LOSING MY FACULTIES(ISBN=9780812969511) 英文原版 在线下载 pdf mobi 2025 epub 电子版

　　I am just one of those rare and probably defective people who

really enjoy the company of teenagers.

Brendan Halpin’s It Takes a Worried Man—a memoir of how he and

his family dealt with his wife’s battle against breast cancer—was

praised for its can-dor, raw humor, and riveting voice. Halpin now

turns his unique talent to an unforgettable account of the pursuit

of his true calling: teaching.

Losing My Faculties follows Halpin through teaching jobs in an

economically depressed white ethnic town, a middle-class suburb, a

last-chance truancy prevention program in the inner city, and an

ambitious college-prep urban charter school. In the same cuttingly

observant voice that marked It Takes a Worried Man, Halpin tells us

what it really means to be a teacher—the ups and downs in the

classroom, the battles with administrators and colleagues, and the

joy of doing a job that matters. Not the tale of a hero who changes

his troubled students’ lives in one year, Losing My Faculties is,

rather, the story of an all-too-fallible teacher who persists in

spite of the frustrations that have driven so many others from the

profession. After nine years of teaching, Halpin ?nds his idealism

in shreds but his sense of humor and love for his work blessedly

intact.

From the Hardcover edition.

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　　Brendan Halpin, a thirty-four-year-old high school English

teacher, is the author of the acclaimed memoir It Takes a

Worried Man. He lives in Boston with his wife, Kirsten, and

their daughter, Rowen.

　　From the Hardcover edition.

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　　1

　　In June 1990, with the aid of some creative credit card use, I go

to Taiwan on a bogus "exchange program" through my university. (My

future wife, Kirsten, and I are the first and last participants.)

The "exchange" is with some English-language institute in Taipei,

and the idea is that my university sends them recent grads to teach

for a few months, and they send students to the university's ESL

program for a few months. Of course, the real idea is that the

Chung Shan English Language Institute can put "Affiliated with Ivy

League University" on its brochures.

　　I fell into this because I worked in the International Programs

Office, and, being a senior with no ambition or clue what to do and

six months before my student loans were coming due, I decided that

spending six months in Taiwan would be a pretty cool

adventure.

　　The only downside (apart from the fact that Taiwan in the summer

is a bowl of heat, humidity, and pollution that puts even my native

Cincinnati to shame) is that I have to work at the institute

teaching English.

　　Well, maybe "teaching" is sort of a misnomer. Most of what I do

is work in the children's English classes, which they attend on

Wednesdays and Saturdays, when they only have a half day of regular

school. There is a Chinese teacher here to run the class and really

teach them stuff, and an American teacher to run language games.

It's like a very specialized, makeup-free version of clowning. I'm

good at it, but it gets old pretty quickly.

　　I also work the occasional evening teaching teenagers and adults.

Here I am the only teacher in the room, and though the syllabus has

every class planned out and it's mostly going through lame

exercises in the book, it is a version of teaching. Sometimes I

veer from the syllabus and actually talk to the students. I find

that I enjoy the teenagers the most. I don't know why this is-I

think I am just one of these rare and probably defective people who

really enjoy the company of teenagers.

　　It is July, and I have an early-evening class of all teenagers.

Years later I will still remember some of them-Julie, Jim, Kellie,

and Angle, who pronounces it "Angel" (of course, they have Chinese

names, but I never know them, which is kind of weird-it's like your

French or Spanish teacher only knowing you as Pierre or Vicente or

whatever name you adopted in high school language classes). I've

been teaching this group for about a month, and they are finally

comfortable enough to start speaking, and the lame exercise in the

book evolves into something that very nearly approximates a

conversation. Most of the students are speaking, their English is

flowing pretty well, and they're asking questions about the grammar

point and then using my answers-everything is just working really

well. I am shocked when class ends because it feels like it just

started.

　　I meet up with Kirsten, who was teaching across the hall,

and

　　prepare myself to leave the air-conditioning and step into the

lead apron of swampy heat that is Taipei in the summertime. When

the heat hits me, it's like a punch in the stomach. I've been here

a month and I'm still not used to it. I immediately start sweating

from every pore in my body, but I feel something else too.

Something strange. Something I have never felt at the end of a day

of work before.

　　I am happy and full of energy. I feel great-I'm buzzing

tremendously and talking a mile a minute as I practically run down

the street searching for some kind of cold beverage to save me from

imminent dehydration.

　　"I can't believe this!" I say to Kirsten, who is looking at me

"with stranger eyes," as one of our Chinese buddies would say. "I

feel great! You're not supposed to feel great after work! You feel

like shit, you go to happy hour to try and get happy, you don't get

happy just from work!"

　　I worked the five previous summers in an insurance company and

had a variety of jobs in college, and never, even when I watched TV

for money in my dorm as a work/study "job," did I feel this good at

the end of a day of work.

　　In my senior year of college I didn't feel very enthusiastic

about pursuing any line of work because I just assumed that work

was pain-in-the-ass drudgery that you endured until you had a few

pathetic hours of free time in which to do what you really wanted

to do. It just never occurred to me that work could be something

you actually enjoyed. And then I get this glimpse of a world that

few people are fortunate enough to know: the world in which work

doesn't suck.

　　Work, it seems, can actually be fun.

　　2

　　I       t is 1992. I live in a

tiny, mouse-infested apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, a

small city that borders Boston and Cambridge, and I am about two

months into ed school in nearby Medford. I just got through with a

year and a half of working at a computer company as a

bottom-of-the-ladder, assistant-to-an-assistant mail

sorter/photocopier/trash taker-outer. It wasn't horrible (except

for one particular day when I was taking out the lunch trash and

these bags of unused fish stock exploded all over me), but it

wasn't exactly what you'd call fulfilling, and I sure as hell never

felt great at the end of the day, so remembering my experience in

Taiwan, I decided to go to ed school. So far it's not as horrible

as everyone says. I have met some great people. Ten years later I

will still be friends with two out of the thirty of them, which is

really not a bad ratio. And we do nothing but think about teaching,

which, I will find, is something you rarely have time to do when

you are actually teaching.

　　I go to interview at the Boston public high school where I might

get placed as a student teacher. The teacher, Gordon Stevens, wants

to talk to me before he agrees to take me on, to make sure we can

work together. He asks me why I'm interested in urban education. I

give him a version of the truth-that this seems like where the real

action is in education, the front lines, that if I have any talent

for this at all, this is where I should be.

　　I do not tell him that I don't have a car and that this was the

only placement I could get to by public transportation after my

classmates snapped up all the Cambridge and Somerville

placements.

　　The whole truth is that I really can't articulate why I feel like

I want to teach here instead of in the suburbs. Certainly part of

it is feeling like I want to make a difference, like it matters

whether I go to work or not, which is something I never felt at the

computer company. I remember having a number of really incompetent

teachers (along with a handful of superstars) in high school, and I

wasn't really harmed by them-basically anybody coming out of my

small private high school started with enough advantages to be okay

one way or the other. I feel like maybe that's not the case here,

like maybe what I do could make a difference, like I would increase

my own importance by working with kids who might have their lives

changed by me. Yeah, so that's the liberal do-gooder

really-out-to-make-himself-feel-important part, which is widely

derided (unfairly, I think-isn't that kind of a win-win?).

　　I don't know. I'd like to say that I'm over that feeling

completely now, nine years into my teaching career, but I know that

one of the reasons I still love my work is that it feels

important.

　　What I don't tell Mr. Stevens, because I haven't figured it out

yet, is that I feel called to urban teaching (maybe a pretentious

word choice, but it does feel that way-like somebody's tugging me

to get into this, like I can't imagine working in a rich suburb or

a private school, even though I never set out to be the Urban

Education Warrior) not just because it will make me look big, and

not just because I want to try something hard, and not just because

it's where the action is. I want to do this because it's mine.

Because I have spent my whole life in cities, because I can't seem

to get away from the problem of how to live with people who aren't

like you (or even people who don't like you), because I was brought

up by a single parent in the city, because this is where I

live.

　　Maybe Mr. Stevens understands all this, because he tells me he

gets a good feeling from me and is looking forward to us working

together. I'm looking forward to it too.

　　Of course, I'm also terrified.

　　3

　　For the first half of the year, I'll be observing Mr. Stevens. I

will take over two of his classes in the second semester. He is

great at his job. It's not that he holds the class spellbound all

the time-that's an overrated skill usually possessed by Cult of

Personality teachers who are so in love with themselves that they

convince the students to follow suit-he just oozes competence. And

I am daunted by what it takes to achieve it. Even after what

appears to be a very successful class, he retires to his

"office"-by being in charge of purchasing office supplies, he has

scored himself a supply closet in the attic and squeezed his desk

between the boxes of chalk and paper clips, making him the only

non-administrator in the entire building who has space in which to

work when he's not teaching-and tortures himself, agonizing over

what could have gone better, what he could have done differently,

what he will do differently tomorrow. It looks like a lot of work.

I don't know if I really have it in me to do this to myself every

day.

　　Mostly I observe him with a class full of ninth-graders. One of

whom is a class clown named Trenton. He is obviously very bright,

but he's not doing his work and he mostly makes jokes about his

classmates. I write a paper about him and show it to Mr. Stevens.

He furrows his brow. He hadn't noticed half the misbehavior that I,

sitting silently in the back of the room, have recorded. Now he has

more stuff to agonize over.

　　One day I have a big cup of coffee right before class. I will

never do this again. Mr. Stevens gets the kids started on some sort

of activity and then needs to leave the room-he has to talk to

somebody about something, perhaps relating to office supplies. "Mr.

Halpin can help you while I'm out of the room," he tells the class.

This

　　is my first big moment, my first moment as a "teacher," and I am

paralyzed-I wasn't prepared to actually interact with the kids when

I left the house this morning! I'm just the Watcher! I watch, and

record, and imagine fearfully how I might deal with Trenton or his

classmates in every situation of every class. I can certainly

handle the activity, but I hardly know these kids' names! What will

I do if they misbehave? What do they think of me? Who do they think

I am? I know when I was in high school, I probably would have been

instinctively contemptuous of somebody lurking in the back of the

room, and I probably would have tried to torture that person, just

out of that killer instinct that packs of adolescents possess. (At

my private high school we didn't have student teachers-they just

threw the twenty-three-year-olds with no experience right into the

classroom as full-fledged teachers. We did savage some of them.)

What if their relatively calm behavior arises only out of their

respect for Mr. Stevens? Will this room turn into a scene out of

the first half of Lean on Me, before Morgan Freeman starts carrying

a bat and Showing Those Tough Kids Who's Boss?

　　Trenton is having trouble with the exercise, and he calls me over

for help. I get right up next to his desk and begin to

explain-"Well, you see how the adjective goes here," or some such

thing, and Trenton interrupts me. "I'm sorry, man, I don't mean to

disrespect you, but you got that nasty Student Teacher

Breath."

　　The class breaks up. I have no idea what to say. I am not yet

secure enough to laugh at a joke like this. I probably try to

pretend like I'm laughing, when of course I am horrified, so it

probably comes out all fake, he-heh. Whatever it is, I do nothing

to save the situation except for not getting angry. Have I passed

some kind of test, or failed it? Or both? I never get a chance to

find out. Mr. Stevens returns, order is restored, and the class

ends soon afterward.

　　Nine years later I see Trenton at the ice cream parlor in my

neighborhood. He looks at me without a trace of recognition, but I

know him immediately.

　　4

　　A       t the beginning of the

second semester the classes change, so the class of Mr. Stevens'

that I will be in charge of is a group of twenty-seven

tenth-graders. It is a writing class. I will be able to read and

comment meaningfully on all of their papers because I have only two

classes. I have no idea how I might manage to do that if I were

teaching five classes of this size, which is what all the real

teachers here are doing. For the first few days Mr. Stevens is in

charge, and we are meeting in a science room with long tables and

tall stools, only there aren't twenty-seven stools, so some kids

are sitting on the heater over by the window, while others are on

the floor. Somehow Mr. Stevens engineers a switch, and we end up in

a French classroom that can just barely fit everyone.

　　On my first day of actually teaching this class without Mr.

Stevens present, I get my big Test of the Student Teacher, which I

fail miserably. I turn around to write something on the board, and

somebody, somewhere (well, I know exactly which table it comes

from, but since my back was turned, I do know enough to know I

can't point the finger without enduring a twenty-minute debate

about how I didn't see and I can't possibly be so unfair as to

accuse someone without evidence), throws a piece of chalk. It

explodes on the pipe that runs across the ceiling, making a really

spectacular noise and showering dust all over the floor.　　

　　From the Hardcover edition.

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媒体评论

　　Comic, profane, honest and thought-provoking...an irreverent,

heartbreaking, dumbfoundingly funny book about love, fear and

perseverance.

　　The Arizona Republic

　　Traumatic, touching and shockingly funny... Bottom line: Man at

his best. People

　　Raw, undisciplined, and frequently very funny.Boston Sunday

Globe

　　If it takes a worried man to write a book like this, then Mr.

Halpins disquietude is our decided gain. With admirable vigilance

against self-pity, the unflagging knowledge that he is not, at the

end of the day, the one who is sick, and the comical contortions of

a man trying to avoid the maudlin and trite, Brendan Halpin has

written a work that is both genuinely moving and

frequentlysurprisingly frequentlyhilarious, a beautiful portrait of

the dark, unlovely rollick of adulthood.

　　David Rakoff, author of Fraud

　　From the Hardcover edition. -- Review

书籍介绍

I am just one of those rare and probably defective people who really enjoy the company of teenagers.

Brendan Halpin’s It Takes a Worried Man —a memoir of how he and his family dealt with his wife’s battle against breast cancer—was praised for its can-dor, raw humor, and riveting voice. Halpin now turns his unique talent to an unforgettable account of the pursuit of his true calling: teaching.

Losing My Faculties follows Halpin through teaching jobs in an economically depressed white ethnic town, a middle-class suburb, a last-chance truancy prevention program in the inner city, and an ambitious college-prep urban charter school. In the same cuttingly observant voice that marked It Takes a Worried Man , Halpin tells us what it really means to be a teacher—the ups and downs in the classroom, the battles with administrators and colleagues, and the joy of doing a job that matters. Not the tale of a hero who changes his troubled students’ lives in one year, Losing My Faculties is, rather, the story of an all-too-fallible teacher who persists in spite of the frustrations that have driven so many others from the profession. After nine years of teaching, Halpin finds his idealism in shreds but his sense of humor and love for his work blessedly intact.

From the Hardcover edition.

• 作者：白9 发布时间：2017-10-30 18:30:01

  买来才发现入门款书……尴尬了

• 作者：La 发布时间：2018-09-07 09:19:37

  画得很好

• 作者：周公度 发布时间：2021-07-30 20:54:05

  神的使者 在自然的每一处。有体温。

• 作者：……啐！！！ 发布时间：2018-11-30 11:19:24

  基本都是报纸文章，似曾相识，且不见什么性情。

• 作者：蒾夨 发布时间：2020-08-05 16:22:13

  2016.9.26

• 作者：ly的读享生活 发布时间：2021-07-07 09:10:32

  这部传记就是典型的塔可夫斯基电影，有很多的闪回、独白、幻象、对话，模糊的梦境般的影像与人物自身的回忆和创伤关联起来，一方面是靠近，一方面是疏离，彼此间有太多矛盾，又有着天然的牵绊。安德烈·塔可夫斯基的自传《雕刻时光》的片段不断穿插各处，构成通往诗意逻辑道路的指引。萨特说过，“先在上帝、自然和时间中失去自我，再找回自我”是塔可夫斯基世界观的基础，几乎他的所有作品，都在表达对自我的寻找，寻找童年时的房子，寻找记忆中的时光。尽管成长于其间然而已多年不见的家，和现实中历经岁月沧桑的房舍，早已大相径庭，而父亲给予他的一切，构成了他通过电影拍摄不断回溯自我的开端。

• 通往内心世界的自由之路

  作者：艾小柯 发布时间：2012-08-29 22:10:12

  1

  枷锁

  《人性的枷锁》是一个讲主人公菲利普如何抛弃人生的种种枷锁，终于获得精神自由的故事。菲利普天生患有腿疾，父母早亡，小小年纪被送去古板守旧的伯父家寄养。作为神父的伯父对小菲利普并无亲爱之情，为人自私冷漠，造成了这个早熟的孩子愈加敏感害羞的个性。菲利普的人生道路并不顺畅，他进行了许多尝试经历了不少痛苦才逐渐解除了宗教、学历、爱情、友谊、世人眼光、个性、世俗期待等等加诸在人一生中的种种枷锁，获得心灵的平静与精神的自由。

  菲利普的经历，也就是他如何去除人性枷锁获得自由的过程，每一章节读来都十分有趣，但综合看待，我觉得最有意思的倒不是菲利普怎么打通任督二脉获得思想转变，而是他在内心所望和“枷锁”产生矛盾冲突时他怎么反复进行心理斗争，悔恨—憎恶—厌弃—放纵—再悔恨的纠结过程。比如他首次狂热崇拜上帝是因为听从伯父的布道以为只要心足够诚，向上帝祈祷便能治好自己的瘸腿；发现愿望没达成后先是埋怨自己不够虔诚，然后怀疑甚至憎恨上帝，再之后则是悔恨，在忏悔中更强烈而虔诚地坚持每晚念诵《圣经》。再比如菲利普坎特伯雷皇家公学念书时崇拜校长珀金斯先生，全身心的热情都被激发，要将自个奉献给上帝领圣职；可这热情转瞬即逝，他因为失去同校一个孩子的友谊开始打心底里讨厌学校生活，决定不要继续进牛津深造当牧师，之后更因看清了自己大伯作为教士和其他教区牧师们言行不一、心胸狭隘的种种行径，下定决心要离开既定的圣职道路进入尘世；但当自己这份决心终于经历重重阻碍获得校长同意后，却又心头沉重，感到无限压抑，“好不容易到达了目的，事后反倒希望自己功败垂成！”菲利普的种种纠结，正是人性自相矛盾不依逻辑行事的最佳体现。而人的这种非理性是个性的重要表达，就好象不完美，而非完美，才界定人性一样。菲利普若不如此纠结，往复扪心自问，便不可能通过一次又一次的自我对话获得思维广度与深度的递进，也便不可能终于意识到他头上的种种枷锁，更不可能打破这些枷锁，获得最后的自由。

  正因如此，菲利普必须被套上枷锁，不管主动还是被动，他都必须首先经历人性枷锁所带来的一切痛苦与甜蜜、温暖与张狂，才谈得上卸下枷锁获得自由。没有经历过这种迫切与悔恨纠结的人并没有资格反对枷锁，因为他们头上套着一个叫做“无知”的无形枷锁，很难做出全面而有效的判断。

  菲利普的一生给我印象最深的有两点，一是他不吝自我剖析不断自我否定的勇气。二是他敢于为自己人生负责的态度。不管是他年少轻狂一意孤行去德国的冲动，还是从伦敦会计师事务所毅然辞职跑去巴黎学画，这个小子都没怨天尤人过，他会跟自己纠结，对身边的人事也难免有看法评价，但他并不迁怒于人，成功失败都老老实实接受现实，哪怕穷途末路也羞于受人恩惠。这份人性里的善，消除了菲利普生命里很多的可能性，但也带来了更多的可能性。

  2

  米尔德丽德

  菲利普对点心店女招待米尔德丽德的爱情很值得仔细分析。

  菲利普最开始是陪朋友邓斯福德去追求伦敦国会街上点心店的女招待米尔德丽德，他对这个 “瘦长的个子，狭窄的臀部，胸部平坦坦的像个男孩”的女人第一印象颇鄙夷：“要在巴黎，谁也不会瞧她一眼”。不仅如此，这女人还浅薄刻薄得要命，一副千金小姐般故作高傲的派头实在惹人讨厌。但正因为她对菲利普那爱答不理的傲慢态度严重伤害了菲利普敏感的自尊心，这从厌恶开始的感情在纠结抑郁中竟慢慢演化为了魂牵梦系。不仅如此，随着米尔德丽德每一次对菲利普的玩弄、欺骗、侮辱的加深，菲利普那种必须获取芳心的欲望反而愈加强烈，到最后竟然发展到出钱给米尔德丽德和露水情人度假寻欢的地步。这样的爱情实在太不幸了。

  但在菲利普和米尔德丽德的关系中，菲利普的无能为力并非是盲目无知的。换句话说，菲利普自己对米尔德丽德个性的庸俗乏味、对这女人品格的卑贱贪婪都心知肚明，但他就是放不下。如果说这种眷恋最开始是情欲作怪——菲利普曾自我剖析，认为“只有使米尔德丽德成为自己的情妇，才能摆脱卑劣情欲的折磨”；那么他在街头发现已沦为娼妇的米尔德丽德，毅然为其提供食宿却拒绝与她发生肉体关系则令人匪夷所思。实际上菲利普对米尔德丽德的可怕情愫是《人性的枷锁》在1915年首次出版后遭受批评的主要原因：《时代文学增刊》认为毛姆不该在菲利普与米尔德丽德的关系上大费周章：“我们并非反对被迫花费许多时间在这样一个不招人喜欢的人物身上上，而是这样的人物被赋予的人生周折。”（It is not only that we resent being forced to spend so much time with so unpleasant a creature. We resent the twist that is given to the figure of life.）《纽约世界报》评价菲利普的爱情是对“一个可怜白痴的多愁善感的奴役”（the sentimental servitude of a poor fool）；《费城报》也说小说主人公是“虚度人生的菲利普”（futile Philip）。

  我试图理解菲利普对米尔德丽德这种近乎自虐的无法放手的爱情，觉得还是得回归菲利普的性格弱点与人生缺憾。菲利普的先天不足与后天成长环境都进一步促成、加剧了他过分敏感自尊又害羞的性格，伯母对他的真心喜爱与亲情他虽感激但并不刻骨铭心；而越是被拒绝被伤害，他心中留下的疤痕就越深越明显。菲利普对米尔德丽德的爱情源于被侮辱被拒绝的自尊反弹，尤其对比一下他与一心钟意于他的老姑娘威尔金森小姐的短暂露水情缘，菲利普其实也颇具薄情寡性的能力，他对威尔金森小姐始乱终弃的无情还挺让人不齿的。正是在长久的得不到的不甘与成为惯性的屈辱与欺骗中，菲利普的畸形爱情得以茁壮成长。这种不幸给予了菲利普一个长久的自怜缘由与清晰的人生目标，在某种意义上说，痛苦的爱情使菲利普获得了个性的自洽完满与循环自证。

  至于后来菲利普在意识到自己必须离开米尔德丽德却又如瘾君子一样无法自控，我觉得很大一部分原因是他性格中善与弱的悲剧爆发：这时的菲利普对米尔德丽德凄惨境遇的感触是一种纯粹的难过——对青春的缅怀，对悲苦的不忍，也许还有潜意识里对自我历史的肯定。无论是哪种原因，米尔德丽德都已经脱离了实体人物的束缚，成为了菲利普人格与精神的一部分。在这个意义上，我怀疑菲利普永远也无法完全卸下这重枷锁。

  3

  作者与作品

  《人性的枷锁》大概是最接近毛姆自传的一本小说。菲利普自幼丧亲，瘸腿，寄宿冷漠无情的牧师叔父家，这与毛姆自己双亲早逝，寄宿牧师叔父家的经历不谋而合。毛姆个头矮小，口吃，在学校受欺负，在家中遭冷漠，小小年纪便内向、害羞，过分敏感，严重缺乏安全感——这些都与菲利普十分相像。毛姆16岁拒绝再读皇家公学，赴德国海德堡大学学习德文、哲学与文学；毕业后回英国进入一家会计师事务所，但一个月就辞职，入伦敦圣托马斯医院学医。这样辗转反侧的求学与就职经历与菲利普也同出一辙。尽管毛姆自己说《人性的枷锁》是非自传的文学创造，但1938年（《人性的枷锁》出版4年后）毛姆承认“事实与虚构在我的作品中如此紧密交织，现在回顾，我几乎无法将它们分开。”（"Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other."）

  我一直都认为了解作者对理解一部作品是锦上添花而非不可或缺之举。作品固然从作者而生，但作品在产生之后便不可逆转地成为一个完整个体脱离作者作为它自己而独立存在。一件作品从产生到完成不过只走出了艺术实现的一半距离，完整的实现须通过观众对艺术品的接收才能最终成立。观众对作者的了解与认同可使艺术实现的过程成为一个圆满的环，但环形并不代表艺术实现的唯一可能；甚至对某些作品而言，环形代表着思维的封闭与艺术可能性的丢失，因为作家的创作动机并不完全决定作品自身所能开启的引申空间。作为艺术实现另一半要素的观众其实是充满无限可能的，每一个不同的观众，或每一个不同时代的观众都有可能将作品的实现带入完全随机的方向与维度（尽管在大多数情况下这些方向与维度都是私人性的，不为人知或不具进一步分析的共性价值），事先对作者的动机或风格有了先入为主的限定，或事后为了靠拢作者动机而放弃作品引申空间拒绝进一步思考，我觉得在某种程度上都是媚俗的妥协。这对作品本身和观众都是令人遗憾的损失。

  以这样的角度来看待《人性的枷锁》，主人公菲利普与作者毛姆究竟有多少重合对书的文学价值而言意义微乎其微，当然，对研究分析作者生平或增加八卦谈资则很值得一探。我不否认在了解了毛姆在皇家公学言语恶毒刻薄的事迹后会产生与书中菲利普痛失挚友嫉恨交加的心理相印证的快感，但我依然认为毛姆自身的经历并非理解菲利普心理状态的关键。一个好作者并不会把生活中的真实发生等同于作品中的“公理”，不加铺垫、渲染、解释便强迫人物发生同样行为。好作品的艺术生命总是完整而独立于作者动机的。

  4

  生命的意义

  《人性的枷锁》中菲利普卸下的人生最后枷锁是幸福。他经历了自己的理想幻灭与铭心痛苦，观察到了朋友的自暴自弃、穷困潦倒或空虚无望，得出“人们一生中所作的努力同其最后结局显得多么不相称”的结论。这个结论一明确，他才真正明白以前在海德堡诗人克朗肖送给他一条破波斯地毯来揭示生活奥秘的真谛：“生活毫无意义。……人，并不比其他有生命的东西更有意义；人的出现，并非是造物的顶点，而不过是自然对环境做出的反应罢了。”东罗马帝国国王的故事中一位哲人把人类的历史总结提炼，最后结论也是“生活没有意义，人活着也没有目的。出世还是不出世，活着还是死去，均无关紧要。生命微不足道，而死亡也无足轻重。”这样的结论与米兰•昆德拉在《不能承受的生命之轻》中彻底否定生命的轻盈之美，再进一步否定历史的沉重与政治的要义，以致最终证明人性与幸福在本质上的矛盾是完全吻合的。

  但与昆德拉的悲剧结论相反，菲利普在得出人生毫无意义的结论后便毅然抛弃了对幸福的追求——“人生不过是一种格局而已……生活只不过是满足一个人的乐趣而已。”通俗点说，既然人生均为幻像，那么不管什么样的人生，也都自有格局自有乐趣。“幸福跟痛苦一样的微不足道，它们的降临，跟生活中出现的其他细节一样，不过是使得人生格局更趋纷繁复杂罢了。”昆德拉说人性与对幸福追求的本质矛盾是人生悲剧的根源，而毛姆让菲利普放弃追求幸福，转而意识到一切人生格局的独特性与艺术性，倒不失为超越悲剧的突破口。这与《士兵突击》中许三多那句淳朴的大白话“好好活就是有意义，有意义就是好好活”其实不谋而合——既然一切都无意义，那么一切意义也便都合理，一切格局也都自成其妙。

  我非常喜欢毛姆借菲利普得出的这个人生结论，这是超越否定之上的否定，是最大程度的肯定。先不说那些无法实现的憧憬与幻灭所付出的惨重代价与不幸，就是真正获得了成功，那些为此所付出的辛苦、妥协与屈辱加总起来的份量与成功本身只怕也彼此相当。这并不是说人生不该追求幸福或成功，而是意识到幸福与成功并非人生的唯一衡量标准。换句话说，成功的标准应该个人化、多元化。以菲利普的例子而言，一个人从出生走到暮年实现人生格局的顺利完成就是成功，在这期间经历种种颠簸跌宕，一点点参透生命的奥秘，一天天沐浴人生的风景就已然乐趣无穷。说到底，一个人生命的意义只有他自己才真正明了。人生不必对他人证明什么，更不必为了追求社会承认而争名逐利。幸福也好，痛苦也好，成就也罢失败也罢，莫外乎“不负我心”这四个字，此外一切都是浮云。

  我承认，这种极端唯心主义的人生观缺乏对社会责任的考量，缺乏对内心世界与外在环境相互关系的进一步认识。我想这也许是毛姆的作品被评论家和同时代作家们批评“缺乏文学价值”，毛姆本人自谦“排名第一的二流作家” （in the very first row of the second-raters）的一个重要原因。但话说回来，宏观的外部世界终究是由作为个体的人来独立感受体会的。人若不能首先处理好与自己内心世界的关系，不能踏踏实实地做到“不负我心”，那么又何谈真正意义上的历史价值与社会责任呢？人云亦云的责任与使命很容易就变成政客的口号与利益的棋子，而内心的清澈与混沌很可能就是焰火绚烂与炮灰凋零的唯一差别。至少在我看来，省内与攘外同样重要，这二者并不矛盾，也根本不分高低。

• 从外交历史，看宋代政治的功与过

  作者：透明人leon 发布时间：2021-11-06 16:26:35

  国家间的“外交”活动并非近代才有，从上千年前的城市国家开始人类就已经开始从事外交了。例如在中国古代的西周时期，所谓的外交多由“相”主持，出使的史“行人”。“大行人”掌大宾之礼及大客之礼，“小行人”掌邦国宾客之礼。春秋时期列国间的邦交类似现代的外交，国与国之间有遣使交聘、谈判和会盟的各种情况。总之，从春秋时期开始，经过汉代、南北朝以及唐代逐步发展的对外交往，成为五代至两宋建立外交制度的基本榜样。

  

  《宋代外交史》区别于其他的宋代史学著作，选择了两宋时期的外交活动这一独特视角，剖析两宋时期的所面临的国际格局及宋代如何通过外交与外国强力政权达成共识，在多方强权力量的夹缝中寻求生存和发展的。书中主要探究宋朝与其基本对等的辽、金、蒙元三朝的外交，及与这三个国家争取周边国家或政权的周旋过程。

  说到宋朝，很多人并不陌生。后世史家，把宋的历史分成两个时期：从太祖建隆元年到钦宗靖康元年，称北宋，凡一百六十七年；从高宗建炎元年到帝昺祥二年，称南宋，凡一百五十三年；合计三百二十年。960年，后周诸将发动陈桥兵变，拥立宋州归德军节度使赵匡胤为帝，建立宋朝。宋朝虽然大致统一了中国，结束了五代十国七十余年的分裂割据之局，却从来没有强盛过。它饱受若干外族的侵略，历尽迫害屈辱，最后更亡于外族。

  两宋时期的国际格局

  中原四分五裂；东北亚游牧民族契丹崛起成为国际政治中的强力政权，且五代中原各国均已向契丹国进行朝贡，与契丹对等的只有宋朝。宋代面临的强敌是辽、金、蒙元。两宋时期在朝廷内部对于外部三个强敌的性质和优势有不同的认识，提出的外交政策大致分为主和派和主战派。一方面，两宋对辽、金、蒙元的政策，其实是和、战、守三策的交互弹性运用，基本目的是维持与强大外夷的和平相处而不是征服；另一方面，辽、金、蒙元对中原王朝的政策是以外交威胁或以武力夺取人力和资源，不一定是征服。两者之间有一种天然的相互依附的关系，这就为外交成功的可能奠定了基础。

  

  宋代外交策略和历史

  宋的国策，简言之为“强干弱支”。一是中央集权，使中央的各项权利如军、政、财、法等权都超越地方；二是提倡文人政治，严禁武人干政，太祖所做的重要工作就是整顿禁军和消弱藩镇。最终结果导致，统兵者多为文官，外行领导内行，自然败事者居多。

  

  在外交策略方面，北宋前期，太祖和太宗掌握了军政大权，主导维持与强大的辽朝和平对等的关系；神宗任用王安石变化，力求富国强兵改变现状；真宗时期，在王继中的促成下，宋辽两国达成《谭渊之盟》结束了宋辽之间长达二十五年的战争，获得了120年的和平与安定；从哲宗到徽宗，外交决策因党派的更替而发生变化，特别是徽宗不顾自身实力的不足，盲目追求恢复燕云十六州，忽视自谭渊之盟以来的国际规范，打破原有各方势力的安定格局，最终以致亡国；南宋是在亡国危机下建立起的王朝，国力远不如金朝，同时由于高宗任用奸臣秦桧并抑制武将等失败的操作，在屡屡北伐的失败中，只好以屈辱的国格维持偏安的局面，最终仍旧难逃国破家亡的结局。

  

  常言道

  “弱国无外交”

  任何外交手段都必须建立双方平等条件下进行方才能有效开展。这本书中提到的两宋在面对强敌时，同样是以外交手段配合军事，来解除强敌的威胁和侵略的。作者认为，两宋时期的外交策略是其不得不面对现实的选择，基于自身实力只能采取弹性的外交手段来寻求生存。本书的内容让读者看到了宋朝军事、文化、经济以外，其在外交层面上功与过的两面性。