美国国家公共电台 NPR Novel Material: Ann Beattie, Voice Of The Boomers, Turns Her Focus To Millennials

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Ann Beattie first made her mark as a writer when The New Yorker began to publish her short stories in the 1970s. Back then, she was hailed as the voice of her generation, a distinction that she never took very seriously. In her latest book, "A Wonderful Stroke Of Luck," the author turns her attention to a new generation, millennials, as NPR's Lynn Neary reports.

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE¹: Ann Beattie has published more than 20 books over the course of her career, both novels and short story collections. But she prefers writing short stories. Novels, she admits, are more of a struggle.

ANN BEATTIE: But that isn't to say that I don't find novels endlessly fascinating, especially because of my inability to cope with them. I mean, you just can't imagine how much I go wrong in a novel versus² how much I go wrong in drafts of a short story (laughter). It's really astonishing. I'll never get it down.

NEARY: Beattie says getting started is always hard. Even when she feels compelled to write something, she worries that she doesn't know where to begin. So she often starts with an image. For a wonderful stroke of luck, it was a school.

BEATTIE: I think I was thinking about just the grounds of a boarding school somewhere. And it's a totally fictional³ boarding school. I went to public high school in Washington, D.C. What do I know? But as a writer, I've gone around and given a lot of readings. And they tend to be extremely beautiful but, to me, incredibly mysterious places.

NEARY: The school is called Bailey Academy, it caters⁴ to rich, smart kids with troubled backgrounds. One group within the school, the honor society, falls under the spell of a charismatic and elusive⁵ young teacher, Pierre LaVerdere.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Reading) Considering that LaVerdere seemed to like to hang out with them, there were endless things they didn't know about him. And even the boldest hesitated to ask. Who were his friends? What did he do in the summer? No teacher had his or her age listed in the faculty⁶ directory. So there was no way to check that. Almost every teacher and staff member used an informal snapshot. Dr. Ha (ph) was the only one who used a formal photograph. Jasper (ph) discovered that the photograph LaVadere used was Spalding Grey's.

NEARY: Eventually, we learn that LaVedere insinuated⁷ himself into his students' lives in some damaging ways. This is revealed as Beattie follows Ben, one of those students, into young adulthood⁸. Ben meanders⁹ his way aimlessly through life, working at jobs he doesn't care about, falling into relationships that are going nowhere. He leaves New York City and moves upstate to the Hudson Valley. It's the kind of place Beattie writes that a lot of millennials flock to after 9/11, an event that inevitably¹⁰ shaped their lives.

BEATTIE: Once you know something of that magnitude, you can never not know it. I think it's always there as a kind of refrain or as the kind of conscious or subconscious¹¹ awareness¹². And all the talk about the - overt¹³ talk about the world changing, too, you know, is very destabilizing. So depending on individual psychology¹⁴, everybody suddenly had to play a different ballgame.

NEARY: But just as she rejected the idea that she was ever the voice of her own generation, Beattie also insists that she did not set out to make sweeping¹⁵ observations about the millennials.

BEATTIE: I think I have something invested in not thinking that I'm writing in those terms or for those reasons. I never really think that I'm defining a generation. I, at least, want to think that what I'm doing is talking about individual psychology.

NEARY: Beattie leaves a lot unsaid in her novel. She doesn't like too much dialogue. She thinks it can be misleading and unrealistic. Her favorite punctuation¹⁶ mark, especially when writing short stories, is the asterisk¹⁷, which allows her to leap forward without filling in too many details. She thinks the readers should fill in the blanks.

BEATTIE: I mean, I think with anything that you look at visually or that you're reading there's what's there. And then, at some point, it begins to occur to you that, since this is orchestrated by the artist in some way, what's not there? Or why exactly was it put together this way? I think that is the important thing. You want to give a cue to the reader that there's a lot not here.

NEARY: Beattie says when she starts writing she doesn't necessarily know whether it will be a short story or a novel. She doesn't have an outline. She never knows how it will end. At the moment, she's working on something that might be a short novel. But she's not sure yet. All she can say for certain is she has written up to the point where there's an asterisk. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

1 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。

2 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

3 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

4 caters   

提供饮食及服务( cater的第三人称单数 )； 满足需要，适合

参考例句：

• That shop caters exclusively to the weaker sex. 那家商店专供妇女需要的商品。
• The boutique caters for a rather select clientele. 这家精品店为特定的顾客群服务。

5 elusive   

adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的

参考例句：

• Try to catch the elusive charm of the original in translation.翻译时设法把握住原文中难以捉摸的风韵。
• Interpol have searched all the corners of the earth for the elusive hijackers.国际刑警组织已在世界各地搜查在逃的飞机劫持者。

6 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

7 insinuated   

v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入

参考例句：

• The article insinuated that he was having an affair with his friend's wife. 文章含沙射影地点出他和朋友的妻子有染。
• She cleverly insinuated herself into his family. 她巧妙地混进了他的家庭。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

9 meanders   

曲径( meander的名词复数 )； 迂回曲折的旅程

参考例句：

• The stream meanders slowly down to the sea. 这条小河弯弯曲曲缓慢地流向大海。
• A brook meanders through the meadow. 一条小溪从草地中蜿蜒流过。

10 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

11 subconscious   

n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的)

参考例句：

• Nail biting is often a subconscious reaction to tension.咬指甲通常是紧张时的下意识反映。
• My answer seemed to come from the subconscious.我的回答似乎出自下意识。

12 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

13 overt   

adj.公开的，明显的，公然的

参考例句：

• His opponent's intention is quite overt.他的对手的意图很明显。
• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。

14 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

15 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

16 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。

17 asterisk   

n.星号，星标

参考例句：

• The asterisk refers the reader to a footnote.星号是让读者参看脚注。
• He added an asterisk to the first page.他在第一页上加了个星号。