南鵲書廬

By A. O. Scott

Early this year, the Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." The results - in some respects quite surprising, in others not at all

【…】

Any other outcome would have been startling, since Morrison's novel has inserted itself into the American canon more completely than any of its potential rivals. With remarkable speed, "Beloved" has, less than 20 years after its publication, become a staple of the college literary curriculum, which is to say a classic. This triumph is commensurate with its ambition, since it was Morrison's intention in writing it precisely to expand the range of classic American literature, to enter, as a living black woman, the company of dead white males like Faulkner, Melville, Hawthorne and Twain.

詳見紐約時報：In Search of the Best（預定2006.5.21 見報）

相關討論：過去二十五年最好的美國小說（Sounds and Fury）

南飛烏鵲曰：
Sounds and Fury 的Iron提到：「這裡面除了Toni Morrison的書以外，其他幾位美國當代最重量的作家，台灣幾乎都沒有翻譯本…當然，我不是文學專家，只是用博客來稍微查了一下，也許有的譯本我不知道…如果稀少的中譯本也是一個現象，我們又解讀這個現象呢？」

我是學文學的，但稱不上專家，對中譯本的情況也沒做過統計。直觀地說，iron提出的現象，反映出國內譯本取材的廣度仍嫌不足。

這直觀的臆想和事實的差距有多遠呢？

 A. O. Scott的文章提到1965年有份報紙作過類似票選活動：the winner was Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," which was declared "the most memorable" work of American fiction published since the end of World War II, and the most likely to endure. 到今天，這本書的中譯似乎仍不見蹤影。美國近代經典尚且如此，遑論其餘。

再翻開手邊一冊《後殖民文學》（擎松，2004），裡頭介紹名家17位，受過諾貝爾獎或布克獎加持的不論， 其他如Aime Cesaire、Chinua Achebe、Ngugi Wa Thong’o、Jamaica Kincaid，作品中譯寥寥可數，甚或付之闕如。

隨機翻閱便翻到不少遺珠之憾，我想，這多少表示台灣在外文書籍翻譯上頭，還有進步空間。

政府財政困難，國內高等教育亟待提升，好不容易有了五百億解渴，部分大學竟然拿這些錢「鼓勵」外籍生來台念書，學雜費全免，還每月補助八千到一萬五不等的生活費用。相關做法看不出與成為世界百大、追求卓越之間有何關連？    

教育部五年五百億經費是鼓勵國內大學在未來五年內，學術研究水準可以躋身國際百名之列，成就指標之一為學校國際化。按理說，國際化應該是學術水準獲得國際肯定後，國際學生自願來台才對，而不是花大筆鈔票「鼓勵」外國學生來台。

國內財政吃緊之際，各級教育百廢待舉，小學生繳不起營養午餐日益增多，國立高中職好幾年資本門掛零，需要政府額外經費補助。

【…】

四、五年前追求卓越計畫的「成果」，卻讓人無法對五年五百億計畫抱持樂觀想法。當年這些獲得經費補助的大學，經過百億元「加持」後，並未看出更加卓越，反倒是部分學校為了消化預算，不斷添置新儀器，廣設電視牆、添購遊艇等，被外界譏為高教奇談。納稅人的錢就這樣不知不覺的浪費掉了！

詳見中國時報：五年五百億 花錢如此「卓越」

相關新聞：條件超優渥 成大外籍生倍增（中國時報）

南飛烏鵲曰：
教育資源，不患寡，而患分配不均。外籍學生吃香喝辣，而本國學生流離失所，這似乎說不過去吧。

Of all those who spoke yesterday at the funeral of A. M. Rosenthal, the former executive editor of The New York Times, perhaps none synthesized his famous temperament and insight better than his son Andrew.

【…】

"The same man who stood up to the wrath of the Nixon White House loved to hear the silliest jokes repeated, endlessly," he said. "The same man who ruled The New York Times with a fierceness that is the stuff of legend was known to my teenage friends, many of whom are here today, as the guy who slammed on an old cowboy hat and danced through the living room with his shirttail hanging out, singing along, incredibly badly, to Merle Haggard's revenge on music lovers, 'I'm Proud to Be an Okie From Muskogee.' "

【…】

William Safire, a former Op-Ed columnist who writes the "On Language" column for The New York Times Magazine, noted that Mr. Rosenthal had often said that he wanted his epitaph to be, "He kept the paper straight."

"But without favor did not mean without flavor," Mr. Safire added. "He saw fresh ways to report news."

Nicholas D. Kristof, who won a Pulitzer Prize last month as an Op-Ed columnist, hailed Mr. Rosenthal for using his own Op-Ed column to make matters like human rights violations in China and Sudan "recognizable as issues." Mr. Rosenthal's column, "On My Mind," began soon after he stepped down as the executive editor in 1986, and it continued until 1999.

"Abe fought to cure our blind spots, and it worked," Mr. Kristof said. "He did indeed teach us to see."

詳見紐約時報：A. M. Rosenthal Is Remembered for 'Tender Ferocity'

文：蔡典謨（高雄師範大學特殊教育系教授，世界資優兒童協會會長）

聰明的學生具有一些不同的特質，他們記憶力強、反應快、理解力高、邏輯推理能力好、善於表達。這些特質讓他們可以比一般學生學得更快、更深、更廣。此外，他們的學習也可能有不同的偏好。他們喜歡討論、創造、思考、操作、發表，而不喜歡單調機械化死記死背的學習。由於聰明學生的特質有別於一般智能的學生，正如身心障礙學生需要特殊教育，資優生的教育需求也會有其特殊性。     

因此，我國特殊教育法規定資賦優異學生及身心障礙學生，均有接受適性教育的權利，資優教育也就是符合資優生身心特質的特殊教育。資優班的設置應考慮依資優生的鑑定標準，找出真正需接受資優教育的學生，依資優生的特殊特質去規劃課程及教學，師資也應受資優教育的專業訓練。

【…】

資優生之所以為資優生就是因為他們可以用比較短的時間、比較快的速度學習，而且學得較深。如果資優班課程只是一味增加時數去學習相同教材，等於是把資優生資質看成比一般學生差，因此花了比一般學生更長時間學習。尤其做更多的測驗卷，花更長的時間去做練習，也不符資優生偏好的學習風格。變質的資優班暴增，反而把資優生的發展空間壓縮了，把資優生教笨了

【…】     

尤其令人憂心的是：國中普設資優班，進資優班加強升學的誘導，國小以進國中資優班做明星學校的指標，好不容易因九年國教的推展而減輕的升學壓力，是否又會因想擠進國中資優班而死灰復燃？

詳見中國時報：資優班把孩子變笨了

A major influence on him was the caustic social commentary he found in Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class." Mr. Galbraith called Veblen one of American history's most astute social scientists, but also acknowledged that he tended to be overcritical.

"I've thought to resist this tendency," Mr. Galbraith said, "but in other respects Veblen's influence on me has lasted long. One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read."

【…】

In those years the theories of John Maynard Keynes were exciting economists everywhere because they promised solutions to the most urgent problems of the time: the Depression and unemployment. The government must intervene in moments of crisis, Keynes maintained, and unbalance the budget if necessary to get the nation's economic machinery running again.

Keynesianism gave economic validation to what President Roosevelt was doing, Mr. Galbraith thought, and he resolved in 1937 "to go to the temple" — Cambridge University — on a fellowship grant for a year of study with the disciples of Keynes.

【…】

Mr. Galbraith became an American citizen, and taught economics at Princeton in 1939. But after the fall of France in 1940, Mr. Galbraith joined the Roosevelt administration to help manage an economy being prepared for war. He rose to become the administrator of wage and price controls in the Office of Price Administration. Prices remained stable, unlike in earlier wars, but he grew controversial, drawing the constant fire of industry complaints. "I reached the point that all price fixers reach," he said, "My enemies outnumbered my friends."

詳見紐約時報：John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Mirror to Society（2006.4.30）

相關文章：高爾布雷斯給當前世界的遺產（Sounds and Fury）

南飛烏鵲曰：
紐約公共圖書館於1995年選出「Books of the Century」175本，其中經濟類別選書，便包含了「The Affluent Society」、「Theory of the Leisure Class」。書目詳見國家圖書館館訊第77、78期

Mr. Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in the history of economics; among his 33 books was "The Affluent Society" (1958), one of those rare works that forces a nation to re-examine its values. He wrote fluidly, even on complex topics, and many of his compelling phrases — among them "the affluent society," "conventional wisdom" and "countervailing power" — became part of the language.

【…】

Beginning with "American Capitalism" in 1952, he laid out a detailed critique of what he saw as an increasingly oligopolistic economy. Combined with works in the 1950's by writers like David Reisman, Vance Packard and William H. Whyte, the book changed people's views of the postwar world.

Mr. Galbraith argued that technology mandated long-term contracts to diminish high-stakes uncertainty. He said companies used advertising to induce consumers to buy things they had never dreamed they needed.

Other economists, like Gary S. Becker and George J. Stigler, both Nobel Prize winners, countered with proofs showing that advertising is essentially informative rather than manipulative.

【…】

Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, maintains that Mr. Galbraith not only reached but also defined the summit of his field. In the 2000 commencement address at Harvard, Mr. Parker's book recounts, Mr. Sen said the influence of "The Affluent Society," was so pervasive that its many piercing insights were taken for granted.

"It's like reading 'Hamlet' and deciding it's full of quotations," he said.

（未完）

If these extraordinarily positive events were a protest of anything, it was the idea of the immigrant as temporary and unwelcome guest worker. The marches flew in the face of theories that undocumented workers want nothing but to labor unnoticed and separate from the nation that employs them to make its meals, trim its hedges and slaughter its beef.

【…】

These immigrants, weary of silent servitude, are speaking up and asking for something simple: a chance to work to become citizens, with all the obligations and opportunities that go with it.

Our lawmakers, to their discredit, have erected barriers within barriers, created legal hurdles and bureaucratic hoops, and dangled the opportunity for lowly guest-worker status without the citizenship to go with it. It is an invitation to create a society with a permanent underclass deprived of any ladder to something better. It is a path to creating a different, and lower, vision of our country and ourselves.

詳見紐約時報社論：They Are America

文：米千因 

我等得無聊便四處溜覽，椅桌、櫃檯、牙醫、病號、診療器無一不老，手提收音機裡源源滾出平聲平調的股票行情。除此，便是鑽磨聲與牙醫偶而的溫溫探問。    

不久爸媽回南部居住，那副假牙我媽戴了好幾年，見我面總要說：「配了那麼多副假牙就這副最好，也最便宜。」     

於是，我沒敢輕視老診所裡的老牙醫以及他那些老舊的行當，更別說數十年如一日的醫德以及他的文學之心。  

詳見中國時報：王昶雄幫我媽媽裝假牙 

南飛烏鵲曰：
忘了是從哪份報紙，得知王昶雄先生過世。只記得那則消息擺在最不起眼的角落。我讀紐約時報等美國重要媒體，總覺得上頭刊登的訃聞 ─ 無論寫政界名流、學術泰斗、或是文壇耆宿 ─ 夾敘夾議，詳實精到，可謂蓋棺之論。兩相比較，更顯得王老先生身後寂寥。

在木構造、灰瓦、斜屋頂的大阪日式住宅區中，日本著名作家司馬遼太郎的紀念館，利用既有建築旁的空地，委託鄰居安藤設計新館。紀念館面積小巧、構造獨特，參觀者進入新館，可以透過窗戶欣賞書齋。兩層樓高的超大書架，塑造出近乎神聖的的空間效果，司馬遼太郎的《希望之光》，透過彩色玻璃撒落於超大書架上。此一超大書架可收集陳列近兩萬冊司馬遼太郎的藏書，以成千上萬的書籍堆砌出空間的臨界張力。 

詳見自由時報：相遇安藤忠雄（2004.12.21）

南飛烏鵲曰：
從豆腐魚聽自言自語連結至網站準建築人手札。站上的安藤忠雄設計作品圖片，倉卒不及細覽，只點選欣賞了司馬遼太郎紀念館。從網路上找到一篇報導：「參觀者進入新館，可以透過窗戶欣賞書齋。兩層樓高的超大書架…收集陳列近兩萬冊司馬遼太郎的藏書，以成千上萬的書籍堆砌出空間的臨界張力。」兩層樓高的架上滿是圖書，真令人嘆為觀止。

美國知名政論雜誌《新共和》（The New Republic）周刊最近更換總編輯，由資深主編富蘭克林．佛爾（Franklin Foer）升任，原總編輯彼德．貝納特卸任，打算專注於寫作。這次《新共和》總編輯換人與以往不同，倒未出現一番角力鬥爭，佛爾戲稱，這是該刊多年來首次不流血權力轉移。    

雖然《新共和》這次總編輯更迭過程風平浪靜，但此際佛爾接掌總編輯絕不好當。據《紐約時報》報導，過去四年來《新共和》的發行量掉了近四○％，繼二○○二年為推動網路版砸大錢之後，現今《新共和》不但發行量縮減，員工也被減薪。《新共和》向來扮演民主黨中間偏左派的代言者，但這一歷史角色亦正面臨諸多網站和部落格的挑戰，尤其是過去所呈現的論述型態，被認為新聞量太少。

【...】

《新共和》每周發行量六萬兩千份，內容也僅有四十頁，但它對美國公共政策的影響力仍不可小覷，與金斯萊、蘇利文或凱利擔任總編輯時期同樣名號響亮。蘇利文說：「該刊在華府仍享有一席之地，它未必能夠左右議題方向，但我想它仍有能力炒熱議題。」

    然而，《華盛頓市報》總編輯溫波則指出，《新共和》卡陷於自身的傳統中，它「好辯，所有文章全以論辯為主．．．很少提供精彩報導」。

詳見中國時報：發行量掉四成 挽頹勢 《新共和》31歲新總編挑戰（2006.4.24）