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一直觉得文字是灵动而有温度的，有时虽只言片语却会让人产生良久共鸣。于是，对于那些“怀抱着耐心、固执和喜悦将对内心的凝视转化成语言，进而用文字创造出一个个新世界”的作家们很是崇敬和钦佩！
关于写作，国内著名作家格非曾说：“写作是为了反抗遗忘！”，听后很受启发。细细品读了土耳其作家奥尔罕•帕慕克在My Father’s Suitcase（《父亲的手提箱》）一文中对于写作的阐述之后，我对其又有了更深的体悟和理解，也因而更着迷于文字的非凡魅力。
My Father’s Suitcase是帕慕克在2006年诺贝尔文学奖颁奖典礼上发表的长篇演说。演讲中，帕慕克提到，父亲担心因写作而丢失了真实的自我，因而放弃了写作，最后变成了一个普通的市民。但他在繁忙的生活间隙里还是写下了不少东西，并把那些手稿放在一只手提箱里留给了儿子，希望儿子能明白其中深沉的含义……演讲的最后，当帕慕克深情地说道——“我深切地希望此刻他就在我们中间！”时，在场的很多人留下了眼泪——帕慕克的父亲于2002年12月去世了。
限于版面，这里只节选了这篇演说中关于写作的精彩阐述，有心的读者不妨找来全文细读一番。
——Maisie
A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man—or this woman—may use a typewriter, or 1)profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is complete—after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we 2)retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, 3)obstinacy, and joy.
As I sit at my table, for days, months, years, slowly adding words to empty pages, I feel as if I were bringing into being that other person inside me, in the same way that one might build a bridge or a 4)dome, stone by stone. As we hold words in our hands, like stones, sensing the ways in which each is connected to the others, looking at them sometimes from afar, sometimes from very close, 5)caressing them with our fingers and the tips of our pens, weighing them, moving them around, year in and year out, patiently and hopefully, we create new worlds.
The writer’s secret is not inspiration—for it is never clear where that comes from—but stubbornness, endurance. The lovely Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle” seems to me to have been invented with writers in mind. In the old stories, I love the patience of 6)Ferhat, who digs through mountains for his love—and I understand it, too. When I wrote, in my novel My Name Is Red, about the old Persian 7)miniaturists who drew the same horse with the same passion for years and years, memorizing each 8)stroke,until they could re-create that beautiful horse even with their eyes closed, I knew that I was talking about the writing profession, and about my own life. If a writer is to tell his own story—to tell it slowly, and as if it were a story about other people—if he is to feel the power of the story rise up inside him, if he is to sit down at a table and give himself over to this art, this craft, he must first be given some hope. The angel of inspiration (who pays regular visits to some and rarely calls on others) favors the hopeful and the confident, and it is when a writer feels most lonely, when he feels most doubtful about his efforts, his dreams, and the value of his writing, when he thinks that his story is only his story—it is at such moments that the angel chooses to reveal to him the images and dreams that will draw out the world he wishes to build. If I think back on the books to which I have devoted my life, I am most surprised by those moments when I felt as if the sentences and pages that made me ecstatically happy came not from my own imagination but from another power, which had found them and generously presented them to me.
…
I believe literature to be the most valuable tool that humanity has found in its quest to understand itself. Societies, tribes, and peoples grow more intelligent, richer, and more advanced as they pay attention to the troubled words of their authors—and, as we all know, the burning of books and the 9)denigration of writers are both signs that dark and 10)improvident times are upon us. But literature is never just a national concern. The writer who shuts himself up in a room and goes on a journey inside himself will, over the years, discover literature’s eternal rule: he must have the artistry to tell his own stories as if they were other people’s stories, and to tell other people’s stories as if they were his own, for that is what literature is.
…
The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an 11)innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can
12)partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in 13)Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write
because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at
everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an
essay, a 14)page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the 15)foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.
作家，是会耐心地花费数年去发掘内心的第二生命，并探究周遭世界如何塑造自我的那种人。提到写作，首先浮现在我脑海的并不是一部小说、一首诗歌、或者一种文学传统；而是那个将自己关入房内，坐在桌边，独自一人，向内探寻的人。他埋头于自己的身影中，用言语建造出一个新世界。这个男人——或女人，也许使用一台打字机，也许享受着电脑带来的便利，也许只是用笔和纸，像我那样。写作时，他可能会喝茶，喝咖啡，或者抽烟。不时地，他会站起来，透过窗户看着街上玩耍的孩子，或者幸运的话，能看到树林和其他风景，亦可能只看到一堵黑墙。他可能在写诗，写剧本，或者写小说，像我那样。但这些不同只会在那个至关重要的工作完成之后才出现——在他坐在桌前，耐心地探寻内心之后。写作是把对内心的凝视转化成语言，是探究我们离群独处时所走进的世界，是怀抱着耐心、固执和喜悦去完成这一切的。
当我经年累月地坐在桌旁，慢慢用词语填补纸上的空白时，我感到内心的另一个体仿佛渐渐成型，如同以一砖一石建起大桥殿宇那样。如同审视手中的石头，我们掂量着手中的词语，感受其相连互动的方式，对其时而远观时而近看，用手指和笔尖去轻触爱抚它们，权衡它们，移动它们，年复一年，满怀耐心与希望，我们创造着一个个新世界。
作家的秘诀并不是灵感——因为灵感的来源从不清晰——而是执著不舍、坚持到底的精神。土耳其语中有个有趣的表述——“以针掘井”，在我看来，这好像是针对“作家”而言的。古老传说中有费尔哈特这一人物，我欣赏他为爱凿穿大山的那份坚韧耐力，我理解这种举动。在我的小说《我的名字叫红》里，我写过一群波斯的细密画老画家，他们年复一年以同样的激情画着同样的一匹马，牢记着每笔每划，到最后，即使闭着眼他们也能画出同样俊美的马匹。我知道那时我其实是在说写作这一行，在说我自己的人生。当一个作家讲述他自己的故事——慢慢地诉说，宛如在说别人的故事——当他感到故事的力量在其体内浮现，当他决定坐下来并全心投入到这门艺术、这种技艺时，他必须先获赐希望。灵感的天使（常常会定期造访一些人而对某些人却从不赏光）偏爱那些满怀希望和自信的作家。当作家感到极度孤独，当他对自己的努力、梦想、作品的价值疑惑至深时，当他认为自己的作品不过是他一己的故事时——天使会选择此时降临，向作家展现他梦想构建的境界影像。回想起自己倾注心血写成的作品，令我惊奇的是，那些让我心醉愉悦的句子和篇章似乎并非出于自己的想象，而是来自另一种力量——寻获佳作并慷慨赠与我。
……
我相信，文学是人类自我探求中找到的最宝贵的方式。当社会、种族和人民关注作家笔下那些纷扰的文字时，他们会变得更为聪慧、富足和先进；而众所周知，那些焚书坑儒的举动往往是黑暗短视时代的征兆。然而，文学决不仅仅是关乎民族国家的事。作家将自己关在房子里，展开内心之旅，年复一年，终将发现文学的永恒准则：他必须掌握一种艺术——讲述自己的故事如同在讲述他人的故事，讲述他人的故事又如同在讲述自己的经历，因为那才是文学。
……
我们作家最常被问到的，也是最喜欢的问题是：你为什么要写作？我写作是因为我天生需要写作。我写作是因为我无法像别人一样从事普通工作。我写作是因为我想读到像我自己写的书那样的作品。我写作是因为我对所有人都怨怒不满。我写作是因为我喜欢坐在房间里整天写作。我写作是因为我只能通过改变生活而参与生活。我写作是因为我希望其他人，乃至整个世界，了解我们在伊斯坦布尔，在土耳其过去的生活是怎样的，将来又会怎样延续下去。我写作是因为我喜欢纸、笔和墨水的味道。我写作是因为我相信文学，相信小说的艺术，这份信仰胜过我对其他任何东西的信仰。我写作因为这是一种习惯，一种激情。我写作是因为我害怕被遗忘。我写作是因为我喜欢写作所带来的荣耀和关注。我写作是因为我要独处。也许，我写作是因为想弄明白为什么自己对所有人都怨怒不满。我写作是因为我喜欢有读者。我写作是因为每当我开始写一部小说、一篇散文、一个专栏，我都想要完成它。我写作是因为每个人都希望我写作。我写作是因为我的孩子气的信念——我坚信图书馆不灭，书本永存书架上。我写作是因为将生命中的美好与富足全部转化成文字是件令人激动的事情。我写作不为讲述故事，我要编织故事。我写作是因为我要逃离那种预感——在梦中有个我必须要到达的地方，但却永远无法抵达。我写作是因为我一向快乐不起来。为了快乐，我要写作。
关于写作，国内著名作家格非曾说：“写作是为了反抗遗忘！”，听后很受启发。细细品读了土耳其作家奥尔罕•帕慕克在My Father’s Suitcase（《父亲的手提箱》）一文中对于写作的阐述之后，我对其又有了更深的体悟和理解，也因而更着迷于文字的非凡魅力。
My Father’s Suitcase是帕慕克在2006年诺贝尔文学奖颁奖典礼上发表的长篇演说。演讲中，帕慕克提到，父亲担心因写作而丢失了真实的自我，因而放弃了写作，最后变成了一个普通的市民。但他在繁忙的生活间隙里还是写下了不少东西，并把那些手稿放在一只手提箱里留给了儿子，希望儿子能明白其中深沉的含义……演讲的最后，当帕慕克深情地说道——“我深切地希望此刻他就在我们中间！”时，在场的很多人留下了眼泪——帕慕克的父亲于2002年12月去世了。
限于版面，这里只节选了这篇演说中关于写作的精彩阐述，有心的读者不妨找来全文细读一番。
——Maisie
A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man—or this woman—may use a typewriter, or 1)profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is complete—after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we 2)retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, 3)obstinacy, and joy.
As I sit at my table, for days, months, years, slowly adding words to empty pages, I feel as if I were bringing into being that other person inside me, in the same way that one might build a bridge or a 4)dome, stone by stone. As we hold words in our hands, like stones, sensing the ways in which each is connected to the others, looking at them sometimes from afar, sometimes from very close, 5)caressing them with our fingers and the tips of our pens, weighing them, moving them around, year in and year out, patiently and hopefully, we create new worlds.
The writer’s secret is not inspiration—for it is never clear where that comes from—but stubbornness, endurance. The lovely Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle” seems to me to have been invented with writers in mind. In the old stories, I love the patience of 6)Ferhat, who digs through mountains for his love—and I understand it, too. When I wrote, in my novel My Name Is Red, about the old Persian 7)miniaturists who drew the same horse with the same passion for years and years, memorizing each 8)stroke,until they could re-create that beautiful horse even with their eyes closed, I knew that I was talking about the writing profession, and about my own life. If a writer is to tell his own story—to tell it slowly, and as if it were a story about other people—if he is to feel the power of the story rise up inside him, if he is to sit down at a table and give himself over to this art, this craft, he must first be given some hope. The angel of inspiration (who pays regular visits to some and rarely calls on others) favors the hopeful and the confident, and it is when a writer feels most lonely, when he feels most doubtful about his efforts, his dreams, and the value of his writing, when he thinks that his story is only his story—it is at such moments that the angel chooses to reveal to him the images and dreams that will draw out the world he wishes to build. If I think back on the books to which I have devoted my life, I am most surprised by those moments when I felt as if the sentences and pages that made me ecstatically happy came not from my own imagination but from another power, which had found them and generously presented them to me.
…
I believe literature to be the most valuable tool that humanity has found in its quest to understand itself. Societies, tribes, and peoples grow more intelligent, richer, and more advanced as they pay attention to the troubled words of their authors—and, as we all know, the burning of books and the 9)denigration of writers are both signs that dark and 10)improvident times are upon us. But literature is never just a national concern. The writer who shuts himself up in a room and goes on a journey inside himself will, over the years, discover literature’s eternal rule: he must have the artistry to tell his own stories as if they were other people’s stories, and to tell other people’s stories as if they were his own, for that is what literature is.
…
The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an 11)innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can
12)partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in 13)Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write
because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at
everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an
essay, a 14)page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the 15)foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.
作家，是会耐心地花费数年去发掘内心的第二生命，并探究周遭世界如何塑造自我的那种人。提到写作，首先浮现在我脑海的并不是一部小说、一首诗歌、或者一种文学传统；而是那个将自己关入房内，坐在桌边，独自一人，向内探寻的人。他埋头于自己的身影中，用言语建造出一个新世界。这个男人——或女人，也许使用一台打字机，也许享受着电脑带来的便利，也许只是用笔和纸，像我那样。写作时，他可能会喝茶，喝咖啡，或者抽烟。不时地，他会站起来，透过窗户看着街上玩耍的孩子，或者幸运的话，能看到树林和其他风景，亦可能只看到一堵黑墙。他可能在写诗，写剧本，或者写小说，像我那样。但这些不同只会在那个至关重要的工作完成之后才出现——在他坐在桌前，耐心地探寻内心之后。写作是把对内心的凝视转化成语言，是探究我们离群独处时所走进的世界，是怀抱着耐心、固执和喜悦去完成这一切的。
当我经年累月地坐在桌旁，慢慢用词语填补纸上的空白时，我感到内心的另一个体仿佛渐渐成型，如同以一砖一石建起大桥殿宇那样。如同审视手中的石头，我们掂量着手中的词语，感受其相连互动的方式，对其时而远观时而近看，用手指和笔尖去轻触爱抚它们，权衡它们，移动它们，年复一年，满怀耐心与希望，我们创造着一个个新世界。
作家的秘诀并不是灵感——因为灵感的来源从不清晰——而是执著不舍、坚持到底的精神。土耳其语中有个有趣的表述——“以针掘井”，在我看来，这好像是针对“作家”而言的。古老传说中有费尔哈特这一人物，我欣赏他为爱凿穿大山的那份坚韧耐力，我理解这种举动。在我的小说《我的名字叫红》里，我写过一群波斯的细密画老画家，他们年复一年以同样的激情画着同样的一匹马，牢记着每笔每划，到最后，即使闭着眼他们也能画出同样俊美的马匹。我知道那时我其实是在说写作这一行，在说我自己的人生。当一个作家讲述他自己的故事——慢慢地诉说，宛如在说别人的故事——当他感到故事的力量在其体内浮现，当他决定坐下来并全心投入到这门艺术、这种技艺时，他必须先获赐希望。灵感的天使（常常会定期造访一些人而对某些人却从不赏光）偏爱那些满怀希望和自信的作家。当作家感到极度孤独，当他对自己的努力、梦想、作品的价值疑惑至深时，当他认为自己的作品不过是他一己的故事时——天使会选择此时降临，向作家展现他梦想构建的境界影像。回想起自己倾注心血写成的作品，令我惊奇的是，那些让我心醉愉悦的句子和篇章似乎并非出于自己的想象，而是来自另一种力量——寻获佳作并慷慨赠与我。
……
我相信，文学是人类自我探求中找到的最宝贵的方式。当社会、种族和人民关注作家笔下那些纷扰的文字时，他们会变得更为聪慧、富足和先进；而众所周知，那些焚书坑儒的举动往往是黑暗短视时代的征兆。然而，文学决不仅仅是关乎民族国家的事。作家将自己关在房子里，展开内心之旅，年复一年，终将发现文学的永恒准则：他必须掌握一种艺术——讲述自己的故事如同在讲述他人的故事，讲述他人的故事又如同在讲述自己的经历，因为那才是文学。
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我们作家最常被问到的，也是最喜欢的问题是：你为什么要写作？我写作是因为我天生需要写作。我写作是因为我无法像别人一样从事普通工作。我写作是因为我想读到像我自己写的书那样的作品。我写作是因为我对所有人都怨怒不满。我写作是因为我喜欢坐在房间里整天写作。我写作是因为我只能通过改变生活而参与生活。我写作是因为我希望其他人，乃至整个世界，了解我们在伊斯坦布尔，在土耳其过去的生活是怎样的，将来又会怎样延续下去。我写作是因为我喜欢纸、笔和墨水的味道。我写作是因为我相信文学，相信小说的艺术，这份信仰胜过我对其他任何东西的信仰。我写作因为这是一种习惯，一种激情。我写作是因为我害怕被遗忘。我写作是因为我喜欢写作所带来的荣耀和关注。我写作是因为我要独处。也许，我写作是因为想弄明白为什么自己对所有人都怨怒不满。我写作是因为我喜欢有读者。我写作是因为每当我开始写一部小说、一篇散文、一个专栏，我都想要完成它。我写作是因为每个人都希望我写作。我写作是因为我的孩子气的信念——我坚信图书馆不灭，书本永存书架上。我写作是因为将生命中的美好与富足全部转化成文字是件令人激动的事情。我写作不为讲述故事，我要编织故事。我写作是因为我要逃离那种预感——在梦中有个我必须要到达的地方，但却永远无法抵达。我写作是因为我一向快乐不起来。为了快乐，我要写作。