官 · 妓女 · 洋人 (Officials, Prostitutes, and "Roundeyes" in Late Qing China)

利用洋人的眼睛来道出“支那”官场和欢场的相通之处，屡见于晚清中国人的想象中。这位“西友”的感叹就是出自于当时的报章：

〈大字名片〉

外国人之名片。大仅一二寸许。中国人之名片。大至五六寸。而官场中与外国人交涉往来之名片。则又加大。且字大如拳。不知是何命意。上海各歌妓之名片。亦崇尚大字。几满纸柬。有西友至某妓处小坐。谈笑之顷。观见其名片。不禁诧曰。汝等之名片。何以亦是大字。妓曰。此备以请客人之用者。西友叹曰。原来汝等待客人。就如同官场待我辈一般。

在另一篇小说里，一个洋人也总结道：“盖支那官之待吾辈如妓女之待狎客。即谓吾辈为支那官之狎客可也”。

© Copyright by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

Edward Said the optimist/ 爱德华 · 萨义德：乐观主义者

...

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. Edward liked to quote Gramsci's aphorism, and with good reason. But he wasn't a pessimist of any kind, either of the intellect or the will. He was the deepest, most devoted, most unalterable kind of optimist, the optimist who can look despair in the face and keep on hoping. I remember a long argument we had at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords. The thing went on for about four hours, Edward pacing up and down in his apartment drinking glass after glass of orange juice. I was looking for hope but looking in the wrong place. In the end, I said: 'But Edward, you've got to believe that some day, somehow, things are going to get better.' He looked at me as if I was mad, and said: 'Of course I believe that. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't be doing any of this.'

...

Michael Wood, "On Edward Said."

The Industrial Base of "Esthetic Freedom"/ “审美自由”的工业化前提

The "esthetic freedom' of the pre-industrial subject was discovered at the very moment when the pre-industrial methods of production and transportation seemed threatened by mechanization: this is a typical process of romanticization, one that even the young Marx was not entirely immune to. As long as the pre-industrial methods and their forms of work and travel were the dominant ones, a Carlyle or Ruskin or Morris would never have thought of seeing them in an esthetic light. As every travel journal and every social history of artisanship demonstrates, they were quotidian and cumbersome. When industrialization suddenly caused these old forms to be seen from an esthetic and romanticizing viewpoint, we learn less about those forms themselves than about general attitudes towards industrialization.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1987), 121.

© Copyright by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

George Orwell, "Politics and English Language," 1946

...
Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech. When one watches tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases—bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder—one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

...

冠冕堂皇的空洞文体往往和闪烁其词的骗术相辅相成。这在英文里是这样，在中文里也是一定的。幸运的是，不登大雅之堂的“恶搞”如果运用得当，正好可以致冠冕堂皇的骗术于死地。鲁迅、王小波等文体家便是擅长“恶搞”的好手。他们帮助并启发读者去识别空洞的语言，并告诉我们：如果说空洞的语言还有什么用处的话，那就是欺骗。只有像他们这样正直而敏锐地去使用汉语，才能够发掘并整理出一整套“现代汉语骗术大全”来。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

读丰子恺的画（二）: "Winter of Jiaxing"

这幅画一看上去就很有意思。大人和小孩穿得严乎乎圆滚滚的，煞是可爱。穿成这样，却不让我们看到正脸儿，在我们的想象中，这一大一小的样子就更可爱了。在这个寒冷光秃的冬日，只有他们两个在走动。他们是回家还是去做客？与这二人形成对比的，是光秃秃的树，光秃秃的石板路，光秃秃的冬天。其实，在坚实的树皮底下，依然流动着树的生命，厚厚的石板下面，也蛰伏着虫蚁和嫩芽。只是冬日的生命万物都被裹着盖着，我们看不见罢了。就连这一大一小两个人，手也是袖中牵在一起，暖暖的。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

advice on style: William Strunk Jr., (2)/ 再谈文体

Here is another advice of William Strunk Jr., from that “little book,” The Elements of Style, which I regard as the informal “constitution of letters.”

Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.

If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete.

Two examples:

In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack. (Herbert Spencer, Philosophy of Style)

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes, King James Version)

文体家 William Strunk Jr. 的又一条忠告：要鲜明、具体，不要含混、空洞。英文语体的发展没有经历废除“古文”这一幕。好的英文可以取得中国古文佳作同样的效果：千锤百炼，雄浑有力。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。