经济学人116:感怀历史 Feel of history

 　　Books and Arts; Book Review; The cold war; Feel of history;

　　文艺；书评；冷战；感怀历史；
　　The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A History of the Cold War. By Norman Stone.
　　《大西洋和它的对手们：冷战史》 诺曼·斯通著。
　　Imagine that you are invited to lunch at Oxford 1 University. Sherry, wine and port flow like the Isis, with facts, anecdotes 2, bons mots and sparkling insights swirling 3 past in a bewildering but entertaining array. The conversation continues on a punt, then on a brisk walk around the university parks, then over tea, which slips into (more) sherry, and afterwards a splendiferous “high table” dinner. Late at night you wobble through the darkened streets, still talking, feeling pleasantly at one with the world. It is great fun, but no substitute for actually studying history.
　　想像一下，你被邀请到牛津大学享用午餐。雪利酒和波尔图葡萄酒等各种酒如伊希斯河般源源不断，席间，正史秩闻，乖语妙谈和真知卓见虽不易领悟，却也愉悦万分。会谈随后在一叶轻舟上，大学公园的轻快散步时继续，不经意间，茶将用尽，又悄悄喝起雪利，兴致倍增，随后就是奢华的“高端”晚宴。午夜时分，你微醉的穿过夜街，依然呢喃不止，已与世界浑然一体。虽说可以逗乐，但无法取代真正的历究研究。
　　That is how reading Norman Stone’s book about the cold war feels. He has a terrific eye for detail, bringing to life everything from the ruins of Germany to Ronald Reagan’s White House with a wonderfully waspish turn of phrase: Nikita Khrushchev, unlike his colleagues, “did indeed have a human face, though pachydermic”. Sometimes it runs away with him. Boris Yeltsin is dismissed in barely a page as a “sinister clown”. He captures well the West’s weakness, as well as the seemingly powerful challenge that eastern-style socialism posed to Western freedom.
　　阅读诺曼·斯通与冷战有关的著作时，会有类似感觉。他观察入微，以优雅刻薄的笔触真实再现了从战后德国废墟到罗纳德·里根主政白宫的历史：尼基塔·赫鲁晓夫不像他的幕僚，“虽然有些厚脸皮，倒也长得人模人样的”，有时也会撕破脸皮。，在Norman Stone看来，鲍里斯·叶利钦不过是个“邪恶的小丑”，书中他用了不足一页就把叶利钦概括过去了。 在对西方国家弱点和来自东部社会主义对西方民主强有力挑战的描述上，他的把握恰到好处。
　　At the end of this work you will know a lot about Europe, about the cold war and about Mr Stone himself. But the book has a careless air. The prose reads as if it had been dictated 4 rather than written, and was then sent straight to the printers. The word “besides” appears with alarming frequency as a way of linking page-long paragraphs. Colloquialisms 5 that would be charming once become grating and lazy when you meet them page after page. Episodes that normally count as rather important, such as the Polish shipyard strikes in 1980, pass in a blur 6, whereas hobby-horses such as the decline of British universities get an energetic ride.
　　看完以后，对于欧洲，冷战或者是斯通本人，你都会了解更多。但这本书却有些草率，它看起来更像是口述后直接交付印刷厂。用“besides”将长达一页的段落连接起来，其使用频率多到惊人。许多口语，如果只用一次，宛如神来之笔，但如果连篇累牍则让人难忍，徒生惰怠。 一些通常被认为比较重要的事件，如1980年波兰码头工人大罢工，只是一笔带过，而作者喜欢的话题如英国大学衰退，却是大书特书。
　　Nor is there any sign of research. When Mr Stone does not know a fact, he shrugs 7 his shoulders. The reason why Russian immigrants poured into occupied Estonia and Latvia in the Soviet 8 era, but not into Lithuania, is an interesting historical question which affects the present. He recounts it, adds “for whatever reason” and moves on. Teresa Toranska, a Polish author, wrote a magnificent book called “Them”, based on interviews with dinosaur 9 communists. Mr Stone refers to her book but cannot be bothered to name it or her. Instead of footnotes, there is a section called “further reading”. For a polyglot 10, he is remarkably 11 careless in his spelling of names. Diacritical signs are distributed at random 12. Experts and lay readers alike will feel increasingly short-changed.
　　此书也看不到研究的任何迹象。当Stone先生对某件史实不清时，只能无奈的含糊其辞。在苏维埃时代，俄罗斯移民涌入已被占领的爱沙尼亚和拉脱维亚，而没有去立陶宛。其原因何在? 这个有趣的历史问题影响着当今世界。他对于这一史实进行了复述，只是加上“不管什么理由”之后，就写作下文。波兰作家Teresa Toranska在对濒临灭绝的共产党魁采访基础上创作了巨著《他们》。斯通在参考了该书，但对于作者和书名却只字不提。书中用名为“进一步阅读”的章节，取代了大量的脚注。作为一个通晓多国语言的人而言，他在人名拼写的马虎程度，令人惊讶。书中不时出现一些变音符号。不管是内行还是外行的读者，都陡增被骗的感觉。
　　Most annoying of all is the lack of a conclusion: the book ends with a garbled 13 account of the downfall of Margaret Thatcher 14 and the limp observation that the 1980s were by far the most interesting part of the post-war era. Mr Stone’s colossal 15 talents and his epic 16 subject surely deserve better.
　　最令人不解的还是书中并没有任何的结论，书中结尾处，作者断章取义地叙述了玛格丽特·撒切尔政府垮台,并草率地断言战后最为有趣的一段历史便是20世纪80年代。毫无疑问，斯通满腹珠玑，题材可歌可泣，应是上乘之作才对。