Lesson48
I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respected, confess at once that they have little idea where they arc going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two, they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration, all admit radical changes of destination once the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a 'skeleton', as we were taught at school. In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which were not consciously in his mind when he began. This organic process, often leading to moments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of an indescribable fascination. A blurred image appears, he adds a brushstroke and another, and it is gone; but something was there, and he will not rest till he has captured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlives a book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their own books, like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision before them. For the same
reason, writers talk interminably about their own books, winkling out hidden meanings, super-imposing new ones, begging response from those around them. Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as well try to explain a crime or a love affair. He is also, incidentally, an unforgivable bore.
This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please.
A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirsts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.
JOHN LE CARRE What EVERY Writer Wants from Harper's
参考译文
我认识的作家很少，但我所认识和尊敬的那几位作家，他们在提笔之初对怎么写胸无成竹。他们有一个或两个角色；他们急切不安，被当做是寻求灵感；他们全都承认一旦动笔，目标就急速改变；据我所知，
有一位花了9个月写出一部有关克什米尔的小说，然后却重新安排，把全部情节搬到苏格兰高地去了。我从未听说过有人会按我们在学校里学来的那样，先写个故事“梗概”。在剪裁修改、时期选择、情节交织和
另起炉灶之中，作家开始识别出起初脑中并未意识到的那些素材。常常导致异乎寻常的自我发现时刻的这种有机过程是一种难以说清的迷恋。模糊的形象出现了；他加上一笔又一笔，它竟又消失掉；但还是留下
些什么，他无法休息，直到把它捕捉到手。有时作家内心的激动延续得比他写的书更长。我听说有些作家只读自己的书；他们像青少年那样站在镜子前面，却仍然摸不清眼前形象的精确轮廓。出于同样的原因，作
家没完没了地谈论自己写的书，去掉隐意，加上新的，向周围的人征求意见。这样做的作家当然会受到误解；他满可以试着去说明一桩案件或是一段受情，偶尔他还成为不可原谅的惹人厌烦者。
那种想消除自己和读者之间距离的做法，想以不熟悉自己的人的看法来研究自己塑造的形象的做法，会成为作者的祸根：他已经开始为取悦他人而创作了。
一位英国青年作家对前一、二年情况进行回顾，认为天才注入初稿，接着由技巧来做文章。因此作家也像其他艺术家一样，无处歇息，无法从任何群众或活动中得到安慰，也没有任何的外界评判能取代自己
内心的判断。作家只能自行理顺心中的混乱；他让自己承受比任何批评家都严厉的惩罚。一旦他沽名钓誉，他就脱离了自我生活，脱离了他的内心最深处的探索。
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