The Pleasure of Reading 讀書的樂趣

　　All the wisdom of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books—but we must know how to avail ourselves of this treasure and how to get the most of it.

　　人類歷來的聰明才智，世世代代所喜歡的故事，人人皆可從書本里獲得，既方便又經濟——但我們必須懂得如何利用這些寶藏，懂得如何才能從中獲益最多

　　I am most interested in people, in meeting them and finding out about them. Some of the most remarkable people I’ve met existed only in a writer’s imagination, then on the pages of his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I’ve found in books new friends, new societies, new worlds.

　　我對人特感興趣，喜歡與人交往，了解人。我所認識的最了不起的人中，有些起先只存在于作者的想像之中，繼而出現在他的書中，最后又活躍在我的想象之中。我從書中找到了新的朋友，新的社交圈子，新的世界。

　　If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who as in how. Who in the books includes everybody from science-fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future all the way back to the first figures in history how covers everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes1 to the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manners to children. Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.

　　如果說我感興趣的是人，別人感興趣的與其說是人不如說是事。書中的人，從史書上記載的第一批偉人，到街頭科幻小說中描寫的兩萬年后的超人，形形色色無所不包。書中的事，從福爾摩斯的神妙剖析，到科學的種種發現，到如何教育兒童懂得禮貌，五花八門無所不有。

　　閱讀是心智的樂事，頗有點像運動：心情熱切、知識豐富、思維敏捷才能造就一個好的讀者。讀書之所以有趣，不是由于作者告訴了你什么，而是由于讀書促使你思考。你的想象與作者的想象一道展開，甚至超過作者的想象。你的經驗與作者的經驗相比較，使你得出與作者相同的或不同的結論，而你在了解作者思想的同時便形成了自己的思想。

　　Every book stands by itself, like a one-family louse, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in literature, but with different solutions according to different writings at different times.

　　單獨一本書猶如一個獨家小院，但匯集到圖書館則好似城市中的千家萬戶。雖然仍是各自獨立，結合起來可就非同尋常了。家家戶戶彼此相依，還與其他城市相連。相同的思想或相關的思想在不同的地方出現;人生中反復出現的問題在文學中也反復出現，但不同的時代、不同的作品會提出不同的解決辦法。

　　Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you “ought” to read, you probably won’t have fun .But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time—and if you become as a result of reading, better, wiser, or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.

　　讀書之所以能成為樂趣，只在于你有這樣的期待。你若是只讀別人說的是你“應該”讀的書，那可能就不會有什么樂趣可言。但你若是把自己不喜歡的書放下另換別的，直至找到一本你覺得有意思的書，然后輕松地讀下去，那你幾乎肯定會樂在其中——假如你能因此而變得更高尚、更聰明、更溫雅，那閱讀本身就不是一種苦差事了。

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