39 · 作家之所需
What Every Writer Wants
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
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I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess at once that they have little idea where they are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration; all admit radical changes of destination once the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a "skeleton", as we were taught at school. In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which were not consciously in his mind when he began. This organic process, often leading to moments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of an indescribable fascination. A blurred image appears; he adds a brushstroke and another, and it is gone; but something was there, and he will not rest till he has captured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlives a book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their own books; like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision before them. For the same reason, writers talk interminably about their own books, winkling out hidden meanings, superimposing new ones, begging response from those around them. Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as well try to explain a crime or a love affair. He is also, incidentally, an unforgivable bore.
This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please.
A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.
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I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess at once that they have little idea where they are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration; all admit radical changes of destination once the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a "skeleton", as we were taught at school. In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which were not consciously in his mind when he began. This organic process, often leading to moments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of an indescribable fascination. A blurred image appears; he adds a brushstroke and another, and it is gone; but something was there, and he will not rest till he has captured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlives a book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their own books; like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision before them. For the same reason, writers talk interminably about their own books, winkling out hidden meanings, superimposing new ones, begging response from those around them. Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as well try to explain a crime or a love affair. He is also, incidentally, an unforgivable bore.
This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please.
A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.
我认识的作家很少，但在那些我认识又尊敬的作家中，大家都坦率承认：初次落笔时，自己并不清楚要写向何方。他们也许只有一个人物，或者两个人物，处在一种急切又不安的状态里，人们通常把这叫作灵感。他们都承认，写作一旦开始，原定的方向便可能彻底改变。我确切知道的一位作家，花了九个月写一部以克什米尔为背景的小说，后来却把整个故事搬到了苏格兰高地。我从没听说谁像学校教的那样，先列一个“骨架”。在拆开重组、安排节奏、交织情节、重新开头的过程中，作家逐渐从素材里看出一些东西，那是起初动笔时还没有清楚意识到的。这个自然生长的过程，常带来惊人的自我发现，有一种难以形容的魅力。一个模糊的形象浮现，他添一笔、再添一笔，形象却消失了；可那里分明确实有过什么，他不把它抓住，就不肯罢休。有时，一本书写完了，作家内心的发酵还没有停止。我听说有些作家只读自己的书；他们像站在镜前的少年，仍弄不清眼前形象的确切轮廓。出于同样的原因，作家会没完没了地谈自己的书，挖掘隐藏的意思，叠加新的解释，恳求周围人回应。这样做当然容易被误解：他简直像是在解释一桩罪行，或一段恋情。顺便说一句，他也实在无聊得让人难以忍受。
他想跨越自己与读者之间的距离，想从那些不认识自己的人眼中看清自己的形象；这种诱惑可能毁了他，因为他已经开始为讨好别人而写作。
一两年前，一位年轻的英国作家说过一句很中肯的话：初稿靠才华，之后的修改才见艺术。也正因如此，作家和其他艺术家一样，没有可以安顿下来的终点，没有可以依赖的人群或思潮，也没有任何外部评判能代替内心的判断。作家要从内心的混乱中建立秩序，对自己施加的约束，比任何评论家设想的都更严酷。当他与名声调情时，其实是在暂时逃离与自己的相处，逃离对内心世界最深处的追寻。
学完这一课
限定经验样本，再转述其中的共同现象。
译文依据整理稿，由本站按中文表达重新校订；解析据吴应时整理资料及首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第169—173页，2022年2月第2版。