2021年经济学人 《周》书评

Books & Arts

文学与艺术

Book Review

书评

Marking time -- The seven-day itch¹

标记时间——七天之痒

The Week. By David Henkin.

《周》，作者：大卫·亨金。

In the autumn of 1853 Thomas Butler Gunn got lost -- temporally rather than physically².

1853年秋天，托马斯·巴特勒·葛恩迷失了——只是暂时的，不是根本上的。

On a visit to Mammoth³ Cave in Kentucky, and isolated⁴ from the outside world, his diary quickly slipped the moorings of chronological⁵ reality.

在一次访问肯塔基州的猛犸洞穴时，由于与外界隔绝，他的日记很快就脱离了现实中的时间秩序。

Wednesdays are repeated and days go mislabelled.

重复的星期三，标错的日期。

It took around a fortnight, and renewed contact with civilisation⁶, for Gunn to restore his weekly bearings.

葛恩花了大约两个星期的时间，重新与文明世界连结，才恢复了按周生活的时间方向。

The episode, says David Henkin, suggests how fragile a sense of time can be -- especially when it comes to weeks.

大卫·亨金说，这段经历表明时间意识是如此的脆弱——尤其是在“周”这个概念上。

Unlike months or years, these seven-day groupings have no real basis in astronomy.

与月或年不同，这些七天的分组在天文学上没有实际的存在依据。

People from Nigeria to China have thrived without them.

从尼日利亚到中国，人们曾在没有它的情况下过得很好。

And yet the week has become the measure not only of routine, but even of sanity⁷.

然而，“周”不仅成为了衡量生活日程的标准，甚至也成了衡量精神健全程度的标准。

"Weekly rhythms have become so thoroughly⁸ absorbed into ordinary human experience", Mr Henkin writes, "that forgetting what day it is constitutes a singular symptom and feeling of disorientation."

亨金写道：“‘周’的节奏已经彻底融入了普通人类的经验中，以至于忘记这一天是星期几被视为一种独特的症状和方向感迷失。”

His new book shows how the week came to rule the world.

他的新书指出了“周”是如何统治世界的。

Until the 19th century, he explains, the other days were a preamble⁹ to the Sabbath for many Protestants.

他解释道，直到19世纪，对许多新教徒来说，其他日子都只是安息日的前奏。

Catholics followed a cycle of feast days and fasts.

天主教徒遵循一个进食和禁食的循环周期。

When newspapers, factory schedules and weekly paydays were all rarer, the weekly structure was less important.

当报纸、工厂时间表和每周发薪日都很少见的时候，“周”的结构也就不那么重要了。

People got muddled¹⁰, not just underground.

人们都被搞糊涂了，不仅仅在地下会糊涂。

As late as 1866, the Louisville Courier mentioned a man getting drunk on Friday because he thought it was Saturday.

直到1866年，《路易斯维尔信使报》还提到过有一个人在星期五喝醉了，因为他以为那天是星期六。

In outline, the story is one of urban development.

概括来说，这是一个关于城市发展的故事。

As towns grew and society became more sophisticated, citizens "became differently and more intensely week-oriented, in ways we can now recognise as modern".

随着城镇的发展，社会变得越来越复杂，市民们“变得不同，更加强烈地以周为导向，以我们如今认为是现代的方式”。

When his local benevolent¹¹ society met on Wednesdays in 1859, and choral concerts were scheduled for Fridays, James Fiske of Massachusetts couldn't afford to mix up his days.

1859年，马萨诸塞州的詹姆斯·菲斯克的本地慈善协会每周三聚会，每周五有合唱音乐会，他可不能打乱自己的日程。

When Every Saturday magazine landed in New York each weekend in 1866, Bayard Taylor was expecting it.

1866年，当《每周六》杂志于周末到达纽约，贝亚德·泰勒正期待着它的到来。

Later anecdotes¹² illustrate¹³ the "distinctive¹⁴ air" that individual days came to develop -- the particular associations each subliminally¹⁵ carries.

后来的一些趣闻轶事说明了每一天都在发展出“独特的气氛”——每一天都被赋予潜意识里的特定联想。

Philadelphians once used chains to block horse traffic on Sundays.

费城人曾在周日用铁链阻断马匹运输。

The advent¹⁶ of washing machines disrupted the weekly cleaning schedule.

洗衣机的出现打乱了每周的清洁计划。

In due course Westerners exported these feelings to the world.

在适当的时候，西方人向世界输出了这些情感。

Japan formally adopted the seven-day system only in 1873; all the same, a character in a novel by Haruki Murakami is as sure of something "as I am that today is Wednesday".

日本直到1873年才正式采用七天制；尽管如此，村上春树小说中的一个人物在表达对某件事非常确定时却说，“就像我对今天是星期三一样有把握”。

That sort of conviction is now crumbling¹⁷.

这种信念如今正在瓦解。

French and Russian revolutionaries ultimately failed in their attempts to abolish the seven-day week, but for many people the pandemic has squashed the weekly rhythm into an interminable present.

尽管法国和俄罗斯革命者试图废除7日星期制的努力最终以失败告终，但对许多人来说，新冠疫情把“周”的节奏挤压成了一个没完没了的现在。

Monday, runs the joke, has been replaced by Noneday.

有个笑话是这样讲的，“星期一”已经被“星期零”取代。

As Netflix offers entertainment on a whim¹⁸, and morning newspapers become obsolete¹⁹, Mr Henkin argues that "the hold of the week on our lives loosens, and our place in the cycle becomes in turn less memorable²⁰."

随着网飞公司心血来潮提供娱乐节目，早报变得过时，亨金认为，“‘周’对我们生活的控制开始松动，我们在周循环中的位置也变得不再那么值得记住。”

Everyone may soon start to feel a bit like Thomas Butler Gunn.

每个人可能很快就会开始觉得自己有点像托马斯·巴特勒·葛恩了。

1 itch   

n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望

参考例句：

• Shylock has an itch for money.夏洛克渴望发财。
• He had an itch on his back.他背部发痒。

2 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

3 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。

4 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

5 chronological   

adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的

参考例句：

• The paintings are exhibited in chronological sequence.这些画是按创作的时间顺序展出的。
• Give me the dates in chronological order.把日期按年月顺序给我。

6 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

7 sanity   

n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确

参考例句：

• I doubt the sanity of such a plan.我怀疑这个计划是否明智。
• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。

8 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

9 preamble   

n.前言；序文

参考例句：

• He spoke without preamble.他没有开场白地讲起来。
• The controversy has arisen over the text of the preamble to the unification treaty.针对统一条约的序文出现了争论。

10 muddled   

adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子

参考例句：

• He gets muddled when the teacher starts shouting. 老师一喊叫他就心烦意乱。
• I got muddled up and took the wrong turning. 我稀里糊涂地拐错了弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 benevolent   

adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的

参考例句：

• His benevolent nature prevented him from refusing any beggar who accosted him.他乐善好施的本性使他不会拒绝走上前向他行乞的任何一个乞丐。
• He was a benevolent old man and he wouldn't hurt a fly.他是一个仁慈的老人，连只苍蝇都不愿伤害。

12 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

14 distinctive   

adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的

参考例句：

• She has a very distinctive way of walking.她走路的样子与别人很不相同。
• This bird has several distinctive features.这个鸟具有几种突出的特征。

15 subliminally   

adv.下意识地

参考例句：

• I have read many books, perhaps they influenced me subliminally. 我读过很多书，也许受到了它们潜移默化的影响。 来自柯林斯例句

16 advent   

n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临

参考例句：

• Swallows come by groups at the advent of spring. 春天来临时燕子成群飞来。
• The advent of the Euro will redefine Europe.欧元的出现将重新定义欧洲。

17 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

18 whim   

n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想

参考例句：

• I bought the encyclopedia on a whim.我凭一时的兴致买了这本百科全书。
• He had a sudden whim to go sailing today.今天他突然想要去航海。

19 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。

20 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。