Wisdom from great writers on every year of life | Joshua Prager

翻译人员: Jiawei Ni 校对人员: Gu Yu

I'm turning 44 next month,

下个月我就44岁了，

and I have the sense that 44 is going to be a very good year,

并且我觉得44岁将成为美好的一年，

a year of fulfillment, realization.

充满着实现和领悟的一年。

I have that sense,

我有这种感觉，

not because of anything particular in store for me,

并不是因为什么特别的事，

but because I read it would be a good year

而是我从诺曼·梅勒

in a 1968 book by Norman Mailer.

在1968年写的书上看到的。

"He felt his own age, forty-four ..."

"44岁, 他感觉到了岁月无情，"

wrote Mailer in "The Armies of the Night,"

梅勒在《夜幕下的大军》中写到

"... felt as if he were a solid embodiment

"感觉到他自己就是

of bone, muscle, heart, mind, and sentiment to be a man,

骨头, 肌肉, 心, 意识, 情感 组成的坚实的化身，

as if he had arrived."

就像他已经那个年纪了一样。”

Yes, I know Mailer wasn't writing about me.

是的，我知道梅勒不是在写我。

But I also know that he was;

但我冥冥中 能感受到他其实就在写我；

for all of us -- you, me, the subject of his book,

因为我们所有人：你，我， 还有他书中的主人公，

age more or less in step,

都在一点点变老，

proceed from birth along the same great sequence:

从出生就限定在了 恒定的生命规律中了：

through the wonders and confinements of childhood;

从孩提时期的好奇和禁锢；

the emancipations and frustrations of adolescence;

到少年时代的不羁和烦恼；

the empowerments and millstones of adulthood;

再到步入成年的权威和里程碑

the recognitions and resignations of old age.

最后迈入老年的德高望重。

There are patterns to life,

生命有它自己的规律，

and they are shared.

这是所有人必经的历程。

As Thomas Mann wrote: "It will happen to me as to them."

就如托马斯·曼所写： “我将经历别人所经历的一切。“

We don't simply live these patterns.

我们不仅存活在这种规律中，

We record them, too.

我们还会把它们记录下来。

We write them down in books, where they become narratives

我们把它写进书里，

that we can then read and recognize.

成为了大家都可以读识的叙事。

Books tell us who we've been,

书籍能帮我们了解曾经的我们，

who we are, who we will be, too.

当下的我们，和未来的我们。

So they have for millennia.

所以书籍已经存在了上千年。

As James Salter wrote,

正如詹姆斯·索尔特所写，

"Life passes into pages if it passes into anything."

“如果生命能变成什么的话， 它能变成一本书。”

And so six years ago, a thought leapt to mind:

所以六年之前 一个想法从我脑中闪过：

if life passed into pages, there were, somewhere,

如果岁月能变成书， 那么在某处，一定有

passages written about every age.

关于每一个年纪的文章存在。

If I could find them, I could assemble them into a narrative.

如果我能找到它们， 我就可以把它们串成一段故事。

I could assemble them into a life,

我可以把它们汇成一辈子，

a long life, a hundred-year life,

一段长达一百年的生命，

the entirety of that same great sequence

这是只有最幸运的我们

through which the luckiest among us pass.

才跨越过的生命长度。

I was then 37 years old,

当年我37岁，

"an age of discretion," wrote William Trevor.

威廉·特雷弗说 这是“一个小心翼翼的年纪”。

I was prone to meditating on time and age.

我总是想去沉思岁月和人生。

An illness in the family and later an injury to me

我们家族中的一种遗传病， 后来也对我有所伤害。

had long made clear that growing old could not be assumed.

这件事告诉我不是每个人都 能平平安安活到老的。

And besides, growing old only postponed the inevitable,

况且，年华老去只不过是 推迟了不可避免的死亡的事实，

time seeing through what circumstance did not.

岁月看穿了一切。

It was all a bit disheartening.

这有些令人伤感。

A list, though, would last.

然而一张时间表会得以留存。

To chronicle a life year by vulnerable year

去记录逐渐衰弱的生命，

would be to clasp and to ground what was fleeting,

就是去尝试挽留流水般逝去的年华，

would be to provide myself and others a glimpse into the future,

就是让我们自己和别人 可以窥一眼未来，

whether we made it there or not.

无论我们是否能抵达终点。

And when I then began to compile my list, I was quickly obsessed,

而当我开始整理我的时间表时， 我就已经被迷住了，

searching pages and pages for ages and ages.

一页一页地寻找岁月的痕迹。

Here we were at every annual step through our first hundred years.

在一百年的跋涉中 我们回看每年的步伐。

"Twenty-seven ... a time of sudden revelations,"

“二十七岁， 是一个充满著豁然开朗的年龄。”

"sixty-two, ... of subtle diminishments."

“六十二岁， 是一个逐渐光华不再的年龄。”

I was mindful, of course, that such insights were relative.

当然我也明白， 这种对岁月的见解是相对的。

For starters, we now live longer, and so age more slowly.

首先，我们的寿命比前人要长， 所以我们衰老得慢。

Christopher Isherwood used the phrase "the yellow leaf"

克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德 用“落叶”

to describe a man at 53,

形容53岁的人,

only one century after Lord Byron used it to describe himself at 36.

而一百年前拜伦伯爵正好用这个词 形容当时36岁的自己。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I was mindful, too, that life can swing wildly and unpredictably

我也知道， 有时命运多舛的人一年之间

from one year to the next,

也会经历不可预测的大风大浪，

and that people may experience the same age differently.

每个人在同样的年龄 都有不同的经历。

But even so, as the list coalesced,

即使如此， 当这张时间表完成的时候，

so, too, on the page, clear as the reflection in the mirror,

我仍然能在那里面找到

did the life that I had been living:

我自己一生的影子：

finding at 20 that "... one is less and less sure of who one is;"

发现“人在20岁的时候 总是看不清自己”；

emerging at 30 from the "... wasteland of preparation into active life;"

三十出头“总算从 荒芜闯出精彩纷呈“；

learning at 40 "... to close softly the doors to rooms

40岁学会了“要轻轻地关上

[I would] not be coming back to."

我不再进去的房间的门。”

There I was.

这就是我，

Of course, there we all are.

当然，这也是我们。

Milton Glaser, the great graphic designer

你所看到的这张美丽的照片

whose beautiful visualizations you see here,

正是85岁的米尔顿·格拉塞，

and who today is 85 --

一位了不起的平面设计师。

all those years "... a ripening and an apotheosis," wrote Nabokov --

86个年头，“正是成熟和昇华之时” 纳博科夫写到。

noted to me that, like art and like color,

对于我来说，文学就像艺术和色彩，

literature helps us to remember what we've experienced.

替我们记住我们记住了曾经的我们。

And indeed, when I shared the list with my grandfather,

果真，当我把这张时间表 拿给我祖父看时

he nodded in recognition.

他赞同地点了点头。

He was then 95 and soon to die,

他当时已经95岁了， 离大去之时不远了。

which, wrote Roberto Bolaño,

像罗伯托·博拉诺写的，

"... is the same as never dying."

“这就如同永垂不朽。”

And looking back, he said to me that, yes,

往回看，我祖父也跟我这样说过。

Proust was right that at 22, we are sure we will not die,

普鲁斯特说所不假， 22岁的我们坚信我们不会死，

just as a thanatologist named Edwin Shneidman was right

而就像死亡学家， 埃德温父施耐德曼说的，

that at 90, we are sure we will.

90岁的时候， 我们都清楚我们将要离去。

It had happened to him,

就跟他的同辈人一样

as to them.

他已然经历了死亡。

Now the list is done:

现在这张时间表已经完成：

a hundred years.

整整一百年。

And looking back over it,

只是现在再回看这张表，

I know that I am not done.

我觉得我还没有完成我的任务。

I still have my life to live,

我还要去好好活我余下的人生，

still have many more pages to pass into.

而这剩下的年华，也足够去书写更多精彩。

And mindful of Mailer,

心中不忘诺曼·梅勒所言，

I await 44.

44岁，我满怀期待。

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）