【百道编按】库尔特·冯尼古特不仅是美国当代最让人惊讶的、经久不衰的小说家之一,同时也是著名的演讲者。《如果这不算好,什么算?》精选了美国黑色幽默作家库尔特·冯尼古特的15篇演讲,其中大多数是给大学毕业生的演讲词。该书由冯尼古特的好友、同为小说家的丹·维克菲尔德选编,由河南大学出版社用中英双语的形式于2018年1月引进出版。
《如果这都不算好,什么算?给年轻人的建议》
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出版社:河南大学出版社
作者:[美] 库尔特·冯尼古特 著;[美]丹·维克菲尔德 编
译者:晏向阳
出版时间:2018年01月
库尔特·冯尼古特,美国作家,黑色幽默文学代表人物之一,跻身当代美国文学少数几位大师之列。其于1959年因《泰坦的海妖》成名,代表作有《猫的摇篮》《冠军的早餐》《第五号屠宰场》等。库尔特·冯尼古特以喜剧形式表现悲剧内容,在灾难、荒诞、绝望面前发出笑声,他的书对人类想象在探寻基本权利和自由方面可能达到的高度的书写,带来挑衅,又令人着迷。库尔特·冯尼古特不仅是美国当代最让人惊讶的、经久不衰的小说家之一,同时也是著名的演讲者。由于战争,冯尼古特自己未曾从大学毕业,所以他对每一届毕业生的讲话都带有一种轻松温和的调侃。
《如果这不算好,什么算?》由库尔特·冯尼古特的好友、同为小说家的丹·维克菲尔德精选编辑,一共包括15篇演讲,其中大多数都是给大学毕业生的演讲词,由河南大学出版社于2018年1月引进出版。每一篇演讲中,冯尼古特都用最轻松的方式把几个值得一提的点说得清清楚楚,在不经意间严肃认真却又妙趣横生。该书为中英双语版。
关于为何书名为此,也有因可循。库尔特·冯尼古特常会在毕业典礼上说起这段话:“我的叔叔阿历克斯现在已经在天堂了。他发现人性比较讨厌的地方是快乐的时候不自知。他自己是努力地去发掘最甜蜜的时刻的。比如我们夏天在苹果树荫下喝柠檬汁的时候,阿历克斯叔叔就会突然说一句:‘如果这都不算好,什么算?’”
精彩书摘:
好像这些启示还不够似的,冯尼古特还解释了我们为什么听到笑话会笑,我们为什么孤独,还有为什么一年其实有六个季节而不是四个。
你们的毕业代表刚才说,她听到别人说“好在我不是当今的年轻人就很烦很反感。对此我只能说,“好在我不是当今的年轻人。”
你们校长希望能在他跟你们告别前把所有不好的东西都清除掉,所以他要我做如下宣告:“所有还欠着停车费的同学请在离校前偿清债务,否则他的成绩单就会被写得一塌糊涂。”
小时候在我们印第安纳波利斯有一位叫金·哈伯德的段子手。他每天都为《印第安纳波利斯新闻》写点笑话。在印第安纳波利斯这样的段子手永远都不嫌少。他的段子往往可以和奥斯卡·王尔德(Oscar Wilde)媲美。比如他说,禁酒总比没酒好。还有无论是谁给淡啤酒取的名,这人眼光真的是有问题。
我估计这四年来你们已经把重要的本事都学到了,所以我也没什么能教你们的。这对我来说是太方便了。我差不多只要跟你们说这么一句就行了:这就结束了——是你们童年的彻底结束。“不好意思了”,就像他们在越战时对老兵们说的一样。
你们也许读过阿瑟·克拉克(Arthur C.Clarke)《童年的完结》。这是科幻领域的杰作之一。其他的全是我写的。在克拉克的小说里,主人公经历了奇异的进化历程。孩子变得跟父母完全不一样,不那么物质,更加灵性——最后有一天,他们变成了一束光柱,盘旋着进入了太空,不知道干什么去了。故事就这么完了。不过,你们大家貌似跟父母没什么差别,所以估计也不会一拿到文凭就发射到太空去了。你们更有可能去的是布法罗市,罗切斯特市或者纽约的东果戈——或者科霍斯。
我猜大家肯定都想赚到钱,找到真爱。我来告诉你们怎么赚钱:努力工作。我也可以告诉你们怎么赢得真爱:穿上得体的衣服,保持微笑。还要记下最新歌曲的歌词。
我还有什么其他建议?多吃麦麸多长肉。我爸给我的唯一忠告就是:“绝对不要把任何东西粘到耳朵里去。”我们身体里最小的骨头就在耳朵里——还有我们的平衡感也得靠耳朵,知道吗?你要是乱搞自己的耳朵,那你不仅会聋掉,还会不停地摔跤。所以千万别乱动耳朵。只要你不乱动它们就没事。
不要杀人——虽然纽约州没有死刑了。
我的建议就这些。
还有一件你可以自己看着办,就是要明白一年是有六个季节而不是四个。那些有关四季的诗歌都搞错了我们这个星球的季节,这也就是为什么我们大部分时间都在郁闷的原因。我的意思是说春天大部分时候其实都不是春天,而十一月也不是秋天什么的。其实季节是这么回事:春天是五月和六月!还有比五月六月更春天的时候吗?夏天是七月和八月。很热,对吧?秋天是九月和十月。见过那时候的南瓜吧?闻闻那时的枯叶就知道了。接下来是一个叫“闭锁”的季节。因为这时候大自然把一切都锁起来了。十一月和十二月不是冬天。它们就是闭锁时节。之后才是冬天,一月和二月。老天!那叫一个冷啊!再过来是什么?不是春天。是开锁季节。四月份还能是什么呢?
还有一个自己看着办的建议:要是你哪天要去演讲的话,开头一定要讲个笑话。我多年来一直致力于寻找全世界最好的笑话。我觉得我找到了,待会儿给你们讲。不过你们得配合一下。等我把手举成这样的时候,你们得说,“不知道。”好吧?不要骗我。
你知道奶油为什么比牛奶贵多了吗?
听众:不知道。
因为奶牛讨厌蹲在那些小瓶子上。
这是我知道的最好的笑话。我在斯克内克塔迪的通用电气工作的时候,就是专门给公司领导写讲稿的。有一次我把那个奶牛和小瓶子的笑话放到了一个副总裁的讲稿里。他一路念下去,然后念到了那个他从来没听过的笑话,然后他就笑得停不下来了。最后他都笑出鼻血了,不得不被请下了主席台。第二天我就被公司给开了。
笑话是干什么用的?一个好笑话总是会让你深思。我们人是一种很严肃的动物。当我问你奶油的问题时,你就完全没有办法了。你真的会去努力寻找合理答案。小鸡为什么要过马路?消防员为什么要穿红色吊带裤?乔治·华盛顿为什么被埋在山坡上?
笑话的第二部分就是要宣布没人稀罕你的思考。没人要听你的完美答案。最终你如释重负,没人要你一定聪明。你只需要笑得开心就行。
其实,我这篇讲话就是精心设计的,就是要让你想怎么笨就怎么笨,不用紧张,没有任何惩罚。我甚至为此写了一首可笑的歌。没什么乐感,但我们个个都是货真价实的作曲家。人人都学得会。我的歌词是这样的:
老师和肺炎再见啦。
要是我知道晚会在哪儿,
我会电话告诉你。
我这么爱你,索尼娅。
我要给你买支海棠花
你也爱我的,不是吗,索尼娅?
瞧——你们也在猜下一个韵脚是什么啦。没人在意你是有多聪明。
我现在也是傻得不行了。因为我竟然在可怜你们。我可怜你们所有人。只要你们一走出去,生活会很艰难的。当天下大乱的时候,我们能抓住的最有用的思想就是,我们不是差别巨大的两代人,就像某些人以为的跟因纽特人与澳大利亚土著一样截然不同。我们在时间上其实非常亲近,简直就是兄弟姐妹。我有好几个孩子——准确点说是七个——对一个无神论者来说确实有点太多了。不论什么时候我的孩子跟我抱怨这个星球,我总是说:“闭嘴!我自己也才刚来。你以为我是谁——玛士撒拉吗?你以为我喜欢每天这些乱七八糟的消息吗?大错特错。”
我们都在经历同样的一生,区别不大。
那年纪稍微大一点的人希望从年纪稍微轻一点的人那里得到什么呢?他们活得久一点,而且常常自以为活得很艰难,所以就想得到尊重。可是年纪轻一点的人却在给予尊重方面小气得不行。
那年纪稍微轻一点的人希望从年纪稍微大一点的人那里得到什么呢?我觉得,他们最想要的无非就是认可,而且无须赘言,他们也都毫无疑问的是男人女人了。可是年纪稍微大一点的人在认可方面就小气得不行了。
所以,我在此向即将毕业的男人和女人郑重宣布,谁也不许再把他们当小孩看了。他们也不许再像小孩子一样耍赖——再也不许了。
这就是我所知道的成人仪式。
……(未完待续)
英文对照版
As if that information weren’t enough. Vonnegut explains why we laugh at jokes, why we are lonely, and why there are really six seasons in the year instead of only four.
Your class spokesperson has just said that she is sick and tired of hearing people say, “I’m glad I’m not a young person these days.” All I can say is, “I’m glad I’m not a young person these days.”
Your college’s president wished to exclu-de all negative thinking from his farewell to you, and so has asked me to make this announcement: “All persons who still owe parking fees are to pay up before leaving the property, or there will be monkey bus- iness with their transcripts.”
When I was a boy in Indianapolis, there was a humorist there named Kin Hubbard. He wrote a few lines for The Indianapolis News every day. Indianapolis needs all the humorists it can get. He was often as witty as Oscar Wilde. He said, for instance, that prohibition was better than no liquor at all. He said that whoever named near-beer was a poor judge of distance.
I assume that the really important stuff has been spread out over your four years here and that you have no need of anythi-
ng much from me. This is lucky for me. I have only this to say, basically: this is about that,” as they u sed to say in the Vietnam War.
Perhaps you have read the novel Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, one of the few masterpieces written by me. In Clarke’s novel, the characters undergo spectacular evolutionary change. The children become very different from the parents, less into a sort of column of light which spirals out into the universe, its mission unknown. The book ends there. You seniors, however, look a great deal like your parents, and I doubt that you will go radiantly into space as soon as you have your diplomas in hand. It is far more likely that you will go to Buffalo or Rochester or East Quogue-or Cohoes.
And I suppose you will all want money and true love, among other things. I will tell you how to make money: work very hard. I will tell you how to win love: wear nice clothing and smile all the time. Learn the words to all the latest songs.
What other advice can I give you? Eat lots of bran to provide necessary bulk in your diet. The only advice my father ever gave me was this: “Never stick anything in your ear.” The tiniest bones in your body balance, too. If you mess around with your ears, you could not only become deaf, but you could also start falling down all the time. So just leave your ears completely alone. They’re fine, just the way they are.
Don’t murder anybody-even though New York State does not use the death penalty.
That’s about it.
One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time. I mean, Spring doesn’t feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong Spring is May and June! What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right? Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves. Next comes the season called “Locking.” That is when Nature shuts everything down. November and December aren’t Winter. They’re Locking. Next ever cold! What comes next? Not Spring. Unlocking comes next. What else could April be?
One more optional piece of advice: if you ever have years I have been looking for the best joke in the world. I think I know what it is. I will tell it to you, but you have to help me. You have to say, “No,” when I hold up my hand like this. All right? Don’t let me down.
Do you know why cream is so much more expensive than milk?
AUDIENCE: No.
It is because the cows hate to squat on those little bottles.
That is the best joke I know. One time when I worked for the General Electric Company over in Schenectady, I had to write speeches for company bottles in a speech for a vice president. He was reading along, and he had never heard the joke before. He couldn’t stop laughing, and he had to be led away from the podium with a nosebleed. I was fired the next day.
How do jokes work? The beginning of each good one challenges you to think. We are such earnest animals. When I asked you about cream, you could not help yourselves. You really tried to think of a sensible answer. Why does a chicken cross the road? Why bury George Washington on the side of a hill?
The second part of the joke announces that nobody wants you to think, nobody wants to hear your wonderful answer. You are so relieved to at last meet somebody who doesn’t demand that you be intelligent. You laugh for joy.
I have in fact designed this entire speech so as to allow you to be as stupid as you like, without strain, and without penalties of any kind. I have even written a ridiculous song for the occasion. It lacks music, but we are up to our necks in composers. One is sure to come along. The words go like this:
Adios to teachers and pneumonia.
If I find out where the party is,
I’ll telephone ya.
I love you so much, Sonya,
That I am going to buy you a begonia.
You love me, too, doan ya, Sonya?
See-you were trying to guess what the next rhyme was going to be. Nobody cares how smart you are.
I am being so silly because I pity you so much. I pity all of us so much. Life is going to be very tough again, just as soon as this is over. And the most useful thought we can hold when all hell cuts loose again is that we are not members of different generations, as unlike, as some people would have us believe, as Eskimos and Australian Aborigines. We are all so close to each other in time that we should think of ourselves as brothers and sisters. many children for an atheist, certainly. Whenever my children complain about the planet to me, I say, “Shut up! I just got here myself. Who do you think day any better than you do? You’re wrong.”
We are all experiencing more or less the same lifetime now.
What is it the slightly older people want from the slightly younger people? They want credit for having survived so long, and often imaginatively, under difficult conditions .Slightly younger people are intolerably stingy about giving them credit for that.
What is it the slightly younger people want from the slightly older people? More than anything, I think, they want acknowledgement, and without further ado, that they are without question women and men now. Slightly older people are intolerably stingy about making any such acknowledgement.
Therefore, I take it upon myself to pronounce those about to graduate women and men. No one must ever treat them like children again. Neither must they ever act like children –ever again.
This is what is known as a puberty ceremony.
(本文编辑:阿树)
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