散文佳作108篇 第61期:Are Books an Endangered Species? 書籍是即將絕滅的物種嗎？

Are Books an Endangered Species?

書籍是即將絕滅的物種嗎?

Bob Greene

鮑勃·格林

In the house where I grew up, we had a room we called the library. It wasn't a real library, ofcourse, it was just a small den dominated by a television set. But there were bookshelves builtinto all four walls, and hundreds of books---hardback books with spines of many colors---surrounded us in that room. The books, collected by my parents and grandparents throughouttheir lifetimes, were a part of my childhood.

在我成長的房子里有一間屋子， 我們把它稱做圖書館。當然，那不是真正的圖書館，它僅僅是由電視機占據了主要位置的一間書齋。但是它四面墻上全部裝修了嵌入式書架，上面擺了數百本書籍—那些精裝本的書籍呈現著各種顏色，它們在那間屋里把我們團團圍住。這些書是我父母和祖父母花了畢生的精力收集來的，它們成為我童年的一部分。

My generation---the generation that came of age in the 1950s and 1960s---may be the lastone to know that feeling, the feeling of being surrounded by millions of words; those wordswere the products of years of work by authors famous and obscure. For now in the midst ofthe 1970s, we are seeing a subtle but unmistakable turning away from such things. Thehouses of America, I fear, may soon include no room for libraries. The hardcover book---thatsymbol of the permanence of thought, the handing down of wisdom from one age to the next---may be a new addition to our list of endangered species.

我這一代人—即20世紀50和60年代成年的人—可能是了解這種心情的最后一代人了，那種被上百萬文字環(huán)繞著的感覺;那些文字是歷代知名的和默默無聞的作家們的產品。當前，在20世紀70年代中期，我們正目睹一個不易覺察卻毫無疑問存在的慢慢背離書籍這類事物的傾向?？峙旅绹募彝ズ芸炀筒粫倭舫龇块g做圖書館了。精裝圖書—那思想永駐的象征，那從一個時代向下一時代傳留的智慧—可能會添加到我們將滅絕的物種名單上的一項新的補充。

I have a friend who runs a bookstore in a Midwestern college town. He has found that he cannotsell hardback books; paperbacks are his stock in trade, and even those are a disappointmentto him. "You know how er used to see people carrying around book bags?" he tells me. "Well,now I look out the window of my shop, and all I see are students carring packages from therecord stores. The students aren't reading any more. They're listening to albums."

我有個朋友，他在一座中西部大學城開了一家書店。他發(fā)現他賣不出精裝書;他的買賣主要是做平裝、簡裝書籍，就連這種書賣得也很令他傷心。“你知道我們過去總是看見人們手中提著一袋袋的書，對吧?”他對我說，“唉，現在我從鋪子的窗戶望出去，見到的都是學生拿著大包小包從唱片鋪子里走出來。學生們不再讀書了，他們成天聽唱片。

And indeed he may be right. Stories of problems young people have with reading are not new,but trend seems to be worsening. Recently the chancellor of the University of Illinois's branchcampus in Chicago said that 10 percent of the freshman at his university could read no betterthan the average eighth grader. As dismal a commentary as this is, there is an even morechilling aspect to it: of those college freshmen whose reading skills were equivalent to the sixthto eight-grade level, the chancellor reported that many had ranked in the top half of their high-school classes.

的確，他說得蠻有道理。關于年輕人讀書方面問題的種種閑話雖然不是今日才有，但是不讀書的這個傾向似乎愈演愈劣。近來，位于芝加哥的伊利諾斯大學分校校長說，在他學校里百分之十的一年級學生讀書能力比一般中學八年級學生好不了多少。這話就夠令人憂愁的，可它還有更令人心寒的一面：據這位校長報道，在這些讀書能力同中學六年級至八年級程度相當的大學一年級學生中，不少人在中學各自的班上是排名在前一半的學生。

A professor at the same university said that even after four years on campus, some of thecollege graduates could hardly read or write. And the ramifictions this situation brings to thenation are obvious, and will become even more so in the years to come. Those ramifictions arealready being felt in the cultural marketplace. A first work of fiction, if it has any luck at all, willsell perhaps 3000 copies in its hardback edition. Publishers and authors know not to expectmuch better thn that. And a record album? Well, a new group called Boston recently released analbum of the same name. It is their first record, so far it has sold 3.5 million copies.

就是這所大學里的一位教授說，即使在學校念下四年書來，有些大學畢業(yè)生仍舊不能讀和寫。這種狀況給國家?guī)淼暮蠊敲黠@的，而且在今后的年月里將會更明顯。我們說的后果已經在文化市場上體現了出來。一部一流的小說，如果有運氣的話，可能賣出3，000本精裝本。出版商和作家都明白，不能企望超過這個數目許多。而一套唱片呢?一個叫做波士頓的新樂隊最近發(fā)行了以波士頓命名的一套唱片。這是他們制作的第一套唱片，迄今為止已銷售了3，500，000份。

Much of the problem is that we live in a passive age. To listen to a record album, to sit througha movie, to watch a television show---all require nothing of the cultural consumer, save hismere presence. To read a book, though, takes an act of will on the part of the consumer. Hemust genuinely want to find out wht is inside. He cannot just sit there; he must do something,even though the something is as simple an action as opening the book, closing the door andbeginning to read.

問題主要在于我們是生活在一個被動的年代。聽一套唱片，看完一場電影，看電視節(jié)目--這些不需要文化消費者做任何事，只要他在場就行。而讀一本書就要求消費者方面有毅力。他必須真正想知道書里說了什么。他不能僅僅坐在那里;他得做點事，即使這事十分簡單，只不過就是動手翻開書本，關上門，然后開始讀。

In generations before amy own, this was taken for granted as an important part of life. Butnow, in the day of the "information retrieval system," such a reverence is not being placed onthe reding, and then saving, of books. If a young American reads at all, he is far more likely topurchase a paperback that may be flipped through and then thrown away. In a disposableage, the book for keeping and rereading is an anachronism, a ponderous dinosaur in ahighspeed society.

對我前面歷代的人們來說，讀書天經地義是構成生活的一個重要部分。但是現在，在這個“信息檢索系統(tǒng)”的時代，讀書和藏書已不能獲得這種尊重。如果一位美國青年要讀書，他很可能去買一冊簡裝書，這樣就可以很快地翻完，然后把它扔掉。在一個講求把沒用物品處理掉的時代里，要保存和重讀書簡直是與時代格格不入的行為，就像個笨重的恐龍在高速的社會里寸步難行。