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双语 | 毛姆：为乐趣而读书
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Introduction
威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆（1874—1965），英国小说家、戏剧家、散文家，代表作品有《人生的枷锁》《月亮和六便士》等。
读书必须是种享受，必须是为得到乐趣而阅读。养成读书习惯，是给自己创造一个逃避几乎一切生活愁苦的庇护所。
On Reading
为乐趣而读书
The first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we have to read, either to pass examinations or to acquire information, from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment. We are reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without tedium. Such books we read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of reading I have in mind. The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living. They will not teach you to sail a boat or get a stalled motor to run, but they will help you to live more fully. That, however, they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.
首先我要强调的是读书必须是一种享受。当然，有许多书我们大家都得读，或者是为了应付考试，或者是为了获得资料，从那种读书中不可能得到享乐，我们为增进知识而读那些书，所能希望的至多是由于我们的需要而能不辞厌烦地阅读它们。那一类书是我们不得不读而不是喜欢读。我所指的不是那种读书，我接下去要谈的书既不会帮你得到学位，也不能帮你谋生，它们不教你怎样驾驶船舶，也不教你修理机器，但是它们将使你的生活更充实，然而这一点，非要你喜欢阅读它们，才能见效。
The “you” I address is the adult whose avocations give his certain leisure and who would like to read the books which can without loss be left unread. I do not address the bookworm. He can find his own way. I wish to deal only with the masterpiece which the consensus of opinion for a long time has accepted as supreme. We are all supposed to have read them; it is a pity that so few of us have. But there are masterpieces which are acknowledged to be such by all the best critics and to which the historians of literature devote considerable space, yet which no ordinary person can now read with enjoyment. They are important to the students, but changing times and changing tastes have robbed them of their savour and it is hard to read them now without an effort of will. Let me give on instance: I have read George Eliot’s Adam Bede, but I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that was with pleasure. I read it from a sense of duty; I finished it with a relief of sign.
这里我说的“你”是在业余有一定空闲，心想读一点不读可惜的书的成年人。我不是指本来就埋头在书堆里的人。他可以自己爱读什么就读什么。他的好奇心引导他沿着许多没有人走的路走去，在发现大半已被遗忘了的珍宝中得到乐趣。我只是想谈谈一些名著，经过长时期的评估已被公认为登峰造极的名著。一般认为这些书我们都读过，遗憾的是我们中间很少人都读过它们。但是有些名著是最好的评论家们一致公认的，文学史家长篇累牍地论述它们，而现在一般读者却没有兴趣去读它们。它们对文学研究者是重要的，但随着时间和兴趣的转移，它们已经失去原有的味儿，到现在非有一点意志用一点力气，难以阅读它们。我举一个例：我读过乔治·爱略特（George Elliot，1819—1880）的《亚当·比德》，可是我没法把手扪在心上，说我读这本书是个享受。我读它是出于应该一读的心情，我读完了它，松了一口气。
Now of such books as this I mean to say nothing. Every man is his own best critic. Whatever the learned say about a book, however unanimous they are in their praise of it, unless it interests you, it is no business of yours. Don’t forget that critics often make mistakes—the history is full of the blunders the most eminent of them have made, and you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading. This, of course, applies to the books I am going to recommend to your attention. We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them. And so I beg of you, if any of you who read those pages are tempted to read the books I suggest and cannot get on with enjoy them, just put them down, they will be of no service to you if you do not enjoy them. No one is under an obligation to read poetry or fiction or the miscellaneous literature which is classified as Belles-lettres. (I wish I knew the English term for this, but I don’t think there is one.) He must read them for pleasure, and who can claim that what pleases one man must necessarily please another?
关于这一类书，我准备不置一词。每个人自己都是最好的评论家。无论学者们怎么评价一本书，无论他们怎样同声赞扬，除非它使你感到兴趣，否则它就与你不相干。别忘了评论家常有错，文艺评论史中最著名的评论家们明显谬误屡见不鲜。你读，你才是你所读的书的价值的最后评定者。这当然适用于我将向你推荐阅读的书。我们每个人都不可能正好口味相同，而只能是大致相同，因此如果认为合我口味的书一定正好合你的口味，那是不近情理的。不过这些书我读了觉得头脑更丰富，要是我没有读这些书，恐怕我不会是今天的我。所以我要求你，如果你们中间有人看了我这里写的，被引得去读我建议的书，而读不下去的话，就请把它们放下。如果它们不能使你觉得是种享受，那它们对你就没有用处。没有人有义务必须读诗或小说或美文学。（美文学，法语belles—lettres，这个词我很想知道它的英语说法，可我想恐怕没有。）他必须为得到乐趣而阅读它们，谁能要求使某人感到乐趣的事，别人也一定感到乐趣呢？
But let no one think that pleasure is immoral. Pleasure in itself is a great good, all pleasure, but its consequences may be such that the sensible person eschews certain varieties of it. Nor need pleasure be gross and sensual. They are wise in their generation who have discovered that intellectual pleasure is the most satisfying and the most enduring. It is well to acquire the habit of reading. To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. Almost all, I say, for I would not go on so far to pretend that to read a book will assuage the pangs of hunger or still the pain of unrequited love; but half a dozen good detective stories and a hotwater bottle will enable anyone to snap his fingers at the worst cold in the head. But who is going to acquire the habit of reading for reading’s sake, if he is bidden to read books that bore him?
可是请别认为享乐就是不道德。乐趣本身是大好事，乐趣就是乐趣，但是它会有不同后果，因此某些方式的乐趣是理智的人所避而不取的。享乐也不一定是庸俗和声色方面的。同一辈中有的聪明人发现理性的乐趣是最完美、最持久的。养成读书的习惯，很有好处。很少的娱乐能在你过了壮年而继续使你从中感到心满意足的；除了玩单人纸牌、解象棋残局和填字谜之外，没有你可以单独玩的游戏。读书没有这种不便；也许除了针线活儿——可那仍会让你不安定的心神游移不定——没有一种活动更容易随时拿上手，随便拿上多久，同时有别的事要干的时候，又更容易放在一边。在幸运有公共图书馆和廉价版本的今天，没有一种娱乐比读书的代价更便宜。养成读书习惯，是给自己创造一个逃避几乎一切生活愁苦的庇护所。我说“几乎一切”，因为我并不想夸大其词，认为读书可以解除饥饿的痛苦和失恋的哀伤；但是几本精彩的侦探小说和一只热水袋能使任何人把最严重的伤风感冒不当一回事。然而如果有人硬要他读使他厌烦的书，谁高兴养成为读书而读书的习惯呢？
It is more convenient to take the books of which I am going to speak in the chronological order, but I can see no reason why, if you make up your mind to read them, you should do so in that order. I think you would be much better advised to read them according to your fancy; nor do I see even why you should read them one by one. For my own part, I find it more agreeable to read four or five books together. After all, you aren’t I the same mood on one day as on another, nor have you the same eagerness to read a certain book at all hours of the day. We must suit ourselves in these matters, and I have naturally adopted the plan that suits me. In the morning before I start a fresh and attentive brain. It sets me off for the day. Later on, when my work is done and I feel at ease, but not inclined for mental exercise of a strenuous character, I read history, essays, criticism or biography; and in case I feel in the mood for that, and by my bedside I have one of those books, too rarely to be found, alas, which you can dip into at any place and stop reading with equanimity at the end of any paragraph.
按着编年次序看我介绍的书，当然比较方便，但最好你还是随自己的兴趣来读；我也不劝你一定要读完一本再换另一本。就我自己而言，我发觉同时读五、六本书反而更合理。因为，我们无法每一天都保有不变的心情，而且，即使在一天之内也不见得会对一本书具有同样的热情。在这种情况下，我们不能不为自己打算。至于我，当然选取最适合我自己的计划。清晨，在开始工作之前，我总要读一会儿书，书的内容不是科学就是哲学，因为这类书需要清新而且注意力集中的头脑，这样我的一天开始了。当一天的工作完毕，心情轻松，又不想再从事激烈的心智活动时，我就读历史、散文、评论与传记；晚间我看小说。此外，我手边总有一本诗集，预备在有读诗的心情时读之，在床头，我放一本可以随时取看，也能在任何段落停止，心情一点不受影响的书，可惜的是，这种书实在不多。
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