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21. What's So Big about Moby Dick
白鯨記
A pretty, young lady goes swimming alone off the coast of New England in twilight.
黃昏時刻，一位年輕貌美的小姐獨自在新英格蘭外海游泳。
She is an agile swimmer, full of grace and speed.
她是一名游泳健將，泳姿優雅而動作矯健。
Without warning, though, she disappears from sight, only to reappear a moment later, screaming in pain.
但毫無預警地，她從視線上消失，一會兒后再出現時只見她痛苦地尖叫著。
A few shocking moments later, she is again dragged under the water, this time only to reappear the next morning in pieces on the shore.
經過幾次驚險的場面后，她又被拖到水底下，只是這次在次日早晨再出現時卻只剩下破碎的肢體散落在岸邊。
Sound familiar?
聽起來耳熟嗎？
By now nearly everyone has seen or heard the story of a killer Great White Shark in Jaws, a hit novel turned into a blockbuster movie.
到現在幾乎每個人都看過或聽過“大白鯊”這部由暢銷小說改編的賣座電影中那頭吃人大白鯊的故事。
Few people realize, however, that the story broadly follows the events depicted in what many people consider one of the best of American novels.
然而，卻很少有人知道故事的大部分情節沿自許多人公認的最佳美國小說之一中所描述的情節。
Published in 1851, Moby Dick has been making waves ever since.
《白鯨記》自1851年出版以來即不時引發爭議。
The author, Herman Melville, was born in New York on August 1, 1819.
作者赫爾曼·梅爾維爾1819年8月1日在紐約出生。
As a youth in a large family he suffered many insecurities due to the family's constantly changing fortunes.
他生長在一個大家庭中，少年時因家境不斷變化而極沒有安全感。
As a young man he worked as a farmer and seaman, the latter providing most of the material for several of his later novels and essays.
年輕時他當過農夫和船員，后者提供了他日后幾部小說和文章所用的大部分題材。
In his 20s Melville found fame with two novels based on imaginary happenings in the South Pacific.
梅爾維爾廿幾歲時即以南太平洋虛構事件為根據的兩本小說嶄露頭角。
Moby Dick, ironically, was not well received.
具有諷刺意味的是，《白鯨記》卻未受好評。
Afterwards, Melville produced another masterpiece, Billy Budd.
之后，梅爾維爾又寫了另一本杰作《畢利·伯德》。
He continued writing until his death in 1891.
他持續不斷地寫作直到1891年去世為止。
Why has Moby Dick since become such a classic despite its initial reception?
《白鯨記》最初并未造成轟動，但為何后來會成為經典之作呢？
Melville had a keen eye for not only the human condition but for the tenor of his times:
梅爾維爾對人情世故及當時的思想潮流皆具有獨到的眼光：
the United States was in his day a country of disadvantaged and mistreated immigrants (many of whom became sailors and laborers), with untrammeled capitalism crushing both nature and man underneath its new country exuberance.
在他那個時代，美國是一個由受欺凌的弱勢移民組成的國家（其中有很多移民成為船員和苦力），而無限制的資本主義將大自然和人類踩碎在這個新國家的繁榮之下。
His stress on the individual and fate —— often pessimistically, or at least realistically —— were harbingers of the future of literature.
他對個人和命運的強調——通常是悲觀的，或者至少是寫實的——預告了文學未來之路。
Why does the story of Moby Dick continue to enthrall generation after generation?
為何《白鯨記》的故事不斷吸引一代又一代的讀者呢？
The story line is simple enough:
故事的情節實在很簡單：
a mad sea captain vows revenge against a white whale which, on a previous expedition, bit off one of his legs.
一個瘋狂的船長誓言報復在之前遠航途中咬掉他一條腿的一只白鯨。
In his vain attempt at "justice" against nature, the captain meets the ultimate tragedy.
在他向大自然討回“公道”的徒勞的嘗試中，這位船長終究落得悲劇的下場。
This was no documentary, however; the characters and setting become vehicles for far larger and more universal themes of the setbacks and successes of the human spirit as well as its darker urges.
然而，故事并不像紀錄片，它的人物和場景傳達了更寬廣、更具世界性的主題，反映出人類心靈的成敗及黑暗的欲望。
So accurately does Melville depict the whaling scenes and sea voyages that the reader is taken on an exhilarating ride.
梅爾維爾對捕鯨情形和航海的描寫是如此精確，讀者彷佛踏上一段刺激的海上之旅。
Coupled with the absorbing, mad Captain Ahab, the book is "a good read" even by 20th century standards.
加上深具魅力的瘋狂船長艾哈伯，這本書即使以20世紀的標準來看也是一本“好書”。
Earlier in this century, the Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway penned The Old Man and the Sea, another story of a man's struggle with nature on the open ocean.
20世紀初時，諾貝爾獎得主海明威寫了另一本人類和大海搏斗的故事《老人與海》。
This theme strikes a chord in Americans, whose culture developed along the Atlantic coast of North America and whose seaward passage from the Old World took them to the colonies of the 18th century or the young country of the 19th century by the millions.
這個主題在美國人心中引起共鳴，美國人的文化沿著北美大西洋岸發展，他們的海上通道將數以百萬計的人們從舊世界帶到18世紀的殖民地或19世紀時的新興國家。
This fascination with the maritime still holds today:
這種對海洋的迷戀到今天仍然存在：
over half the population of the United States lives in counties touching the Atlantic, Pacific, or Gulf coasts.
超過半數的美國人口住在大西洋、太平洋或墨西哥灣沿岸的市郡。
Perhaps some future writer will once again use the metaphor of sailors and the sea to create yet another Great American Novel.
或許將來會有某個作家再度使用水手和大海的暗喻，創造出另一本偉大的美國小說。
