The Art of Reading　閱讀的藝術

The Art of Reading

閱讀的藝術

André Maurois

安德烈·莫洛亞

作者簡介

安德烈·莫洛亞（André Maurois，1885—1967），法國作家、法蘭西學院院士。他在一戰(zhàn)時應征服役，擔任英軍與法國炮隊之間的翻譯聯(lián)絡官。在此期間，他根據(jù)軍旅生活所見所聞，寫成《布朗勃爾上校的沉默》（The Silence of Colonel Bramble），并一舉成名。

莫洛亞著有長篇小說《貝爾納·蓋斯奈》（Bernard Quesnay）和《愛的氣候》（The Climates of Love）等，并寫下了大量膾炙人口的傳記文學作品，如《巴爾扎克傳——普羅米修斯》（Prometheus: The Life of Balzac）、《拜倫傳》（Byron）和《泰坦巨人：三代仲馬傳》（Titans: A Three-Generation Biography of the Dumas）等。

本文選自安德烈·莫洛亞1939年出版的作品《生活的藝術》（The Art of Living）。書中，作者以流暢的文筆展示了自己的人生閱歷和前賢的嘉言懿行。全書雖無深邃的哲學思想，卻有雋永的人生哲理。本文暢談閱讀的藝術，細數(shù)閱讀的規(guī)律，對愛書人有一定的參考價值。

Can reading be called work? Valery Larbaud calls it the “unpunished vice”, and Descartes, on the contrary, says it is “a conversation with the most honest people of past centuries.”Both of them are right.

The vicious reading occurs in people who find in reading a kind of opium that liberates them from the real world sinking them into an imaginary one. They cannot spend one minute without reading; to them, everything is good; they will open an encyclopedia and read an essay on water-color technique as voraciously as they will read an article on firearms. Left alone in a room, they will go straight to a pile of newspapers and magazines and plunge into the middle of any column, rather than be left their own thoughts for a moment. They seek neither ideas nor facts in reading, but merely the endless procession of words which prevents them from facing the world or their souls. They retain very little substance of what they read; they set up no scale of values amongst the various sources of information. As practiced by them, reading is completely passive; they hold the texts; they do not interpret them; they do not make any room for them in their minds; they do not assimilate them.

Pleasure reading is much more active. The novel lover reads for his pleasure, to find either beautiful impressions, or the awakening and exaltation of his own emotions, or the adventures which life has denied him. Another will read for the pleasure of discovering among the poets and moralists a more perfect expression of his own observations and feelings. Still another will read, without studying a particular period of history, for the pleasure of verifying the similarities of human suffering throughout the course of the centuries. This sort of pleasure reading is healthy.

Finally, work reading is the sort done by the man who is seeking in a book definite knowledge or material needed for the creation or completion in his mind of a structure whose magnitude he has conceived in general terms. Work reading must be done with pen or pencil in hand, unless the reader possesses an extraordinary memory. It is useless to read if we must reread each time we need to return to the subject. If I may cite my own example, when I read a volume of history or a serious book of any kind, I always write a few key words indicating the important topics covered. Underneath each word I write the page number where the corresponding passage is located, in case I need to consult it without having to read the entire book again.

Reading, like all work, has its rules. Let us outline some of them.

The First rule is that a perfect knowledge of a few writers and a few subjects is more valuable than a superficial one of a great many. The beautiful features of a piece of writing are seldom apparent at first reading. In youth, one should search among books as one searches the world for friends, and once these friends are found, chosen, and adopted, one must retire with them. Intimacy with Montaigne, Saint-Simon, Retz, Balzac, or Proust is sufficient to enrich an entire life.

The second rule is that the great writings of the past must figure preeminently in our readings. Of course it is both natural and necessary to be interested in the writers of our times, for it is among them that we are likely to find friends who have our own cares and needs. But let us not submerge ourselves in the tide of insignificant books. The number of masterpieces is such that we would never be able to know them all. Let us trust the selection made in past centuries. A man may be wrong; a generation may be wrong; humanity is never wrong. Homer, Tacitus, Shakespeare, and Molière certainly deserve their glory. We should give them some preference over those who have not undergone the test of time.

The third rule is to choose our literary nourishment well. Each mind requires its own particular food. Let us learn to recognize which authors are our authors. They will be very different from those of our friends. In literature as in love, we are surprised at what is chosen by others. Let us be faithful to what is appropriate for us. We are the best judges of that.

The fourth rule is that whenever possible our reading should be done in the atmosphere of composure and respect which surrounds a fine concert or a noble ceremony. Reading is not to run through a page, interrupt to answer the telephone, pick up a book when one's thoughts are elsewhere, lay it down until the next day. The true reader procures long periods of solitude; for some especially admired author, he reserves a Sunday afternoon in the Winter; he is thankful for a train journey which provides him with the opportunity to read a whole novel of Balzac, Stendhal, or the Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe. He experiences an intense pleasure from rereading a favorite phrase or passage he loves (the Madeleine in Proust, or Levine's betrothal in Tolstoy), as the music lover does when he hears the magician's theme in Stravinsky's Petrouchka.

The fifth rule, finally, is to make ourselves worthy of great books because in reading, like in the Spanish inns and in love, one finds only what one brings to them. The delineation of emotions interests only those who have experienced them or young people who await their flowering with hope and anguish. There is nothing so moving as the spectacle of a young man who could endure nothing but adventure stories last year and has suddenly developed a great liking for Anna Karenina or Dominique, because now he knows what the joys and the pains of love are like. Great men of action read Kipling, great statesmen read Tacitus or Retz. It was a great spectacle to see Lyautey absorbed in Shakespeare's Coriolanus the day after an unjust government took Morocco from him. The art of reading is in great part that of finding life once again in the books, and thanks to them, in understanding life better.

可以稱閱讀為勞作嗎？瓦雷里·拉爾博1稱其為“不受懲罰的罪惡”，笛卡兒2則恰恰相反，稱之為“與過去幾個世紀里最誠實的人們交談”。兩人的說法都有理。

有些人視書為讓自己脫離現(xiàn)實、深陷虛境的麻醉劑，“惡性閱讀”就發(fā)生在他們身上。如果無書可讀，他們一分鐘也忍受不了；對他們來說，什么書都是好書；無論是百科全書中關于水彩技法的散文，還是關于火器槍械的文章，他們一樣會貪婪閱讀。如果是獨自待在屋里，他們會直奔成堆的報刊、雜志，急匆匆地瀏覽任意專欄，而不自己思考問題。他們閱讀不是為尋找觀點或事實，而是無休止地徜徉于文字之中，以免面對現(xiàn)實世界或自己的內(nèi)心。他們讀完書后記不住內(nèi)容，面對豐富的信息毫無辨別能力。他們進行的這種閱讀完全是被動的；他們手捧文本，卻不分析解讀，也不儲存信息，更不吸收知識。

“趣味閱讀”則主動得多。有些人以讀小說為樂，去尋找美妙的印象、情感的復蘇和日常生活中缺少的冒險。也有人以讀詩歌和倫理學著作為樂，探尋對自身體會、自身感受更完美的闡釋。還有人以讀歷史為樂。他們不是研究特定時期的歷史，而是查證千百年來人類相似的苦難經(jīng)歷。這種“趣味閱讀”有益健康。

最后，“工作閱讀”是指一個人去書里尋找特定的知識和材料，以便創(chuàng)作或完成他頭腦中已有大體框架的巨著?！肮ぷ鏖喿x”時最好手里拿著筆，除非你記憶力超群。如果每次需要回顧某個話題時都得重讀一遍，那閱讀又有什么用呢？以我自己為例，我讀歷史書或其他嚴肅書籍時，總會記下闡明該書主旨的幾個關鍵詞，并在每個詞下面標明相關段落所在的頁碼。如此一來，當我需要查閱資料時，就不需要重讀整本書了。

像所有工作一樣，閱讀也有準則。我謹列舉如下幾條。

準則一：對少數(shù)作家作品了如指掌，勝過對眾多作家作品略知一二。作品的美妙之處極少在第一次閱讀時顯現(xiàn)。年輕人應該像遨游世界一般在書海中遨游，去尋找志同道合的友人。當你發(fā)現(xiàn)、選擇、確定那些友人之后，便要與其攜手一生。與蒙田3、圣西門4 、雷斯5、巴爾扎克6、普魯斯特7等人親密無間，足以讓你一生充實。

準則二：昔日經(jīng)典必須是閱讀的主體。當然，對當代作家感興趣既合理也有必要，因為他們可能與我們有著相同的關注和需要。但切勿被無關緊要的書潮淹沒。杰作的數(shù)量如此之多，我們永遠無法了解全部。要相信千百年來的披沙瀝金：一個人或許走眼，一代人或許錯看，但人類不會誤判。荷馬、塔西佗8、莎士比亞9、莫里哀10顯然無愧于他們的榮耀。我們應當偏愛這些名家，而非未經(jīng)時間檢驗的作家。

準則三：慎重選擇文學養(yǎng)料。每個人都有適合自己的精神食糧。要學會辨別哪些作家適合我們。他們可能和前面所說的友人完全不同。讀文學作品就像墜入愛河，我們總是對別人的選擇感到吃驚。要忠于適合自己的作家。對此，我們自己是最佳的裁判。

準則四：閱讀時必須平和鎮(zhèn)靜、心懷敬意，如同身處美妙的音樂會或神圣的典禮。閱讀時不可一目十行、斷斷續(xù)續(xù)、心不在焉，或是把書放到第二天再讀。真正的讀者需要長時間的獨處；為了閱讀某位特別喜愛的作家的著作，他會預留出冬天一個星期日的下午；他會感謝火車之旅讓自己有空閱讀巴爾扎克、司湯達11的整部小說，或是《墓畔回憶錄》12。重讀某個心愛的短語或段落時（比如普魯斯特筆下的“瑪?shù)铝招↑c心”或托爾斯泰13筆下的“勒維納的婚禮”），他會像音樂迷聽到斯特拉文斯基14的劇作《彼得魯什卡》里的魔術師主旋律一樣，感覺到一種強烈的快感。

準則五，也是最后一條準則：讓自己配得上偉大的作品。因為閱讀就像身處西班牙旅店或沐浴愛河——你只會找到自己帶進去的東西。對情感描寫感興趣的，不是已經(jīng)有過切身體會的過來人，就是滿懷希望、焦急等待愛情之花綻放的年輕人。一個去年還只讀冒險小說的小伙子，突然對《安娜·卡列尼娜》或《多米尼克》15萌生了強烈興趣，因為他現(xiàn)在明白了愛戀的甜蜜與痛苦。沒有什么場景能比這更令人感動了。偉大的行動主義者讀吉卜林16的著作，偉大的政治家讀塔西佗或雷斯的著作。利奧泰17在非法政府接管摩洛哥政權的第二天，就一頭扎進了莎士比亞的《科利奧蘭納斯》18之中，這是多么偉大的場景。在很大程度上，閱讀的藝術就是在書中再一次發(fā)現(xiàn)生活，并更好地理解生活。

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要相信千百年來的披沙瀝金：一個人或許走眼，一代人或許錯看，但人類不會誤判。

André Maurois 安德烈·莫洛亞

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1．瓦雷里·拉爾博（Valery Larbaud，1881—1957），法國小說家、詩人、評論家。

2．勒內(nèi)·笛卡兒（René Descartes，1596—1650），法國思想家、科學家，解析幾何的創(chuàng)始人，歐洲近代資產(chǎn)階級哲學的奠基人之一，被譽為“近代科學的始祖”。

3．蒙田，全名為米歇爾·德·蒙泰涅（Michel de Montaigne，1533—1592），文藝復興時期最有影響力的法國作家之一，歐洲近代散文的創(chuàng)始人，代表作為《蒙田隨筆》。

4．克勞德·昂列·圣西門（Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon，1760—1825），法國哲學家和社會改革家，空想社會主義者。

5．雷斯（Cardinal de Retz，1613—1679），法國政治家、紅衣主教、作家。

6．奧諾雷·德·巴爾扎克（Honoré de Balzac，1799—1850），法國19世紀著名作家，法國現(xiàn)實主義文學成就最高者之一。

7．馬塞爾·普魯斯特（Marcel Proust，1871—1922），法國小說家，意識流作家。

8．普布利烏斯·科爾奈利烏斯·塔西佗（Publius Cornelius Tacitus，約55—120），古羅馬帝國執(zhí)政官、雄辯家、元老院元老，也是著名的歷史學家。

9．威廉·莎士比亞（William Shakespeare，1564—1616），英國文藝復興時期的偉大戲劇家、詩人，著有37部詩劇，154首十四行詩，代表歐洲文藝復興時期最高的文學成就。

10．莫里哀（Molière，1622—1673），法國喜劇作家和演員，古典主義喜劇的創(chuàng)建者，法國芭蕾舞喜劇的創(chuàng)始人。

11．司湯達（Stendhal，1783—1842），本名馬利—亨利·貝爾，法國文學家，代表作有《紅與黑》《巴馬修道院》等。

12．《墓畔回憶錄》，法國作家弗朗索瓦—勒內(nèi)·德夏多布里昂寫于1809到1841年間的自傳。

13．列夫·尼古拉耶維奇·托爾斯泰（Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy，1828—1910），俄國文學家，其代表作《戰(zhàn)爭與和平》等家喻戶曉。

14．伊戈爾·費奧多羅維奇·斯特拉文斯基（Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky，1882—1971），美籍俄羅斯作曲家。

15．《多米尼克》，法國作家歐仁·弗羅芒坦的心理學小說。

16．約瑟夫·魯?shù)聛喌隆ぜ妨郑↗oseph Rudyard Kipling，1865—1936），生于印度孟買，英國作家和詩人，被譽為“短篇小說藝術創(chuàng)新之人”，1907年榮獲諾貝爾文學獎。

17．路易·赫伯特·利奧泰（Louis Hubert Lyautey，1854—1934），一戰(zhàn)法軍名將，1912—1925年在摩洛哥建立法國保護國制度。

18．《科利奧蘭納斯》，莎士比亞晚年撰寫的羅馬歷史悲劇。