What the World’s Most Famous Writers Were Doing in Their Twenties

By Daniel Lefferts

W e don’t often think of people like Samuel Beckett,Edith Wharton, and John Updike as 20-somethings,but before they took their places in the literary hall of fame, these famous authors fought through the same chapter of insignificance and self-doubt that millennials find themselves in today.1. 提到薩繆爾·貝克特、伊迪絲·華頓和約翰·厄普代克這些鼎鼎有名的文豪時(shí)，我們通常不會(huì)想到他們二十幾歲時(shí)的模樣。然而，在成為文學(xué)界的大人物之前，他們與如今的千禧一代一樣，也在默默無聞與自我懷疑的旋渦中掙扎、抗?fàn)?。hall of fame: 名人堂；chapter:（人生或歷史上的）階段，時(shí)期；millennial: 千禧一代，指大約在1985—1995年出生的一代。From Franz Kafka to Stephen King, these writers’ experiences as 20-somethings will comfort, inspire,and—if you’re an aspiring writer yourself—give you a swift motivational kick in the ass.2. aspiring: 有抱負(fù)的，有志向的；give sb. a kick in the ass: 激勵(lì)，鼓舞。

1. Edith Wharton3. Edith Wharton: 伊迪絲·華頓（1862—1937），美國著名作家，曾獲普利策獎(jiǎng)，代表作包括《純真年代》、《戰(zhàn)地英雄》，以及下文中提到的《歡樂之家》和《伊坦·弗洛美》等。

In 1885, at the age of 23, Edith Jones married Edward Wharton, thus embarking on the 30-year union that most biographical accounts of the novelist refer to as “disastrous.”4. embark on: 開始；union: 婚姻，結(jié)婚；biographical: 傳記的；account: 敘述，描寫。Rightly so: the two lacked common interests; Edward suffered from terrible depressions; both carried on affairs.But Wharton’s first decade of adulthood wasn’t a total waste.Her celebrated fiction, which includes the novels The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome, is rife with romantic anguish and domestic restlessness—sentiments that had surely been fermenting from the early days of her marriage.5. celebrated: 著名的；be rife with: 充滿；anguish: 悲痛，痛苦；domestic:家庭的；restlessness: 不寧，不安；sentiment: 感情，情緒；ferment: 使發(fā)酵，醞釀。

二十幾歲時(shí)，她，開始了一段長達(dá)30年的婚姻悲?。凰?，斷斷續(xù)續(xù)地打著零工，艱苦度日；他，把自己寫的第一部小說扔進(jìn)了垃圾桶；同樣的年紀(jì)，她，出版了第一部小說，獲得超高稿酬；她，獨(dú)自離家闖世界，與先鋒作家、思想家為伍；他，一出校門就在知名雜志社獲得了一份令人眼紅的工作……同是世界知名的大作家，每個(gè)人的二十幾歲卻有著不同的色彩與味道。你呢？你二十幾歲時(shí)在干什么？

2. Samuel Beckett6. Samuel Beckett: 薩繆爾·貝克特（1906—1989），愛爾蘭著名作家、劇作家，1969年諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)獲得者，是荒誕派戲劇的重要代表人物，代表作包括《等待戈多》和《一句獨(dú)白》，以及下文提到的《但丁、布魯諾、維柯、喬伊斯》等。

Beckett’s writing career got a jump start in his early twenties when he came under the tutelage of modernism forefather(and fellow Hibernian) James Joyce.7. jump start: 搶跑，此處指貝克特在文學(xué)領(lǐng)域的起步早于別人；tutelage: 指導(dǎo)；forefather: 前輩；Hibernian: 愛爾蘭人；James Joyce: 詹姆斯·喬伊斯（1882—1941），愛爾蘭作家、詩人，后現(xiàn)代文學(xué)的奠基者之一，代表作包括《尤利西斯》和《芬尼根的守靈夜》等。Beckett assisted Joyce in researching Finnegan’s Wake, and his first published work—written in 19. 胸懷大志的寫作者們，準(zhǔn)備好自我厭惡一番吧：扎迪·史密斯在2000年出版了她的處女作《白牙》，一時(shí)間聲名大噪。而那時(shí)，這位英國作家年僅24歲。into a tailspin: 陷入失控狀態(tài)；self-loathing: 自我厭惡；smash-hit: 非常成功的新書（新戲、新影片等）；debut: 首次出版的。29, at the age of 23—was a critical analysis of Joyce,“Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce.”

3. Zadie Smith8. Zadie Smith: 扎迪·史密斯（1975— ），被譽(yù)為英國最具影響力的新生代作家，代表作包括下文提到的《白牙》。

Aspiring writers, prepare to be sent into a tailspin of selfloathing: Zadie Smith’s smash-hit debut novel, White Teeth, was published in 2000, when the British author was just 24 years old.9The book had actually been auctioned to publishers as a partial manuscript three years earlier,10. auction: 拍賣；partial: 部分的，不完全的；manuscript: 手稿。when Smith was still at Cambridge. She received an advance11. advance: 預(yù)付款。of 250,000 pounds.

4. Franz Kafka12. Franz Kafka: 弗蘭茲·卡夫卡（1883—1924），奧匈帝國統(tǒng)治下的捷克小說家，是西方現(xiàn)代派文學(xué)的宗師，代表作包括《變形記》、《城堡》和下文提到的《亞美利加》。

Kafka’s unhappiness during his twenties will resonate with any writer struggling to focus on their craft while supporting themselves with a full-time job.13. resonate: 引起共鳴；craft: （某一行業(yè)所需的）技能。From the age of 24 on he worked a series of day jobs that included handling insurance claims and co-managing an asbestos factory.14. insurance claim: 保險(xiǎn)索賠；asbestos: 石棉。Given his commitment to his writing, and a marked aversion to social interaction, Kafka mostly resented working—though it did help him to evade the military draft in 1915.15. marked: 顯著的，明顯的；aversion: 厭惡，反感；resent: 厭惡；evade: 逃避；military draft:軍隊(duì)征兵。In any event16. in any event: 無論如何，不管是哪種情況。he managed to squeeze a novel out of his off-hours during this time: he completed Amerika around 1912, at 29, though it was not published until after his death. It remains one of his more widely read works.

5. Stephen King17. Stephen King: 斯蒂芬·金（1947— ），美國著名暢銷書作家，代表作包括《閃靈》、《肖申克的救贖》和下文提到的《魔女嘉莉》等。

King’s writing career had a mostly inauspicious18. inauspicious: 不祥的，不吉利的。beginning. After graduating from the University of Maine in 1970,the thriller writer eked out a living working blue-collar labor jobs and selling short stories to men’s magazines.19. thriller writer: 驚悚小說作家；eke out a living: 勉強(qiáng)度日，竭力維持生計(jì)。He developed a drinking problem, and actually consigned the manuscript for his first published novel to the trash, until his wife retrieved it and convinced him to submit it to publishers.20. consign: 擱置，棄置；retrieve: 取回，找回。That novel,Carrie, was published in 1973, when King was just 26. It earned him$400,000 in paperback21. paperback: 平裝書。rights alone and continues to be one of his most beloved works.

6. Thomas Mann22. Thomas Mann: 托馬斯·曼（1875—1955），德國著名小說家和散文家，1929年諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)獲得者，代表作包括下文提到的《布登勃洛克一家》、《魔山》和《威尼斯之死》。

German author Thomas Mann published his first novel, the epic23. epic: 史詩般的作品。Buddenbrooks, in 1901, when he was just 26. At over 700 pages,it describes the generational decline of a German merchant family, much of the plot drawn from the history of Mann’s own clan.24. merchant: 商人；clan: 宗族，氏族。By the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, the gay novelist had written several other works, such as The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice,for which he was arguably25. arguably: 按理說。more famous. But, owing to the conservatism of the awards ceremony, he was only cited for this early (and relatively uncontroversial) work.26. owe to: 由于，因?yàn)?；conservatism:保守主義；cite: 嘉獎(jiǎng)，表彰；uncontroversial: 不會(huì)引起爭(zhēng)論的。

7. Susan Sontag27. Susan Sontag: 蘇珊·桑塔格（1933—2004），美國文學(xué)家、藝術(shù)評(píng)論家，被譽(yù)為“美國公眾的良心”，代表作包括《反對(duì)闡釋》、《疾病的隱喻》和《沉默的美學(xué)》等，下文提到的作品為《坎普札記》。

By 24 Susan Sontag had already married, had a child, and established herself in the academic milieu28. milieu: 社會(huì)背景，周圍環(huán)境，此處指學(xué)術(shù)圈。of Cambridge, Mass.Comfortable though it was, Sontag knew that her life of professional and domestic ease was getting her no closer to her true ambition of writing fiction. So, in her mid-20s,she flew the nest to Paris, where she fell in with the writers and thinkers of the avant-garde, carried on affairs, and developed the idiosyncratic critical approach that would make her such an intellectual sensation back in the States.29. 因此，在二十五六歲時(shí)，她孤身離家飛到巴黎。在那里，她與先鋒作家和思想家結(jié)交，有過幾段婚外情，并培養(yǎng)了獨(dú)特的批評(píng)思維方式，使她之后成為了美國家喻戶曉的“明星”知識(shí)分子。 fly the nest: 離家獨(dú)立；fall in with: 結(jié)交；avant-garde: 先鋒派，前衛(wèi)派；idiosyncratic: 獨(dú)特的，乖僻的；sensation: 引起轟動(dòng)的人（或事件）。Her big break30. big break: 重大轉(zhuǎn)機(jī)。finally came at the age of 31, when she published her famous 1964 essay, “Notes on ‘Camp.’”

8. John Updike31. John Updike: 約翰·厄普代克（1932—2009），美國著名作家、詩人、文學(xué)評(píng)論家，曾兩度獲得普利策小說獎(jiǎng)，最為知名的作品是“兔子”系列小說。

John Updike may take the cake32. take the cake: 得獎(jiǎng)，成為最佳者。for the coolest post-college job in recent literary history. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1954, he went to work for The New Yorker on the recommendation of E. B. White, who Updike had met while taking drawing classes in England.33. summa cum laude: 以最優(yōu)等成績(jī)，享有最高榮譽(yù)；recommendation: 推薦；E.B.White: E. B. 懷特（1899—1985），美國著名散文家、評(píng)論家，曾是《紐約客》的主要撰稿人，代表作包括《夏洛的網(wǎng)》、《吹小號(hào)的天鵝》和《精靈鼠小弟》等。Thankless grunt work this was not: Updike wrote features and reviews for the magazine for two years, until the birth of his son forced him to high tail it to the suburbs.34. grunt work:（某項(xiàng)工作中）困難而單調(diào)的部分，苦差事；feature:（報(bào)紙或雜志的）特寫，專題文章；high tail it: 快速離開。

9. Ernest Hemingway35. Ernest Hemingway: 歐內(nèi)斯特·海明威（1899—1961），美國作家和記者，1954年諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)獲得者，代表作包括下文提到的《流動(dòng)的盛宴》和《太陽照樣升起》等。

Shortly after marrying his first wife, Hadley Richardson, in 1921, the 23-year-old Hemingway moved to Paris, where the modernist movement was in full swing36. in full swing: 在全力進(jìn)行中，處于全盛時(shí)期。. Though he worked as a foreign correspondent to make money, his true occupation (as documented in his memoir A Moveable Feast) was developing his aesthetic and cementing his place in what would become known as the “Lost Generation.”37. correspondent: 通訊員，記者；occupation: 職業(yè)，工作；memoir: 回憶錄；aesthetic: 美的，美學(xué)的；cement: 鞏固；the Lost Generation:迷惘的一代，第一次世界大戰(zhàn)后美國的一個(gè)文學(xué)流派。所謂“迷惘”，是指這些作家們共有的彷徨和失望情緒。He published his first novel,The Sun Also Rises, in 1926, at the age of 27.

10. George Bernard Shaw38. George Bernard Shaw: 蕭伯納（1856—1950），愛爾蘭劇作家，英國現(xiàn)代杰出的現(xiàn)實(shí)主義戲劇作家，代表作包括《圣女貞德》和下文提到的《賣花女》（Pygmalion）、《鰥夫的房產(chǎn)》等。

It’s hard to imagine the Pygmalion playwright spending a period of his life doing anything less refined than wiping off his prince-nez.39. playwright: 劇作家；refined: 舉止優(yōu)雅的，文雅的；wipe off: 擦掉（液體或污垢）；prince-nez: 夾鼻眼鏡。But Shaw, like many 20-somethings, put in his requisite years of of fice drudgery.40. requisite: 必需的，必要的；drudgery: 苦工，單調(diào)沉悶的工作。At the age of 14 he left school to work at a land agent’s41. land agent: 房地產(chǎn)商，地產(chǎn)經(jīng)紀(jì)人。of fice, and continued to support himself through day jobs until the age of 23, when he quit his position at the Edison Telephone Company to go live with his mother in London and write. His first play, Widowers’ House, wouldn’t debut until 16 years later. We have to assume that decade and a half involved some major 19th-century Hannah Horvathary.42. assume: 假設(shè)，認(rèn)定；Hannah Horvath: 漢娜·霍瓦特，美劇《都市女孩》中的女主角。她大學(xué)畢業(yè)后做著不穩(wěn)定的實(shí)習(xí)生工作，靠父母的接濟(jì)度日，但心懷作家夢(mèng)，認(rèn)為自己將來能成為她這個(gè)時(shí)代的代言人。If only we had the gbshaw.tumblr.com43. Tumblr: 湯博樂網(wǎng)，一家美國輕博客網(wǎng)站。此處指若當(dāng)時(shí)蕭伯納也有個(gè)人博客的話，我們就能更了解他的生活。to prove it.

11. F. Scott Fitzgerald44. F. Scott Fitzgerald: 弗朗西斯·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德（1896—1940），美國20年代“爵士時(shí)代”和“迷惘的一代”的代表作家之一，代表作包括《了不起的蓋茨比》、《夜色溫柔》和下文提到的《人間天堂》等。

In his early twenties, while stationed in Alabama during the tail end of World War I, Fitzgerald fell in love with Zelda Sayre, a darling of Montgomery debutante society.45. station: 駐扎；the tail end of: 尾聲，末尾；debutante society: 上流社會(huì)，社交界。In order to win her hand in marriage, though, Fitzgerald had to prove that he could support her financially. His first go at lucrative employment after the war—a stint as an ad copywriter in New York—was a miserable failure, and as a result the engagement was put on hold.46. go: 嘗試；lucrative: 賺錢的，獲利的；stint:（做某事的）時(shí)間，時(shí)期；copywriter: 廣告文字撰稿人；put on hold: 推遲，擱置。But when Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, at 23, Zelda’s family finally gave their blessing.

12. Jack London47. Jack London: 杰克·倫敦（1876—1916），美國著名作家、記者和社會(huì)活動(dòng)家，代表作是《野性的呼喚》。

In 1897, at the age of 21, Jack London sailed with his brother-inlaw to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush48. Klondike Gold Rush: 克朗代克淘金熱。克朗代克是加拿大西北部的一個(gè)城市。1896年至1899年期間，因在此地發(fā)現(xiàn)黃金而吸引了一大批淘金者。. The two didn’t exactly strike it rich, and London developed scurvy,49. strike it rich: 暴富；scurvy: 壞血病。which resulted in the loss of four teeth. But the experience provided inspiration for some of London’s earliest published short stories, and imbued the San-Francisco-born writer with a lifelong fascination with Alaska.50. imbue with: 使（某人）充滿（強(qiáng)烈情感、想法）；fascination: 迷戀，著迷。