So when I was eight years old, a new girl came to join the class, and she was so impressive, as the new girl always seems to be. She had vast quantities of very shiny hair and a cute little pencil case, super strong on state capitals, just a great speller. And I just curdled with jealousy that year, until I hatched my devious plan. So one day I stayed a little late after school, a little too late, and I lurked in the girls' bathroom. When the coast was clear, I emerged, crept into the classroom, and took from my teacher's desk the grade book. And then I did it. I fiddled with my rival's grades, just a little, just demoted some of those A's. All of those A's. (Laughter) And I got ready to return the book to the drawer, when hang on, some of my other classmates had appallingly good grades too. So, in a frenzy, I corrected everybody's marks, not imaginatively. I gave everybody a row of D's and I gave myself a row of A's, just because I was there, you know, might as well.
我八岁的时候, 班里新来了个女生, 她如此引人注目, 就像所有新来的女孩那样。 她有一大把光泽的秀发 一个可爱的小文具盒 特别擅长记周分首都名字 在拼写上无人能比 那一年我整个人被嫉妒笼罩 直到我想出那个邪恶的计划 有一天我放学后又逗留了一会儿 其实留到挺晚的,我一直潜伏在女卫生间 等时机一到,我就出动了 潜入教室 从老师桌子上拿了分数册 然后我的阴谋得逞了—— 我篡改了我对手的分数 只改了一点,就是把某些A等降级了 好吧,其实是所有的A(笑声) 当我准备把册子放回抽屉时 不过等等!其他有些同学的分数 也高得令人发指! 于是,由于一时的疯狂错乱 我改了所有人的分数 但方式并没什么创造性 我给了所有人一行的D等分 然后给自己一行A 因为我已经在这了,倒不如做得彻底些
And I am still baffled by my behavior. I don't understand where the idea came from. I don't understand why I felt so great doing it. I felt great. I don't understand why I was never caught. I mean, it should have been so blatantly obvious. I was never caught. But most of all, I am baffled by, why did it bother me so much that this little girl, this tiny little girl, was so good at spelling? Jealousy baffles me. It's so mysterious, and it's so pervasive. We know babies suffer from jealousy. We know primates do. Bluebirds are actually very prone. We know that jealousy is the number one cause of spousal murder in the United States. And yet, I have never read a study that can parse to me its loneliness or its longevity or its grim thrill. For that, we have to go to fiction, because the novel is the lab that has studied jealousy in every possible configuration. In fact, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say that if we didn't have jealousy, would we even have literature? Well no faithless Helen, no "Odyssey." No jealous king, no "Arabian Nights." No Shakespeare. There goes high school reading lists, because we're losing "Sound and the Fury," we're losing "Gatsby," "Sun Also Rises," we're losing "Madame Bovary," "Anna K." No jealousy, no Proust. And now, I mean, I know it's fashionable to say that Proust has the answers to everything, but in the case of jealousy, he kind of does. This year is the centennial of his masterpiece, "In Search of Lost Time," and it's the most exhaustive study of sexual jealousy and just regular competitiveness, my brand, that we can hope to have. (Laughter) And we think about Proust, we think about the sentimental bits, right? We think about a little boy trying to get to sleep. We think about a madeleine moistened in lavender tea. We forget how harsh his vision was. We forget how pitiless he is. I mean, these are books that Virginia Woolf said were tough as cat gut. I don't know what cat gut is, but let's assume it's formidable.
我现在还难以理解我的行为 我不理解这主意是从哪儿冒出来的 我不懂为什么这样做时居然很爽 我当时感觉棒极了 我也不明白为啥我从未被发现 我是说,这件事做得如此明显 我居然没被发现! 但重要的是,我为何如此在乎 这个女孩,这个身材瘦小的小女孩 那么擅长于拼写? 这点一直让我困惑 嫉妒让我困惑 它如此神秘,无处不在 我们知道婴儿们受嫉妒之苦 也知道灵长类动物会嫉妒,蓝知更鸟极易嫉妒 我们知道嫉妒是美国配偶谋杀的 罪魁祸首 但我却从未读到一篇研究 能够解释“嫉妒”的寂寞 它的长久存在,或它的残酷刺激 为了理解它,我们不得不看小说 因为小说是一个实验室 能研究“嫉妒”的 所有可能的形态 其实,我不知道这样说是不是夸张: 如果我们没有嫉妒 我们会有文学吗? 如果没有不忠的海伦,就没有《奥德赛》 没有心怀妒忌的国王,就没有《一千零一夜》 也不会有莎士比亚 我们高中都有阅读书单 因为我们正在失去《喧嚣与骚动》 正在失去《了不起的盖茨比》《太阳照常升起》 正在失去《包法利夫人》《安娜·卡列琳娜》 没有嫉妒,就没有普鲁斯特。现在我是说 我知道人们总爱说 普鲁斯特什么都知道 但说到嫉妒这件事 他确实比较懂 今年是他的巨著《追忆似水年华》一百周年 这部作品是对性嫉妒最透彻的研究 还包括我们可以想到的常见的竞争性 也就是我在行的那种(笑声) 当我们想到普鲁斯特 我们会想到那些情感细节对吧? 我们想到一个小男孩正要入梦 想到一块玛德琳蛋糕泡在薰衣草茶中 我们却忘了他的眼光多么犀利 他多么冷酷无情 这些书在弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫看来 跟猫的肠子一样硬 我不知道猫肠是什么 不过我们就假设它坚如顽石吧
Let's look at why they go so well together, the novel and jealousy, jealousy and Proust. Is it something as obvious as that jealousy, which boils down into person, desire, impediment, is such a solid narrative foundation? I don't know. I think it cuts very close to the bone, because let's think about what happens when we feel jealous. When we feel jealous, we tell ourselves a story. We tell ourselves a story about other people's lives, and these stories make us feel terrible because they're designed to make us feel terrible. As the teller of the tale and the audience, we know just what details to include, to dig that knife in. Right? Jealousy makes us all amateur novelists, and this is something Proust understood.
我们来看看这些因素为何走在一起会如此合拍。 小说和嫉妒,嫉妒和普鲁斯特 妒忌归结到人,欲望,阻碍 成为一个如此牢固的叙事基础 是不是非常明显? 我不知道。我认为它极大地触动我们的敏感神经 因为只需想想当我们嫉妒时 会发生什么 当我们感到嫉妒时,我们会给自己编个故事 讲述一个关于他人生活的故事 这些故事让我们感觉很糟糕 因为它们本来就是为了让我们难受的 我们自己作为故事的讲者与观众 明确知道要加入哪些细节 从哪插入致命一刀。对吗? 嫉妒让我们都成为业余小说家 而这一点普鲁斯特能明白
In the first volume, Swann's Way, the series of books, Swann, one of the main characters, is thinking very fondly of his mistress and how great she is in bed, and suddenly, in the course of a few sentences, and these are Proustian sentences, so they're long as rivers, but in the course of a few sentences, he suddenly recoils and he realizes, "Hang on, everything I love about this woman, somebody else would love about this woman. Everything that she does that gives me pleasure could be giving somebody else pleasure, maybe right about now." And this is the story he starts to tell himself, and from then on, Proust writes that every fresh charm Swann detects in his mistress, he adds to his "collection of instruments in his private torture chamber."
在第一卷,《去斯万家那边》 这是一系列作品中的一部 斯万是主要人物之一 正思念他的情人 想着她在床上多棒 突然,在几句话中间 还有,这些都是普鲁斯特式的句子 所以它们长得像河 但是就在这几句中间 斯万猛然一惊,他意识到 “等等,这个女人身上我爱的一切 也会是别人可能爱上她的理由 所有她所做的令我快乐的事 也会给别人快乐 或许这会儿就在发生呢。” 这就是他开始给自己编织的故事 然后,普鲁斯特写道 斯万每发现他情人的一种新魅力 就加进他“性虐密室中的 一系列工具”中
Now Swann and Proust, we have to admit, were notoriously jealous. You know, Proust's boyfriends would have to leave the country if they wanted to break up with him. But you don't have to be that jealous to concede that it's hard work. Right? Jealousy is exhausting. It's a hungry emotion. It must be fed.
现在我们不得不承认,斯万和普鲁斯特 两人的嫉妒心臭名昭著 知道吗,普鲁斯特的男朋友们若要跟他分手 就不得不逃离这个国家 但是你不需要那么嫉妒 才会承认嫉妒的确不容易,对吧? 嫉妒让人身心俱疲 它是一种饥渴的情感,必须得到满足
And what does jealousy like? Jealousy likes information. Jealousy likes details. Jealousy likes the vast quantities of shiny hair, the cute little pencil case. Jealousy likes photos. That's why Instagram is such a hit. (Laughter) Proust actually links the language of scholarship and jealousy. When Swann is in his jealous throes, and suddenly he's listening at doorways and bribing his mistress' servants, he defends these behaviors. He says, "You know, look, I know you think this is repugnant, but it is no different from interpreting an ancient text or looking at a monument." He says, "They are scientific investigations with real intellectual value." Proust is trying to show us that jealousy feels intolerable and makes us look absurd, but it is, at its crux, a quest for knowledge, a quest for truth, painful truth, and actually, where Proust is concerned, the more painful the truth, the better. Grief, humiliation, loss: These were the avenues to wisdom for Proust. He says, "A woman whom we need, who makes us suffer, elicits from us a gamut of feelings far more profound and vital than a man of genius who interests us." Is he telling us to just go and find cruel women? No. I think he's trying to say that jealousy reveals us to ourselves. And does any other emotion crack us open in this particular way? Does any other emotion reveal to us our aggression and our hideous ambition and our entitlement? Does any other emotion teach us to look with such peculiar intensity?
嫉妒喜欢什么呢? 嫉妒喜欢信息 喜欢细节 喜欢一大把光泽的秀发 可爱的文具盒 嫉妒喜欢照片 这也是Instagram这么火的原因(笑声) 普鲁斯特其实将学术语言与嫉妒的语言相联 当斯万挣扎在他的嫉妒中 突然他就开始站在门口偷听 开始贿赂他情人的佣人 他为这些行为辩护 他说:“瞧,我知道你觉得这令人讨厌, 但这与诠释一篇古文 或看着一座纪念碑 没什么两样。” 他说:“这些是科学的调查, 有真正的知识价值。” 普鲁斯特试图告诉我们 嫉妒让人难以忍受,让我们看起来荒谬 但在其关键之处,是一种对知识的追求 对令人痛心的真理的追求 事实上,就普鲁斯特而言 真理越令人痛苦越好 悲伤,耻辱,丧失: 这些都是通往普林斯特智慧的路 他说:“一个我们需要的女人,一个让我们痛苦的女人 引发了我们全部的情感 远比一个让我们感兴趣的天才所能有的 更加深刻和致命。” 他是在告诉我们去找残忍的女人吗? 不。我想他是说 嫉妒让我们看清自己 有没有其他情感也能以这种特别的方式 让我们发掘自己? 其他情感会不会让我们看到 自己的敌意,自己丑恶的企图心 和自己所应得的? 其他情感能不能教会我们 如此独特而透彻地看待世界?
Freud would write about this later. One day, Freud was visited by this very anxious young man who was consumed with the thought of his wife cheating on him. And Freud says, it's something strange about this guy, because he's not looking at what his wife is doing. Because she's blameless; everybody knows it. The poor creature is just under suspicion for no cause. But he's looking for things that his wife is doing without noticing, unintentional behaviors. Is she smiling too brightly here, or did she accidentally brush up against a man there? [Freud] says that the man is becoming the custodian of his wife's unconscious.
弗洛伊德不久后就写道这一点 有一天,一位心神不宁的青年拜访弗洛伊德 这个青年认为他妻子背叛了他 并因此心力憔悴 弗洛伊德觉得这个家伙有点诡异 因为他并没有真正关注他妻子做了什么 因为他妻子是清白的,大家都知道 这个可怜的家伙只是 毫无缘由地怀疑着 但他却在寻找他妻子的一些 无意识的、纯属无意的举动 她是不是笑得太灿烂了 或者,她真是无意中碰到了那个男人吗? 弗洛伊德说这个男人正在变成 他妻子无意识行为的看守人
The novel is very good on this point. The novel is very good at describing how jealousy trains us to look with intensity but not accuracy. In fact, the more intensely jealous we are, the more we become residents of fantasy. And this is why, I think, jealousy doesn't just provoke us to do violent things or illegal things. Jealousy prompts us to behave in ways that are wildly inventive. Now I'm thinking of myself at eight, I concede, but I'm also thinking of this story I heard on the news. A 52-year-old Michigan woman was caught creating a fake Facebook account from which she sent vile, hideous messages to herself for a year. For a year. A year. And she was trying to frame her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend, and I have to confess when I heard this, I just reacted with admiration. (Laughter) Because, I mean, let's be real. What immense, if misplaced, creativity. Right? This is something from a novel. This is something from a Patricia Highsmith novel.
小说关于这点写得很好 该小说很善于描述嫉妒是如何训练我们 极端地看问题,却不是准确性 其实,我们的嫉妒越强烈 我们会越频繁地幻想 所以我认为嫉妒不仅仅 引诱我们去做暴力的事 或非法的事 嫉妒会促使我们的行为 变得异常极端 我承认我想到了八岁时候的自己 但我也想到了在新闻上看到的一个故事 密歇根一个52岁的妇女被发现 注册一个虚假Facebook账户 并用该账户对自己发送了 一年的恶意消息 一年。整整一年。 她还试图陷害 她前男友的现任女友 我必须承认当我听到这时 我的反应是对她钦佩 (笑声) 因为,我想说,大家面对现实吧 多么有创造力啊!只不过用错了地方,不是么? 这事来源于小说 一部派翠西亚·海史密斯的小说
Now Highsmith is a particular favorite of mine. She is the very brilliant and bizarre woman of American letters. She's the author of "Strangers on a Train" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," books that are all about how jealousy, it muddles our minds, and once we're in the sphere, in that realm of jealousy, the membrane between what is and what could be can be pierced in an instant. Take Tom Ripley, her most famous character. Now, Tom Ripley goes from wanting you or wanting what you have to being you and having what you once had, and you're under the floorboards, he's answering to your name, he's wearing your rings, emptying your bank account. That's one way to go.
海史密斯是我特别喜爱的作家 她是美国文学史上非常杰出而又奇诡的一位 她是《火车怪客》和 《天才里普利先生》的作者 这些书都是关于嫉妒如何 让我们思维混乱 而且一旦我们进入了嫉妒的领域 真实性和可能性之间的薄膜 瞬间就被刺穿 例如汤姆·里普利,她作品里最著名的人物 里普利一开始想要你 或想要你所拥有的 然后又想成为你,并拥有你曾经拥有的 你被关在地下室 他应答着你的名字 戴着你的戒指 花光你的银行账户 这是一条路
But what do we do? We can't go the Tom Ripley route. I can't give the world D's, as much as I would really like to, some days. And it's a pity, because we live in envious times. We live in jealous times. I mean, we're all good citizens of social media, aren't we, where the currency is envy?
但我们怎么做呢?我们不能重复里普利的路 我不能给这个世界带来巨大变化 即便我愿意有一天这点能实现 这很遗憾,因为我们生活在羡慕的时代 我们生活在嫉妒的时代 我是说,我们都是社交媒体的好公民 在那里嫉妒是一种潮流,不是吗?
Does the novel show us a way out? I'm not sure. So let's do what characters always do when they're not sure, when they are in possession of a mystery. Let's go to 221B Baker Street and ask for Sherlock Holmes. When people think of Holmes, they think of his nemesis being Professor Moriarty, right, this criminal mastermind. But I've always preferred [Inspector] Lestrade, who is the rat-faced head of Scotland Yard who needs Holmes desperately, needs Holmes' genius, but resents him. Oh, it's so familiar to me. So Lestrade needs his help, resents him, and sort of seethes with bitterness over the course of the mysteries. But as they work together, something starts to change, and finally in "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons," once Holmes comes in, dazzles everybody with his solution, Lestrade turns to Holmes and he says, "We're not jealous of you, Mr. Holmes. We're proud of you." And he says that there's not a man at Scotland Yard who wouldn't want to shake Sherlock Holmes' hand.
小说能给我们解决办法吗?我不确定 那我们就来学学小说人物吧,看他们在遇到难解之事 且不确定时是怎么做的 让我们回到贝克街221B号 问问夏洛克·福尔摩斯 当人们想到福尔摩斯 就会想到他的对手莫里亚蒂教授 这个犯罪天才 但我一直更喜欢警探雷斯垂德 一副阴险面孔的苏格兰场头子 他非常需要福尔摩斯 需要他的智慧,但憎恨他 哦,我对这再熟悉不过了 雷斯垂德需要他的帮助,同时憎恨他 在神秘案件的侦破中,总是恼火又苦闷 但他们一起工作使得有些事开始改变 最终在“六个拿破仑”的案子中 福尔摩斯一登场,他的智慧就让所有人惊艳 雷斯垂德转向福尔摩斯对他说: “福尔摩斯先生,我们不嫉妒你, 我们为你骄傲。” 还说,苏格兰场里没有人会不愿意 与福尔摩斯握手
It's one of the few times we see Holmes moved in the mysteries, and I find it very moving, this little scene, but it's also mysterious, right? It seems to treat jealousy as a problem of geometry, not emotion. You know, one minute Holmes is on the other side from Lestrade. The next minute they're on the same side. Suddenly, Lestrade is letting himself admire this mind that he's resented. Could it be so simple though? What if jealousy really is a matter of geometry, just a matter of where we allow ourselves to stand in relation to another? Well, maybe then we wouldn't have to resent somebody's excellence. We could align ourselves with it.
这是少数几次我们看到福尔摩斯 在探案时被感动,我也很受感动 这个情节也很神秘不是吗? 这好像把嫉妒看做 一个几何问题,而不是情感 这一分钟,福尔摩斯站在雷斯垂德对立面 下一分钟他们站在同一边 突然间,雷斯垂德允许自己 来仰慕这个他曾憎恶的人 不过难道如此简单吗? 如果嫉妒真的是一个几何问题改怎么办, 一个关于我们如何选择 与他人关系的立场的问题? 或许到那时,我们不会再憎恨 某人的才华 我们会努力追赶
But I like contingency plans. So while we wait for that to happen, let us remember that we have fiction for consolation. Fiction alone demystifies jealousy. Fiction alone domesticates it, invites it to the table. And look who it gathers: sweet Lestrade, terrifying Tom Ripley, crazy Swann, Marcel Proust himself. We are in excellent company. Thank you. (Applause)
但我喜欢应急计划 所以当我们等待那一刻到来时 我们要记住,我们还有小说作为慰藉 小说就已经将嫉妒阐明 小说将嫉妒驯化 将它请上餐桌 看看它把谁都叫来了: 可爱的雷斯垂德,可怕的汤姆·里普利 疯狂的斯万,还有马塞尔·普鲁斯特自己 我们有如此优秀的伙伴 谢谢大家 (掌声)