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Culture
文艺版块
Children's literature
儿童文学
Grimm's stuff
阴森的格林童话（注：Grimm谐音grim）
How unpleasant should children’s books be?
童话书应该有多令人不舒服？
The Brothers Grimm. By Ann Schmiesing.
《格林兄弟》，安·施米辛著。
Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived in a deep, dark forest.
从前，有两个小男孩住在幽深、黑暗的森林里。
Their name was Grimm, and so was their life.
他们姓格林，他们的生活也很“阴森”。（注：Grimm谐音grim）
Their father died, and their mother was poor.
他们的父亲去世了，母亲很贫穷。
She slaughtered pigs, while their aunt castrated cocks with a knife.
母亲宰杀猪，阿姨用刀阉割公鸡。
When the boys grew up Napoleon invaded, and one brother travelled to war.
当两个小男孩长大后，拿破仑入侵了，于是其中一个兄弟去打仗。
He saw villages burned, girls raped and piles of corpses so big the villagers could not bury them.
他看到村庄被烧毁，女孩被强奸，成堆的尸体多到村民们无法把它们埋起来。
But this story has a happily ever after.
但这个故事有一个幸福美满的结局。
Because when the boys grew up they wrote down stories.
因为男孩们长大后，他们写下了许多故事。
They penned “Snow White” and “Cinderella” and indeed the line “happily ever after”.
他们创作了《白雪公主》和《灰姑娘》，还有那句“从此过上了幸福的生活”。
There were hints of their life in their tales, though, as a new book by Ann Schmiesing, an academic, shows.
不过正如学者安·施米辛在一本新书中所展示的那样，他们的故事中也有他们的人生痕迹。
For they also wrote a tale called “How Some Children Played at Slaughtering”.
因为他们还写了一个故事，叫做《孩子们怎么玩屠杀游戏》。
In it, one boy slits another’s throat; his brother drowns in the bath; his mother hangs herself with guilt; his father dies of grief.
在故事中，一个男孩割开了另一个男孩的喉咙，弟弟在浴缸里淹死，母亲因内疚而上吊自杀，父亲则悲痛过度而死。
A forgotten children’s classic.
这是一篇被遗忘的儿童经典作品。
This is a story about children’s stories.
这本新书是关于童话的故事。
It is about what stories should include--sugar, spice and all things nice, or frogs, snails and incest? --and how dark their telling should be.
探讨了故事应该包括什么——糖果、香料和所有美好的东西，还是青蛙、蜗牛和乱伦？——以及故事的讲述应该有多黑暗。
In the Grimms’ day, the answer was very.
在格林兄弟的时代，答案是非常黑暗。
In these stories fathers abuse daughters, Rapunzel falls pregnant and Red Riding Hood is duped into bed (“My, how hairy you are, granny!”) and raped.
在这些故事中，父亲虐待女儿，长发公主怀孕了，小红帽被骗上床（“哎呀，奶奶，你的毛真多！”）并被强奸了。
In a Swiss telling of “Snow White”, the girl is a “slut”, the seven dwarves are murdered and their house is burned down.
在瑞士版本的《白雪公主》中，白雪公主是一个“荡妇”，七个小矮人被谋杀，他们的房子被烧毁。
Disney did not go with that version.
迪士尼没有采用这个版本。
This debate still matters now.
这场辩论现在仍然很重要。
Children’s books cause conniptions.
儿童书籍会引起震怒。
In Britain Roald Dahl was edited to remove words such as “fat” that, to some modern eyes, seemed objectionable and (as Dahl might have put it) fizzwiggling.
在英国，罗尔德·达尔的作品在编辑过程中删除了一些在现代人看来令人反感和尖嘴毒舌（这个词是达尔发明的）的词，比如“胖”。
In 2023, 17 American states tried to censor more than 100 books.
在2023年，17个美国州试图审查超过100本书。
“There is a sort of tug-of-war through the history of children’s writing between instruction and delight,” says Sam Leith, author of “The Haunted Wood”, a book about children’s literature.
“在儿童文学写作历史中，存在着一种在教益和娱乐之间的拔河比赛。”《闹鬼的森林》的作者山姆·利思说，这本书是关于儿童文学的。
The debate is fraught partly because the stakes--and the sales--are high.
这场辩论很激烈，部分原因是利害关系很重大，童书销售量也很高。
The personal stakes are high, too.
个人利害关系也很大。
Reading is dangerously independent.
阅读是危险的独立行为。
It offers children their first escape from their parents.
为孩子们提供了第一次逃离父母的机会。
Go into Narnia or Neverland or Wonderland and you--like Lucy or Peter Pan or Alice--go alone.
一走进纳尼亚、梦幻岛或爱丽丝的仙境，你就像露西、彼得·潘或爱丽丝那样独自前行。（注：这里的典故分别来自《纳尼亚传奇》《彼得·潘》《爱丽丝梦游仙境》。）
And what you see there will shape you: for ever after you will know what lies behind the wardrobe door (furs and firs), what eating Turkish delight leads to (trouble) and what to do with bottles saying “DRINK ME” (don’t).
你在书里看到的东西会塑造你：从此以后，你会知道衣柜门后面有什么（长毛野兽和冷杉），吃土耳其软糖会导致什么（麻烦），以及看到写着“喝我”的瓶子该怎么办（不要喝）。（注：这里的典故分别来自《纳尼亚传奇》《爱丽丝梦游仙境》。）
When Martin Amis, a British novelist, said that he would write a children’s book only if he “had a serious brain injury”, he distilled centuries of disdain.
英国小说家马丁·艾米斯曾说，除非他“脑部严重受伤”，否则他不会写儿童读物。他的这句话概括了几个世纪以来人们对儿童读物的蔑视。
Until the 18th century there was no distinct children’s literature.
直到18世纪才出现了类别鲜明的儿童文学。
Though not everyone was so dismissive: John Locke argued that, since children’s minds were “as easily turned this or that way, as water”, books should be written specially for them to guide them.
尽管并非所有人都如此不屑一顾：约翰·洛克认为，由于儿童的思想“就像水一样容易被引向这个或那个方向”，因此应该专门为儿童写书来指导他们。（注：约翰·洛克是英国政治哲学家。）
And, sounding slightly less like Britain’s foremost political philosopher and slightly more like someone’s six-year-old, they should have “as many pictures of animals…as can be found”.
而且洛克还说了一句不那么像英国最重要的政治哲学家，而更像是某个六岁孩子会说的话：童书应该“包含能找到的尽可能多的动物图片”。
