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The two world wars changed all that, but authors born before the cataclysms retained their concept of what a novel should be and do.
两次世界大战改变了这一切，但是在这两场大灾难之前出生的作家仍然保留着他们对小说应该是什么和应该做什么的概念。
Reconciling beliefs nurtured in a stable world with an unstable one produced towering works.
对稳定世界和不稳定世界所孕育的不同信念进行调和，这就催生了煌煌巨著。
For example, “The Magic Mountain” (1924) by Thomas Mann, a German writer, is a long series of digressions and meditations that “preserves an image of unity by telling the story, down to the last detail, of a world whose pieces no longer come together”, writes Mr Frank.
例如，德国作家托马斯·曼于1924年出版的《魔山》是一部篇幅超长的偏题散漫和内心沉思之作，弗兰克写道，它“通过事无巨细地讲述一个世界的故事而留下了一个统一的画面，但这个世界已经在四分五裂”。
“In Search of Lost Time” by Marcel Proust did something similar.
马塞尔·普鲁斯特的《追忆似水年华》也是类似的写法。
Despite its languid tone and convoluted sentences, it has at its centre a desire to remember and tell readers everything about a vanished world (including the transporting aroma of madeleines).
尽管这部小说语气慵懒、句式复杂，但它的核心还是一种渴望，它想要记住并告诉读者一个已经逝去世界的一切（包括让人身临其境的玛德琳蛋糕的香气）。
Vasily Grossman, a Soviet writer, displayed the same encyclopedic bent in two works, “Stalingrad” and “Life and Fate”, which are among the most ambitious and best fiction written about the second world war.
苏联作家瓦西里·格罗斯曼在《斯大林格勒》和《生活与命运》中展现了同样的百科全书式倾向，这两部作品是关于第二次世界大战的最具野心和最出色的小说之一。
Penned in a plain style and a self-conscious attempt to mirror “War and Peace”, Russia’s greatest novel from the 19th century, his writing fell foul of censors (who wanted him, among other things, to remove a sympathetic Jewish character).
这两部作品文笔洗练，格罗斯曼有意模仿了19世纪俄罗斯最伟大的小说《战争与和平》，却遇到了审查麻烦（除了其他要求，审查人员还希望他删除一个富有同情心的犹太人物）。
Grossman died in 1964; “Life and Fate” would not be published in Russia for another 24 years.
格罗斯曼于1964年去世，《生活与命运》又过了24年才在俄罗斯出版。
After the war, Mr Frank’s survey turns almost perversely idiosyncratic.
对于二战之后的小说，弗兰克的调查开始执拗地剑走偏锋。
He mentions great writers including Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison and Philip Roth only in passing, yet devotes an entire chapter to the banal, unreadable “Life: A User’s Manual” by Georges Perec, a French novelist.
他对于索尔·贝娄、托妮·莫里森、菲利普·罗斯等伟大作家只是一笔带过，却用了整整一章来写法国小说家乔治·佩雷克的那本平淡、难懂的《人生拼图版》。
Still, one of the pleasures of reading “Stranger Than Fiction” is arguing with it.
不过，读《比虚构更离奇》的乐趣之一就是与它争论。
And the number of impassioned arguments that this book starts proves that the literary novel is not dead to everyone.
而且这本书引发的激烈争论之多证明，文学小说并非在所有人心里都死了。
Nor is it still the unquestioned king of narrative expression.
小说也不再是叙事表达的无可争议的王者。
Television has grown more sophisticated: “The Wire” drew justified comparisons to Charles Dickens.
电视剧已经变得更加精深复杂：美剧《火线》堪与查尔斯·狄更斯相比。
Millions of books are published each year, but the number of people who read daily for pleasure, as well as the amount of time they read, have been steadily declining.
每年有数百万本书出版，但是为了乐趣而每天读书的人数以及他们的阅读时长一直在稳步下降。
From 2017 to 2023 Americans aged 15 and older spent just 15-16 minutes a day reading “for personal interest”, 18% less than in 2013-15, according to America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics.
根据美国劳工统计局的数据，从2017年到2023年，15岁及以上的美国人每天仅花费15至16分钟进行“出于个人兴趣”的阅读，比2013-15年减少了18%。
Meanwhile, they watch TV for more than two and a half hours a day, on average.
同时，他们平均每天看电视超过两个半小时。
This century’s novelists will need to grapple with this shift.
本世纪的小说家们将需要努力应对这种转变。
Writers in the last century benefited from increased literacy rates, cheap mass production and the rise of chain bookstores, which all helped create a culture more receptive to their works.
上个世纪的作家们受益于识字率的提高、廉价的大规模生产、连锁书店的兴起，这些都有助于创造一种更容易接受他们作品的文化。
Novels could also easily hold their own against films; it is harder now that people have a giant film and TV library in their pockets.
当时小说也可以轻松地与电影抗衡，但现在人们的口袋里就有一个巨大的电影和电视库，要抗衡就更难了。
What might a book written in 2124, looking back at the 21st-century literary novel, argue?
如果在2124年写一本书，回顾21世纪的文学小说，这本书会提出什么论点呢？
That the novel continued to expand its focus outward, by engaging with genre fiction, for instance, as Colson Whitehead and Haruki Murakami do brilliantly; or with nature and science, as Richard Powers and Kim Stanley Robinson do.
它可能会认为小说继续向外扩展其焦点，或与类型小说相结合，就像科尔森·怀特黑德和村上春树的出色作品那样，或与自然和科学相结合，就像理查德·鲍尔斯和金·斯坦利·罗宾逊那样。（注：怀特黑德主要写种族问题，村上春树主要写青春故事，鲍尔斯探讨科技对人类和环境的影响，罗宾逊是科幻小说家。）
Novel-reading will become even more of a niche, worthy hobby, like going to a classical-music concert or ballet today.
阅读小说将变成一种更加小众、高雅的爱好，就像如今去听古典音乐会或看芭蕾舞表演一样。
The story of the 20th-century novel is one of artistic triumph.
20世纪的小说讲述了艺术取得胜利的故事。
In this century, the novel will experience a different story.
在本世纪，小说将经历一个不同的故事。
