-
Unit 2
The New Singles
Carla Power
Increasing
numbers of Northern Europeans are choosing to live
alone
新
单
身
族
卡拉
鲍威尔
越来越多的北欧人选择单身生活
1. You know the type. Eleanor Rigby,
who picks up the rice in the church where the
wedding has been. Austin Powers, proud
owner of a Lava lamp, lush chest hair and
an equal-opportunity libido. Bridget
Jones, of the wobbly ego and much-watched
answering machine. The Single, long a
stock figure in stories, songs and personal
ads, was traditionally someone at the
margins of society: a figure of fun, pity or awe.
1.
你知道他们是这样的人：在举行过婚礼的教堂里捡大米的埃
莉诺
雷格比；胸毛浓密、性
欲旺盛、
以拥有熔岩灯而感自豪的奥斯丁
鲍威尔斯；个人意识模糊不清
、总是期待录音电
话响起的布里奇特
琼斯。这些单身人士过去一直是故事、歌曲和个人广告中的常见人物，
传统上这些人处在
社会的边缘：滑稽有趣、让人怜悯或令人敬畏。
2. Those days are gone. In the place of
withered spinsters and bachelors are people
like
Elizabeth
de
Kergorlay,
a
29-year-old
Parisian
banker
who
views
her
independence
and
her
own
apartment
as
the
spoils
of
professional
success.
Scooting
around
Paris
in
her
Golf
GTI,
one
hand
on
the
wheel
and
the
other
clutching her cell
phone, de Kergorlay pauses between calls to rave
about life alone.
“I’m not antisocial,”
she says. “I love people. But living alone gives
me the time
and
space
for
self-reflection.
I
’v
e
got
the
choice
and
the
privacy
to
grow
as
a
human being.”
2.
那些日子已经一去不复返了。现在的单身族不再像过去那
些面容枯槁的老处女和鳏夫，
而是像伊丽莎白
克尔戈莱这样的人。伊丽莎白
克尔戈
莱是个
29
岁的巴黎银行家，她把拥
有
独立生活和自己的公寓看成是事业成功的结果。她开着漂亮的德国
Golf
GTI
牌小汽车快
速地在巴黎兜着风，
一手扶着方向盘，
另一手抓着手机，
在打电话的间
歇中热情洋溢地谈论
着单身生活。她说：
“我不厌恶社交，我喜
欢与人交往。但是独自生活使我有时间和空间自
我反省。我作为一个人有权选择并不受干
扰地成长。
”
3. As the sages would say, we are all
ultimately alone. But an increasing number of
Europeans
are
choosing
to
be
so
at
an
ever
earlier
age.
This
isn’t
the
stuff
of
gloomy
philosophical meditations, but a fact of Europe s
new economic landscape,
embraced
by
demographers,
real-estate
developers
and
ad
executives
alike.
The
shift
away from family life to solo lifestyles, observes
French sociologist Jean-Claude
Kaufmann, is part of the “irresistible
momentum of individualism”
over the
last
century.
The
communications
revolution,
the
shift
from
a
business
culture
of
stability to one of mobility and the
mass entry of women into the workforce have
wreaked havoc on Europeans private
lives. More and more of them are remaining
on the
ir own: they’re living
longer, divorcing more and marrying later
—
if at all.
British
marriage rates are the lowest in 160 years of
records. INSEE, France s National
Institute of Statistics, reports that
the number of French people living alone doubled
between 1968 and 1990.
3.
正如圣人们所言，
我们最终都将是单独一人。
但是越来越多的欧洲人在很年轻的时候就决
定过独身生活。
这不
是悲观的人生思考，
而是欧洲经济新气象，受到人口学家、房地产发展
< br>商和广告商这类人的普遍欢迎。
法国社会学家让
克劳特
`
考夫曼评论这种从家庭生活到独身<
/p>
生活模式的过渡是上个世纪不可抗拒的个人主义趋势的组成部分。
通信技术的革命、
商业文
化从稳定性过渡到流动性以及大量妇女
进入产业大军都对欧洲人的私生活产生巨大冲击。
越
来越多的欧
洲人在步入独自生活，
因为他们寿命更长了、
离婚更多了并且结
婚也更晚了——
如果他们还要结婚的话。现在英国的结婚率在
1
60
年的记录中最低的。据法国国家统计局
的报道，在
1968
到
1990
年
期间法国独身的人翻了一番。
4.
The home-alone phenomenon remains an urban and a
Northern European trend:
people who
live in rural areas
—
as
well as Spaniards, Greeks and Irish
—
tend to
stick
to families. By contrast, Scandinavians, Dutch and
Germans like to live alone:
40 percent
of all Swedes live alone, as do seven million
Britons
—
three times as
many as 40 years ago. According to the
recent report “Britain in 2010” by Richard
Scase, professor of organizational
behavior at the University of Kent, single-person
households will outnumber families and
couples within a decade. In London s tonier
neighborhoods like Kensington and
Chelsea, about half of all households are people
living
alone.
In
Germany
this
year,
56-year-old
divorcee
Bernd
Klosterfelde
produced a CD
called “
Alone No More.” Featuring 15
tracks of household noises
with titles
like “Nothing on TV; At Least the Chips Are Good”
and “The Fridge Is
Finally Full Again,”
it promises people who live alone
“62 minutes of
togetherness.”
4.
独自生活的现象一直是都市和北欧的趋势：
生活在农村的人们——以及西班牙人、
希腊人
和爱尔兰人——倾向于过家庭生活。
与
此相反，
斯堪的纳维亚人、
荷兰人和德国人喜欢独自
生活：
40%
的瑞典人独自生活，
七百万英国人独自生活——这是
40
年前的
3
倍。
根据肯特
大学组织
行为学教授理查德
斯凯斯最近的
“<
/p>
2010
年的英国”
的报道，
单身家庭数量将会在
十年内超过两人或两人以上的家庭。
< br>在伦敦的肯辛顿和切尔西这样的“贵族”区，
大约有一
半
的房子里住着独自生活的人。在德国今年
56
岁的离异者伯恩德
克劳斯特费尔德创作了
一盘称作“不
再孤独”的
CD
。该碟片的特点是有
1
5
段家庭生活的录音，如“电视没什么
节目；最起码薯条还是不
错的”和“冰箱终于又满了”
，它为独自生活的人们提供了“
6
2
分
钟归属感”
。
5.
Europe
s
new
economic
climate
has
largely
fostered
the
trend
toward
independence. The current generation of
home-aloners came of age during Europe
s
shift
from
social
democracy
to
the
sharper,
more
individualistic
climate
of
American-style capitalism. Raised in an
era of privatization and increased consumer
choice, today s tech-savvy workers have
embraced a free market in love as well as
economics.
Modern
Europeans
are
rich
enough
to
afford
to
live
alone,
and
temperamentally
independent
enough
to
want
to
do
so.
A
recent
poll
by
the
Institute
Francaisd Opinion Publique, the French affiliate
of the Gallup poll, found
that
58
percent
of
French
respondents
viewed
living
alone
as
a
choice,
not
an
obligation. O
ther European
singles agree. “I’ve
always wanted to
be free to go
on adventures,” says Iris
Eppendorf, who lives by herself in Berlin. “I hate
dreary
,
boring, bourgeois
living
—
it’s
not
interesting.”
5.
欧
洲的新经济气候大大地鼓励了独立的趋势。
当代独自生活的这一代人的成长时期正是欧<
/p>
洲从社会民主政治过渡到更精明、
更个性化的美国风格的资本主义
气候的时期。
成长在私有
化和日益买方市场时代的当今熟谙技术
的工人象接受自由经济那样也热情欢迎爱情自由。
现
代的欧洲人
相当富有，有财力独自生活；
而且他们性格独立，
希望独自生活
。法国公众民意
研究所（盖洛普民意测验法国分部）最近的调查发现，被提问的法国人中
有
58%
的人认为
独自生活是一种选择
而不是一种强迫。
其他欧洲单身一族也这样认为。
独自住在柏林
的艾丽
丝
埃彭道夫说：
“我一直想要随心所欲地去冒险。
我讨厌沉闷、
令人
厌烦的中产阶级生活—
—一点都没意思。
”
6. Once upon a time,
people who lived alone tended to be those on
either side of
marriage
—
twenty-
something
professionals
or
widowed
senior
citizens.
While
pensioners, particularly elderly women,
make up a hefty proportion of those living
alone,
the
newest
crop
of
singles
are
high
earners
in
their
30s
and
40s
who
increasingly view living alone as a
lifestyle choice. “The Swedish word for someone
living alone used to be ensam, which
had connota
tions of being lonely,”
notes Eva
Stanstead
, author
of “Living Alone in Sweden.” “It was conceived as
a negative
—
dark and cold,
while being together suggested warmth and light.
But then along
came
the
idea
of
singles.
They
were
young,
beautiful,
and
strong!
Now,
young
people want to live
alone.”
6.
以前独自生活的
人都是一些处在婚姻生活之两端的人们——
20
多岁的专业人员
或寡居的
老人。
领取养老金的人，
特别
是上了年纪的妇女，
构成了独自生活人群的绝大多数；而新一
批
单身族则是
30
到
40
岁的高收入人士，他们日益认为独自生活是一种生活方式的选择。
《在瑞典独自
生活》一书的作者伊娃
桑德斯蒂德注意到：
< br>“瑞典语过去曾用
ensam
称呼独
自生活的人，
蕴涵孤独之意。
独自生活被认为是消极的——
黑暗而且寒冷，
而家庭生活则意
味着温暖与光明。但是新单身族
的观念则不然。他们年轻、美丽、强壮！现在，年轻人希望
独自生活。
< br>”
7.
The
booming
economy
means
people are working
harder
than
ever.
And
that
doesn t leave much
room for relationships. Pimpi Arroyo, a 35-year-
old composer
who lives alone in
a house in Paris, says he
hasn’t
got time to get lonely because
he has too much work. “I have deadlines
which would make life with someone else
fairly difficult.” Only an Ideal Woman
could make him change his lifestyle, he says.
Kaufmann,
author
of
a
recent
book
called
“The
Single
Woman
and
Prince
Ch
arming,”
thinks this fierce
new
individualism
means
that people
expect
more
and more of mates, so
relationships don t last long
—
if they start at all.
Eppendorf,
a blond Berliner with a deep
tan and chronic wanderlust, teaches grade school
in
the
mornings.
In
the
afternoon
she
sunbathes
or
sleeps,
resting
up
for
going
dancing. Just shy of 50, she says
she’d
never have wanted to
do what her mother
did
—
give up a
career to raise a family. Instead, “I ve always
done what I wanted
to do: live a self-
determine
d life.”
7.
繁荣的经济意味着人们比以往任何时候都要更努力工作。
这就无法为交往留出很多的空间。
35
岁的作曲家平庇
阿罗约独自居住在巴黎的一所房子里，
说他无
暇感到孤独，
因为有很多
事要做。
“我
总有工作要赶在期限内完成，
这就使得我与他人在一起生活相当困难。
< br>”
他还说
只有“理想妻子”才能改变他的生活模式。最近
出版《单身女人和白马王子》一书的作者考
夫曼认为，
这种狂热
的新个人主义意味着人们对配偶的期望越来越多，
因此相互之间的关系
< br>持续不长——如果能有开始交往的话。
埃彭道夫是个金发碧眼的柏林女人，
有着晒成褐色的
皮肤，并且嗜好旅行。她上午在一所小学教书，下午则
去日光浴或睡觉，以便彻底地休息，
然后去跳舞。她还不到
50
岁，她说她从未想过要象她母亲那样生活——放弃事业，以便照
看家庭。而“我一直在做我想要做的事：过自己选择的生活。
”
8. A self-determined life doesn t come
cheap. In capitals like Stockholm, Rome or
Berlin,
high
rents
mean
that
only
big
earners
can
afford
their
own
housing.
Proportionally, more professionals live
alone: in France, one in five career women
live
alone,
compared
with
one
in
ten
working
women.
The
French
government
recently allotted
nearly 77 million francs to people in their early
20s who wanted to
move
away
from
home,
but
couldn
t
afford
to.
Parisian
banker
de
Kergorlay
s
apartment allows her the luxury of
being able to “read, cook, write and entertain
without having to make
compromises.”
8.
过
自己选择的生活一点也不便宜。在像斯德哥尔摩、罗马或柏林这样的首都城市，房租很
高
，
这意味着只有高工资的人才付得起自己的住房。
按比例来算，
有更多的专业人员独自生
活：
在法国五
分之一的职业妇女独自生活，
而在蓝领工作妇女中的比例则是十分之一。
法国
政府最近为那些二十多岁想搬出去住但又负担不起的年轻人拨款七千七百万
法郎。
巴黎银行
家克尔戈莱的公寓使她能十分舒适地“无拘无束
地读书、煮饭、写作和娱乐”
。
9.
Such
freedom
can
be
addictive,
particularly
for
women,
notes
sociologist