美国国家公共电台 NPR Jeffrey Eugenides Calls Short Stories 'Maddening' — And Now He Has A Collection

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Jeffrey Eugenides is well-known for his novels. He won the Pulitzer for "Middlesex." But his latest work, a collection of short stories, is a departure.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES: Short stories are difficult, maddening, little puzzles. And I've been trying to learn how to write them since I first started to write.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Jeffrey Eugenides's new collection of stories is called "Fresh Complaint." And he joins us from Princeton University. Good morning.

EUGENIDES: Good morning.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So I'm curious - you know, did you pull them together thematically from a larger work, or are these just the short stories that you actually wrote, and you put them together in a book?

EUGENIDES: These are all the stories that I wrote and deemed worthy¹ for consumption (laughter) in my life. There's a lot of other ones that are in various boxes and desks. But this goes back to the first story I ever had published, which was in the Gettysburg Review. It's almost like reading your diary from your 20s. When I read the story, I remember who I was and what I was reading and what I was thinking about, in terms of literature, at that time.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Did you change anything? Did you update it? Or did you...

EUGENIDES: No, I didn't think that was - I didn't think that would be right or fair. I kept the stories the way they were when they were written. Much of the book - I didn't want the book just to be older stories. So quite a lot of the page count is new fiction that I've written in the last couple of years.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let's talk about these stories. What links the protagonists² in these tales? I'm thinking about the men in particular.

EUGENIDES: Well, I don't know. You know, the writer is the animal, and the readers are the zoologists³. So they have to decide what kind of connection there is between these different creatures. My editor did say that there is a kind of progression or arc in that the presentation of a male experience gets older - that some of the early stories like "Airmail" deal with a college student who's traveling the globe and searching for the truth about life. And some of the other stories about - are about men who are married and have children and are confronting financial problems and stalled careers and problems that you would encounter in middle age.

So there's a kind of questing, aspirational⁴ but also thwarted⁵ quality to a lot of the men in these stories - a kind of sadness. And then at the end, in the largest story, "Fresh Complaint," a character coming out on the other end of a great mistake in his life and learning from it and moving on, hopefully, to better times. So in that way, I think there's a full progression of a descent and, hopefully, a sort of ascent⁶ at the end.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There are - there's one story, the first one, which is a portrayal⁷ of sort of deep women's friendship. It's called "Complainers." It's very touching⁸. Where did that story come from? And tell us about what it's about.

EUGENIDES: Well, that story is based on my mother, who died just this last spring suffering from dementia. I notice a lot of people my age are dealing⁹ with that and writing stories about their parents suffering dementia. But I wanted to try to do it in a different way. And instead of writing about my mother's decline, I wanted to write about the part of her life that I knew the least about. And that had to do with a lifelong friendship she had with a woman who was much younger. And so I investigated and imagined their friendship.

And I tried to tell a story about these two women and how they had gone through difficulties in their marriages, difficulties with their children but had kept together by reading this this book about an Alaskan legend that becomes emblematic¹⁰ for their lives and then also about dementia. I was writing that story for a couple of years while my mother declined. And it was a way of keeping her present for myself and keeping her alive in a sense, keeping her intact.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What makes short stories so maddening? You used the word maddening.

EUGENIDES: Oh, they're so - there's no space. I mean, they're very short. That's the problem with a short story.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter).

EUGENIDES: You get it going. And then you have to shut it down. And I am a novelist by inclination¹¹. I get an idea. And then that suggests another idea or another character. Or let's change the point of view, and let's have many points of view. And I've tried to do that in some of these stories. I've thought about them as novels that I've just compressed into a small space. But it's just a different kind of thing. You're trying to boil experience down into a very small precipitant. And there's something fun and, yeah, maddening because it's difficult. But there's you can just keep playing with it and keep playing with it and trying to get it to work. Oh, years and years can go by in this process in a happy...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And have.

EUGENIDES: In a happy way. And have. Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right. Jeffrey Eugenides's new collection of stories is called "Fresh Complaint." He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Thank you very much for joining us.

EUGENIDES: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF WITCH HOUSE'S "NUJABES")

1 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

2 protagonists   

n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者

参考例句：

• Mrs Pankhurst was one of the chief protagonists of women's rights. 潘克赫斯特太太是女权的主要倡导者之一。 来自辞典例句
• This reflects that Feng Menglong heartily sympathized with these protagonists. 这反映出冯梦龙由衷地同情书中的这些主要人物。 来自互联网

3 zoologists   

动物学家( zoologist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Zoologists refer barnacles to Crustanceans. 动物学家把螺蛳归入甲壳类。
• It is now a source of growing interest for chemists and zoologists as well. 它现在也是化学家和动物学家愈感兴趣的一个所在。

4 aspirational   

志同的，有抱负的

参考例句：

• Most of the images that bombard us all are aspirational. 轰击的图像，我们都期望最大。
• Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India's high figures. 分析师们指出，自助读书、热爱读书是印度人均读书时间超过别的国家的主要原因。

5 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。

6 ascent   

n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高

参考例句：

• His rapid ascent in the social scale was surprising.他的社会地位提高之迅速令人吃惊。
• Burke pushed the button and the elevator began its slow ascent.伯克按动电钮，电梯开始缓慢上升。

7 portrayal   

n.饰演；描画

参考例句：

• His novel is a vivid portrayal of life in a mining community.他的小说生动地描绘了矿区的生活。
• The portrayal of the characters in the novel is lifelike.该书中的人物写得有血有肉。

8 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

9 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。

10 emblematic   

adj.象征的，可当标志的；象征性

参考例句：

• The violence is emblematic of what is happening in our inner cities. 这种暴力行为正标示了我们市中心贫民区的状况。
• Whiteness is emblematic of purity. 白色是纯洁的象征。 来自辞典例句

11 inclination   

n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好

参考例句：

• She greeted us with a slight inclination of the head.她微微点头向我们致意。
• I did not feel the slightest inclination to hurry.我没有丝毫着急的意思。