艾莉芙·沙法克：如何写小说 | 我的写作之道

所以我们如何看、如何尝、如何听见宇宙的声音，一切皆有生命。

So how we see, how we taste, how we hear the sound of the universe, everything is alive.

你有没有发现，某些感官比其他感官更容易被激活？

Do you find that some senses are easier to activate than other ones?

我觉得当我写作时，这些感官会更加活跃。

I feel like when I'm writing, those senses are more active.

而在日常生活中，理性思维则占据主导。

Whereas of course in our daily life the rational mind takes over.

但当你写作时，这正是我如此热爱文学的众多原因之一，我总是将文学与自由联系在一起。

But when you're writing, and that's one of the many reasons why I love literature so much, and I always associate it with freedom.

在日常生活中，如果我们说：‘我正在喝一杯水，然后水跟我说话了’，人们会觉得你疯了，对吧？

In our daily lives, if we say, well, I was drinking a glass of water and then the water spoke to me, people will think you've gone bonkers, right?

但在小说中，你可以说：‘实际上，这一滴水有自己的故事，它从远古时代就开始旅行了。’

But in fiction you can say, well actually this drop of water has a story to tell, you know, it has been travelling since time eternal.

我们尚未发现任何新的水源。

We haven't discovered any new sources of water.

这些水滴同样存在于密西西比河、恒河、泰晤士河或幼发拉底河中，是循环往复的同一滴水，也是我们身体里的水，其中一滴可能曾是我们流下的眼泪，或是我们杯中所饮的水。

It's the same drops of water in the River Mississippi, the River Ganj or the River Thames or the Euphrates, the same drops of water circulating over and over the same water that we have in our bodies, one of us might have shed us tears, or the same water that we drink in our glass.

所以我的意思是，你可以讲故事，而不会被理性、逻辑的思维所束缚，因为这个世界、我们所生活的宇宙，远不止这些。

So my point is, you can tell a story and you're not stopped by the rational, logical mind, because there's more to the world, there's more to the universe we're living in.

是的，你做得非常出色，而且提到了三句关于水的描述。

Yeah, I mean, you do a beautiful job with it, and water recollected three sentences.

第一句是你写道：‘与人类不同，水并不在意社会地位或王室头衔。’

The first is that you wrote: For, unlike humans, water has no regard for social status or royal titles.

水是彻底的移民，永远处于迁徙途中，无法安定下来。

Water is the consummate immigrant trapped in transit, never able to settle.

我最喜欢的一句是：水在逆境中会凝固，就像人的心一样。

And my favorite one, water hardens in adverse circumstances, not unlike the human heart.

还有一句，既然我们谈到这个，就是你描述水在下落时，仿佛水从天空落下，却尚未落在树上，仿佛它还未决定要落在哪里。

And there was another one, now that we're talking about it, is you had this description of water is falling, and it was almost like the water has fallen from the sky, but hasn't landed on a tree, almost as if it hasn't decided where it's gonna land.

突然间，你开始思考水，而水则充满了这种魔力和无限的可能性。

And all of a sudden, you're just thinking of water, and water is just infused with this enchantment and this range of what it could be.

这就像展开你的想象力。

It's like spreading out your imagination.

我坐在那里读着，心想：她是怎么到达那里的？

And I'm sitting there reading it, and I'm like, how does she get there?

我不明白你的思维是怎么走到那一步的。

Like, I don't understand how your mind got there.

这让我有点想哭，因为实在太美了，你知道吗？

It kinda makes me a little teary because it's so, like, it's so beautiful, you know?

谢谢。

Thank you.

这对我来说意义重大。

That really means a lot to me.

我认为这正是讲故事艺术的核心。

I think it's at the heart of the art of storytelling.

这并不是我个人在做的事情。

It's not something that I do personally.

我们生来就困在一个身份的盒子里。

We're all born into, a box of identity.

我们出生在特定的时间和地点，属于某种宗教、某种族裔，或如此这般。

We're born into one place and time, one religion, one ethnicity, or this or that.

我们早已习惯从这个角度、从这扇窗户去看世界。

And we're so used to looking at the world from that angle, from that window.

这就是我们所被教导的，对吧？

This is what we are taught, right?

但艺术和文学会牵着我们的手，说：跟我来。

But art and literature, they hold us by the hand and they say, Come with me.

让我们看看这个盒子之外有什么。

Let's see what's beyond that box.

因此，我 passionately 相信这一点。

And that's why I passionately believe in this.

可惜我们通常过分强调文学的自传性元素。

It's a pity that we usually emphasise the autobiographical element aspect of literature.

请别误会，我非常尊重这一点。

And please don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for that.

你所说的

What do you mean when you

是什么意思？

say that?

我的意思是，当我们开设创意写作课程时，最先教给学生的就是：写你所知道的。

What I mean is, when we teach creative writing in so many workshops, the very first thing that is being taught to students is write what you know.

于是人们自然而然地认为，我得写我自己的经历。

And people then start thinking, understandably, they say, well, then I need to write about what happened to me.

你知道的，我的故事是什么？

You know, what's my story?

同样，有许多杰出而美妙的文学作品正是从这一点出发的。

And again, there are so many amazing, wonderful works of literature that started from that point.

所以这根本不是批评。

So this is not a criticism at all.

我非常尊重自传体书籍。

I have a lot of respect for autobiographical books.

但我批评和不同意的是，文学不能仅仅被简化为自传性质。

But where I criticize, where I disagree, is literature cannot be solely reduced to the autobiographical.

它远不止于此。

It is more than that.

因此，它还具有超越性，或者我称之为超越性的层面。

So there's also transcendental, or what I call transcendental aspect to it.

我的意思是，有时你讲述的是自己的故事，但有时它并不是关于你的故事，而是关于他者。

And by that I mean, sometimes you tell your story, but sometimes it's not about your story, it's about the other.

你成为他者，然后又成为另一个、再另一个，不断进行这些旅程。

You become the other, and then you become another, another, and you keep making these journeys.

对我来说，这至关重要。

This to me is so important.

你试图超越这些框限。

You try to go beyond those boxes.

你试图解构二元对立。

You try to dismantle the dualities.

然后你意识到，我曾经视为他者的那个人，实际上是我的兄弟，你知道吗？我的姐妹就是我。

And then you realize the person I regarded as my other is actually my brother, you know, my sister is me.

我就是他者，你知道吗？

I am the other, you know?

没什么差别。

There's not much difference.

因此，这些二元对立就消融了。

So it just dissolves those dualities.

文学的这一方面对我而言至关重要。

That aspect of literature is so crucial to me.

你觉得自己在多大程度上会变成另一个角色？

To what level do you feel like you sometimes become another character?

比如，你会变成亚瑟吗？

Like, you become Arthur?

就像，我就是那个人。

Like, I am actually that person.

你知道，比如万圣节时，如果你看到一个打扮得特别像某人的人，他们会模仿那个人的说话方式。

You know, like, it's on Halloween if you're see someone who's really in costume, they talk like the person.

有一瞬间，几乎让人觉得他们真的变成了托马斯·杰斐逊或者埃米尔·G。

And for a second, it's almost as if they actually are Thomas Jefferson or Emil G.

艾尔哈特或者任何其他人。

Earhart or whoever it is.

你觉得自己在多大程度上真的变成了那个人？

To what level do you feel like you become that person?

是的。

Yeah.

我确实感觉自己变成了那个人，因为如果不变成那样，我就无法写出那个角色。

I do I do feel like I become that person because otherwise I cannot write about that person.

但话说回来，你还需要倾听你内心那些相对次要的角色，或者那些可能看起来不太讨喜的角色。

But that said, you also need to hear the relatively smaller characters in your heart, or those characters that might not look very nice.

你需要试着去理解。

You need to try to understand.

这并不是关于评判。

This is not about judgment.

我们不是在评判我们的角色。

We are not judging our characters.

我们试图去理解。

We try to understand.

同样，你有时也需要理解一棵树。

Equally, you need to understand a tree sometimes.

当我告诉我的经纪人时，真希望你能看到他的表情。

I wish you had seen my agent's face when I told him

有一棵会说话的树？

There's a talking tree?

很多年前。

Years ago.

我说，我正在写一部新小说，里面会有一棵树，这棵树会说话。

I said, I'm writing this new novel and there's going to be a tree in it, and this tree is going to talk.

我看到他眼中闪过一丝恐慌和焦虑，我当然理解。

And I saw for a moment this flicker of panic and anxiety in his eyes, which I understand, of course.

他一直都很支持我，但那一刻他担心了，我也很担心，因为你知道，如果一部文学小说里有一棵会说话的树，而它没写好，整个故事就会崩塌，整个结构都会垮掉。

He's very supportive always, but he was worried for a moment and I was worried too because, you know, if you have a talking tree inside a literary novel and if it doesn't work, the whole thing collapses, the whole structure collapses.

但我相信这棵树。

But I believed in that tree.

我脑海里和灵魂深处，真的日日夜夜都听见了那个声音。

I heard that voice inside my mind and my soul, really, day and night.

对我来说，她——这是一棵雌性树——声音非常有说服力，所以我只想追随那个声音。

And to me she sounded, and it was a she tree, she sounded so convincing, so I just wanted to follow that voice.

我无法抗拒那个声音。

I couldn't resist that voice.

所以你必须去认同。

So you have to identify.

随着你越来越成功，你觉得像这样冒险变得更难了吗？还是说，既然你已经写了21本书之类的，实际上反而变得更简单了？

You feel like it's harder to take risks like that as you become more successful, or do you feel like now that you've written 21 books or whatever it is, it actually becomes easier?

一直都很困难。

It's always hard.

一直都很困难。

It's always hard.

一直都很困难。

It's always hard.

而且永远不会变得更容易。

And it never gets any easier.

这种困难来自哪里？

And what is the hard coming from?

是因为对失败的个人恐惧吗？

Is it from a personal fear of failure?

是因为编辑的批评，还是文化的批评？

Is it from the critique of the editor, the critique of the culture?

这种压力来自哪个方向？

What direction is that coming from?

我觉得写作很难。

I think writing is hard.

写作本身就伴随着痛苦。

Writing it does have suffering in it.

当我写作时，我总是有点痛苦。

When I'm writing, I'm always a little bit miserable.

但如果不写作，我会更痛苦，

But if I'm not writing, I'll be more miserable,

你知道的？

you know?

所以

So

尽管如此，我也非常享受它。

that said, I also enjoy it so much.

否则，你就无法做到。

Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to do it.

我想到‘强迫’这个词。

The word compulsion comes to mind.

是不是

Is that

是的，它比我们更强大，对吧？

Yeah, it's stronger than us, right?

你无法，你知道的，你就是得去做。

You can't, you know, you just have to do it.

这是艺术，是文学，这种冲动太强烈了。

It's art, it's literature, it's the impulse is so big.

我有那么多恐惧和焦虑，当我感到痛苦时，我会想：我为什么要这样折磨自己？

And I have so many fears and anxieties and there are these when I feel miserable and I'm like, why am I doing this to myself?

我为什么不能选个更简单的主题呢？

Why couldn't I choose a simpler subject?

我为什么要让自己这么难？

Why am I making it difficult for myself?

你对自己问的这些问题。

All these questions you ask yourself.

但归根结底，比所有这些问题更强大的，是对文学的热爱。

But at the end of the day, think what is stronger than all these questions is the love of literature.

如果这种爱存在，那么在我们生活中所做的一切中，如果爱指引着我们，如果你真的热爱你所做的事情，只有这样我们才能继续做下去。

If that love is there, but in everything we do in life, if love guides us, if you really love what you're doing, only then we can keep doing it.

否则，写作真的并不容易。

Otherwise, writing is really not easy.

随着我们年龄增长，事情并不会变得更容易。

As we get older, it doesn't get any easier.

也许它变得越来越难。

Perhaps it becomes harder and harder.

而这一点，我们谈论得还不够多。

And that's something we don't talk about enough.

怎么

How

你呢？

do you?

如果你对这种表述有不同看法，请告诉我。当我想到你的写作时，几乎会联想到柔软的床单。

Let me know if you disagree with the framing, how do you When I think of your writing, almost think of like soft bedsheets.

你的文字不仅仅是完成任务，还让人感到温馨。

Like your writing, it doesn't just do the job, but it's cozy.

它让人感到舒适。

It's kind of comfortable to be in.

而当你阅读至少你的文学作品时，再对比阅读更多非虚构类写作。

Whereas then you read at least your literature, whereas then you read more non fiction style writing.

那种风格则略显粗糙，带有棱角，目的性很强。

And it's just a little bit more coarse, like there's right angles, it really serves a purpose.

我对文字如何变得柔和很感兴趣，因为我认为这正是诗歌所做的事情——你所做的，就是做出取舍：放弃清晰性与单一的含义，而获得的是文字可以承载更多意义，变得优美，但也更柔和。

And I'm interested in the way that writing softens because I think that that's a bit of what poetry does, is what you do is you trade off, you give up clarity, singularity of meaning, and then what you get is you get the writing can mean more things and it has it becomes beautiful, but it's softer.

你说，我的问题对你来说非常重要，你提到的这一点深深引起了我的共鸣，即意义的单一性，我们该如何超越它？

You said, I mean, your question is really important to me and you said something that very much resonates with me, the singularity of meaning and how do we go beyond that?

对我来说，这极其重要。

To me that's so important.

我不喜欢这种相互冲突的确定性。

I don't like these clashing certainties.

我们生活在一个充满冲突性确定性的时代。

We live in an age of clashing certainties.

而我认为，在艺术和文学中，存在着细微差别、多元主义和多重性。

Whereas I think in art and literature there's nuance, there's pluralism, there's multiplicity.

当然，作为作家，我有自己的观点和价值观，你知道的，所有这些。

Of course, as a writer, I have my opinions, I have my values, you know, all of that.

我关心这些问题。

And I care about these issues.

我关心沉默，我关心少数群体。

I care about silences, I care about minorities.

你知道，我们可以谈很多事。

You know, there are many things we can talk about.

但当你写作时，不能说教。

But when you're writing, you cannot preach.

这太让人反感了，你知道的。

That is so off putting, you know.

哦，这太糟糕了。

Oh, that's awful.

我一点也不喜欢这样。

I don't like that at all.

我不喜欢作家试图传授什么或训诫。

I don't like it when writers try to teach something or lecture.

我自己其实也不知道答案。

I really don't know the answers myself.

我唯一知道的是，有一些问题是我关心的，我觉得去探讨这些问题很重要，但你要以一种打开多元性、多样性和细微差别的空间的方式去做，然后作为作家，你需要退后一步。

The only thing I know is that there are questions that I care about, and it feels important to me to deal with these questions, but you do it in such a way that you open up a space of plurality, multiplicity and nuance, and then you need to take a step back as a writer.

那么，你需要把答案留给读者，因为每个读者都会得出自己的答案。

Then you need to leave the answers to the readers, because every reader is going to come up with their own answer.

读者不是被动的。

Readers are not passive.

没有两次阅读是完全相同的。

No two readings are ever the same.

你找两个亲密的朋友，他们无话不谈，读同一本书，却不会以相同的方式去读。

You take two friends, dear friends, they share everything, every little secret, they read the same book, but they wouldn't read it in the same way.

或者那些结婚四十五年、五十年的夫妻，读同一本书，一个人喜欢，另一个人却讨厌。

Or couples who've been married for forty five years, fifty years, they read the same book, one of them loves it, the other one hates it.

为什么？

Why?

因为每个读者都会带着自己的视角进入故事。

Because every reader brings their own gaze into the story.

我们共同创造意义。

We create the meaning together.

作为作者，我必须尊重这种答案的多样性。

And I, as an author, I have to respect that diversity of answers.

所以不要说教，不要灌输，不要讲课，任何类似的东西都不要有。

So no preaching, no teaching, no lecturing, nothing like that.

我追求的只是一个充满细微差别、自由与多元性的空间。

It's just a space of nuance, freedom and multiplicity that I'm after.

当你在编辑时，遇到自己特别自豪的句子，这个过程是如何展开的？

When you're editing and you go to a place where you produce a sentence that you're really proud of, how does that process unfold?

我认为我在写作的同时也在进行同步编辑。

I think I do simultaneous editing as I keep writing.

但话说回来，总会有一个时刻，你需要开始与编辑合作，对于作者来说，能遇到一个理解她的或理解他的编辑是一种福气。

But that said, there comes a moment when you start working with your editor, and it is a blessing for an author to work with an editor who understands her, or understands him.

一本书，封面上只写着作者的名字，但实际上我们是在一个团队中合作的，这不仅指编辑过程，还包括每一个环节——比如封面设计、出色的校对人员，我们在公众场合从不认可他们的工作，但正是这些人发现了错误。

A book, of course, is, on the cover you see only the name of the author, but we work with a team of people in the sense that not only in I'm not only referring to the editorial process, but every moment, you know, the cover design, the copy editors who are amazing people, we never in the public space recognize their work, but these are the people who find the mistakes.

他们会说，比如，你提到这家酒店在1940年，抱歉，应该是1943年，但在1943年，这家酒店并没有绿色的窗帘。

They say, well, for instance, you mentioned this hotel in the Room 1940 sorry, in the year 1943, but in the year 1943 that hotel did not have green curtains.

它有粉色的窗帘，所以要小心。

It has pink curtains, so be careful.

这太有趣了，你知道吗，他们如此热爱小说，或者翻译我们作品的译者，我真的很感激这个行业中的每一个人。

That's so interesting, you know, they love fiction with such passion, or translators who translate our work into other languages, and I'm really, I feel very grateful to everyone in this industry.

但话说回来，当你写作时，你是孤独的。

But that said, when you are writing, you are alone.

这是最孤独的艺术形式。

It's the loneliest form of art.

我认为是瓦尔特·本雅明称其为最孤独的艺术形式。

I think it was Walter Benjamin who called it the loneliest kind of art.

因此，讲故事的人是孤独的。

So the storyteller is alone.

我做了大量的编辑、重新思考和润色。

And I do a lot of editing, rethinking, polishing.

我从不走一条直线路径。

I never walk a straight linear path.

它总是来回跳跃。

It's always jumping back and forth.

我总是以更循环、更圆环式的时间线来思考，而不是线性的。

And I always think in more cyclical, circular timelines rather than linear.

除了写作，还有哪些艺术形式打动了你？

Besides writing, what forms of art move you?

艺术总体上都打动了我。

Art moves me in general.

我的意思是，舞蹈、电影。

I mean, dance, cinema.

我热爱电影。

I love cinema.

视觉艺术，比如雕塑。

The visual arts, a sculpture.

我的意思是，雕塑家能够将大理石几乎变成液体，像水一样。

I mean, the very fact that a sculptor can turn marble almost into liquid, like water like.

是的。

Yeah.

人类动作的流动性真是令人着迷。

It's just mesmerizing that the fluid nature of human movements.

你怎么能把石头变成那样？

How can you turn stone into that?

所以总的来说，艺术、摄影，还有瘙痒，我热爱艺术。

So art in general, photography, itch, I love the arts.

我认为艺术家和作家之间需要更多的跨学科对话。

I think we need more interdisciplinary conversations between artists and writers.

我们在这方面还不够。

We don't have enough of that.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，我认为艺术的一个作用是让我们重新回到一种青春觉醒的状态。

Well, I think one of the things that art can can do is it for once takes us back to a state of youthful awakening.

当你处于敬畏的状态时，你会完全忘记自己生活中的一切。

And, you know, when you're in a state of awe, you have completely forgotten about all of your life.

你被深深震撼，完全着迷。

You are so struck, awestruck.

这就是为什么我们有这个词。

That's why we have that word.

你被眼前的一切深深打动，然后你就重新变回了孩子。

You're so struck by whatever's in front of you, and then you just become a kid again.

过去十年里我最尴尬的照片之一，是纽约大都会博物馆里有一个房间，里面全是女性跳舞的雕塑。

The single most embarrassing photo of me that exists, that has been taken the last ten years ago, is there's this room at the Met in New York, and it's all of these sculptures of women dancing.

我站在那里，模仿着它们的动作。

And I'm in there, and I'm, like, mirroring.

只是以远不如它们灵活的方式做着各种动作。

Just doing whatever with way less flexibility.

但这恰恰证明了我的观点。

But that proves my point.

我是说，我绝不会就这样做。

Like, I would never just do that.

但你知道，我跟我朋友说的那番话吗？

But something about, you know, what I said to my friend?

我说，这个房间里充满了动感。

I said there's so much movement in this room.

他却说：老兄，这房间里根本没什么动感。

And he goes, dude, there's no movement in this room.

但我却说：不，不是这样的。

But I was like, no.

这房间里真的充满了动感。

There's so much movement in the room.

你明白我的意思吗？

Do know what I mean?

嗯。

Yeah.

嗯。

Yeah.

我认为艺术正是有这样的力量，它能让我们重新回到童年时充满想象力和惊奇的状态。

And I think that that's what art can do is it can it just warps us back into a place where we're like children again and there's imagination and wonder.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

我喜欢你举的这个例子。

You know, I love the example you gave.

我几乎能在脑海中看到那个场景。

I could almost see it in my mind's eye.

这正是它的美妙之处，因为当我们还是孩子时，我们从不害怕称自己为艺术家或诗人。

And that's the beauty of it, because when we were children, we were not afraid of calling ourselves artists, poets.

我观察到。

I've observed

正如你所说，类别根本不存在。

Well, categories don't exist, to your point.

只是存在着。

It's just being.

但它只是自然而然地成为

But it's just organically part of

生活的一部分。

life.

没错。

Exactly.

事实上，孩子们会提出关于生命、死亡、上帝和死亡的最深刻的问题。

And children ask the deepest questions actually about life, death, God, mortality.

他们并不害怕提出这些问题。

They're not afraid of asking those questions.

但随着我们长大，我们开始压抑自己，创造力一点一点地枯萎了。

But as we grow up, we start to censor ourselves and little by little it withers away, that creativity.

如果我可以跟你分享的话，我过去经常去做演讲。

If I may share this with you, I used to go to give talks.

我还在土耳其出版了一本儿童读物，这让我有机会与六七岁的小读者交流。

I also published a children's book in Turkey, which gave me the chance to talk to young readers, like six years old, seven years old.

如果你和一个土耳其、约旦或黎巴嫩的同龄孩子交谈，他们和加拿大、法国、挪威的孩子没有任何不同，对吧？

If you speak to a Turkish or a Jordanian or a Lebanese child that age, they are no different whatsoever than a Canadian, French, Norwegian child, right?

在那个年龄，孩子们天生具有创造力。

At that age, children have a natural ability to be creative.

如果你在一个满是孩子的房间里问：'这里有没有艺术家？'

And if you ask in a room full of children, Are there any artists in this room?

无数只手举起来，他们都是艺术家。

So many hands go, All of them artists.

这里有没有作家？

Are there writers in this room?

他们都是作家。

They're writers.

诗人呢？

Poets?

他们是诗人。

They're poets.

我认为在那个年龄，女孩可能比男孩更愿意表达，尤其是在这么小的年纪。

And I think at that age girls are a little bit more perhaps vocal, you know, than boys at that early age.

所以我之后会去高中或给年龄大一些的学生，比如十六七岁的孩子做演讲，那时一切都变了。

So I would then go and give talks at high schools or for older students, 16 year old, 17 year old, and then everything would have changed.

是的。

Yeah.

现在，如果你问一群青少年、青春期学生：这间屋里有作家吗？

Now if you ask in a room full of young students, teenagers, adolescents, are there any writers in this room?

没有人举手。

No hands go up.

有诗人吗？

Are there any poets?

有画家吗？

You know, painters?

同样，没有人举手。

Again, no hands.

女孩们变得胆怯了。

And girls have become timid.

为什么？

Why?

因为我们教导她们：要注意坐姿、说话方式、裙子的长度、声音的音调，你会被评判。

Because we taught them, be careful how you sit, how you talk, the length of your skirt, the sound of your voice, you will be judged.

你知道，一旦被评判，就会被归类，被放进某个类别里。

You know, once you will be judged, will be categorised, you will be put in a category.

于是，这种对评判的恐惧，我们将其内化，一点一点地扼杀了我们的创造力。

And so that fear, we internalise that fear of judgement, and little by little that kills our creativity.

对我来说，鼓励彼此、提醒彼此我们童年时原本拥有的那种与生俱来的创造力和想象力，至关重要，那时社会和传统尚未开始一点点侵蚀它。

To me it's very essential that we encourage each other and we remind each other of the innate, the natural creativity and imagination that we all had as children before the society and the traditions and so on started chipping it away.

你能跟我多讲讲诗歌吗？你是如何阅读一首诗、感受一首诗的，然后这种感受又是如何转化为你创作的文字的？

Can you tell me more about poetry and how you read a poem, how you feel a poem, and then how that ends up in the writing that you produce.

你知道吗，我认为诗歌对移民来说是最大的障碍。

You know, I think poetry is the ultimate barrier for an immigrant.

正如你从我的口音中听到的，我不是母语者。

As you can hear in my accent, I'm not a native speaker.

英语对我来说是一种后天习得的语言。

English for me is an acquired language.

我大约在十岁到十一岁时开始学习英语。

I started learning English around the time I was 10, 11 years old.

西班牙语是你的第二语言吗？

Spanish was your second language?

英语是你的第三语言，

English was your third,

没错。

That's true.

当时西班牙语是我的第二语言。

Spanish was my second language at the time.

当然，作为移民，思想和言语之间总存在着一道鸿沟。

And of course, when you're an immigrant, there's always a gap between the mind and the tongue.

思想跑得更快，而舌头却以笨拙、别扭的方式努力追赶，却始终无法真正跟上。

The mind runs faster and the tongue in its own clumsy, awkward way tries to catch up, but never quite can.

这种差距令人非常沮丧。

And that gap is very frustrating.

如果我们能学会不被这种差距吓倒，它也可能成为一种激励，因为你不会把任何事情视为理所当然。

If we can learn not to be intimidated by that, it can also be inspiring, because you don't take anything for granted.

但当谈到诗歌时，我认为尤其是写诗或聆听词语的旋律、节奏和韵律，是一种巨大的挑战。

But when it comes to poetry, I think particularly writing poetry or hearing the melody, the cadence, the rhythm of the words, that is an immense challenge.

尽管如此，我热爱诗歌，因此我不只用母语土耳其语阅读，也大量阅读英语诗歌。

That said, I love poetry, so I try to read not only in my mother tongue, which is Turkish, but also I read a lot of poetry in English.

是的。

Yeah.

我知道你最喜欢的一首诗让我想起了你的作品，那就是威廉·布莱克的诗句：从一粒沙中看世界，于掌心握持永恒，在野花中见天堂。

The poem that I know that you like that most reminds me of your work is the William Blake line, To see the world in a grain of sand, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and heaven in a wildflower.

所以我认为，觉醒的挑战在于，你看那些孩子，

That is so I think the challenge of awakening, you know, even you you see kids and.

他们会注意到最微小的事物，然后想象出极其宏大的东西。

They'll see the smallest thing, they'll go just imagine something very big.

他们不需要整个宇宙，就能想象出像宇宙一样广阔的事物。

They don't need the the universe to imagine something as expansive as the universe.

他们能在最普通、最具体的物体中看到普遍性。

They can see the universal in the most particular ordinary objects.

我认为，这正是诗歌的很多作用所在，就是它。

And I think that that's a lot of what poetry does, is it.

它减轻了我们内心狭隘的压抑感。

It reduces the claustrophobia of our own minds.

说得真美。

Beautifully said.

你完全说对了。

And you're so right.

我的意思是，我们对此习以为常，但一粒沙、一滴水，这些看似微小、看似微不足道的东西，实际上却揭示了宇宙的许多奥秘，因为万物都是相互关联的。

I mean, we take it for granted, but a grain of sand, a drop of water, the seemingly small, the seemingly insignificant actually says so much about the universe because everything is interconnected.

所以，有时这个微小的事物可能就是一个微观宇宙，它确实能反映宏观宇宙。

So sometimes that small thing might be a microcosmos, and it does talk about the macrocosmos.

这种观点或许有点神秘，但我一直对那些古老的哲学和诗歌感兴趣，它们只是专注于世界、关注细节，从不把事物视为理所当然。

It's a bit mystical, you know, perhaps, this approach, but I've always been interested in those ancient philosophies, ancient poetry that just pays attention to the world, pays attention to details, and does not take things for granted.

当我们面对自然时，这一点也同样重要。

This also is important when we approach nature.

你知道吗？一棵树、一条小溪、一块石头，它们都是非凡的。

You know, a tree, a creek, a stone, they're extraordinary, you know?

我们不能对此习以为常。

We can't take it for granted.

我们并不高于自然。

We're not above nature.

我们并不在自然之外。

We're not outside nature.

我们人类变得如此傲慢，把自己变成了自然的消费者。

We've become so arrogant as human beings, and we have turned ourselves into consumers of nature.

但如果我可以举个例子，比如你去和小亚细亚、中东、巴尔干、黎凡特的一些祖母们聊聊。

But if I may give you an example, if you talk to, for instance, some grandmothers in Asia Minor, in The Middle East, the Balkans, The Levant.

例如，当我写作《天空中有河流》时，我做了大量关于雅兹迪少数族群的研究。

For example, when I was writing There Are Rivers in the Sky, I did a lot of research about the Yazidi minorities.

正如你所知，雅兹迪人是中东最受污蔑、最被误解和最受迫害的少数群体之一。

As you know, the Yazidis are one of the most maligned, misunderstood and persecuted minorities in Middle East.

他们没有书面的圣典，也没有太多关于他们的文字文献。

And they don't have a written holy book or there isn't much written literature about them.

这是一个主要依靠口头叙事来传承记忆的社群。

It is a community in which memory is mostly carried on via oral storytelling.

因此，你必须认真倾听，才能理解、才能建立连接。

So you have to do a lot of listening to understand, to connect.

我尤其与许多祖母们交谈过。

And I've spoken with many grandmothers particularly.

我非常感激，因为他们与我分享了他们的故事。

I'm very grateful because they shared their stories with me.

但我提到这一点的原因是，我后来注意到，在四月里，当孩子们像往常一样跑来跑去、跳上跳下时，祖母们会轻声提醒他们。

But the reason why I'm mentioning is because I noticed after a while that in the month of April, if children are running around, jumping up and down, as children do, the grandmothers gently warn them.

为什么？

Why?

因为根据她们的说法，四月时，大地正怀着孕。

Because according to them, in the month of April, the earth is pregnant.

所以当你走路时，需要轻步慢行，温柔地踩踏。

And so when you walk, you need to walk softly, you need to tread gently.

对我们这些理性现代人来说，这听起来只是，嗯，一种不理性的事情。

Now, to our rational modern minds, this is just, you know, an irrational thing.

但大地当然怀着孕，

But of course the earth is pregnant,

当然大地怀着孕，你知道吗？

you Of course the earth is pregnant, you know?

然后你会看到所有的花盛开，果实累累，你知道的。

And then you're going to see all these flowers blooming, the fruits, you know?

我们会为此感到感激。

And we're going to appreciate it.

但这种观念——你需要轻柔行走，因为大地是有生命的，你不能踩踏它——你知道的。

But this idea that you need to tread gently because it's alive, you know, you can't stomp on it.

只有那些尚未与自然脱节的文化，才能创造出这样的故事。

Only a culture that has not disconnected itself from nature can come up with this kind of storytelling.

我认为，有时我们过于迷恋新颖、现代和新发明，以至于忘记了世界各地的古老教诲中蕴含着大量智慧。

And I think sometimes we're so obsessed with novelty, with the modern, with the new inventions, that we forget there's a lot of wisdom in the ancient teachings all around the world.

当你观察英语时，你觉得英语使用者无法通过英语获得什么，而土耳其语却可以？

As you look at English, what do you think English speakers what can't English access that Turkish can?

我认为每种语言都有其独特的惊人之处。

Every language, I think, has its own amazing strength.

我热爱英语。

I love the English language.

我深深爱上了英语的词汇。

I'm in love with the vocabulary of the English language.

这对我来说确实是个挑战。

It really is a challenge for me.

如果我可以这么说的话，我认为有些小说家更注重情节，有些则非常注重人物塑造，而还有一小部分小说家——相对较少——他们对语言有着最大的热情。

If I may put it in these terms, I think some novelists are more plot driven, some novelists are very much character driven, and then there's a smaller number, relatively smaller number of novelists for whom language is the biggest passion.

但他们不是诗人，他们写的是散文。

But they're not poets, they're writing prose.

我就属于这一类。

I am in that group.

因此，对我而言，语言一直是我巨大的、巨大的热情所在。

So for me language has always been a big, big passion.

我最初写的四部小说都是用我的母语——土耳其语写的。

I wrote my first four novels in my mother tongue, which is Turkish.

所以，大约二十多年前，我开始转向用英语写作。

So for me to and then I switched about more than twenty years ago now, I started writing in English.

所以对我来说，放弃母语，感觉就像砍掉自己写字的那只手。

So for me to, in a way, abandon my mother tongue, it really felt like cutting off my hand, you know, the hand that I write with.

这非常非常具有挑战性。

It was very, very challenging.

但我之所以想这么做，是因为我需要自由。

But I wanted to do this because I needed freedom.

我需要一些认知上的距离。

I needed some cognitive distance.

我喜欢你刚才说的，另一个绝妙的隐喻。

I love what you said, another great metaphor.

你说有时候为了更清楚地看清某件事，你需要从画作前退一步，确实如此。

You said sometimes in order to see something more clearly, you step away from the painting Absolutely.

而不是

Rather than

这正是我的感受，因为用英语写作会带来一点距离感。

That's how it feels because writing in English, put a little bit of distance.

这就像是退后一步，然后你再看这幅画，反而看得更清楚了。

It's like taking a step back away, and then you look at the painting and you see it more closely.

你从一个完全不同的角度去看待它。

You see it from a completely different angle.

也许用英语而非土耳其语，反而让我更贴近了我的故土。

Perhaps it brought me closer to the land where I come from, in English rather than in Turkish.

我并不是在泛泛而谈。

And I'm not generalizing.

我不是说每个人都应该这么做，或者类似的事情。

I'm not saying that everyone should do this or anything like that.

但就我个人的经历而言，这是最适合我的方式。

But in my case, for my personal history, this is what worked best.

现在回到英语，我很喜欢在英语里使用‘chutzpah’这个词。

Now coming back to English, I love it when in the English language you use the word chutzpah.

我也超爱这个词。

I love that word.

我也很喜欢。

I love it too.

或者你用单词‘kismet’，没人会说：等等，第一个词是意第绪语，第二个是阿拉伯语，它们不该属于英语。

Or you use the word kismet and nobody says, wait a second, the first one is a Yiddish word and the second is an Arabic word and they shouldn't be part of the English language.

当然没人这么说，因为它们已经自然地融入了英语。

Of course, nobody says that because they are organically part of the English language.

语言就像一条河流，你知道，你需要让它自由流动。

Language is a river, you know, and you need to allow it to flow.

而在土耳其，我们对语言进行了土耳其化。

Whereas in Turkey we have Turkified our language.

许多源自阿拉伯语或波斯语的词，有时也来自其他少数族群背景，我们把这些词都去除了。

So many words coming from Arabic origin or Persian origin, sometimes, you know, other minority backgrounds as well, we have taken those words out.

因此，我们的词汇量大大缩减了。

So as a result our vocabulary shrunk quite a bit.

我不得不注意到这些差异。

I cannot help but notice these differences.

但归根结底，我所能告诉你的就是，我与土耳其语的情感联系非常深厚。

But at the end of the day, all I can tell you is my connection with the Turkish language is very emotional.

这是我的童年语言，是我祖母的语言。

It's the language of my childhood, my grandmother.

我真的很爱它。

I really love it dearly.

我与英语的联系则更偏向理智和理性，我也觉得我需要这种语言。

My connection with the English language is more intellectual, more cerebral, and I feel like I need that too.

我意识到，如果我的文字中带有悲伤和忧郁，我仍然觉得用土耳其语表达这些情感要容易得多。

And I realise if my writing has sorrow, melancholy, I still find these things much easier to express in Turkish.

但幽默——我所热爱的那种，不是居高临下的幽默，而是富有同情心的幽默。

But humour, which I love, not condescending humour but compassionate humour.

所以，幽默、讽刺、 satire，我发现用英语表达这些要容易得多。

So humor, irony, satire, I find that much easier in English.

你之前提到写作时仿佛醉了，几乎沉浸在故事之中。

Earlier you were talking about writing as if you were drunk, almost being drunk inside of the story.

你能为我描绘一下那种感觉吗？

Can you paint that picture of what that feels like for me?

嗯，要描绘那种感觉很难，因为我完全沉浸在故事里，你知道的？

Well, it's difficult to paint that picture because I'm just surrounded with the story, you know?

我没有超脱于故事之外。

I'm not above the story.

我没有从某种高度俯视这些角色。

I'm not looking at these characters from some height.

我身处故事之中。

I'm inside the story.

他们成了我的伙伴。

And they become my companions.

我们一同踏上这条道路，这就是我的感受。

And we're on this road together, that's how I feel.

我尽量长时间地、尽可能深入地保持在这个状态中。

I try to stay in that zone for as long as I can, as deep as I can.

作为小说这一类型，我感到最自在、最自由，也最能展现多重自我。

The novel as a genre is where I feel most at home, most free, and where I feel like I can be multiple.

我们都如沃尔特·惠特曼所优美而深刻地指出的那样，蕴含着无数面向，但我们却忘记了这一点。

We all contain multitudes, like Walt Whitman said so beautifully, so eloquently, but we forget this.

而且，我们生活在一个不允许我们展现多重性、更不用说庆祝这种多元性的世界里。

And again, we live in a world which doesn't allow us to be multiple, let alone celebrate that multiplicity.

但当我沉浸在小说中时，我感到自己可以庆祝这种多元性，可以把这种多重性充分展现出来。

But when I am inside the novel, I feel like I can celebrate it, you know, I can bring out that multiplicity.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为，这正是写作的职责所在——活在不同角色的内心，就像你之前说的，在不同故事之间穿梭。

Well, it's the job, I think, to have the I feel like that is the job because there's living inside the different characters, and then like you're saying earlier, moving in between the different stories.

小说中充满了如此多不同的情绪与情感，能够驾驭这些，似乎理应是这份工作的首要要求。

There's so many different moods and affects in a novel that I think being able to do that just seems like the first thing you'd see in a job description.

这么说听起来有点荒谬，但这就是我思考问题的方式。

It feels like a ridiculous way to put it, but that's kind of how I'm thinking about it.

嗯，确实。

Well, true.

这也有点像游牧般的体验。

It's also a bit like, you know, nomadic experience.

你必须在一个人物的心理和另一个人物的心理之间来回穿梭。

Like you have to journey from the psyche of one character to the next and then back and forth.

所以你不能是静止不动的。

So you can't be sedentary.

你必须在精神上、智力上保持相当的游牧性。

You have to be quite nomadic spiritually, intellectually.

我真的认为这对人类的灵魂来说是一种非常谦卑的修炼。

I really think it's a very humbling exercise for the human soul.

正如我们之前谈到的，我们总是从自己的视角、自己的真实出发来看待世界。

As we spoke about earlier, we're always looking at the world from our perspective, from our truth.

但当我们读书、写作时，对读者而言，在几个小时、几天、几周的时间里，我们离开了这个舒适区，进入了另一个人的存在。

But when we read a book, when we write a book, in the case of the reader, for a few hours, for a few days, weeks, we leave that comfort zone behind and we journey into the existence of another person.

对作者来说也是如此。

The same for the writer.

这确实是一种非常谦卑的体验，你知道的。

That's really a very humbling exercise, you know.

你学会从不断变化的视角来看待世界。

You learn to look at the world from shifting perspectives.

当我们回到自己时，我希望我们能变得稍微更智慧、稍微更成熟一些。

And by the time we come back to our self, I'm hoping we're a little bit wiser, a little bit perhaps more mature.

因此，小说确实能教会我们一些东西，不是以说教的方式，而是以一种非常温和、安静的方式。

So there are things that fiction really can teach us, not in a preachy way, but in a very gentle, quiet way.

我认为，在英语中，我们用‘小说’这个词来表示与‘事实’相反的意思，这有点遗憾。

I think it's a little bit unfortunate that in the English language we use the word fiction as if it were the opposite of fact.

没错。

Right.

你知道，我们可以追溯这个词的词源，一直回到拉丁语的‘创造’。

You know, we trace its etymology all the way back to Latin, to invent, you know.

这很奇怪，对吧？

It's weird, isn't it?

是的。

It is.

但在语言中并不是这样的。

So it's not like that in language.

于是，人们理所当然地认为，小说是现实的对立面、反面。

Then people, rightly so, they think, well, fiction is the opposite, the anti thesis of reality.

所以当你想逃离现实时，就会去读小说。

So you read fiction when you want to escape reality.

我不认同这种观点。

I do not agree with that.

我认为小说非常关注真相，它确实能让我们更接近真相，只是以它自己的方式。

I think fiction is very interested in truth, and it does bring us closer to truth, but it does it in its own way.

我想读给你听，因为我觉得这真正体现了你看待写作与大多数人不同的方式。

I want to read this to you because I think it really gets to the core of how you see writing differently from most people.

你知道吗，当你想到写作课时，你会想到什么？

You know, if you think of writing class, what do you think of?

你会想到语法、句法、标点符号、五段式作文。

You think of grammar, syntax, punctuation, five paragraph essays.

但你说不是这样。

But you say no.

一个作家最需要的，首先是自由。

What a writer needs is, first and foremost, is freedom.

阅读的自由、写作的自由、存在的自由。

The freedom to read, freedom to write, freedom to be.

一种重视书籍、图书馆、识字能力、文学、想象力和讲故事这一普遍艺术的文化。

A culture that values books, libraries, literacy, literature, imagination, and the universal art of storytelling.

这实际上是我注意到伦敦的一个特点。

Which actually is one of the things I've noticed about London.

有很多艺术家的雕像，我觉得这很棒。

Lots of statues of artists, which I think is cool.

一个不会以审查、迫害、虚假信息和压迫手段恐吓、起诉或驱逐其创意人才的国家。

A country that does not intimidate, prosecute, or exile its creative minds with forces of censorship, persecution, disinformation, and oppression.

一个不会禁书、针对图书管理员、将书籍从图书馆移除的社会。

A society that does not ban books, target librarians and remove books from libraries.

那么，让我们先从自由这一部分开始，然后我们再进入第二部分，即文化为孕育艺术成果所需的土壤。

So let's start with the first part about freedom, and then we'll get to the second part about the roots, or really the soil that a culture needs in order to produce artistic fruit.

自由如此重要，因为当你没有写作、阅读和接触书籍的自由时，我们失去的东西太多了。

Well, freedom is so important because when you don't have the freedom to write, the freedom to read, the freedom to access books, so much is taken away from us.

你知道，在这种情况下，想象力如何能够蓬勃发展？

You know, how can imagination flourish under these circumstances?

我想写这篇文章，是因为我也想表达：我们不能把自由视为理所当然。

And I wanted to write that article because I also wanted to be able to say we can't take the freedom for granted.

我们不能说：哦，它一直都在。

We can't say, oh, it's always there.

有时候，它并不在那里。

Sometimes it isn't out there.

再说一遍，在我来自的地方，你写的任何东西——无论是涉及历史、性、性别还是政治——只要一句话，就可能被起诉并受审。

Again, where I come from, for something you write, whether you touch history or sexuality or gender or politics, for a sentence you can be sued and put on trial.

你可能会遇到检察官要求对一部小说判处三到五年监禁。

You can have prosecutors asking for, you know, three, five years in prison for fiction.

你甚至可能看到虚构人物在法庭上被辩护。

You can have fictional characters being defended in court.

所以我亲身经历过所有这些事情。

So I've experienced all of these things.

因此，我认为我这部分从不把写作或阅读的自由视为理所当然。

So I think a part of me does not take the freedom to write or the freedom to read for granted.

我想列出一些我知道曾启发过你的作家的名字，我想听听你从他们身上学到了什么，无论是写作技巧还是他们教给你的关于生活的道理。

What I want to do is I want to throw out the names of different writers who I know have inspired you, and I want to hear what you've taken from them, either in terms of the craft itself or what they've taught you about life.

太棒了。

Wonderful.

瓦尔特·本雅明。

Walter Benjamin.

我非常喜欢本雅明。

I love Benjamin.

我的意思是，他在很多方面塑造了我。

I mean, he really shaped me in so many ways.

我开始读本雅明时年纪还比较小，但他显然不是那种你一次就能读懂的作家。

I read Benjamin I started reading Benjamin at a relatively young age, but of course he's not a writer that you can discover in one sitting.

他的思想令人惊叹，那种拼贴风格，以及他对文化、历史、哲学和视觉艺术的广泛兴趣。

Incredible in mind, the collage, you know, the diversity of his interests, culture, history, philosophy, the visual arts.

我对他的跨学科思维方式非常感兴趣。

I'm very interested in the interdisciplinary nature of his thinking.

我认为他是那个时代最伟大的公共知识分子之一。

I think he was one of the greatest public intellectuals of the time.

是的，我心中一直对他怀有特殊的情感。

Yeah, I've always always a soft spot in my heart.

他那本从未完成、但你特别喜欢的书是哪一本？

What was the book that he never finished that you really like?

哦，那叫什么名字？

Oh, what was it called?

《拱廊计划》。

The Arcades Project.

《拱廊计划》。

The Arcades Project.

当然，这是一个庞大到极致的项目。

Of course, it's a massive, massive project.

而且，这就像一幅拼贴画，但你要如何阅读一座城市呢？

And again, it's like a collage of but how do you read a city?

你如何在城市中漫步，不仅关注它的纪念碑、雕像、街道，还要留意那些废墟、那些已失去的、消逝的，却仍通过其缺席而依然存在的东西？

How do you walk in a city and pay attention not only to its monuments, statues, streets, but to the ruins, to what has been lost, what is gone, but still somehow is present through its absence.

正是本雅明以这种方式教会了我如何去思考。

It is Benjamin in a way that showed me how to think in that way.

这非常重要，因为当你生活在伊斯坦布尔这样的城市时

And this is very important because, again, when you live in a city like Istanbul

我正要说，是的。

I was about to say that Yeah.

所有那些遗迹、废墟、缺失。

All of, you know, those remnants, ruins, absences.

所以他是一位了不起的城市世界解读者。

So he's he's an amazing, reader of the of the urban urban world.

这正是很酷的地方。

Well, that's what's cool.

我从来没去过伊斯坦布尔。

What I so I've never been to Istanbul.

但我对伊斯坦布尔的印象是，我觉得它是一座层次非常丰富的城市。

And but my sense of Istanbul is I think of it as a very layered city.

非常有层次。

Very layered.

它在文化与曾在此生活的人们方面都具有多重层次。

And it's layered in terms of all the different cultures and people that have been there.

你知道，你会想到伊斯兰教 atop 基督教，以及城市在某些地方可能遗忘的方式，但就建筑和建筑物而言，这种遗忘似乎并不存在。

You know, you think of Muslim on top of Christian and just how you the city might forget in certain places, but the amnesia does not seem to exist in the same way in terms of the architecture in the buildings.

是的，确实如此。

Yeah, indeed.

这是层层叠叠的历史，但也是层层叠叠的遗忘。

And it's layers upon layers of history, but also layers upon layers of forgetting.

关于历史是如何被教给我们的，我总是觉得，那是他的故事——也就是少数苏丹或宗教最高层的谢赫伊斯兰教徒的故事，仅此而已。

And the way history is taught to us, I always think, is his story, meaning the stories of a few sultans or shaykhul Islam men at the top of the religious hierarchy, and that's about it.

除此之外，这种叙事中没有任何个体。

Other than that, there are no individuals in that kind of narrative.

但当你作为一名作家，开始追问那些看似普通的人时，比如你开始问：女性的故事在哪里？

But the moment you start asking questions about seemingly ordinary people as a writer, instance, the moment you start asking, but where are the stories of women?

为什么我们没有以女性命名的街道？

Why don't we have, you know, streets named after women?

为什么我们没有任何可见的标牌、雕像，或其他任何纪念她们生命的东西？

Why don't we have any visible, you know, placards or statues, anything that honors their lives?

这里存在着巨大的沉默。

There's a big silence.

对于一位没有权力或权威的农妇来说，奥斯曼帝国是什么样的？

What was the Ottoman Empire like for a peasant woman who had no access to power or authority?

对于一名妓女来说，生活是什么样的？

What was it like for a prostitute?

对于一位在后宫中并非苏丹宠妃的妾室来说，生活又是什么样的？

What was it like for a concubine who was not necessarily the Sultan's favorite in the harem?

然后，又是沉默。

Then there's a silence.

但同样地，对于一位亚美尼亚银匠、阿拉伯农民、库尔德农民、犹太磨坊主、希腊水手来说，这个帝国又是怎样的呢？这些当时的主要少数族群。

But equally, what was the empire like for an Armenian silversmith, or an Arab peasant, or a Kurdish farmer, or a Jewish miller, a Greek sailor, you know, these were the main minorities at the time.

同样，存在着巨大的、巨大的沉默。

Again, there are big, big silences.

因此，我认为你不仅要关注被写下的内容，也要关注那些被遗忘的部分。

So I think you have to pay attention to what is written, but also what is forgotten.

是的，这让我意识到政治在很大程度上其实是关于记忆的争夺。

Yeah, it makes me realize how much of politics is actually a battle over what we're remembering.

我们需要选择优先记住什么，不优先记住什么，谁该被立雕像，谁不该被立雕像。

There's a choice of what we're going to prioritize, what we're not going to prioritize, who's going be on the statues, who's not going be on the statues.

我们要教给孩子哪些故事？

What are the stories that we're going to teach children?

我们要传唱哪些歌曲？

What are the songs that we're going to sing?

我认为我们的许多争斗都源于此。

And I think a lot of our fights are about that.

我认为记忆很重要，但并不是因为我们想困在过去。

Well, I think memory is important, but not because we want to be stuck in the past.

那样也不健康。

That is not healthy either.

但我的观点是，如果我们无法记住，就无法修复。

But my point is, if we cannot remember, we cannot repair.

而我们无法修复的东西会一再回来。

And really what we cannot repair keeps coming back again and again.

认为时间总是线性的，历史总是稳步向前发展，这是一种幻觉。

It is an illusion to think that time is always, or history is always linear, a progressive steady march.

我们希望相信历史的弧线趋向于正义。

We want to believe that the arc of history bends towards justice.

但并没有这样的保证。

But there's no such guarantee.

也许现实中，循环的重复比线性进步更多。

Maybe in reality there are more cyclical repetitions than linear progress.

因此，我想质疑这种对时间的理解。

So I want to question that understanding of time.

讲故事者所使用的时间，我认为更具循环性，更接近自然的时间。

The time used by storytellers, I think, is more cyclical, is close to the time of nature.

当然，古希腊人对此非常明智。

And the Greeks were, of course, very wise about this.

他们谈到了克罗诺斯，即我们可以测量的线性时间。

They talked about Kronos, chronology time, which is the one we can measure.

但他们还谈到了凯罗斯，即深层时间，这也是叙事的时间。

But then they talked about kairos, which is deep time, and that is the time of storytelling.

你会从一个完全不同的角度看待世界。

And you look at the world from a completely different angle.

因此，我们必须记住，如果我们有更多描述时间的词汇，比如在英语中，我们对时间的概念现在可能会大不相同。

So we have to remember that if you have the word for it, I mean if we had more words to describe time, for instance, in the English language, maybe our notion of time would be quite different now.

你能再多讲讲这两者之间的区别吗？

Can you tell me a little bit more about the difference between the two?

克罗诺斯和凯罗斯。

Kronos and Kairos.

是的。

Yeah.

克罗诺斯更易于衡量。

So Kronos is more measurable.

它很容易计算，你可以依靠时钟、日历和日程安排。

It's easy to calculate, you can, you know, it can depend on clocks and calendars and schedules.

但卡伊洛斯是深层时间，如果你对自然的故事、比如一块岩石的旅程感兴趣，你就必须关注卡伊洛斯。

But KAIROS is deep time, and you need to pay attention to KAIROS if you're interested in the stories of nature, maybe the journey of a rock.

你不能仅用那微小的时间单位来衡量它。

You can't just measure it with that tiny element of time.

你必须放眼数千年。

You have to look at millennia.

你必须观察这种漫长的时间跨度。

You have to look at this long dura of time.

我始终相信，讲故事的人应该对一种更具循环性的时间观念感兴趣。

I've always believed that storytellers should be interested in a much more cyclical notion of time.

如果我可以举个例子，我有时会想这条深刻塑造伦敦的美丽河流——泰晤士河，它不是一条僵尸河吗？

If I may give you an example, I sometimes think this beautiful river, which very much shapes London, the Thames, a zombie river, isn't it?

它被称为僵尸河，因为就在不久之前，它还被宣布为生物学上的死亡之河。

It's a zombie because not that long ago it was declared biologically dead.

要知道，在世界历史上，一百五十年实际上微不足道。

Know, one hundred and fifty years is actually nothing in the history of the world.

这是一段非常短暂的时间。

It's a very short amount of time.

所以不久之前，这条美丽的河流被宣布死亡。

So not that long ago, this beautiful river was declared dead.

但它已经死而复生。

But it has come back from the dead.

它为何被宣布死亡？

Why was it declared dead?

因为人类对这条河流的虐待。

Because of the way human beings mistreated the river.

它充满了污物和污水，以至于当时的人们认为，从此以后，没有任何生物能在如此肮脏的水中生存。

It was full of filth and sewage to such an extent that back then people thought from now on no species, no biospecies can ever survive in a water this dirty.

然而今天，泰晤士河却充满了生机。

And yet here we are today, and the Thames is full of life.

这条河是超过250种，接近300种生物的家园。

It is home to more than two fifty, close to 300 biospecies.

但就在我们此刻交谈时，人们并没有欣赏或尊重这条河，而是为了金钱、利润和贪婪，水务公司再次将污水排入同一条河流，而且这正在当下发生。

But instead of admiring the river, respecting the river, as we are speaking right now, in the name of money, in the name of profit and greed, once again water companies are pumping sewage into the same river, and it is happening right now.

所以，当你追踪一条河流的旅程时，这真的是线性时间，还是我们谈论的是一种更循环的时间？

So when you follow the journey of a river, is it really linear time, or are we talking about a much more cyclical time?

这让人不禁深思。

It makes you wonder.

是的。

Yeah.

我记得曾经读到过，在基督教传统中，复活节是全年中最接近基督的时刻，尤其是在复活的意义上。

I remember reading one time that in the Christian tradition, Easter kind of is the closest that you get to Christ in the year in terms of the resurrection.

按照克罗诺斯的时间观，你每一天都离复活越来越远，但复活节却有一种方式能让你重新回到它，然后你又再次远离它。

And you would think under the Kronos idea of time that every single day you're farther and farther from the resurrection, but there's a way that Easter actually brings you back to it, and then you go away from it.

我们内心能感受到这些不同时间观的存在，即使我们无法用工具来衡量它们。

And we can feel those kinds of different ways of thinking about time in our hearts, even if we can't measure them with tools.