美国国家公共电台 NPR 'It's A Huge Loss': Friend Mourns Anthony Bourdain

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

This morning we report on the death of a man who bounded across television screens filled with life. Anthony Bourdain has died. He took his own life, we're told, while in France recording¹ an episode of his CNN program "Parts Unknown," which took him around the world. Patrick Radden Keefe of The New Yorker magazine wrote a profile of Bourdain in 2017, and he's on the line. Welcome to the program, sir.

PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE: Thank you.

INSKEEP: We don't know a lot at this point about Bourdain's death except that he was found by a friend unresponsive in a hotel room in what's believed to be a suicide. What went through your mind when you heard that news?

KEEFE: Well, it's a huge shock because this guy was an almost volcanic² lifeforce. It's hard to think of somebody who had a more irrepressible lust³ for life than Bourdain. But there had also been a lot of darkness in his life, and I suppose in that respect - it's shocking, but there may be aspects of his personality that would mean that this is perhaps less surprising than at first blush one might think.

INSKEEP: What was the darkness?

KEEFE: Well, he had struggled as a younger man with addiction⁴ and overcome it and reinvented himself many, many times. You know, he was a chef, and then became a writer and then a TV host. And in the time I spent with him - I reported a piece over the course of a year - there were often these strains. He would talk about death. He would talk about dark moments. And he sometimes said that part of the reason he was so frenetically active, traveling around the world constantly, doing these new programs, was that he worried a little bit about what would happen if he was left on his own.

INSKEEP: Meaning that he was fending⁵ off darkness, perhaps, through his energetic travels around the world?

KEEFE: Yeah. I think he would have said that himself. Look, I don't mean to suggest that I or anyone else could have in any way seen this coming. It's a massive shock. But I think that one aspect of Tony's personality was that there was this amazing kind of lust for life, and that that was twinned with a darker cast.

INSKEEP: Well, let's talk about where that lust took him. We should mention that he started at the bottom, in a way. He spoke⁶ with the public radio program Fresh Air in October 2016 and recalled that one of his first jobs in the kitchen was not as a chef, but as a dishwasher. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ANTHONY BOURDAIN: It was very hard work. You had to be there on time. There were certain absolute rules. And, for whatever reason, I responded to that. It was a mix of chaos⁷ but also considerable order that I guess I needed at the time.

INSKEEP: How did the dishwasher become a celebrity⁸ chef?

KEEFE: Slowly. I mean, it didn't happen until mid-life, really. He was in his mid-40s. And he wasn't a celebrity chef. He was a guy grilling⁹ steaks and dunking french fries. And he wrote his way out of the kitchen. That's how it happened is, he wrote a memoir¹⁰, "Kitchen Confidential," which kind of put him on the map, and then from there had the opportunity to do this television show where he - as he put it to me - you know, I travel around the world, I go wherever I want, and I eat fun things and meet interesting people. What's not to like?

INSKEEP: Yeah. That's a cleaned-up version of the quote that you have in your New Yorker article.

KEEFE: (Laughter).

INSKEEP: We can refer people to the article for the more earthy version of that. I don't think that I realized that the program had been around so long, I guess, under different names and on different networks for about a decade and a half, right?

KEEFE: Yeah. It's had different iterations on different networks. And it kind of evolved, but the DNA¹¹ has always been the same. And I think by the time he got to CNN, he had a huge amount of creative freedom, big budgets. He'd already been to about a hundred countries. So in many instances, he was trying to find new places to go. But that's part of what's so devastating¹² about this. Even last week, there was a Hong Kong episode that he was really excited about that aired with a cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, who he had been obsessed¹³ with for years and talked to me a couple of years ago about how badly he wanted to work with this guy. And so that was a small dream come true. It's really astonishing to think that we've lost him.

INSKEEP: Let's listen to a little bit more of Anthony Bourdain. And he's talking here about traveling for this program that was about food but really exposing the culture and realities of different places.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

BOURDAIN: The response I'm looking for is to hear from someone from the neighborhood saying, how did you ever find that place? I thought only we knew about it. It's, you know, truly a place that we love and is reflective of our culture and our neighborhood. But on the other hand, that's kind of a destructive process because if I name the place - and I don't always, when it's a place like that - I've changed it. The next time I go back, there's tourists.

INSKEEP: Patrick Radden Keefe, I just want to mention when I've traveled in places like Israel or Iran, one of the things that I've typically heard at some point in my traveling and reporting is, did you see what Anthony Bourdain did when he was here?

KEEFE: (Laughter). Yeah. It's an amazing thing to think about. He took that kind of credo of authenticity¹⁴ and of understanding people on their own terms really seriously. And I think one of the results is that he went to a lot of places that, first of all, TV programs don't go. And if you talk to the people who are there, they often feel as though he got them right, which is no easy thing to do.

INSKEEP: Patrick Radden Keefe, thanks very much. Really appreciate it.

KEEFE: Thank you.

INSKEEP: He is a writer for The New Yorker. He profiled Anthony Bourdain, the chef who's program, "Parts Unknown," was on CNN. He was filming an episode of that program when he was found dead in his hotel room in France, an apparent suicide.

1 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

2 volcanic   

adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的

参考例句：

• There have been several volcanic eruptions this year.今年火山爆发了好几次。
• Volcanic activity has created thermal springs and boiling mud pools.火山活动产生了温泉和沸腾的泥浆池。

3 lust   

n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望

参考例句：

• He was filled with lust for power.他内心充满了对权力的渴望。
• Sensing the explorer's lust for gold, the chief wisely presented gold ornaments as gifts.酋长觉察出探险者们垂涎黄金的欲念，就聪明地把金饰品作为礼物赠送给他们。

4 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

5 fending   

v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开

参考例句：

• He is always spending his time fending with the neighbors. 他总是与邻里们吵架。 来自互联网
• Fifth, it is to build safeguarding system and enhance the competence in fending off the risk. 五是建立政策保障体系，提高防范和抵御风险的能力。 来自互联网

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

8 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

9 grilling   

v.烧烤( grill的现在分词 )；拷问，盘问

参考例句：

• The minister faced a tough grilling at today's press conference. 部长在今天的记者招待会上受到了严厉的盘问。
• He's grilling out there in the midday sun. 他在外面让中午火辣辣的太阳炙烤着。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

11 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

12 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

13 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。

14 authenticity   

n.真实性

参考例句：

• There has been some debate over the authenticity of his will. 对于他的遗嘱的真实性一直有争论。
• The museum is seeking an expert opinion on the authenticity of the painting. 博物馆在请专家鉴定那幅画的真伪。