Why a good book is a secret door
我们的童年都是充满了奇幻故事的，在这篇异想天开的演讲中，获奖作家麦克巴内特谈到了一种让人无法理解的写作手法——将虚构的故事套入现实世界中，比如哈利波特和夏洛克。而当人们“入戏太深”之后，它将会开启一扇神秘的大门，带你走进一个有无限可能的世界。
演讲者：Mac Barnett
演讲题目: Why a good book is a secret door
中英文对照翻译
Hi everybody. So my name is Mac. My job is that I lie to children, but they're honest lies.
大家好，我叫麦克。我的工作就是欺骗小孩子，不过都是善意的谎言。
I write children's books, and there's a quote from Pablo Picasso, "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth or at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies."
我创作儿童文学巴勃罗·毕加索曾有一句名言，“我们都知道艺术并非真理，艺术是能使我们意识到真理的谎言，或者至少使我们意识到，我们能认同的真理。艺术家必须懂得一些方法来使人们信服他谎言中的真实。”
I first heard this when I was a kid, and I loved it, but I had no idea what it meant.
第一次听到这话的时候，我还是个小孩，那时就很喜欢这个说法，但是我不知道他说的是啥意思。
So I thought, you know what, it's what I'm here to talk to you today about, though, truth and lies, fiction and reality. So how could I untangle this knotted bunch of sentences? And I said, I've got PowerPoint. Let's do a Venn diagram. ["Truth. Lies."] So there it is, right there, boom. We've got truth and lies and then there's this little space, the edge, in the middle. That liminal space, that's art. All right. Venn diagram.
你知道吗，这是我今天要讲的真理与谎言，虚构与现实。那我到底该如何理解这段令人匪夷所思的话呢？不如用 PowerPoint 来做个文氏图吧。［“真实” “谎言”］就是这个，很棒吧？有真实和谎言两部分，还有两个边缘交界。那个中间的地方，那就是艺术。嗯，文氏图。
But that's actually not very helpful either. The thing that made me understand that quote and really kind of what art, at least the art of fiction, was, was working with kids. I used to be a summer camp counselor. I would do it on my summers off from college, and I loved it. It was a sports summer camp for four- to six-year-olds. I was in charge of the four-year-olds, which is good, because four-year-olds can't play sports, and neither can I.
但是这好像也不是很有用。使我理解这段话的，以及真正使我对艺术——或者至少是小说的艺术有所理解的，就是为孩子们工作的时候。我曾是夏令营的指导老师，我在大学暑假时担任这种工作，也很喜爱这个工作。那是一个为4到6岁的孩子们举办的运动夏令营。我负责带领四岁的孩子，那很棒，因为四岁的孩子还不会运动，正巧我也不会。
I play sports at a four-year-old level, so what would happen is the kids would dribble around some cones, and then got hot, and then they would go sit underneath the tree where I was already sitting — and I would just make up stories and tell them to them and I would tell them stories about my life. I would tell them about how, on the weekends, I would go home and I would spy for the Queen of England.
我就搞四岁小孩儿级别的运动，实际情况就是孩子们绕着交通锥运球玩得大汗淋漓，然后他们去树下面休息，结果我早就在那儿坐着了—我会编故事讲给他们听，也会给他们编造关于我的故事。我告诉他们，我周末回到家以后会为英国女王做秘密侦查。
And soon, other kids who weren't even in my group of kids, they would come up to me, and they would say, "You're Mac Barnett, right? You're the guy who spies for the Queen of England." And I had been waiting my whole life for strangers to come up and ask me that question. In my fantasy, they were svelte Russian women, but, you know, four-year-olds — you take what you can get in Berkeley, California.
很快，其他有些不在我组里的孩子也会到我这儿来，然后说“你就是麦克·巴耐特，对吧？那个暗中为英国女王做侦查的家伙？”我这一生都在热切期盼着能有陌生人来问我这个问题。在我的幻想中，她们应该是苗条的俄罗斯女人，但是，你们懂的，四岁的孩子——在加州的伯克利还有什么好奢求的呢。
And I realized that the stories that I was telling were real in this way that was familiar to me and really exciting. I think the pinnacle of this for me — I'll never forget this — there was this little girl named Riley. She was tiny, and she used to always take out her lunch every day and she would throw out her fruit. She would just take her fruit, her mom packed her a melon every day, and she would just throw it in the ivy and then she would eat fruit snacks and pudding cups, and I was like, "Riley, you can't do that, you have to eat the fruit."
然后我意识到，这些故事在以我熟悉的方式讲给孩子们时变得无比真实且振奋人心。这件事达到顶峰的契机——我永远不会忘记这件事——我的组里有个叫莱利的小女孩。小个子她总是每天把午饭拿出来，然后把里面的水果扔掉。她拿出水果，她妈妈每天给她装一个甜瓜，但是她把它扔进藤蔓丛里，然后吃水果零食和布丁，我对她说：“莱利你不能那样，必须把水果吃掉。”
And she was like, "Why?" And I was like, "Well, when you throw the fruit in the ivy, pretty soon, it's going to be overgrown with melons," which is why I think I ended up telling stories to children and not being a nutritionist for children. And so Riley was like, "That will never happen. That's not going to happen." And so, on the last day of camp, I got up early and I got a big cantaloupe from the grocery store and I hid it in the ivy, and then at lunchtime, I was like, "Riley, why don't you go over there and see what you've done."
她问，“为什么？”我就说：“嗯，你要是把甜瓜扔到藤蔓丛那儿，那里很快就会长满一整片的甜瓜”这就是为啥我后来成为儿童故事书的作者，而不是成为孩子们的营养师了。莱利说：“那种事不会发生的。绝对不可能。”因此，夏令营的最后一天，我早早起床到杂货店买了一个大哈密瓜，把它藏进了藤蔓丛里，午饭时间，我说，“莱利，你真该看看你都做了些什么。”
And — she went trudging through the ivy, and then her eyes just got so wide, and she pointed out this melon that was bigger than her head, and then all the kids ran over there and rushed around her, and one of the kids was like, "Hey, why is there a sticker on this?" And I was like, "That is also why I say do not throw your stickers in the ivy. Put them in the trash can. It ruins nature when you do this." And Riley carried that melon around with her all day, and she was so proud.
然后，她吃力地穿过藤蔓，然后一下瞪大眼睛，发现了这个比她的脑袋都大的哈密瓜，之后所有的孩子都跑过去，簇拥在她四周，其中一个孩子突然叫道，“嘿，哈密瓜上面为什么粘着个标签？”我就说：“这就是为什么我也不让你们把标签扔进藤蔓丛里。要把它们丢进垃圾桶。乱丢的话会破坏环境。”莱利一整天都带着那个哈密瓜，她无比自豪。
And Riley knew she didn't grow a melon in seven days, but she also knew that she did, and it's a weird place, but it's not just a place that kids can get to. It's anything. Art can get us to that place. She was right in that place in the middle, that place which you could call art or fiction. I'm going to call it wonder. It's what Coleridge called the willing suspension of disbelief or poetic faith, for those moments where a story, no matter how strange, has some semblance of the truth, and then you're able to believe it.
莱利知道她无法在七天内种出哈密瓜来，但她也知道她确实做到了，那是个不可思议的地方，然而它并不是只有孩子才能做到。我们都可以。我们可借助艺术到达那里。她就是在真实与谎言的交界处，在可以被称之为艺术或虚构的区域里。我更愿意称这个区域为“奇迹”。这就是柯尔律治所说的“自愿悬置怀疑”或者说“诗意的信仰”，意思是说对于一个拥有真实表象的故事，不管它有多奇怪你都能够相信。
It's not just kids who can get there. Adults can too, and we get there when we read. It's why in two days, people will be descending on Dublin to take the walking tour of Bloomsday and see everything that happened in "Ulysses," even though none of that happened. Or people go to London and they visit Baker Street to see Sherlock Holmes' apartment, even though 221B is just a number that was painted on a building that never actually had that address.
不是只有孩子们能做到，大人也可以，我们可以通过阅读做到。这就是为什么在两天內 人们涌入都柏林来一场“布鲁姆日”的远足，见证《尤利西斯》的故事里发生的一切，尽管那些事情从未发生过。人们也去伦敦，造访贝克街，看看夏洛克·福尔摩斯的公寓，尽管221B只是一个被涂在建筑物上的编号，那个门牌号也从未存在过。
We know these characters aren't real, but we have real feelings about them, and we're able to do that. We know these characters aren't real, and yet we also know that they are.
我们知道这些角色不是真实的，但是我们会对他们产生真实的感情，我们可以做到。我们知道这些角色不是真实的，然而我们也相信他们是真的。
Kids can get there a lot more easily than adults can, and that's why I love writing for kids. I think kids are the best audience for serious literary fiction. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with secret door novels, things like "Narnia," where you would open a wardrobe and go through to a magical land. And I was convinced that secret doors really did exist and I would look for them and try to go through them.
孩子们比大人容易做到这一点，这就是我热爱创作儿童文学的原因。我认为对于虚构的文学作品来说，孩子们是最好的读者。我还是个孩子的时候，我一直对“秘密之门”的那类小说无比着迷，比如说《纳尼亚传奇》，在那里你可以打开衣柜，走进一个神奇的地方。我确信秘密之门确实存在，我会寻找它们并试图穿过它们。
I wanted to live and cross over into that fictional world, which is — I would always just open people's closet doors. I would just go through my mom's boyfriend's closet, and there was not a secret magical land there. There was some other weird stuff that I think my mom should know about. And I was happy to tell her all about it.
我想去那里，穿越到那个虚构的世界，也至于——我总是打开人们的衣橱门。我尝试翻遍我妈妈的男朋友的衣柜，里面没有藏着秘密的魔幻世界。但是却有些奇怪的玩意儿，我觉得我妈妈应该知道。我很乐意把那些玩意儿告诉妈妈。
After college, my first job was working behind one of these secret doors. This is a place called 826 Valencia. It's at 826 Valencia Street in the Mission in San Francisco, and when I worked there, there was a publishing company headquartered there called McSweeney's, a nonprofit writing center called 826 Valencia, but then the front of it was a strange shop.
大学毕业后，我的第一份工作就是在“秘密之门”后面做事。这地方叫"826瓦伦西亚"。它坐落于瓦伦西亚街826号，位于旧金山的山米逊区，我在那里工作的时候有一家出版公司在那里设立总部，名叫麦克斯维尼，一家非营利的写作中心，名叫“826瓦伦西亚”，但是它的前方是一家奇怪的小商店。
You see, this place was zoned retail, and in San Francisco, they were not going to give us a variance, and so the writer who founded it, a writer named Dave Eggers, to come into compliance with code, he said, "Fine, I'm just going to build a pirate supply store." And that's what he did. And it's beautiful. It's all wood. There's drawers you can pull out and get citrus so you don't get scurvy. They have eyepatches in lots of colors, because when it's springtime, pirates want to go wild. You don't know. Black is boring. Pastel.
你们知道，那里是零售店区，在旧金山，他们不可能为我们开例，开这家店的是一个名叫戴夫·埃格斯的作家，为了遵守规范他说：“好，我就在这儿开家海盗用品商店吧。”他真的就这么做了。店里很漂亮。全木的。拉开抽屉就能找到柑橘，吃了它可以防止坏血病。他们有五颜六色的眼罩，因为海盗们一到春天就想疯一下。你们不会知道黑色多无聊啊！寡淡无味。
Or eyes, also in lots of colors, just glass eyes, depending on how you want to deal with that situation. And the store, strangely, people came to them and bought things, and they ended up paying the rent for our tutoring center, which was behind it, but to me, more important was the fact that I think the quality of work you do, kids would come and get instruction in writing, and when you have to walk this weird, liminal, fictional space like this to go do your writing, it's going to affect the kind of work that you make. It's a secret door that you can walk through.
还有五颜六色的假眼珠子，玻璃做的，（戴哪个）取决于你要如何处理要面对的情况。关于那个商店最奇怪的是人们居然来买东西，后来，店铺的收入足够为店铺后面的辅导中心支付租金，但对我来说，更重要的是工作的质量，孩子们来学习写作，在你经过像这样的真实与虚构的交界处，然后写作的时候你的作品一定会受到影响，这是一扇你可以穿越的“秘密之门”。
So I ran the 826 in Los Angeles, and it was my job to build the store down there. So we have The Echo Park Time Travel Mart. That's our motto: "Whenever you are, we're already then." (Laughter) And it's on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Our friendly staff is ready to help you. They're from all eras, including just the 1980s,
因此，我在洛杉矶为“826”工作，我的活儿就是打理那儿的一间小店铺。店名叫“回声公园·时间旅行商店”。我们还有个格言，“无论什么时代，我们都已去过了。”它坐落于洛杉矶的日落大道。我们友好的员工随时恭候。他们来自不同时代，包括1980年代，
that guy on the end, he's from the very recent past. There's our Employees of the Month, including Genghis Khan, Charles Dickens. Some great people have come up through our ranks. This is our kind of pharmacy section.
就是站在最后面的那个家伙，他所处的时代并不久远。这是我们的“本月优秀员工”，名单上有成吉思汗、查尔斯•狄更斯。有些伟人都上了我们的榜。这是我们的药品区。
We have some patent medicines, Canopic jars for your organs, communist soap that says, "This is your soap for the year." (Laughter) Our slushy machine broke on the opening night and we didn't know what to do. Our architect was covered in red syrup. It looked like he had just murdered somebody, which it was not out of the question for this particular architect, and we didn't know what to do. It was going to be the highlight of our store. So we just put that sign on it that said, "Out of order. Come back yesterday."
我们有些专利药品，有用来装人体器官的“卡诺卜坛”还有“共产主义肥皂”，上面标着“这就是你今年的肥皂。”店铺开张的第一天晚上，我们的冰沙机坏掉了，我们不知道怎么办才好。我们的设计师身上被溅满了红色的糖浆。看起来就像他刚*了人，全身都是血迹，就这个人而言其实也不是不可能，我们束手无策。本来这台机器是我们店里的亮点。所以我们就给它挂上了这个指示牌，“故障，请昨天再来。”
And that ended up being a better joke than slushies, so we just left it there forever. Mammoth Chunks. These things weigh, like, seven pounds each. Barbarian repellent. It's full of salad and potpourri — things that barbarians hate. Dead languages. (Laughter) Leeches, nature's tiny doctors.
结果它成为了一个比冰沙更棒的笑料，所以我们一直保留着那个指示牌。“長毛象肉块”。每罐的重量差不多7磅。“野人驱除剂”。装满了沙拉和百花香——野人最恨这个了 ［拉丁文］［古埃及文］ 死语言。水蛭，“大自然的小医生”。
And Viking Odorant, which comes in lots of great scents: toenails, sweat and rotten vegetables, pyre ash. Because we believe that Axe Body Spray is something that you should only find on the battlefield, not under your arms.
还有“维京气味”，里面混合了好几种很赞的气味，脚趾甲、汗液和腐烂蔬菜的味儿，还有火葬的柴灰。因为我们认为你应该在战场找斧牌香体喷雾而不是在你的腋下去找。
And these are robot emotion chips, so robots can feel love or fear. Our biggest seller is Schadenfreude, which we did not expect. (Laughter) We did not think that was going to happen. But there's a nonprofit behind it, and kids go through a door that says "Employees Only" and they end up in this space where they do homework and write stories and make films and this is a book release party where kids will read.
我们还出售机器人情感晶片，有了晶片，机器人就能感受到爱或恐惧。店内最畅销产品是「幸灾乐祸」，这是我们没有想到的。我们从未想过会如此畅销。但这家店后面的写作中心，是非盈利性质的孩子们进入门上贴有「非员工勿进」标示的写作中心，然后就在这里做功课、 编故事、制作电影，这是新书发布会，孩子们在这里阅读。
There's a quarterly that's published with just writing that's done by the kids who come every day after school, and we have release parties and they eat cake and read for their parents and drink milk out of champagne glasses. And it's a very special space, because it's this weird space in the front. The joke isn't a joke. You can't find the seams on the fiction, and I love that. It's this little bit of fiction that's colonized the real world. I see it as kind of a book in three dimensions.
这里每季度都要发行，孩子们利用每天放学后的时间在这里完成的写作作品，我们还举行发布会，孩子们一边吃着蛋糕一边把作品读给父母听，还用香槟酒杯喝牛奶。这里真的是一个很特别的地方，完全是因为前面的那家怪异商店。笑话不再是笑话。小说里看不出拼接的痕迹，我超爱这点。正是这种小小说俘获了现实世界。我觉得它有点像三维立体书。
There's a term called metafiction, and that's just stories about stories, and meta's having a moment now. Its last big moment was probably in the 1960s with novelists like John Barth and William Gaddis, but it's been around. It's almost as old as storytelling itself. And one metafictive technique is breaking the fourth wall. Right? It's when an actor will turn to the audience and say, "I am an actor, these are just rafters."
有个词叫「元小说」，即讲述小说的小说，现在「元」的概念非常热门。上次流行的时候可能是1960年代，以小说家约翰•巴思 和威廉•加迪斯为代表，这个技法现在还有人在用。它的历史几乎和讲故事一样久远。其中有一个元小说技巧是打破第4堵墙，对吧？举个例子，演员面向观众说道：「我是个演员，他们只是些椽木」
And even that supposedly honest moment, I would argue, is in service of the lie, but it's supposed to foreground the artificiality of the fiction. For me, I kind of prefer the opposite. If I'm going to break down the fourth wall, I want fiction to escape and come into the real world. I want a book to be a secret door that opens and lets the stories out into reality.
即使是这种看似诚实的介绍， 在我看来，也是为了揭露谎言，使小说人为的虚构性更加突出。对我而言，我喜欢反其道而行之。如果我要拆除第4堵墙，我希望跳出小说，进入现实世界。我希望书籍能成为一扇秘密之门，开启故事王国，再进入现实世界。
And so I try to do this in my books. And here's just one example. This is the first book that I ever made. It's called "Billy Twitters and his Blue Whale Problem." And it's about a kid who gets a blue whale as a pet but it's a punishment and it ruins his life. So it's delivered overnight by FedUp. And he has to take it to school with him. He lives in San Francisco — very tough city to own a blue whale in.
写自己的书时我一直努力这样做。举个简单的例子。这是我写的第一本书，书名叫《比利推特和他的蓝鲸问题》。故事讲述一个小孩养了一条蓝鲸当宠物，后果可想而知，毁了他整个人生。蓝鲸是由联邦调查局连夜送来的。他还得带蓝鲸去学校。他住在旧金山，这个城市能养条蓝鲸很不容易。
A lot of hills, real estate is at a premium. This market's crazy, everybody. But underneath the jacket is this case, and that's the cover underneath the book, the jacket, and there's an ad that offers a free 30-day risk-free trial for a blue whale. And you can just send in a self-addressed stamped envelope and we'll send you a whale. And kids do write in.
那里山多、房价高。市场简直不可理喻，各位。书的封套下面是这个盒子，那是书下面的封面，封套上面是一则广告，30天免费试养蓝鲸。读者只需寄来一个含邮资信封，写上自己的姓名和地址，我们将给您寄去一条蓝鲸，还真有孩子写信过来。
So here's a letter. It says, "Dear people, I bet you 10 bucks you won't send me a blue whale. Eliot Gannon (age 6)." (Laughter) (Applause)
这是其中的一封。上面说道：「敬启者，我赌10美元你们肯定不会给我寄蓝鲸。艾略特•甘农（6 岁）」
So what Eliot and the other kids who send these in get back is a letter in very small print from a Norwegian law firm — that says that due to a change in customs laws, their whale has been held up in Sognefjord, which is a very lovely fjord, and then it just kind of talks about Sognefjord and Norwegian food for a little while. It digresses. But it finishes off by saying that your whale would love to hear from you.
艾略特和其他写信给我们的孩子收到的是一封小号字体打印的信，由挪威一家法律事务所寄出——信上说，由于海关法修订后，他们的蓝鲸滞留在松恩峡湾，挪威最美丽的峡湾之一，信中接着聊了一会松恩峡湾和挪威的美食。律师也离题了。信最后说道「蓝鲸期待收到你的回信。
He's got a phone number, and you can call and leave him a message. And when you call and leave him a message, you just, on the outgoing message, it's just whale sounds and then a beep, which actually sounds a lot like a whale sound. And they get a picture of their whale too.
他有电话号码，欢迎你来电留言」当孩子们真的来电留言时，电话这头的录音是鲸的声音， 然后是「哔」的一声，确实很像鲸的声音。他们还收到一张蓝鲸的照片。
So this is Randolph, and Randolph belongs to a kid named Nico who was one of the first kids to ever call in, and I'll play you some of Nico's message. This is the first message I ever got from Nico.
照片里是伦道夫，伦道夫属于一位叫尼科的小朋友，他也是第一位打电话来的小读者，现在我给大家放一些尼科的留言。这是我收到尼科的第一条留言。
(Audio) Nico: Hello, this is Nico. I am your owner, Randolph. Hello. So this is the first time I can ever talk to you, and I might talk to you soon another day. Bye.
（录音）尼科：你好！我是尼科。我是你的主人，伦道夫。你好啊。嗯，这是我第一次和你聊天，呃，改天我再找你聊了。拜。
Mac Barnett: So Nico called back, like, an hour later. And here's another one of Nico's messages.
马克•巴内特：然后呢，大概过了一个小时尼科又打过来 。这是尼科的另一条留言。
(Audio) Nico: Hello, Randolph, this is Nico. I haven't talked to you for a long time, but I talked to you on Saturday or Sunday, yeah, Saturday or Sunday, so now I'm calling you again to say hello and I wonder what you're doing right now, and I'm going to probably call you again tomorrow or today, so I'll talk to you later. Bye.
（录音）尼科：你好，伦道夫，我是尼科。好久没和你聊天了，我周六还是周日找你聊过吧，没错，周六或周日，所以我才又给你打电话了，你好吗，我想知道你现在干嘛呀，我大概会在明天或者今天再给你打电话，到时我再跟你聊咯。拜。
MB: So he did, he called back that day again. He's left over 25 messages for Randolph over four years. You find out all about him and the grandma that he loves and the grandma that he likes a little bit less — and the crossword puzzles that he does, and this is — I'll play you one more message from Nico. This is the Christmas message from Nico.
麦克：果然，他当天又打过来了。他一共给伦道夫录了25条留言。持续四年的时间，你会非常了解他，如他喜爱的奶奶，还有他比较不喜欢的另一位奶奶——还有，知道他做填字游戏，让我们听听另一则尼科的留言。这是尼科的圣诞留言。
[Beep] (Audio) Nico: Hello, Randolph, sorry I haven't talked to you in a long time. It's just that I've been so busy because school started, as you might not know, probably, since you're a whale, you don't know, and I'm calling you to just say, to wish you a merry Christmas. So have a nice Christmas, and bye-bye, Randolph. Goodbye.
[哔]（录音）尼科：你好，伦道夫， 对不起，我好久没有和你聊天了。主要是我一直很忙，因为开学了，你可能不明白，也许吧，毕竟你是鲸鱼，自然不知道了，我打电话给你，是想说祝你圣诞快乐。圣诞快乐啊，拜拜，伦道夫，拜拜。
MB: I actually got Nico, I hadn't heard from in 18 months, and he just left a message two days ago. His voice is completely different, but he put his babysitter on the phone, and she was very nice to Randolph as well.
麦克：我很久没听到尼科打电话来，大约18个月了，不过就在两天前他留言了。他的声音变化很大，他也让保姆讲电话，她对伦道夫也很好。
But Nico's the best reader I could hope for. I would want anyone I was writing for to be in that place emotionally with the things that I create. I feel lucky. Kids like Nico are the best readers, and they deserve the best stories we can give them.
尼科是我所梦想的最好的读者。我希望我的每位读者都能如此用心感受我创造的东西。我觉得很幸运。像尼科这样的小朋友是最好的读者，他们值得我们给他们创作最好的故事。
Thank you very much.
谢谢各位。
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