(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Ray Freeman with the VOA Special English program, People in America. Today, we tell about writer Flannery O'Connor.
Late in her life someone asked the American writer Flannery O'Connor why she wrote. She said, "Because I am good at it. "
She was good. Yet, she was not always as good a writer as she became. She improved because she listened to others. She changed her stories. She re-wrote them, then re-wrote them again, always working to improve what she was creating.
Flannery had always wanted to be a writer. After she graduated from Georgia State College for women, she asked to be accepted at a writing program at the State University of Iowa. The head of the school found it difficult to understand her southern speech. He asked her to write what she wanted. Then he asked to see some examples of her work.
He saw immediately that the writing was full of imagination and bright with knowledge, like Flannery O'Connor herself.
Mary Flannery O'Connor was born March twenty-fifth, nineteen twenty-five, in the southern city of Savannah, Georgia.
The year she was born, her father developed a rare disease called lupus. He died of the disease in nineteen forty-one. By that time the family was living in the small southern town of Milledgeville, Georgia, in a house owned by Flannery's mother.
Life in a small town in the American South was what O'Connor knew best. Yet she said, "If you know who you are, you can go anywhere. "
Many people in the town of Milledgeville thought she was different from other girls. She was kind to everyone, but she seemed to stand to one side of what was happening, as if she wanted to see it better. Her mother was her example. Her mother said, "I was brought up to be nice to everyone and not to tell my business to anyone. "
Flannery also did not talk about herself. But in her writing a silent and distant anger explodes from the quiet surface of her stories. Some see her as a Roman Catholic religious writer. They see her anger as the search to save her moral being through her belief in Jesus Christ. Others do not deny her Roman Catholic religious beliefs. Yet they see her not writing about things, but presenting the things themselves.
When she left the writing program at Iowa State University she was invited to join a group of writers at the Yaddo writers' colony. Yaddo is at Saratoga Springs in New York state. It provides a small group of writers with a home and a place to work for a short time.
The following year, nineteen forty-nine, she moved to New York City. She soon left the city and lived with her friend Robert Fitzgerald and his family in the northeastern state of Connecticut. Fitzgerald says O'Connor needed to be alone to work during the day. And she needed her friends to talk to when her work was done.
While writing her first novel, "Wise Blood", she was stricken with the disease lupus that had killed her father. The treatment for lupus weakened her. She moved back to Georgia and lived the rest of her life with her mother on a farm outside Milledgeville. O'Connor was still able to write, travel, and give speeches.
"Wise Blood" appeared in nineteen fifty-two. Both it and O'Connor's second novel, "The Violent Bear it Away," are about a young man growing up. In both books the young men are unwilling to accept the work they were most fit to do.
Like all of Flannery O'Connor's writing, the book is filled with humor, even when her meaning is serious. It shows the mix of a traditional world with a modern world. It also shows a battle of ideas expressed in the simple, country talk that O'Connor knew very well.
In "Wise Blood", a young man, Hazel Motes, leaves the Army but finds his home town empty. He flees to a city, looking for "a place to be." On the train, he announces that he does not believe in Jesus Christ. He says, "I wouldn't even if he existed. Even if he was on this train. "
His moving to the city is an attempt to move away from the natural world and become a thing, a machine. He decides that all he can know is what he can touch and see.
In the end, however, he destroys his physical sight so that he may truly see, because he says that when he had eyes he was blind. Critics say his action seems to show that he is no longer willing to deny the existence of Jesus but now is willing to follow him into the dark.
The novel received high praise from critics. It did not become popular with the public, however.
O'Connor's second novel, "The Violent Bear it Away," was published in nineteen sixty. Like "Wise Blood," it is a story about a young man learning to deal with life.
The book opens with the young man, Francis Marion Tarwater, refusing to do the two things his grandfather had ordered him to do. These are to bury the old man deep in the ground, and to bring religion to his uncle's mentally sick child.
Instead, Tarwater burns the house where his grandfather died and lets the mentally sick child drown during a religious ceremony.
Critics say Tarwater's violence comes from his attempt to find truth by denying religion. In the end, however, he accepts that he has been touched by a deeper force, the force of the word of God, and he must accept that word.
Both of O'Connor's novels explore the long moment of fear when a young man must choose between the difficulties of growing up and the safe world of a child.
Flannery O'Connor is at least as well known for her stories as for her novels. Her first book of stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," appeared in nineteen fifty-five. In it she deals with many of the ideas she wrote about in "Wise Blood," such as the search for Jesus Christ.
In many of the stories there is a conflict between the world of the spirit and the world of the body. In the story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," a traveling workman with only one arm comes to a farm. He claims to be more concerned with things of the spirit than with objects.
The woman who owns the farm offers to let him marry her deaf daughter. He finally agrees when the mother gives him the farm, her car, and seventeen dollars for the wedding trip. He says, "Lady, a man is divided into two parts, body and spirit. . . The body, lady, is like a house: it don't go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile, always on the move. . . "
He marries the daughter and drives off with her. When they stop to eat, the man leaves her and drives off toward the city. On the way he stops and gives a ride to a wandering boy.
We learn that when the one-armed man was a child, his mother left him. Critics say that when he helps the boy, he is helping himself.
In nineteen sixty-four, O'Connor was operated on for a stomach disease. One result of this operation was the return of lupus, the disease that killed her father. On August third, nineteen sixty-four, Flannery O'Connor died. She was thirty-nine years old.
Near the end of her life she said, "I'm a born Catholic, and death has always been brother to my imagination. "
The next year, in nineteen sixty-five, her final collection of stories, "Everything That Rises Must Converge," appeared. In it she speaks of the cruelty of disease and the deeper cruelty that exists between parents and children.
In these stories, grown children are in a struggle with parents they neither love nor leave. Many of the children feel guilty about hating the mothers who, the children feel, have destroyed them through love. The children want to rebel violently, but they fear losing their mothers' protection.
In nineteen seventy-one, O'Connor's "Collected Stories" was published. The book contains most of what she wrote. It has all the stories of her earlier collections. It also has early versions of both novels that were first published as stories. And it has parts of an uncompleted novel and an unpublished story.
In nineteen seventy-two this last book won the American book industry's highest prize, The National Book Award. As one critic noted, Flannery O'Connor did not live long, but she lived deeply, and wrote beautifully.
重点解析
1.full of充满；富有
When I smoke, the smoke is full of memory about us.
当我抽烟的时候，烟雾里全是关于我们的记忆。
2.bring up提出；养育
I will bring up this question at our next meeting.
在下一次会议我会提出这个问题。
3.in the end最后
Of course, in the end, not everything will go as plan.
当然，到最后，不是所有的事儿都能按计划行事。
4.willing to乐意
Are you willing to swear in court that you saw him do it?
你愿意在法庭上宣誓说你曾看见他做那件事了吗？
5.deal with处理；涉及
As the school student, how will you deal with this issue?
作为学校的学生， 应如何处理和解决这个问题？
6.struggle with与...作斗争
We still have to struggle with all kinds of difficulties.
我们仍得和各种各样的困难作斗争。
参考译文
我是雪莉·格里菲斯，我是雷·弗里曼。这里是VOA慢速英语栏目《美国人物志》。今天我们讲述弗兰纳里·奥康纳的故事。
后来有人问美国作家弗兰纳里·奥康纳为什么写作。她说，“因为我擅长写作。”
她是个好作家。然而，她并不总是像后来那样是个好作家。她提升了，因为她倾听其他人的建议。她改变她的故事。她重写这些故事，一再地重写，经常努力提升她创造的东西。
弗兰纳里一直都想成为一个作家。从乔治亚州立女子学院毕业后，她请求被爱荷华州立大学的一个写作项目录取。学校的校长发现很难听懂她讲的南方话。他让弗兰纳里写她想写的东西。然后他要求看一些她作品的例子。
他立刻看出，这篇文章充满了想象，充满了智慧，就像弗兰纳里·奥康纳本人一样。玛丽·弗兰纳里·奥康纳于1925年3月25日出生在乔治亚州南部城市萨凡纳。
在她出生的那一年，她的父亲患上了一种叫做狼疮的罕见疾病。他于1941年因此病而去世。那时，他们一家住在乔治亚州南部小镇米利奇维尔的一所房子里，房子的主人是弗兰纳里的母亲。
奥康纳最了解美国南部小镇的生活。但是她说，“如果你知道你是谁，你可以去任何地方。”
米利奇维尔镇的许多人认为她和其他女孩不一样。她对每个人都很好，但她似乎站在事情的一边，好像她想看得更清楚。她的母亲是她的榜样。她母亲说，“我从小就被教导对每个人都好，而且不把我的事情告诉任何人。”
奥康纳也没有跟人谈论自己的事情。但是在她的作品中，一种寂静而冷漠的愤怒从她表面平静的故事中迸发出来。有些人认为她是罗马天主教的宗教作家。他们把她的愤怒看作是通过信仰耶稣基督来拯救她的道德生命。其他人不否认她的罗马天主教信仰。但是他们认为她没有写作事物，而是展现事物本身。
离开爱荷华州立大学的写作课程后，奥康纳被邀请加入雅斗作家聚集地的一个作家团体。雅斗位于纽约州萨拉托加斯普林斯。它为一小群作家提供了一个家和一个短期工作的地方。
第二年，1949年，她搬到了纽约市。她很快就离开了这座城市，和朋友罗伯特·菲茨杰拉德及其家人一起住在美国东北部的康涅狄格州。菲茨杰拉德说，奥康纳白天需要一个人工作。当她完成工作后，她需要她的朋友和她聊天。
在写她的第一部小说《智慧之血》时，她患了一种曾杀死她父亲的狼疮。红斑狼疮的治疗使她虚弱了。她搬回了乔治亚州，和母亲一起在米利奇维尔郊外的一个农场里度过了余生。奥康纳仍可以写作，旅行，发表演讲。
《智慧之血》出版于1952年。这本书和奥康纳的第二部小说《暴力把它带走》都是关于一个年轻人的成长故事。在两本书里，年轻人都不愿意接受他们最适合做的事情。
就像奥康纳所有的书一样，书中充满了幽默，即使她的意指是严肃的。它展现了传统世界与现代世界的融合。它也展现了用简单的，乡村谈话表达的一场思想的斗争，这种乡村谈话奥康纳非常了解。
在《智慧之血》中，一位叫黑兹尔·莫茨的年轻人离开了军队，但是发现他的家乡空无一人。他逃离到了城市，寻找“一个值得去的地方”。在火车上，他宣布他不相信耶稣。他说，“即使他存在我也不会相信。即使他在这个火车上。”
他搬到城市是想远离自然世界，成为一种东西，一种机器。他决定他所能知道的就是他所能触摸和看到的。
然而，在最后，他摧毁了自己的视力，这样他才可能真正的看到，因为他说他有视力的时候是看不见的。批评人士说，他的行为似乎表明，他不再愿意否认耶稣的存在，而是愿意跟随他进入黑暗。
这部小说受到了评论家的高度赞扬。但是它没有受到大众的欢迎。
奥康纳的第二部小说，《暴力把它带走》出版于1960年。像《智慧之血》一样，它讲述了一位年轻人学习生活的故事。
在这本书的开头，这位叫弗朗西斯·马里昂·塔沃特的年轻人拒绝做他的祖父命令自己做的两件事情。这两件事是，将他的祖父深埋到地下，并将宗教信仰带给他叔叔患有精神疾病的孩子。相反，塔沃特烧毁了祖父去世的房子，并让这个患有精神疾病的孩子在宗教仪式上溺水身亡。
批评人士说，塔尔沃特的暴力行为来自他试图通过否认宗教来寻找真相。然而，最终，他承认自己接触到一种更深层次的力量，即上帝之道的力量，而且他必须接受上帝的话语。
奥康纳的两部小说都探索了一个年轻人必须在成长的困难和孩子的安全世界之间做出选择的漫长恐惧时刻。
弗兰纳里·奥康纳的故事至少和她的小说一样出名。她的第一本故事书，《好人难觅》出版于1955年。在这本书里，她表达了很多在《智慧之血》写到的观点，比如寻找耶稣。
在很多的故事里，奥康纳都表现了精神世界和肉体世界的冲突。在故事《你拯救的生命可能是你自己的》中，一位单臂旅行工人来到一个农场。他声称自己更关心精神上的东西，而不是物质上的东西。
这个农场的女主人提议让他和自己的聋女结婚。当这位母亲把农场、自己的汽车还有用于结婚旅行的17美元给他时，他最终同意了。他说，“女士，一个人由两部分构成，身体和精神...身体就像一个房子：它哪也不会去；但是精神就像一个汽车，总是在路上...”
他娶了这个女人，开车带她走了。当他们停下吃饭时，男人离开了她，开车向城市而去。在路上他停下车，载了一个漫游的少年一程。
我们了解到，当这个独臂男子还是个孩子的时候，他的母亲离开了他。评论家说当他帮助这个男孩时，他是在帮助自己。
1964年，奥康纳因胃病做了手术。手术的一个后果就是狼疮的复发，杀死她父亲的正是此病。1964年8月3日，弗兰纳里·奥康纳去世。年仅39岁。
在生命结束的时候，她说，“我生来就是天主教徒，死亡一直是我的想象中的教友。”
第二年，在1965年，她的最后一本故事集《上升的一切必须会聚》出版了。在书中，她谈到了疾病的残酷，以及父母和孩子之间存在的更深层次的残酷。
在这些故事中，成年的孩子和他们既不爱也不离开的父母在斗争。很多孩子都感觉母亲通过爱毁了他们，他们因恨自己的母亲而感到愧疚。孩子们想要暴力反抗，但他们害怕失去母亲的保护。
1971年，奥康纳的《短篇小说集》出版。这本书包含了她所写的大部分内容。里面有她早期作品的所有故事。它也有两本小说的早期版本，都是作为故事首次出版的。书中也有未完成的小说和未出版的故事的一部分。
在1972年，这最后一本书赢得了美国图书业的最高奖项，国家图书奖。正如一位评论家所言，弗兰纳里·奥康纳活得并不长久，但她活得深刻，文笔优美。
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