137: The Book That Changed Your Life - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #137 | May 29, 2026 137: The Book That Changed Your Life Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 137 集 | 2026 年 5 月 29 日 137：这本书改变了你的生活 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
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如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue: Prologue Ira Glass When she was seven, when she would visit her grandmother, Alexa would look through the books that her grandfather had owned back when he was alive.
序言：序言 Ira Glass 当她七岁的时候，当她去看望她的祖母时，Alexa 会翻阅她祖父生前拥有的书籍。
What she liked especially was finding the books where he'd made little notes in the margins.
她特别喜欢的是找到他在页边空白处做小笔记的书。
So that was the part that was really compelling.
这就是真正引人注目的部分。
Because they were hints about who he was.
因为它们暗示了他是谁。
Exactly.
确切地。
And a lot of times they were really critical.
很多时候他们真的很挑剔。
He would write, I steadfastly disagree.
他会写信，我坚决不同意。
Or something like that.
或者类似的东西。
Or he would write, Ah!, if he really liked something.
或者，如果他真的喜欢某件事，他会写，啊！
As a kid, over the course of about a year, she systematically divided the books into two piles, the ones with markings, and the ones without.
作为一个孩子，在大约一年的时间里，她系统地把书分成两堆，有标记的，和没有标记的。
And then she tried to read all the ones with markings.
然后她尝试阅读所有带有标记的内容。
Her grandfather was a playwright and a teacher, and the books were creaky old books from the 1930s about theater and about how to write plays.
她的祖父是一位剧作家和教师，她的书都是 20 世纪 30 年代关于戏剧和如何写戏剧的破旧旧书。
It was thrilling.
太刺激了。
And when she was 11, she wrote her very first play, using the rules in the books, rules from another generation.
当她 11 岁时，她使用了书中的规则和另一代人的规则，写了她的第一部戏剧。
These were archaic rules, like start your play with lots of exposition, which was really in vogue at the time.
这些都是古老的规则，比如在开始你的游戏时进行大量的阐述，这在当时非常流行。
So I started mine with a butler, whose name I believe was Manson, picking up a phone, saying stuff like, no, the lady and gentleman are not home right now.
所以我开始找一位管家，我相信他的名字叫曼森，他拿起电话，说，不，这位女士和先生现在不在家。
Why, at a fancy charity ball.
为什么，在一场华丽的慈善舞会上。
Yes, he's still drinking too much, and she's having an affair with a gardener.
是的，他仍然喝得太多，而她却和一个园丁有染。
Whom shall I say is calling?
我该说是谁在打电话呢？
You were 11.
那年你11岁。
Alexa Junge By the time I got to college and I started to actually take writing classes, it was brought to my attention that stage directions shouldn't be things like, there follows a mighty howling of wind.
亚历克萨·荣格（Alexa Junge） 当我上大学并开始真正上写作课时，我注意到舞台指示不应该是“接下来是一阵狂风呼啸”之类的东西。
And one of the things my teacher-- who was not a young man, by any means-- said was, he was like, sweetheart, we don't use sotto voce anymore to mean he whispers.
我的老师——无论如何，他已经不是一个年轻人了——说的一件事是，他就像，亲爱的，我们不再用低声来表示他低声说话。
We just write, whispers.
我们只是写，低语。
But of all the books on her grandfather's shelves, there was one book that affected her more than the others.
但在她祖父书架上的所有书籍中，有一本书对她的影响比其他书更大。
It had lots of her grandfather's writing in the margins.
空白处有很多她祖父的字迹。
And he was very critical, so it was very rare that he would write, Ah!, exclamation point.
而且他很挑剔，所以很少会写啊！感叹号。
And there were more Ahs!
还有更多啊！
in Moss Hart's autobiography, which is called Act One , then I think almost any of the other books that he had.
在莫斯·哈特的自传（称为第一幕）中，我认为几乎是他所有的其他书籍。
Moss Hart was a Broadway playwright, the man who directed My Fair Lady with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, who was married to another then-luminary named Kitty Carlisle, who people these days mostly remember as a game show panelist back in the 1960s.
莫斯·哈特 (Moss Hart) 是一位百老汇剧作家，曾与朱莉·安德鲁斯 (Julie Andrews) 和雷克斯·哈里森 (Rex Harrison) 共同执导了《窈窕淑女》(My Fair Lady)，哈里森的丈夫是另一位当时的杰出人物，名叫基蒂·卡莱尔 (Kitty Carlisle)，人们如今大多记得她是 1960 年代的游戏节目小组成员。
The book details how he started as a kid in the Bronx, found something he just loved to do, which was to make plays.
这本书详细介绍了他小时候如何在布朗克斯开始，找到了他喜欢做的事情，那就是表演。
Reading it as a child, Alexa had that experience that you have sometimes as a kid.
小时候读这本书时，亚历克斯有过你小时候有时会经历的经历。
She did not understand everything in the book, but she understood enough to know that she really, really liked it.
她并不完全理解书中的所有内容，但她理解得足以知道她真的非常喜欢它。
Like, I knew what was going on and this book was fun.
就像，我知道发生了什么，这本书很有趣。
It drove him so powerfully, and it seemed to make him so happy.
这股力量如此强烈地驱使着他，而且似乎让他如此快乐。
She read Act One by Moss Hart over and over.
她一遍又一遍地阅读莫斯·哈特的第一幕。
She memorized long stretches.
她记住了很长的一段。
She tried to memorize the entire book.
她试图记住整本书。
Even today, she recalls where specific Ahs!
直到今天，她还记得具体在哪里啊！
were penciled into her grandfather's copy.
被铅笔写进了她祖父的副本中。
Because it felt like I was recognizing an old friend.
因为感觉就像我认识了一位老朋友。
It felt like a familiarity of, oh, I found a home.
感觉就像是一种熟悉感，哦，我找到了一个家。
This guy likes the same home I want.
这家伙喜欢我想要的家。
So--
所以——
These are my people.
这些是我的人。
Alexa Junge Yeah, yeah.
亚历克萨·荣格 是的，是的。
You don't meet many people who tell you that a book changed their lives.
你不会遇到很多人告诉你一本书改变了他们的生活。
It's an appealing notion, I think, because it's nice to think that our lives could be changed just by an idea, by the vision of the world that happens in a book, instead of what our lives are often changed by-- you know, dumb luck, tragedies, coincidences.
我认为这是一个很吸引人的想法，因为想到我们的生活可以仅仅通过一个想法、通过书中发生的世界观来改变，而不是我们的生活经常被那些——你知道的，运气、悲剧、巧合所改变，这真是太好了。
Today on our radio program, stories of people whose lives were changed by books.
今天在我们的广播节目中，讲述了人们的生活被书籍改变的故事。
From WBEZ Chicago and Public Radio International, It's This American Life .
来自芝加哥 WBEZ 和国际公共广播电台的《这就是美国生活》。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Our program today in four acts.
我们今天的节目分为四幕。
Act One is called, well, Act One, getting clues about how to live your life from notes scribbled by your dead grandfather in the margins of a book.
第一幕被称为，嗯，第一幕，从你死去的祖父在一本书的页边空白处写下的笔记中获取有关如何生活的线索。
Act Two, The Family That Reads Together.
第二幕，一起读书的家人。
In this act, the story of how when David Sedaris was a boy, he stumbled upon a dirty book in the woods.
在这一幕中，讲述了大卫·塞达里斯小时候如何在树林里偶然发现一本肮脏的书。
It made his sisters view all adults with newfound suspicion.
这让他的姐妹们对所有成年人都抱有新的怀疑。
It sent him to the dictionary.
这让他查了字典。
Act Three, Roger and Me, and Lewis and Clark, the story of a construction worker, and this question, can your life be changed by a book that you have never seen and have not read?
第三幕《罗杰和我》、《刘易斯和克拉克》，一个建筑工人的故事，还有这个问题，你的生活能被一本你从未见过也没有读过的书改变吗？
Act Four, Little Sod Houses For You and Me.
第四幕，为你和我建造的小草屋。
It is the old, old story, my friend.
这是一个非常非常老的故事，我的朋友。
New York girl leaves big city, heads out to a small town on the prairie with a dream and a bonnet.
纽约女孩离开大城市，带着梦想和帽子前往草原小镇。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, Act One.
第一幕，第一幕。
So Alexa Junge says that she never meant for Moss Hart's autobiography to be a blueprint for her life, but looking back on the events of the past two decades, that seems to have been the case.
所以亚历克斯·荣格说，她从来没有打算让莫斯·哈特的自传成为她人生的蓝图，但回顾过去二十年的事件，情况似乎确实如此。
Basically, what I did was, like he did in his life story, I moved to New York.
基本上，我所做的就是，就像他在他的人生故事中所做的那样，我搬到了纽约。
I think I kind of followed him there.
我想我是跟着他到那里的。
Really?
真的吗？
You consciously followed him there.
你有意识地跟着他到了那里。
You thought--
你以为——
I don't think it was conscious, but there are so many things that I did that he did.
我不认为这是有意识的，但我做的很多事情都是他做的。
I wasn't as good a-- I mean, he was more sort of-- He could fake it better than I can.
我没那么好——我的意思是，他更像——他可以比我更好地假装。
But you know, he had to get money at a certain point.
但你知道，他必须在某个时候拿到钱。
He was like, I need money.
他说，我需要钱。
So he thought, who's the richest person I know?
于是他想，谁是我认识的最富有的人？
And he wrote a letter to this woman, I think, and then showed up on her doorstep and said, I'm Moss Hart and I have a play, and if you give me money, we'll put it on.
我想他给这个女人写了一封信，然后出现在她家门口并说，我是莫斯·哈特，我有一部戏，如果你给我钱，我们就上演。
And she did.
她做到了。
Wow.
哇。
Alexa Junge Isn't that amazing?
Alexa Junge 这不是很神奇吗？
And I wrote letters to strangers and said, I'm Alexa and I have a play, and if you fund my play, you can be part of the theater.
我给陌生人写信说，我是 Alexa，我有一部戏剧，如果你资助我的戏剧，你就可以成为剧院的一部分。
And did that work?
那有用吗？
Alexa Junge It did one time.
Alexa Junge 曾经有过一次。
Yeah.
是的。
At some point, did you start to get a crush on him?
不知从什么时候开始，你开始喜欢上他了？
Yeah.
是的。
It definitely turned from kind of a mentor, a make-believe mentor, to a pretend husband-to-be kind of situation.
它确实从一种导师，一个假装的导师，变成了一种假装的准丈夫的情况。
Yeah, somehow I think I decided that time had completely screwed up and sent Moss to Kitty Carlisle, and that if he just hadn't died two years before I was born, then me and Moss might really have had a chance.
是的，不知怎的，我想我觉得时间已经完全搞砸了，把莫斯送到基蒂·卡莱尔那里，如果他没有在我出生前两年去世，那么我和莫斯可能真的有机会。
How would this thought manifest itself in daily life?
这种想法在日常生活中会如何体现？
Like, would you be out on dates and just think, hmm, not Moss.
就像，你出去约会时会想，嗯，不是莫斯。
He's not Moss.
他不是莫斯。
Yeah, yeah.
是啊是啊。
Well, it would be like, there'd be something missing.
嗯，就像是缺少了一些东西。
It just wasn't quite what you'd want.
这并不完全是你想要的。
And it was like, why can't I find some guy and we'll work on this play together and we'll be, like, in out-of-town tryouts in Philadelphia, and we'll be up for 48 hours trying to fix our play, and then we'll crack it, and then we'll order room service?
就像，为什么我不能找到一个人，我们会一起开发这个游戏，我们会在费城进行外地选拔赛，我们会在 48 小时内尝试修复我们的游戏，然后我们会解决它，然后我们会订购客房服务？
Well, I think, maybe right before the end of college, Kitty Carlisle spoke one evening.
嗯，我想，也许就在大学毕业前夕，基蒂·卡莱尔的一个晚上发表了讲话。
At your college?
在你的大学吗？
Alexa Junge That's right.
亚历克萨·荣格 是的。
She was very active in the New York arts scene, and she was extremely a huge advocate of the arts in our country.
她在纽约艺术界非常活跃，也是我国艺术的大力倡导者。
And so she was talking about that, I think.
我认为她正在谈论这个。
And I stood in line after she spoke to meet her.
她讲话后我就排队去见她。
And there were all these people around me, and they were like, you were really good on that game show.
我周围有很多人，他们说，你在那个游戏节目中表现得非常好。
And I was just, like, disgusted, like, oh please, she was in A Night at the Opera.
我只是，就像，厌恶，就像，哦拜托，她在歌剧之夜。
She's like a singer.
她就像一个歌手。
She's not just a game show lady.
她不仅仅是一位游戏节目女士。
But by the time I got to the front of the line, and I went up to talk to her, I said what I wanted to say, sort of, which was, you know, Moss changed my life and I moved to New York to be a playwright like him.
但当我走到队伍前面，走上去和她说话时，我说了我想说的话，你知道，莫斯改变了我的生活，我搬到了纽约，成为像他一样的剧作家。
And I think I said something along the lines of, your husband meant so much to me.
我想我说了类似的话，你的丈夫对我来说意义重大。
And she just looked at me, and she was so elegant and so classy, and she just said, I don't understand, darling.
她只是看着我，她是如此优雅，如此优雅，她只是说，我不明白，亲爱的。
Did you know him?
你认识他吗？
She was just terrified.
她只是害怕了。
Yeah.
是的。
I think she probably heard some kind of ownership or possessiveness in the way I said your husband meant so much to me, as if I knew him.
我想她可能从我说你丈夫对我来说意义重大的方式中听到了某种所有权或占有欲，就好像我认识他一样。
So I think it was confusing, since she probably could figure out that he probably was dead before I was born.
所以我认为这很令人困惑，因为她可能知道他可能在我出生之前就死了。
But it was disturbing, and I felt terrible.
但这很令人不安，我感觉很糟糕。
And it made me realize how just far from reality this thing had taken me.
这让我意识到这件事让我离现实有多远。
And it was just scary to scare her, because she's the person that he loved.
吓到她真是太可怕了，因为她是他爱的人。
But my friend that was with me was really nice, because we walked home afterward, and he was like, eh, don't worry about her.
但和我在一起的朋友真的很好，因为我们后来步行回家，他说，呃，别担心她。
You're much better for Moss than she was.
你对莫斯来说比她要好得多。
He knew the whole story, too.
他也知道整个事情的经过。
Eh, Moss was just spending time with her because she happened to be alive.
呃，莫斯只是和她在一起，因为她碰巧还活着。
You know, you talked about how you felt fated for him in some way, and drawn to him in some way.
你知道，你谈到了你如何感觉在某种程度上与他命中注定，并在某种程度上被他吸引。
Have you thought about what is the line that divides that kind of dreamy, healthy feeling, I think, from a scary, stalky feeling?
你有没有想过，那种梦幻般的、健康的感觉和一种可怕的、跟踪的感觉之间的界限是什么？
Yeah sure, because the truth is, really, the way he functioned in my life was like as a comfort.
是的，当然，因为事实是，他在我生活中的作用就像是一种安慰。
And I knew.
我知道。
I mean, it wasn't a break from reality, but it was the sense that, when you read a book and something speaks to you and you feel understood, and so it makes the world a less lonely place.
我的意思是，这并不是脱离现实，而是一种感觉，当你读一本书时，有些东西对你说话，你感到被理解，所以它让世界变得不那么孤独。
Alexa, how much of your feeling about Moss is connected to your feeling about your grandfather, who you didn't really know?
Alexa，你对莫斯的感觉在多大程度上与你对祖父的感觉有关，而你并不真正认识他？
I think they're intimately connected.
我认为他们有着密切的联系。
I really do.
我真的这么做。
I think that, because I didn't know my grandfather, I couldn't talk to him about what his life in the theater was like.
我想，因为我不认识我的祖父，所以我无法和他谈论他在剧院的生活是什么样的。
And so this book gave me 444 pages of what it would be like to want to be in the theater and how you might try to make that happen.
因此，这本书用 444 页的篇幅向我讲述了进入剧院会是什么样子，以及如何努力实现这一目标。
And so it was like he was the sort of stand-in for my grandfather in a lot of ways.
所以在很多方面他就像是我祖父的替身。
And the other part about it is that the way people talk about him-- because I then, of course, went and read every single book I could get my hands on about him, or that even had any mention of him in it-- is with such love and appreciation and affection.
另一方面，人们谈论他的方式——当然，因为我读了我能拿到的每一本关于他的书，甚至其中提到过他的书——充满了爱、欣赏和感情。
It's just staggering.
这真是令人震惊。
I think that that was how people spoke about my grandfather.
我想人们就是这样谈论我祖父的。
And I recognized it, that same enthusiasm and sort of the way their eyes would light up.
我认出了这一点，同样的热情和他们的眼睛会发光的方式。
Today, before our interview, you faxed over to our offices here at WBEZ a-- I'm going to pull it out here-- a letter that your grandfather wrote in 1969, obviously as he was quite ill.
今天，在我们采访之前，您向我们 WBEZ 的办公室传真了一封——我要把它拿出来——一封您祖父在 1969 年写的信，显然当时他病得很重。
And it does have this quality of just-- It's one of the most beautifully written things I've ever read.
它确实具有这样的品质——这是我读过的写得最漂亮的东西之一。
He spends, I should say most of this thing, he starts off-- this is to his students, right?
他花了，我应该说这件事的大部分，他开始——这是给他的学生的，对吗？
Mmm-hmm.
嗯嗯。
yep.
是的。
Ira Glass "Dear friends"-- and he says, "I've asked Donald Davis"-- who I would assume was one of his students.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass）“亲爱的朋友们”——他说，“我已经问过唐纳德·戴维斯了”——我认为他是他的学生之一。
One of his coworkers.
他的一位同事。
Yeah.
是的。
Ira Glass Coworkers, OK.
艾拉·格拉斯同事，好的。
--"to read this to you.
——“读给你听。
It's intended to tell you as much as I know about my present situation, and thereby, of course, to let you know what the prospects are for the future of the work we've begun together.
它的目的是告诉你我所知道的关于我目前的情况，当然，也是为了让你知道我们共同开始的工作的未来前景。
In planning this letter in my mind, I've been pulled this way and that by very conflicting impulses.
在我心里计划写这封信的过程中，我受到了非常矛盾的冲动的左右。
I prefer to consider any of my own sickness, any deep trouble, as a very personal matter, possibly to be shared with close members of our family, but never to be inflicted on anyone else.
我更愿意将自己的任何疾病、任何深层次的麻烦视为非常个人的事情，可能与我们家庭的亲密成员分享，但永远不会强加给其他任何人。
At the same time, I detest mysteries.
同时，我厌恶神秘。
And those of you who have called have, I hope, been told the truth, insofar as we knew it.
我希望那些打电话来的人都被告知了据我们所知的真相。
But the truth has been shifting, sometimes very swiftly.
但事实一直在变化，有时变化得非常快。
And what you may have heard a few weeks back is now untrue."
几周前你可能听到的消息现在已经不真实了。”
And then he has this really pretty paragraph.
然后他有这个非常漂亮的段落。
He says, "Besides, though some of you are relatively recent friends, some of our common ties go years back.
他说：“此外，虽然你们中的一些人是最近的朋友，但我们的一些共同关系可以追溯到很多年前。
And old friends or new, the depth of my feeling for you obliges me to be entirely honest with you.
无论是老朋友还是新朋友，我对你的感情之深迫使我对你完全诚实。
And so I'm going to put the next several paragraphs in parentheses, and I'm asking Donald not to read them aloud.
所以我要把接下来的几段放在括号里，我请唐纳德不要大声朗读它们。
Each of you who wishes to can read it for himself.
你们每个人都可以自己阅读它。
Anyone who dislikes these semi-clinical details can avoid them."
任何不喜欢这些半临床细节的人都可以避免它们。”
And then there are a couple paragraphs that basically describe the state of his illness.
然后有几段基本上描述了他的病情。
And then he talks about the prognosis, which is not very good, in through another few paragraphs, and then into this last paragraph.
然后他在另外几段中谈到了预后，这不是很好，然后进入最后一段。
Why don't you read that.
你为什么不读一下呢。
Sure.
当然。
"Doubtless, all of that sounds very gloomy.
“毫无疑问，所有这些听起来都很悲观。
I do admit I could think of happier matters.
我承认我可以想到更快乐的事情。
For one thing, I don't at all approve of my own extinction.
一方面，我根本不同意自己的灭绝。
I don't like the idea of it one bit.
我一点也不喜欢这个想法。
Though reason assures me that the world can get along very nicely without me, I can't quite believe that it will.
尽管理性让我确信，没有我，世界也能过得很好，但我不太相信它会如此。
Still, there are a few small compensations.
尽管如此，还是有一些小的补偿。
For one thing, I had always hoped that I could face my own death with some equanimity, but it's a bit of a satisfaction to find that I can."
一方面，我一直希望能够平静地面对自己的死亡，但发现我可以做到这一点，我感到有点满足。”
And then he talks about my mom and my grandmother.
然后他谈到了我的妈妈和我的祖母。
And it says, "And that's really what I'm finally wanting to say.
它说：“这就是我最终想说的。
I think you're a great bunch.
我认为你们是一群很棒的人。
And in case there isn't a chance to say it again, thanks for your concern, your calls, your notes, but above all for your love.
如果没有机会再说一遍，感谢您的关心、您的电话、您的笔记，但最重要的是感谢您的爱。
You've had my love and I've had yours, and I'm a damn fortunate man.
你拥有我的爱，我也拥有你的爱，我是一个非常幸运的人。
So thanks and good luck.
谢谢，祝你好运。
Marvin Borowsky."
马文·博罗斯基。”
And so this to you feels very much like Hart, too, Moss Hart.
所以这对你来说也很像哈特，莫斯·哈特。
Yeah.
是的。
Like, guys who said, I'm a damn fortunate man, you're a swell kid.
就像那些说，我是一个非常幸运的人，而你是一个好孩子的人。
Yeah.
是的。
After a few years in New York, Alexa Junge moved to Los Angeles, as her grandfather did, to write screenplays for Hollywood.
在纽约呆了几年后，亚历克莎·荣格像她的祖父一样搬到了洛杉矶，为好莱坞写剧本。
Most recently, she was one of the executive producers for the TV show Friends.
最近，她是电视节目《老友记》的执行制片人之一。
Act Two, The Family That Reads Together.
第二幕，一起读书的家人。
Sometimes a book can change your life, but just in a small, temporary way, and not for the better.
有时一本书可以改变你的生活，但只是一种微小的、暂时的改变，而且不会变得更好。
We have this cautionary tale about how a book infected an entire family from writer David Sedaris.
我们有一个关于作家大卫·塞达里斯的一本书如何感染整个家庭的警示故事。
A quick warning to listeners before we begin, some of the content of this story might not be suitable for every listener, though there is no graphic language, no nasty words, no graphic scenes, nothing, in fact, we even had to bleep.
在开始之前先给听众提个醒，这个故事的某些内容可能并不适合每个听众，尽管没有图形语言，没有脏话，没有图形场景，什么都没有，事实上，我们甚至不得不发出哔哔声。
I found the book hidden in the woods beneath a sheet of plywood, its cover torn away and the pages damp with mildew.
我发现这本书藏在树林里的一张胶合板下面，封面被撕掉了，书页都发霉了。
I read, "Brock and Bonnie Rivers stood in their driveway, waving goodbye to the Reverend Hassleback.
我读到，“布罗克和邦妮·里弗斯站在他们的车道上，向哈斯巴克牧师挥手告别。
'Goodbye,' they said, waving.
“再见，”他们挥手说道。
'Goodbye,' the reverend responded.
“再见，”牧师回答道。
'Tell those two teens of yours, Josh and Sandi, that they'll make an excellent addition to our young persons' ministry.
“告诉你的两个孩子，乔什和桑迪，他们将为我们年轻人的事工做出出色的贡献。
They're fine kids,' he said with a wink.
他们都是好孩子，”他眨了眨眼说道。
'Almost as fine and foxy as their parents.' The Rivers chuckled, raising their hands in another wave.
“几乎和他们的父母一样优秀和狡猾。”里弗斯咯咯笑起来，再次举起双手。
When the reverend's car finally left the driveway, they stood for a moment in the bright sunshine before descending into the basement dungeon to unshackle the children."
当牧师的车最终离开车道时，他们在明亮的阳光下站了一会儿，然后下到地下室地牢来解开孩子们的手铐。”
The theme of the book was that people are not always what they seem.
这本书的主题是人并不总是他们看起来的那样。
Highly respected in their upper-middleclass community, the Rivers family practiced a literal interpretation of the phrase "Love thy neighbor." Limber as gymnasts, these people were both shameless and insatiable.
里弗斯家族在上层中产阶级社区中备受尊敬，他们对“爱你的邻居”这句话进行了字面解释。这些人就像体操运动员一样灵活，既无耻又贪得无厌。
Father and daughter, brother and sister, mother and son, after exhausting every possible combination, they widened their circle to include horny sea captains and door-to-door knife salesmen.
父女、兄妹、母子，在用尽了所有可能的组合后，他们扩大了圈子，包括了性欲旺盛的船长和上门推销刀的人。
Yes, these people were naughty, but at the age of 13, I couldn't help but admire their infectious energy and spirited enjoyment of life.
是的，这些人很顽皮，但在13岁的时候，我忍不住钦佩他们富有感染力的能量和对生活的热情享受。
The first few times I read the book, I came away shocked, not by the characters' behavior, but by the innumerable typos.
头几次读这本书时，我感到震惊，不是因为人物的行为，而是因为无数的错别字。
Had nobody bothered to proofread this book before sending it to print?
在这本书付印之前，没有人费心校对过吗？
In the opening chapter, the daughter is caught fondling her brother's ceck in the dining room.
在第一章中，女儿被发现在餐厅里抚摸她哥哥的阴茎。
On page 33, the son has sex with his mother, who we are told possesses a fond par of tots.
在第 33 页，儿子与他的母亲发生了性关系，我们被告知他的母亲拥有一个可爱的孩子。
I showed the book to my sister Lisa, who tore it from my hands, saying, let me hold on to this for a while.
我把这本书拿给姐姐丽莎看，她从我手里把它撕下来，说，让我拿着这本书一段时间。
She and I often swapped babysitting jobs and considered ourselves fairly well read in the field of literary pornography.
她和我经常交换保姆的工作，并认为我们在色情文学领域颇有造诣。
"Look in the parents' bedroom beneath the sweaters in the second drawer of the white dresser," she'd say.
“看看父母的卧室白色梳妆台第二个抽屉里的毛衣下面，”她说。
We'd each read The Story of O and the collected writings of the Marquis de Sade with one eye on the front door, fearful that the homeowners might walk in and torture us with barbed whips and hot oils.
我们每个人都读过《O的故事》和萨德侯爵的文集，一只眼睛盯着前门，担心房主可能会走进来，用带刺的鞭子和热油折磨我们。
We know you, our looks would say as the parents checked on their sleeping children.
当父母检查熟睡的孩子时，我们的表情会告诉我们，我们认识你。
We know all about you.
我们了解你的一切。
The book went from Lisa to our 11-year-old sister, Gretchen, who interpreted it as a startling nonfiction expose on the American middle class.
这本书是丽莎送给我们 11 岁的妹妹格雷琴的，她将这本书解读为揭露美国中产阶级的惊人非小说类作品。
"I'm pretty sure this exact same thing is going on right here in North Hills," she whispered, tucking the book beneath the artificial grass of her Easter basket.
“我很确定北山也发生了同样的事情，”她低声说道，把书塞到复活节篮子的人造草坪下面。
"Take the Sherman family, for example.
“以谢尔曼家族为例。
Just last week, I saw Heidi sticking her hands down Steve Junior's pants." "The guy has two broken arms," I said.
就在上周，我看到海蒂把手伸进了小史蒂夫的裤子里。” “这家伙的两条胳膊断了，”我说。
"She was probably just tucking in his shirt." "Would you ask one of us to tuck in your shirt?" she asked.
“她可能只是把衬衫塞进他的衣服里。” “你能请我们中的一个人帮你把衬衫掖进去吗？”她问道。
She had a point.
她说得有道理。
A careful study suggested that the Shermans were not the people they pretended to be.
一项仔细的研究表明，谢尔曼一家并不是他们所假装的那样。
The father was often seen tugging at his crotch, and the wife had a disturbing habit of looking you straight in the eye while sniffing her fingers.
人们经常看到父亲拉扯他的胯部，而妻子则有一个令人不安的习惯，即直视你的眼睛，同时嗅着她的手指。
A veil had been lifted, especially for Gretchen, who now saw the world as a steaming pit of unbridled sexuality.
一层面纱被揭开了，尤其是对格雷琴来说，她现在将世界视为一个充满无拘无束的性欲的热气腾腾的深坑。
Seated on a lounge chair at the country club, she would narrow her eyes, speculating on the children crowding the shallow end of the pool.
坐在乡村俱乐部的躺椅上，她会眯起眼睛，想象着挤在泳池浅水区的孩子们。
"I have a sneaking suspicion Christina Youngblood might be our half sister," she said.
“我偷偷怀疑克里斯蒂娜·杨布拉德可能是我们同父异母的妹妹，”她说。
"She's got her father's chin, but the eyes and mouth are pure Mom." I felt uneasy implicating our parents, but Gretchen provided a wealth of frightening evidence.
“她有她父亲的下巴，但眼睛和嘴巴却是纯粹的妈妈。”我对牵涉到我们的父母感到不安，但格雷琴提供了大量令人恐惧的证据。
She noted the way our mother applied lipstick at the approach of the potato chip delivery man, whom she addressed by first name and often invited in to use the bathroom.
她注意到我们的母亲在薯片送货员走近时涂口红的方式，她直呼其名，并经常邀请他去洗手间。
Our father referred to the bank tellers as "doll" and "sweetheart," and their responses suggested that he had taken advantage of them one time too many.
我们的父亲称银行出纳员为“洋娃娃”和“甜心”，他们的反应表明他已经太多次利用了他们。
The Greek Orthodox church, the gaily dressed couples at the country club, even our elderly collie, Duchess, they were all in on it according to Gretchen, who took to piling furniture against her bedroom door before going to sleep at night.
格雷琴说，希腊东正教教堂、乡村俱乐部里衣着华丽的夫妇，甚至是我们年长的牧羊犬公爵夫人，他们都参与其中，她在晚上睡觉前把家具堆在卧室门上。
The book wound up in the hands of our 10-year-old sister, Amy, who used it as a textbook in the make-believe class she held after school each day.
这本书最终落到了我们 10 岁的妹妹艾米 (Amy) 的手中，她每天放学后都用它作为虚拟课堂的教科书。
Dressed in a wig and high heels, she passed her late afternoons standing before a blackboard and imitating her teachers.
她戴着假发，穿着高跟鞋，站在黑板前模仿老师，度过了下午的时光。
"I'm very sorry, Candice, but I'm going to have to fail you," she'd say, addressing one of the empty folding chairs arranged before her.
“我很抱歉，坎迪斯，但我会让你失望的，”她对着她面前的一把空折叠椅说道。
"The problem is not that you don't try.
“问题不在于你不尝试。
The problem is that you're stupid, very, very stupid.
问题是你很蠢，非常非常愚蠢。
Isn't Candice stupid, class?
同学们，坎迪丝不是傻子吗？
She's ugly, too.
她也很丑啊
Am I wrong?
我错了吗？
Very well, Candice, you can sit back down now.
很好，坎迪斯，你现在可以坐下了。
And for god's sakes, please stop crying.
看在上帝的份上，请停止哭泣。
OK, class.
好的，上课了。
Now I'm going to read to you from this week's new book.
现在我将向你们朗读本周的新书。
It's a story about a California family and it's called Next of Kin.
这是一个关于加利福尼亚家庭的故事，它的名字叫“Next of Kin”。
"
”
If Amy had read the book, then surely it had been seen by eight-year-old Tiffany, who shared her bedroom, and possibly by our brother, Paul, who at the age of two might have sucked on the binding, which was even more dangerous than reading it.
如果艾米读过这本书，那么八岁的蒂芙尼肯定也看过这本书，她与她同住一间卧室，也可能被我们的兄弟保罗看过，他两岁的时候可能会吸吮装订本，这比读这本书更危险。
Clearly, this had to stop before it got out of hand.
显然，必须在事态失控之前停止。
Even our ancient Greek grandmother was arriving at the breakfast table with suspicious-looking circles beneath her eyes.
就连我们的古希腊祖母也带着可疑的黑眼圈来到早餐桌前。
Gretchen took the book and hid it under the carpet of her bedroom, where it was discovered by our housekeeper, Lena, who eventually handed it over to our mother.
格雷琴把这本书藏在卧室的地毯下，我们的管家莉娜发现了它，她最终把它交给了我们的母亲。
"I'll make sure this is properly disposed of," my mother said, hurrying down the hallway to her bedroom.
“我会确保这个东西得到妥善处理，”我母亲一边说，一边沿着走廊快步跑到她的卧室。
"Panetration," she laughed, reading out loud from a randomly selected page.
“渗透，”她笑着从随机选择的页面中大声朗读。
"Oh, this ought to be good."
“哦，这样应该不错。”
Weeks later, Gretchen and I found the book hidden between the mattress and box springs of my parents' bed, the pages stained with coffee rings and cigarette ash.
几周后，格雷琴和我发现这本书藏在我父母床上的床垫和弹簧床之间，书页上沾满了咖啡圈和烟灰。
The discovery seemed to validate all of Gretchen's suspicions.
这一发现似乎证实了格雷琴的所有怀疑。
"They'll be coming for us any day now," she warned.
“他们随时都会来找我们，”她警告说。
"Be prepared, my friend, because this time they'll be playing for keeps." We waited.
“做好准备，我的朋友，因为这一次他们会一直玩下去。”我们等待着。
I'd always made it a point to kiss my mother before going to bed, but not anymore.
我总是在睡觉前亲吻妈妈，但现在不再这样了。
The feel of her hand on my shoulder now made my flesh crawl.
她的手放在我肩膀上的感觉让我浑身起鸡皮疙瘩。
She was hemming a pair of my pants one afternoon when, standing before her on a kitchen chair, I felt her hands grace my butt.
一天下午，她正在给我的裤子缝边，当时，我站在她面前的厨房椅子上，感觉到她的手抚摸着我的屁股。
"I-- I just want to be friends," I stammered.
“我——我只是想成为朋友，”我结结巴巴地说。
"Nothing more, nothing less." She took the pins out of her mouth and studied me for a moment before sighing.
“不多也不少。”她把别针从嘴里拿出来，审视了我一会儿，然后叹了口气。
"Damn, and here you've been leading me on all this time."
“可恶，你竟然一直在引导我。”
I read the book once more, hoping to recapture my earlier pleasure, but it was too late now.
我又读了一遍这本书，希望能重拾以前的快乐，但现在已经太晚了。
I couldn't read the phrase, "He paunched his daughter's rock-hard nopples," without thinking of Gretchen barricading herself in the bedroom.
当我读到“他打了女儿坚硬的乳头”这句话时，我无法不想起格蕾琴把自己关在卧室里的情景。
I thought I might throw the book away, or maybe even burn it, but like a perfectly good outgrown sweater, it seemed a shame to destroy it when the world was full of people who might get some use out of it.
我想我可能会把这本书扔掉，或者甚至烧掉它，但就像一件完美的过时的毛衣一样，当世界上到处都是可能从中得到一些用处的人时，毁掉它似乎是一种耻辱。
With this in mind, I carried the book to the grocery store parking lot, and tossed it into the back of a shiny new pickup truck.
考虑到这一点，我把这本书带到杂货店停车场，然后把它扔进一辆闪亮的新皮卡车的后座。
I then took up my post beside the store's outdoor vending machines, waiting until the truck's owner returned, pushing a cart full of groceries.
然后我就在商店的露天自动售货机旁站岗，等待卡车主人推着一辆装满杂货的推车回来。
He was a wiry man, with fashionable mutton-chop sideburns and a half-cast on his arm.
他身材魁梧，留着时髦的羊排鬓角，手臂上打着半石膏。
As he placed his bags into the back of the truck, his eyes narrowed upon the book.
当他把包放进卡车后座时，他眯起眼睛看着那本书。
I watched as he picked it up and leafed through the first few pages, before raising his head to search the parking lot.
我看着他拿起它，翻阅了前几页，然后抬起头去寻找停车场。
He took a cigarette from his pocket and tapped it against the roof of the truck before lighting it.
他从口袋里掏出一根香烟，在卡车顶上敲了一下，然后点着了。
Then he slipped the book into his pocket and drove away.
然后他把书放进口袋，开车走了。
David Sedaris is the author of several books, including Naked, in which this story appears.
大卫·塞达里斯（David Sedaris）是多本书的作者，其中包括《裸体》，其中出现了这个故事。
Coming up, the frontier then and then.
即将到来，边境时时。
That's in a minute, from Public Radio International, when our program continues.
稍后，国际公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
It's This American Life .
这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.
当然，每周我们的节目都会选择一个主题，为您带来有关该主题的各种不同类型的故事。
Today's program, The Book That Changed My Life.
今天的节目是《改变我一生的书》。
We've arrived at Act Three of our show.
我们已经到了节目的第三幕了。
Act Three, Roger and Me, Lewis and Clark.
第三幕，罗杰和我，刘易斯和克拉克。
There's book as literature, there's book as filth, and then there's book as pure physical object.
有作为文学的书，有作为污秽的书，还有作为纯粹物理对象的书。
This is the story of somebody for whom a book changed his life, though it is almost random that it happened at all, that he got to know this book in the first place.
这是一个关于某人的故事，一本书改变了他的生活，尽管这件事的发生几乎是随机的，但他首先了解这本书。
Jeremy Goldstein tells the story.
杰里米·戈德斯坦讲述了这个故事。
Roger was 34, working in construction and looking for things to do in his spare time.
罗杰 34 岁，从事建筑工作，并在业余时间寻找事情做。
And one day, he noticed this plate he'd been given by his grandmother, a plate from a 1905 fair celebrating the centennial of Lewis and Clark's expedition to explore the Western frontier.
有一天，他注意到祖母送给他的这个盘子，这是 1905 年庆祝刘易斯和克拉克探索西部边境一百周年集市上的盘子。
He looked at the plate and wondered if there was anything else left from the fair still around.
他看着盘子，想知道周围是否还剩下博览会上的其他东西。
It turned out there was a lot, and he started buying it up.
结果发现数量很多，他就开始买起来。
It was a fun hobby, collecting the various memorabilia from that fair.
收集那个博览会的各种纪念品是一个有趣的爱好。
But when you reach a point where I had about 1,100 items, one of the larger collections known, it was the end of the treasure hunt.
但当我拥有大约 1,100 件物品（已知的较大收藏品之一）时，寻宝活动就结束了。
And I couldn't find anything I didn't have.
我找不到任何我没有的东西。
And somebody mentioned, well, why don't you collect books about Lewis and Clark?
有人提到，好吧，你为什么不收集有关刘易斯和克拉克的书籍呢？
I thought, well, that might be kind of fun to do.
我想，好吧，这样做可能会很有趣。
So in 1984, he went to a book dealer in Vancouver, and picked out an 80-year-old set of books that chronicled Lewis and Clark's expedition.
于是，1984年，他来到温哥华的一家书商那里，挑选了一套有80年历史的书籍，记录了刘易斯和克拉克的探险经历。
The price?
价格？
$695.
695 美元。
I had a difficult time writing out that check, because at that time, in fact, I really didn't know much about books.
我写这张支票的时候很困难，因为当时我其实对书本还不太了解。
I proceeded to take that set of books downtown in Portland, to an established book dealer whose name was Preston McMann.
我继续把这套书带到了波特兰市中心的一位老牌书商那里，他的名字叫普雷斯顿·麦克曼。
And I showed him the set.
我向他展示了这套装置。
I said, well, that's it, isn't it?
我说，好吧，就这样吧？
That's all the journals.
这就是所有的期刊。
And he kind of chuckled.
他笑了笑。
He said, no, there's a lot more publications than that about the journals of Lewis and Clark.
他说，不，关于刘易斯和克拉克期刊的出版物还有很多。
And so I went ahead and said, well, I tell you what.
所以我继续说，好吧，我告诉你什么。
I said, you give me about five years, I'm going to have every book published about Lewis and Clark.
我说，你给我大约五年的时间，我将出版所有关于刘易斯和克拉克的书。
And he laughed so hard, he about laughed himself out of his chair.
他笑得太厉害了，差点把自己从椅子上笑起来。
He was a heavyset gentleman in his late 60s at the time.
当时他是一位 60 多岁的魁梧绅士。
And he said, there's people that have spent lifetimes looking for every book of Lewis and Clark and have never succeeded.
他说，有些人花了一辈子的时间寻找刘易斯和克拉克的每一本书，但从未成功。
Well, I told him, well, maybe I won't have every book, but I'll have the best library of anybody in the United States.
好吧，我告诉他，好吧，也许我不会拥有每本书，但我会拥有美国最好的图书馆。
And he laughed harder.
他笑得更厉害了。
Strange as it may sound, this is all it took to send Roger on his path of amassing, in just 14 years, what did become the largest-known private collection of Lewis and Clark books in the United States.
听起来可能很奇怪，但这就是罗杰在短短 14 年里走上收藏之路的全部原因，他的藏书后来成为美国最大的刘易斯和克拉克私人藏书。
And all this time, he kept working in construction, excavating landscapes, laying pipes for sewers and paving roads, a decent living, but it was never enough.
一直以来，他一直在建筑工作，挖掘景观，铺设下水道管道和铺路，过着体面的生活，但这永远不够。
Anything after house payment and basic expenses for living would go toward buying books.
除去房款和基本生活费之后，所有的钱都用来买书了。
I would have to work 10 to 12 hours a day, normally six days a week, some summers I wouldn't take a day off, just so that I could work and have a little better check so maybe I could get that next book, or make that other credit card payment, because I was now beyond my means.
我必须每天工作 10 到 12 个小时，通常每周工作六天，有些夏天我不会休息一天，这样我就可以工作并有更好的支票，这样也许我可以得到下一本书，或者进行其他信用卡付款，因为我现在超出了我的能力。
At one point, Roger had 12 credit cards.
罗杰曾一度拥有 12 张信用卡。
And then, of course, I had a house I could refinance, which I did three times.
然后，当然，我有了一套可以再融资的房子，我这样做了三次。
I don't know how to explain it, exactly.
我不知道如何准确地解释它。
But if there was a book out there that I didn't have, I would find the means to acquire it.
但如果有一本书我没有，我会想办法获得它。
When you get something of the 18th, 19th century, you open up the book, and you look at the discoloration of the pages, and the smell, and that's when you really feel the true energy of history, not what you would read, but you've got more senses than just your eyes.
当你拿到18、19世纪的东西时，你打开书，看着书页的变色和气味，那时你才真正感受到历史的真正能量，而不是你读到的东西，而是你有比你的眼睛更多的感官。
You can smell.
你可以闻到。
You can feel.
你可以感觉到。
You can touch.
你可以触摸。
This actually points to one of the strangest things about Roger's relationship with his collection.
这实际上指出了罗杰与他的收藏的关系中最奇怪的事情之一。
He knew all about the different Lewis and Clark books, marbled endpapers, obscure hand-tinted plates, and the value of original boards.
他了解各种不同的刘易斯和克拉克书籍、大理石纹底纸、晦涩的手工着色板以及原始板的价值。
But Roger never became an expert on what was inside the books.
但罗杰从未成为书中内容的专家。
He didn't collect books to read them.
他收集书籍并不是为了阅读。
He just wanted to own them.
他只是想拥有它们。
It turns out that your life can be changed by books you didn't even read.
事实证明，你甚至没有读过的书可以改变你的生活。
In fact, Roger had never been a reader of books.
事实上，罗杰从来不读书。
He didn't read books as a kid.
他小时候没读过书。
He didn't go to college.
他没有上大学。
And his reading habits didn't change as an adult, when his house was full of books.
当他的房子里堆满了书时，他的阅读习惯在成年后并没有改变。
As a collector, Roger was undeterred and he was methodical.
作为一名收藏家，罗杰没有被吓倒，而且很有条理。
But after 10 years, one book still eluded him.
但十年过去了，他仍然没能写出一本书。
It's the cornerstone of any serious Lewis and Clark collection, a first edition copy of the first official account of the expedition.
这是任何严肃的刘易斯和克拉克收藏的基石，是探险队第一个官方报道的第一版副本。
It's a two-volume set published in 1814.
该书共两卷，出版于 1814 年。
Fewer than 1,500 copies were ever printed.
印刷量不足 1,500 份。
But the price tag, often around $10,000, had always scared Roger off.
但价格通常在 10,000 美元左右，一直让罗杰望而却步。
Then in 1994, he took a $49 flight to Los Angeles for the LA book fair.
1994 年，他乘坐 49 美元的航班飞往洛杉矶参加洛杉矶书展。
That particular day, I got there early.
那天，我很早就到了那里。
And then there was somewhat of a race when they opened up the gate.
当他们打开大门时，发生了一场竞赛。
They would actually have to stand, slow down, slow down, don't run.
他们实际上必须站着，放慢速度，放慢速度，不要跑。
It was like kids running for the opening of a carnival.
这就像孩子们为嘉年华开幕而奔跑。
I sauntered just casually, I didn't run, to William Reese's booth, and introduced myself.
我只是漫不经心地闲逛，没有跑，来到威廉·里斯的展位，做了自我介绍。
Oh yeah, Hi Roger.
哦，是的，嗨罗杰。
And I says, did you bring anything about Lewis and Clark with you?
我说，你带了有关刘易斯和克拉克的东西吗？
And he turned and looked toward the glass case, and there sits a two-volume set of 1814 Lewis and Clark journals.
他转身看向玻璃柜，里面放着一套两卷本 1814 年的刘易斯和克拉克日记。
And this set was beautiful.
而且这一套很漂亮。
And I was just shaking.
我只是在发抖。
I wanted the set so bad.
我非常想要这套。
And I looked at him and I says, what's the price?
我看着他说，价格是多少？
Bill said, $12,500.
比尔说，12,500 美元。
I was crushed.
我被压垮了。
I knew it was beyond me.
我知道这超出了我的能力范围。
So as I kind of backed away and started to walk away from the booth, just knowing, shaking my head to myself, I can't afford them, there's no way I can get-- I've got to have this set of books, somehow I've gotta-- I can't afford these books, I can't, there's no way, I gotta have this set of books, how the hell can I do it, geez, I better go to the bar.
所以当我后退并开始离开展位时，我只知道，对自己摇摇头，我买不起它们，我没有办法得到——我必须拥有这套书，不知何故我必须——我买不起这些书，我买不起，没有办法，我必须拥有这套书，我到底该怎么做，天啊，我最好去酒吧。
I walked to the bar, got a shot of scotch.
我走到酒吧，喝了一杯苏格兰威士忌。
I walked back to the booth with my scotch in hand, and I says, can I look at those again?
我手里拿着苏格兰威士忌走回摊位，我说，我可以再看看那些吗？
And Bill, yeah, sure.
比尔，是的，当然。
Took them off the shelf, set them on the counter.
把它们从架子上拿下来，放在柜台上。
He says, well, Roger, what can you afford?
他说，好吧，罗杰，你能买得起什么？
I says, I don't know.
我说，我不知道。
I says, we're not working.
我说，我们不工作了。
This is a slow time of the year.
这是一年中缓慢的时期。
I might be able to do $1,000 a month.
我可能每个月可以赚1000美元。
But ah, Bill, you know, we're not working now.
但是啊，比尔，你知道，我们现在不工作。
I don't know, maybe in May or June.
我不知道，也许五月或六月吧。
You know, when we start working overtime.
你知道，当我们开始加班时。
And he said, well, do you want them?
他说，好吧，你想要它们吗？
And I said, yeah, but, gosh, I can't-- And before I could finish the conversation, Mr. Reese had turned around and took these books, put them in the bag, wrapped them up, turned around, put out his hand and shook my hand and said, that sounds good enough to me.
我说，是的，但是，天哪，我不能——在我结束谈话之前，里斯先生转过身来，拿起这些书，把它们放进包里，包起来，转身，伸出手和我握手，说，这对我来说听起来不错。
The 1814 became Roger's calling card.
1814 成为罗杰的名片。
It established him as an expert in all things written about Lewis and Clark.
这使他成为所有有关刘易斯和克拉克的文章的专家。
And then something happened.
然后发生了一些事情。
Roger started to read his books.
罗杰开始读书。
Before this, he'd occasionally pull out a book and read a random passage, but now he started to plow through whole books front to back.
在此之前，他偶尔会翻出一本书，随意读一段，但现在他开始从头到尾地翻阅整本书。
Now it's my time to study the books.
现在是我看书的时间了。
Let's look at this book that's in front of me.
让我们看看我面前的这本书。
I've got it open to-- just by chance-- a passage that brings a lot of pleasure to me, is the fact that--
我偶然读到一段给我带来很多乐趣的段落，事实是——
The passage comes about halfway through the expedition.
这段经文大约发生在探险的中途。
After 18 months of looking for a route to the ocean, they finally reach the Pacific.
经过 18 个月的寻找出海航线，他们终于到达了太平洋。
And here they finally-- "We are in view of the ocean, this great Pacific ocean, which we have so long anxious to see.
在这里，他们终于——“我们看到了大海，这片伟大的太平洋，我们长期以来一直渴望看到它。
The roaring and the noise made by the waves breaking on the rocky shores may be heard distinctly.
可以清楚地听到海浪拍打岩石海岸时发出的咆哮声和噪音。
Ocean in view!
海洋尽收眼底！
O!
哦！
The joy!" So in this passage, place yourself on the banks of the Columbia River, looking out toward the ocean.
喜悦！”因此，在这段文字中，将自己置于哥伦比亚河岸边，眺望大海。
I mean, I'd be jumping up and down screaming, where is that gill of whiskey?
我的意思是，我会尖叫着跳上跳下，威士忌的鳃在哪里？
Which they didn't have at that time, unfortunately.
不幸的是，他们当时没有。
I mean, they would have taken a gallon and all chugged it, and they'd have just been sloshed on the banks and just partyin' forever.
我的意思是，他们会喝下一加仑，然后全部喝下去，然后他们就会在河岸上喝得烂醉，然后永远狂欢。
I mean, it's great.
我的意思是，这太棒了。
What a feeling of success.
多么成功的感觉啊。
It just brings a great pleasure myself.
这给我自己带来了极大的乐趣。
"Ocean in view!
“大海尽收眼底！
O!
哦！
The joy!"
喜悦！”
Last week, Roger made a pilgrimage of sorts to see, for the first time, the original handwritten journals that Lewis and Clark kept during their expedition.
上周，罗杰进行了一次朝圣之旅，第一次看到刘易斯和克拉克在探险期间保留的原始手写日记。
They're the books that everything Roger ever bought are descended from.
罗杰买过的所有书都是这些书的后代。
Most of the journals are stored at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.
大多数期刊都存放在费城的美国哲学会。
They're in remarkable condition.
他们的状况非常好。
As a librarian turned the books crisp pages for Roger, flipping past detailed maps and intricate drawings of animals, Roger barely moved or spoke.
当图书管理员为罗杰翻阅清晰的书页、翻阅详细的地图和复杂的动物图画时，罗杰几乎没有动弹或说话。
Lewis and Clark's map of Great Falls of the Columbia.
刘易斯和克拉克绘制的哥伦比亚大瀑布地图。
And you're seeing it upside-down, the Columbia.
你会看到它颠倒过来，哥伦比亚号。
At one point, Roger asked, could he touch them?
有一次，罗杰问，他可以碰它们吗？
He was told no. And after less than an hour with the journals, we wandered back into the library's main reading room.
他被告知不。浏览日记不到一个小时后，我们漫步回到图书馆的主阅览室。
The book has altered my life from being a manual labor to being a scholar of knowledge from the interior of the book.
这本书让我的生活从一个体力劳动者变成了一个从书本内部获取知识的学者。
Stephen Beckham, a professor at Lewis & Clark, once said, well, Roger, you can't put yourself down for being a construction foreman.
Lewis & Clark 教授史蒂芬·贝克汉姆 (Stephen Beckham) 曾经说过，罗杰，你不能因为自己是一名建筑工头而贬低自己。
He said, that's a school of another type.
他说，那是另一种类型的学校。
He says, I love school and I love education.
他说，我热爱学校，热爱教育。
And he says, and now that you're entering that field with us, I have great respect for what you've done and what you know.
他说，现在你和我们一起进入这个领域，我非常尊重你所做的事情和你所知道的。
And it makes me feel great.
这让我感觉很棒。
In the years since Roger began collecting, the value of all things Lewis and Clark has soared.
自从罗杰开始收藏以来，刘易斯和克拉克所有物品的价值都在飙升。
Stephen Ambrose wrote a popular book, Undaunted Courage .
斯蒂芬·安布罗斯写了一本很受欢迎的书，《无畏的勇气》。
Ken Burns did a documentary.
肯·伯恩斯拍了一部纪录片。
These fueled the fire.
这些都火上浇油。
And last fall, Roger arranged for a Lewis & Clark College in Portland to purchase his entire collection for what amounts to a small fortune.
去年秋天，罗杰安排波特兰的刘易斯和克拉克学院以一笔不小的财富购买了他的全部收藏。
He promptly retired from construction at the age of 54.
54 岁时，他立即从建筑业退休。
I just smiled.
我只是微笑。
I just smiled.
我只是微笑。
And I walked in, sat down, leaned back in the chair, and thought, wow, a whole new life.
我走进去，坐下来，靠在椅子上，心想，哇，全新的生活了。
I don't have an alarm clock now.
我现在没有闹钟。
I mean, I've got one, but it's not in use.
我的意思是，我有一个，但没有使用。
When my body says to get up in the morning, I get up.
当我的身体告诉我早上要起床时，我就会起床。
I stretch, do some light exercises, have a nice relaxing breakfast.
我伸展身体，做一些轻微的运动，享用一顿轻松的早餐。
Any of those in construction industry now listening to this, eat your hearts out.
建筑行业的任何人现在听到这个，都会心痛不已。
Most of Roger's days are now spent in the library of Lewis & Clark college, where Doug Erickson is the chief archivist.
罗杰现在大部分时间都在刘易斯与克拉克学院的图书馆度过，道格·埃里克森是该学院的首席档案管理员。
Roger's known him for years.
罗杰认识他很多年了。
You know, Roger would oftentimes get off of work when he was still working construction, and not even clean up and come over to Lewis and Clark and spend time with me.
你知道，罗杰在建筑工作时经常下班，甚至不打扫卫生，就到刘易斯和克拉克身边来陪我。
And we'd chat and talk about books.
我们会聊天并谈论书籍。
But he was tired.
但他累了。
He was very tired, and he looked like he'd just gone through a hard day of labor on a construction site.
他很累，看上去就像刚刚在建筑工地上辛苦劳作了一天一样。
Now you see Roger, he strolls in sometime in the morning, whenever he feels like it.
现在你看到罗杰了，他早上的某个时候，只要他愿意，就会漫步进来。
He walks in feeling like a king.
他走进去感觉就像一个国王。
And then I usually go up to the Heritage Room, and I just sit there and immerse myself into that.
然后我通常会去遗产室，坐在那里沉浸其中。
And of course, I'm surrounded by the books.
当然，我周围都是书。
It's a wonderful feeling being in there.
身处其中的感觉真是美妙。
And he goes up there and he works.
他就去那里工作。
And every couple of-- oh, every hour or two, he'll come down all excited, Doug, you gotta come up here and see this.
每隔一两个——哦，每隔一两个小时，他就会兴奋地下来，道格，你必须来这里看看这个。
And I'll come upstairs, and he'll show me something and we'll get excited about it.
我会上楼，他会给我看一些东西，我们会对此感到兴奋。
And as I see him in the Heritage Room for many years to come, writing books and having people coming and talk to him, and just enjoying the rest of his life.
我看到他在未来的许多年里都在遗产室里，写书，让人们来和他交谈，享受他的余生。
That story by Jeremy Goldstein, a television producer in New York City.
纽约电视制片人杰里米·戈德斯坦的故事。
Act Four, Little Sod houses For You and Me.
第四幕，小草皮之屋为你和我。
When you really love a book, what exactly are you supposed to do with that feeling after you finish reading the book, and then perhaps finish reading about the book?
当你真正喜欢一本书时，当你读完这本书，然后也许读完这本书之后，你到底应该如何处理这种感觉呢？
If you feel strongly enough about the book, I think there is this impulse to somehow get closer to the book, to somehow try and conjure the world of the book right here in the real world somehow.
如果你对这本书有足够强烈的感觉，我认为你会有一种想要以某种方式接近这本书的冲动，以某种方式尝试在现实世界中以某种方式召唤书中的世界。
So if you read about a Broadway playwright, maybe you move to New York City and start writing plays.
因此，如果您读到一位百老汇剧作家的故事，也许您会搬到纽约并开始创作戏剧。
Or if you already live in New York City, but the book takes place somewhere else, you head out there.
或者，如果你已经住在纽约市，但这本书发生在其他地方，你就去那里。
Meghan Daum has this story.
梅根·道姆有这样一个故事。
I'm moving to Nebraska.
我要搬到内布拉斯加州。
No one understands why.
没有人明白为什么。
I've lived in New York City for seven years, which is essentially all of my adult life.
我在纽约市生活了七年，这基本上是我成年生活的全部。
And a few months ago, I started making plans to head out west, not all the way west to California or Oregon, which people from around here might understand, but to the Great Plains.
几个月前，我开始计划向西出发，不是一路向西去加利福尼亚或俄勒冈州（这里的人们可能会理解），而是去大平原。
I wanted to move someplace flat and treeless, some place that gives off a sense of how big this country used to be before automobiles and the jet age, before you could be cavalier about traveling from one place to another.
我想搬到一个平坦、没有树木的地方，一个能让人感觉到这个国家在汽车和喷气式飞机时代之前、在你可以漫不经心地从一个地方旅行到另一个地方之前有多大的感觉的地方。
There are a lot of reasons behind my move, but one of the reasons has to do with a book, with nine books, as a matter of fact.
我搬家的原因有很多，但其中一个原因与一本书有关，事实上有九本书。
They're the books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder about her childhood as a pioneer girl on the vast Midwestern prairie in the late 1800s.
这些书由劳拉·英格斯·怀尔德 (Laura Ingalls Wilder) 撰写，讲述了 1800 年代末她在广阔的中西部大草原上作为一名拓荒女孩的童年。
When I was a little girl growing up nearly 100 years later in the 1970s, I wanted to be like Laura so much that I made my mother sew me a sunbonnet, which I wore constantly.
100 年后的 20 世纪 70 年代，当我还是个小女孩时，我非常想成为劳拉那样的人，所以我让妈妈给我缝了一顶遮阳帽，我一直戴着它。
Like Laura, I wore my hair in braids.
像劳拉一样，我把头发编成辫子。
Before I knew how to write, I drew picture books featuring the entire Ingalls family.
在我学会如何写作之前，我画了整个英格尔斯家族的图画书。
It was always a variation on the same theme, a family moves to a new home, encounters hardships, and through a particular combination of self-reliance and hard work, makes a life for themselves in the new place, a place so remote, so unsettled, so cold, that no civilization, not even most Indians, had ever dared to live there.
它总是同一个主题的变奏，一个家庭搬到新家，遇到困难，通过自力更生和努力工作的特殊结合，在新的地方为自己谋生，一个如此偏远、如此不稳定、如此寒冷的地方，没有任何文明，甚至大多数印度人，都敢在那里生活。
To me, this kind of uncharted life was the best kind to have.
对我来说，这种未知的生活是最好的。
And it was even better that it required a sunbonnet.
更好的是它需要遮阳帽。
[SOUNDS OF HORSE-DRAWN WAGON] Tim Sullivan She taught at three schools.
[马车的声音] Tim Sullivan 她在三所学校任教。
The first one was the Brewster School, and that's where Almanzo would take her down and pick her up.
第一个学校是布鲁斯特学校，阿曼佐会在那里带她去接她。
It was about 12 miles to the southwest.
距离西南约 12 英里。
I'm in De Smet, South Dakota, riding a horse-drawn wagon around the actual land that the Ingalls lived on.
我在南达科他州的德斯梅特，骑着马车绕着英格尔家族居住的土地转了一圈。
Our tour guide is Tim Sullivan.
我们的导游是蒂姆·沙利文。
Tim and his wife Joan own the 154 acres of land that Laura's father, Charles Ingalls, claimed in 1880 as part of the Homestead Act.
蒂姆和他的妻子琼拥有 154 英亩的土地，劳拉的父亲查尔斯·英格尔斯 (Charles Ingalls) 于 1880 年根据《宅地法》对这块土地拥有所有权。
This is an old trapper's cabin that we're going to fix up.
这是我们要修缮的旧捕手小屋。
We haven't gotten it done, but that's the only thing we haven't gotten done.
我们还没有完成它，但这是我们唯一还没有完成的事情。
A lot of people think the Ingalls are from Walnut Grove, Minnesota, because that's where the television series was set.
很多人认为英格尔一家来自明尼苏达州核桃格罗夫，因为那是电视剧的拍摄地。
But in fact, they only lived there for a few years.
但事实上，他们只在那里住了几年。
Laura came to De Smet in 1879, when she was 12.
1879 年，12 岁的劳拉 (Laura) 来到德斯梅特 (De Smet)。
It was where she grew up, became a school teacher, and met and married Almanzo Wilder.
她在那里长大，成为一名学校教师，遇见并嫁给了阿尔曼佐·怀尔德。
Six of her books are set there.
她的六本书就放在那里。
For those who remember, it's the place where Laura and her sister, Mary, who was blind, got lost in the tall, wet grasses known as the Big Slough.
对于那些还记得的人来说，这是劳拉和她失明的妹妹玛丽在被称为“大沼泽”的又高又湿的草丛中迷路的地方。
It's the place where the family survived the long winter, and it was the place she always considered home.
这是一家人度过漫长冬天的地方，也是她一直认为是家的地方。
So when she talks about walking through the cool ground, just walking to prairie school, if you see when we're going home, it's wet there, that's why it would have been cool.
因此，当她谈到步行穿过凉爽的地面，步行去草原学校时，如果你看到我们回家时，那里很湿，这就是为什么会很酷。
There's a certain kind of town that is defined solely by one industry, like steel towns, where at least one member of every family works in the mill.
有一种城镇仅由一种行业定义，例如钢铁城镇，每个家庭至少有一名成员在工厂工作。
De Smet is sort of like that, too, except the industry is a series of books.
De Smet 也有点像这样，只不过这个行业是一系列书籍。
Every year for the past 29 years, the townspeople have put on a pageant based on Laura's life.
过去 29 年里，镇上的人们每年都会举办一场以劳拉的生活为主题的选美活动。
Just about everyone in this town of 1,200 has participated in the pageant, or at least had one family member who has put on 1880s-style clothing at one time or another and given tours at the museum, or given some hapless tourist directions to the cemetery, where caravans of family cars wind around the grounds looking for the burial sites of Charles, Caroline, Mary, Carrie, and Grace Ingalls.
在这个有 1,200 人的小镇上，几乎每个人都参加过这场选美比赛，或者至少有一位家庭成员曾一度穿上 1880 年代风格的服装，参观了博物馆，或者给了一些前往墓地的不幸的旅游路线，在那里，家庭轿车车队在场地上蜿蜒行驶，寻找查尔斯、卡罗琳、玛丽、嘉莉和格蕾丝·英格尔斯的墓地。
Almost every establishment in De Smet, even the local bar, has restrooms labeled Ma and Pa.
德斯梅特的几乎每个场所，甚至当地的酒吧，都设有标有“Ma”和“Pa”的卫生间。
But even though De Smet is, for all intents and purposes, a tourist town, it doesn't feel like one.
尽管德斯梅特无论从哪个方面来说都是一个旅游小镇，但它给人的感觉却不像是一个旅游小镇。
Instead, it feels like a town with a hobby, a place where a lot of people devote a lot of time to one particular idea.
相反，它感觉就像一个有爱好的小镇，一个很多人投入大量时间来实现某个特定想法的地方。
The tourists, though they're greeted in that typically warm Midwestern way, feel almost incidental to the larger cause of celebrating Laura.
尽管游客们受到了典型的中西部热情欢迎，但他们觉得庆祝劳拉的更大事业几乎是偶然的。
I talked to a man who had acted in the pageant for 27 years, missing only two performances the whole time, one of them because of a combine accident in which he lost his finger, and his son was impaled and almost died.
我采访了一位参加选美比赛27年的男子，整个过程中只缺席了两次表演，其中一次是因为一次联合收割机事故，他失去了手指，他的儿子被刺穿，差点丧命。
He was back on stage the next night.
第二天晚上他又回到了舞台。
His wife, Eldina, had driven them to the hospital and witnessed a pretty gory series of medical procedures performed, by the way, without anesthesia.
他的妻子埃尔迪娜开车送他们去医院，并目睹了一系列相当血腥的医疗手术，顺便说一句，是在没有麻醉的情况下进行的。
The night of the accident, her husband had one request of her.
出事当晚，丈夫向她提出了一个要求。
He says, honey, you have to go on.
他说，亲爱的，你必须继续下去。
I was playing Ma at the time.
那时我正在扮演妈妈。
And so I did perform that night.
所以那天晚上我确实表演了。
And I think I was probably in shock myself, because it went fairly well.
我想我自己可能也很震惊，因为进展相当顺利。
But it was on Sunday night is where I kind of fell apart.
但周日晚上我有点崩溃了。
I forgot a few lines, but we made it.
我忘记了几行，但我们做到了。
Laura's books have a lot to do with the notion of rising to the occasion.
劳拉的书与随机应变的理念有很大关系。
And the pageant demands countless hours of volunteer effort, cooperation, and manual labor done without complaint.
选美比赛需要无数小时的志愿者努力、合作和毫无怨言的体力劳动。
In a way, this kind of idyllic, romantic work ethic is not what I expected when I came to De Smet.
在某种程度上，这种田园诗般、浪漫的职业道德并不是我来到德斯梅特时所期望的。
Or I should say it is what I expected, and that's what took me by surprise.
或者说，这正是我所预料的，也是令我惊讶的。
Traditionally in a story like this, the writer goes to the place she's dreamt of and finds that it's not like what she imagined at all.
传统上，在这样的故事中，作者去了她梦想的地方，却发现它根本不像她想象的那样。
But the remarkable thing about De Smet that is that it really is the little town on the prairie.
但德斯梅特的非凡之处在于，它确实是草原上的小镇。
The people are a bit like the people in Laura's books.
这里的人有点像劳拉书中的人。
They're proud of the land they live on.
他们为自己所居住的土地感到自豪。
And in a strange way, it's as if Laura's powers of description have affected the way they talk about the place.
奇怪的是，劳拉的描述能力似乎影响了他们谈论这个地方的方式。
And it's beautiful out here on the prairie this evening, looking at the Big Slough.
今晚，在草原上眺望大沼泽，景色非常美丽。
Herd of cattle over there.
那边有牛群。
I think it looks just like it did in Laura's day.
我认为这看起来就像劳拉那个时代的样子。
Not all the buildings on the other side, but the Big Slough is the same.
不是所有的建筑都在另一边，但大沼泽是一样的。
I like the way the blackbirds swing in the reeds, the way the cattails bloom, the puddles of water.
我喜欢乌鸫在芦苇丛中荡秋千的样子，喜欢香蒲盛开的样子，喜欢水洼。
Sometimes ducks and geese come in and land.
有时鸭子和鹅会飞进来并降落。
Marian Cramer is the author of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant.
玛丽安·克莱默是劳拉·英格尔斯·怀尔德选美大赛的作者。
We're sitting at a picnic table on the Ingalls Homestead.
我们坐在英格尔斯庄园的野餐桌旁。
A busy day of tourism is winding down.
忙碌的一天的旅游即将结束。
Visitors are getting back in their minivans.
游客们正乘坐小型货车返回。
Tim Sullivan's eight-year-old son, Brian, is assembling his costume for the pageant dress rehearsal.
蒂姆·沙利文 (Tim Sullivan) 八岁的儿子布莱恩 (Brian) 正在为选美彩排准备服装。
Marian is 65.
玛丽安 65 岁。
So how much different was your life from Laura's when you were reading these books?
那么，当您阅读这些书时，您的生活与劳拉的生活有多大不同呢？
Well, I guess my childhood was before electricity, before running water.
嗯，我想我的童年是在没有电、自来水之前的。
And I lived on a working farm, and there were chores, there was responsibility.
我住在一个工作农场里，有家务活，有责任。
A lot of the same.
很多都一样。
That's why I like the Laura books so well, because Laura had to do the same things I had to do.
这就是为什么我如此喜欢劳拉的书，因为劳拉必须做我必须做的同样的事情。
We had cattle and hogs and sheep, and we grew wheat and corn.
我们养牛、猪、羊，还种植小麦和玉米。
It was a wonderful time.
那是一段美好的时光。
Family was very important.
家庭非常重要。
And life seemed simpler then, because we didn't do so many things and go so much.
那时的生活似乎更简单，因为我们没有做那么多事情，也没有去那么多地方。
But I'm not sure that it was.
但我不确定是不是这样。
Do you remember when you first got electricity and water?
您还记得第一次获得电力和水是什么时候吗？
Oh yes.
哦是的。
Meghan Daum And what was that like?
梅根·道姆 那是什么样的？
It was just lovely.
真是太可爱了。
Electricity came in '48.
电力于 48 年到来。
And they had been working for a long time putting the lines in.
他们已经花了很长时间来安装线路。
And finally the lines were all in, and they were all hooked up.
最后，所有的线都插好了，都连接好了。
They were just waiting for the major flow of energy.
他们只是在等待主要的能量流动。
And then the electricity was on.
然后就通电了。
And it was the first time.
这是第一次。
And that night, as it got dark, I remember my father and my mother and my sister and one of my older brothers, we stood there and looked, because suddenly it wasn't a black country anymore.
那天晚上，天黑了，我想起了我的父亲、母亲、姐姐和我的一个哥哥，我们站在那里看着，因为突然间它不再是一个黑人国家了。
We could see our neighbors' lights.
我们可以看到邻居的灯光。
It made it seem a lot less lonesome, a lot less isolated.
它让它看起来不那么孤独，不那么孤立。
Marian was a music teacher for many years before becoming a pioneer school teacher on the Ingalls Homestead.
玛丽安在成为英格尔斯家园先锋学校教师之前曾担任多年音乐老师。
Every day, she hangs out in the one-room schoolhouse, which looks exactly the way Laura describes her classroom at the Brewster School in her book, These Happy Golden Years .
她每天都在一间只有一个房间的校舍里闲逛，这栋校舍看起来和劳拉在她的书《这些快乐的黄金岁月》中描述的布鲁斯特学校的教室一模一样。
Marian gives brief music and math lessons to the tourists, and then has the class read a quote from Laura off the blackboard.
玛丽安给游客们上简短的音乐和数学课，然后让全班同学朗读黑板上劳拉的一句话。
The quote goes something like, "It's best to be truthful and honest and make the best of what we have." Somehow it sounds revelatory.
这句话是这样的：“最好是诚实和诚实，并充分利用我们所拥有的。”不知怎的，这听起来很有启发。
The prairie is the only place I've been to in my life where you can make the simplest, sweetest, even, I dare say, most cliched statement about the virtues of a simple life, and it sounds like anything but a cliche.
草原是我一生中去过的唯一一个地方，在那里你可以对简单生活的美德做出最简单、最甜蜜、甚至我敢说最陈词滥调的陈述，而且听起来一点也不陈词滥调。
It's as if the wind, which barrels through here like a wild animal, just knocks the irony out of everything.
就好像风像野兽一样吹过这里，把一切的讽刺都吹掉了。
After a long day working at the Ingalls Homestead, Joan Sullivan, Tim's wife, walks me down to the edge of the Big Slough.
在英格尔斯庄园工作了一整天后，蒂姆的妻子琼·沙利文带我走到大沼泽的边缘。
The grass is taller than we are, and it's easy to see how Mary and Laura could have gotten lost here.
草比我们高，很容易看出玛丽和劳拉是如何在这里迷路的。
Do you think that has to do with farming?
你认为这与农业有关吗？
Or do you think it's something about the time that Laura was living in?
或者你认为这与劳拉生活的时代有关？
Or a combination of those?
或者这些的组合？
Probably a combination of those, trying to make an honest dollar.
可能是这些的结合，试图赚到诚实的钱。
A farmer works hard.
一个农民很努力地工作。
They feed the world.
他们养活了世界。
Why, hello.
为什么，你好。
I'm glad so many of you have come to our little town on the prairie in De Smet.
我很高兴你们这么多人来到我们位于德斯梅特草原上的小镇。
This is especially fine country, this prairie.
这是一个特别好的国家，这片草原。
At this time of the year, this is the hour that daylight softens and twilight falls.
每年的这个时候，正是日光柔和、暮色降临的时刻。
Oh, please forgive me.
哦，请原谅我。
Sometimes I get a little carried away.
有时我会有点得意忘形。
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant runs for three weekends each summer.
劳拉·英格尔斯·怀尔德选美大赛每年夏天举办三个周末。
Admission is $5.
入场费为 5 美元。
About 700 people come each night.
每晚约有 700 人前来。
It's held right in the middle of the prairie, on land adjacent to the Ingalls Homestead.
它位于大草原中央，毗邻英格尔斯家园的土地上。
From the pageant site, you can see the five cottonwood trees that Pa planted.
从选美现场，你可以看到爸爸种植的五棵杨树。
"One for each of my girls," he said, meaning Ma and his four daughters.
“我的女儿们各有一份，”他说，指的是妈妈和他的四个女儿。
The dialogue in the pageant has been prerecorded.
选美比赛中的对话是预先录制好的。
When the pageant is actually performed, the cast members lip sync the words and pantomime the action.
当选美比赛真正进行时，演员们会对台词进行口型同步，并表演动作。
This technique has its benefits and its perils.
这种技术有它的好处和它的危险。
During the first performance this year, the actor playing Pa missed his cue, and his words came booming down onto the stage even though he wasn't there.
今年第一场演出时，扮演爸爸的演员错过了提示，尽管他不在场，但他的话语却在舞台上轰隆隆地响起。
The actors playing Mary and Laura and Ma carried on, talking to an invisible Pa like he was the voice of God.
扮演玛丽、劳拉和妈妈的演员继续与看不见的爸爸交谈，就像他是上帝的声音一样。
Pa, is it on Indian land, or land we'll have to move from?
爸，是在印第安人的土地上，还是在我们必须搬走的土地上？
Not on Indian land, my pretty girl.
不是在印度土地上，我漂亮的女孩。
This is surveyed land, just waiting for us to call it home.
这是一片经过勘察的土地，正等待着我们称之为家。
I want a place that's open, where I can run with the wind.
我想要一个空旷的地方，在那里我可以乘风奔跑。
Lots of room, Laura.
有很多空间，劳拉。
Ingalls Daughter It'll be the Ingalls Homestead.
英格尔斯的女儿 这将是英格尔斯家园。
Doesn't that sound fine?
听起来不是很好吗？
I am completely charmed by this pageant.
我完全被这场选美比赛迷住了。
Yes, there are mistakes.
是的，有错误。
Yes, you can hear places on the soundtrack where the tape been edited.
是的，您可以听到音轨中磁带被编辑过的地方。
But all I can think as I watch these people on stage, many of them farmers, retired farmers, and their wives and kids of farmers, is how effectively they capture the feeling of the book.
但当我看着舞台上的这些人时，我所能想到的就是他们如何有效地捕捉这本书的感觉，其中许多人是农民、退休农民，以及他们农民的妻子和孩子。
They're not selling anything.
他们不卖任何东西。
There's no agenda other than to celebrate Laura, and the fact that she cared enough about this town to write these books about it.
除了庆祝劳拉之外，没有其他议程，以及她对这个小镇足够关心，因此写了这些关于它的书。
It's dusk on the prairie, literally.
确实是草原上的黄昏。
That doesn't sound like something you'd say in earnest.
这听起来不像是你认真说的话。
It sounds like a lyric in some cowboy folk song, or a particularly bad line in a romance novel.
这听起来像是牛仔民歌中的歌词，或者言情小说中特别糟糕的台词。
But it's not.
但事实并非如此。
It is simply dusk on the prairie.
简直就是草原上的黄昏。
Little girls in sweaters and pants from the Gap are wearing sunbonnets and standing on the benches to get a better look.
穿着 Gap 毛衣和裤子的小女孩戴着遮阳帽，站在长凳上以便更好地观赏。
Fathers with fussy babies stroll around the fields so their wives can watch the pageant undisturbed.
带着挑剔的婴儿的父亲们在田野里漫步，这样他们的妻子就可以不受干扰地观看选美比赛。
An eight-year-old girl in sneakers and jeans runs through the grass, the wind whipping through her hair, her sunbonnet flying out behind her.
一个穿着运动鞋和牛仔裤的八岁女孩在草地上奔跑，风吹过她的头发，遮阳帽在她身后飞扬。
The pageant is a huge hit.
选美比赛非常受欢迎。
When the show's over, the audience storms the stage to get the autographs of cast members.
演出结束后，观众涌上舞台索取演员的签名。
People are saying it's the best thing they've ever seen, that this trip to De Smet is the best vacation they've ever had.
人们说这是他们见过的最好的事情，这次德斯梅特之旅是他们度过的最好的假期。
It's remarkable, really, that in a time when families can take vacations to Disney World, or visit Great Adventure, or even just stay home and watch TV, people will travel all the way to South Dakota to see a world that's described in a series of books.
确实，当家庭可以去迪士尼世界度假，或者参观大冒险，甚至只是呆在家里看电视的时候，人们会千里迢迢来到南达科他州，去看看一系列书中所描述的世界，这真的很了不起。
The Ingalls family managed to make homes for themselves in some of the most unforgiving conditions imaginable, in a cabin in the deep woods, in the banks of a creek, in a shanty surrounded by hundreds of flat, empty acres.
英格尔斯一家设法在一些可以想象到的最恶劣的条件下为自己安了家，在树林深处的小屋里，在小溪的岸边，在被数百片平坦空旷的土地包围的棚屋里。
But no matter where they lived, Pa played his fiddle, Ma did her sewing, and Laura managed to find delight in the world around her.
但无论他们住在哪里，爸爸都会拉小提琴，妈妈会做缝纫，而劳拉则设法在周围的世界中找到快乐。
Maybe that ability to merge the indoors and the outdoors, the familiar and the unfamiliar, is what all these people are responding to.
也许这种融合室内和室外、熟悉和陌生的能力正是所有这些人所回应的。
Maybe that's why there's so much romance in the whole notion of a cabin stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
也许这就是为什么偏僻的小屋的整个概念充满浪漫的原因。
People want to find comfort in an inherently uncomfortable place.
人们希望在一个本来就不舒服的地方找到安慰。
They want to see if they can make it through the long winter and still see the beauty in the snow.
他们想看看能否熬过漫长的冬天，还能看到雪中的美丽。
Meghan Daum leaves New York City in two weeks to move to Nebraska.
梅根·道姆 (Meghan Daum) 两周后离开纽约市，搬到内布拉斯加州。
Well, our program was produced today by Julie Snyder and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Susan Burton, Blue Chevigny, and Nancy Updike.
好吧，我们今天的节目是由朱莉·斯奈德和我本人以及亚历克斯·布隆伯格、苏珊·伯顿、布鲁·切维尼和南希·厄普代克制作的。
Contributing editors, Paul Tough, Jack Hitt, Margy Rochlin, Alix Spiegel, and consigliere Sarah Vowell.
特约编辑 Paul Tough、Jack Hitt、Margy Rochlin、Alix Spiegel 和顾问 Sarah Vowell。
Production help from Todd Bachman, Starlee Kine, and Sylvia Lemus.
Todd Bachman、Starlee Kine 和 Sylvia Lemus 为制作提供帮助。
Musical help from Marika Partridge and Terry Hecker.
Marika Partridge 和 Terry Hecker 提供音乐帮助。
Special thanks today to Bob Carlson at KCRW and Larry Josephson at the Radio Foundation.
今天特别感谢 KCRW 的鲍勃·卡尔森 (Bob Carlson) 和广播基金会的拉里·约瑟夫森 (Larry Josephson)。
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] If you'd like to buy a cassette of this program, call us here at WBEZ in Chicago, 312-832-3380.
[鸣谢] 如果您想购买该节目的磁带，请致电我们芝加哥的 WBEZ，电话：312-832-3380。
Of you know, you can listen to most of our programs for free, on the internet at our website, www.thislife.org.
您知道，您可以在我们的网站 www.thislife.org 上免费收听我们的大部分节目。
Thanks to Elizabeth Meister, who runs the site.
感谢该网站的运营者伊丽莎白·梅斯特 (Elizabeth Meister)。
This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
[FUNDING CREDITS] WBEZ management oversight by Torey Malatia, who wanders into our workspace looking at all the new stuff we've bought and asks,
[资金来源] WBEZ 管理由 Torey Malatia 负责监督，他走进我们的工作空间，查看我们购买的所有新东西并询问，
What-- What d-- What-- How-- What's the price?
什么-- 什么 d-- 什么-- 如何-- 价格是多少？
I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life .
我是艾拉·格拉斯，下周回来，带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
O!
哦！
The joy!
喜悦！
Announcer PRI, Public Radio International.
国际公共广播电台 PRI 播音员。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。