高效阅读 pdf epub azw3 2024 下载

职场通识系列。畅销30载，更新至第10版的美国大学生阅读指南，提升阅读的效率和效果，让自己受益一生。

编辑推荐★★★★★

阅读与学习构筑基础--深入阅读文本的组织和框架，阐释效率和灵活性的概念与原则，强调阅读是一个思考的过程。本部分还介绍了主动阅读的策略，描述了集中精力和记忆的技巧。

提高阅读理解能力一-拆解如何运用知识和文章结构来提高理解能力。详述了主要观点的位置、段落的结构、过渡的类型，以及如何将观点组织成思维模式，介绍了教材、文章、短文、学术期刊文章、科学或科技材料的阅读策略。

批判性阅读--重点开释批判性阅读技能，兼及如何推断、区分事实与意见、识别概括、理解语气、辨别作者的目的、觉察偏见、阅读和评估在线资源等。你将能学到怎样寻找可靠的网站并评估其内容、准确性、及时性、目的和结构。

本部分还强调了评估论据和雄辩写作的技巧，包括辨别证据类型和分辨逻辑谬误。

提高阅读速度与灵活性--讲解提升阅读速度与灵活性的具体技巧，包括略读、扫读和速读的技巧等。

有效应对多种阅读任务，调整策略和技巧，提升阅读的灵活性!

内容简介★★★★★

新版提供了综合阅读理解、记忆、词汇发展、批判性阅读、视觉化图表策略和评分技巧，这些都已被证明对大学生和职场人士至关重要。

第一部分为阅读与学习构筑基础。这个部分介绍了阅读文本的组织和框架，发展并解释了效率和灵活性的概念与原则，强调阅读是一个思考的过程。本部分还介绍了主动阅读的策略，描述了集中精力和记忆的技巧，并且解释了英文词汇的基本构建方法。

第二部分为提高阅读理解能力。第二部分的重点是如何运用知识和文章结构来提高理解能力。这个部分描述了主要观点的位置、段落的结构、过渡的类型，以及如何将观点组织成思维模式，介绍了教材、文章、短文、学术期刊文章、科学或科技材料的阅读策略。

第三部分为批判性阅读。批判性阅读技能是本部分的重点。这部分还包括做出推断的技能、区分事实与意见、识别概括、理解语气、辨别作者的目的、认识偏见、阅读和评估在线资源等。读者将能学到怎样寻找可靠的网站并评估其内容、准确性、及时性、目的和结构。这个部分还强调了评估论据和有说服力的写作技巧，包括辨别证据类型和分辨逻辑谬误。

第四部分为提高阅读速度与灵活性。本部分详细介绍了提高阅读速度与灵活性的具体技巧，包括略读、扫读和更快阅读的技巧，等等。

本书特色★★★★★

1、聚焦学术阅读技能。为满足学术阅读的需求，本书在文字阅读和批判性阅读、词汇发展和学习阅读技巧方面提供了必要的指导。

2、强调主动阅读。本书鼓励读者通过预测、质疑和评估观点来与本书互动，做主动的阅读者（第 2 章）。

3、强调批判性思维技能。本书自始至终强调批判性思维是有效、高效和灵活阅读的关键。第三部分着重于批判性分析、评估在线资源和评估论证。第 7 章在视觉化图表的解读与评估的背景下，深入讨论了批判性思维。

4、强调解读和评估视觉化图表的技能。在大学和职场，阅读已经扩展到包括解读和评估大量的视觉化图表。第 7 章顺应了这一趋势，并为读者提供了理解和批判性思考技巧，以应对他们将在各式各样的阅读文本中遇到的视觉化图表。

5、聚焦于在线资源的评估。由于我们需要越来越多地使用互联网，评估在线资源成为本书持续强调的重点。第 8 章讨论了如何寻找和评估在线资源，并且检视了在线文章要求采用的新的阅读和思考方式。

6、元认知的整合。元认知是读者对自己的理解过程的意识。成熟且熟练的阅读者对自己的阅读进行了大量的认知控制：分析阅读任务，选择合适的阅读策略，监测策略的有效性。本书指导读者发展这些元认知策略，并且提供了一份“学习风格调查问卷”，使读者能够评估自己如何学习和处理信息（第 1 章）。同时每章章末还附有一篇精选的阅读文章，提供了之前和之后的元认知栏目，以鼓励读者就不同类型的阅读材料选择并评估阅读策略。

7、讨论学术思维模式。本书描述了六种主要的思维模式，即时间顺序或流程、定义、分类、比较—对比、因果关系和列举，作者将用它们在不同的学术学科中组织和安排观点。另外还简要讨论了五种模式：陈述和澄清、总结、概括与示例、补充和空间顺序或地点。这些模式以组织图式的形式呈现，用于提高对教材的理解和回忆（第 5 章）。

8、非常吸引人的和相关的阅读精选。各章章末以具有代表性的阅读期望类型为例进行了对阅读材料的遴选。精选的文章来源广泛，体例涵盖摘录、文章、短文等。每篇阅读精选之后的评测分为如下几类：“检验你的理解”，衡量你对文字的理解以及你的批判性理解能力；“批判地思考”，要求具备解释性的阅读技能；以及“多想一想”，发散或深化你的思考。

译者译 Ⅰ

前言 Ⅲ

第一部分　为阅读与学习构筑基础

第 1 章　提高效率和灵活性 001

第 2 章　主动阅读与学习 019

第 3 章　增强词汇的力量 044

第二部分　加强理解

第 4 章　主要观点与段落结构 065

第 5 章　模式：观点之间的关系 095

第 6 章　阅读教科书、短文、文章和技术材料 125

第 7 章　阅读和评估视觉化图表 155

第三部分　批判地阅读

第 8 章　批判地分析和评估网络资源 181

第 9 章　评估论证和说服性写作 208

第四部分　提高速度和灵活性

第 10 章　略读和扫读 231

第 11 章　更快阅读的方法 252

作者简介

凯瑟琳·T.麦克沃特(Kathleen T.McWhorter)

美国知名传播学者，著有十几部教科书，畅销美国数十年，旨在帮助年轻读者在大学和职场取得成功。她出生于纽约州北部，后从纽约州立大学布法罗分校获得教育证书。几十年来，她在纽约州尼亚加拉县社区学院任教，荣膺人文科学的名誉教授。通过著书立说，麦克沃特博士帮助大约百万名学生提高了阅读、写作和批判性思维能力。

译者介绍

肖静

北京航空航天大学毕业，科技公司高管，10年翻译经验，翻译作品如《从小就该知道的9堂理财课》《移动学习:引爆互联网学习的革命》《女人，发现你的优势》《金融市场预测:成功投资的心理与技术策略》《普林格打开证券黑盒子》等。

暂无出版社相关信息，正在全力查找中！

暂无相关书籍摘录，正在全力查找中！

在线阅读地址：高效阅读在线阅读

在线听书地址：高效阅读在线收听

在线购买地址：高效阅读在线购买

主动阅读并不是这么单一的过程，而是一整套复杂的技能，包括阅读前、阅读中和阅读后的各项活动。

你怎么阅读，取决于你为什么阅读以及需要记住多少内容。

有效的阅读包括在合理的时间范围呢充分地理解和回忆。“

意群阅读

大多数成年阅读者一次只专注于一个词。尽管大多数人能把词组合在一起，但他们还没有培养这样的技能。逐字逐句的阅读是十分费时的，而且在很多情况下实际上会降低对句子意思的理解。

意群是将单词分组在一起的技巧。当你的眼睛看一行词时，你的眼睛动了又停，动了又停。意群包括扩大你的眼距，这样你就能在一次注视中看到几个词。

要成为一名主动的阅读者，您必须超越事实和文字层面去思考。

“许多人认为提高效率的唯一方法就是读得更快，他们觉得慢速阅读是糟糕的，事实并非如此。你采取什么方式去读，比你读得有多快更加重要。”

——《高效阅读—灵活、策略与技巧》

书籍介绍

职场通识系列。畅销30载，更新至第10版的美国大学生阅读指南，提升阅读的效率和效果，让自己受益一生。

编辑推荐★★★★★

阅读与学习构筑基础--深入阅读文本的组织和框架，阐释效率和灵活性的概念与原则，强调阅读是一个思考的过程。本部分还介绍了主动阅读的策略，描述了集中精力和记忆的技巧。

提高阅读理解能力一-拆解如何运用知识和文章结构来提高理解能力。详述了主要观点的位置、段落的结构、过渡的类型，以及如何将观点组织成思维模式，介绍了教材、文章、短文、学术期刊文章、科学或科技材料的阅读策略。

批判性阅读--重点开释批判性阅读技能，兼及如何推断、区分事实与意见、识别概括、理解语气、辨别作者的目的、觉察偏见、阅读和评估在线资源等。你将能学到怎样寻找可靠的网站并评估其内容、准确性、及时性、目的和结构。

本部分还强调了评估论据和雄辩写作的技巧，包括辨别证据类型和分辨逻辑谬误。

提高阅读速度与灵活性--讲解提升阅读速度与灵活性的具体技巧，包括略读、扫读和速读的技巧等。

有效应对多种阅读任务，调整策略和技巧，提升阅读的灵活性!

内容简介★★★★★

新版提供了综合阅读理解、记忆、词汇发展、批判性阅读、视觉化图表策略和评分技巧，这些都已被证明对大学生和职场人士至关重要。

第一部分为阅读与学习构筑基础。这个部分介绍了阅读文本的组织和框架，发展并解释了效率和灵活性的概念与原则，强调阅读是一个思考的过程。本部分还介绍了主动阅读的策略，描述了集中精力和记忆的技巧，并且解释了英文词汇的基本构建方法。

第二部分为提高阅读理解能力。第二部分的重点是如何运用知识和文章结构来提高理解能力。这个部分描述了主要观点的位置、段落的结构、过渡的类型，以及如何将观点组织成思维模式，介绍了教材、文章、短文、学术期刊文章、科学或科技材料的阅读策略。

第三部分为批判性阅读。批判性阅读技能是本部分的重点。这部分还包括做出推断的技能、区分事实与意见、识别概括、理解语气、辨别作者的目的、认识偏见、阅读和评估在线资源等。读者将能学到怎样寻找可靠的网站并评估其内容、准确性、及时性、目的和结构。这个部分还强调了评估论据和有说服力的写作技巧，包括辨别证据类型和分辨逻辑谬误。

第四部分为提高阅读速度与灵活性。本部分详细介绍了提高阅读速度与灵活性的具体技巧，包括略读、扫读和更快阅读的技巧，等等。

本书特色★★★★★

1、聚焦学术阅读技能。为满足学术阅读的需求，本书在文字阅读和批判性阅读、词汇发展和学习阅读技巧方面提供了必要的指导。

2、强调主动阅读。本书鼓励读者通过预测、质疑和评估观点来与本书互动，做主动的阅读者（第 2 章）。

3、强调批判性思维技能。本书自始至终强调批判性思维是有效、高效和灵活阅读的关键。第三部分着重于批判性分析、评估在线资源和评估论证。第 7 章在视觉化图表的解读与评估的背景下，深入讨论了批判性思维。

4、强调解读和评估视觉化图表的技能。在大学和职场，阅读已经扩展到包括解读和评估大量的视觉化图表。第 7 章顺应了这一趋势，并为读者提供了理解和批判性思考技巧，以应对他们将在各式各样的阅读文本中遇到的视觉化图表。

5、聚焦于在线资源的评估。由于我们需要越来越多地使用互联网，评估在线资源成为本书持续强调的重点。第 8 章讨论了如何寻找和评估在线资源，并且检视了在线文章要求采用的新的阅读和思考方式。

6、元认知的整合。元认知是读者对自己的理解过程的意识。成熟且熟练的阅读者对自己的阅读进行了大量的认知控制：分析阅读任务，选择合适的阅读策略，监测策略的有效性。本书指导读者发展这些元认知策略，并且提供了一份“学习风格调查问卷”，使读者能够评估自己如何学习和处理信息（第 1 章）。同时每章章末还附有一篇精选的阅读文章，提供了之前和之后的元认知栏目，以鼓励读者就不同类型的阅读材料选择并评估阅读策略。

7、讨论学术思维模式。本书描述了六种主要的思维模式，即时间顺序或流程、定义、分类、比较—对比、因果关系和列举，作者将用它们在不同的学术学科中组织和安排观点。另外还简要讨论了五种模式：陈述和澄清、总结、概括与示例、补充和空间顺序或地点。这些模式以组织图式的形式呈现，用于提高对教材的理解和回忆（第 5 章）。

8、非常吸引人的和相关的阅读精选。各章章末以具有代表性的阅读期望类型为例进行了对阅读材料的遴选。精选的文章来源广泛，体例涵盖摘录、文章、短文等。每篇阅读精选之后的评测分为如下几类：“检验你的理解”，衡量你对文字的理解以及你的批判性理解能力；“批判地思考”，要求具备解释性的阅读技能；以及“多想一想”，发散或深化你的思考。

• 作者： 阿毛 发布时间：2022-11-17 09:30:18

  满星推荐，值得每个喜欢读书的人看一看

• 作者： 曦悦 发布时间：2023-08-11 13:23:03

  星云大师真是人间佛教集大成者

• 作者： 自有我在 发布时间：2022-09-22 17:20:31

  学习了这一本《高效阅读》，也就学会对于不同的材料进行粗读，略读，精读，学会在更有限的时间内掌握更多的阅读知识，无疑会让我们的时间效率大大提高，让我们的阅读更有效率，让我们的事业可以通过不断的阅读积累，更上一层楼。

• 作者： 果苇妈爱读书 发布时间：2022-11-02 05:22:46

  很适合大学生的读书学习之法。

  从书中，我们觉得想要实现高效阅读就首先就要做到主动阅读。

• 作者： 阿斯酉 发布时间：2022-10-04 19:47:02

  技能向！

• 作者： 尤里卡 发布时间：2022-10-05 08:36:39

  对于我来说，阅读很大程度上是一项体力劳动，而非脑力劳动。在每天进行大量的阅读活动时，经常会有疲惫的时候，这时阅读效率就会大为下降，知识吸收效果也就没那么理想。因此，如何更高效的阅读，也就成了一个不得不去面对和思考的问题。针对阅读效率下降的问题，美国知名传播学者凯瑟琳·T.麦克沃特的这本《高效阅读：灵活、策略与技巧》可谓是对症下药。

• 特德·姜在2002年接受的采访

  作者：泛流 发布时间：2015-08-30 20:10:24

  最近看到了一篇2002年的采访，翻译过来贴在这里，觉得这篇采访很好地反映了特德·姜在其作品中所持有的世界观，文章较长，读前请沐浴更衣。

  问题7、8、9讨论的是《你一生的故事》和《除以零》。

  问题10到16是有关《巴比伦塔》、《72个字母》和《地狱是上帝不在的地方》的部分，附带还对科幻、奇幻、魔幻的差异有精彩的阐述。

  原文链接：

  http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/inttchiang.htm

  INTRODUCTION 引言

  All science fiction is fundamentally post-religious literature. For those whose minds are shaped by science and technology, the universe is fundamentally knowable. Faith dissolves, replaced by a sense of wonder at the complexity of creation.

  所有的科幻小说本质上说都是后宗教文学。对于那些用科学和科技来思考的人来说，这个宇宙本质上是可知的。在体会到宇宙万物的复杂后，信仰消解，代之以一种惊奇感。

  This is the perspective explored in Ted Chiang's first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others (Tor, 2002). Born in 1967 in Port Jefferson, New York, Chiang has published eight breathtakingly good stories in the past twelve years. He has yet to publish -- or even try to write -- a novel. Despite his limited number of publications, however, Chiang has exerted a quiet influence in the genre. A five-time Hugo nominee, Chiang has won nearly every major science fiction award, including the Nebula (twice in 1990 and 1999), John W. Campbell Award (1992); Asimov's Reader's Choice Award (1992); and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award (1999). Most recently, Chiang won the 2001 Sidewise Award for "Seventy-Two Letters," and the Locus Award for "Hell is the Absence of God," which has also been nominated for a Hugo this year.

  这是特德·姜在其第一本合集《你一生的故事及其他》（Tor出版社，2002年）里面进行探讨的观点。1967年出生于New York市Port Jefferson的特德·姜在过去的12年间已经发表了8篇令人赞不绝口的短篇小说。但他还未发表过一篇长篇小说，甚至从未尝试去写过。尽管发表数量有限，特德·姜却一直在润物细无声地在这个领域耕耘。获得过五次雨果奖提名的特德·姜，科幻届的主流奖项几乎被他拿了个遍，这其中包括星云奖（1990年和1999年两次），约翰·W·坎贝尔奖（1992年），阿西莫夫读者选择奖（1992年），西奥多·斯特金（Theodore Sturgeon）纪念奖（1999年）。最近，特德·姜凭借《72个字母》获得了2001年的Sidewise奖，凭借《地狱是上帝不在的地方》获得了轨迹奖，同时这篇作品也是今年雨果奖的提名作品。

  Chiang's primary method is to change underlying natural laws or symbolic systems, creating worlds and situations that are fantastic to us but utterly rational to the characters that must live with them. In the beautiful "Story of Your Life," learning an alien language allows a linguist to experience past, present and future simultaneously, while the mathematician in "Division by Zero" manages to prove that any two numbers are equal to each other and that mathematics itself is inconsistent. In "Tower of Babylon," a group of miners climb until they reach the vault of heaven, hoping to find God on the other side of the carapace of granite that enfolds their world. "Hell is the Absence of God" tells the tale of one Neil Fisk, whose wife is killed in a visitation by the angel Nathanael to a downtown shopping district. In Neil's thoroughly contemporary world, God exists beyond a doubt. Angels behave like weather phenomena, the miracle of their appearances tracked, quantified, and reported on the nightly news. Stories of Your Life and Others includes all of Chiang's major published fiction, along with an original story, the superb "Liking What You See: A Documentary."

  特德·姜的主要写作方式是去创造一个自然运行法则和符号系统被改变了的异世界，虽然这些对我们而言觉得荒唐，但是对于那些生活于其中的人们来说，这个世界却是完全合理的。在小说《你一生的故事》中，果通过对一门外星语言的学习让一名语言学家同时体验到了过去、当下以及未来；《除以零》中的一名数学家证明出了任何两个数都是相等的，所以算术自身是矛盾不一致的；在《巴比伦塔》中一群矿工一路爬升到达天堂的穹顶，希望能在这笼罩大地的花岗岩穹顶外面发现上帝的存在；《地狱是上帝不在的地方》讲述了一个叫做Neil Fisk的人，当天使拿但业在市中心的一个购物中心降临时，他的妻子死于现场。在Neil的世界中，上帝的存在是确定无疑的，天使们奇迹般的降临就像天气一样被追踪和统计，并在晚间新闻中予以播出。《你一生的故事及其他》包含了特德·姜的主要科幻作品，还包含一部原创的优秀短篇《赏心悦目》。

  Ted Chiang graduated from Brown University in Rhode Island in 1989 with a degree in Computer Science. Today he freelances as a technical writer in the computer industry, living in the state of Washington with his girlfriend, Marcia Glover. This interview was conducted in July 2002, on the release of Stories of Your Life and Others in North America. Over the phone, Chiang answered questions thoughtfully and tentatively, often seeming to doubt his words even as he said them. Chiang did not leave any doubt as to his belief in the ideas behind his stories, however. In his own way, Chiang is clearly a partisan of the scientific worldview portrayed in them.

  特德·姜1989年毕业于位于罗得岛州的布朗大学，拿到的学位是计算机科学。他现今和他的女友Marcia Glover住在华盛顿州，是一名计算机技术领域的自由撰稿人。这篇访问采访于《你一生的故事及其他》在北美发行之际的2002年。特德·姜谨慎地完成了这篇电话采访，听起来在言谈间字斟句酌，然而却在谈及小说故事背后的想法时言辞笃定。从小说中的这些故事可以看出，特德·姜以一种他特有的方式，表明了自己坚定的科技世界观。

  THE INTERVIEW 采访

  1. Q: Why don't you publish more stories?

  你为什么不多发表一些作品？

  A: Because I don't get that many ideas for stories. If I had more ideas, I would write them, but unfortunately they only come at long intervals. I'm probably best described as an occasional writer.

  因为我没有那么多的点子。如果我有更多的点子的话，我会写出来的，但是很不幸我只是隔一段较长的时间才会冒出一个点子。我应该被称为一个间歇性的作家。

  2. Q: And yet you've been very successful, earning awards and recognition. That usually encourages occasional writers to become professional writers.

  你已经获得了很多的奖项以及认可，一般来说，如此的成功一般会激励“间歇性的作家”成为专职作家。

  A: I don't think I'm far enough along in my development as a writer to do that. When I've tried to force myself to write more, it hasn't worked. I would have to reach a new level of proficiency to become more prolific. That'd be great if it happened, but as of yet it hasn't.

  我不认为目前我的作家之路能够让我走得那么远。每次当我绞尽脑汁逼迫自己多写一点时，我总是不能如愿。我还需要多多提高效率才能让自己变得高产，如果最终能够实现，那真是再好不过了，可惜现在还不能如愿。

  3. Q: Has an editor ever approached you about expanding one of your stories into a novel?

  有没有编辑曾找过你，想让你把你的短篇扩成长篇吗？

  A: An editor? No. Sometimes that's been suggested to me by a friend, but I don't think any of my stories would really work as a novel. There's a saying that you should leave your audience wanting more, and I fear that if I expanded one of my short stories into a novel, I would leave them wanting less.

  编辑？没有。有时我的朋友会建议我这么做，但是我觉得我的任何一篇都不足以变成长篇。有一种说法是说，你应该让你的受众保持饥渴的状态，我怕如果我真的将某篇小说改成了长篇，我的读者将不再那么关注我。

  4. Q: What do like about using short-form fiction as vehicles for your ideas?

  是什么让你愿意用短篇小说的方式来传递你的想法？

  A: Well, I started out writing short stories for the same reason that most writers do: they're seen as the place to start before you move on to novels. Of course, some writers are natural novelists, so this strategy doesn't work out for them. Everything they write wants to be longer and longer. But so far I've been comfortable working at shorter lengths. I suppose it's because I'm most interested in writing about characters experiencing a moment of comprehension. Sometimes it's a conceptual breakthrough, sometimes it's just a flash of recognition. For that type of story, short fiction is a good fit.

  我通过短篇小说作为起步的想法和大多数其他作家一样：短篇小说可以作为写长篇小说的跳板。当然，有一些作家是天生的长篇小说家，所以这个路子不太适合他们，他们写作时都想越写越长。但我目前比较满足于写短篇幅的小说，大概对于我来说，去描写那些能够体会到顿悟感的人物最为有趣。有时这种顿悟是思维观念上的革新，有时只是一束认知的火花。对于这种体裁，短篇小说很是适合。

  5. Q: You're considered by some readers and critics to be one of the genre's best short-form writers. Are there other short story writers whose work you admire? Are there any you feel are particularly innovative right now, in either form or content, or both?

  你被很多的读者和评论家认为是科幻届最优秀的短篇小说作者之一。有没有其他作家的作品是你比较欣赏的？这其中有没有你觉得非常有创意的，体裁或者内容，或二者兼有?

  A: I admire Greg Egan's work a great deal. In each story he examines a question very deeply, exploring all its implications. He's especially good at dramatizing the implications of the materialist view of consciousness. Obviously a lot of his work deals with that. But even with other theoretical questions, he can be very ingenious in coming up with real-life consequences. For example, in his story "Luminous," I thought it was great how he had characters fleeing for their lives as a result of an inconsistency in arithmetic.

  我非常欣赏Greg Egan的作品。他会在他的每篇短篇里非常深入地探讨一个问题，挖掘它的所有内涵。他特别善于将唯物主义意识观的内核演绎出来，很显然他的很多作品都是关于这方面的。但是即使是面对其他方面的基本性问题，在关于其对现实生活的影响方面，他也能够提出特别独创性的看法。比如说在他的短篇“Luminous”中，算术是自相矛盾的，人们在面对这一情况时仓皇逃命，他对此的刻画非常好。

  I also really admire Karen Joy Fowler's work. Her stories are very wise, and sly, and poignant. I have no idea how she does what she does. Another writer I like is George Saunders, some of whose work would be considered science fiction if it weren't published in magazines like The New Yorker. He writes bitterly humorous stories, describing the lives of miserable people in a way that's both funny and sympathetic.

  我也同样很欣赏Karen Joy Fowler的作品，她的作品很睿智诡密，还很深刻，我不知道她是如何做到的。另外我也喜欢George Saunders，他的作品如果不是发表在像纽约客这样的杂志的话，你会认为它是科幻小说。他的小说苦乐参半，通常描写人们的不幸生活，很滑稽，但也很有同情心。

  6. Q: What writers have most influenced your own writing?

  哪些作家对你自身的写作影响最大？

  A: When I was younger, I imprinted on Asimov and Clarke. Those were the writers whom I really enjoyed when I was 12, 13, 14. When I was in college I discovered Gene Wolfe and John Crowley. Both of them made a big impression on me. I can't say that my work is anything like theirs -- I wish it were -- but previously my sense of wonder in reading science fiction had primarily come from the ideas described. With their work, I also felt wonder at their skill in writing, in constructing and telling their stories.

  当我年轻一点时，阿西莫夫和克拉克让我刻骨铭心，他们是我12、13、14岁时最爱的作家。当我上大学时，我接触到了Gene Wolfe 和 John Crowley，两人给我留下了深刻的印象。我不能说我的作品与他们的有什么相同——我倒愿意相同——但是我早期在读科幻作品时的惊奇感主要是通过他们的故事培养出来的。我同样通过他们的作品感受到了他们在写作技巧上的魔力，不论是如何建构还是故事讲述的方式。

  7. Q: A lot of your stories demonstrate a deep knowledge of mathematics and linguistics, especially "Story of Your Life" and "Division by Zero." In preparing for this interview, I came across websites for academics whose writers were thrilled that you accurately described their disciplines as well as the inner and outer lives of linguists and mathematicians.

  你的很多小说对数学和语言有很深的了解，特别是《你一生的故事》和《除以零》。在准备这次采访时，我通过一些学术网站碰到了一些作家，对于你能精准地去展现这些语言学家和数学家的学科以及他们圈内圈外的生活，他们表示很惊喜。

  A: It's nice to know that I didn't make them roll their eyes, because I'm neither a mathematician nor a linguist. My degree is in computer science, and I took some classes in other subject areas when I was in college, but that's the extent my training in these fields. What knowledge I have in linguistics is mostly acquired on my own. I knew really very little about it before I started doing research for "Story of Your Life."

  很高兴我的作品没有让他们翻白眼，因为我既不是数学家也不是语言学家。我的学位是计算机科学，在大学时我选修了一些其他学科的课程，但我对他们领域的认识仅限于此，我对语言学的知识大多是通过自学得到的，我在开始准备写《你一生的故事》之前对语言学所知甚少。

  8. Q: In the author's notes to "Story of Your Life," you mention Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Was that novel a direct inspiration, or did you notice the similarity later, after using variational principles in physics to write the story? Both stories use this idea of being "unstuck in time" as a way of expressing a deep fatalism, a sadness about the inevitability of loss.

  在《你一生的故事》的作者后记里，你提到了Kurt Vonnegut的《五号屠场》。他的这本小说是《你一生的故事》的直接创作源泉吗，还是说在你用了变分原理去讲述故事后也发现这两部作品之间的相似？这两部作品都是通过“迷失于时间”这个点子去传递一种深深的宿命论观点，去悲伤于伤逝的不可避免。

  A: I actually hadn't read Vonnegut's novel at the time I wrote my story. To me there's a big difference in the two works. I think of Slaughterhouse-Five as being really bleak in its outlook, while I don't think of my story that way at all. My story ends on a note that, to me, is ultimately life affirming. The story is about choosing to go ahead with life, even though there will be pain in the future as well as joy. You can say that the narrator doesn't actually have a choice, and that's true, but that's not the most important aspect of it. She's not being forced into it against her will. She's accepting the bad with the good.

  其实在写《你一生的故事》时我还没有读过Kurt Vonnegut的作品，对于我而言，这两部作品间有很大的不同，我认为《五号屠场》所描绘的前景非常阴郁黯淡，但是我的却不是那样。对我而言，在小说结尾的后记里，生活是乐观向上的。这部作品讲述的是，虽然前途有苦有了，我们依然选择面对生活，一路同行。你可以说主人公没有其他选择，这点确实如此，但是这不是故事主旨。她的接受不是被强迫的，并非违背了她自身的意愿，她只是选择承受所有的一切，好的以及坏的。

  9. Q: In stories like "Division by Zero" and "Story of Your Life," you describe these very rational, materialist characters who transcend what they thought were unalterable physical laws, which disorders their perceptions of time and space. One character even attempts suicide. So they achieve this kind of transcendence, but then don't know what to do with it. They are forced to confront themselves. I read these stories as being about science confronting the problems transcendence poses to an empirical, materialist worldview.

  在小说《除以零》和《你一生的故事》中，你刻画了一些非常理性、唯物主义的人物，面对以往所认为不可改变的物理法则，他们完成了超越，这也对他们关于时空的认知造成了混乱，其中一人甚至试图自杀。他们完成了超越，但是他们无所适从，他们被迫独自去面对。我在读这些小说时读到的是，当思想意识的超越对经验的唯物的世界观造成麻烦时，科学与这种麻烦间的对立。

  A: That's an interesting perspective. I hadn't really thought of either "Division by Zero" or "Story of Your Life" as dealing with transcendence. For me, those stories are primarily attempts to use mathematics and science as metaphors to illuminate certain aspects of human experience. The characters in those stories internalize their discoveries, in a sense, because they are deeply engaged in their work. What they learn becomes a part of them in a more profound way than with most people just learning something. But I hadn't really thought about transcendence in those stories.

  这个观点很有趣，我还真没有在《除以零》和《你一生的故事》中去思考过应该如何对待超越。对于我而言，这些小说主要是试图通过以数学和科学为隐喻，去对人类经验的某些方面去进行阐明。这些小说中的主人公将他们的发现内化吸收了，某种意义上说，是因为他们执着于他们的事业。他们从这些发现中所学到的，比起大多数人的机械学习，意义更深远，已经成为他们自身的一部分。

  10.Q: In addition to using symbolic systems to achieve certain emotional effects, you also create alternative universes by altering underlying physical laws, which are fantastic to us but rational to the characters that must live in them, as in "Seventy-Two Letters," "Tower of Babylon," and "Hell is the Absence of God."

  除了利用符号系统去渲染情绪，你还通过改变基本物理法则的方法去创造另类的世界，这些世界对我们而言会觉得异想天开，但是对于那些必须生活于其中的人们来说，它却是完全合理的，就像在小说《72个字母》、《巴比伦塔》以及《地狱是上帝不在的地方》中表现的那样。

  A: Well, I'd put "Tower of Babylon" and "Seventy-Two Letters" in one category, and "Hell is the Absence of God" in another. Those first two stories are more science fictional, while "Hell is the Absence of God" is straight fantasy. Those first two stories are based on certain out-of-date ideas about the natural world, but they're science fictional because the characters in them follow a scientific worldview. Whereas the universe in "Hell is the Absence of God" is not based on a discarded scientific worldview. It was never scientific, and it hasn't been discarded. It's a view of the world that many people have now, except that things are explicit rather than hidden. A lot of people, right now, believe that good and bad fortune are the result of supernatural intervention, and it's often based on what you deserve. In the story this intervention is very obvious, but I don't think that by itself changes a religious universe into a scientific one. Does that make sense?

  那个，我把《巴比伦塔》和《72个字母》归为一类，而《地狱是上帝不在的地方》属于另外一类。前两篇更科幻一点，而《地狱是上帝不在的地方》则完全是奇幻。前二者的故事基础利用的是一些我们对自然界以往过时的认识，但是它们是科幻，因为小说中的人物遵从某种科技世界观。然而《地狱是上帝不在的地方》中的那个世界却不是建立在某种科技世界观上的，即使这种世界观是被废弃的，它从来都不是科技的，更遑论被废弃。它的世界观是我们现今很多人还仍旧持有的，只是现在的观念比起小说中的含蓄一些，不那么直白。现在的很多人相信好运气和坏运气是某种超自然力量干预的结果，好人有好报，坏人有恶报。在这篇小说中这种干预很明显，但是我不认为就靠这点能够将一个宗教的世界变成一个科技的世界，这能说得通吗？

  11.Q: It makes sense, although the characters in "Hell is the Absence of God" still share a worldview shaped by scientific materialism, despite the presence of angels in their daily lives. They approach the appearance of angels like weather phenomena -- it gets reported on the news, and they observe it, and compile statistics, and through observation try to predict the patterns of their appearances. It all seems very rational.

  说得通啊，尽管他们的生活中有天使的存在，《地狱是上帝不在的地方》中的人物还是持有一种科技唯物主义的世界观。他们像对待天气现象那样去看待天使的出现—天使的降临在晚间新闻中被报道，他们观察、统计，试图去预测天使的出现所遵从的模式。这些看起来都非常理性。

  A: Let me talk a bit about how I view the difference between science fiction and fantasy, and more specifically, the difference between science and magic. John Crowley gave a talk in which he talked about the Romanian scholar Ioan Couliano, a scholar of Renaissance history. Couliano said that real magic is inter-subjective, meaning that real magic is the influence of one consciousness on another. For example, when one person casts a spell on another person, to make that person do their bidding. This was at the heart of a lot of Renaissance magic. What this clarified for me was the role of consciousness in magic, as opposed to science and technology. Because in the scientific method, the experimenter's consciousness has no place. It doesn't depend on the scientist having the right intentions, or being pure of heart, or concentrating hard enough, which are very common aspects of magic. And one of the criteria of a scientific result is reproducibility, that it should work no matter who does it, whereas magic is almost exactly the opposite. Magic is highly dependent on the practitioner. Now, in "Seventy-Two Letters" and "Tower of Babylon," the universe behaves in mechanistic manner, so the consciousness of the practitioner -- of the scientist -- is not involved. No one's moral worth has any effect.

  让我多讲一点我心中科幻和奇幻之间的差异，以及更具体一点的，科学和魔幻之间的差异。John Crowley曾经在演讲中提到一位罗马尼亚籍从事文艺复兴史研究的学者Ioan Coulian。Ioan Coulian认为真正的魔法都是内在驱动的，意思是说，真正的魔法是一个人的意识对另一个人施加的作用。举例来说，当一个人对另一个人施加了咒语，就是让这个人依令行事，这是很多文艺复兴时期魔法的核心。这对我有所启迪：意识，而不是科学和科技，在魔法中起到的作用。因为在进行科学实验的过程中，实验人员的意识并不发挥作用。它并不依赖于科学家是否有一心向善、是否内心纯净或者是否意念足够强大，而这些元素都在魔法中司空见惯。而且科学结果的一项验证标准就是其可重复性，不论谁来做结果都应该是一样的，这点上魔法是几乎完全相反的。魔法是很挑人的，《72个字母》和《巴比伦塔》中的世界是遵从某种物理法则的，科学家的意识并不起作用，没有谁内心的道德观会有什么分量。

  In "Hell is the Absence of God," one's moral worth is definitely a factor. Specifically, there's a relationship between the individual consciousness and some other consciousness -- that being God. And that again is characteristic of fantasy, that there are forces which you treat as conscious entities, which you have to appease or make sacrifices to. You have to interact with them as though they were a person, and they respond to you as a person. Which is not how science in our world works at all. Which is why I classify that story as a fantasy rather than as science fiction.

  在《地狱是上帝不在的地方》中，一个人的内在道德观无疑是有作用的。具体来说，个体的意识和其他的意识——即上帝的——是存在联系的，而这也是奇幻的特征。在奇幻中存在一些力量，你将其视之为一些存在意识的实体，你会对它屈服、向它献祭。你得跟它们打交道，就好像它们是人一般，而且它们也像人一般去回应你，而我们世界中的科学却完全不是这一套，这也是我为什么认为《地狱是上帝不在的地方》是奇幻而不是科幻的缘故。

  12. Q: Why are you attracted to using these mystical and religious frameworks? "Tower of Babylon" recalls St. Augustine's description of God as "a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere," and the Renaissance conception of the Rotundum, a spherical container that encompasses Earth, cosmos, soul. This is a very Platonic worldview, one that you seem to comment on from an Aristotelian standpoint. Despite the differences you describe, "Hell is the Absence of God" also uses a religious framework. What makes you want to take this scientific materialist approach to reality and then place it in these contexts?

  你为什么这么喜欢套用这些具有神秘和宗教色彩的框架？《巴比伦塔》让人想起圣奥古斯汀将上帝描述为“一个圆，圆心无处不在，边际也无处不在”，以及让人想起文艺复兴时期“圆孔”的概念，这“圆孔”是一个球面状的容器，地球、宇宙、灵魂无所不包。这种世界观是非常柏拉图式的，你似乎从一种亚里士多德式的立场观点去诠释。尽管有你前述的那些差异，《地狱是上帝不在的地方》同样套用了宗教的框架。是什么让你对现实持有科技唯物主义世界观，又把它置于这些宗教的语境中？

  A: Well, again, I see them as being different. "Tower of Babylon" is more science fictional and "Hell is the Absence of God" is more fantasy. There does seem to be a religious component in "Tower of Babylon" and in a less conspicuous manner, in "Seventy-Two Letters." The questions those characters are investigating are issues like the shape of the universe, or cosmology, and the origins of life, and both of these are legitimate questions for scientific inquiry, but they're also questions which have been investigated by religion. So, there is that coincidence there, in that they are touching on the same questions that religion tries to answer, but the characters are behaving more as scientific investigators. Whereas in "Hell is the Absence of God," there really isn't a scientific question being investigated. The issues are more purely the domain of religion -- specifically, what is our purpose in life, what kind of life are we supposed to lead, how do we get to heaven? Which are not really questions for scientific inquiry.

  好吧，还是这个问题，我觉得它们之间是不同的。《巴比伦塔》更科幻，而《地狱是上帝不在的地方》更奇幻。看起来，《巴比伦塔》确实有宗教的部分存在，《72个字母》中也有，但不明显。这些小说中的人物在探究一些诸如宇宙的形状（或者叫做宇宙学）以及生命的起源之类的问题，这些都是科学研究的正统命题，但是这些问题的答案宗教同样也在探寻。所以很巧的是，这两部作品中的人物在探寻一些宗教也在试图回答的问题，但是他们采用的方法更多是科学研究式的。然而，在《地狱是上帝不在的地方》中，没有在研究什么科学上的问题，讨论的东西更多是纯宗教领域的——具体来说——我们生活的目的是什么，我们应该过什么样的生活，我们如何才能到达天堂？这些真的不是科学研究会关注的问题。

  13.Q: Do you consciously use this method -- of situating scientific problems in a seemingly fantastic context -- to generate a sense of wonder in the reader?

  你是否有意通过这一方法（将科学问题放置在貌似奇幻的语境下）去为读者营造一种惊奇感？

  A: I would certainly like to generate a sense of wonder in the reader, but I don't know any reliable way of doing so. I simply write about what interests me, and one of the things that interests me is early ideas about the natural world. It's easy to ridicule them in hindsight, but some of them are nontrivial to disprove. For example, preformation, the idea that there's a fully formed, tiny fetus inside each sperm cell. Without powerful microscopy, it's actually quite difficult to find an observation disproving that theory. And so you can pursue the implications of that for a while, you can imagine a universe in which it's true.

  我当然非常愿意去为读者营造一种惊奇感，但是我却没有什么有效可靠的方法去达成这一目标。我只是去写那些我感兴趣的话题，这其中就包括我对自然界最初的一些想法。现在回头来看这些想法，很容易哑然失笑，但是其中有些想法并非平庸得不值一驳。比如，进化论中的预成论，其认为在每个精子里都有一个已经完全成型的极小胚胎，在没有大倍率的显微镜的条件下，其实你很难去否定这个理论。如此这般，你就可以对其内涵进行一番求索，你可以去虚设一个世界，这个世界中预成论是真实存在的。

  14. Q: In "Tower of Babylon," you actually ignore the shift away from the unitary, divine language that humankind supposedly spoke prior to the fall of the tower of Babel, to a multiplicity of languages. This is what usually defines the fable in most people's minds. Why did you consciously exclude that, especially given the interest in linguistics that we see in "Story of Your Life"? Is a commentary on language still there, deeply coded?

  在《巴比伦塔》中，你对原本寓言中人们语言的变化其实没有提及，寓言中的人们在巴比伦塔倒塌前说着同样的语言变成在倒塌后开始分说不同的语言，对大多数人来说这则寓言的寓意就在于此。你为何有意排除了这一点，特别是我们看到你在《你一生的故事》中所表现出的对语言学的兴趣。这其中是否还暗含着一些我们还不曾了解的语言方面的深意？

  A: No, there is nothing in the story about that. There are a number of reasons. One is that it would constitute unambiguous evidence of divine intervention. There'd be no possible natural explanation for a bunch of languages spontaneously appearing. I wanted my story to be set in a world in which one could imagine a purely mechanistic explanation for everything. So, that's one very practical reason.

  Speaking more broadly, more fundamentally, this story is not about that issue. In the original fable, the creation of the multitude of languages was specifically an act of God to place an obstacle in front of the builders. It's a punishment for defying God. My story is more about cosmology than mankind's defiance of God. It's more of a science fiction story because it's about people trying to discover the nature of their world. The moral aspects were not the focus.

  不，小说中没有那层意思。（没有提及语言发生变化的）原因有很多，其中之一是这会让上帝的干预变得很明显，而且没有什么自然而然的原因能够解释为什么最后会突然出现很多不同的语言。我想让我的小说被设定在一个万事都可以完全得到既成解释的世界。这是一个非常实际的考虑。

  再多延伸一下，说得再根本一些，这篇小说主旨不在讨论语言。在最初的寓言中，语言的分化具体表现为是上帝为了阻止这些建造者所设置的一道障碍，是对违抗上帝的惩罚。我的小说更多地是在讨论宇宙哲学而不是人类违抗上帝，它更多的是一篇科幻小说，因为其中的人物在试图揭示他们所在世界的本原。道德寓意上的考虑并不是这部小说的重点。

  15.Q: You do something similar in "Seventy-Two Letters," where you take the legend of the golem, and then cut it off from the divine and turn it into a technology that anyone can use.

  你在小说《72个字母》也做了类似的事情，小说中利用了“泥偶”的传说，然后又把它与神的联系切断，将其变成了每个人都可以用到的一项科技。

  A: Yes, and that ties into what I was saying about the difference between science and magic. In the folklore version of the golem legend, bringing a clay statue to life is pretty easy, most anyone can do it. My initial thought was that, from a very practical standpoint, if this actually worked, the implications would be enormous. Contrast this with the original rabbinical stories, where it's very difficult to create a golem. It requires a very holy rabbi, someone who has studied for years to focus his mind. That type of golem creation is definitely magical because it is very dependent on the creator, and there are a lot of requirements regarding that person's consciousness. It's a very esoteric procedure, and not something that will ever be widely performed. But the folklore version is much more egalitarian. It could conceivably be adapted to mass production, and that makes it less like magic and more like technology.

  是的，而且还与我之前所说科学和魔法之间的差异背道而驰。在“泥偶”的民间传说中，将一尊泥塑像变成生命是很容易的，大多数的人都能做到。我最初的设想是，出发点比较实际，如果这个真的可行，这其中就蕴含了非常大的寓意。若将其与最初的希伯来故事去做个比较，其实在最初的故事中创造一个泥偶是很难的。它需要一位神圣的拉比，能够通过多年的研修达到意念的集中。如此制造泥偶无疑是魔法，因为它非常依赖于创造的人，而且对于这个人的意识还需要满足很多的要求。这是一项非常艰深密不外传的工艺，不是能够得到广泛实施的。但是民间传说版就更具有平等主义的思想，更通俗大众化，可以想见它很容易就可以被用于大规模生产，这样就让这项工艺少了些魔幻意味而多了些科技的味道。

  16. In "Seventy Two Letters," both the working class and the aristocracy try to manipulate new technology in order to preserve their position in the economy. It's always seemed to me that writing about these topics is one of science fiction's essential tasks, to help formulate cultural responses to the dislocation brought about by technological change. "Scanners Live in Vain," by Cordwainer Smith is one of the classic examples.

  在《72个字母》中，劳动阶层和贵族阶层都试图通过采用新的技术来维持其经济上的地位。我总是认为，科幻小说的核心任务之一就是去触碰这些议题，去帮助梳理该如何从文化上去应对由科学技术的改变而引起的错位。Cordwainer Smith的《Scanners Live in Vain》就是其中的一部经典。

  A: It's certainly a classic form of science fiction. And of course, it's behind one of the most common idea-generating strategies for SF writers: given a particular technological advance, figure out who would be hurt by it. This point fits in with what I was saying about the egalitarian quality of technology. When a once-expensive item can be mass-produced, the social and economic consequences can be enormous. And "Seventy-Two Letters" also deals with reproductive technology, which has always raised issues about class, because one group inevitably has more control than another, whether it's men vs. women, or rich vs. poor. And of course eugenics consistently turns out to be rich vs. poor.

  这确实是科幻小说的一个经典门类，而且对于科幻作家来说，它确实是构思思路时最普通的方法之一，即假定产生了某种科技的进步，看看谁会因此受害。这种观点与我之前所说的科技的平等主义特性相契合。当一种一次性的昂贵物品可以被大规模生产，其带来的社会和经济影响是巨大的。《72个字母》同样也涉及了可供批量化的技术，这总是会给阶层带来麻烦，因为一个群体不可避免地会对另一个群体施加更多的控制，不论是男人对女人还是富人对穷人，而且优生学会不停地保持富人与穷人间的对立。

  17. Q: In "Liking What You See: A Documentary," a cheap and readily available technology called calliagnosia neutralizes aesthetic reaction to human appearance. The story describes the debate around making calliagnosia obligatory on one college campus, mimicking contemporary debates about sexual and racial behavioral codes. How did "Liking What You See" come about? Does that story represent a kind of wish fulfillment?

  在《赏心悦目》中有一种廉价现成的科技叫做审美干扰仪，故事描绘了一场关于是否在一所大学强制使用审美干扰仪的论战，这场论战模仿了我们当代关于性以及种族行为规范的论战形式。你是怎么想到写《赏心悦目》的？这篇故事是在传达一种“愿望满足”吗？

  A: Wish fulfillment? Why do you say that?

  “愿望满足”？什么意思？

  Q: A great deal of popular science fiction -- Star Trek, for example -- depends very heavily upon wish fulfillment for its appeal. You're on the starship Enterprise, and you've always got a mission that gives meaning to your life, you can teleport anywhere instantaneously, and you can get any food fully prepared from the replicator any time. In the more literary tradition of science fiction, a lot of stories try to imagine what would happen if people got what they wished for, through technology. What complications would ensue? "Liking What You See" begins with the wish to live in a world where looks don't matter, that we can transcend this limitation in our social interactions by just tweaking a neuron.

  很多流行科幻小说--以星际迷航为例--非常倚重具有吸引力的“愿望满足”。你在“进取号”上，你总会有一个能够赋予你生命意义的任务，你能即刻传输至你想去的任何地方，你随时都能从复制机中得到做好的食物。科幻小说大多是在遵循一种文学传统，它们试图去想象当人们通过科技得到梦寐以求的东西时会发生什么，会有哪些后续的影响。《赏心悦目》是幻想存在一个长相并不重要的世界，我们只需要对我们的神经元稍作改变就可完成这种超越，突破这种社交生活带来的瓶颈。

  A: Okay, I see what you mean. You're saying that the wish-fulfillment aspect is that looks don't matter. That's not how most people react to the story. The initial responses I get have mostly been, "Why on Earth would anyone want that?" That's the reaction that I'm accustomed to.

  我懂你的意思了，你是指长相并不重要是一种“愿望满足”，可大多数人并不是这么看待这个故事。我最初得到的大多数反馈是：“为什么会有人想要那么做？”，对于这种反馈我已经习惯了。

  18. Q: And yet, in our culture, for example in the movie Shallow Hal, you see a lot of fantasies where people realize that what matters is what's inside. You see this a lot in Star Trek, too, now that I think about it. It's a view that's very aggressively promoted, especially to children, although nobody actually adheres to it.

  而且在我们的文化中，比如在电影《庸人哈尔》中，你会看到在很多的幻想中，人们觉得内在才是最紧要的。你也可以在《星际迷航》中看到这一点，这是一个被大力鼓吹的观点，孩子特别受其影响，尽管没人真的这么认为。

  A: It's also the message of the movie Shrek. The problem is that there are two perspectives involved in the question of appearances: the person being perceived, and the person doing the perceiving. From the point of view of being perceived, that's where you encounter the wish that looks don't matter. That's where it's most relevant, because we're judged by our appearances and we wish we weren't.

  这也是《怪物史莱克》中传递的信息。问题是，关于外表有两方的观点混杂其中，被观察的一方和观察别人的一方。从被观察一方的角度来说，你会希望外表并不重要。这是最关切的问题，因为我们通过外表而被别人评判，而我们不希望我们被如此评判。

  19.Q: A lot of people have very deep wounds as a result of feeling judged by their appearance.

  很多人都因为被以貌取人而感到深受伤害。

  A: Yes, definitely. And then there's the other perspective, that of being the perceiver. It's from that point of view, I think, that most people ask me, "why would anyone want calliagnosia?" Because everyone likes looking at a pretty face. Perhaps it's just a statistical fluke that most of the reactions I've gotten have been from the perceiver point of view. But that's why I was surprised to hear you describe the story as wish fulfillment. You're the first, I think.

  是的，绝对是这样。然而还有另外一派观点，是来自观察别人的一方。从他们的角度来想，很多人会问我，“为什么会有人想要一个审美干扰仪？”。答案是因为每个人都想看到漂亮帅气的脸。或许这是因为一个统计上的偏差，因为我得到的大多数反馈都是来自观察别人的一方。但是这就是为什么当我听到你认为这个故事是在讲“愿望满足”时感到惊讶的原因，我想你是第一个从这一方面去考虑的人。

  20. Q: There's a dualism there that's hard for most people to reconcile. Each of us is simultaneously perceiver and perceived, so we have to accept that both views have validity.

  大多数人很难调和这其中存在的双重标准，我们每个人都同时是观察者和被观察者，所以我们不得不承认两种观点都各有道理。

  A: There's definitely a tension there. We'd like not to be judged on our appearances, but we all like looking at a pretty face. In a sense, we'd like everyone else to adopt the technology except for us. You previously asked about what prompted that story. It was probably more from the perceiver's point of view that the idea came to me. I was wondering why my eye is drawn towards certain people. What if we could eliminate that? In modern society, certainly in our media-saturated culture, beauty is used as a tool to get our attention. It's working on us as perceivers, but not necessarily in a way that's helpful.

  冲突确实在所难免，我们都不愿被以貌取人，但是我们却喜欢欣赏漂亮的脸蛋。某种意义上，我们希望除了自己之外的所有人都使用审美干扰仪。你之前问到这个故事的灵感来源，很可能是作为观察者的身份让我有了灵感。我一直在想为什么我的眼睛总是被某类人所吸引住，如果我们能把这个因素消除掉会发生什么。现代社会里，当处于一个媒体高度发达的文化中，美貌是吸引我们眼球的工具。对于作为观察者的我们而言，这很有效，但不一定起到什么正面作用。

  21. Q: Beauty is also used to oppress women, as a group. There's a body of feminist thought that describes beauty as a mechanism of control. This social structure has evolved over time to achieve certain effects, and one of them is to keep women in a permanent state of insecurity. Individual men might not like it, and recently men might have become more negatively affected by beauty standards, but overall they still benefit from it. Did that analysis factor into "Liking What You See" at all? Could this technology, like the Pill or abortion or automation, contribute to freeing women from social mores that evolved under agricultural societies and religious modes of thought?

  美貌也可以用来作为压制女性这一群体的工具，很多的女权主义者认为美貌被用来当作控制的工具。这种社会结构随着时间推移已经取得了一定的效果，其中之一就是让女人一直处在一种不安全的状态中。某个个体的男人可能反对这种社会结构，近年来男人可能也越来越深受美貌判断标准之害，但是总体而言，他们还是受益者。《赏心悦目》是否也考虑了这种分析？像口服避孕药、堕胎、自动化这类的科技，是否会将女人从根源于农业社会和宗教思维方式的社会习俗中解放出来？

  A: It definitely has that potential, the possibility of freeing women from trying to meet an impossible standard of beauty. On the other hand, in some circles it's accepted as given that beauty is an outmoded social construct, something that we, as enlightened individuals, can do without. But while that sounds great in theory, it's harder to do in practice. One of the things I find disquieting about our preference for beauty is that it appears very deeply ingrained. And when your political ideology is in conflict with your innate reactions, you've got a problem. When I was doing research for the story, I came across a quote that said, "Allowing beautiful women their beauty may turn out to be one of the most difficult aspects of personal liberation." I thought that was a very good point.

  将女人从不可企及的美貌标准中解放出来是绝对有可能的。另一方面，一些圈子里的人会觉得美丽是一种已经过时了的社会建构，我们这些开明人士是可以甩掉这个包袱的。但是尽管这在理论上看起来很不错，当执行时就变得不是那么回事了。我发现我们对美貌的偏爱中有件事情令人很不安，那就是这种偏爱貌似是根深蒂固的，而且如果你的政治倾向和你的本能反应相冲突时，你就碰上麻烦了。当我在为这个故事做研究做准备时，我看到了这样一句话，“允许美丽女人释放她们的美或许会变成追求个性解放中最难解决的问题之一”，我觉得这句话说得很不错。

  22. Q: As a writer, you're not very political at all. "Liking What You See" is one of your few stories to describe a political conflict, or that submits itself to a political reading. There's also something implicit there that is never fully explored, which is that racism loses its power when you stop judging people by appearances.

  作为一名作家，你完全没有表现出很强的政治倾向。《赏心悦目》是你少数描写政治纷争的作品之一，或许它本身就是一份政治读本。其中也有一些隐含的内容从没有被充分挖掘，即当我们不再通过以貌取人时种族歧视就失去土壤了。

  A: It's true that racism is in some ways a matter of judging people by their appearance. But the specific type of agnosia that I posit in the story would not actually affect racism, because it doesn't make one blind to skin color. And there are a lot of other factors that go into racism, like economic factors, cultural factors, the basic human tendency to group people into "us" and "them." It's not just a matter of appearances.

  种族歧视就是以貌取人的说法有几分道理，但是我在小说中设定的这种感官失能对改变种族歧视产生不了什么作用，因为它并不是让人们对肤色视而不见。而且种族歧视的产生还有其他方面的因素，比如经济条件、文化差异以及人们喜欢区分“我们”和“他们”的内在本能。

  23. Q: Do you deal with this explicitly in the story? I don't recall.

  你在小说中有表现吗？我记不起来了。

  A: At one point, the neurologist character talks about an attempt to create a kind of race blindness, or race agnosia, by trying to disable certain types of perception and category discrimination in the brain. And he says that it wasn't successful. While I agree that race blindness is an interesting idea, I didn't think there was any way to make it even remotely plausible in neurological terms. Because there are just too many things that go into racism. It seems to me that to eliminate the perception of race at a neurological level, you'd have to rewrite the underpinnings of our social behavior.

  有一处写到过，当神经科医师谈到过想创造一种种族盲视或者叫种族识别失能，即通过使脑中某些部位失去辨别能力的方法。而且，他也提到这并不成功。尽管我同意种族盲视的主意很有意思，但是我认为即使在未来其在神经学上也没有成功的可能。因为种族主义牵扯的东西很多，我觉得如果要在神经层面去除种族歧视，你得把我们的社会行为的基石重塑一次。

  24. Q: In your author's notes in the back of the book, you say that if this process were to exist, you would give it a try. So obviously there's a part of you that sees this as desirable, this kind of transcendence. Would it be desirable to eliminate race as a category? Would we even want to transcend race, through whatever means?

  在书后的作者手记中你谈到如果真有审美干扰仪你愿意试一试，所以一部分的你很明显觉得它有可取之处，能够达成某种超越。消除种族之分是否值得期待？我们是否愿意不惜任何手段来完成种族上的超越？

  A: That's a tough question. Perception of race doesn't provide the pleasure that beauty does, so there'd be no objection from the perceiver's point of view. The objection would be from the perceived's point of view, because for many people their race is closely tied to their sense of identity, and they wouldn't want to sacrifice any part of that. So can you retain recognition of race while entirely eliminating prejudice based on race? I don't know. On the other hand, I think I could more easily imagine, in a narrow theoretical context, a society in which racism didn't exist, than one in which there was no preference for beauty. For example, imagine a world in which beautiful faces of every ethnicity can be used to sell magazines. Now imagine a world in which plain faces, everyday ordinary people, can be used to sell magazines. I tend to think the former is more plausible.

  这个问题很刁钻。我们在观察种族时没有获得像美貌那样给我们带来的愉悦感，从观察者的角度来说应该没有人反对这一点。反对来自被观察的一方，因为对于很多人来说，他们的种族与他们的身份认同紧密相关，他们并不愿这这方面有所牺牲。所以你能既完全消除因种族带来的歧视而却又同时保持种族认同吗？我不知道。另一方面，如果放在狭义的纯理论语境下探讨的话，相比一个没有美丑之分的世界，我更能想象一个没有种族歧视的世界。比如说，先想象一个用各种族的漂亮脸蛋去做杂志封面的世界，再去想象一个杂志封面人物都是相貌平庸的世界，我觉得前者更有可能。

  25. Q: "Liking What You See" also strikes me an excellent example of merging of form with content. Why did you choose a documentary format to tell the story?

  《赏心悦目》另一个打动我的地方是它将体裁和内容很好地结合在了一起。你为什么选择了纪录片体这一形式？

  A: The documentary format made it easy to include a lot of different perspectives in less space than a traditional narrative. While the story does keep returning to one character throughout, it's more an examination of the issue itself rather than an account of one person's experience. What I had in mind as a model was a film by Henry Jaglon called Eating, about women's relationship with food. It wasn't technically a documentary, but most of it was a series of interviews rather than narrative. I thought it was fascinating.

  纪录片体比起传统的叙事体，能够利用更少的篇幅去包罗很多不同的观点角度。尽管这篇小说最终还是回归于一个主角的身上，它更像是对整个事件本身的检视，而不是仅仅是一个个人的体验报告。我脑子里有一个模板，那是Henry Jaglon的电影《吃》，关于女人和食物的关系的，从技术上说它不是一部纪录片，但是电影中大多是在呈现各种采访而不是单一的叙述，我觉得这种表现形式很迷人。

  26. Q: What's next for you? What new projects do you have gestating?

  你接下来有什么打算？有什么新作品在构思吗？

  A: I might do the choreography for Teletubbies on Ice, or I might write another story. I haven't decided yet.

  我可能会为天线宝宝编舞，也可能会写下一部小说，我还没确定。

• 他在寻找黑暗冬日里的光

  作者：墨小二 发布时间：2020-12-30 15:53:24

  12月是什么颜色的？回答“白色”的一定是想到了雪，回答“绿色”的很可能是南方人，回答“红色”的多半是想要圣诞礼物了吧？近些年，我们也凑热闹过起了圣诞节，信仰什么的倒是次要，更多的是出于对那份“礼物”的期望吧，这份“礼物”不一定是实物，也可以是更有意义的精神盛宴。

  现在，有这样一位圣诞老人，没有红色的棉袍，没有圆滚滚的包袱，也没有驯鹿给他拉雪橇，他就那样静静地坐着，等你……

  嗯嗯，那么精灵又是什么典故呢？

  这是一个全新原创的精灵形象，他跟圣诞老人之间的距离，不只是芬兰的南端到北极那么远，更是隔了一个圣诞的意义，他在寻找黑暗冬日里的光……

  这本书的文字量和阅读难度很适合三四年级的学生，新奇的想象带来的优美描写，对他们的写作也会非常有帮助。