思考与写作theparisreview.org编辑精选
库尔特·冯内古特：小说的艺术
The Art of Fiction: Kurt Vonnegut
2014 — 2020，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是《巴黎评论》“小说的艺术”系列对库尔特·冯内古特的访谈（No.64）。访谈涉及他的写作观、幽默与小说套路，也谈到德累斯顿轰炸及其反思；评论还摘录了他关于战争荒诞性和杂志短篇小说稿费生态的段落。
为什么经久不衰：冯内古特以尖锐又幽默的方式谈战争、写作和人性，让不同年代的读者和写作者都能从中获得启发。
HN 评论精选
冯内古特自述这篇访谈由多篇采访拼接、并由他本人补访自己完成。
有四篇关于我的不同采访被提交给《巴黎评论》。它们被拼凑成一篇访谈拿给我看。这个方案效果只是还算可以，所以我又叫来另一位采访者，让它浑然一体。那个人就是我。我以极大的温柔采访了自己。
hellofunk查看英文原文
> Four different interviews with me were submitted to The Paris Review. These were patched together to form a single interview, which was shown to me. This scheme worked only fairly well, so I called in yet another interviewer to make it all of a piece. I was that person. With utmost tenderness, I interviewed myself.
用尖锐反讽揭示德累斯顿轰炸的荒诞与个人获利。
冯内古特说：整颗星球上只有一个人从这次空袭中获益，而空袭必定耗费数千万美元。空袭没有让战争缩短半秒，没有削弱德国防御或进攻，没有从死亡营里救出一个人。只有一个人获益——不是两个、五个或十个。就一个。采访者问：那是谁？冯内古特：我。每死一个人我得到三美元。想想吧。
andyidsinga查看英文原文
really good read, here's a snippet of vonnegut's sharp wit re Dresden bombing: --- VONNEGUT I said that only one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one. INTERVIEWER And who was that? VONNEGUT Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that.
强调德累斯顿与核爆缺乏官方反思，并感慨杂志高稿费滋养了美国短篇小说生态。
冯内古特很杰出，我几乎读过他所有作品，也喜欢发现这样的新访谈。必须记住德累斯顿轰炸是可怕的战争罪行；不幸的是，直到今天官方政府来源对此鲜有反思，日本核爆同样可怕且不必要也是如此。所以，一位最伟大的美国作家见证了它，这是好事，这样它就不能被掩盖。访谈还让我感到，有杂志为短篇小说付好稿费真是太好了：一篇短篇拿到相当于六周薪水的钱非常惊人；这不是政府赞助或慈善拨款，而是自由企业——杂志靠给作家这么多钱也赚了钱。多数最好的美国小说家都是从给杂志写故事起步的。我希望最终互联网上也能为现代世界发展出类似模式。
hristov查看英文原文
Vonnegut is brilliant. I have read almost everything that he has published and love finding new interviews like this. It is very important to remember the Dresden bombing which was a horrible war crime. Unfortunately, even up to this day there has been little self reflection on the Dresden bombing from official government sources. Same for the horrible and similarly unnecessary nuclear bombings of japan. So it is a good thing one of the best American writers ever born got to witness it, so that it cannot be swept under the rug. Another thing I got from the interview is that it must have been so nice to have these magazines to pay writers good money for short stories. Getting the equivalent of six weeks' salary for a short story is absolutely amazing. And this mind you is not some type of government sponsorship or charitable grant it is all free enterprise -- the magazine made money giving writers so much for their short stories. Most of the best american fiction writers got started writing stories for magazines. I do hope eventually something like this develops on the internet for the modern world.
写作不必看得太严肃，伟大故事线本质上是让人一再上当的“恶作剧”与套路。
谈到写作时，冯内古特引用保罗·恩格尔的话：“别把这一切看得太认真。”他说这提醒学生，他们是在学写“恶作剧”：如果能让人们为白纸上的小黑字又笑又哭，那不是恶作剧是什么？所有伟大的故事线都是人们一再上当的伟大恶作剧。他举例哥特小说：每年出版几十本，全都卖得掉；朋友博登·迪尔写着玩，情节是“一个年轻女人在老宅里找了份工作，吓得魂都没了”。其他套路还有：某人陷入麻烦又脱身；某人丢了东西又找回来；某人受了冤屈然后复仇；灰姑娘；某人一路沦落；人们相爱而旁人阻挠；好人被诬告；罪人……（后略）
doomlaser查看英文原文
On writing: > INTERVIEWER > Could you put the theory into a few words? > VONNEGUT > It was stated by Paul Engle—the founder of the Writers Workshop at Iowa. He told me that, if the workshop ever got a building of its own, these words should be inscribed over the entrance: “Don’t take it all so seriously.” > INTERVIEWER > And how would that be helpful? > VONNEGUT > It would remind the students that they were learning to play practical jokes. > INTERVIEWER > Practical jokes? > VONNEGUT > If you make people laugh or cry about little black marks on sheets of white paper, what is that but a practical joke? All the great story lines are great practical jokes that people fall for over and over again. > INTERVIEWER > Can you give an example? > VONNEGUT > The Gothic novel. Dozens of the things are published every year, and they all sell. My friend Borden Deal recently wrote a Gothic novel for the fun of it, and I asked him what the plot was, and he said, “A young woman takes a job in an old house and gets the pants scared off her.” > INTERVIEWER > Some more examples? > VONNEGUT > The others aren’t that much fun to describe: somebody gets into trouble, and then gets out again; somebody loses something and gets it back; somebody is wronged and gets revenge; Cinderella; somebody hits the skids and just goes down, down, down; people fall in love with each other, and a lot of other people get in the way; a virtuous person is falsely accused of sin; a sinful person is believed to be virtuous; a person faces a challenge bravely, and succeeds or fails; a person lies, a person steals, a person kills, a person commits fornication. > INTERVIEWER > If you will pardon my saying so, these are very old-fashioned plots. > VONNEGUT > I guarantee you that no modern story scheme, even plotlessness, will give a reader genuine satisfaction, unless one of those old-fashioned plots is smuggled in somewhere. I don’t praise plots as accurate representations of life, but as ways to keep readers reading. It's funny how familiar this philosophy feels to me as a game designer. Earlier in the interview, he compares the craft of writing to engineering the Model T. Something that can be engineered, but also to be fiddled with and iterated upon in a playful, but mechanical way. The thing with video games is, the industry has done that. We know the tricks and reward paths on a scientific level. Skinner Boxes, intermittent randomized rewards and all that. The casual game industry has put huge amounts of work into discovering these systems, the systems that keep people playing and sometimes that keep certain people paying, in a methodical and statistical way. But in my own experience, my best work has come out from not taking the project seriously, and just having fun, tinkering at the edges. Making a game for me, or for a few people as a joke. Anyway, it's a fantastic interview. Vonnegut is an American treasure, etc.
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