Lin Yutang
林語堂
作者簡介
林語堂（1895－1976），既是以英文寫作揚名海外的中國作家，也是集語言學家、哲學家、文學家、旅行家、發明家於一身的知名學者。他一生著述頗豐，曾主編《論語》半月刊，創辦《人間世》《宇宙風》，提倡“以自我為中心，以閑適為格調”的小品文，成為論語派主要人物。1935年後，他用英文創作了《吾國吾民》（MyCountry and My People）等文化著作和《京華煙雲》（Moment in Peking）等長篇小說。
本文節選自1937年出版的《生活的藝術》（The Importance ofLiving）。該書是林語堂旅美專事創作後的第一部書，位居美國暢銷書排行榜榜首達52周，後接連再版40餘次，被譯成十餘種外國文字。本文可謂字字珠璣，文中對“風雪之夜，閉戶翻書”的描寫尤其令人神往。
Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of acultured life and is respected and envied by those who rarely give themselvesthat privilege. This is easy to understand when we compare the differencebetween the life of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does. Theman who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, inrespect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited tocontact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees onlywhat happens in his immediate neighborhood. From this prison there is no escape.But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, andif it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the besttalkers of the world.
This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or adifferent age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusseswith him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothingabout. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long ago,and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient author looked likeand what type of person he was. Both Mencius and Ssema Ch’ien, China’s greatesthistorian, have expressed the same idea. Now to be able to live two hours out oftwelve in a different world and take one’s thoughts off the claims of theimmediate present is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up intheir bodily prison. Such a change of environment is really similar to travel inits psychological effect.
讀書或賞書一直是文明生活的雅事，那些不大有機會享受這種權利的人往往對此又羨又妒。將讀書者和不讀書者的生活兩相比較，便很容易理解這一點。沒有讀書習慣的人被禁錮於眼前的世界，無論時間上還是空間上都是如此。他的生活有一套常規，隻限於與少數熟人接觸交談，隻目睹鄰裏周遭發生之事，而無法逃脫這個牢籠。但當他拿起一本書時，他會立刻進入一個不同的世界；如果那是一本好書，他會立刻結識世上最佳的健談者。這位健談者會引導他前進，帶領他進入不同的國度與年代，或是向他傾訴自己的悔恨，或是與他探討幾句妙語名言，或是與他討論他從前並不知曉的人生感悟。閱讀古時作家的著作，就像和多年前已逝的靈魂交談。隨著閱讀的進行，他開始想象那位古人相貌如何、性格怎樣。孟子和中國偉大的史學家司馬遷都表達過同樣的觀點。如果每12小時能在不同的世界生活兩小時，讓自己的思想完全逃離眼前的世界，這當然會讓困於軀體牢籠的人嫉妒。這樣的環境轉變就像在不同的心境中穿行。
But there is more to it than this. The reader is always carried away into aworld of thought and reflection. Even if it is a book about physical events,there is a difference between seeing such events in person or living throughthem, and reading about them in books, for then the events always assume thequality of a spectacle and the reader becomes a detached spectator. The bestreading is therefore that which leads us into this contemplative mood, and notthat which is merely occupied with the report of events. The tremendous amountof time spent on newspapers I regard as not reading at all, for the averagereaders of papers are mainly concerned with getting reports about events andhappenings without contemplative value.
不僅如此，書總能引發讀者思考。即使此書隻談及現實場景，但親眼所見或親身經曆與從書中所讀有所不同，因為書中場景往往成為一種景觀，讀者則是超然物外的觀察者。因此，最佳的閱讀體驗應將人帶入沉思的心境，而非隻被事件報道占據。我認為，花大把時間讀報並不算是閱讀，因為普通的讀報者隻關注事件報道，而這些事件並沒有深思的價值。
The best formula for the object of reading, in my opinion, was stated by HuangShanku, a Sung poet and friend of Su Tungp’o. He said, “A scholar who hasn’tread anything for three days feels that his talk has no flavor (becomesinsipid), and his own face becomes hateful to look at (in the mirror).” What hemeans, of course, is that reading gives a man a certain charm and flavor, whichis the entire object of reading, and only reading with this object can be calledan art. One doesn’t read to “improve one’s mind,” because when one begins tothink of improving his mind, all the pleasure of reading is gone.
He is the type of person who says to himself:“I must read Shakespeare, and Imust read Sophocles, and I must read the entire Five Foot Shelf of Dr. Eliot, soI can become an educated man.” I’m sure that man will never become educated. Hewill force himself one evening to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and come away, as iffrom a bad dream, with no greater benefit than that he is able to say that hehas “read” Hamlet. Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does notunderstand the art of reading. This type of reading with a business purpose isin no way different from a senator’s reading up of flies and reports before hemakes a speech. It is asking for business advice and information, and notreading at all.
我認為，蘇東坡的好友、宋代詩人黃山穀對閱讀目的的說法最妙。他說：“三日不讀，便覺語言無味，麵目可憎”。當然，他指的是閱讀使人獨具風雅——這就是閱讀的全部目的所在。隻有以此為目的的閱讀才可稱為藝術。閱讀不能以“提升心智”為目的。如果開始想著提升心智，閱讀的樂趣便喪失殆盡。如果一個人說“我必須讀莎士比亞、索福克勒斯的作品和查爾斯·艾略特的‘五英尺書架’中的所有作品，如此一來，我就能成為有教養的人”，那麼我確信他永遠不會變得有教養。他可以強迫自己挑燈夜讀莎士比亞的《哈姆雷特》，但讀完就像從噩夢中醒來，除了能說自己“讀過”《哈姆雷特》外，就再沒有任何益處。出於義務去讀書的人並不理解閱讀的藝術。這樣讀書和參議員在演講前閱讀文件和報告沒什麼區別。那是尋求業務建議和收集信息，根本不是閱讀。
Reading for the cultivation of personal charm of appearance and flavor in speechis then, according to Huang, the only admissible kind of reading. This charm ofappearance must evidently be interpreted as something other than physicalbeauty. What Huang means by “hateful to look at” is not physical ugliness. Thereare ugly faces that have a fascinating charm and beautiful faces that areinsipid to look at. I have among my Chinese friends one whose head is shapedlike a bomb and yet who is nevertheless always a pleasure to see. The mostbeautiful face among Western authors, so far as I have seen them in pictures,was that of G. K. Chesterton.There was such a diabolical conglomeration of mustache, glasses, fairly bushyeyebrows and knitted lines where the eyebrows met! One felt there were a vastnumber of ideas playing about inside that forehead, ready at any time to burstout from those quizzically penetrating eyes. That is what Huang would call abeautiful face, a face not made up by powder and rouge, but by the sheer forceof thinking. As for flavor of speech, it all depends on one’s way of reading.Whether one has “flavor”or not in his talk, depends on his method of reading. Ifa reader gets the flavor of books, he will show that flavor in hisconversations, and if he has flavor in his conversations, he cannot help alsohaving a flavor in his writing.
依黃山穀所言，為了讓自己外表優雅、談吐風趣而讀書，是唯一可采納的閱讀方式。此處的“外表優雅”顯然不是指相貌美麗。黃山穀所說的“麵目可憎”亦非容貌醜陋。醜人也可能迷人，美人也可能令人生厭。我的中國朋友裏有一位腦袋活像炮彈，但我卻總是很高興見到他。在我見過的西方作家肖像中，最美的臉孔當屬吉爾伯特·基思·切斯特頓。他的胡須、眼鏡、濃眉及眉間的川字紋組合起來簡直像魔鬼！我覺得他的頭腦裏回旋著無數想法，隨時會從充滿疑惑的銳利的雙眼中噴湧而出。黃山穀會稱之為“美麗臉孔”，因為這張臉並非由脂粉裝扮，而是純粹由思想塑造。至於談吐風趣，則取決於一個人閱讀的方式。一個人的談吐是否“有趣味”，取決於他如何閱讀。如果讀者領悟了書的趣味，他的談吐就會有趣；如果他談吐風趣，筆下作品也會流露趣味。
Hence I consider flavor or taste as the key to all reading. It necessarilyfollows that taste is selective and individual, like the taste for food. Themost hygienic way of eating is, after all, eating what one likes, for then oneis sure of his digestion. In reading as in eating, what is one man’s meat may beanother’s poison. A teacher cannot force his pupils to like what he likes inreading, and a parent cannot expect his children to have the same tastes ashimself. And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time iswasted. As Yüan Chunglang says, “You can leave the books that you don’t likealone, and let other people read them.”
因此，我認為趣味或品味是一切閱讀的關鍵。閱讀的趣味就像飲食的品味，必須按照自己的品味選擇要讀的。畢竟，最健康的進食方法是吃自己喜歡的東西，因為這些東西肯定能消化。閱讀正如進食，一個人的美食或許是另一人的毒藥。教師不能強迫學生讀自己喜歡的書，父母也不能盼著子女與自己品味相同。如果讀者對所讀之書毫無興致，那就隻會浪費時間。正如袁中郎所說：“己所不好之書，可令他人讀之。”