2016考研英语阅读精选：美国侦探小说大师的阅读清单

　　What do you like to read when you travel?

　　你旅行的时候喜欢读什么书?

　　Partway through "Wolf Hall" I went to England on tour. I carried that big, fat book across the Atlantic, couldn't wait to finish my events so I could go back to it — I'd read until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

　　《狼厅》读到一半时，我去英国旅行。我带着那本厚重的书越过大西洋，往往是活动还没结束我就迫不及待地想回去读它，一直读到眼睛睁不开才停下来。

　　What do you like reading right before bed?

　　你喜欢在入睡前读什么书?

　　Short stories, mostly. Joan Wickersham's "The News From Spain" and Jaan Kross's "The Conspiracy" are two that I've just finished. I have insomnia, and sometimes at 3 in the morning, I read from "The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon," a journal kept by a woman at the 11th-century Japanese imperial court, and then write in my own journal in her style: Seven Things That Bring Me Pleasure; Eight Things Over Which I Have No Control.

　　大多是短篇小说。我刚读完的两本——琼·威克沙姆(Joan Wickersham)的《来自西班牙的消息》(The News From Spain)和扬·克罗斯(Jaan Kross)的《阴谋》(The Conspiracy)。我经常失眠，有时会在凌晨3点读清少纳言的《枕草子》，它是11世纪日本宫廷的一个女子写的日记，然后我也用她的风格写日记：给我带来快乐的七件事;我完全无法控制的八件事。

　　What kind of reader were you as a child?

　　你小时候是什么样的读者?

　　I was a flashlight-under-the-covers reader. I loved books about girls doing active things — biographies of women like the astronomer Maria Mitchell, or Harriet Tubman or Marie Curie. I read Laura Ingalls Wilder, all the Alcott books and a wonderful out-of-print German novel, "The Wicked Enchantment." As an adult, I realize it is a parable of the Nazi takeover of Germany, but as a child I loved the brave heroine, her little dog Winnie and the aunts who look after them both.

　　我小时候喜欢躲在被窝里打着手电筒看书。我很喜欢关于积极主动的女孩子的书——比如天文学家玛丽亚·米切尔(Maria Mitchell)，还有哈丽雅特·塔布曼(Harriet Tubman)和玛丽·居里(Marie Curie)等女人的传记。我读过劳拉·英戈尔斯·怀尔德(Laura Ingalls Wilder)的书，奥尔科特(Alcott)所有的书，还有一部精彩的绝版德国小说《邪恶的魔法》(The Wicked Enchantment)。长大后，我才知道它是关于纳粹控制德国的寓言故事，但小时候我很喜欢里面那位勇敢的女主人公、她的小狗维尼以及照顾她俩的姨妈们。

　　If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

　　如果你必须选一本对你影响最大的书，你会选哪本?

　　When I first read "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," at 17, I felt as though I'd fallen into words and wanted to drown in them. I reread the book 20 or 30 times and longed to write like Joyce. I used to practice Joycean sentences and punctuation.

　　17岁时，我第一次读《一个青年艺术家的画像》，感觉自己好像掉进了文字里，想一直沉浸在其中。这本书我读了二三十遍，渴望自己能像乔伊斯那样写作。我过去常常练习乔伊斯式的句子和断句方式。

　　If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

　　如果你能要求总统读一本书，你会选哪一本?

　　Kafka's "The Trial," so he realized how futile it is to try to find meaning in the ways Congress reacts to his initiatives.

　　卡夫卡(Kafka)的《审判》(The Trial)，这样他就会明白，努力寻找国会对他提案的反应方式的意义是徒劳无功的。

　　You're hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?

　　假如你要举办一个文学宴会派对，你会邀请哪三位作家?

　　P. D. James, who is always witty and engaging; Shakespeare, to hear that language spoken by himself; and Sappho. The four of us would all miraculously understand modern and Renaissance English and ancient Greek.

　　P·D·詹姆斯(P. D. James)，他总是幽默迷人;莎士比亚(Shakespeare)，听他本人朗读自己的作品;萨福(Sappho)。而且我们四个奇迹般地都能听懂现代英语、文艺复兴时期的英语和古希腊语。

　　Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn't? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

　　失望，评价过高，不好看：哪些书让你觉得自己应该会喜欢但实际上不喜欢?你还记得上一本没看完就放下的书吗?

　　"War and Peace." I read all 1,400-plus pages. The first 100-page riff on the great Russian soul was interesting. During the second hundred-page riff, I thought, This is dull, but maybe it's a reinforcing literary device. When I got to the third, I wanted to take a blue pencil to the text. And then I reached the end, and it turns out that Natasha's brooding artistic yearnings are symptoms of a mental illness for which pregnancy is the cure. She's become fat and is ecstatically inspecting a soiled diaper.

　　《战争与和平》(War and Peace)。我读完了全部1400多页。前100页反复讲述那个伟大的俄罗斯灵魂，挺有趣的。到第二个100页，我心想，这很无趣，但它可能是个用于强化的文学手段。到了第三个100页，我想删除某些段落。读到最后我发现，娜塔莎(Natasha)徘徊不去的艺术渴望是一种精神疾病的症状，而怀孕能治这种病。她变胖了，如醉如痴地检查一块脏尿布。

　　Last book I didn't finish — "The Luminaries." I read 120 pages and couldn't get engaged by any of the characters.

　　我没有读完的上一本书是《发光体》(The Luminaries)。我读了120页，里面没有一个人物吸引我。

　　What's the one book you wish someone else would write?

　　你希望将来有人写一本什么书?

　　A history of the women in physics in the 20th century. I read as much as I could find for background to my recent novel, "Critical Mass." Maria Rentetzi has written some of that story, but very little is known about women who did major work in the field (Ellen Gleditsch, Marietta Blau and others).

　　20世纪女物理学家的历史。我在写最新小说《临界物质》时，为了了解背景知识读了所有我能找到的书。玛丽亚·伦特茨(Maria Rentetzi)写了一些这方面的故事，但我们对在这一领域做出重要贡献的女人(埃伦·格莱迪奇[Ellen Gleditsch]和玛丽埃塔·布劳[Marietta Blau]等)知之甚少。

　　Whom would you want to write your life story?

　　你想让谁来写你的人生故事?

　　I'd love Elizabeth Gaskell to do for me what she did for Charlotte Bront?.

　　我想让伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔(Elizabeth Gaskell)写我的故事，就像她写夏洛蒂·勃朗特(Charlotte Bront?)那样。

　　What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

　　有哪些书你还没读过并为此感到难为情?

　　Lots. "Don Quixote," "The Canterbury Tales," "Gravity's Rainbow." I know I'll never read "Paradise Lost."

　　很多。《堂吉诃德》(Don Quixote)、《坎特伯雷故事集》(The Canterbury Tales)和《万有引力之虹》(Gravity's Rainbow)。我知道我永远都不会读《失乐园》(Paradise Lost)。

　　What do you plan to read next?

　　你接下来打算读什么书?

　　I'm lucky to live a few blocks from a great bookstore — Seminary Co-op. I'll go there and browse and see what fits my mood at the moment.

　　幸运的是，就在我的住所几个街区之外有个很棒的书店——神学院合作社(Seminary Co-op)。我会去那里，四处浏览，看看有什么书符合我那一刻的心情。

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