重读旧书 寻找那份基于内疚的快感

With so many books and so little time, re-reading seems an indulgence. So why is it so popular? Hephzibah Anderson reveals why we do it – and why it’s such a joy.
在这个快节奏的时代，大量图书被印刷出来，我们忙得没时间去看新书，而重读旧书似乎更是在浪费时间。但是为什么有越来越多的人翻开了旧书？英国广播公司（BBC）网站的海瑟堡·安德森向我们揭示了原因，并深入探讨了重读旧书的乐趣。

How many times have you read your favourite book?
你一定有最喜欢的书吧，你一共读过几遍？

As parents learn with frustration, as small children we love immersing ourselves in the same story over and over. But in adulthood that joy tends to become a forgotten pleasure. We have so little time to read and there are so many great books that we’ve yet to get around to (War and Peace looms large on my literary guilt list− never mind the ceaseless tide of new releases). You could read a book a day for the rest of your life and still not make it through even a quarter of the titles published in 2013 in the UK alone. With the shelves thus groaning, pulling down a well-thumbed favourite feels an unconscionable indulgence.
好比父母重复犯错后会吸取教训，小孩子则会沉浸在同一个故事的情节里。但成年后，我们逐渐忘却了读旧书的乐趣。我们忙得没时间去看书，但仍有许多经典书籍我们尚未翻阅（我为未读的文学作品专门列了一张清单，其中包括《战争与和平》这样的经典，其他那些不断出版的新书就更别提了。）。英国2013年一年就出版了许多新书，假设你每天看一本书，直到去世，你可能都看不完其中四分之一。如今书店里到处都是新书，你若选择翻阅旧书那几乎可以说是在浪费时间。

Yet if my admittedly unscientific research on Facebook is anything to go by, furtive re-readers are everywhere in our midst. For certain fans, re-reading The Lord of the Rings is an annual ritual. Devotees of The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice and Tess of the D’Urbervilles also return regularly to the book they prize above all others. One friend told me that Jane Austen’s Emma can still surprise him, despite his having reading it over 50 times.
但如果我在脸书（Facebook）上做的非科学调查有那么一丁点参考价值的话，我想我们之中仍然有许多人在重拾旧书。那些魔戒（Lord of the Rings）迷每年必回看原着，对他们来说，这是一个仪式。许多人对《了不起的盖茨比》（The Great Gatsby），《傲慢与偏见》（Pride and Prejudice）或是《苔丝》（Tess of the D’Urbervilles）称赞有加，他们也会定期重读经典。我的朋友告诉我他已把简·奥斯丁（Jane Austen ）的《艾玛》（Emma）翻了起码五十遍，但每次读都会有新发现。

Now, two new bibliomemoirs have arrived to showcase the insights – both literary and personal – that are to be gained from that ultimate guilty pleasure: re-reading. Journalist Rebecca Mead, a long-time Englishwoman in New York, first encountered George Eliot’s Middlemarch at 17. Since then, she has read it again every five years. With each re-reading, it has opened up further; in each chapter of her life – as she itched to leave home, as she moved to America, had love affairs and become a mother – it has resonated differently.
两位藏书爱好者发表了他们的看法，即花时间重看旧书也许是种奢侈，但却能收获文学和精神上的感悟，新闻记者丽贝卡·米德出生于英国却在美国呆了很久，她在十七岁时第一次接触到了乔治·艾略特（Middlemarch）的小说《米德镇的春天》（Middlemarch）。自那以后，她每五年就重读一遍该书。每当她的人生到达新的阶段，米德都会翻看书重读，而每次阅读都能给她带来新的感悟——从渴望外出闯荡的少年时期，到最后移民美国，再到经历了多段感情，最后成为一名母亲，该书始终与她的心灵契合。

Reaching her 40s, Mead decided on a fresh approach: she would apply the tools of her day job to this private passion. Her aim was to discover what writing the novel meant to Eliot, and how reading it has shaped her own life. She chronicles her relationship in The Road to Middlemarch (published in the US as My Life in Middlemarch), a delightful book filled with sharp observations and told in a voice poised between chatty confidant and brilliant teacher.
米德在四十岁时做了一个新的决定：她决定拾起笔杆，书写自己心中的情感。米德打算深入研究《米德镇的春天》这本书对艾略特来说是否有重大意义，并结合自身经历，谈谈这本书如何塑造了自己。米德成功撰写了《通往米德镇之路》（The Road to Middlemarch）一书，并融入了自己的经历（美版名为《我在米德镇的日子》），该书销路甚广，见解独到，作者像一位睿智的师长，又像一位健谈的知己，向你讲述米德镇和她的故事。

Playwright Samantha Ellis has clocked up even more time with Wuthering Heights. She was 12 when she first read Emily Brontë’s gothic romance, and without fail, she’s returned to it annually in the run-up to her birthday. This year when she will turn 39 might just be the first time that she skips it, but only because all those re-readings have now inspired a book, How to Be a Heroine.
萨曼莎·埃利斯是一位剧作家，她花了许多时间研究《呼啸山庄》（Wuthering Height）。十二岁时埃利斯第一次读艾米莉·勃朗特（Emily Brontë）的这本哥特式浪漫小说，她立刻身陷其中，欲罢不能，从此每当生日前夕，埃利斯就要重读这本书。今年是埃利斯的第三十九个生日，但她不得不打破这一传统，因为她要完成新书《如何成为一个女主人公》（How to Be a Heroine），该书是埃利斯在反复阅读《呼啸山庄》后的有感而发之作。

It begins with a heated conversation Ellis had with her best friend while on a pilgrimage to Yorkshire in the north of England, where the novel is set. Which heroine was best, Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw? As they quarrelled, Ellis realised she’d spent her life trying to be Cathy when Jane was a far savvier role model. This sets her off on another journey, back to the books that shaped her ideas about how to move through the world as a woman. It’s a risky enterprise because, just as Mead knows, though the words on the page stay the same, our readings of them change.
埃利斯曾与好友结伴前往英格兰北部的约克郡（Yorkshire），途中两人曾就《呼啸山庄》有过一次激烈讨论，由此定下该书的写作事宜。简·爱（Jane Eyre）和凯瑟琳·恩肖（Cathy Earnshaw）谁更伟大？讨论过后，埃利斯才意识到她将简·爱视为偶像，渴望像她一样独立，实际上却一直在向凯瑟琳看齐。为此，她又重回书中，开启一趟心灵之旅，终于了解如何像一个真正的女人那样生活。写自己的感悟其实很难，就像米德所说的，经典还是经典，我们在不同年龄阶段的感悟却不同。

Both Mead and Ellis testify to the myriad ways in which really good books not only stand the test of repeat reads, but also bestow fresh gifts each time we crack their spines. These kinds of books grow with us. The writers also explore the motivations behind re-reading.
米德和埃利斯无数次的阅读经历都表明，好书经得起反复推敲，每一次阅读都能带给我们新的体验。这样的书足够我们读一辈子。此外，这两位作者也探究了重复阅读背后的动机。