2021年经济学人 书籍与社交媒体——口碑

Books and Arts

文学与艺术

Books and social media -- Word of mouth

书籍与社交媒体——口碑

A new form of literary criticism is boosting sales of books

一种新的文学批评形式正在促进书籍的销售

A young woman holds up a book and smiles.

一位年轻女子微笑着举起一本书。

"This is day one of me reading 'The Song of Achilles'," she says.

“这是我读《阿喀琉斯之歌》的第一天，”她说。

The video jumps forward.

视频向前快进。

"And this", she moans, her face stained with tears, "is me finishing it."

“而这，”她呜咽着，脸上沾满了泪水，“就是我读完的感受。”

Another clip, entitled "Books that will make you SOB¹", offers written notes on how assorted² stories got readers to cry, such as "I can't think about it without bawling³" and "ended up crying so much I had to change my shirt".

另一个名为“让你哭泣的书”的视频片段分享了一些手记，记录各种故事是如何让读者哭泣的，比如“我一想到它就会哭”和“最后我哭得太厉害了，不得不换件衬衫”。

This is BookTok, as the literary wing of the app TikTok is known.

这就是BookTok，它是TikTok应用程序的文学分支。

Imagine the emotional pitch of a Victorian melodrama⁴, add music, and you have the general idea.

想象一下，维多利亚时代的情节剧的情感基调，加上配乐，你就有了大致的概念。

BookTok is passionate⁵.

BookTok是充满激情的。

It is also profitable -- at least for publishers.

它也是有利可图的——至少对出版商来说是这样。

Bloomsbury, a publishing house based in Britain, recently reported record sales and a 220% rise in profits, which Nigel Newton, its boss, put down partly to the "absolute phenomenon" of BookTok.

总部位于英国的布鲁姆斯伯里出版社最近公布了创纪录的销售额和220%的利润增长，其老板奈吉尔·牛顿将其部分归因于BookTok的“十足出色”。

On Amazon, BookTok is so influential⁶ that it has leapt into the titles of books themselves.

在亚马逊上，BookTok的影响力如此之大，以至于它已被加入了书籍的标题之中。

The novel "It Ends With Us", for instance, is now listed as "It Ends With Us: TikTok made me buy it!"

例如，小说《It Ends With Us》现在被标为《It Ends With Us: TikTok让我买它！》。

Evidently TikTok did a good job: the romance is riding high in the top 100 in both Britain and America.

显然，TikTok做得很好：这本爱情小说在英国和美国都跻身于Top100排行榜前列。

The medium is not quite as gushy as it might seem.

媒体并不像它看起来那么多情。

Much of the overdone⁷ emotion is ironic⁸, and some of the videos are very funny -- particularly those with the hashtag "writtenbymen", which poke⁹ fun at the male gaze.

很多过度的煽情都是具有讽刺意味的，其中有些视频非常有趣——尤其是那些带有标签“男人写的”，用以取笑男性凝视的视频。

Nonetheless, many would make mainstream¹⁰ book reviewers tut.

尽管如此，许多视频还是会让主流书评家感到厌烦。

But why should the young women who are BookTok's stars care what fogeyish literary types think of them?

但作为BookTok上的红人，这些年轻女性为什么要在意那些文学界老古董对她们的看法呢？

Until fairly recently, their perspective was marginalised in both fiction and criticism.

直到最近，她们的观点在小说和批评领域都被边缘化了。

White men dominated both -- even though most novel-readers are female.

白人男性在两者中都占据了主导地位——尽管大多数小说读者是女性。

BookTok has helped upend that hierarchy¹¹.

BookTok帮助颠覆了这种等级体系。

Selene Velez, a 19-year-old American student, is behind @moongirlreads_ (an account with 185,000 followers).

19岁的美国学生赛琳娜·维莱兹是@moongirlreads_（一个拥有18.5万粉丝的账户）的幕后创作者。

She focuses on authors who aren't typically "taken as seriously" as others.

她关注的是那些通常来说不像其他人那样“受重视”的作家。

"I'm a woman of colour," she says. "I try to promote authors of colour."

“我是一位女性有色人种，”她说。“我尽力推广有色人种作家。”

At the same time, BookTok pushes back against publishing amnesia¹².

与此同时，BookTok反击了出版失忆症。

Books are imagined to confer immortality¹³ on authors -- to be a "monument more lasting¹⁴ than bronze", as the Roman poet Horace wrote -- but the lifespan of most is startlingly short.

书被认为是赋予作者不朽的象征——正如罗马诗人贺拉斯所写，书是“比青铜更持久的纪念碑”——但大多数书的寿命短得惊人。

Dig out a list of bestsellers from 20 years ago: not only are today's readers unlikely to buy them, most won't have heard of them.

找出一份20年前的畅销书清单：今天的读者不仅不太可能会买这些书，而且大多数人都没听说过它们。

Many of the books will have joined the legions of what W.H. Auden called the "undeservedly forgotten".

很多书都将加入了W.H.奥登所说的“不该被遗忘”的大军。

BookTok is resurrecting backlists.

BookTok正在让积压的存书重见天日。

One reason publishers noticed it, says Philip Gwyn Jones of Picador, a British imprint¹⁵, was that, under its influence, old titles were creeping back into the bestseller charts.

英国皮卡多出版社的菲利普·格温·琼斯说，出版商注意到BookTok的一个原因是，在它的影响下，旧书重新登上了畅销书排行榜。

It offers such books "a second lease on life", and he applauds it.

它赋予了这些书“第二次生命”，他对此表示赞赏。

"Eventually, a great book finds its readers," Mr Gwyn Jones says.

格温·琼斯表示：“一部伟大的著作最终会找到自己的读者。”

"You just have to hope that, unlike Kafka, authors don't have to die before that happens."

“你只需要希望，作者们不必像卡夫卡那样在找到读者之前就死去了。”

Start trending on BookTok, and they won't.

让书在BookTok上流行起来，作者们就不会找不到读者。

1 sob   

n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣

参考例句：

• The child started to sob when he couldn't find his mother.孩子因找不到他妈妈哭了起来。
• The girl didn't answer,but continued to sob with her head on the table.那个女孩不回答，也不抬起头来。她只顾低声哭着。

2 assorted   

adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的

参考例句：

• There's a bag of assorted sweets on the table.桌子上有一袋什锦糖果。
• He has always assorted with men of his age.他总是与和他年令相仿的人交往。

3 bawling   

v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物）

参考例句：

• We heard the dulcet tones of the sergeant, bawling at us to get on parade. 我们听到中士用“悦耳”的声音向我们大喊，让我们跟上队伍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• "Why are you bawling at me? “你向我们吼啥子？ 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

4 melodrama   

n.音乐剧；情节剧

参考例句：

• We really don't need all this ridiculous melodrama!别跟我们来这套荒唐的情节剧表演！
• White Haired Woman was a melodrama,but in certain spots it was deliberately funny.《白毛女》是一出悲剧性的歌剧，但也有不少插科打诨。

5 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

6 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

7 overdone   

v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度

参考例句：

• The lust of men must not be overdone. 人们的欲望不该过分。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The joke is overdone. 玩笑开得过火。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

8 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

9 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

10 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

11 hierarchy   

n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层

参考例句：

• There is a rigid hierarchy of power in that country.那个国家有一套严密的权力等级制度。
• She's high up in the management hierarchy.她在管理阶层中地位很高。

12 amnesia   

n.健忘症，健忘

参考例句：

• People suffering from amnesia don't forget their general knowledge of objects.患健忘症的人不会忘记关于物体的一些基本知识。
• Chinese medicine experts developed a way to treat amnesia using marine materials.中国医学专家研制出用海洋物质治疗遗忘症的方法。

13 immortality   

n.不死，不朽

参考例句：

• belief in the immortality of the soul 灵魂不灭的信念
• It was like having immortality while you were still alive. 仿佛是当你仍然活着的时候就得到了永生。

14 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

15 imprint   

n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记

参考例句：

• That dictionary is published under the Longman imprint.那本词典以朗曼公司的名义出版。
• Her speech left its imprint on me.她的演讲给我留下了深刻印象。