作家看人《就是不厚道的奈保尔》

（偷个懒，把我看完原著写的读书笔记在译本这里贴一下）

奈保尔是小说家，但是也写了不少非虚构作品，至今在数量上恰好与小说（集）数量持平，都是14本。奈保尔2004年推出《魔种》后，已经宣布不再写小说，《A Writer's People》则是他最近的非虚构作品（2007年出版）。

奈保尔一向的非虚构作品以游记为主，最近的三本（The Writer and the World: Essays，Literary Occasions以及Writer's People）却都侧重探讨他对文学写作以及历史方面的看法，而且不改其直言无讳的风格，有人称好，有人则批评他过于偏爱贩卖自己的一得之见，达到妄自尊大的程度，更有可能是江郎才尽的表现。但从奈保尔的角度观之，倒不如看作是一位老人对自己文学观念的梳理，发表自己对文学、历史等等的看法。他早就以其对印度、对伊斯兰教的评论而引起汹汹议论，比较而言，这几本书掀起的小小波澜根本就不算得什么。

《A Writer's People》出版于2007年，奈保尔75岁生日后不久。这本书有个副题，Ways of Looking and Feeling，这些ways，却不是奈保尔自己的，而是以诺贝尔文学奖得主沃尔科特、英国小说家托尼·鲍威尔、甘地、尼赫鲁、福楼拜等人为例，说明不同人受其出身背景、教育、世界观和才能所限，观察及感觉的方式各有不同，各有不足。奈保尔不为尊者讳，不为逝者讳，对这些名人的不少负面评论必定会引起许多人侧目，特别是奈保尔对已逝老友鲍威尔评论时抛开私人感情，他在肯定其为人的同时，几乎对其作品全部否定，这肯定让许多人不舒服。但是奈保尔以其特立独行的议论，也为我们提供了一个独立思考方面的范例。

摘抄：

P16 奈保尔是文学大师，语言非常讲究，以这一段为例，分明是跟译者为难：

It was something we with literary ambitions from these islands all had to face: small places with simple economies bred small people with simple destinies. And these islands were very small infinitely smaller than Ibsen's Norway. Their literary possibilities like their economic possibilities were as narrow as their human possibilities.

P20 海岛形象的由来：

The idea of beach and sun and sunbathing came in the 1920s with the cruise ships. (Consciously old-fashioned people like the writer. Evelyn Waugh born in 1903 refused to sunbathe.) So the idea of island beauty which now seems so natural and correct was in fact imposed from outside by things like postage stamps and travel posters cruise ships and a hundred travel books. It was a overturning of old sensibility old associations. Until then the islands were thought of an ancient plantations places of the lash; and that was how even until the 1950s and 1960s island politicians stirring up old pain and racial rage sought to characterise them.

P46 论及P.G.伍德豪斯及阿婆的作品：

The artificiality of P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie is another matter; these writers who seem very English can be assessed by anyone; the books themselves are modern fairytales a form in which for various reasons the myth-making Enlish excel.

P136 关于福楼拜的一句：

Flaubert said or wrote many things about his writing. He was an early self-publicist. He wished people to know that his writing didn't come easily like Balzac's. It took time and was orginal.