名篇背诵05:艺术与生命

 　　My parents owned six books between them. Two of those were Bibles and the third was a concordance to the Old and New Testaments¹. The fourth was The House At Pooh Corner. The fifth，The Chatterbox Annual 1923 and the sixth, Malory’s Morte d’Artliur.

　　I found it necessary to smuggle² books in and of the house and I cannot claim too much for the provision of an outside toilet when there is no room of one’s own. It was on the toilet that I first read Freud and D. H. Lawrence, and perhaps that was the best place, after all. We kept a rubber torch hung on the cistern⁴, and I had to divide my money from a Saturday job, between buying books and buying batteries. My mother knew exactly how long her Ever Readys would last if used only to illuminate⁵ the hap³ that separated the toilet paper from its .

　　Once I had tucked the book back down my knickers to get it indoors again, I find somewhere to hide it, and anyone with a single bed, standard size, and paperbacks⁶, standard size, will discover that seventy seven can be accommodated per layer under the mattress⁷. But as my collection grew, I began to worry that my mother might notice that her daughter’s bed was rising visibly. One day she did. She burned everything.

　　I had been brought up to memorize very long Bible passages, and when I left home and was supporting myself so that I could continue my education, I fought off loneliness and fear by reciting. In the funeral parlor⁸ I whispered Donne to the embalming⁹ fluids and Marvell to the corpses¹⁰. Later, I found that Tennyson’ s ‘Lady of Shalott’ had a soothing¹¹, because rhythmic¹², effect on the mentally disturbed. Among the disturbed I numbered myself at that time.

　　The healing power of art is not a rhetorical fantasy. Fighting to keep language, language became my sanity¹³ and my strength. It still is, and I know of no pain that art cannot assuage¹⁴. For some, music, for some, pictures, for me, primarily, poetry, whether found in poems or in prose, cuts through noise and hurt, opens the wound to clean it, and then gradually teaches it to heal itself. Wounds need to be taught to heal themselves.

　　The psyche¹⁵ and the spirit do not share the instinct of damaged body. Healing is automatically triggered nor is danger usually avoided. Since we put ourselves in the way of hurt it seems logical to put ourselves in the way of healing. Art has more work to do than ever before but it can do that work. In a self-destructive society like our own, it is unsurprising that art as a healing force is despised.

　　For myself, when I returned to my to my borrowed room night after night, and there were my books, I felt relief and exuberance¹⁶, not hardship and exhaustion¹⁷. I intended to avoid the fate of Jude the Obscure, although a reading of that book was a useful warning. What I wanted did not belong to me by right and whilst it could not be refused tome in quite same way, we still have subtle punishments for anyone who insists on what they are and what they want. Walled inside the little space marked out for by family and class, it was the limitless world of imagination that it possible for me to scale the sheer face of other people’s assumptions. Inside books there is perfect space and it is that space which allows the reader to escape from the problems of gravity.

　　By Jeanette Winterson

　　艺术与生命

　　我父母两人共有六本书。其中两本是圣经、第三本是新旧约用语索引、第四本是《噗噗熊街角的屋子》（The House at Pooh Corner）、第五本是《1923年话匣子年鉴》（The Chatterbox 1923 Annual），而第六本是马洛礼（Malory）的《阿瑟王之死》（Mortd’Arthur）。

　　我发现有必要把书偷运进出家里，而且没有属于自己的房间时，对于于屋外厕所的供应品，我不能要求太多。我第一次读到弗洛依德和D. H. 劳伦斯，是坐在马桶上的，而或许，那终究是最佳之处。我们在马桶水箱上悬吊了一个橡胶手电筒，而我必须将周六那份工作赚来的钱，平分花在买书和买电池上面。我母亲清楚知道，她那些永备牌电池，如果光是用来照明区分卫生纸和其功能的空隙，可以维持多久。

　　有一回我又把书塞在内裤里，好带进屋里。我必须找个地方把书藏起来，而任何人，若拥有一张单人床，标准尺寸的，以及平装书籍，标准尺寸的，就会发现，床垫底下每一层可容纳七十七本。可是当我的收集品增加时，便开始担心母亲会注意到，用眼睛就看得出女儿的床正逐渐升高。有一天她真的发现了。她全给烧了…。

　　……我成长过程中，必须背下很长的圣经段落。到我离开家庭，自己赚钱以便继续求学时，便靠背诵来抵挡寂寞和恐惧。在殡仪馆里，我稍稍对着防腐香料液念约翰 ?多恩（Donne）、对着尸体念安德鲁?马维尔（Marvel）。后来，我发现丁尼生（Tennyson）的〈夏洛特〉（“Lady of Shalott”），因为有节焰感，对于心智失衡者具有一种安抚作用。在那个时候我把自己也算在失衡者之列。

　　艺术的疗愈力量并非夸大其词的幻想。我奋力留住语言，语言因而让我心智正常，具有力量。到现在仍是如此，而且我所知道的痛苦，无一不透过艺术而得到舒缓。对某此人来说，是音乐，另一些人，是绘画，对我来说，是主要的是，不论出现在诗歌或散文中，诗能够切穿嘈杂和伤痛，将伤口打开以清理之，然后逐渐教导它自我疗愈。

　　心灵和精神不像受损了的身体具有一种本能。疗愈不会自动给引发，而危险也通常无以避免。既然我们会让自己受伤，那么让自己得到疗愈也是合乎逻辑的。比起以往任何时候，艺术要做更多的工作，但是这份工作它是做得来的。像我们这样一个自我毁灭的社会里，艺术之为一种疗愈的力量，会受到鄙视，并不令人感到讶异。

　　对我自己而言，夜复一夜回到借来的房里时，我感到放心且满溢，而非困苦和疲惫，我意图避免《无名裘德》（Jude the Obscure）的命运，虽然阅读那本书是很有用的警告。我所想要的，并不理当属于我，而虽然它也不能以完全同样的方式拒我于外，但是任何人若坚持要做某种人或是想要某些东西，我们仍然会给他很微妙的惩罚。当我被关在家庭和阶级为我所划定的小小空间里，是想象力那片无限的天地，让我得以刮除他人那些假设的表层。书中自有完美的空间，就是这个空间，让读者能够逃避地心引力的诸般问题。

　　詹涅特．温特森 著

1 testaments   

n.遗嘱( testament的名词复数 )；实际的证明

参考例句：

• The coastline is littered with testaments to the savageness of the waters. 海岸线上充满了海水肆虐过后的杂乱东西。 来自互联网
• A personification of wickedness and ungodliness alluded to in the Old and New Testaments. 彼勒《旧约》和《新约》中邪恶和罪孽的化身。 来自互联网

2 smuggle   

vt.私运；vi.走私

参考例句：

• Friends managed to smuggle him secretly out of the country.朋友们想方设法将他秘密送出国了。
• She has managed to smuggle out the antiques without getting caught.她成功将古董走私出境，没有被逮捕。

3 hap   

n.运气；v.偶然发生

参考例句：

• Some have the hap,some stick in the gap.有的人走运, 有的人倒霉。
• May your son be blessed by hap and happiness.愿你儿子走运幸福。

4 cistern   

n.贮水池

参考例句：

• The cistern is empty but soon fills again.蓄水池里现在没水，但不久就会储满水的。
• The lavatory cistern overflowed.厕所水箱的水溢出来了

5 illuminate   

vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释

参考例句：

• Dreams kindle a flame to illuminate our dark roads.梦想点燃火炬照亮我们黑暗的道路。
• They use games and drawings to illuminate their subject.他们用游戏和图画来阐明他们的主题。

6 paperbacks   

n.平装本，平装书( paperback的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This shop only sells paperbacks. 这家书店只出售平装本的书。 来自辞典例句
• Other paperbacks were selling for ten or 15 cents each. 其它的平装书每本才卖十或十五美分。 来自互联网

7 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

8 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

9 embalming   

v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的现在分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气

参考例句：

• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming. 尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were experts at preserving the bodies of the dead by embalming them with special lotions. 他们具有采用特种药物洗剂防止尸体腐烂的专门知识。 来自辞典例句

10 corpses   

n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The living soldiers put corpses together and burned them. 活着的战士把尸体放在一起烧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Overhead, grayish-white clouds covered the sky, piling up heavily like decaying corpses. 天上罩满了灰白的薄云，同腐烂的尸体似的沉沉的盖在那里。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

11 soothing   

adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的

参考例句：

• Put on some nice soothing music.播放一些柔和舒缓的音乐。
• His casual, relaxed manner was very soothing.他随意而放松的举动让人很快便平静下来。

12 rhythmic   

adj.有节奏的，有韵律的

参考例句：

• Her breathing became more rhythmic.她的呼吸变得更有规律了。
• Good breathing is slow,rhythmic and deep.健康的呼吸方式缓慢深沉而有节奏。

13 sanity   

n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确

参考例句：

• I doubt the sanity of such a plan.我怀疑这个计划是否明智。
• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。

14 assuage   

v.缓和，减轻，镇定

参考例句：

• The medicine is used to assuage pain.这种药用来止痛。
• Your messages of cheer should assuage her suffering.你带来的这些振奋人心的消息一定能减轻她的痛苦。

15 psyche   

n.精神；灵魂

参考例句：

• His exploration of the myth brings insight into the American psyche.他对这个神话的探讨揭示了美国人的心理。
• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche.她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。

16 exuberance   

n.丰富；繁荣

参考例句：

• Her burst of exuberance and her brightness overwhelmed me.她勃发的热情和阳光的性格征服了我。
• The sheer exuberance of the sculpture was exhilarating.那尊雕塑表现出的勃勃生机让人振奋。

17 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。