What the World’s Most Famous Writers Were Doing in Their Twenties

By Daniel Lefferts

W e don’t often think of people like Samuel Beckett,Edith Wharton, and John Updike as 20-somethings,but before they took their places in the literary hall of fame, these famous authors fought through the same chapter of insignificance and self-doubt that millennials find themselves in today.1. 提到萨缪尔·贝克特、伊迪丝·华顿和约翰·厄普代克这些鼎鼎有名的文豪时，我们通常不会想到他们二十几岁时的模样。然而，在成为文学界的大人物之前，他们与如今的千禧一代一样，也在默默无闻与自我怀疑的旋涡中挣扎、抗争。hall of fame: 名人堂；chapter:（人生或历史上的）阶段，时期；millennial: 千禧一代，指大约在1985—1995年出生的一代。From Franz Kafka to Stephen King, these writers’ experiences as 20-somethings will comfort, inspire,and—if you’re an aspiring writer yourself—give you a swift motivational kick in the ass.2. aspiring: 有抱负的，有志向的；give sb. a kick in the ass: 激励，鼓舞。

1. Edith Wharton3. Edith Wharton: 伊迪丝·华顿（1862—1937），美国著名作家，曾获普利策奖，代表作包括《纯真年代》、《战地英雄》，以及下文中提到的《欢乐之家》和《伊坦·弗洛美》等。

In 1885, at the age of 23, Edith Jones married Edward Wharton, thus embarking on the 30-year union that most biographical accounts of the novelist refer to as “disastrous.”4. embark on: 开始；union: 婚姻，结婚；biographical: 传记的；account: 叙述，描写。Rightly so: the two lacked common interests; Edward suffered from terrible depressions; both carried on affairs.But Wharton’s first decade of adulthood wasn’t a total waste.Her celebrated fiction, which includes the novels The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome, is rife with romantic anguish and domestic restlessness—sentiments that had surely been fermenting from the early days of her marriage.5. celebrated: 著名的；be rife with: 充满；anguish: 悲痛，痛苦；domestic:家庭的；restlessness: 不宁，不安；sentiment: 感情，情绪；ferment: 使发酵，酝酿。

二十几岁时，她，开始了一段长达30年的婚姻悲剧；他，断断续续地打着零工，艰苦度日；他，把自己写的第一部小说扔进了垃圾桶；同样的年纪，她，出版了第一部小说，获得超高稿酬；她，独自离家闯世界，与先锋作家、思想家为伍；他，一出校门就在知名杂志社获得了一份令人眼红的工作……同是世界知名的大作家，每个人的二十几岁却有着不同的色彩与味道。你呢？你二十几岁时在干什么？

2. Samuel Beckett6. Samuel Beckett: 萨缪尔·贝克特（1906—1989），爱尔兰著名作家、剧作家，1969年诺贝尔文学奖获得者，是荒诞派戏剧的重要代表人物，代表作包括《等待戈多》和《一句独白》，以及下文提到的《但丁、布鲁诺、维柯、乔伊斯》等。

Beckett’s writing career got a jump start in his early twenties when he came under the tutelage of modernism forefather(and fellow Hibernian) James Joyce.7. jump start: 抢跑，此处指贝克特在文学领域的起步早于别人；tutelage: 指导；forefather: 前辈；Hibernian: 爱尔兰人；James Joyce: 詹姆斯·乔伊斯（1882—1941），爱尔兰作家、诗人，后现代文学的奠基者之一，代表作包括《尤利西斯》和《芬尼根的守灵夜》等。Beckett assisted Joyce in researching Finnegan’s Wake, and his first published work—written in 19. 胸怀大志的写作者们，准备好自我厌恶一番吧：扎迪·史密斯在2000年出版了她的处女作《白牙》，一时间声名大噪。而那时，这位英国作家年仅24岁。into a tailspin: 陷入失控状态；self-loathing: 自我厌恶；smash-hit: 非常成功的新书（新戏、新影片等）；debut: 首次出版的。29, at the age of 23—was a critical analysis of Joyce,“Dante…Bruno. Vico..Joyce.”

3. Zadie Smith8. Zadie Smith: 扎迪·史密斯（1975— ），被誉为英国最具影响力的新生代作家，代表作包括下文提到的《白牙》。

Aspiring writers, prepare to be sent into a tailspin of selfloathing: Zadie Smith’s smash-hit debut novel, White Teeth, was published in 2000, when the British author was just 24 years old.9The book had actually been auctioned to publishers as a partial manuscript three years earlier,10. auction: 拍卖；partial: 部分的，不完全的；manuscript: 手稿。when Smith was still at Cambridge. She received an advance11. advance: 预付款。of 250,000 pounds.

4. Franz Kafka12. Franz Kafka: 弗兰兹·卡夫卡（1883—1924），奥匈帝国统治下的捷克小说家，是西方现代派文学的宗师，代表作包括《变形记》、《城堡》和下文提到的《亚美利加》。

Kafka’s unhappiness during his twenties will resonate with any writer struggling to focus on their craft while supporting themselves with a full-time job.13. resonate: 引起共鸣；craft: （某一行业所需的）技能。From the age of 24 on he worked a series of day jobs that included handling insurance claims and co-managing an asbestos factory.14. insurance claim: 保险索赔；asbestos: 石棉。Given his commitment to his writing, and a marked aversion to social interaction, Kafka mostly resented working—though it did help him to evade the military draft in 1915.15. marked: 显著的，明显的；aversion: 厌恶，反感；resent: 厌恶；evade: 逃避；military draft:军队征兵。In any event16. in any event: 无论如何，不管是哪种情况。he managed to squeeze a novel out of his off-hours during this time: he completed Amerika around 1912, at 29, though it was not published until after his death. It remains one of his more widely read works.

5. Stephen King17. Stephen King: 斯蒂芬·金（1947— ），美国著名畅销书作家，代表作包括《闪灵》、《肖申克的救赎》和下文提到的《魔女嘉莉》等。

King’s writing career had a mostly inauspicious18. inauspicious: 不祥的，不吉利的。beginning. After graduating from the University of Maine in 1970,the thriller writer eked out a living working blue-collar labor jobs and selling short stories to men’s magazines.19. thriller writer: 惊悚小说作家；eke out a living: 勉强度日，竭力维持生计。He developed a drinking problem, and actually consigned the manuscript for his first published novel to the trash, until his wife retrieved it and convinced him to submit it to publishers.20. consign: 搁置，弃置；retrieve: 取回，找回。That novel,Carrie, was published in 1973, when King was just 26. It earned him$400,000 in paperback21. paperback: 平装书。rights alone and continues to be one of his most beloved works.

6. Thomas Mann22. Thomas Mann: 托马斯·曼（1875—1955），德国著名小说家和散文家，1929年诺贝尔文学奖获得者，代表作包括下文提到的《布登勃洛克一家》、《魔山》和《威尼斯之死》。

German author Thomas Mann published his first novel, the epic23. epic: 史诗般的作品。Buddenbrooks, in 1901, when he was just 26. At over 700 pages,it describes the generational decline of a German merchant family, much of the plot drawn from the history of Mann’s own clan.24. merchant: 商人；clan: 宗族，氏族。By the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, the gay novelist had written several other works, such as The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice,for which he was arguably25. arguably: 按理说。more famous. But, owing to the conservatism of the awards ceremony, he was only cited for this early (and relatively uncontroversial) work.26. owe to: 由于，因为；conservatism:保守主义；cite: 嘉奖，表彰；uncontroversial: 不会引起争论的。

7. Susan Sontag27. Susan Sontag: 苏珊·桑塔格（1933—2004），美国文学家、艺术评论家，被誉为“美国公众的良心”，代表作包括《反对阐释》、《疾病的隐喻》和《沉默的美学》等，下文提到的作品为《坎普札记》。

By 24 Susan Sontag had already married, had a child, and established herself in the academic milieu28. milieu: 社会背景，周围环境，此处指学术圈。of Cambridge, Mass.Comfortable though it was, Sontag knew that her life of professional and domestic ease was getting her no closer to her true ambition of writing fiction. So, in her mid-20s,she flew the nest to Paris, where she fell in with the writers and thinkers of the avant-garde, carried on affairs, and developed the idiosyncratic critical approach that would make her such an intellectual sensation back in the States.29. 因此，在二十五六岁时，她孤身离家飞到巴黎。在那里，她与先锋作家和思想家结交，有过几段婚外情，并培养了独特的批评思维方式，使她之后成为了美国家喻户晓的“明星”知识分子。 fly the nest: 离家独立；fall in with: 结交；avant-garde: 先锋派，前卫派；idiosyncratic: 独特的，乖僻的；sensation: 引起轰动的人（或事件）。Her big break30. big break: 重大转机。finally came at the age of 31, when she published her famous 1964 essay, “Notes on ‘Camp.’”

8. John Updike31. John Updike: 约翰·厄普代克（1932—2009），美国著名作家、诗人、文学评论家，曾两度获得普利策小说奖，最为知名的作品是“兔子”系列小说。

John Updike may take the cake32. take the cake: 得奖，成为最佳者。for the coolest post-college job in recent literary history. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1954, he went to work for The New Yorker on the recommendation of E. B. White, who Updike had met while taking drawing classes in England.33. summa cum laude: 以最优等成绩，享有最高荣誉；recommendation: 推荐；E.B.White: E. B. 怀特（1899—1985），美国著名散文家、评论家，曾是《纽约客》的主要撰稿人，代表作包括《夏洛的网》、《吹小号的天鹅》和《精灵鼠小弟》等。Thankless grunt work this was not: Updike wrote features and reviews for the magazine for two years, until the birth of his son forced him to high tail it to the suburbs.34. grunt work:（某项工作中）困难而单调的部分，苦差事；feature:（报纸或杂志的）特写，专题文章；high tail it: 快速离开。

9. Ernest Hemingway35. Ernest Hemingway: 欧内斯特·海明威（1899—1961），美国作家和记者，1954年诺贝尔文学奖获得者，代表作包括下文提到的《流动的盛宴》和《太阳照样升起》等。

Shortly after marrying his first wife, Hadley Richardson, in 1921, the 23-year-old Hemingway moved to Paris, where the modernist movement was in full swing36. in full swing: 在全力进行中，处于全盛时期。. Though he worked as a foreign correspondent to make money, his true occupation (as documented in his memoir A Moveable Feast) was developing his aesthetic and cementing his place in what would become known as the “Lost Generation.”37. correspondent: 通讯员，记者；occupation: 职业，工作；memoir: 回忆录；aesthetic: 美的，美学的；cement: 巩固；the Lost Generation:迷惘的一代，第一次世界大战后美国的一个文学流派。所谓“迷惘”，是指这些作家们共有的彷徨和失望情绪。He published his first novel,The Sun Also Rises, in 1926, at the age of 27.

10. George Bernard Shaw38. George Bernard Shaw: 萧伯纳（1856—1950），爱尔兰剧作家，英国现代杰出的现实主义戏剧作家，代表作包括《圣女贞德》和下文提到的《卖花女》（Pygmalion）、《鳏夫的房产》等。

It’s hard to imagine the Pygmalion playwright spending a period of his life doing anything less refined than wiping off his prince-nez.39. playwright: 剧作家；refined: 举止优雅的，文雅的；wipe off: 擦掉（液体或污垢）；prince-nez: 夹鼻眼镜。But Shaw, like many 20-somethings, put in his requisite years of of fice drudgery.40. requisite: 必需的，必要的；drudgery: 苦工，单调沉闷的工作。At the age of 14 he left school to work at a land agent’s41. land agent: 房地产商，地产经纪人。of fice, and continued to support himself through day jobs until the age of 23, when he quit his position at the Edison Telephone Company to go live with his mother in London and write. His first play, Widowers’ House, wouldn’t debut until 16 years later. We have to assume that decade and a half involved some major 19th-century Hannah Horvathary.42. assume: 假设，认定；Hannah Horvath: 汉娜·霍瓦特，美剧《都市女孩》中的女主角。她大学毕业后做着不稳定的实习生工作，靠父母的接济度日，但心怀作家梦，认为自己将来能成为她这个时代的代言人。If only we had the gbshaw.tumblr.com43. Tumblr: 汤博乐网，一家美国轻博客网站。此处指若当时萧伯纳也有个人博客的话，我们就能更了解他的生活。to prove it.

11. F. Scott Fitzgerald44. F. Scott Fitzgerald: 弗朗西斯·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德（1896—1940），美国20年代“爵士时代”和“迷惘的一代”的代表作家之一，代表作包括《了不起的盖茨比》、《夜色温柔》和下文提到的《人间天堂》等。

In his early twenties, while stationed in Alabama during the tail end of World War I, Fitzgerald fell in love with Zelda Sayre, a darling of Montgomery debutante society.45. station: 驻扎；the tail end of: 尾声，末尾；debutante society: 上流社会，社交界。In order to win her hand in marriage, though, Fitzgerald had to prove that he could support her financially. His first go at lucrative employment after the war—a stint as an ad copywriter in New York—was a miserable failure, and as a result the engagement was put on hold.46. go: 尝试；lucrative: 赚钱的，获利的；stint:（做某事的）时间，时期；copywriter: 广告文字撰稿人；put on hold: 推迟，搁置。But when Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, at 23, Zelda’s family finally gave their blessing.

12. Jack London47. Jack London: 杰克·伦敦（1876—1916），美国著名作家、记者和社会活动家，代表作是《野性的呼唤》。

In 1897, at the age of 21, Jack London sailed with his brother-inlaw to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush48. Klondike Gold Rush: 克朗代克淘金热。克朗代克是加拿大西北部的一个城市。1896年至1899年期间，因在此地发现黄金而吸引了一大批淘金者。. The two didn’t exactly strike it rich, and London developed scurvy,49. strike it rich: 暴富；scurvy: 坏血病。which resulted in the loss of four teeth. But the experience provided inspiration for some of London’s earliest published short stories, and imbued the San-Francisco-born writer with a lifelong fascination with Alaska.50. imbue with: 使（某人）充满（强烈情感、想法）；fascination: 迷恋，着迷。