Naipaul Speech and Style in His Own Words 1)Horace: Your style, that is a much-discussed 2)phenomenon.
Naipaul: Yes.
Horace: I even heard someone who had computed the average number of letters in a word in your texts. That it should be four, I think.
Naipaul: Yes. I think.
Horace: If I remember right that may very well be correct. But, uh, I mean it’s obvious that to any reader the style strikes one...
Naipaul: Yes.
Horace: As transparent and very clear...
Naipaul: Yes.
Horace: I think 3)Coetzee said recently in an article recently that it’s cool and clean like a knife.
Naipaul: Yes, yes.
Horace: Um, and how do you arrive at that style? Is it something that comes naturally or do you arrive at it by 4)elimination, by crossing out words, removing unnecessary adjectives and so on?
Naipaul: Well, it, uh, it begins with what I said earlier about how I learned to write, when I tried to get every sentence to say something, and I think that’s become a habit. I no longer think I’m doing it but that is the habit of writing. So the writing moves very fast, and then, I do have to get everything I want to say, into, the sentences. I must be careful not in my speed to leave things out. Uh, I made a speech, a two-minute speech at the, the banquet, the award’s, the award’s banquet, I give you my word that was written three times. There were three drafts for it. One draft then typed out that corrected, then corrected yet again. First to get it all and then, one aspect was to get the spoken language, from that to get it, the, the quality of speech in it and, uh, the other thing was to, as it were to get, when I, I was talking about the watch, my watch strap was broken, and I wanted to make a little, a little story about this, for the, for the dinner. And I wondered about the symbolism, and I talked about various people of the past who looked for 5)portents and, uh, then I said, "Well, yes, it was because I was coming to the 6)ceremony. It was OK. That’s what it meant that time was going to stop and then, time was going to become new and so the watch, then, had become benign again." Now I had to and that came in about the third 7)version-the watch was benign again and it was telling me that my time was running out, and I had, I forgot to put in the first draft: it was telling me without threat...
Horace: Hmmm.
Naipaul: That my time was running out.
Horace: Yes.
Naipaul: You know that is, these are the little things I do...
Horace: Yes, I see.
Naipaul: I hope the, I’m sorry to give it in this little fine detail.
Horace: No, no.
Naipaul: But, this is...
Horace: It’s most useful I think for the listener.
Naipaul: This is a lot how the writing is done.
注釋:
1) Horace 賀瑞斯·恩達(dá)爾，瑞典文學(xué)院的常任秘書
2) phenomenon [fi5nCminEn] n. 現(xiàn)象，事
3) Coetzee 庫切，南非作家，曾兩度獲得英國(guó)文壇獎(jiǎng)--布克獎(jiǎng)，2003年獲諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)
4) elimination [i7limi5neiFEn] n. 排除，消
5) portent [5pC:tEnt]] n. 征兆
6) ceremony [5serimEni] n. 典禮， 儀式
7) version [5vE:FEn] n. 譯文，譯本
奈保爾自述演講與寫作風(fēng)格的關(guān)系
賀瑞斯∶你的風(fēng)格，已成了廣為討論的話題了。
奈保爾∶是。
賀瑞斯∶我甚至聽說有人算過你的文章里平均每個(gè)單詞的有多少個(gè)字母。應(yīng)該是四個(gè)吧，我想。
奈保爾∶對(duì)，我想是。
賀瑞斯∶要是我沒有記錯(cuò)，那可能正確得很。但是，我是說，很明顯，這種風(fēng)格對(duì)任何讀者而言都是引人入勝的……
奈保爾∶是。
賀瑞斯∶清晰，簡(jiǎn)潔就像……
奈保爾∶是。
賀瑞斯∶我記得最近庫切在一篇文章里提到它從容、利落如匕首。
奈保爾∶是的，是的。
賀瑞斯 ∶你是如何練就這種風(fēng)格的？自然而然的還是經(jīng)過排除，經(jīng)過剔除字詞，去掉多余的修飾等等？
奈保爾∶哦，那始于我早前說過的學(xué)寫作的過程，那時(shí)我盡量找句子來表達(dá)自己的思想。我想寫作的習(xí)慣就形成了。我不再覺得自己在從事某項(xiàng)工作，那只是寫作的習(xí)慣。因此，寫起來很快，然后，我就將我要說的連成句群。我得當(dāng)心別因?yàn)樗俣榷湎率裁?。我曾作過一次講話，一次兩分鐘的講話，在晚宴上，得獎(jiǎng)后的慶功宴，說實(shí)話，那篇講話寫了三遍。有三份稿子。寫了第一份，修改后打印出來，再修改。首先把什么都寫出來，然后，一方面要轉(zhuǎn)成口語，從中突現(xiàn)語音質(zhì)量，另一樣就是，正是將要突出的——我那時(shí)正在說我的手表，我手表的表帶斷了，我想據(jù)此為宴會(huì)做點(diǎn)文章。然后我想到了象征主義，我便談起以前的各種人物，他們都渴望一些預(yù)兆，然后我就說∶“哦，對(duì)了，因?yàn)槲乙獊韰⒓拥涠Y，那沒什么。其意味就是時(shí)間即將結(jié)束，然后時(shí)間將要更新，最后手表又回復(fù)常態(tài)了。”此時(shí)，我要進(jìn)入第三部分了——手表回復(fù)正常，它暗示著我的時(shí)間匆匆流走，而我，沒有把這一句放到初稿里：它告訴著我，沒有帶著兇兆……
賀瑞斯∶嗯。
奈保爾∶我的時(shí)間匆匆流盡了。
賀瑞斯∶是的。
奈保爾∶你知道，那些就是我做的瑣碎事。
賀瑞斯∶對(duì)，我知道。
奈保爾∶我希望……對(duì)不起，我說得那么零零碎碎的。
賀瑞斯∶不，不要這么說。
奈保爾∶不過，這是……
賀瑞斯∶我想這對(duì)聽眾是極為有用的。
奈保爾∶這很大程度上說明了我的作品是怎么寫出來的。
Naipaul: Yes.
Horace: I even heard someone who had computed the average number of letters in a word in your texts. That it should be four, I think.
Naipaul: Yes. I think.
Horace: If I remember right that may very well be correct. But, uh, I mean it’s obvious that to any reader the style strikes one...
Naipaul: Yes.
Horace: As transparent and very clear...
Naipaul: Yes.
Horace: I think 3)Coetzee said recently in an article recently that it’s cool and clean like a knife.
Naipaul: Yes, yes.
Horace: Um, and how do you arrive at that style? Is it something that comes naturally or do you arrive at it by 4)elimination, by crossing out words, removing unnecessary adjectives and so on?
Naipaul: Well, it, uh, it begins with what I said earlier about how I learned to write, when I tried to get every sentence to say something, and I think that’s become a habit. I no longer think I’m doing it but that is the habit of writing. So the writing moves very fast, and then, I do have to get everything I want to say, into, the sentences. I must be careful not in my speed to leave things out. Uh, I made a speech, a two-minute speech at the, the banquet, the award’s, the award’s banquet, I give you my word that was written three times. There were three drafts for it. One draft then typed out that corrected, then corrected yet again. First to get it all and then, one aspect was to get the spoken language, from that to get it, the, the quality of speech in it and, uh, the other thing was to, as it were to get, when I, I was talking about the watch, my watch strap was broken, and I wanted to make a little, a little story about this, for the, for the dinner. And I wondered about the symbolism, and I talked about various people of the past who looked for 5)portents and, uh, then I said, "Well, yes, it was because I was coming to the 6)ceremony. It was OK. That’s what it meant that time was going to stop and then, time was going to become new and so the watch, then, had become benign again." Now I had to and that came in about the third 7)version-the watch was benign again and it was telling me that my time was running out, and I had, I forgot to put in the first draft: it was telling me without threat...
Horace: Hmmm.
Naipaul: That my time was running out.
Horace: Yes.
Naipaul: You know that is, these are the little things I do...
Horace: Yes, I see.
Naipaul: I hope the, I’m sorry to give it in this little fine detail.
Horace: No, no.
Naipaul: But, this is...
Horace: It’s most useful I think for the listener.
Naipaul: This is a lot how the writing is done.
注釋:
1) Horace 賀瑞斯·恩達(dá)爾，瑞典文學(xué)院的常任秘書
2) phenomenon [fi5nCminEn] n. 現(xiàn)象，事
3) Coetzee 庫切，南非作家，曾兩度獲得英國(guó)文壇獎(jiǎng)--布克獎(jiǎng)，2003年獲諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)
4) elimination [i7limi5neiFEn] n. 排除，消
5) portent [5pC:tEnt]] n. 征兆
6) ceremony [5serimEni] n. 典禮， 儀式
7) version [5vE:FEn] n. 譯文，譯本
奈保爾自述演講與寫作風(fēng)格的關(guān)系
賀瑞斯∶你的風(fēng)格，已成了廣為討論的話題了。
奈保爾∶是。
賀瑞斯∶我甚至聽說有人算過你的文章里平均每個(gè)單詞的有多少個(gè)字母。應(yīng)該是四個(gè)吧，我想。
奈保爾∶對(duì)，我想是。
賀瑞斯∶要是我沒有記錯(cuò)，那可能正確得很。但是，我是說，很明顯，這種風(fēng)格對(duì)任何讀者而言都是引人入勝的……
奈保爾∶是。
賀瑞斯∶清晰，簡(jiǎn)潔就像……
奈保爾∶是。
賀瑞斯∶我記得最近庫切在一篇文章里提到它從容、利落如匕首。
奈保爾∶是的，是的。
賀瑞斯 ∶你是如何練就這種風(fēng)格的？自然而然的還是經(jīng)過排除，經(jīng)過剔除字詞，去掉多余的修飾等等？
奈保爾∶哦，那始于我早前說過的學(xué)寫作的過程，那時(shí)我盡量找句子來表達(dá)自己的思想。我想寫作的習(xí)慣就形成了。我不再覺得自己在從事某項(xiàng)工作，那只是寫作的習(xí)慣。因此，寫起來很快，然后，我就將我要說的連成句群。我得當(dāng)心別因?yàn)樗俣榷湎率裁?。我曾作過一次講話，一次兩分鐘的講話，在晚宴上，得獎(jiǎng)后的慶功宴，說實(shí)話，那篇講話寫了三遍。有三份稿子。寫了第一份，修改后打印出來，再修改。首先把什么都寫出來，然后，一方面要轉(zhuǎn)成口語，從中突現(xiàn)語音質(zhì)量，另一樣就是，正是將要突出的——我那時(shí)正在說我的手表，我手表的表帶斷了，我想據(jù)此為宴會(huì)做點(diǎn)文章。然后我想到了象征主義，我便談起以前的各種人物，他們都渴望一些預(yù)兆，然后我就說∶“哦，對(duì)了，因?yàn)槲乙獊韰⒓拥涠Y，那沒什么。其意味就是時(shí)間即將結(jié)束，然后時(shí)間將要更新，最后手表又回復(fù)常態(tài)了。”此時(shí)，我要進(jìn)入第三部分了——手表回復(fù)正常，它暗示著我的時(shí)間匆匆流走，而我，沒有把這一句放到初稿里：它告訴著我，沒有帶著兇兆……
賀瑞斯∶嗯。
奈保爾∶我的時(shí)間匆匆流盡了。
賀瑞斯∶是的。
奈保爾∶你知道，那些就是我做的瑣碎事。
賀瑞斯∶對(duì)，我知道。
奈保爾∶我希望……對(duì)不起，我說得那么零零碎碎的。
賀瑞斯∶不，不要這么說。
奈保爾∶不過，這是……
賀瑞斯∶我想這對(duì)聽眾是極為有用的。
奈保爾∶這很大程度上說明了我的作品是怎么寫出來的。