「双语」阅读是否真能改善一个人的心理健康
This recommendation came during a fascinating discussion about the therapeutic value of reading fiction that took place yesterday at this year’s Hay Festival. Moderated by BBC Culture’s literature writer Hephzibah Anderson, the ‘Textual Healing: Can Fiction Heal?’ panel talk saw Berthoud, an author and literary agent who also gives people personalised reading advice at London’s School of Life, offering her thoughts about literature’s role in improving mental health, alongside best-selling novelists Jessie Burton and Alex Wheatle.
今年海伊文学节，人们对阅读小说的精神治疗价值展开了激烈的讨论，于是有了这样的书单推荐。BBC文化板块的文学作家安德森（Hephzibah Anderson）主持了此次名为“治愈的文字：小说能救人吗？”的讨论。讨论中，贝尔特德提出了自己的看法。她是一位作家，同时也在伦敦的“生命学院”机构当文学咨询顾问，给人们提供一对一的阅读建议。她用自己对文学的见解帮助许多人解决了心理问题。畅销书作家伯顿（Jessie Burton）和惠托（Alex Wheatle）也出席了这次讨论。
So how can books re-balance the self? Well, above all, as the panel agreed, they provide a form of escapism that is more intense than in any other artform. “With a film or TV show, you’re given the visuals whereas with a novel you’re inventing them yourself, so it’s actually much more of a powerful event, because you’re involved,” as Berthoud noted. Wheatle offered a powerful example of the transportative effect of fiction when he recalled discovering Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn while living in a children’s home in South London. “It was quite brutal, and so [the book] was a place where I could escape my everyday turmoil. At least, come 9 or 9.30pm, I could hide under the covers with my little torch and go through those pages, and imagine I was floating down the Mississippi River, coming across steamboats and making my own decisions about where I was going to eat and rest.”
那么，如何在阅读中重新找到自我内心的平衡呢？阅读提供了一种逃避现实的途径，而且是其它艺术形式无法超越的。这一点得到了讨论小组的一致同意。贝尔特德指出：“观看电影和电视剧时，眼前会出现完整的画面。但是阅读小说不同，小说的画面感需要读者自己想象。如此一来，读者能够参与进去，阅读也就更有影响力了。”惠托举了一个自己的例子，有力地说明了虚构小说是如何达到共情效果的。小时候他住在伦敦南部的一个孤儿院里，偶然发现了马克吐温（Mark Twin）的《哈克贝利·费恩》一书。他说：“孤儿院的生活并不令人愉快。是这本书把我带离了那个每天让我焦虑的地方。每天晚上9点或9点半的时候，我举着小手电，一页一页地阅读。当时，我就想象着自己也沿着密西西比河漂流而下，沿途遇到了一艘艘汽船。我还会想，要在哪里吃饭、该在哪里休息一下。”
The power of narrative order
记叙顺序的力量
With their structured narratives, novels can also bring order to a disordered mind. Burton told the assembled audience how her favourite novels to read during troubled times were CJ Sansom’s Shardlake series of historical mysteries set in Tudor England. When, a few years ago, the success of Burton’s hit debut The Miniaturist triggered an episode of intense anxiety, it was Sansom she turned to for solace: “getting yourself involved in quite a gnarly plot that you can try and solve is a displacement activity from your own mind’s whirrings,” she explained.
小说的记叙结构严谨，可以给思路不清的读者带来秩序感。伯顿告诉观众，困难时期她最喜欢阅读的小说是桑森（CJ Sansom）的《夏德雷克》（Shardlake）小说系列。小说的背景设置在英格兰都铎王朝时代（Tudor），写的是当时的历史迷案。几年前，伯顿的处女作《微缩屋工匠》（The Miniaturist）大获成功，而她则陷入了深深的焦虑之中。这时候，是桑森的小说给她带来了慰藉。她说：“我常被带入到精彩的故事情节中，尝试去解开一些谜案。很好地排解了心里的烦闷。”
The panel were also united in their belief that restorative fiction need not be happy - in fact it can be positively grim. Wheatle recalled how when he was growing up, his father would tell him about his own childhood in Jamaica, when a “storyteller would go from village to village, especially at harvest time, and they would interpret stories of slavery and so on. This stuff is very gloomy but it also affirms the struggle people have been through.” Part of the appeal of dystopian fiction lies in the similarly unexpected solace it provides, he said: “it’s about how people have got tested, and how [they] can overcome.”
大家一致认为，这种康复性质的小说不一定是令人轻松的，它可能是苦难的故事。惠特尔回忆说，童年时代，父亲经常会给他讲述自己童年在牙买加的故事。那时，“时常有专门讲故事的人，尤其是在丰收时节，走街串巷地讲述一些过去奴隶的故事等。这些故事都挺悲惨的，但是也见证了人们曾经经历过的苦难。”某种程度上，反乌托邦小说之所以吸引人，也是出于相似的原因，人们能感受到一种出乎意料的慰藉。他说：“这些小说中，讲的是人们如何历经磨炼、如何克服困难的。”
Re-reading favourite novels can also provide a particular kind of bibliotherapy - allowing one to take stock of oneself from an illuminating vantage point. Berthoud discussed how she had an ongoing relationship with Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles of this type. “The first time I read it, when I was 15, I really identified with Tess, and the second time, 10 years later, I found I was really stressed out with how passive she was - and then I read it another 10 years later and began to understand some of her decisions again. There’s something about going back time and time again to a book over your life which is incredibly rewarding - you get to know yourself better because you visit the layers of yourself that you’ve had over the years like an onion.”
还有一种用书籍治疗内心的方法，就是把喜爱的小说拿出来重新看一遍，这样做，是为了让人们站在上帝视角重新评估自己。哈代（Thomas Hardy）的小说《德伯家的苔丝》（又译《黛丝姑娘》，Tess of the D'Urbervilles）就是这样的作品。贝尔特德说，一直以来她都和这本书有着联系。她说：“我第一次看《苔丝》的时候才15岁，那时候我对这个角色是十分认同的。十年之后，我第二次拿起这本书，只觉得苔丝太过悲观。又过了十年，我第三次看它，又发现她的决定是能够理解的。时不时地回看同一本书，对于我们的生活是有好处的，这有助于更好地认知自我。我们会发现，自己像洋葱一样，随着阅历的增加，心灵上有了一层层的包裹。”
Thinking of younger readers, fiction can also play a significant role in tackling the youth mental health crisis that is increasingly part of the global conversation. Escapism is one thing, but conversely there are now more and more young adult novels which can help teenagers by addressing head-on the issues they may be dealing with in their day-to-day lives, from bullying to drugs to transgender issues and social exclusion. Berthoud mentioned novelists like Juno Dawson, Melvin Burgess and Malorie Blackman among those who may be most helpful in getting kids to talk about “the issues which might be happening in their lives, but they haven’t been able to articulate. I really think that a book can be the axe that breaks the frozen sea within us, as Kafka said, and that is true of any age.”
如今，年轻人的心理健康问题为世界所关注。而对于年轻的读者来说，阅读小说有助于解开心结。阅读提供了一个逃避现实的方式。如今有很多作品，是写给成年不久的青年读者的。这些小说能帮助青少年解决生活中遇到的问题，如校园霸凌、毒品、跨性别问题、社会排斥等。贝尔特德提出，道森（Juno Dawson）、博吉斯（Melvin Burgess）、布莱克曼（Malorie Blackman）等小说家的作品，让孩子们能够愿意开口表达“从前无法说出的生活中遇到的困惑。卡夫卡说，我认为，所谓书应该是砍向我们内心冰封大海的斧头。任何时代都是如此。”
Is writing good for the soul too?
那么，写作对心理健康也有好处吗？
But while reading has undoubted psychological benefits, what about writing? Wheatle and Burton admitted that the life of a writer can be a mixed bag, mental health-wise. On one hand, as Wheatle suggested about his writing on his experiences in care, it can be a brilliant way to process, and empty out, emotional trauma. And on the other, as Burton said, “the actual act of writing is hugely isolating and you are alone for weeks, months, years on end, going a bit loopy. I used to be an actress, which was a collaborative experience, and I deeply miss [that aspect] … the paradox is your book gets read by thousands of people but you're not there to witness that - you don't do that in concert - so it's very strange.”
我们已经知道，阅读有利于心理健康。那么写作是否也有相同的作用呢？惠托和伯顿说，一个作家的心理生活是十分复杂的。惠托曾经写过自己在收养所里的故事。他说，写作能很好地帮助他处理和平复情感创伤。另一方面，伯顿表示“写作本身是十分孤独的，一个作家可能要独处数周、数月，更有可能是好几年。很容易把人逼疯。以前我当过演员，演戏是集体的活动，我现在都很怀念那段时光……但一个作家可能有很多的读者，却不能亲眼见证，因为没人会聚在一起看同一本书，这一点还挺特别的。”
But in the end, seeing the impact that a book can have on readers’ wellbeing is, in turn, the very best thing for a writer’s wellbeing. Wheatle recounted an especially unusual and gratifying response he had recently from a reader of his latest, just-released teenage novel Home Girl. “She said ‘Alex, I love the book, it made me want to do pottery. I thought ‘there’s not anything about pottery in there.’ But she’d always wanted to do pottery, and because [the heroine] goes through so many obstacles in her life, and she tries to come at it another way, it had inspired her, she said. It’s rare to get that kind of feedback but when you do, you think, this is why I do this.”
但是，读者看完书后能够提升幸福感，这也正是一个作家最欣慰的事。惠托写给青少年的小说《家里蹲女孩》（Home Girl）刚刚发行。他收到了一条不寻常回应，这让他很欣慰：“一位读者说‘惠托，我很喜欢这本书。这本书让我想去做陶艺。’我想，书里并没提到什么陶艺的东西。只是书中的女主人公好像一直很喜欢陶艺。因为生活中经历了种种的困难，主人公试图用另一种方式来做这件事。可能是这点启发了这个读者。这样的反馈并不多见，但当得到时我会去反思，我写作的初衷是什么。”
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