《紐約客》前臺出版回憶錄

The New Yorker, From a Seat on the 18th Floor

《紐約客》前臺出版回憶錄

ONE night a few weeks ago, a large crowd packed into the National Arts Club in Manhattan to witness a literary debut 55 years in the making. The author, a witty, 75-year-old college professor named Janet Groth, told stories of working at The New Yorker during the magazine’s heyday in the 1950s and ’60s: her weekly lunches with the revered reporter Joseph Mitchell; her affair with a cartoonist she nicknamed “the great deceiver”; her fleeting interactions with the longtime editor William Shawn, who, despite his shyness, was “gallant enough to present me with a rose when I left the magazine.”

幾周前的一個晚上，一大群人擠進曼哈頓國家藝術(shù)俱樂部，去見證一部用55年的時間完成的處女作的出版。作者是75歲的大學教授、風趣的珍妮特·格羅斯(Janet Groth)，她在書中講述了自己上世紀五、六十年代就職于《紐約客》雜志的故事，那時該雜志正如日中天。這些故事包括：她每周都跟令人尊敬的記者約瑟夫·米切爾(Joseph Mitchell)一起用餐;她跟一位漫畫家的戀情，她給那個人取了一個外號叫“大騙子”;她跟老編輯威廉·肖恩(William Shawn)之間短暫的交流，肖恩雖然很害羞，但“在我離開雜志社時，也瀟灑地送了我一支玫瑰花”。

Though one might assume otherwise, Ms. Groth was not a writer, editor or fact-checker at The New Yorker. What was her role? For 21 years, from 1957 to 1978, she was the 18th-floor receptionist.

格羅斯不是人們想當然地以為的《紐約客》撰稿人、編輯或事實核查員。她是做什么的呢?從1957年到1978年的21年間，她是18樓的前臺接待員。

“They didn’t even promote me to the 20th floor,” Ms. Groth joked to the crowd, referring to the old offices on West 43rd Street that housed the fiction department and big-name fixtures like Katharine White and William Maxwell, as opposed to the 18th floor, which housed a motley assortment of contributing writers.

格羅斯跟聽眾開玩笑說：“他們都沒有把我提拔到20樓去。”20樓是指《紐約客》位于紐約西43街的老辦公室。在18樓辦公的是一幫特約撰稿人，在 20樓辦公的則是小說部門和凱瑟琳·懷特(Katharine White)、威廉·馬克思韋爾(William Maxwell)等大名鼎鼎的老員工。

One of those writers, Calvin Trillin, recalled Ms. Groth’s exuding a Midwestern pleasantness and capability. “You would see how effective Jan was without calling any attention to herself when she would leave for the summer and someone else would do that job,” Mr. Trillin said.

其中一位特約撰稿人加爾文·特里林(Calvin Trillin)回憶說，格羅斯散發(fā)著中西部人的和藹可親和干練。“你會看到，簡多有本事——她夏天要去度假的話，神不知鬼不覺地就把頂班的人就安排好了。”

Anthony Bailey, a British writer who also worked at the magazine in those days and later became friends with Ms. Groth, described her as “cheerfulness itself” in an environment of “neurotic or semi-neurotic writers.”

英國作家安東尼·貝利(Anthony Bailey)那時也在《紐約客》工作，后來他跟格羅斯成為好朋友，他說，在“一群瘋瘋癲癲或者半瘋癲的作家”當中，格羅斯就是“快樂的化身”。

But despite coming to New York fresh from the University of Minnesota to be a writer herself, and landing at the center of literary publishing after a job interview with E. B. White, Ms. Groth never published a word in The New Yorker. And aside from a brief, unhappy period in the art department fielding cartoon submissions, she remained glued to the receptionist’s chair near the elevator, where she had “a bird’s-eye view of everything and a hot plate, which I brought,” she said.

格羅斯從明尼蘇達大學畢業(yè)后就來到紐約，立志要做一名作家，在通過E.B. 懷特的面試后她便進入了文學出版中心，但她從來沒在《紐約客》上發(fā)表過東西。她曾在美編部門呆過很短同時也很不開心的一段時間，職責是回復漫畫投稿，其他大部分時間里她坐在電梯旁前臺接待員的椅子上，“鳥瞰一切，并順便盯著一個我?guī)н^去的電爐，”她說。

Ms. Groth’s curious, stillborn career at the magazine, and the reasons behind it, are the subject of her new memoir, “The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker” (Algonquin). Written in lean, graceful prose that offers ample evidence of her talent, the book is as much a window into the mythologized publication as it is a chronicle of one woman’s self-discovery.

格羅斯的回憶錄名叫《前臺接待員：在<紐約客>的成長》(The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker，Algonquin出版)。該書講述了她在《紐約客》奇特而失敗的職業(yè)生涯，以及背后的原因。她簡練、優(yōu)雅的文筆充分證明了她的天賦，這部書就像一個窗口，讓人得以一窺神秘的出版業(yè)，同時它也是一位女性自我發(fā)現(xiàn)歷程的記錄。

Given the pre-feminist times and high-powered office setting, it would be easy to draw comparisons to “Mad Men.” But for the analogy to work, it would be as if the fictional Peggy Olson had never been promoted out of the secretarial pool and her talents as a copywriter never recognized. So why didn’t Ms. Groth advance beyond receptionist?

書中所寫的是一個支持女權(quán)主義者的時代，寫的又是一個創(chuàng)造力很強的辦公室，由不得大家會把它跟《廣告狂人》比較一番。但要讓這一比較成立，就得讓《廣告狂人》中虛構(gòu)的佩吉·奧爾森(Peggy Olson)從未從秘書職位獲得提拔，她寫文案的天才從未被發(fā)現(xiàn)。那么，格羅斯女士為何一直都是前臺接待員、沒升過職呢?

Sitting in her tidy studio apartment on the Upper East Side, Ms. Groth, an attractive woman with warm eyes and straw-colored hair that rests in a pile atop her head, offered several explanations. She was passive and deeply insecure in those years, she said, because she grew up far from the publishing world in the flyover states of Iowa and Minnesota, the daughter of an alcoholic father.

格羅斯坐在她上東區(qū)整潔的開間公寓里，目光溫暖，頂著一頭淺黃色的頭發(fā)，看上去很有魅力。對于從未升過職，她給出了幾種解釋。她說，那些年，她很消極，內(nèi)心很不堅定，因為她成長在中部的艾奧瓦州和明尼蘇達州，來自一個與出版界完全不搭界的世界，還有一個酗酒的父親。

And she had few work-force role models. “Women had had no assertiveness training — Oprah had yet to appear,” Ms. Groth said. “I didn’t have a good grip on where I was going or who I was.” While some women, including Lillian Ross and Pauline Kael, did thrive as writers at The New Yorker during Ms. Groth’s tenure, “I was less able to envision myself storming the citadel than people who were more confident,” she said.

那會兒也沒有職業(yè)人士做她的榜樣。“女性沒有接受過肯定自己的培訓——奧普拉還沒出現(xiàn)，”格羅斯女士說：“我不清楚我要去哪里、我是誰。”確實有些女性，如莉蓮·羅斯(Lillian Ross)、保利娜·凱爾(Pauline Kael)，在格羅斯女士在《紐約客》工作的那段時間里，通過這本雜志成長為作家。她說：“我不像那些更加自信的人那樣，能夠攻城拔寨。”

The New Yorker’s peculiar culture, where staffers held vague titles and job responsibilities, did not help matters. As Mr. Trillin explained: “It wasn’t that easy to work your way up. You couldn’t see where the ladder was or who was holding it, let alone how to climb up it.”

《紐約客》有一種特殊的文化，員工的頭銜和職責不夠清楚，這也阻礙了她的進步。如特里林所說：“升遷很不容易。你看不見梯子在哪里、誰扶著梯子，更不用說如何往上爬了。”

So for years, Ms. Groth embraced her role as receptionist and the perks that came with it, like the opportunity to interact with some of the most gifted writers of the 20th century. She fielded inquiries from J. D Salinger; helped James Thurber secure office space; house-sat for Mr. Trillin and his wife, Alice; gave a lost Woody Allen directions; and formed close friendships with many New Yorker contributors, including the novelist Muriel Spark and Mr. Mitchell, with whom she shared a standing Friday lunch date and what she characterized as an “innocent but not quite innocent” flirtation.

因此，多年來，格羅斯欣然接受了前臺接待員的角色以及隨之而來的回報，如接觸20世紀一些最有天賦的作家。她回復 J. D ·塞林格(J. D Salinger)的問詢;幫助詹姆斯·瑟伯(James Thurber)保住他在辦公室的地盤;幫特里林和他的妻子愛麗絲(Alice)看家;給迷路的伍迪·艾倫(Woody Allen)指路;跟《紐約客》的許多作者成了好朋友，包括小說家繆里爾·斯帕克(Muriel Spark)以及一位名叫米切爾的先生，她曾跟米切爾固定在周五午餐時約會，她稱之為“單純但又不是十分單純”的調(diào)情。

Perhaps more envy-inducing than the literary friendships and book parties were the summer vacations she writes about: eight trips to Europe during her years at the magazine, each one lasting a month or more, often with pay (a princely $80 a week). “The New Yorker believed in long summer vacations for their receptionists,” Ms. Groth deadpanned.

相對于能夠跟作家交朋友和參加簽售會，也許更令人嫉妒的是她夏季的假期：她在《紐約客》工作期間去過八次歐洲，每次都至少一個月，通常還都是帶薪假(每周高達80美元)。“《紐約客》認為他們的前接待員可以度很長時間的暑假。”格羅斯故作嚴肅地說道。

In those days, with a 12-inch blond ponytail and a wardrobe of tailored dresses, Ms. Groth was a frequent recipient of male advances, though she navigated the resulting relationships with difficulty. In one of the most wrenching parts of her memoir, she recalls an affair with a New Yorker cartoonist she identifies with a pseudonym to whom she lost her virginity. After discovering he was engaged to another woman, a distraught Ms. Groth attempted suicide by turning on the gas oven in her Greenwich Village apartment and going to bed. Another failed relationship, with a German playwright, was “shattering.”

那時，格羅斯頂著12英寸長的金發(fā)，穿著定做的裙子，所以經(jīng)常有男士拜倒在她的石榴裙下。不過她的情路并不順利。她回憶起跟《紐約客》一位她沒有透露真名的漫畫師的戀情，她將自己的初夜獻給了他。在發(fā)現(xiàn)他已經(jīng)跟別的女人訂婚后，發(fā)狂的格羅斯打開她格林威治村寓所的煤氣、躺到床上，試圖自殺。這是回憶錄中最讓人揪心的部分。另一段跟一位德國劇作家失敗的戀愛同樣令她崩潰。

In the years that followed, Ms. Groth said, she tried out many personas, including reckless party girl (complete with cigarette holder as a prop). After years of therapy “with a top Manhattan analyst,” she eventually found one that stuck: academic and scholar. She enrolled in graduate school at New York University, and over a 12-year period earned a Ph.D. in 20th-century literature, which she received in 1982, a few years after she left The New Yorker. She has since forged an academic career, most recently at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, and written four books (three with David Castronovo) on the critic Edmund Wilson.

在隨后的歲月里，她試過很多角色，包括輕率的派對女孩(夾著香煙當?shù)谰?。在接受“曼哈頓頂級心理分析師”多年的治療后，她最終找到了一個自己能夠堅持下去的角色：學術(shù)研究。她入讀紐約大學研究生院，用了12年的時間，在1982年獲得20世紀文學博士學位，那是在她離開《紐約客》幾年之后。從那之后，她開始了自己學者生涯，最近的經(jīng)歷是在紐約州立大學普拉茨堡分校，還寫了四部關(guān)于評論家埃德蒙·威爾遜(Edmund Wilson)的書(其中三部是跟戴維·卡斯特諾夫[David Castronovo]合著)。

“I was carving my own path,” Ms. Groth said, “but it was a very slow trip. I was doing it one course at a time, and of course there was a lot of head work that needed shrinking.”

格羅斯說：“我在尋找屬于自己的道路，但那是一個非常緩慢的旅程。我一步一個腳印，當然也接受了很多的心理治療。”

THE woman who spoke at the National Arts Club hardly resembled the shy, self-doubting one portrayed in “The Receptionist.” Ms. Groth was poised and confident before an audience that included former New Yorker colleagues like Mr. Trillin, whose phone messages she once delivered. Her insecurity has mellowed into a sly, self-deprecating wit. When microphone feedback pierced the room, she quipped, “I’m very eager to take on any guilt that might be free-floating,” to big laughs.

在《接待員》一書中，她害羞、自我懷疑，在國家藝術(shù)俱樂部發(fā)言時的她可不是這樣。面對觀眾，格羅斯沉著、自信，特里林先生等她在《紐約客》的前同事也在聽著，她曾經(jīng)給這些同事傳過電話留言。她的不安全感早已被頑皮、自嘲的風趣所取代。當麥克風發(fā)出囂叫聲時，她俏皮地說道：“無人承擔的罪過我都甘愿領(lǐng)受。”話音一落，哄堂大笑。

From the stage, she greeted her ex-boyfriend from Germany, who had flown over from Berlin. If she seemed at peace with the heartbreak, it may be because Ms. Groth found lasting love in the mid-’70s with an older Greenwich Village entrepreneur named Al Lazar. They spent 25 years together and married before he died in 2000.

她在臺上問候她從柏林乘飛機趕來的前男友。她之所以能坦然地面對那段感情，可能是因為，在70年代中期，格羅斯從格林威治村一位比她大的企業(yè)家阿爾·拉扎爾(Al Lazar)那里找到了天長地久。他們一起生活了25年，在他2000年去世前二人結(jié)了婚。