读书随感

      今天又没有怎么看书，仅草草翻阅了一篇特里林写的论桑塔亚那。他的大意是桑塔亚那在美国呆得很不自在，因为桑塔亚那本人的唯物主义哲学观和美国普通民众的生活态度有冲突。特里林的评论文章一般都视野广阔，高屋建瓴。老实说，以前我不太适应这种看似和文本关系不大的文章，但随着时光流逝，随着我看他的文章日渐增多，我渐渐习惯了这种文笔恣意汪洋，看似散漫却颇耐嚼的文学评论。特里林认为文学与人生和政治息息相关，拒绝把自己探究的视野仅仅局限在文本层面上，把自己的目光投向了更复杂的文本与人生和世界的关系上。对于我来说，这是种别致的阅读体验。特里林故去后，他的夫人戴安娜特里林在纽约书评上声称他所有的文章都是经自己修改之后发表的。她的这番话一时激起了千层浪,毕竟，两人的文笔和见识都大相径庭。她是如何做到这一点的呢？颇为可疑，也难以服众。                                                         Today I didn't read much but browsed an article entitled On Santayana by Trilling. The gist was that Santayana, the famed philosopher, was ill at ease in America,as his materialism was incompatible with most Americans' ideas of what life ought to be. Trilling's articles are usually noted for their comprehensiveness and penetration; however,I must confess that articles of this type used to leave me cold as they seemed to be irrelevant to literary texts. But owing to time and more exposure to his writings, I became familiar with such eloquent,albiet seemingly diffuse, literary criticisms.Trilling believed that literature was intertwined with life and politics and refused to focus solely upon literary texts;instead, he allowed his eyes to roam freely to the vexed nexus of text,life and the world. Naturally,reading him was an enriching,if a bit unusual experience for me. After his decease, his wife Diana Trilling wrote to the New York Review of Books saying that she alone was responsible for having revised and polished her late husband's works, which caused a furor. After all, the pair's knowledge and writing styles are markedly different. So it was not only suspect but also ill-advised for her to make the above claim.