The literary masterpieces of the 20th century were for the most part the work of novelists who had no large public in mind. The novels of Proust and Joyce were written in a cultural twilight and were not intended to be read under the blaze and dazzle of popularity.
　　20世紀的文學(xué)杰作大多出自沒有大眾意識的小說家之手。普魯斯特和喬伊斯的小說，創(chuàng)作于暗淡的文化暮色之中，本來就無意讓人在大眾化的耀眼光焰下閱讀。

　　Mr. Teachout’s article in The Journal follows the path generally taken by observers whose aim is to discover a trend. “According to one recent study 55 percent of Americans spend less than 30 minutes reading anything at all…. It may even be that movies have superseded novels not because Americans have grown dumber but because the novel is an obsolete artistic technology.”
　　蒂奇奧特先生在《華爾街日報》上的文章，沿用了觀察家們旨在發(fā)現(xiàn)某種傾向的套路，指出"根據(jù)最近一項調(diào)査，55%的美國人閱讀時間不超過30分鐘……甚至可以說，電影取代了小說，不是因為美國人變傻了，而是因為小說這種技藝已經(jīng)過時。

　　“We are not accustomed to thinking of art forms as technologies,” he says, “but that is what they are, which means they have been rendered moribund by new technical developments.”
　　我們還不習(xí)慣把藝術(shù)形式看成技術(shù)，"他說，"但事實上藝術(shù)形式就是技術(shù)，也就是說，藝術(shù)形式已經(jīng)因為新技術(shù)的發(fā)展而瀕臨死亡。"

　　Together with this emphasis on technics that attracts the scientific-minded young, there are other preferences discernible: It is better to do as a majority of your contemporaries are doing, better to be one of millions viewing a film than one of mere thousands reading a book. Moreover, the reader reads in solitude, whereas the viewer belongs to a great majority; he has powers of numerosity as well as the powers of mechanization. Add to this the importance of avoiding technological obsolescence and the attraction of feeling that technics will decide questions for us more dependably than the thinking of an individual, no matter how distinctive he may be.
　　文章除了強調(diào)崇尚科學(xué)的年輕人有吸引力的技術(shù)之外，還看得見其他一些取向。如大多數(shù)同時代人做什么，你最好就做什么，與其和區(qū)區(qū)數(shù)千人一樣讀一本書，不如 和幾百萬人一樣看一場電影。另外，讀者只是獨自閱讀，而觀眾卻是與許多人共賞，既借機械技術(shù)之力，又得人數(shù)眾多之勢。不妨還可以補充說，避免技術(shù)上落伍也 很重要，而人們總覺得就解決問題而言，不管個人有多么出眾，技術(shù)要比個人的思想更可靠。這種感覺也很有吸引力。