評論
打印
“You've written ... ‘All of a sudden he realized he could fly.' Change ‘all of a sudden' to ‘suddenly'. Never use more words than you have to — it detracts from the flow of action.”Papa smiled. I hadn't seen him smile at me like that for a long time. “But you've won the lottery, pal. Writing takes study, discipline, and imagination. You've shown me with this that you have the imagination. And if you can do it once, you can do it a thousand times. Imagination doesn't leave you for a long time, maybe never. Dostoyevsky was fifty-seven when he wrote Crime and Punishment .
“你寫道……‘All of a sudden（突然之間）它意識到自己會飛了。'把‘all of a sudden（突然之間）'改成‘suddenly（突然）'。決不用不必要的字—否則會妨礙故事情節的自然展開。”爸爸笑容滿面。我好長時間沒見到他這么對我笑了。“不過你交上好運了，伙計。寫作需要學習、訓練，還有想象力。你已經用這篇小說向我表明，你具有想象力。如果你能有一次發揮想象力，你就能上千次地去發揮它。想象力在很長時間內都不會離開你，也許永遠也不離開。陀思妥耶夫斯基寫《罪與罰》時已經57歲了。
“God, I used to get sad in Key West when people sent me their work and I could tell after reading one page that they didn't have it and never would. I an?swered every goddamn letter, usually saying that writing well was mainly a matter of luck, that to be given a great talent was like winning a million-to-one lottery; and if you weren't blessed, all the study and self-discipline in the world wouldn't mean a thing. If their letter had something like ‘Everybody says I'd make a great engineer but what I really want to do is write,' I'd answer, ‘Maybe everybody isn't wrong and you'll probably make an excellent engineer and then forget all about writing and be delighted you never went into it.'
“天哪，過去在基韋斯特，人們給我看他們的作品，每當我讀了一頁，便能斷定他們沒有想象力，永遠也不會有想象力時，我真感到悲哀。我回了每一封該死的信，常常寫道，要寫得好主要得靠運氣，擁有某種了不起的才能就好比是中了機率僅為百萬分之一的大獎；要是你沒這個福分，人世間所有的研習和自我約束都不會管用。要是他們信中有‘人人都說我會成為一個杰出的機械師，可我真正想干的是寫作'這類話，我就會回信說，‘也許有人沒有說錯，你可能會成為一個優秀的機械師，所以忘了寫作這回事，慶幸自己從未涉足其間吧。'
“I wrote hundreds of letters like that and I was getting a dollar a word in those days.
“我寫了上百封這樣的信，那些日子里我的稿酬可是1美元一個字啊。
“Later, when there were even more letters, I shortened my answers to ‘Writing is a tough trade. Don't get mixed up in it if you can help it.' They probably thought, ‘That conceited son of a bitch probably hasn't even read my stuff. But because he can write, he makes a big exclusive thing of it.'
“后來信越來越多，我就把回信縮短為‘寫作是個艱苦的行當。盡可能不要卷進去。'他們可能想，‘那個自以為是的混蛋也許壓根兒沒讀我寫的東西。就因為他自己會寫，就拼命排斥別人。'
