布兰登·泰勒谈新小说《黑色次要人物》：在意义真空的世界中寻找艺术与爱

领域: finance-wealth

分类: business-entrepreneurship

主讲人: New York Times Podcasts

来源: 查看

发布时间: 2025-10-10

摘要:

著名作家布兰登·泰勒在访谈中分享了新小说《黑色次要人物》的创作历程与深层主题，探讨了艺术、信仰、种族、身份认同及当代文学趋势，并阐述了其对小说形式与读者的深刻尊重。

欢迎与新书介绍

[Music]

Hello and welcome to the Book Review Podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review. And this week on the podcast, we have an author you've probably heard of if you've been keeping up with literary fiction at all over the past few years. That author is Brandon Taylor. Brandon's first book, Real Life, published in February 2020, right before the pandemic changed life as we know it, went on to become a Booker Prize (布克奖: 英语文学界最重要的奖项之一) finalist. He followed that up with two other books, Filthy Animals in 2021 and The Late Americans in 2023. Now Brandon is back with a brand new book, Minor Black Figures. It's a novel about art and race and class and religion and love and New York and so much more. He joins us today to discuss.

[音乐]

大家好，欢迎收听书评播客。我是MJ·富兰克林，纽约时报书评版的一名编辑。本周播客我们邀请到一位作者，如果你过去几年一直在关注文学小说，你大概率会听说过他。这位作者就是布兰登·泰勒。布兰登的第一本书《真实生活》于2020年2月出版，就在疫情改变我们生活方式之前，这本书后来入围了布克奖（Booker Prize: 英语文学界最重要的奖项之一）决选。之后，他于2021年推出了《肮脏的动物》，2023年推出了《迟来的美国人》。现在，布兰登带着他的全新作品《黑色次要人物》回来了。这是一部关于艺术、种族、阶级、宗教、爱情、纽约以及更多主题的小说。今天他将和我们一起讨论这本书。

Brandon Taylor: Brandon, welcome. Thanks for having me.

布兰登·泰勒：布兰登，欢迎你。谢谢邀请我。

MJ Franklin: Or I should probably say welcome back because you joined the Book Review Podcast in 2021 to talk about Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You, which you reviewed for us. And then that interview was conducted by Pamela Paul, who was the editor at the time. But we've spoken previously because right before your first book, Real Life, came out, I wrote a profile of you for the Book Review that was remote. Now we're in person. Welcome back.

MJ·富兰克林：或许我应该说“欢迎回来”，因为你曾在2021年参加书评播客，讨论萨莉·鲁尼的《美丽的世界，你在哪里》，那本书你为我们写过书评。那次采访是由当时的编辑帕梅拉·保罗主持的。不过我们之前也聊过，因为在你的第一本书《真实生活》出版前，我曾为书评版写过一篇你的远程采访人物特稿。现在我们面对面了，欢迎回来。

Brandon Taylor: Oh, thank you. How far we've come. I feel it's like that Vanity Fair (名利场: 美国一本文化、时尚和政治杂志) Billie Eilish (比莉·艾利什: 美国流行女歌手) same interview. Do you know about this?

布兰登·泰勒：哦，谢谢。我们走了多远啊。我感觉这就像《名利场》（Vanity Fair: 美国一本文化、时尚和政治杂志）杂志对比莉·艾利什的系列采访。你知道这个吗？

MJ Franklin: Yes, I do. So, for anyone listening who doesn't know, every year they interview Billie Eilish, and through that, all together, you get to see an artist's evolution. So, I'm excited to talk to you, learn about your new book, hear about what you've been up to, which is quite a lot. But to get started, let's talk about your new book, Minor Black Figures. Can you just give us a brief setup, spoiler-free, but tell us what this book is about?

MJ·富兰克林：是的，我知道。对于不了解的听众，他们每年都会采访比莉·艾利什，通过这些采访，大家可以看到一位艺术家的成长历程。所以，我很高兴能和你交谈，了解你的新书，听听你最近在忙些什么，你确实做了很多事。不过，让我们先从你的新书《黑色次要人物》开始。你能给我们简单介绍一下吗？不用剧透，但请告诉我们这本书讲了什么？

新书《黑色次要人物》：艺术、信仰与爱

Brandon Taylor: Minor Black Figures is about Wyth, who is a Black gay male painter living in New York City, and we encounter him at the start of a sort of hazy late summer scenario where he's in the midst of an artist's block. He doesn't know how to paint the moment, whatever that is. He's in search of the real, whatever that means indeed. And after going to a terrible art show, or he thinks it's a terrible art show, he encounters another young man whose name is Kading. And then he very quickly discovers that Kading is a former seminarian (神学院学生: 指在神学院学习并准备成为牧师或神职人员的人). And then they spend a summer walking and talking about God, about art, about politics, about the meaning of life. Oh, just the light stuff.

布兰登·泰勒：《黑色次要人物》讲述的是怀特的故事，他是一位住在纽约的黑人同性恋画家。我们在一个朦胧的夏末场景中遇到他，他正处于创作瓶颈期。他不知道如何描绘当下，无论那是什么。他正在寻找真实，无论那到底意味着什么。在参加了一场糟糕的艺术展（或者他认为那是一场糟糕的艺术展）之后，他遇到了另一个名叫凯丁的年轻人。然后他很快发现凯丁曾是一名神学院学生（seminarian: 指在神学院学习并准备成为牧师或神职人员的人）。接着，他们共度了一个夏天，边散步边聊上帝、艺术、政治和生命的意义。哦，都是些轻松的话题。

MJ Franklin: All the light stuff.

MJ·富兰克林：都是些轻松的话题。

Brandon Taylor: All the light stuff. So that's what it's really about. It's about art. It's about love. It's about faith. And it's about what happens when you encounter a priest at a bar one hazy summer night in New York City.

布兰登·泰勒：都是些轻松的话题。所以这本书真正讲的就是这些。它关于艺术，关于爱，关于信仰。它讲述的是在一个朦胧的夏夜，当你在纽约的一家酒吧遇到一位牧师时会发生什么。

MJ Franklin: Count me in. I'm hooked.

MJ·富兰克林：我加入了。我被吸引住了。

角色命名与创作灵感

MJ Franklin: I have one silly quick question, but Wyth, his name, is he named after N.C. Wyeth (N.C.怀斯: 美国著名插画家和壁画家) the painter?

MJ·富兰克林：我有一个有点傻的简单问题，怀特这个名字，是根据画家N.C.怀斯（N.C. Wyeth: 美国著名插画家和壁画家）命名的吗？

Brandon Taylor: I mean, that seems like the obvious choice. And in fact, I didn't really think of that until a friend pointed out to me, like the fact that I've written about a painter and I've named that painter Wyth in America in New York of all places. But no, he's named after Mariah Wyth from a Joan Didion (琼·迪迪恩: 美国著名作家) novel from Play It As It Lays, I believe it is. And I've always really loved that. I've always really loved that name. And I have this habit of naming my characters after other characters in other people's books.

布兰登·泰勒：嗯，这看起来是个显而易见的选择。事实上，直到有朋友提醒我，说我写了一个画家，并且把他命名为怀特，还是在美国纽约，我才意识到这一点。但不是，他是以琼·迪迪恩（Joan Didion: 美国著名作家）小说《随它去吧》中的玛丽亚·怀特命名的。我一直很喜欢那个名字。我有个习惯，就是用其他作者书中的角色来命名我的角色。

MJ Franklin: I kind of love this. Is Kading named after anyone?

MJ·富兰克林：我挺喜欢这个的。凯丁有以谁命名吗？

Brandon Taylor: Well, he's named that name I've been trying to stick on a character for a long time, but really that name first came to me from watching How to Get Away with Murder (逍遥法外: 一部美国法律惊悚电视连续剧). Annalise Keating (安娜丽丝·基廷: 《逍遥法外》中的主要角色). It's one of my favorite characters. And I just love that name. I'm going to slap that name on.

布兰登·泰勒：嗯，这个名字我很久以来一直想给某个角色用，但实际上，这个名字最初是来自我看《逍遥法外》（How to Get Away with Murder: 一部美国法律惊悚电视连续剧）时想到的。安娜丽丝·基廷（Annalise Keating: 《逍遥法外》中的主要角色）。她是我最喜欢的角色之一。我就是喜欢这个名字。我要把它用上。

MJ Franklin: It's a great name.

MJ·富兰克林：真是个好名字。

Brandon Taylor: Even in my first book, Wallace is named—people thought it was like Wallace Stegner (华莱士·斯特格纳: 美国著名作家), but it was in fact Wallace named after a character in Anne Patchett's (安·帕切特: 美国著名小说家) Commonwealth. So, I just have this terrible sickness of loving female characters.

布兰登·泰勒：甚至在我第一本书里，华莱士这个名字——人们以为是像华莱士·斯特格纳（Wallace Stegner: 美国著名作家）那样，但实际上，华莱士是根据安·帕切特（Anne Patchett: 美国著名小说家）的《联邦》中一个角色命名的。所以，我就是有这种爱女性角色的“坏毛病”。

MJ Franklin: What is it that Lady Gaga (Lady Gaga: 美国著名歌手和演员) says where it's not afraid to reference or be referenced? Is that Lady Gaga?

MJ·富兰克林：Lady Gaga（Lady Gaga: 美国著名歌手和演员）说过什么来着？就是不怕引用或被引用？是她说的吗？

Brandon Taylor: Yes, I love that. Yeah, that's me. That's me out here riffing, referencing.

布兰登·泰勒：是的，我喜欢那句话。没错，那就是我。我就是这样即兴发挥，引用借鉴。

创作灵感的起源与放弃旧作

MJ Franklin: Well, with that out of the way, I just wanted to officially ask a more serious question, which is this book. I'm wondering where did the inspiration come from? Can you tell us about that first seed of an idea? What that was that then later evolved into this book, Minor Black Figures? What was the start?

MJ·富兰克林：好了，抛开那些，我想正式问一个更严肃的问题，关于这本书。我想知道灵感从何而来？你能告诉我们最初那个想法的种子是什么吗？它是如何演变为后来的《黑色次要人物》这本书的？最初是什么？

Brandon Taylor: Sure. This book, unlike some of my other books, maybe this book has a really definite starting place because I was under contract to write a different book and that book was called Group Show and was going to be about a Midwestern art museum in the Midwest and it was going to be like big multi-character cast decades spanning. And I kept writing 137 pages of that book and throwing it away over a period of five years. I even got a fellowship at the New York Public Library (纽约公共图书馆: 美国最大的公共图书馆系统之一) to research that book and to work on it. And after a period of about five years, I was just really stuck. I had 137 pages again. And I was getting on a plane to go teach in Paris (巴黎: 法国首都) in summer of 2023. And I was like, I cannot rewrite this book one more time. And so I sent the 137 pages to my editor and I said, I'm getting on a plane. I won't have Wi-Fi (无线网络: 一种无线局域网技术) for eight hours. Can you read this and tell me if it's good or bad just so that I know? And by the time I'd landed in Paris, my editor had written me a really long, really beautiful email that essentially was like, "You've never written better. The writing is so good. I love this book. I love it so much." And that was super clarifying for me because it revealed to me that the reason I wasn't able to keep going with the book was because I just didn't want to write it anymore.

布兰登·泰勒：当然。这本书，不像我的一些其他作品，它有一个非常明确的起点。因为我当时签了合同要写另一本书，那本书叫《群展》，是关于美国中西部一家艺术博物馆的，会是一个涵盖几十年、多角色的大型故事。在五年时间里，我写了137页，然后又扔掉，反复如此。我甚至在纽约公共图书馆（New York Public Library: 美国最大的公共图书馆系统之一）获得了研究那本书的奖学金。大约五年后，我真的陷入了困境。我又写了137页。2023年夏天，我正要搭飞机去巴黎（Paris: 法国首都）教书。我当时想，我不能再重写这本书了。于是我把这137页发给了我的编辑，我说：“我要上飞机了，八小时内不会有Wi-Fi（无线网络: 一种无线局域网技术）。你能读一下，告诉我好不好吗？只是想让我知道。”等我降落在巴黎时，我的编辑给我写了一封很长、很漂亮的邮件，大意是：“你从未写得这么好。文字太棒了。我太喜欢这本书了。非常非常喜欢。”这对我来说非常清楚，因为它让我明白，我无法继续写下去的原因，只是因为我不想再写它了。

MJ Franklin: Interesting.

MJ·富兰克林：有意思。

Brandon Taylor: So, I threw it out.

布兰登·泰勒：所以，我把它扔掉了。

MJ Franklin: So, you get this letter that says, "This is great. You never…" and you're like, "It's got to go."

MJ·富兰克林：所以你收到这封信，上面写着：“这太棒了。你从未……”而你却说：“它必须消失。”

Brandon Taylor: Yeah. Well, I was just like, I don't want to write this book anymore. And I threw it out and did my teaching. And then at the end of that period, I thought, okay, I'm going to check into a hotel and I'm going to book it for three weeks. And by the end of that three weeks, I want to have the next thing going. I was like, what am I interested in? And I thought I'd written a couple books that were kind of severe. And I wanted to describe things again, and I wanted to write about light, and I wanted to write about a priest. And I thought what's going to let me do that? And I thought painters, if I write a painter, I'll get to describe stuff just in the sort of natural course of things. And so I sat in that hotel and by the time I left, I'd written the first hundred pages of the book.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。我当时就是觉得我不想再写这本书了。于是我把它扔掉，然后去教书。那段时间结束后，我想，好吧，我要去住酒店，订三周。到那三周结束时，我希望有新的进展。我当时想，我对什么感兴趣呢？我想到我之前写过几本比较严肃的书。我想再次描绘事物，我想写光，我想写一个牧师。我想什么能让我做到这一点呢？我想到画家，如果我写一个画家，就能自然而然地描绘事物。于是我坐在那家酒店里，等我离开的时候，我已经写完了这本书的前一百页。

MJ Franklin: What an origin story. That's kind of incredible.

MJ·富兰克林：多么独特的起源故事。这真是不可思议。

Brandon Taylor: I mean, utter insanity. It's, oh, thank you so much for saying that I've written like 137 of the best pages I've ever written. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to like take the... And I told my editor, I'm going to throw this away. And he said, "Leave. I'll catch you." And I'm really thankful for that because an editor is not often going to be like, "No, this is so good." But he was like, "Go for it. I got your back." And so then making Wyth a painter was a way to get to write and describe.

布兰登·泰勒：我的意思是，这简直是疯了。哦，非常感谢你这么说，我写了大概137页我写过的最好的文字。我不想再这样做了。我打算……我告诉我的编辑，我要把这个扔掉。他说：“去吧，我会接住你的。”我真的很感激他，因为编辑通常不会说：“不，这个太好了。”但他却说：“放手去做吧，我支持你。”所以，让怀特成为一名画家，就成了我写作和描绘的一种方式。

艺术世界的深度探索

MJ Franklin: But then also when we see it in this book, the art world itself is so robust and rich and full and varied. Can you talk to me a little bit about your deep dive into the art world and how you brought that to the page?

MJ·富兰克林：但在这本书中，我们还看到，艺术世界本身是如此的强大、丰富、充实和多样。你能跟我谈谈你对艺术世界的深入探索，以及你是如何将这些呈现在书页上的吗？

Brandon Taylor: Yeah, I was always so interested in art world parties because it's often an easy target for caricature in film and TV. When they want to show someone's an elite or whatever, they'll have them go to a gallery show. There's that sort of Sex in the City reboot, And Just Like That, which sort of makes much of Charlotte's involvement in the art world, and those are my favorite scenes honestly. They're so dishy. And I myself have found myself going to a lot of gallery parties just living in New York. Sometimes your friend texts you, "Hey, do you want to go to this?" And you in fact do, because it's Thursday and there's nothing else to do. But I thought, okay, there's that part of it, but I also want to dig deeper here and just figure out what are people thinking and feeling when they leave the party and when they go home. And so I went to the past. I read this really wonderful book called Fierce Ambition by Alexander Nemerov that's a biography of Helen Frankenthaler (海伦·弗兰肯塔勒: 美国抽象表现主义画家). I read Ninth Street Women, which is another really great biography. I read a lot of biographies. I read the multi-volume series of biographies about Lucian Freud (卢西安·弗洛伊德: 英国著名画家), and because I was interested in the artist lives, yes, but I was interested in the social network of it all. I was interested in how the journalists fit together with the reviewers and how they fit together with the critics and how they fit together with the artists because they're often friends and all this other stuff. And so a lot of it is informed by my own sort of gadflying about parties, but it also came from I did this deep dive into art biographies and read about so many parties. So many juicy parties.

布兰登·泰勒：是的，我一直对艺术界的派对很感兴趣，因为它常常是影视作品中讽刺精英阶层的常用素材。当他们想展示某人是精英时，就会让他们去画廊展览。比如《欲望都市》的续集《就那样…》，其中夏洛特在艺术界的参与被大书特书，说实话，那些是我最喜欢的场景，非常八卦。我自己住在纽约，也发现自己参加了很多画廊派对。有时朋友会发短信问：“嘿，你想去这个吗？”你确实会去，因为是星期四，也没别的事可做。但我想，好吧，这只是其中一部分，我还想更深入地挖掘，弄清楚人们离开派对回家后在想些什么，感受些什么。于是我回溯历史。我读了亚历山大·内梅罗夫（Alexander Nemerov）写的《炽热的野心》（Fierce Ambition）这本非常棒的书，那是关于海伦·弗兰肯塔勒（Helen Frankenthaler: 美国抽象表现主义画家）的传记。我还读了《第九街的女人》（Ninth Street Women），这也是一本很棒的传记。我读了很多传记。我还读了关于卢西安·弗洛伊德（Lucian Freud: 英国著名画家）的多卷本传记系列，因为我不仅对艺术家的生活感兴趣，还对整个社交网络感兴趣。我对记者如何与评论家、评论家如何与批评家、批评家又如何与艺术家联系在一起很感兴趣，因为他们常常是朋友，还有其他各种关系。所以，很多内容都来源于我自己在派对上像个“八卦苍蝇”一样飞来飞去，但也来自于我对艺术传记的深入研究，读到了很多派对故事。很多精彩的派对。

MJ Franklin: It sounds like fun research, too. Like you mentioned Sex in the City. Now you're getting to read about parties that happened in the past, real parties. You watching fictional parties.

MJ·富兰克林：听起来研究过程也很有趣。就像你提到《欲望都市》。现在你可以读到过去发生的真实派对，你也可以看虚构的派对。

Brandon Taylor: Yes. And on the mess, the mess of their personal lives and how it like spilled over into the public. It was so delicious. It was insane but really fun.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。还有他们个人生活的混乱，以及这些混乱如何蔓延到公众视野中。那真是太精彩了。简直是疯了，但非常有趣。

构筑广阔的社会政治图景

MJ Franklin: You just mentioned something that I found really interesting I wanted to follow up on, which is you said the word social world, and that is something that I think comes through the start of this book immediately. And I want to read I guess from the first chapter. Is it always weird to hear someone read back to you?

MJ·富兰克林：你刚才提到了一个我非常感兴趣的点，我想进一步探讨，就是你说的“社会世界”这个词，我认为它在书的开头就立刻体现出来了。我想读一下第一章的内容。听到别人读自己的作品，是不是总觉得有点奇怪？

Brandon Taylor: I'm looking forward to it actually.

布兰登·泰勒：实际上，我很期待。

MJ Franklin: You write that summer they threw bombs and made signs for peace. They went into the streets and the parks and the squares the same as they had done two years before and three years before that and six years before that and three years before that, which of course meant that they had never really left the streets and the parks and the squares in the first place. There was a president in Washington and nine Supreme Court justices. There was a war in Europe. There was not yet a war in America because America fought its wars elsewhere. And it goes on and you immediately start by creating this social political scene. You mentioned wanting to write about painting and seeing, but then this is how we start.

MJ·富兰克林：你写道，那个夏天，他们投掷炸弹，制作和平标语。他们走上街头、公园和广场，就像两年前、三年前、六年前以及再三年前那样，当然，这意味着他们从未真正离开过街头、公园和广场。华盛顿有一位总统和九位最高法院大法官。欧洲正在发生战争。美国还没有战争，因为美国在别处打仗。接着，你立即通过创造这样一个社会政治场景来开篇。你提到想写绘画和观看，但我们却是这样开篇的。

Brandon Taylor: I really struggled, not struggled, maybe that's not the right word, but the book had a different opening and it started much more in scene and it started with Wyth complaining about this bad art show he'd been to. And I was just like, I need more scope. I need more scale because if this is going to be a book about a painter struggling to make art, I have to dig deep down into the roots of that struggle. And it's not just his personal stuff. It's the fact that it's the unique collision of his personal experiences with the social and historical climate that determines what it is to make art at a particular time. And I can't smuggle that in if I'm starting with him just in scene. And I wanted it to also reflect what it is to try to take stock of your time and your era. And how can I do that if the book isn't also willing to admit those things into itself? So I went back and I rewrote the opening with this grander, almost a Dickensian sweep (狄更斯式的广阔视角: 指作品中对社会现实、人物群像和时代背景进行宏大而全面的描绘), because that is what Wyth is trying to capture. He's trying to capture the moment. And so he's going to be looking at the moment. And if the book is a record of all that he sees and feels and experiences and what he thinks of it, then I've got to show the reader that as well. If you want to show someone swimming, you have to create the water.

布兰登·泰勒：我真的挣扎了，也许“挣扎”不是恰当的词，但这本书的开头原本不同，它更直接地进入场景，从怀特抱怨他参加的一个糟糕艺术展开始。我当时觉得，我需要更大的范围，更大的规模。因为如果这是一本关于一个画家努力创作艺术的书，我必须深入挖掘这种挣扎的根源。这不仅仅是他个人的事情。而是他个人经历与社会历史气候的独特碰撞，这决定了在特定时期创作艺术的本质。如果我只是从他直接进入场景开始，就无法巧妙地融入这些。我还希望它能反映出尝试审视自己的时代和纪元意味着什么。如果这本书本身都不愿接纳这些东西，我又如何能做到呢？所以我回去重写了开头，用这种更宏大、几乎是狄更斯式的广阔视角（Dickensian sweep: 指作品中对社会现实、人物群像和时代背景进行宏大而全面的描绘），因为这正是怀特试图捕捉的。他试图捕捉这个时代。所以他会审视这个时代。如果这本书记录了他所看到、感受到、经历的一切以及他对这一切的看法，那么我也必须向读者展示这些。如果你想展示一个人游泳，你必须创造出水。

MJ Franklin: Yes. And precisely. That's so good. You mentioned sweep and you do get that sense of, yeah, here is the scene overall and almost I feel like I'm not in film at all, but I feel like you could see the camera zoom down. Here's the scene and it zooms into Wyth. And for the purposes of this conversation, I would like to also zoom into Wyth. Can you tell us a little bit more about this character? Who is he? Tell us more about him.

MJ·富兰克林：是的。正是如此。说得太好了。你提到了“广阔视角”，确实给人那种感觉，就像——嗯，这是整体的场景，我几乎感觉自己身处电影中，能看到镜头向下推近。这是场景，然后镜头推向怀特。为了这次对话的目的，我也想把焦点推向怀特。你能多告诉我们一些关于这个角色的事情吗？他是谁？请多介绍一下他。

怀特：在审美与政治之间挣扎

Brandon Taylor: Yeah, Wyth is Black, biracial, but for his purposes, he is Black. And he grew up in Virginia and he's always wanted to be an artist, but he's always also felt estranged from basically everyone around him. And he goes to art school at a really pivotal time in American history. He goes to art school around the murder of Tamir Rice (塔米尔·赖斯: 2014年在美国俄亥俄州克利夫兰市被警察枪杀的12岁黑人男孩). And so that is the formative social backdrop of his aesthetic education (美学教育: 旨在培养人们对美的感受、理解和创造能力的教育). And almost from the very beginning, he feels this clash between his aesthetics and the political valences (政治价值取向: 某种观念、行为或事物所带有的政治含义或倾向) that are being projected onto his work by his peers, white and Black. And so he's never felt quite sure about what to do, how to resolve this tension between the aesthetic and the political. Many such cases. So many such cases. And so now he's molted into adulthood. He's out of grad school. He's firmly living in the world. And he is in search of meaning, but he isn't sure that meaning exists in the world anymore. And he isn't sure that he wants the things that he wants for the right reasons. And so he's always turning them over and inspecting his ambitions and his motivations in this sometimes endlessly recursive, self-defeating spiral.

布兰登·泰勒：是的，怀特是黑人，混血，但就他自己而言，他认同自己是黑人。他在弗吉尼亚州长大，一直想成为一名艺术家，但他也一直觉得自己与周围的人格格不入。他进入艺术学院时，正值美国历史上一个非常关键的时期。他上艺术学院的时候，大约是塔米尔·赖斯（Tamir Rice: 2014年在美国俄亥俄州克利夫兰市被警察枪杀的12岁黑人男孩）被谋杀的时候。所以，那段时期是他美学教育（aesthetic education: 旨在培养人们对美的感受、理解和创造能力的教育）形成期的社会背景。几乎从一开始，他就感到自己的审美观念与同伴（无论是白人还是黑人）投射到他作品上的政治价值取向（political valences: 某种观念、行为或事物所带有的政治含义或倾向）之间存在冲突。所以他从未真正确定该怎么做，如何解决审美与政治之间的这种紧张关系。这样的例子有很多，太多了。现在他已经蜕变为成年人，研究生毕业，坚定地生活在这个世界上。他正在寻找意义，但他不确定这个世界是否还存在意义。他也不确定自己想要的东西是否出于正确的理由。所以他总是在反复思考，审视自己的抱负和动机，陷入这种有时是无休止的、自我挫败的螺旋中。

MJ Franklin: I found Wyth to be so smart and searching and hurt and messy and determined. He felt so full as a character.

MJ·富兰克林：我发现怀特是如此聪明、探索、受伤、混乱而又坚定。他作为一个角色感觉非常饱满。

小说的核心：意义的追寻

MJ Franklin: You mentioned at the start that you wanted to write about painting and seeing and priests. And yet you just described Wyth, you mentioned all of these very deep existential ideas. When I think about what the book is about at its simplest level, to me it is about two people with a vocation (天职: 指一个人认为自己命中注定要从事的职业或使命) trying to figure out what it means to have a vocation in a world that seems so evacuated of meaning and structure. And can you pursue a vocation in a world like the one we have now? Is it possible to sell out in a world that is already bought and sold by the sort of various powers that be? And I think, yeah, Wyth as a painter is at a crisis of faith in what it is that he's doing because he feels like he's come to the end of one form of value in his painting. You know, he loves to paint these various tableaux (画面/场景: 指一幅画、一个雕塑或一个舞台场景，通常是精心安排的). And he at the start of the book, we find him losing faith in that as an artistic practice. And he's like, "Well, what else is there?" And he's, "Should I try to be political?" And he's, "What does it mean to be political in your art?" And I feel like I've been told my whole life that I shouldn't be political in my art, that my art should just be about beauty and truth and expressing all this other stuff. And he just doesn't know what to make of any of it, right? And so the book is charting his, in some sense, the end of his artistic naivety (艺术上的天真: 指艺术家在创作初期对艺术本质或社会语境缺乏深入理解的状态) and his development into a mature artistic consciousness (成熟的艺术意识: 指艺术家对自身创作、艺术目的、社会责任等有深刻理解和清晰认知的状态), which is also just the maturation of a person. Like how we all reach that end of very late adolescence when we finally just have to stand up and be an adult in the world, and that is a singularly harrowing moment that comes for us all.

MJ·富兰克林：你在一开始提到，你想写关于绘画、观看和牧师的故事。然而你刚才描述怀特时，提到了所有这些非常深刻的存在主义（existentialism: 强调个体自由、责任和意义探索的哲学思潮）思想。在我看来，这本书最简单地讲，是关于两个拥有天职（vocation: 指一个人认为自己命中注定要从事的职业或使命）的人，试图在一个似乎意义和结构都已枯竭的世界里，弄清楚拥有天职意味着什么。在像我们现在这样的世界里，你还能追求天职吗？在一个已经被各种权力买断和出卖的世界里，还有可能“出卖”自己吗？我想，是的，怀特作为一名画家，对他正在做的事情产生了信仰危机，因为他觉得自己在绘画中一种价值形式已经走到了尽头。你知道，他喜欢画各种画面/场景（tableaux: 指一幅画、一个雕塑或一个舞台场景，通常是精心安排的）。在书的开头，我们发现他作为一种艺术实践，对这种方式失去了信心。他会想：“好吧，还有什么呢？”他会问：“我应该尝试政治化吗？”他会问：“在你的艺术中政治化意味着什么？”我感觉我一生都被告知，我的艺术不应该政治化，我的艺术应该只关乎美和真实，表达所有其他东西。但他就是不知道该如何对待这一切，对吧？所以这本书在某种意义上，描绘了他艺术上的天真（artistic naivety: 指艺术家在创作初期对艺术本质或社会语境缺乏深入理解的状态）的终结，以及他发展出一种成熟的艺术意识（mature artistic consciousness: 指艺术家对自身创作、艺术目的、社会责任等有深刻理解和清晰认知的状态），这同时也是一个人的成熟。就像我们所有人都会经历青春期后期，最终不得不站起来，成为这个世界上的成年人，那是一个对我们所有人来说都格外痛苦的时刻。

从“抽离”到“具象化”的写作过程

MJ Franklin: How do you put that in a novel? This is so conceptual and I said the word existential before, I say it again, existential, and yet this is a novel. We have a story and we have this character and we have their own journey. Can you tell me a little bit about your process of having that conversation in this form?

MJ·富兰克林：你如何将这些融入小说中？这太概念化了，我之前说过“存在主义”这个词，现在再重复一遍，存在主义，然而这是一部小说。我们有一个故事，有一个角色，有他们自己的旅程。你能告诉我，你如何以这种形式进行这种对话的创作过程吗？

Brandon Taylor: Yeah. Well, so my process used to look very different. It used to just look like I would just write scenes and then try to extrapolate from that some deeper meaning or whatever. But in between writing my last novel, The Late Americans, and writing this book, I read a great deal of political, social, and literary theory, especially this one critic, György Lukács (乔治·卢卡奇: 匈牙利哲学家、文学理论家和马克思主义思想家). And Lucács, his whole program of realism (现实主义纲领: 指卢卡奇提出的文学艺术创作理论，强调通过典型人物和场景反映社会现实的本质) is that it's all about distilling things down to their most emblematic moments (标志性时刻: 指那些最能代表或象征某种状态、思想或冲突的关键瞬间). And so taking the existential and then trying to figure out what is the moment in this character's life that most clearly and keenly and most urgently expresses all of their problems, because that is the place where in expressing that character's particular urgencies, you're also expressing the particular urgencies of their time. And so for this book, it was okay, he's in crisis, whatever that means. I don't want to write a woo-woo mushy book. What are the moments and situations that most keenly express that crisis and then leaning into full-on dramatizing (戏剧化: 指将事件或情境以更生动、更富有冲突和情感张力的方式呈现出来) those moments? He's got to be looking at his bad paintings and being, "This is not enough." And then he's got to go into the world and see some art he hates and be like, "That's not it either." And then he's got to encounter someone who's going to press him on all of his ideals in all these different ways. So when he's in the studio, the people pressing him are his friends, his peers, his studio mates. Well, he's not always in the studio, right? He's got this other job as an art restorer (艺术修复师: 专门修复和保护艺术品的人), and so those people will press him from one angle. And then he meets this guy who he maybe feels something really intense for, and that's going to be a different set of questions. I guess like I was trying to just demonstrate how the social process works its way out through our relationships because ultimately to me a novel is about relationships.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。我的创作过程过去非常不同。以前我只是写场景，然后试图从中推断出一些更深层的意义或别的什么。但在写完我的上一部小说《迟来的美国人》和写这本书之间，我阅读了大量的政治、社会和文学理论，特别是这位评论家，乔治·卢卡奇（György Lukács: 匈牙利哲学家、文学理论家和马克思主义思想家）。卢卡奇的整个现实主义纲领（program of realism: 指卢卡奇提出的文学艺术创作理论，强调通过典型人物和场景反映社会现实的本质）就是关于将事物提炼到它们最标志性时刻（emblematic moments: 指那些最能代表或象征某种状态、思想或冲突的关键瞬间）。所以，我抓住存在主义，然后试图找出这个角色生命中哪个时刻最清晰、最敏锐、最迫切地表达了他们所有的问题，因为正是在表达这个角色特定紧迫性的过程中，你也在表达他们时代特定的紧迫性。所以对于这本书来说，就是，好吧，他处于危机之中，无论那意味着什么。我不想写一本空泛模糊的书。哪些时刻和情境最敏锐地表达了这种危机，然后我全身心地投入去戏剧化（dramatizing: 指将事件或情境以更生动、更富有冲突和情感张力的方式呈现出来）这些时刻？他必须看着他那些糟糕的画作，然后说：“这还不够。”然后他必须走进世界，看到一些他讨厌的艺术，然后说：“那也不是。”然后他必须遇到一个人，这个人会以各种不同的方式挑战他的所有理想。所以当他在工作室时，挑战他的人是他的朋友、他的同伴、他的工作室伙伴。但他并不总是在工作室里，对吧？他还有另一份工作，是艺术修复师（art restorer: 专门修复和保护艺术品的人），所以这些人会从另一个角度给他压力。然后他遇到了一个他可能对他有强烈感觉的人，那又会是另一系列的问题。我想我只是想展示社会过程如何通过我们的人际关系展现出来，因为对我来说，小说最终是关于人际关系的。

凯丁与浪漫喜剧的乐观主义

MJ Franklin: And you just mentioned he has this relationship with someone else. He meets this guy and I want to pivot to talk about him.

MJ·富兰克林：你刚才提到他与另一个人有关系。他遇到了这个人，我想转而谈谈他。

Brandon Taylor: I've had this long-standing fascination with Catholicism (天主教: 基督教最大宗派). I'm obsessed with Catholicism. And I read a lot of European history. And so you cannot read about European history and not read about Catholicism. And I was, I'm just going to go for it. I'm going to write about a Jesuit (耶稣会士: 天主教会的一个主要修会，以其在教育和传教方面的贡献而闻名). I'm going to go for it. Who's going to stop me? I'm going to write about a Jesuit and I'm going to put him in this novel. And so the guy that, you know, at the same time that Wyth is having a crisis of faith in a more secular way, there's this guy who's trained his entire life to be a priest who's also having a crisis of faith. And they meet and they intersect in the city at this very particular moment in time and they pressurize each other in these really interesting ways. But writing Kading was just an excuse to, I don't know, write my own version of a Nora Ephron movie (诺拉·艾芙隆电影: 指美国著名导演诺拉·艾芙隆执导或编剧的浪漫喜剧电影，以其机智幽默的对白和对爱情的细腻描绘著称). Maybe I love romance novels (浪漫小说: 以爱情故事为核心的小说类型) and I love romantic comedies (浪漫喜剧: 以轻松幽默的方式讲述爱情故事的电影或文学作品). And I'd always wanted to write one. And I thought this is going to be my chance to write my favorite genre of story where people walk and talk themselves into love, where they talk about all the sort of heady questions while giving each other a little bit of a hard time and come to know each other better through their riffing and their banter. And in knowing each other better, aren't totally turned off by what they see. And I think the romantic comedy is the ultimate optimistic art form because it posits that two people who come to know each other won't be turned off or repulsed and will in fact want greater intimacy. And I think that is the most optimistic statement about the human condition that we have. That's wild. And it's the opposite I think of all my other books. And so when writing this, I was, I'm going to get to write two people walking around New York City and talking and falling in love. What is not to like? And so whenever I was deep in an edit or deep in a revision struggling, I was this is your Nora Ephron moment. Find the bliss. Find the joy in it.

布兰登·泰勒：我一直对天主教（Catholicism: 基督教最大宗派）有一种长期的迷恋。我痴迷于天主教。我读了很多欧洲历史，所以你不可能读欧洲历史而不读天主教。我当时想，我就要放手一搏了。我要写一个耶稣会士（Jesuit: 天主教会的一个主要修会，以其在教育和传教方面的贡献而闻名）。我就要放手一搏了。谁能阻止我？我要写一个耶稣会士，然后把他放进这部小说里。所以，你知道，在怀特以更世俗的方式经历信仰危机时，也有一个毕生都在接受牧师训练的人正在经历信仰危机。他们相遇，在城市的这个特定时刻交叉，以非常有趣的方式互相施加压力。但写凯丁只是一个借口，我不知道，是为了写我自己的诺拉·艾芙隆电影（Nora Ephron movie: 指美国著名导演诺拉·艾芙隆执导或编剧的浪漫喜剧电影，以其机智幽默的对白和对爱情的细腻描绘著称）版本。也许我喜欢浪漫小说（romance novels: 以爱情故事为核心的小说类型），我喜欢浪漫喜剧（romantic comedies: 以轻松幽默的方式讲述爱情故事的电影或文学作品）。我一直想写一部。我想这将是我写我最喜欢的故事类型的机会，那种人们边走边聊，然后坠入爱河的故事，他们谈论各种令人兴奋的问题，同时又互相开玩笑，通过他们的即兴发挥和玩笑更好地了解彼此。而在更好地了解彼此之后，他们并不会完全被对方所见的一切所排斥。我认为浪漫喜剧是最终极的乐观艺术形式，因为它假设两个互相了解的人不会感到厌恶或排斥，实际上会渴望更深的亲密。我认为这是我们对人类状况最乐观的陈述。这很疯狂。而且我认为它与我所有其他书都截然相反。所以当写这本书时，我想，我要写两个人漫步纽约，聊天，然后坠入爱河。有什么不喜欢的呢？所以每当我深入编辑或修改，感到挣扎时，我都会想，这是你的诺拉·艾芙隆时刻。找到那种幸福。找到其中的乐趣。

MJ Franklin: I kind of love this because I feel like the Kading and Wyth relationship just did feel so fun. You mentioned they're walking around and talking, but they're also having these deep philosophical conversations over so many cigarettes. And then they're making out, and then they're talking about religion and art, and then they're smoking again, and they're making out again. And then they go away and then they're thinking about each other and then they come back. And what I loved about that relationship, in addition to it just being very fun to read, is that it added this other texture to this book where this book is so cerebral and they have such a physical chemistry in addition to that cerebral and spiritual bond.

MJ·富兰克林：我有点喜欢这个，因为我觉得凯丁和怀特的关系确实很有趣。你提到他们边走边聊，但他们也在抽着很多烟的时候进行着深刻的哲学对话。然后他们亲热，然后他们谈论宗教和艺术，然后他们又抽烟，又亲热。然后他们离开，然后他们想念彼此，然后他们又回来。除了读起来很有趣之外，我喜欢这种关系的地方在于，它为这本书增添了另一种质感，这本书如此理性，而他们除了这种理性和精神上的联系之外，还有如此强烈的身体化学反应。

Brandon Taylor: Yeah. I'm so glad that you feel that way because certainly in my own life, some of the most intense relationships that I've had, romantic or platonic (柏拉图式的: 指纯精神上的，没有肉体关系的), have come about because I've had one of those all-night first conversations with someone where you're talking about everything under the sun and you're turning over all the rocks and you're like, "Oh my gosh, that's so funny. You're so funny. I love this. I can't get enough of this. I want to talk to you again and again and again." And so to me, I guess that's one of the things I wanted to write into the book was just this sense of falling for someone because of their ideas, because of what they have to say, but at the same time, it is physical, but that the two often go together. They often feed each other. And that an initial physical spark is sometimes deepened when you discover, "Oh, this person knows so much about French lit (法国文学: 指法国语言和文化的文学作品)." Or like, "This person knows so much about this random corner of the world." And I love that. Yeah.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。我很高兴你有这种感觉，因为在我的生活中，我经历过一些最强烈的人际关系，无论是浪漫的还是柏拉图式的（platonic: 指纯精神上的，没有肉体关系的），都是因为我曾与某人进行过那种彻夜长谈的第一次对话，你谈论着世间万物，探索着所有可能性，然后你会说：“天哪，太有趣了。你真有趣。我喜欢这个。我听不够。我想一次又一次地和你交谈。”所以对我来说，我想我想要写入书中的一件事就是这种爱上一个人是因为他们的想法，因为他们想说的话，但同时，它也是身体上的，而且这两者常常是相辅相成的。它们常常互相滋养。而最初的身体火花有时会因为你发现，“哦，这个人对法国文学（French lit: 指法国语言和文化的文学作品）了解真多”，或者“这个人对这个世界某个不为人知的角落了解真多”而加深。我喜欢那样。是的。

MJ Franklin: They know so much about French lit and that is so attractive.

MJ·富兰克林：他们对法国文学了解这么多，那真是太有魅力了。

Brandon Taylor: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Or the wrist. Oh, your wrist is so... Oh, like it's... Yeah.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。哦天哪。或者手腕。哦，你的手腕是如此……哦，就像……是的。

平衡轻重主题：生活的“整体性”

MJ Franklin: What were you thinking about as you were balancing those two approaches and those two tones in the novel? This I guess you mentioned you wanted to write a light book, but then Wyth is really grappling with pain and a lot of heavy stuff, too.

MJ·富兰克林：在小说中平衡这两种方法和两种基调时，你都在想些什么？你提到你想写一本轻松的书，但怀特也在与痛苦和许多沉重的东西搏斗。

Brandon Taylor: And I think I was just in pursuit of what Lucács (卢卡奇: 匈牙利哲学家、文学理论家和马克思主义思想家) borrowing from Hegel (黑格尔: 德国著名哲学家) calls the totality (整体性: 在黑格尔和卢卡奇的哲学中，指对事物全面、完整、内在联系的理解). And I wanted to symbolize a totality of a life, which is to say that I felt that in order to tell the truth with the book, it had to have joking around with his friend Bernard (伯纳德: 怀特的朋友) and them riffing on Jane Eyre and the trope of the tragic Mulatto (悲剧混血儿: 一种文学原型，指拥有混血血统的角色因其身份而遭受悲剧命运). At the same time, it had to have these deep dives on Sargent (萨金特: 约翰·辛格·萨金特，美国著名肖像画家). And it had to have this methodical researching process. He goes in search of a lost artist as well. And it had to have that. And it had to have the melancholy over watching his mother's burgeoning mommy blogger fame. The details of her story are very amusing and painful. Painful, but I will say that I did delight in getting to think of this woman who's... Anyway, it also had to have this love story at the center of it, right? And that it had to have all of that. And I think in some ways the book was me assembling various things that I found a great deal in pleasure in contemplating like French cinema and painting and light changing on a wall and methodical processes of art restoration. But all of my delight in it that doesn't mean anything if it doesn't cohere into life, right? And so the hardest part was just looking for all of the places where the seams could come together in a way that felt true and authentic and letting the book meander and find its own shape because otherwise it's going to feel quite forced if I'm gluing this disquisition on Sargent on top of a long thing about lithography (平版印刷术: 一种印刷技术，基于油水不相容原理).

布兰登·泰勒：我想我只是在追求卢卡奇借用黑格尔（Hegel: 德国著名哲学家）理论所称的整体性（totality: 在黑格尔和卢卡奇的哲学中，指对事物全面、完整、内在联系的理解）。我想象征一种生命的整体性，也就是说，我觉得为了通过这本书讲述真相，它必须包含与朋友伯纳德（Bernard: 怀特的朋友）之间的玩笑，以及他们对《简·爱》和悲剧混血儿（tragic Mulatto: 一种文学原型，指拥有混血血统的角色因其身份而遭受悲剧命运）这一文学母题的即兴发挥。同时，它也必须深入探讨萨金特（Sargent: 约翰·辛格·萨金特，美国著名肖像画家）。它还必须包含这种有条不紊的研究过程。他也在寻找一位失落的艺术家。它必须包含这些。它还必须包含看着他母亲日益增长的“妈妈博主”名气而产生的忧郁。她故事的细节非常有趣又痛苦。痛苦，但我得说，我很享受构思这个女人的过程……总之，它也必须以这个爱情故事为核心，对吧？它必须包含所有这些。我想在某些方面，这本书是我将我非常乐于思考的各种事物组合起来的过程，比如法国电影、绘画、墙上光影的变化以及艺术修复的有条不紊的过程。但如果我所有的乐趣不能融入生活，那它就没有意义，对吧？所以最困难的部分就是寻找所有能让各个部分以真实、可信的方式结合起来的地方，让这本书自由发展，找到它自己的形态，否则，如果我把关于萨金特的论述硬生生粘到关于平版印刷术（lithography: 一种印刷技术，基于油水不相容原理）的长篇大论之上，那就会显得非常生硬。

[Music]

[音乐]

尊重读者：对小说形式的信念

MJ Franklin: And we're back. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review, and I'm talking to the author Brandon Taylor about his new book, Minor Black Figures. In this book, you are reading this story and you're just swept up in Wyth's life and its challenges and the development of this relationship. And then you do get long passages about classical music or meditations on art. And what I really appreciated is that it felt like this was a book that really respected the reader, that didn't hold the reader's hands as it introduced them to a variety of interesting, thoughtful topics and interesting meditations on art. And I feel that something about that just felt very refreshing just to feel that respect radiating through the pages. And yet I feel like that also in a way is a type of bravery of saying, will the reader follow me down this path?

MJ·富兰克林：我们回来了。我是MJ·富兰克林，纽约时报书评版的一名编辑，我正在与作家布兰登·泰勒谈论他的新书《黑色次要人物》。在这本书中，你阅读这个故事，你会完全沉浸在怀特的生活、他的挑战以及这段关系的发展中。然后你确实会读到关于古典音乐或艺术沉思的长篇段落。我真正欣赏的是，这本书给人的感觉是它非常尊重读者，在向读者介绍各种有趣、深刻的话题和对艺术的有趣沉思时，并没有“手把手”地引导读者。我感觉，从中散发出的那种尊重让人耳目一新。然而，我觉得这在某种程度上也是一种勇气，即在问：读者会跟着我走这条路吗？

Brandon Taylor: I agree that it is a faith in the reader and it is a faith in the novel as a form. I think we're in a moment where everyone has an opinion about the contemporary novel (当代小说: 指在现代社会背景下创作的小说) and what ails it and what plagues it and we're always complaining about it being made ever sleeker and ever more efficient and ever more cinematic. But at the same time, the novel is dead. Fiction is over. If it's dead, why are we still complaining about it? Everyone has a thought about, "Well, the contemporary novel can't do anymore." Okay, maybe. But when you read Dickens (查尔斯·狄更斯: 英国著名小说家), when you read Zola (埃米尔·左拉: 法国著名小说家), when you read Flaubert (古斯塔夫·福楼拜: 法国著名小说家), when you read George Eliot (乔治·艾略特: 英国著名女作家), when you read Jane Austen (简·奥斯汀: 英国著名女小说家), don't you want to try that stuff? Like when you look at the 19th-century novel, it's so much more varied and so much more alive and so much stranger than I think people remember. And I was reading a lot of Zola right around the time that I was getting ready to write this. And I thought, I'm just going to remind myself and readers of all that a novel can be and what it can do. And there were moments where my agent (文学经纪人: 代表作家与出版商洽谈合同和版权的人), like with the opening, my agent was like, "Maybe we make it more efficient. Maybe we get in scene sooner." The line, I think I've written about this elsewhere, but the line I told her was, "Well, it is a novel. The reader should have to read it." And reminding readers that, "Oh, yeah, a book can contain all these really wonderful trap doors that drop you down inside." And but I do think having faith in the reader is one thing, but also respecting the reader and respecting their attention so that even if you're getting a disquisition about Sargent, you're learning something about Wyth and how he sees the world and that it will influence how he interacts with the world going forward. And so I have great faith in the reader that they're going to follow me. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I hope they will come with me. I'm not going to hold you for too long. And it's going to be worth it. And I think it was about making every discursion feel worth it.

布兰登·泰勒：我同意这既是对读者的信任，也是对小说这种形式的信任。我认为我们正处在一个每个人都对当代小说（contemporary novel: 指在现代社会背景下创作的小说）及其弊病有着自己看法的时代，我们总是在抱怨它变得越来越精简、越来越高效、越来越电影化。但与此同时，小说已死，虚构作品已终结。如果它死了，我们为什么还在抱怨呢？每个人都认为：“嗯，当代小说已经不能再做更多了。”好吧，也许吧。但当你读狄更斯（Dickens: 查尔斯·狄更斯，英国著名小说家），当你读左拉（Zola: 埃米尔·左拉，法国著名小说家），当你读福楼拜（Flaubert: 古斯塔夫·福楼拜，法国著名小说家），当你读乔治·艾略特（George Eliot: 英国著名女作家），当你读简·奥斯汀（Jane Austen: 英国著名女小说家），你难道不想尝试那些东西吗？比如，当你审视19世纪的小说时，你会发现它比人们记忆中的要多样、生动和奇特得多。我在准备写这本书的时候，读了很多左拉的作品。我想，我只是想提醒自己和读者，小说能是什么样，能做什么。有时我的经纪人（agent: 文学经纪人，代表作家与出版商洽谈合同和版权的人），就像在开头部分，我的经纪人会说：“也许我们可以让它更高效一些。也许我们可以更快地进入场景。”我告诉她的话，我想我在别处也写过，是：“嗯，它是一部小说。读者应该不得不去读它。”这提醒读者，“哦，是的，一本书可以包含所有这些奇妙的陷阱，让你深入其中。”但我确实认为，对读者有信心是一回事，同时也要尊重读者，尊重他们的注意力，这样即使你正在阅读关于萨金特的论述，你也在了解怀特以及他如何看待世界，以及这将如何影响他未来与世界的互动。所以我对读者有很大的信心，相信他们会跟着我。也许会，也许不会。我希望他们会与我同行。我不会让你等待太久。而且这一切都会是值得的。我认为关键在于让每一次离题都感觉值得。

绘画作为媒介：黑人艺术家的困境

MJ Franklin: We are now in my favorite territory, which is the state of the novel and the defense of the novel. And that leads me to a question that I had, which is so Wyth is a painter. He has a lot of literary thoughts though and a lot of thoughts about music, but Wyth is a painter. However, reading this, it felt like this was also a commentary on the criticism and responses and reception to your books that you've received. Is that fair to say? One of the things that Wyth is really grappling with, for instance, is whether or not people feel like his portrayals of real life feel real. And he wants to figure out how to paint real life. And that phrase comes up a lot. And that is also the title of your first book. So, I feel like there's a way that the book is inviting you to make those comparisons. And I'm wondering why write about this, the philosophy and ethics of art making and art perception, through painting rather than making Wyth a writer.

MJ·富兰克林：我们现在进入了我最喜欢的领域，那就是小说的现状和对小说的辩护。这引出了我的一个问题，那就是怀特是一名画家。尽管他有很多文学思想和音乐方面的想法，但怀特确实是一名画家。然而，读这本书时，我感觉这似乎也是对你的书所受到的批评、回应和反响的一种评论。这样说公平吗？例如，怀特真正纠结的一件事是，人们是否觉得他描绘的真实生活是真实的。他想弄清楚如何描绘真实生活。这个短语经常出现。它也是你第一本书的标题。所以，我觉得这本书在某种程度上邀请你进行这些比较。我想知道，为什么选择通过绘画，而不是让怀特成为一名作家，来探讨艺术创作和艺术感知的哲学与伦理？

Brandon Taylor: Yeah. First of all, it was just I wanted to write about a painter. I'd written some books that were very severe, and I allowed myself a very minimal descriptive budget. What's going to let me execute the most description? I just need to describe stuff because again I've been reading these 19th-century novels which are full of description. I was like, you can't do you in order to smuggle that in, you need a reason. I was like a painter would give me a great pretext for it. But I also think the reason that it's painting and not prose is a similar reason that it's painting instead of photography. I mean there's some photography in the book, but there's something about painting which feels very close to prose literature (散文文学: 指以散文形式创作的文学作品，包括小说、随笔等), which is that it can never give an exact replica of life and so at the same time it's not trying to do that. It's only ever offering a sort of very subjective view of the world. And those resonances feel so dear to me as a thinker and as an artist. And so for that reason, as was my sort of venal desire to write about the materiality of painting, but it also just feels like any Black artist making art today, no matter the medium or the form, is confronted with a set of difficulties and that our work is measured against some sort of external perception of what real Black life is. And so even if you're a fantasist (幻想文学作家: 创作幻想故事或虚构世界的作家), they're reading it for the commentary on Black life, even if you yourself have no commentary to make therein. And that tension feels alive no matter the genre or the form. And so I think part of the reason it's painting is that it was the most expedient because it let me describe stuff and also I still get to pursue these questions which are so active in my own life in a way.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。首先，我就是想写一个画家。我写过一些很严肃的书，而且我给自己的描写预算非常少。什么能让我进行最多的描写呢？我只是需要描写东西，因为我又在读那些充满描写的19世纪小说。我当时想，你不能……为了把这些东西巧妙地融入进去，你需要一个理由。我当时觉得画家会给我一个很好的借口。但我还认为，选择绘画而不是散文的原因，就像选择绘画而不是摄影的原因一样。我是说书里确实有一些摄影内容，但绘画与散文文学（prose literature: 指以散文形式创作的文学作品，包括小说、随笔等）之间有一种非常接近的感觉，那就是它永远无法提供生活的精确复制品，同时它也无意于此。它永远只提供一种非常主观的世界观。作为一名思想家和艺术家，这些共鸣对我来说非常珍贵。因此，出于这个原因，以及我那种写绘画物质性的世俗欲望，但它也感觉就像任何当代黑人艺术家，无论媒介或形式如何，都面临着一系列的困难，我们的作品总是被某种外部对“真实黑人生活”的感知所衡量。所以，即使你是一个幻想文学作家（fantasist: 创作幻想故事或虚构世界的作家），他们也会将其解读为对黑人生活的评论，即使你自己并没有在其中提出任何评论。这种紧张感无论在何种体裁或形式中都活生生地存在。所以我认为选择绘画的一部分原因在于它是最便捷的，因为它让我能够描绘事物，同时我也能够以某种方式继续探讨这些在我自己生活中如此活跃的问题。

艺术中的种族与感知：多视角的对话

MJ Franklin: And can we dig into some of those questions? And specifically, I want to pose the dilemma that and frustration that Wyth has as it appears in the book, which is Wyth wants to paint beautiful lush scenes of people wearing sweaters, fraught relationships, considering things. He is painting stills from movies, and instead of—and he swapped the white figures from those stills with Black figures. That's one thing that he's doing. But one of his frustrations is that he could paint anything, and people will feel differently about it because not of what's in the painting, but who he is as a painter, which is to say a Black painter. And there's a really rich conversation in the book with that. Wyth has a series of ideas, other characters talk to him about it, challenge him on that. Can you talk to me a little bit about just that conversation as it appears in the book about race, about perception? We talked about the ethics of art making, but also about the ethics of perceiving art.

MJ·富兰克林：我们能深入探讨其中一些问题吗？具体来说，我想提出怀特在书中遇到的困境和挫败感，那就是怀特想画穿着毛衣的人、紧张的关系、思考事物的优美而丰富的场景。他画的是电影中的静帧，他把这些静帧中的白人形象换成了黑人形象。这是他正在做的一件事。但他的一个挫败感是，他画任何东西，人们都会有不同的感受，不是因为画作的内容，而是因为他作为画家的身份，也就是说，一个黑人画家。书中对此有非常丰富的讨论。怀特有一系列想法，其他角色也和他讨论，挑战他。你能跟我谈谈书中关于种族、关于感知的这场对话吗？我们谈到了艺术创作的伦理，但也要谈谈艺术感知的伦理。

Brandon Taylor: This is a great example of a thing we were talking about earlier, which is like how do you put it in a novel, right? Because these are ideas that I've wrestled with, that I've grappled with for a long, long time. And yeah, I could put it in a book where he's just sitting moodily thinking about what it means to be a Black artist. Yeah, but nobody, nobody wants to read that.

布兰登·泰勒：这正是我们之前谈论的一个很好的例子，就是你如何把它写进小说里，对吧？因为这些想法我挣扎了很久，纠结了很久。是的，我可以写一本书，让他只是忧郁地坐着思考作为一名黑人艺术家意味着什么。是的，但没人，没人想读那种书。

MJ Franklin: We need to make this readable and interesting.

MJ·富兰克林：我们需要让它既可读又有趣。

Brandon Taylor: Yeah. Well, also that's an idea that lives in isolation from the world. And that might make an interesting philosophical treatise (哲学论著: 专门探讨哲学思想和理论的学术著作), but how does it intersect with this guy's life? Also, how does it arrive out of his lived experience? And so, the best way to do it is just have him argue about it with other people. And so, as you say, he talks about it with a lot of people. And it also felt important to me that to put into conversation because I can have an idea about why people project various things onto my art and I can walk around thinking that that is the correct idea about that. But the minute it's in conversation, it is then in conversation with someone else's ideas and someone else's perceptions and it is therefore challenged by those alternative reads and it forces me to rethink sometimes my own motivations for thinking that. And so it felt important also just to offer a variety of takes on the idea of what it means to be a Black artist and how is Black art evaluated? How is Black art judged? How is it perceived even in the world? Because the way that I feel about it isn't the way that this Black artist feels or that Black artist feels. And so it would have felt false to write a book about this character lamenting the perception of Black art if the text itself didn't admit that this is just one perspective. I can't say this is a book about him yearning for his subjectivity if I don't do a great job of showing these external limitations of that subjectivity because then it's universal. So you've got to put it in a context. The easiest way is just to have them argue about it, which I love. I love an argument that distills what's happening in this book, which is big philosophical lofty conversations. Let's have people argue. Let's talk about art. Let's have a painter. Let's talk about fraught relationships with a high priest. Yes.

布兰登·泰勒：是的。而且，那是一个与世界隔绝的想法。那也许可以写成一篇有趣的哲学论著（philosophical treatise: 专门探讨哲学思想和理论的学术著作），但它如何与这个人的生活交织？它又是如何从他的生活经验中产生的？所以，最好的方法就是让他和其他人争论这个问题。正如你所说，他与很多人讨论过。对我来说，将其置于对话中也很重要，因为我可以对人们为何将各种事物投射到我的艺术上有一个想法，我可以一直认为那是正确的看法。但一旦进入对话，它就与别人的想法和感知进行对话，因此受到那些不同解读的挑战，这迫使我有时重新思考自己那样想的动机。所以，提供关于作为黑人艺术家意味着什么、黑人艺术如何被评价、如何被评判、甚至在世界上如何被感知的各种观点，也显得很重要。因为我对它的感受，与这位黑人艺术家或那位黑人艺术家的感受是不同的。所以，如果文本本身不承认这只是一种观点，那么写一本关于这个角色哀叹黑人艺术被感知的书，就会显得虚假。如果我没有很好地展示这种主观性的外部限制，我就不能说这是一本关于他渴望主观性的书，因为那样它就变得普遍了。所以你必须把它放在一个背景中。最简单的方法就是让他们争论，我喜欢这样。我喜欢这种能提炼出这本书正在发生的事情的争论，那就是宏大的哲学对话。让我们让人们争论吧。让我们谈谈艺术。让我们有一个画家。让我们谈谈与一位高级牧师之间充满挑战的关系。是的。

多重身份对写作的影响

MJ Franklin: Well, I could ask you questions about this novel all day, but I have a few planned out questions I want to make sure to get to. I want to pivot and talk to you about just writing and your career at large. We alluded to it earlier, but you are up to so much. You are an author. You are a professor. You are a critic. And you've written for places including the New Yorker (纽约客: 美国著名杂志), the New York Times Book Review. You mentioned the Sally Rooney review. You are an acquiring editor. You have a very popular Substack (Substack: 一个允许作者直接向订阅者发布内容并收费的平台). You're doing so much. And I feel because of that, you have a very unique vantage point on the literary world and the books industry. And I just wanted to ask about that. And I guess to start, I was wondering, have any of those other jobs impacted your writing or are they just completely separate for you?

MJ·富兰克林：关于这部小说，我可以说一整天的问题，但我还有几个预设的问题想确保问到。我想转而谈谈你的写作和整个职业生涯。我们之前提到过，你做了很多事情。你是一名作家，一名教授，一名评论家。你为包括《纽约客》（New Yorker: 美国著名杂志）在内的刊物撰稿，也为《纽约时报书评》撰稿。你提到了萨莉·鲁尼的书评。你还是一名采购编辑。你有一个非常受欢迎的Substack（Substack: 一个允许作者直接向订阅者发布内容并收费的平台）专栏。你做了这么多。我觉得正因为如此，你对文学界和图书行业有着非常独特的视角。我只是想问问这些。我想首先，我好奇的是，这些其他工作是否影响了你的写作，或者它们对你来说是完全独立的？

Brandon Taylor: Well, I think definitely my criticism that I write because it means that I'm reading a lot and I'm reading a lot of criticism and I'm trying to, before I offer an opinion about a book, I want to be versed in its themes and its ideas and its ideologies and its tradition. So that involves a lot of background reading and that has come in a big way. Most obviously is the case like this piece I wrote for the LRB (伦敦书评: 英国著名文学评论杂志) about Émile Zola's (埃米尔·左拉: 法国著名小说家) Rougon-Macquart, which is his 20-novel cycle. And so I had to read 20 Zola novels. And when you read that much of an author, he does leech into the groundwater. And so reading this book back, there's so much Zola, his fingerprints are all over it. And so that's a really obvious case. Teaching also influences my thinking. The teaching sometimes leads to criticism. I will notice a thing in my students' work and I'll try to figure out why is it like that? And that will lead to criticism. And sometimes the criticism leads to quirks in my own writing. And so it is a wild ecosystem.

布兰登·泰勒：嗯，我想我写的评论肯定有影响，因为它意味着我读了很多书，读了很多评论，而且我努力在对一本书发表意见之前，深入了解它的主题、思想、意识形态和传统。所以这涉及到大量的背景阅读，而且影响很大。最明显的例子就是我为LRB（伦敦书评: 英国著名文学评论杂志）写的那篇关于埃米尔·左拉（Émile Zola: 法国著名小说家）《鲁贡家族》的文章，那是他20部小说组成的系列。所以我不得不读了左拉的20部小说。当你读了这么多同一位作者的作品时，他的风格确实会渗透到你的潜意识中。所以回过头来读这本书，你会发现左拉的痕迹无处不在。这是一个非常明显的例子。教学也影响了我的思考。教学有时会引发评论。我会注意到学生作品中的一些问题，然后我会尝试弄清楚为什么会这样？这就会促使我进行评论。有时评论又会导致我自己的写作中出现一些独特的癖好。所以这是一个狂野的生态系统。

MJ Franklin: One thing that I noticed and really appreciated is I think it was for Bookforum you reviewed Intermezzo. And in the middle of that review you mentioned that in books by European authors, they have friends, the main characters, and there's a social world. And in books by American authors, they do not. And while reading this, Minor Black Figures, I noticed the rich social world. And you mentioned it in this interview. And so that for me, as I was reading, I was thinking about that symbiotic relationship.

MJ·富兰克林：我注意到并非常欣赏的一点是，我想你为《书评》杂志评论了《间奏曲》。在那篇评论的中间，你提到欧洲作者的书中的主要角色有朋友，有一个社会世界。而美国作者的书却没有。当我读这本《黑色次要人物》时，我注意到了其中丰富的社会世界。你在这次采访中也提到了这一点。所以对我来说，在阅读时，我一直在思考那种共生关系。

Brandon Taylor: As I was writing it, I was also thinking about that. As I was, I've now indoctrinated my students into this where I call it loser fiction (失败者小说: 布兰登·泰勒创造的一个术语，指美国小说中主人公孤立、没有朋友、缺乏社会联系的现象), where it's just, you guys notice that all your characters are losers. They don't have friends. They don't have families. They don't know their neighbors. They don't even live in a neighborhood. They just live in a sort of totally secluded three-dimensional space. And now they've started giving their characters friends again. So friends are coming back. Friends are back. 2025.

布兰登·泰勒：在我写作的时候，我也在思考这个问题。我甚至已经把我的学生们“灌输”了这种思想，我称之为失败者小说（loser fiction: 布兰登·泰勒创造的一个术语，指美国小说中主人公孤立、没有朋友、缺乏社会联系的现象），就是说，你们有没有注意到你们所有角色都是失败者。他们没有朋友。他们没有家人。他们不认识邻居。他们甚至不住在社区里。他们只是生活在一个完全封闭的三维空间里。现在他们又开始给他们的角色安排朋友了。所以朋友们又回来了。朋友们回来了。2025年。

MJ Franklin: I know. I mean, but it's wild. It was wild to see because I'd read Intermezzo and I'd read all these other books by Irish and European authors and, oh, this person's afraid of their neighbor finding out this thing about them. When was the last time I read an American novel with a neighbor in it?

MJ·富兰克林：我知道。我的意思是，这很疯狂。看到这一点很疯狂，因为我读过《间奏曲》以及其他爱尔兰和欧洲作者的书，哦，这个人害怕邻居发现他们的一些事情。我上一次读到有邻居的美国小说是什么时候？

Brandon Taylor: Isolated, anxious, losers.

布兰登·泰勒：孤立的、焦虑的、失败者。

MJ Franklin: Loser fiction. Loser fiction is a phrase that will stick with me for a long time.

MJ·富兰克林：失败者小说。失败者小说这个短语会伴随我很久。

文学界的观察与新趋势

MJ Franklin: I guess going off of that, what else are you, now I'm just like picking your brain, but what else are you noticing in books these days? What excites you? What are you seeing?

MJ·富兰克林：我想，接着这个话题，你最近在书里还注意到了什么？我现在只是想听听你的想法，但你最近在书中还注意到了什么？什么让你兴奋？你看到了什么？

Brandon Taylor: I'm working on a perhaps too long article about Rachel Cusk (蕾切尔·卡斯克: 英国著名作家) and her sort of literary descendants and what autofiction (自传体小说: 一种文学体裁，结合了自传和虚构元素) was basically. And it does seem that we're at the end of that mode and that we're entering this rejuvenation of this multi-decade spanning family saga. So that's interesting to I feel like the sort of after a period of experimentation going mainstream in American literature, we're sort of reverting to a more conservative form. And what can be more conservative than the multi-decade, which is a novel form I really love. And so that's the thing I've noticed most. Also, there was a raft of novels that I called wrong protagonist novels (错误主角小说: 布兰登·泰勒创造的一个术语，指小说中一个不太有趣的角色去寻找或调查一个比自己有趣得多的角色的故事), where they...

布兰登·泰勒：我正在写一篇可能有点长的文章，关于蕾切尔·卡斯克（Rachel Cusk: 英国著名作家）和她的文学后继者，以及自传体小说（autofiction: 一种文学体裁，结合了自传和虚构元素）的本质。看来我们正处于这种模式的末期，并且正在进入这种跨越数十年的家族传奇小说的复兴期。这很有趣，我觉得在美国文学中，经过一段时间的实验性作品成为主流之后，我们似乎正在回归一种更保守的形式。还有什么能比这种跨越数十年的小说形式更保守呢？我真的很喜欢这种小说形式。所以这是我注意到最多的。此外，还有一大批我称之为错误主角小说（wrong protagonist novels: 布兰登·泰勒创造的一个术语，指小说中一个不太有趣的角色去寻找或调查一个比自己有趣得多的角色的故事）的小说，它们……

MJ Franklin: What are those?

MJ·富兰克林：那是什么？

Brandon Taylor: It's a novel in which a character who's not very interesting goes in search of a more interesting character who has gone missing, died. They're trying to figure out what happened to this person who is infinitely more interesting than them. And so it's a lot of novels about podcasters, novels about detectives, novels about a woman in search of her missing insert mother, sister, friend, whatever. And I find that genre of novel really interesting. It's almost true crimey, but the book should just be about that more interesting person, but it's not.

布兰登·泰勒：它是一种小说，其中一个不太有趣的角色去寻找一个失踪或死亡的更有趣的角色。他们试图弄清楚这个比他们有趣得多的人身上发生了什么。所以有很多关于播客主的小说，关于侦探的小说，关于一个女人寻找她失踪的母亲、姐妹、朋友等等的小说。我发现那种类型的小说非常有趣。它几乎像真实犯罪故事，但这本书本应该就是关于那个更有趣的人，但它不是。

MJ Franklin: Say the title of the genre again.

MJ·富兰克林：再说说那个类型的名字。

Brandon Taylor: Wrong protagonist novels.

布兰登·泰登：错误主角小说。

MJ Franklin: So we have wrong protagonist novels. We have loser fiction. Talk to me about your taxonomy.

MJ·富兰克林：所以我们有“错误主角小说”，我们有“失败者小说”。跟我谈谈你的分类法。

Brandon Taylor: Those are like the two most obvious kinds that you just see a ton. Weirdly enough, I feel like campus novels (校园小说: 以大学或学院生活为背景的小说) are coming back. Where were you guys when I was writing Real Life? I needed to feel like I was in the midst. I think like neo-Gothic (新哥特式: 一种文学流派，融合了哥特式文学的元素，但背景通常更现代或都市化) is coming back as well. The sort of suburban Gothic (郊区哥特式: 将哥特式文学的阴森、神秘元素植入现代郊区背景的一种风格), where it's often like a woman in a house and there's something odd about it.

布兰登·泰勒：这些是你能看到最多的两种最明显的类型。奇怪的是，我觉得校园小说（campus novels: 以大学或学院生活为背景的小说）正在回归。我写《真实生活》的时候你们在哪里？我当时需要感觉自己身处其中。我想新哥特式（neo-Gothic: 一种文学流派，融合了哥特式文学的元素，但背景通常更现代或都市化）也在回归。那种郊区哥特式（suburban Gothic: 将哥特式文学的阴森、神秘元素植入现代郊区背景的一种风格），通常是一个女人在一所房子里，而房子里有些奇怪的东西。

MJ Franklin: I'm laughing because when put this way, these sound so silly, but I love all of these types of novels.

MJ·富兰克林：我笑了，因为这样说起来，这些听起来好傻，但我喜欢所有这些类型的小说。

Brandon Taylor: Oh, sign me up. A novel about a misanthropic (厌世的: 指对人类或社会抱有厌恶或不信任态度) guy living in an apartment building. He doesn't know any of his neighbors. I'll read 400 pages. I cannot wait for the sequel.

布兰登·泰勒：哦，给我报名。一本关于一个住在公寓楼里，厌世的（misanthropic: 指对人类或社会抱有厌恶或不信任态度）男人。他一个邻居都不认识。我会读400页。我迫不及待想看续集。

新书展望与人生感悟

MJ Franklin: Well, given all of the various types of novels, can we know? Are you working on anything next? And is it a radically different type? Is it one of these types of novels?

MJ·富兰克林：好吧，考虑到所有这些不同类型的小说，我们能知道吗？你接下来在写什么吗？它是一种截然不同的类型吗？它是这些小说类型中的一种吗？

Brandon Taylor: You know what? I signed my first book contract in 2018. It was a two-book deal (两本书的合同: 指出版商与作者签订的，一次性出版两本书的协议). And then in 2020, I signed another two-book deal, which means that for the last seven or eight years, I've always known what the next book would be, or I knew that my next book would have a home. But now I don't. And so I'm finding out what it is like again to write fiction in absence of a structure or a contract or whatever. And so I'm getting to know myself again in a way. But the thing that I feel like I fought against writing a tennis novel for a long time, and over the summer, I feel like I finally just got worn down, and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to give in. I'm going to give in to the muse (缪斯: 古希腊神话中司文学、艺术、科学等的女神，引申为创作灵感). And so I'm tinkering with the beginnings of a tennis novel.

布兰登·泰勒：你知道吗？我是在2018年签下我的第一份图书合同的。那是一份两本书的合同（two-book deal: 指出版商与作者签订的，一次性出版两本书的协议）。然后在2020年，我又签了一份两本书的合同，这意味着在过去的七八年里，我总是知道下一本书会是什么，或者我知道我的下一本书会有归宿。但现在我不知道了。所以，我正在重新体验在没有结构、没有合同等情况下写小说是什么感觉。所以，我正在以一种方式重新认识自己。但我感觉我长期以来一直在抗拒写一本网球小说，而今年夏天，我感觉自己终于被磨得精疲力尽了，我想，你知道吗？我要屈服了。我要向缪斯（muse: 古希腊神话中司文学、艺术、科学等的女神，引申为创作灵感）屈服。所以我正在修修补补一本网球小说的开头。

MJ Franklin: That's so exciting. Both knowing how much tennis you play. You write about tennis quite a lot.

MJ·富兰克林：那太令人兴奋了。你打了很多网球，也写了很多关于网球的东西。

Brandon Taylor: In my brain, Challengers is there's so much tension and possibility in tennis as a sport. Yeah, it's inherently narrative. And it's right now I'm sort of shuttling between two ideas, which I won't give away, but I'm curious which one will win out. My next novel might be a tennis novel or a Southern Gothic (南方哥特式: 一种文学流派，以美国南部为背景，融合了哥特式文学的阴森、神秘和心理扭曲元素), which is another book I've been working on for seven years and just keep putting away.

布兰登·泰勒：在我看来，《挑战者》这部电影展现了网球运动中蕴含的巨大张力和可能性。是的，它天生就带有叙事性。我现在正在两个想法之间徘徊，我不会透露具体内容，但我很好奇哪个会胜出。我的下一部小说可能是一部网球小说，也可能是一部南方哥特式（Southern Gothic: 一种文学流派，以美国南部为背景，融合了哥特式文学的阴森、神秘和心理扭曲元素）小说，那是我已经写了七年但一直搁置的另一本书。

MJ Franklin: And those are so different, those types. Southern Gothic, tennis.

MJ·富兰克林：而这两种类型是如此不同。南方哥特式，网球。

Brandon Taylor: Yeah, I know. It's the mind never rests.

布兰登·泰勒：是啊，我知道。心永不安歇。