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JoshPrager_2015A-_生命中的每一年的智慧_
I'm turning 44 next month, and I have the sense that 44 is going to be a very good year, a year of fulfillment , realization . 下个月我就44岁了, 并且我觉得44岁将成为美好的一年, 充满着实现和领悟的一年。
fulfillment:n.履行;实行; realization:n.实现;领悟;
I have that sense, not because of anything particular in store for me, but because I read it would be a good year in a 1968 book by Norman Mailer. 我有这种感觉, 并不是因为什么特别的事, 而是我从诺曼·梅勒 在1968年写的书上看到的。
'"He felt his own age, forty-four ..." 44岁, 他感觉到了岁月无情,
wrote Mailer in "The Armies of the Night," 梅勒在《夜幕下的大军》中写到
'"... felt as if he were a solid embodiment of bone, muscle , heart, mind, and sentiment to be a man, as if he had arrived." 感觉到他自己就是 骨头, 肌肉, 心, 意识, 情感组成的坚实的化身, 就像他已经那个年纪了一样。”
embodiment:n.体现;化身;具体化; muscle:n.肌肉;力量;v.加强;使劲搬动;使劲挤出; sentiment:n.感情,情绪;情操;观点;多愁善感;
Yes, I know Mailer wasn't writing about me. 是的,我知道梅勒不是在写我。
But I also know that he was; for all of us -- you, me, the subject of his book, age more or less in step, proceed from birth along the same great sequence : through the wonders and confinements of childhood; the emancipations and frustrations of adolescence; the empowerments and millstones of adulthood; the recognitions and resignations of old age. 但我冥冥中能感受到他其实就在写我; 因为我们所有人:你,我,还有他书中的主人公, 都在一点点变老, 从出生就限定在了恒定的生命规律中了: 从孩提时期的好奇和禁锢; 到少年时代的不羁和烦恼; 再到步入成年的权威和里程碑 最后迈入老年的德高望重。
more or less:或多或少; proceed:n.收入;卖得金额;收益;v.继续;接着做;行进;前往; sequence:n.顺序; v.按顺序排列; confinements:n.限制;监禁;分娩; emancipations:n.解放;释放; frustrations:n.沮丧;受阻;阻止;挫败;(frustration的复数) empowerments:n.许可,授权; millstones:n.磨盘;磨石;重担(millstone的复数); recognitions:n.识别;承认,认出;重视;赞誉;公认; resignations:辞职;
There are patterns to life, and they are shared. 生命有它自己的规律, 这是所有人必经的历程。
As Thomas Mann wrote: "It will happen to me as to them." 就如托马斯·曼所写:“我将经历别人所经历的一切。“
We don't simply live these patterns. 我们不仅存活在这种规律中,
We record them, too. 我们还会把它们记录下来。
We write them down in books, where they become narratives that we can then read and recognize . 我们把它写进书里, 成为了大家都可以读识的叙事。
narratives:n.叙述,故事;叙述的手法(narrative复数); recognize:v.认识;认出;辨别出;承认;意识到;
Books tell us who we've been, who we are, who we will be, too. 书籍能帮我们了解曾经的我们, 当下的我们,和未来的我们。
So they have for millennia . 所以书籍已经存在了上千年。
millennia:n.千年期(millennium的复数);一千年;千年庆典;太平盛世;
As James Salter wrote, "Life passes into pages if it passes into anything." 正如詹姆斯·索尔特所写, “如果生命能变成什么的话,它能变成一本书。”
Salter:n.腌制者;制盐者;
And so six years ago, a thought leapt to mind: if life passed into pages, there were, somewhere, passages written about every age. 所以六年之前一个想法从我脑中闪过: 如果岁月能变成书,那么在某处,一定有 关于每一个年纪的文章存在。
leapt:v.跳跃(leap的过去分词);
If I could find them, I could assemble them into a narrative. 如果我能找到它们,我就可以把它们串成一段故事。
assemble:vt.集合,聚集;装配;收集;vi.集合,聚集;
I could assemble them into a life, a long life, a hundred-year life, the entirety of that same great sequence through which the luckiest among us pass. 我可以把它们汇成一辈子, 一段长达一百年的生命, 这是只有最幸运的我们 才跨越过的生命长度。
entirety:n.全部;完全;
I was then 37 years old, "an age of discretion ," wrote William Trevor. 当年我37岁, 威廉·特雷弗说这是“一个小心翼翼的年纪”。
discretion:n.自由裁量权;谨慎;判断力;判定;考虑周到;
I was prone to meditating on time and age. 我总是想去沉思岁月和人生。
prone:adj.俯卧的;有…倾向的,易于…的; meditating:v.冥想;沉思;考虑;谋划;(meditate的现在分词)
An illness in the family and later an injury to me had long made clear that growing old could not be assumed . 我们家族中的一种遗传病,后来也对我有所伤害。 这件事告诉我不是每个人都能平平安安活到老的。
injury:n.伤害,损害;受伤处; assumed:adj.假定的;假设的;v.假定;假设;认为;承担;(assume的过去分词和过去式)
And besides , growing old only postponed the inevitable , time seeing through what circumstance did not. 况且,年华老去只不过是推迟了不可避免的死亡的事实, 岁月看穿了一切。
besides:adv.此外;而且;prep.除…之外; postponed:v.延迟;延期;展缓;(postpone的过去式和过去分词) inevitable:adj.必然的,不可避免的; circumstance:n.环境,情况;事件;境遇;
It was all a bit disheartening . 这有些令人伤感。
disheartening:adj.令人灰心的;令人气馁的;
A list, though, would last. 然而一张时间表会得以留存。
To chronicle a life year by vulnerable year would be to clasp and to ground what was fleeting , would be to provide myself and others a glimpse into the future, whether we made it there or not. 去记录逐渐衰弱的生命, 就是去尝试挽留流水般逝去的年华, 就是让我们自己和别人可以窥一眼未来, 无论我们是否能抵达终点。
chronicle:n.编年史,年代记;记录;vt.记录;把…载入编年史; vulnerable:adj.易受攻击的,易受…的攻击;易受伤害的;有弱点的; clasp:n.扣子,钩子;握手;vt.紧抱;扣紧;紧紧缠绕;vi.扣住; fleeting:adj.转瞬即逝的;短暂的;闪现的; glimpse:v.瞥见;[诗]闪现;n.领悟;概况;见识;一睹;
And when I then began to compile my list, I was quickly obsessed , searching pages and pages for ages and ages. 而当我开始整理我的时间表时,我就已经被迷住了, 一页一页地寻找岁月的痕迹。
compile:vt.编译;编制;编辑;[图情]汇编; obsessed:v.使痴迷;使迷恋;使着迷;(obsess的过去式和过去分词)
Here we were at every annual step through our first hundred years. 在一百年的跋涉中我们回看每年的步伐。
annual:n.年报;年鉴;年刊;adj.每年的;年度的;一年的;
'"Twenty-seven ... a time of sudden revelations ," “二十七岁,是一个充满着豁然开朗的年龄。”
revelations:n.被暴露的真相;披露;揭露;(revelation的复数)
'"sixty-two, ... of subtle diminishments ." “六十二岁,是一个逐渐光华不再的年龄。”
subtle:adj.微妙的;精细的;敏感的;狡猾的;稀薄的; diminishments:缩减(diminish的变体);贬低(diminish的变体);
I was mindful , of course, that such insights were relative . 当然我也明白,这种对岁月的见解是相对的。
mindful:adj.留心的;记住的;警觉的; insights:n.洞察力;眼力;深刻见解(insight的复数); relative:adj.相对的;有关系的;成比例的;n.亲戚;相关物;[语]关系词;亲缘植物;
For starters , we now live longer, and so age more slowly. 首先,我们的寿命比前人要长,所以我们衰老得慢。
starters:n.(主菜之前的)开胃小吃;参赛者;发令员;(starter的复数)
Christopher Isherwood used the phrase "the yellow leaf" 克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德用“落叶”
to describe a man at 53, only one century after Lord Byron used it to describe himself at 36. 形容53岁的人, 而一百年前拜伦伯爵正好用这个词形容当时36岁的自己。
describe:v.描述;形容;把…称为;画出…图形; Lord:n.(英国)贵族,大人,大臣;v.使成贵族;作威作福;
(Laughter) （笑声）
I was mindful, too, that life can swing wildly and unpredictably from one year to the next, and that people may experience the same age differently. 我也知道,有时命运多舛的人一年之间 也会经历不可预测的大风大浪, 每个人在同样的年龄都有不同的经历。
wildly:adv.野生地;野蛮地;狂暴地;鲁莽地; unpredictably:adv.无法预言地;不可预见地(不能预料地;
But even so, as the list coalesced , so, too, on the page, clear as the reflection in the mirror, did the life that I had been living: finding at 20 that "... one is less and less sure of who one is;" 即使如此,当这张时间表完成的时候, 我仍然能在那里面找到 我自己一生的影子: 发现“人在20岁的时候总是看不清自己”;
coalesced:合并(coalesce的过去式和过去分词); reflection:n.反映;沉思;映像;深思;
emerging at 30 from the "... wasteland of preparation into active life;" 三十出头“总算从荒芜闯出精彩纷呈“;
emerging:adj.新兴的;v.出现,浮现,露出;暴露;(emerge的现在分词) wasteland:n.荒地,不毛之地;未开垦地,荒漠;(精神或文化上的)贫乏;
learning at 40 "... to close softly the doors to rooms 40岁学会了“要轻轻地关上
softly:adv.温柔地;柔和地;柔软地;静静地;
[I would] not be coming back to." 我不再进去的房间的门。”
There I was. 这就是我,
Of course, there we all are. 当然,这也是我们。
Milton Glaser, the great graphic designer whose beautiful visualizations you see here, and who today is 85 -- all those years "... a ripening and an apotheosis ," wrote Nabokov -- noted to me that, like art and like color, literature helps us to remember what we've experienced. 你所看到的这张美丽的照片 正是85岁的米尔顿·格拉塞, 一位了不起的平面设计师。 86个年头,“正是成熟和升华之时”纳博科夫写到。 对于我来说,文学就像艺术和色彩, 替我们记住我们记住了曾经的我们。
graphic:adj.形象的;图表的;绘画似的; visualizations:n.[计]可视化(visualization的复数形式);直观化; ripening:v.(使)成熟;(ripen的现在分词) apotheosis:n.神化;崇拜,颂扬;尊奉为神; literature:n.文学;文献;文艺;著作;
And indeed, when I shared the list with my grandfather, he nodded in recognition. 果真,当我把这张时间表拿给我祖父看时 他赞同地点了点头。
He was then 95 and soon to die, which, wrote Roberto Bola ?o, "... is the same as never dying." 他当时已经95岁了,离大去之时不远了。 像罗伯托·博拉诺写的, “这就如同永垂不朽。”
Bola:n.流星锤(捕牛时使用的);两端系有铅坠的绳子(等于bolas);
And looking back, he said to me that, yes, 往回看,我祖父也跟我这样说过。
Proust was right that at 22, we are sure we will not die, just as a thanatologist named Edwin Shneidman was right that at 90, we are sure we will. 普鲁斯特说所不假,22岁的我们坚信我们不会死, 而就像死亡学家,埃德温父施耐德曼说的, 90岁的时候,我们都清楚我们将要离去。
It had happened to him, as to them. 就跟他的同辈人一样 他已然经历了死亡。
Now the list is done: a hundred years. 现在这张时间表已经完成: 整整一百年。
And looking back over it, 只是现在再回看这张表,
I know that I am not done. 我觉得我还没有完成我的任务。
I still have my life to live, still have many more pages to pass into. 我还要去好好活我余下的人生, 而这剩下的年华,也足够去书写更多精彩。
And mindful of Mailer, 心中不忘诺曼·梅勒所言,
I await 44. 44岁,我满怀期待。
await:v.等候;等待;期待;
Thank you. 谢谢。
(Applause) （掌声）