How to read
談閱讀

Virginia Woolf
弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙

It is simple enough to say that since books have classes — fiction, biography, poetry — we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us.
說來容易: 既然書有各種各樣——小說、傳記、詩歌——該把它們分門別類，并且各按其類來汲取每本書理應(yīng)給予我們的內(nèi)容。

Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.
然而，很少人讀書時想過書本能夠提供些什么的問題。最普通的現(xiàn)象是，我們拿起書本時頭腦不清醒，目標(biāo)不一致，我們要求小說敘述真人實事，要求詩歌表現(xiàn)虛假，要求傳記給人捧場，要求歷史證實我們自己的偏見。如果我們能在打開書本之前先驅(qū)除掉這些先入為主的看法，那將是個值得慶幸的良好開端。

Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read.
不要去指揮作者，要設(shè)身處地去替他設(shè)想，當(dāng)他的合作者或同謀犯。如果你一開始便采取退縮矜持、有所保留或指指點點的態(tài)度，那你就在為自己設(shè)置障礙，使自己不能充分地從所閱讀的書本中獲到益處。

But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite.
然而，如果你沒有先入之見，虛懷若谷，那么，打開書本，隱晦曲折的字里行間，難以察覺的細(xì)微跡象的暗示便會向你展示一個與眾不同的人。深入進(jìn)去，沉浸其中，熟諳這一切，你會很快發(fā)現(xiàn)，書的作者正在，或努力在給予你一些十分明確的東西。

The thirty-two chapters of a novel — if we consider how to read a novel first — are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building: but words are more impalpable than bricks; reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words.
一部小說——如果我們先考慮一下怎樣閱讀小說的話——要有32個章節(jié)，這道理實際上跟建造有形有狀的樓房完全一樣：只不文字不像磚塊看得見摸得著；閱讀比起觀看是一個更漫長更復(fù)雜的過程。也許，要懂得作者寫作過程中的細(xì)微末節(jié)，最簡便的辦法不是讀而是寫，親自動手對字句的艱難險阻進(jìn)行試驗。

Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you — how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking. A tree shook; an electric light danced; the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic; a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment.
回想一件曾經(jīng)給你留下深刻印象的事情——也許在大街的拐角處有兩個人在聊天，你走過他們的身邊。一棵樹搖晃起來，一道電光飛舞而過，他們聊天的口氣頗有喜劇味道，但也帶悲劇色彩，那一瞬間似乎包含了一個完整的意象，一種完整的概念。

But when you attempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into a thousand conflicting impressions. Some must be subdued; others emphasized; in the process you will lose, probably all grasp upon the emotion itself.
然而，你動手用文字來重新構(gòu)造時，你發(fā)現(xiàn)這一切變成了千百個互相沖突的印象。有的要淡化，有的要突出；在寫的過程里，你可能會失去你想捕捉的情感。

Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist — Defoe, Jane Austen, Hardy. Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery. It is not merely that we are in the presence of a different person — Defoe, Jane Austen, or Thomas Hardy — but that we are living in a different world.
這時候，放下你寫得稀里糊涂顛三倒四的東西，打開某些大小說家的小說讀一讀——笛福、簡·奧斯汀、哈代?，F(xiàn)在，你能欣賞他們的匠心功力了。我們不僅面臨一個與眾不同的人——笛福、簡·奧斯丁或托馬斯·哈代——我們還生活在一個與眾不同的世界里。

Here, in Robinson Crusoe, we are trudging a plain high road; one thing happens after another; the fact and the order of the fact is enough. But if the open air and adventure mean everything to Defoe they mean nothing to Jane Austen. Hers is the drawing-room, and people talking, and by the many mirrors of their talk revealing their characters. And if, when we have accustomed ourselves to the drawing-room and its reflections, we turn to hardy, we are once more spun around.
在《魯濱遜飄流記》里我們是在一條普普通通的公路上跋涉前進(jìn)；只要事實和事實的先后次序便足夠了。然而，如果說笛?？粗氐氖且巴馍詈兔半U行動，它們對簡·奧斯丁來說卻毫無意義?？蛷d才是她的天地，還有人們的談天說地，她通過各種各樣的表現(xiàn)談話的鏡子來揭示他們的性格。當(dāng)我們習(xí)慣于這個客廳及其中閃爍多姿的映像以后又轉(zhuǎn)而去閱讀哈代，那我們又會暈頭轉(zhuǎn)向。

The moors are round us and the stars above our heads. The other side of the mind is now exposed — the dark side that comes uppermost in solitude, not the light side that shows in company. Our relations are not towards people, but towards Nature and destiny.
我們周圍是沼澤，頭頂上是星星。人性的另外一面被揭示了一孤獨時得到突出表現(xiàn)的黑暗的一面，而不是與友朋相處時閃閃發(fā)亮的光明的一面。我們不是跟人而是跟大自然、跟命運發(fā)生關(guān)系。

Yet different as these worlds are, each is consistent with itself. The maker of each is careful to observe the laws of his own perspective, and however great a strain they may put upon us they will never confuse us, as lesser writers so frequently do, by introducing two different kinds of reality into the same book.
然而，這些世界雖然互不相同，它們各自卻都統(tǒng)一諧調(diào)。每個世界的創(chuàng)造者都小心翼翼地遵守各自透視事物的法規(guī)，而且，不管他們給我們以多大負(fù)擔(dān)，他們從來不會使我們感到迷惑，不像有些二流作家常常在同一本書里介紹兩種完全不相同的現(xiàn)實，把讀者弄得無所適從。

Thus to go from one great novelist to another — from Jane Austen to Hardy, from Peakcok to Trollope, from Scott to Meredith — is to be wrenched and uprooted; to be thrown this way and then that. To read a novel is a difficult and complex art. You must be capable not only of great finesse of perception, but of great boldness of imagination if you are going to make use of all that the novelist — the great artist — gives you.
因此，從一位偉大的小說家到另一位——從簡·奧斯丁到哈代，從皮科克到特羅洛普，從司各特到梅瑞狄斯——我們都要經(jīng)受一場脫胎換骨、背井離鄉(xiāng)的痛苦，被扔過來又趕過去。讀小說是一門艱難復(fù)雜的藝術(shù)。你不僅要有高明的洞察秋毫的本事，你還要能夠敢于進(jìn)行大膽的想象，如果你想充分利用偉大的小說家——偉大的藝術(shù)家——所給予你的一切。