为什么青少年要读成人文学？

爱思英语编者按：父母们总是大力主张青少年文学的阅读，因为内容安全，不会涉及一些所谓的人类黑暗面。但让孩子们远离性、死亡和成人话题的做法是错误的，现实就是现实，黑暗面是存在的……

Why teens should read adult fiction

“When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are really saying is that is there is too much reality in life.” –Joyce Carol Oates

The argument about whether young-adult fiction has become too adult in its subject matter is a long-standing one. My concern is not this debate — in fact, I consider it to be moot. The YA category is a marketing distinction, not a moral one, however much parents would like it to be a synonym for “safe.”

But you are raising a child, possibly the least safe enterprise imaginable. And if this child is also a reader, there is a high probability that, closely preceding adolescence, his or her literary curiosity will hit an exponential curve — one that will be made apparent in a taste for books intended for the adult market. Let’s call this the V.C. Andrews Curve, after the author of “Flowers in the Attic.” It can be attributed more or less to two phenomena: first, with a simple increase in reading comprehension, adult genre fiction will be of considerable appeal owing to the accessibility of the prose and story lines. Second, irrespective of age, human beings have an innate attraction to the dramatization of issues around life’s central mysteries: its genesis and termination. Put another way, not only will your kids survive an exposure to violence and sexuality in books, but it is crucial to their moral development.

So the VCA Curve should not be resisted. It should be shouted from the rooftops: Your child is a human being! A cool one! Because this human being is building an infrastructure for critical reasoning in a frequently bizarre, paradoxical universe where fairly miraculous and fucked-up stuff happens on a regular basis. Of course adolescents have an irresistible attraction to adult themes; perverse and puritanical an instinct as there is in this culture to prolong childhood, there is a far stronger counter-instinct in children to analyze, simulate, and as soon as humanly possible participate in the challenges of adulthood. This is not to suggest that growing up is a process that should be unnaturally accelerated, or that it can be in the first place. These days, casual observation suggests that in a modern urban environment, childhood is a stage that lasts approximately 30 years. But we should be counted lucky when this fascination with the adult world manifests in wanting to read more books.

A personal example: During my own wayward, Rust Belt Pennsylvania adolescence, the movie “American Psycho” was a great hit among my friends. Its protagonist, Patrick Bateman, blood-drenched, chainsaw wielding, and wearing nothing but sneakers and a smile, was an avatar of the mindlessly, ecstatically destructive impulses that comprise no small part of the average teenage male’s psyche. He was the kind of guy we wanted to be around. Then I read Bret Easton Ellis’ book. “Ecstatic” is not how I would describe that experience. Because reading is the antithesis of desensitization, and to actually accompany this character for 400 pages of appalling, despicable acts – as well as his stunningly annoying and tedious class obsession — was so unpleasant that even the sight of the book, to this day, induces a physically ill sensation best described as a moral hangover. This was a guy I wanted nothing to do with, but more importantly, wanted to be nothing like. Within the virtual reality of the text, I came to an independent moral conclusion that he really, really sucked.

Not that this is intended to veer into some half-baked indictment of sensationalistic films or video games. For one thing, a large segment of my generation spent our formative years upper-cutting opponents into moats of acid in Mortal Kombat. The singular reward of watching their gleaming skeletons surface will always fill us with a childlike sense of satisfaction rarely paralleled in the adult sphere: The obverse of the instinct to protect children from the bigger and messier reality of adulthood is the inability of most adults to experience the mere joy of children. (Why adults should read children’s fiction is its own issue.)  But film’s most essential function is sensorimotor stimulation; like pop music, it is obligated first to induce emotion, and only second — distantly second — to provide the first clue of how you got there. What neither films nor video games are cut out for is developing the critical faculties that reading does. Higher-order mental processes are not even strictly required to enjoy a movie, whereas books, by nature, are undemocratic. A combination of education and innate sensitivity is required to enjoy them, and the reward is the closest possible experience to entering another human being’s consciousness and revising the parameters of your own. It’s harder because it should be.

Returning to my own adolescence: A few years younger than me in school was a student that I would have seen around in the halls, but did not meet, to my knowledge. At the age of 15, he murdered his adoptive mother and was pulled over in a truck full of guns. Evidently he had plans for a Columbine-style shooting spree. This boy, of course, had a history of emotional problems and was known to be the victim of bullying. Critical reasoning plus common sense leads to context. And the complexity and shifting nuances of life are far more easily navigated with the three-dimensional psychic cartography generously provided by writers who have thought about this stuff before you. When this incident occurred (or, failed to) the magnitude of it was difficult to process – and remains to be; even imagination has its limits. But at the same time, thanks to the VCA Curve, I had no difficulty identifying, and more importantly having compassion for, the motivations at work. I had read “Carrie.”

Empathy is not an exclusively human faculty, but we are the only known species that can consciously get better at it. Curiosity is also not ours alone, but only we can transmit what we have learned to others of our kind in the aesthetically gratifying vehicle of narrative without needing to be physically present, or even alive. This is a terribly wonderful thing — but it is not safe.

It’s hard to think of a more intimate and transmuting experience than the first time you are scarily aroused by something you’ve read; it’s a loss of virginity with more complete implications than the hapless and self-conscious mechanics of the physical initiation. Or another first: when you realize the inevitable fact of your own death. For me, this milestone occurred reading “Jurassic Park” at 10 years old, when the Dilophosaurus eviscerates Dennis Nedry. This was, with justification, one of my favorite scenes in the movie. But it was not until reading the same incident from the character’s point of view, and going black — then moving onto the next chapter  and never returning to Dennis again because there was nothing but that ineffable, inescapable blackness — that it clicked that this was a thing that could, and one day would, happen to me.

Maybe that’s the heart of the matter. Your child is going to die one day, the same as you. This is the single worst piece of information a member of our species can possess, and in a moment of empathy inculcated in no small part by his literary freedom growing up, the author sincerely apologizes to his mother for how bad he is at sending confirmation text messages that he has survived routine air travel. But in spite of the pain this knowledge necessarily causes parents, the child can handle it. They’re equipped with a strength and ingenuity they’re not often enough credited with. Life’s genesis and termination — and every gradation of human experience in between — is their birthright. They are entitled to learn about it at exactly the rate it is appropriate to their individual moral development to do so. And as long as you love them enough, they’ll end up basically OK.

为什么青少年要读成人文学？

Annuska/译

“人们说我写的书内容太暴力了，当现实充满同样的暴力，他们该如何说。”——乔伊斯·卡罗·欧兹

关于青少年文学读物的内容是否过于成人化，是一个长久讨论的话题。我关注的并非话题本身，事实上，我觉得这个问题并无确切答案。不管多少父母一厢情愿地觉得青少年文学是“安全”的同义词，但实际上，这只是一个市场营销的概念，并非道德观念。

但如果你正在抚养一个孩子，那可是最不安全的一项事务。而且，如果这孩子正处于青春期，并且乐于阅读，那么很可能，他或她的阅读兴趣明显会直指成人读物。我们姑且把这种现象称作V.C曲线（即下文中的VCA曲线——译者注），该词汇源自安德鲁·科夫，他是《阁楼里的鲜花》一书的作者。这可以或多或少解释两种情形：第一，仅就阅读强度来说，成人文学文笔老练，故事曲折。第二，两个神秘的人生母题：诞生和消亡，围绕这两个主题的展开的故事，对任何一个年龄段的人，都具有天然的吸引力。换句话说，孩子们不仅会熬过了书上的诲淫诲盗，而且这对提升他们的价值观，非常关键。

那么就不应该对抗VCA曲线。应该在楼顶大声疾呼：你的孩子是一个人！一个很棒的人！在这个经常出现奇迹、经常乱糟糟的时代里，这个人正在建立自己的理性批判思维，以对抗这个匪夷所思、自相矛盾的世界。当然，青少年对成人话题的好奇不可抑制；我们文化中天生带有拧巴和拘谨的因素，试图延长童稚状态；但孩子们具有更加强悍的天分，他们要分析信息、接受信息，为成年生活做好准备。这并不是建议拔苗助长，也不是一开始就灌输成人话题。如今这个时代，现代都市里，随处可见，童稚状态延长到了30年。但我们该庆幸：需要阅读更多的书，说明成年世界还是具有吸引力。

一个切身体验：我是在宾夕法尼亚州的工业衰退地区渡过青春期的，朋友们都喜欢电影《美国狂人》（一部非常具有争议的恐怖片——译者注）。电影主角帕特里克·贝特曼极端嗜血、挥舞着电锯，身上除了运动鞋和脸上的笑容外，一丝不挂；这简直就是青春期男生想象的——随心所欲、具有疯狂破坏欲——完美镜像。他是我们都乐意交往的家伙。然后我读了布莱特·伊斯顿·艾里斯的原著。阅读的经过一点都不“狂喜”。因为阅读的过程让人敏锐，要和这个家伙相伴400页，忍受那些让人痛苦的卑劣行径，还有那些让人瞠目结舌、异常无聊的阶级妄想，真不是一次愉快的经历；时至今日，只要一看到这书，我就会产生生理不适，美其名曰：道德宿醉后的反应。我才不要和这家伙交往，更重要的是，我不要和这个人有任何相似之处。通过作品真实的描述，我得出了自己的道德结论：他真的、真的是一个恶棍。

这并不是要不成熟地将矛头转向电影或电玩，批评它们一味刺激感官。如，我们这代人有很大一部分在早年人格形成阶段，经常在魔宫帝国（一款电子游戏——译者注）中，用上勾拳把对手揍到硫酸河里去。当看到他们白晃晃的骷髅浮出水面的时候，唯一感觉就是幼稚的爽，这在成年生活中，很难体会到：与此相对应，很多成年人具有保护孩子，避免让他们接触成人社会更大、更糟糕真相的冲动，这表明这些成年人不能体验儿童纯粹的快乐。（为什么成年人要看儿童读物，这又是另外一个话题了。）但电影最基本的功能是感官刺激；它就象流行音乐，首要功能是唤起感觉；其次，遥远的其次，才是表明如何会产生这种感情。电影和电玩都无法做到阅读带来的批判能力。并不是说只有阅读才能满足高级大脑活动，电影就一定不行，从天性来说，这样也是不民主的。教育和自省要结合起来，让人能同时享受电影和阅读；回报就是能最大限度地了解他人的心理活动，并修正自己的心思。因为应该如此，所以比较难。

重回我自己的青春期：有一个比我小几岁的同学，我可能在礼堂里见过，但我记得没说过话。15岁，他谋杀了养母，并且在一辆装满枪支的卡车上被抓获。很明显，他打算玩一把哥伦比亚式的射击。当然，这个男孩长期情绪有问题，大家也都知道他受了虐待。理性推理加上常识，能够理解来龙去脉。多亏那些作家在你想到之前，就提出了心理三维制图法，使纷繁复杂的生活变得容易多了。当发生这事后（或未遂），带来剧烈的心理震动，让人久久不能释怀；人的想象力甚至都有局限。但同时，由于VCA曲线，在甄别问题时，我毫无困难，更重要的是，我懂得了怜悯，拥有了工作的动力。我已经读过《嘉莉妹妹》了。

移情并未人类独有，但我们是唯一的、已知的、能够提升良心的生物。好奇心也并未我们独有，但只有我们能够通过讲故事的虚拟手法，将知道的事情告诉他人，而不用亲身上阵出演。这非常棒——但并不安全。

当你读到某些内容的时候，第一次被唤醒的时候，这会是最私密、最让人面目全非的经历；这是一种失贞，含义比身体启蒙带来的沮丧和自我意识更加复杂。或者另一个第一次：当你意识到死亡不可避免。对我来说，这个时刻是10岁时，读《侏罗纪公园》时产生的：Dilophosaurus 撕碎Dennis Nedry时。说良心话，看电影时，我最喜欢的一个情节就是这个。但阅读时，从人物的角度出发，就不是那么回事了，情绪变得阴暗了——然后继续读下一章，再也没有重温Dennis的情节了，因为那里只有无法言说的、无可避免的阴暗。灵光一线，我忽然明白死亡总有一天也会降临到我身上。

或许这才是问题的核心。你和你的孩子最终都会走向死亡。这真是人类获知的最糟糕的信息；并且，随着阅读视野的扩大，他心中产生了共鸣，作家真诚地向孩子的母亲道歉：让孩子知道自己刚从一次普通的飞行中幸存下来，这真是太糟糕了。但不管这类内容如何让家长们不舒服，孩子可以处理好的。孩子们具有的力量和天分，经常被低估了。生命的诞生和消亡——还有人生的各种体验——都是他们天赋权利。根据个人价值观的发展，他们能够及时学会各个阶段的内容。只要父母足够爱他们，他们会顺利通过的。