两本书的书评访谈

重点内容

听力原文 / 对话稿

Presenter: Today we're looking at the darker side of literature with two books about not-so-happy families. And we've got writer Helen Slade and book critic Anna Kimura to talk us through them. First up, we're looking at *Her Mother's Daughter* by Alice Fitzgerald, a novel written from two points of view, one of a child and the other of her very troubled mother. Helen, I have to be honest. I found this one hard to read. It's very well written but, well, how did you find it?

Helen: I know what you mean, but I literally couldn't put it down and stayed up till three in the morning to finish it. There's something about immersing yourself in a family this flawed, this damaged, that's compelling. You'd never want to be in that family yourself, but that's what reading is about, isn't it? Wearing someone else's shoes for a while without ever having to live their reality. [比喻 "wearing someone else's shoes" 表达"体验别人的处境"，语速稍快]

Presenter: You surprise me! The families in your own books are a million miles away from this one.

Helen: Yeah, my readers can always be sure they're going to get a happy ending. Which you definitely ... I don't want to give too much away here, but you definitely don't feel like a happy ending is coming for these characters.

Presenter: OK, so don't mention the ending, but can you just describe for listeners what the book is about?

Helen: So, it's about a family with secrets. The mother has hidden her troubled childhood from her husband and her two children but, of course, it's shaped her entire personality and how she behaves as a mother and as a wife. Which is especially obvious when we're reading the sections told in the child's voice, even though the little girl herself doesn't understand the meaning of everything she's seeing.

Presenter: For me, what was really so shocking was less what happened to the mother when she was a child but how the mother treated her own children. Why is that, do you think?

Helen: I think we're all programmed to see mothers as something sacred and pure. As a child she was mistreated by her father, and in some ways we're not that shocked by that, which is a sad thing in itself, and her own mother didn't help her. As a reader we're less affected by that, I think, because that part of the story is revealed to us in the mother's voice, the adult voice. But the reason the way she treats her own child is so much more shocking is that the child is telling us about it and we sympathise with her. It's very clever how the author plays on our natural instincts to protect a child.

Presenter: Though we do feel sorry for the mother too. Or, at least, I did.

Helen: It's hard not to. She's trapped in her own unhappiness.

Presenter: And we're trapped right there with her as the reader. It made me wonder, Anna, why is it that miserable books like this one sell so well?

Anna: Because all of us have families. I suppose the books play out things we all see in much smaller ways in our own family lives.

Presenter: The other hard-hitting book this week is *We Need to Talk About Kevin* by Lionel Shriver. Now there's a family who have a problem!

Anna: They definitely do. Very few people will ever have a killer as a teenage son like the narrator in the book, but we can all identify with the challenges and often terrifying reality of raising teenagers!

Presenter: So can you give us the lowdown on *Kevin*, then, Anna?

Anna: This book is written from the point of view of the mother in letters she's writing to her husband, Kevin's father. Again, we shouldn't say too much about the ending, but the way the author uses the letters is very clever.

Presenter: I have to admit, I really enjoyed this book. It's a difficult topic, but it was much easier to read than *Her Mother's Daughter*.

Anna: As Helen said before, it's about the voice of the narrator. There's no child's voice and, in this story, the victims in many ways are the adults, though, of course, Kevin's sister is a victim of her brother's evil.

Helen: Yes, and the idea of where 'evil' comes from is a theme that comes out in both books. If you choose to call it 'evil' that is. I prefer to describe it as a complete lack of empathy. The mother in *Her Mother's Daughter* had a terrible childhood, but Kevin's from a happy home and good parents.

Presenter: Is he though? The mother often admits she found motherhood hard. Aren't we supposed to think she might have caused Kevin to turn out the way he does? Just like in *Her Mother's Daughter*.

Anna: Both books certainly look at how the mistakes of the parents affect children. And this is another reason we relate to these books. Parents are always worrying if they're doing a good job.

英文原文之后，附上对应的中文翻译：

主持人：今天我们要聊文学作品比较黑暗的一面，两本讲「不太幸福的家庭」的书。我们请到了作家 Helen Slade 和书评人 Anna Kimura 来跟大家聊聊。首先是 Alice Fitzgerald 的《Her Mother's Daughter》，这本小说用两个视角写成，一个是孩子的视角，一个是她那位问题重重的母亲的视角。Helen，说实话，我觉得这本书挺难读下去的，写得很好，但……你读的时候感觉如何？ Helen：我明白你的意思，但我真的是一口气读完，读到凌晨三点才停下来。沉浸在一个这么有缺陷、这么受伤的家庭里，有一种莫名的吸引力。你绝对不会想真的活在那样的家庭里，但这不就是读书的意义吗？暂时穿上别人的鞋子走一段路，却不用真的去过他们的人生。 主持人：这倒让我意外！你自己写的书里的家庭，跟这本书里的家庭简直是天差地别。 Helen：是啊，我的读者都很确定会看到一个幸福结局。而这本书……我不想剧透太多,但你完全不会觉得这些角色会有幸福结局。 主持人：好，那就不提结局了，能不能跟听众简单说说这本书讲的是什么？ Helen：这本书讲的是一个有秘密的家庭。母亲把自己不幸的童年一直隐藏着，没告诉丈夫和两个孩子，但这段童年当然塑造了她整个人的性格，也影响了她当母亲、当妻子的方式。这一点在用孩子的口吻讲述的段落里特别明显，尽管那个小女孩自己并不理解她所看到的一切意味着什么。 主持人：对我来说，真正让我震惊的，不是母亲小时候发生的事，而是母亲对待自己孩子的方式。你觉得为什么会这样？ Helen：我觉得我们都被训练成把母亲看作某种神圣纯洁的存在。她小时候被父亲虐待，某种程度上我们没那么震惊，这本身就挺让人难过的，而且她自己的母亲也没帮她。作为读者，我们对这部分没那么有感触，我想是因为这部分故事是用母亲的口吻、成年人的口吻讲出来的。但她对待自己孩子的方式让人更震惊，是因为这部分是孩子讲出来的，我们会同情这个孩子。作者很巧妙地利用了我们保护孩子的天性。 主持人：不过我们也会同情这位母亲,至少我是这样。 Helen：很难不同情她，她被困在自己的不幸里。 主持人：而我们作为读者也跟她一起被困住了。这让我很好奇，Anna，为什么这种让人揪心的书反而卖得这么好？ Anna：因为我们每个人都有自己的家庭。我猜这些书演绎的,其实是我们在自己家庭生活里也会以更小的规模看到的事情。 主持人：这周另一本很沉重的书是 Lionel Shriver 的《We Need to Talk About Kevin》。这个家庭的问题可不小！ Anna：确实不小。很少有人真的会像书里的叙述者那样,有一个变成杀人犯的十几岁儿子,但抚养青少年那种常常令人胆战心惊的现实,我们都能感同身受。 主持人：那能不能给我们讲讲《Kevin》大概是怎样的，Anna？ Anna：这本书是用母亲写给丈夫（也就是 Kevin 的父亲）的一封封信的形式写成的。同样地,我们不该多说结局,但作者用书信体的方式写得非常巧妙。 主持人：说实话，我很喜欢这本书。主题很沉重，但比《Her Mother's Daughter》好读多了。 Anna：正如 Helen 之前说的，关键在于叙述者的口吻。这本书里没有孩子的视角，某种程度上，故事里的受害者更多是成年人，当然，Kevin 的姐姐也是她弟弟邪恶行为的受害者。 Helen：对，「邪恶」到底从哪里来，是这两本书都有的主题——如果你愿意称之为「邪恶」的话。我更愿意说这是一种彻底的同理心缺失。《Her Mother's Daughter》里的母亲有一个很糟糕的童年，但 Kevin 是在一个幸福的家庭、有很好的父母的环境里长大的。 主持人：真的是这样吗？那位母亲常常承认自己觉得当母亲很不容易，我们不是也该想到，也许是她导致了 Kevin 变成这样？就像《Her Mother's Daughter》里那样。 Anna：这两本书确实都在探讨父母的错误如何影响孩子，这也是我们对这些书产生共鸣的另一个原因——父母总是在担心自己有没有做得够好。

关键句 & 生词

听力技巧

• 练习跟住三人对话中「谁提出观点、谁补充、谁反驳」的走向——主持人常常故意抛出尖锐问题（"Why is that, do you think?"）来推动 Helen 和 Anna 深入解释。
• 留意口语中大量的自我修正和插入语（"I don't want to give too much away here"、"Or, at least, I did"），这些不影响主干信息，但会打断句子的连贯性，要练习一边听一边过滤掉这类插入语。
• 训练抓「抽象论点」的能力：整段对话没有具体情节细节，讨论的都是「叙事视角如何影响读者感受」这种抽象概念，要靠上下文而不是单个生词来理解论点。

Sources

Blog / Website：

1. An interview about two books – LearnEnglish (British Council)