美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The End We Start From' Chronicles Motherhood In The Midst Of Crisis

 

ELISE HU, HOST:

A woman in London gives birth to her first child just as the city is submerged in floodwaters from global warming. That's the opening of a slim debut¹ novel by Megan Hunter.

MEGAN HUNTER: Because of the magnitude of the disaster, they have to leave their home, and they have to travel from place to place seeking shelter, finding somewhere safe to live. And the book really just follows their path, particularly focusing on this mother and this baby and how their relationship grows in this dangerous situation.

HU: The book is called "The End We Start From." And though Megan Hunter was a few years past the day-to-day challenges of caring for a newborn, she says her experience did help shape this story.

HUNTER: I'd read, you know, these books that you read about, you know, your baby's first 12 months or, you know, what to expect and, you know, when your baby does this or that and really I found, you know, they were only sort of touching² a very sort of basic level of the experience. I wanted to, you know, really go into the experience at a sort of deep, poetic³, literary level. And also, you know, there's a very particular atmosphere around I think the first year of a baby's life for most people, especially their first baby, which is quite surreal. It's quite disorientating. They have a sense of dislocation and a sense of, you know, being apart from the rest of the world.

HU: Sure.

HUNTER: I was just interested in how that atmosphere might be mirrored in a more sort of global situation in a - in really a catastrophe⁴ that takes place beyond, you know, the level of a single family. So it was really putting those two ideas together, that - the atmosphere of new motherhood and a kind of dystopian restart of the whole of life that really gave the book is beginning.

HU: We can't talk about this book without talking about breastfeeding since this is...

HUNTER: (Laughter) No.

HU: (Laughter) Plays very - there's quite a through line in the book about this.

HUNTER: Yes.

HU: You describe it so vividly⁵, so we'd love to hear little.

HUNTER: OK. (Reading) These are the remains⁶ of a life it seems, the unsavored and the savored⁷. Days are thin now, stretched so much that time pulls through them. Yesterday, like today, I had a full stomach. My breasts were hard or soft, a kind of clock of their own. Now, without Internet, without phone reception, there is this, the filling, the emptying, the lumpiness of an engorged breast, the tingling⁸ of its release. There is this.

HU: Was it a conscious decision to write it in the way that you did - incredibly sparse⁹, not actually naming characters but giving them initials, making it feel more like a poem than a really detailed¹⁰ narrative¹¹?

HUNTER: Yes. I mean, it started off in very much in the form that it is in today, but I'd been playing around with form for a long time before I wrote it, so I've been playing around with poetry, with essay, with fiction, trying to find a way to write that felt kind of comfortable for me, I suppose, at the same time as, you know, doing something new in some way. That was important to me. And also the form really seemed to fit very, very nicely with both the experiences of new motherhood and the experience of being, you know, being affected¹² by an environmental crisis in this way. I mean, she doesn't have time to write long things, and it's very much written, you know, as though she is writing something. Sometimes she is consciously reflecting on the writing experience. And so the fragmentary-ness of the narrative, I hope, has a sort of naturalness about it. It's not too forced because it comes very naturally from her situation.

HU: I don't know if this is me reading too much into this, but I wanted to ask you - we are in a time of mass migration¹³. We're seeing that in Syria, in Northern Africa, Southeast Asia. Refugees are fleeing their homes to try and survive. So was there a connection or thread here between the real-life present that we're dealing¹⁴ with, migration and climate change, and this imaginary future that you've laid out?

HUNTER: Yes, I mean, very much so. I was writing it, you know, in the midst of hearing all of these news reports, both about the effects of climate change but also about refugees, about migration, the refugee crisis. And I was - I wasn't trying to, you know, write their stories and write about those refugee camps. But I - but it definitely led from the thought process that was, you know, what would it be like if that happened here? What would it be like if there was an environmental crisis, you know, in the U.K., in London? And where would people go and what would it be like? So it definitely, you know, it came from what I was seeing and hearing around me, and that's perhaps why it's, you know, it continues to seem relevant in some way because unfortunately those things are ongoing¹⁵.

HU: Did you end up coming to any new insight about the experience, just, you know, motherhood or the time period in your life that you write about?

HUNTER: Yes. I mean, it's been really interesting. I've written the book and obviously when you write a book and it goes out into the world and then people, you know, talk to you about the book and that's one of the wonderful things about writing a book and you reflect with them and people have said things to me that I didn't necessarily know when I was writing it, you know, about - particularly about - I suppose the nature of maternal¹⁶ love, the strength of it, you know, and how perhaps they hadn't really read that that much in literature. And they - and, you know, the sort of most touching thing people have said to me is that they felt that the book really took them back to that time and people have said that to me who are older than me and whose children are completely grown up. And I find that very moving that they've been taken all the way back to that very sort of potent¹⁷ experience in the past.

HU: Megan Hunter, thank you so much.

HUNTER: Thank you so much for having me.

HU: Megan Hunter's book is "The End We Start From."

1 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

2 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。

3 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

4 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

5 vividly   

adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地

参考例句：

• The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
• The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。

6 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

7 savored   

v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的过去式和过去分词 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝

参考例句：

• We savored the barbed hits in his reply. 我们很欣赏他在回答中使用的带刺的俏皮话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We savored, (the pleasures of) mountain life to the full. 我们充分体会了山居生活的乐趣。 来自辞典例句

8 tingling   

v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• My ears are tingling [humming; ringing; singing]. 我耳鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My tongue is tingling. 舌头发麻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 sparse   

adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的

参考例句：

• The teacher's house is in the suburb where the houses are sparse.老师的家在郊区，那里稀稀拉拉有几处房子。
• The sparse vegetation will only feed a small population of animals.稀疏的植物只够喂养少量的动物。

10 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

11 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。

12 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

13 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

14 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。

15 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

16 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

17 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。