(完整版)现代大学英语精读4thinkingasahobby原文、课文对比版

Thinking as a Hobby

by William Golding

While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking; and since

I was later to claim thinking as my hobby, I came to an even stranger conclusion - namely, that I

myself could not think at all.

I

must

have

been

an

unsatisfactory

child

for

grownups

to

deal

with.

I

remember

how

incomprehensible they appeared to me at first, but not, of course, how I appeared to them. It was

the

headmaster

of

my

grammar

school

who

first

brought

the

subject

of

thinking

before

me

-

though neither in the way,

nor with the result he intended. He had some statuettes in his study.

They stood on a high cupboard behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel.

She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any farther, and since she had

no arms, she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her, crouched the

statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet labeled A-AH. My

innocence

interpreted

this

as

the

victim's

last,

despairing

cry.

Beyond

the

leopard was

a

naked,

muscular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee.

He seemed utterly miserable.

Some

time

later,

I

learned

about

these

statuettes.

The

headmaster

had

placed

them

where

they

would face delinquent children, because they symbolized to him to whole of life. The naked lady

was the Venus of Milo. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy

being

beautiful.

The

leopard

was

Nature,

and

he

was

being

natural.

The

naked,

muscular

gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodin's Thinker, an image of pure thought. It is easy to buy

small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I had better explain that I was a frequent visitor to the headmaster's study, because of the latest

thing

I

had

done

or

left

undone.

As

we

now

say,

I

was

not

integrated.

I

was,

if

anything,

disintegrated;

and

I

was

puzzled.

Grownups

never

made

sense.

Whenever

I

found

myself

in

a

penal position before the headmaster's desk, with the statuettes glimmering whitely above him, I

would sink my head, clasp my hands behind my back, and writhe one shoe over the other.

The headmaster would look opaquely at me through flashing spectacles.

with you?

Well, what were they going to do with me? I would writhe my shoe some more and stare down at

the worn rug.

Then I would look at the cupboard, where the naked lady was frozen in her panic and the muscular

gentleman contemplated the hindquarters of the leopard in endless gloom. I had nothing to say to

the headmaster. His spectacles caught the light so that you could see nothing human behind them.

There was no possibility of communication.

No,

I

didn't

think,

wasn't

thinking,

couldn't

think

-

I

was

simply

waiting

in

anguish

for

the

interview to stop.

On one occasion the headmaster leaped to his feet, reached up and plonked Rodin's masterpiece

on the desk before me.

I surveyed the gentleman without interest or comprehension.

Clearly there was something missing in me. Nature had endowed the rest of the human race with a

sixth sense and left me out. This must be so, I mused, on my way back to the class, since whether I

had broken a window, or failed to remember Boyle's

Law, or been late for school,

my teachers

produced me one, adult answer:

As I saw the case, I had broken the window because I had tried to hit Jack Arney with a cricket

ball and missed him; I could not remember Boyle's Law because I had never bothered to learn it;

and I was late for school because I preferred looking over the bridge into the river. In fact, I was

wicked.

Were

my

teachers,

perhaps,

so

good

that

they

could

not

understand

the

depths

of

my

depravity?

Were

they

clear,

untormented

people

who

could

direct

their

every

action

by

this

mysterious

business

of

thinking? The

whole

thing

was incomprehensible.

In

my

earlier

years,

I

found even the statuette of the Thinker confusing. I did not believe any of my teachers were naked,

ever.

Like

someone

born

deaf,

but

bitterly

determined

to

find

out

about

sound,

I

watched

my

teachers to find out about thought.

There was Mr. Houghton. He was always telling me to think. With a modest satisfaction, he would

tell that he had thought a bit himself. Then why did he spend so much time drinking? Or was there

more sense in drinking than there appeared to be? But if not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous

to

health

-

and

Mr.

Houghton

was

ruined,

there

was

no

doubt

about

that

-

why

was

he

always

talking about the clean life and the virtues of fresh air? He would spread his arms wide with the

action of a man who habitually spent his time striding along mountain ridges.

Sometimes, exalted by his own oratory, he would leap from his desk and hustle us outside into a

hideous wind.

He would stand before us, rejoicing in his perfect health, an open-air man. He would put his hands

on his waist and take a tremendous breath. You could hear the wind trapped in the cavern of his

chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments. His body would reel with shock and his

ruined

face

go

white

at

the

unaccustomed

visitation.

He

would

stagger

back

to

his

desk

and

collapse there, useless for the rest of the morning.

Mr. Houghton was given to high-minded monologues about the good life, sexless and full of duty.

Yet in the middle of one of these monologues, if a girl passed the window, tapping along on her

neat little feet, he would interrupt his discourse, his neck would turn of itself and he would watch

her out of sight. In this instance, he seemed to me ruled not by thought but by an invisible and

irresistible spring in his nape.

His neck was an object of great interest to me. Normally it bulged a bit over his collar. But Mr.

Houghton had fought in the First World War alongside both Americans and French, and had come

-

by

who

knows

what

illogic?

-

to

a

settled

detestation

of

both

countries.

If

either

country

happened to be prominent in current affairs, no argument could make Mr. Houghton think well of

it. He would bang the desk, his neck would bulge still further and go red.

like,

Mr. Houghton thought with his neck.

There was Miss. Parsons. She assured us that her dearest wish was our welfare, but I knew even

then, with the mysterious clairvoyance of childhood, that what she wanted most was the husband

she never got. There was Mr. Hands - and so on.

I have dealt at length with my teachers because this was my introduction to the nature of what is

commonly

called

thought.

Through

them

I

discovered

that

thought

is

often

full

of

unconscious

prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy. It will lecture on disinterested purity while its neck is being

remorselessly twisted toward a skirt. Technically, it is about as proficient as most businessmen's

golf,

as

honest

as

most

politician's

intentions,

or

-

to

come

near

my

own

preoccupation

-

as

coherent as most books that get written. It is what I came to call grade-three thinking, though more

properly, it is feeling, rather than thought.

True,

often

there

is

a

kind

of

innocence

in

prejudices,

but

in

those

days

I

viewed

grade- three

thinking with an intolerant contempt and an incautious mockery. I delighted to confront a pious

lady who hated the Germans with the proposition that we should love our enemies. She taught me

a

great

truth

in

dealing

with

grade-three

thinkers;

because

of

her,

I

no

longer

dismiss

lightly

a

mental process which for nine-tenths of the population is the nearest they will ever get to thought.

They

have

immense

solidarity.

We

had

better

respect

them,

for

we

are

outnumbered

and

surrounded. A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands

at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their

beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on

the side of a hill.

Grade-two thinking is the detection of contradictions. I reached grade two when I trapped the poor,

pious lady. Grade-two thinkers do not stampede easily, though often they fall into the other fault

and lag behind. Grade-two thinking is a withdrawal, with eyes and ears open. It became my hobby

and

brought

satisfaction

and

loneliness

in

either

hand.

For

grade-two

thinking

destroys

without

having

the

power

to

create.

It

set

me

watching

the

crowds

cheering

His

Majesty

the

King

and

asking myself what all the fuss was about, without giving me anything positive to put in the place

of

that

heady

patriotism.

But

there

were

compensations.

To

hear

people

justify

their

habit

of

hunting

foxes

and

tearing

them

to

pieces

by

claiming

that

the

foxes

like

it.

To

her

our

Prime

Minister talk about the great benefit we conferred on India by jailing people like Pandit Nehru and

Gandhi.

To

hear

American

politicians

talk

about

peace

in

one

sentence

and

refuse

to

join

the

League of Nations in the next. Yes, there were moments of delight.