美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Ordinary People' Learn What Happens To Marriage In Midlife

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

In the book "Ordinary People," the latest novel by Diana Evans, two sets of friends - 30-something, black Londoners - navigate¹ friendship and relationships and parenthood during pivotal moments of the early 2000s. Evans borrowed the title from a song by John Legend.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")

JOHN LEGEND: (Singing) Girl, I'm in love with you. This ain't the honeymoon² - past the infatuation phase.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The novel, like the song, is about what happens to couples who are, as the lyrics³ say, past the infatuation phase right in the thick of life.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")

JOHN LEGEND: (Singing) We're just ordinary people.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Diana Evans joins me now from the BBC in London. Welcome to the program.

DIANA EVANS: Thank you very much.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What about this song inspired you?

EVANS: Well, that whole album by John Legend inspired me, actually, because it's a very narrative⁴ album. And it tells a story of a relationship and what can happen in a long-term relationship. So it spoke⁵ very precisely⁶ to what I was trying to do with the novel to show the journey of a relationship deterioration⁷ in the context of parenting and career changes and the onset⁸ of mid-life and challenges.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let's introduce our listeners to the two disenchanted couples in your novel. Who are they? And where in their lives do we meet them?

EVANS: The main couple is Melissa and Michael, who have been together for 13 years. And they live in London, south of the river. And they're at a point in their relationship where they've just had their second child. And there's a distance developing between them that they're trying to negotiate. And the other couple is Stephanie and Damian, who have also been together for a long time. And they have three children. They're married. And Damian begins to develop this kind of infatuation with Melissa, which has more to do with his own dissatisfaction with his life than an actual real attraction between him and Melissa. And that is explored through the course of the novel.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Michael, for his part, doesn't know what happened to his relationship or exactly how to fix it. And I'd like you to read to us from page 71.

EVANS: OK. (Reading) Now when he got home from work wearing his suit, Melissa would be standing⁹ at the kitchen sink and would hardly look at him. There was no smile, no hug. She no longer put kisses on the ends of her texts or emails during the day. Now it was only, can you pop to Little on way home - chick thighs¹⁰, pots, tissues, milk. Or (unintelligible), please. Or can you be home by 6:30, so I can go to Zumba? Then once the children were in bed, they mostly retreated into their separate realms - he, on the sofa in front of the TV, and she, in the bedroom reading. They lived in two different houses in one, small house.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You know, I think anyone who's been in a long-term marriage or long-term relationship of any sort understands these sentiments. You know, it's hard to wake up to the same face every day. And you kind of get oppressed by how mundane¹¹ marriage is, in many ways.

EVANS: Yeah. And I think the real challenge of marriage or a long-term relationship is trying to appreciate the wonderful things about it, that sense of human understanding and sort of compassion¹² and home - a sense of home - that is always there and is always accessible to you. But there is also this other side to it that is very full of doubt about whether you're, you know, missing what's on the other side of the fence. I think some of us are better at dealing¹³ with it than others. And that's also something that's explored quite heavily.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You bracketed this novel with two very ordinary events, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the death of Michael Jackson in 2009. Why were these two events meaningful to you?

EVANS: Well, I tend to use cultural moments and iconography in my fiction as a way of grounding it in reality. And those two moments were so huge in - you know, in my life and in terms of music and politics. And they were both, you know, universal events. You know, Tolstoy also had something to do with it because he - I was quite influenced by "War And Peace," which opens with a party which is set in a particular political moment. And he uses that moment to open a window into a particular community that he was trying to depict¹⁴ which was the Russian aristocracy.

In my case, I was trying to depict the black, British, middle-class world. That's something that we don't really see much of. And I wanted to make that visible and to normalize it, to normalize my experience in the kind of lives that I know and recognize because I think there's been lots of focus on the negative aspects of blackness. And I wanted a thematic innocence¹⁵, not having to write about race or write about issues that are directly associated with race but to write about very ordinary moments and very sort of poignant¹⁶, existential moments about human experience and human identity.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You're of Nigerian descent. And I think that you do interweave the issues of race sort of very quietly in the book. You know, Michael worries that he'll be the only black person at the party. Damian is the son of a black activist¹⁷. And he doesn't feel like he's living up. But that isn't the central part of the book.

EVANS: No. The central part of the book is the marriage, the relationships. But I think, as a black writer, it's difficult to write about. I think whatever I write about - it's infused with race because I'm black, you know? You can't really - you know, there's no - you can't really get away from it. You can de-clothe (ph) yourself of race. But, you know, I think, having said that, race shouldn't be something that black writers only are expected to dissect¹⁸ or are expected to carry. It's something that we should all carry. It's something that we should all think about because it doesn't belong to black people, if you see what I mean. It belongs - it's a world issue.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")

JOHN LEGEND: (Singing) This ain't a movie, no - no fairytale conclusion, y'all.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Diana Evans - her new book is "Ordinary People." Thank you so much.

EVANS: Thank you very much.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")

JOHN LEGEND: (Singing) Then we head back to hell again. We kiss. Then we make up on the way. I hang up. You call. We rise, and we fall. And we feel like just walking away. As our love advances, we take second chances. Though it's not a fantasy, I still want you to stay. We're just ordinary people.

1 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

2 honeymoon   

n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月

参考例句：

• While on honeymoon in Bali,she learned to scuba dive.她在巴厘岛度蜜月时学会了带水肺潜水。
• The happy pair are leaving for their honeymoon.这幸福的一对就要去度蜜月了。

3 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

4 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

7 deterioration   

n.退化；恶化；变坏

参考例句：

• Mental and physical deterioration both occur naturally with age. 随着年龄的增长，心智和体力自然衰退。
• The car's bodywork was already showing signs of deterioration. 这辆车的车身已经显示出了劣化迹象。

8 onset   

n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始

参考例句：

• The drug must be taken from the onset of the infection.这种药必须在感染的最初期就开始服用。
• Our troops withstood the onset of the enemy.我们的部队抵挡住了敌人的进攻。

9 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

10 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

12 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

13 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

14 depict   

vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述

参考例句：

• I don't care to see plays or films that depict murders or violence.我不喜欢看描写谋杀或暴力的戏剧或电影。
• Children's books often depict farmyard animals as gentle,lovable creatures.儿童图书常常把农场的动物描写得温和而可爱。

15 innocence   

n.无罪；天真；无害

参考例句：

• There was a touching air of innocence about the boy.这个男孩有一种令人感动的天真神情。
• The accused man proved his innocence of the crime.被告人经证实无罪。

16 poignant   

adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的

参考例句：

• His lyrics are as acerbic and poignant as they ever have been.他的歌词一如既往的犀利辛辣。
• It is especially poignant that he died on the day before his wedding.他在婚礼前一天去世了，这尤其令人悲恸。

17 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

18 dissect   

v.分割；解剖

参考例句：

• In biology class we had to dissect a frog.上生物课时我们得解剖青蛙。
• Not everyone can dissect and digest the public information they receive.不是每个人都可以解析和消化他们得到的公共信息的。