Unit Three 《哈利波特》风行之迷

Unit Three 《哈利波特》风行之迷 Unit Three Leisure without literature is death and burial alive. —Seneca, Roman philosopher 没有文学的休闲生活犹如死亡抑或活埋。 ——西尼加(古罗马哲学家) WHY HARRY'S HOT? 《哈利波特》风行之迷 1 J. K. Rowling swears she never saw it coming. In her wildest dreams, she didn't think her Harry Potter books would appeal to more than a handful of readers. "I never expected a lot of people to like them," she insisted in a recent interview. "Well, it turned out I was very wrong, obviously. It strikes a chord with an enormous number of people." That's putting it mildly. With 35 million copies in print, in 35 languages, the first three Harry Potter books have earned a conservatively estimated $480 million in three years. And that was just the warm-up. With a first printing of 5.3 million copies and advance orders topping 1.8 million, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth installment of the series, promises to break every bookselling record. Jack Morrissey, 12, plainly speaks for a generation of readers when he says, "The Harry Potter books are like life, but better." 1J(K(罗琳发誓说自己从来没有过这种预想。她做梦也没有想到会有 那么多人对她的书感兴趣。“我从来没有指望过有这么多人喜欢它，”在最 近的一次访谈中她仍然这样说，“可是，很显然，我大错特错了。它在许 多人心中产生了共鸣。”她说得很委婉。《哈利波特》系列丛书的前三册被 翻译成了35种语言，已出版3,500万册，据保守估计，这三册书在三年时 间里已经赚了四亿八千万美金。而这还只是个开始。《哈里波特》系列丛 书的第四册《哈利波特与火焰杯》初版530万册，加上高达180万册的订 单，有望创造新的畅销书销售记录。12岁的杰克?莫里西的话很清楚地表 达了他们这一代读者的想法。他说:“《哈利波特》就如同生活，但比生活 更美好。” 2 Amazingly, Rowling keeps her several plotlines clear of each other until the end, when he deftly brings everything together in a cataclysmic conclusion. For pure narrative power, this is the best Potter book yet. 2让人称奇的是，罗琳让每一册书的情节相互独立，但最后，她却能 够巧妙地把它们衔接起来，形成一个意想不到的结局。单从叙述能力而言， 《哈利波特与火焰杯》也是《哈利波特》系列丛书中最好的一本。 3 When the book finally went on sale at 12:01 am. Saturday, thousands of children in Britain and North America rushed to claim their copies. Bookstores hosted pajama parties, hired magicians and served cookies and punch, but nobody needed to lift the spirits of these crowds. In one case, customers made such a big, happy noise that neighbors called the cops. At a Borders in Charlotte, N.C., Erin Rankin, 12, quickly thumbed to the back as soon as she got her copy. “I heard that a_ major character dies, and I really want to find out who," she said. But minutes later she gave up. “I just can't do it. I can't read the end first." 3当这本书终于在星期六午夜12:01面市时，在英国和北美，成千上 万的孩子争相购买。书店举办了睡衣派对，邀请了一些魔术师表演，并提 供曲奇饼和潘趣酒，可是没人需要这些，因为人们个个情绪高涨。有一次， 顾客们发出了巨大的欢呼声，以致邻居们实在难以忍受而报了警。在美国 北卡罗来纳州的夏洛特市“边界”连锁书店，12岁的艾琳?兰金一拿到书 就快速翻到最后一页。“我听说有一个主角死了，我真的很想知道是谁，” 她说。但是几分钟后她放弃了。“我做不到，我不能先看书的结尾。” 4 The only sour note in all the songs of joy over this phenomenon has come from some parents and conservative religious leaders who say Rowling advocates witchcraft. reading of the books has been challenged in 25 school districts in at least 17 states, and the books have been banned in schools in Kansas and Colorado. But that's nothing new, says Michael Patrick Hearn, a children's book scholar and editor of The Annotated Wizard, of Oz. "Any kind of magic is considered evil by some people," he says. "The Wizard of Oz was attacked by fundamentalists in the mid-1980s." 4在对“哈利波特”现象的一路欢歌中，出现的唯一一个不和谐音符 来自干 一些父母和保守的宗教领袖。他们认为罗琳在宣扬巫术。至少在17 个州的25所学校校区内，阅读《哈利波特》受到了质疑，而在堪萨斯州 和科罗拉多州的学校里，《哈利波特》系列丛书则被明令禁止。但是作为 儿童图书专家和《绿野仙踪》的编辑，迈克尔?帕特里克?赫恩觉得这并 不奇怪。“无论何种魔法都会被有些人视为邪恶，”他说，“《绿野仙踪》就 曾经在80年代中期遭到正统派基督教徒们的抨击。” 5 But perhaps the most curious thing about the Potter phenomenon, es pecially given that it is all about books, is that almost no one has taken the time to say how good— or bad—these books are. The other day my 11-year-old daughter asked me if I thought Harry Potter was a classic. I gave her, I'm afraid, one of those adult-sounding answers when I said, "Time will tell." This was not an outright lie. There's no telling which books will survive from one generation to the next. But the fact is, I was hedging. What my daughter really wanted to know was how well J. K. Rowling stacks up against the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson or Madeleine L'Engle. 5但是对于“哈利波特”现象最让人感到好奇的事情可能是几乎没有 人会花时间去讨论这些书有多好或者多糟，尤其是当这些评论仅仅涉及书 本身的时候。有一天，11岁的女儿问我是否认为《哈利波特》是经典之作， 我给出了一个恐怕听起来十分成人化的回答，“时间会证明一切的。”这不 能算是一个彻头彻尾的谎言，因为谁也没有办法预测有哪一本书能够代代 相传。但事实上，我在闪烁其词。我女儿真正想知道的是:与罗伯特?路 易斯?史蒂文森和马德琳?英格这一类人相比较，罗琳到底有多棒。 6 I could have told her that I thought they were beautifully crafted works of entertainment, the literary equivalent of Steven Spielberg. I could also have told her I thought the Potter books were derivative. They share so many elements with so many children's classics that sometimes it seems as though Rowling had assembled her novels from a kit. However, these novels amount to, much more than just the sum of their parts. The crucial aspect of their appeal is that they can be read by children and adults with equal pleasure. Only the best authors—and they can be as different as Dr. Seuss and Philip Pullman" and, yes, J.|K. Rowling—can pull that off. 6我本可以告诉她我认为这些书是精心构思的通俗作品，是堪比史蒂 文?斯皮尔伯格之电影的文学作品。本来我还可以告诉她我认为《哈利波 特》系列丛书没有什么新意，它们与众多儿童经典作品有太多相似之处， 所以有时候会给读者一种感觉，仿佛罗琳组装编织了这些故事。但是，这 些故事绝对不仅仅是各个部分的简单相加。它们如此受欢迎的关键之处就 在于无论是大人还是小孩都能够从阅读中获得乐趣。只有最好的作家—— 他们能够与苏斯博士和菲利普?普尔曼，当然还有罗琳一样与众不同—— 才能够做到这一点。 7 P. L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, put it best when she wrote, "You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for—if you are honest— you have, in fact, no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one. There is plenty for children and adults to enjoy in Rowling's books, starting with their language. Her prose may be unadorned, but her way with naming people and things reveals a quirky and original talent. 7《(欢乐满人间》的作者帕梅拉?林登?特拉弗斯概括得精辟至极。 她写到，“你不能把你想象的东西砍掉一部分然后写成一本专给孩子看的 书，坦白地说，因为事实上你根本无从知道童年究竟是什么时候结束，而 成人期又是什么时候开始的。它们相互连接、浑然一体。”在罗琳的书中， 从语言开始，就有足够多的让大人和孩子都喜欢的东西。也许她文风朴实， 但是她给人和物取名的方式显示了独特的原创才能。 8 The best writers remember what it is like to be a child with astonishing intensity. Time and again, Rowling articulates just how defenseless even the bravest children often feel. Near the end of the second book Dumbledore, the wise and protective headmaster, is banished from Hogwarts. This terrifies Harry and his schoolmates—"With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before"—and it terrified me. And in all of Rowling's books there runs an undercurrent of sadness and loss. In the first book the orphaned Harry stares into the Mirror of Erised, which shows the viewer his or her utmost desires. Harry sees his dead parents. "Not until I'd reread what I'd written did I realize that that had been taken entirely- entirely- from how I felt about my mother's death," Rowling said. "In fact, death and bereavement and what death means, I would say, is one of the central themes in all seven books." Do young readers pick up on all this deep intellectualism? Consciously, perhaps not. But I don't think the books would have their broad appeal if they were only exciting tales of magical adventure, and I know adults would not find them so enticing. 8优秀作家关注孩子特点的能力达到惊人的程度。罗琳不只一次地清 楚表达出，即便是最勇敢的孩子也经常会表现得那么无助。在《哈利波特》 (二)中，当那位智慧的、对学生呵护有加的魔法学校校长邓布利多被驱逐 出霍格华兹时，哈利和他的同学们都感到恐惧万分。“邓布利多走了，前 所未有的恐惧蔓延开来。”而这也让我很害怕。在罗琳所有的书中都流淌 着一种潜在的伤感与迷失。在《哈利波特》(一)中，变成孤儿的哈利盯着 那面能够说出每个人内心深处愿望的厄里斯魔镜看，他看见了逝去的双亲。 “直到我自己重读我写过的东西，我才意识到这个情节完完全全——完完 全全地——来自于我对于母亲去世的感觉，”罗琳说，“事实上，我可以说， 死亡、丧亲之痛以及死亡意味着什么是所有这七册书的中心主题之一。” 而年轻的读者们能够领会这一份深刻的理性吗?也许不能自觉地做到这一 点吧。但是我认为，如果这些书只是一些有关魔幻之旅的有趣的故事，那 么它们就不可能有这么广泛的吸引力。而且我知道，那样的话成人就不会 被它吸引。 9 The Harry Potter books aren't perfect. What I miss most in these novels is the presence of a great villain. And by great villain I mean an interesting villain. Long. John Silver is doubly frightening because he is both evil and charming. If he were all Bad, he wouldn't frighten us half as much. Voldemort is resistible precisely because he is just bad to the bone. That said, I should add that in the new book Rowling outd oes herself with a bad guy so seductive you'll never see him coming. And he is scary. 9《哈利波特》系列丛书不尽完美。在这些丛书中我最想看到的是一 个绝妙的反面角色。我这里说的“绝妙的反面角色”是指“有趣的反面角 色”。因为高个子约翰?希尔弗既邪恶又迷人，所以他才让人更觉害怕。 如果他仅仅只是坏的话，他带给我们的恐怖感会减少一大半。伏地魔王让 人抗拒就是因为他仅仅只是 一个十足的坏蛋。这么一说，我想在罗琳超越自己的这本新书中加上 这样一个反面角色。这个角色是如此的有魅力，你是永远也见不到的，而 且他相当令人恐惧。 10 That quibble aside, Rowling?s novels are probably the best books children have ever encountered that haven't been thrust upon them by an adult. I envy kids reading these books, because there was nothing this good when I was a boy-nothing this good, I mean, that we found on our own, the way kids are finding Harry. We affectionately remember The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but try rereading them and their charm fades away pretty quickly. Rowling may not be as magisterial as Tolkien or as quirky as Dahl, but her books introduce fledgling readers to a very high standard of entertainment. With three books left to go in the series, it's too early to pass final judgment. But considering what we've seen so far, especially in the latest volume, Harry Potter has all the earmarks of a classic. 10除了这些吹毛求疵的意见，罗琳的书可能是孩子们所接触到的最好 的书，而且阅读这些书也不是家长强加的任务。我羡慕那些阅读这些书的 孩子，因为在我还是个孩子的时候，可没有这么好的东西——我的意思是说，我们没有通过自己去发现有这么好的东西，不像现在的孩子，他们找到了哈利。我们深深地记着哈迪男孩和南茜?朱尔，但是当我们尝试着重新阅读这些角色的时候，他们的魅力很快就散去了。罗琳的书也许不如托尔金的书那么具有权威性，也不如达尔的作品那般跌宕起伏，但是她的书将涉世未深的读者带入了一个相当高的娱乐水准。(《哈利波特》系列丛书还有三册尚未出版，现在下定论还为时尚早。但是，就目前我们看到的情况来看，特别是在最后一册，《哈利波特》具备了经典作品的所有特征。