美国国家公共电台 NPR It's Electric: Novel Re-Creates Charged Rivalry Between Edison And Westinghouse

It's Electric: Novel Re-Creates Charged Rivalry¹ Between Edison And Westinghouse

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Graham Moore's new novel opens with a jolt². A Western Union man is electrocuted in the sky above Broadway. He was trying to repair a live wire. Blue flame shoots from his mouth. His skin falls from his bones and scares horses. Man has made his own lightning, but at what cost? The rivalry between two household names who may have been geniuses Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to electrify³ the United States from coast to coast is the struggle at the center of Graham Moore's novel "The Last Days Of Night." And Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of "The Imitation Game" and is the author of the best-selling "The Sherlockian," joins us from our studios at NPR West.

Thanks so much for being with us.

GRAHAM MOORE: It is my pleasure.

SIMON: And what drew you to this story?

MOORE: You know, I think I got very excited about trying to conjure⁴ the feeling of this period when America was being lit at night for the first time. When you read the journals, the diaries of people alive in the 1880s, they talk about seeing electric light bulbs for the first time. And they describe it as if they're seeing a new color. They had literally⁵ never seen anything remotely like this before. The effect was shocking, sort of literally and figuratively.

SIMON: And what moved you to make a, I believe, 26-year-old lawyer, Paul Cravath, the narrative⁶ center?

MOORE: You know, as I started researching this book, there was a long period of going through biographies of Edison, Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla. And then, one day, I kind of stumbled on this single sentence in an Edison biography that made me sort of stand up and say, this is it. And I was reading about how, in 1888, Edison sued his archrival George Westinghouse for violating his patent on the lightbulb. Edison sues Westinghouse for what historians estimate to be - the value of the lawsuit⁷ was worth about a billion dollars in 1888, which, you can imagine, was the sort of money worth going to court over.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: And so...

SIMON: There are countries that have fought wars for purses that are, you know - that are smaller than that, yeah.

MOORE: And these guys basically did. But so that's what made Westinghouse's next move so utterly⁸ insane. What Westinghouse did was hire, as his lead litigator on what might be the largest lawsuit in American history - Westinghouse hires this 26-year-old kid named Paul Cravath. Paul is 18 months out of Columbia Law School in New York. He has never really had a client before, much less tried a case. And now he's the lead litigator on this unfathomably large lawsuit. He's in way over his head, and this kind of opened up the whole story for me. What if we tell the story of, kind of, the great scientific rivalry of the 19th century all from the perspective of this earnest, ambitious, hungry, young attorney who's just moved to New York to make good?

SIMON: I was surprised to learn that execution plays a central role in the story.

MOORE: Very much so. It was a brilliant move on Thomas Edison's part. At one point, he felt that he was kind of losing the PR war with George Westinghouse. So Edison, who had up, until this point, been actually a vocal¹⁰ anti-death penalty proponent¹¹, hatched this plan. And what he did was he started petitioning the New York State Legislature to begin executing its prisoners with an electric chair.

And you might ask, why did he want electricity, which he was a proponent of, used in executions? Well, he didn't ask the New York State Legislature to use his direct current. He asked them to use his enemy George Westinghouse's alternating current, AC. So he petitions them to use his opponent's technology in an electric chair so that his opponent will get, kind of, all this terrible press and people will associate Westinghouse with the electric chair. And, you know, who will want to buy the same equipment for their home that's used in an electric chair? No one.

SIMON: Well - and then a man - we ought to, I guess, also stipulate¹² he was an axe¹³ murderer - named William Kemmler - how do I say - well, there is no nice way of saying it. He demonstrated some of the shortcomings of the technology.

MOORE: (Laughter) I think that's a very polite way of putting it. So, you know, Edison's plan finally is put to the test when they execute - when New York state executes its first prisoner with Westinghouse's AC. And the whole PR fight they've been having this whole time has been about, which is safer, AC or DC? And they're each saying their technology is safer because people were quite afraid of it. So they have the first electrocution, and Westinghouse's AC proves to be too safe. It doesn't kill him on the first try. It doesn't kill him on the second try. And Edison's attempt to smear¹⁴ Westinghouse with the dangers of AC has precisely¹⁵ the opposite effect. Westinghouse's AC proves too safe.

SIMON: Did coming to terms with this story, writing this novel make you, in any way, change your thinking about the nature of genius or creativity?

MOORE: It reaffirmed my belief that I'm certainly not one, which is always...

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: ...Handy to be reminded of. No - I mean, in a sense, it, like - I felt so much like Paul Cravath writing this novel. And I think that's why he's - one of the reasons he became the protagonist¹⁶, this kind of, like, hopefully reasonably intelligent person in way over his head as he tries to fathom⁹ the inner workings of the minds of Edison, Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla. I was trying to figure out what was going on in their heads just as Paul Cravath was.

SIMON: Graham Moore, his novel "The Last Days Of Night."

Thanks so much for being with us.

MOORE: My pleasure. Thank you.

1 rivalry   

n.竞争，竞赛，对抗

参考例句：

• The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
• He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。

2 jolt   

v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸

参考例句：

• We were worried that one tiny jolt could worsen her injuries.我们担心稍微颠簸一下就可能会使她的伤势恶化。
• They were working frantically in the fear that an aftershock would jolt the house again.他们拼命地干着，担心余震可能会使房子再次受到震动。

3 electrify   

v.使充电；使电气化；使触电；使震惊；使兴奋

参考例句：

• The country is now making effort to electrify and informationize manufacture.国家正在致力于制造业的电气化和信息化。
• He needs money to electrify his surface lines.他需要钱把他的地面线路电气化。

4 conjure   

v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法

参考例句：

• I conjure you not to betray me.我恳求你不要背弃我。
• I can't simply conjure up the money out of thin air.我是不能像变魔术似的把钱变来。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

7 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

8 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

9 fathom   

v.领悟，彻底了解

参考例句：

• I really couldn't fathom what he was talking about.我真搞不懂他在说些什么。
• What these people hoped to achieve is hard to fathom.这些人希望实现些什么目标难以揣测。

10 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

11 proponent   

n.建议者；支持者；adj.建议的

参考例句：

• Stapp became a strong early proponent of automobile seat belts.斯塔普是力主在汽车上采用座椅安全带的早期倡导者。
• Halsey was identified as a leading proponent of the values of progressive education.哈尔西被认为是进步教育价值观的主要支持者。

12 stipulate   

vt.规定，（作为条件）讲定，保证

参考例句：

• International rules stipulate the number of foreign entrants.国际规则规定了外国参赛者的人数。
• Some manufacturers stipulate the price at which their goods are to be sold.有些制造商规定出售他们生产的商品的价格。

13 axe   

n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减

参考例句：

• Be careful with that sharp axe.那把斧子很锋利，你要当心。
• The edge of this axe has turned.这把斧子卷了刃了。

14 smear   

v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑

参考例句：

• He has been spreading false stories in an attempt to smear us.他一直在散布谎言企图诽谤我们。
• There's a smear on your shirt.你衬衫上有个污点。

15 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

16 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！