The Shadowland of Dreams原文和翻译

1、The Shadowland of Dreams 梦想的阴暗之面 Many people cherish the fond dream of becoming a writer but not many are able to see their dream come true. Alex Haley also wanted to be a writer and he succeeded. Read the following for reasons of his success.许多人怀有美好的愿望，期望能成为作家，但是能够梦想成真的人不多。艾力克斯 哈利也想成为作家，可是他成功了。阅读下面

2、这篇文章，看一看他成功的原因。Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there's a big difference between "being a writer" and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at a typ

3、ewriter. "You've got to want to write," I say to them, "not want to be a writer."许多青年人对我说，他们想成为作家。我一直鼓励这样的人，但是我也向他们解释“成为作家”和写作之间存在着巨大的差别。多数情况下这些年轻人梦寐以求的是财富与名誉，从未想到要孤身一人长久地坐在打字机旁。“你们渴望的应该是写作，”我对他们说，“而不应该是当作家。”The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying aff

4、air. For every writer kissed by fortune there are thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did. 事实上，写作是一项孤单寂寞而又收入微薄的工作。有一个被命运之神垂青的作家，就有成千上万个永远无法实现梦想的人。即使那些成功人士也经常受到长久的冷落，穷困不堪。我便是其中之一。When I left a 20-year-career in the C

5、oast Guard to become a freelance writer, I had no prospects at all. What I did have was a friend in New York City, George Sims, with whom I'd grown up in Henning, Tenn. George found me my home, a cleaned-out storage room in the Greenwich Village apartment building where he worked as superintende

6、nt. It didn't even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom. I immediately bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer. 我放弃了在海岸警卫队做了二十年的工作，为的是成为一名自由撰稿人，这时，我根本没有前途可言。我所拥有的只是一位住在纽约市的朋友，乔治 西姆斯，他和我是在田纳西州的赫宁一起长大的。乔治为我找了个家，位于格林威治村公寓大楼中的一间腾空的储藏室，而他是那幢大楼的管理员。房子里冷嗖嗖的，没有卫生间，不过这没什么。我马

7、上买了一台旧的手动打字机，感觉自己颇象一位名符其实的作家。After a year or so, however, I still hadn't gotten a break and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sell a story that I barely made enough to eat. But I knew I wanted to write. I had dreamed about it for years. I wasn't going to be one of those people who die

8、 wondering, What if? I would keep putting my dream to the test even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure. This is the Shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there. 然而，大约一年后，我的写作生涯依然没有任何起色，我开始怀疑自己。卖出一篇小说是如此艰难，以至我几乎填不饱肚子。但是，我清楚的是我想写作，我已梦寐以求了许多年。我并不准备成为一名到

9、死时还在想假如的人。我会坚持把我的梦想付诸实践 - 即使这梦想意味着不稳定的生活和对失败的恐惧。这是希望的阴暗面，任何心存梦想的人都必须学会在这阴暗面下生存。Then one day I got a call that changed my life. It wasn't an agent or editor offering a big contract. It was the opposite a kind of siren call tempting me to give up my dream. On the phone was an old acquaintance from

10、 the Coast Guard, now stationed in San Francisco. He had once lent me a few bucks and liked to egg me about it. "When am I going to get that $15, Alex?" he teased. 后来有一天，我接到了一个电话，由此改变了我的一生。这并不是一位代理人或编辑打来电话，主动要求与我签大的稿约。恰恰相反 - 是一声鸣笛，诱使我放弃梦想。打电话来的是海岸警卫队的老熟人，现在在旧金山。他曾经借给我几美元，喜欢催我还给他。“我什么时候才能拿到

11、那十五美元，艾力克斯？”他逗我说。"Next time I make a sale."“等我下一次卖出作品吧。”"I have a better idea," he said. "We need a new public-information assistant out here, and we're paying $6 000 a year. If you want it, you can have it."“我有个好主意，”他说，“我们这儿需要一位新的公共信息管理员，年薪六千美元。若想干，那就是你的了。” Six tho

12、usand a year! That was real money in 1960. I could get a nice apartment, a used car, pay off debts and maybe save a little something. What's more, I could write on the side.年薪六千美元！这个数目在1960年可真是值钱啊。我可以有一套上好的公寓，一辆二手车，可以还清债务，也许还可有些结余。另外，我还可以业余写作。As the dollars were dancing in my head, something cle

13、ared my senses. From deep inside a bull-headed resolution welled up. I had dreamed of being a writer full time. And that's what I was going to be."Thanks, but no," I heard myself saying. "I'm going to stick it out and write."当这些美元在我的脑海里晃动时，某种东西却使我神志清醒起来。我的内心深处升起一个坚强的信念。我曾

14、经梦想成为一名作家 - 一名专业作家。那才是我的追求。“谢谢你，但是我不去，”我听见自己在说。“我会坚持到底来写作。”Afterward, as I paced around my little room, I started to feel like a fool. Reaching into my cupboardan orange crate nailed to the wall I pulled out all that was there: two cans of sardines. Plunging my hands into my pockets, I came up with

15、18 cents. I took the cans and coins and jammed them into a crumpled paper bag. There, Alex, I said to myself. There's everything you've made of yourself so far. I'm not sure I've ever felt so low.后来，我在蜗居里踱来踱，开始觉得自己象个傻瓜。我打开橱柜 - 一只钉在墙上的桔黄色板条箱 - 把里面的东西全部弄了出来：两罐沙丁鱼。我把手伸进口袋，只摸出十八美分。我把罐头和硬

16、币一起塞进一个皱巴巴的纸袋中。你看，艾力克斯，我自言自语道，你迄今为止努力的结果都在这里。我不知道，自己是不是曾经情绪如此低落过。 I wish I could say things started getting better right away. But they didn't. Thank goodness I had George to help me over the rough spots.我希望自己能说，情况马上开始好转。但是并没有。感谢上帝，幸亏有乔治帮我渡过了难关。 Through him I met other struggling artists like Jo

17、e Delaney, a veteran painter from Knoxville, Tenn. Often Joe lacked food money, so he'd visit a neighborhood butcher who would give him big bones with morsels of meat and a grocer who would hand him some wilted vegetables. That's all Joe needed to make down-home soup.通过乔治，我结识了另外一些正在艰苦奋斗的艺术家，

18、象乔 德拉尼，一位来自田纳西州科诺科斯威尔市的老画家。乔经常常没吃饭的钱，于是就去光顾附近社区的一位屠户和一个食品商。屠户会送给他一些带点肉的大骨头，从食品商那里他可以弄到一些 枯萎的蔬菜。乔做南方炖汤需要的就是这些。Another Village neighbor was a handsome young singer who ran a struggling restaurant. Rumor had it that if a customer ordered steak the singer would dash to a supermarket across the street to

19、 buy one. His name was Harry Belafonte.村里另一位邻居是个年少英俊的歌手，他惨淡经营着一家餐馆。据说，如果有客人点牛排，这位歌手会火速冲到街对面的超市买一个。他的名字是哈利 百拉芬特。People like Delaney and Belafonte became role models for me. I learned that you had to make sacrifices and live creatively to keep working at your dream. That's what living in the Shado

20、wland is all about.德拉尼和百拉芬特这样的人都成了我笔下角色的原型。我懂得了，若要一直奋斗实现梦想，就得作出牺牲，创造性地生活。那就是生活在阴影里面的含义所在。 As I absorbed the lesson, I gradually began to sell my articles. I was writing about what many people were talking about then: civil rights, black Americans and Africa. Soon, like birds flying south, my thought

21、s were drawn back to my childhood. In the silence of my room, I heard the voices of Grandma, Cousin Georgia, Aunt Plus, Aunt Liz and Aunt Till as they told stories about our family and slavery. 在认识到这一点的同时，我逐渐开始卖出我的文章。我写的都是当时人们经常谈论的话题：人权、美国黑人和非洲。不久，我的思绪象鸟儿南飞一样回到了我的童年时光。在静寂的房间里，我仿佛听见了祖母、乔治亚堂兄、普鲁斯姑妈、利兹

22、姑妈和提尔姑妈的声音，听见他们在娓娓而谈我们的家族和奴隶制的故事。 These were stories that black Americans had tended to avoid before, and so I mostly kept them to myself. But one day at lunch with editors of Reader's Digest I told these stories of my grandmother and aunts and cousins; and I said that I had a dream to trace my

23、family's history to the first African brought to these shores in chains. I left that lunch with a contract that would help support my research and writing for nine years. 这些故事是美国黑人以前尽量回避的，因此多数时候我并不对外人说。但是有一天，在与读者文摘的编辑们共进午餐时，我讲起了我的祖母、姑妈与堂兄们的那些故事，我还告诉他们，我梦想追溯我的家族史，一直追溯到第一批戴着手镣脚铐被运到美国海岸的非洲黑人。午餐结束离开

24、时，我手中多了一张足以供我从事研究和写作长达九年的合同。 It was a long, slow climb out of the shadows. Yet in 1976, 17 years after I left the Coast Guard, Roots was published. Instantly I had the kind of fame and success that few writers ever experience. The shadows had turned into dazzling limelight. 那是为摆脱阴影进行的一次漫长而缓慢的攀登。然而，1

25、976年，也就是我离开海岸警卫队十七年后，根出版了。立刻我拥有了那种唯有少数作家有幸体验的名望与成功。阴影此时已变成了令人眼花燎乱的聚光灯。For the first time I had money and open doors everywhere. The phone rang all the time with new friends and new deals. I packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where I could help in the making of the Roots TV mini-series. It was a con

26、fusing, exhilarating time, and in a sense I was blinded by the light of my success. 有生以来第一次我是如此富有，第一次享受到处处受欢迎的礼遇。电话铃响个不停，带来了新朋新友，新交易。我收拾行装，搬到了洛杉矶。在那儿我可以协助制作根的电视 短篇系列片。那是一段令人困惑，又令人欣喜若狂的时期；从某种意义上说，我被成功的光芒照花了眼。 Then one day, while unpacking, I came across a box filled with things I had owned years befo

27、re in the Village. Inside was a brown paper bag. 后来有一天，在打开包着的东西时，我偶然发现了一个盒子，里面装着我数年前在格林威治村的全部家当，其中有一个棕色纸袋。I opened it, and there were two corroded sardine cans, a nickel, a dime and three pennies. Suddenly the past came flooding in like a riptide. I could picture myself once again huddled over the typewriter in that cold, bleak, one-room apartment. And I said to my self,