Gregory Dicum
格雷戈裏·迪庫姆
作者簡介
格雷戈裏·迪庫姆（Gregory Dicum），美國舊金山作家，常年為《紐約時報》（The New York Times）、《哈潑斯雜誌》（Harper’s）等著名報刊雜誌撰寫文章。他還著有《乘飛機鳥瞰美景》（Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air）一書，頗受讀者歡迎。
原文發表於2010年12月1日的《紐約時報》，本文節選了其中一部分文字。在迪庫姆的筆下，舊金山書蟲遍地，文學場所隨處可見。舊金山的大街小巷，無論是書店、咖啡館，還是劇院、酒吧，都適合攜書暢遊。作為愛書之人，怎能不悠然神往？
On a balmy fall evening in the Mission District of San Francisco, hundreds of people spilled onto Valencia Street, where they chatted happily for a few minutes before pouring back into bookstores, cafes and theaters. It was a giddy, animated crowd, but most of all bookish—a collection of fans and believers, here to listen to the written word.
一個溫暖的秋夜，在舊金山的米慎區，成百上千人湧向瓦倫西亞街。在那裏，他們愉快地交談幾分鍾，然後又湧回書店、咖啡館和劇院。這群人充滿活力、讓人眼暈，其中大多數是書蟲——這群書迷和信徒來這兒聽人讀書。
The occasion was an event called Litquake, which, over the course of nine days, would draw some 13,000 residents and visitors to readings by scores of authors, many of them—like Maxine Hong Kingston and Daniel Handler (a. k. a. Lemony Snicket)—local celebrities. The“Lit Crawl” finale alone featured more than 400 readings at bars, laundromats and even the police station in a single evening.
這場名為“文學風暴”的活動為期九天，能吸引大約13000名居民和遊客來聽眾多作家讀書。這些作家很多是當地名人，如湯亭亭和丹尼爾·漢德勒（又名雷蒙·斯尼奇）。僅“文學匍匐”閉幕式一晚就有400多場朗誦會。朗誦地點有酒吧、自助洗衣店，甚至還有警察局。
Litquake is an annual event, but on almost any day or night in San Francisco, there is likely to be something for the literary-inclined—a poetry reading at a bar, a book swap in a cafe or a reading in the book-lined lobby of the Rex Hotel. This is a place, after all, where dozens of fiercely independent bookstores not only survive but thrive, thanks to a city of readers who seem to view books not only as a pleasure, but as a cause. For the out-of-towner, these one-and-only shops can be destinations in and of themselves.
“文學風暴”活動每年舉辦一次，不過舊金山幾乎日夜都有類似的文學活動——酒吧裏的詩歌朗誦、咖啡館裏的書籍交換、雷克斯酒店書廊裏的閱讀活動。這個讀者之城不僅視讀書為消遣，還把閱讀當作目標，因此，先鋒獨立書店在這裏不僅能生存下來，還能繁榮興盛。對於外鄉人而言，這些獨一無二的書店和裏麵的書，都是他們來舊金山的目標。
Books, we are told, are a half-millennium-old technology on the cusp of being swept away forever. So a journey to San Francisco to immerse oneself in them might seem the cultural equivalent of going to visit the glaciers before they melt. But in San Francisco, the home of many of the very technologies that have drawn a bead on the book, visitors will find a living, historically rooted literary scene that, though it has surely heard the news of its own demise, isn’t buying it.
據說，書這項有著500年曆史的技術正瀕臨絕境。所以，奔赴舊金山投身書海的文化意義，相當於在冰川融化之前趕去參觀。雖然在舊金山誕生過許多威脅書籍的技術，但遊客在這裏能發現一種生機勃勃、植根於曆史的文學景觀——盡管舊金山早已聽說“文學將亡”，但它並不買賬。
The same quality that gave rise to the city’s proliferation of small bookstores—compact, walkable neighborhoods with a militant objection to chain stores—makes it easy for visitors to explore the city’s literary terrain. Though the center of gravity has moved around over the years—from the old Barbary Coast in the days of Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce to North Beach during the Beat era to the Haight a decade later—today the scene is most visible in the Mission.
這種品質讓舊金山的小書店蓬勃發展，也使遊客便於探索城裏的文學地貌。這些小書店規模不大，彼此相距不遠。它們向連鎖書店發起了激烈的抗爭。盡管多年來舊金山的文學重心多次變更——從馬克·吐溫和安布羅斯·比爾斯時代的老巴巴裏海岸區，到“垮掉的一代”時期的北灘，再到20世紀60年代的海特街——如今在米慎區最容易見到這種文學景觀。
Valencia Street around 20th Street is an excellent place for a visitor to begin. A cluster of shops—826 Valencia; Borderlands, a science fiction and fantasy bookstore and connected cafe; Modern Times, a bookstore collective; and the used-book store Dog Eared Books—is surrounded by cafes and bars that host regular literary events. It is a neighborhood in which one can see an author read one evening and spot him at the next table at a restaurant or cafe the following day.
對遊客來說，從20街附近的瓦倫西亞街逛起是個不錯的選擇。這裏書店林立——有“瓦倫西亞街826號”，有主營科幻、奇幻書籍的連鎖咖啡店“邊境書屋”，還有綜合性書店“摩登時代”和經營二手書的“卷邊書店”。書店周圍是定期舉辦文學活動的咖啡店和酒吧。在這個街區，你會在餐館或咖啡店看見，頭天晚上開過朗誦會的作家第二天坐在你的鄰桌。
One of those restaurants might be Osha Thai at 819 Valencia Street, a sleek neighborhood favorite, where, on a recent afternoon, I found myself perusing 826’s San Francisco Literary Map over moroheiya noodles with yellow curry. More than a map, it includes historical timelines and a slightly out-of-date list of bookstores and readings. In it, I could see that the Valencia cluster is only the most obvious part of the Mission literary scene.