美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Manhattan Beach,' Jennifer Egan Dives Deep Into WWII New York City

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

In 2011, the novelist Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for her book "A Visit From The Goon Squad¹." Years before it came out, Egan began researching New York City in the 1930s and '40s. And that research wound up in her new novel, "Manhattan Beach." The book is about a father, his daughter and a gangster² whose lives intersect in New York City around World War II.

"Manhattan Beach" was just long-listed for the National Book Award. Egan sat down to talk about it with my co-host Ari Shapiro.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE³: Your main character becomes the first woman to work as a deep sea diver in Brooklyn's Navy Yard during World War II. And in the acknowledgements of the book, you write that you spoke⁴ with the first female U.S. Army deep sea diver. Her name is Andrea Motley Crabtree. Tell me about her.

JENNIFER EGAN: She was extremely helpful to me in understanding the difficulty of being a female diver. I mean diving is a very physical undertaking⁶, and so she was very articulate about the challenges of doing that as a woman and especially the prejudice that she encountered. Men did not want her there, and they made that very clear. There were certain exceptions. But she ultimately had a sad feeling about her diving career in that she felt that she would have liked to continue with it but that it was uncomfortable because she was a woman.

SHAPIRO: Did any of the kind of hazing⁷ experiences that she described to you find her way into this book?

EGAN: Yes. I mean that was - one of the big technical challenges of my storytelling was, how can I do justice to what I know would have been a very, very poisonous atmosphere? And in fact no women actually did dive at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, so it never even happened. How can I do justice to that while also making it credible⁸ that she actually becomes a diver? And in a way, what came to my rescue was the fact that it was wartime, and all kinds of things were happening then that would not happen at a normal time.

SHAPIRO: One of the challenges is physical. This is a suit that weighs more than 200 pounds. And you write in the acknowledgements that you actually tried one of these suits on.

EGAN: I did. I was so lucky. You know, there's a very strong association of veteran Army divers⁹. And one of the things that they offer to their members is the chance to wear the old Mark V diving suit. The Mark V is the iconic diving suit with the cylindrical¹⁰ metal helmet, the big, bulky profile, the metal shoes. Anyone would recognize it. And for a very long time, through the Vietnam War, that was the costume that was worn for diving. And so I had a chance to put this on. It felt excruciatingly heavy. There was a tremendous amount of pressure right at the top of my shoulders. And it was just...

SHAPIRO: You describe that in the book.

EGAN: Yeah. I was thrilled to have the experience of being in it, and yet I couldn't have wanted it off any more.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: You visited Brooklyn's Navy Yard in the present day, which looks absolutely different from the way it looked during World War II. And you went there with some of these people who worked there during the war who are now in their 90s. What was that experience like?

EGAN: It was really, really amazing. One visit that I remember vividly¹¹ was with the husband of a woman whose correspondence I had read at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Her name was Lucille Kolkin, and she married a guy named Alfred Kolkin whom she met while they were both working at the Navy Yard. And they had this huge romance. And then he joined the Navy, and she wrote passionate¹², colorful, wonderful letters to him. I was so excited by this woman that I ended up writing an essay about the experience of reading her letters and that - she had passed away by then. And I received an email after the essay was published, and the subject line was, I am Lucy's daughter.

SHAPIRO: Wow.

EGAN: And so that occasioned a visit to the Navy Yard with Lucy's two daughters and their family members and Al, Lucy's husband, who by then was in his late-80s. So it was amazing to go into the machine shop, Building 128, where Al had worked as a machinist many, many years before. He had not been back. The machine shop when he had been there was of course full of machinery¹³ and noise and chaos¹⁴. Now it was completely empty with a big, strong, cold wind blowing through it. And to watch that man standing⁵ there so - with his walker, looking around this empty space, was really a profound experience.

SHAPIRO: So I'm curious. You do years of research about World War II, about Navy divers, about New York City and the mob. And at what point do you say, OK, so here's the novel; here's the story; here's what I'm going to do with all this research?

EGAN: I tend to start with no more than a time and a place, and I don't actually know what my plot is or who exactly the characters are. So not having a story, it was very unclear exactly what I needed to research. As I wrote and I felt certain things happening in the story and I tend - I write by hand to try to locate in my unconscious some good ideas that I can't...

SHAPIRO: Really, with a pen and paper?

EGAN: I write with pen and paper, my first draft, on legal pads. In this case, it was 27 legal pads as I numbered them.

SHAPIRO: Wow.

EGAN: And it's in the course of writing that, of course, very sloppy¹⁵ and chaotic¹⁶ draft in which characters names even change because I've forgotten what their names were in the first place...

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

EGAN: ...That's where I get some decent ideas. If I just sit down and think gee¹⁷, what should the story be, I'll just come up with things anyone would have thought of.

SHAPIRO: Some of your earlier novels have been really structurally¹⁸ daring. Why did you decide to make this one a pretty traditional form for a novel?

EGAN: Well, that wasn't my first choice.

SHAPIRO: Really?

EGAN: I had big plans for all the crazy structural¹⁹ things I was going to do with this book.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

EGAN: What I found was that every single time I tried to leap out of the present into the future, which was a technique I used a lot in a "Visit From The Goon Squad" - every time I did it in this book, it was worse than bad. It was actually annoying.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

EGAN: So I had to recognize that I was telling a story that could not live in a tricky²⁰ structural form. It really required a total immersion²¹ in continuity.

SHAPIRO: It's kind of a relief to hear that even Jennifer Egan writes things that are terrible sometimes.

EGAN: I would go so far as to say that I mostly write terrible things. I mean my first drafts are so appalling²². I think there's no way I can possibly get there. With this book more than any other, I thought very seriously about abandoning it.

I may have just picked a situation in which I'm so ill-informed in virtually every area that the book takes place that I cannot cross over to make this work. And it was such a thrill to finally feel like I had imbibed²³ enough information that it felt natural to me. It felt like time travel actually. It was really fun, and I even want to do it again, which is something I never thought I would hear myself say.

SHAPIRO: Jennifer Egan's new novel is called "Manhattan Beach." Thank you so much for talking with us about it.

EGAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

1 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

2 gangster   

n.匪徒，歹徒，暴徒

参考例句：

• The gangster's friends bought off the police witness.那匪徒的朋友买通了警察方面的证人。
• He is obviously a gangster,but he pretends to be a saint.分明是强盗，却要装圣贤。

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 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

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 undertaking   

n.保证，许诺，事业

参考例句：

• He gave her an undertaking that he would pay the money back with in a year.他向她做了一年内还钱的保证。
• He is too timid to venture upon an undertaking.他太胆小，不敢从事任何事业。

7 hazing   

n.受辱，被欺侮v.（使）笼罩在薄雾中( haze的现在分词 )；戏弄，欺凌（新生等，有时作为加入美国大学生联谊会的条件）

参考例句：

• With labor, the hazing period ends. 费了好大力气，痛苦的时期终于过了。 来自互联网
• A high-gloss paint surface is one that directly reflects light with minimum hazing or diffusion. 高度光洁的漆表面可以直接反射光源。 来自互联网

8 credible   

adj.可信任的，可靠的

参考例句：

• The news report is hardly credible.这则新闻报道令人难以置信。
• Is there a credible alternative to the nuclear deterrent?是否有可以取代核威慑力量的可靠办法？

9 divers   

adj.不同的；种种的

参考例句：

• He chose divers of them,who were asked to accompany him.他选择他们当中的几个人，要他们和他作伴。
• Two divers work together while a standby diver remains on the surface.两名潜水员协同工作，同时有一名候补潜水员留在水面上。

10 cylindrical   

adj.圆筒形的

参考例句：

• huge cylindrical gas tanks 巨大的圆柱形贮气罐
• Beer cans are cylindrical. 啤酒罐子是圆筒形的。

11 vividly   

adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地

参考例句：

• The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
• The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。

12 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

13 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

14 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

15 sloppy   

adj.邋遢的，不整洁的

参考例句：

• If you do such sloppy work again,I promise I'll fail you.要是下次作业你再马马虎虎，我话说在头里，可要给你打不及格了。
• Mother constantly picked at him for being sloppy.母亲不断地批评他懒散。

16 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

17 gee   

n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转

参考例句：

• Their success last week will gee the team up.上星期的胜利将激励这支队伍继续前进。
• Gee,We're going to make a lot of money.哇！我们会赚好多钱啦！

18 structurally   

在结构上

参考例句：

• The house roof was (structurally) unsound. 这屋顶（结构）不牢固。
• Pinhole on shot-hole damage is never structurally significant. 针孔和蛀洞所造成的危害对结构的影响不大。

19 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

20 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

21 immersion   

n.沉浸；专心

参考例句：

• The dirt on the bottom of the bath didn't encourage total immersion.浴缸底有污垢，不宜全身浸泡于其中。
• The wood had become swollen from prolonged immersion.因长时间浸泡，木头发胀了。

22 appalling   

adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions.恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• Nothing can extenuate such appalling behaviour.这种骇人听闻的行径罪无可恕。

23 imbibed   

v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气

参考例句：

• They imbibed the local cider before walking home to dinner. 他们在走回家吃饭之前喝了本地的苹果酒。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. 海丝特 - 白兰汲取了这一精神。 来自英汉文学 - 红字