What every writer wants

作家之所需

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, super-imposing 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.

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.

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.

本文參考譯文

我認識的作家寥寥無幾，然而凡是我所認識和尊敬的作家，都立即承認在他們動筆時，不清楚要寫什么，怎么寫。他們心中只在一個或兩個角色。他們處于急切不安的狀態(tài)，而被當作是靈感。他們無不承認，一旦“旅程”開始，“目的地”常有急劇的變化。據(jù)我所知，有位作家花了9個月的時間寫了一部關于克什米爾的小說，后來卻把整個故事背景換成了蘇格蘭高地。我從未聽說過任何一位作家像我們在學校那樣，動筆前先列什么提綱。作家在剪裁修改、構思時間、穿插情節(jié)、以至從頭重寫的過程中，會領悟到素材中很多東西是他剛動筆時所未意識到的。這種有機的加工過程往往達到不尋常自我發(fā)現(xiàn)的境界，具有難以言表的構思魅力。一個朦朧的形象出現(xiàn)在作家的腦海里，他左添一筆，右添一筆，形象反而消逝了;可是，好像還有什么東西存在著，不把它捕捉到，作家是不會罷休的。有時，一個作家一本書寫完了，但興奮仍不消散。我聽說一些作家，除了自己的書外，別的書一概不讀，猶如希臘神話中那位漂亮的少年，站在鏡前，不能辨認自身的真面目。由于這個原因，作家喋喋不休地談論自己的書，挖掘其隱晦的含義，詢問周圍人的反應。作家如此行事當然被人誤解。他還不如給人講一個犯罪案件或一個戀愛故事。順便說一句，他也是個不可饒恕的令人厭煩的人。

這種企圖消除自己和讀者之間距離的作法，企圖用不了解自己的人的觀點來研究自己塑造的形象的作法，會導致作家的毀滅，因為他已經(jīng)開始為取悅他人而寫作了。

一兩年前，一位年輕的英國作家發(fā)表了中肯的看法。他說，初稿是才華，以后各稿是藝術。也是由于這個原因，作家同任何藝術家一樣，找不到可休息的場所，找不到伙伴和活動使自己得到安逸。任何局外人的判斷也比不上他內(nèi)心的正確判斷。一旦作家從內(nèi)心的紊亂中理出頭緒，就應該按任何評論家想像不到的無情規(guī)范約束自己寫作;當他沽名釣譽時，他就脫離了自我生活，脫離了對自己靈魂最深處世界的探索。

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