About 10 years ago, the magazine I worked in was not as busy as it is now. The editor-in-chief Mr. Zhu Wei still had time to give us a class on classical music appreciation. Whenever we talk about the quality of a manuscript, we often start with Zhuangzi and Shakespeare.One afternoon, he asked me what novel I was reading recently, and I said, read Kundera.He frowned, why are you still looking at Kundera?At that time, Milan Kundera had been popular for many years, and Mr. Zhu Wei did not think highly of him—he was probably a third-rate novelist.Mr. Zhu used to work as a novel editor at People's Literature, and later wrote a column in "Dushu" magazine to comment on novels. Of course, I believe in his appreciation of novels.In his office that afternoon, he gave me a novel class, mainly Carver's novels, and he even retells to me the story of "There Are So Many Lakes Not Far from the City."Later, I found the collection of Carver's novels translated by Yu Xiaodan.It is said that when Zhu Wei was the editor of the novel, he solemnly suggested to Yu Xiaodan that he should translate more of Carver's novels.

At the beginning of 2008, I said at the topic selection meeting that there are a group of translators active on the Internet, there are subtitle groups, and there are projects for translating university courses. "There is a guy in Shanghai who specializes in translating Carver's novels." At the meeting that day , we decided to do such a topic called "Internet translator". I saw the novel translated by Xiao Er on the blog of "3rdcolour". "3rdcolour" is in Lanzhou. He likes to read Carver's novels, but it is difficult to find the book, so he built a blog called "Looking for Raymond" ? Carver".Xiaoer started translating Carver a long time ago, and also found this blog. He sent his translated works to "3rdcolour".Soon, Xiaoer and I made an appointment to meet in Shanghai.We talked for about 4 hours, and then we had dinner with friends.Xiao Er plays basketball, likes to sing in chorus, he is a senior manager and a senior engineer, but he claims to be a soldering circuit. This is not enough, it is better to make a little contribution to "civilization".

Later, when I interviewed Mr. Lu Jiande, Mr. Lu told me a short story about Keynes—in 1945, Keynes resigned from the post of editor-in-chief of the Journal of Economics, and the advisory committee held a banquet for him. He made a rhetorical speech when thanking him anti-climax.He was going to toast the Royal Economic Society and the Economists, and say that all of you here are trustees of . . . Disappointment: "To the economists, to the trustees not of the creation of civilization, but of the possibility of civilization, cheers." It was Keynes's friends who were really entrusted with the creation of civilization - Bloomsberg The gang of artists and writers in the group.

Our economists will not have such a view, and our writers cannot afford this.Even those who read novels, most of them are willing to be marginalized and heterogeneous. If you accidentally become the "mainstream" of cultural consumption, how bad you are.Therefore, secretly reading some novels that most people don’t know, as far as I am concerned, is a particularly superior thing. That time, in Shanghai, Henry from MIT?Mr. Henry Jenkins also accepted our interview. He said that a "participatory culture" is emerging on the Internet, and what promotes the formation of this culture is "fans". "Fans" all over the world unite and share information. He also said that the Internet can create a new type of "cosmopolitanism". In the past, if a child wanted to understand the world, he had to travel and see the cultures of various places. Now he can understand the world more conveniently through the Internet.Well, how well this gentleman said it.

In the winter of 2008, the collection of Carver's novels imported by Yilin was published. I asked Xiao Er why there was no movement on his translation, and he seemed not in a hurry.Since the interview in Shanghai, we haven't seen each other again, and everything is communicated through the Internet, such as Douban's "Carver Group".Still through the Internet, I saw a reader’s evaluation of Carver—”If Carver is a great novelist, then he must also have such an unrepeatable temperament of his own, which has nothing to do with whether he is a LOSER or not.” , It doesn’t matter whether it’s poor all your life, or if you describe the life of the people at the bottom... If you insist on me saying what the unique breath that belongs to Carver is, I can’t say it, and I don’t want to say it. Anyway, everything in the book is called Raymond? , so it became eternal, and he owns it all, forever."

This post is now posted on the "Looking for Raymond? Carver" website. I don't know who this guy is, but he is definitely an "excellent reader" of novels. In my opinion, "3rdcolour", Xiao Er, Including the few below, they are all regarded as Carver's "excellent readers". This term was proposed in Nabokov's "Literary Lectures".Of course, from liking Carver's novels to translating all of his novels, Xiaoer is like a "translator". We are just a group of "fans" who are willing to share and appreciate, and are willing to make Carver's things hotter But, in the face of Carver and other great writers, being an "excellent reader" is a very happy thing.