The biographer should sternly confine himself to his functions as introducer; and should give no more discussion than is clearly

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问题 The biographer should sternly confine himself to his functions as introducer; and should give no more discussion than is clearly necessary for making the book an independent whole. A little analysis of motive may be necessary here and there; when, for example, your hero has put his hand in somebody’s pocket and you have to demonstrate that his conduct was due to sheer absence of mind. But you must always remember that a single concrete fact, or a saying into which a man has put his whole soul, is worth pages of psychological analysis. We may argue till Doomsday about Swift’s character, his single phrase about "dying like a poisoned rat in a hole" tells us more than all the commentators. The book should be the man himself speaking or acting, and nothing but the man. It should be such a portrait as reveals the essence of character; and the writer who gives anything that does not tell upon the general effect is like the portrait-painter who allows the chairs and tables, or even the coat and cravat, to distract attention from the face. The really significant anecdote is often all that survives of a life; and such anecdotes must be made to tell properly, instead of being hidden away in a wilderness of the commonplace; they should be a focus of interest, instead of a fallible extract for a book of miscellanies. How much would be lost of Johnson if we suppress the incident of the penance at Uttoxter! It is such incidents that in books, as often in life, suddenly reveal to us whole regions of sentiment but never rise to the surface in the ordinary routine of our day.

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答案 传记作家应该严格地把自己看作是介绍人,应该只谈书中明显需要的东西,别的无须多谈。必要时可以顺便谈一些创作动机,比如,你心目中的英雄把手放进了某人的口袋里,你可以去证明这种行为只是无心之过。但你一定要记得,只有一个实实在在的单一事实或是一个人赋予自己整个灵魂的一种说法才值得你展开大量的心理分析。我们可能直到世界末日才会谈论斯威夫特的性格,他有一句话“像在困境中中毒的老鼠一样死去”告诉我们的道理比所有的评论家说的都多。书籍应该只是作者自己在说在做,和别的什么东西没有关系。对人物的描写应该反映性格的本质,作者赋予了作品一切,但这一切又无法表达出作品的总体效果,就像一个肖像画家,他可以用椅子、桌子甚至外套和领带来转移人们对相貌的注意。真正重要的轶事一般是一个生命的存续,而这些轶事必须用适当的方式讲述出来,而不是用一些俗套的办法把它们遮掩起来。这些轶事必须是人们的兴趣焦点所在,而不是易出错的某些个片段。如果我们压制住在尤科斯特的忏悔情节,约翰逊的形象又会丢失多少呢!书中这样的情节,就像生活中的一样,会立刻暴露出我们的情感区,但从来不会上升到日常生活的表面。

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