1、One Writers Beginnings1 I learned from the age of two or three that any room in our house, at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to. My mother read to me. Shed read to me in the big bedroom in the mornings, when we were in her rocker together, which ticked in rhythm as we rocked, a
2、s though we had a cricket accompanying the story. Shed read to me in the dining room on winter afternoons in front of the coal fire, with our cuckoo clock ending the story with “Cuckoo“, and at night when Id got in my own bed. I must have given her no peace. Sometimes she read to me in the kitchen w
3、hile she sat churning, and the churning sobbed along with any story. It was my ambition to have her read to me while I churned; once she granted my wish, but she read off my story before I brought her butter. She was an expressive reader. When she was reading “Puss in Boots,“ for instance, it was im
4、possible not to know that she distrusted all cats.作家起步时我从两三岁起就知道，家中随便在哪个房间里，白天无论在什么时间，都可以念书或听人念书。母亲念书给我听。上午她都在那间大卧室里给我念，两人一起坐在她那把摇椅里，我们摇晃时，椅子发出有节奏的滴答声，好像有只唧唧鸣叫的蟋蟀在伴着读故事。冬日午后，她常在餐厅里烧着煤炭的炉火前给我念，布谷鸟自鸣钟发出“咕咕” 声时，故事便结束了；晚上我在自己床上睡下后她也给我念。想必我是不让她有一刻清静。有时她在厨房里一边坐着搅制黄油一边给我念，故事情节就随着搅制黄油发出的抽抽搭搭的声响不断展开。我的奢望是她念我
5、来搅拌；有一次她满足了我的愿望，可是我要听的故事她念完了，她要的黄油我却还没弄好。她念起故事来富有表情。比如，她念穿靴子的猫时，你就没法不相信她对猫一概怀疑。2 It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I c
6、annot remember a time when I was not in love with them with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all
7、 the reading I could give them.当我得知故事书原来是人写出来的，书本原来不是什么大自然的奇迹，不像草那样自生自长时，真是又震惊又失望。不过，姑且不论书本从何而来，我不记得自己有什么时候不爱书 书本本身、封面、装订、印着文字的书页，还有油墨味、那种沉甸甸的感觉，以及把书抱在怀里时那种将我征服、令我陶醉的感觉。还没识字，我就想读书了，一心想读所有的书。3 Neither of my parents had come from homes that could afford to buy many books, but though it must have been
8、something of a strain on his salary, as the youngest officer in a young insurance company, my father was all the while carefully selecting and ordering away for what he and Mother thought we children should grow up with. They bought first for the future .我的父母都不是来自那种买得起许多书的家庭。然而，虽然买书准得花去他不少薪金，作为一家成立不
9、久的保险公司最年轻的职员，父亲一直在精心挑选、不断订购他和母亲认为儿童成长应读的书。他们购书首先是为了我们的前程。4 Besides the bookcase in the living room, which was always called “the library“, there were the encyclopedia tables and dictionary stand under windows in our dining room. Here to help us grow up arguing around the dining room table were the U
10、nabridged Webster, the Columbia Encyclopedia,Comptons Pictured Encyclopedia, the Lincoln Library of Information, and later the Book of Knowledge. In “the library“, inside the bookcase were books I could soon begin on and I did, reading them all alike and as they came, straight down their rows, top s
11、helf to bottom. My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him. The novels of her girlhood that had stayed on in her imagination, besides those of Dickens and Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, wer
12、e Jane Eyre, Trilby, The Woman in White,GreenMansions, King Solomons Mines.除了客厅里有一向被称作“ 图书室”的书橱，餐厅的窗子下还有几张摆放百科全书的桌子和一个字典架。这里有伴随我们在餐桌旁争论着长大的韦氏大词典、哥伦比亚百科全书、康普顿插图百科全书、林肯资料文库，以及后来的知识库。“图书馆” 书橱里的书没过多久我就能读了 我的确读了，全都读了，按着顺序，一排接着一排读，从最上面的书架一直读到最下面的书架。母亲读书最重要的不在获取信息。她是为了享受快乐而埋头读小说。她读狄更斯时的神情简直就像要跟他私奔似的。她少女时代读
13、的小说印在了她心头的，除了狄更斯、司各特和罗伯特?路易斯 ?斯蒂文森等人的作品之外，还有简?爱、切尔比 、白衣女士、绿厦 和所罗门王的矿藏。5 To both my parents I owe my early acquaintance with a beloved Mark Twain. There was a full set of Mark Twain and a short set of Ring Lardner in our bookcase, and those were the volumes that in time united us all, parents and chi
14、ldren.多亏了我的父母，我很早就接触了受人喜爱的马克? 吐温。书橱里有一整套马克?吐温文集和一套不全的林?拉德纳作品集，这些书最终将父母和孩子联结在一起。6 Reading everything that stood before me was how I came upon a worn old book that had belonged to my father as a child. It was called Sanford and Merton. Is there anyone left who recognizes it, I wonder? It is the famous
15、 moral tale written by Thomas Day in the 1780s, but of him no mention is made on the title page of this book; here it is Sanford and Merton in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin. Here are the rich boy and the poor boy and Mr. Barlow, their teacher and interlocutor, in long discourses alternatin
16、g with dramatic scenes anger and rescue allotted to the rich and the poor respectively. It ends with not one but two morals, both engraved on rings: “Do what you ought, come what may,“ and “If we would be great, we must first learn to be good.“我一本接一本阅读摆在我面前的书，读着读着便发现一本又破又旧的书，是我父亲小时候的。书名是桑福徳与默顿。我不相信如
17、今还有谁会记得这本书。那是托玛斯?戴在18 世纪 80 年代撰写的一本著名的进行道德教育的故事书，可该书的扉页上并没有提及他；上面写的是桑福徳与默顿简易本，玛丽?戈多尔芬著。书中讲的是一个富孩子和一个穷孩子与他们老师巴洛先生之间的冗长的谈话，其间穿插着戏剧性场面 分别写了富孩子和穷孩子如何发火、如何获救。书末讲的道德寓意不是一条，而是两条，都印在环形图案里：“不管发生什么，该做的就去做” ，还有“想做伟人，必须先学会做个好人”。7 This book was lacking its front cover, the back held on by strips of pasted paper,
18、 now turned golden, in several layers, and the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges; its garish illustrations had come unattached but were preserved, laid in. I had the feeling even in my heedless childhood that this was the only book my father as a little boy had had of his own. He
19、 had held onto it, and might have gone to sleep on its coverless face: he had lost his mother when he was seven. My father had never made any mention to his own children of the book, but he had brought it along with him fromOhioto our house and shelved it in our bookcase.这本书没了封面，封底用几条纸片粘牢，有好几层，如今都泛黄
20、了，书页上污迹斑斑，边角处都破碎了；书中花哨的插图脱了页，但都保存良好，夹在书里。即使在少不更事的童年，我就觉得那是我父亲小时候拥有的惟一一本书。他一直珍藏着这本书，或许还枕着这本没了封面的书睡觉：他 7 岁时就没了母亲。我父亲从来没跟自己的孩子提起过这本书，但他从俄亥俄一路把它带到我们的家，把它放进我们的书橱。8 My mother had brought fromWest Virginiathat set of Dickens: those books looked sad, too they had been through fire and water before I was bor
21、n, she told me, and there they were, lined up as I later realized, waiting for me.母亲则从西弗吉尼亚带来了那套狄更斯：那套书看上去也惨不忍睹 她告诉我，我还没出生，这些书就历经水火之灾，可现在它们还是整齐地排列在那儿 后来我意识到，是等着我去读。9 I was presented, from as early as I can remember, with books of my own, which appeared on my birthday and Christmas morning. Indeed, m
22、y parents could not give me books enough. They must have sacrificed to give me on my sixth or seventh birthday it was after I became a reader for myself-the ten-volume set of Our Wonder World. These were beautifully made, heavy books I would lie down with on the floor in front of the dining room hea
23、rth, and more often than the rest volume 5, Every Childs Story Book, was under my eyes. There were the fairy tales Grimm, Andersen, the English, the French, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves“; and there was Aesop and Reynard the Fox; there were the myths and legends, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and St. G
24、eorge and the Dragon, even the history of Joan of Arc; a whack of Pilgrims Progress and a long piece of Gulliver. They all carried their classic illustrations. I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved; very often “The Yellow Dwarf“ was first choice, w
25、ith Walter Cranes Yellow Dwarf in full color making his terrifying appearance flanked by turkeys. Now that volume is as worn and backless and hanging apart as my fathers poor Sanford and Merton. One measure of my love for Our Wonder World was that for a long time I wondered if I would go through fir
26、e and water for it as my mother had done for Charles Dickens; and the only comfort was to think I could ask my mother to do it for me.从记事起我就收到给自己的书了，那是在生日时，还有圣诞节早晨。我父母真的是送给我再多的书都嫌不够。在我 6 岁或 7 岁生日时 那是在我自己能读书之后 他们送我一套 10 卷本的 我们的神奇世界 ，为此，准是作了不少牺牲。那套书真漂亮，厚厚的，我总是带着它躺在餐厅壁炉前的地板上，读得最多的是第 5 卷：儿童故事。那都是些童话故事 格
27、林的、安徒生的、英国童话、法国童话，“ 阿里巴巴和四十大盗”； 还有伊索寓言和列那狐的故事；还有神话和传奇故事，如罗宾汉、亚瑟王、圣乔治和龙，甚至还有历史故事圣女贞德；还有一部分天路历程，以及一长段格列佛游记。每篇故事都有精彩的插图。我早已让自己走进这些故事中去了，一翻就能翻到自己喜爱的故事和插图；黄肤色小矮人常常是我的首选，沃尔特?克莱恩绘的彩色插图中黄肤色小矮人看着令人害怕，他左右还有火鸡侍立。如今这册书已经跟父亲那本损坏的桑福徳与默顿一样，又破又旧，最后几页掉了，书页散了。有很长一段时间，我一直想自己能不能像母亲为查尔斯?狄更斯做的那样，为 我们的神奇世界这套书赴汤蹈火，从这一点也可想见
28、我对这套书是多么珍爱；惟一令人安慰的是我相信我可让母亲为我这么做。10 I believe Im the only child I know of who grew up with this treasure in the house. I used to ask others, “Did you have Our Wonder World?“ Id have to tell them The Book of Knowledge could not hold a candle to it.在所有认识的孩子们当中，我想自己是惟一有家藏宝库伴随着长大的孩子。过去我常常问别人：“你有 我们的神奇世界
29、 吗？” 我常常得跟人解释， 知识库根本没法跟这套书比。11 I live in gratitude to my parents for initiating me as early as I begged for it, without keeping me waiting into knowledge of the word, into reading and spelling, by way of the alphabet. They taught it to me at home in time for me to begin to read before starting to sc
30、hool.我感激父母通过认识字母对我 早在我要求之时，而没有让我等待 进行文字启蒙，教我阅读和拼写。他们在家里教我，我得以在上学前就开始了阅读。12 Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didnt hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isnt my mothers voice, or the voic
31、e of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the rea
32、der-voice: I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers to read as listeners and with all writers, to write as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write. The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth , for me. Whether I am right
33、 to trust so far I dont know. By now I dont know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other.从最初听故事，到后来自己开始读书，从来没有一行读过的字我不闻其声。当我的目光扫过一个句子时，就会有个声音默念给我听。那不是母亲的声音，也不是我能辨认的某个人的声音，当然也不是我本人的声音。那是人的声音，但是内在的，我倾听的正是内心深处的声音。对我而言，那就是故事本身的声音，就是诗本身的声音。那抑扬顿挫的声音，不论它要你相信的是什么，那印刷文字中蕴含的情感，通过诵
34、读者的声音传递给我：我一直猜想，却始终没能证实，所有的读者都如此 边读边听，所有的作者都如此 边写边听。那或许是写作欲望的一部分。对我而言，落在纸页上的声音可帮助测试写下来的是否是实事真情。我不知道我相信到这个程度是否对头。如今我也不知道自己能不能做到只读不写，或只写不读。13 My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes ba
35、ck to my ears, then I act to make my changes. I have always trusted this voice.在写小说时，我也能听见文字落纸的声音，与我读书时听到的声音一样。我写着，那声音传入耳内，于是我闻声而动，加以修改。我一直信赖这一声音。Lets Go Veggie!1 If there was a single act that would improve your health, cut your risk of food-borne illnesses, and help preserve the environment and th
36、e welfare of millions of animals, would you do it?咱们吃素吧!如果有一件事，既能增进健康、减少患上食物引起的疾病的危险，又有助于保护环境、保护千万动物安全生存，你做不做？2 The act Im referring to is the choice you make every time you sit down to a meal.我说的这件事就是每次坐下来就餐时挑选菜肴。3 More than a million Canadians have already acted: They have chosen to not eat meat.
37、And the pace of change has been dramatic.一百多万加拿大人已经行动起来：他们决定不吃肉。变化速度之快令人惊叹。4 Vegetarian food sales are showing unparalleled growth. Especially popular are meat-free burgers and hot dogs, and the plant-based cuisines ofIndia,China,Mexico,ItalyandJapan.素食品的销售额大大增加，前所未有。尤受欢迎的是无肉汉堡包和热狗，以及以蔬为主的印度、中国、墨西哥、
38、意大利和日本的菜肴。5 Fuelling the shift toward vegetarianism have been the health recommendations of medical research. Study after study has uncovered the same basic truth: Plant foods lower your risk of chronic disease; animal foods increase it.推动人们转向素食的是医学研究提出的关于如何增进健康的建议。一项又一项的研究都揭示了同样的基本事实：果蔬降低患慢性病的危险；肉类
39、食品则增加这种危险。6 The American Dietetic Association says: “Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases.“美国饮食学协会指出， “科学资料表明，素食与降低多种慢性变性疾病的患病危险肯定有关系。”7 This past fall, after reviewing 4,500 studies on diet and cancer, th
40、e World Cancer Research Fund flatly stated: “Weve been running the human biological engine on the wrong fuel.“去年秋天，在检验了 4500 个饮食与癌症的研究报告之后，世界癌症研究基金会直截了当地指出：“我们一向利用不合适的养料来维持人类生理引擎的运转。”8 This “wrong fuel“ has helped boost the cost of degenerative disease inCanadato an estimated $400 billion a year, ac
41、cording to Bruce Holub, a professor of nutritional science at theUniversityofGuelph.据威尔夫大学营养科学教授布鲁斯? 霍拉勃称，这一“不合适的养料” 致使加拿大每年用于治疗变性疾病的费用高达 4000 亿（加）元。9 Animal foods have serious nutritional drawbacks: They are devoid of fiber, contain far too much saturated fat and cholesterol, and may even carry tra
42、ces of hormones, steroids and antibiotics. It makes little difference whether you eat beef, pork, chicken or fish.肉类食品存在严重的营养缺陷：它们不含纤维，含有过多的饱和脂肪和胆固醇，甚至可能含有微量的激素、类固醇和抗菌素。牛肉、猪肉、鸡肉或鱼肉都一样。10 Animal foods are also gaining notoriety as breeding grounds for E. coli, campylobacter and other bacteria that ca
43、use illness. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, six out of ten chickens are infected with salmonella. Its like playing Russian roulette with your health.肉类食品也是越来越广为人知的大肠杆菌、弯曲菌以及其他致病细菌的孳生地。据加拿大食品检验机构称，十分之六的鸡染有沙门氏菌。吃肉无异于玩俄式轮盘赌，拿你的健康做赌资。11 So why arent governments doing anything about th
44、is? Unfortunately, they have bowed to pressure from powerful lobby groups such as theBeefInformationCenter, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the Dairy Farmers of Canada. According to documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act, these groups forced changes toCanadas latest food gu
45、ide before it was released in 1993.既然如此，政府为什么不采取任何措施？很遗憾，政府屈服于强有力的院外活动集团的压力，如牛肉信息中心、加拿大禽蛋营销公司、加拿大乳牛场场主协会等。根据信息自由法案获得的有关文件记载，这些集团迫使加拿大最新食品指南在 1993 年公布前作出修改。12 This should come as no surprise: Even a minor reduction in recommended intakes of animal protein could cost these industries billions of dolla
46、rs a year.这并不奇怪。即使建议动物蛋白质的摄入量减少一丁点儿都会给这些企业带来每年数十亿元的损失。13 While health and food safety are compelling reasons for choosing a vegetarian lifestyle, there are also larger issues to consider. Animal-based agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive industries on the face of the Earth.健康和食
47、品安全是选择素食生活方式令人信服的理由，但此外还有更为重大的因素要考虑。以饲养动物为基础的农业是世界上对环境破坏最严重的产业之一。14 Think for a moment about the vast resources required to raise, feed, shelter, transport, process and package the 500 million Canadian farm animals slaughtered each year. Water and energy are used at every step of the way. Alberta Ag
48、riculture calculates that it takes 10 to 20 times more energy to produce meat than to produce grain.想一想培育、饲养、建牲畜栏、运输、加工和包装加拿大每年宰杀的 5 亿头牲畜所需的巨大资源。其中的每一个环节都耗费水和能源。阿尔伯达农业署估计，生产肉耗费的能源比生产谷物多 1020 倍。15 Less than a quarter of our agricultural land is used to feed people directly. The rest is devoted to gra
49、zing and growing food for animals. Ecosystems of forest, wetland and grassland have been decimated to fuel the demand for land. Using so much land heightens topsoil loss, the use of harsh fertilizers and pesticides, and the need for irrigation water from dammed rivers. If people can shift away from meat, much of this land could be converted back to wilderness.用于直接为人们提供食物的土地还不到农业用地的四分之一。其余的都用来放牧和种饲料。森林、湿地和草原的生态系统遭受相当严重的破坏，以满足对土地的需求。土地的大量利用加剧了表土的流失，增加了会带来负面作用的化肥和杀虫剂
