I want to talk today about how reading can change our lives and about the limits of that change. I want to talk to you about how reading can give us a shareable world of powerful human connection. But also about how that connection is always partial. How reading is ultimately a lonely, idiosyncratic undertaking.
我今天想要談談, 閱讀如何改變我們的人生, 和這種改變的極限。 我想聊聊,閱讀如何以 富有人性的強力連結, 建立一個眾人能分享的世界, 也想聊聊為何這種連結 常常是不完整的。 為何閱讀是件非常孤獨的事, 人人嘗到的滋味都不同。
The writer who changed my life was the great African American novelist James Baldwin. When I was growing up in Western Michigan in the 1980s, there weren't many Asian American writers interested in social change. And so I think I turned to James Baldwin as a way to fill this void, as a way to feel racially conscious. But perhaps because I knew I wasn't myself African American, I also felt challenged and indicted by his words. Especially these words: "There are liberals who have all the proper attitudes, but no real convictions. When the chips are down and you somehow expect them to deliver, they are somehow not there." They are somehow not there. I took those words very literally. Where should I put myself?
改變我人生的作家, 是偉大的非裔美國小說家 詹姆斯·鮑德溫。 我是在 1980 年代的密西根西部長大, 當時並沒有很多關注 社會改革的亞裔美國作家。 所以我才轉向詹姆斯·鮑德溫, 來填補這個空缺, 來感受自己的種族意識。 不過因為我知道 我並不是非裔美國人, 我感覺自己也是他書中控訴的對象。 尤其是這段文字: 「自由派會表現出所有合宜的態度, 但他們沒有真正的信念。 當攤牌的時刻來到, 你期待他們會兌現 你以為他們感受到的東西, 結果他們不知怎地卻不見了。」 他們不在那裏了。 我用字面的意思來解讀這句話, 那我該把自己擺在哪裡?
I went to the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest regions in the United States. This is a place shaped by a powerful history. In the 1960s, African Americans risked their lives to fight for education, to fight for the right to vote. I wanted to be a part of that change, to help young teenagers graduate and go to college. When I got to the Mississippi Delta, it was a place that was still poor, still segregated, still dramatically in need of change.
我搬到密西西比河三角洲, 一個美國非常貧窮的區域。 這是一個由重大歷史塑造的地方, 在 1960 年代,非裔美國人 為了受教權、投票權捨命奮鬥。 我也想參與這股改變的力量, 幫助青少年畢業和上大學。 我到密西西比三角洲的時候, 那還是個貧困的地區, 種族隔閡依然存在, 非常需要一番大改革。
My school, where I was placed, had no library, no guidance counselor, but it did have a police officer. Half the teachers were substitutes and when students got into fights, the school would send them to the local county jail.
我被分配到的學校 沒有圖書館,沒有輔導老師, 倒是有一位警察。 學校裡有一半的老師是代課老師。 有學生打架的時候, 學校會將他們送去郡立監獄。
This is the school where I met Patrick. He was 15 and held back twice, he was in the eighth grade. He was quiet, introspective, like he was always in deep thought. And he hated seeing other people fight. I saw him once jump between two girls when they got into a fight and he got himself knocked to the ground. Patrick had just one problem. He wouldn't come to school. He said that sometimes school was just too depressing because people were always fighting and teachers were quitting. And also, his mother worked two jobs and was just too tired to make him come. So I made it my job to get him to come to school. And because I was crazy and 22 and zealously optimistic, my strategy was just to show up at his house and say, "Hey, why don't you come to school?" And this strategy actually worked, he started to come to school every day. And he started to flourish in my class. He was writing poetry, he was reading books. He was coming to school every day.
我就是在這所學校遇到派屈克。 他那時 15 歲,已被留級 兩次,仍在念八年級。 他非常安靜,自省內斂, 好像總是陷於沉思中。 他討厭看別人打架。 我曾看過他試著阻止 兩位正在打架的女生, 他當時還被推倒在地。 派屈克那時只有一個問題, 就是他不願上學。 他說有時候學校很令人沮喪, 因為常常有人打架, 又經常有老師辭職。 還有,他媽媽兼了兩份差, 累到沒空盯他上學。 所以提醒他去上學成了我的工作。 那時我正值瘋狂的 22 歲, 熱血澎湃、積極樂觀。 我的策略就是每天去他家敲門叫他: 「嘿,你幹嘛不來上學?」 這招還真的有效。 他開始每天上學, 也在班上越來越進步。 他開始寫詩、閱讀, 每天都來學校上課。
Around the same time that I had figured out how to connect to Patrick, I got into law school at Harvard. I once again faced this question, where should I put myself, where do I put my body? And I thought to myself that the Mississippi Delta was a place where people with money, people with opportunity, those people leave. And the people who stay behind are the people who don't have the chance to leave. I didn't want to be a person who left. I wanted to be a person who stayed. On the other hand, I was lonely and tired. And so I convinced myself that I could do more change on a larger scale if I had a prestigious law degree. So I left.
但在我學會跟派屈克 建立良好關係的同時, 我收到了哈佛法學院的錄取通知。 我又得重新面臨這個問題: 「我該把自己擺在哪裡?」 那時我心想, 密西西比三角洲是有錢人、 有機會的人都會離開的地方。 留在那裡的都是沒有機會離開的人。 我並不想當離開的人。 我想當留下來的人, 但我又覺得孤單、疲憊。 最後我說服自己, 如果我有受人崇敬的法律學位, 就有影響力來做更多更大的改革。 於是我離開了。
Three years later, when I was about to graduate from law school, my friend called me and told me that Patrick had got into a fight and killed someone. I was devastated. Part of me didn't believe it, but part of me also knew that it was true. I flew down to see Patrick. I visited him in jail. And he told me that it was true. That he had killed someone. And he didn't want to talk more about it. I asked him what had happened with school and he said that he had dropped out the year after I left. And then he wanted to tell me something else. He looked down and he said that he had had a baby daughter who was just born. And he felt like he had let her down. That was it, our conversation was rushed and awkward.
三年後, 在我就要從法學院畢業時, 朋友打電話告訴我, 派屈克跟人起了衝突, 把對方殺死了。 我非常震驚, 心裡有一部分不想相信那是事實, 但另一部分很清楚這是真的。 我飛回去找派屈克, 到了監獄探望他。 他告訴我那是真的, 他的確殺了人, 但他不願多談, 我問起他後來在學校的情形, 他說,他在我離開的那年就輟學了。 接著他還有事情想跟我說, 他低著頭說, 他有個才剛出生的女兒, 他覺得自己辜負了女兒。 我們的對話就只有這樣, 過程倉促又尷尬。
When I stepped outside the jail, a voice inside me said, "Come back. If you don't come back now, you'll never come back." So I graduated from law school and I went back. I went back to see Patrick, I went back to see if I could help him with his legal case. And this time, when I saw him a second time, I thought I had this great idea, I said, "Hey, Patrick, why don't you write a letter to your daughter, so that you can keep her on your mind?" And I handed him a pen and a piece of paper, and he started to write.
當我踏出監獄時, 心裡有個聲音說: 「回來吧! 如果你現在不回來, 就不會再回來了!」 於是,從法學院畢業後,我回去了。 我回去見了派屈克, 去看看我是否能協助 處理他的法律案件。 當我再次遇見他時, 我提了一個自認不錯的主意, 我說:「嘿!派屈克! 要不要寫封信給你女兒? 這樣你就能時時把她放在心上。」 我遞給他筆和紙, 他就開始寫信。
But when I saw the paper that he handed back to me, I was shocked. I didn't recognize his handwriting, he had made simple spelling mistakes. And I thought to myself that as a teacher, I knew that a student could dramatically improve in a very quick amount of time, but I never thought that a student could dramatically regress. What even pained me more, was seeing what he had written to his daughter. He had written, "I'm sorry for my mistakes, I'm sorry for not being there for you." And this was all he felt he had to say to her. And I asked myself how can I convince him that he has more to say, parts of himself that he doesn't need to apologize for. I wanted him to feel that he had something worthwhile to share with his daughter.
但當我看到他交給我的那封信時, 我難以置信。 我認不出他的字跡, 他連很簡單的字都拼錯。 我心想,身為老師, 我知道學生可以突然進步得很快, 但我從來沒想過, 學生的程度可以退步這麼多。 更讓我感到衝擊的, 是這封信的內容。 裡面寫著: 「我對我做錯事感到抱歉, 不能在你的身邊我感到抱歉。」 他覺得只需要對女兒說這些話。 我問自己:要如何讓他 相信自己有更多話要說, 說的話也不只是他需要道歉的事。 我想讓他覺得他還有 值得與女兒分享的事情。
For every day the next seven months, I visited him and brought books. My tote bag became a little library. I brought James Baldwin, I brought Walt Whitman, C.S. Lewis. I brought guidebooks to trees, to birds, and what would become his favorite book, the dictionary. On some days, we would sit for hours in silence, both of us reading. And on other days, we would read together, we would read poetry.
接下來的七個月, 我每天都帶著書過去看他。 我的袋子就像個小圖書館。 我帶了詹姆斯·鮑德溫, 我帶了華特·惠特曼、C.S. 路易斯, 我帶了樹木指南、鳥類圖鑒, 還有他最愛的字典。 有時候, 我們會安靜同坐 好幾個小時,各自閱讀。 也有時候, 我們會一起讀詩。
We started by reading haikus, hundreds of haikus, a deceptively simple masterpiece. And I would ask him, "Share with me your favorite haikus." And some of them are quite funny. So there's this by Issa: "Don't worry, spiders, I keep house casually." And this: "Napped half the day, no one punished me!" And this gorgeous one, which is about the first day of snow falling, "Deer licking first frost from each other's coats." There's something mysterious and gorgeous just about the way a poem looks. The empty space is as important as the words themselves.
我們從俳句開始讀,上百首的俳句。 看似簡單卻首首都是傑作。 我要他分享他最喜歡的俳句, 他挑了幾首還滿好玩的俳句。 比如小林一茶的這首: 「蜘蛛別慌 我打掃房子 很隨意」 還有這首:「睡了大半天 卻沒人 處罰我」 還有一首很優美,描寫初雪的, 「小公鹿 相互舔拭 毛絨上初霜」 詩歌的形式看起來 就是有那麼些神秘感和美感。 而留白跟文字一樣重要。
We read this poem by W.S. Merwin, which he wrote after he saw his wife working in the garden and realized that they would spend the rest of their lives together. "Let me imagine that we will come again when we want to and it will be spring We will be no older than we ever were The worn griefs will have eased like the early cloud through which morning slowly comes to itself" I asked Patrick what his favorite line was, and he said, "We will be no older than we ever were." He said it reminded him of a place where time just stops, where time doesn't matter anymore. And I asked him if he had a place like that, where time lasts forever. And he said, "My mother." When you read a poem alongside someone else, the poem changes in meaning. Because it becomes personal to that person, becomes personal to you.
我們讀了一首 W.S. 默溫的詩, 這是他看到妻子在花園裡工作, 明白他們將共度餘生之後寫下的。 「讓我想像我們隨心所願 再次歸來,屆時將是春天 我們會像往昔那般青春 磨舊憂愁將已消逝如朝霧 晨光總要慢慢破雲而出」 我問派屈克最喜歡哪一句, 他說: 「我們會像往昔那般青春」, 他說這句讓他想像 時間會暫停的地方, 在那裏時間不再那麼重要。 我問他自己有沒有一個這樣的地方, 時間永遠停留的地方。 他說:「媽媽身邊。」 當你與別人一起閱讀一首詩時, 詩的意義就會變化, 因為那首詩對你和共讀的人 都會有獨特意涵。
We then read books, we read so many books, we read the memoir of Frederick Douglass, an American slave who taught himself to read and write and who escaped to freedom because of his literacy. I had grown up thinking of Frederick Douglass as a hero and I thought of this story as one of uplift and hope. But this book put Patrick in a kind of panic. He fixated on a story Douglass told of how, over Christmas, masters give slaves gin as a way to prove to them that they can't handle freedom. Because slaves would be stumbling on the fields. Patrick said he related to this. He said that there are people in jail who, like slaves, don't want to think about their condition, because it's too painful. Too painful to think about the past, too painful to think about how far we have to go.
我們還讀其他書,好多書。 我們讀了佛雷德里克·道格拉斯的自傳。 道格拉斯是個自學讀寫的奴隸, 並藉著讀書識字,走上自由之路。 從小我就把道格拉斯視為一位英雄, 也把他的故事當作 奮發向上的勵志故事。 但這本書卻讓派屈克感到惶恐, 他特別在意道格拉斯提到, 聖誕節期間,主人會讓奴隸喝琴酒, 讓奴隸覺得他們無法掌控自由, 因為他們會跌跌撞撞,醉倒在田裡。 派屈克對這個故事感同身受。 他說有些在監獄的人 也會像這些奴隸一樣, 不想思考自己的處境, 因為那實在太痛苦了。 回想過去令人很痛苦, 去想這種日子 還要過多久,也很痛苦。
His favorite line was this line: "Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me." Patrick said that Douglass was brave to write, to keep thinking. But Patrick would never know how much he seemed like Douglass to me. How he kept reading, even though it put him in a panic. He finished the book before I did, reading it in a concrete stairway with no light.
他最喜歡其中這一段: 「無論什麼都行,只要讓我擺脫思考! 我無時無刻不在思考自己的 處境,這令我飽受折磨。」 派屈克覺得道格拉斯真的很勇敢, 因為他寫作、不斷思考。 但派屈克不知道,在我眼中, 他和道格拉斯有多像。 就算這本書讓他感到惶恐, 他仍繼續讀下去; 他還比我先讀完這本書, 而且是在沒有燈的水泥樓梯間讀的。
And then we went on to read one of my favorite books, Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead," which is an extended letter from a father to his son. He loved this line: "I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life ... you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle."
接著我們讀我很喜歡的一本書, 瑪麗蓮·羅賓遜的小說《基列》, 整本書是一封父親寫給兒子的信。 他特別喜歡其中這句: 「我寫這封信給你的 原因之一是要告訴你, 如果你曾經自問 你這輩子做了什麼…… 你是上帝賜予我的恩典, 一個奇蹟,你的存在甚至超越奇蹟。」
Something about this language, its love, its longing, its voice, rekindled Patrick's desire to write. And he would fill notebooks upon notebooks with letters to his daughter. In these beautiful, intricate letters, he would imagine him and his daughter going canoeing down the Mississippi river. He would imagine them finding a mountain stream with perfectly clear water. As I watched Patrick write, I thought to myself, and I now ask all of you, how many of you have written a letter to somebody you feel you have let down? It is just much easier to put those people out of your mind. But Patrick showed up every day, facing his daughter, holding himself accountable to her, word by word with intense concentration.
文字裡所傳達的愛、期盼、語氣, 重新燃起他寫作的欲望。 他一本本的筆記本, 滿滿的都是寫給女兒的信。 在一封封寫得又美又細緻的信裡, 他想像父女倆在密西西比河上, 划著獨木舟順流而下。 他想像兩人找到一處 清澈見底的山澗。 看著派屈克寫作時, 我心想著一個問題, 也想請教在座的各位: 「你是否曾經寫信 給你覺得曾辜負的人?」 最輕鬆的做法就是將對方拋諸腦後。 但派屈克卻每天都去面對 他女兒,認真為她負責; 他一字一句、全心全意地寫。
I wanted in my own life to put myself at risk in that way. Because that risk reveals the strength of one's heart. Let me take a step back and just ask an uncomfortable question. Who am I to tell this story, as in this Patrick story? Patrick's the one who lived with this pain and I have never been hungry a day in my life. I thought about this question a lot, but what I want to say is that this story is not just about Patrick. It's about us, it's about the inequality between us. The world of plenty that Patrick and his parents and his grandparents have been shut out of. In this story, I represent that world of plenty. And in telling this story, I didn't want to hide myself. Hide the power that I do have.
在我的生命裡, 我也想把自己擺在那樣的處境, 因為面對那種挑戰才能 展現出一顆心的力量。 讓我退一步反觀自己, 提出一個令人不自在的問題: 「我憑什麼講這個故事? 這不是派屈克的故事嗎?」 派屈克才是苦中求生的人, 而我生活寬裕、沒挨餓過。 我常常思考這個問題, 不過我想要講的是, 這不只是派屈克的故事, 而是我們共同的故事, 講的是我們之間的不平等。 故事裡有個富足的世界, 但派屈克和他的父母、 祖父母都被拒絕於門外。 我在這個故事裡, 代表那個富足世界。 在講這個故事時, 我不想再隱藏自己, 或隱瞞我享有的權力與資源。
In telling this story, I wanted to expose that power and then to ask, how do we diminish the distance between us? Reading is one way to close that distance. It gives us a quiet universe that we can share together, that we can share in equally.
在講這故事時, 我想揭露自己的優勢, 並問: 「我們要如何減少彼此間的距離?」 閱讀是一種能縮短這個距離的方法, 閱讀賦予我們一個 能平等共享的安靜世界。
You're probably wondering now what happened to Patrick. Did reading save his life? It did and it didn't. When Patrick got out of prison, his journey was excruciating. Employers turned him away because of his record, his best friend, his mother, died at age 43 from heart disease and diabetes. He's been homeless, he's been hungry.
你也許會好奇想問: 派屈克後來怎麼了? 閱讀拯救他了嗎? 可以說有,也可以說沒有。 派屈克出獄後, 他的生活非常痛苦, 雇主因為他的犯罪記錄 而不願聘用他。 他最親近的朋友,也就是他母親, 43 歲時,死於心臟病及糖尿病。 他曾無家可歸,經常挨餓。
So people say a lot of things about reading that feel exaggerated to me. Being literate didn't stop him form being discriminated against. It didn't stop his mother from dying. So what can reading do? I have a few answers to end with today.
人們說了許多閱讀的好處, 我覺得有些誇大。 派屈克沒有因為 會讀書識字而不被歧視, 讀書識字也救不了他母親。 那,閱讀到底有什麼用? 我在此用幾個答案來結尾。
Reading charged his inner life with mystery, with imagination, with beauty. Reading gave him images that gave him joy: mountain, ocean, deer, frost. Words that taste of a free, natural world. Reading gave him a language for what he had lost. How precious are these lines from the poet Derek Walcott? Patrick memorized this poem. "Days that I have held, days that I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harboring arms."
閱讀改變了他的內心世界, 賦予神秘、想像力和美。 閱讀讓他心中充滿了愉悅的景象: 山、海、鹿、霜, 在字句間他體驗到了 自由和自然的世界; 閱讀賦予他聲音, 來訴說自己失去的一切。 德里克·沃爾科特的 這幾行詩寫得真好, 派屈克把這首詩都背下來了。 「我擁有的歲月 我丟失的歲月 漸長的歲月,如女兒漸長 再也容不進停泊的,我的臂彎」
Reading taught him his own courage. Remember that he kept reading Frederick Douglass, even though it was painful. He kept being conscious, even though being conscious hurts. Reading is a form of thinking, that's why it's difficult to read because we have to think. And Patrick chose to think, rather than to not think. And last, reading gave him a language to speak to his daughter. Reading inspired him to want to write. The link between reading and writing is so powerful. When we begin to read, we begin to find the words. And he found the words to imagine the two of them together. He found the words to tell her how much he loved her.
閱讀給了他勇氣, 記得他是如何在痛苦惶恐中 仍繼續閱讀道格拉斯書的書嗎? 意識到自身的處境為他帶來傷痛, 他還是清醒的保有這種意識。 閱讀是種思考的方式, 閱讀之所以困難是因為 我們得邊讀邊思考, 而派屈克選擇了思考, 而非放棄思考。 最後,閱讀讓他找到了 一種和女兒溝通的語言, 閱讀激發了他的寫作興趣, 閱讀與寫作的關聯是如此強大。 我們開始閱讀後, 就能漸漸找到表達自己的詞彙。 他找到了自己的文字, 來描繪父女共處的幻想世界。 他也找到了用文字表達父愛的方式。
Reading also changed our relationship with each other. It gave us an occasion for intimacy, to see beyond our points of view. And reading took an unequal relationship and gave us a momentary equality. When you meet somebody as a reader, you meet him for the first time, newly, freshly. There is no way you can know what his favorite line will be. What memories and private griefs he has. And you face the ultimate privacy of his inner life. And then you start to wonder, "Well, what is my inner life made of? What do I have that's worthwhile to share with another?"
閱讀也改變了我們彼此的關係, 讓我們有機會變得更親密, 也讓我們能跳脫自己原有的觀點。 閱讀也能在原本不平等的關係中, 創造出暫時的平等; 當你以讀者身分初識某人, 新鮮而陌生。 你不會知道他最喜歡哪一段文字, 他私底下又有哪些回憶和痛苦。 你直接面對的是 他內在世界最私密的部分。 然後你可能會思考: 「那麼,我的內心世界裡有什麼? 我有甚麼是值得與人的分享的呢?」
I want to close on some of my favorite lines from Patrick's letters to his daughter. "The river is shadowy in some places but the light shines through the cracks of trees ... On some branches hang plenty of mulberries. You stretch your arm straight out to grab some." And this lovely letter, where he writes, "Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of the words. I know this poem by heart and I would like you to know it, too."
我想從派屈克寫給女兒的信中 摘錄出我最愛的幾句來做結尾: 「河流的某些部分被陰影遮住, 不過光線會從樹木的縫隙透進來…… 許多桑葚懸掛在一些低矮樹枝上。 妳伸長了手想去摘。」 還有這封很美的信: 「把眼睛閉上,聽那些字詞的聲音。 我把它背得很熟, 我想讓妳也知道它。」
Thank you so much everyone.
謝謝大家!
(Applause)
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