面披露：我曾为该列表中引用的几家出版物撰写文章，但我排除了我个人认识的任何作家。
***
***
“The Romney Economy,” Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New York, 10/23/11
“罗姆尼经济”，Benjamin Wallace-Wells，纽约，2011 年 10 月 23 日
When it comes to degree of difficulty, delivering an interesting Mitt Romney profile is like nailing a reverse four-and-a-half somersault.
就难度而言，提供有趣的米特·罗姆尼简介就像完成反向四个半空翻一样。
But this story succeeded—not the least of which due to its brilliant packaging, which included a now-infamous cover photo of Romney with cash coming out of his suit pockets and the accompanying headline: “Mitt Romney and the 1% Economy.” Written without the (perhaps dubious) benefit of an interview with Romney, the story nonetheless managed to summon up the Republican candidate’s history of creative destruction, and tied that to the big story of the moment, the Occupy Wall Street protests.
但这个故事成功了——其中最重要的原因是其精美的包装，其中包括一张现在臭名昭著的罗姆尼从西装口袋里掏出现金的封面照片，以及标题：“米特·罗姆尼和 1% 经济”。尽管这篇文章没有接受罗姆尼的采访（也许是可疑的），但它仍然成功地唤起了这位共和党候选人创造性破坏的历史，并将其与当时的大新闻——占领华尔街抗议活动联系起来。
If Romney ends up becoming the Republican nominee, as still seems likely, the themes of Wallace-Wells’ profile will likely define the coming political year.
如果罗姆尼最终成为共和党候选人（看起来仍然有可能），那么华莱士-威尔斯个人资料的主题可能会定义即将到来的政治年度。
“How to be Good,” Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, 9/5/11 (sub.
“如何成为一个好人”，拉里萨·麦克法夸尔，《纽约客》，2011 年 9 月 5 日（sub.1）
req.)
要求）
Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit argues, MacFarquhar writes, that “personal identity is not what matters.” But a profile is, by definition, an evocation of a person’s identity.
麦克法夸尔写道，牛津大学哲学家德里克·帕菲特认为“个人身份并不重要”。但根据定义，个人资料是一个人身份的体现。
How do you fulfill the requirements of the form on Parfit’s own, rather forbidding, terms?
您如何按照帕菲特自己的、相当令人生畏的条件满足表格的要求？
MacFarquhar didn’t make use of any scenes, or quotes of the traditional “he said” variety, conveying Parfit as a sort of disembodied intelligence.
麦克法夸尔没有使用任何场景，也没有引用传统的“他说”的说法，将帕菲特传达为一种无形的智慧。
By all rights, this experiment should have been about as interesting to read as, well, a philosophy textbook.
无论如何，这个实验读起来应该和哲学教科书一样有趣。
But the power of Parfit’s ideas about the nature of consciousness and ethics—and MacFarquhar’s skill at conveying them colloquially—made the piece sing to me.
但帕菲特关于意识和伦理本质的思想的力量——以及麦克法夸尔用口语表达这些思想的技巧——让这首曲子给我留下了深刻的印象。
“The God Clause,” Brendan Greeley, Bloomberg Businessweek, 9/1/11
“上帝条款”，Brendan Greeley，《彭博商业周刊》，2011 年 9 月 1 日
Are you interested in reading about a shadowy industry that attempts to predict and profit from gigantic, multibillion-dollar disasters?
您是否有兴趣了解一个试图预测数十亿美元的巨大灾难并从中获利的影子行业？
Great—me too.
太棒了——我也是。
Now that I’ve got you interested, I will disclose that this article is actually about the reinsurance industry.
既然我引起了你的兴趣，我将透露这篇文章实际上是关于再保险行业的。
This is the bait-and-switch trick that Greeley pulls off admirably in this piece.
这就是格里利在这篇文章中出色地完成的诱饵和转换技巧。
This was the cover story for Businessweek’s 9-11 anniversary issue, and aided by some very good cover art—something the magazine has been justly praised for lately—the piece managed to tell its readers a story that touched on the past while telling them something new.
这是《商业周刊》9-11 周年纪念刊的封面故事，在一些非常好的封面艺术的帮助下（该杂志最近为此受到了应有的赞扬），这篇文章成功地向读者讲述了一个触及过去的故事，同时告诉他们一些新的东西。
“Where’s Earl?” Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 5/23/11 (sub.
“厄尔在哪儿？” Kelefa Sanneh，《纽约客》，2011 年 5 月 23 日（sub.
req.)
要求）
A detective story masquerading as a celebrity profile—or maybe it’s the other way around?—this was in an issue that kind of hung around on my endtable for a few months before I got around to sticking it into my bag for a long plane flight.
一本伪装成名人简介的侦探故事——或者也许是相反的情况？——这个问题在我的茶几上挂了几个月，然后我才抽出时间把它放进我的包里进行长途飞行。
Then it completely sucked me into its world.
然后它就把我完全吸进了它的世界里。
I won’t even pretend that I’m young enough to care about the rap collective Odd Future, or the fate of its missing member Earl Sweatshirt, but the outcome of this story, which I won’t spoil, offered an (ahem) oddly plaintive reminder that so many of our musical idols are, after all, just kids.
我什至不会假装自己还年轻到关心说唱组合 Odd Future，或者其失踪成员 Earl Sweatshirt 的命运，但这个故事的结果（我不会剧透）提供了一个（咳咳）奇怪的哀伤提醒：我们的许多音乐偶像毕竟都只是孩子。
“Watching the Murder of an Innocent Man,” Barry Bearak, New York Times Magazine, 6/2/11
“观看无辜者被谋杀”，Barry Bearak，纽约时报杂志，2011 年 6 月 2 日
This was my absolute favorite story of the year.
这是我今年最喜欢的故事。
Journalism from Africa often conveys the continent in broadly collective terms: tribes rival with one another, rebels fight the government, the downtrodden suffer or rise up.
来自非洲的新闻报道经常以广泛的集体术语来报道非洲大陆：部落之间相互竞争，叛乱分子与政府作战，受压迫的人受苦或奋起。
Bearak, who used to be stationed in the Times’ Johannesburg bureau, took one of those distressing mass phenomena that fill the inside pages of every day’s newspaper—an outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa’s township slums—and gave the story a terrible specificity.
贝拉克曾供职于《泰晤士报》约翰内斯堡分社，他以每日报纸内页充斥的令人痛心的群体现象之一——南非乡镇贫民窟爆发的仇外暴力——为故事赋予了可怕的特殊性。
I particularly admired the way Bearak dissected the chance intersections and misunderstandings that led to a lynching, and dispassionately explained the cosmological worldview of the victim’s family about his death.
我特别欣赏比拉克剖析导致私刑的偶然交集和误解的方式，并冷静地解释受害者家人对他的死亡的宇宙观。
In the end, Bearak resists the natural tendency to isolate a single villain and hold that person up to condemnation, despite the murky evidence, because that’s what the mob did, albeit in an incomparably more brutal fashion.
最后，贝拉克抵制了孤立一个恶棍并让这个人受到谴责的自然倾向，尽管证据不明确，因为这就是暴徒所做的，尽管以一种无比残酷的方式。
Bonus: Longreads Logrolling List
奖励：长读日志滚动列表
I’m lucky enough to be friends with a bunch of really talented writers, and it seems a shame to exclude them simply on the grounds of our acquaintance.
我很幸运能和一群非常有才华的作家成为朋友，仅仅因为我们相识而将他们排除在外似乎是一种耻辱。
So, here’s a list of really great articles written this year by people that I happen to know and like.
所以，这里列出了今年我碰巧认识和喜欢的人写的非常棒的文章。
You can take these endorsements with a grain of salt, of course, but I urge you to click and judge for yourself.
当然，您可以对这些认可持保留态度，但我强烈建议您点击并自行判断。
“Getting Bin Laden,” Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker, 8/8/11
“抓捕本·拉登”，尼古拉斯·施密德尔，《纽约客》，2011 年 8 月 8 日
The best account, so far, of the most stunning news event of this year.
迄今为止，对今年最令人震惊的新闻事件的最佳报道。
“The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox,” Nathaniel Rich, Rolling Stone, 6/24/11
“阿曼达·诺克斯永无休止的噩梦”，纳撒尼尔·里奇，滚石杂志，2011 年 6 月 24 日
I was fascinated by this lurid miscarriage of justice.
我对这种耸人听闻的误判感到着迷。
This story went way beyond the tabloid narrative of the persecuted innocent abroad.
这个故事远远超出了国外受迫害无辜者的小报叙述。
“The Idealist,” Jason Zengerle, The New Republic, 1/13/11
“理想主义者”，Jason Zengerle，《新共和国》，2011 年 1 月 13 日
A rising Democratic star finds his life derailed when he gets enmeshed in a bizarre political dirty tricks plot.
一名冉冉升起的民主党新星卷入了一场离奇的政治肮脏阴谋，发现自己的生活脱轨。
“Cheating, Incorporated,” Sheelah Kolhatkar, Bloomberg Businessweek, 2/10/11
“作弊，公司”，Sheelah Kolhatkar，《彭博商业周刊》，2011 年 2 月 10 日
The real, profitable and Canadian (!) company behind those lubricious Ashley Madison TV ads.
这些淫荡的阿什利·麦迪逊电视广告背后是真正的、盈利的加拿大（！）公司。
“The King of All Vegas Real Estate Scams”, Felix Gillette, Bloomberg Businessweek, 12/8/11; “The Casino Next Door”, Felix Gillette, Bloomberg Businessweek, 4/21/11
“维加斯房地产骗局之王”，Felix Gillette，《彭博商业周刊》，2011 年 12 月 8 日； “隔壁赌场”，Felix Gillette，彭博商业周刊，2011 年 4 月 21 日
These two stories made me ache with jealousy.
这两个故事让我感到嫉妒。
“The Gulf War,” Raffi Khatchadourian, The New Yorker, 3/14/11
“海湾战争”，拉菲·哈查杜里安，《纽约客》，2011 年 3 月 14 日
The Gulf oil spill turned out to be less overwhelmingly catastrophic than some doomsayers predicted, but it still left behind some troubling lessons.
事实证明，海湾漏油事件的灾难性并不像一些末日论者预测的那么严重，但它仍然留下了一些令人不安的教训。
This is the story of a disaster that happened beneath the surface, and in conveying that narrative with great depth and nuance, the story pulls off a truly difficult feat.
这是一个发生在表面之下的灾难的故事，在以极大的深度和细微差别传达这一叙述时，这个故事完成了一项真正困难的壮举。
***
***
Share your own Top 5 Longreads of 2011, all through December.
整个 12 月，分享您自己的 2011 年 5 首长读作品。
Just tag it #longreads on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook.
只需在 Twitter、Tumblr 或 Facebook 上标记#longreads 即可。