作家之所需
课文学习台
What Every Writer Wants
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
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第1段
I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess at once that they have little idea where they are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration; all admit radical changes of destination once the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a "skeleton", as we were taught at school. In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which were not consciously in his mind when he began. This organic process, often leading to moments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of an indescribable fascination. A blurred image appears; he adds a brushstroke and another, and it is gone; but something was there, and he will not rest till he has captured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlives a book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their own books; like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision before them. For the same reason, writers talk interminably about their own books, winkling out hidden meanings, superimposing new ones, begging response from those around them. Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as well try to explain a crime or a love affair. He is also, incidentally, an unforgivable bore.
我不认识几个作家，但是我所认识且尊敬的作家，纷纷承认在他们刚动笔时，不清楚文思何往。他们构思了一两个角色。他们处于一种急切而不安的状态，人们通常把这种状态称为灵感。他们都承认，一旦开始写作，原定的方向往往会发生根本改变。据我所知，有位作家花了9个月的时间写了一部关于克什米尔的小说，后来却把整个故事搬到了苏格兰高地。我从未听说过任何一位作家像学校教的那样，动笔前先“列个提纲”。 作家在剪裁修改，以及在时间安排、情节交叉，新的开头中，会觉察出素材中很多他刚动笔时没意识到的东西。这种有机的过程，往往引人进入绝妙的自我发现的境界，具有难以言表的魅力。一个朦胧的形象浮现于作家的脑海里，他左添一笔，右添一划，形象反而消逝了；可是，仍有东西存在，待作家捕捉到方能罢休。有时，作家著书的激动，并不会随着著作的完成而消散。我听说一些作家，只读自己写的书； 好比青少年，作家们站在镜前，却无法看清镜中形象的确切轮廓。 出于同样的原因，作家会没完没了地谈论自己的书，揭露隐晦含义，强加新含义，总是乞求周围人给些反馈。 作家这么做，当然容易被误解；他解释自己的作品，简直就像试图解释一桩罪行或一场恋爱一样。顺便说一句，他也还是个不可饶恕的无聊的人。
第2段
This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please.
试图去抚平作者自己和读者之间鸿沟的作法，或想探究那些不认识自己的读者眼中的自我形象，会毁了作家——他已经开始为取悦他人而写作了。
第3段
A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.
一两年前，一位年轻的英国作家发表了中肯的看法。他认为，写作的才华以初稿为准，而写作的艺术在于后面的改稿。也是基于此因，作家和其他艺术家一样，没有休息之所，也没有群体或活动能让他得到安逸；也没有外界的评断能取代作家内心的评断。作家要从内心的杂乱中理出头绪；作家要比任何评论家所希望的还要严格地要求自己，而当他在意浮名时，他就从自我生活中，从对自己内心最深处世界的追寻中脱离了出来。
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译文与解析据吴应时整理资料及本站首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第169—173页，2022年2月第2版。