法國文化部長竟然不讀書

PARIS — In France, the country of Sartre and Molière, literary knowledge is considered a sign of savoir faire, and all the more so, perhaps, if you are the person presiding over the country’s culture budget.

巴黎——在誕生了薩特(Sartre)和莫里哀(Molière)的法國，文學知識被認爲是明智的標誌，如果你是負責該國文化預算的那個人，或許更是如此。

So an admission by the French culture minister, Fleur Pellerin, that she has not read a book in two years has provoked horror among some members of the cultural elite here.

因此，法國文化部長弗勒爾·佩爾蘭(Fleur Pellerin)承認過去兩年從未讀過一本書的事，讓這裏的部分文化精英感到震驚。

The awkward confession, in an interview over the weekend on the television channel Canal Plus, spawned a storm of criticism on social media and beyond, and even some demands for the resignation of a seemingly uncultured culture minister who had previously been lauded for her intellect and style.

佩爾蘭是週末在接受Canal Plus電視頻道的採訪（本文最初發表於2014年10月29日）時，尷尬地講出此事的。這番爆料在社交媒體及以外的地方遭到口誅筆伐，部分人甚至要求這位看似沒文化的文化部長辭職。而此前，這位文化部長曾憑藉其才智和風度贏得讚譽。

When asked to name her favorite book by Patrick Modiano, the French author who recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Ms. Pellerin laughed uncomfortably, unable to name any work by the celebrated writer.

當讓其說出最喜歡的法國作家帕特里克·莫迪亞諾(Patrick Modiano)的一本書時，佩爾蘭不自在地笑了。她說不出這名前不久剛獲得諾貝爾文學獎的著名作家的任何一部作品。

Only weeks before, Ms. Pellerin had applauded Mr. Modiano for conveying France’s literary influence and vitality “in the eyes of the world.” And earlier in the interview, she had gushed that she had shared a wonderful lunch with Mr. Modiano, found him nice and laughed a lot.

而就在幾周前，佩爾蘭還盛讚莫迪亞諾“向全世界”傳遞了法國的文學影響力和活力。而且在讓其說出最喜歡的莫迪亞諾著作之前，她還在採訪中大談曾和莫迪亞諾共進午餐，覺得莫迪亞諾人很好，曾與他多次開懷大笑。

Mr. Modiano, the 15th French writer to win the Nobel for literature, has published 30 works, including moody and concise fictional works set in Paris during World War II.

莫迪亞諾是第15位獲得諾貝爾文學獎的法國作家，他出版了30本書，其中包括背景設置在二戰時期巴黎的一些沉鬱而簡練的小說。

Making matters worse, to some cultural observers, Ms. Pellerin said she had no problem admitting that she had not had much time to read a book for pleasure in two years.

對於一些文化觀察人士來說，更糟的是，佩爾蘭在過去兩年沒有出於樂趣讀過任何一本書，卻不覺得承認這一點有什麼問題。

“I read a lot of notes, a lot of legal texts, the news, A.F.P. stories, but I read very little,” she said.

她說，“我閱讀了很多筆記，很多法律文本、新聞，以及法新社(AFP)的報道，但我很少讀書。”

The exchange was seen as an embarrassment among some members of the cultural cognoscenti, who have been basking in France’s cultural supremacy, with a flurry of new museum openings and the Nobel Prize, at a time when the economy and government are struggling.

一些文化專家認爲，這是一次令人尷尬的對話。目前，這裏的文化專家們正沐浴着法國文化優勢的光芒，在法國經濟及政府苦苦掙扎的同時，新博物館卻紛紛開門，法國作家也獲得了諾貝爾文學獎。

At the French site of The Huffington Post, Claude Askolovitch, a writer, said Ms. Pellerin’s oversight was no less than “barbaric” and called for her to resign, arguing that what he described as her crude indifference to France’s Nobel laureate made her unfit for the job.

作家克勞德·阿斯克洛維奇(Claude Askolovitch)在《赫芬頓郵報》(The Huffington Post)法文版網站上發表文章稱，佩爾蘭的疏忽說“野蠻”也不過分，並要求她辭職，他辯稱，佩爾蘭不加掩飾地漠視法國的諾貝爾獎得主，因此不適合做文化部長這份工作。

“Barbarism is here,” he said. “If one can be culture minister without reading, then we are mere technocrats and budgeters.” He chided her for prioritizing the reading of ministerial memos over the uplift provided by great literary works.

“這是一種野蠻行爲，”他說。“如果一個不讀書的人能成爲文化部長，那我們就只是些技術統治論者和預算編制者了。”他指責佩爾蘭優先選擇閱讀部長級備忘錄，而不是通過偉大文學作品提升素養。

Others, however, were more forgiving and commended Ms. Pellerin for showing a candor all too rare among politicians.

然而其他人的態度卻更寬容，還稱讚佩爾蘭表現出了政治人物身上少有的坦誠。

Defenders noted that until recently, Ms. Pellerin had been a junior minister in charge of promoting small and medium-size businesses, innovation and the digital economy, and that such savvy trumped literary knowledge at a time when the economy was sputtering and culture budgets were stretched thin.

替佩爾蘭辯護的人指出，她作爲一個年輕的部長，過去一直負責扶持中小企業、創新和數字經濟，當前經濟乏力而且文化預算捉襟見肘，對經濟的熟稔，當然比文學知識更重要。

“One can salute her frankness, understanding that the life of a minister leaves little time for the calm required for reading, and even salute the spontaneity of Fleur Pellerin,” said an article in Le Point titled “Fleur Pellerin hasn’t read Modiano! So what?”

《觀點》(Le Point)雜誌上一篇題爲“弗勒爾·佩爾蘭沒讀過莫迪亞諾又怎樣？”的文章寫道，“我們應該向她的誠實致敬，要明白部長的生活留不出多少空閒時間，沒有閱讀所需的那種沉靜。我們甚至應該稱讚弗勒爾·佩爾蘭的率性。”

Even before, Ms. Pellerin, 41, had become an object of some fascination among the French. Born in South Korea, she was adopted by a French family when she was 6 months old. She graduated at the top of her class at the École Nationale d’Administration, the training ground for future French presidents and prime ministers. Colleagues say that before working 14-hour days as a minister, Ms. Pellerin was a prolific reader of fiction and nonfiction, and that she is equally at ease admiring a Picasso painting as she is listening to a hip-hop track.

現年41歲的佩爾蘭，在此之前就曾讓法國人驚歎過。她生於韓國，6歲時被一個法國家庭收養。她以班裏第一名的成績畢業於法國國家行政學院(École Nationale d’Administration)，而那裏是未來法國總統和總理的訓練場。同事們表示，在成爲部長每天工作14小時之前，佩爾蘭熱衷於閱讀小說和非小說類書籍，而且她既能安然欣賞畢加索的油畫，也喜歡聽嘻哈音樂。

On Twitter, the interview provoked equal expressions of humor, righteous indignation and bemusement at all the fuss. “Fleur Pellerin incapable of citing a book by Modiano, do you mean that she hadn’t read Wikipedia that day, like three-quarters of Twitter?” wrote Matteu Maestracci, a journalist for the radio broadcaster France Info.

這次採訪也在Twitter上也引發了各種不同的反應，包括幽默、義憤，還有對這番大驚小怪的啞然失笑。“弗勒爾·佩爾蘭連一本莫迪亞諾的書都說不上來？是說她那天沒有像四分之三的Twitter網友一樣，看看維基百科嗎？”法國新聞廣播電臺(France Info)記者馬修·馬埃斯特拉奇(Matteu Maestracci)寫道。

One Twitter user, Henri Rouquier, for his part, tried to insert a sense of proportion. “France has finally confronted its biggest problem at this time of national crisis: Fleur Pellerin has not read Modiano,” he wrote.

一位Twitter網友昂立·盧奇埃(Henri Rouquier)想提醒我們不要小題大做。他寫道，“在經歷全國性危機的時候，法國終於遇到了最大的問題：弗勒爾·佩爾蘭沒有讀過莫迪亞諾。”

Outside France, Ms. Pellerin might receive even more sympathy. Although revered at home, Mr. Modiano, until recently, was largely unknown abroad. One of his novels, “Rue des Boutiques Obscures,” released as “Missing Person” in English, won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1978, but has sold just 2,425 copies in the United States.

在法國之外，佩爾蘭或許還會得到更多同情。儘管莫迪亞諾在國內備受推崇，但直到最近，他在國外基本上都默默無聞。他的一本小說《暗店街》(Rue des Boutiques Obscures)在1978年贏得了赫赫有名的龔古爾獎(Prix Goncourt)，但該書的英譯本《失蹤的人》(Missing Person)在美國卻只賣出了2425本。