How Should One Read a Book?　應該如何讀書？

How Should One Read a Book?

應該如何讀書？

Virginia Woolf

弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙

作者簡介

弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙（Virginia Woolf，1882—1941），英國女作家，意識流小說的代表人物。

她生于倫敦的書香名門，天分極高但身體虛弱。她自幼立志成為作家，22歲開始在《泰晤士報文學評論》（Times Literary Supplement）等報刊上發(fā)表文章。她的文學成就主要體現(xiàn)在小說上，代表作有《雅各的房間》（Jacob's Room）和《達洛維夫人》（Mrs. Dalloway）等。她的小說往往富有詩意，語言更像詩體散文，帶有唯美主義的情調(diào)。此外，伍爾芙還寫過許多散文和隨筆，《普通讀者I》（The Common Reader）和《普通讀者II》（The Second Common Reader）均收錄了她的文論。

本文選自1932年出版的《普通讀者II》，是一篇膾炙人口的讀書隨感。文中，伍爾芙與讀者分享了自己閱讀小說、傳記、詩歌的心得，筆觸清新淡雅，令人對書中世界悠然神往。

In the first place, I want to emphasise the note of interrogation at the end of my title. Even if I could answer the question for myself, the answer would apply only to me and not to you. The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions—there we have none.

But to enjoy freedom, if the platitude is pardonable, we have of course to control ourselves. We must not squander our powers, helplessly and ignorantly, squirting half the house in order to water a single rose-bush; we must train them, exactly and powerfully, here on the very spot. This, it may be, is one of the first difficulties that faces us in a library. What is “the very spot”? There may well seem to be nothing but a conglomeration and huddle of confusion. Poems and novels, histories and memoirs, dictionaries and blue-books; books written in all languages by men and women of all tempers, races, and ages jostle each other on the shelf. And outside the donkey brays, the women gossip at the pump, the colts gallop across the fields. Where are we to begin? How are we to bring order into this multitudinous chaos and so get the deepest and widest pleasure from what we read?

It is simple enough to say that since books have classes—fiction, biography, poetry—we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticise at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite. The thirty-two chapters of a novel—if we consider how to read a novel first—are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building; but words are more impalpable than bricks, reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words. Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you—how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking. A tree shook; an electric light danced; the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic; a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment.

But when you attempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into a thousand conflicting impressions. Some must be subdued; others emphasized; in the process you will lose, probably, all grasp upon the emotion itself. Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist—Defoe, Jane Austen, Hardy. Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery. It is not merely that we are in the presence of a different person—Defoe, Jane Austen, or Thomas Hardy—but that we are living in a different world. Here, in Robinson Crusoe, we are trudging a plain high road; one thing happens after another; the fact and the order of the fact is enough. But if the open air and adventure mean everything to Defoe they mean nothing to Jane Austen. Hers is the drawing-room, and people talking, and by the many mirrors of their talk revealing their characters. And if, when we have accustomed ourselves to the drawing-room and its reflections, we turn to Hardy, we are once more spun round. The moors are round us and the stars are above our heads. The other side of the mind is now exposed—the dark side that comes uppermost in solitude, not the light side that shows in company. Our relations are not towards people, but towards Nature and destiny. Yet different as these worlds are, each is consistent with itself. The maker of each is careful to observe the laws of his own perspective, and however great a strain they may put upon us they will never confuse us, as lesser writers so frequently do, by introducing two different kinds of reality into the same book. Thus to go from one great novelist to another—from Jane Austen to Hardy, from Peacock to Trollope, from Scott to Meredith—is to be wrenched and uprooted; to be thrown this way and then that. To read a novel is a difficult and complex art. You must be capable not only of great fineness of perception, but of great boldness of imagination if you are going to make use of all that the novelist—the great artist—gives you.

But a glance at the heterogeneous company on the shelf will show you that writers are very seldom “great artists”; far more often a book makes no claim to be a work of art at all. These biographies and autobiographies, for example, lives of great men, of men long dead and forgotten, that stand cheek by jowl with the novels and poems, are we to refuse to read them because they are not “art”? Or shall we read them, but read them in a different way, with a different aim? Shall we read them in the first place to satisfy that curiosity which possesses us sometimes when in the evening we linger in front of a house where the lights are lit and the blinds not yet drawn, and each floor of the house shows us a different section of human life in being? Then we are consumed with curiosity about the lives of these people—the servants gossiping, the gentlemen dining, the girl dressing for a party, the old woman at the window with her knitting. Who are they, what are they, what are their names, their occupations, their thoughts, and adventures?

Biographies and memoirs answer such questions, light up innumerable such houses; they show us people going about their daily affairs, toiling, failing, succeeding, eating, hating, loving, until they die. And sometimes as we watch, the house fades and the iron railings vanish and we are out at sea; we are hunting, sailing, fighting; we are among savages and soldiers; we are taking part in great campaigns. Or if we like to stay here in England, in London, still the scene changes; the street narrows; the house becomes small, cramped, diamond-paned, and malodorous. We see a poet, Donne, driven from such a house because the walls were so thin that when the children cried their voices cut through them. We can follow him, through the paths that lie in the pages of books, to Twickenham; to Lady Bedford's Park, a famous meeting-ground for nobles and poets; and then turn our steps to Wilton, the great house under the downs, and hear Sidney read the Arcadia to his sister; and ramble among the very marshes and see the very herons that figure in that famous romance; and then again travel north with that other Lady Pembroke, Anne Clifford, to her wild moors, or plunge into the city and control our merriment at the sight of Gabriel Harvey in his black velvet suit arguing about poetry with Spenser. Nothing is more fascinating than to grope and stumble in the alternate darkness and splendour of Elizabethan London. But there is no staying there. The Temples and the Swifts, the Harleys and the St. Johns beckon us on; hour upon hour can be spent disentangling their quarrels and deciphering their characters; and when we tire of them we can stroll on, past a lady in black wearing diamonds, to Samuel Johnson and Goldsmith and Garrick; or cross the channel, if we like, and meet Voltaire and Diderot, Madame du Deffand; and so back to England and Twickenham—how certain places repeat themselves and certain names!—where Lady Bedford had her Park once and Pope lived later, to Walpole's home at Strawberry Hill. But Walpole introduces us to such a swarm of new acquaintances, there are so many houses to visit and bells to ring that we may well hesitate for a moment, on the Miss Berry's doorstep, for example, when behold, up comes Thackeray; he is the friend of the woman whom Walpole loved; so that merely by going from friend to friend, from garden to garden, from house to house, we have passed from one end of English literature to another and wake to find ourselves here again in the present, if we can so differentiate this moment from all that have gone before.

This, then, is one of the ways in which we can read these lives and letters; we can make them light up the many windows of the past; we can watch the famous dead in their familiar habits and fancy sometimes that we are very close and can surprise their secrets, and sometimes we may pull out a play or a poem that they have written and see whether it reads differently in the presence of the author. But this again rouses other questions. How far, we must ask ourselves, is a book influenced by its writer's life—how far is it safe to let the man interpret the writer? How far shall we resist or give way to the sympathies and antipathies that the man himself rouses in us—so sensitive are words, so receptive of the character of the author? These are questions that press upon us when we read lives and letters, and we must answer them for ourselves, for nothing can be more fatal than to be guided by the preferences of others in a matter so personal.

But also we can read such books with another aim, not to throw light on literature, not to become familiar with famous people, but to refresh and exercise our own creative powers. Is there not an open window on the right hand of the bookcase? How delightful to stop reading and look out! How stimulating the scene is, in its unconsciousness, its irrelevance, its perpetual movement—the colts galloping round the field, the woman filling her pail at the well, the donkey throwing back his head and emitting his long, acrid moan. The greater part of any library is nothing but the record of such fleeting moments in the lives of men, women, and donkeys.

…

Are there not some pursuits that we practise because they are good in themselves, and some pleasures that are final? And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”

首先，我想強調(diào)一下標題后面的問號。即使我能回答這個問題，答案也只適合我而不是你。實際上，一個人能給另一個人唯一的閱讀建議，就是別接受任何建議，而是聽從自己的直覺，運用自己的理性，得出自己的結(jié)論。如果我們對此達成了共識，我就能無拘無束地提出一些想法和建議，因為你不會讓自己的獨立見解受到禁錮——獨立見解正是讀者所能擁有的最重要的品質(zhì)。說到底，你能給閱讀制定什么規(guī)則呢？滑鐵盧之戰(zhàn)發(fā)生在某一天，此事確鑿無疑；但《哈姆雷特》比《李爾王》更優(yōu)秀嗎？沒人說得清。每個人都會得出自己的答案。如果允許權威人士走進我們的書房，讓他們告訴我們?nèi)绾伍喿x、該讀什么、我們讀的書有何價值，無論他們穿著多么雍容華貴，這都會破壞書所蘊涵的自由精神。世間別處皆有規(guī)范習俗，唯有閱讀完全自由。

但要享受自由——如果你能忍受這個俗套的說法——我們就必須約束自己。我們不能揮霍自己的能力，不能只為了給一叢玫瑰澆水，就無助而無知地把水噴遍半所房子；我們必須精心培養(yǎng)自己的能力，從此時此地開始。我們在書房面臨的第一個問題或許就是——此時從何處開始？我們眼前似乎一片混亂。詩歌和小說、史書和回憶錄、詞典和藍皮書1在架上擠成一團。它們以不同的語言寫就，作者有男有女，其性格、種族、年齡更是各不相同。門外有驢子嘶叫，女人在水泵邊閑聊，馬駒在田野上奔跑。我們該從何處開始？我們該如何給這片混亂制定規(guī)則，以便從所讀的書里獲得最深刻、最廣博的樂趣？

書分為不同種類，如小說、傳記、詩歌，所以我們應該區(qū)別對待，汲取各類書所應提供的養(yǎng)分。這話說起來簡單，但多數(shù)人往往向書要求它提供不了的東西。通常，我們對書的看法既模糊又割裂，在小說中尋找真實，在詩歌中尋找假象，希望傳記里有奉承之詞，指望歷史符合一己之見。如果我們閱讀時能摒棄這些偏見，那將是個極好的開端。別指揮作者做這做那，試著做他吧，做他的同事和同伙。如果你一開始就故步自封、先入為主、求全責備，只會妨礙自己從所讀的書里獲得最大收益。但如果你能盡量敞開心扉，那么那些起初看來糾結(jié)扭曲的句子都會提供一些微妙的暗示，將你帶到一個與眾不同的人面前。投身其中，熟悉此景，你很快就會發(fā)現(xiàn)，作者向你傳達的東西，或試圖向你傳達的東西，是如此顯而易見。我們先來說說如何閱讀小說。作者撰寫小說的32個章節(jié)，就像構建和管理一座大廈；但詞語不像磚塊那樣看得見、摸得著，閱讀比觀看更漫長、更復雜。要理解小說家究竟做了些什么，最快的方式或許不是閱讀，而是寫作——以此來體會遣詞造句的危險和艱辛。請回想一件給你留下了清晰印象的事，比如在街角和兩個聊天的人擦身而過。樹影婆娑，燈光搖曳，聊天的語調(diào)既滑稽又悲涼。那個瞬間似乎包含了完整的想象和全部的概念。

但當你試圖用文字再現(xiàn)這一場景時，它卻支離成了千百個矛盾的印象。有些需要略述，有些需要強調(diào)。在訴諸文字的過程中，你或許已無法把握當時的感受。那么，還是拋開你模糊混亂的記錄，翻開笛福、簡·奧斯汀、哈代等偉大小說家的作品吧?，F(xiàn)在你才能更好地欣賞他們的杰作。我們不僅面對不同的作家——笛福、簡·奧斯汀、托馬斯·哈代，還置身于不同的世界。讀《魯濱孫漂流記》時，我們是在一馬平川的公路上蹣跚前行，事情一件接一件發(fā)生，弄清事實和事實的順序就夠人受的了。但如果說荒郊和冒險對笛福意味著一切，它們對簡·奧斯汀來說則毫無意義。奧斯汀關注的是客廳和聊天的人們，以及通過言談反映的人物性格。在習慣了客廳及聊天反映的人物性格之后，我們再回頭去讀哈代，就會又一次暈頭轉(zhuǎn)向。在哈代的作品中，我們周遭是茫?；囊?，頭頂是浩瀚星空。這時人性的另一面又展現(xiàn)出來了——不是在群體中讓人展現(xiàn)出的內(nèi)心光明的一面，而是孤獨使人暴露出的內(nèi)心黑暗的一面。此時，我們不是與人溝通，而是與自然和命運交流。盡管這些世界截然不同，但每個世界都能自洽。每位創(chuàng)造者都謹慎地遵循自身的法則。無論他們向我們展示了多少緊張關系，都不至于讓人摸不著頭腦。他們不會像普通作家經(jīng)常做的那樣，將兩類格格不入的現(xiàn)實塞進同一本書。從一位偉大的小說家讀到另一位——從簡·奧斯汀到哈代，從皮考克到特洛勒普，從斯科特到梅瑞狄斯，這是一種折磨，就像被從一個世界猛然拔起，再拋進另一個世界。閱讀小說是一項艱難而復雜的藝術。如果你想好好利用小說家——同時也是偉大的藝術家——能給你的一切，你不僅要有細致入微的感悟力，還得有大膽無畏的想象力。

但只要掃一眼書架上良莠不齊的作品，你就會知道，只有極少的作家可稱為“偉大的藝術家”，能稱為“藝術品”的書就更少了。例如，記敘已逝偉人生平的傳記和自傳，與小說和詩集肩并肩立在書架上。我們要拒絕讀那些傳記，因為它們并非“藝術品”嗎？還是說，我們應該讀這些書，但要帶著另一種目的，以另一種方式去讀。閱讀是否應該先滿足我們時不時冒出的好奇心？我們就像夜晚時分徘徊在一棟燈火通明、簾幕未降的大屋前，屋里每一層向我們展示了人類生活的不同方面。然后，我們會對這些人充滿好奇，為他們的生活而著迷。那長舌的仆人、用餐的紳士、為赴舞會而梳妝打扮的女孩和坐在窗前編織的老婦人，他們是什么人？是干什么的？叫什么名字？他們在做什么？在想什么？有過怎樣的冒險？

傳記和回憶錄會回答這類問題，會照亮無數(shù)座這樣的大屋。這些書會告訴我們，人們?nèi)绾翁幚砣粘Ｊ聞?、如何辛苦勞作、如何?jīng)歷成敗、如何享受美食、如何體驗愛恨，直到生命終結(jié)。有時，當我們還在觀察的時候，大屋的影像突然淡去，鐵柵欄也消失無蹤；我們突然來到了海上；出外狩獵、航行、戰(zhàn)斗；與野蠻人和士兵為伍；參與一場場偉大的戰(zhàn)役?；蛘撸绻覀兿矚g待在英國倫敦，場景也會發(fā)生變化——街道變得狹窄，屋子變得矮小，房間變得逼仄，出現(xiàn)菱形窗格，空氣充滿惡臭。我們看見詩人多恩正逃離這樣一座屋子。因為墻壁太薄，孩子的哭聲穿墻而入。我們可以跟隨他，穿過書中所寫的通道，來到特威克納姆，來到貝德福德女士的花園，一個著名的貴族和詩人的聚集地。然后，我們來到草坡下的威爾頓大宅，聆聽錫德尼為妹妹誦讀《阿爾卡迪亞》2。接著，我們在那片沼澤中漫步，觀察那部著名浪漫小說中提及的蒼鷺。而后，我們與彭布羅克夫人安妮·克利福德一道向北進發(fā)，去往她的那片荒野；或是跑到城里去，看穿黑色天鵝絨上衣的加布里埃爾·哈維如何與斯賓塞進行詩歌論戰(zhàn)，并從中取樂。伊麗莎白女王時期的倫敦，黑暗與光輝交織，沒有什么比在此蹣跚摸索更令人著迷。但我們不宜久留，坦普爾、斯威夫特、哈雷和圣·約翰召喚著我們向前。我們可以花很多個小時解讀他們作品里的爭論、詮釋他們作品里的人物。讀厭了之后，我們繼續(xù)閑逛，和一位戴鉆石的黑衣女子擦肩而過，去塞繆爾·約翰遜、戈德史密斯和蓋瑞克那兒做客。如果我們愿意的話，還可以跨越海峽，去拜訪伏爾泰、狄德羅和德芳夫人，再回到英國的特威克納姆——這個地名又出現(xiàn)了！它曾是貝德福德女士花園的所在地，后來是蒲柏的居所——前往沃波爾3位于草莓山莊的家。但沃波爾向我們介紹了一大群新朋友，有那么多屋子等我們?nèi)グ菰L，那么多門鈴等我們?nèi)グ错?，以至于我們對是否要前往猶豫了片刻。在貝瑞小姐的門階上，我們稍作遲疑，便看見了薩克雷——他是沃波爾喜愛的這位女士的朋友。因此，我們只是在朋友、花園和大屋之間穿梭，便將英國文學史轉(zhuǎn)了個遍，醒來發(fā)現(xiàn)自己回到了當下——如果我們還能區(qū)分當下和過去的話。

這便是閱讀這些生平和信件的一種方式。我們可以讓它們照亮往昔的窗口，關注已逝名人身上似曾相識的習慣。有時，我們會想象自己和他們很親密，驚訝于他們的小秘密；有時，我們會找出他們寫的戲劇或詩歌，看看了解作者之后讀起來有何不同。但這也會引起其他問題。我們必須問自己，作家的生平對一本書的影響有多大？對作家闡釋到什么程度算合適？作家本人引起我們的同情或憎惡，我們應該抵制還是接受？作者的文字如此敏銳，他的性格是否同樣善于接納？讀作家生平和信件時，我們都會產(chǎn)生這些疑問。我們必須自己回答，因為在涉及如此個人化的事情時，受他人偏好引導是最致命的。

但我們也可以抱著另一個目的讀這些書——不是為了弄懂文學作品，不是為了熟悉各位名人，而是為了恢復和鍛煉自己的創(chuàng)造力。書架右手邊不是有扇敞開的窗戶嗎？放下手中的書朝窗外望去是多么令人愉快的事！馬駒在田野上奔跑，女人從井中提水，驢子把頭扭向身后，發(fā)出長長的、刺耳的嘶鳴——這幅并不刻意、毫無聯(lián)系、持續(xù)變化的場景是多么啟迪人心。任何書房最妙的部分，莫過于記錄這些轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝的片段，記錄這些男人、女人和驢子的生活瞬間。

……

我們追求某些事物，不就是因為追求本身的美好以及最終獲得的快樂？閱讀不就是這樣的樂事嗎？至少我有時會想象，末日審判4時人們到上帝面前領取獎賞，偉大的征服者獲得了王冠，優(yōu)秀的律師獲得了桂冠，杰出的政治家獲得了刻在大理石上不朽的名字。上帝看見我們胳膊底下夾著書走來，會不無妒意地把頭轉(zhuǎn)向圣彼得5，說：“看，這些人不需要獎賞。我們這里什么也給不了他們。他們愛的是閱讀?！?

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1．藍皮書，一般指包括名人錄、指南、手冊之類的工具書，也包括紀念畫冊等。

2．菲利普·錫德尼爵士（Sir Philip Sidney，1554—1586），英國作家、政治家和軍人。1580年，錫德尼在威爾頓大宅與妹妹相依為命，《阿爾卡迪亞》即為這一時期寫成。

3．這里指英國第四任牛津伯爵霍勒斯·沃波爾（Horace Walpole，1717—1797）。后文提及的貝瑞小姐（Miss Berry）和薩克雷（Thackeray）都是其作品《沃波爾書信》 中出現(xiàn)的人物。

4．末日審判，指基督教及其他一些宗教中上帝在世界終結(jié)前對世人進行審判。

5．圣彼得，耶穌十二門徒之一，也是耶穌揀選的第一個門徒。