Text 1

Starting Over at 85

by Lawrence Grobel

    James Michener began life as a foundling and started with absolutely nothing. Later, he became a successful writer, with an estimated 50 million copies of his books sold. He made millions of dollars and donated much of his wealth. In 1992, when he was 85, he gave away his last 15 million dollars and started all over again.

    In the summer of 1992, I arranged to visit James A. Michener in Brunswick, Maine. I was then collaborating with the renowned author on a book of conversations. "Could we meet him?” my younger daughter, Hana, asked.

    She was only eight at the time, but Hana knew Michener was someone special. She'd seen how carefully I'd arranged all the first editions of his books on our bookcase. Each was personally inscribed and redstamped with the initials JAM.

    "That would depend on his schedule," I said. "He's a very busy man."

    Nevertheless, Hana told me it was really important that she talk to him. Then she went to work to prepare for the meeting. She took a two-inch blank book and began to write and illustrate stories about seals, one of which was called The Adventure of Taking Erny the Seal to School. To encourage her, I told her that Michener liked to write about animals.

    On July 17 I took my family to the simple house where Michener and his wife, Mari, lived. Jim remembered holding my older daughter on his lap when she was a baby. But this was the first time he had met Hana, who told him that she, too, was a writer and had brought her work with her.

    Jim smiled. "Well," he said, "I wonder if you'll let me see it." He sat down on his couch, and Hana joined him. He opened to the first page and read out loud, "Seals, by Hana Grobel."

    The first 12 pages of Hana's book were about the nature and history of seals. Just before Jim got to the story about Erny going to school, the phone rang.

    "I'm reading an original story by a young writer," he told the caller. Hana beamed. Then Michener excused himself to take the call in his study. When he returned, it seemed as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

    "I've just given away my last 15 million dollars─all my money," he confided to me. "I'd better be nice to Mari. I'm going to have to make do with what she's got and with whatever I can earn from future books."

    I was stunned. He was 85 years old and about to start all over.

    I first met James Michener in the spring of 1981 when I went to interview him for a national magazine. Our talks led to friendship. Over the following years I would see him wherever he was living and many times at airports as he traveled to and from the Far East and South Pacific, recording his adventures.

    "My life has been, in its way, a fable1 for our times," he told me. "For a guy like me starting with absolutely nothing to wind up giving away a fortune is incredible."

    It was incredible. Michener began life as a foundling. Mabel Michener, a poor widow in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, took him in. Like her own child and the others she cared for, he wore secondhand clothes and sometimes went without food.

    He never discovered his birth date (perhaps 1907) or the place. "I could be Jewish, part Negro, probably not Oriental, but almost anything else," he said. A bright student, Jim yearned to see America. "As a kid of 14," he said, "I bummed across the country on nickels and dimes. Before I was 20, I had seen all the states but Washington, Oregon and Florida. I had an insatiable love of hearing people tell stories and what they didn't tell, I made up." A scholarship3 permitted him to attend Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College, and although he was suspended twice ("I was quite a radical in those days"), he graduated with highest honors in 1929.

    Like the stories he told, his life was filled with extraordinary twists and turns. Between conventional jobs such as teaching and editing books, Michener traveled with Spanish bullfighters, worked on a coal barge in the Mediterranean and collected folk songs near Scotland. He joined the Navy during World War II, where he compiled colorful fictional accounts based on the exotic people he encountered in the South Seas.

    In 1948 his collection of 18 stories ─Tales of the South Pacific─won a Pulitzer Prize. The book soon became a best-seller.

    For Michener, it signaled a new beginning, launching him in his 40s on a spectacular career. By 1959 Hawaii appeared, Michener's first in a series of blockbuster4 sagas, those well-loved historical epics spanning generations of families that became his trademark.

    His life, however, wasn't entirely focused on writing. In 1962 he ran for Congress, thinking he'd give up his writing career if elected. Thank goodness he lost, or we wouldn't have had what he considered his two best books, The Source and Iberia, not to mention the others─a total of 44 books, translated into many languages, with an estimated 50 million copies sold.

    Michener lived modestly, and his money accumulated. What to do with it seemed obvious, at least to him: with no children of his own, he would give to others.

    His desire to donate came from two life-changing incidents in his own childhood. One involved a set of Honor de Balzac5 books that a salesman sold to his aunt, who then sent them on to young Jim's mother.

    "The fortunate person," Michener told me, "is the one who reads or hears music or sees art or has an experience that resonates with his position as he is at that time. In my case, some clown comes through town and sells my aunt a set of Balzac. What for? She is not into Balzac; she can't spare the money. But I read the whole bunch, and it hit me like an explosion! If a man could write just as he wished, he'd write like Balzac."

    The other incident occurred when Michener received a scholarship to Swarthmore. The principal of his secondary school came to see Mabel Michener. He was convinced that the boy would not be a credit to that university and should instead become a plumber. "He despised poor people," Michener recalled. "It burned him up that I got that scholarship."

    Michener never forgot the importance of his education─and spent a lifetime quietly helping others get theirs. I remember visiting him in June 1983 when he was in Pasadena to deliver an address. There was a knock on the door of his hotel room, and a nervous engineering graduate student entered.

    He was there to meet his benefactor and thank him for two scholarships. Michener had heard how the talented student had to drop out of school to work. He seemed glad to have helped the young man get back on track.

    Michener and his wife, Mari, also helped educational institutions. The amounts were staggering. The University of Texas alone received a total of $44.2 million. During the week I was with him in Maine, he had been called daily regarding his offer to fund a writing program there. "It's part of what I have always believed about the tremendous value of creative writing," he explained. "If through some accident you get richly rewarded for it, the only sensible thing is to plow it back into the system."

    When that final call of acceptance came through in Maine, it was a moment of personal triumph, and I felt privileged to share it. Michener had yet to tell Mari they were suddenly $15 million poorer. But first he had another obligation to fulfill: he hadn't finished reading Hana's story. So he sat down next to her and gave it his full attention. His mission, after all, was to encourage future generations, and here was this eight-year-old looking for encouragement.

    "Oh, my," Michener said when he came to the part where the teacher wouldn't let the seal stay in school and had him taken to the zoo.

    "See, he's crying," Hana said, pointing to one of her drawings.

    On the next page the zoo keeper gave Erny back to the girl, and Michener nodded his approval. "This is a very good story," he said, "because everybody is happy in the end."

    In life, endings aren't always so happy. Mari Michener died of cancer in September 1994. Michener's kidneys6 began to fail, and he had to go on dialysis, ending his world travels. He lived then in Austin but continued to write books─seven more, in fact, after he "started over" in 1992.

On October 6, 1997, I called and spoke with his devoted caretaker, Amelia, who said the end was near. She put Michener on the phone.

    "Are you in pain?" I asked.

    "We're bearing up under it."

    "There's not much time, is there, Jim?"

    "How're your daughters?" he replied, signaling enough about him. I told him that my older girl, Maya, was looking at universities. "Which ones?" he wanted to know. After I told him, he was quiet a few moments. Then he said, "If you want to bring her here, to the University of Texas, we'll pay her tuition for the first year."

    That was the last time I talked to James Michener. Even though he would be gone in a few days, his instincts were always to life, and he was extending his hand once again.

    The day Michener died, October 16, 1997, Hana opened Creatures of the Kingdom: Stories of Animals and Nature, the book he had sent her a few months earlier. She ran her finger down the table of contents. "He never wrote about a seal," she said.

    "Maybe," I offered, "because he knew another, younger writer was on to that."

(1,632 words)             TOP

课文一

八十五岁重新开始

劳伦斯·格罗贝尔

詹姆斯·麦切纳刚生下来就成了弃儿，他完全是白手起家。后来，他成为了一位颇有名气的作家，据估计，他的书已售出五千万册。他赚了好几百万美元，也捐赠了很多财产。1992年，他85岁高龄时，捐出了所剩的全部财产——1500万美元——并且重新开始创业。

1992年夏天，我计划好去拜访住在缅因州布伦斯威克市的詹姆斯·A·麦切纳。当时我正与这位知名作家合作编著一本谈话类的书。“我们可以见见他吗？”我的小女儿海娜问。

她当时只有八岁，可她却知道麦切纳是不同寻常的人物。她以前见过我如何小心翼翼地把麦切纳的所有初版书都摆放在书架上。每一本书上都写有赠言，并印上了作家姓名的首字母JAM。

   “那要看他的日程安排了，”我说，“他很忙。”　

尽管这样，海娜还是告诉我说，能与麦切纳交谈对她来讲真的很重要。之后，她便去为此次见面做准备。她拿来一本两寸厚的空白薄，开始在上面写海豹的故事，其中一则名叫《恩尼上学历险记》。她还为故事画了插图。为了鼓励她，我告诉她，麦切纳喜爱用动物作写作题材。

七月十七日，我携家人前往麦切纳和他的妻子玛丽居住的简朴房子。吉姆还记得当年把我的大女儿抱在膝上的情景。不过，他是第一次见海娜。海娜告诉他，她也是一位作家，而且还随身带来了自己写的书。

吉姆笑了，“噢，”他说，“能让我看看吗？”他在沙发椅上坐了下来，海娜坐到了他的身旁。他翻开第一页，大声读道，“《海豹》，作者是海娜·格罗贝尔。”

   海娜这本书的前12页讲述海豹的习性与进化历史。吉姆刚读到恩尼上学历险记时，电话铃响了。

“我正在读一位年轻作家富有新意的作品，”他对通话者说道。海娜开心地笑了。然后麦切纳抱歉地说，他要到书房去听电话。他从书房回来时，一副如释重负的样子。

“我刚刚捐出了我最后的1500万美元——那是我所有的钱。”他对我推心置腹地说。“我得对玛丽好一点。我以后得靠她的收入和我写书赚的钱过活。”

　
    我大吃一惊。他已经85岁高龄，竟还要一切从头开始。

    我第一次遇见詹姆斯·麦切纳是在1981年的夏天。当时我代表一家全国性杂志对他进行采访。交谈使我们建立了友谊。在后来的岁月里，无论他身居何处我都会去看望他，并记录下他的冒险经历。有许多次我们是在机场见面，因为他要穿梭于远东与南太平洋地区。

    “从某个角度讲，我的生活已经成为我们这个时代的一个神话，”他告诉我。“在人们看来，象我这样从身无分文起，到最终馈赠大笔财富的人是不可思议的。”

的确不可思议。麦切纳生下来就成了弃婴。宾夕法尼亚州多利斯镇的一名贫穷的寡妇玛贝尔·麦切纳收养了他。象她自己的孩子和她收留的其他孩子一样，麦切纳穿的是旧衣服，有时还要挨饿。

他从未弄清楚他的出生日期（可能是1907年）和地点。“我可能是犹太人，可能有一部分黑人血液，除了不大可能是东方人之外，可能是任何人种，”他说。吉姆是一位聪明伶俐的学生，他渴望见见美国是什么样子。“十四岁的时候，”他说，“我一路乞讨，靠一角和五分的硬币走遍了整个美国。不到二十岁，我就去过了除华盛顿、俄勒冈、弗罗里达之外的所有州郡。我总是听不够人们讲故事，他们没讲到的部分，我就自己编出来。”一笔奖学金使他得以进了宾夕法尼亚的斯沃斯摩尔学院。尽管他两次被勒令休学（“我那时是个激进分子”），他还是于1929年以优异成绩毕业。

他的一生也象他写的故事那样，充满了非同一般的曲折与坎坷。除了从事教师、编辑这类常规性的工作之外，麦切纳与西班牙斗牛士一同旅行，在地中海的一艘煤船上工作，还曾在苏格兰附近收集民歌。二战时他当过海军，在军队里他以自己在南部海区遇到的异族人为原型，编写了诸多丰富多彩的故事。

1948年，他收入十八篇故事的小说集——《南太平洋故事集》，荣获了普利策奖。这本书很快便成为了畅销书。

    对于麦切纳来说，这标志着一个新开端，使他在四十多岁时踏上了事业的光明大道。1959年，《夏威夷》问世了，这是麦切纳一系列成功作品中的第一部，这些成功的作品皆是传奇故事，是深受大众喜爱的历史传记，书中的家庭跨越了几代人，这业已成为他作品的主要特征。
    不过，他的生活并非完全以写作为主。1962年，他曾参加国会竞选，当时他决定一旦入选便放弃创作生涯。感谢上帝，他没有入选，否则我们就看不到他个人认为自己创作的两部最佳作品，《源泉》和《依比利亚》，更不用说其他的作品了——合计有44本，被译成多种语言，据估计已售出5千万册。

麦切纳生活俭朴，他逐渐积累起一笔财富。至少对他来说，如何处理这些钱是很清楚的一件事：由于他膝下无儿无女，他打算把钱捐给别人。

他的捐款欲望得自他孩童时代的两次扭转生活的事情。一件事情是一位书商把一套巴尔扎克的书籍卖给了他的姑姑，而他的姑姑又把它们转送给了小吉姆的妈妈。

“幸运的人 ，”麦切纳对我说，“指的是读书人，听音乐的人，观赏艺术的人，和那些在人生特定时期得到了与自己当时生活状态相呼应的生活体验的人。就我来说，有一个小丑走过小镇，把一套巴尔扎克的书卖给了我姑姑。为什么？她对巴尔扎克并不热衷，她也没有那个钱。但我读了整套书之后，我太震憾了！如果一个人可以随心所欲地写作，那他就会写得与巴尔扎克一样好。”　

另一件事情发生在麦切纳得到了斯沃斯摩尔奖学金之后。他中学时期的校长来看望玛贝尔·麦切纳。他坚决认为，这个孩子不会给学院带来荣耀，倒是应该做一名管子工。“他瞧不起穷人，”麦切纳回忆道，“我拿到了奖学金可把他气坏了。”

麦切纳从未忘记教育的重要性——他毕生都在默默地帮助别人获得受教育的机会。我记得1983年6月他来帕萨德那作讲演。我去看望他时，旅馆房间的门敲响了，一位神情紧张的工程专业的大学生走了进来。

    他是来见他的恩人的，感谢他提供的两项奖学金。麦切纳曾经听人讲过这位才华出众的学生是如何被迫辍学去工作。他看上去非常高兴自己能帮助这位年轻人重返校园。

麦切纳与他的妻子玛丽也援助过教育机构。数目颇为惊人。仅德克萨斯大学就收到过总数为4420万美元的资助。在我与他一同呆在缅因州的一周内，每天都有电话打来，与他商谈他要资助一个当地写作项目的事。“我一向相信创造性写作具有巨大的价值。而这正是这种价值的一部分，”他解释说，“如果你曾有幸从中受益匪浅，那么唯一理智的做法，就是把你的收益重新归植到这个体系中去。”

对麦切纳而言，在缅因州接到最后一次电话，得知资助被接受的那一刻真是一个胜利的时刻。而我有幸分享了此刻。麦切纳还没有告诉玛丽，他们突然间减少了1500万美元。但是他要首先履行另一项义务：他还没有读完海娜的小说。于是他在她身边坐下来，全神贯注地读着。毕竟他的任务是鼓励下一代，而此时此刻一位八岁的孩子正渴求他的鼓励呢。

读到老师不允许海豹呆在学校里，而要把它送到动物园时，麦切纳叹息道：“噢，天哪。”  

 
   “你看，他都哭了，”海娜边说边指着一张图画。

后一页中动物园管理员把恩尼还给了那个女孩，对此麦切纳点头表示同意。“这故事真不错，”他说，“因为到最后人人都很快乐。”

生活中，结尾并非总是快乐的。玛丽·麦切纳于1994年9月死于癌症。麦切纳的肾功能开始衰竭，不得不接受透析治疗，从而也结束了他的世界之旅。当时他住在奥斯丁，但仍然在写书——实际上，自他1992年“重新开始”以来又写了七本书。

     1997年10月6日，我打电话过去。他的看护，忠诚的艾米丽娅，告诉我说他快不行了。她让麦切纳接了电话。

“是不是很疼？”我问。

“我们正在英勇搏斗。”

“时间不多了，是不是，吉姆？”

“你的女儿们好吗？”他回答道，暗示不要再谈他了。我告诉他，我的大女儿玛亚正在挑选大学。“有哪些学校可选？”他想知道。我告诉了他，他沉默了一会儿，然后说，“如果你想送她来这儿读德克萨斯大学，我们会为她支付第一年的学费。”　

那是我最后一次与詹姆斯·麦切纳交谈。尽管他将不久于人世，可他的本能仍旧鲜活如新，他又一次在伸出自己的援助之手。

麦切纳去世的那一天，也就是1997年10月16日，海娜翻开了《生物王国：动物与大自然的故事》这本书，这是几个月前他寄给她的。她用手指顺着目录找下来，说道：“他没有写过海豹。”

   “或许，”我解释说，“是因为他知道另有一位年轻的作家在写。”

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Text 2

Sue Opens a New Chapter

    Moving around her mother-in-law's house, Sue Torr picked up the local paper. From the next room, her husband's mother asked her what was on television.

    Sue froze. She lived every day in dread of a moment like this. Heart thudding, she muttered, "It's a load of rubbish." Dave's mother persisted. "What about BBC2? Or Channel 4?"

    Sue shouted, "It's all a load of rubbish." Crying with shame and fright, she ran upstairs.

    Sue Torr had a secret she hid from her family, friends, in-laws and even her husband. She could not read or write. Born in March 1952 and brought up in Plymouth, England, Sue was the fourth of eight children. Her parents worked long hours and had little time to listen to the children's problems. At school Sue was a well-behaved child and was good at sports. Her teacher didn't seem to notice that she was not learning to read and write.

    She would struggle to copy the letters on the blackboard, without understanding them. If asked to read aloud, she would find some excuse, "I'd say I wanted to go to the toilet, or pretend to cry."

    As her friends' reading improved, Sue grew ashamed of herself. "You think they're saying, ‘Oh, I'm better than her,' and that they're right, you can't do it. So you don't try."

    When she left school at 15, her mother found work for her and her sister Elaine, 11 months older, as waitresses in a friend's restaurant. Sue lived on her wits. If someone ordered Dover sole, she would take the menu to Elaine and ask: "Do we sell Dover sole?" Elaine would point to "Dover sole" on the menu, and Sue would secretly copy it out.

    Drinks were her worst nightmare. One day a woman ordered Liebfraumilch wine. Sue drew a hopeless script on the order, dropped it on the bar and went away in confusion. When the barmaid demanded, "Who wrote this?" Sue went back to the customer and asked, as if she'd forgotten, "What was it you wanted?"

    "Liebfraumilch," repeated the customer. Sue called to the barmaid, "Oh, it was a glass of Liebfraumilch," and lived to work another day. "I did it because I needed the job, but I was really crying inside."

    Sue grew into a charming, slender 18-year-old with wavy blonde hair and huge bright eyes. It was not long before she fell head over heels in love with Dave Douch, 19. She kept her secret to herself, "I was afraid he'd think I was a fool."

    Soon they decided to marry. But her wedding day sprang a trap: her signature in the register would have to include her middle name, Carol. She knew how to sign Susan Torr but had always found Carol tricky.

    She ran out of the room and asked someone, "How do you spell Carol─with an E or an O?" She wrote the answer on the inside of her hand. All through the wedding ceremony, the worry gnawed at her: Will Dave see it? How am I going to look at my hand when I sign? But nobody saw her copying the name. Nothing , she thought, could harm her now.

    A few months later the young couple moved to Hastings. It was hard for Sue to find her way around the strange town. Street names and bus destinations could have been written in a foreign language for all the sense they made to her. She looked for a job, but couldn't read the job advertisements or fill in an application form. Eventually she found work filling bags in a mill, and as a lavatory cleaner.

    At 19, Sue gave birth to Tanya, followed six years later by a son, Glen. She vowed she would always listen to their problems. But when they reached school age, her yearning to help ran up against a brick wall.

    "I dreaded my kids going to school," she admits. "I knew they would ask me to help them with their books─and I knew I couldn't. So I'd say, ‘Ask your father,' and if he was out, I'd say, ‘Well, I can't help you, I'm busy.' And I would shout because I was so frustrated with myself."

    As the years passed, the young bride turned into a shy woman who rarely went out. The misery of living a lie took its toll on her marriage. She and Dave divorced. Sue returned with her children to her mother's in Plymouth. But Tanya, at 14, missed her friends, so she returned to live with her father. Sue would make use of Glen's help to write to her. "He's gone through hell11 with me," she says. "All his life it's been, ‘Glen, I want to write to Tanya, can you spare ten minutes?'"

    While she was going through the painful process of divorce, Sue became involved with a man in the same situation and gave birth to a son, Brian John, whom she calls B.J. But she and her new partner split up.

    Meanwhile, Sue had made a vow. This time she would help her child with his homework. Somehow she would learn to read. When B.J. started nursery school, Sue went with him as a helper. There were anxious moments. When a child finished a painting, Sue should write his or her name on the back. "I would ask a teacher the name, and they would say, ‘Josephine,' and I'd think, ‘Oh Lord, how do you spell that?'"

    The children saw through her. If one gave her a book to read aloud, she'd make up the story when she couldn't guess the words. She would feel their big eyes on her, and they'd say, "Miss, you can't read, can you?"

    "I used to say, ‘No, I can't.' and I would tell them, ‘You pay attention and make sure you learn to read and spell.'" But Sue knew she was the one who needed encouragement. She was 37, and had to steel herself to act.

    On B. J.'s first day at primary school in March 1990, she kissed him goodbye, then remarked to the friendly stranger at the school gate, "Time to do something myself."

    Susan Cousins, a parent education worker employed by the county council, was there to look out for any parent who might want to further his or her own education. She pulled out books covering different levels of ability and held them out to Sue., "Would you like to read one of these?"

    Sue picked one with large print and pictures. But when she got home, she could only make out a few words.

    A few days later, Susan Cousins was again at the school gate. "How did you get on?" she asked. Sue looked down. "It was really good," she said, then confessed: "But I can't read. A couple of words only."

    Susan took Sue back to her office, sat down beside her and read the book aloud. Called Never in a Loving Way, by Josie Byrnes, it had only two or three paragraphs to a page, like a child's first reading book. But the story caught Sue's heart because the writer had herself been unable to read and described how hard it was.

    Sue carried the book home again. Having heard the story, she managed to work slowly through the book, spelling out each word and memorizing it before she moved on. After going through it 15 times, she realized that she had done it: she could read every word.

From then on Sue went day after day to Susan Cousins for lessons. It was slow, hard work, but with Susan's encouragement, she kept at14 it.

    In 1991 the county council offered an empty apartment as a community center. It was a base for the writers' group Susan Cousins was organizing.

    Secretly Sue had always dreamed of being a writer. "All the time I couldn't read, I was writing, just for me. I never showed it to anyone because all the spellings were completely wrong─my own invention." She attended every twice-weekly session of the group. After going through Sue's work with her, Susan would type out what she'd written and give it back so she could learn the correct spellings.

    Then Susan Cousins suggested Sue should write down everything she couldn't do because she couldn't read. Sue walked home with her head spinning. It was as if she finally had permission to tell the truth. As she thought of the suffering, fear and humiliation of the past 30 years, tears rolled down her cheeks. But she pressed on, determined to make people understand.

    In September 1992, Dee Evans, who helped Plymouth's Theatre Royal build links with the community, visited the center. She listened to some of the group's work and asked if they would read it on stage.

    As Sue worked on her material for Dee Evans, something extraordinary happened─it developed from a brief reading into a play. It was about all the events that had hurt her most: the terror in the classroom, the job interview where she couldn't fill in an application form, her inability to help her children with homework.

    Susan Cousins, turning the group's work into a script, could hardly keep pace with Sue's vivid dialogue. "She would say, ‘I went in, and he said this to me and I said this,' and I was scribbling it down as fast as I could. It was great fun, so creative."

    The final script ran 35 minutes. The other writers' work was used to break up the scenes, but the overwhelming impression was the hurt and burning accuracy of Sue's episodes. She also gave it a title: Shout It Out. "There's a scene where I get frustrated and say, ‘I'll shout it out: I can't read! Are you satisfied?'"

    The first performance was at B. J.'s school. Sue was very much afraid. What would people think? She walked off the stage in panic. Backstage, Dee put her arms round Sue and begged her to go back. "I can't," whispered Sue. Then she thought of the thousands of people still going through the misery she had suffered. She walked on stage again, shaking from head to foot, and started speaking. "It was the bravest thing ever," says Susan Cousins. "And people cried."

    One day in January 1993 Ian Phillips, a senior radio producer with BBC Devon, saw an item about it in the evening paper. He telephoned the center. Would they like to broadcast the play to a bigger audience?

    Shout It Out was broadcast on Radio Devon that May to mark Adult Learners' Week. A few months later the Young Women's Christian Association named Sue Torr as "Woman of the West Country" for outstanding service to the community.

    The play entered16 in the famous 1994 Sony Awards. Out of 850 entries, it was chosen as one of three finalists in its category. On April 27 Sue went to the awards ceremony in London. She sat through the awards lunch in a trance. At last the winner of the community radio award was announced: "Shout It Out ─ Susan Torr."

    Her vision blurred by tears, Sue made her way unsteadily to the platform. When she was handed the award, she was too overcome to say a word. "Winning it," she says, "was beyond my wildest dreams."

    Sue, now 43, still lives in her council apartment and works in the cafeteria at B.J.'s school. But what she has achieved has changed her life. She seizes every chance to meet people working in adult literacy, begging them to search out others who still have difficulty reading and writing.

    She is also working on a video of her play. A government agency has promised $8 000 toward making it. "Every time we performed the play, there was someone in the audience who couldn't read, and they would say it was like looking into their lives. And afterward they would say, ‘I'm going to get help. Can you tell me where to go?' "

    "Once they've seen the play, they think, ‘I'm not stupid. If she can do it, I can do it.'"

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课文二

苏的新生活

苏·托尔在婆婆的房子里走来走去，她拿起了一张当地报纸。婆婆从隔壁的房间里问她电视节目是什么。

苏愣住了。她日复一日的生活中，最为惧怕的，便是这样的时刻。她的心狂跳不已，嘴里嗫嚅着：“尽是些垃圾节目。”戴夫的妈妈又问，“BBC二台呢？四频道呢？”
   苏大叫了一声“都是垃圾”，就又羞又怕地哭着，奔到了楼上。

苏·托尔有一个秘密，一直瞒着她的家人、朋友和丈夫的家人，甚至连她的丈夫也不知道。她不会读书写字。苏1952年3月出生于英格兰的普里茅斯，八个孩子中排行第四。她的父母每天要工作很长时间，极少有空闲过问孩子们的问题。在学校里苏是一个行为端正的孩子，擅长体育运动。她的老师似乎并没有留意到，苏根本没在学习读和写。

苏总是努力把黑板上的字母抄下来，但她并不懂它们的意思。如果老师叫她大声朗读的话，她总是找借口把它搪塞了过去，“我会对老师说我想去厕所，要么就装哭。”
   朋友们的读写水平在逐渐提高，苏感到很羞愧。“你会觉得他们是在说，‘噢，我比她强'。他们的确说的对。你是不会做，因此也就不努力去做。”

她十五岁从学校毕业之后，她妈妈为她和比她大十一个月的姐姐伊莲找了份在朋友的餐馆里当女招待的工作。苏完全靠自己的小聪明度日。如果有客人点了多佛鲽鱼的话，她就把菜单拿给伊莲，问：“我们有多佛鲽鱼吗？”伊莲会在菜单上指给她看，之后苏再偷偷地把它抄下来。

饮料是最让她头痛的难题。有一天，一位女客人点了利波弗罗米尔奇酒。苏绝望地在菜单上乱写了一通，把它扔在吧台上，然后心情烦乱地走开了。当吧台女招待问道，“这是谁写的？”苏又回到客人那里，装作忘记的样子，问，“你要的是什么？”

“利波弗罗米尔奇 ，”客人重复了一遍。苏对吧台招待喊道，“噢，是一杯利波弗罗米尔奇。”然后第二天又故伎重演。“我这样做是因为我需要这份工作，但是我的心却在哭泣。”　
　   苏十八岁了，她长成了一位美丽迷人、婷婷玉立的姑娘，有一头金色卷发和明亮的大眼睛。很快她便与十九岁的戴夫·多奇坠入了爱河。她一直保守着自己的秘密，“我怕他把我看成一个傻瓜。”

不久，他们决定结婚。可是她婚礼的那一天却出现了一个难题：在登记册上签名时要写上她的中名，凯洛尔。她知道如何写苏姗·托尔，但是总觉得凯洛尔这个名字很棘手。
    她跑出房间，向一个人请教道，“你怎么拼凯洛尔这个名字—是有E还是有O？”她把答案写在手心上。整个婚礼进行的过程中，忧虑始终啃噬着她的心：戴夫会不会看见呢？签名时我怎么去看我的手心呢？不过没有人看见她把名字抄下来。她想，现在没什么能再伤害她了。

几个月后，这对年轻夫妇搬到了哈斯丁斯。苏在这个陌生的城里很难找到路。在她看来，那些街道和公交车站的名字就象是用外语写的，她根本看不懂。她想找份工作，可是她连招聘广告都看不懂，也不会填写申请表。最后，她找到一份在磨粉厂装袋的工作，同时还兼作厕所清洁工。

    19岁时，苏生下了塔亚，接着六年后又生了儿子格兰。她发誓她会始终聆听孩子们的问题。但是，当他们长到上学年龄的时候，她想帮助他们的渴望却碰了壁。

“我很害怕我的孩子们去上学，”她承认，“我知道他们会找我帮助解决书本中的难题——而我却无能为力。因此我总是说‘去问爸爸吧。'如果戴夫不在家，我就会说，‘噢，我不能帮你。我很忙。'我会大声喊叫，因为我对自己失望透了。”

随着一年年过去，这位年轻的新娘转变成了一位羞涩腼腆、极少出门的少妇。依靠谎言过日子的痛苦最终落到了婚姻上。她和戴夫离婚了。苏带着孩子回到了普里茅斯的母亲家。可是，十四岁的塔亚十分想念她的朋友们，于是她回去和她爸爸一起住。苏总是借助格兰的帮助给塔亚写信。“他和我一起经历了许多痛苦，”她说，“格兰一辈子都是听我在说，‘格兰，我想给塔亚写封信。你能抽出十分钟时间吗？'”　

    苏在承受离婚的痛苦过程时，与一位有着相同遭遇的男子有了来往，生下了一个男孩布里安·约翰，苏叫他B. J.。但是她和她的新伴侣又分手了。

与此同时，苏发了一个誓。这一次她一定要给她的孩子提供作业上的帮助。不管怎样，她要学会读书。当B.J.上幼儿园的时候，苏作为看护也随同前往。有一段时期很令苏焦虑不安。每当一个孩子画完一幅画，苏都要把孩子的名字写在背面。“我问老师这个孩子的名字，他们说，‘约瑟芬'，而我在想‘噢天啊，这个名字怎么拼？'”

孩子们把她看穿了。如果有人给她一本书叫她大声朗读，她总是在猜不出词意的时候自己杜撰。她能感觉到孩子们瞪大了眼睛盯着她，而且会问：“小姐，你不识字，对不对？”　

“我总是说，‘是的，我不识字。'我会对他们说，‘你们要认真学，一定要学会读和写。'”但是苏知道,她才是需要鼓励的人。她已经37岁了，不得不痛下决心采取行动。　

1990年3月在B. J.上小学的第一天，苏吻别了他，然后对校门口那位和善的陌生人说了一句，“我该去做自己的事了。”

苏姗·卡辛斯，作为郡委员会的父母教育工作者，正在校门口寻找想要接受继续教育的父母亲。她抽出一些适合不同能力阶段的书本，递给了苏：“想看看这些吗？”

　   苏挑了一本用大字体排印的带图片的书。可是当她回到家，却发现自己只认识几个字。

几天后，苏姗·卡辛斯又一次来到校门口。“进展如何？”她问。苏低下头，“确实不错，”她说，接着她说了实话，“可是我读不了。只认识几个字。”
    
    苏姗把苏带回了她的办公室，然后坐在她的身边，大声朗读那本书。这本书名叫《从未爱过》，作者是乔西·比尼斯。书中每一页只有两到三段，和孩子的启蒙读本差不多。但是这篇故事却深深打动了苏的心，因为作者本人也曾经不识字，在书中她还描述了学识字有多么难。

   苏把这本书又带回了家。由于已经听过了故事内容，苏可以缓慢地把全书读完。她拼写出每一个词，再把它记住背熟。在读了十五遍之后，苏意识到她已经成功了：每一个字她都认识了。
   
   从那以后苏每天都去听苏姗·卡辛斯讲课。这是一件缓慢而又吃力的事情，但是在苏姗的鼓励下，她一直坚持不懈。

   1991年郡委员会提供了一套空公寓用作社区活动中心。它也是苏姗·卡辛斯正在组织的写作组的基地。

    苏私下里一直梦想成为一名作家。“我始终不会读，我只在写，仅仅是为自己而写。我从来没有拿给别人看，因为所有的拼写都完全是错误的——都是我自己的发明创造。”她准时参加写作组每周两次的会议，从不缺席。苏姗先和苏一道把苏写的的东西看一遍，然后把它打印出来，还给苏，这样能使她掌握正确的拼写。

    然后苏姗·卡辛斯建议苏把她由于不识字而不能做的事都写出来。回家的路上苏脑中思绪万千，仿佛她终于获准说出真相。想起过去三十年中所承受的痛苦、恐惧与羞辱时，她不禁泪流满面。但她还是执着地奋斗着，下定决心要使人们理解这一切。

    1992年9月，曾经帮助普里茅斯的皇家剧院与社区建立联系的迪·伊文斯，参观了社区中心。她聆听了写作组一些人的作品，并询问他们能否在舞台上朗读自己的作品。
    
    正当苏忙着准备为迪·伊文斯朗读的材料时，一件奇妙的事发生了——她把一篇短文改写成了一部剧。剧中讲述了过去曾伤害她至深的所有事情：教室中的恐惧，应聘面试时不会填写申请表，还有帮孩子写作业时的无能为力。

把这个写作组的作品改写成剧本时，苏姗·卡辛斯几乎跟不上苏富含激情活力的对白词，“她会说，‘我进了门，然后他对我这么说，我又这么说'。我尽可能快地把它记下来。真是很有趣，很有创造性。”

    最终的定稿要演35分钟。其他作家的创作用来穿插于各幕之间，但是给人印象最强烈的，是苏编写的一段段情节所展现的深刻的痛苦和这些情节入木三分的精确性。她还给剧起了一个名字：《大声叫出来》。“有一场戏，是我在失望之极时说，‘我要大声叫出来：我不识字！这样你满意了吧？'”

首场演出在B. J.的学校里举行。苏非常害怕。人们会怎么想？她惊慌失措地跑下台。在后台迪拥抱着苏，请求她重返舞台。“我不行 ，”苏喃喃说。然后她想起了成千上万的人仍然在承受着她经历过的痛苦。她再次走上台，浑身上下抖个不停，开始说台词。“这是最勇敢的行为，”苏姗·卡辛斯说：“人们都哭了。”　

1993年1月的一天，伊安·菲力普，一位德翁郡BBC的资深广播节目制作人，在晚报上看到了这件事的报道。他打电话给社区中心，询问他们是否愿意把这部戏广播出去以飨更多的听众。

《大声叫出来》于同年5月在德翁郡广播电台播出，以响应“成年学习者之周”活动。几个月后，青年妇女基督教协会因苏·托尔对社区做出突出贡献，授予她“西部女杰”的称号。

这部戏参加了著名的1994年索尼奖的评选。在850个参赛作品中，它被选为所在组的三个决赛作品之一。4月27日苏参加了在伦敦举行的颁奖大会。整个颁奖典礼的午餐会中，苏昏昏沉沉地坐在那儿。最后，社区广播奖宣布了：“《大声叫出来》——苏姗·托尔。”

　
　   泪水模糊了苏的视线，她跌跌撞撞地走上台。当她接过这个奖时，她激动得说不出话来。“获得这个奖，”她说:“是我做梦也没有想到的。”

苏现在43岁了，她仍然住在她那套简易公寓里，在B.J的学校的餐馆工作。但是她的收获却改变了她一生。她抓住每一个机会见那些从事成年人扫盲工作的人士，请他们找出那些读写仍然有困难的人。

    她还在忙着制作她这部戏的录像。一个政府部门已经允诺，出资八千美元制作录像。“每一次我们上演这部戏，观众席里总有人也不识字。他们说观看这部戏就象是在观看他们自己的生活。然后他们会问‘我也要寻求帮助。能不能告诉我该到哪儿去？'”　

 　“他们一看到这部戏，就会想，‘我并不笨。既然她能做到，我也能做到。'”

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