用语言丈量世界

2017年1月10日，对于世界上大部分人来说是极其平凡而普通的一天。对于奥巴马而言，则有着不同的意义。当地时间晚9点，他发表了离任演说，同8年的白宫生涯正式说再见。

8年前的他，头发还没有花白，意气风发，有神的双眸深处藏着少年的影子。在金融危机笼罩全球的时刻，他接过历史的接力棒，决心带领美国走进下一段繁荣。那时候的他在布拉格设计了一个没有核武器的和平世界，在开罗宣布重启与伊斯兰世界的关系。

8年后，这个世界似乎并没有变好。促进巴以和平的努力被搁浅、叙利亚在内战中流血呻吟。离任之际，民调显示，2/3的美国人认为奥巴马并未兑现竞选时所作的承诺。

回顾这8年执政生涯，作为政客，奥巴马或许令人有些失望，他并未能够弥合一个日益分裂的世界。他甚至在离任演说中自嘲自己是lame duck(跛脚鸭)。或者，我们不该过分苛责奥巴马。毕竟民主制度下的美国总统大概是世上最不自由的职业了。更或者，政绩与争议总是共存，功过是非需要更长的时间沉淀后才能有效评价。

lame duck：任期将满，手无实权的政府官员。

Someone who has little real power, because his period of office is coming to an end.

不可否认的是，奥巴马有着非凡的魅力和个人风格，对于书籍更是有着不俗的鉴赏力。美国总统不少，爱读书的总统却不多。爱好读书与写作为他赢得了好名声。

虎 哥 课 堂

逗比翻译组 | 出品

奥巴马扎根白宫的秘诀：读书

Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books

来源：纽约时报

Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped — in his life, convictions and outlook on the world — by reading and writing as Barack Obama. 

自从林肯以来，还没有哪一位美国总统像巴拉克·奥巴马一样，通过阅读和写作来从根本上形成他的人生信念和世界观。

During his eight years in the White House — in a noisy era of information overload, extreme partisanship and knee-jerk reactions — books were a sustaining source of ideas and inspiration, and gave him a renewed appreciation for the complexities and ambiguities of the human condition.

在他八年的白宫生涯中——一个充斥着过量信息、极端党派偏见和未加思索的反对声音的嘈杂时代——书籍是思想和灵感持续不断的源泉，让他重新认识到人类生存环境的错综复杂和难以捉摸。

在信息如洪流般席卷而来的时代，奥巴马凭借书籍让自己慢下来(slow down),实现了认知升级，有所洞见(get perspective)。奥巴马对林肯推崇备至。白宫存有林肯为了慈善手抄的《葛底斯堡演说》的原件。奥巴马把它视若珍宝，摆放在家庭办公室旁，并时常阅读。书籍让奥巴马在白宫度过了一个又一个难熬的夜，是书籍让奥巴马在离任时笑看人生。

“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information istransmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me.”

“当事态发展迅疾，大量信息传播开来”，他说，阅读使他能够“偶尔放慢节奏，重新看待事物”以及“从别人的立场上考虑问题”。他补充说，这两项能力对他来说是“无价之宝”。

（本段附有但汉松老师的逐词精讲，点击下方音频免费收听）

The writings of Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Mr. Obama found, were “particularly helpful” when “what you wanted was a sense of solidarity,” adding “during very difficult moments, this job can be very isolating.”

奥巴马认为，当“你渴望齐心协力，团结一致的感觉”，林肯、牧师小马丁·路德·金、甘地和纳尔逊·曼德拉的著作“尤有助益”。他补充道:“在非常困难的时刻，（总统）这个工作是极其孤立无援的。

（本段附有但汉松老师的逐词精讲，点击下方音频免费收听）

但汉松

微博“洛之秋”就是他，某高校某系某老师

Mr. Obama’s long view of history and the optimism (combined with astirring reminder of the hard work required by democracy) that hearticulated in his farewell speech last week are part of a hard-won faith, grounded in his reading, in his knowledge of history (and its unexpected zigs and zags), and his embrace of artists like Shakespeare who saw the human situation entire: its follies, cruelties and madblunders, but also its resilience, decencies and acts of grace. 

上周，奥巴马在其告别演讲中所表达出的对历史的洞见和乐观的态度（连同他振奋人心的关于实现民主所需要付出的艰苦努力的提醒），都是他坚定信念的一部分，这植根于他的阅读，来源于他对历史知识（及其背后无法想象的波澜壮阔）的掌握，以及他对诸如莎士比亚这类文学艺术巨擘的推崇和学习吸收，这些先贤看透了人类的处境:人类的愚蠢，残忍和疯狂的错误，也看到了人类的韧性，人性的尊严与仁慈。

The playwright’s tragedies, he says, have been “foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings.”

奥巴马说:剧作家的悲剧作品，始终是我理解特定模式如何不断重复并在人类之间不断上演的基础。

 阳春白雪也好，下里巴人也罢，各有各的风姿，各有各的趣味。一直啃大部头很容易消化不良。《三体》、《消失的爱人》、《命运的躁动》这些畅销书也是奥巴马的心头爱。

Even books initially picked up as escape reading like the Hugo Award-winning apocalyptic sci-fi epic “The Three-Body Problem” by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin, he said, could unexpectedly put things in perspective: “Thescope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade!”

他说，即使有些书籍起初被选择仅为了消遣，却意料之外地使人打开眼界。例如中国作家刘慈欣获雨果奖的启示录般的科幻末日史诗《三体》：“它的格局宏大，所以读起来妙趣横生，一部分原因是相较于书中的内容，我与国会之间日复一日的矛盾显得微不足道，不足挂齿。（因为）外星人就要入侵啦!”

奥巴马与小说家玛丽莲·罗宾逊建立了友谊。她成了他的好朋友，如同笔友一般。当奥巴马在爱荷华州的时候就开始读她的小说，爱荷华是玛丽莲·罗宾逊几部最出色的小说、包括《基列家书》的故事背景地。

小说可以桥接人类。奥巴马在任总统期间能更好地想象人们的生活，不仅归功于某一部具体的小说，而是阅读小说的行为本身。

Such books were a way for the president to shift mental gears from the briefs and policy papers he studied during the day, a way “to get out of my own head,” a way to escape the White House bubble. 

这些书可以给日常埋头于研究政策文件和简报的总统先生换换脑子，是一种跳脱“思维定式”，逃离“白宫泡沫”的方法。

Some novels helped him to better “imagine what’s going on in the lives of people” across the country — for instance, he found that Marilynne Robinson’s novels connected him emotionally to the people he was meeting in Iowa during the 2008 campaign, and to his own grandparents, who were from the Midwest, and the small town values of hard work and honesty and humility.

借助一些小说的内容，他可以想象全国各地人们的生活场景——比如玛丽莲.罗宾逊的小说，让他联想起2008年大选时在爱荷华州遇见的当地人，想到他来自中西部的外祖父母，想起了他们"艰苦奋斗，诚实谦卑"的小镇价值观。

从书中汲取的谦逊和敬畏让奥巴马学会了同自己，同世界和解。

Other novels served as a kind of foil — something to argue with. V. S. Naipaul’s novel “A Bend in the River,” Mr. Obama recalls, “starts with the line ‘The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.’ And I always think about that line and I think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true.”

而有些小说类似反衬，催人思考。奥巴马总统这样回忆奈保尔的小说《河湾》，“我常常会想起开头这句'世界如其所是，人微不足道，人听凭自己微不足道，人在这世上没有位置。'并且当我想到世间疾苦时也会想到他的小说，特别是在外交政策上，有时那些愤世嫉俗极其现实的世界观会让我感到抗拒甚至想与之斗争。然而有些时候那些观点或许是对的。”

困难的不是开始，而是坚持。文艺青年奥巴马自学生时代就培养出对阅读和写作的热爱。这份喜爱始终伴随着他。阅读狂人奥巴马说：“阅读和写作帮助我整理那些流淌在生命横流里的一切—— 种族、阶级、家庭。我笃信，在某种意义上，这使支零破碎的自我整合成完人。”

正是奥巴马对书不凡的品位和始终如一的阅读习惯，让我们每每提到这位步入退休生活的美国总统时，总是充满着尊敬和喜爱。

本文摘自但老师在虎哥头条上的精讲音频，原文40分钟。像这样将文化和英语熔于一炉的名刊精讲，我们还有270篇。

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本文编辑 | 海源

释义 | pikachu  老徐  笑笑  Iris  ewen  曹静娅

注释

▸ outlook: /ˈautluk/ n. 展望；观点；景色

▸ overload: /ˌəuvəˈləud US ˌouvərˈloud/ n. 超载

▸ partisanship: /ˌpɑːtɪˈzænʃɪp US ˈpɑːrtɪzənʃɪp, -sən/ n. 党派性

Partisanship is support for a person or group without fair consideration of the facts and circumstances.

▸ knee-jerk reaction: 膝跳反应

▸ ambiguity: /ˌæmbɪˈgjuːɪti/ n. 含混性

the state of being unclear, confusing, or not certain, or things that produce this effect

▸ transmit: /trænzˈmɪt US træns-/ v. 传输；传播

to send or pass something from one person, place or thing to another

▸ perspective: /pəˈspektɪv US pər-/ n. 视角；对事情的洞察力；正确的眼光；全盘性的看法

▸ invaluable: /ɪnˈvæljuəbəl, -jʊbəl US -ˈvæljʊbəl/ adj. 无法估值的；非常贵重的

extremely useful

▸ solidarity: /ˌsɔlɪˈdærɪti US ˌsɑː-/ n. 团结

▸ stirring: /ˈstəːrɪŋ/ adj. 激动人心的

producing strong feelings or excitement in someone

▸ articulate: /ɑːˈtɪkjʊleɪt US ɑːr-/ v. 说出

to express your ideas or feelings in words

▸ hard-won: adj. 来之不易的

achieved only after a of lot effort and difficulty

▸ zigs and zags: 曲折

▸ folly: /ˈfɔli US ˈfɑːli/ n. 愚蠢

a very stupid thing to do, especially one that is likely to have serious results

▸ blunder: /ˈblʌndə US -ər/ n. 错误

a careless or stupid mistake

▸ resilience: /rɪˈzɪliəns/ n. 弹性；回复力

▸ foundational: /faunˈdeɪʃənəl/ adj. 根本的

▸ escape reading: 消遣式阅读

▸ apocalyptic: /əˌpɔkəˈlɪptɪk US əˌpɑː-/ adj. 启示录的

▸ sci-fi: /ˌsaɪ ˈfaɪ/ n. 科幻小说

Sci-fi is short for science fiction.

▸ epic: /ˈepɪk/ n. 史诗

▸ scope: /skəup US skoup/ n. 范围

the range of things that a subject, activity, book etc deals with

▸ petty: /ˈpeti/ adj. 微不足道的

▸ shift gear: 换挡

▸ brief: /briːf/

n. 简报

official instructions that explain what someone's job is, what their duties are etc

v. 简要告知（~ sb. on sth.）

to give someone all the information about a situation that they will need

▸ humility: /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/ n. 谦卑

the quality of not being too proud about yourself - use this to show approval

▸ foil: /fɔɪl/ n. 陪衬物

▸ cynical: /ˈsɪnɪkəl/ adj. 愤世嫉俗的

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