評論
打印
"The Road to Wigan Pier" came in for criticism in its day from right and left.
《通往威根之路》一經出版就遭到了左右兩派的指責。
Conservatives, of course, thought it was a piece of Bolshevik trash,
保守派自然而然地認為這是布爾什維克的垃圾，
but socialist intellectuals attacked it for being too grimly pessimistic, a picture of the working class as broken by misery rather than indestructible proletarian heroes.
但社會主義知識分子又批判它過于悲觀，他把工人階級刻畫成被苦難壓垮的形象，而不是堅不可摧的無產階級英雄。
None of this prevented "The Road to Wigan Pier" from being a massive best seller. Why?
這些都不能阻止《通往威根之路》成為極為暢銷的作品。為什么？
Well, Orwell took the usual political position paper and junked it. Instead, he made a real work of literature.
奧威爾把表明政治立場的文字扔進紙簍。反而寫就了一部真正的文學作品。
When you follow him into these soot-choked mines or the freezing dampness of the terraced houses,
如果你跟隨他深入嗆人的礦井或走進陰暗濕冷的連排小屋，
you know you're in the company of the Dickens of the Depression, someone who could make you hear, see and feel the physical reality of a hard world in a hard time.
便能感受到狄更斯式的大蕭條景象，這讓你耳聞、目睹并體會到艱難時世下赤裸裸的現實。
You don't really want to look, but then you can't turn away.
你不忍直視，但無法移開視線。
One night in Barnsley, Orwell went to hear Oswald Mosley laud Fascist Italy and Hitler's Germany to the skies.
有一晚在巴恩斯利，奧威爾聽到奧斯瓦德·摩茲利把法西斯意大利和希特勒治下的德國捧上了天。
To Orwell's horror, the working class audience who'd started out booing Mosley ended up cheering him.
令奧威爾驚恐萬分的是，工人階層開始還是一片噓聲，最后竟然為他喝起彩來。
A fight was coming, and the Tory Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and his Chancellor, Neville Chamberlain, were too gutless to join in.
戰爭將近，保守黨首相斯坦利·鮑德溫和他的財政大臣內維爾·張伯倫，缺乏參戰的膽量。
What was their message? Peace in our time, or please do your business somewhere else while we get on with hoeing the garden.
這傳達了什么信息？我們要的是和平，請到其他地方做這些事，別打擾我們修整花園。
Their vision of Britain was a little world unto itself. Europe was over there, full of unsavoury continentals doing beastly things to each other.
他們認為英國是獨善其身的小世界。歐洲遠在別處，那群討厭的歐洲人在自相殘殺。
All very regrettable, no doubt, but surely their business, not ours.
毫無疑問，這令人遺憾，但那是他們的事，與我們無關。
But the world out there was turning very ugly. Fascism was spreading across Europe.
但外面的情況越來越糟糕。法西斯主義在歐洲四處蔓延。
A huge cloud was falling over the village green. It was time to make a choice.
綠野鄉村上方陰云密布。是時候作出選擇了。
Orwell made his. In December 1936, he set off for Spain.
奧威爾有了決定。1936年12月，他出發去西班牙。
Eccentrically kitted out in a long woolly scarf and modified Balaclava, the lanky, floppy-haired Englishman set about drilling the anti-fascist recruits.
古怪地圍著一條長長的羊毛圍巾，戴著改過樣式的巴拉克拉法帽，這位頭發亂糟糟的瘦高英國人開始了反法西斯志愿者的訓練。
All that police training in Burma had a use after all.
緬甸的警察訓練終是學有所用了。
But after four months at the front, Orwell, unmissably conspicuous at six foot two, took a bullet through the neck.
但在前線度過四個月后，1.88米高的奧威爾過于顯眼，脖子上挨了一槍。
He survived physically, even if his idealism did not. He'd seen at first hand how his comrades had been brutally crushed, not just by Franco, but also by the communists.
他的肉體雖然活了下來，理想卻已死亡。他親眼看到同志們是如何遭到殘忍的屠殺，兇手不單單是佛朗哥，還有共產黨人。
The ordeal in Spain had taught him to hate communism, especially Stalin's brand.
在西班牙的教訓令他開始討厭共產主義，尤其是斯大林的派別。
It was because Orwell hoped for a home-grown British social revolution and because he was sick of hearing excuses for Stalin,
正因為奧威爾想要一場英國本土發起的社會主義革命，同時也因為受夠了斯大林的借口，
all those coffee house commissars prepared to forgive him for everything just because he wasn't Hitler, that he decided to write the real history of the Bolshevik revolution.
蘇俄人民委員為斯大林精心籌劃了咖啡館聚會，原諒他的所作所為，就因為他不是希特勒，因此奧威爾決定寫出布爾什維克革命的真實歷史。
In deadly earnest, he decided to revisit that old literary form, the barnyard fable.
急不可耐地，他決定重拾傳統的文學形式，即通俗的寓言。
On my return from Spain, I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone.
從西班牙回國的途中，我便考慮用一個通俗易懂的故事揭露蘇維埃的神話。
However, the actual details of the story did not come to me for some time, until I saw a little boy driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn.
然而，有段時間我想不出故事的細節，直到某天我看到一個小男孩沿著羊腸小道駕駛一輛高頭大馬拉的車子，馬想轉頭時他就用鞭子抽打它。
It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength, we should have no power over them.
這令我幡然頓悟，如果這些動物意識到自己的力量，那么我們根本無法駕馭它們。
"Animal Farm" would not be written for another six years, but already Orwell was beginning to reinvent the art of political writing.
《動物農場》直到六年后才問世，但奧威爾已經在開創政治寫作的新藝術形式。
Tending to his goats and chickens at his freezing cottage in Hertfordshire, fighting off the early signs of tuberculosis,
他在赫特福德郡陰冷的茅舍照顧羊群和雞群，一邊與結核病的早期癥狀作斗爭，
he set about purging the language of the pompous preaching of the official left and the nauseous sentimentality of the romantic right.
一邊埋頭洗練語言，擯棄浮夸和教條的官腔套話和膩味做作的浪漫辭藻。
