小说与文学2017newyorker.com编辑精选
特德·姜那充满灵魂的科幻小说
Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction
导读
这是《纽约客》一篇写特德·姜的人物报道，探讨他的科幻小说为什么“有灵魂”。对写作者特别有价值：它追问一个根本问题——作品是否必须追溯到作者的个人创伤或经历。Hacker News 上的讨论延伸到“什么是真正的科幻”、我们为什么总爱把创作者“心理化”，以及设定与篇幅的分寸。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
别急着把作品归因于作者的生平创伤——“有时我们只是想做点酷东西”，虚构不必给每个人物和情节硬塞深层心理动机。
- 02
科幻的核心方法不是发明新奇设定，而是拿一套科学或逻辑框架，改动其中一个“如果”，用来照见人性，和其他文学一样。
- 03
极端前提要推到底：真正动人的是这个前提带来的不安与后果（比如“上帝的存在被证实”），而不是设定本身。
- 04
篇幅要服务于故事，过长会让读者失去耐心；技术细节的“模型”必须让读者觉得可信、能共情。
- 05
当一个故事足够强时，它会盖过同集里的其他篇目——这也是选篇与排序时要想清楚的事。
HN 评论精选
别把创作强行归因于作者创伤；“纯粹为了好玩而造东西”也是真实动机，只是它不好写成故事。
我很欣赏文章作者那种挫败感：他想把特德·姜的写作归因于他的个人生活或经历，却做不到。我们人类似乎总在“本质化”——相信我们所做的一切都源自深层的心理需求，把每个行为都投射到多年前与父母、爱人、朋友有关的某件事上。这大概来自一种愿望：相信行为是确定的。只要我们也经历那个人经历的一切，我们也会成为那位著名科幻作家、那位企业家，或那个混蛋总统——这多少为我们“不是那个人”开脱。但有时并非如此：有时我们只是想做点东西玩玩，不是所有事都得是“我们在与疏远的父亲和解”。扎克伯格曾就《社交网络》说过大意如此的话：他们必须把 Facebook 的起源说成是他被一个女孩拒绝，因为“人们纯粹为了好玩而做出很酷的东西”这个想法拍不成好电影。有意思的是，我觉得这种人人都在做的“沙发心理学”正愈演愈烈——没有证据，只是感觉：我们接触到越多人的行为，就越倾向于对它做本质化归因。
hammerzeit查看英文原文
I really enjoyed the frustration of the article's author in trying to attribute Ted Chiang's writing to his personal life or history. We as humans seem to have this unceasing tendency to essentialize -- to believe that everything we do comes from deep-seated psychological needs. We project every action onto some event from years past with a parent, a lover, a friend. I feel like this is borne out of a desire to believe that behavior is deterministic. That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. It excuses, to some extent, the fact that we are not that person. But sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes we just build shit for fun. It doesn't all have to be us coming to terms with our distant father. Zuckerberg, of all people, once had a quote vis-a-vis The Social Network (can't seem to find it) that basically amounted to the idea that they had to make the entirety of Facebook be about his rejection by a girl because the idea of people building something cool for its own sake doesn't make a good movie. What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all do is getting worse. I don't have any evidence to back this up, just a feeling -- as we're exposed to more people's behaviors, we fall back to essentialist attributions of that behavior more and more.
真正的科幻不是发明新奇，而是改动用科学框架做“如果”推演来照见人性；极端前提要推到它令人不适的结论。
这里有太多有意思的点，我忍不住说几句。1）“他们感谢自己被允许看到这么多，并为想看到更多而祈求宽恕。”当我遇到震撼的物理发现时，我有时也会对人类进军宇宙生出这种感受。2）“他写的是早期时代本会存在的科幻——如果那时就有科学的话。”我认为这是对“什么是科幻”极深刻的评论。有人以为科幻就是发明新东西，而人类一直通过神话在做这种事（甚至可以说过去这类东西更多，是科学扼杀了它）。另一方面，我认为真正的科幻是拿一套科学框架，改动其中某些部分做“如果”推演，以此展示人性的某些面向——和其他文学作品运作的方式一样；而这确实需要科学。3）“特德·姜设想的无信仰世界：上帝的存在被确证无疑，这件事令人不安而非令人安心。”完全正确——如果上帝的存在被无可置疑地证明（想想这本身就是悖论），存在将变得难以忍受，比反过来被证明更甚。4）“我相信宇宙是确定论的，但自由意志最有意义的定义与确定论相容。”完全正确！
Jun8查看英文原文
Wow, there are so many interesting bits here that I felt compelled to comment on some: 1. "... they gave thanks that they were permitted to see so much, and begged forgiveness for their desire to see more.” When I discover with mind-blowing physical discovery (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Borealis_Great_Wall) I sometimes feel this way about humanity's great foray into the universe. 2. "He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had science existed then." I interpret this to be a very insightful comment on what SF is. Some people take SF to be inventing stuff, humans always did that sort of thing through mythology (in fact one can argue that in the past we had much more of it and science kills it). OTOH I think the real SF is taking a scientific framework and tweaking parts of it what-ifs to demonstrate aspects of humanity, in way any other work of literature operates. This does require science. 3. "Chiang’s vision of a world without faith, in which the certain and proven existence of God is troubling, rather than reassuring." This is absolutely true, if the existence of God were to be proven beyond doubt (which, if you think about it seems paradoxical) existence would be intolerable, much more so than if the reverse was proven. 4. "I believe that the universe is deterministic, but that the most meaningful definition of free will is compatible with determinism”. Spot on! "We must believe in free will -- we have no choice." - Isaac Bashevis Singer 5. “There’s a book by Umberto Eco called ‘The Search for the Perfect Language,’ ” he said. Great book that I would recommend to anyone. 6. "In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind." After finishing Snow Crash I have been thinking that some form of brain hacking should be possible using light pulses and linguistics as input (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-language-elements-in-snow-crash-supported-by-science). Altogether an amazing guy, ordering his books from Amazon right now.
篇幅过长会拖垮故事；技术设定必须让哪怕内行的读者也觉得可信、有共鸣。
《呼气》是我最喜欢的特德·姜故事，可以在 Lightspeed 上读到。我大概是少数派，但我不太喜欢《软件对象的生命周期》：我觉得它太长，而且虽然我就是做固件的，故事里的软件模型也没能打动我。
sohkamyung查看英文原文
"Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. It can be read at Lightspeed [1]. I'm probably in the minority here, but I didn't really enjoy "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". I though it was too long and, while I work in firmware, the story's software model didn't connect with me. [1] http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
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