Do you think that wordsmiths are a little peculiar? Does fiddling around with vowels and consonants all day drive our eccentricities, or were we just born that way? Most of us probably aren’t as strange as we think we are ... relatively speaking, of course!
Here are some examples of famous authors who definitely had some, shall we say, unusual methods for keeping the words flowing.
• Victor Hugo wrote both Les Misèrables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in the nude so he wouldn’t be tempted to leave his house. He even had his valet hide his clothes.
• Demosthenes shaved half his head so that he would be too embarrassed to leave home until his writing was finished.
• Honoré de Balzac would down black coffee so he could write for long stretches—often for more than 48 hours at a time. (Hey, what’s weird about that?)
• Charles Dickens would go for walks (20 miles or so every day) and try to get lost in order to spark his creativity.
• James Joyce felt that it was a productive day if he composed just three sentences. (How would your manager feel about that?)
• Vladimir Nabokov wrote on index cards in no particular order. One of his books consisted of 2,000 index cards.
• William Wordsworth would recite his poetry to his dog while taking strolls. If the dog barked or was upset as he read, he would rewrite the draft.
• Friedrich Schiller kept a drawer full of rotten apples in his study. His wife claimed that he could not live or work without the awful aroma.
• Alexandre Dumas could only write poetry on yellow paper, articles on pink paper, and novels on blue paper.
• Edgar Allan Poe ’s beloved cat, Catterina, would sit on Poe’s shoulders while he wrote.
• French novelist Colette always plucked fleas from her bulldog until she was ready to write.
• Gertrude Stein claimed that she wrote best while seated in a parked car.
• Agatha Christie wrote while taking baths and eating apples.
• For many years, Maya Angelou only worked in the plainest of hotel rooms, solely accompanied by a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards, and a bottle of sherry.
• Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on 120 feet of taped-together paper so that his stream-of-consciousness writing style would not be interrupted by the need to add new sheets of paper to the typewriter.
• T.S. Eliot would tint his face green with powder to look like he was dead.
注解:
1. wordsmith: 擅長文字的人,作家。
2. fiddle around: 虛度光陰;vowel: 元音字母;consonant: 輔音字母;eccentricity: 古怪,怪癖。
3. Victor Hugo: 維克多•雨果(1802—1885),法國作家,19世紀前期積極浪漫主義文學運動的代表作家;Les Misèrables: 《悲慘世界》,是雨果于1862年所發(fā)表的一部長篇小說,19世紀最著名的小說之一,小說涵蓋了拿破侖戰(zhàn)爭和之后的十幾年的時間;The Hunchback of Notre-Dame: 《巴黎圣母院》, 維克多•雨果的又一著名作品,故事的場景設定在1482年的巴黎圣母院,內(nèi)容環(huán)繞一名吉卜賽少女愛絲梅拉達和由副主教克洛德•弗洛羅養(yǎng)大的圣母院駝背敲鐘人卡西莫多;nude: 裸體的。
4. valet: 男子的貼身男仆。
5. Demosthenes: 德摩斯梯尼(前384—前322年),古雅典雄辯家、民主派政治家,早年從伊薩學習修辭,后教授辭學。積極從事政治活動,極力反對馬其頓入侵希臘。后在雅典組織反馬其頓運動,失敗后自殺身亡。
6. Honoré de Balzac: 奧諾雷•德•巴爾扎克(1799—1850),法國小說家,被稱為現(xiàn)代法國小說之父;down: v.(尤指大口或快速地)喝下。
7. weired: 古怪的,異乎尋常的。
8. Charles Dickens: 查爾斯•狄更斯(1812—1870),19世紀英國批判現(xiàn)實主義小說家。狄更斯特別注意描寫生活在英國社會底層的“小人物”的生活遭遇,深刻地反映了當時英國復雜的社會現(xiàn)實,為英國批判現(xiàn)實主義文學的開拓和發(fā)展做出了卓越的貢獻;spark: 激發(fā),激勵。
9. James Joyce: 詹姆斯•喬伊斯(1882—1941),愛爾蘭作家、詩人,20世紀最偉大的作家之一,后現(xiàn)代文學的奠基者之一,其作品及“意識流”思想對世界文壇影響巨大;compose: 創(chuàng)作(樂曲、詩歌等)。
10. Vladimir Nabokov: 弗拉基米爾•納博科夫(1899—1977),是一名俄裔美籍作家,1899年出生于俄羅斯圣彼得堡。他在美國創(chuàng)作了他的文學作品《洛麗塔》,但真正使他成為一個著名散文家的是他用英語寫出的作品。他同樣也在昆蟲學、象棋等領域有所貢獻。
11. William Wordsworth : 威廉•華茲華斯,英國詩人;taking a stroll: 散步。
12. Friedrich Schiller: 弗里德里希•席勒(1759—1805),德國18世紀著名詩人、哲學家、歷史學家和劇作家,德國啟蒙文學的代表人物之一。
13. awful: 糟糕的,可怕的;aroma: 氣味。
14. Alexandre Dumas: 亞歷山大•仲馬(1802—1870),又稱大仲馬,法國19世紀浪漫主義作家。大仲馬各種著作達300卷之多,以小說和劇作為主。代表作有:《亨利第三及其宮廷》(劇本)、《基督山伯爵》(長篇小說)、《三個火槍手》(長篇小說)等。
15. Edgar Allan Poe: 埃德加•愛倫•坡(1809—1849)19世紀美國詩人、小說家和文學評論家,美國浪漫主義思潮時期的重要成員。
16. Colette:科萊特(1873—1954),法國女作家,出版了超過五十本小說,多數(shù)帶有自傳色彩,其基調(diào)大致可分為田園牧歌式的清晰自然與情欲愛恨的苦痛掙扎、內(nèi)心糾葛兩類。其創(chuàng)作風格細膩入微,并且驚人的直率。她最出名的作品GIGI,不僅多次改編為電影、舞臺劇,而且在美國也引起了轟動;pluck: 拔掉,捉住;flea: 跳蚤;bulldog: 斗牛犬。
17. Gertrude Stein: 格特魯?shù)?bull;斯泰因(1874—1946),美國作家與詩人。
18. Agatha Christie: 阿加莎•克里斯蒂(1890—1976),英國著名女偵探小說家、劇作家,三大推理文學宗師之一。
19. 瑪婭•安杰洛多年來只在酒店最底層的房間內(nèi)工作,陪伴她的只有一本字典、一本《圣經(jīng)》、一副撲克牌還有一瓶雪利酒。Maya Angelou: 瑪婭•安杰洛,(1928— ),美國文壇最 耀眼的黑人女作家和詩人。出版過10部暢銷書。她是美國有名的演員、導演、制片人和影視 劇作家,是好萊塢第一黑人女導演。
20. 杰克•凱魯亞克的《在路上》這本小說寫在一捆120頁厚的紙上,這樣他的意識流派寫作風格就不會因為需要往打字機中添加新的紙張而被打斷。Jack Kerouac: 杰克•凱魯亞克(1922—1969),是美國“垮掉的一代”的代表人物。他的主要作品有自傳體小說《在路上》、《達摩流浪者》、《荒涼天使》、《孤獨旅者》等。他以離經(jīng)叛道、驚世駭俗的生活方式與文學主張,震撼了20世紀五六十年代美國主流文化的價值觀與社會觀。凱魯亞克在小說中創(chuàng)造了一種全新的自動寫作手法——“狂野散文”; stream-of-consciousness: 意識流。
21. T.S. Eliot: 艾略特(1888—1965),是一位詩人、劇作家和文學批評家,詩歌現(xiàn)代派運動領袖。