雙語(yǔ)·當(dāng)呼吸化為空氣 晚上媽媽經(jīng)常默默流淚

晚上，媽媽經(jīng)常默默流淚，獨(dú)自在床上啜泣。她害怕這里落后的教育條件會(huì)讓她的孩子變成“廢人”，于是不知從哪里找來(lái)了“大學(xué)學(xué)前書(shū)單”。她在印度主修的是生理學(xué)，二十三歲就結(jié)了婚，來(lái)到這個(gè)陌生的國(guó)家，生活的重心完全轉(zhuǎn)移到三個(gè)孩子身上，所以書(shū)單上很多書(shū)她自己也沒(méi)讀過(guò)。但她絕不會(huì)讓自己的孩子輸在這上面。十歲的時(shí)候，她就讓我讀《1984》，里面關(guān)于性的描寫(xiě)讓我震驚不已，然而，也是這樣點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴的潛移默化，讓我深深地愛(ài)上了語(yǔ)言文字。
At night, she broke into tears, sobbing alone in her bed. My mother, afraid the impoverished school system would hobble her children, acquired, from somewhere, a “college prep reading list.” Trained in India to be a physiologist, married at twenty-three, and preoccupied with raising three kids in a country that was not her own, she had not read many of the books on the list herself. But she would make sure her kids were not deprived. She made me read 1984 when I was ten years old; I was scandalized by the sex, but it also instilled in me a deep love of, and care for, language.

《1984》之后，我們按照書(shū)單，非常系統(tǒng)地讀了無(wú)數(shù)作家的作品：《基督山伯爵》、埃德加·愛(ài)倫·坡的作品、《魯濱孫漂流記》、《艾凡赫》、果戈理的戲劇、《最后的莫希干人》、狄更斯、馬克·吐溫、簡(jiǎn)·奧斯丁、《水手比利·巴德》……十二歲的時(shí)候，我開(kāi)始自己挑書(shū)看了。哥哥蘇曼又給我寄來(lái)大學(xué)里讀的書(shū)：《君主論》、《堂·吉訶德》、《老實(shí)人》、《亞瑟之死》、《貝奧武甫》以及梭羅、薩特、加繆等人的作品，等等。有的印象不深，有的則對(duì)我產(chǎn)生了很大的影響?！睹利愋率澜纭返於宋页跗诘牡赖抡軐W(xué)，還成為我申請(qǐng)大學(xué)時(shí)論述文的主題，我在文中提出，快樂(lè)幸福并非生命的意義。在必經(jīng)的青春期煩惱中，《哈姆雷特》無(wú)數(shù)次陪伴著我走過(guò)?！吨滦邼那槿恕泛推渌寺脑?shī)歌讓我和我的朋友在整個(gè)高中生涯經(jīng)歷了不少“快樂(lè)的倒霉事”。比如，晚上，我們經(jīng)常偷偷溜出去，在啦啦隊(duì)隊(duì)長(zhǎng)的窗戶(hù)下面唱《美國(guó)派》。（我們理直氣壯地認(rèn)為，她爸爸是當(dāng)?shù)匾幻翈?，不大可能貿(mào)然開(kāi)槍。）搞完這種深夜惡作劇回去的時(shí)候，要是被抓住了，我憂(yōu)心忡忡的母親就會(huì)詳細(xì)地盤(pán)問(wèn)我是否吸毒，把每種青少年可能吸食的毒品都細(xì)細(xì)數(shù)過(guò)一遍。但她從未意識(shí)到，于我而言，毒品沒(méi)有吸引力，最最令人上癮的，是上周她遞給我的那套浪漫詩(shī)歌選集。書(shū)籍成為我最形影不離的密友，就像精心制作的鏡頭，為我展開(kāi)新世界的大好風(fēng)景。
Endless books and authors followed, as we worked our way methodically down the list: The Count of Monte Cristo, Edgar Allan Poe, Robinson Crusoe, Ivanhoe, Gogol, The Last of the Mohicans, Dickens, Twain, Austen, Billy Budd. . . By the time I was twelve, I was picking them out myself, and my brother Suman was sending me the books he had read in college: The Prince, Don Quixote, Candide, Le Morte D’Arthur, Beowulf, Thoreau, Sartre, Camus. Some left more of a mark than others. Brave New World founded my nascent moral philosophy and became the subject of my college admissions essay, in which I argued that happiness was not the point of life. Hamlet bore me a thousand times through the usual adolescent crises.“To His Coy Mistress” and other romantic poems led me and my friends on various joyful misadventures throughout high school—we often sneaked out at night to, for example, sing “American Pie”beneath the window of the captain of the cheerleading team. (Her father was a local minister and so, we reasoned, less likely to shoot.)After I was caught returning at dawn from one such late-night escapade, my worried mother thoroughly interrogated me regarding every drug teenagers take, never suspecting that the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week. Books became my closest confidants, finely ground lenses providing new views of the world.

為了讓自己的孩子都受到良好的教育，媽媽開(kāi)車(chē)帶我們來(lái)到位于金曼北邊將近兩百公里，也是離金曼最近的大城市拉斯維加斯，我們?cè)谀抢镞M(jìn)行了“學(xué)業(yè)能力傾向初步測(cè)驗(yàn)”（PSAT）、“學(xué)術(shù)能力評(píng)估測(cè)試”（SAT）和“大學(xué)入學(xué)考試”（ACT）。她加入學(xué)校董事會(huì)，重整了教師隊(duì)伍，要求課程設(shè)置加入大學(xué)預(yù)修課程。她在這方面實(shí)在太出色了，視改革金曼教育系統(tǒng)為己任，并且付諸實(shí)踐。突然間，我們那所高中就感覺(jué)視野開(kāi)闊了，不再局限于那兩道山脊之間，而是翻山越嶺，向外探索。
In her quest to see that her children were educated, my mom drove us more than a hundred miles north, to the nearest big city, Las Vegas, so we could take our PSATs, SATs, and ACTs. She joined the school board, rallied teachers, and demanded that AP classes be added to the curriculum. She was a phenom: she took it upon herself to transform the Kingman school system, and she did. Suddenly there was a feeling in our high school that the two mountain ranges that bounded the town no longer defined the horizon: it was what lay beyond them.