法国文化部长竟然不读书

PARIS — In France, the country of Sartre and Molière, literary knowledge is considered a sign of savoir faire, and All the more so, perhaps, if you are the person presiding over the country’s culture budget.

巴黎——在诞生了萨特(Sartre)和莫里哀(Molière)的法国，文学知识被认为是明智的标志，如果你是负责该国文化预算的那个人，或许更是如此。

So an admission by the French culture minister, Fleur Pellerin, that she has not read a book in two years has provoked horror among some members of the cultural elite here.

因此，法国文化部长弗勒尔·佩尔兰(Fleur Pellerin)承认过去两年从未读过一本书的事，让这里的部分文化精英感到震惊。

The awkward confession, in an interview over the weekend on the television channel Canal Plus, spawned a storm of criticism on social media and beyond, and even some demands for the resignation of a seemingly uncultured culture minister who had previously been lauded for her intellect and style.

佩尔兰是周末在接受Canal Plus电视频道的采访（本文最初发表于2014年10月29日）时，尴尬地讲出此事的。这番爆料在社交媒体及以外的地方遭到口诛笔伐，部分人甚至要求这位看似没文化的文化部长辞职。而此前，这位文化部长曾凭借其才智和风度赢得赞誉。

When asked to name her favorite book by Patrick Modiano, the French author who recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Ms. Pellerin laughed uncomfortably, unable to name any work by the celebrated writer.

当让其说出最喜欢的法国作家帕特里克·莫迪亚诺(Patrick Modiano)的一本书时，佩尔兰不自在地笑了。她说不出这名前不久刚获得诺贝尔文学奖的著名作家的任何一部作品。

Only weeks before, Ms. Pellerin had applauded Mr. Modiano for conveying France’s literary influence and vitality “in the eyes of the world.” And earlier in the interview, she had gushed that she had shared a wonderful lunch with Mr. Modiano, found him nice and laughed a lot.

而就在几周前，佩尔兰还盛赞莫迪亚诺“向全世界”传递了法国的文学影响力和活力。而且在让其说出最喜欢的莫迪亚诺著作之前，她还在采访中大谈曾和莫迪亚诺共进午餐，觉得莫迪亚诺人很好，曾与他多次开怀大笑。

Mr. Modiano, the 15th French writer to win the Nobel for literature, has published 30 works, including moody and concise fictional works set in Paris during World War II.

莫迪亚诺是第15位获得诺贝尔文学奖的法国作家，他出版了30本书，其中包括背景设置在二战时期巴黎的一些沉郁而简练的小说。

Making matters worse, to some cultural observers, Ms. Pellerin said she had no problem admitting that she had not had much time to read a book for pleasure in two years.

对于一些文化观察人士来说，更糟的是，佩尔兰在过去两年没有出于乐趣读过任何一本书，却不觉得承认这一点有什么问题。

“I read a lot of notes, a lot of legal texts, the news, A.F.P. stories, but I read very little,” she said.

她说，“我阅读了很多笔记，很多法律文本、新闻，以及法新社(AFP)的报道，但我很少读书。”

The exchange was seen as an embarrassment among some members of the cultural cognoscenti, who have been basking in France’s cultural supremacy, with a flurry of new museum openings and the Nobel Prize, at a time when the economy and government are struggling.

一些文化专家认为，这是一次令人尴尬的对话。目前，这里的文化专家们正沐浴着法国文化优势的光芒，在法国经济及政府苦苦挣扎的同时，新博物馆却纷纷开门，法国作家也获得了诺贝尔文学奖。

At the French site of The Huffington Post, Claude Askolovitch, a writer, said Ms. Pellerin’s oversight was no less than “barbaric” and called for her to resign, arguing that what he described as her crude indifference to France’s Nobel laureate made her unfit for the job.

作家克劳德·阿斯克洛维奇(Claude Askolovitch)在《赫芬顿邮报》(The Huffington Post)法文版网站上发表文章称，佩尔兰的疏忽说“野蛮”也不过分，并要求她辞职，他辩称，佩尔兰不加掩饰地漠视法国的诺贝尔奖得主，因此不适合做文化部长这份工作。

“Barbarism is here,” he said. “If one can be culture minister without reading, then we are mere technocrats and budgeters.” He chided her for prioritizing the reading of ministerial memos over the uplift provided by great literary works.

“这是一种野蛮行为，”他说。“如果一个不读书的人能成为文化部长，那我们就只是些技术统治论者和预算编制者了。”他指责佩尔兰优先选择阅读部长级备忘录，而不是通过伟大文学作品提升素养。

Others, however, were more forgiving and commended Ms. Pellerin for showing a candor all too rare among politicians.

然而其他人的态度却更宽容，还称赞佩尔兰表现出了政治人物身上少有的坦诚。

Defenders noted that until recently, Ms. Pellerin had been a junior minister in charge of promoting small and medium-size businesses, innovation and the digital economy, and that such savvy trumped literary knowledge at a time when the economy was sputtering and culture budgets were stretched thin.

替佩尔兰辩护的人指出，她作为一个年轻的部长，过去一直负责扶持中小企业、创新和数字经济，当前经济乏力而且文化预算捉襟见肘，对经济的熟稔，当然比文学知识更重要。

“One can salute her frankness, understanding that the life of a minister leaves little time for the calm required for reading, and even salute the spontaneity of Fleur Pellerin,” said an article in Le Point titled “Fleur Pellerin hasn’t read Modiano! So what?”

《观点》(Le Point)杂志上一篇题为“弗勒尔·佩尔兰没读过莫迪亚诺又怎样？”的文章写道，“我们应该向她的诚实致敬，要明白部长的生活留不出多少空闲时间，没有阅读所需的那种沉静。我们甚至应该称赞弗勒尔·佩尔兰的率性。”

Even before, Ms. Pellerin, 41, had become an object of some fascination among the French. Born in South Korea, she was adopted by a French family when she was 6 months old. She graduated at the top of her class at the École Nationale d’Administration, the training ground for future French presidents and prime ministers. Colleagues say that before working 14-hour days as a minister, Ms. Pellerin was a prolific reader of fiction and nonfiction, and that she is equally at ease admiring a Picasso painting as she is listening to a hip-hop track.

现年41岁的佩尔兰，在此之前就曾让法国人惊叹过。她生于韩国，6岁时被一个法国家庭收养。她以班里第一名的成绩毕业于法国国家行政学院(École Nationale d’Administration)，而那里是未来法国总统和总理的训练场。同事们表示，在成为部长每天工作14小时之前，佩尔兰热衷于阅读小说和非小说类书籍，而且她既能安然欣赏毕加索的油画，也喜欢听嘻哈音乐。

On Twitter, the interview provoked equal expressions of humor, righteous indignation and bemusement at all the fuss. “Fleur Pellerin incapable of citing a book by Modiano, do you mean that she hadn’t read Wikipedia that day, like three-quarters of Twitter?” wrote Matteu Maestracci, a journalist for the radio broadcaster France Info.

这次采访也在Twitter上也引发了各种不同的反应，包括幽默、义愤，还有对这番大惊小怪的哑然失笑。“弗勒尔·佩尔兰连一本莫迪亚诺的书都说不上来？是说她那天没有像四分之三的Twitter网友一样，看看维基百科吗？”法国新闻广播电台(France Info)记者马修·马埃斯特拉奇(Matteu Maestracci)写道。

One Twitter user, Henri Rouquier, for his part, tried to insert a sense of proportion. “France has finally confronted its biggest problem at this time of national crisis: Fleur Pellerin has not read Modiano,” he wrote.

一位Twitter网友昂立·卢奇埃(Henri Rouquier)想提醒我们不要小题大做。他写道，“在经历全国性危机的时候，法国终于遇到了最大的问题：弗勒尔·佩尔兰没有读过莫迪亚诺。”

Outside France, Ms. Pellerin might receive even more sympathy. Although revered at home, Mr. Modiano, until recently, was largely unknown abroad. One of his novels, “Rue des Boutiques Obscures,” released as “Missing Person” in English, won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1978, but has sold just 2,425 copies in the United States.

在法国之外，佩尔兰或许还会得到更多同情。尽管莫迪亚诺在国内备受推崇，但直到最近，他在国外基本上都默默无闻。他的一本小说《暗店街》(Rue des Boutiques Obscures)在1978年赢得了赫赫有名的龚古尔奖(Prix Goncourt)，但该书的英译本《失踪的人》(Missing Person)在美国却只卖出了2425本。