美国国家公共电台 NPR New Novel Takes 'The Underground Railroad' Beyond The Metaphor

New Novel Takes 'The Underground Railroad' Beyond The Metaphor¹

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Colson Whitehead has brought a metaphor to life - the Underground Railroad. His novel of the same name is both magical and real with dreamlike passages delivered with savage², searing detail to tell the story of a teenage woman named Cora who escapes a Georgia plantation³ with another slave who's been named Caesar as they head north but must keep looking back for an army of slave catchers who are in pursuit.

"The Underground Railroad" is the latest novel from Colson Whitehead, a MacArthur Fellow, who's been one of the most acclaimed⁴ young writers in America. And this book is one of the most highly anticipated of the year. Colson Whitehead joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

COLSON WHITEHEAD: Hey, howdy, thanks for having me back.

SIMON: So what made you say to yourself, why don't I put the Underground Railroad on real tracks?

WHITEHEAD: I was just thinking of that, you know, childhood notion of the railroad being a literal subway. I think, like, when you're in school and you first hear those words, you imagine a literal passage beneath the earth and train cars. And then of course you find out that that's not the way it worked, and you're disappointed. So really, I was just sitting on my couch, and I thought, what if the Underground Railroad was a real railroad?

And then I thought, well, what if each state that our protagonist⁵ goes through as he or she travels north, each state is a different state of American possibility. And so South Carolina became a sort of paternalistic white state, North Carolina a white separatist state, and so on. And each time our protagonist gets out of the station in a new place, we sort of rebooted America in a different sort of way.

SIMON: When Cora first beholds⁶ the railroad, it's, you know, it's carved out by human hands, mile after mile as far as she can see. She asks, who built this? And she's told by the white man who's showing her around, who builds anything in this country? Is that a kind of theme of the novel?

WHITEHEAD: I think, you know, unearthing⁷ some of the secret histories was fun, you know, when I was conceiving of the book.

SIMON: Yeah.

WHITEHEAD: Once I make the leap of making the train literal, I've already committed to not sticking to the facts. And so I could bring in different parts of American history. And so as Cora runs north, she runs up against Tuskegee-style blood experiments. There's echoes of the Holocaust⁸ when she comes to North Carolina and there's a white supremacist state. So that, you know, initial whimsical choice to play with the metaphor allowed me to mix and match and explore different areas of American history.

SIMON: What sense of responsibility to history do you feel when you start mixing and matching that way?

WHITEHEAD: None, except in the first section to depict⁹ a plantation with as much realism as possible, which is an unfortunate choice because then you actually have to depict the brutality¹⁰ and ruthlessness of the slave system.

SIMON: You have people on the porch watching a slave being put to death in a slow and painful manner for so-called entertainment.

WHITEHEAD: Well, occasionally I would check myself and think, am I going too over the top with some of these tortures? And then I would go back to the books and think maybe I was letting off slave masters easy.

SIMON: You write about the different venues¹¹, if you please, to which Cora goes on this Underground Railroad. And let me get you to talk at some greater length about just one of them - South Carolina. What does she and Caesar think when they first get to South Carolina?

WHITEHEAD: Well, the first thing she sees is a skyscraper¹², a 12-story building. And of course, she's never seen something like that before, having never left the plantation. And that's really the first indication to the reader that I'm straying from the historical record. In South Carolina, the government has purchased former slaves and set them free and given them jobs, homes, education and given them a new start. And so they're committed to a program of black social uplift, and it sounds very great society until what's underneath¹³ is revealed slowly in that chapter.

You know, I guess the obvious model is "Gulliver's Travels." And so she's going from island to island. And each island has a different sort of perspective or take on American history. It was fun just to hit the reset¹⁴ button every 60 pages and give a new world for Cora to explore and navigate¹⁵ and usually escape because they turned out not so nice.

SIMON: I say this respectfully, I didn't expect the word fun to enter this conversation.

WHITEHEAD: Well, it's a (laughter) writing is a terrible job, and it's also fun when you have - you finish a great sentence that you think is great or have a good day or figure out something about a character. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth doing frankly¹⁶. So, you know, in general when I'm done with the book, I'm pretty sick of it and don't want to go back to it. But this book is different. And I know I still feel very strongly about Cora and her family and her friends. And I can go back to different passages and relive what it was like that day in this town or that town where I was writing and get back into the thrill of the process. And that is fun.

SIMON: There's a line toward the end I can't get out of my head - sometimes a useful delusion¹⁷ is better than a useless truth.

WHITEHEAD: That first step off the plantation is a courageous¹⁸ step. And you have to believe that there's something better out there or else you'd never do it. If you can only believe that the plantation, the slave system, is everything and you're going to die on the land you were born on, you don't run. You stay. And so the useful delusion takes you away. And maybe if you work hard enough, or if you go far enough north, it's no longer delusion and something that's actually useful.

SIMON: Yeah. In this book, though, you cause the reader to always ask, are we inhabiting a delusion?

WHITEHEAD: Will Cora make it? What happens to her and her friends is always in doubt whenever she finds a safe place. Reality intrudes¹⁹, and she has to keep going further north. And hopefully, if the book works, you're on that - the reader's on that journey as well. And all the pitfalls²⁰ and wrong turns she takes, you know, hopefully you're there with them.

And I feel bad about many things that happened to her. And also I feel they're sort of necessary to the truthfulness²¹ of the slave experience. I didn't stick to the facts. I guess I tell myself I stuck to the truth.

SIMON: Colson Whitehead - his novel, "The Underground Railroad." Thanks so much for being with us.

WHITEHEAD: Man, it was a real pleasure. Thanks.

1 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

2 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

3 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

4 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

5 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

6 beholds   

v.看，注视( behold的第三人称单数 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟

参考例句：

• He who beholds the gods against their will, shall atone for it by a heavy penalty. 谁违背神的意志看见了神，就要受到重罚以赎罪。 来自辞典例句
• All mankind has gazed on it; Man beholds it from afar. 25?所行的，万人都看见；世人都从远处观看。 来自互联网

7 unearthing   

发掘或挖出某物( unearth的现在分词 )； 搜寻到某事物，发现并披露

参考例句：

• And unearthing the past often means literally and studying the evidence. 通常，探寻往事在字面上即意味着——刨根究底。
• The unearthing of "Peking Man" was a remarkable discovery. “北京人”的出土是个非凡的发现。

8 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

9 depict   

vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述

参考例句：

• I don't care to see plays or films that depict murders or violence.我不喜欢看描写谋杀或暴力的戏剧或电影。
• Children's books often depict farmyard animals as gentle,lovable creatures.儿童图书常常把农场的动物描写得温和而可爱。

10 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

11 venues   

n.聚集地点( venue的名词复数 )；会场；（尤指）体育比赛场所；犯罪地点

参考例句：

• The band will be playing at 20 different venues on their UK tour. 这个乐队在英国巡回演出期间将在20个不同的地点演出。
• Farmers market corner, 800 meters long, 60 meters wide livestock trading venues. 农牧市场东北角，有长800米，宽60米的牲畜交易场地。 来自互联网

12 skyscraper   

n.摩天大楼

参考例句：

• The skyscraper towers into the clouds.那幢摩天大楼高耸入云。
• The skyscraper was wrapped in fog.摩天楼为雾所笼罩。

13 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

14 reset   

v.重新安排，复位；n.重新放置；重放之物

参考例句：

• As soon as you arrive at your destination,step out of the aircraft and reset your wristwatch.你一到达目的地，就走出飞机并重新设置手表时间。
• He is recovering from an operation to reset his arm.他做了一个手臂复位手术，正在恢复。

15 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

16 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

17 delusion   

n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑

参考例句：

• He is under the delusion that he is Napoleon.他患了妄想症，认为自己是拿破仑。
• I was under the delusion that he intended to marry me.我误认为他要娶我。

18 courageous   

adj.勇敢的，有胆量的

参考例句：

• We all honour courageous people.我们都尊重勇敢的人。
• He was roused to action by courageous words.豪言壮语促使他奋起行动。

19 intrudes   

v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的第三人称单数 )；把…强加于

参考例句：

• An outraged movie like Stone's intrudes upon a semipermanent mourning. 像斯通这种忿忿不平的电影侵犯到美国人近乎永恒的哀悼。 来自互联网
• He intrudes upon our hospitality. 他硬要我们款待他。 来自互联网

20 pitfalls   

（捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误

参考例句：

• the potential pitfalls of buying a house 购买房屋可能遇到的圈套
• Several pitfalls remain in the way of an agreement. 在达成协议的进程中还有几个隐藏的困难。

21 truthfulness   

n. 符合实际

参考例句：

• Among her many virtues are loyalty, courage, and truthfulness. 她有许多的美德，如忠诚、勇敢和诚实。
• I fired a hundred questions concerning the truthfulness of his statement. 我对他发言的真实性提出一连串质问。