美国国家公共电台 NPR The Vast And The Violent Rural Northwest, In 'Come West And See'

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The title of Maxim¹ Loskutoff's debut² story collection is an invitation or maybe a command, "Come West And See." The West he writes about his wild, aggressive and stands in stark³ opposition⁴ to the society that exists in places like Washington, D.C., or New York. Loskutoff grew up in that West, in Missoula, Mont. Back then, that fierce, rugged⁵ individualism didn't quite appeal to him.

MAXIM LOSKUTOFF: My definition of the West was a place that I wanted to leave. I always dreamt of the cities on the coasts, the cities in other countries. And for me, these were the places where life and civilization was really happening.

SHAPIRO: And so when he could leave, he did. He went to college in Los Angeles, grad school in New York, lived around the world. But eventually he was drawn⁶ back to the West and the region's struggle to define itself. He told me he even noticed this struggle as a kid in Missoula.

LOSKUTOFF: There was a lot of tension between the kids whose parents were loggers or whose fathers were loggers and whose parents were professors, you know, perhaps in the environmental studies department. So for me, that tension has carried throughout my life. And when I started really sitting down to write, it was to try and express that growing chasm⁷ between the rural West and the cities on the coast.

SHAPIRO: You talk about the cities overlooking the people in the more rural areas and your childhood desire to flee. One word that you didn't use but that seems to be a through line here is contempt - the contempt that people who live in the cities feel for the areas of the country that they don't understand.

LOSKUTOFF: I think that's true, and I also think it cuts both ways. I think there's contempt that both sides have for each other. And part of what I'm trying to do in these stories is to bridge that by showing how universal so many of the sort of baseline emotional struggles that people go through are - the desires for love and understanding. These are just as true in Libby, Mont., as they are in Denver or Portland or New York City.

SHAPIRO: But there's so much that happens in these stories that does feel alien, that feels violent and animalistic - people behaving in ways that I in my life have never seen.

LOSKUTOFF: Yeah. I think that for me, another aspect of the West is being in awe⁸ of this vast landscape which is just so much bigger - it's overpowering - while at the same time wanting to control it. And so in the first story in the collection, which is in many ways foundational - it's sort of the rock dropping in the water from which the ripples⁹ spread forth¹⁰.

SHAPIRO: And this is the only story set in the distant past.

LOSKUTOFF: Yes. And in it, a trapper falls in love with a bear - in sexual love with a bear, kind of representing the many, many animals that he's killed. And something I really wanted to express in this book is that there never was this sort of idealized time of harmony which I think both sides of the political spectrum¹¹ want there to have been - this sort of moment in the West either where all the mines were running and there were good jobs and there were - you know, a man could make a living and have a family, a woman could make a living and raise her children or, on the other side, before the white people came at all, when there was this sort of state of harmony. What I'm trying to express is there was never this harmony. It's always been this incredible struggle with our urge to love the land and then our urge to tame it.

SHAPIRO: When you describe a man falling in love with a bear, it sounds like that could be mythic or allegorical. And the story does not read as allegory or myth. The story is visceral and dark. And when I read it, I thought, OK, this book is going there. It's quite a way to start the reader off.

LOSKUTOFF: Yeah. And to be honest, all these stories come from things that I've felt in some way. And, you know, for me, I've never fallen in sexual love with a bear, but there's this feeling that I've had when I'm out alone in the woods and there's a bear around, and it's a beautiful and exciting feeling. And it has aspects of myth, but it also has aspects of the most sort of mundane¹², everyday turmoil¹³ that I feel in a city or out in the woods. And so, yeah, I wanted to write this stuff. Really the only way I know how to write is to truly feel like it's happening to me or it's happening to the character.

SHAPIRO: The stories in this book are loosely connected, and many of them center around a place called the Redoubt. Describe this place for us.

LOSKUTOFF: The Redoubt is a place that was set aside or designated as a sort of - a place where like-minded people could move together and take over local governments and institute constitutional law, and...

SHAPIRO: Air quotes there.

LOSKUTOFF: Exactly, so elect - the dream would be to elect sheriffs that would only enforce laws that were explicitly¹⁴ written out in the constitution.

SHAPIRO: Almost like a separatist stronghold preparing for a confrontation¹⁵ with federal authorities.

LOSKUTOFF: Yes or preparing for some sort of disaster to befall this country, at which time this would be the center of a new government, a new civilization that would rise.

SHAPIRO: So there are sort of separatist impulses. People are heavily armed. We've seen similar standoffs recently in Oregon and Nevada involving the Cliven Bundy family.

LOSKUTOFF: Yes, exactly. And many of the people who went to Malheur came from the Redoubt.

SHAPIRO: The Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon where there was a standoff with federal authorities recently - so if the world that you describe in your fiction is actually the world in which we live where there is this mutual¹⁶ contempt, there is this sense of fighting a world that has changed, this lack of pride, I mean, the question is, how do you fix that? How do you bridge that?

LOSKUTOFF: I think that for me, the answer is the title of the book. It's to come West, and see. And so I think...

SHAPIRO: But you invite the reader to come West, and see. And then what you show us is so dark and in many instances off-putting. It's hard to feel an identification with and a sympathy for some of these characters who are doing awful things.

LOSKUTOFF: Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I think that my goal for this book was to show just how much anger and darkness there is right now and which is bubbling up in this country. And for me, this is coming from this great chasm that's opened up between the - between two sides. And so, yeah, I certainly don't pretend to have the answer for bridging this chasm. I think this book for me was - it came from this really sort of sick and frightened feeling that I had watching the Malheur occupation develop and the way that it was interpreted utterly¹⁷ differently in Portland, Ore., where I was living when it began and then in the small town of Otis, Ore., where I moved about halfway¹⁸ through it. And it was something that I had felt deep inside myself before but hadn't been able to put into words. So with this book, it's more - the challenge is just to show how far things have gotten and, in the wake of that, to try and begin to bridge that gap.

SHAPIRO: Maxim Loskutoff, thanks so much for talking with us today.

LOSKUTOFF: Yeah, thank you.

SHAPIRO: His debut short story collection is called "Come West And See."

1 maxim   

n.格言，箴言

参考例句：

• Please lay the maxim to your heart.请把此格言记在心里。
• "Waste not,want not" is her favourite maxim.“不浪费则不匮乏”是她喜爱的格言。

2 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。

3 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

4 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

5 rugged   

adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的

参考例句：

• Football players must be rugged.足球运动员必须健壮。
• The Rocky Mountains have rugged mountains and roads.落基山脉有崇山峻岭和崎岖不平的道路。

6 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

7 chasm   

n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突

参考例句：

• There's a chasm between rich and poor in that society.那社会中存在着贫富差距。
• A huge chasm gaped before them.他们面前有个巨大的裂痕。

8 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

9 ripples   

逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moon danced on the ripples. 月亮在涟漪上舞动。
• The sea leaves ripples on the sand. 海水在沙滩上留下了波痕。

10 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

11 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

12 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。

13 turmoil   

n.骚乱，混乱，动乱

参考例句：

• His mind was in such a turmoil that he couldn't get to sleep.内心的纷扰使他无法入睡。
• The robbery put the village in a turmoil.抢劫使全村陷入混乱。

14 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

15 confrontation   

n.对抗，对峙，冲突

参考例句：

• We can't risk another confrontation with the union.我们不能冒再次同工会对抗的危险。
• After years of confrontation,they finally have achieved a modus vivendi.在对抗很长时间后，他们最后达成安宁生存的非正式协议。

16 mutual   

adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的

参考例句：

• We must pull together for mutual interest.我们必须为相互的利益而通力合作。
• Mutual interests tied us together.相互的利害关系把我们联系在一起。

17 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

18 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。