1.How Reading Changed My Life(2215)

Passage One

Anna Quindlen is a US journalist, She has also written a number of novels, short stories and poems. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1953. The present text is an abridged version of the original.

安娜·昆德伦是一名美国记者，她还写了一些小说、短篇故事和诗歌。1953年，她出生于宾夕法尼亚州的费城。本文本是原文的删节版。

How Reading Changed My Life

Anna Quindlen

【1】I had a lovely childhood in a lovely place. The neighborhood where I grew up was the sort of place in which people dream of raising children—a small but satisfying spread of center-hall colonials, old roses, and quiet roads. We walked to school, wandered wild in the summer. We knew everyone and all their brothers and sisters, too. Some of the people I went to school with still live there.

【2】Yet, there was always in me the sense that I ought to be somewhere else. And wander I did, although in my everyday life, I had nowhere to go and no imaginable reason on earth why I should want to leave. I wandered the world through books.

【3】I went to Victorian England in the pages of "Middlemarch" and "A Little Princess," and to Saint Petersburg before the fall of the tsar with "Anna Karenina." I went to Tara, and Manderley, and Thornfield Hall, all those great houses, with their high ceilings and high drama, as I read "Gone with the Wind," "Rebecca," and "Jane Eyre."

【4】When I was in eighth grade, I took a scholarship test for a convent school, and the essay question began with a quotation: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

【5】Later, over a stiff and awkward lunch of tuna-fish salad, some of the other girls at my table were perplexed by the source of the quotation and what it meant, and I was certain, at that moment, that the scholarship was mine. How many times had I gone up the steps to the guillotine with Sydney Carton as he went to that far, far better rest at the end of "A Tale of Two Cities"?

【6】Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one—Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennett, Dill, and Scout—were more real than the real people I knew.

【7】My home was in that pleasant place outside Philadelphia, but I really lived somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books, and those books were more real to me than any other thing in my life.

【8】One poem committed to memory in grade school survives in my mind. It is by Emily Dickinson: "There is no Frigate like a book / To take us Lands away / Nor any coursers like a Page / Of prancing Poetry."

【9】Perhaps only a truly discontented child can become as seduced by books as I was. Perhaps restlessness is a necessary corollary of devoted literacy. There was a club chair in our house, with curled arms and a square ottoman; it sat in one corner of the living room, with a barrel table next to it. In my mind, I am always sprawled on it, reading with my skinny legs slung over one of its arms.

【10】"It's a beautiful day," my mother is saying; she said that always, often, autumn, spring, even when there was a fresh snowfall. "All your friends are outside." It was true, they always were. Sometimes I went out with them, coaxed into the street, out into the fields, down by the creek, by the lure of what I knew instinctively was normal childhood.

【11】I have clear memories of that sort of life, of lifting the rocks in the creek that trickled through Naylor's Run to search for crayfish, of laying pennies on the tracks of the trolley and running to fetch them, flattened, when the trolley had passed.

【12】But the best part of me was always at home, within some book that had been laid flat on the table to mark my place, its imaginary people waiting for me to return and bring them to life.

【13】In the years since those days in that club chair, I have learned that I was not alone in this, although at the time I surely was, the only child I knew, or my parents knew, or my friends knew, who preferred reading to playing. In books, I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself.

【14】I learned the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books, a kind of parallel universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger. My real, true world. My perfect island.

【15】Years later, I would come to discover, as Robinson Crusoe did when he found Man Friday, that I was not alone in that world or on that island. I would discover (through reading, naturally) that while I was sprawled, legs akimbo, in that chair with a book, Jamaica Kincaid was sitting in the glare of the Caribbean sun in Antigua reading in that same way that I did, as though she was starving and the book was bread.

【16】Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. "Book love," Trollope called it. "It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live." Yet of all the many things in which we recognize some universal comfort—God, food, family, friends—reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung, at least publicly, although it was really all I thought of, or felt, when I was eating up book after book, running away from home while sitting in that chair, traveling around the world and yet never leaving the room.

【17】I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.

By the time I became an adult, I realized that while my satisfaction in the sheer act of reading had not abated in the least, the world was often as hostile, or as blind, to that joy as had been my girlfriends banging on our screen door, begging me to put down the book—"that stupid book," they usually called it, no matter what book it happened to be.

【18】While we pay lip service to the virtues of reading, the truth is that there is still in our culture something that suspects those who read too much, whatever reading too much means, of being lazy, aimless dreamers, people who need to grow up and come outside to where life is, who think themselves superior in their separateness.

【19】There is something in the American character that is even secretly hostile to the act of aimless reading, a certain hale and heartiness that is suspicious of reading as anything more than a tool for advancement. America is also a nation that prizes sociability and community, that accepts a kind of psychological domino effect: alone leads to loner, loner to loser.

【20】Any sort of turning away from human contact is suspect, especially one that interferes with the go-out-and-get-going ethos that seems to be at the heart of our national character.

【21】The images of American presidents that stick are those that portray them as men of action: Theodore Roosevelt on safari, John Kennedy throwing a football around with his brothers. There is only Lincoln as solace to the inveterate reader, a solitary figure sitting by the fire, saying, "My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read."

【22】There also arose, as I was growing up, a kind of careerism in the United States that sanctioned reading only if there was some point to it. Students at the nation's best liberal arts colleges who majored in philosophy or English were constantly asked what they were "going to do with it," as though intellectual pursuits for their own sake had their day, and lost it in the press of business.

【23】Reading for pleasure was replaced by reading for purpose, and a kind of dogged self-improvement: whereas an executive might learn far more from "Moby-Dick," the book he was expected to have read might be "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People."

Reading for pleasure, spurred on by some interior compulsion, became as suspect as getting on the subway to ride aimlessly from place to place.

【24】For many years, I worked in the newspaper business. For many journalists, reading in the latter half of the twentieth century was most often couched as a series of problems to be addressed: Were children in public schools reading poorly? Were all Americans reading less? Was the printed word giving way to the spoken one? Had television and the movies supplanted books?

【25】The journalistic answer, most often, was yes, yes, yes, yes. And in circles devoted to literary criticism, among the professors of literature, the editors and authors of fiction, there was sometimes a kind of horrible exclusivity surrounding discussions of reading. There was good reading, and there was bad reading. There was the worthy, and the trivial. This was always couched in terms of taste, but it tasted, smelled unmistakably like snobbery.

【26】None of this was new. Reading has always been used as a way to divide a country and a culture into the literati and everyone else, the intellectually worthy and the hoi polloi. But in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg invented the printing press, and so began the process of turning the book from a work of art for the few into a source of information for the many. After that, it became more difficult for one small group of people to lay an exclusive claim to books, to seize and hold reading as their own.

【27】But it continued to be done by critics and scholars. When I began to read their work, I was disheartened to discover that many of them felt that the quality of poetry and prose, novels and history and biography, was plummeting into some intellectual bargain basement. But reading saved me from despair, as it always had, for the more I read, the more I realized it had always been thus, and that apparently an essential part of studying literature, whether in 1840, 1930, or 1975, was to conclude that there had once been a golden age, that it was gone.

【28】"The movies consumed so large a part of the leisure of the country that little time is left for other things," the trade magazine of the industry, Publisher Weekly, lamented in 1923. "The novel can't compete with cars, the movies, television, and liquor," the French writer Louis Ferdinand Céline said in 1960.

【29】There was certainly no talk of comfort and joy, of the lively subculture of those of us who comprise the real clan of the book, who read not to judge the reading of others but to take the measure of ourselves. Of those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers.

【30】The silence about this was odd, both because there are so many of us and because we are what the world of books is really about. We are the people who once waited for the newest installment of Dickens' latest novel. We are the people who saw to it that "Pride and Prejudice" never went out of print.

【31】Nothing had changed since I was a solitary child being given leather bookmarks by relatives for Christmas. It was still in the equivalent of the club chairs that we found one another: at the counters in bookstores with our arms full, at the front desks in libraries, at school, where teachers introduced us to one another—and, of course, in books, where book-lovers make up a lively subculture of characters. "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing," says Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

【32】Reading is like so much else in our culture: the truth of it is found in its people and not in its pundits and its professionals. If I believed what I read about reading, I would despair. But instead, there are letters from readers to attend to, like the one from a girl who had been given one of my books by her mother and began her letter, "I guess I am what some people would call a bookworm."

"So am I," I wrote back.

第一课

阅读如何改变了我的生活

安娜·昆德兰

【1】我在一个可爱的地方有一个可爱的童年。我长大的地方是人们梦想在那里养育孩子的地方，虽小，但令人满意的是，到处都是中央大厅、古老的玫瑰和安静的道路。我们步行去学校，在夏天四处游荡。我们认识每一个人，也认识他们所有的兄弟姐妹。一些和我一起上学的人仍然住在那里。

【2】然而，我总觉得我应该到别的地方去。尽管在我的日常生活中，我无处可去，也没有任何可以想象的理由让我想离开。我通过书籍周游世界。

【3】我通过《米德尔马契》和《小公主》去了维多利亚时代的英国，通过《安娜·卡列尼娜》去了沙皇倒台前的圣彼得堡。我去了塔拉庄园、曼陀利庄园和桑菲尔德庄园，所有那些高大的房子，天花板很高，情节也很戏剧化，我一边读《乱世佳人》、《丽贝卡》和《简·爱》。

【4】八年级的时候，我参加了一所修道院学校的奖学金考试，作文题的开头是一句引语:“我现在做的事，比我以前做过的任何事都要伟大得多;我要去的安息，远比我所知道的要好得多。”

【5】后来，在一顿生硬而尴尬的金枪鱼沙拉午餐中，同桌的一些女孩对这句话的来源和含义感到困惑，而我在那一刻确信，奖学金是我的。有多少次我和西德尼·卡登一起走上断头台的台阶，而他却在《双城记》的结尾得到了远远更好的休息?

【6】就像我读过的许多其他书一样，它对我来说从来不像一本书，而是像一个我曾经住过、去过、还会再去的地方，就像书中所有的人，每一个被祝福的人，《绿山墙的安妮》、《海蒂》、《杰伊·盖茨比》、《伊丽莎白·班尼特》、《迪尔》和《斯考特》，比我认识的真实的人更真实。

【7】我的家在费城郊外那个宜人的地方，但我实际上住在别的地方。我生活在书的封面里，那些书对我来说比我生命中的任何东西都更真实。

【8】小学时记住的一首诗至今仍留在我的脑海里。艾米莉·狄金森写道:“没有一艘护卫舰像一本书/带我们去远方/也没有一艘骏马像一页/欢快的诗歌。”

【9】也许只有真正不满足的孩子才会像我那样被书所吸引。也许不安分是埋头读书的必然结果。我们家里有一把俱乐部椅，椅子的扶手是卷曲的，还有一个方形的软凳;它放在客厅的一个角落里，旁边是一张木桶桌子。在我的脑海里，我总是四肢伸开躺在它上面，瘦骨嶙峋的腿搭在它的一只胳膊上读书。

【10】“今天天气真好，”我妈妈说;她总是这样说，经常这样说，秋天，春天，甚至刚下过一场雪。“你所有的朋友都在外面。”这是真的，他们一直都是。有时我和他们一起出去，在他们的引诱下走到街上，走到田野里，走到小溪边，我本能地知道这是正常的童年。

【11】我还清楚地记得那种生活:在流过奈勒村的小溪里，我搬起石头去找小龙虾;我把硬币放在手推车的轨道上，当手推车驶过时，硬币被压扁了，我跑去取。

【12】但我最好的部分总是在家里，在平摊在桌子上的某本书里，书中虚构的人物等着我回来，让他们活过来。

【13】自从坐在俱乐部椅子上的那些日子以来，我认识到我并不孤单，尽管当时我肯定是我认识的、或者我父母认识的、或者我朋友认识的唯一一个喜欢读书而不喜欢玩耍的孩子。在书中，我不仅去了别的世界，也进入了我自己的世界。我知道了我是谁，我想成为谁，我可能向往什么，我可能敢于梦想我的世界和我自己。

【14】我学会了善与恶、对与错的区别。有醒着的时候，也有睡着的时候。然后是书，一种平行宇宙，我可能是一个新人，但绝不是一个真正的陌生人。我真实的,真正的世界。我完美的岛屿。

【15】多年以后，我发现，就像鲁滨逊·克鲁索找到星期五时所发现的那样，在那个世界或那个岛上，我并不孤单。我发现(自然是通过阅读)，当我叉腰躺在椅子上拿着一本书时，牙买加·金凯德正坐在安提瓜加勒比海耀眼的阳光下，和我一样读书，仿佛她正在挨饿，而书就是面包。

【16】读书一直是我的家，我的寄托，我伟大而不可战胜的伙伴。特罗洛普称之为“书之恋”。“只要你活着，它就会使你的时光愉快。”然而，在我们认识到某种普遍的安慰的许多事情中，上帝、食物、家庭、朋友，阅读似乎是最能给人带来安慰的一种，至少在公开场合是如此，尽管当我一本书接一本书地吃完，坐在椅子上离家出走，周游世界却从未离开房间时，我所想到或感受到的确实只有阅读。

【17】我读书不是为了优越感，也不是为了进步，甚至不是为了学习。我读书是因为我爱读书胜过世界上任何其他活动。

当我长大成人时，我意识到，虽然我对纯粹阅读行为的满足感丝毫没有减弱，但这个世界却常常对这种快乐充满敌意，或者视而不见，就像我的女朋友们敲我家纱门，求我放下书一样，“那本愚蠢的书”，她们通常这样称呼它，不管它是什么书。

【18】虽然我们口头上吹捧读书的好处，但事实上，在我们的文化中，仍然有一些东西怀疑那些读得太多的人，不管读得太多意味着什么，是懒惰的、漫无目的的空想家，是需要成长的人，是需要走出生活的地方的人，是认为自己在独处中是优越的人。

【19】在美国人的性格中，有一种甚至暗地里对漫无目的的阅读行为怀有敌意，有一种坚定而真诚的态度，怀疑阅读不过是一种进步的工具。美国也是一个重视社交和社区的国家，它接受一种心理上的多米诺骨牌效应:孤独导致孤独，孤独导致失败者。

【20】任何拒绝与人交往的行为都是值得怀疑的，尤其是与我们民族性格核心的“走出去、积极进取”的精神相抵触的行为。

【21】给人留下深刻印象的美国总统都是实干家:西奥多·罗斯福在野外狩猎，约翰·肯尼迪和他的兄弟们一起踢足球。只有林肯能安慰那些爱读书的人，他孤独地坐在火炉旁，说:“我最好的朋友是给我一本我没有读过的书的人。”

【22】在我成长的过程中，美国也出现了一种职业主义，只有在有意义的情况下才允许阅读。在美国最好的文理学院里，主修哲学或英语的学生经常被问到他们“打算用这些知识做什么”，似乎为自己追求知识的日子已经过去了，在商业的压力下失去了它。

【23】为乐趣而阅读被为目的而阅读和一种顽强的自我完善所取代:一位行政人员可能从《白鲸》中学到更多的东西，而他应该读的书可能是《成功人士的七个习惯》。

在某种内心冲动的驱使下，为乐趣而阅读，就像乘地铁漫无目的地从一个地方乘到另一个地方一样令人怀疑。

【24】我在报社工作多年。对许多记者来说，20世纪下半叶的阅读通常被描述为一系列需要解决的问题:公立学校的孩子阅读能力差吗?是不是所有的美国人都少读书了?是书面文字让位于口头文字吗?电视和电影取代了书籍吗?

【25】记者们的回答通常是肯定的，肯定的，肯定的。在文学批评的圈子里，在文学教授、编辑和小说作者之间，有时围绕阅读的讨论有一种可怕的排他性。有好的阅读，也有不好的阅读。有值得尊敬的，也有微不足道的。这总是用品味来表达，但它尝起来，闻起来毫无疑问是势利的。

【26】这一切都不是新鲜事。阅读一直被用来将一个国家和一种文化划分为文人和普通人，有知识价值的人和普通民众。但在15世纪，古腾堡发明了印刷机，由此开始了将书籍从少数人的艺术品转变为许多人的信息来源的过程。在那之后，对于一小群人来说，想要独占书籍，把阅读当作自己的东西，就变得更加困难了。

【27】但评论家和学者们继续这样做。当我开始阅读他们的作品时，我沮丧地发现，他们中的许多人都觉得诗歌、散文、小说、历史和传记的质量正在下降到某种智力交易的底层。但是读书却把我从绝望中拯救了出来，一如既往，因为我读得越多，我就越意识到事情总是如此。显然，无论是在1840年、1930年还是1975年，文学研究的一个重要部分就是得出这样的结论:曾经有过一个黄金时代，但它已经过去了。

【28】1923年，该行业的行业杂志《出版人周刊》哀叹道:“电影消耗了这个国家大部分的闲暇时间，几乎没有时间做其他事情。”“小说无法与汽车、电影、电视和酒竞争，”法国作家路易斯·费迪南德·卡萨姆在1960年说。

【29】我们这些真正的读书一族，读书不是为了评价别人的阅读，而是为了衡量自己的阅读水平，当然没有谈到舒适和快乐，也没有谈到我们这些活跃的亚文化。对于那些因为热爱读书而读书的人，那些对书店的感觉就像有些人对珠宝商的感觉一样的人。

【30】人们对此的沉默很奇怪，因为我们人数众多，也因为我们才是书的世界真正的内容。我们是曾经等待狄更斯最新小说的最新部分的人。我们是确保《傲慢与偏见》永不绝版的人。

【31】自从我还是一个孤独的孩子，在圣诞节时亲戚们送给我皮革书签以来，一切都没有改变。我们仍然是在俱乐部的椅子上找到彼此的:在书店的柜台上，我们抱着胳膊，在图书馆的前台，在学校里，老师向我们介绍彼此，当然，在书里，爱书的人构成了一个生动的人物亚文化。“直到我担心我会失去它，我才爱上阅读。一个人不喜欢呼吸，”斯各特在《杀死一只知更鸟》中说。

【32】阅读就像我们文化中的许多其他东西一样:它的真理是在人民身上发现的，而不是在专家和专家身上发现的。如果我相信我所读到的关于阅读的东西，我会绝望的。但相反，我有读者的来信要处理，比如一个女孩的来信，她母亲给了她一本我的书，她在信的开头写道:“我想我是一些人所说的书呆子。”

“我也是，”我回信说。