赏析版2011年7-12月经济学人文章(英汉双语对照)汇(19)

with literary art‖, the story was more enjoyable than he had expected.

《拉尔夫124C 41＋：2660年罗曼史》，这是一部分成12部份在《现代电气》上连载完成的小说，它可以说是美国科幻小说的第一部大作。它之后在20年代重印，被大批少年们贪婪地争相阅读，这些少年中的一些后来成为了第一代的科幻大师。根斯巴克发表的故事非常重要，也很有影响力，但并不是全无缺点。已故的杰克·威廉森－伟大的―科幻主任‖，在发表70年之后重读该书，承认―虽然根斯巴克并不关心文学艺术‖，这个故事比他预计的还要更有意思。

Williamson was being charitable. ―Ralph 124C 41+‖ is a bad book. Actually, that‘s also charitable. It is, in fact, a terrible book, full of creaky plot concepts, wooden dialogue, flimsy characters and subtle undertones of racism. (The romance between the titular Ralph and a gal named Alice is almost ruined by an evil Martian kidnapper, who flouts the laws preventing inter-racial marriage—laws which, the book implies, aren‘t such a bad idea.) It is worth noting that ―Ralph‖ was produced at almost the same time as ―Birth of a Nation‖.

威廉森是嘴上积德。《拉尔夫124C 41＋》写得并不好。其实，这么说还算是嘴上积德。实际上，这本书糟透了，全书充斥着老套的情节，僵化的对话，肤浅的人物以及微妙的种族主义影射。（全书主人公拉尔夫和一个名叫爱丽丝的女孩的浪漫故事几乎被一个邪恶的火星绑架者所破坏，该绑架者蔑视禁止异族通婚的法律，而该书暗示这样的法律并不坏）。值得注意的是《拉尔夫》成书于和《一个国家的诞生》差不多的时间。

But all that‘s a sideshow to the book‘s appeal: its real ―romance‖ isn‘t between Ralph and Alice, who are kind of drippy anyway, but between science-loving humanity and the bright, shining future created for them by technological innovation. Like much of the most captivating science fiction, ―Ralph‖ suggests a future that combines the entirely plausible and the insanely far-fetched. This is the main reason the book is so significant (if not quite readable) today. The first real invention suggested in the novel is the Telephot, which, it emerges, is basically Skype mixed with a dash of Chatroulette (the latter by accident: a crossed wire connects Ralph with his love interest, a sign of the novel's structural sagginess). And then there's the Newspaper, essentially an iPad that runs on microfilm; and one of Ralph‘s inventions, Permagatol, a gas that helps retrieve people from the jaws of death.

但是对于该书的吸引力来说这些都是浮云：它的真正的―罗曼史‖并不在于拉尔夫和爱丽丝，这两个角色反倒有点烦人，真正的浪漫是在热爱科学的人类和他们通过科技创新建造的明亮灿烂的未来之间。和很多最为扣人心弦的科幻作品一样，《拉尔夫》中的未来既包括了完全合理的事物，也掺杂了极端牵强的事物。这也是该书今天还这么重要（即使可读性不强）的主要原因。小说中提到的第一个已经实现的发明就是―电照‖，本质上来说，这不过是Skype加上了一点聊天轮盘的味道（之所以说像聊天轮盘是因为一次意外的错线把拉尔夫和他的爱人连接在了一起，这正说明了这本小说结构上的松散）。还有就是报纸机，这个不过就是一个用胶片驱动的iPad，以及拉尔夫自己的发明之一，永久气，这是一种可以救回濒死之人的气体。

Permagatol may seem like nonsense now, but who knows? Gernsback, in his introduction to the 1925 edition, made a reasonable point that catches at the heart of every science-fiction fan. ―The author appreciates that many of the predictions and statements appear to verge upon the fantastic,‖ he writes, but he adds that that‘s what readers thought when they read about Jules Verne‘s submarine in ―Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea‖. If anything, Verne had too modest an imagination, Gernsback added; science was progressing so quickly that ―it seems fair to assume that the conception herein described will, 750 years hence, be found to have fallen far short of the actual progress made in the interim.‖ Remember