美国国家公共电台 NPR Reproductive Freedom Lies Just Outside The U.S. Border In 'Red Clocks'

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The novel "Red Clocks" imagines a time in which something called the Personhood Amendment¹ has made abortion² and in vitro fertilization a crime in the United States, and Canada returns women who slip across the border to seek one. It's a novel set in an alternate reality of an Oregon town near the border that invites inevitable³ comparison with Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." Is it also a parable⁴ for our times?

"Red Clocks" is by Leni Zumas. Her fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines and has been acclaimed⁵ for her exquisite⁶ wordplay. She's also an associate professor of English at Portland State University and joins us from the studios of Oregon Public Broadcasting. Thanks so much for being with us.

LENI ZUMAS: Thank you, Scott.

SIMON: You must have begun this novel more than a year ago - before the last inauguration⁷. So what put the story in your mind?

ZUMAS: Yeah. I started writing it around 2010. It started from some personal anxiety and anguish⁸ of my own. I was dealing⁹ with infertility¹⁰ and really wanted to get pregnant and wasn't able to. And I had a lot of questions about why I wanted to become a mother, what it meant to be a mother, what it meant to be fertile or infertile¹¹.

And when I was starting to pursue in vitro fertilization and doing some research about it, I started to come upon something called the Personhood Amendment and various fetal-personhood movements in the United States - people who wanted to make it a crime to do anything to a single-celled zygote. And so that was something that really fueled my curiosity and, frankly¹², my anger. And so it started out personal, and it really expanded to be about the political future of our country.

SIMON: You've intertwined the stories of four or five women here, and I'll just mention a few - Roberta, or Ro, a teacher who wants a child on her own, her best student, Mattie, who becomes known in the narrative¹³ as the daughter. She's 16 and pregnant, decides to run for the border, previously¹⁴ unheralded polar explorer named - I can't pronounce her name.

ZUMAS: I say it as Eivor Minervudottir, but I don't speak Faroese, so I'm probably butchering it.

SIMON: (Laughter) Well, somebody in our audience, undoubtedly¹⁵, will let us know that - if you've butchered it. I want to read something that is written in her voice.

(Reading) We woke to the floes rafting up around the ship - massive blue-white shelves, thrust vertically¹⁶ by wind and tide, jumped roaring out of the water and smashed at the keel. To my knowledge, I may now add the sound ice makes when it destroys a ship - booming gun cracks, then a smaller yelping¹⁷.

I looked up this explorer because I found those passages so compelling.

(LAUGHTER)

ZUMAS: I'm glad.

SIMON: Imagine my amazement¹⁸ I meant to find out it's all your fiction - isn't it?

ZUMAS: I happen to be a person who's long been obsessed¹⁹ with polar exploration and maritime²⁰ adventure, and so that's what I imported when I was imagining this woman from the Faroe Islands who gets aboard these ships by pretending she's a boy and teaches herself polar hydrology.

SIMON: I have to share with you - there was a phrase that startled me a little. At one point, the 16-year-old - the daughter - who becomes pregnant refers to what I'll refer to the entity²¹ inside of her as the clump²².

ZUMAS: Yeah.

SIMON: I'll ask - because it is your character - does she do that to distance herself, or what?

ZUMAS: That's a good question. I think that she does want to distance herself, but she doesn't know what she's doing. You know, she hasn't quite turned 16. And she herself is adopted, which makes her decision to seek an abortion more complicated.

SIMON: Can you see how even some people who believe in abortion rights just might find a phrase like the clump to be a euphemism²³ that aggravates²⁴ them?

ZUMAS: Yes, I can. And I hope that that aggravation²⁵ starts a conversation, you know, or contributes to a conversation that's obviously already happening.

SIMON: As you may know, there are couples that go through IVF, and they see something flickering²⁶ on that screen and begin to feel very deeply about it. It suddenly - if you will, it's not a clump to them. It becomes something with living properties.

ZUMAS: I think that's where the complexity²⁷ lies in this conversation - that, you know, I remember when I got the call that I was pregnant after many, many tries. And certainly, I wasn't using the word clump to myself. But that doesn't mean that a 15-and-a-half-year-old 1/2-year-old doesn't get to use that word for herself.

SIMON: How do you feel about comparisons to "The Handmaid's Tale"? Oh, wait. As soon as I hear myself utter that question, I'm thinking, what's wrong with that? How could that possibly hurt?

(LAUGHTER)

SIMON: But go ahead, please.

ZUMAS: I've admired Margaret Atwood for a really long time, and I love her work. And I think our books are very different in the sense that in "The Handmaid's Tale," she's created such a spectacular and drastic world that does draw on elements of historical fact but which is really so separate from our own world, whereas I think that the world of "Red Clocks" could, frankly, happen next week.

SIMON: Leni Zumas - her novel "Red Clocks." Thanks so much for being with us.

ZUMAS: Thank you, Scott. It was a pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF JULIA KENT'S "TRANSPORTATION")

1 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

2 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

3 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

4 parable   

n.寓言，比喻

参考例句：

• This is an ancient parable.这是一个古老的寓言。
• The minister preached a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep.牧师讲道时用了亡羊的比喻。

5 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

6 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

7 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

8 anguish   

n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼

参考例句：

• She cried out for anguish at parting.分手时，她由于痛苦而失声大哭。
• The unspeakable anguish wrung his heart.难言的痛苦折磨着他的心。

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 infertility   

n.不肥沃，不毛；不育

参考例句：

• It is the Geneva, Switzerland-based Biotech Company's second recombinant infertility drug. 它是瑞士生物技术公司在日内瓦的公司生产的第二种重组治疗不孕症的药。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术制药疫苗
• Endometritis is a cause of infertility. 子宫内膜炎是不育的原子。 来自辞典例句

11 infertile   

adj.不孕的；不肥沃的，贫瘠的

参考例句：

• Plants can't grow well in the infertile land.在贫瘠的土地上庄稼长不好。
• Nobody is willing to till this infertile land.这块薄田没有人愿意耕种。

12 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

13 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。

14 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

15 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

16 vertically   

adv.垂直地

参考例句：

• Line the pages for the graph both horizontally and vertically.在这几页上同时画上横线和竖线，以便制作图表。
• The human brain is divided vertically down the middle into two hemispheres.人脑从中央垂直地分为两半球。

17 yelping   

v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• In the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping. 在桌子中间有一只小狗坐在那儿，抖着它的爪子，汪汪地叫。 来自辞典例句
• He saved men from drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. 他搭救了快要溺死的人们，你呢，听到一条野狗叫唤也瑟瑟发抖。 来自互联网

18 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。

19 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

20 maritime   

adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的

参考例句：

• Many maritime people are fishermen.许多居于海滨的人是渔夫。
• The temperature change in winter is less in maritime areas.冬季沿海的温差较小。

21 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

22 clump   

n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走

参考例句：

• A stream meandered gently through a clump of trees.一条小溪从树丛中蜿蜒穿过。
• It was as if he had hacked with his thick boots at a clump of bluebells.仿佛他用自己的厚靴子无情地践踏了一丛野风信子。

23 euphemism   

n.婉言，委婉的说法

参考例句：

• Language reflects culture and euphemism is a mirror of culture.语言反映文化,而婉语则是各种文化的一面镜子。
• Euphemism is a very common and complicated linguistic phenomenon.委婉语是一种十分常见而又非常复杂的语言现象。

24 aggravates   

使恶化( aggravate的第三人称单数 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火

参考例句：

• If he aggravates me any more I shall punish him. 如果他再惹我生气，我就要惩罚他。
• Now nothing aggravates me more than when people torment each pther. 没有什么东西比人们的互相折磨更使我愤怒。

25 aggravation   

n.烦恼，恼火

参考例句：

• She stirred in aggravation as she said this. 她说这句话，激动得过分。
• Can't stand the aggravation, all day I get aggravation. You know how it is." 我整天都碰到令人发火的事，你可想而知这是什么滋味。” 来自教父部分

26 flickering   

adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的

参考例句：

• The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
• The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。

27 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。