美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Arrival' Author's Approach To Science Fiction? Slow, Steady And Successful

'Arrival' Author's Approach To Science Fiction? Slow, Steady And Successful

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What happens when aliens finally come to Earth and we have no idea how to talk to them? That's the premise² of a new movie "Arrival."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ARRIVAL")

AMY ADAMS: (As Louise Banks) We need to make sure that they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool.

SHAPIRO: "Arrival" opens in theaters today. It's based on a short story that seems like the exact opposite of a typical Hollywood blockbuster. NPR's Neda Ulaby explains.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE³: The original short story is cerebral⁴ to say the least. It's about linguistic⁶ relativity.

TED⁷ CHIANG: Yeah, I was surprised and a little skeptical⁸.

ULABY: Ted Chiang is the author of "Story Of Your Life." That's the title. Chiang only writes short stories. He's not very prolific⁹, but every few years, he comes out with one that sweeps the science fiction awards. Chiang supports himself as a technical writer, explaining software to programmers at places like Microsoft.

CHIANG: My job is to translate absurdly technical material to merely technical material.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ARRIVAL")

FOREST WHITAKER: (As Colonel Weber) You're at the top of everyone's list when it comes to translations.

ULABY: Translating is at the heart of "Arrival." It's about a linguist⁵ who has to save the world by figuring out how to talk to creatures who've arrived in menacing huge black ships.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ARRIVAL")

WHITAKER: (As Colonel Weber) Priority one - what do they want, and where are they from?

ULABY: Chiang spent five years researching linguistics¹⁰ before he felt ready to write the story the movie's based on. Clarity, he says, is the only thing his fiction has in common with his day job.

CHIANG: I've always been drawn¹¹ to clear explanations. A good explanation is not just useful. It can also be beautiful.

ULABY: And crucial for the science in science fiction. Chiang's not the kind of fanciful writer who imagines stories like movies in his head.

CHIANG: Never. I'm very much a fan of prose, and I tend to think of my stories in terms of sentences.

ULABY: That's why his fan base includes authors like Grady Hendrix.

GRADY HENDRIX: Ted does something that not a lot of other writers do. So I write speculative¹² fiction. I know a lot of people who write speculative fiction. And we really like to get to the dramatic parts of our story, right? We're going to write a story about first contact with aliens. We want to skip to the exciting parts.

ULABY: Not Chiang. Hendrix says his first contact story asks...

HENDRIX: What would happen first? Well, we'd have to communicate. Well, how would we communicate? Well, we'd have to make sure they understood what communication was, that we even perceive time in the same way so that we can communicate about things in the past, present and the future.

ULABY: The drama inherent in that did not make "Arrival" the easiest adaptation. The movie's screenwriter, Eric Heisserer, got rejected over and over when pitching it to producers.

ERIC HEISSERER: Oh, maybe a hundred times.

ULABY: Other problems - "Arrival" features a female main character - even worse, an academic who solves linguistic problems with aliens rather than punching them.

HEISSERER: We actually have a character say non-linear orthography¹³.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ARRIVAL")

ADAMS: (As Louise Banks) It's their language.

ULABY: One of the challenges in both the screenplay for "Arrival" and the short story it's based on was creating a language for creatures who do not resemble us. Author Ted Chiang says our basic earthling vertebrate bodies eat and make noises with our mouths.

CHIANG: But that is not the only body plan available.

ULABY: To create his aliens, Chiang thought about jellyfish and sign language.

CHIANG: It has sort of a three-dimensional grammar. It uses, like, velocity¹⁴ as a way of inflecting. It is pretty much impossible to do a sort of word-by-word translation into English.

ULABY: Such care for detail and to craft feels rare nowadays, says author Grady Hendrix.

HENDRIX: You know, right now as a writer, what you're told is, the best way to be successful is to be insanely prolific because the more your name is out there, the more every book is an ad for yourself, and you've got to think about your brand. And then you have someone like Ted who just sits and thinks very carefully about what he's doing. And then he does it.

ULABY: It's almost countercultural, he says. Three of Ted Chiang's other short stories have been optioned by Hollywood for adaptation. That's from the only 15 he's had published since 1990.

CHIANG: Fiction writing is very hard for me, and I'm a very slow writer.

ULABY: Author Ted Chiang...

CHIANG: I don't get that many ideas for stories. I don't. It's not easy for me. And I like to take my time when I do get an idea for a story.

ULABY: And readers get to take their time, too, to chew on Ted Chiang's craft and carefulness. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 premise   

n.前提；v.提论，预述

参考例句：

• Let me premise my argument with a bit of history.让我引述一些史实作为我立论的前提。
• We can deduce a conclusion from the premise.我们可以从这个前提推出结论。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 cerebral   

adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的

参考例句：

• Your left cerebral hemisphere controls the right-hand side of your body.你的左半脑控制身体的右半身。
• He is a precise,methodical,cerebral man who carefully chooses his words.他是一个一丝不苟、有条理和理智的人，措辞谨慎。

5 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

6 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

7 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

8 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

9 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

10 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

11 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

12 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

13 orthography   

n.拼字法，拼字式

参考例句：

• In dictionaries,words are listed according to their orthography.在词典中，词是按照字母拼写顺序排列的。
• American and English orthography are very much alike.美语与英语的拼字方法非常相像。

14 velocity   

n.速度，速率

参考例句：

• Einstein's theory links energy with mass and velocity of light.爱因斯坦的理论把能量同质量和光速联系起来。
• The velocity of light is about 300000 kilometres per second.光速约为每秒300000公里。