Women told the stories, superstitious, chill-inducing, full of myth and colour, that preserved links with dead generations. They made Memory sitdown at the table with them. She had dismissed those tales for years before finding, especially in "Song of Solomon", deep grist for the worlds she had to recreate. She learned to watch for shadowy figures by the water at her Hudson river place and to listen for their whispers.
女人們講的故事，迷信，令人毛骨悚然，充滿了神話和色彩，保留了與死去的幾代人的聯(lián)系。他們讓記憶和他們待在一起。她多年來(lái)一直對(duì)這些故事不屑一顧，直到發(fā)現(xiàn)，尤其是在《所羅門(mén)之歌》中，她對(duì)自己必須重建的世界的深刻的理解。她在哈德遜河的邊上尋找著這些模糊的人物，并且聽(tīng)著他們的耳語(yǔ)。
In particular she felt a reverence for old women, sometime shalf-crazed, who nonetheless seemed to have a lock on wisdom. Her own great-grandmother, for one, for whom all the males in the family stood up without urging. Or Baby Suggs in "Beloved", who preached to her people in the woods that if they, the whites yonder, "do not love your neck unnoosed and straight...You got to love it...put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up." Or the old woman she evoked in her lecture when she received the Nobel, who reminded her young interrogators that the future of language, a bird fluttering between life and death, was in their hands. She gave lectures and advice when she was asked. Her post at Princeton required it from time to time.
她尤其對(duì)老年婦女懷有崇敬之情，這些婦女有時(shí)愛(ài)穿風(fēng)衣，盡管如此，她們似乎牢牢掌握著智慧。比如她自己的曾祖母，家里所有的男人都不約而同地支持她。或者《寵兒》里的貝比·薩格斯，她在森林里向她的人民說(shuō)道，如果他們，那邊的白人，“不喜歡讓你的脖子沒(méi)有束縛，保持筆直...你得愛(ài)它...把一只手放在它上面，優(yōu)雅地?fù)崦瑘?jiān)持下去。”或者是她接受諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)時(shí)在演講中喚醒的年老女人，她向年輕的訊問(wèn)者提醒道，語(yǔ)言的未來(lái)，一只在生死之間搖擺的鳥(niǎo)，在他們的手中。 當(dāng)有人問(wèn)她時(shí)，她會(huì)給人講課和提出建議。她在普林斯頓的職位時(shí)不時(shí)地需要她這么做。
But writing fiction was her true freedom. She did it in the hours when no one had a claim on her. She owned it, and the characters were hers to control. If she wanted the hero of "Song of Solomon" to lift his beautiful black ass up in the sky and fly, he would. Shut up, she would tell him. I'm doing this. Steadily, morning by morning, she would get up in the dark and make a mug of coffee, drinking it as the light gathered. When it came, full-bore, enabling, she did not look away.
但是寫(xiě)小說(shuō)是她真正的自由。她在沒(méi)人給她提要求的時(shí)候進(jìn)行寫(xiě)作。她擁有它，她控制著書(shū)中的人物。如果她想要《所羅門(mén)之歌》中的英雄把他美麗的黑屁股舉到天上飛起來(lái)，她可以做到。閉嘴，她會(huì)告訴他。我會(huì)這么做。每天早上，她都會(huì)在黑暗中起床，煮一杯咖啡，在光線聚集的時(shí)候喝著。當(dāng)光線來(lái)的時(shí)候，她會(huì)全神貫注，充滿能量，不會(huì)將目光移開(kāi)。
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