小说与文学2021thetolkienist.com
托尔金从未说过、做过或写过的那些事
Things JRR Tolkien has never said, done, written or had anything to do with
导读
这篇文章盘点了一堆被张冠李戴到托尔金名下的假名言、伪事迹和牵强的地方关联，说明名人语录如何在网络上以讹传讹。对写作者来说，它既是一份引用伦理的警示，也提醒我们：读者对"可信又动人"的说法有多缺乏免疫力。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
引用名人名言前务必回溯原始出处；听起来像托尔金/佛陀/林肯说的话，往往只是像而已。
- 02
假引文不全是凭空捏造，更多是"细微走样"和"粗心转抄"——转述他人观点时要逐字核对，别让 paraphrase 变成 misquote。
- 03
把作家生平地点与作品地点一一对应很有诱惑力，但真实灵感（如阿尔卑斯山徒步、一战战场）与事后附会要分开讲。
- 04
一个好故事能流传，常常是因为读者"太想相信"；写作时利用这种渴望可以，但不要靠制造事实来满足它。
HN 评论精选
真实灵感与事后附会要区分开，别把巧合当考据。
除了张冠李戴的引文，很多人还喜欢把托尔金居住或到访过的地方与中土世界的地点挂钩。确实可能存在灵感来源：他年轻时在阿尔卑斯的徒步旅行或许影响了他对迷雾山脉的描写，一战战场也可能启发了死亡沼泽和魔多。但他在利兹任教授时附近的"冬青公园"，是否启发了摩瑞亚大门外的"冬青"（Hollin）？谁也说不准。顺便说，我在托尔金待过的两座城市——利兹和伯恩茅斯——都住过；我在利兹大学读研时共用的一间小办公室，据说托尔金早年用过，我们开玩笑说那就是《霍比特人》里妖怪那种潮湿阴暗曲折洞穴的原型。（补充：托尔金确实明确提到过瑞士徒步之旅是迷雾山脉部分描写的灵感。）
KineticLensman查看英文原文
As well as misplaced quotes, a lot or people like to identify connections between places that Tolkien lived in or visited and places in Middle Earth. Clearly, there are likely inspirations, for example, young Tolkien's walking holiday in the Alps may have informed some of his descriptions of the Misty Mountains, and World War one battlefields may have inspired the Dead Marshes and Mordor. But did 'The Hollies' park in Leeds [0], where Tolkien was a professor, inspire Hollin, just outside the gates of Moria? Who can say? Incidentally, I have lived in two of the cities that Tolkien did: Leeds and Bournemouth. As a post grad at Leeds University, the small office (just east of the current Student Union building) that I shared for a while had reputedly been used by Tolkien long before I was born. We joked that it was the inspiration for the damp, dark, twisty caves of the goblins in the Hobbit. [Edit - just checked - Tolkien explicitly references his Swiss walking tour as an inspiration for parts of the Misty Mountains] [0] https://www.headingleyleeds.com/parks-hollies [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Youth
假引文多为细微失真而非全盘捏造，因而更需要核查。
我没想到有那么多假名言被安在他头上。这有点像网上流传的各种假佛陀语录。有些一眼就是那种配着俗气日落图、发在 Instagram 上的鸡汤；另一些则更难辨别，可能只是细微的扭曲或粗心的转录，而非完全捏造。这说明我们在网上读到东西时必须保持怀疑，哪怕它听起来很合理。正如已故伟大的林肯总统据我最近读到的某处所说："网上找到的名言，问题在于很多根本不是真的。"
jmfldn查看英文原文
I didn't realise how many fake quotes he had attributed to him. Reminds me a bit of the many fake Buddha quotes that do the rounds. Some are obviously just the sort of guff you'd read on Instagram hovering over a naff picture of a sunset. Others are harder to detect and may be a subtle distortion or sloppy transcription rather than a total fabrication. Goes to show how sceptical we must be when reading things online, even when they sound plausible. As the late great Abraham Lincoln once said according to something I read recently... "The problem with quotes found on the internet is that many simply are not true".
传闻因"人们太想相信"而流传，考据需要不感伤的怀疑者。
读到关于名作家的无根据传闻——无论出自骗局还是善意的误会——总是很有趣。博客里这句话打动了我："作为托尔金爱好者，我当然希望 A 城、B 楼或 C 人能与我最爱的作家有些关联……"这让我想起关于 1862 年狄更斯与陀思妥耶夫斯基会面的那桩骗局，它在 2010 年代初被揭穿。这个故事之所以流传，是因为太多狄更斯迷太想相信它；最后是一位不那么感伤的陀思妥耶夫斯基研究者把它彻底拆穿。
theobeers查看英文原文
It's always fun to read about things that have come to be believed about famous authors, without a basis in fact, whether through hoaxes or by more innocent means. The following line from the linked blog post stood out to me: "As a Tolkienist I would love [for] many cities A, buildings B or persons C to have some sort of link to my favourite author…" That reminded me of the hoax surrounding a purported 1862 meeting between Dickens and Dostoevsky, which came to light in the early 2010s.[0] The story gained legs because of how badly many Dickensians wanted to believe it. It was a less sentimental Dostoevskian who took it upon himself to unravel the whole thing. There has been some discussion on HN of the Dickens-Dostoevsky affair.[1] [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2013/07/true-story-behind-meeting-between-dickens-and-dostoevsky-never-happened/313381/ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21150906
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