The Making of Ashenden (Excerption)
I’ve been spared a lot, one of the blessed of the earth, at least one of its lucky, that privileged handful of the dramatically prospering, the sort whose secrets are asked, like the hundred-year-old man. There is no secret, of course; most of what happens to us is simple accident. Highish birth and a smooth network of appropriate connection like a tea service written into the will. But surely somethin g in the blood too, locked into good fortune’s dominant genes like a blast ripening in a time bomb. Set to go off, my good looks and intelligence, yet exceptional still, take away my mouthful of silver spoon and lapful of luxury. Something my own, not pas sed on or handed down, something seized, wrested—my good character, hopefully, my taste perhaps. What’s mine, what’s mine? Say taste—the soul’s harmless appetite.
I’ve money, I’m rich. The heir to four fortunes. Grandfather on Mother’s side was a Newpert. The family held some good real estate in Rhode Island until they sold it for many times what they gave for it. Grandmother on Father’s side was a Salts, whose bottled mineral water, once available only through prescription and believed indispensable in the cure of all fevers, was the first product ever to be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, a famous and controversial case. The government found it to contain nothing that was actually detrimental to human beings, and it went public, so to speak. Available now over the counter, the Salts made more money from it than ever.
Mother was an Oh. Her mother was the chemical engineer who first discovered a feasible way to store oxygen in tanks. And Father was Noel Ashenden, who though he did not actually invent the match-book, went into the field when it was still a not very flourishing novelty, and whose slogan, almost a poem,‘Close Cover Before Striking’(a simple stroke, as Father liked to say), obvious only after someone else has already thought of it (the Patent Office refused to issue a patent on what it claimed was merely an instruction, but Father’s company had the message on its matchbooks before his competitors even knew what was happening), removed the hazard from book matches and turned the indu stry and Father’s firm particularly into a flaming success overnight—Father’s joke, not mine. Later, when the inroads of Ronson and Zippo threatened the business, Father went into seclusion for six months and when he returned to us he had produced another slogan:‘For Our Matchless Friends.’It saved the industry a second time and was the second and last piece of work in Father’s life.
There are people who gather in the spas and watering places of this world who pooh-pooh our fortune. Après ski, cozy in their wools, handsome before their open hearths, they scandalize amongst themselves in whispers.‘Imagine’, they say,‘saved from ruin because of some cornball sentiment available in every bar and grill and truck stop in the country. It’s not, not...’
Not what? Snobs! Phooey on the First Families. On railroad, steel mill, automotive, public utility, banking and shipping fortunes, on all hermetic legacy, morganatic and blockbuster blood-lines that change the maps and landscapes and alter the mobility patterns, your jungle wheeling and downtown dealing a stone’s throw from warfare. I come of good stock—real estate, mineral water, oxygen, matchbooks: earth, water, air and fire, the old elementals of the material universe,
a bellybutton economics, a linchpin one.
It is as I see it a perfect genealogy, and if I can be bought and sold a hundred times over by a thousand men in this country—people in your own town could do it, providents and trailers of hunch, I bless them, who got into this or went into that when it was eight cents a share—I am satisfied with my thirteen or fourteen million. Wealth is not after all the point. The genealogy is. That bridge-trick nexus that brought Newpert to Oh, Salts to Ashenden and Ashenden to Oh, love’s lucky longshots which, paying off, permitted me as they permit every human life! (I have this simple, harmless paranoia of the good-natured man, this cheerful awe.) Forgive my enthusiasm, that I go on like some secular patriot wrapped in the simple flag of self, a professional descendant, every day the closed-for-the-holiday banks and post offices of the heart. And why not? Aren’t my circumstances superb? Whose are better? No boast, no boast. I’ve had it easy, served up on all life’s silver platters like a satrap. And if my money is man aged for me and I do no work—less work even than Father, who at least came up with those two slogans, the latter in a six-month solitude that must have been hell for that gregarious man (‘For Our Matchless Friends’: no slogan finally but a broken code, an extension of his own hospitable being, simply the Promethean gift of fire to a guest)—at least I am not‘spoiled’and have in me still alive the nerve endings of gratitude. If it’s miserly to count one’s blessings, Brewster Ashenden’s a miser.
This will gi ve you some idea of what I’m like:
On Having an Account in a Swiss Bank: I never had one, and suggest you stay away from them too. Oh, the mystery and romance is all very well, but never forget that your Swiss bank offers no premiums, whereas for opening a savings account for 5,000 or more at First National City Bank of New York or other fine institutions you get wonderful premiums—picnic hampers, Scotch coolers, Polaroid cameras, Hudson’s Bay blankets from L. L. Bean, electric shavers, even lawn furniture. My managers always leave me a million or so to play with, and this is how I do it. I suppose I’ve received hundreds of such bonuses. Usually I give them to friends or as gifts at Christmas to doormen and other loosely connected personnel of the household, but often I keep them and use them myself. I’m not stingy. Of course I can afford to buy any of these things—and I do, I enjoy making purchases—but somehow nothing brings the joy of existence home to me more than these premiums. Something from nothing—the two-suiter from Chase Manhattan and my own existence, luggage a bonus and life a bonus too. Like having a film star next to you on your flight from the Coast. There are treats of high order, adventure like cash in the street.
Let’s enjoy ourselves, I say; let’s have fun. Lord, let us live in the sand by the surf of the sea and play till cows come home. We’ll have a house on the Vineyard and a brownstone in the Seventies and a pied-à-terre in a world capital when something big is about to break. (Put the Cardinal in the back bedroom where the sun gilds the bay at afternoon tea and give us the courage to stand up to secret police at the door, to top all threats with threats of our own, the nicknames of mayors and ministers, the fast comeback at the front stairs, authority on us like the funny squiggle the counterfeiters miss.) Re-Columbus us. Engage us with the overlooked, a knowledge of optics, say, or a gift for the tides. (My pal, the heir to most of the vegetables in inland Nebraska, has become a superb amateur oceanographer. The marine studies people invite him to Wood’s
Hole each year. He has a wave named for him.) Make us good at things, the countertenor and the German language, and teach us to be as easy in our amateur standing as the best man at a r oommate’s wedding. Give us hard tummies behind the cummerbund and long swimmer’s muscles under the hound’s tooth so that we may enjoy our long life. And may all our stocks rise to the occasion of our best possibilities, and our humanness be bullish too.
Speaking personally I am glad to be a heroic man.
I am pleased that I am attractive to women but grateful I’m no bounder. Though I’m touched when married women fall in love with me, as frequently they do, I am rarely to blame. I never encourage these fits and do my best to get them over their derangements so as not to lose the friendships of their husbands when they are known to me, or the neutral friendship of the ladies themselves. This happens less than you might think, however, for whenever I am a houseguest of a married friend I usually make it a point to bring along a girl. These girls are from all walks of life—models, show girls, starlets, actresses, tennis professionals, singers, heiresses and the daughters of the diplomats of most of the nations of the free world. All walks. They tend, however, to conform to a single physical type, and are almost always tall, tan, slender and blond, the girl from Ipanema as a wag friend of mine has it. They are always sensitive and intelligent and good at sailing and the Australian crawl. They are never blemished in any way, for even something like a tiny beauty mark on the inside of a thigh or above the shoulder blade is enough to put me off, and their breaths must be as sweet at three in the morning as they are at noon. (I never see a woman who is dieting for diet sours the breath.) Arm hair, of course, is repellent to me though a soft blond down is now and then acceptable. I know I sound a prig. I’m not. I am—well, classical, drawn by perfection as to some magnetic, Platonic pole, idealism and beauty’s true North.
埃森顿传奇（节选）
上帝对我已经很仁慈了，让我成为这世上受恩宠者中的一员，至少是这世上幸运者中的一个。我取得了一些引人注目的成就，这使我成了百岁老人似的人物，人们纷纷前来探寻成功的秘诀。当然，这没有什么秘诀可言，发生在我们身上的事大多是纯粹的巧合而已。我高贵的出身和那畅通无阻而恰到好处的人际关系网是写入遗嘱的，正如那套继承而来的茶具。但是血液中也确有某种东西锁藏在能带来好运的显性基因里，正如孕育在定时炸弹里的爆炸。我俊朗的相貌和依然非凡的才智开始衰退，岁月开始夺走我满口的银匙和满兜的奢侈。那些属于我自己的东西，不能流传或继承，由我支配、获取——但愿那是我的优秀品质，也许是我的品味。什么是我的，什么是我的？品味——心灵无害的欲望。
我有钱，我富有，是四笔财富的继承人。我外祖父来自纽珀特家族。该家族在罗德岛拥有一些很好的地产，后来卖掉了，所得收入是先前投入的许多倍。我祖母来自赛尔茨家族，该家族经营瓶装矿泉水。这种矿泉水曾经只用作处方药物，人们相信它是治愈各种发烧必不可少的东西。该矿泉水是第一个被食品药品监督管理局检查的产品，这在当时可是一个众人皆知，争议纷起的事件。食品药品监督管理局发现该矿泉水不含任何对人体有害的物质。从那时起这种矿泉水开始向大众出售。现在人们可在商店买到这种矿泉水，因此赛尔茨家族赚到了比
以往更多的钱。
我的母亲来自欧茨家族。她的母亲是个化学工程师，首先发现了用钢罐储存氧气的可行方法。我的父亲是诺埃尔.埃森顿。他并没有发明火柴册，却在册装火柴方兴未艾之际进入了这个行业。父亲撰写了如诗般的广告语：“合上盖后再擦火柴”（其实就是简单地划一下，父亲喜欢这样说）。显然，只是在别人也想到这句话后（专利局认为这句话只是个使用说明而已，拒绝授予专利权。尽管如此，在竞争对手们还没弄明白究竟是怎么回事时，父亲的公司就把这句话印在火柴册上了），父亲的广告语消除了册装火柴的安全隐患，也在一夜之间使册装火柴业，特别是父亲的公司，走向令人惊诧的成功——这是父亲的玩笑，不是我的。后来，朗森火机和日普火机侵食火柴市场，威胁册装火柴业的生存。那时，父亲隐居了六个月。他回到我们身边时就已经想好了另一则广告语：“献给我们所向无敌的（没有火柴的）朋友们”。这则广告语又一次挽救了册装火柴业。这是父亲一生的第二个作品，也是最后一个。
那些聚集在矿泉浴场和海滨胜地的人们漠视我们的财富。滑完雪，他们惬意地裹着羊毛大衣，冠冕堂皇地坐在敞开的壁炉前，窃窃私语，诽谤中伤他人。“想想看，”他们嘀咕着，“靠煽动某种存在于每个酒吧、烧烤店和卡车加油站里的乡巴佬似的情感才得以从崩溃的边缘起死回生。那不是，不是，……”
不是什么？你们这些势利小人！我蔑视那些所谓的第一家庭；蔑视那些依靠经营铁路、炼钢厂、汽车制造、公用事业、银行业和航运业而获取的财富；蔑视所有诡秘的遗产，夫贵妇贱的婚姻和投机暴富的血统，因为这改变了财富的分布状况与流动模式。你们这些弱肉强食者为谋私利不择手段，互相倾轧。我出身于名门望族——这个家族经营着地产、矿泉水、氧气、册装火柴，即物质世界的四大古老元素：土、水、气和火。这些都是肚脐经济，即命脉经济。
在我看来，这是个完美的宗谱。如果我能被这个国家的一千人反复买卖一百次的话——你们镇上的人们就可能这样干，我就祝福那些有预感的深谋远虑者和追踪者，他们在每股八美分时忽而这样忽而那样——我对自己的那一千三百万或一千四百万股心满意足。财富根本不重要，重要的是这个宗谱。那桥牌游戏似的关系把纽珀特家族和欧茨家族，赛尔茨家族和埃森顿家族，埃森顿家族和欧茨家族联系在一起。爱是幸运的赌注，容许我，也容许每个人从中受益。（我具有性情温和之人所有的那种朴实单纯的偏执，那种令人愉快的敬畏。）就像某个裹在简朴的自我旗帜里的世俗的爱国者，或者某个行业的继承者，我将一如既往地每天经营着节假日停业的银行和城市中心的邮局。请原谅我的这种狂热。为什么不这样呢？我的条件不好吗？谁的条件比我好？不要自吹自擂，不要自我炫耀。我生活得很舒适，终生有人端着银盘侍奉，就像个波斯帝国的总督。而且如果有人替我管理我的钱财，我就什么也不干了——甚至比父亲干得还少，他至少想出了两则广告语。第二则广告语是父亲隐居六个月想出的，这对像他这样喜欢交际的人该是何等痛苦啊！（献给我们所向无敌的（没有火柴的）朋友们：实际上所有的广告语都是拙劣的代码，是父亲热情好客性格的延伸，送给朋友们的只不过是普罗米修斯的礼物）——至少我没有被宠坏，我仍然怀有感恩之心。如果历数所受到的恩惠是吝啬，那么布鲁斯特.埃森顿就是个吝啬鬼。
这会让你对我有所了解。
至于在瑞士银行开个帐户，我从未开过，也建议你不要开。嗬，在那里开个账户是既神秘又
浪漫，但是不要别忘记瑞士银行不会给你任何赠品，而在纽约第一国民城市银行或其它服务优良的金融机构开办个五千美元以上的储蓄帐户就能得到很好的赠品——野餐篮、斯高奇冷却器、宝丽来相机、宾恩的哈德森海滩毯、电动剃须刀、甚至有草坪修剪工具。我的经理们总是留出大约一百万美元供我享用，我就是这样使用这些钱的。我想我已经收到数百件这样的赠品了。通常，我把这些赠品送给朋友，或者在圣诞节作为礼物送给门卫和其他与我家关系疏远的人；但是我经常把赠品留下来供自己使用。我可不吝啬。当然，我买得起这些东西——而且我确实喜欢购物——但是只有这些赠品才能带给我更多的生活乐趣。从无到有——从这个中型手提箱到大通曼哈顿银行和我自己的存在，手提箱是个意外收获，生活也是个意外收获。这就像乘坐从太平洋海岸起飞的班机，身边却坐着个电影明星。生活中有高级的待遇，也有像钞票满地般的奇遇。
让我们尽情享受生活吧；让我们开心快乐吧。上帝，让我们居住在海浪轻拂的沙滩上，一直玩耍到牛儿归栏。当要发生重大变故时，我们将买一栋位于温雅德的房子，一座七十年代的褐砾石屋，还有一栋位于国际性大都市的临时住所。（把主红雀放在后面的卧室里，喝下午茶时从那儿能看到太阳给整个海湾镀上了一层金黄色。这给了我们勇气去面对门外的便衣警察，用我们自己内心的恐惧战胜所有的恐惧，给市长和部长们冠以绰号，不再从前面楼梯迅速退缩。权威对于我们而言就像造假者所怀念的滑稽的花体字。）让我们重返哥伦布时代，让我们融入这被忽略的一切，例如光学知识或者献给海浪的礼物。（我的好友是内布拉斯加州内陆地区大多数蔬菜种植园的继承人，现在却成了一个优秀的业余海洋地理学家。从事海洋研究的学者们每年都邀请他去伍兹侯尔。还有一种以他的名字命名的海浪。）让我们有所专长，会唱男高音，能讲德语；教我们学会从容面对自己的业余水平，就像室友婚礼上的伴郎那样坦然自如。让我们腰带下面的小腹强健有力，让我们拥有长游运动员那样能够对抗星鲨牙齿的肌肉，这样我们就能够健康长寿。愿我们所有的股票都涨到我们所期望的最高价格，也愿我们的人性得以彰显和发扬。
就我个人而言，我乐意成为一个英雄人物。
我对女人颇有吸引力，对此我很自豪；但我绝不是个粗俗之人，对此我很感激。已婚女人爱上我时，我也会动情；她们经常这样，尽管如此，我却很少受到指责。我从不鼓励这种感情自由泛滥，总是竭尽全力帮助她们摆脱感情困扰。这样我就能保持与她们丈夫的友谊如果我认识他们的话，或者保持与这些女士们的无性友谊。然而，这种事并不像你认为的那样时常发生，因为到已婚朋友家做客时我通常都会特地带上一个女孩前往。这些女孩来自社会各个阶层——有模特、舞女、新星、女演员、职业网球选手、歌手、女继承人，还有来自大多数自由国家的外交官的女儿。尽管来自社会各个阶层，她们却具有大致相同的外貌特征：身材高挑，肤色健康，体型苗条，金发碧眼。来自伊帕尼玛的那个女孩——我那个幽默诙谐的朋友——就是这样的。她们敏感，聪慧，而且擅长帆船运动和澳大利亚爬泳。她们个个冰清玉洁，完美无瑕，因为即使大腿内侧或肩胛骨上有个微小的美人痣也会让我感到厌恶。此外，不论是在早晨三点，还是在中午时分，她们的气息必须始终香甜宜人（我从不接见正在节食的女人，因为节食会破坏她的气息）。当然，胳臂上的汗毛也让我烦感，尽管一根柔软的金色绒毛有时是可以接受的。我知道听起来我像个花花公子，其实并非如此。我——唔，很正统，痴迷于对完美的追求，例如迷人的纯精神恋爱，理想主义和美的真谛。
On Irritability Irritability is the tendency to get upset for reasons that seem – to other people – to be pretty minor. Your partner asks you how work went and the way they ask makes you feel intensely agitated. Your partner is putting knives and forks on the table before dinner and you mention (not for the first time) that the fork should go on the left hand side, not the right. They then immediately let out a huge sigh and sweep the cutlery onto the floor and tell you that you can xxxx-ing do it yourself if you know better. It was the most minor of criticisms and technically quite correct. And now they’ve exploded. There is so much irritability around and it exacts a huge daily cost on our collective lives, so we deserve to get a lot more curious about it: what is really going on for the irritable person? Why, really, are they getting so agitated? And instead of blaming them for getting het up about “little things”, we should do them the honour of working out why, in fact, these things may not be so minor after all. The journey begins by recognising the role of fear in irritability in couples. Behind most outbursts are cack-handed attempts to teach the other person something. There are things we’d like to point out, flaws that we can discern, remarks w e feel we really must make, but our awareness of how to proceed is panicked and hasty. We give cack-handed, mean speeches, which bear no faith in the legitimacy (even the nobility) of the act of imparting advice. And when our partners are on the receiving end of these irritable “lessons”, they of course swiftly grow defensive and brittle in the face of suggestions which seem more like mean-minded and senseless assaults on their very natures rather than caring, gentle attempts to address troublesome aspects of joint life. The prerequisite of calm in a teacher is a degree of indifference as to the success or failure of the lesson. One naturally wants for things to go well, but if an obdurate pupil flunks trigonometry, it is – at base – their problem. Tempers can stay even because individual students do not have very much power over teachers’ lives. Fortunately, as not caring too much turns out to be a critical aspect of successful pedagogy. Yet this isn’t an option open to the fearful, irritable lover. They feel ineluctably led to deliver their “lessons” in a cataclysmic, frenzied manner (the door slams very loudly indeed) not because they are insane or vile (though one could easily draw these
Irritability is the tendency to get upset for reasons that seem – to other people – to be pretty minor. Your partner asks you how work went and the way they ask makes you feel intensely agitated. Your partner is putting knives and forks on the table before dinner and you mention (not for the first time) that the fork should go on the left hand side, not the right. They then immediately let out a huge sigh and sweep the cutlery onto the floor and tell you that you can xxxx-ing do it yourself if you know better. It was the most minor of criticisms and technically quite correct. And now they’ve exploded. There is so much irritability around and it exacts a huge daily cost on our collective lives, so we deserve to get a lot more curious about it: what is really going on for the irritable person? Why, really, are they getting so agitated? And instead of blaming them for getting het up about “little things”, we should do them the honour of working out why, in fact, these things may not be so minor after all.
第二十届韩素音青年翻译奖竞赛参赛原文 1楼2008-05-14 15:00回复查看(800) 回复(2) 1楼 cathyhello cathy 积分2008等级6入室弟子 英译汉部分：Philosophy vs. Emerson (Excerpt)“HE is,” said Matthew Arnold of Emerson, “the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit.” These well-known words are perhaps the best expression of the somewhat vague yet powerful and inspiring effect of Emerson,s courageous but disjointed philosophy. Descended from a long line of New England ministers, Emerson, finding himself fettered by even the most liberal ministry of his day, gently yet audaciously stepped down from the pulpit and, wi t h little or no modification in his interests or utterances, became the greatest lay preacher of his time. From the days of his undergraduate essay upon “The Present State of Ethical Philosophy” he continued to be preoccupied wi t h matters of conduct: whatever the object of his attention—an ancient poet, a fact in science, or an event in the morning newspaper—he contrives to extract from it a lesson which in his ringing, glistening style he drives home as an exhortation to a higher and more independent life. Historically, Emerson marks one of the largest reactions against the Calvinism of his ancestors. That stern creed had taught the depravity of man, the impossibility of a natural, unaided growth toward perfection, and the necessity of constant and anxious effort to win the unmerited reward of being numbered among the elect. Emerson starts with the assumption that the individual, if he can only come into possession of his natural excellence, is the most godlike of creatures. Instead of believing with the Calvinist that as a man grows better he becomes more unlike his natural self (and therefore can become better only by an act of divine mercy), Emerson believes that as a man grows in excellence he becomes more like his natural self. It is common to hear the expression, when one is deeply stirred, as by sublime music or a moving discourse: “That fairly lifted me out of myself.” Emerson would have said that such influences lift us into ourselves. For one of Emerson’s most fundamental and frequently recurring ideas is that of a “great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere,” an “Over-Soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one wi t h all other,”which “evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and beauty.”This is the incentive—the sublime incentive of approaching the perfection which is ours by nature and by divine intention—that Emerson holds out when he asks us to submit us to ourselves and to all instructive influences. Natur e, which he says“is loved by what is best in us,”is all about us, inviting our perception of its remotest and most cosmic principles by surrounding us with its simpler manifestations.“A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing laws which bind the fart hest regions of nature.”Thus man “carries the world in his head.” Whether he be a great scientist, proving by his discovery of a sweeping physical law that he has some such constructive sense as that which guides the universe, or whether he be a poet behol ding trees as“imperfect men,”who“seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground,”he is being brought into his own by perceiving “the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind of material objects, whether inorganic or organized.”Ranging over time and space with astonishing rapidity and binding names and things together that no ordinary vision could connect, Emerson calls the Past also to witness the need of self-reliance and a steadfast obedience to intuition.The need of such independence, he thought, was particularly great for the
The Posteverything Generation I never expected to gain any new insight into the nature of my generation, or the changing landscape of American colleges, in Lit Theory. Lit Theory is supposed to be the class where you sit at the back of the room with every other jaded sophomore wearing skinny jeans, thick-framed glasses, an ironic tee-shirt and over-sized retro headphones, just waiting for lecture to be over so you can light up a Turkish Gold and walk to lunch while listening to Wilco. That’s pretty much the way I spent the course, too: through structuralism, formalism, gender theory, and post-colonialism, I was far too busy shuffling through my Ipod to see what the patriarchal world order of capitalist oppression had to do with Ethan Frome. But when we began to study postmodernism, something struck a chord with me and made me sit up and look anew at the seemingly blasé college-aged literati of which I was so self-consciously one. According to my textbook, the problem with defining postmodernism is that it’s i mpossible. The difficulty is that it is so...post. It defines itself so negatively against what came before it –naturalism, romanticism and the wild revolution of modernism –that it’s sometimes hard to see what it actually is. It denies that anything can be explained neatly or even at all. It is parodic, detached, strange, and sometimes menacing to traditionalists who do not understand it. Although it arose in the post-war west (the term was coined in 1949), the generation that has witnessed its ascendance has yet to come up with an explanation of what postmodern attitudes mean for the future of culture or society. The subject intrigued me because, in a class otherwise consumed by dead-letter theories, postmodernism remained an open book, tempting to the young and curious. But it also intrigued me because the question of what postmodernism –what a movement so post-everything, so reticent to define itself – is spoke to a larger question about the political and
第二十六届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文 英译汉竞赛原文： How the News Got Less Mean The most read article of all time on BuzzFeed contains no photographs of celebrity nip slips and no inflammatory ranting. It’s a series of photos called “21 pictures that will restore your fait h in humanity,” which has pulled in nearly 14 million visits so far. At Upworthy too, hope is the major draw. “This kid just died. What he left behind is wondtacular,” an Upworthy post about a terminally ill teen singer, earned 15 million views this summer and has raised more than $300,000 for cancer research. The recipe for attracting visitors to stories online is changing. Bloggers have traditionally turned to sarcasm and snark to draw attention. But the success of sites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy, whose philosophies embrace the viral nature of upbeat stories, hints that the Web craves positivity. The reason: social media. Researchers are discovering that people want to create positive images of themselves online by sharing upbeat stories. And with more people turning to Facebook and Twitter to find out what’s happening in the world, news stories may need to cheer up in order to court an audience. If social is the future of media, then optimistic stories might be media’s future. “When we started, the prevailing wisdom was that snark ruled the Internet,” says Eli Pariser, a co-founder of Upworthy. “And we just had a really different sense of what works.” “You don’t want to be that guy at the party who’s crazy and angry and ranting in the c orner—it’s the same for Twitter or Facebook,” he says. “Part of what we’re trying to do with Upworthy is give people the tools to express a conscientious, thoughtful and positive identity in social media.” And the science appears to support Pariser’s philosophy. In a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers found that “up votes,” showing that a visitor liked a comment or story, begat more up votes on comments on the site, but “down votes” did not do the same. In fact, a single up vote increased the likelihood that someone else would like a comment by 32%, whereas a down vote had no effect. People don’t want to support the cranky commenter, the critic or the troll. Nor do they want to be that negative personality online. In another study published in 2012, Jonah Berger, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, monitored the most e-mailed stories produced by the New York Times for six months and found that positive stories were more likely to make the list than negative ones. “What we share [or like] is almost like the car we drive or the clothes we wear,” he says. “It
汉译英原文： 居在巷陌的寻常幸福 隐逸的生活似乎在传统意识中一直被认为是幸福的至高境界。但这种孤傲遁世同时也是孤独的，纯粹的隐者实属少数，而少数者的满足不能用来解读普世的幸福模样。 有道是小隐隐于野，大隐隐于市。真正的幸福并不隐逸，可以在街市而不是丛林中去寻找。 晨光，透过古色古香的雕花窗棂，给庭院里精致的盆景慢慢地化上一抹金黄的淡妆。那煎鸡蛋的“刺啦”声袅袅升起，空气中开始充斥着稚嫩的童音、汽车 启动的节奏、夫妻间甜蜜的道别，还有邻居们简单朴素的问好。巷陌中的这一切，忙碌却不混乱，活泼却不嘈杂，平淡却不厌烦。 巷尾的绿地虽然没有山野的苍翠欲滴，但是空气中弥漫着荒野中所没有的 生机。微黄的路灯下，每一张长椅都写着不同的心情，甜蜜与快乐、悲伤与喜悦，交织在一起，在静谧中缓缓发酵。谁也不会知道在下一个转角中会是怎样的惊喜，会是一家风格独特食客不断的小吃店？是一家放着爵士乐的酒吧？还是一家摆着高脚木凳、连空气都闲散的小小咖啡馆？坐在户外撑着遮阳伞的木椅上， 和新认识的朋友一边喝茶，一边谈着自己小小的生活，或许也是一种惬意。 一切，被时间打磨，被时间沉淀，终于形成了一种习惯，一种默契，一种文化。 和来家中做客的邻居朋友用同一种腔调巧妙地笑谑着身边的琐事，大家眯起的眼睛都默契地着同一种狡黠；和家人一起围在饭桌前，衔满食物的嘴还发着 含糊的声音，有些聒噪，但没人厌烦。 小巷虽然狭窄，却拉不住快乐蔓延的速度…… 随着城市里那些密集而冰冷的高楼大厦拔地而起，在拥堵的车流中，在污 浊的空气里，人们的幸福正在一点点地破碎，飘零。大家住得越来越宽敞，越来越私密。自我，也被划进一个单独的空间里，小心地不去触碰别人的心灵，也 不容许他人轻易介入。可是，一个人安静下来时会觉得，曾经厌烦的那些嘈杂回想起来很温情很怀念。 比起高楼耸立的曼哈顿，人们更加喜欢佛罗伦萨红色穹顶下被阳光淹没的古老巷道；比起在夜晚光辉璀璨的陆家嘴，人们会更喜欢充满孩子们打闹嬉笑的万航渡路。就算已苍然老去，支撑起梦境的应该是老房子暗灰的安详，吴侬软语的叫卖声，那一方氤氲过温馨和回忆的小弄堂。 如果用一双细腻的眼眸去观照，其实每一片青苔和爬山虎占据的墙角，是 墨绿色的诗篇，不会飘逸，不会豪放，只是那种平淡的幸福，简简单单。 幸福是什么模样，或许并不难回答。幸福就是一本摊开的诗篇，关于在城市的天空下，那些寻常巷陌的诗。 夜幕笼罩，那散落一地的万家灯火中，有多少寻常的幸福正蜗居在巷陌……
第十三届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文及参考译文（汉译英）2010-3-26 23:32|发布者: sisu04|查看: 881|评论: 0 摘要: 韩素音青年翻译奖 歌德之人生启示 宗白华 人生是什么？人生的真相如何？人生的意义何在？人生的目的是何？这些人生最重大最中心的问题，不只是古来一切大宗教家哲学家所殚精竭虑以求解答的。世界上第一流的大诗人凝神冥想，深入灵魂的幽邃，或纵身大化中，于一朵花中窥见天国，一滴露水参悟生命，然后用他们生花之笔，幻现层层世界，幕幕人生，归根也不外乎启示这生命的真相与意义。宗教家对这些问题的方法与态度是预言的说教的，哲学家是解释的说明的，诗人文豪是表现的启示的。荷马的长歌启示了希腊艺术文明幻美的人生与理想，但丁的神曲启示了中古基督教文化心灵的生活与信仰，莎士比亚的剧本表现了文艺复兴时人们的生活矛盾与权力意志。至于近代的，建筑于这三种文明精神之上而同时开展一个新时代，所谓近代人生，则由伟大的歌德以他的人格，生活，作品表现出它的特殊意义与内在的问题。 歌德对人生的启示有几层意义，几种方面。就人类全体讲，他的人格与生活可谓极尽了人类的可能性。他同时是诗人，科学家，政治家，思想家，他也是近代泛神论信仰的一个伟大的代表。他表现了西方文明自强不息的精神，又同时具有东方乐天知命宁静致远的智慧。德国哲学家息默尔（Simmel）说：“歌德的人生所以给我们以无穷兴奋与深沉的安慰的，就是他只是一个人，他只是极尽了人性，但却如此伟大，使我们对人类感到有希望，鼓动我们努力向前做一个人。“我们可以说歌德是世界一扇明窗，我们由他窥见了人生生命永恒幽邃奇丽广大的天空！ 再狭小范围，就欧洲文化的观点说，歌德确是代表文艺复兴以后近代人的心灵生活及其内在的问题。近代人失去了基督教对一超越上帝虔诚的信仰。人类精神上获得了解放，得到了自由；但也就同时失所依傍，彷徨摸索，苦闷，追求，欲在生活本身的努力中寻得人生的意义与价值。歌德是这时代精神伟大的代表，他的主著《浮士德》是这人生全部的反映与其问题的解决。歌德与其替身浮士德一生生活的内容就是尽量体验这近代人生特殊的精神意义，了解其悲剧而努力以解决其问题，指出解救之道。所以有人称他的浮士德是近代人的圣
摘要: 韩素音青年翻译奖 歌德之人生启示 宗白华 人生是什么人生的真相如何人生的意义何在人生的目的是何这些人生最重大最中心的问题，不只是古来一切大宗教家哲学家所殚精竭虑以求解答的。世界上第一流的大诗人凝神冥想，深入灵魂的幽邃，或纵身大化中，于一朵花中窥见天国，一滴露水参悟生命，然后用他们生花之笔，幻现层层世界，幕幕人生，归根也不外乎启示这生命的真相与意义。宗教家对这些问题的方法与态度是预言的说教的，哲学家是解释的说明的，诗人文豪是表现的启示的。荷马的长歌启示了希腊艺术文明幻美的人生与理想，但丁的神曲启示了中古基督教文化心灵的生活与信仰，莎士比亚的剧本表现了文艺复兴时人们的生活矛盾与权力意志。至于近代的，建筑于这三种文明精神之上而同时开展一个新时代，所谓近代人生，则由伟大的歌德以他的人格，生活，作品表现出它的特殊意义与内在的问题。 歌德对人生的启示有几层意义，几种方面。就人类全体讲，他的人格与生活可谓极尽了人类的可能性。他同时是诗人，科学家，政治家，思想家，他也是近代泛神论信仰的一个伟大的代表。他表现了西方文明自强不息的精神，又同时具有东方乐天知命宁静致远的智慧。德国哲学家息默尔（Simmel）说：“歌德的人生所以给我们以无穷兴奋与深沉的安慰的，就是他只是一个人，他只是极尽了人性，但却如此伟大，使我们对人类感到有希望，鼓动我们努力向前做一个人。“我们可以说歌德是世界一扇明窗，我们由他窥见了人生生命永恒幽邃奇丽广大的天空！ 再狭小范围，就欧洲文化的观点说，歌德确是代表文艺复兴以后近代人的心灵生活及其内在的问题。近代人失去了基督教对一超越上帝虔诚的信仰。人类精神上获得了解放，得到了自由；但也就同时失所依傍，彷徨摸索，苦闷，追求，欲在生活本身的努力中寻得人生的意义与价值。歌德是这时代精神伟大的代表，他的主著《浮士德》是这人生全部的反映与其问题的解决。歌德与其替身浮士德一生生活的内容就是尽量体验这近代人生特殊的精神意义，了解其悲剧而努力以解决其问题，指出解救之道。所以有人称他的浮士德是近代人的圣经。 但歌德与但丁莎士比亚不同的地方，就是他不单是由作品里启示我们人生真相，尤其在他自己的人格与生活中表现了人生广大精微的义谛。
“CATTI杯”第二十七届韩素音青年翻译奖竞赛 英译汉竞赛原文： The Posteverything Generation I never expected to gain any new insight into the nature of my generation, or the changing landscape of American colleges, in Lit Theory. Lit Theory is supposed to be the class where you sit at the back of the room with every other jaded sophomore wearing skinny jeans, thick-framed glasses, an ironic tee-shirt and over-sized retro headphones, just waiting for lecture to be over so you can light up a Turkish Gold and walk to lunch while listening to Wilco. That’s pretty much the way I spent the course, too: through structuralism, formalism, gender theory, and post-colonialism, I was far too busy shuffling through my Ipod to see what the patriarchal world order of capitalist oppression had to do with Ethan Frome. But when we began to study postmodernism, something struck a chord with me and made me sit up and look anew at the seemingly blasécollege-aged literati of which I was so self-consciously one. According to my textbook, the problem with defining postmodernism is that it’s impossible. The difficulty is that it is so...post. It defines itself so negatively against what came before it – naturalism, romanticism and the wild revolution of modernism – that it’s sometimes hard to see what it actually is. It denies that anything can be explained neatly or even at all. It is parodic, detached, strange, and sometimes menacing to traditionalists who do not understand it. Although it arose in the post-war west (the term was coined in 1949), the generation that has witnessed its ascendance has yet to come up with an explanation of what postmodern attitudes mean for the future of culture or society. The subject intrigued me because, in a class otherwise consumed by dead-letter theories, postmodernism remained an open book, tempting to the young and curious. But it also intrigued me because the question of what postmodernism – what a movement so post-everything, so reticent to define itself – is spoke to a larger question about the political and popular culture of today, of the other jaded sophomores sitting around me who had grown up in a postmodern world. In many ways, as a college-aged generation, we are also extremely post: post-Cold War, post-industrial, post-baby boom, post-9/11...at one point in his famous essay, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” literary critic Frederic Jameson even calls us “post-literate.” We are a generation that is riding on the tail-end of a century of war and revolution that toppled civilizations, overturned repressive social orders, and left us with more privilege and opportunity than any other society in history. Ours could be an era to accomplish anything. And yet do we take to the streets and the airwaves and say “here we are, and this is what we demand”? Do we plant our flag of youthful rebellion on the mall in Washington and say “we are not leaving until we see change! Our eyes have been opened by our education and our conception of what is possible has been expanded by our privilege and we demand a better world because it is our right”? It would seem we do the opposite. We go to war without so much as questioning the rationale, we sign away our civil liberties, we say nothing when the Supreme Court uses Brown v. Board of Education to outlaw desegregation, and we sit back to watch the carnage on the evening news. On campus, we sign petitions, join organizations, put our names on mailing lists, make small-money contributions, volunteer a spare hour to tutor, and sport an entire wardrobe’s worth of Live Strong bracelets advertising our moderately priced opposition to everything from breast cancer to global warming. But what do we really stand for? Like a true postmodern generation we refuse to weave together an overarching narrative to our own political consciousness, to present a cast of inspirational or revolutionary characters on our public stage, or to define a specific philosophy. We are a story seemingly without direction or theme, structure or meaning – a generation defined negatively against what came before us. When Al Gore once said “It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism,” he might as well have been echoing his entire generation’s critique of our own. We are a generation for whom even revolution seems trite, and therefore as fair a target for bland imitation as anything else. We are the generation of the Che Geuvera tee-shirt.