社長，終究沒能在此世續談邱吉爾或《平家物語》了。
這到底是 the beginning of the end 還是 the end of the beginning 呢？(still Churchill)
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草蛇灰線，預先藏埋。記憶纏迷、有待梳整，約莫是九一一事件前後或在高中圖書館初識溫斯頓．邱吉爾，好一陣子陷入這英倫雄獅的人格世界。2002 年，高二，書店（頂溪誠品，那時還在！）欣逢左岸出版《二戰回憶錄》六巨冊，四千八百元，（大概是）紅包湊合零花錢，狠狠扛回家，至那時為止最高的單次購書開銷。雙立盒、三加三共六卷精裝，紀念碑尺度。重得要死，開心到死。當初依稀彷彿記得出版推手名字是姓郭的先生。選了 Winston 為英文名，至今。未曾想，多年以後，進了出版業。伏脈二十年，直到 2023、24，奇緣流轉，我們在此相遇。（感謝前、中期牽線的眾前輩）
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品牌成立前，多次半閒聊式籌備小談。九樓那間辦公室，木質調，現代多寶齋、古靈閣，似有什麼山中精怪力量（？）浮流空間四方。物之光暈。交談間，眼神總趁空檔飄晃，偷瞄胡亂入眼的種種「看似厲害的小物」。那些空檔，可能是您選換黑膠片、補添高山茶的瞬刻。文卷，圖冊，杯具，茶碗。大中小櫃的稜邊。意象過度密集，最終視線總落在那片「能面牆」。
老邱作品、傳記、文獻版本交鋒，暢爽對決。木色書櫃條格錯落，全套《馬爾博羅公爵傳》泛黃書脊若隱若現。《倫道夫勳爵》、《英語民族史》、《世界危機》、《二戰回憶錄》、《河流戰爭》、《我的早年生活》。邱書版本學，您畢竟早積厚發，原典一冊不漏，整套整套地收。這方面我認輸。是對手，是知音。《Young Winston》的影視版本考銓，似乎尚未有結論？
談至高昂處，純然愛書人時光（另類「純愛」？）。終歸要說回現實面，卻都只剩最後五分鐘。數字計量、業績目標析解，總是，收筆匆匆。
有一回散會前，話題捲入《平家物語》壇之浦的波濤，我推薦有機會可去下關看看先帝祭。您立刻說「多寶格」裡有一片壇浦彈唱 CD，當場沒能翻到；回程路上，訊息已來：「剛送走你就找到壇浦之戰的音樂了。」鶴田錦史的〈壇の浦〉。極品。
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獅鷲剛成立第三天，您打來交託任務，竟無關提點品牌事項或排定會議，而是請我找人將邱吉爾諾貝爾文學獎瑞典學院授獎辭中譯，暫作自讀之用，譯費由您帳上直扣。那篇確實精采（感謝優秀譯者）。您讀後甚歡，說要「立刻再讀第二次」。幸好，這件事沒留下遺憾。
您常引用論者言，「邱吉爾寫別人比寫自己更精采」，我們於是評估了邱翁寫同代人物群像的《Great Contemporaries》（乃至 Boris Johnson 寫的邱）。最終，我們都，壯志未酬。原文書還在我這就是。
便當會時眾人談及軍事戰史、二戰、突出部，我推了「獲頒文學獎的戰史書寫」《解密突出部之役》。「啊哩呀勾屋某？」「屋喔，哇欸勾鐵吼力。」家中尚有餘書，當初始終留在辦公桌左方突出部，隨時準備巧遇相贈。卻再無合宜機會。書也還留著。
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我可能至少還有一件事可做。關於您多次提到的那段邱吉爾家族某成員墓誌銘，意思大約是「這個人一生犯了不少錯，而他自己都知道」，您很欣賞。忘記出自哪位「邱家成員」，記得當下亦無定論；總想尋回原出處，目前線索繁多不明。我會想辦法查得清楚點。
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永遠不必美化無緣發生的世界版本。卻不禁想，若能早些相遇？
那些時刻會深記。謝謝老郭，待到天堂時，再聊老邱吧。時間應該會很夠。
一路平安。To our "finest hour".
AI Overview
Award ceremony speech
Presentation Speech by S. Siwertz, Member of the Swedish Academy
Very seldom have great statesmen and warriors also been great writers. One thinks of Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, and even Napoleon, whose letters to Josephine during the first Italian campaign certainly have passion and splendour. But the man who can most readily be compared with Sir Winston Churchill is Disraeli, who also was a versatile author. It can be said of Disraeli as Churchill says of Rosebery, that «he flourished in an age of great men and small events». He was never subjected to any really dreadful ordeals. His writing was partly a political springboard, partly an emotional safety valve. Through a series of romantic and self-revealing novels, at times rather difficult to read, he avenged himself for the humiliation and setbacks that he, the Jewish stranger in an England ruled by aristocrats, suffered despite his fantastic career. He was not a great writer but a great actor, who played his leading part dazzlingly. He could very well repeat Augustus’ words of farewell: «Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over!»
Churchill’s John Bull profile stands out effectively against the elder statesman’s chalk-white, exotic mask with the black lock of hair on the forehead. The conservative Disraeli revered the English way of life and tradition which Churchill, radical in many respects, has in his blood, including steadfastness in the midst of the storm and the resolute impetus which marks both word and deed. He wears no mask, shows no sign of cleavage, has no complex, enigmatic nature. The analytical morbidezza, without which the modern generation finds it hard to imagine an author, is foreign to him. He is a man for whom reality’s block has not fallen apart. There, simply, lies the world with its roads and goals under the sun, the stars, and the banners. His prose is just as conscious of the goal and the glory as a runner in the stadium. His every word is half a deed. He is heart and soul a late Victorian who has been buffeted by the gale, or rather one who chose of his own accord to breast the storm.
Churchill’s political and literary achievements are of such magnitude that one is tempted to resort to portray him as a Caesar who also has the gift of Cicero’s pen. Never before has one of history’s leading figures been so close to us by virtue of such an outstanding combination. In his great work about his ancestor, Marlborough, Churchill writes, «Words are easy and many, while great deeds are difficult and rare.» Yes, but great, living, and persuasive words are also difficult and rare. And Churchill has shown that they too can take on the character of great deeds.
It is the exciting and colourful side of Churchill’s writing which perhaps first strikes the reader. Besides much else, My Early Life (1930) is also one of the world’s most entertaining adventure stories. Even a very youthful mind can follow with the keenest pleasure the hero’s spirited start in life as a problem child in school, as a polo-playing lieutenant in the cavalry (he was considered too dense for the infantry), and as a war correspondent in Cuba, in the Indian border districts, in the Sudan, and in South Africa during the Boer War. Rapid movement, undaunted judgments, and a lively perception distinguish him even here. As a word-painter the young Churchill has not only verve but visual acuteness. Later he took up painting as a hobby, and in Thoughts and Adventures (1932) discourses charmingly on the joy it has given him. He loves brilliant colours and feels sorry for the poor brown ones. Nevertheless, Churchill paints better with words. His battle scenes have a matchless colouring. Danger is man’s oldest mistress and in the heat of action the young officer was fired to an almost visionary clear-sightedness. On a visit to Omdurman many years ago I discovered how the final struggle in the crushing of the Mahdi’s rebellion, as it is depicted in The River War (1899), was branded on my memory. I could see in front of me the dervish hordes brandishing their spears and guns, the ochre-yellow sand ramparts shot to pieces, the Anglo-Egyptian troops’ methodical advance, and the cavalry charge which nearly cost Churchill his life.
Even old battles which must be dug out of dusty archives are described by Churchill with awesome clarity. Trevelyan masterfully depicts Marlborough’s campaigns, but in illusory power it is doubtful that Churchill’s historic battle scenes can be surpassed. Take, for instance, the Battle of Blenheim. One follows in fascination the moves of the bloody chess game, one sees the cannon balls plough their furrows through the compact squares, one is carried away by the thundering charge and fierce hand-to-hand fighting of the cavalry; and after putting the book down one can waken in the night in a cold sweat, imagining he is right in the front rank of English redcoats who, without wavering, stand among the piles of dead and wounded loading their rifles and firing their flashing salvoes.
But Churchill became far more than a soldier and a delineator of war. Even in the strict but brilliant school of the parliamentary gamble for power he was, perhaps from the outset, something of a problem child. The young Hotspur learned, however, to bridle his impetuosity, and he quickly developed into an eminent political orator with the same gift of repartee as Lloyd George. His sallies, often severe, excluded neither warmth nor chivalry. In his alternation between Toryism and radicalism, he followed in the footsteps of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. He has also portrayed the latter’s short, uneasy, tragically interrupted political and personal life in a work which has an undisputed place of honour in England’s profuse biographical literature.
Even the First World War, despite all setbacks, meant a vast expansion for Churchill as both politician and writer. In his historical works the personal and the factual elements have been intimately blended. He knows what he is talking about. In gauging the dynamics of events, his profound experience is unmistakable. He is the man who has himself been through the fire, taken risks, and withstood extreme pressure. This gives his words a vibrating power. Occasionally, perhaps, the personal side gets the upper hand. Balfour called The World Crisis (1923-29) «Winston’s brilliant autobiography, disguised as world history.» With all due respect to archives and documents, there is something special about history written by a man who has himself helped to make it.
In his great book on the Duke of Marlborough (1933-38), whose life’s work is so similar to Churchill’s own, he makes an intrepid attack on his ancestor’s detractors. I do not know what professional historians say of his polemic against Macaulay, but these diatribes against the great general’s persistent haters and revilers are certainly diverting and temperamental.
The Marlborough book is not only a series of vivid battle scenes and a skillful defence of the statesman and warrior. It is also a penetrating study of an enigmatic and unique personality; it shows that Churchill, in addition to all else, is capable of real character-drawing. He returns again and again to the confusing mixture in Marlborough of methodical niggardliness and dazzling virtuosity: «His private fortune was amassed», he says, «upon the same principles as marked the staff-work of his campaigns, and was a part of the same design. It was only in love or on the battlefield that he took all risks. In these supreme exaltations he was swept from his system and rule of living, and blazed resplendent with the heroic virtues. In his marriage and in his victories the worldly prudence, the calculation, the reinsurance, which regulated his ordinary life and sustained his strategy, fell from him like a too heavily embroidered cloak, and the genius within sprang forth in sure and triumphant command.» In his military enthusiasm Churchill forgets for a moment that Marlborough’s famous and dearly loved Sarah was by no means one to let herself be ordered about. But it is a wonderful passage.
Churchill regretted that he had never been able to study at Oxford. He had to devote his leisure hours to educating himself. But there are certainly no educational gaps noticeable in his mature prose. Take, for example, Great Contemporaries (1937), one of his most charming books. He is said to have moulded his style on Gibbon, Burke, and Macaulay, but here he is supremely himself What a deft touch and at the same time what a fund of human knowledge, generosity, and gay malice are in this portrait gallery!
Churchill’s reaction to Bernard Shaw is very amusing, a piquant meeting between two of England’s greatest literary personalities. Churchill cannot resist poking fun at Shaw’s blithely irresponsible talk and flippancy, which contrasted with the latter’s fundamental gravity. Half amused, half appalled, he winces at the way in which the incorrigibly clowning genius was forever tripping himself up and turning somersaults between the most extreme antitheses. It is the contrast between the writer, who must at all costs create surprises, and the statesman, whose task it is to meet and master them.
It is not easy to sum up briefly the greatness of Churchill’s style. He says of his old friend, the Liberal statesman, John Morley, «Though in conversation he paraded and manœuvred nimbly and elegantly around his own convictions, offering his salutations and the gay compliments of old-time war to the other side, [he] always returned to his fortified camp to sleep.» As a stylist Churchill himself, despite his mettlesome chivalry, is not prone to such amiable arabesques. He does not beat about the bush, but is a man of plain speaking. His fervour is realistic, his striking – power is tempered only by broad-mindedness and humour. He knows that a good story tells itself. He scorns unnecessary frills and his metaphors are rare but expressive.
Behind Churchill the writer is Churchill the orator – hence the resilience and pungency of his phrases. We often characterize ourselves unconsciously through the praise we give others. Churchill, for instance, says of another of his friends, Lord Birkenhead, «As he warmed to his subject, there grew that glow of conviction and appeal, instinctive and priceless, which constitutes true eloquence.» The words might with greater justification have been said of Churchill himself.
The famous desert warrior, Lawrence of Arabia, the author of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is another who has both made and written history. Of him Churchill says, «Just as an aeroplane only flies by its speed and pressure against the air, so he flew best and easiest in the hurricane.» It is again striking how Churchill here too speaks of the same genius that carried his own words through the storm of events.
Churchill’s mature oratory is swift, unerring in its aim, and moving in its grandeur. There is the power which forges the links of history. Napoleon’s proclamations were often effective in their lapidary style. But Churchill’s eloquence in the fateful hours of freedom and human dignity was heart-stirring in quite another way. With his great speeches he has, perhaps, himself erected his most enduring monument.
Lady Churchill – The Swedish Academy expresses its joy at your presence and asks you to convey to Sir Winston a greeting of deep respect. A literary prize is intended to cast lustre over the author, but here it is the author who gives lustre to the prize. I ask you now to accept, on behalf of your husband, the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature from the hands of His Majesty the King.
Explore prizes and laureates
| Author | Winston Churchill |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | short biographies |
| Genre | Military history, Biography |
| Publisher | Thornton Butterworth Ltd (1937). Odhams Press Ltd (1947). |
| Publication date | 1937 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | hardcover |
| Pages | 307 |
Great Contemporaries is a collection of 25 short biographical essays about famous people, written by Winston Churchill.
The original collection was published in 1937 and included 21 essays mainly written between 1928 and 1931. Four were added to the book in the 1939 edition, about Lord Fisher, Charles Stewart Parnell, Lord Baden-Powell and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1941 the essays on Boris Savinkov and Leon Trotsky were removed from editions published at that time, since they had been opponents of Joseph Stalin, who as leader of Soviet Union was now an ally of Britain against Germany in World War II, and the article on Roosevelt was removed in 1942 when America also became an ally of Britain with Roosevelt as president. The Odhams edition of 1947 reinstated the three essays after the war.
Other subjects of the essays were Earl of Rosebery, Kaiser Wilhelm II, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Chamberlain, Sir John French, John Morley, Hindenburg, H. H. Asquith, Lawrence of Arabia, the Earl of Birkenhead, Marshal Foch, Alfonso XIII, Douglas Haig, Arthur James Balfour, Adolf Hitler, George Nathaniel Curzon, Philip Snowden, Georges Clemenceau, and George V.
- First Publication: The book was originally released in 1937 with 21 essays written mainly between 1928 and 1931.
- Expanded Editions: Four more essays were added in 1939, including profiles of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lord Baden-Powell.
- Wartime Changes: During World War II, essays on figures like Leon Trotsky and Roosevelt were temporarily removed or adjusted due to shifting international alliances, then restored in the 1947 edition. [1]
- Politicians & Leaders: Adolf Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Joseph Chamberlain.
- Writers & Thinkers: George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells.
- Military Figures: Lawrence of Arabia and Douglas Haig. [1]
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