Name: 【讀書會】《我們的餘生》作者班・馬可維茲，與史蒂芬・柯 л 伯特暢聊新書！ (Late Show Book Club with “The Rest of Our Lives” Author Ben Markovits)
Uploaded: 2026-01-24T17:03:45.000Z
Duration: 11 min 27 s

過去簡單式

Hi, I'm ben markovitz and I wrote a novel called the rest of our lives.

嗨，我是 ben markovitz，我寫了一本小說，叫做 the rest of our lives。

動名詞

your latest, the Rest of Our Lives, was a finalist for this year's Booker Prize.

而你最新的作品，The Rest of Our Lives，是今年 Booker Prize 的決賽作品。

How would you describe it in one sentence?

So it's a novel about what happens to a marriage after the kids leave home.

所以這是一本關於孩子離家後，婚姻會發生什麼事的小說。

How would you compare going to college and becoming an empty nester in terms of transitional moments in life and how much freedom they bring?

你怎麼比較上大學和成為空巢期家長這兩個人生轉折點，以及它們帶來多少自由？

I think there's a tendency when you get older to think that you're not having life experiences and life changes.

我覺得人年紀大了，會有一種傾向，覺得自己沒有什麼人生經歷和人生變化了。

But my daughter, who actually just went to university after I published the book, seemed in the thick of all kinds of experiences.

但我女兒，在我出版這本書後，她就去上大學了，她好像正經歷著各種豐富的體驗。

And I realized I was too, not just vicariously, but by the fact that she was leaving.

我才意識到我也是，不只是透過她，而是因為她要離開了。

So it seemed almost equivalent, the change in life that we were going through.

所以這似乎差不多，我們正在經歷的人生轉變。

Do you think that one is more kind of disruptive in a life?

你覺得哪一種對人生比較有衝擊性？

She also has the potential of becoming a slightly different person.

她也有可能變成一個稍微不同的人。

And at some point you hope that isn't happening to you anymore.

然後在某個時候，你會希望這種事不再發生在你身上。

You'd like to have some kind of consistency, though.

我想在我這個年紀的時候，我也是。

There's a line that meant a lot to me from a Wordsworth poem called the Child that goes, the child is father of the man, and

華滋華斯一首詩《The Child》裡有句對我意義重大的話，

I could wish my days to be bound each to each by natural piety.

我多希望我的日子能以虔敬的心，日復一日緊密相連。

And I think that probably meant too much to me as a kid, I really hated the thought of becoming somebody that my younger self would disapprove of.

我覺得這句話對我小時候來說，意義太重大了，我真的非常討厭變成一個我年輕時的自己會瞧不起的人。

So even when I went to college, I felt this pull towards continuity.

所以即使我去上大學，我也感覺到一股對延續性的渴望。

Early in the book, your main character says that marriage is like, I quote, being a Knicks fan.

在書的開頭，你的主角說婚姻就像，我引用，「當一個 Knicks 的粉絲」。

We are talking right now at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in the heart of New York City.

我們現在正在紐約市中心的 Ed Sullivan Theatre 哈拉。

這棟樓裡有很多 Knicks 的粉絲。

I mean, it's changed a little bit the past two years, but

我的意思是，過去兩年來有點改變了，但是

when I wrote it, the Knicks had not had any success, I think, in about 20 years.

當我寫這本書的時候，我想 Knicks 大概有 20 年沒有什麼成功了。

They're doing a little bit better now, actually

though, as we speak, I think they've lost four straight games, I suppose.

不過，就在我們說話的同時，我想他們連輸了四場了。

So I had in mind a little bit that marriage is alike being a Josh Hart fan in that he's an amazing basketball player.

所以我就想到，婚姻有點像當 Josh Hart 的粉絲，因為他是一位很棒的籃球員。

If you want a loose ball, he's the guy to go to.

如果你想要一個爭搶籃板的機會，他就是你該找的人。

But you also realize at a certain point with NBA players that there are things they can do and there are things they can't do.

但你也會在某個時刻意識到，NBA 球員有些事能做，有些事不能做。

And at some point in a marriage, you get a sense of what those limits are in your partner, and

然後在婚姻中，你也會在某個時候感覺到你伴侶的極限在哪裡，

you learn to accept them, but you also get the sense of what those limits are in you.

你會學著接受，但同時也會感覺到自己的極限在哪裡。

Another chilling line from a Philip Larkin interview.

這是 Philip Larkin 訪談中另一句令人毛骨悚然的話。

But he said, you reach a point in your life when you realize there's a limit to what other people's personalities can offer you, and

他說，你人生會走到一個階段，意識到別人的人格能帶給你多少是有限的，

there's a limit to what your own personality can offer you in itself.

而你自己的人格本身能帶給你多少也是有限的。

And that seems a line that is both amazingly perceptive about what it's like to be an athlete, but

而且這句話聽起來，對於運動員的生活是極具洞察力的，

Looking back at what you wrote, which is a line that stuck with me, if one part of your life is a C minus, you can't really achieve more in the rest of your life, you know, in terms of happiness or, you know.

回顧你寫的，有句話一直讓我印象深刻，就是如果人生的一部分是 C-，你無法在人生的其他部分真正獲得更多，你知道的，在快樂方面，或你知道的。

I think that's at the end of the first section of the book, the first two pages.

我想這是在書的第一部分，最開始的兩頁。

And I wrote those long before I wrote the rest of the novel.

我寫這些的時候，比寫小說的其餘部分還要早。

I just sat down one day and wrote that opening.

我有一天就坐下來寫了這個開頭。

And then I came back to it to see what I had, and I ended with that line.

然後我回來看看我寫了什麼，最後就用了那句話。

And what I liked about it is that on the one hand, it struck me as kind of reasonable.

我喜歡它的地方是，一方面，我覺得它有點道理。

If you're in a bad marriage, it's hard to be that happy with the rest of your life.

如果你婚姻不幸福，人生其他方面也很難過得快樂。

But it also struck me as a crazy way of measuring your existence.

但我也覺得這是一種衡量你人生的瘋狂方式。

And part of what I was pointing at is that Tom is a law professor.

我想表達的一部分是，Tom 是一位法律教授。

He has grown up, like lots of us do, measuring his existence by the grades that you get for how you're doing.

他就像我們很多人一樣，從小就習慣用分數來衡量自己過得怎麼樣。

That really seeps deep into your sense of the world and can poison your ability to appreciate things as they are.

這真的會深深滲透到你對世界的看法，並毒害你欣賞事物本來樣貌的能力。

And actually, there's a very small line towards the end of the novel.

事實上，小說的結尾有一小段話。

I don't want to give anything away where he says about something he has to do.

我不想透露太多，他說他必須做某件事。

And that seems like a healthier way of looking at your life and your accomplishments.

這似乎是看待你人生和成就的更健康的方式。

Would you say that this is a book about happiness?

你會說這是一本關於幸福的書嗎？

I mean, I feel like one of the reasons I like to read is to get a sense of how I should live my life.

我覺得我喜歡閱讀的原因之一，就是想知道我應該如何生活。

And there are books that have meant a lot to me, that have pointed the way at certain times.

有些書對我意義重大，在某些時候指引了我方向。

And I hope that there's something in the book that will.

我希望書裡也有一些能讓你有所啟發。

I don't know what I want to Say here, I mean, I hope there's something in the book that can.

我不知道該說什麼，但希望書裡有些東西能。

That those who read it might think there's more love in their lives than more loves in my characters lives than they thought there was.

讓讀過它的人，覺得他們的生活裡有比他們想像中更多的愛，比我書裡的角色擁有的愛更多。

Starting out the real life health scare that you have been dealing with, or you were dealing with, you wrote an essay for the New York Times about how this experience gave your novel higher stakes.

你開始處理、或曾經處理過的真實人生健康危機，你曾在《紐約時報》寫了一篇文章，談論這個經驗如何讓你的小說更具張力。

And throughout the novel the main character is dealing with symptoms that point to this undisclosed health problem, you know, through.

在整本小說裡，主角都面臨著指向這個未公開健康問題的症狀，你知道，透過。

Why did you decide to write such a personal experience into.

你為什麼決定把這麼個人的經驗寫進。

So when I started putting these symptoms into the book, I really didn't know what I had.

所以當我開始把這些症狀寫進書裡時，我真的不知道我得了什麼。

I was suddenly getting tired when running.

I woke up with a bloated face in the morning.

And I was writing a novel about a middle aged guy whose life was going off the rails.

而我寫的小說，主角是一個中年男子，他的人生開始失控。

And it seems to me one of the things that happens to you in middle age is that your health starts to fail you in ways that you can't quite understand.

在我看起來，中年時會發生的一件事就是，你的健康開始以一些你無法完全理解的方式讓你失望。

And so I gave him the symptoms, thinking it was part of the overall picture I was trying to paint.

所以我就把這些症狀告訴他，覺得這是我試圖描繪的整體景象的一部分。

And then by the end of the novel, both Tom and I knew what we had, which was a kind of cancer.

然後到了小說的結尾，湯姆和我和都知道我們得了什麼，那就是一種癌症。

And I hadn't anticipated that that's where it was headed.

我沒想到事情會朝那個方向發展。

I just gave him these symptoms because it seemed part of the kind of the general malaise of life and not this very specific thing that he was about to go through.

我只是把這些症狀告訴他，因為這看起來像是人生普遍的倦怠感的一部分，而不是他即將經歷的非常具體的事情。

There's some boring technical reasons that explain why I did it.

有一些無聊的技術原因可以解釋我為什麼這麼做。

其中一個原因是這是一本公路旅行小說。

And part of the problem of a road trip novel is that you have a character who is often driving away from the source of the plot, which was his wife.

公路旅行小說的一個問題是，你會有一個角色，他經常開車離開情節的來源，也就是他的妻子。

And I thought that having an ongoing medical issue might be a way of building a kind of narrative that wasn't just episodic.

我認為持續的健康問題或許能建立一種非單純片段式的敘事。

And then the sickness also changed the way I wanted to write the book because I had a different view of the world after I went through what I went through than I did at the beginning.

然後生病也改變了我寫這本書的方式，因為經歷過那些事之後，我對世界的看法和我一開始的看法不同了。

There's a lot of discourse right now about male loneliness.

現在有很多關於男性孤獨的討論。

And your main character Tom seems to fit into that club.

而你的主角 Tom 似乎也屬於這一類。

Why do you think it's such a common thing for men to feel disconnected and isolated, I wonder?

我很好奇，你覺得男性感到疏離和孤立，為什麼會這麼普遍呢？

I mean, do you think maybe the discourse doesn't include it, but

我是說，你覺得是不是因為討論中沒有包含這塊，但

there must be lots of middle aged female loneliness too?

中年女性的孤獨感肯定也很多吧？

And so I hesitate to say anything that just applies to him.

所以，我不太敢說什麼只適用於他的話。

I think he has gotten to a point in his life where he spends a Lot of time talking to his kids about his life, and

我覺得他的人生已經走到一個階段，他花很多時間跟孩子們聊他的人生，而且

he realizes they're not very interested in his sexual thoughts because why should they be?

他意識到孩子們對他的性幻想沒什麼興趣，畢竟為什麼要有興趣呢？

They're not particularly interested in his political views because he's behind the times.

他們對他的政治觀點也不太感興趣，因為他已經落伍了。

And they also, from the point of view of their generation, want to hear much about his privileged complaints about the way his life has turned out.

而且從他們這一代的觀點來看，他們也不想聽太多他抱怨自己人生際遇的特權式牢騷。

And I sympathize with the kids on all those fronts.

在這幾點上，我都同情他的孩子們。

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【讀書會】《我們的餘生》作者班・馬可維茲，與史蒂芬・柯 л 伯特暢聊新書！ (Late Show Book Club with “The Rest of Our Lives” Author Ben Markovits)

potential

privilege

routine

crisis