美国国家公共电台 NPR From The Archives: Philip Roth Discusses His Writing Process

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The writer Philip Roth died yesterday at 85. His career spanned¹ more than five decades. Our former co-host Robert Siegel talked with Roth over the years about many of his books and often about the work of writing. Here he is in 2008.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

PHILIP ROTH: Yeah. I work the same schedule I've worked all my life really, which is to say, I work a full day. And I work six or seven days a week.

ROBERT SIEGEL, BYLINE²: And a full day produces about how much on the page?

ROTH: There are days that are very unpleasant where I produce nothing. That is - I write, but what I write I throw away by the end of the day. And those are not pleasant days.

SIEGEL: And those days...

ROTH: You wouldn't want to have dinner with me.

SIEGEL: (Laughter) Would you still have those days?

ROTH: Oh, indeed I do.

SIEGEL: It's not something that practice simply rules out after a while.

ROTH: Practice in this job is strange. Each time you start, you're writing a new book, needless³ to say. And the fact is, you've never written that book before. So you may have written before, but you've never written that book before. So you run into problems of a kind you never had before. So the problems are always new, and you have to come up with new solutions all the time.

SHAPIRO: When talking to Robert Siegel about his writing process a couple of years earlier, Philip Roth got a bit tangled⁴ in a metaphor⁵.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ROTH: Part of being a writer is being able to read what you've written and see what's missing, see what needs development, see what's suggested by what you wrote. It's like a trampoline. You know, you're jumping up and down on this draft, and each jump is an idea. Could I drop that metaphor?

(LAUGHTER)

SIEGEL: No, you're stuck with that.

ROTH: OK.

SIEGEL: I mean, how do you know when the trampoline is done and you can finally get off of it and say it's finished, or could you do this forever? I mean, is...

ROTH: I beg you. Let me get out of that metaphor.

SIEGEL: OK. I'll - you won't have to pursue the trampoline anymore.

ROTH: OK. How do you know when it's done?

SIEGEL: Yeah.

ROTH: You know when it's done because you have nothing more to say. When you come to the end, it's because you've answered all the questions you've raised and no more questions occur to you. And you conclude that you've come to the end.

SHAPIRO: Philip Roth speaking to Robert Siegel here on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED in 2006. Roth died yesterday at 85.

(SOUNDBITE OF HALBERD'S "SUMMER NIGHTS")

1 spanned   

（细胞或微生物的培养）生活期有限的

参考例句：

• A bridge spanned the rill. 一座桥横跨小河。
• His interests spanned a wide range of subjects. 他的兴趣涉及广泛的学科。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 needless   

adj.不必，无须，不必要的，无用的

参考例句：

• Needless to say,I agree.无须说，我是同意的。
• It is needless to add that you are in want of a second.你需要一个助手，那是不必说的。

4 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

5 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。