阅读的历史与未来

2017-08-16ByPaulLaFarge

英语学习 2017年8期

By+Paul+La+Farge

In A History of Reading， the Canadian novelist Alberto Manguel describes a remarkable transformation of human consciousness， which took place around the 10th century A.D.： the advent of silent reading. Human beings have been reading for thousands of years， but in antiquity1， the normal thing was to read aloud. When Augustine （the future St. Augustine） went to see his teacher， Ambrose， in Milan， in 384 A.D.，2 he was stunned to see him looking at a book and not saying anything. With the advent of silent reading， Manguel writes，... the reader was at last able to establish an unrestricted relationship with the book and the words. The words no longer needed to occupy the time required to pronounce them. They could exist in interior space， rushing on or barely begun， fully deciphered or only half-said， while the readers thoughts inspected them at leisure， drawing new notions from them， allowing comparisons from memory or from other books left open for simultaneous perusal.3

To read silently is to free your mind to reflect， to remember， to question and compare. The cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf calls this freedom “the secret gift of time to think”： When the reading brain becomes able to process written symbols automatically， the thinking brain has time to go beyond those symbols， to develop itself and the culture in which it lives.

A thousand years later， critics fear that digital technology has put this gift in peril4. The Internets flood of information， together with the distractions of social media， threaten to overwhelm the interior space of reading， stranding us in what the journalist Nicholas Carr has called “the shallows，” a frenzied flitting from one fact to the next.5 In Carrs view， the “endless， mesmerizing buzz” of the Internet imperils our very being： “One of the greatest dangers we face，” he writes， “as we automate the work of our minds， as we cede control over the flow of our thoughts and memories to a powerful electronic system， is ... a slow erosion of our humanness and our humanity.”6

Theres no question that digital technology presents challenges to the reading brain， but， seen from a historical perspective， these look like differences of degree， rather than of kind. To the extent that digital reading represents something new， its potential cuts both ways7. Done badly， the Internet reduces us to mindless clickers， racing numbly to the bottom of a bottomless feed； but done well， it has the potential to expand and augment8 the very contemplative space that we have prized in ourselves ever since we learned to read without moving our lips.

The fear of technology is not new. In the fifth century B.C.， Socrates worried that writing would weaken human memory， and stifle9 judgment. In fact， as Wolf notes in her 2007 book Proust and the Squid： the Story and Science of the Reading Brain， the opposite happened： Faced with the written page， the readers brain develops new capacities. We may not keep the Iliad in our heads any longer， but were exquisitely10 capable of reflecting on it， comparing it to other stories we know， and forming conclusions about human beings ancient and modern.

The Internet may cause our minds to wander off， and yet a quick look at the history of books suggests that we have been wandering off all along. When we read， the eye does not progress steadily along the line of text； it alternates between saccades—little jumps—and brief stops， not unlike the movement of the mouses cursor across a screen of hypertext.11 From the invention of papyrus around 3000 B.C.， until about 300 A.D.， most written documents were scrolls， which had to be rolled up by one hand as they were unrolled by the other： a truly linear presentation.12 Since then， though， most reading has involved codices， bound books or pamphlets， a major advantage of which （at least compared to the scroll） is that you can jump around in them， from chapter to chapter （the table of contents had been around since roughly the first century B.C.）； from text to marginal gloss，13 and， later， to footnote.

In the age of print， nonlinear reading found its most elaborate support in the “book wheel，” invented by the Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli in 1588： a “rotary14 reading desk” which allowed the reader to keep a great number of books at once， and to switch between them by giving the wheel a turn. The book wheel was—unfortunately！—a rarity15 in European libraries， but when you think about all the kinds of reading that print affords， the experience of starting a text at its beginning and reading all the way to the end， which we now associate with “deep” reading， looks less characteristic of print in general than of the novel in particular： the one kind of book in which， we feel， we might be depriving ourselves of something vital if we skipped or skimmed.

The German historian Rolf Engelsing argues that a “reading revolution” took place at the end of the 18th century： Before that point， the typical European reader had only a few books—the Bible， an almanac， maybe a work of devotional literature—and he read them over and over， so that they were deeply impressed on his consciousness.16 Afterward， Europeans read all kinds of material—novels， periodicals， newspapers—and they read each item only once before racing on to the next. Contemporary critics were doubtless appalled， but on the other hand， from that flood of printed matter， we got the Enlightenment， Romanticism， the American and French revolutions.

Its true that studies have found that readers given text on a screen do worse on recall and comprehension tests than readers given the same text on paper. But a 2015 study by the German educator Johannes Naumann suggests the opposite. He gave a group of high-school students the job of tracking down certain pieces of information on websites； he found that the students who regularly did research online—in other words， the ones who expected Web pages to yield17 up useful facts—were better at this task （and at ignoring irrelevant information） than students who used the Internet mostly to send email， chat， and blog.

A new generation of digital writers is building on video games， incorporating their interactive features—and cognitive sparks—into novelistic narratives that embrace the capabilities of our screens and tablets. Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaros 2014 iPad novella， Pry， tells the story of a demolitions expert returned home from the first Gulf War， whose past and present collide， as his vision fails.18 The story is told in text， photographs， video clips， and audio. It uses an interface19 that allows you to follow the action and shift between levels of awareness. As you read text on the screen， describing characters and plot， you draw your fingers apart and see a photograph of the protagonist20， his eyes opening on the world. Pinch your fingers shut and you visit his troubled unconscious；21 words and images race by， as if you are inside his memory. Pry is the opposite of a shallow work； its whole play is between the surface and the depths of the human mind. Reading it is exhilarating22.

在《閱读的历史》中，加拿大小说家阿尔维托·曼古埃尔指出了大约公元10世纪时人类意识的伟大转型：默读时代的到来。人类读书的历史已有上千年，但此前都是朗读。公元384年，奥古斯丁（即后来的圣奥古斯丁）到米兰去见他的老师圣安波罗修，当他看到老师默默地看着一本书时吓了一跳。曼古埃尔写道，默读的到来，使读者终于能够与书本和文字建立起不受限制的联系。文字不再念出声省出了原本所需的时间。它们在自己的空间中既可以一气呵成，也可以徐徐道来，可以详尽阐述，也可以留人遐思。而读者则有充分的时间在阅读时去审视文字，阐发新的奥义，将其与记忆和手边同时在研读的其他书籍做一番参照比较。

默读解放了你的大脑，使其可以反思，可以记忆，可以提问，可以比较。认知科学家玛莉安·沃尔夫把这种自由称作“思考时间的神秘馈赠”：大脑负责阅读的区域学会自动处理书写符号之后，负责思考的区域就有时间跳出字面来发展思维和其扎根的文化。

一千年后，评论家们开始担心数字技术会使这一馈赠面临风险。互联网上大量涌现的信息，社交媒体带来的注意力分散，逐渐侵蚀着阅读的内在空间，将我们置于记者尼古拉斯·卡尔所说的“浅薄”之中，在一个又一个的事实中狂躁地闪过。在卡尔看来，互联网“无尽而诱人的嗡鸣”正危及着我们的存在。他写道：“当我们使大脑自动运转，并将思想和记忆的掌控权让渡给强大的电子系统时，我们面临的巨大的威胁之一就是，作为人的资格和人性的逐渐消蚀。”

无疑，数字技术对阅读中的大脑来说是一个挑战，但是从历史的角度来看，两者只是程度不同，而非性质有别。数字阅读带来了一些新的东西，其结果有利有弊。运用不当的话，互联网会把我们都变成毫无大脑、只会按键的机器，麻木地往下翻着永远翻不完的页面；但如果运用得当，互联网则有可能大大扩展我们自学会默读以来引以为豪的思维空间。

对技术的恐惧久已有之。公元前五世纪，苏格拉底担心书写会削弱人的记忆，扼杀人的判断力。而据玛丽安娜·沃尔夫在《普鲁斯特与乌贼：阅读如何改变我们的思维》中所说，事实恰恰相反：面对书面文字，读者的大脑发展出了新的能力。我们可能没法再背诵《伊利亚特》，但是却可以很好地理解它，跟读过的其他作品相比较，从而更好地了解人类的古往今来。

互联网可能会分散人的精力，但是纵观人类的阅读史，我们不是一直都在精力分散吗？阅读的时候，人眼并非在某一行文字上逐个匀速移动，而是在扫视、跳跃、停顿，与鼠标在屏幕超文本上的移动无异。从公元前三千年左右发明莎草纸开始，到公元三百年为止，多数书写文献都是卷轴的形式，读的时候两手兼工，一边要展开，另一边要收上，是实实在在的线性阅读。后来，开始有了手抄本、线装书或者小册子。这带来的一个好处是（起码跟卷轴相比），你可以在书页间跳跃，从一章跳到另一章（目录大概是在公元前一世纪左右开始采用的）；从文本到旁注，再到脚注。

在印刷时代，非线性阅读最有力的支持来自“书轮”。它由意大利工程师阿戈斯蒂诺·拉梅利于1588年发明，是一个“旋转的书桌”，可以让读者一次性放好多本书，通过转动轮子就可以在不同的书之间切换。但非常遗憾的是，书轮是欧洲图书馆才有的珍品，可是想想印刷时代的各种阅读，把一本书从头看到尾，即我们现在叫“深度”阅读的体验，与其说是印刷带来的特性，不如说其只是针对小说这个文类。只有小说才会让我们觉得，如果跳过某一部分或者看得不仔细，就可能会丢掉什么重要的信息。

德国历史学家罗尔夫·恩格辛指出，18世纪末发生了一场“阅读革命”：在此之前，一个典型的欧洲读者拥有的书很少—— 一部《圣经》，一本年历，或许再加上一本宗教文学——他来来回回地阅读，把内容深深印在脑海里。后来，歐洲人的阅读范围扩大了——小说、杂志、报纸——都只读一遍就忙不迭地打开另一个。当代评论家对此感到恐慌，但是另一方面，正是这些洪水般的印刷文字，催生了启蒙运动、浪漫主义、美国独立战争和法国大革命。

确实，研究发现，屏幕阅读的读者在进行记忆和理解测试时，表现不如纸上阅读者。但德国教育学家约翰内斯·诺曼2015年的研究却得出相反的结论。他让一组高中生去搜集网页上的某些特定信息，然后发现经常在网上查找资料的学生——换句话说，那些相信网页可以产出有用信息的学生——这一任务（包括过滤无用的信息）完成得更好；而只是利用网络发邮件、聊天、写博客的学生则差些。

新一代的数字作家正在从电子游戏中寻找灵感，把交互性和认知力融入到通过屏幕阅读的小说创作中去。萨曼莎·戈尔曼和丹尼·康尼查罗2014年创作的通过iPad阅读的中篇小说《偷窥》，讲述了一个爆破专家在第一次海湾战争后回家的故事。主人公逐渐丧失视力之后，过去和现在交织在一起。整个小说通过文本、图片、视频和音频讲述。这种界面使人跟随着故事的进展，在不同的意识层面之间穿梭。你读着屏幕上描述角色和情节的文字时，两指划开，可以看到主角的照片，看到他睁大眼睛望着这个世界。两指合拢，你则进入了他备受折磨的潜意识；文字和图像接踵而来，就好像你在他的记忆里一样。《偷窥》绝不是一部肤浅的作品，其整个故事触及了人脑的深浅各层，阅读过程让人激动异常。

1. antiquity：（尤指公元476年罗马帝国灭亡前的）古代。

2. Augustine：奥古斯丁（公元354—430），早期西方基督教的神学家、哲学家，著有《忏悔录》、《论三位一体》等，其一生深受圣安波罗修的影响；Ambrose：圣安波罗修（约公元340—397），米兰主教，4世纪基督教著名的拉丁教父，也是罗马公教公认的四大教会圣师之一。

3. decipher：译释（难解的古代文字，或难理解的事物）；inspect：检查，审视；perusal：精读，细读。

4. peril：巨大的危险。

5. strand：使搁浅，使处于困境；frenzied：狂热的，狂乱的；flitting：掠过，闪过。

6. mesmerizing：迷人的；imperil：危及，使陷入危险；cede：割让，放弃；erosion：侵蚀，逐步毁坏。

7. cut both ways：各有利弊。

8. augment：提高，增大。

9. stifle：阻止，压制。

10. exquisitely：完美地，卓越地。

11. saccade：跳阅，扫视；cursor：光标；hypertext：超文本。

12. papyrus：（尤指古埃及人制造的）莎草纸；scroll：长卷纸，卷轴；linear：直线的，线性的。