虽然第四十八届香港青年文学奖已经截止了，但我前几天还是下载了“翻译文学组”的比赛文章，原文是来自 J B Priestley 的“English Journey”，内容有关作者对于工业革命的批判性思考。以下是作品原文节选以及我的翻译练笔，希望能与简友们多多学习交流。
《English Journey》
There was a time when Manchester was known as the “home of living causes”, but exactly what living causes are finding a home there now I do not know. It was also said that “what Manchester thinks today England will think tomorrow”. But that was before our time, though we still see some of the results – let us be fair, the worse results – of what Manchester thought in what has been left us, to mourn over, by the vast, greedy, slovenly, dirty process of industrialisation for quick profits – and damn the consequences. Still, when I was a boy, Manchester had the best newspaper and the best orchestra in the country, which is saying something: its citizens, who could read the Manchester Guardian in the morning and listen to the Hallé in the evening, were not badly off and could be said to be in touch with civilisation. (They had too, at that time, the best repertory theatre in the kingdom, and their own considerable school of dramatists and dramatic critics. It is perhaps significant that the critics were better than the dramatists. Manchester, I suspect, has always been more critical than creative; but that, let us admit, is much better than being neither.) Both the newspaper and the orchestra, like the cotton trade, are still there, but, also like the cotton trade, are not quite what they were: though both are much more like what they were than the cotton trade.
(J B Priestley, English Journey [1934])
《英格兰之旅》
曼彻斯特曾一度被视作“为家之所在”，但现如今那座城市到底何以为家，我却不得而知。也有人说，“曼彻斯特今天所思即英格兰明日所想”。尽管这描述的是当年曼彻斯特的思维，其影响力时至今日依然可见一斑：平心而论，那是更糟糕的影响。曼彻斯特当天所思所遗留给我们的，是对那为急功近利而生，却又遗祸深远的，那庞然大物的、贪得无厌的、不修边幅的、藏污纳垢的工业化进程的沉痛哀悼。诚然，在我还是小男孩的年纪，曼切斯特拥有全国最好的报章与乐团。言下之意，这群可以在早上读着《卫报》 ，在晚上听着“哈雷” 的曼城市民，其生活并不潦倒，且可谓与文明风雅有所联系。（当时，他们还有全国最好的剧场，以及他们引以为傲的剧作家及剧评家学校。耐人寻味的是他们的剧评家比剧作家优秀。我怀疑，曼切斯特的批判性往往多于创造性——然而我们需要承认的是这比两者皆无要好得多。）报章与乐团均如棉花贸易般依然存在于曼城，但亦同样如棉花贸易般与其原貌有所出入——不过与棉花贸易相比，它们还是更贴合其原貌的。
在小县城里的中秋假期生活比日常工作还要“忙碌”，一天到晚除了四处吃吃喝喝，就是在山间田野闲庭信步。现在是晚上十点三十六分，我到现在才得以从与亲朋戚友的农庄聚会中得以脱身。本来打算把这几天的行程都写在日更里的，思前想后还是待假期之后系统地组织一下素材，然后再写一篇与乡村生活有关的分享吧。从某种程度上来说，小县城里虫鸣鸟叫的大自然生活与此篇对工业革命的批判还是有所关联的。
【第十六书】
