2009年1月28日 星期三

A Relentless Updike Mapped America's Mysteries

A Relentless Updike Mapped America's Mysteries

Robert Spencer for The New York Times

John Updike at the Boston Public Library in 2006. More Photos >


Published: January 27, 2009

Endowed with an art student's pictorial imagination, a journalist's sociological eye and a poet's gift for metaphor, John Updike — who died on Tuesday at 76 — was arguably this country's one true all-around man of letters. He moved fluently from fiction to criticism, from light verse to short stories to the long-distance form of the novel: a literary decathlete in our age of electronic distraction and willful specialization, Victorian in his industriousness and almost blogger-like in his determination to turn every scrap of knowledge and experience into words.

It is as a novelist who opened a big picture window on the American middle class in the second half of the 20th century, however, that he will be best remembered. In his most resonant work, Mr. Updike gave "the mundane its beautiful due," as he once put it, memorializing the everyday mysteries of love and faith and domesticity with extraordinary nuance and precision. In Kodachrome-sharp snapshots, he gave us the 50's and early 60's of suburban adultery, big cars and wide lawns, radios and hi-fi sets, and he charted the changing landscape of the 70's and 80's, as malls and subdivisions swallowed up small towns and sexual and social mores underwent a bewildering metamorphosis.

Mr. Updike's four keenly observed Rabbit novels ("Rabbit, Run," 1960; "Rabbit Redux," 1971; "Rabbit Is Rich," 1981; and "Rabbit at Rest," 1990) chronicled the adventures of one Harry Rabbit Angstrom — high school basketball star turned car salesman, householder and errant husband — and his efforts to cope with the seismic public changes (from feminism to the counterculture to antiwar protests) that rattled his cozy nest. Harry, who self-importantly compared his own fall from grace to this country's waning power, his business woes to the national deficit, was both a representative American of his generation and a kind of scientific specimen — an index to the human species and its propensity for doubt and narcissism and self immolation.

In fulfilling Stendhal's classic definition of a novel as "a mirror that strolls along a highway," reflecting both the "blue of the skies" and "the mud puddles underfoot," the Rabbit novels captured four decades of middle-class American life. Mr. Updike's stunning and much underestimated 1996 epic, "In the Beauty of the Lilies," tackled an even wider swath of history. In charting the fortunes of an American family through some 80 years, the author showed how dreams, habits and predilections are handed down generation to generation, parent to child, even as he created a kaleidoscopic portrait of this country from its nervous entry into the 20th century to its stumbling approach to the millennium.

Producing roughly a book or so a year, Mr. Updike tried throughout his career to stretch his imagination. To the novels starring Rabbit — perhaps the self Mr. Updike might have been had he not become a writer — he added a series of books about Bech, another alter ego described as a "recherché but amiable" Jewish novelist afflicted with acute writer's block. While Bech boasted a modest oeuvre of seven books and remained a second-string cult author, his creator was blessed, as he once wrote of Nabokov, with an "ebullient creativity," and his work, too, gave the happy impression of "a continuous task carried forward variously, of a solid personality, of a plentitude of gifts explored, knowingly."

In other novels, Mr. Updike ventured even farther afield. "The Centaur" (1963) infused Joycean myth into its tender portrait of a well-meaning schoolteacher. "The Coup" (1978) conjured up an imaginary African kingdom called Kush and its imperial leader Colonel Ellelloû. And "The Witches of Eastwick" (1984) and its sequel, "The Widows of Eastwick" (2008), depicted heroines who were supernatural sorceresses with the power to conjure and maim. These experiments did not always work. "S." (1988) used Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" as a jumping-off point for a crude attack on feminists. "Seek My Face" (2002) devolved into a ham-handed and thoroughly unconvincing improvisation on the life of Jackson Pollock. And "Brazil" (1994), brimming over with undigested research and bad dialogue, stood as an embarrassing effort to translate the Tristan and Iseult legend to South America.

Indeed Mr. Updike's strongest work remained tethered to the small town and suburban worlds he knew firsthand, just as many of his heroes shared the same sort of existential fears the author acknowledged he had suffered as a young man: Henry Bech's concern that he was "a fleck of dust condemned to know it is a fleck of dust," or Colonel Ellelloû's lament that "we will be forgotten, all of us forgotten." Their fear of death threatens to make everything they do feel meaningless, and it also sends them running after God — looking for some reassurance that there is something beyond the familiar, everyday world with "its signals and buildings and cars and bricks."

But if their yearnings after salvation pulled them in one direction, Mr. Updike's heroes also found themselves tempted by sex and romantic misalliances in the here and now. Caught on the margins of a changing morality, unable to forget the old pieties and taboos and yet unable to resist the 60's promise of sex without consequences, these men vacillate between duty and self-fulfillment, a craving for roots and a hungering after freedom. As the author himself once put it, his heroes "oscillate in their moods between an enjoyment of the comforts of domesticity and the familial life, and a sense that their essential identity is a solitary one — to be found in flight and loneliness and even adversity. This seems to be my feeling of what being a male human being involves."

Although Mr. Updike's earliest stories could sound self consciously writerly and derivative — at their worst, O'Hara without the bite, Cheever without the magic — he soon found his own inimitable voice with "Pigeon Feathers" and "Rabbit, Run." Over the years, the stories and novels tended to track Mr. Updike's own life: couples wooed and wed and went their separate ways, and the hormonal urges of youth slowly became the quiescence of middle age.

In a series of overlapping stories about Joan and Richard Maple (collected in "Too Far to Go"), Mr. Updike created an indelible two-decade-long portrait of a marriage, chronicling how one couple created and then dismantled a life together, while tracing the imprint that time and age left on their relationship. Many of his later stories and novels seemed preoccupied with mortality and the ravages of time, featuring characters grappling with the looming prospect of their own demise with a mixture of anger, grace and resignation and looking back upon their youth in an often cloudy rear view mirror.

As for Mr. Updike's collections of nonfiction (including "Hugging the Shore," "Odd Jobs" and "Due Considerations"), they not only showcased his copious gifts as a critic — as a celebrant of other artists' work and a sometimes acerbic literary anthropologist — but they also attested to his compulsion to enclose between the covers of a book every snippet of his work. These volumes featured thoughtful musings on contemporaries like Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer, and erudite essays on masters like Melville and Hawthorne, but they also included such effluvia as picture captions the author wrote for a Playboy spread on Marilyn Monroe and dutiful responses to questions posed by magazines ("What is your favorite spot in and around Harvard?").

In one of these collections, Mr. Updike summed up his love of his vocation: "From earliest childhood I was charmed by the materials of my craft, by pencils and paper and, later, by the typewriter and the entire apparatus of printing. To condense from one's memories and fantasies and small discoveries dark marks on paper which become handsomely reproducible many times over still seems to me, after nearly 30 years concerned with the making of books, a magical act, and a delightful technical process. To distribute oneself thus, as a kind of confetti shower falling upon the heads and shoulders of mankind out of bookstores and the pages of magazines is surely a great privilege and a defiance of the usual earthbound laws whereby human beings make themselves known to one another."



米作家ジョン・アップダイクさん死去

  • 2009年01月28日 05:09　発信地:ニューヨーク/米国
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米ニューヨーク（New York）の国連（UN）本部で記者会見に臨む作家ジョン・アップダイク（John Updike）さん（2004年11月30日撮影）。(c)AFP/Mandel NGAN

【1月28日 AFP】（一部更新）ピュリツァー賞（Pulitzer Prize）を2度受賞した米国の作家、ジョン・アップダイク（John Updike）氏が27日、マサチューセッツ（Massachusetts）州で肺がんのため死去した。76歳。出版大手のアルフレッド・A・クノッフ（Alfred A. Knopf）社が伝えた。

　アップダイク氏は米国で最も多くの作品を残した作家の1人というだけでなく、米国自身を描き出した最も著名な作家の1人でもあった。

「アップダイク氏は、別の時代から現れた幻影のように、現代文学のシーンをさまよっていた。米国文学の最後の偉人だ」とウェブサイト「The Salon」は掲載している。

　半世紀にわたる作家生活の中で、『走れウサギ（Rabbit, Run）』で始まる「ウサギ」シリーズなどを残し、ピュリツァー賞を2度受賞。誰もが知る作家となった。

　詩作もしたアップダイク氏の作品は叙情的で、読みやすかった。25作の小説に加え、少なくとも12作の短編集と、100点以上の短編、詩、文芸批評を発表し、米誌ニューヨーカー（New Yorker）には書評も寄せた。

■思索的な人生の出発点

　アップダイク氏の関心は幅広かったが、基盤となったのは第二次世界大戦後の経済成長の中で経験した地方の暮らしだった。

　アップダイク氏は、ペンシルベニア（Pennsylvania）州の農場で過ごした病弱な子ども時代のおかげで、思索的な人生が送れたと話したことがある。

　Academy of Achievementによれば、「アップダイク氏は乾癬や口ごもり、病気のせいで友だちと一緒に遊ぶことはできなかった。執筆に慰めを見出し、ハーバード大学（Harvard University）で奨学金をもらった」という。

　大学では有名な風刺雑誌「ランプーン（Lampoon）」の編集をするようになり、卒業後すぐにニューヨーカー誌で詩や小説を発表した。

　1958年には詩集『The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures』を発表。デビュー小説『プアハウス・フェア（The Poorhouse Fair）』は好評で、次に発表した『走れウサギ』はさらに評価が高かった。

『走れウサギ』の主人公ハリー・アングストローム（Harry Angstrom）の性的行動の描写は当時としては衝撃的だったが、修正を加えると幅広い支持を獲得した。その後に印刷された『走れウサギ』では、当初の表現に戻されている。

■一貫したテーマ

　祖父がキリスト教長老派教会の牧師だったアップダイク氏は、宗教的信念が強かった。人間の存在における「3つの偉大な神秘」を、性、芸術、宗教だと言ったことがある。

　こうしたテーマは、喜劇的な要素、米国東海岸という舞台設定と共に、1968年の『カップルズ（Couples）』や1984年の『イーストウィックの魔女たち（Witches of Eastwick）』など、アップダイク氏の作品のいたる所に見られる。ロードアイランド（Rhode Island）州の小さな町と魔女、性を描いた『イーストウィックの魔女たち』は、ハリウッド（Hollywood）で映画化された。

　2008年には、『イーストウィックの魔女たち』の続編で、アップダイク氏最後の小説となった『The Widows of Eastwick』が発表された。(c)AFP

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2009年1月26日 星期一

梁羽生

“武俠小說大師梁羽生悉尼逝世”

梁羽生（圖片來源：新華社）
梁羽生被譽為新派武俠開山之人
上海《東方早報》引澳大利亞媒體報道稱，一代武俠小說大師梁羽生日前已在悉尼病逝。

報道稱，梁羽生1月22日在悉尼去世，享年85歲。

梁羽生1984年宣佈“封刀”收筆，與家人定居澳大利亞。2006年他在香港參加系列活動曾中風。去世前，梁羽生一直在療養院中居住。

梁羽生是與金庸起名的新派武俠小說大師，他在1954年創作的《龍虎斗京華》被譽為新派武俠小說的開山之作。

梁羽生在評價自己的武俠小說創作方面的地位時，曾說：“開風氣也，梁羽生，發揚光大者，金庸。”

梁羽生原名陳文統，出身書香門第，1924年3月22日生於廣西蒙山。他從廣州嶺南大學畢業後出任香港《大公報》副刊編輯，期間應《新晚報》邀請撰寫連載武俠小說《龍虎斗京華》。

他創作生涯長達30年，共創作武俠小說35部，代表作有《白髮魔女傳》、《七劍下天山》、《萍蹤俠影錄》等。

除武俠外，梁羽生還寫散文、評論、隨筆、棋話等，且屬意歷史研究，曾發表《中國歷史新活》、《文藝新談》、《古今漫話》等作品。
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2009年1月25日 星期日

Yu Hua 余华

Yu Hua (simplified Chinese: 余华; traditional Chinese: 余華; pinyin: Yú Huá) is a Chinese author, born on April 3, 1960 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. He studied dentistry but soon decided to write fiction in 1983 because it allowed him to be more creative and flexible. He grew up during the Cultural Revolution so many of his stories and novels are marked by this experience. Some[who?] have called his early work brutal.

Yu Hua has so far written four novels, six collections of stories, and three collections of essays. His most important novels are Chronicle of a Blood Merchant and To Live. The latter novel was adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. Because the film was banned in China, it instantly made the novel a bestseller and Yu Hua a worldwide celebrity. His novels have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean and Malayalam.

[edit] Works

Short Stories

Novels

[edit] External links


The Bonfire of China’s Vanities


By PANKAJ MISHRA
Published: January 23, 2009

One cold afternoon last fall I met Yu Hua at the state-run Friendship Hotel in Beijing. Cheerfully, he described to me the incipient international fame of his most recent novel, “Brothers,” one of China’s biggest-selling literary works. He had just returned from Hong Kong, where the novel was short-listed for the Man Asian Prize; he was leaving soon for Paris to receive an award for the book, which had just been translated into French. With the breezy insouciance that unbroken success creates, Yu then began to recount a somewhat irreverent memory of Mao Zedong’s death.

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Photograph by Gueorgui Pinkhassov/magnumphotos.com

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Photograph by Gueorgui Pinkhassov/magnumphotos.com

Though nearly 50, Yu, who wears his hair short and spiky, looks relatively young. He speaks in emphatic bursts, his face often flushing red, and he is quick to laugh. It was, in fact, his boisterous laugh that almost got him into trouble on the morning of the solemn announcement of Mao’s death. Responding to orders that blared out from loudspeakers, he assembled with hundreds of other students in the main hall of his small-town high school. “Funereal music was played, and then we had to hear the long list of titles that preceded Mao’s name, ‘Chairman,’ ‘Beloved Leader,’ ‘Great helmsman . . . ,’ ” Yu recalled. “Everyone loved Chairman Mao, of course, so when his name was finally announced, everyone burst into tears. I started crying, too, but one person crying is a sad sight; more than a thousand people crying together, the sound echoing, turns into a funny spectacle, so I began to laugh. My body shook with my effort to control my laughter while I bent over the chair in front of me. The class leader later told me, admiringly, ‘Yu Hua, you were crying so fervently!’ ”

He paused, and then jumped 13 years to a memory of another momentous — and more traumatic — event in China’s modern history. In the spring of 1989, when tens of thousands of protesters filled Tiananmen Square, Yu was living in Beijing, partaking of the cultural excitement and political hopefulness of post-Mao China. Already a major figure in the city’s artistic avant garde, Yu biked every day to Tiananmen Square to express solidarity with the student protesters.

As Yu described the widespread civilian support for the students, a note of passion entered his voice, and the menu he had elegantly snagged off a passing waiter lay open and unread in his lap. “The word ‘people’ was much used in the Cultural Revolution,” he said. “It is a very loaded term in China, it is used a lot, but until the mass protests in 1989 I did not realize what the word meant.”

His voice grew louder as he recalled the bloody suppression and aftermath of the protests. I became nervous. Yu, a short, thickset man with bulging eyes, could easily pass unnoticed in a crowd of Chinese peasants and workers, but he does not exactly strive for self-effacement. We were sitting in the corner of the hotel lobby, partly concealed by a large pillar and surrounded by a thick fog of cigarette smoke. Yu, a restless chain smoker, insists on ignoring China’s new ban on smoking in public places.

The hotel was full that day of young executives from nearby I.T. offices­, any one of whom might have recognized Yu, who is frequently mentioned as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Though official repression of the memory of Tiananmen has ensured that few young Chinese know much about the struggles for democracy waged in the 1980s, cybersavvy youth of the kind we were surrounded by are still likely to take a sternly nationalistic line with a Chinese writer or intellectual criticizing the events of June 1989 to a foreigner. Indeed, as Yu spoke, a trendily dressed young woman looked up from the glowing screen of her laptop to squint at him.

Yu seemed totally oblivious to potential eavesdroppers. His face was red as he came to end of his memory of 1989. Turning to me, he said: “Sorry to take off like that. But this was a big turning point for all of us. After June 1989 people in China lost interest in politics. In 1992 Deng Xiaoping made his famous ‘Southern Tour,’ calling for faster market reforms, and the economy started to take off. The ideals of nation and socialism began to look empty. People became focused on making money.

“I, too, began to enjoy the fruits of capitalism,” he added, and laughed.

YYu was only partly joking. For someone who started out in China’s brief moment of counterculture in the 1980s as a writer of bleak, experimental and defiantly unsalable stories, Yu has gone on to receive an ample share of the fruits of capitalism. Published in two parts in 2005 and 2006, “Brothers,” which traces the fortunes of two stepbrothers from the Cultural Revolution to China’s no-less-frenzied Consumer Revolution, has sold more than a million copies in China, not counting the probably higher sales of innumerable pirated editions.

The novel, which will be published in an English translation later this month, may also prove to be China’s first successful export of literary fiction. Certainly, foreign readers will find in its sprawling, rambunctious narrative some of China’s most frenetic transformations and garish contradictions. “Brothers” strikes its characteristic tone with the very first scene, as Li Guang, a business tycoon, sits on his gold-plated toilet, dreaming of space travel even as he mourns the loss of all earthly relations. Li made his money from various entrepreneurial ventures, including hosting a beauty pageant for virgins and selling scrap metal and knockoff designer suits. A quick flashback to his small-town childhood shows him ogling the bottoms of women defecating in a public toilet. Similarly grotesque images proliferate over the next 600 pages as Yu describes, first, the extended trauma of the Cultural Revolution, during which Li and his stepbrother Song Gang witness Red Guards torturing Song Gang’s father to death, and then the moral wasteland of capitalist China, in which Song Gang is forced to surgically enlarge one of his breasts in order to sell breast-enlargement gels.

Pankaj Mishra is the author, most recently, of “Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond.” He last wrote for the magazine about the Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany.


余華（1960年4月3日－），中國作家，浙江杭州人，後隨父母遷至海鹽縣。中學畢業後，曾從事牙醫五年後棄醫從文，現定居北京從事職業寫作。余華從1984年開始發表小說，是中國大陸先鋒派小說的代表人物，並與葉兆言和蘇童等人齊名。《十八歲出門遠行》是他的處女作，代表作品有《許三觀賣血記》、《活着》、《在細雨中呼喊》等。其中《活着》和《許三觀賣血記》同時入選百位批評家和文學編輯評選的「九十年代最有影響的十部作品」。其一些作品已被翻譯成英文、法文、德文、俄文、意大利文、荷蘭文、挪威文、韓文和日文等，在外國出版。

目錄

[隱藏]

[編輯] 近況

  • 2005年8月出版最新作品《兄弟》（上）；
  • 2006年4月出版《兄弟》（下）；

[編輯] 作品

  • 長篇小說：《活着》、《許三觀賣血記》、《在細雨中呼喊》、《兄弟》；
  • 中篇小說集：《鮮血梅花》、《現實一種》、《我膽小如鼠》、《戰慄》；
  • 隨筆集：《溫暖和百感交集的旅程》、《音樂影響了我的寫作》、《沒有一條道路是重複的》、《靈魂飯》。

[編輯] 獎項

  • 1998年，意大利格林扎納－卡佛文學獎
  • 2002年，澳大利亞懸念句子文學獎
  • 2004年，美國巴恩斯－諾貝爾新發現圖書獎
  • 2004年，法國藝術及文學勳章（騎士級）

[編輯] 外部連結

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陳培堃(P.K.Chen)

P.K. is the given-name initials of Chen Pei-Kung, who has probably traveled to more astronomical observatories and dark-sky sites than anyone else. He meets professional astronomers and amateur-astronomy fans around the world as he pursues his passion-photographing celestial sights. Since 1983 P.K. has regularly escaped to Lan-Yu, a small island near Taiwan that has a sky free from light and air pollution. And he frequently carries his camera and other instruments to Mount Jade, the highest point in Taiwan. But during the past two decades he has become a well-known world traveler, trekking from Mongolia to the Australian Outback and Mauna Kea in Hawaii in search of unique astrophotography opportunities-and dark skies. P.K. believes that "there is always something new that I can do."

In Taiwan he has published more than a dozen books including an autobiography ("Peter Pan Under the Starlight") and two constellation albums. As a photojournalist, his articles and images have appeared in such publications as the New York Times and Sky&Telescope in the United States and the Temmon Guide in Japan. He is currently a contributing photographer of Sky&Telescope and his 2007 book titled "A Constellation Album: Stars and Mythology of the Night Sky" has published by Sky&Telescope.

He often serves as an astronomy instructor at summer camps in Taiwan, and among the children he is known as the "Peter Pan of the Stars".


帶我去觀星

內容簡介

天文之美不應只屬於天文學家，作為一個優異的天文攝影專家，PK透過他的鏡頭，將宇宙重新包裝呈獻給大眾。如果你不想瞭解恆星到底如何形成和演化，你還是 可以從PK的作品中看到繁星之美，你也可以不用知道太陽如何影響我們所居住的地球，但還是能夠欣賞如天幕般的七彩極光。

當然，除了宇宙天文奧妙無窮的視覺饗宴之外，追尋星星的夢想還是要靠自己的身體力行，才能體會箇中滋味，而本書就是你最佳的觀星夥伴。本書作者PK將自己 數十年觀星和攝影的經驗，配合觀星入門者的需要，由淺入深依序介紹觀星前的準備、天文望遠鏡的解說、四季全天星座的呈現、星座連線想像，天文攝影方法…… 讓你輕鬆的賞星尋夢，為追星的旅程留下永恆的回憶。

針對國中、小的學生及家長設計，書中精細的插畫也是教師教學最佳利器，為親子走出戶外觀星的優良工具書，也是教師在講授天文現象最佳的課外補充教材。

■作者簡介

陳培堃(P.K.Chen)
美國天空與望遠鏡(Sky&Telescope)雜誌攝影編輯
日本天文指南月刊專欄作家
中央研究院天文研究所專任公關資訊
著有《星星戀曲》、《PK天文遊記》、《世界天文台巡禮》、《台灣星空夜遊之旅》、《星空下的彼得潘》等數十本著作


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2009年1月24日 星期六

The Spotlight Finds Jason Wu

The Spotlight Finds Jason Wu

Michael Appleton for The New York Times

GOWN-IN-WAITING Jason Wu during a fitting with Alison Pill this week at his studio. More Photos >


By ERIC WILSON
Published: January 23, 2009

MINUTES before Jason Wu was to become famous as the 26-year-old designer of Michelle Obama’s inaugural gown, he ordered a pepperoni and mushroom pizza from Domino’s at his apartment in Midtown, then sat down with his boyfriend, Gustavo Rangel, and a neighbor to watch the festivities on television.

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Michael Appleton for The New York Times

STAR TURN Michelle Obama chose a gown by the designer Jason Wu, 26, here fitting a look from his spring collection. More Photos »

Like the rest of the world, Mr. Wu had no idea what the new first lady would wear on Tuesday night. He had never met her, nor did he know that the design he had submitted to Mrs. Obama, last November, was being seriously considered. At first he wasn’t even positive that the white chiffon dress she wore, which went by in a blur, was his until the phone began ringing and ringing and ringing.

“It’s difficult to describe,” Mr. Wu said the next afternoon, after appearing on the morning shows and talking endlessly about the symbolism of the dress, the color and the selection of a designer barely known outside the fashion beltway. “I was over the moon. I know I am an unusual choice for a first lady. I didn’t think it was my turn yet.”

In his small studio on West 37th Street, Mr. Wu, with close-cropped hair and a lineless face, wore a cardigan and a necktie and looked like a truant from boarding school. His work space is spotless, with a big rustic slab of wood as a table, which is precisely where the thousands of organza flowers and crystals had been hand-sewn to Mrs. Obama’s dress over many late nights by Mr. Wu and his staff of four.

An assistant popped her head in the room and asked, “Do you want an inside snap or inside buttonholes?” Between interviews, Mr. Wu was working on samples for his fall collection, which will be shown next month.

ALTHOUGH he was already something of a fashion darling — Anna Wintour attended his last show, when he was a finalist for Vogue’s annual prizes for emerging designers — he is expecting a crush of new attention. On Wednesday, Diane Von Furstenberg sent him a congratulatory note, and Parsons the New School for Design issued a press release boasting that Mr. Wu, Isabel Toledo and Narciso Rodriguez, all designers of clothes worn by Mrs. Obama last week, had once studied there (though it did not note that none of them graduated).

“No doubt, this is going to give the business a boost,” he said.

Mr. Wu started the label in 2006 with money from his family and his savings from a job he has held since he was 16, as a freelance designer, and now creative director, for a line of designer dolls called Fashion Royalty and manufactured by Integrity Toys in Chesapeake City, Md. His dolls ($70 to $400) are sold at F. A. O. Schwarz. His evening dresses ($2,990 to $4,700) are sold at Bergdorf Goodman. The word “prodigy” comes to mind when Mr. Wu mentions that his collection is expected to have sales of $4 million this year.

Even when he was 5, growing up in Taipei, Taiwan, his parents, who operate an import-export business, recognized his creative ambitions. His mother sometimes drove him to bridal stores so he could make sketches of the gowns in the windows. When he was 9, the family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where, like many future designers, he began experimenting with fashion by using dolls as mannequins.

He carried on with his hobby as a student at Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Mass., and at the prep school Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, Conn., during a senior year in France and then for three-and-a-half years at Parsons until he left to intern for Mr. Rodriguez.

And if you think this pursuit sounds strange, Mr. Wu would point out, “Vionnet used to have a doll on a piano bench, which she used to drape her couture.”

Mr. Wu’s clothes are most often described as ladylike and seem to belong to an earlier era, meaning polished jackets, flower prints and dresses with nipped waists and teacup skirts. He spends a lot of time at stores around the country, at Satine in Los Angeles, Jeffrey in Atlanta and Ikram in Chicago, developing ideas for specific customers and climates.

It was Ikram Goldman, who has played a behind-the-scenes role in connecting designers with the first lady, who introduced Mr. Wu’s designs to Mrs. Obama. (She had previously worn one of his dresses for an interview with Barbara Walters; she bought it at cost — for a little less than $1,000 — through Ikram, he said.) After the election, Mr. Wu immediately sent sketches to Ms. Goldman.

“The only protocol, to quote Ikram, was that ‘It has to sparkle,’ ” he said.

Ms. Goldman has not spoken publicly about her role.

Two days later, Mr. Wu recalled, Ms. Goldman asked him to make the white dress. It was ready by Thanksgiving, when Mr. Wu, who is 5-foot-7, flew to Chicago, carrying the floor-length gown in a garment bag on his lap and hand-delivered it to Ms. Goldman. He was not paid for that dress or two more colorful designs he submitted later, he said, but made them with the understanding that if Mrs. Obama should end up wearing one, the dress would be donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

“It’s priceless to be a part of history,” Mr. Wu said.

THE symbolism of Mrs. Obama’s choice of such a young American designer is invigorating for the fashion industry, especially at a moment when new companies are facing tight odds of survival.

“I think Jason is supertalented,” said Kristina O’Neill, the fashion features director of Harper’s Bazaar, “and it’s so exciting that she wants to champion young designers.”

Shortly before 5 p.m., Mr. Rangel, who manages the company’s finances, was waiting to take Mr. Wu to a celebratory dinner when Alison Pill, an actress who appears in “Milk,” arrived at the studio. She had come for a fitting of an emerald dress she plans to wear to the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday.

“When I saw the movie,” Mr. Wu told her, “I cried.”

But it was Ms. Pill who appeared star-struck as she replied, “I’m the next Michelle Obama!”
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2009年1月20日 星期二









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2009年1月12日 星期一

Liebknecht and Luxemburg

On January 15 Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were caught and murdered by the soldiers who held them prisoner.

德国 | 2009.01.12

左翼党等数万人纪念卢森堡和李卜克内西

柏林的纪念者们
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 柏林的纪念者们

周日，数万人参加了纪念国际工人运动领袖罗莎.卢森堡和卡尔.李卜克内西的纪念活动。这两位工人运动领袖于90年前被杀害。德国左翼党知名政治家也参加了此次纪念活动。德国之声记者报导如下。

纪念罗莎.卢森堡和卡尔.李卜克内西的活动在一片寂静中进行，即隆重，又很朴素。阳光灿烂，气温极低，许多上了年纪的人在两位工人运动领袖的墓前敬献了花圈和红色的康乃馨。这些人来自全德境内和欧洲各国。

一个男人说：“我们是荷兰社会党成员。为了悼念罗莎-卢森堡，我们来到了这里。”

另一个男人说：“我是从汉堡附近的爱尔姆斯霍恩来这里的。我们不主张联邦国防军参加战斗。我们反对民主机制受到削弱，反对让普通居民承受更多的负担。”

另一个男人：“我来自罗马尼亚，希望建设社会主义的美好未来。”

一个女人：“我来自瑞士的意大利语地区。”

一个男人：“我认为，罗莎-卢森堡的社会主义理念，确实有助于创建一个更加安全稳定，更美好的世界。”

罗莎.卢森堡和卡尔.李卜克内西Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 罗莎.卢森堡和卡尔.李卜克内西游 行队伍在沉默中前行，人们一律黑色装扮，走在队列最前方的是德国左翼党领导人。领头人则是该党主席比斯基，“我相信，李卜克内西和卢森堡依旧是工人运动的 表率。他们是两位无可争议的人物。他们为社会公正和和平付出了自己的努力。令我感到遗憾的是，直到今天人们依旧有必要为此继续努力。现在社会公正和社会稳 定更具有现实意义，尤其在全球金融危机爆发后的今天。”

左翼党联邦议会党团主席居西被记者们簇拥，回答了有关对德国统一社会党和前东德历史进行反思，以及左翼党的未来等问题。居西指出，鉴于普遍存在的资 本主义危机，建立社会主义乌托邦再度被看好。居西说：“追求资本积累的资本主义是不会善罢甘休的，它让世界人民，各大陆承担重负，让绝大多数居民承担重 负。所以我认为，应建立另外的社会结构，一个我们不曾有过的社会结构。民主社会主义就是一个前所未有的设想。所以我们必须面对新的挑战。我当然希望我们面 对容易一些的挑战，但事实上这是一项异常艰巨的挑战。”

当巴勒斯坦小组和左翼团体也前来参加纪念活动时，气氛非常热烈，“巴勒斯坦和平万岁。”

尤其是年轻人高举彩旗，标语，齐声高喊，对资本主义进行批评，“我认为，为社会做出贡献的人应获得赞扬。”

另一个女人说：“我也许更赞同罗莎.卢森堡的做法。当然这关系到持不同政见的问题，也可以说是非教条的社会主义。我认为应该尊重他人，尊重他人的意见。”

一个男人说：“由于他们主张反军国主义，创建和平，所以现在更具有现实意义。因为现在依旧存在着压迫和战争，人们必须予以坚决反对。以巴冲突当然扮演角色。另外还有阿富汗战争，德国联邦国防军也参与了那里的战斗，但德国绝大多数居民是坚决反对的。”

据柏林警方报道，相关集会和游行活动在和平的气氛中进行，其间没有发生意外骚乱。

德国之声版权所有

转载或引用请标明出处

Annette Miersch

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2009年1月11日 星期日

Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman

Jan 8th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Helen Suzman, apartheid-fighter, died on January 1st, aged 91


Getty Images

APPEARANCES deceived where Helen Suzman was concerned. The petite and elegant figure, clad in two-pieces or nicely pressed slacks, her hair Thatcher-perfect, was clearly a denizen of the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, where discreet black domestics clipped the acacias and golf was played at weekends. Houghton, rich and Jewish, was indeed her constituency, and privilege was her life. But there the comfortable impression ended. Among the solid and overwhelmingly male Afrikaners in Parliament, “baying like hounds at a meet”, she was noisy, rude, contemptuous, “thoroughly nasty when I get going”. “A vicious little cat”, said P.W. Botha, South Africa’s prime minister, who often felt her claws in him. “The honourable member does not like me,” he observed once in Parliament. “Like you? I can’t stand you,” came the spitting reply. Verwoerd, an earlier prime minister, a man she admitted she was “scared stiff” of, fared no better. “I have written you off,” he told her. “The whole world has written you off,” she retorted.

Then there were her questions: as many as 200 of them a year, asked in Parliament and recorded in Hansard, on any subject that might embarrass South Africa’s white rulers. How many people were being held without trial? How many blacks were arrested each day for violating the Pass Laws? Why were they being forcibly removed to areas with nothing but rows of tin latrines, where only wattles grew in the sand? Why did the police turn up to remove them at four in the morning? Why did they use rubber bullets to disperse protesting crowds? Was it true that prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, beaten with straps, made to sleep on the floor? On, on, on. One National Party MP said she reminded him of “a cricket in a tree when it is very dry in the bushvelt. His chirping makes you deaf but the tune remains the same.” Botha said her “chattering” was like water dripping on a tin roof. Mrs Suzman was delighted to annoy them in the cause of justice.

Good liberal instincts

In a parliamentary career of 36 years, she spent only six in a party of any size. She quit the paternal United Party in 1959, frustrated that it was so wobbly against apartheid, to join a Progressive Party of 12 members that was wiped out in an election two years later. She was the sole survivor, for 13 years a one-woman opposition to the relentless consolidation of white rule. The small but determined voice of the “neo-communist” and “sickly humanist” would call out “No”—to the Sabotage Act, the Terrorism Act, the Ninety-Day Detention Law—and she would be left sitting alone in a sea of empty green benches.

Her strength was that she knew the facts, and knew her rights. South Africa’s devotion to the Westminster parliamentary system, a figleaf of democracy over barbarism, meant that the Speaker was bound to let this “lone Prog” speak, and ministers had to answer her questions. She was allowed to bring one Private Member’s Motion a year, so she would try single-handedly to repeal the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, or propose a minimum wage for blacks. As an MP, she could also visit prisons and “black spots” barred to the public; which was how she found herself talking to Nelson Mandela in his cell on Robben Island in 1967, or tramping through squatters’ camps of plastic sheets and corrugated iron. She was a precious mouthpiece to the world, as she was also the first resort for communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, banned people, Coloureds resentful of their racial classification, and all the “sad harvest of the seeds of apartheid” that drifted through her office.

Did it make any difference? By 1974, after 20 years in Parliament, Mrs Suzman felt she had achieved little except identity-numbers for policemen, “because it helps to know who is beating you round the head”. She had stopped no law, and white rule was to run on for 20 more years. Her critics on the left always said far more force was needed to remove it. But she did not believe in force. Outsiders thought economic sanctions were the answer: but she did not believe in those, either. Her principles, to which she was always truthful, were those of a good old-fashioned liberal. Free markets, capitalism, the paramountcy of democracy and civil institutions, equal opportunity. She had always argued with her father, Sam Gavronsky, who had emigrated from Lithuania and made a success of the leather-and-soap trade, that blacks were oppressed rather than lazy, and couldn’t build a new life as readily as he had done. But when the African National Congress, once in power, began to impose quotas for blacks in jobs, she naturally and ferociously opposed it.

In many ways black rule proved “a huge disappointment” to her: corrupt, spendthrift, anti-white, and doing little to help the millions of poor blacks whose lot she had tried to improve. Thabo Mbeki’s wilful ignorance over AIDS appalled her. She spoke out about all of it, though the ANC seldom deigned to notice or reply. She was the past. In old age she sometimes seemed just another rich white suburbanite, comfortably behind her security fence, sighing over her whisky and soda about “that president of ours”. But the claws on her “pretty little pink hands” had drawn blood, and they were never retracted.


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2009年1月9日 星期五

Report to Saint Peter (Hendrik Willem van Loon)

Report to Saint Peter - an unfinished, posthumously published autobiography, 1947

房龙文集:致天堂守门人

房龙文集:致天堂守门人

（美）房龙 ；朱子仪

7200042412

北京出版社 / 2002-01-01


本书主要内容包括前言、“天国之门”门前的序言、我降生的这个世界的境况、鹿特丹市——我的出生地、展品古怪的博物馆、在透不过气的空间稍事停顿，看看是 否仍紧扣主题、想知道什么使我变成今天这个样子，我不得不迫根溯源、祖先的共性与我自身的特性、与早期基督徒相伴、关于修道院，扯了一大通离题的话、地狱 之火及共为何点燃、打算做个封建时代的骑士，却发现无人理解、附：房龙生平年表、附：编者前言、译后记等详细内容。

Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian and journalist.

Life and works

He was born in Rotterdam, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken. He went to the United States in 1902 to study at Cornell University, receiving his degree in 1905. He was a correspondent during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He later became a professor of history at Cornell University (1915-17) and in 1919 became an American citizen.

In 1906 he married Eliza Ingersoll Bowditch, daughter of a Harvard professor, by whom he had two sons, Henry Bowditch and Gerard Willem. He had two later marriages, to Eliza Helen Criswell in 1920 and playwright Frances Goodrich Ames in 1927, but after a divorce from Ames he returned to Criswell (it is debatable whether or not they re-married) who inherited his estate in 1944.

From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books, illustrating them himself. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.

However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal and thought-provoking style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes.

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "I still stick to the Dutch pronunciation of the double o—Loon like loan in 'Loan and Trust Co.' My sons will probably accept the American pronunciation. It really does not matter very much." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)

Bibliography

A partial list of works by Hendrik Willem van Loon, with first publication dates and publishers.

  • The Fall of the Dutch Republic, 1913, Houghton Mifflin Co.
  • The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom, 1915, Doubleday Page & Co.
  • The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators, 1916, The Century Co.
  • A Short History of Discovery, 1917, David McKay
  • Ancient man; the beginning of civilizations, 1920, Boni and Liveright
  • The Story of Mankind, 1921, Boni and Liveright
  • The Story of the Bible, 1923, Boni and Liveright
  • The Story of Wilbur the Hat, 1925, Boni and Liveright
  • Tolerance, 1925, Boni and Liveright
  • The Liberation of Mankind: the story of man's struggle for the right to think, 1926, Boni and Liveright
  • America, 1927, Boni and Liveright
  • Adriaen Block, 1928, Block Hall
  • Multiplex man, or the Story of survival through invention, 1928
  • Life and Times of Peter Stuyvesant, 1928, Henry Holt
  • Man the Miracle Maker, 1928, Horace Liveright
  • R. v. R.: the Life and Times of Rembrant van Rijn, 1930, Horace Liveright
  • If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam, in If, Or History Rewritten, edited by J. C. Squire, 1931
  • Van Loon's Geography, 1932, Simon and Schuster
  • An Elephant Up a Tree, 1933, Simon and Schuster
  • An Indiscreet Itinerary, 1933, Harcourt, Brace
  • The story of inventions: Man, the Miracle Maker, 1934, Horace Liveright
  • Ships: and How They Sailed the Seven Seas, 1935, Simon and Schuster
  • Around the World With the Alphabet, 1935, Simon and Schuster
  • Erasmus "The Praise of Folly" with a short life of the author by Gerard Willem Van Loon, 1942 . For the Classic Club, by Walter J.Black of New York.


  • Air-Storming (radio talk), 1935, Harcourt, Brace
  • Love me not, 1935
  • A World Divided is a World Lost, 1935
  • The Home of Mankind; the story of the world we live in, 1936
  • The Songs We Sing (with Grace Castagnetta), 1936, Simon and Schuster
  • The Arts, 1937, Simon and Schuster
  • Christmas Carols (with Grace Castagnetta), 1937, Simon and Schuster
  • Observations on the mystery of print and the work of Johann Gutenberg, 1937
  • Our Battle: Being One Man's Answer to "My Battle" by Adolf Hitler, 1938
  • How to Look at Pictures, 1938
  • Folk Songs of Many Lands (with Grace Castagnetta), 1938
  • The Last of the Troubadours, 1939
  • The Songs America Sings (with Grace Castagnetta), 1939
  • My School Books, 1939
  • Invasion, 1940
  • The Story of the Pacific, 1940
  • The Life and Times of Bach, 1940
  • Good Tidings, 1941
  • Van Loon's Lives, 1942
  • Christmas Songs, 1942
  • The Message of the Bells, 1942
  • Fighters for Freedom: the Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson and Simon Bolivar, 1943
  • The Life and Times of Scipio Fulhaber, Chef de Cuisine, 1943
  • Adventures and Escapes of Gustavus Vasa, 1945
  • Report to Saint Peter - an unfinished, posthumously published autobiography, 1947

Books about Van Loon

  • Cornelis van Minnen (2005). Van Loon: Popular Historian, Journalist, and FDR Confidant, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7049-1.
  • Gerard Willem Van Loon (1972). The story of Hendrik Willem van Loon, Lippincott. ISBN 0-397-00844-9.
  • Erasmus with a short life of the author by Gerard Willem Van Loon (1972). The Praise of Folly, For the Classic Club, by Walter J.Black of New York.

Trivia

The Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini has composed a song, dedicated to the memory of his father. The song is titled "Van Loon" because Guccini's father loved Van Loon's books when he was young and appears in the album Signora Bovary.

External links


******The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Story of Mankind******

FOREWORD

For Hansje and Willem:


WHEN I was twelve or thirteen years old, an uncle of
mine who gave me my love for books and pictures promised
to take me upon a memorable expedition. I was to go with
him to the top of the tower of Old Saint Lawrence in Rotterdam.

And so, one fine day, a sexton with a key as large as that
of Saint Peter opened a mysterious door. ``Ring the bell,''
he said, ``when you come back and want to get out,'' and with
a great grinding of rusty old hinges he separated us from the
noise of the busy street and locked us into a world of new and
strange experiences.

For the first time in my life I was confronted by the phenomenon
of audible silence. When we had climbed the first
flight of stairs, I added another discovery to my limited
knowledge of natural phenomena--that of tangible darkness. A
match showed us where the upward road continued. We went
to the next floor and then to the next and the next until I had
lost count and then there came still another floor, and suddenly
we had plenty of light. This floor was on an even height with
the roof of the church, and it was used as a storeroom. Covered
with many inches of dust, there lay the abandoned symbols
of a venerable faith which had been discarded by the good
people of the city many years ago. That which had meant life
and death to our ancestors was here reduced to junk and rub-
bish. The industrious rat had built his nest among the carved
images and the ever watchful spider had opened up shop between
the outspread arms of a kindly saint.

The next floor showed us from where we had derived our
light. Enormous open windows with heavy iron bars made
the high and barren room the roosting place of hundreds of
pigeons. The wind blew through the iron bars and the air was
filled with a weird and pleasing music. It was the noise of the
town below us, but a noise which had been purified and cleansed
by the distance. The rumbling of heavy carts and the clinking
of horses' hoofs, the winding of cranes and pulleys, the hissing
sound of the patient steam which had been set to do the work
of man in a thousand different ways--they had all been
blended into a softly rustling whisper which provided a beautiful
background for the trembling cooing of the pigeons.

Here the stairs came to an end and the ladders began. And
after the first ladder (a slippery old thing which made one feel
his way with a cautious foot) there was a new and even greater
wonder, the town-clock. I saw the heart of time. I could hear
the heavy pulsebeats of the rapid seconds--one--two--three--
up to sixty. Then a sudden quivering noise when all the wheels
seemed to stop and another minute had been chopped off eternity.
Without pause it began again--one--two--three--until
at last after a warning rumble and the scraping of many wheels
a thunderous voice, high above us, told the world that it was
the hour of noon.

On the next floor were the bells. The nice little bells and
their terrible sisters. In the centre the big bell, which made
me turn stiff with fright when I heard it in the middle of the
night telling a story of fire or flood. In solitary grandeur it
seemed to reflect upon those six hundred years during which
it had shared the joys and the sorrows of the good people of
Rotterdam. Around it, neatly arranged like the blue jars in
an old-fashioned apothecary shop, hung the little fellows, who
twice each week played a merry tune for the benefit of the
country-folk who had come to market to buy and sell and hear
what the big world had been doing. But in a corner--all alone
and shunned by the others--a big black bell, silent and stern,
the bell of death.

Then darkness once more and other ladders, steeper and
even more dangerous than those we had climbed before, and
suddenly the fresh air of the wide heavens. We had reached
the highest gallery. Above us the sky. Below us the city--
a little toy-town, where busy ants were hastily crawling hither
and thither, each one intent upon his or her particular business,
and beyond the jumble of stones, the wide greenness of the
open country.

It was my first glimpse of the big world.
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2009年1月7日 星期三

The Man on Mao's Right by Ji Chaozhu 冀朝鑄

The Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry

by Ji Chaozhu (Author)
The Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry

冀朝鑄

傅建中2008年9月12日在中時介紹過這位翻譯
周稱他為"洋娃娃"
我可能介紹過 待查

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Born in 1929 China to a privileged family of Communist sympathizers, Chaozhu has witnessed a country transform while catapulting to its newly-emergent centers of power. Chaozhu's memoir begins during the 1937 Japanese occupation, when his father sent him and his brothers to the U.S. to help raise money for the communists and get "a first-class education," after which they would return to "help build the new China." Returning to China in 1950, after dropping out of Harvard, Chaozhu began working as an interpreter in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, before rising to become a deputy director. After Nixon's ground-breaking 1972 visit to China, Chaozhu had several postings to the U.S. and was appointed as an Ambassador to the U.K. His last position was a 1991-94 stint as under-secretary-general of the United Nations. Chaozhu paints a vivid picture of life in China, both the extreme poverty (by 1958, 30 million Chinese had starved to death) and the civil unrest generated by Mao's draconian economic measures and purges of so-called dissidents. Chaozhu describes hard times but also exciting, eye-witness to history stories featuring Kissinger's and Nixon's first meetings with Enlai. This absorbing book should make an invaluable political (and personal) primer for anyone dealing with today's China.
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Product Description
No other narrative from within the corridors of power has offered as frank and intimate an account of the making of the modern Chinese nation as Ji Chaozhu’s The Man on Mao’s Right. Having served Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist leadership for two decades, and having become a key figure in China’s foreign policy, Ji now provides an honest, detailed account of the personalities and events that shaped today’s People’s Republic.

The youngest son of a prosperous government official, nine-year-old Ji and his family fled Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, escaping to America. Warmly received by his new country, Ji returned its embrace as he came of age in New York’s East Village and then attended Harvard University. But in 1950, after years of enjoying a life of relative ease while his countrymen suffered through war and civil strife, Ji felt driven by patriotism to volunteer to serve China in its conflict with his adoptive country in the Korean War.

Ji’s mastery of the English language and American culture launched his improbable career, eventually winning him the role of English interpreter for China’s two top leaders: Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong. With a unique blend of Chinese insight and American candor, Ji paints insightful portraits of the architects of modern China: the urbane, practical, and avuncular Zhou, the conscience of the People’s Republic; and the messianic, charismatic Mao, student of China’s ancient past–his country’s stern father figure.

In Ji’s memoir, he is an eyewitness to modern Chinese history, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Nixon summit, and numerous momentous events in Tiananmen Square. As he becomes caught up in political squabbles among radical factions, Ji’s past and charges against him of “incorrect” thinking subject him to scrutiny and suspicion. He is repeatedly sent to a collective farm to be “reeducated” by the peasants.

After the Mao years, Ji moves on to hold top diplomatic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom and then serves as under secretary-general of the United Nations. Today, he says, “The Chinese know America better than the Americans know China. The risk is that we misperceive each other.” This highly accessible insider’s chronicle of a struggling people within a developing powerhouse nation is also Ji Chaozhu’s dramatic personal story, certain to fascinate and enlighten Western readers.

A riveting biography and unique historical record, The Man on Mao’s Right recounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other. Ji Chaozhu played an important role in paving the way for what is destined to be known as the Chinese Century.

Praise for The Man on Mao’s Right

"Brave, beautifully written testimony . A true "fly-on-the-wall" account of the momentous changes in Chinese society and international relations over the last century."
--Kirkus Reviews

“It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders . . . . Highly recommended." —Library Journal, starred review
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2009年1月6日 星期二

Maria Montessori

Spotlight

Dr. Montessori in A Montessori School
Dr. Montessori in
A Montessori School
Jeff Bezos, Sergei Brin, George Clooney, Larry Page, Jimmy Wales and Gabriel García Márquez are all known for thinking outside the box. Perhaps it has something to do with the education they received using the Montessori method? A century ago today, Italy's first female physician, educator Maria Montessori, opened her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome. She believed that children have a natural ability and desire to learn and be creative, and was an outspoken proponent of children's rights.

Quote

"Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed." — Maria Montessori
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2009年1月5日 星期一

莱布尼茨研究

文化社会 | 2009.01.05

李文潮：最大的梦想是出版中文莱布尼茨选集

接受采访的李文潮教授
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 接受采访的李文潮教授

2008年底，在柏林的中国文化中心举行了莱布尼茨文集第四系列第六卷出版的新闻发布会，引人注目的不仅仅是德国前任总理施罗德的参与，还有本卷的主持人 李文潮教授。作为华人，能参与这样对德国学者来说也算是高难度的研究工作，实属难得。这一方面固然要得益于莱布尼茨对中国的关注和相关著述，另一方面也离 不开李文潮教授锲而不舍的努力。德国之声记者近日来到位于波茨坦的柏林-勃兰登堡科学院，采访了李文潮教授。

今天人们在提到莱布尼茨的时候，都将他视为天才，无论是政治、经济、法律、哲学，历史、语言、神学，还是数学、逻辑、医学、物理、地理等 等，甚至还包括中国历史、哲学和文学，莱布尼茨留下的二十多万张手稿几乎涉及了当时欧洲十七到十八世纪所有知识领域，这样的规模远非当代学者可以想像，以 至于当年一位普鲁士皇帝称赞莱布尼茨一人就是一个科学院。在手稿以及书信中，莱布尼茨使用了拉丁语、法语、德语、英语、荷兰语、意大利语以及俄语，如果把 这些三百多年前写成的文稿一张张铺在地上，总长度大约是六十公里，这无疑是欧洲历史上非常珍贵的科学文化遗产。从1907年开始，法国与德国开始联合着手 整理莱布尼茨的手稿，目前已经出版了四十八本文集，涉及八个系列。

1700年，莱布尼茨在柏林建立了普鲁士科学院，两德统一后，与前东德科学院合并为柏林-勃兰登堡科学院。格林兄弟、洪堡、爱因斯坦等都曾经是该科 学院的成员。从1907年开始，德国就着手出版莱布尼茨留下的手稿，其间虽然经历了战争、分裂，但是研究工作一直没有中断。目前德国有四个研究所主要负责 研究工作，分别位于柏林、波兹坦、哥廷根和明斯特，柏林-勃兰登堡科学院是其中历史最悠久的一家。莱布尼茨的大部分手稿被封存在汉诺威，而其他不少重要的 历史资料都被转移到了柏林-勃兰登堡科学院。

李文潮教授走上莱布尼茨研究之路也纯属偶然。他毕业于西安外国语学院，之后又在德国相继取得了硕士、博士学位，研究方向是日耳曼语言文学，并在柏林 理工大学取得教授资格，还曾在柏林自由大学授课。李教授说，在他攻读博士学位期间，主修欧洲十七世纪文化，接触到了关于耶稣会士的资料，并对此产生了兴 趣。而在研究十七世纪中欧文化交流时，莱布尼茨无疑是两者的交汇点，并且对后世产生了重大影响。在对莱布尼茨的研究中，李教授以莱布尼茨与中国关系作为重 点，并取得了丰硕的成果。2003年起，李教授正式参与柏林-勃兰登堡科学院莱布尼茨全集编辑部的工作，并担任工作组负责人。

莱布尼茨文稿Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 莱布尼茨文稿据 李教授介绍，莱布尼茨留下的二十多万文稿中除了有作者个人的思考、笔记，还包括一万五千多封与世界各地一千一百多人的通信，以及大约一百本作者参阅批注过 的书籍，经过数次改动后，大部分稿件都面目全非，如今要把这些手稿整理出来，并根据其内容性质分类，然后按照时间顺序出版，实在是一件耗时耗力的事情。在 编辑过程中，编者还要严格保持当时的文字使用习惯，并对文稿中提到的人物、历史事件、地名等等进行考证和注释，如果在不同手稿中莱布尼茨提到同一个问题， 编者还需罗列不同出处，这些都增加了编攒工作的难度。李教授说，从以往的经验来看，一个受到良好的专业与语言训练的博士生大约需要三年的工作经验，才能单 独胜任自己的工作。要完成一本大约九百页的文集，三个专业工作人员需要三到四年的时间，耗费七十万欧元左右。

莱布尼茨一生涉猎广泛，从严格的形式逻辑科学到自然科学的各个领域以及神学、文学、笑话、宫廷应酬诗歌、古代法律文献等等，无所不包。在那个通讯不 发达的年代，他对位于东方的古老文明--中国，也充满了兴趣。李教授介绍说，早在1666年，莱布尼茨刚满20岁的时候，就在博士论文中提到了中国，他对 中国的文字充满兴趣，希望能从中获得灵感，对发明自己的普世语言提供帮助。而莱布尼茨最后一次提到中国，是在1716年与俄国使节阿莱斯金的通信中。在此 五十年间的手稿中，几乎每年都能找到与中国相关的论述，其中包括中国的哲学、历史、风俗、语言、政治等等许多领域。在《中国近事》的前言中，莱布尼茨写 到："人类最伟大的文明与最高雅的文化今天终于汇集在了我们大陆的两端，即欧洲和位于地球另一端--的如同'东方欧洲'的'Tschina'（中 国）"；"这一文明古国在人口数量上早已超过了欧洲，在很多方面，他们与欧洲各有千秋，在几乎是对等的竞争中，二者各有所长。"

李教授说，莱布尼茨对中国的了解主要来自于他与居住在中国的传教士的通信以及与欧洲汉学家的讨论。对当时崇尚开明君主制的莱布尼茨来说，中国的康熙 皇帝不仅"公正无私"、"仁民爱物"、"温和有节"，而且对来自于欧洲的科学知识的渴求几乎达到了难以置信的程度，这无疑符合他心目中理想的统治者形象。 李教授介绍，相比当时欧洲社会，中国是相对开明的，去中国传教的耶稣会士在中国发现的是文明和进步，而去南美的传教士则发现的是当地的原始和淳朴；所以他 们在中国宣讲亚里士多德，在南美主要是建医院和学校。这也代表了后来十九世纪欧洲对待外来文化的两种态度。莱布尼茨对中国文化的评价很高，曾写到："如果 推举一位智者来评判哪个民族最杰出，而不是评判哪个女神最美妙，那么他将会把金苹果判给中国人。"

莱布尼茨Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 莱布尼茨莱 布尼茨认为，欧洲的传教士为中国人带去了欧洲的数学和哲学知识，中国人善于学习，融汇中西，必将很快超过欧洲，而欧洲人也应该从中国获得对自己有利的知 识。在莱布尼茨看来，中国几千年的历史几乎没有中断，其中必然记载了很多人类丰富的知识，而欧洲由于民族迁徙或是战争原因，这些记载都不存在了。如果能从 中国历史的记载中找到这些知识，再为欧洲所用，那将是非常可观的。中欧通过互相交流，互相学习，最终带动全人类的进步。李教授说，从这点上看， 莱布尼茨的视野非常宽阔， 这些观点即使在今天看来也具有现代意义。十七世纪时，美国和俄罗斯都尚未真正登上世界舞台，所以当时提到欧洲和中国，就算是代表了全球文明，莱布尼茨设想 的是通过欧洲与中国的发展，带动中间的俄罗斯，李教授说，这可以算是三百年前的全球化概念了。

在对待外来文化方面，李教授认为当时欧洲的立场比如今要开明。他介绍说，在启蒙运动早期，欧洲比较开放，因为当时欧洲自己也在寻找一种发展模式，他 们从外来文化中吸收了很多东西。莱布尼茨提出了两个对待外来文化的原则，一个是友善原则：在吃不准一个外来文化的时候，尽量把对方当作善意的；还有一个是 保守原则：在未判断出对方的性质前，不要轻举妄动，秉承这两个原则就不会伤害双方关系。到了启蒙运动中后期，欧洲对外来文化的态度主要是批判地接受，在确 定了理性原则之后，欧洲人认为自己已经找到了处理问题的良方，所以不需要外界的帮助，这反倒造成了自我封闭。

对莱布尼茨手稿的研究，已经进行了一百年了，李教授估计，他们至少还需要五十年左右，项目结束后，将有一百二十多本巨著出版。目前德国、美国、法国 是研究莱布尼茨的主力军，日本也出版了一套十本的莱布尼茨选集日文版。中国的北京外国语大学和武汉大学也有专门的研究机构，目前中国在相关方面的研究主要 集中在莱布尼茨对中国的思考，其他方面涉及较少。李教授说："莱布尼茨的文稿是全人类的思想宝藏，作为从事莱布尼茨研究的华人，我最大的梦想，就是能在中 国出版一套十到十五本的莱布尼茨选集中文版！"

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