纽约时报 莱瓦尔·伯顿谈他的新挑战(2)（在线收听）

My interpretation of the enthusiasm for you to host "Jeopardy!" is that it had to do with you and Alex Trebek having similar public personas: There's a shared nostalgic appeal, a standing for education and generally radiating and being the recipient of longstanding good vibes. I obviously have no idea if that's how you experience the public's affection, but I was wondering whether — as a presumably multifaceted human being — inhabiting that persona ever feels limiting? That's pretty probing, David.

问：我认为，你对主持《危险边缘》节目抱有的热情与你和亚历克斯·特雷贝克有着相似的公众形象有关：你们二人都有怀旧吸引力，坚持教育，而且通常既能制造长期良好的氛围也接受这种氛围。很明显，我不知道这是否就是你体验到的公众对你的喜爱，但我想知道，作为一个可能具有多面性的人，一直扮演这个角色是否会感到受到限制？答：大卫，你的问题太尖锐了。

That's my job, LeVar. OK, yes, there are responsibilities that come along with this privilege of celebrity. With influence there is obligation. But my goal is to be authentic to myself as well as have a real relationship with those that I come in contact with through storytelling. That's the nature of who I am. We love to make each other feel good, and feeling good is one of the privileges of being human, as is feeling at all. I gravitate toward the good vibe. As Jessica Rabbit said, "I'm just drawn that way."那是我的工作，莱瓦尔。好吧，的确，名人的特权伴随着责任。有影响力就有义务。但我的目标是对自己真实，并通过讲故事与我接触的人建立真正的关系。这就是我的本性。我们喜欢让彼此感觉良好，而感觉良好是人类的特权之一，感觉也是如此。我被良好的氛围所吸引。正如杰西卡兔所说，“我只是被画成那样。”

Forgive me for making the subtext of these questions the text, but I'm trying to see if we can complicate the image of you as almost a secular pop-culture saint like Alex Trebek or Fred Rogers. And one of the things that I came across that maybe does complicate things is your novel, "Aftermath." Wow. I love talking to people who have taken the time to read my book. I'm enormously proud of it. I just recorded a digital version of it with a new author's note. I threw out the old author's note about how I came to be a science-fiction fan and instead addressed the time in which we find ourselves now and some of the ways in which the events at the beginning of the novel are kind of prescient.

问：请原谅我将这些问题的潜台词变成了文字，但我想看看我们能否让你的形象复杂化，把你想象成像亚历克斯·特雷贝克或弗雷德·罗杰斯那样的世俗流行文化圣人。我遇到的一件事可能会让事情变得复杂，那就是你的小说《余波》。答：哇哦。我喜欢和那些花时间看我书的人交谈。我非常自豪。我刚用一名新作者的笔记录制了数字版本。以前那名作者在笔记中提到了我成为科幻迷的过程，但我抛弃了这份笔记，转而谈到了我们现在所处的时代，以及小说开头的一些事件是如何地有先见之明。