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给小姑娘的建议：1865，年轻的马克·吐温不为人所知的可爱童书 蕙籣留香20131106转整理
孩子们天生就是最先锋的读者和评论家，他们品味独特、犀利，也从不掩饰自己对作品的喜爱和厌恶。反过来说，孩子们对待儿童读物如此敏锐、苛刻，部分也是因为童话和绘本在很大程度上塑造了他们的世界——孩子们把那些充满想象力的文字和图画碎片拼起来，加工成了对世界最初的理解。我们向您特别推荐马克?吐温1865年写下的《给小姑娘的建议》，这本书今年发行了英文版，可爱又睿智，令人看过之后爱不释手。 一部制作花费将近两年的爱之劳作。
在2011年的夏天，我偶然发现了一个默默无名的幽默小故事惹人喜爱的意文版，它是年轻的马克·吐温于1865年年届30之际写下的，生于俄国的著名童书插画家弗拉基米尔·拉敦斯基为它配了维多利亚时代剪贴本风格的图画，它以一种调皮的方式鼓励女孩儿们独立思考，而不是对规矩和社会观念一味盲从。我一下子就爱上了它。于是我联系了我在布鲁克林的魔法狮出版社的朋友克劳迪娅·佐伊·比德里克，她美丽的图书牵桥搭线使我们成了朋友，而且我已经开始和她就另一个旁计划展开了合作，我想看看她是否愿意冒险一信，帮助这件珍宝在美国获得新生。这需要点儿令人信服的东西，不过我们最终还是达成了合作，我们把我们的午饭钱凑在一起支付弗拉基米尔的建议，并找到了一台能将吐温/拉敦斯基故事在书本形体上的迷人魅力展现出来的打印机——丰富的色彩，明快的文字，厚实美丽的纸张以及一个红色的布面书脊。 我十分高兴地宣布，《给小姑娘的建议》这周正式出版了——一部制作花费将近两年，真实不虚的爱之劳作。（你也许想起了今年早些时候曾从我的TED书店中先睹为快过。）快来上一本，享受它，分享它！ 虽然语调俏皮，眨眼不断，这个故事——就像所有经久不衰的童书一样——在人性的立场上涂抹了成人哲学的微妙色彩，探索一切我们想方设法将我们的不良行为合理化的灵巧方法，并使善与恶在我们身上达成和解。 “乖乖小姑娘不该因为每一个微不足道的冒犯都对她们的老师做鬼脸。这种报复只能在极为严重糟糕的情况下才能使用。” “如果你除了一个填满了木屑的破布娃娃之外什么都没有，而你的一个更为幸运的小玩伴有个昂贵的中国布娃娃，你应该无论如何都对她友爱相待。你不应试图强迫她与你交换，除非你的良心认为这个交换是合适的，且你也知道自己能够这样做。” 人们会忍不住猜测这一作品是否可能某种程度上也启发了1964年的一本无关选集《可恶的男孩与可怕的女孩》，以及它关于兄妹/姐弟关系的调皮建议： “任何时候你觉得有必要纠正你的兄弟，不要用泥巴纠正他——不论什么情况，永远别扔他泥巴，因为这会弄脏他的衣服。烫他一下会更好，因为你得到了想要的结果。你让他立刻注意到了你给他的教训内容，同时你的热水也多少能在某些方面清除他的不洁，很可能是皮肤上的。” 如果你的妈妈让你去做一件事，你回答说不做是不对的。更好更适当的做法是告诉她你会按照她说的去做，尔后再悄悄地按照你认为最合适的方式去做。“ ”乖乖小姑娘总是对长者表现得尤为顺从。你永远不该对老人出言不逊，除非他们先对你出言不逊。“ 我无法用语言形容《给小姑娘的建议》是怎样让我的心灵歌声不断——让我们一起来合唱吧。 Advice to Little Girls: Young Mark Twain's Little-Known
A labor of love nearly two years in the making. In the summer of 2011, I chanced upon a lovely Italian edition of a little-known, playful short story young Mark Twain had written in 1865 at age of 30, with Victorian-scrapbook-inspired artwork by celebrated Russian-born children’s book illustrator Vladimir Radunsky, mischievously encouraging girls to think independently rather than blindly obey rules and social mores. I was instantly in love. So I approached my friend Claudia Zoe Bedrick of Brooklyn’s Enchanted Lion Books, whom I’d befriended through her beautiful books and with whom I’d already begun collaborating on another side project, to see if she’d be willing to take a leap of faith and help bring this gem to life in America. It took a bit of convincing, but we eventually joined forced, pooled our lunch money to pay Vladimir his advance, and found a printer capable of reflecting the mesmerism of the Twain/Radunsky story in the book’s physicality — rich colors, crisp text, thick beautiful paper with a red fabric spine. I’m enormously delighted to announce that Advice to Little Girls (public library) is officially out this week — a true labor of love nearly two years in the making. (You might recall a sneak peek from my TED Bookstore selections earlier this year.) Grab a copy, enjoy, and share! While frolicsome in tone and full of wink, the story — like the most timeless of children’s books — is colored with subtle hues of grown-up philosophy on the human condition, exploring all the deft ways in which we creatively rationalize our wrongdoing and reconcile the good and evil we each embody. Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every trifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances. If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one, you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able to do it. One can’t help but wonder whether this particular bit may have in part inspired the irreverent 1964 anthology Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls and its mischievous advice on brother-sister relations: If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him with mud — never, on any account, throw mud at him, because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then you obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to the lessons you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will have a tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the skin, in spots. If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won’t. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment. Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never to ‘sass’ old people unless they ‘sass’ you first. There are no words to describe how much Advice to Little Girls makes my heart sing — let’s make a choir. |
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