美国国家公共电台 NPR Just 'Follow This Thread': You're Meant To Get Lost In This Book About Mazes

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

"Follow This Thread" is an instruction and a title. Henry Eliot's latest book is about mazes² and labyrinths⁴. And like a maze¹, it takes several twists and turns through history, philosophy, myth and pop culture. Henry Eliot told me since he was a kid in England, anytime he has come across a maze. He's felt an urge to get inside of it.

HENRY ELIOT: The thing which really made me fascinated with them is I noticed that although I was intrigued⁵ to get inside, once I was in the maze, I found them pretty unpleasant actually. I didn't like the feeling of being lost and disorientated. And it struck me as a strange paradox⁶ that we're both drawn⁷ into them and repelled⁸ from them...

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

ELIOT: ...And that we're building more and more of them all the time. And yet in the rest of our lives, we try not to get lost. And I think that's why I became particularly interested in them - trying to work out why we have these things.

SHAPIRO: And this book explores that question through the lens of myth and psychology⁹ and history. And there are no easy answers, but what's the best answer you've come up with? Why do people want to enter a maze even as they fear getting lost?

ELIOT: When you enter a maze, you're living out a kind of ancient metaphor¹⁰ for the challenge of life really. You're entering - especially a maze which has choices and has dead ends. It feels very much like a kind of allegory for life. And you find your way through it, and you try to do the best job you can.

And the center of the maze, which is the goal of the puzzle - it's the goal of the challenge - is the ultimate dead end. It's the place you get to where there's nowhere else to go. It's where you stop. And there's a way in which that maps onto death, I think. Obviously when you die, there's no coming back. But in a maze, you're offered a chance of redemption. You're allowed to turn around and emerge from the maze having learned from the experience that you've been through.

SHAPIRO: This is such a universal experience. You describe ancient mazes from nearly every continent. How is it possible that when there was little to no contact amongst these cultures, they all independently came to the idea of a maze?

ELIOT: I know. It's one of the real mysteries. We just don't know. It's so extraordinary. The oldest maze that we think we can date is a petroglyph from the island of Sardinia. It's carved into the limestone¹¹ rock in this cave system known as a fairy cave. And we think that's about 5,000 years old. But exactly as you say, it also appears in Southeast Asia, in Africa, in other parts of Europe. And there isn't really an easy explanation.

It's possible that it was discovered simultaneously¹² by different cultures, and all - actually lots of bits inside the body look quite mazelike. So when you cut open the stomach and look at the guts¹³, that looks quite like a maze system. And the brain looks quite mazelike. And so maybe these kind of natural occurrences of mazy designs meant that it kind of appeared simultaneously around the world.

SHAPIRO: Or I suppose the programmers who put us all into this massive simulation could have just put it into our brains.

(LAUGHTER)

ELIOT: Well, quite.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: I have to ask you about the design of this book because you don't just read it. You really experience it. To get through the book, you have to follow the text that wraps around, and you turn the book upside down and backwards¹⁴. There is also a red thread that runs...

ELIOT: Yes.

SHAPIRO: ...Through the book with single-line illustrations and mazes. At what point in the writing process did you realize that the book itself would be a maze?

ELIOT: Quite early on. I really liked that idea of the book itself being like a maze. And that's partly because there are so many examples of mazes inside books. You know, there's that wonderful library maze in "The Name Of The Rose" or the maze the center of Stephen King's "Shining" and so on. And then quite early on, we had this idea to rotate the text so that you had to kind of turn the book to find a way through it, and the turns and the text exactly match the turns that one would have to make if you were walking through the classical seven-path labyrinth³.

SHAPIRO: I think particularly in the present day when we have a device in our pocket that can give us all the information in the world, including detailed¹⁵ maps at any given moment, there might be an anxiety or fear about getting lost in many people's minds. Do you have any suggestions or insight for those people who can't break through and find the freedom in being lost?

ELIOT: Yeah. It feels like a very modern phenomenon, doesn't it? I mean, I certainly feel it. If my phone runs out of battery, especially in a foreign city, I feel completely marooned¹⁶. And it's a kind of self-reliance that we're losing by having these devices in our pocket. I mean, I would really recommend the experience of being genuinely lost. And I think a maze is quite a good place to have that feeling because you know that you're getting lost within a safe space, as it were. You know there are perimeters¹⁷ to this space. And maybe this is a function for mazes in the future - that it's a safe place to have that feeling of being lost.

SHAPIRO: Henry Eliot, thank you so much.

ELIOT: Ari, thank you. It's been a pleasure.

SHAPIRO: His new book, which is also a maze of sorts, is called "Follow This Thread: A Maze Book To Get Lost In."

1 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

2 mazes   

迷宫( maze的名词复数 )； 纷繁复杂的规则； 复杂难懂的细节； 迷宫图

参考例句：

• The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. 跳舞那种错综曲折，叫人快乐得如登九天。
• For two hours did this singlehearted and simpleminded girl toil through the mazes of the forest. 这位心地单纯的傻姑娘在林间曲径中艰难地走了两个来小时。

3 labyrinth   

n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路

参考例句：

• He wandered through the labyrinth of the alleyways.他在迷宫似的小巷中闲逛。
• The human mind is a labyrinth.人的心灵是一座迷宫。

4 labyrinths   

迷宫( labyrinth的名词复数 )； （文字，建筑）错综复杂的

参考例句：

• I was engulfed in labyrinths of trouble too great to get out at all. 我陷入困难的迷宫中去，简直无法脱身。
• I've explored ancient castles, palaces, temples, tombs, catacombs and labyrinths. 我曾在古堡、古皇宫、古神庙、古墓、地下墓穴和迷宫中探险。

5 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

6 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

7 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。

8 repelled   

v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开

参考例句：

• They repelled the enemy. 他们击退了敌军。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man's arm. 而丁梅斯代尔牧师却哆里哆嗦地断然推开了那老人的胳臂。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

9 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

10 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。

11 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

12 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

13 guts   

v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠

参考例句：

• I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
• Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

15 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

16 marooned   

adj.被围困的；孤立无援的；无法脱身的

参考例句：

• During the storm we were marooned in a cabin miles from town. 在风暴中我们被围困在离城数英里的小屋内。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Five couples were marooned in their caravans when the River Avon broke its banks. 埃文河决堤的时候，有5对夫妇被困在了他们的房车里。 来自辞典例句

17 perimeters   

周边( perimeter的名词复数 )； 周围； 边缘； 周长

参考例句：

• Examples include outdoor perimeters, traffic monitoring, tunnels, and car parks. 例子像户外围墙；交通监视；隧道和停车场。