赏析版2011年7-12月经济学人文章(英汉双语对照)汇(20)

Telephot, ye Skypers, and rejoice, for Utopia is nigh!

永久气在今天看来可能是无稽之谈，但是天知道以后会怎样？根斯巴克，在他的1925年版本的序言里，提出了一个可以抓住每个科幻迷心的论点。他写道：―作者理解书中很多预言和描述都是接近幻想的‖，但他也补充了读者在读到儒勒·凡尔纳的《海底两万里》中的潜水艇时不也曾做如是想。现在呢？他也说，如果有什么不足的话，凡尔纳的想象力其实太有限了，科学的进步如此之快，―可以很公平地假设书中描述的概念将会远远落后于在未来750年之间的实际科技进步。‖汝等Skype用户，忆电照而庆之，乌托邦已近！

It‘s no coincidence that this gee-whiz, awestruck and optimistic faith in technology is portrayed in the novel as American. A character admiringly remarks, 750 years after Gernsback‘s time, that ―You Americans still lead the world…Upon my word, the old saying that 'nothing is impossible in America' still holds good.‖ Gernsback‘s European predecessors were less sanguine about what the future held, with science fiction that tended towards the dystopian (think about Wells‘s "The Time Machine", with its Morlocks, or, for that matter, Mary Shelley‘s "Frankenstein" with its out-of-control technology). But Gernsback‘s Ralph, however, says confidently that ―Today it is not brute force that counts, but scientific knowledge.‖

这本书内的对技术的那种惊人且又乐观的信心被描述为是属于美国的这也不是巧合。书中一个角色充满崇敬地说道，根斯巴克之后750年，―你们美国人仍然领导着世界……我可以保证，有句老话现在还是没错： 在美国凡事皆有可能。‘‖根特巴克在欧洲的前辈们则对于未来没有那么乐观，他们的科幻小说经常描述反乌托邦（想想威尔斯的《时间机器》里的莫洛克人，或者说玛丽·雪莱所写的《弗兰肯斯坦》中的失控科技）。但是根特巴斯通过拉尔夫之口，很有信心地表明了―今天蛮力不再重要，科学知识才是王道。‖

Within several years, of course, the Great War would show just how scientific mass destruction could be; but in that brief, shining moment, Gernsback, that heir of Ford and Edison, could spin a dream of better living through technology that seemed to breathe particularly American air. It‘s a strain that‘s had remarkable resilience through the century; Gernsback‘s DNA can be seen in Heinlein and in Asimov and in Avatar (well, the good guys in Avatar, anyway).

当然，几年之内，世界大战证明了科学也可以大规模杀伤，但是在当时那短暂，闪烁的几年内，根斯巴克，这位福特和爱迪生的精神传人，编织了一个通过科技更好地生活的梦境，似乎在美国尤为真实。这个梦在20世纪长久不衰的延续了下去：根斯巴克的DNA可以在海因来因，在阿西莫夫，在阿凡达身上看到（至少是阿凡达里面的好人那一方）。

So happy birthday, Ralph. You won't be born for roughly 625 years, but that's no paradox a good work of science fiction can't resolve.

所以祝你生日快乐，拉尔夫。你要再过大约625年才会出生，但是这一点矛盾难不倒一本好科幻小说

译者：nayilus

[2011.12.25] Havel, Hitchens & Kim: Things come in threes 事不过三 Dec 25th 2011, 11:58 by Z.P. | NEW YORK

WHEN two prominent opponents of 20th-century totalitarianism die in the same week, that's tragedy.