美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Jerusalem,' Nothing You've Ever Lost Is Truly Gone

In 'Jerusalem,' Nothing You've Ever Lost Is Truly Gone 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0004:46repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

For some fans of comics, Alan Moore is basically a god. He's the media-shy and magnificently bearded writer of comics like "Watchmen," "V for Vendetta²" and "From Hell." Recently, Moore said he's stepping back from comics to focus on other projects, like his epic³ new novel called "Jerusalem." It's full of angels, devils, saints and sinners, visionaries, ghost children and wandering writers, all circling his hometown of Northampton, England. He rarely leaves Northampton, so NPR's Petra Mayer went there to meet him.

ALAN MOORE: This is holy ground for me.

PETRA MAYER, BYLINE⁴: It doesn't look like holy ground. We're standing⁵ on a neglected, grassy⁶ strip by a busy road. Nothing's here now, except a solitary⁷ house on the corner, but it wasn't always this way.

MOORE: This is it. That is the little alleyway that used to run beyond our terrace. This is where I was born.

MAYER: We're in the Boroughs⁸, a half-mile square patch of Northampton by the railroad tracks. Weedy, vacant lots sit next to a boarded-up public housing and the occasional pub. But wind the clock back a hundred years, and this lonely place was packed with people and stories.

MOORE: Around about this spot, there would have been a pub called the Friendly Arms. Newton Pratt - he had a zebra that he, I think, purchased at Wicksteed Park. He would tie up the zebra outside the pub, bring it out a pint⁹ of beer.

MAYER: And there'd be a drunk zebra standing in Scarletwell Street, around the corner from the house where Moore was born in 1953. That fantastical zebra shows up in the book, by the way. And here I thought he made it up.

MOORE: I had to make very little of this book up.

MAYER: "Jerusalem" is hard to describe. Apart from the physical and obvious, it's more than 1,200 pages long, and in hardback, you could use it to do bicep curls. It's part fantasy, part history, partly purely¹⁰ bonkers, but every page shines with a love of this place as it once was.

MOORE: It's all built from the history of the neighborhood itself and the history of my family. And most of the history is genuine, although the stuff about the angels and demons¹¹ - I'm not so sure about that. You know, I think there's a good case to be made.

MAYER: In fact you could say that Northhampton, more than any of the hundreds of people that wander through the book, is really the main character. It only seems like a nondescript town in the British Midlands. To Alan Moore, it's at the center of everything, from the English Civil War to the birth of modern capitalism¹².

MOORE: I had a sense before I started writing "Jerusalem" that this was probably a more important place than people gave it credit for.

MAYER: In a little studio on Northampton's Abbington Square, we're sitting in creaky, wooden chairs under a rather occult-looking stained glass window. Moore is all in basic black, heavy silver rings on every finger - a wizard on his day off. He fires up a hand-rolled cigarette almost as big as the book and tells me about how Albert Einstein saw the universe as a frozen explosion, a giant ball of beginning and ending all happening at once forever.

MOORE: Every moment that has ever existed or will ever exist is somewhere suspended in that gigantic space-time football. And it is there forever, and it is not changing.

MAYER: Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey - I know, but stay with me. It's important because if everything that ever was is still all around us, then nothing you've ever lost is truly gone. The Boroughs was torn down in phases, beginning just after the First World War. Alan Moore's family was forced out in 1969, but in Moore's book, just like in Einstein's universe, everything is still there, even the drunken zebra in Scarlett Street.

MOORE: I find that reassuring¹³.

MAYER: It is reassuring, which is sort of weird¹⁴ if you're familiar with Alan Moore's other work. He's better known for supernatural horror, tentacles¹⁵, murder, mayhem, dystopia. And while Jerusalem does have its fair share of horror and misery¹⁶ and death, Moore says he wants the book to help people rethink death, to be less afraid of it.

MOORE: Whether it be their own death or the death of other people or the death of a culture or even the fact that they don't do those sweets that I used to like anymore. But, yes, that's all fine. Back down the road, they still make Spangles. Morecambe and Wise are still on television on Saturday night. Everything's fine, just as it was.

MAYER: So don't worry about death, Moore says. Live your life, and enjoy the remarkable¹⁷ cosmos¹⁸ we live in.

MOORE: This is the never-ending story. This is your narrative¹⁹. This is the wonderful, sacred story of your life, and it's going to be there forever.

MAYER: "Jerusalem" is in part the sacred story of Alan Moore's own life. And at the end of the book, one character says that's what art's for. It rescues everything from time. Petra Mayer, 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 vendetta   

n.世仇，宿怨

参考例句：

• For years he pursued a vendetta against the Morris family.多年来他一直在寻求向莫里斯家族报世仇。
• She conducted a personal vendetta against me.她对我有宿仇。

3 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

4 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。

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

6 grassy   

adj.盖满草的；长满草的

参考例句：

• They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
• Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。

7 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

8 boroughs   

（尤指大伦敦的）行政区( borough的名词复数 )； 议会中有代表的市镇

参考例句：

• London is made up of 32 boroughs. 伦敦由三十二个行政区组成。
• Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City. 布鲁克林区是纽约市的五个行政区之一。

9 pint   

n.品脱

参考例句：

• I'll have a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, please.我要一品脱啤酒和一袋炸马铃薯片。
• In the old days you could get a pint of beer for a shilling.从前，花一先令就可以买到一品脱啤酒。

10 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

11 demons   

n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念

参考例句：

• demons torturing the sinners in Hell 地狱里折磨罪人的魔鬼
• He is plagued by demons which go back to his traumatic childhood. 他为心魔所困扰，那可追溯至他饱受创伤的童年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

13 reassuring   

a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的

参考例句：

• He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 他轻拍了一下她的肩膀让她放心。
• With a reassuring pat on her arm, he left. 他鼓励地拍了拍她的手臂就离开了。

14 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

15 tentacles   

n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛

参考例句：

• Tentacles of fear closed around her body. 恐惧的阴影笼罩着她。
• Many molluscs have tentacles. 很多软体动物有触角。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

17 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

18 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

19 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。