中山大学-2025年MTI翻译真题解析-怎样读书?

It is simple enough to say that since books have classes—fiction, biography, poetry——we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Being his fellow-worker and accomplice.

既然书有小说、传记、诗歌之分，我们应当分开阅读，汲取每种书里的知识点，这话说来固然简单/这个道理说来简单。但很少有人扪心自问：书到底能够给我们带来什么？开卷之初，我们往往思想模糊，思绪繁杂，逢小说便要求真实，认定诗歌一定是虚构的，传记自然要工于吹捧夸耀，而历史则须附会个人固有之成见。读书时若能够摒弃这些先入之见，便是一个相当不错的开始。不要对作者发号施令/颐指气使，要努力站在作者的立场上思考/要努力代入作者的处境/要设身处地，设想自己与作者一同创作。

If you hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite.

若你一开始/若你一上来就踌躇不前，有所保留，甚至加以指责的话，你将无法从阅读中获取最大价值。‌但如果你尽可能敞开心扉，那么从开篇语句的迂回曲折/曲折回环中，那些几乎难以察觉的细微迹象与暗示，便会让你遇到一个独一无二的作者。试着让自己沉浸其中，熟悉它，你很快会发现，作者向你传达的，或试图向你传达的，是某种更为明确的东西。‌

The thirty two chapters of a novel—if we consider how to read a novel first—are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building but words are more impalpable than bricks, reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words.

首先以如何阅读小说为例，作者创作一部足有32个章节的小说，就好比试图建造一栋结构严密、秩序分明的建筑物，然而文字比砖块更加虚幻/更难以捉摸，阅读过程也比欣赏建筑物更为漫长复杂。或许，要想理解小说家的创作本质/创作精髓，最快捷的方法并非阅读，而是写作，亲身体验写作的危险和困难。