About Reading Books
谈读书
Virginia Woolf
维吉尼亚·吴尔夫
It is simple enough to say that since books have class- es -- fiction, biography, poetry -- we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find' that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite. The thirty-two chapters of a novel- if we consider how to read a novel first -- are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building: but words are more impalpable than bricks; reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words. Re- call, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you- how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking. A tree shook; an electric light danced; the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic; a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment.
既然书籍有不同的门类，如小说、传记、诗歌等，我们就应该把它们区分开来，并从每种书中汲取它应当给我们提供的正确的东西，这话说起来固然容易，然而，很少有人要求从书籍中得到它们所能提供的东西。通常我们总是三心二意带着模糊的观念去看书：要求小说情节真实，要求诗歌内容虚构，要求传记阿谀奉承，要求历史能加深我们自己的偏见。如果我们读书时能抛弃所有这些成见，那将是一个极可贵的开端。我们对作者不要指手划脚，而应努力站在作者的立场上，设想自己在与作者共同创作。假如你退缩不前，有所保留并且一开始就批评指责，你就在妨碍自己从你所读的书中得到最大的益处。然而，如果你能尽量敞开思想，那么，书中开头几句迂回曲折的话里所包含的几乎难以觉察的细微的迹象和暗示，就会把你引到一个与众不同的人物的面前去。如果你深入下去，如果你去认识这个人物，你很快就会领悟作者正在给你或试图给你某些明确得多的东西。倘若我们首先考虑怎样读小说，那么，一部小说中的三十二章就是企图创造出象一座建筑物那样既有一定的形式而各部分又受到控制的东西：不过词汇要比砖块难以捉摸，阅读的过程要比看一看更费时、更复杂。理解小说家创作工作的各项要素的捷径也许并不是阅读，而是写作，而是亲自试一试遣词造句中的艰难险阻。那么，回想一下给你留下鲜明印象的某些事---比如，你怎样在大街的拐角处从两个正在交谈着的人身边走过。树在摇曳，灯光在晃动，谈话的语气既喜又悲，这一瞬间似乎包含了一个完整的想象，一个整体的构思。
