13. It is not easy. It raises problems of construction
and of language, and it raises in a new way the problem
of truthfulness. Let me give just one example of the
cruder kind of difficulty that arises. My book about
the Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia, is, of
course, a frankly political book, but in the main
it is written with a certain detachment and regard
for form. I did try very hard in it to tell the whole
truth without violating my literary instincts. But
among other things it contains a long chapter, full
of newspaper quotations and the like, defending the
Trotskyists who were accused of plotting with Franco.
Clearly such a chapter, which after a year or two
would lose its interest for any ordinary reader, must
ruin the book. A critic whom I respect read me a lecture
about it. "Why did you put in all that stuff?"
he said. "You' ve turned what might have been
a good book into journalism." What he said was
true, but I could not have done otherwise. I happened
to know, what very few people in England had been
allowed to know, that innocent men were being falsely
accused. If I had not been angry about that I should
never have written the book.
13)这并不容易。这会产生构思及语言的问题。而真实性也以新的方式发生了疑问。让我举一个简单的例子，来说明这类困难。我写的关于西班牙内战的书《向加泰隆尼亚致敬》，当然明明白白是一部政治性作品。但写此书时，我总的来说还是持适当的客观态度，重视形式的美。我想方设法揭示事情的全部真相而又不违害自己的文学情趣。但书中有很长的一章，大量引用新闻报道以及诸如此类的材料，为被指控和弗朗哥同谋的托洛茨基主义者辩护。显然，这样一个章节一两年后也许会在普通读者中失去它的兴味因而会糟踏了这部书。一位我尊敬的评论家就因此把我教训了一通：“你干嘛把那些玩意儿塞进去?”他说道：“你本来可以写成一部好书，可现在却弄成了新闻报道。”他的话是对的。可我又不能不这么做。我恰好了解英国很少人能得知的事实，那就是，无辜的人们正遭人诽谤。要不是我对此事愤忿不平，我根本就不会动笔写此书的。
14. In one form or another
this problem comes up again. The problem of language
is subtler and would take too long to discuss. I will
only say that of late years I have tried to write
less picturesquely and more exactly. In any case I
find that by the time you have perfected any style
of writing, you have always outgrown it. Animal Farm
was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness
of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and
artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written
a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another
fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book
is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what
kind of book I want to write.
14)这个问题以各种各样的形态出现。语言则是个更微妙的问题，得花很大的功夫讨论。这里我只能说，近几年来，我竭力减少极妍尽态的描写，尽量写得更谨严凝炼。我发现一位作家一但使某种文笔风格臻于完善，他总是已经超越了这种风格。《动物庄园》一书便是我在著述中有意识有计划地把政治目的和艺术追求融合为一体的尝试。我已经7年没写小说了，但我希望不久要写一部。这部小说注定会成败绩，每部脱手的作品都觉得处处是败笔，但我还是比较清楚地知道我要写什么样的书。
15. Looking back through the
last page or two, I see that I have made it appear
as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited.
I don't want to leave that as the final impression.
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the
very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.
Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle,
like a long bout of some painful illness. One would
never undertake such a thing if one were not driven
on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct
that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it
is also true that one can write nothing readable unless
one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality.
Good prose is like a window pane. I cannot say with
certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but
I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking
back through my work, I see that it is invariably
where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless
books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences
without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug
generally.
15)回顾以上几页文字，我觉得似乎给人一种印象，好像我写作的动机完全是为社会为公众。我不想留下这样一个最终印象。大凡作家都企慕名誉，自私，懒散。他们写作动机的深处总有一个难解的谜。写书是一场可怕的劳心伤神的斗争，有如一场恶病的长时间发作。要不是被一种既不可抗拒又不可理谕的魔怪所驱使，没人会担当起这样一项工作。也许这魔怪不外乎是婴儿嚎啕以引人注意的本能。但话又说回来，作家若不能努力隐去自己的个性，他便写不出什么值得一读的东西，这也是个事实。好文章如同一块窗玻璃。我不能肯定地说我哪一种动机最强，但我知道哪个动机值得遵循。回顾我的创作，我发现，什么时候我缺乏政治目的，什么时候我就会写出毫无生气的书，就会坠入华而不实的篇章，写出不知所云的句子，卖弄矫饰的形容词和一大堆空话废话。
(王斑译，原载《外国文学》1986年第10期)
