我们一般不会深究小说对我们日常生活的影响，但是爱情小说也许是个例外。
爱情小说如何毁掉爱情生活？
How love stories ruin our love lives
作者：哲学家邮报 译者：歌未歌
A novel is a machine for simulating experience, a ‘life simulator’ and – like its flight equivalent – it allows us safely to experience what it might – in real life – take us years and great danger to go through.
一本小说，就好像飞行驾驶模拟器一样，可以让我们安全地体验在现实生活中要花费漫长时间、冒巨大危险才能经历的事物。
There are three ways in particular in which novels deliver their assistance:
它尤以以下三种方式帮我们认识生活：
They give us early warnings. They alert us to dangers that we’re not adept at recognising: where envy might lead us, what indifference can do to a relationship, where lust can drive us… They trace the links between apparently minor errors of personality and the monumental catastrophes they can unleash, in the hope that by showing us the pitfalls, our own tendencies to disaster and folly may be curbed.
它们提醒我们留意不易识别的危险：嫉妒会将我们引向何方；冷漠会对恋爱造成什么；欲望会驱使我们前往何处……它们揭示性格上微小的错误及其导致的巨大灾难之间的联系，遏制我们靠近愚蠢和不幸的倾向。
Fiction provides models of development, demonstrations of triumph over difficulties, case studies in maturation and the acquisition of wisdom. We are carefully taken through ways in which certain people have learned, perhaps over many years and with much pain, how to cope with problems which are, in some ways, also our own.
它们为我们提供了成长模式：如何展示战胜困难以及如何获取智慧。小说中的人物经历过许多年，受了很多苦才掌握如何应对问题的方法——而这些问题也正是我们所面临的。
There are many good things which we may have not known close-up but which we would benefit from experiencing – and which fiction can create for us. It can show us a couple who have understood how to resolve their difficulties with grace and humour, a father who can be at once authoritative and kind; a politician who has overcome vanity and tribal interests.
它们给我们展示一对懂得如何优雅而幽默地解决难题的夫妇；一位既威严又温和的父亲；一名摒弃了浮华和部族利益的政治家。通过小说，我们有机会感受人性中令人钦佩的品质。
Unfortunately, there are too many bad novels out there – by which one means, novels that do not give us a correct map of love, that leave us unprepared to deal adequately with the difficulties of being in a couple. In moments of acute distress in relationships, our grief is too often complicated by a sense that things have become, for us alone, unusually and perversely difficult. Not only are we suffering, but it seems that our suffering has no equivalent in the lives of other more or less sane people.
不幸的是，世上糟糕的小说太多了，太多小说没有给出一份正确的感情地图。言情小说在不知不觉中构建了理想中两性关系的模板——与此对照，我们的爱情生活往往看起来极其令人不满意。我们分手，抑或感觉自己受了诅咒，很大程度上是因为我们接触到了错误的文学作品。
If this ‘wrong’ kind is to be termed Romantic, then the right kind – of which there are so few – might be deemed Classical.
如果将这种“错误”的小说称为“言情派”，那么“正确”的小说，可惜很少——也许可以称为“古典派”。
Here are some of the differences:
下面来看看二者有何不同：
Romantic novel: In the archetypal Romantic novel, the drama hinges entirely on how a couple get together: the ‘love story’ is no such thing, it is merely the account of how love begins. All sorts of obstacles are placed in the way of love’s birth, and the interest lies in watching their steady overcoming: there might be misunderstandings, bad luck, prejudice, war, a rival, a fear of intimacy, or – most poignantly – shyness… But in the end, after tribulations, the right people will eventually get into couples. Love begins – and the story must end.
言情小说：剧本完全围绕一对伴侣如何走到一起而展开。爱情诞生的道路上布满各种各样的障碍，乐趣就在于看他们如何克服这些障碍。有误解、厄运、偏见、战争、情敌或最令人心酸的羞怯……但最后，对的人经过磨难走到一起。爱情开始了，可是故事必须结束。
Classical novel: This wiser, less immediately seductive genre knows that the real problem isn’t finding a partner, it is tolerating them, and being tolerated, over time. It knows that the start of relationships is not the high point that Romantic culture assumes; it is merely the first step of a far longer, more ambivalent and yet quietly far more heroic journey – on which it directs its intelligence and scrutiny.
古典小说：真正的问题不是找到伴侣，而是随着时间的推移，容忍和被容忍的戏码交错进行。确立恋爱关系只是一段旅程的第一步，这段旅程更为长久，更为矛盾。在旅程中，小说展现其智慧和洞察力。
Romantic novel: The characters may have jobs but on the whole they have little impact on their psyches. What one does for a living is not thought relevant to an understanding of love.
言情小说：小说人物可能有工作，但一个人的谋生手段不被认为与理解爱情有关。
Classical novel: But here we see that work is in fact a huge part of life, with an overwhelming role in shaping our relationships. Whatever our emotional dispositions, it is the stress of work that ends up generating a sizeable share of the trouble lovers will have with each other.
古典小说：工作是生活的重要组成部分，对塑造我们的恋爱关系具有势不可挡的作用。工作压力总是造就情侣间种种矛盾中很大的那一个。
Romantic novel: Children are incidental, sweet symbols of mutual love, or naughty in an endearing way. They rarely cry, take up little time and are generally wise, exhibiting a native, unschooled intelligence.
言情小说：孩子是彼此相爱的符号。他们几乎不哭闹，只占用大人很少的时间。他们通常很聪颖，展示着一种天生的、天赋的智力。
Classical novel: We see that relationships are fundamentally oriented towards the having and raising of children – and at the same time, that children place the couple under unbearable strains. They kill the passion that made them possible. Life moves from the sublime to the quotidian. There are toys in the living room, pieces of chicken under the table, and no time to talk. Everyone is always tired. This too is love.
古典小说：恋爱关系从根本上是往生养子女的方向而去的——孩子将夫妇置于不堪忍受的压力之下，扼杀了将他们带到世上来的激情。生活从崇高趋于平凡：客厅里扔着玩具，桌子下堆着鸡块，没有时间聊天，每个人都很累。但，这也是爱。
Romantic novel: In this genre, we have only a hazy idea of who does the housework. It is not seen as relevant to a relationship.
言情小说：谁做家务只是一个模糊的概念，与恋爱无关。
Classical novel: Here relationships are understood to be institutions, not just emotions. Part of their rationale is to enable two people to function as a joint economic unit for the education of the next generation. This is in no way banal. There are opportunities for genuine heroism. Especially around laundry.
古典小说：恋爱关系被解读为体系，而不仅仅是情感，它促使两个人作为经济共同体而运作。真正的英雄在哪儿都有机会，特别是洗衣房附近。
Romantic novel: Sex and love are shown to belong together. The high point of love is intercourse. Adultery, in the romantic view, is therefore fatal: if you were with the right person you could never be unfaithful.
言情小说：性与爱是不分离的，爱的顶点便是性的交合。通奸是毁灭性的，如果已和对的人在一起了，就决不能不忠。
Classical novel: It knows that long-term love may not set up the best preconditions for sex. The classical attitude sees love and sex as distinct and at times divergent themes in life. And therefore sexual problems do not in themselves indicate that a relationship is, overall, a disaster…
古典小说：它深谙长久的爱不一定是性的最佳前提。爱和性是分离的，性问题本身并不表明一段关系是否彻底是场灾难……
Romantic novel: The Romantic novel cares about the harmony (or lack of it) between the souls of the protagonists. It believes that the fundamental challenge of romantic life is to find someone who completely understands us and with whom there need never be any more secrets. It believes that love is finding your other half, your spiritual twin. Love is not about training or education, it is an instinct, a feeling – and is generally mysterious in its workings.
言情小说：聚焦于主角们灵魂层面的和谐（或和谐的缺乏）。它认为浪漫生活的基本挑战是找到一个完全理解我们的人，与之在一起就意味着永远不再需要秘密。它认为爱情是一种本能，一种感觉——其运转方式通常是神秘的。
Classical novel: It accepts that no one ever fully understands anyone else; that there must be secrets, that there will be loneliness, that there must be compromise. It believes that we have to learn how to sustain good relationships, that there are learnable skills, and that love is not just a chance endowment of nature.
古典小说：它承认，没人能够完全理解他人。人与人之间必有秘密，必有孤独，必有妥协。爱情不仅仅是上天赏赐的机遇，我们必须学习如何保持良好的恋爱关系。
The Romantic novel is deeply unhelpful.They shouldn’t be, we merely need to change our reading matter: to tell ourselves more accurate stories about the progress of relationships, stories that normalise troubles and show us an intelligent, helpful path through them.
言情小说甚为无用，我们的爱情生活不应该是这样的。我们需要更改阅读的对象：读更准确描写两性关系成长的故事，读能将烦恼常人化、让爱情道路充满智慧的有用故事。
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