I Find Plenty of News in Old Books旧书满新知

For centuries， discerning readers have agreed with me on this.

几个世纪以来，慧眼识珠的读者与我所见略同。

When my wife and I hired some painters to freshen up several rooms of our home， one of the men who showed up was surprised by what he found.

家里有好几间屋子要刷新，我和妻子便雇了几位油漆工，其中一个一进门就为眼前的情景感到惊讶。

“This guy is old school，” he whispered to his friend， pointing to the full bookshelves in our family study. “There are books everywhere.”

“这家伙很老派。”他指着书房里几个塞得满满的书架，小声对同伴说道，“到处都是书。”

I am， I have to admit， an old-school reader， with tastes that lean toward the antique.

说实话，我还真是一个老派读者，品味偏向古旧之风。

Put simply， I love old books， which puts me in the company1 of a long line of readers who often prefer them.

说白了，我喜好旧书，这把我划到了爱看旧书的那一大群读者中了。

“I am not much taken by2 the new books，” Michel de Montaigne3 declared in the 16th century. “The old ones seem to have more meat and sinew4.” That quote is in a cheap vintage5 copy of his essays that I picked up6 in 1986， the start of my adventures in secondhand literature.

“我不大喜欢新书。”早在16世纪，米歇尔·德·蒙田曾坦言，“旧书里似乎干货更多。”此话出自一本价格低廉的蒙田随笔精选，是我1986年淘来的。我从那时起就开始涉猎二手文学书籍。

Alone in a new city to take my first daily newspaper job， I was feeling vaguely anxious as I dipped into7 a used bookstore to soothe my mind. The musty shelves， richly redolent8 of the past， quickly calmed me. One of the occupational hazards of journalism， my chosen profession， is an itch9 to stay on top of the Next Big Thing. With their cracked spines and yellowed pages， the tattered titles10 in the shop usefully pointed me toward the longer view. “No need to get too worked up11 over today’s fad or headline，” they seemed to say. “There is not much new under the sun.”

我独在异乡干起了第一份日报社的差事。一天，我感到一丝隐隐的焦虑，为了纾解心情，我钻进了一家旧书店。发霉的书架弥散着浓浓的旧时气息，让我很快平静下来。新闻工作我做起来得心应手，但做记者的有个职业病，就是想紧追“新热点”。店里破旧的书虽书脊开裂、书页泛黄，却很有用，指引我着眼长远，好像在说，“无须过分纠结于今天的风尚或头条，这世上没有多少新鲜事”。

The words I’ve found in the old books I’ve bought routinely prove the point. Montaigne’s laments about overheated politics still ring true， as does his confession about overindulging his pets. “I cannot refuse to romp with my dog，” Montaigne tells us， “even though he invites me at the most inopportune time.”

我买来的旧书里，能看到一些说辞经常证明这一观点。蒙田对过度关注政治的嗟叹，就像直言自己对宠物的过分娇惯那样，今天听上去仍然在理。“我怎可忍心不陪我的狗玩呢，”蒙田说，“即便它来找我玩总不是时候。”

In my single years， stung12 by the thought that just about everyone else was paired and happy， I bought a dog-eared13 paperback of Charles Lamb14’s writings from nearly two centuries ago just to enjoy his eye-rolling15 essay “A Bachelor’s Complaint of the Behavior of Married People.”16

在我单身的那些年，一想到别人都成双成对、幸福快乐，我就很痛苦，于是去买了一本查尔斯·兰姆的平装本文集。书旧得卷了角，文章都是将近200年前的——买这书就为好好读读那篇惹人不快的“一个单身汉对于已婚男女言行无状的哀诉”。

Lamb didn’t begrudge spouses their happiness， but he grumbled that “they perk it up in the faces of us single people so shamelessly.”

兰姆并非嫉妒夫妻之间的幸福，他只是抱怨“他们不害臊，在我们单身汉面前炫耀卖弄”。

These days， despite 27 years of happy—though I hope not ostentatiously happy—marriage and two healthy grown children， I can still get a little down17， like anyone who reads the news. My venerable18 volume of the grandly Elizabethan Francis Bacon19’s essays is always a ready antidote20： “Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes，” Bacon wrote， and “adversity not without many comforts and hope.”

如今，我有长达27年幸福的婚姻——当然我不是想显摆才说幸福的——还有两个健康长大的孩子，可是我还会感到些许不如意，所有读到这消息的人也跟我一样。辉煌的伊丽莎白时代大作家弗朗西斯·培根的那本随笔集是我的珍藏，到什么时候都是一剂现成的良药。“幸运不乏恐惧与烦忧，”培根写道，“厄运不乏慰藉与希望。”

For me， that comfort and hope often come from a secondhand book. Sometimes， what the previous owners have scribbled in the margins is at least as edifying as what the authors have to say.

对于我，慰藉和希望大多源自二手书。有时，旧主人草草写在页边的注记，至少同作者的文字一样启迪人心。

In my worn copy of Virginia Woolf21’s “A Room of One’s Own，” an earlier reader had frequently penciled in “integrity”22 to describe Woolf’s vision. With so many sentences annotated by applause， I felt that my own enthusiasm for the book had been affirmed.

在我那本读旧了的弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的《一间自己的房间》里，以前有位读者在好多地方用铅笔写下了“中肯”来评价作者的见解。正因为书中的词句频频获赞，我感到自己对此书的喜爱得到了印证。

My frayed edition of Joseph Addison23’s 18th-century essays has “good” written in lovely cursive near a paragraph in which Addison argues that reading deeply from the past can be at least as instructive as following the day’s news. Don’t worry， he adds， about missing out on24 the latest gossip. “All matters of fact， which a man did not know before， are news to him，” he writes， regardless of when the facts were minted25. That’s reason enough， I guess， to pull Addison from the shelf again and give him another go26.

我那本磨损的约瑟夫·艾迪生18世纪写的随笔集里，有一段话旁边用漂亮的草体写着“好”字。他说，深度阅读过去的书，至少和关注时事一样有意义。他还说，不要因错过当下的闲言碎语而担心。他这样写道，“一个人前所未闻的任何事实，对于他都是新鲜的”，不管这些事实何时付诸文字。我想，这句话很有道理，足以让我们又从书架上抽出他的作品，再次品读。

That’s the thing about old books： Their jackets might be stained and their chapters brittle. But at their best27， they draw me in28 for the same reason they beckoned29 other eyes before mine. They provide an opportunity， within their weathered pages， to catch up on news that never fades.

旧书就是这样：护封污迹斑斑，内页脆弱易碎。但是，旧书历久弥新，过去吸引了别人的目光，现在同样也让我着迷。旧书历经岁月风尘，但能给人以机会，去追求永不悖时的新知。